The ONLY Half-Life 2 Thread. Do Not Create New Threads

[Playbahnosh]

Now get some coffee and a pillow, 'cuz this will be long...

Move my post if you will, I'm a bit off topic I know, but as I see this is the only HL2 topic around here, so I post it here for everyone to read...

First of all: I bought a LEGAL copy of Half Life 2, so don't call me pirate or sh*t like that... I'm just a desperate man who wants to play a great game I've been waiting for years now.

So: I was waiting to get HL2 for years now, and the release date finally came. I went to the nearest store(35 Km) to buy a copy, and I saw a copy costs 9800 Ft (Hungarian currency, ca. 54$). A retail copy, early release. Now thats pretty much money around here, please don't laugh.
I talked to my parents, and they agreed to buy it for X-mas. So they bought it, but they won't give it to me before X-mas, no matter how I asked. (I should be happy, 'cuz they never bought me anything that expensive, apart from my comp.) This was a week ago. I was sad, some of my classmates and friend are already playing HL2 and discussing it loudy at school, and I became desperate to play it before Chrismas. One of my old mates came to me few days ago and handed a labelless DVD to me saying "Merry Christmas, dumbass! ", and left. At home I put the DVD in the drive and saw lotsa files and directories on it. "WTF?!" I thought, until I discovered a file with the "magic" lambda sign named "hl2.exe". It was the Emporio version of HL2, with emulated Steam, or smthng like that. So I copied, craked, and launched, and became dissapointed. The game was full of errors, it was freezing time to time, ridiculosly low FPS rate, and I only can quit with the RESET button. I have a relatively mid-end system, but I think it meets the minimum requirements: AMD 1700+, 256 DDR, GeForce 4 MX 440, WinXP.
The game itself (As I saw, when it wasn't freezing) is great! Physics, caracters, story, everything! I was ashamed of playing a cracked copy while i had a bought one, but I was reading this, and the other closed forum, yesterday and I began to wonder. I have a very slow modem internet connection, it is said to be 56K, but it is only fast as a sloth in quicksand , like 3.4 K/sec max, but 2.5 K/sec avg. I read that that HL2 requires some activation to run, and it takes 1 or 2 hours on Tx and cable connection, and that's like 1000x lightspeed to my sh*t modem. Besides from speed, this sh*t connection costs "heavy cash/minute"(3.15 Ft/min at night, 0.075 $), and it s*cks and you can see why. And I also read that that a live conection is required to play the game as is. So, I don't have the time and money to activate and play it 'cuz it will probably cost more then than the game itself. I was afraid to count the costs in long term.It is a freakin' single player game for God's sake!!!! And if wasn't, I don't want to and especially won't be able to pay that much for a multiplayer game either. But it is single player! Hungary is not that modernized like USA, England, France, Germany and the likes. We don't have much money, and I know a few friend who have less. This comp. costed 110000 Ft 2 years ago (ca. 550$), and it took away all the 2 year holiday money we have spared. My internet connection is a pain in the ass as is, it costs far too much to fit in the current family budget, so I had to cut back on surfing too. And it will only be worse than now. But that's not the topic. Valve and Vivendi should be ashamed to try to harness the money from the likes of us, who are less wealthy. I know pretty much people that haven't got internet connection at all. I'm not here to whine about the sh*t that is called finance policy in Hungary, but I think you already got the point in what I'm saying.
So what am I to do now? I bought a PC game with really hard-earned money, but I really can't afford to play it. This is rediciolus! I thought computer games are for entertaintment and recreational purposes, but as I see It is getting in a way It shouldn't be. I'm not comlaining about the activation time, and all the fuss about it. I wasn't able to get to that problem yet, see? If things going to continue this way, I will not be able to play games anymore. And this stands for nearly all my friends around here, and I think for pretty much people around the world too. What about us, I ask? We will be banned from playing, like HL2, BEFORE we launch the game? (And what about the people who can't afford the hardware to play? I have a friend who only has a 333MHz comp. with Savage4. A gamer comp. costs many-many ten-thousand Forints now, that only a few of us can afford. But thats another story. Stick to the topic) So what am I to do now? I'm embarassed, but I tell youguys the truth: I've been living on warez, ISOs and 0-day stuff for years now, but I'm not doing it becouse I don't want to buy my programs like some people do, isnted I can't afford them. Hell, even my XP is f*ckin nuked . After all this, I buy a great game. And guess what? I cant afford to play it!!! And youguys, and the software companies wonder why more and more people get's to use warez and things like that. the reason? I'm the reason! And I'm just one in a million!
Now I try to play tha cracked HL2, I have technical problem with that, but it doesn't matter right now. I have the box of Half Life 2 right here, but I'm really thinking to say to my parents, to bring it back to the store and convert it to some office equipment, becouse we can't afford to play it. Now, how rediculous is that? And I will continue to play with the cracked copy of HL2. I bought it I promise, It was hard, but I bought it. But now, I can't pay the telephone and internet bill to play it. I'm forced to use warez, that's the truth.
Now, am I right or what?


