Online petition to remove Steam from single player

[Mountain Man]

All information we have at the moment indicates that once you connect to Steam either for a session of multiplayer or to download patches and content, your copy of Half-Life 2 will be linked to Steam, requiring a Steam connection from that point on, even if you want to play single player! Valve has also stated that any LAN set-ups will require an internet connection in order to validate each and every copy of Half-Life 2 which will prove to be a considerable hinderance as not all LAN parties have easy access to the internet.

That said, a petition recently went online encouraging Valve to rethink this particular idiosyncracy of what otherwise seems to be an excellent content delivery system. This is such a big deal that even BluesNews picked up the story and put it on their front page!

To sign the petition, go here.

And for the record, I didn't start the petition, but this one seems like a good idea even if I do doubt the effectiveness of online petitions.

 

[TripleDES]

This is getting stupid. Only folks worse are these anti-TCPA weasels.

Besides that, they'll intro offline modes afterall shortly after release, so keep your pants on.

 

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by TripleDES
Besides that, they'll intro offline modes afterall shortly after release...

They haven't indicated this, as far as I know. At any rate, this petition could serve to encourage them to continue to move in that direction, or perhaps to start moving if they haven't already.

Valve seems really in touch with the online community, so a petition like this could make a big impression on them.

 

[OCybrManO]

Wait until the non-beta version of Steam is available before you start saying "I hate Steam!"... "Take Steam out of HL2"... "I'll boycott HL2 if it has anything to do with Steam" (well I haven't seen a case that severe but some have been close). If it still doesn't fix it... then complain all you want.

 

[Feath]

It goes against common sense to believe that Steam will require you to be online to play Single Player.

Valve aren't idiots.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

Originally posted by Mountain Man
All information we have at the moment indicates that once you connect to Steam either for a session of multiplayer or to download patches and content, your copy of Half-Life 2 will be linked to Steam, requiring a Steam connection from that point on, even if you want to play single player!

hmm.. perphaps someone could ask Gabe or Eric about the "being linked to Steam" thing for HL2 single player before we say that the two are really linked together..

Originally posted by Mountain Man
Valve has also stated that any LAN set-ups will require an internet connection in order to validate each and every copy of Half-Life 2 which will prove to be a considerable hinderance as not all LAN parties have easy access to the internet.

if this is fact, i don't have a problem signing this petition.. but again, i think the first part of ur reasons to sign it needs to be cleared up.. i don't mind emailing Gabe or Eric myself but i have never gotten a response from either.. so someone else probably has a better chance of a response.. Chris_D seems like a perfect candidate for this :thumbs:

 

[DrEvil]

Use common sense you paranoid pessimist!

 

[Mountain Man]

From Valve's Steam FAQ:

Q: How can I have a LAN party or similar event using Steam?

Any Steam game, when played on a LAN or otherwise, requires that each individual client be able to authenticate via the Internet.

At a LAN party, this means that Internet access must be available to every machine on which Steam games are being played.

Interesting that they say "Any Steam game, when played on a LAN or otherwise" will require authentication through Steam. The phrase "or otherwise" seems to confirm my worst fears about the only reasonable interpretation of the following item:

Q: Do I have to be connected to the Internet when I play Steam games?

All Steam-enabled games require you to be connected to the Internet in order to play.

Note: some Steam-enabled single-player games (such as Half-Life 2) purchased at a retail store will allow offline play until the user decides to play online or enable other Steam functionality. From that point on, an Internet connection will be required.

You can find the FAQ here.

And for the flamers here, I never said I hated Steam. In fact, I even went so far as to praise it for being an excellent content delivery system. And I'm not paranoid, either. Based on the information available in the FAQ, I just have some concerns about how the Steam system appears to have been implemented.

This isn't a showstopper by any means as I'll be getting the game regardless, but it's certainly an issue that I would like to see addressed. I would like to think I am being rational and reasonable.

 

[OCybrManO]

I don't see why they would let you play a game (that you bought for the SP) offline only until you update it... it just doesn't make sense.

Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider: (pulling down a diagram of Chewie) this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does not make sense! (jury looks shocked)

Why would a Wookiee -- an eight foot tall Wookiee -- want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!

But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case? (calmly) Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!

Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.

And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation... does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.

If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

 

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by OCybrManO
I don't see why they would let you play a game (that you bought for the SP) offline only until you update it... it just doesn't make sense.

