i just realized something wrong with bronze package

[koncept]

it doesn't come with half-life: source....

so if you buy the game retail at a store, you get day of defeat: source and half life: source and all the other games etc. for the same price as bronze on steam?

thats jacked up!

 

[7hoR]

no...if you buy it at the store you get hl2 and cs:s

bronze is supposed to be just like retail.

 

[koncept]

mmmmm... i see.... interesting

 

[Xeron]

Upgrade to Silver. $10 difference...

 

[FISKER_Q]

Upgrade to Silver. $10 difference...

you can't upgrade retail copies.

It makes me wonder which package Half-Life 2: CE then will give you? It needs HL: Source on top the bronze package, but shouldn't get DoD: Source

 

[mhl103]

You only get
HL:Source with the collecters edition from retail stores. Otherwise Steam Silver or Gold

 

[7hoR]

steam > all

 

[UndercoverBob]

Steam!

 

[Ghostdog]

Wait a second, can I buy - for example - the bronze package so that I can play HL2 when it´s released and then at a later date, if I feel like it, upgrade my purchase to the gold package?

 

[Wraith]

Wait a second, can I buy - for example - the bronze package so that I can play HL2 when it´s released and then at a later date, if I feel like it, upgrade my purchase to the gold package?

while supplies last

silver anytime though

 

[Ghostdog]

Cool. Because I was thinking of asking one of you guys to take pictures of the goods you get with the Gold package so that I could make up my mind.

I don´t know, maybe I´ll buy Gold directly.

 

[Epsi]

I don't think you can upgrade. At least not yet.

 

[pblse]

I'm sure people have said this before but my largest caveat about steam is that it can disappear at any point.

I could be playing HL1 20 years from now if I can find a comp that can play it, steam will exist maybe a few years at the most and anything could happen in the meantime like Valve gets bought up by MS ;-) or Valve just decides they want more money and removes all accounts or Valve files for ch11 or whatever.

My point is, if you have a cd/dvd you have the game pretty much forever, that's not the case with steam !

 

[UmbrellaMaster]

I wish I would have gotten a voucher with my Radeon. But that's what I get for waiting until the price dropped to buy one.

 

[Ahnteis]

I'm sure people have said this before but my largest caveat about steam is that it can disappear at any point.

I could be playing HL1 20 years from now if I can find a comp that can play it, steam will exist maybe a few years at the most and anything could happen in the meantime like Valve gets bought up by MS ;-) or Valve just decides they want more money and removes all accounts or Valve files for ch11 or whatever.

My point is, if you have a cd/dvd you have the game pretty much forever, that's not the case with steam !

Currently, you have to authenticate your retail copy over steam also.

 

[Wildhound]

It's still hard to believe it has actually gone gold.

 

[FISKER_Q]

I'm sure people have said this before but my largest caveat about steam is that it can disappear at any point.

I could be playing HL1 20 years from now if I can find a comp that can play it, steam will exist maybe a few years at the most and anything could happen in the meantime like Valve gets bought up by MS ;-) or Valve just decides they want more money and removes all accounts or Valve files for ch11 or whatever.

My point is, if you have a cd/dvd you have the game pretty much forever, that's not the case with steam !

No but that doesn't change that whatever reason is responsible for losing your game over steam also disqualifies your use of the software.

That means that if you hack, then you're not illegible to use the game, regardless if the game is purchased over steam or if it's just a standalone product.

With steam it can just be controlled.

 

[Dead-Inside]

I'm sure people have said this before but my largest caveat about steam is that it can disappear at any point.

I could be playing HL1 20 years from now if I can find a comp that can play it, steam will exist maybe a few years at the most and anything could happen in the meantime like Valve gets bought up by MS ;-) or Valve just decides they want more money and removes all accounts or Valve files for ch11 or whatever.

My point is, if you have a cd/dvd you have the game pretty much forever, that's not the case with steam !

You know perfectly well both of those senarios aren't very likely to happen. Steam or not, you can still play offline. As long as you burn a copy you should be fine. Just in case you can burn a steam install along with your HL2 copy. This means you can play the game 20 years from now. This doesn't go for the multiplayer games but you only get what you payed for.

Is it just me or is it illegal for VALVe to delete your bought CD-keys out of their registry (Account or no account) unless you've been pirating? Even if it isn't, it's commercial suicide, and no working company would do that.

 

[Bluestrike]

He has a point and anything can happen, with retail you have a cdkey, if steam goes down and replaced by another system you should be able to use the cd-key again there. (won got dumped for steam why would steam not be dumped for something better in 10 years)

Unless people what buy over steam get a cdkey to enter in steam to enable it, they have no backup system.

