All PC Orange Box Buyers ~ Let's share our extra games.

[Mozgus]

God, I hate ValVe for the whole, "Sure, you have to buy all four(?) of the games, but you can give the ones you already have to your friends." Man, what a loud of shit.

Oh sure, what a load of shit. 5 fantastic titles for $50, $38 on certain online and retail sales. What the hell are you smoking? This is the best gaming deal in years. Quit yer bitchin'. If you already have the 2 earlier games, then you get to give them to a friend and be the nice guy. If you don't then you got 2 more games to play through.

Where the hell is the shit you spoke of, in loads? I'm tired of the nerds popping up all over online with mathematical reasoning why this is a ripoff, without considering the fact that these are amazing games, and it's a great deal no matter who you are. Valve could have done the typical thing and sold the 3 new games for $20, $20, and $30 for TF2, but no, they combined them, threw in 2 older games for free, and chopped off $20 automatically. There's your math.

I would love to get my hands on a copy of Half Life 2. If there are any available, let me know. I'll just have to get me a Steam account to follow through

Ack, sorry man. I just gave it away to someone else.

[GSZX1337]

God, I hate ValVe for the whole, "Sure, you have to buy all four(?) of the games, but you can give the ones you already have to your friends." Man, what a loud of shit.

Oh sure, what a load of shit. 5 fantastic titles for $50, $38 on certain online and retail sales. What the hell are you smoking? This is the best gaming deal in years. Quit yer bitchin'.

I wanted to get the game in a box. I like game boxes, I don't know why, I just do. Now, I have to DL it from Steam with no box, or get five games that I already have, all over again. I was orginally going to get all five and give the games I already have for X-Man, but my brother's planned to go them for his XboX 360, my best buddy's got all of them already, and has E2 reserved, and everyone else I know already has the games.

And yes, I know that it's a great deal, if you don't already have the games in question. It really pisses me off, that ValVe is trying to make it sound like it's okay for a company that takes way too damn long to make a game to shove five games down your throat saying: "Oh, give them to your friends."

[fastbilly1]

Dont feel oddman out GSZX I am buying the box because I still want my disc. I may be old fashion, hell I have most of the Scumm based games installed along with several DOS flightsims, but I like having my disc.

[roushimsx]

You're only getting two games that you already own, and $45 is a perfectly reasonable price for Portal + Episode 2 + Team Fortress 2. My beef with the pricing structure is that the individual titles are grossly more expensive to purchase separately as an incentive to buy the Orange Box.

Really, I just wanted Episode 2 and Portal, but that would have cost me even more than just preordering the Orange Box and getting Team Fortress 2 along with being able to hook my brother up with Half Life 2 and Episode 1. Fuck it, their scheme worked and now I'm addicted to Team Fortress 2, a game that I didn't really expect to be so taken by.

You can still buy a boxed copy in the stores, it'll just cost you a little bit more than if you had preordered it straight off of Steam. You can still gift your duplicate keys to a buddy and get them addicted. The price for the package is still a great deal even if you already own two of the games. I really don't understand the hate that most people are giving the Orange Box.

Steam is also substantially better than it was 4 years ago when it was a broken piece of beta shit. It still has its quirks (especially if you always leave it running when you're not playing a game), but it's a killer way to enforce and streamline version patching and anti cheating measures while also offering the ability to download and play your games at any location. Hell, they even make it easy to make customized backups of your games to CD/DVDs. How many companies give you that option? Hell, you can even preload a game weeks in advance so that the minute it officially comes out, you're playing it without having to wait for a slow download to complete and without having to travel to a store.

8 more hours until Portal and Episode 2 unlock. Fuck, I'm pumped. Time to kill some time blowing shit up as the Soldier

[Mozgus]

Guys, if you bought HL2 retail you'd know this, but the discs for Valve's games are worthless. Once that key is locked to your steam account, you cant resell it. Also the discs have the games in an encrypted format, which means the install time is a bitch each and every time. But if you just bought it on steam, you can do a dvd backup of your entire set that is not encrypted, and you can fancy up the disc with a label and case on your own. I may do just that. I should be able to fit the entire Valve catelog onto a DVD-R DL

[fastbilly1]

Having a backup and the original disc is how I like to have it. I know valve will be around for sometime, but I still like the idea of discs. I know I am old fashion, this is why I have two windows 98 pcs for old games and flightsims respectively, but after being robbed and having harddrives fail, I prefer to have hard media of things. And being that the Halflife Series is one of my favorites, I am willing to pay the extra bit to have disc forms of it. Now if they make me pay out the nose for Episode III and "Opposing Force/Blue Shift 2" by having to buy all the originals again, then I will be angry. I got lucky this time around in that someone asked me for the copy and offered to chip in towards it if need be.

This brings up other thoughts I could say about episodic content, but I am already late for work.

[Mozgus]

Having a backup and the original disc is how I like to have it. I know valve will be around for sometime, but I still like the idea of discs. I know I am old fashion, this is why I have two windows 98 pcs for old games and flightsims respectively, but after being robbed and having harddrives fail, I prefer to have hard media of things. And being that the Halflife Series is one of my favorites, I am willing to pay the extra bit to have disc forms of it. Now if they make me pay out the nose for Episode III and "Opposing Force/Blue Shift 2" by having to buy all the originals again, then I will be angry. I got lucky this time around in that someone asked me for the copy and offered to chip in towards it if need be.

This brings up other thoughts I could say about episodic content, but I am already late for work.

You don't seem to realize that your discs are worthless. If Steam went down, you aren't ganna be playing anything off those discs either way.

[fastbilly1]

Not really, there are always cracks and ways to spoof the program. And since I have a launch copy of Half Life 2, that game will be with me aslong as I still have access to a pc that can run it. Like UT and HL1/TFC, it may not always be installed, but I know I have it there when I need it.

I know it is a silly mindset, even childish in some regards, but it is the way I work. It hasnt failed me yet and does not look like it will in the near future. I am all for digital distribution for games, even if my recent comments dont seem that way, but I really do like having discs.

Another thing I can attribute it to is that when going to lanparties back in the day, it was always a great joy of mine to flip through others disc wallets to see the depth of their collection. That is something I have past down on the younger generation. Again, somewhat childish, but I think it is neat.

[GSZX1337]

Not really, there are always cracks and ways to spoof the program.

Anyone who pirates those great games is a Grade A douchebag.

[Ivo]

Not really, there are always cracks and ways to spoof the program.

Anyone who pirates those great games is a Grade A douchebag.

You are out of context - they are discussing in the eventuality of Steam going down, and whether the physical copies were going to be useless or not.

IVo.