HL2 registering time

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Wolfy

Wolfy

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Aug 30, 2003
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Havent gotten HL2 yet but a mate of mine has it and said registering took 2 hours!!! on a dial up!!! Does anyone apart from me think that has to be shittest thing a games company has done???

"Its only when you look at ants closely with a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames"
 
Not sure if it was a dialup thing or not. I doubt it. Then again, took me almost 15 minutes for the game to be unlocked with cable. He probably was trying to do it on the first night like me and oh, maybe 42 million others. I couldn't even get confirmation on my retail HL2 being registered until the next morning, but at least they let you play it. If you had a steam account before hand, you were better off. Otherwise signing up for steam was a delay in itself. Whole process was 30-45 minutes for me. Two hours...ouch.



ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 
I was lucky I was already a Steam member, so it simplified things a lot. The unlocking also took about 15 minutes with my cable connection, and my confirmation came the next day.

"A delayed game will eventually come out, a bad game is bad forever."
-Shigeru Miyamoto
 
The unlocking part of registering is what took the longest. It took me about 15min with raid0 raptors and a 3mb dsl connection. I can see it taking forever if you have a slow hard drive.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>
 
still tho its a total [-peep-]..... why bother when it will be cracked in a week anyway and its just another way for games companies to [-peep-] around with ppl who actually pay money to buy their products.....

"Its only when you look at ants closely with a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames"
 
I agree. Definitly worth the wait.


"A delayed game will eventually come out, a bad game is bad forever."
-Shigeru Miyamoto
 
It really does depend on your internet connection speed. And it is f'ing annoying. It makes Microsoft's anti-piracy crap in WinXP look friendly.

That aside, it's definately worth it. HL2 is just great!

<pre><b><font color=red>"Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the evening.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Steve Taylor</font color=red></b></pre><p>
 
I just can't see that a high speed internet connection SHOULD help so much. I mean how much data is being downloaded from steam to unlock the game? Or is it that steam is providing next to zero bandwidth per person, meaning everyone has a slow go of it? I have a 10MBps cable connection and can DL 65-70MB per minute. Yet I wonder how much was DL'ed from Steam to unlock the game in 15 minutes? My guess is not very much.


ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 
Am i to understand that the only way you can play Half Life 2 is to have STeam and internet?

What if someone didnt have the luxury of internet but wanted to buy and play the game?

That is TOTAL BULLSH!T

Is'nt it enough that they got our money for the game?
What gives them the right to do crap like that?

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger
 
If you have a decent gameing computer then you probably have internet of some kind, even $10 a month dial up. Next you can blame the faggets who pirate all the games, why exactly do you think they are takeing such measures to protect against piracy?? Because an estimated 4 million copies of the original HL and its mods was pirated. If ppl would get off their lazy Arses and pay for a game then there would be little need for such extreme measures. And the game is worth it!!!
It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes on a normal day, I tryed to create an account and unlock my copy on the 16th when it was released and it took 2 hours on cable interent with my system. I didn't even recieve a confirmation until the evening of the day after! You should take it as a good sign, if the servers are that busy then the game must be pretty darn good.

P4 2.6c@3 / 1GB OCZ DDR533 / Abit IC7-Max3 /
BFG Geforce 6800 GT @ 410/1100 /
Baracuda 7200.7 120 GB SATA / Lian-Li PC-65 Case
/ SyncMaster 700nf Monitor / 3DMark03-12100
 
I just can't see that a high speed internet connection SHOULD help so much. I mean how much data is being downloaded from steam to unlock the game?
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Are you kidding? There was a ton of data streaming in <i>both</i> directions to unencrypt five CDs worth of files. I'm not about to reinstall it just to get the exact numbers, but it was a lot. A broadband connection really makes a huge difference.

<pre><b><font color=red>"Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the evening.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Steve Taylor</font color=red></b></pre><p>
 
If you have a decent gameing computer then you probably have internet of some kind, even $10 a month dial up.
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More to the point, if you're going to spend $50 on a game, then you probably have internet access. And if you don't, a cheap ten buck modem and an AOL coaster isn't a far stretch for someone already paying that much for the game.

Next you can blame the faggets who pirate all the games
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I still blame Valve for this one. I'm sorry. I appreciate how 'bad' piracy is, but at fifty bucks a pop, they're hardly suffering. More importantly than this however is that there are a number of other ways to protect your game without going to those extremes that reap equivalent results. Heck, just distributing it on a copy-protected DVD and using their CD key would have been enough. In fact, to my knowledge, there are still some CD copy-protection schemes that haven't been broken well enough to count them as failed. There was absolutely <i>no</i> need to require a constant internet connection to decrypt five CDs worth of files through their servers, or to require signing up with any undesired online service like Steam.

