Steam to being sending 'the game' to hard drives a week before it ships

[richpull]

I want to address two concerns:

Of course Steam will not automatically send out Halflife 2 cache files without authorization and requests from the end-user. The files apparently are going to be somewhere around the one gigabyte size. Sending a gig of information to someone without them knowing about is almost as deceptive as spyware.
You will have to probobly click a button in steam and fill out some general information to get the pre-cache, on September 30th you will most likely need to pay $49.95 to get a unique Steam Key. This would offer prospective players the flexibility to be able to be sure they can play it on the 30th without delay, if they prefer to buy it in stores and its not available in their area they can just get the key for the download. I dont think i would pay to get a cache file with the promise that I will be recieving a unique key next week. Would anyone else?

Spitcodfry could improved on the methods of promulgation he elected to utilize in respect to his breakthrough findings. Some say he should have overviewed his day at Valve's offices and charted out the chronology of events on paper and thought about all the intricacies of his day before posting them online. This would have removed a lot of the agitation regarding the dissemination of his information. (Wow, im sounding like Jesse Jackson) The bottom line is that spitcodfry could have went to Valve's offices and gained this wealth of knowledge and could have said, "Ya know what, screw everyone, let them wait until it comes out im comfortable with what i know." So the bottom line is that no one in their right mind should have a single qualm with spitcodfry and his momentus findings. Thank you for sharing your day with all of us Spitcodfry

 

[spitcodfry]

Originally posted by richpull
So the bottom line is that no one in their right mind should have a single qualm with spitcodfry and his momentus findings. Thank you for sharing your day with all of us Spitcodfry

Thank you very much

 

[Alphy]

Sooooo next week Tuesday or Wednesday then. Cool.

 

[richpull]

Man, i love it when he quotes me, i feel so.... SEXY

 

[mannyfresh027]

holy shit im sick of these long threads

14 pages is way too much for me

4 is like my max

 

[jemook]

Hey Spitty.. I remember reading that you consider yourself a little insecure (i might be wrong though)

I just want to say, that from reading your posts and seeing your pictures, that I beleive that you have matured heaps from the visit and also you have absolutely nothing to be insecure about.. From what I have seen (and I've seen alot from you - i don't post much but I always read) you are a fine young gentleman and you're going to make some lucky lady very happy one day

Keep going from strength to strength - I am a true admirer..

Your biggest fan..

 

[Goombatommy]

It will be availabe on BOTH Steam AND Retail shelves on 9/30.

 

[spitcodfry]

Originally posted by jemook
Hey Spitty.. I remember reading that you consider yourself a little insecure (i might be wrong though)

I just want to say, that from reading your posts and seeing your pictures, that I beleive that you have matured heaps from the visit and also you have absolutely nothing to be insecure about.. From what I have seen (and I've seen alot from you - i don't post much but I always read) you are a fine young gentleman and you're going to make some lucky lady very happy one day

Keep going from strength to strength - I am a true admirer..

Your biggest fan..

Wow...thank you. It's good to know someone out there thinks I'll be successful in life (and I really mean that).

 

[jemook]

I mean it man, your a champ

 

[Wesisapie]

what the hell? he went to valve studios and now he's a hero?

 

[jemook]

It has nothing to do with the fact that he went to Valve. I was commenting on what a nice young man he is that's all.. And actually yes - to many people on this board that are eagerly awaiting HL2 and will lap up any information given to them - Spitcod is a hero.

He did after all go to Valve on his own accord and took pictures of the inside (never been seen before i dont think) and wrote an intelligable and well written review of what took place.

Now wesisapie, I know you are a big contributor to these forums as well.. If you want hero status, go do something truley worthwhile for us fanboys and try and outrank spitty..

but sorry, you can't steal his limelight.. spitty truley is a hero that walks amongst us..

 

[Wesisapie]

i'm not a big contributor, just a steady contributor. barely post anymore.
i don't want any limelight, i never had any limelight for him to steal either. i mean, i just post on some fansite forums...

 

[Joneleth]

Everyone's fascination with this guy is a bit strange, in my opinion. Sure, he's a nice fella (like a lot of people here), and he can actually spell (which, on the internet is an amazing feat)... But I'm unsure why he's considered a "hero" amoung anyone. He went to Valve (which, I admit is quite awesome), but that's about it... Maybe I'm the one who doesn't "get it", or something.

No offense to you, Spitcodfry, I'm just more or less a bit confused about all the (in my opinion) excess fanfare over this... Maybe it's because I'm just not a huge nerd (and I mean that in a friendly way), so this doesn't seem as cool to me as it does to other people here.

 

[Wesisapie]

that sums up my opinion too Joneleth.

 

[jemook]

jonoleth.. the people here are very excited for half life 2.. in fact i would say that this is the most active forum for a soon to be released game on the internet.

now for a regular joe like you and me to, on his own, go to the company and meet the creator, take pictures and post a great review up is a really big and awesome thing. i'll explain to you why.

notice how many threads there are about useless info - delays etc.. when a new thread pops up that is exciting, original a great read, and actually shows us some new insights.. it is a great thing!

now when thats bought to us by one of OUR members from OUR forums.. its even more awesome..

