Online petition to remove Steam from single player

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Valve should reconsider steam's implementation before This online software transform into Gamers Worst Nightmare !
 
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.

Think PER SESSION instead of per lifetime. The instant you decide "I'm going to play MP now" you need internet connection. When you quit and then start SP later, no steam.

I could be wrong, but I'm betting I'm not. There are numerous reasons for thinking it's this way.
 
THANKS!

But, is it really that big of a deal? Valve just wants to make sure everybody uses an honest version of their game.
Anyway, no-one really knows just yet how things are going to be.
Let's just wait and see.
 
Mountain Man, if I could I would make a petition to stop your petition, but luckily I know it won't do any good because online petition's mean shit, especially in your case because Steam will be the front and back end of HL2 and all new and existing Valve titles whether you like it or not.

/me bounces
:bounce:
 
Guys, have any online petitions ever changed the course of games?


































































































































































:frog:NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
/me eats frog
:frog:
 
Originally posted by Mountain Man
Large size font doesn't make your argument any more valid.

No, but his interpretation of the statement is most likely accurate. The big fonts just make people see it more clearly.
 
Shesh... how many morons are on this world, because I want to move to a more intelligent planet :D

If you want to play HL2 offline, buy the retail version, if you want access to everything Valve has to offer get Steam, and you can play HL2 on any computer with internet access using your account. Of course you will need to have access to the internet to play HL2 over Steam, otherwise how will download the damn games content.. duh!!
 
Again you really think they care if you have to authenticate, because there will be already a large number of buyers already. So its doubtful they will cater to all of everyones needs.
 
Have online petitions ever changed the course of anything?

I remember one that was made shortly after the announcement that the second LOTR movie would indeed be called The Two Towers. The petition was to stop them from being allowed to call it The Two Towers out of respect for 9/11.

People were just signing the petition to purely ridicule the creator of the petition.

Hmmm...


EDIT: You people are turning me American :eek:
I mean't 11/9 :p
 
Hell.

I'd rather have HL2 out on time than waste my time signing an petition that would ultimatley increase piracy of one of the the best games ever.

if Valve changed the code they'd have to push the release date back quite a bit. why? Cos steam, as it is talked about, seems integral to the whole game.

and i don't want any delays.
 
Originally posted by Chris_D
Mountain Man, if I could I would make a petition to stop your petition...
It's not my petition. I just happen to think it's a good idea. And Valve knows the value of the online community possibly making an online petition the perfect vehicle to let our voice be heard.

Personally, I'm perfecly happy to admit that this could all a misunderstanding, but Valve's use of the phrase "from that point on" is ambigious. Do they mean "for that current session" or "for the life of the product"? A compelling argument could be made either way. I'm just hoping to get Valve to clear this up. After all, an FAQ is supposed to answer questions, not create more.

One thing that is not ambigious is their statement that internet validation will be required for LAN play. To me, that sounds as ridiculous as requiring internet validation for single player, and since they're obviously more than willing to do the former, it doesn't rule out the possibility of the latter.
 
Per session signon makes no sense, as claimed by Big Type makes no sense.

If that was the case, the answer to the question "Do you need to be connected to Steam to play single player?" would be

"No, as long as you exit HL2 after playing online."

That was NOT the answer. No one would go out of their way to create an issue where there is none, especially if it is their business they would put at risk. So making the assumption that it is a "per session" thing is huge leap in logic. If you wish to believe that fine. But some of us are not that gullable.

My guess is that they are online checking in as many places as possible (probably during level loads) to thwart pirating. The sad thing is, it won't stop the pirating. They will just frustrate paying customers. Inconveniencing paying customers to hinder non-paying ones doesn't work. Just look at Intuit with Turbo Tax. It is the same thing.

Oh and we have nearly a thousand signatures. I would say that is a HUGE portion of people, compare to the number of people aware of the petition. The more people that become aware of it, the more that will sign.

This isn't a slam on Valve at all. They couldn't pay enough for this kind of feedback of consumer perception. I think it makes them aware that they need to clarify the message coming out of their headquarters about Steam.
 
The FAQ reply makes perfect sense viewed from either a per session or per installation viewpoint. I choose to believe the per session version because it is more logical. Why would Valve create a larger burden on their server, make it harder for their customers, and add special code to single player to check for validation? I can see no real reason so I don't believe they would.

