oo gabe said on gamespy...

[commando]

A new direct-feed segment of the E3 Half-Life 2 demonstration is released, and Valve comments on its plans for the Steam download service.

Valve has released the sixth in a series of high-quality Bink movies showing direct-feed segments of the Half-Life 2 demo that made such a big splash at E3 in May. The new movie, called Bugbait, shows how Gordon Freeman can toss scented decoys around a level to attract some rather large alien bugs and lure them into attacking his enemies. More Half-Life 2 trailers will be released on Valve's Steam download service in the coming weeks.

Valve also released a statement explaining its larger plan for Steam, which has been in beta since early this year and is hosted in partnership with companies like Nvidia, Game-Storm.net, and Speakeasy. While the Steam beta currently offers access to games like Counter-Strike and Half-Life for free, Valve has said the service will offer paid products in the future.

"The delivery of these trailers is just the beginning of several activities and offerings we will be making via Steam with these partners," said Gabe Newell, Valve's cofounder. "Steam will broaden our relationship with companies such as Nvidia, and allow us to extend new offerings and services to our customers in both the current and future generation of our products."

Half-Life 2 is scheduled for release later this year. The new Half-Life 2 movie is available from the links below. For more details, check out our previous coverage of the game.

 

[SilentKilla]

Yes i already posted that, i recieved it in a email from Doug. But that is good news.

 

[FISKER_Q]

Doesn't reveal that much unfortunately.

But i've considered steam one of the best ideas since the early releases.

 

[anarchy]

Ive considered steam one of valves worst ideas yet. Its buggy as a mafaker, it consumes memory that could be used for games or other applications and there are much better and easier ways to deliver media, content and patches. To me it is pointless.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Key word is "to me". I think it is a very good program, but then again, I have one gig of drr. Also Steam still in beta test and they are fixing bugs. People are just not patient enough.

As for that press release, it tells nothing :\
I still think Valve doesn’t say anything, because they are trying to make a date, and if they are sure 100% that they will make it, we will hear from them.

 

[Nuclear_Gerber]

Originally posted by anarchy
Ive considered steam one of valves worst ideas yet. Its buggy as a mafaker, it consumes memory that could be used for games or other applications and there are much better and easier ways to deliver media, content and patches. To me it is pointless.

To me too.
Whats wrong with the exe file download from 5000 mirrors when its out? Steam is just clumsy.

 

[Skullhair]

Originally posted by anarchy
Ive considered steam one of valves worst ideas yet. Its buggy as a mafaker, it consumes memory that could be used for games or other applications and there are much better and easier ways to deliver media, content and patches. To me it is pointless.

It's still in beta. Don't use it until it's in it's final release if you don't like it. B E T A people, get a clue.

 

[Fallout2man]

Personally I think Steam would be a good idea so long as it doesn't stream games bought over it.

 

[Chris D]

Some people are so stuck in the past... Steam is the start of a future that'll make game publishers like Activision and Vivendi redundant. By the time we all have 10mbps internet connections as pretty much the standard, games will be released digitally, content will be released digitally and we'll love it.

Steam isn't resource hungry - you're computer needs upgrading.
Steam isn't a shit idea until you give a valid and/or constructive reason why.
Steam is a step to the future.

 

[koopa]

Originally posted by Skullhair
It's still in beta. Don't use it until it's in it's final release if you don't like it. B E T A people, get a clue.

Yeah, but it's been buggy for an age now (it still crashes out, loses my login ticket, etc). I can't figure out what it's doing that makes it so difficult to code - it's just a tarty frontend for a web browser.

I wonder if this technology is (eventually) intended more for something like the Xbox then the PC?

 

[nw909]

Originally posted by Chris_D
Some people are so stuck in the past... Steam is the start of a future that'll make game publishers like Activision and Vivendi redundant. By the time we all have 10mbps internet connections as pretty much the standard, games will be released digitally, content will be released digitally and we'll love it.

Steam isn't resource hungry - you're computer needs upgrading.
Steam isn't a shit idea until you give a valid and/or constructive reason why.
Steam is a step to the future.

Sweet, more boxes at EBGames for me.

 

[XtAkm4p]

oh man..... i smell ads. and lots of them. ads, thats the future.

 

[nw909]

Ads are the present fool

 

[Mr.Reak]

And? You see ads everywhere you go these days. Like they did in Futurama, ads in your sleep. Heh..

