Getting HL2 thru steam, good/bad idea?

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Reaperman

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I m really considering getting hl2 thru steam, if it works it would be the greatest thing for me, as i dont have room for more CD's

I liked how Codename:Gordon was done, with prerelease downloading, and then it was unlocked

on the other hand, half-life2 will most likely be near 6GB, and is downloading that much over steam a good idea?

should i get it with steam, or bite the bullet and buy it CD-style?

domo! :cheers:
 
If you don't need the Retail box, manual or whatever else comes with it and if you don't mind downloading games off steam then go ahead and download through Steam. It will save you money too. The publisher and retail store won't be adding their cost to your price if you go through Steam.

If you would like to back it up then just put the cache files onto CD so you don't have to download it again in the event you need to reinstall or want to install HL2 on a different PC. That way you don't download the whole game again. You will obviously have access to it though if you wish to download it when/where ever through your account.
 
Will the HL2 Steam cashe file be in chunks that will fit onto CDS?
 
still, remember that HL2 is gonna be MASSIVE.... nothing that big has been distributed over steam AFAIK.

what if the download dies, and i have to start over?
 
Good Idea.
You Get the Game At Miodnight, on Release Date.
You dont have to go to some store and get their BS about the game not being there yet. You save gas. And you can preLoad it one week before release date.

If you have a 56k Modem
then its a Bad Idea.
This Luxury is only for cable modem ppl.
 
I fail to see the 'luxury' of downloading a game, rather than just buying it on CD-ROM, even if you don't care about the manual, package or whatever fancy stuff they give along woth the package.


Having it on CD guarantees you not having to wait a while to play it after eg. a format!
And I don't think you can split a massive cache file safely to burn it on multiple cd-roms (in which case you should've been better of buying the cd's in the first place :))
 
yeah, even downloading it on cable would take a day or 2. I've downloaded games before, such as Far Cry, and they took a while getting about 100kb/s....I would just buy so I dont have to pay a monthly fee for it, I will have it forever as opposed to a few months. Also, if you download it, will it support mods/multiplayer? That would be another reason to buy it.
 
aFireInside0016 said:
yeah, even downloading it on cable would take a day or 2. I've downloaded games before, such as Far Cry, and they took a while getting about 100kb/s....I would just buy so I dont have to pay a monthly fee for it, I will have it forever as opposed to a few months. Also, if you download it, will it support mods/multiplayer? That would be another reason to buy it.
Click to expand...
There should be an option that has you pay a certain amount of money each month and in return lets you download every valve game (hl², cs², tf²...)
 
Ansur said:
There should be an option that has you pay a certain amount of money each month and in return lets you download every valve game (hl², cs², tf²...)
Click to expand...
There is... the steam package. You can play every Valve game, mod, and whatever else for about ten bucks a month. :thumbs:

Anyway, I plan to buy it - I like having the box, manuals, official CDs, etc - it makes me feel better. Especially because I don't trust Steam OR my computer to download 6gb... I've had computers just stop working for no reason in the past, so I'm wary of such things. Having it on disc as backup and knowing that it will work is worth a drive to Best Buy for me.
 
Same goes for me, I'd like to have these things on a cd.
However, that does not lay in the 'trust' I place in my comp and/or steam.
Namely, Steam has this option that you can 'pause' a download, so it should be alright as well when your computer freezes, Steam will likely pick up the download again.
 
Steam isn't just monthly fee, it does do paying outright for a game too, see CZ on it at the moment.

If the download is interrupted, that's no problem, Steam can pick up from where it left off. It's as intelligent, probably more so, than any download manager like GetRight or something.

And the cool thing about Steam is that you don't need to download 100% of the game to get going, so if you do have to reinstall it's not as painful as needing the whole 6gb to start, it's much less.
 
I planned to buy X800 Pro or XT when it arrives, and at least for the some of the Pro versions there is a free copy of HL2 with it, is that and activation code for steam you could use after preloading?
 
Actually, that code can be entered when HL2 starts preloading, I really doubt they'll let just anyone preload such a big game.

Or, the code can be put in now to let you play all the games on Steam already apart from CZ, and get HL2 later.
 
I agree, they won't just start preloading the game. They'll just put it in the 'available games'-box, with the option to start preloading (so you can enter your code later).
 
The CZ preloading was, I think, a bug - it wasn't supposed to start on it's own! In any case, they've obviously decided against that idea (didn't happen for HL2D), and it would be stupid for HL2! :)

I personally love Steam .... and I reckon the cache files will be split - having huge data files is unweildy in the first place

Who is bundling HL2 with the X800?? I was humoured with all the people complaining about 'I upgraded and now I hate VALVe' etc ... sicne when has following release dates for *any* publisher/developer/website been a good idea?! I'm glad I didn't choose an expensive card for my new PC - waiting to get reviews for the new cards (and no, don't start telling me which is better - I don't care until they make release cards)
 
My guess too would be to split the cache file, but looking at the structure its just some sort of a zip-file, so I don't think its necessary to split.
 
