Of course you needed a legit copy of HL it was, as I said, a mod. HL was all you needed, no Steam, no uncertainty. You say they’re listening to people’s concerns and I hope you’re right because the state the industry’s in at the moment it only takes one moderate cock-up to take a dev house down and it would be sad to see them go.
But… given that Steam is free, and is basically now going to replace HL MP entirely anyway… what’s the difference? You own HL, you can play CS without paying anything extra. Obviously, Steam is controversial, but from the standpoint of pricing, it doesn’t change how HL/CS used to work.
The difference is an extra bit of crap on my machine I don’t want or need, frankly - no guarantee it stays free either. You may be a fanboi, but most of us aren’t and will need a hell of a lot more convincing that this extra hassle is worth it.
1- That was a really really really bad analogy. Worse, it ignores my original comment completely. Try again.
2- Ah! there you go. At least this reply makes some sense. I don’t buy it though. First, cheaters have been infesting CS servers for a very long time. Way before Steam beta briefly made CS free for everybody with broadband. Second, I didn’t notice any increase in cheating during the “free” period. If anything, there was a proportional decrease. And finally, Punkbuster-like methods are very efficient at weeding out the majority of cheaters. That’s the way to go.
3- I think you’re lying to me. Cite?
5- Mkay. You don’t know why people would pay the $10 but you have faith in Valve and think they will make something up? What in god’s name could they provide that is valuable enough to convince gamers to pay them that kind of money? Porno movies? Credit Card numbers? Dude…come on. It has got to be mods…
6- I will not believe hearsay over cold solid words coming from Steam’s official website. Call me crazy…
7- It is blatantly evil. As emarkp so neatly put it before me, they are treating their customers as thieves first and customers second. Evil evil evil!
8- Dude, you’re using double standards here. If you want to go the “wait and see” way, then you have to take your #6 comment back.
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You had no point I could see other than you were mad because they didn’t give you enough free stuff. And what’s off about my analougy?
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For goodness sakes, you’re wrong about this, just admit it.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/28181/ -
I didn’t say anything about faith in Valve: I just said that we don’t know enough about this option (how it works, and what else you get, and how they ensure it) to say much about its value. Regardless, if someone decides its not worth it, they can simply not purchase it, end of problem.
It isn’t mods. Mod makers have the right to set their on pricing policies, anywhere from free to making and selling full retail games using the source engine.
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Okay, believe what you want. This isn’t Great Debates. There is that bit on steampowered, and there is what the developer of the game said. You are free to doubt the validity of either. I happen to trust Gabe more than steampowered, which isn’t exactly the most up to date with their information or the latest decisions. But, whatever. But, guess what. I’ll be right, and all the hysterics will amount to exactly nothing.
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How can it be evil to offer something for purchase? If what’s offered isn’t to your liking, that sucks for you and your expectations, but it does you no harm: don’t buy things you don’t like. Companies have a right to treat their customers any way they like, and customers have a right not to buy products in response. This whole self-righteous trip about how people deserve to have things work the way you want them to has exactly no basis in reality or morality. If game makers are paranoid about copyright theft and cheating, they can do whatever they feel like to try and defeat it. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, so what. But “evil.” Come on, that’s overboard. A potentially major hassle for some gamers is about as far as it gets.
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The only reason I’m unwilling to give people like Revtim absolute assurance here is simply that I’m less sure, and its more important.
I’m not here to convince you that it’s worth it, because, as I said, I’m not too happy with how Steam is performing right now myself. Indeed, from all I can tell, the developers themselves aren’t too happy: as is noted in that thread, they are sure wishing they have implemented swarming at this point. However, that Steam is going to be an inseperable part of HL and HL2 games from now on is, for better or for worse, a done deal. If it really sucks, and continues to, people definately should evaluate whether that makes games like HL2 not worth it anymore.
What I’m mainly concerned with is FUD. At hl2.net, way too much mod time is wasted by a new thread starting every other day with silly rumors and nonsensical speculation (often the same issues, over and over, as new people come in and start threads). And, after looking into it a bit, quite a lot of it ultimately comes from people who are connected to the cheating and warezing communities: people who want to see any sort of anti-cheating or copyprotection measures fail. It would probably be understating it to say that I hate these people, for ruining online pub play and so much more, so I guess I’m a little sensitive to some of the nonsense out there. I’m surprised we haven’t seen the “spyware” story raised in here yet.
