http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/14/0511228&tid=204&tid=98&tid=133

Apparently you can buy Half-Life 2 but you can't actually play it till it "authenticates" to some server owned by Valve. Seriously, WHO thinks it's a good idea to require an internet connection and open firewall ports just to play a damn game? I thought MS was bad with "Windows Activation," but damnit, THIS IS A GAME. What happens at some point in the future if Valve goes out of business and I buy HL2 in a bargain bin? Guess what, I can't play the game! What happens if I am on vacation with my laptop and I get some crashes and have to reinstall with no internet connection, oh goody, now I can't play the game I just paid $50.00 for. This is insane madness, and the only reason they get away with it is because punk kids are willing to sacrifice their freedom to play OMG HL2ROCKS!!!!

It's so insane. If they pulled this with Railroad Tycoon part 57, nobody would buy the damn game. But since Valve does it with HL2, every gaming company from now on will "follow the leader" - I'm betting that in 5 years time you won't be able to play a damn game without internet authentication EVERY TIME YOU RUN THE EXECUTABLE. It's absolutely insane.

It only authenticates the first time you run single player. As for multiplayer, this makes it no different than any other game really...

And as far as Valve going out of business, Newell is a multi millionaire from his days at Microsoft... So it's not going anywhere. He has personally said he's not really in Vavle for money. He just wants to make a product that he's proud of.

Bill, it's people like you that ruin it for the rest of us.

How about "Screw Vivendi?"

Vivendi didn't invent Steam and force authentication.

How did I ruin anything for you Brian?

Meh, I like Steam. Yes I am evil.

What the hell are you talking about?
You didn't mention a single of Brian's excellent points on why it's stupid.

Also, does it mention anywhere on the box that you need to authenticate it? Does it have internet access as a requirement for play?

And how will you like it when in 3 more years every game you buy will have its own authentication and "content delivery system" and you will have to sign up and give all your personal information to these services just to play a damn game? You need to look forward just a little bit!

I mean seriously, how do you feel even a little bit comfortable putting your personal information and credit card numbers into a web site made by a company that couldn't even keep their carefully guarded source code safe? Do you think they spend even half as much time caring about keeping your personal information private? Think about it.

It's because HL/CS was the most pirated game EVER. They lost millions and millions of dollars because of piracy, got their game pushed back because of piracy, got humiliated multiple times because of piracy. It's their way of righting whats wrong.

Since when does whining count as an excellent point?

I like the way steam works, but I don't like where it's going. I want to be able to buy a game that I don't have to have the internet to play.

But does this Valve Steam system reduce piracy?

Yes, it forces you to own a legit copy

I tend to agree with Brian here.
I have a damn half-working wireless connection at the dorms, what if it's down?

I mean, I guess if it's just to authenticate for the first time, it's not as big of a deal...but still. I've only seen that for things like Windows or Office. And if this does lead to constant authentication for games...well. I'm going back to 2d.

I beg to disagree. HL/CS needed a valid CD key to play, so it's not exactly easy to pirate.

Out of business? Crack it. Singleplayer HL2 will be cracked, there is no doubt. Multiplayer is another story since the server has to give you the data and it won't do that without a CD key. Or without it being cracked too.

Steal their software, and look what they have to do. Maybe you didn't steal it, but others did, and you're paying the price for it. Don't be mad at Valve. Besides, it doesn't affect you. I doubt it'll come to the point of giving up sensitive information...I think that's being a little paranoid. If that does happen, then it's a problem.

Bioware recently started something very similiar for Neverwinter Nights. Basically, they have been putting some new modules together, worth of about 5-10 hours, and you can download them from their website. However, when you buy the module, the purchase is logged on your account. Whenever you want to play the module, it'll log on to the authentication server and check wether you are registered for the module. If you are, great. If not, no module for you. And no, you can't just simply copy+paste everything in the module. The Neverwinter Nights toolset simply refuses to open the module.

Seeing as how you can only download these modules, I can understand why they're doing it. Protection against software piracy. It's not the best of solutions perhaps, they're losing quite a few players who would've bought the modules if they could(I'm part of said group). Bioware has been(not too surpisingly) honest about it. They admit that they're basically only catering to a very small part for their audience, and might even be interested in searching for other viable ways of bringing these modules to the players.

Aye, I'm basically not able to play a few modules from Bioware due to this new system, a few modules that I'd actually like to play(in particular Witches Wake), but I can understand their decision. If it reduces piracy, so be it.

My stance for Half Life 2 is pretty much the same. As long as I don't have to give away any personal information for signing up an account. As far as I can remember when I signed up for Steam, I only had to give a name for my account, an e-mail adress and a password. That's it. No credit card number, no adress, no phone number, nothing. Once I signed up, I only had to give the CD Key that came with my ATI Radeon, that's it.

Now, once I have to start giving my personal information away, then I just might start having some misgivings.

(And something quickly aside...



... punks kids? sacrifice their freedom?[/b] Aren't we being a tad too dramatic here?)

Why does Valve require people to authenticate the game? One word: Piracy. I doubt Valve is going to be able to stop the illegal distribution of the game this time around, but in the future, this might be the key to defeating the warez kiddies. What percentage of users today have internet access? You need the internet just to activate a copy of Windows XP these days for crying out loud. And not being able to play "when you're on vacation with a laptop" is a small prize to pay for what this system might eventually be able to do.



If this does happen (and it's unlikely), Valve can simple release a patch that removes authentication from its games EDIT: or some kind of crack.



Yes, it does. It says Internet Connection Required on both the recommended and minimum requirements.

You shouldn't need to ask permission to use a product after you have paid for it. It's only a one off thing now, but I can see this beng expanded in the future to needing an open internet connection any time you want to play. And now that I type that, I am strangely reminded of Palladium.

