Steam Problem--Half Life1

[Muddyhead]

I have played both Half Life1 and Half Life 2 all the way thru.

About six months ago I gave my original Half Life1 to a friend. Half Life1 was uninstalled about a year and a half ago. Therefore, both Steam and Half Life2 have been installed on my computer for about a year. Steam has always behaved strangely (it starts at boot up to tell me it is not connected); but I have ignored this because I have never been able to remedy it and my very slow dial-up connection discourages me from considering online play.

But apparently Half Life2 requires a Steam installation for play.

I stumbled across a Jewel Case version of Half Life1 at WalMart recently, purchased it, and "installed" it. This $10.00 version is evidently marketed by VALVe and includes a Steam installation.

What is strange happens after installing this new version of Half Life1/Steam.

When I attempted to play Half Life1--Steam initiates, Then Half Life2 starts. using the "WalMart" HalfLife1 CD for verification!

It would appear at first that the Half Life1 disc installed Half Life2!

But I am guessing that what really happened is that, somehow, Steam initiates Half Life2 instead of Half Life1? When I check the file directories, I discover an apparent Half Life1 new installation and the old separate Half Life2 installation. But, when I click upon the new Half Life1 .exe file, Half Life2 starts. :frown:

Two questions:

Any guesses how I could fix this and play Half Life1 again?

Is Steam doing this? Can I uninstall Steam, but keep both Half Lifes 1 & 2?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Beerdude26]

Cross-breeding two CD keys on one account is not healthy

First off, you can't play HL2 without Steam.
Second, are you sure you are using the same account?

 

[Muddyhead]

Thank you for your advice, Beerdude26.

I have jusy spent two hours updating steam on my-dial up. I think I then saw that my account only includes Half-Life2 but not Half-Life1.

In addition, I went to the Steam Site in order to determine how to activate an account for the Half-Life 1. That is a very frustrating site. I was required to verify my existing account--20 minutes, Set up a Support account--20 minutes, Search the data base--45 minutes-no results-no "Ask a Question" link that worked at all as promised--Set up a Forum Account--20 minutes--still no approval to ask questions. Still no result.

It should be apparent why I did not endure that process at first--since my intent was single player, not online play.

I still have no idea how to set up an additional account for the Half Life1.

This is frustrating since I have paid for both games.

I appreciate your patience.

 

[Beerdude26]

Oh dear. So you installed Half-Life 2 on your account that had HL1 on it? That might cause the original (Steam) HL1 install to dissappear

So what do you actually want to do? Transfer the HL1 game to another account? That will cost $10 (unless the game is less than a month old), and will take quite a while. If you just want ot install HL1 on Steam, you just have to create a new Steam account, log in, try to install HL1 via Steam and you will then have to insert your HL1 CD-key. HL1 (and the whole Steam Back Catalogue) will then be put on that Steam account.

 

[Muddyhead]

Thank you again, Beerdude26. You alone have provided help. And it is appreciated.

Both games now work on or offline.

My biggest mistake was relying on the 'support" from the Steam Site in any way whatsoever.

What an obscene waste of time! All of that log-in, sign-in, registering, "pretty-please, sir, may I play my game, sir", led to nothing except that now (8 hours later) I have recieved permission to post on their Steam forums! And three usernames for three different functions.

During that insulting process, I discovered, on my own, how to activate the new Half-Life1 without deactivating the earlier Half-Life2. Unfortunately, that Steam software function required that I go on-line to update both games (4 hours on dial-up) prior to recieving permission to play off-line.

Why do games with multiplayer on-line components insist upon penalizing those of us who cannot and will not be playing realtime on-line?

-----------------------------------------

After all that caca, I will now be seeking single-player (off-line) modules for downloading. I know that they exist at IGN; but I was hoping I would not have to go to that site? Do you have any site links, suggestions, etc.?

Or should I start a new thread?

Thanks again, Beerdude26.

 

[Beerdude26]

Why do games with multiplayer on-line components insist upon penalizing those of us who cannot and will not be playing realtime on-line?

Well, the original Half-Life 2 was riddled with:
-Crash bugs
-VERY long loading times
-Freezes (A.I. just stopped working)
-Blue screens
-Etc.

They all fixed that now. It's about a gigabyte or something. Steam is actually one of the best programs to download updates on a dial-up, imagine having to look for ALL those patches (like 9 in total) over the internet and downloading them from (probably different) sources?
Steam may not be the best program around, but it will help you keep your games up to date automatically and immediately (although there is an option to prevent this).

Second, www.moddb.com is a very good site for user-made modifications. About 60 mods have already been released for Half-Life 2, and over a thousand have been announced. I personally recommend (for offline gaming):
-Half - Life ² : Substance
-MINERVA
-Ravenholm
-The Island

For the complete list of offline modifications, click here : Link
There's also Night Of A Million Zombies, Antlion Troopers Deuce, and much much more, but they aren't listed on moddb.com.
Lucky for you, my knowledge of sites spans beyond all that:
Link for more mods

Have fun!