So if for any reason steam has to stop (not reandable,alien emp attack killing all pc's and backups ... ) the people what bought over steam had the short end of the rope.
So its up to the customer if he wants to take that risk or not.
I prefer retail because there is not much of a prize difference between steam and retail anyway.

 

[DarkSonic]

Half life 1 does not need to be authenticated. I can still go and start up Half Life from the old directory.

 

[pblse]

Half life 1 does not need to be authenticated. I can still go and start up Half Life from the old directory.

That was my point, with HL2 you cant, even with retail apparently which is much worse than I ever heard any company trying before, even MS has an authentication schema by phone.

You know perfectly well both of those senarios aren't very likely to happen. Steam or not, you can still play offline. As long as you burn a copy you should be fine. Just in case you can burn a steam install along with your HL2 copy. This means you can play the game 20 years from now. This doesn't go for the multiplayer games but you only get what you payed for.

It is very likely, I don't think steam will survive more than a few years at the most, and why would Valve be immune to the stuff that can happen to any company ? If banks can go bust then Valve can too.

As for legality, I'm sure if you read the license terms they have covered themselfs either way, there's no way Valve will commit to keep steam accounts this or that many years, they reserve the right to do whatever they want.

I guess this is the way most software will go eventually, but I'm not sure I like it.

 

[cadaveca]

You all are missing a major thing...Valve makes game engines.
Id makes game engines.
Why? Why not just grab some existing software, and make your game? A few simple changes, and your game is like no other. Most games are made this way.
Valve might go under, if the gaming industry goes under. They'll be in it for the long haul. STEAM might go under? Not likely. Today's business plan is cutting out the middlemen, and STEAM does just that. For a virgin product, in virgin territory, it's doing pretty darn good. Like the internet isn't a new thing. LOL. People said that wouldn't be here to stay either. LOL. Now the world wouldn't function without it.

 

[Gossoon]

Why the hell would you want to play HL2 in ten years? This is fundamentally a transitory medium. Progress will make the product irrelevant and people will move onto different things. If we get five years of solid support I would consider that sufficient. If worse comes to worse I'm sure someone will port HL2 over to Source 2 or whatever. THat seems to be Valve's way of doing things.

Another minor point: I'm pretty sure you can upgrade retail copies. Why wouldn't you be able to? The game files are exactly the same, you need to use Steam and you can download the game from Steam without paying and authenticate it with your retail copy. So it's only logical that this can go both ways. Just pay the $10 and you can download HL:S or whatever. Simple.

 

[FISKER_Q]

Why the hell would you want to play HL2 in ten years? This is fundamentally a transitory medium. Progress will make the product irrelevant and people will move onto different things. If we get five years of solid support I would consider that sufficient. If worse comes to worse I'm sure someone will port HL2 over to Source 2 or whatever. THat seems to be Valve's way of doing things.

Another minor point: I'm pretty sure you can upgrade retail copies. Why wouldn't you be able to? The game files are exactly the same, you need to use Steam and you can download the game from Steam without paying and authenticate it with your retail copy. So it's only logical that this can go both ways. Just pay the $10 and you can download HL:S or whatever. Simple.

Nope it's not possible, it's already been confirmed.

Also collectors edition doesn't fit any package, which might mean that they are infact on a whole other system. And not the bronze, silver or gold system.

Also Valve needs money

 

[thefiznut]

Nope it's not possible, it's already been confirmed.

Also collectors edition doesn't fit any package, which might mean that they are infact on a whole other system. And not the bronze, silver or gold system.

Also Valve needs money

This angers me. I reserved the retail copy using partial store credit. And now I discover that I don't get everything with it, and I can't get all of the money back in cash. Are you sure we can't upgrade later? There's no ****ing way i'm going to pay 30 just to get HL:S. Or will I? ;/

 

[FISKER_Q]

This angers me. I reserved the retail copy using partial store credit. And now I discover that I don't get everything with it, and I can't get all of the money back in cash. Are you sure we can't upgrade later? There's no ****ing way i'm going to pay 30 just to get HL:S. Or will I? ;/

It's in the valve info thread.

However it only mentions gold in that case, probably since it was what he asked.

So we can't be 100% sure we can't upgrade from retail to silver.

 

[thefiznut]

It's in the valve info thread.

However it only mentions gold in that case, probably since it was what he asked.

So we can't be 100% sure we can't upgrade from retail to silver.

Lets hope. =]

 

[Ar.Pi]

can Voucher holders also order through mail the retail package after they already used their key with steam?

 

[She]

So they are actually re-selling Half-life 1..
thats sellout if there ever was one..

if you bought HL1, you should get HL1:source for free..
dont want to have 2 HL1 versions..
and i dont want to buy a game that i already have.

