HL2 online play

[XenoSpirit]

I wana know if HL2 will have the classic WON servers or will it be gay steam only... steam just dousent work it eather craps out or dousent update or just wont work... and i wont let it eat my hl2 key like it ate my cs key

 

[Rupertvdb]

i think that HL2 is the steam product so we are going to be seeing it purely on steam and maybe in conjunction with some serious upgrades.

 

[WhiteBoy]

I would be very diapointed it if it was Steam only. Because I really don't want to have to give up my account infomation for my brother to be able to play it online on his computer when I am not

 

[Varsity]

Well, what you are trying to do is technically illegal so don't expect much sympathy from Valve.

 

[Comreak]

Yeah, I don't think their going to keep WON around once HL2 comes out. It's supposed to be one of their first games that's going to be fully integrated with Steam. Hopefully everything is under control by then.

 

[Fender357]

What are you people talking about?

Is HL even on WON anymore?

I thought they'd compleatly moved off of it.


All I know is.......Steam has never screwed up for me...and I love it.


HL2 is going to be ONLY ON STEAM.

and I know this crap will come up again......and NO... YOU DONT HAVE TO BE ON LINE TO PLAY HL2!!!!!

Steam supports off line play now.

 

[Wesisapie]

Whats wrong with your brother playing HL2 online instead of you on a different computer, connected in the same LAN? Seems legal enough to me. It's fair use pussies.

 

[ferd]

I like Steam tbh

 

[BlazeKun]

I'm betting that steam works for 99% of the half life population. You may think that everyone has problems with steam because all you ever hear about is problems. Did you ever hear about WON before steam? EVER? Most problems people have are easily fixable if they would search the steampowered.com forums.

Steam works. It had a shakey start, but it works better than most every MMORPG in existance, and it is CERTAINLY a lot more advanced then them. It's new, very advanced, technology... Of course it will have bugs.

 

[Dougy]

well it ate my half life key and counter strike key.

It better work when i install HL2 or i will fly to america and crowbar gabe newel.

 

[Morithacus]

Half-Life 2 will be on steam only, Gabe said.

 

[PvtRyan]

Half-Life 2 will be on steam only, Gabe said.

And that's a good thing. Steam can solve lots of problems for developers, like copyprotection and there's no need for an expensive publisher anymore.
Sure it had a buggy start, and wasn't, and still is not, perfect. But you gotta give Valve credit for doing such a daring thing. It's a totally new approach to gaming.

 

[mrchimp]

I like it, the only problem I'v had with it was when it wouldn't connect to the friends server.

 

[Morithacus]

Indeed.

I can hardly connect to the friends server.

 

[crabcakes66]

well it ate my half life key and counter strike key.

It better work when i install HL2 or i will fly to america and crowbar gabe newel.

You to? I lost a HL cd-key to steam, for no reason whatsoever its invalid......and my extra is banned for cheating ffs.... :flame:

 

[-JeZ-]

You to? I lost a HL cd-key to steam, for no reason whatsoever its invalid......and my extra is banned for cheating ffs.... :flame:

That'll teach you, you hax0r! :upstare: Seriously though, if you wern't hacking then I have some symnpathy since once you're steamID is banned you're screwed.

 

[Varsity]

Send a photo of your cd-key and they'll attach it to your account.

 

[Edcrab]

Bah, that's one of the many things that worries me about HL2; Steam annoyance. It took me a damn long time to get offline play working (and yet I still use my WON installation simply for convenience) and I don't like the idea of entrusting the next Half-Life to a content delivery system that clearly hates me with all its evil digitised heart.

If it DARES to make me patch the game or connect when I don't want to and just want to play SP, I will go postal with a bloody modem. Why Valve couldn't leave Steam out of the equation when it comes to SP I don't know- yes, of course, online play with Steam is understandable (as would be the proposed single-time authorisation connection) but I still maintain that seperate .exe's (ala most Quake 3 engine games) would stop people like me from encountering a horde of niggling bugs that no one else can reproduce. Best way of stopping incompetence is to never call upon the unecessary...

