Online authentication, in favor of it or not?

[Mitch2891]

I kind of doubt this is true, pc gameplay really ran a 2nd rate review from what I have seen.

Why would they not do this? Did you see how bad it was when Doom 3 came out, I remember reading that one site had over 50000 downloading it on bit torrent. VUG \ Valve likely saw this and thought that 1 time authentication was a good idea.

Really it is not that unlikely but would suck if you did not have an internet connection.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

I'm all for it!!

 

[ACROW_LEFT]

i like the idea, but i dont have internet connect, wait, how am i on now, hooow mysteriousssssssss

 

[Logic]

I'm against it. It certainly won't bother me personally (I'm buying over steam anyway) but no matter how unbelievable it may seem to some of you, there are people out there who want to play HL2 who don't and won't have access to the internet. Surely the goal should be to get such a great game to as many people as possible, and while people without the internet may be a minority, why should they be discriminated against?

The problem is that HL2 is going to be known as "the greatest SINGLE PLAYER gaming experience so far", which will make it, of all games, probably the most attractive purchase for gamers WITHOUT the internet. Imagine their frustration when they find they can't play it because they don't have the internet? And please don't say garbage like "if you don't have the internet, and want to play HL2, GET the internet", or similar. For some people, getting the internet may be very difficult, or impossible. Those people should still be able to play HL2, since playing a single player game makes no use of the internet. Dishwashers, like the internet, are standard in most homes nowadays, but not everyone has one... how would you like it if you bought HL2, got it home, and found you couldn't play it because your household didn't have a dishwasher?

Just because it doesn't cause a problem for you, or any of us on these forums, doesn't mean compulsary online authentication won't be extremely frustrating for others, even if they are a minority. I'm all for anti-piracy, but I object to it when it prevents some people from using the product. That's as bad as those audio-cd "copy protection" methods that made discs unplayable in certain CD players.

I do predict, however, that online authentication will become standard for games at some point in the future.. hopefully by then high speed internet will be standard in every home around the world. At the moment, though, that's not a reality.

 

[Zento]

I'm for it. One authentifacation isn't much but they should offer something like a email verification anyway. Anyone who can't access the internet in one way or another doesn't deserve to play HL2

 

[Logic]

Anyone who can't access the internet in one way or another doesn't deserve to play HL2

With an attitude like that, you deserve it less than they do . Don't be so self-centred.. if you were in a situation where getting the internet was difficult or impossible, you'd be telling a very different story.

 

[DigitalAssassin]

Sounds great. I'm all for it.

You said it best.

(edit/continuation)...

Don't they have telephone activation or something? I expect there will be other ways (based on your ISBN code or something) to activate. If anyone saw ANY press on the number of Doom 3 copies pirated, you'd realize it's out of control, and this is a good way to (attempt) to decrease that number. I hope people start going to jail for pirating, I really do.

 

[Sourcerer]

My sister, her husband(a kiwi) and a couple of my friends live in NZ, I know broadband isn't any good there, I am suprised there isn't a campaign group pestering the government for some sort of change. One gig a month is pathetic, I do more than that in a weekend. Here, I can get 3Mb/s unlimited from the cable company. People are trying to persuade me to move to NZ, but one of the reasons I am reluctant is the crappy internet situation out there.
I wouldn't really make broadband a requirement for HL2, that would be silly.

 

[darkmistx]

I'm for it. Most of us here are honest gamers who will buy their copies legally but there are so many people out there that wouldn't think twice of pirating games. It's like hey, if it i can play it for free why should I pay for it.

It's a necessary evil unfortunately.

 

[Woggy]

Doesnt do anything, CS Source beta has been cracked and can be played outside of steam. I cant see why they cant to the same to HL2 or full cs source.
This could actually encourage piracy.. people who dont have the internet wont actually bother buying HL2 and could just get a cracked copy of a friend. Unlikely but possible.
And if someones wants to downlaod the game, theyd probably never buy it anyway. This method wont discourage them. Every single HL2 warez release will be cracked, as it would be beyond pointless to release a non-working version of a game.

