Spending two and a half hours installing a SINGLE game is normal?

On 4 Aug 2006 00:56:35 -0700, "pc games"

I think in the interest of fairness and impartiality that the poster was really recommending the *game* itself, for its gaming content, not for its delivery.

Gosh, I wish mine was that quick! Takes me about 90 mins to install XP Home, SP2 and then do all the Critical Updates and install all the drivers I need :)

I think you're probably right. But, having played HL2 (and much of Ep1), if you told me I had to wait 2 hours for HL3 to install, decrypt and update/patch, then I would still buy and play it (I'll cover why a bit further down).

I would agree though that I wouldn't want every single game to take ages to install.

The difficulty here is in separating STEAM/Valve from Half Life 2 *the game* in our minds. Having played the original Half-Life, all its expansions, plus all the mods I've ever been able to get my hands on, I was so looking forward to playing HL2. When I found out about the distribution method and Product Activation, I wasn't overly impressed to be honest.

However, being a long time Broadband user, with a 10MB connection (which I have had for several years) I could see that I could:

a.) pre-load some of the game in advance of release.

b.) still buy the game in DVD format (which I prefer).

c.) never worry about connecting to STEAM because my Internet is "always on". I considered the risk of their servers sometimes being down too, I might add.

I am first and foremost a PC gamer. I have been playing and enjoying PC games for many years. I took the conscious decision to tolerate those conditions in order to play what promised to be (and ultimately was) a masterpiece of a game.

I do not consider myself a supporter of Valve nor STEAM. I consider myself a *gamer* and supporter of the people that wrote and designed the *game* itself. Those people got (some of) my money in reward for their achievement. I got to play a great game.

I realise that the way that Hal-Life 2 was delivered was not ideal for everybody, just as I realise that Microsoft operating systems are not ideal for everybody either. But, as with the Windows OS (which really is the only *real* mainstream alternative for the average person) I quickly realised that if I wanted to sample the delights of Half-Life

If and when there is a Half-Life 3 (rather than episodic mission packs) and it is distributed in the same way, I will put up with the same conditions. It'd better be good to make it all worthwhile of course :)

I wouldn't even try. I want to talk about and remember the game, not the way it was distributed. I remember having similar discussions with people when games first started appearing on CD-Rom discs. A lot of people back then simply couldn't afford a CD-Rom drive or even the HD space to store the game files themselves.

I hope that you can understand that by playing half-Life 2 *the game* that people are not doing it to support the way it's delivered and maintained, even if they inadvertently do just that as a side effect. People just want to play the *game* itself. If they have the means readily available to do that then you can't blame them for wanting to experience a fabulous game.

I will finish by adding that I did hesitate to post a reply, given how sensitive an issue this is to you. I decided to proceed because I believe that it should be possible for a group of adults to have a mature and sensible discussion about a very pertinent and important matter at a potential crossroads for PC gaming.

It is important to discuss the matter from the point of view of people like yourself, that find this kind of game delivery both offensive and prohibitive, but it is equally important to discuss it from the point of those that don't. Both parties matter because at the end of it all both parties are gamers :)

You do not need Service Pack 2. There is absolutely no reason to install it. I have never heard anybody mension that windows needs any other update than those big ones it automatically updates sometimes when you connect to the internet. There are no "critical updates" in windows xp. I believe you are confusing to windows

If you install SP2 from a disk straight after a clean install of Windows XP home or Pro you will find that a lot of those "big updates" won't occur when you connect to the Internet the next time :)

Some will of course, because there have been quite a few more patches released for XP since SP2 was issued.

That's a matter of opinion I think.

There have been many security updates issued for Windows XP since it was released. Some of those are security patches which people really should be applying. Not that some people do of course. Hence the continued sporadic outbreaks of some very old "worms".

Well, in that case you should turn off windows automatic updates. Most people I know who have legally obtained xp does in fact turn automatic updates off. Myself I like the automatic update progress. In case it worries you , just turn it off. I don´t remember from which menu you do this though.

Hi Peter.

I'm not worried in the least.

As I already said, it's a matter of opinion as to whether one chooses to believe that security patches for Windows XP are really necessary or not. Personally I think that anybody that chooses to not patch is deserving of everything they might get :)

Perhaps you might like to post your views on this into comp.security.firewalls? You might also cross-post it into comp.security.misc at the same time. I believe that you will attract some views that are somewhat alternative to your own. Views that would come from some very informed people too.

By the way, turning ON Automatic updates is achieved by My Computer > Control Panel > Automatic Updates, then select "Automatic".

Well my windows has always downloaded and installed updates automatically, I do not understand why I or somebody else should turn it on twice. Also I do not understand why one would turn it off and then ON --> that´s what you are saying ? Ok, another question how do I turn these updates off. I have a good antivirus (which blocks attacks of course) , so I do not need no more windows updates. Also I do not need no other firewall than windows own firewall. Did you know that some firewalls interact or even disable windows own firewall (and updates I believe). Ok, thanx for reading my post anyway !

Antivirus does nothing to stop attacks : you mean a firewall?

Windows is an incoming only firewall AFAIK.

By far the better choice is to buy a cheap router and hide behind that.

Better you just google the information....

Because thats how you can detect malware that is sending out info from your computer to other people. Its very important.

You seem to nmisunderstand a lot : use google and read up on it.

Oh, and download SP2.

Well I get attacks 2-3 times a day and my freeware antivirus tells me about it and stops it automatically. It´s not the same thing as a virus. When I get a virus I have to click "disable" or something like that. I have no reason to mension what antivirus Im using. Attack I believe is when somebody is trying to send me some malware, not virus. But ATTACK is the word my antivirus uses. I will put this into comp.security.firewalls . Maybe someone knows what this means.

That´s precisely the problem with freeware firewalls (Kerio, Zone-alarm and most others) . They work the wrong way. I have to manually allow my programs access to the internet with the firewall. Why should a firewall block OUTCOMING stuff from my computer. That´s almost criminal !

Most antivirus software detects this kind of malware. It´s not that dangerous, unless I have creditcard number or some secret info on my computer. One should always be aware that even though you have a firewall, if you use outlook express it still puts a lot of info from where you send your message from. From instance, if you click on this message and properties details message source you see some ip-adress and other information about where I "live". In my case it points to Finland, (which is the country I used to live in btw). I have software that totally changes this entire field, so you will not find out where I am actually at.

Yes. And why this is a good idea not to block "phoning home", you could read in discussions here.

Yours, VB.

I would be very pleased, if you were right. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

I'm not talking about this "outbound filtering" nonsense here, which mainly isn't working but harmless (with the exception, that users are prevented from getting online software updates, which endangers them).

I'm talking about the functionality i.e. Symantec Norton and Zone Labs offer, to filter out PINs and passwords of traffic, which is send.

BTW: I don't understand, what this has to do with games, so I'm answering here only.

Yours, VB.