Yet that's exactly what the FAQ seems to indicate will be the case.

And what the hell was all that nonsense about wookies?

 

[Feath]

The key phrase here is "Steam game" meaning "Game bought over Steam". Games, especially multiplayer only games, need to have an connexion to play over a LAN. This is to prevent piracy. Otherwise you can just use your Steam account to buy one game and then download it onto everyone's computer, disconnect and then play Lan games for a fraction of the price.

As for the single player thing, I think it's just been typed in a dodgy way. It seems to be saying to me that if you want to use any of Steam features (Multiplayer or content updates or playing the game over Steam (instead of using the CD)) then you need to be online.

I think it's all just a misunderstanding. This will probably be cleared up eventually and, come the 30th of September, you won't even remember what you were worried about.

The most logical solution would be you either need to be signed onto Steam or have the CD in the drive.

 

[Xrenity]

I think it's only for the Steam bought version.
Would be very stupid if you needed an internet connection. I would like to play a singleplayer game when my internet provider has problems, and people who don't have internet would like to play it too I guess..
/edit
won't sign the petition, it's bull, and if it is true, a petition won't help.

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by Mountain Man
All information we have at the moment indicates that once you connect to Steam either for a session of multiplayer or to download patches and content, your copy of Half-Life 2 will be linked to Steam, requiring a Steam connection from that point on, even if you want to play single player! Valve has also stated that any LAN set-ups will require an internet connection in order to validate each and every copy of Half-Life 2 which will prove to be a considerable hinderance as not all LAN parties have easy access to the internet.

That said, a petition recently went online encouraging Valve to rethink this particular idiosyncracy of what otherwise seems to be an excellent content delivery system. This is such a big deal that even BluesNews picked up the story and put it on their front page!

To sign the petition, go here.

And for the record, I didn't start the petition, but this one seems like a good idea even if I do doubt the effectiveness of online petitions.

so they remove steam, then they need to take the effort to make distributable patches for the people with the single player only version, plus they then risk people pirating the game because there is no cd-key check.

sounds like a good plan if your intention is to COST VALVE MORE MONEY.
it's not going to happen, i've never seen an online petition do any good, this will be no different.

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by Feath
The key phrase here is "Steam game" meaning "Game bought over Steam". Games, especially multiplayer only games, need to have an connexion to play over a LAN. This is to prevent piracy. Otherwise you can just use your Steam account to buy one game and then download it onto everyone's computer, disconnect and then play Lan games for a fraction of the price.

As for the single player thing, I think it's just been typed in a dodgy way. It seems to be saying to me that if you want to use any of Steam features (Multiplayer or content updates or playing the game over Steam (instead of using the CD)) then you need to be online.

I think it's all just a misunderstanding. This will probably be cleared up eventually and, come the 30th of September, you won't even remember what you were worried about.

The most logical solution would be you either need to be signed onto Steam or have the CD in the drive.

actually it says 'steam enabled" game, meaning any game that has steam functionality..

 

[Koldfire]

I signed the petition to remove steam completeley. It has a ****load of sigs. :bounce:

 

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by Feath
The key phrase here is "Steam game" meaning "Game bought over Steam".

Except the FAQ specifically mentions "Steam-enabled single-player games...purchased at a retail store".

 

[Feath]

I was referring to the Lan part for the "Steam game" bit.

The FAQ I think just needs to elaborate more.

 

[fifty7var]

248 is not a load. there were more than that on the steam forum around 11:00 yesterday, not to mention the hundreds of people at the homepage and the getsteam page.

And I believe it was typed funny, there is no reason for them to force that check.

Adam

 

[Goombatommy]

Well, Im sure you'll have to be on steam online in order to play HL 2 only if you have PURCHASED it over steam. I had to do that recently when I downloaded Half Life.

 

[Feath]

Originally posted by Koldfire
I signed the petition to remove steam completeley. It has a ****load of sigs. :bounce:

Well, that just proves that there are a lot of stupid people in the world who:

* Hate change.
* Don't understand Steam.
* Don't understand what "Beta Software" is.
* Have a lot of misconceptions.
* Think that Valve have any interest in what files they have on their hard drive.

 

[Mountain Man]

Re: Re: Online petition to remove Steam from single player

Originally posted by Xtasy0
so they remove steam, then they need to take the effort to make distributable patches for the people with the single player only version, plus they then risk people pirating the game because there is no cd-key check.

