Earlier tonight, curiosity got the better of me and I went ahead and downloaded and installed Steam. I went ahead and did it so I could see what it was, and if I hated it... well... I haven't had fun playing anything other than JK online recently anyway. Too many idiots and team killers, and not enough intelligence and common sense.

So, it seems ALL it's done is install itself. I don't think it updated any of my games. So I ask ye fine citizens of Massassi, are they worth updateing (me gots the HL Platinum Pack, so that should give you an idea where I stand), and what third party items are recommended?

Hmmm... I bet downloading all of THAT on a modem will be fun...

------------------
Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

I'm not sure if it has been ported to steam, but back in the WON days, Battle Grounds was a really fun mod.

------------------
"Honey, you got real ugly."

As far as mods go, I'd suggest Natural Selection, Sven Co-op, Science and Industry, and The Specialists. There's probably some good ones I'm forgetting, but I'll let everyone else fill those in.

------------------
Some of you should learn to think a bit and discover - *gasp* - that someone can dislike Michael Moore, Kerry, and Bush!
-Wolfy

Day of Defeat and The Specialists. I've heard only good things about Natural Selection.

------------------
<A HREF="http://www.dreamtheater.net/disco_dreamtheater.php?s=sfam" TARGET=_blank> "Our deeds have traveled far,
What we have been is what we are."</A>

Natural Selection is great; unfortunately, some of the people who play it are not so great.

I spent a match being yelled at over voice connection constantly that I was doing something wrong. This I could tell from the tone of voice. Unfortunately, my dog was not present in order to translate from "super-high=pitched" to normal-people talk. It sounded like everyone I was playing with was 12 years old. I'd constantly request orders through text, stating that I could not understand what they were blithering on about, only to be yelled at unintelligibly through voice.

Ugh. Multiplayers.

I think, now when the WON servers are gone, you can only play with bots or install the
Steam thingy and join the rest of the HL MP community in Steam games. But there are no
more than just a handfull of mods that support bots. Or you can create a LAN game and play with your friends.


------------------
This IS the best place.

There's a new mod I've been playing called "The Ship"... google it.. its fully Steam compatible. The premise is you're one of a bunch of passengers on a ship, and you have to hunt down and kill another passenger. Except you don't know who is who, so you go around "talking" to people looking for your quarry, while trying to evade the person who is hunting you down. Its a lot crazier than that, but its a really funny mod, and I highly recommend it.

------------------
http://www.jedilegacy.net/gonk/

"The Battlegrounds" is on steam. Great fun, fugly though.

------------------
There is no signature

Earth's Special Forces, if you can stomach DBZ. Great effects, solid gameplay.

Other than that, its been said; Natural Selection is great, The Specialists...

Gonk I'm going to try The Ship tonight, I was looking at it earlier.

Sven Coop, ESF, The Specialists

------------------
Maker of the Levels:
Sand Trap
Sand Trap (Night)

Writer/Author of the fanfic: Dragonball Aftershock

_.~'AKA DBF_SuperSaiyan'~._

A lot of people used Steam when it was first released, and haven't since. They will all tell you that Steam is horrible and terrible etc.

Steam has improved a lot since it was first released.

The thing that still irritates me is that it uses a lot more resources than it should do. It is basically just Gamespy, but seems so much more bloated and there isn't really any good reason for that.

Firearms is a fun game, but seems to be dying

Natural Selection is great, always fun.

The Specialists is amazing. I have been playinga lot of that lately.

Hostile Intent is awesome too. Its kind of like a Rainbow Six game.