 

[Logic]

Doesnt do anything, CS Source beta has been cracked and can be played outside of steam. I cant see why they cant to the same to HL2 or full cs source.
This could actually encourage piracy.. people who dont have the internet wont actually bother buying HL2 and could just get a cracked copy of a friend. Unlikely but possible.
And if someones wants to downlaod the game, theyd probably never buy it anyway. This method wont discourage them. Every single HL2 warez release will be cracked, as it would be beyond pointless to release a non-working version of a game.

Exactly. It's not going to stop piracy, or even hinder it. It only takes ONE person\group to write a crack (which will most definately happen very quickly after release), and then pirated copies will be distributed\downloaded\etc\etc as normal.

The gain doesn't justify the cost... online authentication will, at most, slow down the creation of a crack by a few days, yet it will prevent some people, who are willing to pay for the game, from being able to play it. If anything, it will encourage (if not force) them to find a cracked version if they want to play it. How is that a necessary evil? It would do more harm than good.

 

[AzzMan]

When you think about it the pirates could actually be making money off of this. If one didn't have internet and couldn't "activate" their game, they also couldn't DL a hacked version either, this means they gotta get a copy from someone who has hacked the game, who can charge whatever they want, seeing as the said person has no other way of gettin their hands on HL2......

 

[Zento]

My sister, her husband(a kiwi) and a couple of my friends live in NZ, I know broadband isn't any good there, I am suprised there isn't a campaign group pestering the government for some sort of change. One gig a month is pathetic, I do more than that in a weekend. Here, I can get 3Mb/s unlimited from the cable company. People are trying to persuade me to move to NZ, but one of the reasons I am reluctant is the crappy internet situation out there.
I wouldn't really make broadband a requirement for HL2, that would be silly.

The internet situation isn't THAT bad, especially in Wellington. I have T1 with a 5GB cap (well, the cap is crap). My friend has a 10 GB cap due to a stuff up with the ISP :smoking:

 

[Varsity]

What I'm saying is that if you log into Steam then go offline; there's no way that Valve will know you are still on that account in Offline mode.

Uh-huh. And have you actually tried to do this?

It's not hard to have the boolean value IsLoggedIn in a database.

 

[thund]

Compulsory online authentication would increase the amount of piracy because of ppl having no choice to play the game (when they no internet) and just losing all sympathy for valve.
Win

 

[AgentXen]

Im For it 100%
Besides, who dosent have the internet nowadays?

 

[Sourcerer]

Exactly, We never see anyone in here complaining that they don't have internet do we ?

 

[Ecthe|ioN]

I'm all for it.

 

[Gunner]

Exactly, We never see anyone in here complaining that they don't have internet do we ?

Hehe good one

 

[Vinnie_NL]

Exactly, We never see anyone in here complaining that they don't have internet do we ?

Damn, when I saw the title of this topic I wanted to post that too .

I'm for it. There are still a lot people who don't have have internet, and they dont have a pc too and live in Africa. Who lives in the US or Europe can activate it's cd with a 56k modem and a free internet provider cd.

 

[Miker75]

Anyway, I'm against additional verification, CD checks are annoying enough. These may seem a small nuisance at first, but in the right circumstances become a major pain.
Plus, I hate it when a legally bought game (music,video) is much less functional than a pirated copy.

I'm totally for the online authentication.. it's the cd checks i can't handle... I really hate any game that doesn't let you fully install the game onto the hard drive and then leave the CD in your bookcase and not have to drag it down everytime you want to play it. I really hope HL2 doesn't make you leave one of the CD's in the drive just to play it (although considering you can run it just from Steam I would assume you don't need any of the CD's in the drive....especially if you ordered from Steam and don't physically have any )

 

[PvtRyan]

I'm totally for the online authentication.. it's the cd checks i can't handle... I really hate any game that doesn't let you fully install the game onto the hard drive and then leave the CD in your bookcase and not have to drag it down everytime you want to play it. I really hope HL2 doesn't make you leave one of the CD's in the drive just to play it (although considering you can run it just from Steam I would assume you don't need any of the CD's in the drive....especially if you ordered from Steam and don't physically have any )

You won't even have to ever touch the cd's because you can download it from Steam and activate it with the cd-key in the box.

 

[Vinnie_NL]

You won't even have to ever touch the cd's because you can download it from Steam and activate it with the cd-key in the box.

and that saves a lot of time if you otherwise have to put 6 cd's in and take out during the installation.