And the game is worth it!!!
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That I won't argue. :) In a way it's almost a shame that it is, because that will mitigate the controversy of Valve's insane protection scheme.

It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes on a normal day
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Unless you have dial-up internet access. The sheer amount of bandwidth used in unlocking the game will ensure a long wait for regular modem users.

You should take it as a good sign, if the servers are that busy then the game must be pretty darn good.
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More like a sign that the servers are flooded with an excessive use of bandwidth just to unencrypt the installation of the game. Had Valve not required that goofy unencryption stream process on top of everything else then the servers wouldn't have been bogged down at all.

<pre><b><font color=red>"Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the evening.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Steve Taylor</font color=red></b></pre><p>
 
I personnaly have been playing for a few days now through Steam and i must say the game is well worth it.

I know if i was one without internet and was a legit owner of the game, I would be upset if i couldnt play it. It is a shame that piracy has to ruin it for the rest.

Question: Once the game is registered do you still need internet to play or is it just for registration?

Anyhoo, the game is awesome, just sucks that i have to turn off the game to go to work.

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger
 
That seems odd to me. I don't question that broadband would help some, but seems odd that they need a ton of data to unlock the game. Seems overkill if they went to that extreme to encrypt it. I'd love to know just how many MB's were DL during that 15 minutes. I would have imagined 1-3 MB at the most but maybe I am WAY off.



Steam was still poking it on night one though, broadband or not.


ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 1GB Corsair XMS 4000 Pro Series, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt
 
Took 5 hours on cable, ridiculous leaving it on over night, CPU and network traffic were pretty much on 0 with the network traffic only spiking every now and then.

The Game itself is incredible, graphics are awesome, thought i may have some trouble running it on decent graphics on with a geforce 4 ti 4400.

Its anoying having to go through steam to play the game, And how are you suppose to play counter over LAN as it will only lightup when steam is online.

Finally i do sorted feel ripped of after paying the extra money for the collectors box and getting a crappy little book Half life 1 with absolutely no changes to it,and a T shirt that would struggle to fit a toddler, and in a crappy cardboard box. Fans of the first game have been dragged though the gutter and spat on in the last 2 years but at least we have been delivered an awesome game and I cant wait to see what kind of mods people come up with.
 
I know if i was one without internet and was a legit owner of the game, I would be upset if i couldnt play it. It is a shame that piracy has to ruin it for the rest.
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If you bought the game without internet access, then you are friggin idiot, as it says you need internet on the box. That's why they teach you to read in school.

Question: Once the game is registered do you still need internet to play or is it just for registration?
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No you don't need internet once it's activated. Steam has an offline mode, which is triggered when you start it without an internet connection.


I've read a lot of trash about steam the last week. Many peope trash it without apparent reason, other than for reasons that are known to all when you go out and buy the thing. I bet you the worst complaining is done by people who do not want to buy the game but will use a warez version.

I'm quite happy with how steam is running (yes I have a decent broadband connection). The thing that is worrying me with regard to steam is the limited rights a paying customer has. I have bought the game, I was required to get a steam account. The protection on a steam account is basic stuf, i.e. a password. It not unconceivable that quite some steam accounts will be hacked and if it happens to me, and my account is closed then I loose my rights on playing the games I've registered with that steam account. This is all in the EULA that you agree with when you get the steam account. I do not think that is a very nice situation for customers that have paid lots of dollars to play ValvE games. That is what I find worrying, the other stuf is just nagging by naughty little children that are afraid that pirating good games or online cheating will become more difficult, and I don't care one bit about that.

If you disagree with ValvE, just don't buy their stuf. I assure you their policies will change once they loose a significant portion on their projected income because of thes dissatisfied run away customers. Using a warez version is for whankers. (of course this rant was not directed at you, stinkfinger, i'm just too lazy to add another reply and combined it with my answer to your question).


BigMac

<A HREF="http://www.p3int.com/product_center_NWO_The_Story.asp" target="_new">New World Order</A>
 
I have no clue what it says on the box cause i had the voucher when i purchased my video card. .So i had to Use Steam.Have been for quite some time. Runs good and no complaints here.And yes i would have bought the game if it didnt come with the video card. I buy my games. Too difficult to pirate games and its not worth the hassle.

All i was saying that if i really wanted to play the game and was going to pay for it but for some odd reason did not or was not able to have internet, i would be upset. Although i would find a way to take my rig to a friends house and do all the steam crap. I would find a way. Im sure the percentage of those who do'nt have internet compared to those who do is very minimal

Once again, blame the lame ass flamers for piracy

Anyhoo, Bottom line is the Game Freakin RAWKS.

Confuscious say: He who go to bed with itchy ass, wake up with stinkyfinger<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Stinkfinger on 11/20/04 12:55 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
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