------------------
[url="http://gianturl.com?LslqYgMc,,zP3dd,3F9p8Zk,0,9LHkg7DS4bZW1Z4,PvH78r9v2svr7X,S,2cpBF,L
Hh3l2,6WPxP4,m28fBMzy4Rh,7xvzFHg4qS7k,qzG2K,7q6YSCXqP5x3,,1,,m5mC,gMrw4Xcx7,,,tg
LQw,F,J,p5X5,mCD7,p4fCJh9bc5kw,vmqWsl2h0V,6VRsy4b,9G6H,6,qdtM9PZ,ls,s0,N1rjwJ3hkwfr
nmfDV8G5J,,jT6bt3c7vh4,DVMkf3qX8dcz9yGnHkrr1hT8P8R4cC6Fx0qdl2,hKCH,b5wJY,,cVt,LPRx
RunXrp"]http://gianturl.com?LslqYgMc,,zP3dd,3F9p8Zk,0,9LHkg7DS4bZW1Z4,PvH78r9v2svr7X,S,2cpBF,L
Hh3l2,6WPxP4,m28fBMzy4Rh,7xvzFHg4qS7k,qzG2K,7q6YSCXqP5x3,,1,,m5mC,gMrw4Xcx7,,,tg
LQw,F,J,p5X5,mCD7,p4fCJh9bc5kw,vmqWsl2h0V,6VRsy4b,9G6H,6,qdtM9PZ,ls,s0,N1rjwJ3hkwfr
nmfDV8G5J,,jT6bt3c7vh4,DVMkf3qX8dcz9yGnHkrr1hT8P8R4cC6Fx0qdl2,hKCH,b5wJY,,cVt,LPRx
RunXrp[/url]

I heard all the Steam backlash, and I'm a 56k user, so I avoided it. But its really not even bad for 56ker's. As long as you still have the games installed for WON, when you go to add the games to Steam, you can convert your previous game. When you do that, it'll be like 85% done, and it just has to download the new files.

It took me less than a couple of hours on 56k to have the entire HL Platinum pack playable on Steam, DoD and CS took another day, (I already had CS 1.5 and DoD 1.0 for WON), and it converted that and then upgraded.

Saves a lot of time, not much downloading...and now everythings fine.

So far, I don't see really why everyone hates steam so much. Works fine for me.

Seconded.

Internet Multiplayer now a days just isn't worth it. Lan games may be few and far between, but it makes them more fun and enjoyable, and you don't have immature idiots running around.

I looked at the list a open games that I could join last night. I think it got up around 800+ before I stopped it. At least 780 of them were Counter-Strike, a game I've looked at, and decided isn't my thing. Especially online. A Lan might be a differnet story.

Anyways, I'll check that stuff out later tonight. I'm not in the mood to spend a few hours downloading things right now.

------------------
Put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me,
You told them all I was crazy,
They cut off my legs now I'm an amputee, God damn you.
============
Frogblast the Vent-Core!

Despite what everyone says, check out Counter-Strike. There's a reason it's the number one played online game.

Because no one has made enough aimbots, wallhacks, and various other cheats for anything else yet.

I just recently re-tried CS, and I've had at least 3 or 4 games where the entire damn server left because some jackass was hacking. Sure, hackers are in the minority, but its kinda sad that they're still around, and still using the same hacks that made me stop playing back in 2001.

------------------
http://www.jedilegacy.net/gonk/

"It sounded like everyone I was playing with was 12 years old." <- very true with NS. If you want to avoid getting yelled at, try playing the Combat (co_) maps because they focus more on individuals than the team (i.e. you dont have to ask the Comm for upgrades, you select them yourself).

CS is a fun game, you just have to find the right server. If you dont play in a CS league, try to avoid servers that say something about CAL because you'll probably end up against a lot of veterans and it wont be much fun. 69.18.152.8:27016 69.18.152.8:27015 and 69.31.6.41:27016 are some good servers.
DoD is good, but Call of Duty is your better bet for a WWII game. But you'd also have to go out and pay for it.

STEAM is a pain in the *** because it updates itself during prime time hours (i.e. around 8pm eastern) when a lot of people are trying to play games for leagues. STEAM refuses to change the updates to more like 3am or something where hardly anyone would be on. But you'll need it if you want to play any multiplayer parts of HL2 and its mods (CS:S, TFC2, whatever else gets moved over).

