Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)
I expect I'm just one of many who have got more (I mean of course
substantially less) from the purchase of Half Life 2 than I bargained
for.
As with all great products the joy started at installation.
I had made two runs through of all the disks finding an obscure error
near the end that despite referring to corruption actually meant that
you *had* to install the Counterstrike:Source. Did anyone there bother
to install from the Gold Master before ship? Evidence of Incompetence #1
Not so bad by itself - yet this little beauty was to have an effect
later.
I should explain that for reasons I won't go into I was stuck with Dial-
up for the duration of this.
So then we had the need to authenticate (or whatever they want to call
it) the product with their fabulous 'Steam'. Like all companies beyond a
certain point they had decided that the best solution to piracy is to
place the burden on the legitimate user. Oh and at the same time they
decided to use it to employ that other favourite tactic of mine: Assume
the user's PC is dedicated to their product.
So by default everytime you boot, Steam wakes up and checks things and
if you're not online (hello!) spits the dummy instead of just detecting
that you aren't (note: this is not difficult..). Why not just quietly
shrink to the system tray? Evidence of Incompetence #2
So of course the first time I went to play HL2 offline it didn't work. I
had authorised it and updated it (many hours..) when only authorising it
was necessary. Updates shouldn't be mandatory. Evidence of Incompetence
#3
So eventually I did enable offline play and happily waited while the
game started (no short thing). I set my games to *not* be automatically
updated. (But it seems from what you'll read later this is not an
instruction - just a request that can be ignored.) I got a good way into
the game until one fateful day...
I started the game when I was online.
Steam saw an update (apparently for itself), and I wasn't quick enough
to stop it. For more than a week Steam couldn't successfully update
itself. I couldn't play the game. The update wasn't necessary, but Valve
know better and force it on you. EoI #4
Offline play is not available.
I reinstalled Steam (not an option available from the menu - thanks
Valve EoI #5), blocked problem servers as instructed but all to no
avail. Eventually after probably more than a day of online time in the
attempt I managed to update Steam. Just to compound the problem, Steam
never remembered it's progress on its partial update - each time it
restarted before getting from anywhere from 5 - 63% and silently (see
Valve can be subtle when they want to hide their stupidity) closing
down. Idiots. EoI #6
OK - so now I'm ready I thought.
Wrong.
Offline play is not available.
HL2 was not updated, as Steam had obviously noted the updates for it -
and I would be forced to update it before I could play. So I updated it,
no short process. But when I tried to play it offline again ...
Offline play is not available.
Checking the properties for HL2 in Steam's poorly laid out interface I
found that it was only 99% updated. (It's poory laid out because the
meaningful information that stops you playing is harder to find than the
marketing.) This despite the fact that I had actually gone into the game
to check it was working (online of course...). EoI #7
So what to do now? Well this is where Valve's other goofup comes back to
annoy you again. The advice I saw on their forums was that CS:Source -
though I've never even looked at it - has to be updated again. So let's
wave goodbye to many more hours of unnecessary downloading. Nice touch.
EoI #8
Oh - and the time remaining countdown is massively optimistic - from the
time it read 37 minutes every 'minute' has taken about 5 to 7 human
minutes even with a constant throughput. EoI #9
And you can't do anything else while it's downloading. The Steam process
consumes all CPU. Wow - that downloading thing seems to be much more
difficult than for every other application. Maybe it's busy calculating
how much time is left.. EoI #10
Now the absolute maximum anyone buying a stand alone game should have to
do is install it, authorise it and if you choose - get a patch. So why
the incompetence Valve?
I will never buy a Valve game again.
--
CatharticF1
"Memory is a stranger,
History is for fools"
I expect I'm just one of many who have got more (I mean of course
substantially less) from the purchase of Half Life 2 than I bargained
for.
As with all great products the joy started at installation.
I had made two runs through of all the disks finding an obscure error
near the end that despite referring to corruption actually meant that
you *had* to install the Counterstrike:Source. Did anyone there bother
to install from the Gold Master before ship? Evidence of Incompetence #1
Not so bad by itself - yet this little beauty was to have an effect
later.
I should explain that for reasons I won't go into I was stuck with Dial-
up for the duration of this.
So then we had the need to authenticate (or whatever they want to call
it) the product with their fabulous 'Steam'. Like all companies beyond a
certain point they had decided that the best solution to piracy is to
place the burden on the legitimate user. Oh and at the same time they
decided to use it to employ that other favourite tactic of mine: Assume
the user's PC is dedicated to their product.
So by default everytime you boot, Steam wakes up and checks things and
if you're not online (hello!) spits the dummy instead of just detecting
that you aren't (note: this is not difficult..). Why not just quietly
shrink to the system tray? Evidence of Incompetence #2
So of course the first time I went to play HL2 offline it didn't work. I
had authorised it and updated it (many hours..) when only authorising it
was necessary. Updates shouldn't be mandatory. Evidence of Incompetence
#3
So eventually I did enable offline play and happily waited while the
game started (no short thing). I set my games to *not* be automatically
updated. (But it seems from what you'll read later this is not an
instruction - just a request that can be ignored.) I got a good way into
the game until one fateful day...
I started the game when I was online.
Steam saw an update (apparently for itself), and I wasn't quick enough
to stop it. For more than a week Steam couldn't successfully update
itself. I couldn't play the game. The update wasn't necessary, but Valve
know better and force it on you. EoI #4
Offline play is not available.
I reinstalled Steam (not an option available from the menu - thanks
Valve EoI #5), blocked problem servers as instructed but all to no
avail. Eventually after probably more than a day of online time in the
attempt I managed to update Steam. Just to compound the problem, Steam
never remembered it's progress on its partial update - each time it
restarted before getting from anywhere from 5 - 63% and silently (see
Valve can be subtle when they want to hide their stupidity) closing
down. Idiots. EoI #6
OK - so now I'm ready I thought.
Wrong.
Offline play is not available.
HL2 was not updated, as Steam had obviously noted the updates for it -
and I would be forced to update it before I could play. So I updated it,
no short process. But when I tried to play it offline again ...
Offline play is not available.
Checking the properties for HL2 in Steam's poorly laid out interface I
found that it was only 99% updated. (It's poory laid out because the
meaningful information that stops you playing is harder to find than the
marketing.) This despite the fact that I had actually gone into the game
to check it was working (online of course...). EoI #7
So what to do now? Well this is where Valve's other goofup comes back to
annoy you again. The advice I saw on their forums was that CS:Source -
though I've never even looked at it - has to be updated again. So let's
wave goodbye to many more hours of unnecessary downloading. Nice touch.
EoI #8
Oh - and the time remaining countdown is massively optimistic - from the
time it read 37 minutes every 'minute' has taken about 5 to 7 human
minutes even with a constant throughput. EoI #9
And you can't do anything else while it's downloading. The Steam process
consumes all CPU. Wow - that downloading thing seems to be much more
difficult than for every other application. Maybe it's busy calculating
how much time is left.. EoI #10
Now the absolute maximum anyone buying a stand alone game should have to
do is install it, authorise it and if you choose - get a patch. So why
the incompetence Valve?
I will never buy a Valve game again.
--
CatharticF1
"Memory is a stranger,
History is for fools"
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