 

[tokin]

ads are the future fool

 

[koopa]

Originally posted by Chris_D
Some people are so stuck in the past... Steam is the start of a future that'll make game publishers like Activision and Vivendi redundant. By the time we all have 10mbps internet connections as pretty much the standard, games will be released digitally, content will be released digitally and we'll love it.

Steam isn't resource hungry - you're computer needs upgrading.
Steam isn't a shit idea until you give a valid and/or constructive reason why.
Steam is a step to the future.

Good points. But I can't see seriously high speed connections coming until we're all on cable, and games are getting towards DVD sizes. It's gonna be some time, I think. I'm not even convinced the infrastructure of the 'net is good enough to cope with this yet (imagine 100,000 people all trying to pull down 3 DVD's worth of Half Life 3).

 

[peasoup]

One thing i noticed in what Gabe said in this press release is "Half-Life 2 is scheduled for release later this year." should it say Sept 30th if hl2 was not delayed?

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by koopa
Good points. But I can't see seriously high speed connections coming until we're all on cable, and games are getting towards DVD sizes. It's gonna be some time, I think. I'm not even convinced the infrastructure of the 'net is good enough to cope with this yet (imagine 100,000 people all trying to pull down 3 DVD's worth of Half Life 3).

thats true...but it gets bigger and relativly better everyday

 

[A2597]

frankly, if your a 56K user, steam stinks. absolutly USELESS for anything.

which is why I deleted it already.

 

[anarchy]

Chirs_D: How is it the future? Its redundant. I can download a game from an http link just as easy and it doesnt take resources, it doesnt take time to load up at windows start like steam does and I dont have to deal with bugs...and i doubt they will get them all worked out, no program has (the perfect program...pfft). Steam is a way for valve to cache in on advertising, your a moron if you cant see that. So preach your "its the future" shit to some one els.

 

[Mr Bond]

Originally posted by anarchy
Steam is a way for valve to cache in on advertising, your a moron if you cant see that.

No.

 

[koopa]

Originally posted by anarchy
Chirs_D: How is it the future? Its redundant. I can download a game from an http link just as easy and it doesnt take resources, it doesnt take time to load up at windows start like steam does and I dont have to deal with bugs...and i doubt they will get them all worked out, no program has (the perfect program...pfft). Steam is a way for valve to cache in on advertising, your a moron if you cant see that. So preach your "its the future" shit to some one els.

It's better than a http link because it can automatically select the website holding your file with the best connection to you. You have one login as opposed to tens of logins for different sites (fileplanet, etc, etc). If it's smart it can auto-resume and swarm from multiple hosts too. And it provides a simplified interface for downloading & patching - we might say 'use a http link', but we're geeks, frankly. I think Chris_D is right when he says it's the future - it's just not quite ready yet.

Also, if it's a way for Valve to cash in on advertising, how come there's so damn few adverts in it? The adverts on the 'games' page are probably just to partially compensate the providers for you not seeing their banner ads - you see far more adverts when you use a http link.

 

[Nuclear_Gerber]

Originally posted by Mr.Reak
And? You see ads everywhere you go these days. Like they did in Futurama, ads in your sleep. Heh..

haha loved that episode

 

[RadiuS]

i would never buy HL2 through steam. Ill always prefer a box with a manual and real CD's (where you know the content is not stripped down for downloading purposes).

 

[Chris D]

Wow I wrote that when I was drunk last night. That was quite good wasn't it?

anarchy: I thought your post was going to be relatively mature, but then you ruined it all and called me a moron. Well done.
In response to your post though, what would you say is a better way to receive updates? Every 6-12 months when they release release a patch on FilePlanet? Or every 6-12 days when they send the data to you automatically?
Steam doesn't take ages to load when Windows starts up for me, and it's not buggy at all - it works fine for everything I use it for. The ads you see in Steam, the few of them that they are, are who hosts the content - which I think is fair enough.

EDIT: and yes, I personally wouldn't download HL2 from Steam, but then again I'd probably download other games off of it like CS:CZ.

 

[nsxownzme]

Steam is gay, the ads are gay, valve is gay. HL2 ins't. I'm still not pleased with Steam.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

nsxonzme, thats total and uter shite. Valve rock. They made halflife1 and are making the sequal. They have the best customer service record ever for a games company. And part of the reason they are doing steam is to cut out the publisher which means cheaper products for us gamers. The adverts are nothing. It works fine for most people and when it comes out of beta it is likely to work for everyone.
It updates things for you. It helps with copy right protection and piracy. It helps stop cheaters a little.



it has COUNTLES benifits and very few cons. You are liveing in the past just like Chris_D said.