------------------
"And when I vest my flashing sword And my hand takes hold in judgement I will take vengeance upon mine enemies And I will repay those who hase me O Lord, raise me to Thy right hand And count me amoung Thy saints." - Il Duce, The Boondock Saints

A lot of people mistake veteran CS players for cheaters... You have to realize that people have been perfecting their game for 3+ years! You can do some pretty amazing stuff in CS after 3 years of practice. It's true that there are some cheaters, but there are significantly less than say a year ago...

Such a skilled and experienced community can be a huge factor that turns away lots of people. My bet is that alot of people first try out CS, play a few times, get SLAMMED by people who are more practiced, assume some are cheaters, and leave. Some people are just so good they can play better than those using wallhacks.

So give the game a shot with some equally skilled buddies. Maybe you'll warm up to the best MP FPS out there - or maybe it's just not your thing. The fact that you're on 56k alone is also a huge deterrant - it leave you at a huge disadvantage when every second counts.

http://steamingpileof****.com

I'm serious.

------------------
Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

------------------
SpriteMod (JO 2003)

Steam is great.


... When it works.

IMO its good, but I'm annoyed at the lack of support for Blue shift. I was really looking forward to that.

AND using the high def pack, I installed it. But steam didn't use it.

Steam also doesn't like to connect through my ICS, so I'm kinda mad about that. (Internet connection sharing. My modem got blasted.)

Another thing I dislike is Arbitrary updating for no reason whatsoever.

"oh look, its 8 pm, lets redownload half-life!" And prevents me from playing my SP games for an hour atleast.

And when there is an error, it takes a lot of tweaking usually to fix. That or its random and goes away when you try again.

Other then that, steam is fine.

------------------
"Judging by the name of the author, and the name of the work, I'd guess it's an energy "beam". You know, like in the Japanese cartoons where those guys with big hair fly around, talk philosophy, and shoot fireballs at each other." - Hellequin

It sucks when someone really is cheating and it's quite obvious (tracking people through the wall- even walkers, camera snapping) because people accuse so many of cheating, that's it just a cliche. People will say "oh shut up n00b" even without checking it for themselves.

What I've found helps though is just going to a new server instead of dealing with an accusation mess. Wish other people would do the same.

If you like more realism though play DoD or Firearms instead of CS, if you want to stick to the HL engine anyways.

------------------
"We came, we saw, we conquered, we...woke up!"

The Battle Grounds and Hostile Intent.

Get them both. Now.

CS is fun, if you realize not everyone "omghacks". I've been playing CS since a little over a year ago. I love it. I just pub until I find a server with a great community, usually fun-map servers, and just stick to that. Seriously, just set it as a favorite and go there. There are some christian servers that are pretty cool. www.ctsclan.com or something I think, pretty good. Check it out.

------------------
There is no signature

Dark Templar, question, what's your name on Steam? yoshmaista@hotmail.com is my addy if you want to add me. I'm about to get Battlegrounds again. God the fun.

------------------
There is no signature

G-Man, how did you get doom 3 on steam?

------------------
WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT!
-----@%

One thing I have to say about playing HL online is that "the mute button is your friend". If you can't stand those whining 12 year old punks with bad attitudes, just mute them. Muting sometimes can be a bad thing in games like NS because they could be saying something that is important but if they are just bad mouthing you or anyone, just mute them.

As for mods to get, I suggest Day of Defeat and Natural Selection as my picks. Sure, as mentioned already, NS's community kind of sucks but you just have to find the right servers with some friendly players and you'll be fine most of the time. As for DoD, DoD's community seems pretty mellow. I haven't ran into too many buttheads when playing that mod. CS on the other hand... you'll be walking knee-deep in stupidity in that game. I wouldn't even bother with that mod because of it. You can also try out Team Fortress Classic but I personally find that mod kind of boring but you can try it out if ya want.

-- SavageX

------------------
"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
http://geocities.com/savagex378

Hey Ni. I think that picture with Doom 3 in it is a joke. My guess is it means Steam is ummm....that place real far down...to use.

------------------
SpriteMod (JO 2003)

------------------
SpriteMod (JO 2003)

I noticed the buttheads usually only gather to one server when it says "Friendly Fire ON."

------------------
"We came, we saw, we conquered, we...woke up!"