Letting of some STEAM

[mobie]

HL2: I sometimes wonder if all this bullshit piracy protection was worth it for Sierra.

The amount of bullshit to get the game running just makes me and many others run back to the place of purchase for a refund.


I know what I don't want for Christmas.

 

[Jesus Lincoln]

I understand that it sucks if you dont have steam prior to buying it. but for us who actually have half life 1 its amazingly simple. Credit card. Download. Play

And you will really love the unlimited mods and simple updates

 

[f|uke]

HL2: I sometimes wonder if all this bullshit piracy protection was worth it for Sierra.

Sierra is defunct

For me, the advantages of Steam far outweigh the trouble. Auto patching is great.

 

[Asus]

While I pre-downloaded/paid for the game and played it at midnight when it was released with no issues at all, there have been a few people having some big issues which I just don't understand.

I just have never have had any trouble at all with Steam or Valve products. Makes me wonder why others have. Of course I saw how silly a CD version of HL2 would be considering it's the same thing as through steam. Turns out it was even more of a bother than I suspected, having the CD in to play and all.

 

[PvtRyan]

It has been.

Without Steam, the game would have leaked prematurely. And believe it or not, most people download games for the 'I have a bigger penis than you because I downloaded it already' factor.

 

[fragShader]

It wasn't the publisher that pushed Steam (btw it isn't really Sierra, Sierra is now just a brandname of the publisher Vivendi Universal Games).

Steam is Valve's idea. The publisher would rather use SecuROM CD copy protection (which they made the retail versions do, even though they have Steam protection as well).

 

[Alix Mcdean]

While I pre-downloaded/paid for the game and played it at midnight when it was released with no issues at all, there have been a few people having some big issues which I just don't understand.

Agreed. Same here, never had 1 problem.
It kinda boggles me how people get SO extreme if something doesnt work immidiately.
I mean, I get pissed myself if stuff doesnt work but I dont see how people get off at going all out on calling the company names thinking that it will change something =/.

-Alix

 

[Edcrab]

Half-Life 2 took almost two hours to install and authenticate. In Valve's defence this was with me playing it literally thirty minutes or so after the release, but honestly, surely they realised the sheer volume of players...

Anyway, Steam is Steam. Currently my CS:S is at 98% and has been for the last few hours- that's what annoys me. It lacks the simple throwaway turn-on-download-resumer-and-grab-the-.exe approach to patches that I've always preffered. I just don't trust ingame downloads with dodgy resume.

'Course, once I get broadband in January I might be more open to forgiveness

 

[HadouKen24]

HL2: I sometimes wonder if all this bullshit piracy protection was worth it for Sierra.

The point of Steam is NOT anti-piracy protection. That just happens to be a (very) minor bonus. Steam only cuts down on piracy a little bit.

Steam is there so that the developer Valve can send you games and updates directly. It's so that the company that actually made the game can send it straight to you without going through a publisher. Cuts out the middleman. It can give us one of two benefits. Either game prices go down, or the amount of money that goes to the developers goes up, which means fewer great developers going bankrupt and more money going into making the games we love.

 

[Varsity]

Half-Life 2 took almost two hours to install and authenticate. In Valve's defence this was with me playing it literally thirty minutes or so after the release, but honestly, surely they realised the sheer volume of players...

You need very very little bandwidth to unlock and authenicate. It's all down to HD speeds.

 

[NB.]

I just have never have had any trouble at all with Steam or Valve products. Makes me wonder why others have.

Valve obviously did insufficient testing on different setups. I see a whole lot of people blaming it 'user incompetance' or whatever, but i just dont buy that. There are too many people having troubles with Steam for it to be user error in a lot of cases. No doubt most problems will be sorted at some point but i still think Valve dropped the ball a little.

I did'nt have any problems either btw, but from reading many posts on Steampowered i don't doubt that a lot of people have experienced problems through no fault of their own.

 

[The Dark Elf]

HL2: I sometimes wonder if all this bullshit piracy protection was worth it for Sierra.

The amount of bullshit to get the game running just makes me and many others run back to the place of purchase for a refund.


I know what I don't want for Christmas.

Guess you wont be posting here no more then..

 

[PvtRyan]

It wasn't the publisher that pushed Steam (btw it isn't really Sierra, Sierra is now just a brandname of the publisher Vivendi Universal Games).

Steam is Valve's idea. The publisher would rather use SecuROM CD copy protection (which they made the retail versions do, even though they have Steam protection as well).

Ironically, it was SecuROM that made me unable to play HL2 on my laptop, not Steam. Good idea to remove that bullshit Valve.

 

[WeeViL]

I generally have very few problems with Steam, except on the rare occasion cs-source wont update or I can not login.... but I have got round that.

Steam with its auto-updating eliminates for me, the need to search for a decent server to download patches, updates for cs etc

 

[Edcrab]

You need very very little bandwidth to unlock and authenicate. It's all down to HD speeds.

Quite true; of course, HD speed doesn't cover the forty minute wait I had for the Steam unavailability messages to stop harrassing me

Even so, with a 7200 rpm HD the authentication kept freezing up: when it wasn't frozen I could do a portion of the progress bar at a very reasonable rate, but during the frozen periods Steam itself continually claimed (via the ever-beardy monitor) that there was no net activity on its part. I.e., it was talking utter shit, so I personally still hold either a major Steam bug (possible but unlikely) or a bandwidth problem responsible, simply because my HD activity was practically zero when Steam stopped in its tracks...

 

[nvrmor]

Quite true; of course, HD speed doesn't cover the forty minute wait I had for the Steam unavailability messages to stop harrassing me

Even so, with a 7200 rpm HD the authentication kept freezing up: when it wasn't frozen I could do a portion of the progress bar at a very reasonable rate, but during the frozen periods Steam itself continually claimed (via the ever-beardy monitor) that there was no net activity on its part. I.e., it was talking utter shit, so I personally still hold either a major Steam bug (possible but unlikely) or a bandwidth problem responsible, simply because my HD activity was practically zero when Steam stopped in its tracks...

uhh, the authentication only takes a very short amount of time, the rest of the time it is unencrypting the files.