I’m getting the feeling this is as far as we can go without just repeating ourselves and heavily sighing at one another for not understanding what seems obvious to each one of us. But one last thing.
In point 3 (which is one of the most important ones, you provide me with a url so I went and read it. And I think It proves my point instead of yours…
and here is what you said:
Now isn’t TF2 a mod? Wasn’t TF free for all HL owners?
TFC was a free mod, whose primary inspiration was as the big field test of the HL SDK. It was ported over from TF, a free quake mod, after Valve hired its creators.
TF2 has, for years now, been planned as a standalone game, not a simple mod. In fact, as far as we knew until HL2 was announced, TF2 was the game that Valve had been working on all these years.
Frankly, you don’t have much to sigh about. You were wrong about most of your major points, and now you have nothing left to do here.
I really think that most people complaining about Steam are trying to find something to be upset by. It’s new, and that scares people. The reality is that Steam provides more choice and more flexibility for users, including the possibility of saving money. While yes, the cost of Steam will be included in the price of the games, so was the cost of the WON authentication servers, box, manual, CD, and download sites. Steam also increases accountability, which is something we need. Banning users, permanently, from the game for cheating is a good ability to have. Making the only recourse in such a case purchasing a new copy would add much needed consequences for one’s actions.
For dialup users and those who pay for metered internet access, buying the game over steam isn’t going to be a terribly good idea. If you do buy the boxed version, what has changed? You’ll probably end up having to download LESS data now, as you only download maps, textures, skins, and sounds as-needed. To get Half-Life to a playable install of Counter-Strike 1.5 required about 200MB of downloading, and incremental upgrades were 50-100MB. Yes, this sucks for dialup users, but the reality is that you need broadband to get around on the Internet today, just like the reality is that you need a fast computer to play Half-Life 2.
I certainly hope they don’t ban people from the game for suspected cheating. VAC bans were a disaster, because so many people got tagged for using harmless programs like MP3 switchers, and ironically, even CheatingDeath. Server ops can reliably ban people, and share their ban lists: that’s where there is potential for good. And no more stupid keygens.
VAC, after the initial teething period, has proven to be an extremely effective tool to detect cheaters without false positives. There’s a reason that the ban time limit has slowly been increased as VAC has undergone development. One of the assumptions made is that if a user is running a hacked executable, or there’s an application trying to hide between HL and the network connection or HL and the videocard, that something nefarious is going on. This is fine, once you tell the users that messing with the game will not be tolerated. Most of the legitimate functionality you gain by stuff like this has been integrated into Steam anyway. Valve has also been good about lifting bans in cases where a false positive is detected.
BTW, a Steam FAQ has finally been released that addresses many of the OP’s concerns.
From the FAQ:
Rats. After enjoying HL and looking forward to HL2 (especially the physics model), this means I simply can’t buy it. Oh well. I guess I’ll be playing Halo instead (at least that’s gone gold).
So you don’t have internet access? How unfortunate. There is, however, a singleplayer-only version of HL2 for sale in retail stores, at a discount, that won’t require Steam to work.
This is utterly stupid. They lost my sale, and I guarantee they will lose many more.
How can people who made such a great game make such a poor, poor decision?
What is the need for this? What do they gain by denying me the right to play the single player (if I played multi once already) when my cable internet connection is down? Or if I cancel it because it gets too expensive? Or if my phone line goes out? Or if someone is using the phone? Or if I move and haven’t set up a new connection yet? Or if my modem breaks?
What problem do they think they are solving?
OK, “right to play” was a poor choice of words. Make that “ability” to play. I’m not aware of any Constitutional Amendment yet to address this issue…
Remarkable. You seem to be incapable of reading. Let me repeat, and I’ll type slowly so you can follow:
If I buy any software, I expect it to work. Period. First sale means I don’t have to go around asking for permission from the seller every time I use the product.
I don’t buy games that don’t have multiplayer. However, I enjoy playing single-player missions sometimes even if I’m mostly playing multiplayer.
I have DSL, and 99% of the time I play games, I’m connected to the Internet. However, I don’t need to be connected if I’m playing single-player. Also, the DSL goes out sometimes. And I take my laptop on the road when I travel and sometimes play games to pass the time, where I don’t have an Internet connection available. The assumption that once connected means always connected is stupid.
Apos and other Valve apologists argue that Steam provides greater features so what’s the problem? The problem is that they chose a distribution mechanism which makes it even easier to make unlicensed copies, and then tell me that to secure their distribution network they have to treat buying customers like thieves.
Sorry, that’s not the way to attract customers. They didn’t have this mechanism in the past, and by their own press releases HL has sold millions of copies. So what’s their problem?
When TurboTax pulled this crap, their sales went down by 20%. Now they say they won’t have authentication in their retail boxes. If only all companies could learn this lesson.
(Side note: if only the downloaded versions from Steam required a connection, I’d have no problem. The retail box requiring online authentication is a deal breaker for me.)
Will Valve care if I don’t buy the game? Nope. But I refuse to bend over and take this over and over again.
How would you feel if every time you tried to read a book you needed to call the publisher for permission? How about every time you start your car you need to call the manufacturer to start the car? That’d be fun if you’re stuck in a bad neighborhood and their authentication server is down.
What if Valve headquarters is hit by a meteor and suddenly I can never used my product again? What if 10 years down the line I want to fire it up and there’s no authentication server anymore? If I paid for it, I want to use it whenever I like.
As a consumer, I will not stand to be treated like this.
And the sad thing is, it will not stop unlicensed copying at all. It will be copied, a hack will be released to run in single-player without going over steam (likely before HL2 is even released). It will be totally ineffectual
Meh - the market will dictate the wisdom on Valve’s new business model. Myself, I will hold off on my purchase of Half-Life 2 indefinitely because of it - although Steam supports 56K connections, broadband is almost a requirement and that does not work for me.
What does annoy me though is that if I want to continue to play Counter-Strike online, I HAVE to install Steam. And currently, though I could easily be wrong on this, the Steam installer clocks in at a whopping 350+MB because it wants to put CS 1.6 on your computer as well. At my current average download speeds, that would take a full 24 hours to install… No thank you.
Currently, there does not appear to be an upgrade path from CS 1.5, but I suspect … make that hope … that it is because CS 1.6 is still considered Beta. Once they finalize 1.6, they will make an upgrade file that, while not tiny, will at least be a little more feasible for me to download.
Funny - even though the retail software box I paid good money for says that a 56K internet connection in sufficient, Valve is doing all they can to make it unrealistic. While I can’t say that it is false advertising, it seems mighty disingenous of them… Maybe I’ll start looking for those hacks…
New info from Gabe: you will be able to do anything you want with the cache files (basically, the single files that steam uses as a filesystem to load up games): move them around, burn them to cd, etc. So, no button to make isoz, but once you have the files, you can do anything you want with them, just like an old install of HL.
It’s not clear they have made such a decision: there is conflicting evidence. Steampowered says yes, Gabe says, if I read that answer correctly, no. If it is yes, I doubt it’ll last long: the backlash will be huge. I’m trying to see if I can get some official resolution on the issue…
And any game that uses Pixel Shader 2.0 and up (most significantly, PC Halo). This has been known for awhile, but people have been in denial. But likely NVIDA is getting a bit of a bad rap here, because the visual difference between Dx9 path and a Dx8 path is not that much in the end. So it’s not quite the end of the world. I should note that moving to OGL doesn’t really help: the problem isn’t the API or the engine, it’s the fact that certain features (used in any API) demand hardware that NVIDA chose to downplay in their current line, not expecting Dx9 to be out so fast.
They really need to address this issue fast. The idea was that the included converter would conert your existing install of CS to steam, and then it would just download the update. What happened, to me and many others, was that the converter didn’t work: it crashed the first time through, and there’s no way to run it again without getting a new account. This means that almost everyone was downloading the ENTIRE CS install. This is one reason they ended up getting utterly swamped by bandwidth demands they didn’t expect. Bad move on their part, both for them (cost them a bundle) and for us.
Thanks Apos. I agree that the backlash will likely be enough for them to let people play single player without a 'net connection, even after they played multiplayer. I know I ain’t spending a dime until this is possible.