I think if I new I had to wait another day or 2 for hl2 in the shops.. I'd go insane...

so I'ma prolly download off steam ;p
 
I will get it off Steam only if the stores don't have it.
 
Hi
this is my first post here, i bought halflife goty before steam came out then downloaded steam, i have only had problems with it ever since, it said that my code was invalid and would not let me play on games online that i had bought, i will buy hl2 in the shops if they sell it that way because then i am guarentted to have a hard copy of the game encase my hard drive dies or someone steals my code.
Nez
 
If you buy it on Steam, there is no code to get stolen. If your hard-disc dies you can re-download.
 
as when hl2 does come out it will proably be slow as 56k downloading any ways or doesn't download at all becasue every one with an internet connection will be downloading it

and proably steam has a pause/resume feature so that when it does download and stops in the middle as some 56k people are worring about it will continue.

if worse comes to worse people will have the cache files on other servers for people to download like steam did in the beginning
 
as when hl2 does come out it will proably be slow as 56k downloading any ways or doesn't download at all becasue every one with an internet connection will be downloading it
Click to expand...
Pre-loading will be used to prevent this
EDIT: Also VALVe are planning on adding rather more servers and bandwidth to cope. They're not stupid :)

and proably steam has a pause/resume feature so that when it does download and stops in the middle as some 56k people are worring about it will continue.
Click to expand...
Steam does indeed have this feature

if worse comes to worse people will have the cache files on other servers for people to download like steam did in the beginning
Click to expand...
I don't know about this one - would the cache files be exactly the same for each person? Would those servers hosting them be doing so illegally?
 
Hosting the cache files wouldn't be illegal, yeh, they'd be pretty much the same for everyone, but they'd also be encrypted, and you can't play the game anyways unless you pay for it.
 
Yeah that's what I'm hoping for anyway. The free version will come with a key to unlock the preload. Now wouldn't that be a great idea instead of them shipping the game to us? That being said, it'll never happen...
 
Kirkburn said:
Pre-loading will be used to prevent this
Click to expand...
Actually no. It will go at around that speed (i.e. 56k) because Valve will have a speed cap on during the preloading phase. The logic being that you can download as fast as you like, but you won't get it any sooner until it's actually released. And if you've not got it all when it does come out, you can still play what you have while the rest is downloaded.
 
I meant pre-loading would be used to prevent overloading and non-existant download speeds, with only a certain number being allowed to download at one time (that last point I seem to recall from somewhere, but not sure where)
 
I'll pre-load it just in case it comes out later in shops, and pre-order from Amazon.
 
If you're from Australia and you have a fast connection and you simply can't wait to play HL2 I would recommend you get it via Steam...hell...look at CS:CZ when that was finally released on Steam and in the US it wasnt to be available out here for another week and a half....if i had to wait that long to play HL2 after reading what everybody says about it...I would..just...freak...out...
 
There is no way Steam can handle the load. It dies when a patch is released, imagine everyone downloading HL2...
 
Asus said:
If you don't need the Retail box, manual or whatever else comes with it and if you don't mind downloading games off steam then go ahead and download through Steam. It will save you money too. The publisher and retail store won't be adding their cost to your price if you go through Steam.
Click to expand...

Condition Zero was cheaper to buy at a local shop then it was to download through Steam, by about £5 - £7.
 
i'll pre-load and activate it with my box copy that i will buy...

or just buy through steam completely to save time!
 
You can count on it they'll try to add many more servers. More or less like during the official steam launch, there were more servers back then, it's normal that they don't have that much extra capacity in "boring" times. :afro:

I myself prefer a solid copy anyway.
 
Actually, that idea of splitting the cache into chunks small enough to fit on cds is quite easy. It can be done with almost any archiving tool. (Winace Winrar etc) You just specify what size you want the files to be (ie ~650mb) and burn each portion of the archive to a seperate cd. I think i'm going to do that cause i don't have a dvd burner.
 
Everyone that bought an ATI bundled gets MULT/SINGLE PLAYER. Also, if you are downloading HL2 on STEAM and it crashes, you just pick up where you left off. This happens with games on STEAM right now, so why would it change for HL2? I hope this clears things up. That's a great idea about backing the cache files on a DVD. I will do that when I dl my copy. Thanks for the idea!!!
 
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