I LOVE To Buy Half Life 2 But I'm Scared

N

ninjawitch

Guest
Hi everyone,

I have a question, one I've never had to ask in a forum before and one that I can't find an email to ask the makers of Half Life 2 themselves about. It is about all the complications IF I buy Half Life 2.

I want to buy this game but all the rumours are scaring me. Also I don't want a paper weight game once I finish playing it and want to re-sell it.

I've heard such horror stories that people who buy this game go through a taskmaster like registration and frustration with Stream.

I've heard once you register the game and you play it through and want to sell it you can't because the next person who gets it and tries to install it runs into Stream and when it looks at it's database for that particular CD and find it was registered to me or on my computer that once the next person installs it on their computer from their location Stream then locks out the game and prevents it from fully installing or playing for good.

I think I heard that the person that gets a "used" version HAS to contact Value to purchase a new license which is similar to the same price as a brand new game is.

Now I can't afford to get the game brand new but wonder if I bought it from a friend or from eBay would I be able to play this game or will I run into the problem of total lockout and have a game I bought used but is useless.

Also what IF I play the game out and return to it 8 years later for example, WILL Stream be in existance to allow me to install my game again, whether at the same geographic location, on the same computer or same ISP provider I used the first time around?

Can someone straighten me out on this and let me know if it is safe to get Half Life 2 on eBay without buying a dud instead? I don't mean get a pirate copy I mean a used copy of the original game.
 
Don't buy a steam account on ebay, you can buy the disc off ebay though. Just buy it through steam, I had no problems, it worked flawlessly. And the game has unlimited replay possibilties from mods and the game itself is worth the money too.
 
Just buy HL" from www.gameplay.co.uk thats good site

yeah it isnt resellable but then why would u want to resell it like Shadow X said it has unlimited replay abilities and what are you gunna do when the expansions come out? buy the game again

Steam is a great program ive had tit for years it only went pear shaped once cos i erased it while i was still logged in but the ppl at VALVe fixed it in a jiffy
 
You mean you have to buy the game separately THEN pay for a Stream account???? That's a first. Normally I buy a game once, and install it free. What's with bringing Stream in the middle JUST to play the game????

How much is this Stream, what is it like a one time fee of $2.00? Please don't tell me it is the the same cost for a brand new game or even a third of the cost of a new game.

If that is the case I rather just skip buying the game and send off a complaint letter to Value getting mad at them for double dipping from a customer that just bought their game to pillage more money out of them just to play that game. Seems mightly illegal and unethical if you ask me.

Anyways ... I mean I like to buy just a "used" Half Life 2 game off eBay then install it like one installs any other game. I doubt I will ever sell the game but over the years I will move and get new parts for my computer and I don't want a surprise 8 years down the line when I move from Canada to the U.S. and change computers that I no longer have a game to re-play because it is locked out or Stream is no longer in business or exists and the game is forever barred from play because the authenticator is non existant!
 
yep like it or lump it, thats just the way it is and steam is a b***h.

u got no choice but to buy the game new, and then the prospects for reselling it are remote, unless u can find a divhead to flog it to.

so i mean man, u got to make a decsision. go rob some old granny o something
 
You don't have to pay for a steam account, registration is free.

Your payment options are as follows:
1) Pay retail
Pros: Handy if you're not on hi-speed, because you don't have to download 4 gigs of data
You get a fancy box and some discs (that's it!)
Cons: There have been reports of CD-Keys already being registered
2) Pay through Steam
Pros: Zero risk of getting jacked by an already registered key
Cons: No box, a bit of a long download. Must pay using a credit card (which is done by an ultra-secure third party, already used by many major online services)
3) Buy through eBay
Pros: See retail
Cons: CDKey is probably used already, so you get to buy the disks and then pay for the game again via Steam.

Btw, it should be noted that the installation of HL2 through Steam is bound by an online account, so you don't have to buy the game over and over again when you, for example, reformat your computer. Also, steam will be around for a LONNNG time. It will take ages for the millions of buyers to disappear and force Valve into bankruptcy. And even then, it's likely that someone else will want to do simple handling of the servers.
 
DON'T buy the game used, you stand a good chance of getting ripped off completely. If you can't afford it now, save up and buy it later. As for selling it once you've finished the game, why would you want to do that? After you finish the game, you install mods and custom maps, which are just starting to appear. There's also HL2DM and CS:S you can play.
 
