Steam Registration Servers Overloaded 768
duckle writes "The Inquirer reports that "The World has come crashing down around Half-Life 2 players today, as Steam's authentication servers in Europe have died.", and deemzzzz_k writes "It looks like even Valve wasn't quite prepared for Half Life 2's popularity. HL2 requires registration to unlock the game and although the Valve/Steam homepage claims that it fixed registration issues the servers are still overloaded. Registration is "delayed" and temporarily unlocking the game takes 20-30 minutes over a 1.5MB DSL line." This seems to primarily be an issue for folks who bought the game from a store; I purchased the game via Steam and was playing at 12:15 am PST on launch day.
I guess (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
Clearly, (Score:5, Funny)
(Disclaimer: I am quite aware that steam is technically H2O (gaseous) and air is actually a mixture of gasses. Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous value of the preceding comment.)
Re:I guess (Score:5, Funny)
Like most people on slashdot?
Thanks, I'll be here all year!
Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Good idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I buy a game, just let me play the damn thing.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution, of course, is to stop buying the fucking games. Although, wisely spending money by picking and choosing responsible vendors has never been a concept slashbots got while they sat around bitching about this sort of thing. Every time some idiot company like Valve releases some half cocked POS activation scheme, write them a letter far more polite and professional than this post explaining exactly why you're not going to buy it.
If I wanted to pay people to hurt me I'd give the crackhead down on the corner fifty cents to kick me in the nuts. I don't need to pay $50 so I can sit around screwing with a stupid activation code for eight hours while I chomp aspirin to keep from dying of a heart attack as my blood pressure blows through the goddamn roof.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I could start a new business, "Masochist's Fulfillment Corp."
1. Kick guy in nuts
2.
3. Profit!
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, noone made an effort to explain in a rational and logical fashion why I am wrong. Why would piracy not be more effective tool in achieving your goals. I thin
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't you go back in time and tell that to a slave about to hitch a ride on the underground railroad.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand it took a while to validate the thing, but after spending hours downloading it on Monday, fifteen extra minutes to verify didn't matter much--I was up and playing at 3:15 EST...
Gotta stop ENCOURAGING Piracy. (Score:3, Informative)
My own experiences were more like:
Insert disc1. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc2. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc3. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc4. wait...3 minutes
Insert disc5. wait...3 minutes
Fill in blanks for steam. wait... 5 minutes.
"Unable to find Master AuthenticationServer"
Retry.
"Connection Reset by Peer."
Swear. Retry.
[repeat any of 5 random error messages]
Swear. Repeat.
Email to Sierra Tech support. Email bounces.
OK. Try VUG
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but 15 hours later, when everyone was getting home from work or school and trying it out, things went to hell. I had the Steam-based version and had no problem unlocking and playing it at 4 am. But after work, the Steam authentication servers were too overloaded to let me login in, even though the game was al
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Insightful)
I had no problem at all, and was playing when I was ready to play. The initial wander through the city was fun, IMO. It gives you a chance to get familiar with the excellent physics engine, pick up and throw dismembered baby dolls, put boots into boxes, throw softdrink cans at things, etc. That being said, I managed to get myself into the expected "OMG HERE THEY COME, RUN!" state that is necessary to continue the plot. It felt extremely natural and emerged from a bit
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people still don't play multi player games, they buy the game for the single player aspect of it.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Funny)
That didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.
-Peter
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:4, Interesting)
Or is valved frightened that people are going to cheat at single player and finish the game??
Steam is at least as much about piracy as cheating. As a result Valve has clearly stated that they are willing to inconvenience a lot of their customers so that a few will buy instead of pirate. I'm glad my midterms preclude me from installing HL2 until next week.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure there's somebody on /. who feels this way. Like you, perhaps. So much for `no one' ...
I'm quite sure that the *requirement* of Steam activation to even play HL2 single player is all about the prevention of piracy. Who cares if you cheat if you're playing a single player game?
I imagine they also want Steam on everybody's hard drives, popping up ads and the like. It took me two hours to g
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Funny)
Cracker ass crackers
Exactly (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Informative)
Notice on the left you won't see id software's logo. That's because Carmack laughed them out of his office, he saw right through that crap.
Steam works perfectly for me. Bought HL2 last month through Steam, and played right at release time.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Interesting)
So, nothing has changed with Steam then.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't Valve make 3-4x what they would on sales over Steam rather than people buying the game in stores?
