Half-Life 2 Preload Begins

[Sniper-Wolf]

well another advantage to buying off steam is that ur key for hl2 is locked into ur account incase you loose cd or cd key your screwed and buying off steam you dont have to worry bout that, and it will be released the 1st or they wouldnt preload tonight

[azz0r]

ma_cherie wrote..

u should wait til u get the box and disc... the cd-key that comes with can be input into steam if u wanna do it that way. sooner or later everyone will have it. but its the same damn game whether you get it a day or two after steam unlocks. either way you'll still be able to play.

Im highly inpatient and if I can get it through steam 2 days earlier then I will

[Sniper-Wolf]

i just checked eb and now it says 11/1/04 hmmmmmmmmmmmm not cool

[DarkLightning]

Sniper-Wolf wrote..

well another advantage to buying off steam is that ur key for hl2 is locked into ur account incase you loose cd or cd key your screwed and buying off steam you dont have to worry bout that, and it will be released the 1st or they wouldnt preload tonight

if you buy it in store and then enter the cd key it will still be locked in your account...

[entRo]

azz0r wrote..

a) Not everyone is going to buy it through Steam - so all your doing is wasting bandwith on people like me who just preload for the sake of it, who will then have there copy arrive from gameplay.com on the day of release (unless they release it earlier ;o)

So they're wasting bandwidth because idiots do stupid things. Idiots will always do stupid things.

b) It allows for hackers to open the GFC and probably get something working (no doubt with the old leak you could magic something up with the new files theyre sending out).

All that was in the preload was textures basically. There was a thread on the Steam forums showing everything that came in this preload batch. You don't have to be a hacker to open these things, but they don't give anything away.



I saw on the halflife2.net forums that all the textures looked like "All work and no play makes Gabe a dull boy". They had a picture of it.

Sniper-Wolf wrote..

i just checked eb and now it says 11/1/04 hmmmmmmmmmmmm not cool

How often is EBGames right? And yea, it's probably a guesstimate.

[ALT+F4]

Reasons not to buy or pre-load through Steam?



1. You get no CD from which to reinstall, for whatever reason.

2. You get no printed manual or other such "goodies."

3. You HAVE to have an internet connection to install and play (until offlline mode requirements are met). Such arrogance and conceit are usually reserved for Microsoft. But most importantly:

4. Steam servers STILL can't handle the demand for new releases and probably never will.



Like CZ, I'd rather buy the boxed version -- something physical I can actually see, hold and own -- THEN convert it for Steam usage.



In other news, wasn't the Internet supposed to crash today?

[I2o[G]uE TacT-X]

ma_cherie wrote..

im sure the release dates on those sites are guesstimates. i highly doubt valve will give a SOLID release date until it is finished.

Errrr... no. Remember the Sept. 30th release date? Yah, they were no where near finished when they gave that release date out.

[Dr Delinquent]

ALT+F4 wrote..

3. You HAVE to have an internet connection to install and play (until offlline mode requirements are met). Such arrogance and conceit are usually reserved for Microsoft. But most importantly:

It's great to accuse VALVe of being arrogant and conceited, but nobody's forcing you to buy it over Steam. Oh yeah—Steam has an offline mode. It works just fine.

4. Steam servers STILL can't handle the demand for new releases and probably never will.

I disagree. I doubt they're designed to ensure that everyone who tries to preload HL2 the minute it's released doesn't get a "busy" message.



Preload is a great way to avoid congestion. I've preloaded everything that's available so far, and did so at about 200KBps start to finish, about half an hour after the preload started. The best part is, when the game is released, there won't be any network congestion—everyone will already have the game on their hard drives.

[file13]

f00kie wrote..

I'll follow with the short, pointless comments.



Wow.

The letter a

[Mr. T]

ALT+F4 wrote..

Like CZ, I'd rather buy the boxed version -- something physical I can actually see, hold and own -- THEN convert it for Steam usage.



In other news, wasn't the Internet supposed to crash today?

My thoughts exactly.

[Technical-Joss]

Maybe the e-terrorists are HL2 fans too?



also: wow cool

[ALT+F4]

Dr Delinquent wrote:



"It's great to accuse VALVe of being arrogant and conceited, but nobody's forcing you to buy it over Steam. Oh yeah—Steam has an offline mode. It works just fine."



Yeah, as I said, it works offline once you've already been online and enabled it.



"Preload is a great way to avoid congestion. I've preloaded everything that's available so far, and did so at about 200KBps start to finish, about half an hour after the preload started. The best part is, when the game is released, there won't be any network congestion—everyone will already have the game on their hard drives."



No. preload is a great way to defer congestion -- from then until now. Even as we speak people are being told the servers are too busy to preload and to try again later. You're daft if you think preload is going to lessen congestion on release in any perceivable way.



Don't get me wrong, while I won't exactly say that I like Steam I do use it and I can see where it's effective and where it's not. On or offline, though, it still takes too damned long to load, first itself, then the games.



Wait, what's that? It's not a perfect world? D'oh!

[Matrixi]

Hmm? Groovy, but how about ATi vouchers?

[acc_int]

say And that equals to preloading too.

Mine is preloading...

[Mad Dog McKill]

Dr Delinquent wrote..

I disagree. I doubt they're designed to ensure that everyone who tries to preload HL2 the minute it's released doesn't get a "busy" message.



Preload is a great way to avoid congestion. I've preloaded everything that's available so far, and did so at about 200KBps start to finish, about half an hour after the preload started. The best part is, when the game is released, there won't be any network congestion—everyone will already have the game on their hard drives.

I don't know about you but I am currently getting "Could not connect to Steam network. This could be due to a problem with your internet connection, or with the Steam network. Please visit www.steampowered.com for more info." message whenver I try to log in into my staem account..



Now who was saying that steam servers can handle the traffic? yeah, right..



btw I have no problems with internet connection and I am sure about that...