STEAM?!?!

ok, first off...WHAT IS STEAM? WON server replacement or alternative?

This is going to mean what to those who paid for multiple copies inorder to get multiple cdkeys? REFUND?

Will this change anything for people who have deticated servers?

a website, or direct answers would be great...thnx

steam = valves online tool for instantly dl new mods / products, some of which u have to pay for.

steamID will replace won ID

+ yes you have to have a steam dedicated server now, check phl I think they have a link to the files needed.

I just can't believe the next patch will mean Steam is NECESSARY - since it needs broadband to work that means 56k users are screwed, which is completely unacceptable in my opinion.

yeah, its insane. Im gonna see if theres a way to use getright or somesuch otherwise I think its time to sign anti-steam pertitions.

Actually, the broad-band connection was necesary due to the fact that the Steam beta needed a lot of updates and stuff. But in the new version (1.0-non beta) it won't be necesary a 256 connection. 56 modems will be acepted too.

Zeuss- but downloading a 400 + meg file package will literally take DAYS on a 56k. Its just not that feasable.

Exactly Monqui - us 56k'ers arent saying Steam isn't palletable (although I do have other quarms with it), more along the lines of "why make large updates mandatory?". It seems Valve are living in some strange capitalist fantasy world where most of the US/EU/World population all has broadband to download their bloated packages - which is simply not the case..

if this means that I can't use HLSW anymore, there better be a box of skulls near for me to bust.

HLSW? For the life of me i can't figure out what that stands for

 

Other than the "HL" bit of course :smile:

Half-Life Server Watch I believe...basically it's a really nifty server program, I like it way more than say gamespy etc.

i one time stumbled on a website that would not only search for severs names, but could also filter for specific names of players and find which server they were in...i sadly lost the url, is HLSW something like that?

VALVe had better to do something for 56kers, IMO. It looks like very few people on this side of the Broadband-Dialup boundary seem to want to use Steam.

 

*EDit: WTF? I don't want to sound crazy, but my rating went to 3.6 from 4...

http://www.hlsw.net

rating? hah, hardly anyone has even looked at my profile, let along rate me :razz: but my map has a good rating so far so they're looking at the goods at least.

Damn....had to re-register here....but for all those waiting for the Steam update, this was hysterical:

 

 thats the funniest thing I've seen all day!!!

I was about to do that.. HAHAH U Beat me to the punch..

I agree I thought it was damn funny!

($)

.

Sinner_D said:
i one time stumbled on a website that would not only search for severs names, but could also filter for specific names of players and find which server they were in...i sadly lost the url, is HLSW something like that?

gametiger.net

Not to break this "Fun thing" but I've heard roumers, that you will have to pay for playing while using steam... :eek:

But it's only roumers....

No you wont have to pay to use steam.  You have an option of getting HL2 through steam which will cost you $9.95 per month.  To play through steam you will need a valid cd key.

bleh, smede thats only certain products. Weve been through the whole pay to play thing before.

+ I dl steam, installe dit. it then updated for a full bloody hour/10 mins & then asks for what hl mods u want to use what maps u wish to keep what bra size you are...

anyway, Its taken about 1 hour 30 & its still stuck on some dodgy part. Its not even ready yet, this is uber 56k unfriendly.

Well okay, then I'll gues that I can relax... :biggrin:

GAH! GAH! GAH! GAHE GAH! GAH!

sodding bloody program. I just wasted 2 hours witht his bloody thing only for it to screw up at a later point, So I cntrl+ALT+DEL 'ed it, guess what? I HAVE TO DL EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH AGAIN! this is absolutely f'("?&$3485073

right so ive got steaming pile of crap installed, guess what? it doesnt even work very well. It crashes often, When you click exit steam it doesnt exit & you cant open it again. When u attempt to try to connect to a server it just says preparing to play hl...

this program is a joke tbh..

Off to a good start, eh korneh?

yeah :/ ive reinstalled it a 3rd time to try and see if itl sort my problems out ive had with it, 3rd time lucky? no unfortunately its awfull.

Im not looking forward to the point in which won gets taken down & I have to use this.

It seems like it's downloading things constantly... Well, really it needs the downloads but (at least whare I live) it doesn't dl anything!!!

Hey! I've just had check it and I will be ready to play CS in 575 minits!!!!!!!!!!

http://bender.vault-tec.de/steam.htm

<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Converting Base Goldsrc Shared Binaries files into steam cache...complete
Converting Half-Life files into steam cache...

[/quote]
it's been doing the later for 4 hours. I dunno if it's 'converting' files, or downloading stuff or what, but this is f**king ridiculous. NOTHING should take this long. there is a very good chance I'm going to uninstall both steam and half-life and say goodbye to valve forever.

jinx, thats where mine screwed up m8. cntrl+alt+del it. reopen it & itl dl 1 more update & then finish.

btw, just searched for Jinx via add friends list. there are loads :S

Gorbachev said:
Half-Life Server Watch I believe...basically it's a really nifty server program, I like it way more than say gamespy etc.

Hummm, I've been happily using All Seeing Eye for over a year now, I hope that still works.

check it out, Steam really IS adware:

http://www.geocities.com/lilgunblade1987/steam_infestation.gif

Cash Car Star said:

Gorbachev said:
Half-Life Server Watch I believe...basically it's a really nifty server program, I like it way more than say gamespy etc.

