I ask because suppossedly once you validate once online you never have to go online to play the game again. Since I am not interested in multiplayer i validated after about 5 hours on launch day and blocked steam with zonealarm. well today i went to play and it would not let me play offline. it said I had to connect to steam that half life was not available to play offline. huh? i was just playing yesterday. so i connect to steam and turn off automatic updating for halflife because i heard the patch messed up some peoples games. well steam ignores that and starts downloading the patch, deathmatch, an lord knows what else. I shutoff steam ,but run enditall and find out it is running in a hidden window and had given itself protected program status! Well since it had started downloading the patch I had to finish downloading it even if I did not want it to even access the game. maybe this should go in a pit thread. three hours later I can now play my game which runs worse with the patch, that there is no way of removing. and i have deathmatch on my computer which i could give a flying f*** about. i checked the zonealarm logs and steam was starting up in a hidden window and checking for updates even though I had checked do not run steam at startup. i guess it noticed the new patch and gave itself permission to download it. since it did not get all the patch it would not let me play the damn game. would this classify as spyware?? :mad:
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- Many people have the problem that they cannot start HL2 unless Steam connects to the internet. I am one of them. Some people say if you leave it for like 10 minutes it eventually does start. I have not, and will not try that–I just send emails saying “offline mode don’t work”. I heartily encourage you and everyone else who paid for a copy to send idiot-question emails to all the addresses at Valve on the matter–swamp them in support emails.
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- …I am hoping that after the first few months, Valve does a major update on Steam to fix what doesn’t work right (like offline mode and needing to decrypt a new install). Most piracy occurs withing the first three months of release, so it could be that they are just trying to make it difficult for a short while. UT2004 for instance required the CD to be inserted during play at first, but the first update patch (a couple months out) removed that requirement. Valve canned 20,000 shared & hacked online accounts a few days ago, something I have not heard of any other game publisher doing with such great publicity involved.
- Whatever they do is going to have a big impact on how internet-required games are perceived from now on. I can perfectly understand them wanting to make the first few months difficult for crackers, but the problem is that if owning the legit paid-for game is almost as much trouble as bothering with a cracked version, then what are customers really paying for?
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If it sends anything back to Steam about your computer then yes, by definition it’s spy ware. I wonder how far it goes to protect itself, like something along the lines of Starforce?
This is exactly why I haven’t purchased, nor plan on purchasing, HL2. I’d have reinstalled a new copy and cracked it. I haven’t even bothered to play it at all even though my system is quite capable.
Heck, even Windows allows you to prevent updating your system. I hope Steam fails in the worst way.
slight hijack…
My steam sometimes makes getting into the game a time-consuming affair. It also tells me every time that my graphics drivers are out of date. I updated them twice in one day and all seemed to go as normal except when I checked the driver version to find that nothing whatsoever had happened.
I have a Geforce 5700 FX Go. Maybe the latest drivers don’t update the mobile gfx card (although I can’t see why not as they are ‘unified’)
well another nice thing i found is to turn off automatic updating you have to go online, by which time it is already downloading the stuff anyway. and yeah mine also takes forever to start up. my unscrouplous friend has the cracked warezed copy and is happily playing with none of the hassle. ain’t that a bitch. and one more thing and i will shut up 
if your copy is playable try turning your date ahead 2 years and try to start it offline now. it will say you need a connection to steam to play. yes this is after activation, etc. this is getting annoying every time i want to play i got worry if the damn game will start.
well seems i am not the only one.
Gee, I feel blessed for once. Unlike so many other users, I’ve had zero problems with Steam. I did download all of Steam and HL2 over the network, though.
I also think the “spyware” comments are a little over-the-top. The options screen allows you to turn off automatic game updates, and to stop Steam from loading at boot. If you’re really determined about it, there’s no reason Steam ever has to be allowed to connect at all, after HL2 is validated.
I sometimes put Steam in “offline mode” this way: disable the internet connection altogether (right-click on the icon and pick “disable”) then start Steam. (I don’t think blocking Steam with a firewall is quite the same.) Steam will show the “connecting account” dialog for a few seconds, then show a new one: “Could not connect to the Steam network,” along with buttons for “Retry connection” and “Start in Offline Mode”. Pick “Start in Offline Mode.”
I’ve had absolutely no problems running HL2 offline in this way. I believe these are Valve’s own instructions for running Steam in off-line mode (can’t check, steampowered.com is down at the moment). Most of the people I’ve seen complaining about offline mode not working haven’t followed those instructions, it seems to me.
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- I have heard many people who bought/downloaded the game that the download version had fewer problems.
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— No, there is a reason–if you ever want to play the game. It’s what I and eno801 said–for many people, the game refuses to start if Steam cannot connect and sign on first. Many people have had this problem, and the single most-common factor among them is that they bought retail CD or DVD versions of the game.
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so it is somekinda spyware, since you need to disable your net connections or follow obscure instructions to play it offline.
like DougC says it is a problem because i have already validated 3 times now and deny steam access with zonealarm and it will play fine for a couple of days and then steam will demand access to the internet to be able to play offline again. oh and turning off automatic updates is a joke too. i switch them off and they turn themselves back on. if you read the thread i linked to you will find out that steam needs access to the internet regularly even after activation.
sorry hit submit too soon. Lagged i know how to play in offline mode my problem is it will play fine for a few days and then one day you click start in offline mode (which by the way the only way to get this option is to disable your network connection) and it says sorry offline mode is not available, connect to steam. why does it have to connect to steam if i have already validated