Internet validation hoses single player

[O.G. GOaT]

You are talking shite pal, how you dare tell people that have a valid point of view to shut up. It is plebs like you that have drove valve to introduce steam.

As for being a jealous twat, wake up mate, what have we to be jealous at?

You are a very sad and opinionated person.

Do you really think that unlocking games over the net is the way forward and it will lower prices?

WAKE UP

What the hell are you talking about? it’s the Plebs who pirate games that drove valve to create steam. If wanting to have a cheap and efficient way to keep my games patches up to date, them im a pleb too! Im sick and tire of having to find and download patches!

Steam is good, it is a more efficient way to keep your game patches up to date, it’s a better alternative to constantly having to find and download patches, that was just annoying!

I didn’t know I had to register My half-life 2 copy to play the single player until I read the fat sticker telling me.
The people who miss understood this for online gaming, if I was still in a bad mood I would call them all stupid, because “I” and many other people understood it meant the single player from the word go. BUT I can see now how people could of gotten it confused with multiplayer, they may have a valid point and sure valve should of made a bigger effort in advertising, informing people how they need to register to play the single player, BUT a big Rick Waller BUT here, it does not give you the right to start complaining about a companies attempt to protect its product, it wasn’t hard to install steam, create an account and register the game, it wasn’t asking you to cut off your dick and post it with the receipt of your game of half-life to register the game!

Did it stop piracy? there is always going to be pirate copies but valve has slowed it, it has made it harder to pirate, compared to the first half-life, you may not see this a pirating but with the first half-life all you had to do was buy one copy and lend it to your friend to install on their computer and so on and so on. its like putting pressure on a really bad cut, you still gonna lose blood, but not as much if the pressure wasn’t there.

I didn’t say unlocking games over the net will make them cheaper, I said downloading them over the net will make them cheaper, if you download them strait from the developer you cut out the middlemen…

…I’m just guessing here, so say you pay £40 for a game, twenty quid will go to the game developer, ten quid to the games publisher, ten quid will go to the game shop where you buy the game, if you gut out the publisher and distributor , you cut out their costs, the cost of a CD, packaging, shipping and what not, you also cut out the need for the middlemen to make a profit, maybe someone can explain it better them, im sure they can.

Soon all developers will have their own versions of steam, they all want to do what they can to slow down piracy, they all want to make a profit and still make their games affordable, why make games if people cant play them?

How many games developers out their have games but don’t have publishers to sell their games? Most of them may be crap, but there are some good games that don’t get picked up by publishers because the publisher don’t think they will sell and make a good profit, hell even valve had a hard time trying to sell their idea to a publisher.

So if developers have their own version of steam this would free up developers to be more creative with their games, and not just make games their publishers know will make a profit. This will create more diversity and more competition eventually lowering price more. ( I think anyway)

So who needs to wake up?

 

[baxter]

You are talking shite pal, how you dare tell people that have a valid point of view to shut up. It is plebs like you that have drove valve to introduce steam.

As for being a jealous twat, wake up mate, what have we to be jealous at?

You are a very sad and opinionated person.

Do you really think that unlocking games over the net is the way forward and it will lower prices?

WAKE UP

Resorted to personnel insults rather than listen to your points. I apologies unresevadly.No excuse but was rather worse for a few drinks last night.

Your points are valid but it does not alter the fact that steam is universally disliked and is and will continue to split the gaming community.

I hope we can agree to disagree on the points raised over steam.

Although internet access is now accepted as standard on most Pc’s I know many friends who don’t wish to have the internet and as such will never play HL2. Further more I feel that standardising this type of registration only plays into the hand of the pirates. Surely you can see that steam is going to be cracked and probably more worryingly is that at some point some geek will hack into it.

Sorry pal but in my opinion steam plays right into the hands of the pirates and does nothing but alienate many HL fans and gamers in general

 

[Link]

People will complain, there is no stopping it, but the line right there at the bottom, in fact the only valid point in my opinion, is that it says internet required on the box.

Do you buy a game with no 3D card in your machine and expect it to play because "All games require 3D cards now"? No.

As for people saying steam was forced on you, well its part of the game. Its like complaining that Red Alert installed the level editor without you wanting it. Its there, its part of it.

