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Valve Takes the Offensive on Warez Users?
Drull writes "It's claimed by a poster on filefront.com that Valve might have released a "Warez" version of Half-Life 2 to monitor and ban those who attempt to use it. This is the news from some guy with a filefront account, so take it with a grain of salt.
to actually play the game, in single player mode, it still takes several minutes from the time I click on the icon to start the game before I can even choose to load a saved game -- this time is spent starting Steam, then verifying that my copy is legit
Sorry, but you're wrong here. That time is spent loading the game. Want proof? Exit Steam. Disconnect from the internet, and restart Steam. This will start steam in offline mode (it can't talk to Valve - you have no internet connection). Now launch HL2. I bet you won't notice a difference in load times. Why? Logging into steam authenticates you. It may check for updates when you first try to start HL2 (I'm not sure if it does this when you launch Steam, or at regular intervals whenever Steam is running), but there is very little network activity from Steam when launching the game.
I purchased my copy from Steam, after cancelling my pre-ordered boxed copy from ebgames. I had every preloaded about 2 weeks ago.
On Tuesday morning I started up my PC and Steam before I went into the shower. 12 minutes later, when I got back, everything was done and Half-Life 2 was ready. I even played a little bit before heading to the office.
I realize some people had major problems; and while it sounds like a LOT of people, I don't know how high the percentage is.
Steam was a success in MY view, but I'm sure others disagree. Personally, I think Steam's a great idea so long as it's not a springboard to something sinister; like mandatory "renting" of the game.
There was talk on a forum about perhaps they'd offer the ability to rent the game for a month or 2 if you want for dirt cheap (after all, how often do you just play a game for a few weeks and forget about it), but it would be optional and you could still fully buy the game. But I don't know if this was just shooting the breeze or something that Valve touched on.
My Steam experience was quite positive, I'd use it again to buy software if the situation arises.
You didn't read the post you just responded to.
He wasn't suggesting that you turn steam off, disconnect from the internet, and start up again to save time.
What he said was: Do that and the time to load will BE THE SAME.
His point being, quite obviously stated as well, that it is NOT steam that is slowing you down. His point is that it is the game itself that is taking time to load.
No Comment.
Yeah, won't help for online play, but what kind of idiot plays pirated games online anyway?
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In releated news, due to piss poor QA you HAVE to install Counter Strike if your trying to install HL2 off of the retail CDs. If you dont select Counter Strike (which is on disk five) the installer will look for the final file "hl2.ico1" on disk four and not find it (because its not there) forcing you out of the installer after swapping four disks. If the game wasn't so good I'd be REALY pissed off, as it stands I just take my aggression out on head crabs.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Or better yet. did the right thing and bought the game in advance over steam
Buying over steam had many advantages:
- You instantly got to play CS:S
- You saved a buck or two in some cases
- You money went to valve instead of Vivendi
- You had HL2 preloaded on your harddrive (no cds)
- You could start playing 10 minutes after the game was released
For me Steam was a huge success. Its just stupid to distribute digital data over physical mediums like CDS when there is a boardband internet connection available. After purchasing steam stays incredibly useful. You will never have to search for your f$%^& cds and put them in your drive. If you want to play hl2 online in two years all you need to do is double click the game. You deleted the game ? NO PROBLEM. Steam downloads it for you. You are not up to date ? NO PROBLEM. steam updates you. You don't have the map / mod / whatever ? NO PROBLEM. People need to get used to the idea of steam. yes it might have caused some problems but that was to be expected.Sorry, but your post is completely untrue. Steam insists on logging online every time you play Half Life. And I'm talking about single player, not multi player. This morning it took me 10 minutes to load Half Life because steam had problems logging in. There is meant to be an offline mode for Steam, but this is only for dialup users. Somehow it automatically detects the internet connection. Am I really meant to fumble around the back of my machine, and unplug the ethernet cable (interrupting whatever else I might be doing online like downloading a large file) just to damn play Half Life?
The worst part is that according to the linked forum, no one says Valve has released a warez version to fool pirates.
End of story, IMHO.
This is the official word:
"We're running a bit of an experiment. We're keeping track of the accounts that do this and will be shutting them off."
