[starbug]

Does anyone know how to get this game to work? i have just reinstalled it and it wants to update!!( Evil Steam:hopping: ) even when i tell i dnt want the update! it tells me i have to wait 7000 mins!!!!!!!!!!! it does go down to about 5000, now i cant get broadband where i live and when i foned the helpline i was basically told to sod off when i said i cnt get broadband! so is it possible to get this game to work? i know the uk mag PCgamer released the updates on one of their CDs so people wouldnt have to use steam. Oh i wish i bought it ( just wish i nvr got a virus which forced me to format my machine:( ) cos i liked the game when i used to have it workin.

[Unknown Target]

One of the many reasons why steam/valve/half life 2 is evil...I guess try and find that CD - what the game is doing is, I believe, trying to "decrypt" the game's files - so that'll take awhile, unfortunately.

[aldo_14]

It's a ****ing pain.  I'd uninstall it, but then I could never play it again.

Hmmm.  I wonder how much of a loss that'd be.........

Ah.  Can't sell it second hand, either.

EDIT; actually, even with the update you had to wait several hours for it to do...well, something.  Dunno what.  I couldn't cancel it, and it kept crashing at 25, 50, 90% etc and forcing a restart.

[karajorma]

Contact your local trading standards board if they didn't say on the back of the game that you needed to have broadband. This sort of treatment of a paying customer is simply unacceptable.

[starbug]

Oh good idea Karajorma! on the back of my box it gives the minimum sys specs, and then it has a box seperate to that just saying Other internet conection doesnt say anything about wot type of connection not sure if thats enough for trading standards to go on. well on monday am gonna get in touch with Vugames and put in a complaint about the guy that i spoke to who was extremly rude. Then its on to trading standards!!

[pyro-manic]

Kick their ass.

[Hippo]

mine is clearly labeled as "High speed internet connection required to install"

[Sandwich]

Am I the only one who never had any problems playing Half-Life 2? I bought the game, installed it on my computer, and it worked flawlessly. *shrugs*

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Hippo
mine is clearly labeled as "High speed internet connection required to install"

My (uk) box says 'internet connection'.

In really tiny letters, actually; about font size 5 or 6.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Am I the only one who never had any problems playing Half-Life 2? I bought the game, installed it on my computer, and it worked flawlessly. *shrugs*

Yes you are. And if you were going to make a deal with Satan you should have done it for something a bit more impressive than getting an overhyped FPS to run properly

[Jeryko]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Am I the only one who never had any problems playing Half-Life 2? I bought the game, installed it on my computer, and it worked flawlessly. *shrugs*

Never had a problem either.  Ran better than expected matter of fact.

[pyro-manic]

I didn't have any problems, per se - it just annoyed the hell out of me. Having to be connected to Steam and having to wait for it to do it's little update thingy every time I started it and having to have the disc in the drive while playing was a bit of a pisstake IMO. I'm dreading what's going to happen when I reinstall it....

[aldo_14]

Game ran better, Steam ran horribly.  Awfully.  Astonishingly ****ely.  Every time it decides to update; crashes.  If it does update itself after about 5 restarts from scratch, it automatically overrides the default setting I gave it, and sets itself to startup with the machine.

Hell, it took them several months just to give people an option not to connect on startup, that's how bad it is.

The only reason I bought HL2 was because - stupidly - I thought I could install it, unlock it, and then uninstall Steam.  Now I can't even sell it 2nd hand, nor uninstall it.

[Hippo]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Am I the only one who never had any problems playing Half-Life 2? I bought the game, installed it on my computer, and it worked flawlessly. *shrugs*

Same here...

[phreak]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Am I the only one who never had any problems playing Half-Life 2? I bought the game, installed it on my computer, and it worked flawlessly. *shrugs*

ditto.  then again, stan and i are tight.

[starbug]

oh the game runs fine for me when i can get it to work, but it took me just over 6 hours to get the game decrypted and updated, which i think is just not on! i think Valve just didn't bother to take into consideration that not everyone has or can get a broadband connection when they made steam. They should of a lest gave the option to play the game without updating or aleast allow to pause and restart the updates like a download manager!

[Fineus]

It does seem that whoever designed and implemented the whole concept behind Steam is not someone who ever had to deal with a slow internet connection or computer system.

The game should be available as a CD or DVD in a complete package that will run on installation. No additional software... no decoding of GBs of information and no downloading of hundreds of MBs of patch before you can even run the single player edition of the game.

It's by far the most un-user friendly game I've ever run across. Valve did bad.

[Unknown Target]

Originally posted by Kalfireth
It does seem that whoever designed and implemented the whole concept behind Steam is not someone who ever had to deal with a slow internet connection or computer system.

The game should be available as a CD or DVD in a complete package that will run on installation. No additional software... no decoding of GBs of information and no downloading of hundreds of MBs of patch before you can even run the single player edition of the game.

It's by far the most un-user friendly game I've ever run across. Valve did bad.

OMG! YOU DARE TO TARNISH THE GODS OF GAMING DEVELOPMENT?!
Seriously, that's what most people think of Valve - even though they released only one full game, and, like, two original expansion packs - everything else they ripped.

Anyway, it's the same thing with reviewers. It seems that reviewers and programmers work on super high-end machines, so they can't really experience what us lower end users have to go through to play there games. That's why the programmers end up writing such innefficient code, and reviewers slobber of said innefficient and non-user friendly games (such as Half Life 2).

EDIT: By the way, I'd say the only good thing about Half Life 2 is the multiplayer - it's really fun. Problem is, it's hard to find a smooth server.

[Janos]

Originally posted by Kalfireth

It's by far the most un-user friendly game I've ever run across. Valve did bad.

Just... uhhh.... try to install some old DOS classics.

autoexec.bat and config.sys AGRAGRAGRGAGRA **** YOU

oh god the memories

(I never had any problems with HL2 and the installation was pretty painless but the latter was maybe because I was high on illegal drugs.)

[SadisticSid]

It galls me that the people running illegally downloaded copies of HL2 have the better user experience - a cracked Steam client that simply runs the game instead of spending 3 hours downloading patches all the time. I'll never buy another Valve game again, for sure.

I think software companies should be legally obliged to specify, in large bold letters, EXACTLY what sort of extra stuff you need to run their software; in the case of Valve, a broadband internet connection, and with these weird copy protection things, a list of (in)compatible hardware. If garages labelled diesel and petrol as the same thing, with the disclaimer 'may not work in all cars', they certainly wouldn't get away with it...