As noted, the larger font was so people would see the post instead of just skipping over it like most of us do on a thread that gets over a page or two.
 
^^^
Then why would they answer the question the way they did? No one would answer yes to such a loaded question if they could answer NO!

And why would that only be true of the retail version? How would the single player be different in the Steam version? Valve went out of their way to say RETAIL VERSION!!
 
lol.
The steam version is on steam. It obviously requires internet connection always.
 
Originally posted by Ahnteis
Why would Valve create a larger burden on their server, make it harder for their customers, and add special code to single player to check for validation?
Possibly for the same reasons they expect every LAN party to be hooked up to the internet.

I agree, it doesn't make sense that they'd expect people to connect to the internet every time they want to play single player, but it doesn't make sense that they'd expect everybody at a LAN party to have to validate their games through Steam, either. Since they're doing one thing that doesn't make sense, it is hardly a stretch to assume they'd do two things.
 
Wow! 1600 signatures. The Half-Life community wants to be heard on this matter. At very least, some clarification by Valve is in order.
 
Originally posted by janonol
Hell.

I'd rather have HL2 out on time than waste my time signing an petition that would ultimatley increase piracy of one of the the best games ever.

if Valve changed the code they'd have to push the release date back quite a bit. why? Cos steam, as it is talked about, seems integral to the whole game.

and i don't want any delays.

I cant see valve releasing hl2 until they sort out steam, coz hl2 heavily depends on steam... so far steam is not working for alot of peeps so I for one, dont expect to see hl2 this month being released.... hope thats not the case though :x
 
Originally posted by Drazula
And why would that only be true of the retail version? How would the single player be different in the Steam version? Valve went out of their way to say RETAIL VERSION!!

Downloading the game through Steam is pretty hard without an internet connection.

The more I look at it, the more I realise that Valve's statement is completely ambiguous, which means that the petition is assuming the worst case scenario until further clarification (not that this totally undermines its validity though).
 
So half the people here are saying the other half knows jack-shit about it. One half is saying Steam is a load of bollocks and should be removed completely because of the inconvenience, the other is dismissing all claims that HL2's dependancy on steam is a bad thing, dispite the quote from the FAQ. Then there's a couple of people like Mountain Man in the middle who are the only guys with anything sensible to say. Not everyone has broadband, not everyone can afford to leave their dial-up on all the time, not everyone even has access to the net.

Having to be connected to the internet to play LAN games defeats the point of LAN games, whether it be "stay connected" or "connect, logoff". LANs are for people who want to play multiplayer but can't use the net for it. There's a monthly LAN at my parent's computer center, there is an internet connection but it's heavily firewalled by the provider allowing only standard internet use, so no games will work and neither will steam. When a few guys want a private LAN at their house, they can't all be connected to the internet because there is only dial-up around here, no broadband and there's no reason to have more than one phone line. They won't be able to play it because there's no way in hell they can connect to steam.

Singleplayer has **** all reason to need a net connection. Pirates will still get a way around it, it just means less people will be able to play. I have no modem in my computer at home, my friends have but they can't tie up the phone line while they spend a few hours playing.

I have nothing against Steam as a distribution, anti-cheat, internet game authentification tool, but when it comes to LAN and Singleplayer, there's abosuletly no need for authentification and there's no need for it to be compulsory when people can't use it.

I'm not going pay for something that I can't use properly and I doubt a lot of other sensible people will either. I really want to play this game, but if I can't use it, what's the point?
 
Well I don't want to have to connect (switch my other computer on) to the internet every time I want to play HL2 and I'm sure 56kers won't like it atall.

I don't care if it's true or not, I'm bumping this anyway.
 
I can dowload with 90 kbps....
 

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Originally posted by X-Vector
Downloading the game through Steam is pretty hard without an internet connection.

The more I look at it, the more I realise that Valve's statement is completely ambiguous, which means that the petition is assuming the worst case scenario until further clarification (not that this totally undermines its validity though).
C'mon X-V. :stare:

Think about this for a second. This "session only" nonsense is comparable to the behaviour of Windows Update. Would anybody say that Windows requires an internet connection to run? Of course not, because it can run without it. So why would some say "you need an internet connection after you connect the first time." Because it can't be turned off!!