Then it's assumed the "experiment" was to release a warez version. The "experiment" can of course be anything, like leaking an invalid key to some IRC channel. But that would be nowhere near spreading a warez version. It could probably mean something else too as "keeping track" is quite ambiguous.
The FileFront guy goes on with
"Therefore, I strongly suggest that you DO NOT participate in these illegal activities as it would only lead to your own harm."
Why, the most common cracked version doesn't even connect to Steam. How would they be able to do anyhting? And if you loose your account, you're free to make a new one. Maybe they ban by IP ranges, but that's risky for dynamic IP's and nothing like that is even mentioned.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It is very possible for any client on the internet to retrieve the list of connected ips from the tracker. After all, it's just a fancy http server.
If "Valve" releases a bad CD crack, so be it. It's not really from Valve so there's no recourse. If that's what they're doing, I don't see a problem with it. Makes the pirate's job that much harder.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
but I can't even move the SteamApps dir without reinstalling Steam :/
That's too bad. When HL2 started preloading I ran out of room on the partition I had it installed on. So I moved steam and all the games/mods I had installed to another partition without reinstalling anything. How, I exited steam, moved the steam folder, updated my shortcut. Not sure why you can't do that.
These same server problems affect every MMORPG on day 1
That's funny. I have bought a number of Blizzard games and I have never, ever, had a problem playing the LAN or single-player components immediately, without having internet access.
What valve did was inconvenience their user's without effecting piracy at all. There are already hacked copies that play without an internet connection floating around. Valve just made the official version (in addition the unavoidably costing money) less functional, and harder to use than the hacked version. And you know what, I'm not buying the game...or pirating it. I'll buy from someone who does not automatically assume I'm a criminal. They won't know or care, but maybe, in time, developers will realize that treating their customers like crap is not OK.
I bought the original Half-Life to play DOD with friends. Then they released Steam(ing pile of DRM ad delivery garbage). For months I couldn't play the games because updates broke video compatibility. Then all of a sudden it worked, for a few weeks, then it broke again with security issues when connecting to other hosts. Then a few weeks later it works again (after more fixes are retrieved). It is a nightmare!
Everyone cries about Circuit City and their failed Divx initive. Steam cries of the same thing. It's an advertisement and upsell delivery system.
After suffering thru Steam, I would chuckle if people cracked the Steam software delivery system, or reverse engineered the Steam authentication system so rouge servers could auth clients on private networks.
I am proud to admit that Steam/DOD/HL started working just in time to deliver ads for HL2.
Warez puppies dissapointed me, they didn't manage to unlock the preload of HL2 or crack the authentication garbage.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Check back again in 70 years (if copyright won't be extended until then) when you can't play public domain Half Life 2.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Nonsense, there's many good reasons to disable CD-checks. I don't want to put extra wear on original media unnecessarily, or on the drive. A disc always in the case is much less likely to get scratched than one that's in and out of the case constantly. Further, some programs are wrapped in copy-protection that is so heinous it keeps particular hardware from using the game in the first place (BF:1942). The first thing I do after buying a single-player game is download the NoCD crack.
Having said that: If you buy Half-life 2 over Steam, there's no CD check. Further, the store-bought version comes with fewer features than two of the Steam variants, and if you're not into collecting PC game boxes, all you get is 5 CDs in paper sleeves. Further, Steam allows you to make CD-based backups.
In addition, Valve makes an exponentially higher margin on the Steam-based distro, and by buying via Steam you fuck Vivendi in the ass. This feels especially good to me, as Vivendi is directly responsible for gutting Papyrus, Sierra, & Dynamix, three of my favorite developers. So really, it's the best of all worlds.
I had a great experience purchasing via Steam. I pre-ordered the game, and pre-loaded the encrypted data. At 12:01am Tuesday morning, the game started decrypting, and by 12:10am I was playing.
