HL2 Pulled From Shelves!!

[UnlimitedMP]

What brick&mortar store has it for $35-40?

I got mine the day of release for 39.99 @ microcenter.

 

[Vildayyan2003]

Ditto.

I wish all games would go the STEAM route.

Steam does rock but your statement has a massive flaw. I don't want to have 20 Steam like programs running in the background and taking bandwidth. There needs to be a 100% Universal Steam like service that you can buy and download ANY game from, update, find servers, and everything else.

 

[lesman]

They're just a bunch of little bitches....

 

[ryanrule]

Steam does rock but your statement has a massive flaw. I don't want to have 20 Steam like programs running in the background and taking bandwidth. There needs to be a 100% Universal Steam like service that you can buy and download ANY game from, update, find servers, and everything else.

teh internet

 

[Mr_Evil]

I'll toss in my two cents on Steam. If you're running a Gig of RAM or more, Steam runnin in the background doesn't amount to a hilla beans in terms of detriment to performance. Especially considering the way Windows XP handles paging stuff in memory (I have 2GB of RAM and Windows still has 400MB in the Pagefile). When steam isn't updating your games or launching them, I've never seen it use anything more than a negligible amount of CPU time, it's definitely not going to hurt you if you have a HT Pentium 4 or SMP rig.

What I most definitely like though is the patching. No more going to Fileplanet or Fileshack and waiting in line for an hour for a shitty 100K/sec capped download. Let Steam sit in the BG and handle all the patching for you. It's just convenient.

I laughed when my friend bought HL2 collector's at retail for $90 only to be slapped in the face by Vivendi who put a CD Check in the retail exe. Yes, it's since been removed from HL2, but I still found it funny.

One more thing to like about Steam, no fear of Nazi copy protections like Safedisc or StarForce that get pissed off at you for having Daemon tools or Nero installed.

 

[ryanrule]

nazis. i hate these guys

 

[UltimaParadox]

What brick&mortar store has it for $35-40?

Fry's and Best Buy have sold it at that price

 

[ScreamingBroccoli]

I, for one will never pay for a program that I can't hold in my hands. Where I'm at it's either 56k or pay a rediculous amont for slow cable or slow DSL. I feel that this steam crap alienates people like me, it maybe good for some but not for me, and all I care about is me HAHAHA. So steam can shove it, cuz it is a dumb idea, it would be like me paying full price for a DVD but having to download it on bit torrent or something, burning it myself and it wouldn't include any pamphlets, documentation, pressed DVDs or packaging, when I could take a 5 min trip to the store or an online merchant, and get all of that for the same price. I don't understand why anyone loves steam so much more than a hard copy. If you don't like the CDs, just rip em to you HDD or something, it would take less time than DLin it...

Oh well, just my 2 cents, take it or leave it
-Matt

 

[finalgt]

Wow. In less than a year consensus has gone from FUCK STEAM to <3 STEAM. That's pretty incredible. I, for one, hate digital distribution methods. Despise them. If they start releasing games without physical content associated with them, I stop buying them. Pretty simple, I think.

 

[UltimaParadox]

Wow. In less than a year consensus has gone from FUCK STEAM to <3 STEAM. That's pretty incredible. I, for one, hate digital distribution methods. Despise them. If they start releasing games without physical content associated with them, I stop buying them. Pretty simple, I think.

I am in the same boat, I doubt they will stick to exclusively to distrubiting steam, because I am pretty sure that the majority of people.

I will say at least 70% or greater bought the game B&M.

 

[C4rniV0r]

Wow. In less than a year consensus has gone from FUCK STEAM to <3 STEAM. That's pretty incredible. I, for one, hate digital distribution methods. Despise them. If they start releasing games without physical content associated with them, I stop buying them. Pretty simple, I think.

Not to mention any program that downloads and executes code from the internet is a backdoor security exploit just waiting to happen.
Steam will never touch my computer.

 

[bonkrowave]

I think people really need to take off the tinfoil hats and come back to reality.

I see a whole lot of "OH N03S STEAM STOLE MY MEGAHURTZ 11ONE".

Steam is not going to call the FBI and tell on you.

Steam only uses a small amount of resources in the background. And with the machines people are running today the amount is miniscule.

Steam is not going to download spyware, malware, virii. Hell they even asked you if it was ok to scan your hardware for a survey. People do realize games like WoW, Starcraft, scan your hardware all the time without your knowledge ?