What really counts IMO is that you have consumer power. This grants you the right to not buy something. Its the only power you have. If you don't like Valve, don't buy their products. Beyond that, all the moaning in the world isn't going to achive anything (Aside from making me cross)

Just deal with it, its the way it is.

p.s, Baxter - Thumbs up for that apology, takes a big man to say sorry and most forum-ites are far to up themselves to admit it when they are wrong or out of order.

 

[O.G. GOaT]

Resorted to personnel insults rather than listen to your points. I apologies unresevadly.No excuse but was rather worse for a few drinks last night.

Your points are valid but it does not alter the fact that steam is universally disliked and is and will continue to split the gaming community.

I hope we can agree to disagree on the points raised over steam.

Although internet access is now accepted as standard on most Pc’s I know many friends who don’t wish to have the internet and as such will never play HL2. Further more I feel that standardising this type of registration only plays into the hand of the pirates. Surely you can see that steam is going to be cracked and probably more worryingly is that at some point some geek will hack into it.

Sorry pal but in my opinion steam plays right into the hands of the pirates and does nothing but alienate many HL fans and gamers in general

Accepted, but I got to admit I was in the wrong too in the way in my first post/maybe my second too, I hate it when I realise I was all arrogant and calling people twats, shouldn’t be calling people I don’t know names, and I hate being arrogant. Everyone has the right to have their own point of view and an opinion of what is right, the trick is not forcibly shoving your opinions of right down other peoples throats, I have learnt that now, so I hope others have too, so yes, we should agree to disagree, like you said. :E

 

[Megacolon]

People will complain, there is no stopping it, but the line right there at the bottom, in fact the only valid point in my opinion, is that it says internet required on the box.

Do you buy a game with no 3D card in your machine and expect it to play because "All games require 3D cards now"? No.

As for people saying steam was forced on you, well its part of the game. Its like complaining that Red Alert installed the level editor without you wanting it. Its there, its part of it.

What really counts IMO is that you have consumer power. This grants you the right to not buy something. Its the only power you have. If you don't like Valve, don't buy their products. Beyond that, all the moaning in the world isn't going to achive anything (Aside from making me cross)

Just deal with it, its the way it is.

p.s, Baxter - Thumbs up for that apology, takes a big man to say sorry and most forum-ites are far to up themselves to admit it when they are wrong or out of order.

Nothing is said of Steam on the Box.
Nothing is said about the inability to resell the game on teh box.
The EULA is not on teh box, to be agreed to BEFORE you give Valve your money.
So, you buy a game, and you get the shaft. And then you're stuck with it too boot, since no one will honor a return on a game with a unique account tied to it.

I like the idea of being able to buy and download games through electronic distribution. I like the idea of not having to go to a third party to get patches. These are good ideas. Unless you're on 56k, I guess.

I do not like having updates forced on me, and having them download whenever they feel like it.
I don not like having to authenticate the game every single time I play AND have the CD in teh drive at the same time.
I do not like having someone else threatening to "disable" my software if they don't like how I use it.

I cannot STAND being treated like a criminal for buying the game, when pirates get to play the game hassle-free. If a system doesn't WORK, get rid of it.

I don't like "if you don't like it don't play" after I already ****ing paid for it.

AND, you would think that any system that cuts the distributor, advertisers, shop, whoever makes the box, etc, would lower the price of the game. But I see that games through steam are roughly the same price as retail.

This system was designed to put more money in Valve's pockets, not save money for us. Valve doesn't give a shit about us, or they wouldn't have developed a security system that drives the majority of it's customers NUTS.

Systems like this WILL destroy PC gaming entirely. No one who plays console games (put game in, click button, play) is going to want to even TRY a PC game (put game in....install....decrypt....trouble-shoot for a week...etc). And PC gamers will move to consoles, where the graphics may suck, but at least there's no steam!

Take a look around the internet. My feelings are not exclusive to me. Valve are a bunch of greedy ****s who care more about money than they do about the customer.


As a final statement, when Doom3 came out, many people were having problems with the SafeDisk3 copy protection. Id Software released a crack for their OWN game so that customers could enjoy teh game hassle-free. That's teh kind of company I will give my money to in the future.

 

[Link]

I am getting extremley tired of telling you people the same **** over and over again.

You complain about steam, which I already covered in the post that you quoted, but I will summarize for the hard of thinking:
Steam is part of HL2. Complaining about it is like complaining that there is sound built in. If there was no sound, you would complain, meaning that basically, you are going to bitch unless the game is what you consider to be perfect.