I still have my reservations re: Steam. Giving the publisher centralized control over whether I can use their software after I've paid for it makes me very uncomfortable, but the black market appears to be taking care of this issue for me already, and buying the CD-based distro of HL2 doesn't alleviate this problem, so I still recommend going with Steam.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
No, you login in Offline Mode, that's why it's there.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Wow. Here is an even better idea. If you don't like the company, don't play the game. Don't pirate it, just ignore it and go on with your life. The options aren't: buy or pirate. Obviously you failed to realize this. You sit on your side bithcing and moaning how you were inconvienenced. It would have eventually worked, but you decided to over-react. All you wrote was a long ass justification for copyright infringement. Congratulations, your morals suck. The people who worked 5 years on this won't get any of your money...and you are so proud of yourself, that you want them to pay you money. Beyond my comprehension...it's people like you who are the problem.
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trying clicking 'run in offline mode' they put it into steam as an option, for a reason, after all. and steam can also backup your games to CDs or DVDs now (right click, backup, click which games you want backed up, choose .iso size, and it makes'em)
Did you even read more than the first sentence of his post? He said that offline mode doesn't work if you have an active ethernet connection.
My other first post is car post.
I heard a similar argument this week and, just out of curiosity, tried to install the original Half Life from a perfectly legal CD, a 1.0.0.x copy. Following the standard install path, I reached the point where Sierra Utilities solicitously informed me that it needed to be upgraded to 1.1.1.x, offered me a list of defunct FTP sites, and gave me the Continue and Cancel options, both of which helpfully uninstalled the game without prompting me. Of course there are workarounds, but that's not the point. If they won't keep the update FTP site for the original game up and running, why would they keep the authentication server up for the sequel in 6, 8, 10 years' time?
If you want to play hl2 without going through steam, make a shortcut to "c:\(install path)\hl2.exe" -steam
This allows you to run hl2 without going through steam at all.
2 minutes to find a no steam crack.
2 minutes to download the crack.
2 minutes to install.
Total time saved from not using steam. 3 hrs. 52 minutes.
You feel better whether you bought it or not.
-Tolerate my intolerance
The 9th District Appeals Court (They are based in WA, which is in the 9th district) decided way back in 2001 that software sales are that, SALES, and not LICENSES. (See this court decision.)
This is an issue that is discussed very often inside the industry, and I was shocked when I heard Valve was going to do it. Required unlocking With a major title, it isn't quite as big of a concern since they'll probably have their servers up for 5 or 8 years.
When smaller companies start doing it (which more will decide to do), and they either fail or have their domain name expire or get hijacked, you can bet there'll be lawsuits following. Especially if the game is considered a sale, since the registration would effectivly block access to an object that the individual owns.
I think the parts of the court decision most applicable is:
Of course, I'm not a laywer so maybe that means something else; It sure seems obviously bad or maybe illegal to me, and the other game developers I have talked to since Valve announced their decision a while back. IANAL,YMMV,ETC.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
And i'm sure valve know about this since the very creator of bittorrent is a valve employee
Now, I don't know what the big deal is but I personally applaud Valve for going this route. They have created an efficient, effective and protected method for digital content delivery. I think Valve is one of the few game studios out there that deserve my money and it really annoys me to to see complaint after complaint about a company taking steps to ensure its success.
Steam has worked flawlessly for me since installing it in april when I got the HL2 coupon with my videocard. In fact I feel that valve is so deserving of my money that I purchased the collectors edition even though I had the game for free. They put alot of work into producing what I feel is one of the best games ever produced if not THE best. If they want to track the pirates, so be it. If they want to mangle the stolen copies so that all the weapons turn into fuzzy bunnies, who cares. Honestly, anyone who has ever downloaded warez(you know who you are) knows that its illegal...PERIOD. Any judge that would allow a lawsuit from a scorned pirate should be disbarred. *whine* I stole the game and they broke it. Whatever....cry me a river.
As for the whining about a slow connection, thats what the retail outlets are for. I may not be able to play a multiplayer game via a 33.6, but I can sure as heck log onto steam long enough to validate my copy.
Complaining about Steam is like complaining about HD content providers that aren't providing an SD equivalent. Steam isn't for everyone. This is the future and as broadband becomes more ubiquitous in the world, Steam and steamlike distribution channels will be more common.
What bothers me the most about HL2 is the fact that you have to log into steam every single time you want to play a single player game.
That's completely incorrect. You have to connect once, to unlock it. That's it. I'm not saying I agree, just that you're arguing against fiction.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere