[Deepblue]

I can't see me becoming excited for HL again after finishing HL2. Sure the graphics and physics were cool, but the game got really boring. Especially the awful driving sections.

I'll probably still get Ep. 1 anyway... :|

[Ferret]

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.

This shouldn't really need to happen though, those people who don't have knowledge of such things are are unable to get them still have to go through all the crazy Steam rigmorale.

Not to mention how bloody annoying it must be for 56k users; Couple of minutes to connect properly and then waiting all day for Steam to do what it needs, and even then probably end up failing. It just drives potential customers away and encourages people to pirate.

The whole copy protection thing is bull**** anyway, at the end of the day no matter what you put into the game it WILL be cracked after a day or so, and those who want to pirate games will always do it.
Anyone remember code wheels and having to look up words in the manual on page blah paragraph blah? Those are the most effective means of copy protection ever in my opinion, but still pretty intrusive non-the-less.

[WMCoolmon]

I haven't had any significant problems with Steam, past the initial installation stupidity that I had to go through when I first installed HL2.

However, I dislike paying $$ over the internet unless there's a very good reason. Plus, I've heard the stories where Steam shafted paying customers, and only restored their account after they made a massive publicity deal out of it.

[Cyker]

It's annoying... another game I can't play because I'm supposed to be boycotting this kinda stuff...

I was annoyed about GalCiv2... that whole spiel about no copy protection is misleading - The retail release doesn't have any, but the patches do, and they require server-side authentication to run!
As I don't want to register myself, I can't patch the game unless someone starts releasing cracks for the patches! (Ha! Cracks for PATCHES! I never thought I'd see the day...!)

Anything that ties any part of the program to an outside third-party entity sucks IMHO.
At least with CD-based copy protection, I can crack and then burn that to a backup which I KNOW will work.

With things like Steam and StarDock's stuff, you wouldn't be able to guarantee that. If they decided you shouldn't play their game anymore, they could just lock you out and there ain't a damned thing you could do about it.
If their ISP jacks up data-rate charges due to idiot companies like AT&T being greedy and they are forced to shut down Steam because they can't afford to run it, then what? What ya gonna do 'eh?

And what do they accomplish really? Ziltch.
HL2 was cracked a few weeks after release. In fact, I remember the release because the servers didn't work and my friend (who bought the thing on a DVD!!!) ended up having to download a cracked version of HL2 just so he could play it!!!
I mean, what the hell?! You buy the thing lock, stock and barrel, install the whole thing, then find you can't play it because some stupid server out there won't auth you?!
That's just ridiculous.

We never want to be in that situation again.

Fine, if the game is multiplayer I'll grudgingly register an account and authenticate, but for an off-line single-player game?! They can go screw themselves.

'course this isn't a very common view, so I'm sortof resigned to buying more and more games from indep. devs like Rake in Grass who write fun games that don't use copy protection

[aldo_14]

Stardocks stuff will run sans internet connection; you'd have a problem getting patches if you installed it after it was shut down (assuming no alternative was provided), but that's about it.

What I liked about it, was that I've got a working, operating game CD at home.  And I was able to go into work, download the client, click a few buttons, and install GalCiv2 on my machine without needing to shuffle CDs or do anything beyond fetch a CD key.

[Grug]

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

You mean HL3:Ep3 .

Well really, HL1 was Season 1, HL2 was season 2, and Episode 1 is season 3 ep1.

[Sandwich]

I've reinstalled OSes a number of times since I bought and played HL2; I'm downloading and installing Steam right now. I'll let you guys know how I fare. So far.... it's slow, but it's working fine. Granted, I do have Azureus eating up a lot of my bandwidth...