Valve Forced to Upgrade Steam (Gamespot Article)

[Netherscourge]

Valve builds up Steam (courtesy of Gamespot)


Half-Life 2 developer partnering with Limelight Networks to upgrade its online delivery service.

Just a few days after Cyber X Games organizers blamed Steam problems for scuttling its Counter-Strike tournament, Valve has announced it upgrading its online delivery service. Helping out the Half-Life 2 developer is Limelight Networks, a Tempe, Arizona-based digital network provider.

According to a joint release from the company, Limelight will host Valve's Steam platform servers and help distribute its online content via its digital network. Currently, Limelight provides digital content delivery service to BuyMusic.com, Musicmatch, Real Networks, and--of all things--Jimmy Buffett's Radio Margaritaville. "We selected Limelight Networks as one of our first hosting partners because they have a proven ability to deliver heavy media files quickly, inexpensively and with guaranteed reliability," said Valve founder Gabe Newell.

Though Valve did not reveal when Limelight would begin hosting Steam, it's a safe bet it will be soon. "With our current games generating more Internet usage each month than Italy's total online traffic, we know we have demanding customers. As we approach the [April] release of Half-Life 2, we are anticipating increased usage," said Newell.

Will this push back the release date for HL2 even more?

 

[PvtRyan]

Why did you add the "[April]"?
I don't think this will push HL2 back further, it means that they are taking heavy measures to make the coming launch succesful.

 

[Netherscourge]

Why did you add the "[April]"?
I don't think this will push HL2 back further, it means that they are taking heavy measures to make the coming launch succesful.

I didn't add [April], it's in the original Gamespot Article. I never change or edit direct quotes.

 

[Maxi]

No, i think this will bring it closer... i think they saw from the cs release that they wouldn't be able to handle the HL2 release... so they decided to hire someone to run their servers. And why hire then when you don't need them yet? I really think HL2 is about 2-3 months away.

 

[Netherscourge]

No, i think this will bring it closer... i think they saw from the cs release that they wouldn't be able to handle the HL2 release... so they decided to hire someone to run their servers. And why hire then when you don't need them yet? I really think HL2 is about 2-3 months away.

I hope your right. I know Limelight is supposedly just a Host, which is nothing requiring major Steam changes. I'm just more concerned about Steam itself being ready. Valve seems pretty adamant on having Steam ready for the HL2 release, even if it means delaying HL2 until Steam is proven worthy to handle the hundreds of thousands of people who will no doubt be clogging up the servers when HL2 is finally released.

I personally don't care about Steam or multiplayer HL2 right now. I'd say most people just want to play the single player game righ off the bat. I hope Valve understands that. I know multiplayer online gaming is the big thing today, but I could certainly wait a few weeks or months AFTER single player HL2 until Multiplayer HL2 is ready. I doubt I'll even play the game online that much unless they have some really great game modes other then the usual deathmatch stuff.


BTW - here is a direct link to the Gamespot Article:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/news_6086459.html

 

[PvtRyan]

I didn't add [April], it's in the original Gamespot Article. I never change or edit direct quotes.

Odd, I've read the Yahoo article and it isn't in there. Was it just Gamespot's speculation, or to make things clear to the reader about what approaching the release means?

 

[Ricebowl]

I agree with Netherscourge. I'm a big fan of CS and multiplayer online gaming. But what's drawing me to HL2 is singleplayer, not multiplayer. But then again, I'm probably going to go out and buy this thing from a retail store, rather than depend on Steam. It is no doubt that Steam will go down during the HL2 distribution no matter who Valve partners up with for Steam.

 

[Netherscourge]

Odd, I've read the Yahoo article and it isn't in there. Was it just Gamespot's speculation, or to make things clear to the reader about what approaching the release means?

Well, when you put [ ] around text in a quote, it means that particular word is IMPLIED, but was not actually spoken by the person being quoted. And Vivendi said April 2004 so that's probably what Gamespot is going on.

 

[mrchimp]

All there doing is *adding new* content servers It's not a major system change, this is more an indication that HL2 is nearing release. I don't think some new servers will require major changes to steam.

 

[Mountain Man]

I wonder what the chances are that Half-Life 2 was delayed simply because Steam wasn't ready?

 

[Netherscourge]

I wonder what the chances are that Half-Life 2 was delayed simply because Steam wasn't ready?