So I make sure IF I buy a brand new game off eBay at a discount then make sure it is sealed and the CD KEY unregistered then once I get the game register it via Stream for free then. As long as I don't get rid of it I can uninstall it and reinstall it as many times as I like with my same account name???

okay That I see that and it seems okay. But if Stream does fold will Value send all acount holders a patch CD for the game so they can fully install the game properly just in case? Have they worked this matter out?
 
ninjawitch said:
So I make sure IF I buy a brand new game off eBay at a discount then make sure it is sealed and the CD KEY unregistered then once I get the game register it via Stream for free then. As long as I don't get rid of it I can uninstall it and reinstall it as many times as I like with my same account name???

okay That I see that and it seems okay. But if Stream does fold will Value send all acount holders a patch CD for the game so they can fully install the game properly just in case? Have they worked this matter out?
Click to expand...
That won't happen on eBay. You'll probably get a copied CD and a fake CD key. Don't bother.

Buy the game at retail, it's more than worth it.
 
Thanks for the heads up on Ebay guys. Now just to wait until the game goes down in price at my local Electronics Boutique unless their are other cheaper online places to buy the game in North America???
 
www.froogle.com

Do a search for Half-Life 2. Be careful with that too though, some of them look a bit dodgy.
 
Steam wont fold, theres no reason to. Maybe in a few years it will upgrade but we will always be able to play. We are still playing Halflife 1 and Counter Strike...how long has that been now eh?

As everyone says if you want the game buy it legit...theres such a high chance you'll get ripped off any other way. Pirate versions have so many bugs as well, without multiplayer of course so don't go that way either. Do things by the book and theres nothing to be scared about. :)
 
http://www.videogamerworld.com/cata...roducts_id=4896

$34.72 for the CD edition. Not bad at all really. If that was in England it'd cost us £18.40 That's very cheap.

I just checked out this site, the price is nice but it doesn't list a shipping rate to send to Canada also it is an import version not the North american version.
 
just wait and get it from the store, it is worth EVERY PENNY.

You wont be selling it anytime soon, it will last a LONG, LONG time
 
Because import versions don't always work on hardware designed for North American systems. Also wouldn't the autodialer to authenticate the game be wired to phone to a location overseas???
 
Does anyone else think it's hillarious that he's called Steam Stream and Valve Value?
 
Does anyone else think it's hillarious that he's called Steam Stream and Valve Value?

Sorry I didn't have time to call the spelling police to arrest myself. Also you assume I'm male, maybe I should hold off being "rude" here and say don't you think it is laughable for guys to assume people are naturally masculine without getting their facts.

I don't have the game YET so I'm not up what the company was called precisely so I can't just look at the box for proper spelling, and I used "Stream" because that is what I was ... streamed and it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Steam.

Now I know why I don't use multiplayer ever in games, too many mean, snipey and anal retentive dictionary syntax intentive players on there. I buy games to play games not get into fights or flaming over simple matters of spelling with players out to ego boost themselves over their ego blasting others.

Sorry I ever came here for help when all people seem to do is hurt others even in gamer forums, especially over small and trival reasons such as spelling.

I can't see why you would even post unless your the type of person just out to hurt others and not help them for the sake of helping without a backhanded insult for payment.

To those with a good heart thanks for your advice I appreciate it, for those out to make a cheap snicker of others, I hope you think twice on what you said and understand not everyone is as perfect or worthy as you think are.
 
Calm down there.

It's not a cheap snicker, we just think it's funny. Don't take it like a personal thing, it could happen to anybody.

No wonder I have loosened up lately.. Being anal retentive (like you) makes you look like a fool.

You could have EASILY just said "Haha, woops!" With a little smiley, and EVERYONE would have won. But noooo, you have to be all pissy about it.

Glad I'm moving away from that stage now...

EDIT:
"Also you assume I'm male, maybe I should hold off being "rude" here and say don't you think it is laughable for guys to assume people are naturally masculine without getting their facts."

:LOL: Oh give me a break, you know DARN well that you refer to an unknown person as "he"
You are just in a bad mood because you can't handle humor to any degree, so you attack everything you hear.

Christ man (or lady), loosen up.
 
From my experience: More than one person can log into an account through LAN. I played a four person deathmatch with my friends using one account.
 
ninjawitch said:
Does anyone else think it's hillarious that he's called Steam Stream and Valve Value?

Sorry I didn't have time to call the spelling police to arrest myself. Also you assume I'm male, maybe I should hold off being "rude" here and say don't you think it is laughable for guys to assume people are naturally masculine without getting their facts.

I don't have the game YET so I'm not up what the company was called precisely so I can't just look at the box for proper spelling, and I used "Stream" because that is what I was ... streamed and it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Steam.