Steam is not the lawnmover man its not going to get inside your head.

 

[Ryland]

How about if they were to also release a program that would allow you to burn programs released over Steam to media? Which one of us DOESN'T have some kind of burner (CDRW, DVDRW, etc???). Its not like media is expensive anymore.

 

[spine]

Count me in as someone who would rather not have steam.

In principle, it's ok. But I truly HATE having to wait half a minute before the game I actually wanted to play even begins loading. HL2 takes long enough to load as it is, let alone with steam (how much processing and ram does it take to load a menu gui anyway?!).

That's what really annoys me the most.

I bought the DVD version off amazon over here in the UK hoping to avoid this, but it didn't. For me, steam is just an utterly pointless and inconvenient enitity on my PC. It's also annoying that I don't get my own HL2 install folder, but have to have things scattered about willy nilly in the steam directory.

 

[eggrock]

Anyone who actually wanted it has already bought it by now anyway.

Almost. A few of us stragglers haven't upgraded from our 900Mhz T-birds yet.

HL2 sucked - That massive download just to play the game is a joke. Worse $50 I ever spent.

I'm still buying it.

 

[oqvist]

Can´t believe how people would preferr Steam over boxed games.

Valve is not very popular in my view after the HL 2 debacle. A single player you have to be on-line to play

Valve should have made sure it worked for 100 % of the people before releasing the game and don´t be so F&##¤ng greedy.

Don´t know much about VU Games business policy so can´t comment on that but if they are so bad as you say I think Valve and VU Games deserves eachother

 

[bonkrowave]

Can´t believe how people would preferr Steam over boxed games.

Valve is not very popular in my view after the HL 2 debacle. A single player you have to be on-line to play

Valve should have made sure it worked for 100 % of the people before releasing the game and don´t be so F&##¤ng greedy.

Don´t know much about VU Games business policy so can´t comment on that but if they are so bad as you say I think Valve and VU Games deserves eachother

You do not need to be online to play Half-life 2. You have to have an internet connection to register the game that is all. Steam has an offline mode, its not that hard to use, just check the offline mode box.

What I find hard to believe that when I complain about an MMORPG everyone says its a work in progress and welcome to MMORPGs. But when its steam everyone screams it better damn well work for everyone the first time. ??

 

[oqvist]

You do not need to be online to play Half-life 2. You have to have an internet connection to register the game that is all. Steam has an offline mode, its not that hard to use, just check the offline mode box.

What I find hard to believe that when I complain about an MMORPG everyone says its a work in progress and welcome to MMORPGs. But when its steam everyone screams it better damn well work for everyone the first time. ??

The thing was that 50 % of the time off-line mode plainly didn´t work.

And when it does I had always to run HL 2 twice.

So yes you need an internet connection to play HL 2 .

 

[bonkrowave]

The thing was that 50 % of the time off-line mode plainly didn´t work.

And when it does I had always to run HL 2 twice.

So yes you need an internet connection to play HL 2 .

If an MMORPG says on the box it requires an internet conenction to play, most people then come down on people who complain that it does.

Well HL2 clearly states on the side of the box, and on the steam website that HL2 requires an internet connection to run ?

 

[UltimaParadox]

I think people really need to take off the tinfoil hats and come back to reality.

I see a whole lot of "OH N03S STEAM STOLE MY MEGAHURTZ 11ONE".

Steam is not going to call the FBI and tell on you.

Steam only uses a small amount of resources in the background. And with the machines people are running today the amount is miniscule.

Steam is not going to download spyware, malware, virii. Hell they even asked you if it was ok to scan your hardware for a survey. People do realize games like WoW, Starcraft, scan your hardware all the time without your knowledge ?

Steam is not the lawnmover man its not going to get inside your head.

It still begs the question... Why?

Why must I have to have to his program installed to run your game, when no other game manufacturer does this? What if this became the norm? Would you want to have to load up a program for every different game you play?

I know you can close them out, and its not that hard, but it will get annoying.

 

[oqvist]

If an MMORPG says on the box it requires an internet conenction to play, most people then come down on people who complain that it does.

Well HL2 clearly states on the side of the box, and on the steam website that HL2 requires an internet connection to run ?

But can´t you see the difference between a MMORPG and a single player FPS game?

MMORPG I mean the whole deal about them is to play on-line with real humans? the hole idea with Half Life 2 is for you to play alone against computer AI? that on-line requirements does nothing to improve the game. If I would have bought Counterstrike: Source it would have been a compeletely different matter .