When I talked about not buying, I meant future products. You have HL2, you are stuck with it. If you are pissed that you are stuck with it because you don't like steam, see my steam v's sound argument, 1 paragraph up.

Yes valve want to make money, not save us money. They are a business. Seriously dude, think first, post second.

As to your final statement. Right, so they released a patch for their game. Shame the game wasn't as good as HL2 (I don't want to have that argument here, lets just agree to disagree on that one) and more to the point, shame ID just folds like a wet lettuce when facing a little critisism. Valve should stick to thier guns and continue to provide unrivalled support for mods for thier games, not to mention patch problems automatically over time.

I cannot belive I have been dragged back down to explaining things again. Its the same old **** regurgitated, and it keeps working because its true. So I will leave it with what, if the opponents of steam have any intelligence at all, will end it. And which I know wont (Natch)

Valve made HL2. They can stick steam in it if they like. You can't doing a ****ing thing about it, so stop winging. Children!!!

 

[ukfluke]

steams sucks, it brings us updates to cs we dont want the online valiation thing took too long.It also hampers performance. Think of this:
Someone who has installed windows xp onto a computer with no net access installs hl2 then hooks it to the net for validation INSTANTLY gets a virus(blaster worm, or that other one which makes ur pc reboot).

gg valve

 

[Link]

Ah, the media hype is strong in this one...

You cannot get it instantly. The only way that would be remotley possible is if steam automatically sent you the virus...

Yes I will grant you that it is possible that they will get a virus, but tbh, anyone stupid enough not to download a free antivirus before they do anything else shouldn't be allowed in the same room as a computer, let alone to use one...

 

[O.G. GOaT]

I do not like having updates forced on me, and having them download whenever they feel like it.

iIf it bothers you that much, you can disable the auto update, just right click on the game, click properties and select your preferred update method. Simple.

I don not like having to authenticate the game every single time I play AND have the CD in teh drive at the same time.

if you click on offline mode, you dont need to connect to the net, its just like an extened menu select sceen.

 

[Megacolon]

iIf it bothers you that much, you can disable the auto update, just right click on the game, click properties and select your preferred update method. Simple.



if you click on offline mode, you dont need to connect to the net, its just like an extened menu select sceen.

According to "Blinxx" over at Steampowered.com, many of the updates that steam downloads are MANDATORY for the game to continue to work. Turning off auto-updating may stop the frequency of updates, but it still downloads what it wants.

AND....offline mode currently does not work properly, as acknowledged by Valve.

No matter how sound and argument for our rights may be, there are still "Hammer Legion Members" (and that's VALVe's term for "fanbois") who will argue that they just love the sodomy they get by Steam, and would like another, Sir.

Steam is not the future of PC gaming, it's the death of it.

Many companies still believe that it's the customer that keeps them in business, and that customer satisfaction is important. Only a few believe that owning their product is a privelage, and that you should be damn glad that they allow you that privelage.

 

[ukfluke]

Ah, the media hype is strong in this one...

You cannot get it instantly. The only way that would be remotley possible is if steam automatically sent you the virus...

Yes I will grant you that it is possible that they will get a virus, but tbh, anyone stupid enough not to download a free antivirus before they do anything else shouldn't be allowed in the same room as a computer, let alone to use one...

link why dont u try it for urself ? Trust me within about 60 seconds ull get a virus if u have no windows xp upates or anti-virus. Also how can u download anti-virus software without connecting to the net? same with xp updates.


If your going to rebuild ur pc i suggest u have these xp updates on a cd and install them b4 u connect to the internet : winxp-service pack 1, WindowsXP-KB835732, WindowsXP-KB823980. I found out because it happened to me. I got the xp rpc exploit and didnt even load internet explorer just by having my pc connected on broadband done it

note: sp1 is not essential the other 2 are. If u install sp1 after the updates it rolls them back an you will get the virus the first time u connect to the net.

 

[O.G. GOaT]

AND....offline mode currently does not work properly, as acknowledged by Valve.

I’ve used off line mode loads of times, it never stopped me from playing HL or HL2, if all you want is to do is play the game, there is nothing wrong. Only thing well the only thing I have noticed is that on the odd occasion when I try to log onto offline mode steam exits, no problem, just reload steam. A simple bug, that will soon be fixed.

