Half-life 2: Steam Issues and Multiplayer Support [Archive]

Oni

11-07-04, 12:47 AM

Trying to seperate system-related support (poor in-game performance etc) from issues revolving around Steam (internet and connectivity) issues.

If you're having issues with your Steam not working correctly (for instance, not downloading or extracting what you've already preloaded correctly) then please feel free to post here about it. Also, if you're having trouble playing Half-life 2 online, please post here, too.

nihili

11-16-04, 11:08 AM

Bump for visibility

Rav

11-16-04, 01:48 PM

I can't even create a steam account to play the stupid game, I keep getting "connection reset" or "connection refused" at the last step. Why oh why did they force steam on us?

-Rav

Panzerknacker

11-16-04, 02:23 PM

yeah I cant even log into my own account. Two words: FCUK STEAM

germanjulian

11-16-04, 02:25 PM

jo steam is **** but after waiting 10 minutes and restarting steam all worked.

HL2 AMAZING!

Panzerknacker

11-16-04, 02:39 PM

yeehaw finally it works after hours!

baqai

11-16-04, 02:41 PM

my half life 2 is being "unlocked" for a WHOLE DAY :rolleyes: there goes my dreams of playing it on the release date :( i thought the activation procedure would be short :(

2.8 Ghz Prescott
1 Gb DDR 400
9800 Pro
Audigy 2

should this rig take so long to unlock? :eek:

Panzerknacker

11-16-04, 02:50 PM

damn now the updating is taking 400 minutes.

JenBell

11-16-04, 02:56 PM

Hi People,

I have installed HL2 and done the whole steam thing and HL2 plays. I say plays because there is a 10-20 seconds delay when it is loading part of the level or something.
I want to play using the offline mode but steam says I need to update and offline mode is not available. I installed this over 2 hours ago and still offline mode is not available. What can I do?

Going to properties of HL2 in steams shows:

Disk Usage: 838mb
Status: Requires Update
Amount required: 100%
Offline Mode: Not Ready

Auto Updates is set to always keep this updated.

I just dont like the idea of steam being connected all the time or having to have my connection on to play the game...HL2 is a one player game.

How long did you wait? Should I have been activated for offline by now?

Let me know please...

Thanks

Oh, forgot to mention...I bought a 6800GT and HL2 really looks the dogs with all most everything maxed out it run at a decent speed.

apu318

11-16-04, 03:00 PM

Well steam is down again. What a perfect release for HL2. This PROVES Valve's incompetence. The thing that pisses me off the most is that my steam was open when I got home.. and i restarted my pc after playing for 10 minutes (I didnt log out) and when I opened steam again, it gave the the login screen instead of the offline mode screen! WTF is that? why the hell did valve put it in if I can't even use it. There is no point in buying valve games if we can only play them when their server's are up when they are more than capable (HL2 and HL1 ect.) of working without the internet. Useless I say and i look forward to someone cracking the game to standalone.

Salomon Orangge

11-16-04, 03:03 PM

I think that the introduction of a required internet connection to play the single player version of the game was a HUGE mistake. Granted there is a gigantic percentage of the population that has a dedicated line, but there is also a large connection that does not. My sister's boyfriend for instance bought the game with the intent to play, but because he has no internet service, he is stuck with a copy of the game that he cannot play. Very disconcerting if you ask me.

I am not worried about it too much, as I have a constant cable connection, but I feel for those people that cant get online because of this terrible planning.

baqai

11-16-04, 03:08 PM

okay okay okay hang on hang on hang .. my hl2 is still being unlocked do you guys mean to say that AFTER it is unlocked i will have to download a huge update for it too? this is CRAZY i guess i will be playing hl2 some where in 2005 at this rate :(

Panzerknacker

11-16-04, 03:11 PM

Yep, the steam server are totally overloaded, after hours I finally acitvated the game, now the updating is going to take another 4 hours.

Not to speak of one of my friends, he still can't log into steam.

apu318

11-16-04, 03:41 PM

am uber mad. I've been looking forward to this game for more than a year and I get 10 minutes of the game in and it died on me :cry:

What ticks me off even more is the fact that I did NOT log out and when i opened steam again it asked me to login. So much for offline mode. POS. :mad: :mad: :cry:

saguy

11-16-04, 04:25 PM

Same problems as all of you guys - I can't even log on. However I am not willing to accept it for as far as I am concerned I wish to be refunded which is going to be a problem.

