Preloading and buying the 'CD version' ...

[shadow stalker]

When Half-Life 2 becomes avalible through steam to preload, will anyone be able to download it, without 'buying' it through steam? Because im buying it at gameplay.co.uk and it would be great if i could preload the game, then when my copy arrives, i can just put in my CD key and play it strate away. Will this be possible? Thanks in advance for any answears.

 

[dillingerx]

When Half-Life 2 becomes avalible through steam to preload, will anyone be able to download it, without 'buying' it through steam? Because im buying it at gameplay.co.uk and it would be great if i could preload the game, then when my copy arrives, i can just put in my CD key and play it strate away. Will this be possible? Thanks in advance for any answears.

:stare:

think about that for a second. do u think that sounds ok?

 

[Hobosphere]

Only people with ATI vouchers will be able to preload tomorrow. If they choose to allow the buying tomorrow as well, then anyone can preload it...who buys it.

For Condition-Zero they initially forced the pre-load onto ever single steam users computer. They won't make that mistake again.

 

[Feath]

It wasn't forced. It was just that it was set to automatically start to preload, instead of you selecting it to preload.

 

[Alec_85]

Only people with ATI vouchers will be able to preload tomorrow. If they choose to allow the buying tomorrow as well, then anyone can preload it...who buys it.

I never heard that. It seems reasonable though. ;( I was hoping I could pre-load it too & then buy the game in-store & just input the cd-key & skip the installation.

 

[Epsi]

I think they'll probably go the middle way. The preload will be avaliable to all, but won't start by default.

 

[Feath]

I never heard that. It seems reasonable though. ;( I was hoping I could pre-load it too & then buy the game in-store & just input the cd-key & skip the installation.

I'm not totally convinced it's true, we'll have to see. It would really save on the bandwidth.

 

[Mr Neutron]

What i'm wondering is if you have to buy it to download. Makes sense for saving bandwidth, but sounds to me like it would violate the contract with Vivendi (i'm guessing here). Remember, Valve is in a competition with Viviendi to sell more copies over Steam instead of in stores. They'll make more $ that way.

 

[Alec_85]

I'm not sure I agree with the whole "save bandwidth" business. Sure, the use of bandwidth will be less if they pre-load it but then again, it'll get used up while the pre-load is in progress. I don't see the difference except hogging down the content servers. The bandwidth would get used up either way.

 

[Wilco]

Actually I think he will be able to.

You could pre-load CZ without paying for it (actually everybody did unless you specificially stopped it) so I don't see why HL2 will be different. I highly doubt it will be just ATi voucher holders. The CD and Steam versions won't be any different, once you put a CD key in you can still download the game over steam to any computer. I didnt actually try it with CZ, but putting in the CD key will activate the game, Steam will realise it has a copy in its cache and will allow you to play.

As for the saving bandwidth, they've got plenty of time to allow people to preload. I mean it'lll almost certainly be a month before its out. CZ was forced and was only 2 weeks for preloading.

 

[Alec_85]

True but the forced CZ pre-load was a mistake. I believe they have said that it won't happen again.

 

[Mr Neutron]

I'm not so sure it will be 4 weeks time. It just might be 2.5-3. I don't think it makes a difference bandwidth-wise. If it take me over a few days to download it on Steam, I'm going to give up on that and so will everyone else. The problem is that everyone pushes the system until they find it too frustrating because of the slowdown, then they likely give-up, thus freeing up the system. Networks fail not when people get their data slowly but when so much demand is placed upon the network that people get no response from it whatsoever. All they can do then is bang on the door repeatedly and thereby agravate the problem. The real test of Steam is how large a queue of users it can handle, not how many of them it can satisfy their maximum throughput. It's better to trickle it to everyone rather than have some people in and some people out.

 

[czrsink]

Why not just wait for a few days to get the pre-load. There'll be an initial mad-rush, then within 2-3 days, it'll become a lot easier to pre-load it. If the game isn't going to be 'unlocked' for another 3-4 weeks, why the heck should people need to rush out and do the preload?

To see if they can find out something that might tell them more about the game? Spoliers? What's the point? They might as well just wait until it's ready for official release.