Steam is not the future of PC gaming, it's the death of it

only time will tell, legal music downloads are rapidly growing, who says it wont happen to movies, or games? steam is just like a i-pod!

 

[Abix]

Anyone that complains about a product that they bought has two options:

1.Use the product as directed because it requires an internet connection like it states on the box that you purchased.

2.Sue the creator of the product for emotional damages resulting from poor communication from the manufacturer to the end user in leading said end user to believe that because an internet connection was formerly not required in previous years it should not be required now and such drastic change in policy forced inumerable long, loney nights awake at your computer screen hoping for your Fairy Godmother to come along and give you a broadband internet connection.

If you are not going to do either, then please take the carving knife, which is undoubtably still sitting in the sink from Thanksgiving, and proceed to chop off your left hand because nobody gives a damn. Thank you, have a nice day.

 

[Megacolon]

ever notice that steam supporters having nothing better to do than hurl insults at people with ligitimate complaints?

By the way...take a look at:

http://www.google.com/custom?domain...http://www.PetitionOnline.com/;FORID:1;&hl=en

 

[O.G. GOaT]

ever notice that steam supporters having nothing better to do than hurl insults at people with ligitimate complaints?

By the way...take a look at:

http://www.google.com/custom?domain...http://www.PetitionOnline.com/;FORID:1;&hl=en

your point is?

 

[O.G. GOaT]

31 petitions out of how many steam users? IMO a minority This is gonna be my last post in this thread (I hope)

You either like steam and you use it.

You either hate steam look past your differences and you just use it! And enjoy HL2.

Who cares if you hate it? No matter how much you bitch, it means nothing, steam is here to stay, if you cant accept that , just stop bitching and stop using steam, and stop playing any other valves games, Gordon freeman hasn’t got you by the nads with his crowbar! And there are plenty of other games out their!

 

[Megacolon]

The point, is that people who don't approve of steam are not a small percentage, as some would like to believe. Did you happen to notice that the FIRST petition in that list has almost 27,000 signatures?

And, I'd be more than happy to not have anything to do with steam, except I bought the goddamn game before I found out about it, and now I'm stuck with it.

Steam may be here to stay in Valve's little world, but vith enough vocalisation we may be able to prevent other companies from adopting such measures, and prevent total chaos in teh PC gaming industry.

how would you like it if every company developed their own steam version, and you had a dozen of the ****ers running on your computer?

How would you like it if due to the complicated nature of PC gaming, everyone turned to consoles, and there WERE no PC games?

The short-sightedness of steam-supporters is rather astonishing. Look past the tip of your nose, for once, and realise that we have a potentially very serious issue here that demands adressing.

31 petitions out of how many steam users? IMO a minority This is gonna be my last post in this thread (I hope)

You either like steam and you use it.

You either hate steam look past your differences and you just use it! And enjoy HL2.

Who cares if you hate it? No matter how much you bitch, it means nothing, steam is here to stay, if you cant accept that , just stop bitching and stop using steam, and stop playing any other valves games, Gordon freeman hasn’t got you by the nads with his crowbar! And there are plenty of other games out their!

 

[Erman]

I never expected to have to have a I-Net connection on my gaming (no Modem) PC.
Guess I shoulda looked more closely at the package, but the game
goes back to the store,,,,& I'm very disappointed,,, Nuff Said!!

 

[O.G. GOaT]

The point, is that people who don't approve of steam are not a small percentage, as some would like to believe. Did you happen to notice that the FIRST petition in that list has almost 27,000 signatures?

And, I'd be more than happy to not have anything to do with steam, except I bought the goddamn game before I found out about it, and now I'm stuck with it.

Steam may be here to stay in Valve's little world, but vith enough vocalisation we may be able to prevent other companies from adopting such measures, and prevent total chaos in teh PC gaming industry.

how would you like it if every company developed their own steam version, and you had a dozen of the ****ers running on your computer?

How would you like it if due to the complicated nature of PC gaming, everyone turned to consoles, and there WERE no PC games?

The short-sightedness of steam-supporters is rather astonishing. Look past the tip of your nose, for once, and realise that we have a potentially very serious issue here that demands adressing.