Valve knew HL2 what be very popular. I'm sure there thinking went something like "Why NOT make are own online distribution software, require everyone to have it and sell all are games that way?".
I may be way off base, but I'm guessing once the rest of the developers see all the money Valve is rolling in after this, they will quickly follow suit. If not licence Steam for themselves, or even sell games through Valves steam network (it's already on millions of computers now anyways).
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Informative)
I was dubious about the whole Steam thing, but my brother had an ATI card with the free copy included. He doesn't have broadband, so I said I'd download it for him, and then we'd copy it over to his computer.
Now, if Valve had been intent on f*cking things up for the consumer they would have made this a damn painful experience. But it wasn't.
Downloaded HL2 et al (CS Source, Half Life 1 etc.) onto my m
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Informative)
It wasn't available through ANY pirate channels before the release, and I was enjoying playing it before the pirates did.
I'm a paying steam customer, and I was thrilled with the way it was delievered and unlocked. I (and a WHOLE lot of other people) hammered the Steam servers at 12:00:01 AM when it was released, and it unlocked fl
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. They had Steam already planned out as a distribution and copy protection measure, and had a working version well before the source wandered off. If it was done as you suggest, then the guys at Valve are clairvoyant because they knew it was going to happen, and stupid because they let it happen anyways.
I do blame Valve because they lied to the paying users. Early on when Steam was announced, a lot of people were concerned about privacy issues and things like this preventing paying users from playing. Valve put out press releases (some not too long ago) promising that all such concerns had been addressed and that the bugs were worked out of Steam. They assured us that there would be no problems once HL2 hit the shelves. After all this, I'm wondering whether the the promises behind the privacy concerns were really addressed either.
For the first time since Ultima 9, we've got a retail product where the only way to play it is to hunt down a crack because the copy protection is so screwed up.
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gotta stop piracy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell, it get's better with that. Some of that crap like Splinter Cell2 bitches about Nero and other legit burning programs also. Sometimes, just the back that you have a CD/DVD Writer that is also a CD-ROM pisses it off.
And their answer is always "uninstall". God forbid honest game purchasers actually have a CD/DVD Writer and software to write and backup files to.
I honestly don't know which I hate more right now, the craplock CDs
Last night was no parade (Score:5, Insightful)
At 7PM EST, I tried installing, setting up a steam account and unlocking the game with my CD Key. The whole process took about 3 hours.
The steam registration mostly returned back cause it couldn't even hit the master authentication server most of the night. Unlocking the game took between 45-60 minutes (on a fast cablemodem line).
Wasn't this expected though? Its like when a MMORPG releases and they can't handle the load. Do they just expect a few hundred people to get the (arguably) most anticipated game of the year on its opening day and the rest to just trickle in until Christmas??
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:5, Informative)
Just an FYI in case you're without internet some day.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:5, Informative)
At least on my machine.
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:5, Insightful)
Sixth: Nope, the CD is required. I just tried it yesterday.
Ninth: There will be, and they will be easier to use than the software everyone else paid for.
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:4, Informative)
Half Life 2 (c) Valve *READNFO* [nforce.nl]
Half-Life 2 (c) Valve *EMPORiO FIX* [nforce.nl]
Half-Life 2 (c) Valve *OFFLINE ACTIVATION PATCH* [nforce.nl]
Half-Life 2 (c) Valve *EMPORiO FIX* *REPACK* [nforce.nl]
Half-Life 2 (c) Valve *ONLINE PLAY METHOD* [nforce.nl]
The above suggests that some time between the 16th and 17th of this month you could, in actual fact, have been playing it
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:3)
Crazy EULA (Score:3, Interesting)
Dang, and that was always my favorite side in CS.
Seriously though, did anyone else think that was odd?
FUD FUD FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
One of your few valid criticisms...
In order to play, you have to have Valve's spyware program running on your system.
You must have a different concept of "spyware" than I do. Can you explain how exactly Steam is spyware? They tell you what it reports to Valve. You choose to install it (you don't have to buy HL2). It is simple to uninstall it. Choice, valid information, and easy uninstallation are 3 things not found in real spyware.
Y
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer lies in the fact that, despite doing what they did, they are enjoying record-breaking sales.
Do you think you can alter somone's behavior by throwing piles of money at them?
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you, or did you not, purchase Half-Life the first day it was on sale? Mmkay, then. If you want less of an effort *wait a week*.
For the record, three (3) separate installs took place on opening day among various computers in the possession of myself an my roommates. No hitches, nothing took more than 40 minutes... reasonable, for a game that comes on five (5) CDs.