The retailer Game Station here in the UK where I bought HL2 do not accept PC game returns. As far my understanding of consumer rights I have made a purchase of a product - a transaction has taken place - my cash for a working single player game. The product does not work due to no fault of my own and matters out of my control.

The question is, who do I persue for a refund - Valve, Sierra, Steam or the retailer. I may be mad to persue this but as far I am concerned this is a breach of contract. I am prepared to persue it with the consumer council here in the UK. I am interested to see how far I can push it. I will probably end up sticking HL2 in a drawer for 2 weeks and trying again.

Not to worry as Vampires Masquerade is coming out in a couple of days time and as far as I know does not have any of this bull. Any Steam related game will not see my money again.

baqai

11-16-04, 04:26 PM

can someone tell me how to host an image? i am too pissed right now to either search or look around the forums here is my story

I had to wait for around a month for preload to complete
i stayed up for 49 hours in anticipation of half life 2 apart from having fever
for 24 hours i left my computer online and the game was "unlocking" finally it came to 82% i was like woah .. finally ..
after 27 hours of unlocking i am presented with this error screen saying
Debug Assertion Failed
in frustration i clicked on retry steam crashes
i restart steam and double click on hl2 it starts to update i read this forum and found out that there is another 800mb to download AFTER that unlocking ( idea of 800mb on 128kbps connection is not that funny ) oh well maybe i can only see the damn main menu while it updates ( yeah talking silly fan boy stuff i know )
i thought of playing GTA San Andreas for a while when i came back i was presented with Sorry but this game is not currently available
Steam official forums are down so i cant even see if others are facing the same problem or not
i am sure the list is going to grow :(

ozzlo

11-16-04, 04:30 PM

invisible hand

11-16-04, 04:35 PM

holy crapola I just had a heck of a time installing the game.... and now this :mad: been at it for an hour and the update is only at 60%

THIS IS THE LONGEST INSTALLATION OF ANY GAME I HAVE EVER OWNED.

TIME SPENT INSTALLING SO FAR: 4 HOURS

I took me 8hrs to dl and install off of steam, so your going fast if you ask me. I was getting less than 1%dl every 5 minutes, but it works now!

koss20100

11-16-04, 04:38 PM

dear god .... steam is bieng hammered to the HELL of it ... anywayz i dont expect thing to get better until late today or something .. cnt even create a new account :mad:

baqai

11-16-04, 04:42 PM

Logged out and logged in after 5 mins and guess what after 1-3 % download ( wasnt watching but 3 was the last i saw ) i get "sorry game is currently unavailable"

my question if game is currently unavailable than why there are people playing it around the globe? why is it unavaialbe for me? :(

koss20100

11-16-04, 04:48 PM

lol must a thing against pakis j/k

ozzlo

11-16-04, 04:53 PM

WOOT SOMEHOW I MANGAGED TO GET IN....

i'm never going to stop playing cause i don't want to deal with logging in :argue:

EDIT * NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

my connection was dropped as it was finishing registering :cry: :cry: :temper:

/edit

baqai

11-16-04, 05:02 PM

lol must a thing against pakis j/k

lol for some odd reason that made me laugh :) thanks :)

its again saying 47 mins *grumbles* lets see what happens now i guess by the time this is done my grand kids would be passing on half life 18 to me :rolleyes: :D

jackrungh

11-16-04, 05:08 PM

Every single one of the HL2 related sites are going down under the load of massive traffic. Steampowered is hopeless as is logging into steam itself, and halflife2.net I think just went down hard. This is getting out of control.

You see... this is the problem with other people. I dont like others. :)

Remove

11-16-04, 05:11 PM

f>cking steam has lost my account and will not let me create a new one. What a piece of ****!

Piazza0028

11-16-04, 05:11 PM

valve sucks, i can't log on right now, anyone else having problems?

Remove

11-16-04, 05:17 PM

valve sucks, i can't log on right now, anyone else having problems?

Ummm...look above....

baqai

11-16-04, 05:19 PM

well atleast i can tell my kids how "explosive" launch of hl2 was lol :rolleyes: its kinda funny that i am so pissed and still i find something funny ( IMHO ) in this situation :rolleyes: :D

baqai

11-16-04, 05:20 PM

valve sucks, i can't log on right now, anyone else having problems?

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm ... DOH!!! ( Homer style )

apu318

11-16-04, 05:20 PM

valve sucks, i can't log on right now, anyone else having problems?

