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Steam Registration Servers Overloaded
duckle writes "The Inquirer reports that "The World has come crashing down around Half-Life 2 players today, as Steam's authentication servers in Europe have died.", and deemzzzz_k writes "It looks like even Valve wasn't quite prepared for Half Life 2's popularity. HL2 requires registration to unlock the game and although the Valve/Steam homepage claims that it fixed registration issues the servers are still overloaded. Registration is "delayed" and temporarily unlocking the game takes 20-30 minutes over a 1.5MB DSL line." This seems to primarily be an issue for folks who bought the game from a store; I purchased the game via Steam and was playing at 12:15 am PST on launch day.
Steam ran out of steam.
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
If I wrote something witty, you would say I stole it from somewhere.
...we can Slashdot them, too!
I'm glad when companies inconvenience their paying customers like this. Because, afterall, I'm sure the mandatory registration will prevent piracy. I just searched and see an activation patch already on IRC.
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
I think this problem underscores the frailty of requiring a product to be unlocked over the Internet. While it's one way of ensuring digital rights management, Valve could certainly have put in a backup system (a la similar to Microsofts 1-800 registration number).
-Teiresias
Most of you are lucky you never had to recover a password off of the Steam network. A friend of mine purchased the game online, and since then he uninstalled CS to focus on his studies. Now he can't recover his password!
If he uses the 'lost password' procedure in Steam he gets an Operation Incomplete error, and so far he hasn't managed to get a single human person to assist him at Steampowered. I was never a big fan of activation, but this cinches it.
Most of that unlocking time is the decryption and hard disk activity, not Steam network activity.
That is true, however it remains Valve's fault. The cd's basically just copy over the exact same files as in the preload that you could get from Steam... which means that when you stick the cd's in your drive you have to do two install processes, at least. First you have to disc swap install the cds (5) which takes awhile. Then you have to register for Steam. Then you have to wait while it decrypts everything, on top of unpacking the entire game just like a regular install does in a single step. The decryption and adding extra steps to the install process are quite a pain in the ass, let me tell you. It took me over an hour to get the game running, and I consider myself lucky because the only problems I had were closed ports, which I quickly fixed. Some of these other stories I've heard, especially with Steam registration, would absolutely enrage me if it had happened to me. We payed for this game, we expect it to at least PLAY!
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
And now it is even clearer that this is nothing but an insult to those who actually buy games instead of pirating them. Who are inconvenienced by this? Certainly not pirates. They download a cracked version anyway. This is apparently supposed to prevent piracy, but it obviously fails miserably!
No, the real losers here, again, are customers who actually paid for the game. They are the ones who need to connect to the Internet to activate the game. They are the ones who have been stuck all day, unable to activate the game, even for single player!
I held off buying Half-Life 2 exactly because of this online activation nonsense, and I was right in doing so. I hope to play the game, but I am very hesitant to give my money to a company like Valve, a company which lies to and deceives its customers, and adds hurdles that do nothing but inconvenience them, while pirates are completely unaffected.
If I sound like a troll, it's because I am extremely disappointed, and I am angry at Valve for being so stupid as to think that they can prevent piracy by forcing their customers to jump through hoops. I am angry because this is the way the industry is headed, and I don't like it.
Now games have started trying to decide for you which software to have installed (Doom 3 vs. various CD image programs), and they want you to activate it online, even for single-player... This is how the PC gaming industry will ultimately kill itself. By basically punching its customers in the face, while pirates remain unaffected.
Clever signature text goes here.
(Disclaimer: I am quite aware that steam is technically H2O (gaseous) and air is actually a mixture of gasses. Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous value of the preceding comment.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And every geek on here that screams and moans and whines about Microsoft activation ran out and bought the damn game the minute it was on the shelf, I'm sure.
Slashdotters: Walking the Walk and Mumbling the Talk since 1997.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Maybe cool from a vinctiveness standpoint, but not for notoriety. Who would you brag to?
Script Kiddie #1: Dude, I totally DOS'd Valve. Steam was down for like hours.
Script Kiddies #2-9: You bastard. I spent 3 hours waiting to activate Half Life 2. Your life is now forfeit.
Script Kiddie #1: Aaauugh! Somebody help! Gaaah! My eye!
What if I don't have the Internet? What if I want to play on a lan that doesn't have Internet access?
I guess you'll learn to read the System Requirements next time:
Minimum System Configuration
* 1.2 GHz Processor
* 256MB RAM
* DirectX 7 capable graphics card
* Windows 2000/XP/ME/98
* Mouse
* Keyboard
* Internet Connection
Some people have alluded to this already, but this just goes to show that "Digital Rights Management" present more of a violation of digital rights than a management system.
When I pay for a game, I should have access to play the game from the moment I own it until the end of time. The ability to continue playing the game should not rest in the hands of the company from which I purchased it.
Take for example, the current EFF battle against Blizzard Entertainment. If Blizzard decides to discontinue battle.net in the future, should legitimate paying customers be the ones who suffer? After all, they paid for a game with the expectation that Internet gameplay was one of the many features available to increase replay value. Thus, if they want to take matters into their own hands and create custom servers to allow continued online play, that should be their right.
The same goes for Steam. After all, when Half-Life first was released, they used Won.net to host their online gameplay. I cannot count the number of times that I was unable to play (despite having a legitimate CD-Key) because either the Master CD-Key server was down, unreachable, lagged, or just malfunctioning. Now they've moved to Steam and everyone who has the original Half-Life game finds their CD has been rendered obsolete!
For this reason, users should have the right to do more than simply "make a backup copy". They should have the right to crack, break, and generally f*** up copy protection. They should have the right to run private servers for online play. Bottom line -- they should have the right to decide whether or not they can continue normal use of a program which they purchased fair and square. After the money changes hands, the game belongs to me -- not the company. So get your grubby hands off, you greedy bastards.
I understand that people who purchased the game via the brick and mortar stores kinda got the raw end of the deal, but I was very satisfied with the way buying this game worked.
Third: Yeah. Many games say internet connection required. They mean for multiplayer. As I said in the last Half Life 2 article, nothing on the box stated: "These CDs will be useful for nothing more than frisbees unless Valves servers are up and operational."
Sixth: Nope, the CD is required. I just tried it yesterday.
Ninth: There will be, and they will be easier to use than the software everyone else paid for.