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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Valve Launches Public Beta Of Steam 45

Posted by simoniker from the clever-company-plus-interesting-product dept.
Thanks to several readers for pointing out that Half-Life developers Valve has launched the public Beta of Steam, their "broadband platform for the delivery and management of digital content." It currently includes free downloads of the new Counter-Strike 1.6, as well as the original Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic, Opposing Force, and more. This audacious move to build a truly popular digital delivery content system by Valve, already through an extensive closed Beta stage, also indicates Steam users should "..stay tuned for a blast of HL2 full-motion goodness."
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Valve Launches Public Beta Of Steam More

Valve Launches Public Beta Of Steam

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  • Shit :( (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    broadband platform for the delivery and
    management of digital content.


    Wow so valve is in the DRM biz now? Oh wait this is DRM with neat shinny things on it!!! That makes it better! Right? Right?!?!?

    HL was the last valve product I will ever buy

    • Don't Feed the Trolls (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Just because they mention DRM their evil and you're going to boycott them? Maybe what they mean is that they will use their technology to prevent anyone who's using stream from applying hacks and cheats and runing other people's expiriances. DRM isn't always bad.

      --MBCook
    • Uh, who said anything about DRM? DRM stands for digital rights management. I don't see anything on that site mentioning that they would restrict use or distribution of the digital content in question.

      There are many ways to "manage" digital content, including, but certainly not limited to, keeping all your installed mods up-to-date and the ability to download any mod without fumbling with version numbers and DLLs and maps to get to play for the first time.

      It might be a good idea to keep your terms stra

  • public beta of steam? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kurosawdust ( 654754 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @08:11PM (#6425724)
    oh, it's a game! When I first read the title I thought they were using a euphemism for "vaporware"...

    • public beta of steam? oh, it's a game! When I first read the title I thought they were using a euphemism for "vaporware"...

      That is a great pun indeed. However I would like to point out that anyone who is thinking about unbreakable copy protection, digital content delivery system sending binary digits (bits) which are impossible to copy,* or other perpetum mobile for that matter, might consider getting a clue and educating oneself. Crypto-Gram [counterpane.com] and some books [stanford.edu] could be a good start.

      Of course I am no

  • FREE HALFLIFE.. of course, you will need a Vmware, Win4Lin, or Windows box to install it.. but sweet :P

  • PowerPlay? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eht ( 8912 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @08:54PM (#6425849)
    Is this PowerPlay [planetfortress.com] modified, finished, and rebranded?

    some comments about PowerPlay here [gamespy.com]( it's the second item listed on the page, about half way down)
    • No, it's not.

      Steam is a content delivery and management system. You install Steam and then you can download games and mods and be sure they're kept up to date (the idea is for Valve and other developers to be able to self-publish their titles over the internet through Steam).

      PowerPlay is/was an initiative to make online gaming work better with both hardware and software improvements from the lowliest modem to the routers and switches, down to the protocols used for online gaming (ie UDP) and the encryptio
      • I was just wondering if they took everything that was actually viable from PowerPlay and made Steam out of what was left of the good stuff, since Steam seems like PowerPlay without the hardware.
        • While they may have used some aspects of PowerPlay, the basic ideas are completely different. PowerPlay was meant to speed up internet connections and make them more reliable, as well as increasing the security of network code (reducing hacking and cheating in games) while preserving bandwidth.

          Steam, on the other hand, is about content delivery. While being able to download updates in a fairly dynamic fashion can help with the security aspect (by allowing patches to go out more quickly and by forcing users
  • Steam has been on a public Beta for at least the last year and for at least 2 versions.
    • I thought it was a private beta put people were leaking it out on the P2P networks.
    • I was a little confused about this too.

      I think what this announcement is is for version 2 of Steam. Or it could just be that they reopened it. Counter-strike.net has a news post about them closing the servers because they were maxed out.
  • I sometimes have to use a Dial up connection a lot.

    This means I have to travel somewhere else to do the bigger downloads and then transfer the files onto my disk of some sort.

    This is ok with Gentoo (wget portagesnapshot.tgz && emerge -ufp world). M$ still provide `mass install` support as well as the auto updaters - this especally helpful when reinstalling afresh every 5 minutes.

    But auto updaters like this completely foul the system as they don't provide support for sneaker-net. What a pain i

  • So what's the point of Steam? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13, 2003 @02:47AM (#6427009)
    I installed it 2 weeks ago, and I still don't get the point. Sure, it combines some stuff together, but does it make sense?

    Let's see:

    1. Instant Messaging- No, please! Not another! I use already trillian because my friends have split up between all 4 known protocols. No need, no need at all to have another one.

    2. Server Browser- nice, sure, but naturally for HL and mods only. Beginners can use the in-game browser, advanced players a tool like Gamespy or ASE. They cover almost all games and have advanced filtering systems and other toys. No need, no need at all to have another one.

    3. Automatic updates- nice, but it requires to have the steamdemon running all the time, then suddenly starting a 90 MB download like the latest HL-patch without notifying you. If you are a beginner and play alone, and you are happy with your game, why upgrading? Never change a running system! If you are a geek or suddenly can't log in to your favorite game server because he switched to another version, well off you go to d/l the patch. Is there a need to have a tool watching in realtime if there might be an upgrade? No need, no need at all. Sucks bandwidth and processor time for being idle 99.9% of the time.

    4. Access to special Valve stuff, like Movies. So, they reinvented ftp-Servers? One URL: http://www.valve.com/movies. And please, with a screenshot or sth, modern browsers are capapable of that, and some additional information. Do I need a special tool telling me there is a 500 MB movie and if I want to download, I can just click on the name? No need, no need at all.

    5. Game download. Well, I think you can guess what I will write about it, you should by now. 2 words: Website. Credit card.

    Just for the record: HL is for me the greatest game ever so far, and I am sure HL2 will meet my high expectations (and will push id from the throne, finally).
    I am just disappointed of the steam-Hype.
    • 1. yeah IM.. its great for ppl you play CS with because it'll save the messages between games and you can check em while your dead and not have to disconnect or go through the pains of swapping out of HL..

      2. Yeah server browse isn't great.. but lets see how well it supports all the crazy mods out there in the full release ok?

      3. Auto Updates are great.. specially if i can specify my fileshack.com account into it

      4. fluff.. well you dunt need to DL it..

      5. GAME DOWNLOAD IS AWESOME.. now i don't need to go
  • If this wasn't HL/CS we were talking about here, I'd probably have little tolerance for Steam. Why do I want a program running in the background for some game I might play once a week? If every game in the future runs like Steam, its not going to be pretty. Not to mention the whole dial up thing, thank god I migrated to broadband when I did.
  • vaporware! :)
  • It seems like Steam is nothing but a DRM scheme full of hot air.

    See my post here... [steampowered.com]

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