Three things to insult your intelligence:

1. Look at the title of the thread
2. Look at the posts above yours
3. Look who the game's made by

:sn:

tjr1973

11-16-04, 05:22 PM

valve sucks, i can't log on right now, anyone else having problems?

OMG! I hope that this is a joke...

baqai

11-16-04, 05:24 PM

atleast its better than

"hey what is half life 2"

Remove

11-16-04, 05:25 PM

Let's not get to flaming with him to harshly. We are all "posting while angry" so we should be careful what we say as he is probably just as pissed as all of us but did not read the posts.

baqai

11-16-04, 05:26 PM

Remove good point mate .. sorry if i unintentionally ended up flamming :(

i have just figured out a new thing .. each time steam crashes and you start it again it throws you in a new problem / error zone

now when i click on hl2 i get stuck on launching game screen :rolleyes:

tjr1973

11-16-04, 05:38 PM

I wasn't trying to flame either. He's not serious is he?

Remove

11-16-04, 05:39 PM

.....I think he is......

Leviathan41

11-16-04, 05:40 PM

I just got home with my copy of HL2 and I am installing now. Looks like I have a long night ahead of me according to you guys. I hope this works. . .

Dc5e

11-16-04, 05:45 PM

grrr, i'm having trouble logging in too.... i woke up at 3am this morning, unlocked it in 5-10 min. and played for 20 min. Then went back to bed.

Now that i'm back home, i can't even login into my account.... (reminds me of when steam first came out). And I thought valve would be more prepared considering how much trouble they had when steam first came out and how much hype there is over HL2.

I just hope it comes back up soon so I can at least login and hopefully stay logged in.

Remove

11-16-04, 05:51 PM

Even their crappy lil forums are down! What a bunch of morons! Sheesh!

I knew this would not be worth the wait. I have always preached the evils of steam and have never been proven wrong.

Absolute WORST game launch in history.

Gonna log back onto EQ2 and play a game from a REAL company!

jackrungh

11-16-04, 05:56 PM

Im in IM IN IM IN IM IN !!!!! :santa2: :santa2: :santa2:

Shuzzy

11-16-04, 05:58 PM

guys, the servers are just mega packed. once you do get in you will love this game. 1000000000000000 times better then doom3.

Remove

11-16-04, 06:45 PM

guys, the servers are just mega packed. once you do get in you will love this game. 1000000000000000 times better then doom3.

That is not my problem. I purchased a game and can not even finish installing it due to their incompetence. I smell legal action brewing. Sick of their bs.

Needitcooler

11-16-04, 07:00 PM

I told two of my classmates about HL2 being released today, so they went and bought it after class. They both just called me within the last half hour complaining about how they couldn't log in. They are both so pissed. Hilarious!! I had no problem logging in.

baqai

11-16-04, 07:57 PM

WOOOOOT its working for me i just played hl2 .. and dang all my anger is gone i was freaking pissed when it launched but when i saw the game i was like .. errr .. ooo .. aahhhhh .. oooooo ( more oooooooo's ) i am in canals .. damn its been like 30 hours i have been up and now i cant stop playin ARGHHHH!!!!

Alacritan

11-16-04, 08:10 PM

Servers are still sucking. It couldn't validate my CD key, so it's just going to unlock the crap, but even that's taking forever. Valve better kill Steam after this. This is proof that's it's absolute crap. I don't recall Microsoft having this problem when XP launched.

Captain Newbie

11-16-04, 08:20 PM

Had no trouble validating my preload copy and processing updates at 6PM PDT tonight.

*shrug*

Can't play yet (family stuff) but the game is "Ready".

(And Steam, overall...isn't too bad.)

Leviathan41

11-16-04, 08:24 PM

I must have got lucky, because my validation and everything went fine. I've played for about 2.5 hours and all I can say is . . WOW! This game is unbelievable, I'd love to stay and chat, but there is HL2 to be played. lol :D

koss20100

11-16-04, 08:45 PM

Steam is back up .. i jus created a new account .. the bandwith is a bit better cuz its nite and business have closed but gamers are STILL pounding hard but i think well be ok ... for this day .. tomorrow welll seee...

JenBell

11-16-04, 11:32 PM

I finally got the full registration thing message. Offline is now available but how the hell do you enable it? I tried disabling all my nics and net connection and still nothing. Can someone tell me please, another thing. I hate not being able to create a new thread, I would get responses then.

Ok, so please help me out. I hat having to connect to steam to run the game.