So for me having spyware in my computer that eats resources and is buggy doesn´t make any sense for me.

Valve could have made my HL 2 experience so much better if they just wasn´t so greedy. If they would invest the extra money they got buy making sure they buy enough servers and such to keep it going and hire extra personal to remove all the bugs. But the easiest way is to scrap the on-line requirement for their boxed versions of the game.

 

[Filter]

i've never had a problem with steam.

but i dont like the fact that you have to have a internet connections to run a lan server.

or i dont know a way around this.

 

[bonkrowave]

But can´t you see the difference between a MMORPG and a single player FPS game?

MMORPG I mean the whole deal about them is to play on-line with real humans? the hole idea with Half Life 2 is for you to play alone against computer AI? that on-line requirements does nothing to improve the game. If I would have bought Counterstrike: Source it would have been a compeletely different matter .

So for me having spyware in my computer that eats resources and is buggy doesn´t make any sense for me.

Valve could have made my HL 2 experience so much better if they just wasn´t so greedy. If they would invest the extra money they got buy making sure they buy enough servers and such to keep it going and hire extra personal to remove all the bugs. But the easiest way is to scrap the on-line requirement for their boxed versions of the game.

Steam is not spyware, and the resources it uses are miniscule, especially on todays machines.

Valve chose to use steam as an anti-piracy, distrubution method. Its there game, its there rules, and it clearly indicates what you need on the side of the box, to be able to play Half-life 2.

World of Warcraft would have be a better experience if I could install it from a DVD instead of 4 cds, the servers were never down and I would get latencies of 5-10ms. The facts are that the company decided to do it the way they chose.

I personally think this whole steam thing is a mountain being made into a molehill. It is nowhere near what people make it out to be. It is easy to use, and does not hinder your PC in any noticeable amount. Hell I downloaded HL2 from scratch in just under an hour, over cable.

Hell its not like it was a surprise that HL2 needed steam. We all knew months ahead of time this was going to be the case.

 

[Erasmus354]

Valve requires you to have an internet connection to cut down on piracy. That is perfectly reasonable for them to want to have some control over how many people steal their game is it not?

If you dont want to buy the online version, buy retail, verify the game, then click offline and be done with it.

Also the game taking a long time to load has nothing to do with steam, it is simply that the game takes a long time to load.

I dont mind steam, I think it works quite well for me, when I had to get a new harddrive in my laptop, all I had to do was download 1.5mb steam file, login, and check the games I wanted to install. Then I wake up in the morning and voila I have the games. It wasn't a big deal that I had to wait a few hours for the game to install because I didn't NEED to play that night. And the time and effort required for me to reinstall all my Valve games was very minimal, and much less than the other games that use 4 CDs and require me to sit through the hour long install process.

If you dont like online distribution, dont use it. Valve is not stupid enough to remove all retail copies. They will find another distributor, they wont abandon the retail market.

 

[oqvist]

Steam is not spyware, and the resources it uses are miniscule, especially on todays machines.

Valve chose to use steam as an anti-piracy, distrubution method. Its there game, its there rules, and it clearly indicates what you need on the side of the box, to be able to play Half-life 2.

World of Warcraft would have be a better experience if I could install it from a DVD instead of 4 cds, the servers were never down and I would get latencies of 5-10ms. The facts are that the company decided to do it the way they chose.

I personally think this whole steam thing is a mountain being made into a molehill. It is nowhere near what people make it out to be. It is easy to use, and does not hinder your PC in any noticeable amount. Hell I downloaded HL2 from scratch in just under an hour, over cable.

Hell its not like it was a surprise that HL2 needed steam. We all knew months ahead of time this was going to be the case.

Don´t make the misstake to believe that STEAM work well on all computers

If it did there wouldn´t be people like me who hates it .

I mean I am on 100 mbit broadband did that help playing Half Life 2 smoother? No it still took 60 minutes AFTER I installed all files from the DVD until I could start playing. That and the fact if you read my post about not being able to play Half Life 2 every day is more than enough reasons to think Valve totally screwed it.

It´s spyware because it checks what files I have on my computer. That is the entire reason why HL 2 require an internet connection .

I haven´t said they didn´t mention the requirements what I said is that I don´t like the way Valve did. I don´t see why you should defend them? If Steam had worked as flawlessly as you said which I am the proof of it didn´t I would have less issue with it.