27000 voters, IMO kinda low consider the number of steam members, im guessing is in the millions, im going to ignore the rest because it is most likely most people will only click and vote on the one on the top of the list. ( I clicked on another and only hundred or slow votes) so to try and be fair lets double the first site, 54000, don’t like steam, still a low count, in my book considering the number of steam users.
Plus, the first petition was started before steam was released, so if as many people hate steam as you say there is, the petition should be in the hundreds of thousands, even millions.
What I don’t seem to understand is why steam is such a bad thing? Im not saying you are all stupid for not liking steam, everyone has the right to their own opinion, I just don’t understand why! Can someone please tell me why!
Is it because people bought the game not knowing you had to have a net connection? Fair enough, valve should of advertised more better, make it absolutely clear you need a internet connection to register, and recommending a broadband connection, this is the fault of bad planning and advertising by valve, nothing to do with steam.

What you don’t like constant updates? You can disable the updates and update the game when you want, you don’t need the updates to play the single player, you only need them for the multiplayer and still you have to download these updates even if you were still using WON, only without steam you have to go through a number of different sites, trying to find the patches, find out their servers are full and you have to wait in bloody queue, I remember in the old days were it took me a whole two days to just get a slot to download a patch for CS so I can start playing, you don’t get that with steam, it is instantaneous.

What is steam,? steam is a software that allows you manage and maintain your games efficiently, it allows you to find servers to play multiplayer games, you can download the game if you are too lazy to go and buy the game.

Why is registering a game so bad? What you want to sell the game after your done playing it? Tough! You got to understand that the people behind the games want to make the biggest profit they can for that game, who knows their next game will be a major flop and they lose everything so put it this way…
Say you are a leader of a games developer, you want to make a profit, but Timmy decides to buy a second hand copy of your game instead of buying a new copy, that is just money out of your pocket that is not on, so you introduce a programme like steam to make sure little Timmy’s money is in your, the game developers pocket, sounds harsh but that’s life.

So what’s the alternative for those people who want to sell the game when they stop playing? Well a main solution if more companies that start to use programmes like steam, not only sell the full priced game, is this. Say if you buy a game for 40 quid, but when you sell it off second hand , it would be around twenty, fifteen quid, either way you will not get the full price back and you will lose money ,(lets say 30 quid). So say developers sell games for around 15quid saving you what you are gonna lose by selling it second hand and after an month the game expires and deletes its self. Before the month is up you have the option to buy the game full before it expires. (it’s an idea)

Console gaming? So what if people turn to console market? People have been turning away from pc gaming to console way before steam came along, console technology is getting better and better, beginning to rival pc graphics for only the fraction of the price of a high end pc. Now they got the next gen ps3’s and x-box2’s that may surpass pc graphics and now they got net play. Consoles are more convenient and less hassle , at least with consoles you know your game that you buy for the console will have no trouble to run, with pc games your always (I know I am) worried will my computer be able to hack it? Will it? Will it? No its too crap!

Short sightedness, we may suffer, but the anti-steam people suffer the same with their views too.
Gaming is gaming may it be on a console or pc, I don’t see the difference, nor do I care!
bloodyhell i need sleep. :E

 

[Ghost Freeman]

Did you read the box?

6chars

 

[firemachine69]

The sweet irony of Steam is, the cracked-game users are getting a more pleasurable experience, as they needn't bother with Steam.

 

[Kommie]

The sweet irony of Steam is, the cracked-game users are getting a more pleasurable experience, as they needn't bother with Steam.

Thats totally unsubstantiated

 

[TheOriginalEvil]

I'm not sure I'll buy another product from these guys after this...

I laughed a bit when I saw this statement.

Big deal. You had to wait a weekend, Ooooo.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

Obviously it wasn't more than a minor inconvenience. Ten minutes to sign up isn't earth shattering, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't even mandatory. I didn't register my copy.

Also, anywhere minimum requirements are listed you'll see "internet" as one of them. If you buy a game without knowing whether it works on your PC, you can't really complain when it doesn't.
You're lucky you could play it at all. What if one of the minimum requirements was a zip disk drive, or a specific type of monitor? That's unlikely, but not impossible. It's up to you to check if the game will run.

I know the "man" is making you feel down, but you'd be quaking in your loafers too if you were in the game industry. Piracy makes Valve lose more of the money they desreve than most of have ever earned. It's millions of dollars.