But this is probably irrelevant for me anyway since my home PC doesn't have an internet connection, so no HL2 for me.

Do I really need to tell you how many results are yielded on kazaa if you type in Half Life Keygen?

Yeah and do I have to tell you how many of those are useless text files or viruses?

The point is that it's not hard to crack HL1.

And do I have to tell you that it's really not that tough to illegally obtain a CD Key for Half Life via other sources than Kazaa?

Exactly. But with steam you have to have a unique key.

This has obvious problems though. My friend has bought HL twice so he could play on steam and both times his key hasnt been accepted by steam.

Agreed, JKWhoSaysNi, my thoughts exactly(my post was more in response to Bill's). Odd that those CD Keys weren't accepted. Was it because they weren't proper CD Keys(according to Steam) or because they were already in use?

Wait. I was under the impression that you weren't going to buy HL2 anyway, something along the lines of "i'd rather play daikatana". So... Why are you complaining?

I don't see what the big deal is. You connect to the internet once before you play, and it's not that hard to find an internet connection for five minutes.

It seems to me, people are just trying to find things to ***** about. Waah.

They were already in use. Someone had obviously generated them with a keygen and that's the problem. Legitimate users cant play the game they paid for because of something which is supposed to stop piracy.

Dude, the whole "not my freedom!" crap is totally fashionable these days.

Fixed.

The stupid things is that all these new authentication type only inconvenience the people who actually buy the software.

The warez versions that will no doubt be available soon (if not now) will have the activation crap ripped out. (for single player at least)

Raynar

That I'll agree with. If Valve wants Steam to be taken seriously they need to...well......keep everything the hell away from Gabe Newell, because that guy has no clue whatsoever about internet security. Fortunately I doubt twinkieboy has done anything "hands on" with Steam.

Otherwise though, I like the Steam concept.....and speaking as an aussie, buying games via it is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying them in stores over here.

I don't feel that its fair for a company to charge $40 and up for a game. If it was < $ 30, I wouldn't have a problem, but games are getting to be more and more expensive.

I happen to be pro-piracy. People have been pirating software since the 1980s, and the software industry is still around. It's not a real problem.

This is why I have no desire to buy this game... I've lost hope in Valve and basically everything on this project after delay after delay.

Undoubtedly.

If valve builds a countermeasure, the warez community could pretty much crack it inside of 48 hours or less. I don't indulge in such things myself, but i know people that are HEAVILY into the warez scene, and they taught me this.

Excuse me while I go work my *** off, code all day, and have my paycheck stolen from me.

[edit] The only times I've ever pirated games were for LAN parties - because not everyone always has every game that we want to play. Two of my friends loved CS so much that they went out and bought legit copies in the middle of the LAN party.

I already made it clear that my problem isn't only with Valve/HL2, but with the direction this really, really bad move is going to take the industry. Once HL2 gets pirated just as much as HL then they will think of something even more strict - like authenticating every time you want to play the game, not just initially... and people will say, "well, it's okay to reduce piracy, nevermind if I can't play the game offline, most people have internet connections anyway." After that, when piracy still exists, they're going to make it so that you have to play the game through an activeX control on Internet Explorer and that no content will be stored on your local computer (despite the fact that you just paid $50 for the box & [storage media of the day]). When internet connections are powerful enough and servers are powerful enough, the game won't even reside on our machines anymore.

Those keys will allow you to install the game, not play it online. The limited amount of keys that are available on the net are either in use or have been black market long ago.



You obviously haven't got a clue as to the size of the warez community nowadays. Aside from killing small developement studies (the downfall of quite a number of great companies can be attributed in part to piracy, like Looking Glass), you seem to ignore the fact that game developement costs have skyrocketed in the last 20 years, while the $50 price-point (even with inflation that has driven up prices in other areas of technology) has been a standard for as long as I can remeber. People complain about software power houses like EA, but the fact of the matter is that they exist soley because they the only way to make a serious profit nowadays is with big name titles and companies.

And in general, I find it very disturbing that you're "pro-piracy". Some people spent a great deal of hard work producing these titles. The whole idea behind capitalism is that you purchase products, not steal them, and that is all the more ironic since I remember you being one of the strongest Bush Republicans on this board. Talk about double standards.



Read this article and tell me that same thing again:
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/?q=1&tag=gs_pc_topslot_click

I think the online authentication thing is a good idea.
Stops piracy.

Come on, if you don't have an internet connection, what the heck is wrong with you?

But... It shouldn't be required to play single player all the time, only an activation would require the internet.


As for the bargin bin thing, I'm sure you could download a file that would allow you to play it without connecting to their serrvers in case something happens.

The other thing is, you guys keep saying it's to prevent piracy, but at the same time there are tons of posts telling everyone that this is NOT going to prevent piracy. So at that point, what's the point?

Look, I'm a software developer. That's what I do, 8+ hours a day, for my job. Software piracy sucks. It sucks thinking you're entitled to more money because you think every clown that pirated your software owes you money. But the fact of the matter is that as long as people have control of their own operating environment (IE: your machine actually has a hard drive and a processor in it), you cannot stop piracy. Another fact is that those people wouldn't have bought the game anyway, even if they couldn't pirate it. Why? Because they don't have money, or they don't believe in paying for software, or they don't want the developer/publisher to get money, etc. There are tons of reasons in their minds for not paying for software.

You just don't get where this is going. It's starting with games, what's next? DVDs? Every time you go buy a DVD and want to watch it, your DVD player is going to have to authenticate over the internet in order to allow you to watch. Music CDs and walkmen connected over wireless networks to authenticate that you are "registered" to use the CD you just popped into your diskman?