VALVe losing gamers?

[uncle-argyle]

Hmmm

Originally posted by Joneleth
Steam will not be "ditched." Steam's code will be changed until it is once again secure.

Well thats just great but assuming it's secure I still would like the old interface revised when HL2 comes out.

And One other thing? Are we gonna be charged to play HL2's mods with steam? Someone get me a link! I still cant believe that they would charge us.

 

[FYM]

Yes they are alienating people

 

[hl-er]

This is one of the reasons why I'm complaining about Steam, most likely online players will have to pay monthly in order to play online.
Steam (through DRM) will control your PC and what kind of software you use, DRM is evil, and so is Steam that uses it.

 

[inevident]

Steam has DRM? That is pure evil. Then again I don't like games that require separate software to operate online :\ is Steam considered separate?

 

[Shuzer]

Originally posted by hl-er
This is one of the reasons why I'm complaining about Steam, most likely online players will have to pay monthly in order to play online.

Wrong. I hope you've read up on the whole P2P thing, it's ridiculous. There will be the package options, and that's it. How could VALVe get by by making people pay to play servers hosted by the community? They'd lose ALOT of customers that way.

 

[mray]

VALVe hasnt lost a customer here

 

[Styloid]

the customers that valve will lose are the ones that can't read.

 

[enthused]

"Lost a customer"

You're saying you will never again buy a Valve product because of this, gimme a break.

Be patient, shit, and don't tell me that you've waited any longer than all of us.

 

[quaint]

even if you are a coder..how can u tell its 100%?

 

[Saltpeter]

Just because you have promised yourself not to buy any games from Valve anymore doesn't mean there are more with the same narrowminded opinion. Also I doubt the integrity of your opinion, because when the game is out 10 to 1 you'll buy it.

 

[Mcn@sty]

No one can resist the power of the crowbar !!

 

[Gorgon]

Look man, I have downloaded the beasta version and it roks. Moreover The beta will not hesitate me from buying the final version that valve will release on Apr04. Means Valve did not lose me as a customer but it did lose me as a believer.

 

[UltimateNinja]

Im not up to date on the whole Steam Spyware thing, but i wonder if valve can use it to tell if you have the Hl2 beta?

 

[Nightmare]

Whats DRM and why is it so evil??

 

[ASnogarD]

Re Steam and payments - correct me if I am wrong here but Steam is free and you can play mods if you have the correct CD Key. You will pay if you wish to have a game(Half-Life 2) delivered to you via Steam or you can buy the game on CD, then Steam will auto update and act as a server finder ect ect.

Re Half-Life 2 source and 'beta' - I personally have no problems if you have downloaded the 'beta' and played a bit of HL2, it is hard to resist having a peek. I do have a problem with this hacker though.

Stealing the code is taking money from a mans wallet, equal to me rummaging through your house and stealing valuable items to sell. I do not concern myself whether or not Valve is decieving customers or not, that is a decision based on factors I as a gamer will not be aware of, but there is no escuse for what the hacker has done, no justification.

If I sound like I am preaching and attempting to inplant my moral standards on you, I can only say what type of morals do you have if you condone stealing a mans salary packet - stealing the code equates to that.

I have read that this act was done in belief that source code should be open source - bull...it takes money and resources , energy and time to create code of the magnitude of the source stolen and there must be a return for all this investment. The source stolen was the product of a salary earning person, paid to use his/her talents to create the source...it is also an investment by the company.

I have also read that it was done to 'punish' Valve for decieving customers (delay and release date) - again bull, I have no doubt there were factors involved that have made it impossible for Valve to disclose information...prehaps a contract with Sierra/VUE ? Prehaps there was a last minite fatal flaw discovered that took more time to ammend than was previously imagined?

Final note : Time and time again I have heard gamers complain that the game was full of bugs and that it should not of been released in that condition, yet on the other hand I have heard equal amounts of complaints regarding a game that was not released fast enough, bugs or not it could be patched on the fly. I personally feel a game should never be rushed, even if it means overshooting your target release date...even if hordes of fans are pushing for a release.

Sorry it was so long and thanks for reading my post.

