Half-Life 2 (PC)

[Chadruharazzeb]

It's still a moronic way of going about things. Now I've got to get a net connection set up on my games PC as well as my server - two things I wanted keeping entirely seperate - and I'm forced into opening a steam account, which I don't really want either.

Far from deterring or preventing piracy, this stoopid idea is going to have the opposite effect.

[DjSatansfury]

Well it's not fair to blame Valve. There isn't anything they can do about DoD: Source retail wise in bundling it with Half-Life 2, although I admit the physical extras aren't all that. But look at it like this, with shipping and VAT it cost me ?73 for gold and I don't get physical discs.

You can pick up a collector's edition with discs, manuals and some extras, not to mention a large box for ?50.

Seems a bit steep though, ?73 without any physical discs O_o

[Concept]

From an ethical point of view, I'm all for Steam.

It means developers have more creative freedom to provide games direct to their target audience. Cutting out the publishing and retail middle men who make most of the profit from sales seems like a great idea.

I can understand the hindrance with Steam, but all you have to do is Validate Half-Life 2 once online, and never have to run Steam on the net again. Just use the offline mode.

[evilmatt]

How much info do you actually need to input when opening a Steam account? And is 'offline mode' actually completely switched off and not running processes in the background, or a dodgy 'disabled' mode that still eats resources? I honestly trust Valve's security about as much as IE so...

[Concept]

Seems a bit steep though, ?73 without any physical discs O_o

With 12 Games automatically though... Including Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, Opposing Force and Condition Zero amongst others.

Then I've got Half-Life 2, Half-Life: Source, Counterstrike: Source, DoD: Source to come. Plus 3 posters, a full strategy guide, soundtrack, hat, collector's box, postcard etc.

All that for ?73 doesn't seem that bad...

And I can easily burn my Steam cache files onto CD. Not only that, if my computer fails on me then I only have to re-download everything again. So it's not like I lose anything.

Personally, I think in consideration of everything it isn't a bad deal.

[Concept]

How much info do you actually need to input when opening a Steam account? And is 'offline mode' actually completely switched off and not running processes in the background, or a dodgy 'disabled' mode that still eats resources? I honestly trust Valve's security about as much as IE so...

You don't have to enter any credit card details when you open a Steam account. The only information you need is the usual kind of stuff you have to enter when registering an email account.

Steam uses roughly around 32MB I think - It's still active in offline mode to run Half-Life 2 on top of.

Just think of it as a television for Valve's channels.

[evilmatt]

Right, ok. One last question - does it run as a service on startup, or as an application? I mean, I'm only interested in HL2 rather than all the other stuff with it, so can I just start up Steam when I want to play HL2 then close it down (completely!) when I want to play something else, or am I going to have to piss about with services.msc and killing processes in Task Manager?

And the tv analogy - I'm still feeling its more like Valve's TV license thats there even when I want to watch other channels tbh

[Concept]

The promising thing with Steam is that hopefully it will be the beginnings of a unified content system for developers... So when eventually videogaming consumerism on the net begins to challenge retail, more developers will sign up, gain more profits, and therefore have more chance to creatively challenge various concepts.

That's the hope for me anyway. I see no harm in trying to cut out the publishers and retailers who take most of the profit, and try to define genre and content along the way in terms of what they think most appeals to an audience.

Steam could offer more personalised and imaginative game experiences if the content delivery system is adopted enmass by other developers. Although this would mean it would have to eventually become a collaborative and open source project if a publisher dynamic was to be avoided. For example, I wouldn't like to see Valve charge other developers publisher royalty-type fees for using their system. Neither would I like to see a fragmented eventuality where all types of developers each have their own 'service'. That'd be a nightmare.

In the future it needs to be unified to be a success for the industry. At least in my view.

In answer to your question, then yes, you can choose when Steam starts and doesn't like any other ordinary application. In fact, you don't even have to properly enter it.

Just click on the Half-Life 2 icon (or access it in the Start menu) and Steam will start automatically then to run the game, just as if you were running it by itself.

This is what I do with CS: Source.

[evilmatt]

Great, thanks Concept

[Concept]

No problem.

Just to properly illustrate what I'm trying to say, Penny arcade created a comic and an interesting editorial about the implications for Steam and why it's got publishers like VUG all het up.