Thing is, security modules are a horribly slow (at least compared to the rest of the process) part of HL's online schedule. I just know that my mid-range machine will have a heart attack if its called on to open Steam (30 secs or so minimum), startup HL2 (at least a minute), precache/load the level (another minute) and do whatever it has to do so with modules...

A far cry from the *click link* > *click server* > *wait for update* > *load server* of old. For every second Steam saves over WON in general power and improved techniques, it wastes at least once over with seemingly unecessary trimming. Having to quit the damn thing if it fails to connect?! Having to reload for every fail?! Surely that's proof the blasted program does use a seperate protocol for offline/online...

 

[Xenome]

Never had ANY problems with steam..

 

[Death.Trap]

Steam is starting to piss me off. It downloads a security module every freakin time I join a server. EVERY TIME!!&^!$&&%!


Takes like 5 minutes to dl, then another 5 minutes to precache...

Although it's been going a little bit fast as of last night.

 

[Platini]

Cry Me a River!!!

I wana know if HL2 will have the classic WON servers or will it be gay steam only... steam just dousent work it eather craps out or dousent update or just wont work... and i wont let it eat my hl2 key like it ate my cs key

I tell you how to fix your problem. First take that old, junky computer of yours and dump it in the trush. second, buy new one Dell or something similar and get decent broadband and you are set. You will not have a problem with steam if you have whats needed, especially if you take your time to correct your own problems with hardware or software. I have steam on my computer for a very long time and it never caused any problem. Besides, web content delivery is the future! even if you dont like it!

 

[Argyll]

Learn to love Steam.

 

[madca7`]

for me the security module is ready in 5 seks.

 

[Varsity]

Steam is starting to piss me off. It downloads a security module every freakin time I join a server. EVERY TIME!!&^!$&&%!


Takes like 5 minutes to dl, then another 5 minutes to precache...

Although it's been going a little bit fast as of last night.

That's the price you pay for protection from cheats. Play on unsecure servers and you won't be bothered.

A far cry from the *click link* > *click server* > *wait for update* > *load server* of old.

Now that's irony. Do you actually use Steam?

 

[Lobster]

5 minutes for a security module? christ what connection do u have? only takes 20 seconds for me, I have no problems with steam.

 

[Edcrab]

Uh, yes. But you see, WON-based HL didn't take so long to initialise- because it wasn't updated so often, I'll grant you that, but also because it didn't feel the need to check constantly. Huge delay when a new patch was out, otherwise faster than Steam. Go figure. Besides, I thought we only got updates on a Wednesday. Or does Steam itself think that's bullshit?

And it also didn't have a content delivery setting which kept resetting itself, continually lagging me to hell unless I spend a little time resetting it. My point was more along the lines of Steam's need to run itself every time I want to play SP, when I'm used to the more pampered clicking of a link > straight to game.

 

[slicktick]

Well, steam isnt gonna go away, HL2 will probably only be updated thru steam, just like CS:CZ is now. It will continue to be upgraded and become better and better, steam will work out, it make be shakey at times, but valve has the dedication to skill to make it work out.

Edit: Oh yeah, that extra wait that is so "inconvenient" is to help you not have to deal with cheats, and I and lots of other people like the extra protection.

 

[Edcrab]

Eh, I'd wish Steam away but that's not my point- my point was that it's better than WON in some respects but it gets dragged down by little niggling details. Thank god that the latest update decreases initialisation time...

Double click desktop icon and load Steam.

Go to Games.

Look at the properties of Half-Life/CS/etc. and ensure that they're not set to "Always keep this game up to date".

Go to server button. Close main Steam window.

Select server from Favourites/wait for server list to load/update.

Game load's up automatically and then connects to the aforementioned server, quicker than WON but with a few seconds aside for security modules (used to make it in 11 tops... anyone else on dialup having theirs take up to 25 seconds? Pretty big jump there, I'm thinking I've set something wrong).

WON? Double click desktop icon. Go Multiplayer, then Internet games. Done. Marginally faster, but still faster.

 

[Stryyder]

Eh, I'd wish Steam away but that's not my point- my point was that it's better than WON in some respects but it gets dragged down by little niggling details. Thank god that the latest update decreases initialisation time...

