Steam? HL2? What is it?!

Rythmix · Post by **Rythmix** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:30 pm

Im sooo lost with this Steam/Halflife/Halflife2/Counter Strike/HL:Source/CS:Source..... What is Steam?!

I mean i know, halflife.. its a game with its own engine.
And CounterStrike was a halflife mod that became a full retail game.
But then i see this 1.5 CS Steam and 1.6CS non-steam
and this Source thing and HL2 steam release, then non-steam release.. and steam is dumb and valve has bad customer service, and blah blah...

Im so lost... i got halflife.. thought it was just as bad as the rest of the alien hunter fps games (doom, duke nukem, etc.... plus no gamepad support.. pffft)

I only want HL2 for the modding community as well, alien slaughtering gets boring (ala Doom 3 suckdom). But all the same, what is it all? can someone explain it all to me?

jb · Post by jb » Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:36 pm

Steam is a content delivery system. There are people like me that got all of the HL games (HL1/HL2) and its mods via Steam. Never had to install or buy any CDs/DVDs. The nice feature for the on-line mods is that it can update your game files every time you play. Which can sound bad but it also was used for good things to fix bugs and to stop cheats. Also valve can cut out the publisher by using steam

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 6:18 pm

For people like jb, who got all their content from the web, STEAM is a pretty cool thing.
For me it's an annoying piece of software.

I bought HL2 from an ordinary software store and installed it. After entering the usual code STEAM (that I had to install, too - about 100MB, thank you Valve) logged onto the Valve server, to check if my files were not pirated. And it downloaded another 90MB - god knows what they are for. All that took about half an hour. And now every time I want to play HL2, the game fires up STEAM, which then in turn goes online to verify my software, before the game starts to load. That's about five minutes of waiting between klicking the desktop icon and starting to play a level.

HL2 is awesome, no doubt about it. But I am really considering to never ever buy a game again that needs STEAM to run.

Zachariah · Post by **Zachariah** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 7:18 pm

I dont see what the big hassle is for most people . Like JB , I think steam is Fine , I dont have any problems with it at all. Unlike Jb , I Very Rarely Buy Proggys online. so at least theres proof that Its not just appealing to people used to that sort of thing. I for one have no beefs against steam. I think its a fine program. I dont noticce the slow updates , as they seem pretty quick to me.

and HL2 is definately something to buy regardless of the awesome modding community that will soon follow.

jeditobe1 · Post by **jeditobe1** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:33 am

After playing Everquest (though the same applies to any other MMO) for 3.5 years, which requires all users to have the latest version and you have to run a steam like patcher every time you play the game, im sort of used to it.

That said, for a game whose content is mainly singleplayer.. it seriously blows =(

Zachariah · Post by **Zachariah** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:35 am

jeditobe1 wrote:That said, for a game whose content is mainly singleplayer...

Thats debatable , the CS: source side of things is certainly not insignificiant, and Im sure there is a large chunk of people who bought HL2 just for that.

jeditobe1 · Post by **jeditobe1** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:40 am

I wont debate about that.. but HL2 itself is mainly singleplayer from what ive seen. And having to authenticate that is annoying. For CS:Source you need an active internet connection anyways.

azrael · Post by **azrael** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 10:55 pm

I know this is going to sound crass, especially given the work put on by the CUT2:E team, but has anyone considered/is anyone planning a port of Chaos to the Source Engine?

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:32 pm

azrael wrote:I know this is going to sound crass, especially given the work put on by the CUT2:E team, but has anyone considered/is anyone planning a port of Chaos to the Source Engine?

Since HL2 doesn't have MP that'd be pretty hard to pull off right now...

azrael · Post by **azrael** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:19 am

MP

If you mean multiplayer, what about CS:Source? Isn't that like the most popular online multiplayer FPS ever?

General_Sun · Post by **General_Sun** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:55 am

Well CS:Source unlike CS is almost a whole new port of CS onto Source, ie, not a mod.

Unless you plan to lisece source, you have to wait for it to be fully modable.

Zachariah · Post by **Zachariah** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 1:23 pm

the mod SDK is coming out Really soon.

Also , there is already a HL2 multiplayer mod out . its not high quality but hey , the games been out for only 2 weeks

www.hl2files.com

Deapblade · Post by **Deapblade** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 1:55 pm

Why o why does the collectors edition not come out the same time as the normal edition.

Why oh why...

General_Sun · Post by **General_Sun** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 10:43 pm

I think you guys should make a move once it's out. I don't really care, but I think that that'll be helpful to the mod.

DemonHunter · Post by **DemonHunter** » Thu Nov 25, 2004 3:13 am