Now I know why I don't use multiplayer ever in games, too many mean, snipey and anal retentive dictionary syntax intentive players on there. I buy games to play games not get into fights or flaming over simple matters of spelling with players out to ego boost themselves over their ego blasting others.

Sorry I ever came here for help when all people seem to do is hurt others even in gamer forums, especially over small and trival reasons such as spelling.

I can't see why you would even post unless your the type of person just out to hurt others and not help them for the sake of helping without a backhanded insult for payment.

To those with a good heart thanks for your advice I appreciate it, for those out to make a cheap snicker of others, I hope you think twice on what you said and understand not everyone is as perfect or worthy as you think are.
Click to expand...

"he" means either male or female in this case
 
Not all gamers are like you vegeta897, nor all of us think like you. I normally DON'T post on forums but I saw this game often on X-Play and other G4Tech TV shows that it caught my attention to want to buy and play but I got mixed advice from friends and heard horrible news articles on owners of this game that were charged for piracy after they bought used games and tried to authenticate them online.

I'm a simple single player girl plain and simple. I tend to hate people online, okay not ALL of them, but the majority SEEM to have big chips on their shoulders and egos in some way, manner or another --- it seems nothing has changed over the years other than it is a more refined insult now.

The last time I was online was Quake II and I saw so many people, mainly young teenaged boys, chide me on my spelling, that it became tiresome trying to play a game, avoid cheap campers, avoid getting hit on and punished by those I told I didn't want to date and insulted because I didn't socialize like they wanted me to, so I left, I didn't need that abuse.

I never buy a game that is solely multiplayer any more due to the mercural nature of the players. Some people are polite and nice like people you met in the flesh in the real world but it seems the rule book on civility goes out the window when you play online mainly, and partly when your in forums it seems too.

It's anything goes and no holds barred mentality which is why I am shy towards people, even asking for advice is making me think to be more leary of the online gaming community and just stick to friends who bought it and the review shows on tv. At least characters in the games don't insult me or tell me what is 'online etiquette' when one makes a mistake.

You said you loosened up but you preach to me that I'm not as tolerant as you are and just say "Oh I'm sorry for the spelling mistake" ... have you really learned from your mistakes to do the same thing as those that did likewise to you for your reasons when you were a newbee?

Your no better than they are, so you loosened up but you became in the same boat as your tormentors by sympathizing with them and their reasons and their "online codes of conduct and wordings".

I'm sorry I came on here to ask people who own the game for advice only to be pummeled over my lack of accuracy over the proper spelling of the company that makes Half Life 2, the company that authenticates the installation process and for not aligning myself with the proper internet forum way to appologize for those spelling mistakes.

I won't make any more postings here so as not to add fuel to the fires of egos for others to make entertainment of others.

Thanks to those that helped me, but to those that had nothing to do but find glee in my spelling mistakes all I will say is "thanks for all the fish!"
 
We aren't kids here. (OK some of us are)

I think that you were expecting us to be mean, so your mind kind of tricked you into thinking we were acting rude to you, when in fact we were just trying to help you be less sensitive to anything that doesnt help you. Sounds pretty selfish. Just because you are a girl you are supposed to get special treatment or something?

"Not all gamers are like you vegeta897, nor all of us think like you."

What does that mean? You never really explained, just went on to ramble about what you've been saying over and over.
 
Ok Ninjawitch. Let me sum it up.

1.Half-Life 2 is worth the money, because even if you dont like the SP, there's MP and there are going to be tons of great mods out in time. There are already quite a few of them out there, such as Dawn of The Dead and Garry's Mod. Plus you get Counter-Strike: Source which now has bots added to it, so you dont ahve to play with jerks online.

2. Steam is free, but it can cause hassles. For example there are downtimes with some of the Steam servers that can prevent you from logging on in order to play your games, and even if you want to play in offline mode apparently once a month you asks you to hope online again to validate your files or something like that (I've got broadband so i'm always online, you'll have to ask a 56ker about this)

3. Steam updates alot, and sometimes the updates are big so you'll have to wait awhile for it to update. But there is a selection for each game that allows you to choose whether or not you want to keep the game up to date.

4.The game play is awesome but beware of the bugs. There is this stutter bug that alot of people seem to have to happens quite frequently on different machines, but fortunately for the majority of users out there the bug has since been fixed (A good reason for you to keep the game up to date).

5. You can't return the game after you've bought it. Something to do with Steam and anti-piracy.

6. Make sure you have a good PC. Even if you have a ok PC, the game will still run and look good, but it'll just be better on a good PC. (I'm talking about P4 2.4Ghz, 512mb DDR Ram yada yada yada)

Thats about all i can think of
 
ninjawitch said:
Not all gamers are like you vegeta897, nor all of us think like you. I normally DON'T post on forums but I saw this game often on X-Play and other G4Tech TV shows that it caught my attention to want to buy and play but I got mixed advice from friends and heard horrible news articles on owners of this game that were charged for piracy after they bought used games and tried to authenticate them online.