Bottom line? Valve's products just earned >$150 from people in my house, and we 're all very happy with our
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see piracy get knocked down a notch. I want games to be cheaper to buy. If that means waiting 3 hours when I buy a game, so be it.
Re:Last night was no parade (Score:3)
{{snickering}}
You do realize that the videogame prices have BARELY changed in 20 years, right? Long before the Interweb - hell, long before most people had and used modems regularly allowing for easier piracy - videogames (at least the good ones) cost at least US$40 a pop. Any game developer/publisher claiming videogame prices would go down if piracy decreased i
This is going to hurt (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is going to hurt (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This is going to hurt (Score:3, Insightful)
I installed from DVD in about 35 minutes last night. Including a failed Steam auth, after which it said "oops, sorry, can't register now, I'll try back later" and let me play anyway. This really isn't a big deal.
No problems here (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No problems here (Score:2, Funny)
not Steam's fault (Score:2)
Re:not Steam's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing like paying for a single player game months in advance and then not being able to play it. Valve has managed to delay the game even after the release!
Re:not Steam's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
That is true, however it remains Valve's fault. The cd's basically just copy over the exact same files as in the preload that you could get from Steam... which means that when you stick the cd's in your drive you have to do two install processes, at least. First you have to disc swap install the cds (5) which takes awhile. Then you have to register for Steam. Then you have to wait while it decrypts everything, on top of unpacking the entire game just like a regular install does in a single step. The decryption and adding extra steps to the install process are quite a pain in the ass, let me tell you. It took me over an hour to get the game running, and I consider myself lucky because the only problems I had were closed ports, which I quickly fixed. Some of these other stories I've heard, especially with Steam registration, would absolutely enrage me if it had happened to me. We payed for this game, we expect it to at least PLAY!
Re:not Steam's fault (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:not Steam's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, lets see my choices:
* Buy legally by clicking on "Play Half-Life 2" in Steam and entering credit card, then best case play it in 5 minutes (if you pre-loaded), worst case play that afternoon (after it's downloaded, and saying that the auth servers are saturated)
* Find an IRC channel, then hunt around for a download site, find a torrent somewhere, wait for hours while there are too many peers and only o
Re:not Steam's fault (Score:3, Informative)
bittorrent download, fast, and works.
That is how hard it is to pirate a game nowadays.
Re:not Steam's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not blame Valve for taking the wrong approach (by annoying paying customers) to solving what is, in fact, unsolvable?
Re:not Steam's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. It is their fault for going overboard. And it's completely up to them if they want to go this route. Just like any product, it is still up to the consumer masses to make their likes and dislikes of their experience with the product. And if that includes installation hoops...
this really is quite stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:this really is quite stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what needs to happen in the Music industry. Cut out the middle-man, cut out the need for the RIAA, etc.
By the way, people preloading HL2 didn't have a problem playing it, only those who bought retail (Vivendi's domain) requiring activation.
The game, by the way, is amazing.
This remind's me of Mr. Garrison's "IT" (Score:3, Insightful)
In this instance I'm sick of people picking sides, as if they had to absolve either Vivendi or Valve of all wrongdoing. I'm sorry, but both companies are buttholes for playing this middle-man game that in the end only winds up screwing the consumer. Buy from Vivendi: Valve gets less cash and you have to unlock the CD. Buy from Valve: they screw the giant Vivendi but you have to download over a gig of data and the servers are inund
Not just the CD-based customers (Score:4, Informative)
On a slightly unrelated note: what's with the mid-game/mid-level load times? Are they just slow for me, or does anyone else feel like they may as well be downloading the game textures from Steam as you play?
Re:Not just the CD-based customers (Score:2)
Big deal. (Score:2, Insightful)
Even the audio bug people are getting - it happens. No game can be perfect out of the gate. Give it a couple of days, and see if they sort it or a fix is found, but it's fucking poin
Frail Authorization system (Score:5, Insightful)
Outage was yesterday (Score:3, Informative)
Poor planning by game designers (Score:2)
OK, HL2 was in development for how long? And now some unfortunate folks in europe can't play their LEGALLY PURCHASED game because of poor planning and implementation of steam (I thought steam was a bad idea from the beginning, but that's not the point here).