Hummm, I've been happily using All Seeing Eye for over a year now, I hope that still works.

Indeed ASE does rock... I use it for every game I own... especially good for finding quakeworld and CPMA (q3 mod) servers, which are normally very hard to find.

My steam experience thus far:

First:



Then once I got past that:



GG valve :sad:

Just heard about this on IRC-

http://www.planetmayhem.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=56

Kinda scary, if ya ask me.

There was an interesting post by firefly part of the way down, regarding what they had written.

Quite frankly, I?m disgusted too. I'd of thought the quality of journalism on this site would have been better than this I?ll thought out news story indicates.

For the benefit of those who have been genuinely mislead by this peace of scare mongering, all is answered on the HL2 forums:

-----Original Message-----
From: Derrick Birum
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 11:52 AM
To: Erik Johnson; Gabe Newell; John Cook
Subject: RE: gcache and its mysteries.
The cache file gets created on the client using the Windows CreateFile() command. This command will create the file but not initialize it. Due to the large size of the file, we don't bother initializing the empty data blocks in it as this can take an appreciable amount of time. On NTFS machines, files created with this method happen to have the property of appearing empty (initialized to zero) but for FAT32 machines, it shows up as whatever old data was sitting on drive in the sectors that just got allocated for the cache. The people that are reporting this behavior are actually seeing old data from their hard drives.

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=127676#post127676 

TBH, I really don't have the technical knowledge to know which is true. Both views sound reasonable

On a side note though, Steam's been running fairly smoothly for me, although why it decided I needed to move my entire HL folder is beyond me...

EDIT: I take that back, I had the same thing happen that Jinx got.

I've had experience in using CreateFile() and if you don't initialize the data, you will get weird s**t happening sometimes.  Hmm, I might be able to pull up the documentation on the CreateFile() command when I get on my laptop, for those that are interested in what it says and how it should be used. 

Steam has some trouble with Go, so watch out if you're an avid Go player.

Cash Car Star said:
Steam has some trouble with Go, so watch out if you're an avid Go player.

rofl.

ok i download steam (589kb) and install . . . after a few crashes and waiting for about 20 minutes for it to "update platform files" it says what mods would you like to port over to steam blah blah blah just like kornflakes. it's about halfway through that when it simply stops responding and i have to ctrl alt delete it. i reboot it and this time i get into the proper steam gui with the menu of games, servers, friends, etc. i click on games and click on counter-strike and it says "you will be ready to play counter-strike in 20 minutes" . i wait for it to download and i have 2 seconds left when steam just freezes and goes not responding. i reboot, it doesn't prompt me for anything, i go servers> and click on my nearest server and it says "cannot launch counter-strike. you don't have it yet" or something like that. I reboot my whole computer and try again, click on the server, this time it loads the counter-strike 1.6 gui but it stops there. i can't do anything, my computer lags, and then counter-strike goes not responding . . . there are no buttons like there are supposed to be down the bottom. errrrrr ... HELP?

 

EDIT: I just downloaded a seemingly newer version of steam, it was 598kb instead of 589 :S . . . i install and after a few crashes of steam it boots up and tries to update like steam did before then says it can't get to the steam network :@ . . . is steam down or something???

So far HLSW is still working. It works for many many games just like ASE I believe, and if it ain't broke don't fix it. I'll stick with it until it dies/breaks/overthrown/spywared/valvesteamed/beatenwithtoomanyuglysticks.

Alright, ive aready vented my anger on said walls, so im going to say it nicley...steam is a pile of fat censored.

I installed it and updated it and installed my "extra games" and all that good stuff...but then all of a sudden i realised that my half life was now overwritten by steam. Well im going to reinstall and patch up my wall again.

EDIT: read my avatar text

KoRnFlakes said:
yeah :/ ive reinstalled it a 3rd time to try and see if itl sort my problems out ive had with it, 3rd time lucky? no unfortunately its awfull.

Im now on my 4th or 5th install I lost count cos I had to log off but when I got back on to my profile I had to reinstall it for some reason cos the exe had vanished I have no idea where it went but it left my PC.

Damb pice of s**t

[edit]

It also crashed when it was converting HL files into a steam cache on me aswell

ever sinc eI installed steam, My comp has been going pear shaped. Lots of errors for no reason, crashes - programs saying they are already running etc. This is pretty poor.

Btw, Anybody else using steam. bung your usernames in ere so I can add you to friends list :smile:

I know im not exactly a regular, and im usually ignored, but just in case my name is FailSafe :biggrin:

Well I'm going to go ahead and try again on steaming pile of sh*.

P.S. Is there a new font and size on the forums, its kind of jarring to look at once your used to the small one. It's easier to read, though...

My PC is acting up more than usuall.

This version of Steam is worse than the beta and the system requirements were twice what I have and now the system requirements are

[*] 64 MB RAM
[*] 400 Mhz processor
It takes hl 30mins to run and thats with out downloading anything and it hadn't crashed either

Well, I've uninstalled HL on this comp, only have it on my laptop for LAN parties in a Steam-free environment.  Just think, if they keep the HL2 release date, you'll have even more problems with Steam in a short while. 

"You'll have even more problems with Steam in a short while."

That suggests you won't even be buying HL2! I know your a UT fan but even so, I thought you'd be going for HL2 as well.

Here you go people of the snarkpit...