If you knew in advance that someone was going to try as hard as they could to steal millions of dollars from you, what would you do? Protect it, I'd bet.

Mecha u have very valid points here...but truthfully it all comes down to the "me me me" factor...meaning the average user doesn't care or won't care to understand why Valve chose to have an online authentication for even the SP of the game...

until these things start affecting average users, generally we won't see pple siding with Valve on this issue.. as sad as that sounds.. :|

 

[SunHawk]

I am in the gaming industry. The fact is, the game gets hacked within hours of release. There is no security protection for a game, or any software for that matter, that cannot be circumvented

Correct.

The sweet irony of Steam is, the cracked-game users are getting a more pleasurable experience, as they needn't bother with Steam.

Correct.

I laughed a bit when I saw this statement.

Big deal. You had to wait a weekend, Ooooo.

I bought three other games this weekend. Guess which one of the four I returned.Guess which one has major complaints.Guess which one is being handed back in to stores.

I bought four games.Three of them I installed and ran in ten minutes flat.Time to get them to run, one minute ten seconds.

Fourth game was buggy, needed STEAM, didn't update, had validation issues and when tried to play offline kept trying to connect to the Net and refused to run.

Gee......what game was that I wonder..???

Thats totally unsubstantiated

Idiot

Nothing is said of Steam on the Box.
Nothing is said about the inability to resell the game on teh box.
The EULA is not on teh box, to be agreed to BEFORE you give Valve your money.
So, you buy a game, and you get the shaft. And then you're stuck with it too boot, since no one will honor a return on a game with a unique account tied to it. .

A fact that several regulatory agencies are now looking at.

AND.....let's not forget that teh security features in HL2 didn't stop groups from releasing working, hacked, steam-less versions of the game the SAME DAY that is was officially released

"STEAM will prevent piracy"

WRONG

 

[Kyorisu]

Steam is inticing other game developers to create their own "content delivery system" thus sooner or later our computers will be cluttered with buggy add programs just to run a game or two.

 

[O.G. GOaT]

Correct.



Correct.



I bought three other games this weekend. Guess which one of the four I returned.Guess which one has major complaints.Guess which one is being handed back in to stores.

I bought four games.Three of them I installed and ran in ten minutes flat.Time to get them to run, one minute ten seconds.

Fourth game was buggy, needed STEAM, didn't update, had validation issues and when tried to play offline kept trying to connect to the Net and refused to run.

Gee......what game was that I wonder..???



Idiot



A fact that several regulatory agencies are now looking at.



"STEAM will prevent piracy"

WRONG

Valve doesn’t just lose money from people downloading the game, they lose it from people who don’t buy the game, but just borrow it!

For crying out loud!!!! Nothing will ever prevent piracy! Steam doesn’t prevent piracy, it SLOWS its down, and it is a proven FACT!
The original game you didn’t need the disc to run, so how many owners of the original half life let their friends/family borrow their copy and install it on their computer to play half-life? This may not sound like piracy to you, but in a way it is! So this meant for every legit purchase of HL1 their were like fifty people playing HL1 for free! Think of the amount of money valve would of made if even half of the people who just borrowed the game actually had bought it! And at the end of the day its about making as much money as possible, (like every other person on this planet!)

Steam helps valve make MORE money! With steam, You cant borrow the game, if you really want half-life 2 that bad, you have to BUY it! That is one of its main objectives, and it succeeds.

Selling games on?
the fact you can re-sell a game doses not play a big factor on making a decision on weather to buy a game or not, you buy a game so you have something to entertain you when ever you are bored out of your brain, may it be five days after purchase or five years!
There is no law stating that something has to be re-sellable. Valve don’t have to let us know you cant sell it As far as valve is concerned, you are buying the game to entertain yourself when ever you are bored, not just to play it once and sell it on. That is just a privilege that you may or may not have, you don’t have the Macdonald’s forums littered with complaints arguing that every big-mac should have a notice on them stating that they cant be resold!
as I was saying earlier, valve want to make as much money as possible so why allow people to buy a game second hand, when they can buy a bland new one from them? They are not breaking any laws.

For the statement about having the EULA on the box, give me a break, how many games have their EULA on the box?

You don’t like the game? Well sorry, tough! You should of done your research and found out everything about the game, find out if the game is something you would like, you should of read reviews, looked at screen shots, visited the web-site, viewed the trailer, before spend forty quid on a game. And if you did your research, you would of found out about steam. If you don’t do your research and buy a game blindly, IMO you have no right to complain!