 

[nimh]

yep, stealing and hacking is bad mmkay.
but dloading pron and mp3s and games is fine.

i think most people that dload the beta will actually buy the game.
i now i will, i wont dload the beta not because of any moral bullsh-t but because i want the best damn experience.
(like im staying away from ROTK trailers this time)
ive dloaded alot of games but ive bought the ones i really like, half life , diablo, tie fighter , grim fandango, etc

movies is the same, do you think i want to watch rotk in divx cam smr ? or proper cinematic experience?
and im sure im not alone.

 

[crabcakes66]

im sorry...but the "beta" is not equivalent to 5 years of work by the 30(?) people that are working on hl2........

 

[hl-er]

I didn't download the beta, and I'm not planning to, I only downloaded the source code, my point is: valve team knew they wouldn't be able to release the game this month before the hacking occured, the source code shows this, it's all what valve had when the hacking occured, I know it's not complete, it's because valve team didn't finish programming the game at that time, got the point?
I'm not complaining because the game wasn't released, I'm complaining because valve said they'd release the game this month, and they knew they wouldn't be able to.
You may say that the hacker got an old version of the code or something, I doubt it, they way source code is usually stored in big projects like HL2 makes it quite easy to get the latest version when:
1. the hacker had a key logger installed, so he was able to get all kinds of passwords.
2. the hacker had a remote admin tool installed, so he could do whatever Gabe could on his own computer.
The models/textures/maps/etc case is another thing though, maybe the hacker was only able to get e3 models, actually I don't know how game media is usually stored.

 

[MadMechwarrior]

Originally posted by hl-er
You got my point, and the source code date is 9/19 it's not old or anything, it's what they had when the theft occured.
Those who are coders know what I'm talking about, source code for big projects isn't usually stored on every coder's computer, it's stored on a main server, coders download files from the server, modify it, and then upload it back.
And for those who still don't believe that the source is real, some people got it to compile and got exe files, those exes didn't run though because they didn't find the media files.
I couldn't compile the code because I don't have the program VALVe use to code.

First of all I doubt your a coder if you cant get Visual Source Safe to work disconnected. Second of all nothing says it is from the actual VSS server, it could be code lying around Gabe's comp. Third of all the E3 video cant be a fake because it was running real-time off a P4 2.6Ghz with an radeon 9800 and tomshardware and other sites have benchmarked the game. If your stupid enough to believe the E3 demo was fake your an idiot. Another factor that supports that part of the source code cant be the full source is the fact you cant compile it because of a huge number of missing include files. People like you who think valve would lie about a game they plan to put on the market and get vivendi and ATI in on it too so the lie is perfect should be put in jail for general ignorance of how the world works.

 

[hl-er]

Originally posted by MadMechwarrior
First of all I doubt your a coder if you cant get Visual Source Safe to work disconnected. Second of all nothing says it is from the actual VSS server, it could be code lying around Gabe's comp. Third of all the E3 video cant be a fake because it was running real-time off a P4 2.6Ghz with an radeon 9800 and tomshardware and other sites have benchmarked the game. If your stupid enough to believe the E3 demo was fake your an idiot. Another factor that supports that part of the source code cant be the full source is the fact you cant compile it because of a huge number of missing include files. People like you who think valve would lie about a game they plan to put on the market and get vivendi and ATI in on it too so the lie is perfect should be put in jail for general ignorance of how the world works.

I'm sorry to say that you CAN compile the source code, you just need MSVC++ and some tools downloaded from MS site, people got it to compile hours after the leak.
As someone already pointed out, the current beta is actually compiled from the leaked source.
And I didn't mention anything about e3 demo being fake, maybe valve didn't make the progress they were supposed to after e3.
Hmm, and what do you mean by the disconnected Source Safe thing?
I think that Gabe's computer in connected to a LAN that contains Source Safe servers, so I don't see anything disconnected here, please explain more.

 

[MadMechwarrior]

When you open a project with source control it will tell you it couldnt find the database because you arent on valves network, so you have to disconnect the project to work offline but this makes the code read-only unless you lock it for editing offline, which is a pain.

 

[zapper]

Why doesn't everyone just shut the **** up and wait until the game is released. Arguing on a message board won't do anything except anger everyone.

 

[destaccado]

if valve started going after people who dl'd the beta I would immediately decide not to buy any valve products ever again...the only person to blame in any of this is the original leaker....99.9% of those who dl the beta will buy hl2 and are not costing valve a penny to play the beta.....valve would have a hard time proving loss of earnings due to people downloading the slight-working beta