No one would say "you must be online" when there are ways to stay unconnected. If you want to believe this "MP session only" stuff go ahead. I've got a bridge to sell you.

This is a FORCED connection, with no option to shut it off. Even Microsoft isn't that presumptuous. I can turn off Windows Update any time I want. And over 2000 signatures show that people don't want it.
 
Wow the amount of ignorance on this board is just baffling. You guys are so damn close minded. Ok here goes:

- When you buy HL2 from a store you will be able to play it without Steam until a new patch comes out or you try MP. From that point on, you will need to autheticate with Steam whenever you want to play HL2 SP or MP.

- You need to authenticate with Steam when playing at a LAN, this practically makes big LAN patries impossible because not every PC can have internet access.

These two factors can potentially kill the HL2 community within months.
Drazula and Mountain Man may god help you. I'll see ya at the other forums.

Edit: Chris_D apparently received an e-mail from Gabe. Good news.
 
This is in the "Info From Valve" thread:
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Deeming [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 4:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Will it never cease?


I'm not sure if it will ever cease or not. The constant nagging question
that people are asking - Will Steam be required to have an internet
connection active when starting up a singleplayer game or a LAN game?

It's giving me a headache

Seen the petition yet?

Chris_D

Gabe: No, it won't.

There will be a brief transition (like two weeks) when it is necessary, but
then it will go away. It's a temporary issue.
 
I agree Steam is a good concept, but it just isn't solid enough at the moment. Valve has been doing a good job so far, but to think you will need Steam to play Half-Life 2 (to be released in 18 days), I dought it will be ready at that time, considering all of the bugs and serious issues people are having with the software. I comend Valve for their attemt at making such a brilliant program, but attemts arn't good enough for a piece of software that will be as widely used as Steam will be, for the hundreds of thouasands of people that are going to be using it. Nice try Valve. But until you can get all of the bugs worked out, Steam will be a failure.
 
rofl... I can't believe you posted this on PHL... You lost all my respect... everyone posting on that petition is TOTALLY uninformed about Steam. What a joke PHL has become.
That guy Slash that posted this on PHL forums just about sums it up for me.
 
lol That would be funny if Valve would say HL2 is delayed cuz they had problems with people who has signed an online petition against Steam... well not that funny :-(
 
Originally posted by Mountain Man
This is in the "Info From Valve" thread:


thank u Chris_D and Mountain Man, u guys have done a huge favour for those of us that were not clear on the Steam, SP/MP issues.. considering that Gabe and Eric haven't responded to any of my emails, i can't personally thank u guys enough for this :)


iluvj00 Chris_D :cheese: :LOL: :thumbs:
 
Well, I didn't start the petition, I just posted a link here in these forums. However, it seems that it definitely caught Gabe's attention enough for him to feel compelled to comment.

However, I do find it interesting that Steam will need to be always on for about month after the game is released and then it'll only be required for multiplayer after that. I wonder what that's all about?
 
That probably just means that it will take about a month for them to get around to changing Steam to allow completely offline play.
Apparently, it wasn't designed with that feature in mind and now they are realizing that it would be a wise choice to allow it.
 
Sticky: Post another anti-steam petition thread and be banned.

*cough* banned *cough*
 
That doesn't apply to this thread because the sticky was made the day after this thread was created.
 
Originally posted by OCybrManO
That probably just means that it will take about a month for them to get around to changing Steam to allow completely offline play.
Apparently, it wasn't designed with that feature in mind and now they are realizing that it would be a wise choice to allow it.

or, it was easier (for now) to just have the SP and LAN features to authenticate with Steam instead of complicating things right now... seeing as things are hectic as far as Steam goes right now.
 
As much as I hate steam, im not going to sign it. Why? Because HalfLife2 is programmed for it. If Valve listens to this petition, then HL2 will get delayed. When will people think?.

Anubis
 
If i have to be online to play singleplayer or send some damn form for activation code and dial numbers and shit, im gona straight or the latest crack. A cracked exe which is gona tell HL2, "Hey, enough with that silly shit, just sit down, relax and execute when the USER TELLS U TO".
 
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