Double click desktop icon and load Steam.

Go to Games.

Look at the properties of Half-Life/CS/etc. and ensure that they're not set to "Always keep this game up to date".

Go to server button. Close main Steam window.

Select server from Favourites/wait for server list to load/update.

Game load's up automatically and then connects to the aforementioned server, quicker than WON but with a few seconds aside for security modules (used to make it in 11 tops... anyone else on dialup having theirs take up to 25 seconds? Pretty big jump there, I'm thinking I've set something wrong).

WON? Double click desktop icon. Go Multiplayer, then Internet games. Done. Marginally faster, but still faster.

The security modules used to take 12 seconds now they take about 17 to 20 seconds for me.

 

[Edcrab]

Not just me then... dang. In some ways it would've been better to have just had a console command set wrongly. I guess they keep updating the protection and all the blocks it makes, but if it keeps exponentially increasing it doesn't bode well for my shitty connection :x

Good news there though (I'd hope) is that security modules wouldn't be any/much bigger for HL2. Tempting to just force regular content everywhere and cripple the machine of anyone running what Steam doesn't recognise

 

[Mr. Redundant]

well it ate my half life key and counter strike key.

It better work when i install HL2 or i will fly to america and crowbar gabe newel.

how did it do that? they just patched it last night allowing people to reclaim accounts via CDkeys, you should try it.
I havent had a single problem with steam, my little brother was a "nay-sayer" and would rip on it a lot (like most kids tend to do when they hear something about it, and dont try it) but when his computer got formatted, I instead set up a steam account for him (I have two Copies of Half-Life) and he LOVES it now.
it also makes finding games together and LANing so much easier.

my point is, if you havent looked at how stable steam has become now, give it a try... it really is worth it.
(and it will save you mucho time downloading/converting content to steam when HL2 comes out since WON is gonna dissapear when HL2 is released)

 

[Epsi]

BTW, you can still have desktop shortcuts with Steam...

Double-click on shortcut, Steam starts, Game starts, click find server, double-click on server name.

Easy. And, btw, you want to keep automatic updates on.

 

[Edcrab]

Ha, like everyone else I've learnt to live with automatic updating, just not trickle updating (Game>Properties>Automatic updating, whereupon it does it itself whenever it gets the chance rather than the typical update window when you try and load the game- I don't want that). I don't want the damn thing repeatedly checking for updates when I'm trying to play a bloody game- even if there's nothing to get it keeps checking and eating what little bandwidth I have.

Hope they eventually allow defaulting it to "Do not automatically update this game" without it switching between the two options.

 

[Death.Trap]

5 minutes for a security module? christ what connection do u have? only takes 20 seconds for me, I have no problems with steam.

Heh, I was exagerating. I have a 1mb+ cable connection. It's not the speed really, it's the fact that I have to do it every time I join a server.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Heh, I was exagerating. I have a 1mb+ cable connection. It's not the speed really, it's the fact that I have to do it every time I join a server.

its because your playing on VAC (valves anti cheating) servers, if you prefer you could always filter your servers to not include "secure" (VAC) servers ,and you wont have to worry about the little wait before the game, however you will have to worry about rampant cheating ;>

 

[Death.Trap]

Cheating sux, but I don't get why theres a download every time. Why isn't it a one time thing like PunkBuster.

 

[Varsity]

It's a different system for a different level of hacking. Punkbuster most likely couldn't cope with protecting CS.

 

[mrchimp]

Steam's anti cheat thing is faster than nProtect and provides the same level of security so it's really not that bad. Punkbuster isn't as effective, you don't see it on MMORPG's.

 

[BlazeKun]

Heh, I was exagerating. I have a 1mb+ cable connection. It's not the speed really, it's the fact that I have to do it every time I join a server.

Actually, when you played on VAC enabled WON servers you still had to download that security module. WON just didn't tell you about it.

 

[Reven]

Cheating sux, but I don't get why theres a download every time. Why isn't it a one time thing like PunkBuster.

Then you could possible hack the security module, but thats just my theroy, im not sure how the security module works.