I'm a simple single player girl plain and simple. I tend to hate people online, okay not ALL of them, but the majority SEEM to have big chips on their shoulders and egos in some way, manner or another --- it seems nothing has changed over the years other than it is a more refined insult now.

The last time I was online was Quake II and I saw so many people, mainly young teenaged boys, chide me on my spelling, that it became tiresome trying to play a game, avoid cheap campers, avoid getting hit on and punished by those I told I didn't want to date and insulted because I didn't socialize like they wanted me to, so I left, I didn't need that abuse.

I never buy a game that is solely multiplayer any more due to the mercural nature of the players. Some people are polite and nice like people you met in the flesh in the real world but it seems the rule book on civility goes out the window when you play online mainly, and partly when your in forums it seems too.

It's anything goes and no holds barred mentality which is why I am shy towards people, even asking for advice is making me think to be more leary of the online gaming community and just stick to friends who bought it and the review shows on tv. At least characters in the games don't insult me or tell me what is 'online etiquette' when one makes a mistake.

You said you loosened up but you preach to me that I'm not as tolerant as you are and just say "Oh I'm sorry for the spelling mistake" ... have you really learned from your mistakes to do the same thing as those that did likewise to you for your reasons when you were a newbee?

Your no better than they are, so you loosened up but you became in the same boat as your tormentors by sympathizing with them and their reasons and their "online codes of conduct and wordings".

I'm sorry I came on here to ask people who own the game for advice only to be pummeled over my lack of accuracy over the proper spelling of the company that makes Half Life 2, the company that authenticates the installation process and for not aligning myself with the proper internet forum way to appologize for those spelling mistakes.

I won't make any more postings here so as not to add fuel to the fires of egos for others to make entertainment of others.

Thanks to those that helped me, but to those that had nothing to do but find glee in my spelling mistakes all I will say is "thanks for all the fish!"
Click to expand...

Someone put a little to much effort in this post to bitch about something that ain't a big deal. You need to relax like the other person said cause it ain't a big deal. No one is making fun of no one. (I probably made a few spelling mistakes and I don't really give a s**t. I don't care if the spelling nazis have something to say. I'm not going to get angry and post a 1000 word essay. I'm gonna just ignore them like most people do.
 
Firecrack I just got my Half life 2 in to day early this morning i paid $34.99 at NewEgg.com, i think the shipping was $4 or 5$. It came from California. Im very pleased with it(freaking Awesome).
I sure did not want to pay $54.99+tax in a retail store...Good luck and i hope u buy it..... :imu:
 
and also if you want to sell it, you could sell the game and give them the pass to your steam account. So if you get bored with the game, it is possible to sell it.
 
we HEAR about ppl getting killed in auto collisions everyday,
yet,
we go to work in our crappy little cars speeding 120 km/h on highways

so what if you've HEARD someone had a problem with the game
 
I personaly have never had any problems with steam or HL2.
 
buy it new, and dont resell it cuz of all the mods and expansion pcks upcoming. i beat the game months ago, but im still playing it.
 
I get the feeling ninjawitch was just waiting to pour out that tirade the instant she saw anything that might be construed as an insult.

Although I agree, there seems to be a much higher ratio of assholes to normal people on the internet than in everyday life.
 
its much easier to be an asshole on the internet because there is no retribution if you are one. If you want to you never have to bother with that person again.
 
rpgprog said:
its much easier to be an asshole on the internet because there is no retribution if you are one.
Click to expand...
The phrase is a "keyboard hero" :D
 
Sparta said:
2. Steam is free, but it can cause hassles. For example there are downtimes with some of the Steam servers that can prevent you from logging on in order to play your games, and even if you want to play in offline mode apparently once a month you asks you to hope online again to validate your files or something like that (I've got broadband so i'm always online, you'll have to ask a 56ker about this)

3. Steam updates alot, and sometimes the updates are big so you'll have to wait awhile for it to update. But there is a selection for each game that allows you to choose whether or not you want to keep the game up to date.

5. You can't return the game after you've bought it. Something to do with Steam and anti-piracy.
Click to expand...
2. Three times in four years, remember. Amazing track record.

3. That's about once every 2-3 weeks, just for anyone reading.

5. Sure you can, you've just got to hand over your money to VU. The sooner Valve win their court case the better.

Carry on...;)
 
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