No HL2 Media -- A Steam Failure?

V

Viscid

Guest
It seems that valve was not able to release the videos because of technical difficulties... I'm going to guess that it's because of the complexity of the stream platform to deliver content. Is this a failure because of Steam? I am positive that we would have those videos if it was not for the steam nonsense that Valve seems so eager to demonstrate the abilities of. Did we need to have this released via steam? Absolutely not, a standard http release to file sites would've been direct and easy to do.

I can see the usage of Steam when delivering numerous patches seamlessly to users, but delivering videos just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
 
It's eventually going to be used to release whole games. In fact as it gets more and more publically released like it has over the last week with CSN members officially receiving it and FilePlanet members it effectively has already. All these new people have been downloading 500mb of the full Half-Life and Counter-Strike. I've not seen any change in it's performance so it's safe to suggest that content delivery isn't a problem.

The official word as yet is there is simply no release. There is no comment as to why. They've been busy updating the Steam Platform and CS 1.6 most of the evening, maybe that got in the way. But Steam by the look of things is working fine, and certainly capable of delivering video.

The video will likely be in a .exe format anyway because they said something about using the Bink video format which compresses the high quality video into a .exe file.
 
Chris, check your PM's. Thanks.

Anyway, those are valid points Chris. Its a shame that CS, which is going to be irrelevant except to low-end users once HL2 is released, took precedence over these movies.
 
Ok, But you buy games off steam.(later on) What if your comp crashes and you have to format its gone.... That why its good to have the cd. Who wants to pay everytime to reinstall.If there would be keys to get the games that would be even worse. Type in a key and get a full game. Its not going to work to well steams a bad idea.
 
Where did you read that there were technical dificulties? I was just at the steam forums, and saw nothing like that said. If I missed it, please show me.
 
NO WHERE does it say why the videos weren't released. But it isn't a difficult task to make a video of gameplay footage. Any doofus can do it, so it must be a delivery problem.
 
Yeah, but CS2 is coming...and that game will own anyone's ass straight to hell!
 
LOL. What if Valve took a break on the development of HL2 and concentrated on fixing Steam, causing a delay in HL2.
 
They've been delivering whole games and patches for the last week. How can it be a delivery problem?
 
Steam has had over 10,000 downloads in the last week alone due to FilePlanet releasing it to their subscribers.
Every single one of them has to download content to bring the 7 games up to date to be able to play them. That's 70,000 downloads this week. 1,000 downloads a day over the last week. Where's the delivery problem?
 
Chris, the problem wasn't the bandwith. It was actually updating the client with a new file to download, and everything that needs to be done to get the file to the steam servers, update the client with the server information, and get the client to download the files. There's probably 100 other steps involved that they may have snagged on in the process.
 
Just getting official confirmation from John Cook about the problem with releasing the media. BRB.

News:
Hints of possibly new footage when they finally release the media.
 
i think they just simply decided not to release today due to them also not releasing steam to the public today.
 
chrisdeem says:
Have you got time for one more question please John?

johnc says:
go for it

chrisdeem says:
Good man :D

chrisdeem says:
Just wondering if you could elaborate slightly on why the media isn't available today? Have you all been to busy to create the videos or has there been a bit of a glitch releasing it to us?

chrisdeem says:
Also, by now we all know to expect a high quality direct feed of the E3 demo. But can we expect any new footage or any other footage also?

johnc says:
You're just going to have to wait and see :)

chrisdeem says:
Ok, do I have to wait and see about the answer to the first question too? :eek:P

johnc says:
The media isn't yet ready for release today, hopefully later this week
 
he's just hinting... no confirmation yet though.... *sigh* this ruined my day.. i was having a good one too...:bonce:
 
I don't know... I am supposta be happy? I mean they will add new video to the old one or what?
 
allright.. that soudns a bit promising... but i dont wanna wait another week.... im getting sick of it...
 
Well, with Valve, waiting is pretty much all you'll ever do..so learn to love it! ^_^
 
Steam should show us some new vids i mean they let us all down today give us something for our time ;-/
 
Yeah, how can they not give us free stuff? I mean, we deserve it in return for all the... for the... I mean...
 
...for the revenue we've created for them?
 
Originally posted by HL2 Stone
Ok, But you buy games off steam.(later on) What if your comp crashes and you have to format its gone.... That why its good to have the cd. Who wants to pay everytime to reinstall.If there would be keys to get the games that would be even worse. Type in a key and get a full game. Its not going to work to well steams a bad idea.
Click to expand...

When you buy a game the fact that you have bought the game is stored on the Steam servers with your user account, so when you reinstall Steam, login and the game will be ready to play again in a few minutes.

I like the idea that I can just e-mail the tiny Steam installer to myself, download it when I get to a friend's house or something, and have the game I've paid for ready to play in minutes.
 
Or you could just as simply take the disc to your friends house?
 
You can actually back-up the Steam Files to CD and install on another PC. All you need to do is copy the Steaminstaller.exe and the gcache.(file_extension_forgotten) file for each game. Then after installing Steam with correct User Details etc... place the gcache in the directory - making sure Steam is not running! - and then start steam and it will automatically unpack the files as per normal.

This worked for me in an older Beta version and can't see why it wouldn't work now!

:D
 
Originally posted by Innervision961
Or you could just as simply take the disc to your friends house?
Click to expand...

But that would be a pain in the ass, + i'd have to take another disc with all the patches on, I'm sure the case would end up getting broken one way or another...
 
Valve are releaseing the videos on steam so that people have to get steam if they want them right away


its all in their plan for making steam more popular and what everyone will use in the future so they an streamline their bussiness and make more money


The reason i believe they havent released the videos is cos there have been problems with steam from the start where peoples computers crashed and steam took up 99% of the CPU.

Valve despiretly need this to be fixed in order for people to keep steam and therefore further their plans.

Eric has allready said they intend to fix the problem of 99% CPU tomorrow. I expect the videos to be released the day after they fix all the major problems.

Thats my theory anyway. And a very sound theory at taht even if i do say so myself :p
 
Originally posted by HL2 Stone
Ok, But you buy games off steam.(later on) What if your comp crashes and you have to format its gone.... That why its good to have the cd. Who wants to pay everytime to reinstall.If there would be keys to get the games that would be even worse. Type in a key and get a full game. Its not going to work to well steams a bad idea.
Click to expand...

Thats not how steam works, once you pay for a game its stored on your account that you've purchased the game i.e just log into any ones steam useing your account any where in the world and download the game you payed for at home simple :)
 
yeah and it will only take your friend 3 hours to download it all.
 
Well, for a start you don't typically need to download everything, just the absolute minimum to get started, so we could be playing HL2 co-op while the rest of the maps are downloading, so a 3 hour wait would be totaly unnecessary, 15-20 mins at most I would say.
 
Originally posted by Epsi
Well, for a start you don't typically need to download everything, just the absolute minimum to get started, so we could be playing HL2 co-op while the rest of the maps are downloading, so a 3 hour wait would be totaly unnecessary, 15-20 mins at most I would say.
Click to expand...

troo, also the speeds are Steam are silly, silly im on 512dsl and get 200+k/s and thats not just jumps in speed. silleh speeds silleh :eek:
 
fisheh: wouldent radom emails adresses be going all around the net for freedownloads of the game i mean that even easier then ever you wouldent have to shearch for the warz games anymore all u do is get that email go on and start your download...
 
Well, Steam would likely prohibit multiple simultaneous downloads of the same game from the same email, and it would probably keep your IP in a database to prevent it from being downloaded to other computers.
 
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