It's a preload...what the big deal?

[poseyjmac]

Preload = good

Very good.

Now that Valve have taken the step of uploading the body of the game to 1000's of computers, they are unlikely/will be unable to change it. Which means that they now have it in a form they don't plan to change. I.e. a final form.

And if this form is final, we have our Gold, anytime soon.

keep in mind we only received the graphics, like materials, textures, HUD art. they still can change sounds, maps, models, and other misc stuff.

 

[czrsink]

If only I could preload it. I've been trying since 9AM this morning.

According to PHL (see below), the file size was around 500MB compressed, is that so?

Just a small update for those of you who have not yet pre-loaded Half-Life 2 (the both of you). I asked Erik Johnson what the file weight on this update was:

It's roughly 500MB compressed.

So be prepared to grab your favourite beverage while you download.

 

[poseyjmac]

its 1.01gb here

 

[czrsink]

Damn, I was hoping I could get the d/load (making the most of my 225 k/bs download speed at work ), save it to CD and then run it home. Looks like it'll need to be a DVD_RW and I don't have any to hand - gutted

 

[himself]

no-one knows what's included in the files you downloaded. who knows. its very likely that you've downloaded the misc-stuff for hl2, and of course a lot of these things are going to be changed these days.

but this pre-load still is a very good sign. valve must have come to a point where they can say 'okay, this can be uploaded to the people'. i cant understand people who still moan about a 1-2 weeks delay, or even a 4-days delay. thats totally unimportant. think about it - you've (well atleast i did) waited for hl2 like 5-6 years, and now you complain about some weeks the preload has been delayed? go figure.

let's hope for a hl2 release date in the near future, thats all we can do about it.

 

[Element Alpha]

You can't deny the delaying of the preload got most of us worrying about a possible show stopper bug. But I guess you're right, most were overreacting.

There's something that strikes me about this preload: Everyone with a steam account can get it. In reference to the chrismas tree analogy, having the preload on your hard disk and being able to drool all over it without being able to open it, must be one of the best marketing schemes out there. I mean, can you just imagine, everyone is playing the game, and you're stuck with just not enough data to play. It's like putting a huge gift under the tree, and tell the kid -when it's chrismas- that he can't open it even then, but he can keep looking at the giftwrapping and try to guess what's in it, maybe take its weight, dimension, its density, its resonance, but the kid just can't freaking open the box!
Only a jedi would be able to resist. And then some.