Thanks people

Viper2004

11-17-04, 11:46 AM

What I wanna know is when the online part of the game is going to be enabled. Either I'm stupid and just can't read very well because someone explained this already, or I'm going to be waiting a while till I can play online! Oh well the offline play is good too. ;) I hope this post doesn't sound stupid.

koss20100

11-17-04, 12:10 PM

wait the only multiplayer play for half life 2 is ... counterstrike source....

anywayz u can thank all those ****ers who bootleg the game .. ERGH !

tundra

11-17-04, 12:30 PM

wait the only multiplayer play for half life 2 is ... counterstrike source....

anywayz u can thank all those ****ers who bootleg the game .. ERGH !

Well guess what, I BOUGHT the game and the only way I can see my self playing it anytime soon is by downloading a bootlegged copy that bypasses the devils program (steam).

I'm getting the same problem as baqai had, stuck at the blurry "Loading..." screen. Deleted and downloaded the bloody game again and everything says it installed successfully..... right click on Half-Life 2 in Steam and goto "Properties".... says I only have 75% of the game content. How can my download be DONE if I only have 75% content? I'm so pissed right now.... I about to vow pirating every pc game from now on... my not-so-honest-coworkers dled the pirated version and were playing yesterday..... GD IT

Sorry for whining, it's not a usual thing I do at all... but this is just killing me as I've anticipated playing this game for the past year.

deathman20

11-17-04, 12:49 PM

Man im glad i didn't have any of your problems. Mine unlock in 15min, I was playing all day. It plays but slow at loading areas :(

Is there a way to unpack those files that u get off steam and drop them into that the path where it plays from?

ozzlo

11-17-04, 01:04 PM

I'd like to report that I am playing the game With absolutelly no probs... I diden't even get to play yesterday but it magically worked this morning. The game looks amazing and yes even I was stuck at the blury screen yesterday and then this morning I got a message saying registration complete and I was like WTF??? it hasen't registered yet??? no wonder why it did not run. lol anyways that's what I get for trying to run the game on the VERY FIRST DAY OF RELEASE. I think the servers have smoothed out a bunch and alot of the problems must have allready been fixed.

COULD YOU IMAGINE how hard all those valve employees worked their asses off yesterday with all the reported problems...

this is like win xp when it was first released it was kinda buggy but 200 hotfixes later it's a pretty SEMI-SOLID os.

tundra

11-17-04, 01:41 PM

"this is like win xp when it was first released it was kinda buggy but 200 hotfixes later it's a pretty SEMI-SOLID os."

BaaHahahha! Thanks I needed that :)

I guess I'll be trying again after work today. I turned off my computer last night, in hind-sight maybe that wasn't such a good idea. lol

FastRedPonyCar

11-17-04, 01:56 PM

I started the preloading monday night and ended up running out of disk space. Steam said 3.something odd gigs needed and I had that but I woke up yesterday morning like a kid on christmas day only to have my dreams shattered by the notification that I'd run out of space!!

After I cleared the drive some, downloading proceeded. It had stopped at about 50%. Took a while to finish it but it worked and logged in fine. I think valve just bit off more than they could chew with the whole online downloading, unlocking, registering etc. I think it was just way too much bandwidth at once that their servers couldn't handle and that resulted in errors aplenty.

With luck, it should only get better as the stress on the servers will lighten up day by day...by day.

As far as actual gripes about steam, I really have none. I for one am glad that valve decided to unlock the game and require a steam account to unlock it. It would appear that they have finally beaten the pirates (for the time being) and I think it was a good business decision.

for those cheapskates that want it for free, too bad. A game this good is worth every penny.

And as far as the poor people without internet connections go, That could be a problem that I'm sure Valve has a fix for. Mabey over the phone registration? Who knows. Mabey there is some file that you delete or change to play? Then again, mabey there isn't and those peole are just SOL.

J2T

11-17-04, 03:51 PM

Actually I believe the game has already been pirated. I am curious to see if Valve does anything for those that don't have an internet connection on the pc.

Mustanley

11-17-04, 03:56 PM

tundra

11-17-04, 04:06 PM

Has anyone successfully played HL2 on two different computers with one steam account? I had it preloaded on two gaming machines on my home LAN. I activated and played on one of them just fine, but the second won't connect to steam now, even though it worked 24 hours before just fine. I have made sure to log out of steam on machine that is working, doesn't seem to matter. I'm hoping it was just part of the general techinical difficulties everyone was experiencing yesterday and that everything will be OK today. I haven't tried again since last night.