Probably 100% chance that even if the source code and beta were not stolen that HL2 would have been delayed anyway becuase of steam.

 

[sharp]

I wonder what the chances are that Half-Life 2 was delayed simply because Steam wasn't ready?

Maybe, Some things I know for sure: they didn't 'finished' the credit card system in Steam and I think current steam (back in september) wasn't ready at all for some major HL2 releases. Even at this time Steam still has some major problems and alot of bugs. I hope Steam will be ready in April.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

Even at this time Steam still has some major problems and alot of bugs. I hope Steam will be ready in April.

Are you serious? My god, Steam is almost flawless from many people I hear, and from my own mouth too. Its a lot better than it was 3 or 4 months ago. Its because of the weekly updates I tell you

 

[pk1209]

SLightly off-topic but here goes: does anyone know what format the half life 2 download from steam will be. ie, will it just be the game files, or will it be a cd image file that you can burn to disc. I'm guessing the first, cos if the use an image file they can't use any cd copy protection. So if i do download from steam, and it is just game files, what happens if i want to reinstall (after a full reformat for example). Thanks, and sorry if this has been tackled....

edit: oh and my thoughts on the content servers for steam. Steam is good for me at the minute, although i don't like knowing i cant fire up and play counterstrike when steam is down, i should be able to do it anyway. But as for half life 2, is it not possible valve have some pre arranged contracts for serving content, but will only become active when hl2 is released...

 

[sharp]

Are you serious? My god, Steam is almost flawless from many people I hear, and from my own mouth too. Its a lot better than it was 3 or 4 months ago. Its because of the weekly updates I tell you

Weekly updates because they still find bugs

I hope steam is ready in March/April before the suspected Hl2 release :thumbs:

 

[Spiffae]

SLightly off-topic but here goes: does anyone know what format the half life 2 download from steam will be. ie, will it just be the game files, or will it be a cd image file that you can burn to disc. I'm guessing the first, cos if the use an image file they can't use any cd copy protection. So if i do download from steam, and it is just game files, what happens if i want to reinstall (after a full reformat for example). Thanks, and sorry if this has been tackled....

edit: oh and my thoughts on the content servers for steam. Steam is good for me at the minute, although i don't like knowing i cant fire up and play counterstrike when steam is down, i should be able to do it anyway. But as for half life 2, is it not possible valve have some pre arranged contracts for serving content, but will only become active when hl2 is released...

I think it's a bit more complicated than either files or CD images. Steam's distributed file system lets a file be accessed even while it's downloading, so it's probably some proprietary technology that Valve has developed.

Also, Steam will check your files and authenticate every time you connect to their Authenticating servers (to be hosted by Limelight) to make sure you have the files your Steam account says you should have. (i.e. it won't let you play HL2 if you haven't purchased it and recorded that purchase in steam.)

 

[Wilco]

Steam is good for me at the minute, although i don't like knowing i cant fire up and play counterstrike when steam is down, i should be able to do it anyway.

Its exactly the same as it was before, just replace "Steam" with "WON". People think Steam is a major new change to how HL authentication works, but its basically a WON system with a lot of new stuff added on . you just didnt see WON before, except in the console at the start.


Also I can't think of a single piece of complex software that is completely bug-free. If your trying to build on a buggy platform surely the whole thing will be buggy. Also some of the updates arent bug fixes, some are increased Language support (christmas update) and the latest bug fixes were

* Fixed bug where "no LAN servers on network" message wouldn't appear in server list if no servers responded to LAN ping
* Fixed bug where servers weren't being sorted by ping by default
* Added region to filter info string
* Added installed MODS to game filter dropdown
* Change game filter to display full game name instead of short name

Not exactly major things As u can see, I dont like ppl saying Steam is crap

 

[sharp]

Not exactly major things As u can see, I dont like ppl saying Steam is crap

but I never said it's 'crap'. I only mean steam should be bug free when HL2 is gonna be released and should be safety (credit card system etc. etc.) . we don't like when the steam servers are down when we try hl2 mp right after the release, do we? what happend some days ago

 

[Ahnteis]

Nothing is bug free.

Safety isn't a hard thing to do really. Mozilla, and open source internet browser is plenty safe for ordering things online (something I do frequently -- bless NewEgg's li'l heart). The source leak is more likely to help cheaters then theives.

 

[chu]

Was Steam really necessary?

I have used it before, but most of the time it didn't work.