Steam complicated?
Ha ha ha! How hard is it to follow simple instruction installing a programme? How hard is it to follow clearly displayed instructions and create a steam account? How hard is it to enter your account id, and password and tick the remember user box?
How hard is it to simply read, think and click,

READ………failure to connect, retry or enter offline mod………
THINK………I don’t want to connect to the net……
CLICK……….click enter offline mode!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

READ……….menu, play game, choose a game and start playing…….
THINK….……..yes I want to play a game…..
CLICK……….play games!

READ……my games, half life, half-life 2 opposing force, blue shift…………….
THINK………I want to play Half-life 2.………
CLICK………double click Half-life 2

ACTION: half-life 2 is launched! Not ten, not even five seconds long!

Honestly, how hard is that???? Its hardly rocket science!

 

[^Ben]

Don't even bother, some people think steam is good(the people it works for) And some people think it's crap(The people who it dosent work for)

Theres no middle ground.

Oh and steam prevented pre release pirating and enabled an effective world wide launch of the game.

 

[Kommie]

Idiot

This notion that warez or cracked hl2 users have a better more pleasurable experience is crap. There is no substance to that argument, How do you know how hl2 runs on my computer? Thats right you dont. (It runs great by the way) While it is wildly known that the cracked version has some serious bugs, such as oh I don't know NO AI? Jesus I wish I could just type "idiot" and leave it at that. Also You claim to have returned the game and yet you know what kind of experience it was? I got up and running in about two hours.

WRONG

Nothing can prevent piracy and valve knows this,everyone knows this, It will take a serious bite out of piracy though or slow it down. Your stranglehold on the obvious is not adding anything to the argument. You Twat.

 

[Parasite]

All this trouble about piracy and they arent stopping it? Theyve slowed it down? Seems like alot of wasted effort to acomplish nothing but frustrating alot of legit, paying customers.

BTW Just because some of us havent dealt with a specific problem, doesent mean it doesnt exist. "Offline mode" Its a known issue that Valve has already admitted to. It doesnt work properly, for anyone from what I can gather. Go read the steam FAQs on how Valve expects you to work around it! Beleive me when I say its not as simple as "press the button for offline mode".

Also, there are many legit users that cant just "Click HL2 and play" because steam wont validate games all the time. Im getting the same issue, I havent been able to launch HL2 for over a week, and the response is "wait 20 minutes and try again" or "delete client registry.blob" or "perhaps your content server is down or slow" But no real answers.

Valve completely ignored thier need for customer service. If Steam is what so many of us want to beleive, a revolution in distrobution, they shouldve invested heavily in educating the public as to what they were doing. Just because many of us "knew about steam for years now" doesnt mean hundreds of thousands of mainstream consumers, who have been doing things the same way for 15 years now know about steam, what it is, why they need it, how to install and use it and so on. These are all things Valve put absolutely NO effort into, and now, scince steam is an inconsistantly buggy peice of software to begin with, its coming back to bite them in the ass. And they STILL arent providing any customer service!

There are going to be a few hundred thousand non-game, non-technical parents, giftgivers and other mainstream consumers getting and giving gifts December 25, all of wich have the potential (more potential than the average gamer) to run into any number of the problems steam has. And these people wont appreciate going to steampowered.com, only to be flamed and called a lair by random forumites who arent having that specific problem and cant actuall provide any help. Only to find out that they will have no customer service to help them install, use and bug fix this new-fangled contraption, they didnt expect to have, dont want or understand and is preventing them from enjoying thier holiday.

These people will not be happy, and if there are enough "walmart moms" in the bunch, they will form thier little commities, and plan thier boycotts and lawsuits, and valve will have provided them with hundreds of thousands of disatisfied customers to support them. December 26 could really suck for Valve, and it would be thier own fault.

BTW, can anyone who bought retail tell us if it said you were required to install an intermediary program called "Steam" to even run the game?


//edit: BTW, Im one of the people who hasnt had any real problems with steam until HL2 came out, and even still am only having that 1 problem.

 

[bliink]

How about stopping the non-constructive arguments (ie sole contradiction/name calling/flaming)? Otherwise, I'm going to have to close the thread.