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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.
Give it time my ass.
It was just plain stupid. Will continue to be stupid and should be turned off.
$3000 to build a computer to play this damn game when it came out. $80 for this damn game. And it sucks. Color me pissed
A way to stop drug users, supply deals with Coke and Speed mixed with Anthrax http://www.usafe.af.mil/direct/sg/anthrax/Pictures /anthrx22.jpg/.... And watch to see who develops sours and boils. ----- "Clutch my testes, bloody squirrel humpers!!" -Happy Noodle Boy
I turn my computer on, I log in. I double click on Doom 3. 90 seconds later, I'm playing Doom 3.
I turn my computer on. I log in. I double click on Half Life 2. I get the hour glass for a moment, but then nothing more happens. Then the Steam task-bar thing appears, after a while. I double click on Half Life 2 again, or I click on the Steam task-bar thing and select `Play Games' and then `Half Life 2'. Then it spends a minute or two talking to Steam, and then it starts loading HL2. 90 seconds later, I get to play HL2.
Time spent from the first time I clicked on HL2? About 6-8 minutes.
No, I don't want to disconnect my ethernet cable all the time just to make my computer start up HL2 faster (and I doubt it'll work anyways.) I also do not want to leave it powered on all the time (that I believe *would* work.)
Unless you have a suggestion that would allow me to turn my computer on, log in, click on HL2 and 90 seconds later be playing HL2? I suspect that installing one of the no-Steam (i.e. for pirated copies) patches might do this for me ...
no you didn't, you just forgot that /. is full of tinfoil hat hippies that get in a fluster anytime some company tries to combat piracy.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
I wonder exactally what the problem is with software manufacturers that seem convinced that they own the product even after they sell it to you. Excuse me, is that like saying that once you buy a book, you have to check with the publisher before you open it up to your bookmark to read?
For systems where you connect to their servers and play on their machines, then yes, I can see where you can get off in refusing service if they don't play nicely. However, and I suppose I'll be corrected if wrong, HL2 at least seems to have a single player mode, and this Steam authentication happens no matter what mode you play in. Which basically opens up the possibility of Valve to shut you down from playing your single player mode if something crazy happens like.. their servers go down, or the internet gets fried one day.
Seems a bit excessive to me to require users to be connected to the internet just to open and unlock the copy of the game they paid for when it's running on nothing more than their system.
VALVe Software spent over $40 Million to develop Half-Life 2. Show them you appreciate their work. Buy the game!
or,
VALVe Software paid themselves $40 Million to have a lot of fun while developing Half-Life 2. Show them you appreciate how much they're overpaid for their work. Go ahead, pay way too much and buy the game!
Personally, I'm tired of supporting greedy & self serving pointy heads.
Words to men, as air to birds.