It works for you. Fine. It doesn´t work for me. Not fine

Also we didn´t know that also the boxed versions would require STEAM nor did we know it would be so buggy.

 

[Sly]

Valve should have made sure it worked for 100 % of the people before releasing the game

That's what steam is for, they can be lax on quality control. Even if the game wasn't actually finished (some scripts missing, some textures substituted, some walls transparent, etc.), they'll be able to patch it up anyway so who cares about quality.

And since there's no publisher to verify that the gold disk actually work and has no critical bug... err... correction, there's no gold disk.

What I find hard to believe that when I complain about an MMORPG everyone says its a work in progress and welcome to MMORPGs. But when its steam everyone screams it better damn well work for everyone the first time. ??

Don't you know the difference between an MMORPG and a standalone FPS? And steam isn't even a game! Yet it still needed to run any single player game that Valve might come out with.


BTW, with all the hoopla about steam being an anti-piracy measure. To the real pirates, it's just another game that got roadkilled by the crackers. Game cracked, distributed, played, finished, NEXT! Pirates are gone now, and the only ones left behind are the ones zealously defending Steam as the ultimate anti-piracy measure that it is not.

 

[bonkrowave]

Don't you know the difference between an MMORPG and a standalone FPS? And steam isn't even a game! Yet it still needed to run any single player game that Valve might come out with.

....umm its not a stand alone FPS. You need steam to run it.

 

[C4rniV0r]

BTW, with all the hoopla about steam being an anti-piracy measure. To the real pirates, it's just another game that got roadkilled by the crackers. Game cracked, distributed, played, finished, NEXT! Pirates are gone now, and the only ones left behind are the ones zealously defending Steam as the ultimate anti-piracy measure that it is not.

Exactly, all Steam did was drive more people to piracy that didn't want to deal with their backdoor trojan bullshit.

Valve should just rename Steam the ultimate pro-piracy measure

 

[Hazards]

I own a cyber cafe and I would just like to say that Valve and Blizzard are the greediest game dev's out there. They don’t' give a shit about their fans or the market, and the proof is in their pricing. If you want to do some research look into their cyber cafe/commercial licensing programs. With EA Games all I have to do is sign their commercial agreement and I am free to buy a retail copy of each game for each computer I wish to install and run it on, and I am completely legit. That equals out to a one-time cost that is easy for a business owner to handle. Valve and Blizzard both use a subscription based licensing structure, where I have to pay an initial setup fee, and then pay both blizzard and valve per month per computer I have in my store. Example. I purchase a retail copy of Warcraft III for each pc in my cyber cafe. In order to be legit, I must pay Blizzard $1000 a year, plus $10/computer per machine running the software. I have now paid Blizzard ~$40x 16computers(average for a cyber cafe)=$640+$1000/year=$1640 paid to Blizzard just to get to the point where I can have it. Then to maintain it I continue to pay $1000/year and $10/month x 16 computers = $1160 or $96.67 per month just to be able to play ONE game title. After my first year, I will have paid Blizzard $2800.04 to essentiially market Warcraft III for Blizzard in my gaming center. Granted their commercial license allows for use of all of their titles for the same $1000/year and $10/month, but I still need to purchase the additional software, and you can see where the operating cost of JUST Blizzard titles is ridiculous. Then on top of that, Valve has similar pricing JUST to run Valve titles. Oh and the kicker is Blizzard is not including WoW in that pricing. Through communications with Blizzard, WoW pricing will be separate, and the projected plan is to charge the customer for a copy of the game so he/she can setup their account (49.99+15/month paid to blizzard by the customer) and then charging me for a copy of the game for each computer (49.99 x 16 pc's) and then either charging me a monthly fee to allow users to play on their own separately maintained accounts, or charge me monthly based on the amount of time customer would spend playing their own accounts in my store.

Sorry this is so long, but it illustrates that Blizzard and Valve have HORRIBLE operating procedures, and that they are both money-grabbing companies. No one ruined Blizzard but Blizzard....

 

[bonkrowave]

Ummm I think you mean Vivendi is a greedy company. Vivendi just lost its case in court for selling valves game without valves consent to cyber-cafes. And Blizzard had most of there staff leave because of Vivendis business practices.

