Waiting is the hardest

Mostly PC, but console and mobile too
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

7 more days...
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
mbilderback
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Post by mbilderback »

To?.....
Zetleft
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Post by Zetleft »

HL2
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

Less than 24 hours and early word is beyond positive.

Penny Arcade hears nothing but love through their pipeline and loved own experiences with it. PA, in fact, is declaring it is much better than DOOM 3. Putting it in a different class and even saying it represents a new revolution in games. The first one did, so why not part two right?

Mags with early reviews are praising it as are early websites.

That's a lot of hype, not that HL2 could get more hyped. I hope it lives up to it.

I found one mag hilarious. It was a console heavy mag I saw at a friend's. In it, Halo 2 was given a 10 and Half-Life 2 a 9.5. The reasoning was really weak. The writer went out of his way to try and nitpick minor stuff in HL2. Meanwhile, Halo 2 was given no criticism despite its flaws like the heavy bashing of its single player storyline that seems to have started since its release. I wish console mags would stick to consoles and vice versa.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

The waiting has ended.

PCGamer has called it: "The best game ever made."

It had better live up to the hype...
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

Hoo boy.

Because of my school schedule, I'm now backlogged in both gaming and reading (for pleasure). What a quandry.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Zetleft
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Post by Zetleft »

Haven't played too much of it, FUCK YOU STEAM, but I really really fucking like it. The unexpected loading screens will piss you off though, I really need more ram. The huge environments and great models, even on medium settings, can make me put with that easily though.
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

The STEAM thing really has me irked as well.

So much so that I smell a front page post coming about it.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

Just got into STEAM (45 minutes installing and such and still haven't played a minute of HL2 yet...) and found out that had I purchased the game online, I would've gotten three other games for $5 more if I had purchased the game online.

Nice.

I haven't even started Half-Life 2 up yet and I already am trying to find out where I can send a complaint, and I think Valve has become the ultimate paranoid big brother.

At what point in corporate America did the consumer become a child that should be treated like a criminal?
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

I just submitted the following to the Steam support forum.
I purchased Half-Life 2 in a store. After installing and registering it, I discovered that I could have bought the game on Steam and for an additional $5 received several other games with my copy.

I was not aware that these alternate packages existed.

Since I cannot return my copy to the store as the store's policy is against the return of open software, how can I upgrade my store bought copy to the Steam Half-Life 2 Silver package?


Waiting on a response.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Steam made me uninstall Half Life/Counter Strike because it made it virtually unplayable. CS had so many add-ons through WON that it was hard to find a server that would allow cheaters. Not that I was looking. I'm just saying, if you found a server that had cheaters on it, you were VERY unlucky. EVERY server was running anti-cheat software, and it worked. Then WON went away and you had to go to Steam. I tried MANY servers and EVERY one of them had cheaters. No anti-cheat stuff in sight. I'm guessing Punk Buster, etc will eventually port over (may have already done it). But, by installing Steam, it bastardized my HL install and I couldn't even play it any more after uninstalling Steam. I didn't feel like reinstalling and patching, etc. So, the game died for me. One of the greatest and most played games of all times was killed by Steam, in my opinion.
Zetleft
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Post by Zetleft »

Actually I loved steam when I was able to download HL - Cs and Dod and play them all a few hours later all just by having my cd key on hand when I created my steam account. It downloaded the whole thing so fast I didn't think it got it all. Steam this time around with HL 2 pissed me off to no end, I bought the silver package online due to the extras included but when I got home on release day the servers were so swamped I couldn't get my preload of the game unlocked for like 4 hours.

Leisher, their only response (if you get one) will be that you can purchase the source extras lke dod and cs for like 10 bucks more, basically pay a bit extra and you get upgraded.

I was a huge steam fan before release day but thier inability to actually prepare for a launch that was over a year delayed is in-fucking-excusable. It was a nice step to get around the giant money grabbing publishers but its still got growing pains to work through.

edit: Back to the game though, I still love it, just got the gravity gun, hot damn is that fun, even better than the waverunner stuff.
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Post by GORDON »

I'm reading A LOT of bad stuff about HL2 and Steam. It is making me think I shouldn't bother. One guy said while he was playing SINGLE PLAYER HL2 for a couple hours, Steam did 600MB worth of chatting over his net connection.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

They want you to play HL2 while online, but you don't have to so that will eliminate that issue.

STEAM SUCKS ASS.

Still, I've only played 10 minutes of HL2 and its already very impressive. I'll let you know if its worth the trouble in a few days.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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Post by GORDON »

What happens if the authentication servers disappear in a couple years? Your $60 game is now an unplayable drink coaster?
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

No. (maybe)

Steam is essentially an online store, external hard drive, and multi-game finder.

By purchasing a game through your Steam account you always have access to it. They DL to your hard drive for you to play, but copies are always there. So theoretically, if you got a new PC, you'd be able to install those games you have access to there.

But, say Valve goes out of business or they decide to stop supporting a game, then I could see those games "ending".

There is no denying it, Steam absolutely sucks. Valve has brought magic into our world with Half-Life and by early looks, Half-Life 2. However, Steam seems to be a scorched earth approach to stopping piracy.

Trampling the rights of consumers and treating them all like criminals is not the answer.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

I dunno.

I'm wary.

I have a good excuse (too busy lately) to hold off on HL2 and see how it all shakes out.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

I'm really torn.

Steam sucks and in my opinion is the beginning of the end for PC Gaming.

At the same time, this game is kicking much ass so far.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

You still need to buy an expensive license to write a game for a console, right?

As long as that's true, there will always be hungry peeps who will come out of nowhere and make great PC games on zero budgets. All the good ones started that way.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
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