 

[jet jaguar]

I wonder what the chances are that Half-Life 2 was delayed simply because Steam wasn't ready?

Oh, I'd say that was the single-most important factor in delaying HL2. Valve wouldn't dare release this big a game without the Steam money-making machine ready to sell it through. If they were forced to release HL2 only via retail chains they would lose millions of dollars on lost potential profit. The main impetus driving Steam is the enormous profit that can be realized without those pesky publishers taking a bite.

 

[Epsi]

BTW, I reckon that Valve have had some sort of deal with Limelight for a long while. Anyone remember the Game-Storm content servers from the beta? Really high bandwidth.

Their website indicates (and still does) that they're a company (or division of a company) set up pretty much exclusivly to serve Steam content servers.

The website is www.game-storm.net

Notice the link to Limelight. This deal has been in the works a while methinks.

 

[Ruroni]

This only means HL2 is near. And how lovely is that?

 

[SubKamran]

Also remember that the hardcore fans will be buying the game at the store. And others already pre-ordered it.

 

[Pjotr]

I didn't add [April], it's in the original Gamespot Article. I never change or edit direct quotes.

The press release published did not contain [April], this must have been added by Gamespot on pure speculation. (Or they know something they are not telling) Either way, that was ugly!

 

[HybridM]

Just a couple of days ago I thought I'd try Steam.

I installed it and my initial impressions were "This isn't so bad".....but then I started to actually use it.

It stole all my bandwidth all the time, regardless of whether I had "don't automatically update this game" on or not...first strike.

Opposing force did not work and I had to terminate the process every time.


I couldn't play any games because Steam wouldn't stop updating them.

I couldn't play single player half-life without being connected to the Internet.

A day later I uninstalled Steam and all Half-Life related data.

 

[Shuzer]

Just a couple of days ago I thought I'd try Steam.

I installed it and my initial impressions were "This isn't so bad".....but then I started to actually use it.

It stole all my bandwidth all the time, regardless of whether I had "don't automatically update this game" on or not...first strike.

Opposing force did not work and I had to terminate the process every time.


I couldn't play any games because Steam wouldn't stop updating them.

I couldn't play single player half-life without being connected to the Internet.

A day later I uninstalled Steam and all Half-Life related data.

The initial log-in in Steam is hefty. If you have all game subscriptions switched on, it will DL all the games. Such is why your bandwith was being eaten up. The "Do not automatically update this game" setting only works if you have it set ahead of time, not while it's DLing.

Opposing Force is still buggy on Steam, aren't VALVe and Gearbox having problems?

How do you hope to play games that are still updating, exactly?

Off-line play is coming to Steam.

 

[HybridM]

How do you hope to play games that are still updating, exactly?

That's not what I meant, I meant I couldn't play games that had updated because I had no bandwidth.

 

[HybridM]

And yes, of course I tried resatarting steam after I turned off auto-updating, Half-Life and Counter-Strike kept updating regardless; The rest stopped.

 

[Magriep]

I think they already have the new servers up, b/c when you look at the status page, they now have more stats, and two line charts: one for bandwidth, and one for # of players on Steam.

 

[Shuzer]

And yes, of course I tried resatarting steam after I turned off auto-updating, Half-Life and Counter-Strike kept updating regardless; The rest stopped.

Ah, kay, I know that feature is buggy anyhow..

Anyway, Steam is ALOT better than it was at first.. it's slowly improving

 

[mrchimp]

It better not still be buggy when i have to start useing it. When i install HL2 I don't want to even see it untill I'v finnished SP.

 

[Venmoch]

Personally I think Steam was the best thing to happen to Half-Life.

The potential it unlocks is massive. (Mods can now update their mods through Steam to fix really nasty issues and balance quickly.)

However the release of Natural Selection 3.0 may just become Steams "Killer App" and show off what it really can do.

If anything, Steam allows me to download mods much faster than using a conventional ftp.

And wasn't there the initial idea where Steam would only download what was needed before downloading anything else. Almost like a seemless playing experience?

 

[Pitbul]

In Tempe Arizona? cool i live in the another part of the same City as Tempe.

 

[Netherscourge]

Is anyone here going to trust Steam with their Credit Card Number? I sure as hell won't. Especially after some hacker just took the whole game and source code tree right off Valve's own servers.

 

[RotorHead]

check's in the mail................ :E :rolling: :cheers: