Not sure if this is a GQ or CS, so let’s try it here…
So I downloaded Steam, created an account, and purchased the ‘Silver’ pack. It’s downloading stuff as we speak. Huzzah!
But I plan on building a new PC within a month or so. Am I going to have problems when I go to pull down the stuff on the new PC (under the same account)? Has anyone tried it before?
My existing PC will be condemned to a life of toil and struggle at my parent’s house, as their new ‘email machine’, so it’s not like I will have two actively logged-in instances of Steam out there, but I fully expect problems with Windows XP reactivation, so should I expect problems with Steam?
Steam works based on your user name and account, not the computer. You can go to a friend’s computer, login with your Steam account, and activate all the games. Unfortunately, you will only be able to play those games with your same Steam account.
But yeah, don’t worry about building a new computer, although (unless you save your old hard drive or copy all the stuff onto a new hard drive) you’ll have to wait to download all the data again.
Don’t sweat it… you’ll have it on your computer, ready to play, at 12:01am on the release date. While anyone who didn’t find a retailer to break street date will have to wait in lines, and then wait for the patches to download (with the rest of the hoi polloi).
People have worried that, and theoretically, yeah, but realistically, Valve will likely release or allow a patch to disable the Internet checkup, should they go belly-up (or should Valve lose the rights to HL, if Vivendi - the publisher - wins their legal battle).
Another thought for the thread starter: there is a “backup files” function in Steam (currently new and not entirely bug-free, I understand, but being worked on) which will among other things facilitate moving all those downloaded files to a new computer if you have a CD burner. You’ll still need to install Steam on the new machine in the usual manner, of course, but afterward you should be able to simply copy the large cache files over in order to save download time.
Yeah, once the game moves to the My Games section, you can right click and hit “back-up games” You can back up to a folder or to a dvd. (you can do cd’s too, but I’m not sure how.) Actually, you can back up hl2 right now, you just have to right click on CS:S for some reason.
Otherwise, you can just type steam://backup/ in your browser, and it will take you to the same place.
That’s what they say. Although, we still don’t know if the servers will be able to handle EVERYONE registering tonight, but yeah, hopefully there abouts we can all start playing.
Sadly, I’ve read that it’s going to be midnight on the west coast, which is 2:00 AM here in big D. Since I have to work at 7:00 AM tomorrow, I don’t think I’ll be playing tonight.
Oh no. I didn’t know that… that means 3 AM for me…
(sigh) Well, it’s either one more day, or I’ll just be a drooling idiot tomorrow… aw who am I kidding, no one will be able to tell the difference from any onther day, may as well stay up!
Like Slacker that means 2 AM here in the Metroplex…if I take a nap this afternoon, I can probably get in at least an hour tonight…
As far as Steam goes…I ordered the silver version through Steam and the whole thing has been loaded on my computer. I’m visiting friends on Thanksgiving and will most likely want to show him HL2. I can just log into Steam from his computer and start playing, right? (After it downloads enough stuff, I assume). After I leave, should I have him uninstall Steam?
You can log in… but then you’ll have ot download the entire game to get all the content, unless you bring a CD with you, which I would suggest.
You wouldn’t have to uninstall steam at the end, but you probably would want to log off permanently and make sure that he doesn’t have access to your account.