Thank you for your time! I hope I made, at least some, impression. Oh, and excuse me for my bad english...

Byez!

[PiombuZ]

Huh ?

wtf

well i missed a part probally

i uploaded everything off the crack in my HL2 folder i start ur Steam Crack so far so good than i want to open hl2.exe than i get to c this:
failed to load the launcher dll

so i dont get it

[Kdjn]

You gotta run HL2 from the Steam console, not the folder icon.

[Hans Gruber]

I have a quick question regarding this no cd patch. Once Valve enable VAC on source engine games, will this be detected as a cheat or anything? I wouldn't want to lose my account for the sake of not putting a dvd in the drive.

[GLH]

And now my "two cents" about the disabled Steam-Accounts:
As long as you can evidence the purchase of the game, VALVe has to enable your Steam-Account. You can do absolutely nothing for it if someone uses a key generator (for example) and gets calculated your key.

So, if you have a legit CD-/Serial-Key and your account is disabled, then demand VALVe on to enable your account or you want your money back.

[leezaal]

Hi Hijack,
Your nocd patches v1.0-v1.4 dont work on my UK DVD retail copy running under Win XP Pro.
hope a patch comes out soon

[JoyBoy]

Originally Posted by Playbahnosh

Byez!

Did you even read what you posted? Anyways, Piracy is a Crime. Do not Accept it.

See Ya!

[Dimensio]

Originally Posted by zellar

Hey, The no cd was working yesterday and now today I get Steam Error- "This operation cannot be compleated in offline mode". Will the 1.4 version fix this? When I started my Steam account today it updated, is that why it isn't working now? Thanks for the ray of hope Hijack!

I don't know what the deal is on your end, but I just let Steam update itself, then tested hijack's 1.0 fix, and it worked without incident.

[Big Country]

Originally Posted by JoyBoy

Did you even read what you posted? Anyways, Piracy is a Crime. Do not Accept it.

See Ya!

I so saw that coming.

[wiredonritalin]

Originally Posted by hijack

WinXP SP2 users: try the DLL attached

What is this file for? I may have missed the purpose of this file earlier in this thread, but I have a headache now from reading all the misfortune some have had.

TIA

[JoyBoy]

Anyone finished the game yet? I have and HERE are my thoughts on the game.

Agree or Disagree. It does not matter, I would love to hear your views on this so called Game of the Year. Post away in the THAT Thread

WARNING SPOILERS CONTAINED WITHIN!!!

[sabbey]

Originally Posted by uka

but it worked yestorday

Steam just had an update this morning, perhaps that's why it isn't now...

[Dimensio]

Originally Posted by sabbey

Steam just had an update this morning, perhaps that's why it isn't now...

Neither the Steam update nor the Half-Life 2 update affected my ability to use hijack's fix.

[Dimensio]

hijack, a thought occured to me.

The hl2.exe included in your noCD archive is Valve's copyright. You don't have a license to distribute it. You might get into legal trouble for it.

If you were to remove it, anyone with an installed retail copy of the game could still easily get the file, as the unmodified, SecuROM-free version of the executable is included in source engine.gcf. Just grab GCFScape and extract to the Steam directory.

(I made sure that this works. I overwrote the hl2.exe from your archive with one extracted from my steam engine.gcf. Playing Half-Life 2 sans DVD in drive right now).

Just a thought. At the very least, it would give noCD naysayers one less point to argue.

[sabbey]

I just set up the patch and it worked, but after restarting because my firewall kicked in, it now is asking for the DVD. The only difference I can think of is I am now using a shortcut on the desktop, not on the actual file in the Steam directory. Is there any reason why? Or at least, what can be done to fix this?

BTW, anyone know how to make Steam not automatically run when I start the PC? I'd rather launch it myself...

There's also the fact I am wondering how HL2 updates, I haven't seen anything about this, but there was supposedly an update earlier today and haven't seen any mention of it while I was running it just now.

Thanks!

EDIT: I was right! Using the patch and not the shorcut is working. However, now I have another problem:

Anyone know which files are trying to access the internet BTW? No matter how I setup my firewall, it keeps coming up as the game is loading on the main page and causes the PC to crash. I could turn it off, but don't plan to if I am going to be online at the same time. Can't get the offline mode to work, so call me confused...