In addition, I'm one of the hordes of beta testers for World of Warcraft, with less than two weeks until the game launches, there is lag in some areas that nearly makes the game unplayable
What are game designers thinking when they plan development tim
Re:Poor planning by game designers (Score:3, Interesting)
Be grateful... (Score:5, Interesting)
If he uses the 'lost password' procedure in Steam he gets an Operation Incomplete error, and so far he hasn't managed to get a single human person to assist him at Steampowered. I was never a big fan of activation, but this cinches it.
Re:Be grateful... (Score:5, Funny)
If he wants to recover his password, he needs to hack into their network. [com.com]
Obviously.
worked for me (Score:2)
Meh...I have to wait until finals are over to play (Score:2, Funny)
HL2 Projections (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a hard time believing Valve underestimated demand - they knew how many pre-orders they had from Steam, and they knew how many boxes shipped to all of the retailers. Retailers regularily share projections of what sales will be by week (especially since they have to know how much product to order). They had models to follow, and NPD and others track sales weekly, so they probably knew at a minimum they would do the same, if not better, than Doom3 in August.
The fact of the matter is, their system can't handle the load, plain and simple.
Re:HL2 Projections (Score:4, Insightful)
Now do they need to purchase umpteen bajillion servers to handle this short period of time? NO. They could lease and coordinate with a server provider so they could scale up at launch time and then scale down as the rush drops off.
That being said, for all I know they do this already. Models and simulations are one thing but until the network really gets pushed to the edge - you can't precisely tell the real world effects. This is why MMORPGs do their open beta phases - to try to push load to what will be realistic at launch. It doesn't always work perfectly but smooth launches such as City of Heroes probably owe their success partially to the stress testing open beta.
Unfortunately Valve didn't really have a way to do this without doing artificial testing that would have pre-saturated the steam network and inconvienced current users.
I'm sorry, but that's not our problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no sympathy for companies that think they need bitchy-ass copyprotection and then can't properly implement it. It is YOUR job to make the experience easy for your customers.
Not only that, the more your protection messes with their experience, the more incentive there is to illegally copy the game. An illegal copy will just work. No activation, no registration, just install and go. If the servers are all backlogged to hell, makes an illegal copy look much more tempting.
Not prepared?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, they were more than prepared to take the money from customers before checking to see if they had enough servers to handle the load. When their distributor was filling orders, they could've come up with a rough estimate of what they expected to sell and made sure they had enough servers. Somebody just didn't do their homework.
Got mine today (Score:2)
Note: Retail copies require the CD in the drive to play. Boo.
I bought it from a store and was able to play, but (Score:5, Interesting)
[/rant].
Where was I? Before it would let me play it forced me to create a steam account, something I've boycotted since Counter Strike 1.3 and has a lot to do with why I stopped playing CS. Never-the-less I created an account and waited as it tried to unlock my game. It told me that it was unable to register me, but it would let me know as soon as it was able to. I guess at this point I was "in line to register". Then it actually allowed me to play! I tried it again after disabling my network connection and it told me that it could not verify my CD key and that I could only play while I was online. I'm kinda pissed about that and hope they get that fixed soon. If the cable goes out and I cant play HL2 I'm going to be very very bored, I might even have to go outside
From my first 20 minutes playing reaction I've got to say this game is so much more open-ended then Doom3, and though I'm a huge id fan I've got to hand it to valve, this looks like its going to be just as fun to play as HL1. I could spend an hour just throwing television sets out windows at the police on the ground.
Re:I bought it from a store and was able to play, (Score:5, Insightful)
IT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!
Precedent (Score:2, Interesting)
20-30 minutes for unlocking... (Score:2)
How to treat your customers... (Score:5, Insightful)
And now it is even clearer that this is nothing but an insult to those who actually buy games instead of pirating them. Who are inconvenienced by this? Certainly not pirates. They download a cracked version anyway. This is apparently supposed to prevent piracy, but it obviously fails miserably!
No, the real losers here, again, are customers who actually paid for the game. They are the ones who need to connect to the Internet to activate the game. They are the ones who have been stuck all day, unable to activate the game, even for single player!
I held off buying Half-Life 2 exactly because of this online activation nonsense, and I was right in doing so. I hope to play the game, but I am very hesitant to give my money to a company like Valve, a company which lies to and deceives its customers, and adds hurdles that do nothing but inconvenience them, while pirates are completely unaffected.
If I sound like a troll, it's because I am extremely disappointed, and I am angry at Valve for being so stupid as to think that they can prevent piracy by forcing their customers to jump through hoops. I am angry because this is the way the industry is headed, and I don't like it.
