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

shaggy2039

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why has everyone freaked out over this preload? they're loading assets of the game that you can't touch until it's ready....
I've seen some absolutely nasty things said about valve over this preload issue...people, they could've easily never announced the preload but decided to fill us in...again, it's still a moot point since there's no actually gameplay content being loaded...

relax already...
 
The big deal is this. The preload means the release candidate is comming soon. Sooner rather than later. You wouldnt preload somthing and have gamers wait with the icon on their steam for 3 months knowing its not comming.

This is basically just another step up the stairs to HL2.
 
It's not what it is but what it symbolises.

My money is on seeing HL2 within the next month
 
Because when they DO finally preload half-life 2, all the conspiracy theorists can shut up.
 
that's understandable...but, I just feel that Valve had an option to either tell us that the preload was coming, or not...either way, it still doesn't mean that people needed to react in such a ridiculously harsh way to valve when the preload date wasn't met recently...they could in theory preload this baby 1 week before the actual physical release of the game and never told anyone...it wouldn't have mattered...to be honest, now I'm nervous at how people will react with that preload occuring, and how much anxiety this is going to bring across the community...
 
this pre-load symbolizes something tangible(sp?) which Valve are doing.. so it does have significance, besides i think killahsin-[CE] summed it up rather nicely :)
 
Chris_D said:
It's not what it is but what it symbolises.

My money is on seeing HL2 within the next month
word up.
 
Yeah, see, it's funny, because if they hadn't announced it, and just let everyone find out one day when it appeared in Steam, you'd all be hooting and hollaring and shouting Valves praises. However, they did announce it, they're a couple days late and now they're lying bastards only out to rip everyone off?

There really needs to be a license in order to have children, seriously.
 
Gotter said:
Yeah, see, it's funny, because if they hadn't announced it, and just let everyone find out one day when it appeared in Steam, you'd all be hooting and hollaring and shouting Valves praises. However, they did announce it, they're a couple days late and now they're lying bastards only out to rip everyone off?

There really needs to be a license in order to have children, seriously.

no you got it wrong, they delayed it twice and for more than a couple of days. they aren't lying bastards, they just have poor planning(which they admit). it would be better if they didn't announce all these dates. but heres hoping they get it right today
 
shaggy2039 said:
that's understandable...but, I just feel that Valve had an option to either tell us that the preload was coming, or not...either way, it still doesn't mean that people needed to react in such a ridiculously harsh way to valve when the preload date wasn't met recently...they could in theory preload this baby 1 week before the actual physical release of the game and never told anyone...it wouldn't have mattered...to be honest, now I'm nervous at how people will react with that preload occuring, and how much anxiety this is going to bring across the community...
You're right - the flames towards Valve for delaying the pre-load were incredibly unjustified.
 
Gotter said:
Yeah, see, it's funny, because if they hadn't announced it, and just let everyone find out one day when it appeared in Steam, you'd all be hooting and hollaring and shouting Valves praises. However, they did announce it, they're a couple days late and now they're lying bastards only out to rip everyone off?

There really needs to be a license in order to have children, seriously.

You must remember this is the 4th date they have given us for the preload. THey missed the first three. So while we are all happy, I still think Valve's PR process/ community interaction process is really screwed up. Posting the announcement on HL2Fallout? How about steampowered.com or *gasp* half-life2.com? And no one said, as far as I recall, that Valve is out to rip us off.
 
Indeeder they were. Wonder how long this news will hold them back :|


Ah who cares! MERRRRRRRRRRRRY CHRISTMAS
oh I meant that in a good way, not implying I expect Dec. Though that's when my birthday is. Uhhhh. Hell nm.
 
Yeah, I myself probably wont preload it because im just going to buy the retail version but chances are, people will try to find a way to uncrypt the file and see whats inside
 
The big deal is this. The preload means the release candidate is comming soon. Sooner rather than later. You wouldnt preload somthing and have gamers wait with the icon on their steam for 3 months knowing its not comming.

i dont know, valve could make it happen.
 
Chris_D said:
It's not what it is but what it symbolises.

My money is on seeing HL2 within the next month
Exactly.

We've been waiting for more than a year for some SIGN and that the game will soon be out. The preload is the biggest, most important indication that it's actually going to happen.
 
People get excited a few days before christmas when all the gifts have been bought and wrapped. They won't be getting the presents but they still get excited.

Its the same thing here, HL2 is in the final stages of being wrapped. They won't get to play the game for awhile but its still understandable why people are getting excited.
 
I understand the exitement and i'm looking forward to it but i'm still buying retail.
 
killahsin-[CE] said:
You wouldnt preload somthing and have gamers wait with the icon on their steam for 3 months knowing its not comming.
You wouldn't expect them to keep promoting a release date that they knew for weeks they were going to miss either so your line of reasoning doesn't really hold.

Still, I'm optimistic that we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Chris_D said:
It's not what it is but what it symbolises.

My money is on seeing HL2 within the next month

All we can do is hope. Whatever happened to your "October is the soonest" stand? :)

I don't know why people are so excited over using their bandwidth for something that can't be used to the next two to three months either.
 
Yeah, see without presents under a tree, we'd all be wondering, 'will Christmas be delayed?'
 
yayyyy
this is difinatly better than nothing!!
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
 
I think we COULD have that little hl2 icon waiting in our steams for MONTHS, given Valves track record. They are preloading stuff thats already done, in no way does that mean the whole game is done.
 
Remember folks, we still have a long way to go. Until they fix a majority of the crash bugs, there will still be a decent number of people unable to play the game.

The beta getting updated/fixed will be a good indicator of how soon HL2 comes.
 
i dont know if this has been discovered.. but:

if you right-click the steam icon, and go "Montior" you can see the transfer rate, and the filesize of halflife 2! looks to be 1043 mb, which is a hefty download. I would be surprised that you would be able to get the exe when its released, and the CD(s, or dvd) would auto fix it up for ya.
 
Stamp said:
i dont know if this has been discovered.. but:

if you right-click the steam icon, and go "Montior" you can see the transfer rate, and the filesize of halflife 2! looks to be 1043 mb, which is a hefty download. I would be surprised that you would be able to get the exe when its released, and the CD(s, or dvd) would auto fix it up for ya.

Actually 1GB would be very small for a full game, especially one such as HL2. They stated that the preload would begin with only parts of HL2, rather than the whole thing. I'd imagine that's 1GB of textures and sound.
 
Wildhound said:
Actually 1GB would be very small for a full game, especially one such as HL2. They stated that the preload would begin with only parts of HL2, rather than the whole thing. I'd imagine that's 1GB of textures and sound.

They also said that other encrypted files have to be downloaded in the coming days, so I guess this is only the first of many preloads.
 
Chris_D said:
It's not what it is but what it symbolises.

My money is on seeing HL2 within the next month

I hope so, I give it 2.5 months. Or atLEAST within this year.
 
Viva Preload!!!!

nno seriously, i think this will relieve alot of poeple considering Hl2 will be ending its destination onto the market shelves finally.
 
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.
 
IMO Valve should have simply waited until the day that the preload was -actually- going to happen before posting about it. Barring some disaster they couldn't predict.

Instead they gave dates that were 1-2 weeks away, or several days away etc. You don't announce that a game "will go gold in x days", you simply announce on the day when it has gone gold. They should have done the same for the preload.

Oh well, it's here now.
 
This is the second to last big step in the HL2 ladders. There's only one left, the big one, and that's the gold announcement
 
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