Retail CD, do I need to be online?

[gundersausage]

How do I play without being online and how do I play without the CD in?

 

[Vinnie_NL]

I have it retail but I couldn't play without the cd yesterday because Steam was too busy to process my serial registration. And when I looked at properties of HL2 in Steam offline play wasn't available either. But when I was playing last night I get a Steam popup that my HL2 was finaly validated and now all works fine to me.

 

[gundersausage]

I have it retail but I couldn't play without the cd yesterday because Steam was too busy to process my serial registration. And when I looked at properties of HL2 in Steam offline play wasn't available either. But when I was playing last night I get a Steam popup that my HL2 was finaly validated and now all works fine to me.

So you can play offline without the CD in now?

 

[Tkmaster]

you will still need the cd in the drive

 

[Sinnsykt]

once you've authenticated it online you can start steam when your not connected to the internet, that will get you in offline mode.