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starhawk said:what is WoW?
Dijonase said:The difference here is that Valve didn't decide not to let you play the game. I can't speak for people who bought the retail package as I got the silver version from steam and it installed without a hitch, but it sounds like steam is getting hammered right now and people just need to be a little bit patient. I'd probably be pissed if I were in your shoes, but filing formal complaints and threatening to sue is a bit too "drama queen" if you ask me.
WesM63 said:gah, This irratates the hell out of me. Honestly, who bitches when they have to activate windows? I don't see a million page long thread about people wanting to sue microsoft because they had to activate they're copy before they could use it.
On a side note I still bitch when I have to activate Windows XP or any other type of Microsuck product.matguy said:Obviously, you either weren't around when XP came out, or weren't paying attention. All over message boards, web pages, usenet, IRC... hell, Newspaper, Radio, and TV people were complaining about XP activation and issues with it. Now, a few years later, you don't hear about it much because it worked out fairly well because, as another poster pointed out, you had 30 days to complete it, and it didn't require internet connection, and it didn't need to be activated each time it was used.
matguy said:Obviously, you either weren't around when XP came out, or weren't paying attention. All over message boards, web pages, usenet, IRC... hell, Newspaper, Radio, and TV people were complaining about XP activation and issues with it. Now, a few years later, you don't hear about it much because it worked out fairly well because, as another poster pointed out, you had 30 days to complete it, and it didn't require internet connection, and it didn't need to be activated each time it was used.
Talz said:Valve so strange, they are great at making games. But they treat their customers like dirt. I have to say they've inspired me, if I ever have a chance to give out pirated copies of HL2 I'm gonna buy a cheap 100 pack of CD-R's and give out as many as I can.
I buy dozens of pc games and software every year, always legit, but this is not acceptable.
mcravenufo said:Not to mention the fact that if steam shuts down it sounds like you can never play the game again.
cmputrnrd4lif said:Not if you Offline Mode works for you. I've tested Offline Mode on my computer and it works fine.
liquorman said:I bet you all bitched when you had to buy a CDROM for the first time cause the newest game wasn't available on Floppy's. Valve is being the pioneer of a new paradigm for online distribution and copyright control, so ofcourse there are a few, or many, flaws. I am willing to bet that a Million people have already tried to activate today, so no matter how powerful their servers are there is going to be glitches. Someone in one of these threads claimed that Valve has offered no support what so ever, and if this is true Valve should be ashamed, but I have my doubts.
Why is all this happening? 2 reasons:
1) SoftWare Hackers are screwing developers
You same people that bitch cause you can't get it working were probably already pissed because you couldn't just download the Warez for free. The whole reason they are implementing such things as Online Activation is because hackers have been stealling revenue from these companies for years. Hell I know I may, or may not, have downloaded things for free in the past, but I can't be pissed that someone figured out a way to prevent this. In fact if you ask me it's pure genius.
2)Publishers are screwing developers
When you go to the store and buy a game, 90% of that money goes to the company that made the box(Vivendi) and not the people that actually made the game(Valve). Valve had an amazing concept: Instead of taking it up the ass by the publishers, why don't we offer our products online so users can get them directly from us? This way they can get proper compensation for their artwork, instead of the Corporate Blackhole.
All that being said though, I downloaded it all last week, and activation went through without a hitch this morning. In otherwords, my patience has not been tried like the rest of you.
Keitaro said:has ANYONE here had success with getting HL2 to work in offline mode?
Keitaro said:if its not too much trouble... can you run me through the exact steps that YOU did to get offline mode to work?
i followed the valve thing, but that just wasnt doing it for me at all :S
Just block everything. not just steam. If you have a router lookup your ip address and say block TCP/UDP port * to * this block all ports. thats should fix it.Keitaro said:thanks...
thats the exact box that i get as well, and i told it to work in offline mode......
but when i go to run the game, it says that i need to be connected to load it......
im doing it the lazy way and using my firewall to stop traffic inbound and outbound to "steam.exe"
that way the program THINKS it's offline even though im still connected (i dont want to disconnect my system because i have god knows how many remote connections to other PCs etc and reconnecting is a pain in the ass)
but now that i think of it, i may have to block traffic to "HL2.exe" as well, because it also accesses shit on the steam servers no doubt....
*ponders*
I'll try it again after work, blocking EVERYTHING associated with HL2 and Steam and see how i go.
Still a pain in the ass exercise to go through don't you think?
Id much prefer an option in steam that just switches the game to and from Offline mode..... it changes stuff about the game, then you could exit Steam (which has like a 30mb memory footprint) and load HL2 like you would any other NORMAL game
WesM63 said:Actually yes I was around, I was installing XP on more machines than you could dream of. Also, they didn't add the activation process untill SP1 was released. Yes you have 30days, unless your copy has been activated once, then you must activate it before it will even load a desktop. Oh wait, no Nic drivers, better get on the horn.
The point I was getting at was yes it was a bitch and people complained, but no one is still complaining. Granted, valve might not have steam working like they want it to, but it will work right over time. (a week or two)
Chill out for a few minutes and try agian. Its a game, its not the end of the world.
slyguy63 said:Just block everything. not just steam. If you have a router lookup your ip address and say block TCP/UDP port * to * this block all ports. thats should fix it.![]()
MixPix said:Have you actually completed all of the activation/downloads. I dont know if it comes out of the box "ready to activate" or if there are some files missing. It would be intersting to know that.
I'll take one of those. I refuse to buy this shit because of VALVe and STEAM.Talz said:Valve so strange, they are great at making games. But they treat their customers like dirt. I have to say they've inspired me, if I ever have a chance to give out pirated copies of HL2 I'm gonna buy a cheap 100 pack of CD-R's and give out as many as I can.
I buy dozens of pc games and software every year, always legit, but this is not acceptable.
starhawk said:many, many people really resent the 'activation' thing... to me, it's only one more reason to stick with tried-and-true 98se...
not to start an os war... just my opinion. take or leave as you wish, but plz no warz.
Super56K said:I hate this. IHopefully the new Vampire game gets good reviews.
I agree with you. If they totally get rid of STEAM due to these rediculously high demands then I'll buy HL2. Otherwise they can both fuck themselves.FrizzleFried said:STEAM sucks...and I hope they receive such a backlash that they reconsider and issue a patch that will remove the STEAM authentication process requirement.