[Martinus]

Seems the pre-load of episode 1 of HL2 is up on Steam today.

The question is will Valve make a decent game or will it forever be doomed to the fate that anything with the name 'Episode one' is dubbed with and fail in amazing computer-graphicalness style?

[IPAndrews]

It will suck. Obviously.

[karajorma]

Not touching it with a 10 foot barge pole simply because I refuse to have anything to do with steam.

[Col. Fishguts]

Care to elaborate for the HL2 challenged ?  Is this about HL1 in the source engine ?

[Fineus]

No, it's an add on pack for Half Life 2 that supposedly expands on the storyline: http://ep1.half-life2.com/

[IPAndrews]

HL2 episode 1 is actually HL2 epsiode 2, where the original game was episode 1. Yes that's right. They couldn't even get the name right!

[Fury]

No exactly, HL1 was Ep1, HL2 was Ep2, so this would be Ep3.

Not touching it with a 10 foot barge pole simply because I refuse to have anything to do with steam.

Steam has its few flaws but it makes the concept true reasoably well. Personally I like Steam for what it represents; no CD's/DVD's and no copy protections so craptastic that are SecuROM, Safedisc and StarForce. Also provides neat auto-uodate if user wants. If all you need is to have Steam running in background to get all this, fair trade in my books.

[Ferret]

Not touching it with a 10 foot barge pole simply because I refuse to have anything to do with steam.

Same. it's intrusive and crap. Needing the internet to play an offline sigle player game is just wrong anyway.
I still havn't played HL2 because it uses Steam, and I don't know anyone with it. I dislike HL1 anyway, but that's another story.

[IPAndrews]

No exactly, HL1 was Ep1, HL2 was Ep2, so this would be Ep3.

You mean HL3:Ep3 .

[Fury]

Same. it's intrusive and crap. Needing the internet to play an offline sigle player game is just wrong anyway.

As far as internet connection requirement goes, you only need internet connection to activate HL2 which takes only a minute. Internet connection is not required after activation.

[Ferret]

Same. it's intrusive and crap. Needing the internet to play an offline sigle player game is just wrong anyway.

As far as internet connection requirement goes, you only need internet connection to activate HL2 which takes only a minute. Internet connection is not required after activation.

The fact that it's needed at all is pretty poor in my opinion, I have tons of friends who play games on thier PC all the time but have no home connection, they borrow friends computers or use public library computers to check e-mail and the like.

[aldo_14]

Steam is a nice concept, but an utterly ****e and rubbish implementation.  Just look at what Stardock have done for a better, tighter implementation of download sales.

[vyper]

Heh, servers are being swamped.

[Fury]

The fact that it's needed at all is pretty poor in my opinion, I have tons of friends who play games on thier PC all the time but have no home connection, they borrow friends computers or use public library computers to check e-mail and the like.

Well sorry mate, but it is called development. Net access is becoming a necessity, moreso with PC's but later also with game consoles.

Steam is a nice concept, but an utterly ****e and rubbish implementation.  Just look at what Stardock have done for a better, tighter implementation of download sales.

Having used both Stardock's Central and Steam, Stardock's implementation has actually managed to cause me some problems, unlike Steam. So as far as my personal experience goes, I'd say Steam is better of the two.

[Ferret]

The fact that it's needed at all is pretty poor in my opinion, I have tons of friends who play games on thier PC all the time but have no home connection, they borrow friends computers or use public library computers to check e-mail and the like.

Well sorry mate, but it is called development. Net access is becoming a necessity, moreso with PC's but later also with game consoles.

Again I disagree. You saythat it's a necessity with game consoles, but really only Microsoft have taken full advantage of it so far, and even then certainly do not require you to have a connection to play games, simply because it's a hassle for people who don't have it or can't afford it.

Home internet access is not half as widespread as you might think.

[Fury]

I said net access will become a necessity also with game consoles, not that it is. Xbox Live is just the beginning.

[aldo_14]

Steam is a nice concept, but an utterly ****e and rubbish implementation.  Just look at what Stardock have done for a better, tighter implementation of download sales.

Having used both Stardock's Central and Steam, Stardock's implementation has actually managed to cause me some problems, unlike Steam. So as far as my personal experience goes, I'd say Steam is better of the two.

Really?  I have nothing but praise for it.

[Unknown Target]

The way Steam works IIRC is you need to load it up, connect, validate, then you can disconnect. Every time; that's utter BS, especially because my DSL goes out a LOT and I'd prefer to be able to boot up a program just to play, I don't want to jump through a seperate program to get on the internet to play a single player game that I legally got instead of being treated like a criminal. Also, Steam has it's own copy protect BS; there are tons of horror stories of when HL2 first came out, people were pirating illegal copies so that legal people couldn't play.

On top of that, the game sucked. No thanks to the Ep1.

[IPAndrews]

It's like buying a car and then having to borrow the ignition key from the dealer every time you want to start it. At least that's what Valve wanted. They got so much agro off of paying customers (annoyed at being treated like pirates) that they ended up adding the ability of start without validating under certain circumstances. ha!

[Martinus]

Ach, what are you all worried about online authentication for?

There's a nice 60 odd KB patch that lets me play HL2 whenever I feel like it without online interferance. CS has become so poor since they ported it that I'm really not in the least bit interested in playing it on verified servers. I paid for it so I should be able to play when I want and how I want.