 

[Mr Neutron]

Spacecrab, you ignorant slut. That post should go under the sticky thread, 'community attitude', but I guess that's too much to ask, now, isn't it? I wouldn't trust you to sit the right way on a toilet seat.

 

[jemook]

HAHAHA mr neutron - no idea what your reffering to but this just made me laugh:

I wouldn't trust you to sit the right way on a toilet seat.

 

[kern802]

Spitcodfry is a hero right now for a lot of reasons. His trip to valve and the hilarious discussion leading up to it brought the community something positive to focus on, after all of the neverending reports of delays and the crushing news that nvidia cards weren't as good as many people thought they were. He had the cojones to take matters into his own hands, create his own luck, and do something that tons of the readers here could only dream of doing.

So what if he's enjoying the spotlight a little, he's human just like the rest of us. (He seems to be handling it pretty well, anyway.)

Way to go Spitcodfry, you made my day with your trip!

 

[PointlesS]

sorry...I understand the whole precache thing...but when the game is activated on the 30th for steam users...will it also be on the shelves on the 30th? I remember valve saying something that said...it'll be released for both the shelves and steam at the same time...or none if they can't deliver both at the same time...but I wonder if they'll stick to their word...actually after thinking about it now I can't really see it being released on steam and then the stores a few days or possibly weeks later...

 

[Berserk]

Originally posted by spitcodfry
I can see thousands of hackers banging their heads upon their computer monitors, leaving blood stains smeared across the screens in frustration of not being able to hack the files

Crackers are unbelievably resourceful when facing challenges that have a result of reaching the gaming Mecca early. I wouldn't doubt some cracker'd have it decrypted in a week or less.

That is, if they tryed hard enough. :afro: <-Gotta love the 'fro.

 

[kurly]

Originally posted by spitcodfry
Yeah you got me. I can't deny it any longer. My sole purpose is to roam the boards looking for someone that will listen to me in life.

Don't give him the steam off your shit, Spit. You're the one who actually has something we want to hear.

 

[RhapSidious]

Originally posted by Berserk
Crackers are unbelievably resourceful when facing challenges that have a result of reaching the gaming Mecca early. I wouldn't doubt some cracker'd have it decrypted in a week or less.

That is, if they tryed hard enough. :afro: <-Gotta love the 'fro.

Well all Valve would have to do is not release critical components until the 30th (ie .exe files.)

Even if they crack the encryption, they'd have to figure out how Source works and code a front end to use all of the textures, maps, sounds, etc that they decrypted.

Preloading early is totally possible and practical. To me it makes all the difference, and makes Steam a viable option for HL2.

 

[kurly]

Originally posted by Joneleth
I'm just not a huge nerd (and I mean that in a friendly way), so this doesn't seem as cool to me as it does to other people here. [/B]

Then why not just SHUT UP? (and I mean that in a friendly way)

 

[Mr Neutron]

Originally posted by RhapSidious
Well all Valve would have to do is not release critical components until the 30th (ie .exe files.)

Even if they crack the encryption, they'd have to figure out how Source works and code a front end to use all of the textures, maps, sounds, etc that they decrypted.

Yes exactly, though "frontend" would be putting it mildly: they'd have to essentially recreate the whole damn thing, program the Source engine HL2 game functions themselves--it would be like reverse engineering something without ever seeing an example or really knowing what the hell it's supposed to do.

 

[GJaaGular]

I'm just gonna wait for the cd crack now...you all are funny though

 

[mallet]

"I went to Valve studios and forget to tell you the only thing of any relevance or interest, but here are some more pictures of fat people and concept art you saw months ago."

YOU'RE MY HERO!!!!

 

[HalfAsleep]

Originally posted by Berserk
Crackers are unbelievably resourceful when facing challenges that have a result of reaching the gaming Mecca early. I wouldn't doubt some cracker'd have it decrypted in a week or less.

That is, if they tryed hard enough. :afro: <-Gotta love the 'fro.

Now I'm not saying I understand everything about the cracker scene, but most of the cracking is done on a game's cd copy protecton and serial number check.

Most of them do this by actually looking at the exe file and dlls disassembling them and read the instructions. Then they crack the exe by "rewiring" where and what the exe looks for when it looks for the protection code. Like an exe saying "get the protection routine, and if all is well then continue" the cracker may then cleverly just find out the continue address and make the exe jump straight there instead. And so on.

My point:

Crackers usually work on unencrypted files/code. Encryption takes a loooooong time to break (I am a programmer working with computer security and encryption) if you don't have any information about the encryption method. So if valve has used a 128 bit encryption scheme, and some hacker/cracker knows the exact scheme valve used and tries to GUESS the key with a super computer trying out a hundred keys every second, the darn thing would take much much much longer than one week to crack.