Editorial:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2004-09-29

You've probably heard of the legal issues between Vivendi Universal and Valve, and if your experience was anything like mine, everything but the portion dealing with a possible delay of the release appeared as indecipherable dog language. This is the kind of he said/she said dirty laundry bull**** that I find extremely tiresome. At any rate, this is what it boils down to, tactically: Vivendi Universal is absolutely welcome to delay the release out of spite or whimsy or whatever else. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong. Vivendi wouldn't be the first aggressive, overbearing publisher and Valve wouldn't be the first artist willing to bilk their patron: I don't care, and it's not relevant to the matter at hand. Immediate access to the new Counter-Strike is an extremely powerful incentive to try Steam. Every moment the release is held back, you have to picture one more person thinking, well, you know... I would prefer to buy at retail, but I could be playing Counter-Strike: Source right now...

Digital delivery, man. It just freaks these people out.

Imagine that you had to go to a well every time you wanted water. Then, somebody figured out a way to get the water to come out right inside your house! I don't blame them for being scared. Progress is a bitch.

[DjSatansfury]

Some fairly decent points in your recent posts Concept. I'm inclined to agree with them

[Zapp$ter]

Chad, the collector's edition is clearly coming to the UK. Vivendi confirmed this in their gold press release, and I would have thought you'd have visited the most immediately obvious place by now.

http://shop.game.net/ViewProduct.aspx?cat=11142&mid=325016

Come on guys, a quick search at the UK's biggest gaming store is surely not that difficult.

In my defence when I checked GAME's website they didn't have anything regarding the collector's edition up

It must have been put up recently, because I've been checking everyday since the HL2 packages were announced(well that's my excuse anyway )

[nips]

I was always in favour of steam. It's good and for online play it sounds good getting everything runing through one service, it makes controlling cheating and stuff easier I believe. The problem is that I've still got to go to the 'Penny Arcade Well' becuase the local government won't bring plumbing into my house. So when I talk to all these people who can drink freely it damn well pisses me off.

I'm not annoyed at Valve, I can't blame them, it's good that they are offering choice which I think is great, but when I simply cannot make that choice becuase of outside factors and if it means I'm missing out on more than just water, then I get REALLY pissed off.

I want HL:S and HL2, it's good that they can offer choice, but the choice to get a double pack with them both would be great.

I dunno. I've checked the BT website and I'm not getting BB until 12th Feb '05 so I just know I'm totally left behind. When things like this come along and I can't participate, it really annooys me because it's not my fault and I'm missing out.

Now I can't play CS:Source and I am going to have to get the ?50 retail version.

I ****ing hate the well.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Get it bought now, Zappa$ta! Even I have placed an order

Nips, at least you'll get a nice box.

[Len]

And I've said this elsewhere, I'm actually glad Half-Life 2 as a self-contained title is resolutely single-player. I'm not an online gamer, and I'm happy the offline aspects have been the main focus during the game's development. That's something which has turned me partially away from Halo 2 - The fact that without it's multiplayer component, it arguably becomes a less substantial game. .

Hmm I'm not convinced tbh. One of the reasons HL2 isn't gonna ship with a Valve made mp component is because they know they can rely on the mod community to sort that out which is fair enuff. And I agree that's great 'cos it lets Valve concentrate soley on the sp but any other less well known brand would be shipping with a mp component based on the game.

The online part of the orginal was utterly amazing, imo, when it first came out, it was all Q2 before that but HL mp changed everthing. Like others have said, I also lost countless hours to the dm, tdm and tfc to mention a few. Really drew me into how amazing mp stuff could be (I'd played a bit of Q2 online before that and I'm not denigrating the game as it was great but this was something different, something special). You really should give it a go 'cos I feel your missing out there. I'm sure we can remedy that with HL2 though, whatever mp mod turns up.

And as for Halo 2, ok I know the big hype is for the mp aspect but tbh I'm desperate to play the sp and they purposefully haven't mentioned anything regards the sp. I really can't wait to see what happens next as it were. Even if it was shipping without the mp component (never gonna happen I know) I'd be gagging to play it. So I just think it's slightly unfair to say that without the mp it would become a less substantial game.

Anyway whatever, horses for courses and all that. It's all gonna work out fine in the end, that I know...lol!