So last night I decided to take a chance and order the Silver edition of HL2 through Steam. I figured that it's $10 cheaper than the Collector's edition box version without all the stuff I don't need, and I won't have to worry about preordering at the store, etc.
I downloaded Steam and purchased the HL2 Silver edition. The first thing I noticed was that HL1:Source isn’t even available yet (I was under the assumption that it was). Ok, I’ll play Counterstrike:Source. Oh great, a 90 minute download time, I guess everyone and their mother is downloading it, oh well. So I tried to play CS:Condition Zero, but an hour later I still could not get it to run; in fact it locked up my machine twice. So I ended up just cutting my losses and going to bed. Now I'm feeling like I wasted $70.
"Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand." - Anonymous
I think once you get CS: Source up and going you will probably feel a bit better about your $70. That is if you enjoyed Counterstrike originally. It’s basically the same old game with a few new things, but for whatever reason it has me addicted again. Just make sure to find a nice private server to play on. That has increased my enjoyment of CS quite a bit.
Otherwise, I hope things start going a bit smoother with you and Steam. So far Steam has worked well for me. Fairly fast downloads and CS: Source has been pretty rock solid without any crashes. I would recommend pre-loading Half-Life 2 as well. I just let it download all night and I had the pre-load in the morning. Unfortunately, I can’t help you with Condition Zero as I only have the bronze version.
Open up Steam and go to the Play Games menu.
Right click on all of your games you plan on playing and then select properties. Make sure "Always keep this game up to date" is selected. Let Steam download all your games. Then try playing. A game is completely downloaded when the Offline Mode property says Ready.
I had problems with Condition Zero too. The solution that worked for me was to let it completely download first.
Open up Steam and go to the Play Games menu.
Right click on all of your games you plan on playing and then select properties. Make sure "Always keep this game up to date" is selected. Let Steam download all your games. Then try playing. A game is completely downloaded when the Offline Mode property says Ready.
I had problems with Condition Zero too. The solution that worked for me was to let it completely download first.
You're right, I just noticed that myself. I'll give it time to update and then hopefully all will be well. Thanks for the tip.
"Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand." - Anonymous
Raven_13 wrote:So last night I decided to take a chance and order the Silver edition of HL2 through Steam. I figured that it's $10 cheaper than the Collector's edition box version without all the stuff I don't need, and I won't have to worry about preordering at the store, etc.
I downloaded Steam and purchased the HL2 Silver edition. The first thing I noticed was that HL1:Source isn?t even available yet (I was under the assumption that it was). Ok, I?ll play Counterstrike:Source. Oh great, a 90 minute download time, I guess everyone and their mother is downloading it, oh well. So I tried to play CS:Condition Zero, but an hour later I still could not get it to run; in fact it locked up my machine twice. So I ended up just cutting my losses and going to bed. Now I'm feeling like I wasted $70.
Crowley wrote:Can you play agianst the AI in CS Source?
Yeah bots are in and much smarter from what i hear. Although i have yet to see any bots in play. A friend of mine told me its one of the things that will be added at launch as its already coded and in the game, just needs to be unlocked...
It's $60, not $70. That's why it's such a great deal. Only $10 more than the Bronze edition and a lot more comes with it.
While I love having a box and the CD, I've been nothing but happy with my Steam purchase. After I downloaded it, everything was great. I had already preloaded the stuff earlier from playing my brothers CS 1.6 account to see if I wanted to blow my money to get CS:S early, so it only took 15 minutes for me to downloaded.
Just give it time. It's not so bad. Set them to download before you go to bed and everything will be ready in the morning.
Raven_13 wrote:So last night I decided to take a chance and order the Silver edition of HL2 through Steam. I figured that it's $10 cheaper than the Collector's edition box version without all the stuff I don't need, and I won't have to worry about preordering at the store, etc.