People are going to pirate the game anyway. This is just a hassle for legitimate customers as the warez kiddies (whom I despise) will probably have patched games that bypass this whole Steam nonsense in the first place.

And like I said, I'm all for Steam as a content delivery system. I just don't like the implication that once you connect to Steam, you'll always have to connect to Steam even to play single player.

sounds like a good plan if your intention is to COST VALVE MORE MONEY.
it's not going to happen, i've never seen an online petition do any good, this will be no different.

I don't see how it's going to cost them money. As for the general ineffectiveness of online petitions, I agree, but I signed it anyway. Who knows, maybe Valve will take it more seriously because they really value the online community.

 

[soman]

Anyways I will be buying this game if I will be playing it. However I guess they are forcing me to use cracks for the game as my lan isnt connected to a internet connection.

 

[Banana]

I agree that i do not think steam would be required to play single player unless you bought the thing off of steam. Requiring Steam for any sort of multiplayer gaming does make sense though. You seem to forget that one of the purposes of steam is to act as an anti cheat system and what is the point if you dont require people to connect to steam?

Maybe thay just want to authenticate and make sure people havea valid copy of the game and are not bootleggers. I dont think this is unreasonable.

I while ago, i emailed gabe about lan games (i can dig up the email if you all want to see it) because i live in a college dorm and we like to have our lan gaming matches once in a while. I asked him if everyone needed to buy their own copy or if we could legally set up a lan game with just one copy. He replied that they had it that way (one copy can do lan) in hl1 and so they would probably keep it for hl2. Still, maybe they want to check that that one copy is legit. Why is that bad?

My advice is DONT WORRY. Let the game come out and see how it really works before you drive yourselves crazy with make believe scenarious which may not happen.

 

[Mackan]

Originally posted by Feath
Well, that just proves that there are a lot of stupid people in the world who:

* Hate change.
* Don't understand Steam.
* Don't understand what "Beta Software" is.
* Have a lot of misconceptions.
* Think that Valve have any interest in what files they have on their hard drive.

so true

and the fact that steam probably will get rid of cheating in hl2, should justify any drawbacks of it

 

[Goombatommy]

Exactly, i'm pretty sure that you'll need an internet connection to somehow validate making sure you have a legit copy of HL 2. Whether it being Valves own server, or through steam, who knows.

 

[Guest]

look at the first 10 or so petitions, Gabe is one.

"Gabe Newell -- I won't let myself get away with this! "

Sure, it could be anyone, but from reading all those interviews, it seems like thats the way he would go about responding. lol. It seems like modest sarcasm.

anyway, just wanted to point that out.

 

[Xtasy0]

it'll cost them time, which equals money, instead of patching small things and sending those out over steam they'll need to make a standalone exe and put it through all the testing to make sure it's not going to screw up at all, a waste of time when they can do it much easier via steam.

 

[Guest]

oh and btw... think about this... would steam really do this considering...

People with dial-up would have to be online, forcing their phone lines to be blocked for hours?

Internet isnt free, so basically they would be forcing people to pay their ISP to play Valves game.

Millions of people would stop playing HL2, not even buy it.

Someone will crack the game in a heartbeat.

Lots of pissed of hackers/petitioners...

does it seem logical? think about it, there are so many more reasons why they won't do it, just think about it.

 

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by Xtasy0
it'll cost them time, which equals money, instead of patching small things and sending those out over steam they'll need to make a standalone exe and put it through all the testing to make sure it's not going to screw up at all, a waste of time when they can do it much easier via steam.

As far as I know, Valve always intended to make stand-alone .exe's for patches simply because not everybody has access to the internet from the same machine a game is installed on. For instance, someone might want to download a patch while at work and burn it to a CD to install at home, or a magazine will bundle the patch on their cover CD. In fact, it would be a huge mistake for Valve to completely ignore their non-internet fanbase.

 

[aedi]

I remember a post (I think it is in the Info from valve ONLY thread) which states that the CD would serve as the Steam Authentication method for a retail bought game in Single Player...

If anyone else remembers what page of that thread that post is on, please inform.

 

[Be-vishead]

Halflife 2 for dummies


Halflife 2 + downloaded from stream = Required to be online to play singleplayer and multiplayer/lan.

Halflife 2 + bought from the store = Don't have to be online to play singleplayer and lan . Must be online to play online.