Now games have started trying to decide for you which software to have installed (Doom 3 vs. various CD image programs), and they want you to activate it online, even for single-player... This is how the PC gaming industry will ultimately kill itself. By basically punching its customers in the face, while pirates remain unaffected.
Re:How to treat your customers... (Score:3, Insightful)
hm (Score:3, Funny)
Nice going, Valve (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole thing struck me as very silly. If I'm playing online, then I don't have a problem with providing them a CD-key to connect to their server. But if I'm offline, why the hell should I have to register with them? I recently moved and my DSL isn't active yet, so I can't play this game. That's just silly.
My (horribly biased) suggestion: Valve should admit they screwed up, and release a patch that activated the game usnig a regular old CD key. If this doesn't get straightened out soon, they may be hearing the phrase "class action" a lot.
Fucking Retarded (Score:3, Insightful)
And I can break out my install CD, install it and play it whenever I'd like, no internet required. Same thing with the game I play most often, Master of Magic, which is so old I don't even think there are any remaining fan pages online.
I'd like to play Halflife 2, but as long as it's associated with all that online registration and updating bullshit there's no way I'm going to bother with it. Basically, I want to buy a game and own it, not buy a game and install it and let it download 2GB of crap I don't want or need... but only as long as Valve keeps the serial validation servers running.
Don't Buy It, Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
And every geek on here that screams and moans and whines about Microsoft activation ran out and bought the damn game the minute it was on the shelf, I'm sure.
Slashdotters: Walking the Walk and Mumbling the Talk since 1997.
The problem with DRM... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I pay for a game, I should have access to play the game from the moment I own it until the end of time. The ability to continue playing the game should not rest in the hands of the company from which I purchased it.
Take for example, the current EFF [eff.org] battle against Blizzard Entertainment [eff.org]. If Blizzard decides to discontinue battle.net in the future, should legitimate paying customers be the ones who suffer? After all, they paid for a game with the expectation that Internet gameplay was one of the many features available to increase replay value. Thus, if they want to take matters into their own hands and create custom servers to allow continued online play, that should be their right.
The same goes for Steam. After all, when Half-Life first was released, they used Won.net [won.net] to host their online gameplay. I cannot count the number of times that I was unable to play (despite having a legitimate CD-Key) because either the Master CD-Key server was down, unreachable, lagged, or just malfunctioning. Now they've moved to Steam and everyone who has the original Half-Life game finds their CD has been rendered obsolete!
For this reason, users should have the right to do more than simply "make a backup copy". They should have the right to crack, break, and generally f*** up copy protection. They should have the right to run private servers for online play. Bottom line -- they should have the right to decide whether or not they can continue normal use of a program which they purchased fair and square. After the money changes hands, the game belongs to me -- not the company. So get your grubby hands off, you greedy bastards.
Just buy it through steam (Score:5, Informative)
I understand that people who purchased the game via the brick and mortar stores kinda got the raw end of the deal, but I was very satisfied with the way buying this game worked.
Experience from someone who bought the game: (Score:3, Informative)
To Valve: Steam is an atrocity, I just bought the collector's edition and I'll probably crack the game anyway so I can run it without the atrocity that is steam and without the disc. (The disc is required by the way, at least to start the game if you installed from a DVD).
The most annoying thing (Score:3, Interesting)
A few minutes Googling the newsgroups came up with an answer: Valve had stupidly failed to test the installer with the option to install CS turned off. Back to square one, and another twenty minutes of feeding CDs...
Busy lines to get Steam content? Not pleasant, but understandable. Shipping your installer in this state, after five years of development? Valve should apologize.
The game rocks, but nobody should have to jump through 90 minutes of hoops after paying $50.
Re:A telling statement (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A telling statement (Score:2)
Re:Speculation:Not just demand, they are being DOS (Score:5, Funny)
Script Kiddie #1: Dude, I totally DOS'd Valve. Steam was down for like hours.
Script Kiddies #2-9: You bastard. I spent 3 hours waiting to activate Half Life 2. Your life is now forfeit.
Script Kiddie #1: Aaauugh! Somebody help! Gaaah! My eye!
Re:This happened to me last night (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you'll learn to read the System Requirements next time:
Minimum System Configuration
* 1.2 GHz Processor
* 256MB RAM
* DirectX 7 capable graphics card
* Windows 2000/XP/ME/98
* Mouse
* Keyboard
* Internet Connection
Re:phone number to complain? (Score:3, Informative)
[insert standard "IANAL" disclaimer here]