I downloaded Steam and purchased the HL2 Silver edition. The first thing I noticed was that HL1:Source isn?t even available yet (I was under the assumption that it was). Ok, I?ll play Counterstrike:Source. Oh great, a 90 minute download time, I guess everyone and their mother is downloading it, oh well. So I tried to play CS:Condition Zero, but an hour later I still could not get it to run; in fact it locked up my machine twice. So I ended up just cutting my losses and going to bed. Now I'm feeling like I wasted $70.
Wow, 90 min., huh? A freakin' eternity.
Ale
It might as well be when it's only 60 minutes till bedtime.
Anyway, I wasn't complaining about the wait, just saying that if it was going to take 90 minutes on a 2.5m/s connection, a lot of people were probably hitting that server.
"Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand." - Anonymous
Valael wrote:It's $60, not $70. That's why it's such a great deal. Only $10 more than the Bronze edition and a lot more comes with it.
While I love having a box and the CD, I've been nothing but happy with my Steam purchase. After I downloaded it, everything was great. I had already preloaded the stuff earlier from playing my brothers CS 1.6 account to see if I wanted to blow my money to get CS:S early, so it only took 15 minutes for me to downloaded.
Just give it time. It's not so bad. Set them to download before you go to bed and everything will be ready in the morning.
I agree, once I gave it enough time to download (it just wasn't immediately apparent to me that it still needed more time, so I jumped to the conclusion that there was a problem), Steam's been working perfectly. It'll be nice to (hopefully) go home on 11/16 and have HL2 ready for me to play....
"Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand." - Anonymous
So a person's use of Steam is tied to a cd product key correct? I could conceivably grab my 6 year old HL cd, install Steam, and put that cdkey into Steam to update HL to the most recent version along with TFC and CS?
If I were to buy HL2 from a store, is Valve going to be releasing manual patches or will we have to install steam and tie it to my HL2 product key to update?
I confess I've not been paying any attention to Half Life related information since I stopped playing TFC, so I'm a little unsure whether buying a copy from the store will limit us in some way in the future.
Ibby wrote:So a person's use of Steam is tied to a cd product key correct? I could conceivably grab my 6 year old HL cd, install Steam, and put that cdkey into Steam to update HL to the most recent version along with TFC and CS?
Not only is that true, but I actually gave away my original Half-Life CD key (you know who you are!) but I still had my CD key from the Blue Shift expansion. I installed Steam, put in my Blue Shift CD key and voila! I now have the original Half-Life, Opposing Force, Day of Defeat, TFC and Counterstrike all from the Blue Shift CD key.
I have yet to find anything to complain about Steam. I may actually buy the Silver version of HL2 over Steam.
After browsing through some of the Q/A sections on the Steam site, I might actually consider that silver package myself. Remembering how much a pain it was trying to keep all the various HL mods updated, I can certainly see the benefits of using Steam.
warning wrote:I installed Steam, put in my Blue Shift CD key and voila! I now have the original Half-Life, Opposing Force, Day of Defeat, TFC and Counterstrike all from the Blue Shift CD key.
Speaking of Blue Shift. Any idea why Steam doesn't have it? That's the only Half Life expansion I didn't play, so it'd be nice.
warning wrote:I installed Steam, put in my Blue Shift CD key and voila! I now have the original Half-Life, Opposing Force, Day of Defeat, TFC and Counterstrike all from the Blue Shift CD key.
Speaking of Blue Shift. Any idea why Steam doesn't have it? That's the only Half Life expansion I didn't play, so it'd be nice.
Blue Shift used a different version of the engine that ran Half-life and Opposing Force. Apparently, Valve didn't want to have to port it over to work with Steam, which is the same reason you don't see the high-def pack on Steam. I think that there are also some licensing issues. Gabe says that Blue Shift will be added eventually though.
Thats good, i loved blue shift, even thou it was really short, its was kinda cool. I hope there are some blue shift opp force references in hl2 that'd be neat. Little bits for the fans that have played through all 3 black mesa single player campaigns..