 

[krarg]

People who don't even know how Steam works are petitioning to have it removed from HL2, like Valve can just turn around decide that they'll abandon the content delivery service they've spent the past 2 years working on because some retards on a fanboy forum think it's spyware, or because the beta version didn't work well with their computer.

AND YET, if Valve DID do that, these would be the SAME PEOPLE complaining about Valve pushing back the release date of HL2 in order to "remove the Steam parts," which I'm sure is just about impossible at this point anyhow. Get a ****ing clue.

[edit]
Oh, and 355 people is NOT a "shitload of signatures." Half-Life 1 sold 5 million copies, and this is looking to sell even more than that. 300 is nothing.

 

[Mountain Man]

Originally posted by Be-vishead
Halflife 2 + bought from the store = Don't have to be online to play singleplayer and lan . Must be online to play online.

Valve has specifically said that LAN play will require access to Steam as will Steam-enabled products purchased through retail, even for single player it seems.

 

[Mountain Man]

People who don't even know how Steam works are petitioning to have it removed from HL2, like Valve can just turn around decide that they'll abandon the content delivery service they've spent the past 2 years working...

Nobody is asking them to abandon it, just to remove it as a requirement for LAN and single play. It'd probably be a simple 5 minute programming job to remove the line of code that triggers the Steam authentication subroutine.

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by Mountain Man
As far as I know, Valve always intended to make stand-alone .exe's for patches simply because not everybody has access to the internet from the same machine a game is installed on. For instance, someone might want to download a patch while at work and burn it to a CD to install at home, or a magazine will bundle the patch on their cover CD. In fact, it would be a huge mistake for Valve to completely ignore their non-internet fanbase.

do you have a letter of intent from valve or something? heh.

 

[Mountain Man]

I remember reading it somewhere, probably in the "Info from Valve" thread, but I'm not going to dig through that mess just to find the exact quote.

 

[Aknot]

Im not as active here as I was/am in the AA forums. Just come here read a little get some info and move on. But it appears people here do not read just like the people on the AA forums. (Americas Army) Granted signing a petetion right now is jumping the gun BUT the biggest point MM is trying to make is why for a LAN/Single player would you need to be connected and STAY sonnected to steam? EVEN if you bought it via Steam. I can see a 5 min connect to "validate" the copy but to stay connected the whole time? Why? Seems like overkill. BUT as others have said we will have to wait and see.

 

[Xtasy0]

Originally posted by Aknot
Im not as active here as I was/am in the AA forums. Just come here read a little get some info and move on. But it appears people here do not read just like the people on the AA forums. (Americas Army) Granted signing a petetion right now is jumping the gun BUT the biggest point MM is trying to make is why for a LAN/Single player would you need to be connected and STAY sonnected to steam? EVEN if you bought it via Steam. I can see a 5 min connect to "validate" the copy but to stay connected the whole time? Why? Seems like overkill. BUT as others have said we will have to wait and see.

no, i believe it just connects and validates and then you can disconnect.

 

[Banana]

Originally posted by Aknot
EVEN if you bought it via Steam. I can see a 5 min connect to "validate" the copy but to stay connected the whole time? Why? Seems like overkill. BUT as others have said we will have to wait and see.

I'd find it very hard to believe that they'd make you stay connected. Valve isnt stupid. They know that the whole point of buying it in a store (when given the option between steam and store) is that people do NOT want to use the internet to get the game. So there is no point in making people stay connected. I personally dont mind a quick validation and i'd be surprised if it was more than that.

NOW, say someone gets it through steam and the way steam works is that it streams sections to you instead of allowing you to download the whole thing at once. In that case you NEED steam to play... no getting around it. What if multiplayer maps are streamed from a central server the first time you play it, you NEED steam.

Again, i dont think valve is stupid and thus i dont think they will require steam in the way that some of you think they will. Its illogical. People are jumping the gun and worrying over something they dont know about. To be honest, I DONT CARE whats been stated before, by valve or anyone else because no matter what information is said, it somehow seems to get distorted in transit and nobody seems to be able to agree on anything anymore, even if it comes directly from the horses mouth. Let them release the damned game and then we shall see how it all works. end.

 

[Aknot]

Originally posted by Xtasy0
no, i believe it just connects and validates and then you can disconnect.

Well then the petetion is doggy doo then. I have NP with a company making sure I am using a licensed copy of their software.