You "should" be able to do that, just as long as you only are connecting to the internet with one steam client at a time (I read this multiple times on the steampowered forums). I would also chalk that one up to network flakeyness at this point dude, I know many people (myself included) were having big problems trying to get anything with steam to work due to bandwidth issues yesterday evening.

austinbmxnig

11-18-04, 09:49 AM

i didn't have a single problem, you guys that are complaining should have preloaded it, i mean, of course steam will go down. The activation only took like 5 minutes, not 4 hours like it has for some of you

Voltron

11-18-04, 10:11 AM

Mustanley

11-18-04, 10:41 AM

I activated Tuesday morning at about 7:30 EST and it only took a few minutes. I restarted steam, it began the activation process, I got in the shower, and when I got out of the shower it had finished. I guess it was all about timing.

sandrock

11-18-04, 11:11 AM

I had preloaded and bought it off of steam. Activation took a few minutes and I was up and playing right away. I played pretty much all day on Tuesday. My only problem is that come Wednesday, I try to login to steam and it says either my user/pass is wrong or my account doesn't exist anymore! The day after I shell out $60 for the HL2 silver package. It's happened to a few others as well that have posted in the steam forums. Retrieving my password doesn't send an email to my address either... I hope the support ticket goes through :(

diggingforgold

11-18-04, 11:21 AM

Unlocking is such a joke. My brother bought the game. I started the install at about 11:30. It's 12:20 right now, and I'm about half way through the unlocking cycle. I probably have another 4 hours to go getting updates.

I think all this nonsense to prevent piracy will actually make people flock toward it. Why make it a PITA for people that actually pay money for it, while the pirates don't have to worry about any of this. It's like XP activation. Pirates have no problems but people that fork out a few hundred have to go through all kinds of hell to install (or when they make upgrades). It's also like gun control. Make the good guys go through all kinds of crap to get a weapon- make more laws to make limitations on guns, but all the while- the bad guys are out still getting guns.

Oh well... I already learned my lesson. But my brother...?

Pntgrd

11-18-04, 03:03 PM

I have seen this asked a couple of times in this thread but still no answer, so here goes again. How do you enable the "Offline" mode of play after activation. I am going out of town this weekend and next and was thinking of taking my box so I could play but would have no net connection. I want to be sure I can play before doing so.

[edit]
I answered my own question. When I got home I just unplugged my net connection and started up HL. When Steam couldn't connect it then asked me if I wanted to play Offline. Upon selecting Offline, the game loaded up. Hope this helps someone else, I know it really was confusing to me.

Cowboy X

11-18-04, 06:57 PM

Warez masters , watch out : http://halflife2.filefront.com/news/HalfLife_2_Pirated_Warez_Version_Info;13907

DMac

11-18-04, 07:02 PM

Voltron

11-18-04, 08:39 PM

Awsome, so you can play without internet conection.. That's good news.

invisible hand

11-18-04, 10:39 PM

Warez masters , watch out : http://halflife2.filefront.com/news/HalfLife_2_Pirated_Warez_Version_Info;13907

I don't understand why Valve would want to fish on the web with an warez copy of HL2. I'm confused, what would be the point in banning a person for having an illegal copy of the software they already paid for?...furthermore, why would someone want an illegal copy of software they already have?...can somebody explain?

EDIT:...err I just saw the other thread about this :o ....ONI, I thought you said no more HL2 threads?....oh well at least you started it.

FastRedPonyCar

12-10-04, 08:39 AM

I've got a question...Our lan party is coming up next weekend and we'd all like to play LAN deathmatch but the location we're in is a gymnasium.

I noticed that a couple of days ago when our internet connection was down, I couldn't play hl. It couldn't connect to my steam account and wouldn't launch the game.

It didn't ask me if I wanted to play off line. It just said that it could't connect to my steam account. :(

austinbmxnig

12-27-04, 03:28 AM

Ya but when did you activate it austinbmxnig? You can imagine how hard Steam got hit just after the release, they just weren't ready for that kind of load on their servers.

I activated mine yesterday, 17th, in the evening so allot of the load was gone by then. Took me around 10-15 min to activate my preloaded copy. Also depends on your internet connection or coarse.

I hope they do something to make the game playable off line because if my internet goes down I want to be able to play the dam game. That is the only thing I dont like about steam...

i was up with all the other nerds at 2 in the morning (central time) trying to activate, and i didn't have any problems, oh well, its the day after christmas right now, this was so long ago i can't believe it........

oh a lighternote i just started playing hl2:DM today and i gotta say its super damn fun, like i can't believe it