[Edit]
oh, and for those who dont know, a 128 bit key can have
3,4028236692093846346337460743177e+38 different values.

that is roughly a 3 with 38 zeros.
[/Edit]

HalfAsleep

 

[kolor12]

Originally posted by Epsi
I strongly doubt anybody is going to be able to hack the encryption on HL2. For a start, you don't have a clue what kind of encryption they're using, what kind of key they're using, and you don't even have a clue what the data should look like once it is decrypted. Also, they probably won't send the EXE until the 30th anyways, so it will be a waste of time unless you like looking at textures or mdls...

Also, I reckon they'll start pre-loading to anybody who asks for it, they're not going to dump the whole download onto everyone running Steam without asking.

every time when cracker wants to crack the game, he has no clue about protection and key... but they crack games, so i think hl2 wont be an exclusion

 

[kolor12]

Originally posted by Joneleth
Well, considering as of right now you'll need Steam to verify your version of HL2 to actually play it at all, I could see this being a problem for hackers. It's quite possible for Valve to easily get around stuff like this.

there were SO MANY strong hard protections on many games out for a last years
but every protection was cracked by those famous groups

 

[HalfAsleep]

Originally posted by kolor12
every time when cracker wants to crack the game, he has no clue about protection and key... but they crack games, so i think hl2 wont be an exclusion

I don't think this is entirely correct. Once the cracker milieu has cracked one protection, they can recognise it fairly quickly and crack it again. For instance they often tell what type of protection it was in their release eg SafeDisc or others.

They often have good clues of where to start to look and a very good understanding of assembly code.

HalfAsleep

 

[GJaaGular]

yeah halfasleep thats why no one ever cracks a game...wake up

 

[kolor12]

Originally posted by HalfAsleep
I don't think this is entirely correct. Once the cracker milieu has cracked one protection, they can recognise it fairly quickly and crack it again. For instance they often tell what type of protection it was in their release eg SafeDisc or others.

They often have good clues of where to start to look and a very good understanding of assembly code.

HalfAsleep

yes, they coded some nice tools for cracking securom, safedisc, laserloc and other shit..
but when developers of GTA3 implented new kind of securom protection 2.6, they failed to crack it first, it took them 4 hours to make proper crack of this game

dont think valve is able to make something terrible new highly protected..

 

[Wesisapie]

Halflife1 did fine with pirates, hl2 should do the same, if it's any good.

 

[kolor12]

Yes, you can reuse the cache file or move cache files between computers
..........
.............
Can I burn the Cache file onto a CD once I download it, and then use it
later? Or is there some way I can burn HL2 so that I do not have to
download it again?
..............


some new group can pack those cache files with steam, crack protection, and make pc not connect to steam network but just play hl2

of coz other famous groups will just wait to release retail version

 

[Wolf]

What I really want to know is if the process of pre-downloading and downloading the cache (which is probably not going to include the .exe, but rather textures, sound files, bsp library etc - as these things that are finalised) can be interrupted / resumed based on crash and or user intervension and maintain data-integrity. This is VERY important for me to trust the system rather than wait for retail. Afterall we aren't talking about a measly 500meg...

The stop / resume function is obviously important, but clearly some form of crash protection is also mandatory.. From all the ranting and raving you'd have to conclude that a significant proportion of people have experienced a Steam crash at one point or another - so you'd want to hope that this wouldn't lead to many cases of garbled textures or whatever else from cache corruption...

Some assurance from Valve would be great. Trust is a fagile thing at the best of times, and this is a unpopular 'brave' new medium trying to break the normal software distribution paradigm. Steam needs all the help it can get.

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

originally forseen by the almighty PriNcE oF SpAcEnow imagine this:

as a response to all the annoying e-mails Gabe has gotten thru the last month or two. people purchasing HL2 via steam will get the download when the game goes gold 13-18sep.(or whatever) but the content will be locked untill 30sep. hahaha that would be cruel!

honestly though it might make some sense for them to make pre-downloads like with the videos so that the steam servers won't get brought to their knees on sep.30th. then again...maybe nobody will buy it thru steam.

-02-09-03

haha I and many others already predicted they would make that move...seem logical after all.

 

[Magicpants]

Hmm well Steam was updated again (my client auto-updated) late yesterday but i didn't notice anything pertaining to HL2 or any online purchasing yet... i'll have a closer look...

 

[Goombatommy]

Originally posted by Wolf
This is VERY important for me to trust the system rather than wait for retail.

Wait for retail? Boi, its comin out the same day both on STEAM AND RETAIL SHELVES. Theres no waiting involved on either side. They will both be released on 9/30.

 

[blade 24/7 365]

I'm buying HL2 on amazon.co.uk and not on steam because even if it comes out early or if i can play it at 12:01 on 30/9 i dont trust the internet for downloading something i can buy in the stores and also that is 2GB, what if your computer crashes whilst downloading.

Also i know its off topic but i dont know whether my computer can play HL2, does anybody have any knolage of the specs.

P.S this is my first post on a forum :bounce:

 

[Forum Lamer]

:bounce:

Is that a green bouncing booger??

Well I am getting excited as shit about the game, but worried about my gamestop pre-order... the store dude told me even thought their pre-release date was Nov 19th, if they get the game before that it will automatically be at your house on the release date...

But I am somehow sceptical of that..