authentication process worries!

[rose 1138]

since reading many reviews on HL" all have held the usual superlatives, ooohhh aaahhhh, lovely graphics good gameplayblah blah,

Then a but appears, the authenticastion process, now far be it from me to not understand why valve have done this but it still irks me that when i buy game, Paid on Mnday!!!, i will have to go on the net and authenticate it, i have been told that you have to download stuff for this, which can take a while.

Could anyone define a while, on a 56K modem, i want BBand but can't afford it right now, soon though!,, anyway, i cant really be on the net for ages as here in UK it costs a fair bit evan a 1p a min how long am i looking at for this "stressfull" authentication process?

 

[we11er]

Hmmm, well it only downloads a few things really, but your problems start when trying to play in "Offline Mode". I don't think I've even heard of anyone that has got that to work. Or maybe that's just because people only make a thread about it when they can't get it to work...

 

[Mountain Man]

Offline mode has worked perfectly for me. However, you have to disconnect your internet first because Steam will only prompt you for offline mode if it can't detect a net connection. Unfortunately, I know of no other way to force it to offline mode. Perhaps Valve will fix this in the future.

 

[rose 1138]

dont have a prob with doin it online just curious how long it will take before i can start beating headcrab ass with a crowbar!

 

[NB.]

Offline worked flawlessly for me since day 1 until the recent patch, now it says something like 'the operation cannot be completed in offline mode' and to top it off the sound stuttering is now worse and i'm getting a lot of memory access crashes.

Nice patch Valve :thumbs:

 

[Edcrab]

I'm on 56k, and the overall installation and verification process took me almost two hours. Note that I was doing it in the "peak" period, whereby the game had just been released and Valve had horribly underestimated the demand on the Steam servers

However, another friend of mine did it all in 20 minutes (although he's on 64k ISDN)- so clearly the Steam servers aren't quite so packed now. Just don't worry if the progress bar appears to freeze for up to thirty minutes... happens to everyone

 

[Zeus]

Well you better get broadband because you're gonna need it with how many times you have to verify the stupid game.

 

[boglito]

Steam is the worst piece of buggy software ever forced down a consumer's throat. It will be the downfall of PC gaming as we know it.

Actually, that would be software piracy.

.bog.

 

[Zeus]

Actually, that would be software piracy.

.bog.

Well I'll change my sig as soon as steam stops making me verify every day. Then maybe steam will be halfway decent.

As for now, forcing non-working patches down consumer's throats (when I have to manually go into the console and take off what the patch did that's pathetic) and making the legitamit(sp?) buyers suffer though constant mind-numbingly slow verification processes just to play their game doesn't make steam a great program in my book.

 

[MiccyNarc]

Well, Zeus, in my book, you're ignorant and an idiot!
Just because you had issues with Steam doesn't mean everyone did, and I bet most didn't.

 

[justmatt]

I bought this game and don't have Internet at my new apartment because I just moved. So I got curious as to how fast it would happen on a 56k. So on Thanksgiving I went to my parents house and took the game with me to try out on their connection. They have a 1.8ghz P4 Dell with 256 mb of ram and some really shitty onboard video thing. I dunno why but their computer is incredibly sluggish even for the speed it actually is. Anyway, it took a long time to install the game off the CD's (probably due to the computer). Once that was installed, steam connected just fine....I made my account...and things were fairly slow. It took about 5 minutes to even get full "into" steam. It authenticated my CD Key just fine...then it updated HL2. In order to get it to work in offline mode, though, I had to close out and relogin with the "remember password" thing checked. Once I did that though it was fine. It simply prompted me each successive time I tried to launch steam while disconnected and gave me the option of running in offline mode. Tonight I'll be taking my computer to a friend's house and getting it all setup there. And before you little morons bitch at me for being stupid and not having the Internet because "OMFG you n00b everyone has the internet WTF LOL get a life!"....I am getting Internet next week. Hopefully this post will ease some of your fears.

 

[rose 1138]

I think what really gets at me is this blasee attitude of valves, well were in america on-line is free, so whats the problem and we all have broadband in the office so steam is the obvious way to go forward.

Right fine, here in rainy UK however our internet is expensive, evan at off peak timnes its 60p an hour, at peak rate its about 6p a minute! Fine, get broadband i hear you cry, well fine, but thats another £18 a month for something im not on every day, i also have repayments on a laptop for the next 3 years plus petrol and road tax, and insurance for my car. so as a gamer it does irk me a bit that because valve had 1 idiot (i am being nice on the forum) stole code, we now all pay the price and further to this they now go and try to release all future releases on steam, much to vivendi and ongoing legal issues anger.

What about gamers anger, Valve" oh you dont have broadband, well just get it god its the 21st century i meen Jeez" it does not bode well for my further product buying from Valve software.

Although in saying that once ive played game proper, only had a shot of mates, i will forget all this and be lost in the joy that is HL2 :dozey:

 

[Zeus]

Well, Zeus, in my book, you're ignorant and an idiot!
Just because you had issues with Steam doesn't mean everyone did, and I bet most didn't.

Well, MiccyNarc, in my book, you're ignorant and an idiot!

Just because you didn't have issues with Steam doesn't mean everyone didn't, and I bet most did.


edit- BTW MiccyNarc, don't read my posts if this is the only response you can come up with. All it's doing is making you look more and more like a fanboy. I have issues with Steam, along with thousands of other people. Personally insulting me because I post something negative about your precious Steam only makes you look like an even bigger fanboy than you already are.