 

[Gossoon]

That would just be asinine. All along Valve has trumpeted Steam as a way to buy things a la carte. From the beginning they have said that you will be able to buy all the item separately. So then why couldn't you upgrade a package, whether it's retail or Steam? If not it's just out of greed and a desire to punish Vivendi. Right now ATI coupon people can upgrade to Silver for $10. Why not for retail???

 

[FISKER_Q]

That would just be asinine. All along Valve has trumpeted Steam as a way to buy things a la carte. From the beginning they have said that you will be able to buy all the item separately. So then why couldn't you upgrade a package, whether it's retail or Steam? If not it's just out of greed and a desire to punish Vivendi. Right now ATI coupon people can upgrade to Silver for $10. Why not for retail???

Probably because they have a deal with ATi, they don't have a deal with Vivendi.

 

[thefiznut]

That would just be asinine. All along Valve has trumpeted Steam as a way to buy things a la carte. From the beginning they have said that you will be able to buy all the item separately. So then why couldn't you upgrade a package, whether it's retail or Steam? If not it's just out of greed and a desire to punish Vivendi. Right now ATI coupon people can upgrade to Silver for $10. Why not for retail???

Well, lets not make too many assumptions here, but yeah that would be crazy on Valve's part to do that. You may very well be right though, if voucher owners can upgrade, the retail folks should be able to.

 

[FISKER_Q]

Well, lets not make too many assumptions here, but yeah that would be crazy on Valve's part to do that. You may very well be right though, if voucher owners can upgrade, the retail folks should be able to.

As far as i know the ATi coupon code isn't a cd-key it's another serial system than half-life 2.

So it will be easy to see what's ati and what's not. But it might not be easy to see what's CE and what's not.

 

[Dirtball]

I'm sure people have said this before but my largest caveat about steam is that it can disappear at any point.

I could be playing HL1 20 years from now if I can find a comp that can play it, steam will exist maybe a few years at the most and anything could happen in the meantime like Valve gets bought up by MS ;-) or Valve just decides they want more money and removes all accounts or Valve files for ch11 or whatever.

My point is, if you have a cd/dvd you have the game pretty much forever, that's not the case with steam !

Having read the ensuing posts after yours...I think it should be clear the error in your reasoning. First without steam the reatail version won't work, it'd still have to to be cracked to be usable if steam dies. Secondly the information that I have stored on my hard drive is remarkably similar to what you have. In fact I seem to remember reading instructions to burn that information along with a installer to disks, so that if in fact steam did ever die, we'd both be in the same boat...looking for a no-steam crack for software we legally owned. Finally steam is unlikely to die for a long time, valve has set themselves up well in the market. Assuming the reviews are rigth Half Life 2's sales should put them far enough ahead to make another 2 or 3 games. Not to mention that those games are likely to see nearly equally well and already have 80% or so of the work done (the engine). And that's totally disregarding liscencing fees paid to valve by other companies for source. Liscencing fees for other companies to use steam (or to make their own derivative). Valve has set themselves up well and I can't possibly see a game company do much better then them in the coming years and put them out of buisness in the forseeable future.

 

[Varsity]

I've never seen anything suggestinf retail owners may not be able to upgrade. I can imagine VU wouldn't like it but I can't see them having any control over it.

 

[Dougy]

retail collectors edition:

Counter-Strike Source: The next generation of the #1 online action game.
Half-Life Source: Digitally remastered version of the original acclaimed PC game.
Limited Edition T-Shirt: Available in men's size XL only.
Half-Life 2 Prima Book: Information on character backgrounds, the making of the game and more than 100 pieces of artwork.

http://shop.game.net/ViewProduct.aspx?cat=11142&mid=325016

Steam silver for me.

 

[destrukt]

First without steam the reatail version won't work, it'd still have to to be cracked to be usable if steam dies.

Condition Zero did. Why not HL2?

 

[Ahnteis]

Condition Zero did. Why not HL2?

Cus they don't want widespread piracy quite yet?

 

[VoiD]

Ive yet to see anything from valve that states that retail HL2 will not be playable on computers that dont have the net. This is suicide in the gaming world and i dont believe valve is planning on commiting it.

 

[Ghostdog]

Q. Will the boxed versions of HL2 require any sort of Steam installations?

Doug Lombardi: During installation the user will be prompted to authenticate the copy and create a Steam account. After that is complete, the single-player and LAN games do not require an Internet connection.

Maybe he doesn´t directly mean we have to authenticate it over the internet, but ´that comment is still a bit worrying. Most people with computers new enough to play HL2 have an internet connection, but what about those that don´t?