 

[Hazards]

Nope. Vivendi tried to offer a reasonable solution to cyber cafe's that operated similar to EA's policies regarding paying in full for a retail copy for each computer. Valve however decided that they could squeeze more money out of small business owners and took them to court for exclusive rights on distributing their titles to cyber cafes. Now we must pay a monthly fee to Valve on a per computer basis for an indefinite amount of time to be able to have Valve titles. IE: Valve titles have now become a monthly operating expense that will never end, and Valve will make an infinite amount of money by basically selling us the game over and over again every month, rather than letting us buy it once and be done. To put it as simple as I can think, Valve is not content with selling me the game, but rather demanding that I pay them a hefty fee every month for the rest of eternity, unless I choose to stop carrying valve titles. I would have been much happier with Vivendi's business/fan friendly way of operating....

 

[Hazards]

Also, I have never heard a good arguement for Blizzard's Internet Cafe' pricing other than "they are the company that you have to do what they want", as that pretty much agrees with the fact that they are a greedy company, and that they can get away with it. Does anyone have an arguement again that?

 

[bonkrowave]

I would have been much happier with Vivendi's business/fan friendly way of operating....

Pure comedy gold.

Vivendi is the worst thing to happen to gaming, ever !

 

[Hazards]

Pure comedy gold.

Vivendi is the worst thing to happen to gaming, ever !

Example? Can you point out in some way why it is better for me to hand our money hand over fist to Valve rather then buy one retail copy per PC the way Vivendi wanted to do it? Please provide feedback to your opinions relating to the topic in the quoted post rather than an unexplained blatant flame. Without anything to back it up I can't really take your post seriously.

 

[bonkrowave]

Example? Can you point out in some way why it is better for me to hand our money hand over fist to Valve rather then buy one retail copy per PC the way Vivendi wanted to do it? Please provide feedback to your opinions relating to the topic in the quoted post rather than an unexplained blatant flame. Without anything to back it up I can't really take your post seriously.

Would you like me wash your car? Mow your lawn ? maybe fix you a sandwich as well ?

Just read any of the posts about Vivendi in thee forums ... the search feature works well.

 

[Hazards]

Yes but I am trying to relate the issue towards my situation. In my situation I am being screwed by Valve, where Vivendi would have offered me a much better solution for my wallet.

 

[bonkrowave]

Yes but I am trying to relate the issue towards my situation. In my situation I am being screwed by Valve, where Vivendi would have offered me a much better solution for my wallet.

Vivendi offered you a better solution, because they were illegaly licensing valve products.

Hell I can offer you a license for HL2 for 2$ straight up. The only catch is, its stolen and illegal, but then again its the same as Vivendis offer.

Here

 

[Staples]

I find this news interesting.

I thought Valve was at least a little better (but I still dislike them) than VUG but now it sounds like they are both just as bad. Funny how things change around here. First everyone hated Valve for delaying HL2, then they hated steam and now they love both.

 

[Hazards]

Vivendi offered you a better solution, because they were illegaly licensing valve products.

Hell I can offer you a license for HL2 for 2$ straight up. The only catch is, its stolen and illegal, but then again its the same as Vivendis offer.

Here

Can't get to that site from work so I will look at it when I get to the shop. Vivendi was offering a licensing program similar to that of the less money grabbing EA Games, it was not illegal at the time, and only became illegal after the court decision. Prior to the court decision, they had the right to legally distribute the software within the pricing terms of their agreement with Valve. Without the court's decision there was nothing stopping them from "legally" offering us the licensing similar to EA. Now that there is a court decision making it illegal, this program has ended, and resulted in Valve having exclusive right to price gouge the cyber cafe industry. Through our cyber cafe partnership program (igames) we have heard of several cyber cafe's no longer being able to afford to carry Valve title's and in some cases going out of business either from the ridiculous charges, or lack of valve titles offered. I'm not defending Vivendi against anything they have done in the past, just stating that Valve is just as greedy, and offers a HORRIBLE solution to small business owners that is very similar to the way Blizzard works, which is nothing like EA Games, or a few other "friendly" dev's, and that Valve is just as poor a company as Vivendi in that aspect.

 

[fore1337]

http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=35599&subsectionid=1589

I guess now the only people who don't already have HL2 and are going to be buying it are broadband users starting August 31st. This includes HL1

How do they plan to distribute the HL2 Expansion Pack?


Man this statement says it all: (mo sucky for cyber cafe operators)

Cybercafe operators that were licensed by Vivendi or Sierra Entertainment have also been notified that any licence agreement that may have granted rights to use Valve games in cybercafes is terminated.