Do I HAVE to have Steam to play single player?

[Immaculated_R]

I posted this earlier, but I think I was misinformed. The college I attend has blocked Steam's port because of bandwidth. We all just got back at 3 am from buying HL2 and find out we have to have steam to install it. Most of us even have Steam accounts, we just can't log on to verify the game! ITS RIGHT THERE AND WE CAN'T PLAY IT!!!! Is there anything we can do? I guess we might have to just talk to the computer administrater, but is there a way to register or verify your CD key without using Steam? Thanks a lot for any help.

 

[Murray_H]

Darn it, I said I wouldn't be back till December.....like a bloody crack addiction this place is

Yes, you will need Steam. And unfortunately, about 4 or 5 other people (me included) are in the same Uni/College blocking boat.

;(

 

[Immaculated_R]

I think that I can talk the computer admin into unblocking it for a little bit, it says on the orange sheet that comes with the game that once you have verified it once, you can play in offline mode.

 

[roklipni]

OK, but how big is the activation file?

 

[Ken5h1ro]

I don't know how it works in colleges, but... why don't you grab a dial-up modem (those noisy, slow, old ones... maybe a serial-port version ), find a free phone socket and connect for just the activation time?....

They simply cannot firewall the phone line...

Once activated, disconnect and you are ready to go.

We are probably talkin' about a bunch of MBytes of traffic not Gbytes, even if it takes 30 minutes @56kbps... who cares?