HL2: Preloaded to all?

[gizmostripe]

Hey (first post yay!) i was wondering if all steam accounts will have HL2 preloaded in some form or another. So that all you would need to do is enter your CD key and the game becomes active, and the CD's are just for backup purposes/redundancy.

Im not up with all how the release process will work, but it would be rather cool if steam was downloading HL2 in the background while I was reading these forums for rumors and story hints :cheese:

 

[Calhoun]

It is going to be preloaded like Condition Zero was so when you buy It it will become avaible to be used.

 

[DigiQ8]

Im gonna get it from Steam !

 

[DevgruSeal]

Wouldn't it be easy for a hacker to get HL2 for free though? Seriously...

 

[Link]

Single player, I'm sure they will be able to, but then you will be able to download a cracked version 5 minutes after release I would imagine.

You see, half life is set up to register your CD key with valve. What crackers will do is change HL2 to stop it doing that "Register" bit.

However, multiplayer is "uncrackable" as whenever you go online with it, it checks your CD key, and then again when you enter a server (Assuming its the same as won), so if you crack out the "register" bit, then it won't be able to give its steam ID to the server and will refuse the connection.

 

[dream431ca]

Single player, I'm sure they will be able to, but then you will be able to download a cracked version 5 minutes after release I would imagine.

You see, half life is set up to register your CD key with valve. What crackers will do is change HL2 to stop it doing that "Register" bit.

However, multiplayer is "uncrackable" as whenever you go online with it, it checks your CD key, and then again when you enter a server (Assuming its the same as won), so if you crack out the "register" bit, then it won't be able to give its steam ID to the server and will refuse the connection.

Actually...because the cracked version of doom 3 came out before it was out in the store, HL2 could also be out cracked before the stores as well.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

Wouldn't it be easy for a hacker to get HL2 for free though? Seriously...

Ummm no, it wouldn't be easy at all.

 

[Link]

Actually...because the cracked version of doom 3 came out before it was out in the store, HL2 could also be out cracked before the stores as well.

Yeah, thats true. Ok, replace "5 seconds after release" with when it is released.

True about the multiplayer though.

 

[Varsity]

Wouldn't it be easy for a hacker to get HL2 for free though? Seriously...

The content can be freely distributed.