HL2 Bundle a total waste

  • Thread starter Thread starter DaveL
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DaveL

I was thinking of getting a 9600XT with HL2 but maybe not. This page
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12567 shows the coupon that supposedly
comes with the board. Check the fine print. "Half-Life 2 will be sent to
you once the game is available. Please allow 4 to 6 six weeks for
delivery"? Are they kidding? Who's going to want to wait 4 to 6 weeks?
They should put the game in the box or let you take the coupon to a store to
pick up HL2.

Dave
 
In case you didn't know, HL2 won't be out until April. The coupons were
printed
a month ago, so it was impossible to put the game in the box. And no store
is going
to deal with the logistical nightmare of people trying to "pick up" free
merchandise.
Can you imagine the fraud that would occur?
 
They're not kidding anybody. There's no way to pack in a game that's not out
yet. If you'd checked the website listed on the coupon,
www.ati.com/online/hl2 you would have found this:

We understand that our customers are anxious to start playing Half-Life® 2.
For our customers who purchase a qualifying RADEONT based graphics card that
includes the Half-Life® 2 offer and activate their STEAM account before
Half-Life® 2 is available at retail, Valve and ATI have added the Valve
Premier Pack FREE, which includes the games: Half-Life, Counter Strike, Team
Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force and
Ricochet. This is a limited time bonus offer that expires once Half-Life® 2
is available.

Customers can use the Half-Life® 2 Activation Key on their Half-Life® 2
coupon to initiate download of the Valve Premier Pack from STEAM, Valve's
broadband delivery mechanism, free of charge, or can order a Steam Installer
CD for the Valve Premier Pack from ATI. Use of the Valve Premier Pack
requires an Internet connection and is subject to acceptance of the STEAM
Subscriber Agreement. Of course, you are still entitled to a free copy of
Half-Life® 2 when it is released.
 
DaveL said:
I was thinking of getting a 9600XT with HL2 but maybe not. This page
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12567 shows the coupon that supposedly
comes with the board. Check the fine print. "Half-Life 2 will be sent to
you once the game is available. Please allow 4 to 6 six weeks for
delivery"? Are they kidding? Who's going to want to wait 4 to 6 weeks?
They should put the game in the box or let you take the coupon to a store to
pick up HL2.
Click to expand...

You can download HL2 the day it is released.
 
Yes. That is a valid option. But what if you don't have broadband?

I just think ATI is getting the shaft from Valve on this. ATI should have
written a clause into the agreement to get a discount if the game is
delayed.

Dave
 
Yeah, and they sit & wait for STEAM. You can bet this is gonna be a
disaster for Valve.
 
Yeah, and they sit & wait for STEAM. You can bet this is gonna be a
disaster for Valve.
Click to expand...

I love Steam. I've never played HL1 until now, and with the AIW 9600 HL2
coupon, I not only get HL2 free, but I also got HL1, Opposing Force, CS, Day
of Defeat and a few other games completely free.
 
The problem besides the massive downloads from STEAM is that you have
no way to copy the games to CD to serve as backup. If your HD dies or
virus or whatever, your SOL then.
If they would allow you to burn the games onto CD, then it would be
better. Oh, also, don't you have to have a net connection on at all
times even for the single player games?
 
The problem besides the massive downloads from STEAM is that you have
no way to copy the games to CD to serve as backup. If your HD dies or
virus or whatever, your SOL then.
If they would allow you to burn the games onto CD, then it would be
better. Oh, also, don't you have to have a net connection on at all
times even for the single player games?
Click to expand...

Put your hard drives in a raid array and get broadband.
 
And what the hell will that do? Putting RAID in your system means it
is 2x as likely to fail. Lose one HD, and your SOL. Unless you
mirror. I do got broadband, but those 800MB downloads still are huge.
 
Do the maths. It isn't twice as likely to fail.

What you are saying is that say each drive has a 50% chance of a failure,
then if you have 2 drives then one of them WILL fail (ie. 50%x2 = 100%).
That isn't the case. They may both never fail.
 
DP said:
I love Steam. I've never played HL1 until now, and with the AIW 9600 HL2
coupon, I not only get HL2 free, but I also got HL1, Opposing Force, CS, Day
of Defeat and a few other games completely free.
Click to expand...

Free is a big word,

For now Steam is Free, but soon Valve will change their "buy games
once, play always" to "pay for account, play every damn game you like"

So you HIRE the games

And you pay 10 dollars a month or something like such for the service,
but then you do have acces to EVERY game they run on their network!

A much nice idea as this limits cheaters..... because if a cheater
cheats they record it and end every month "cheater roll-up" and all
those people lose their accounts. PAYED accounts!

When the games where free in the shops and free to be played
online...cheaters could do whatever they wished, but now they actually
can be excluded from playing a game :-)
 
And what the hell will that do? Putting RAID in your system means it
is 2x as likely to fail. Lose one HD, and your SOL. Unless you
mirror. I do got broadband, but those 800MB downloads still are huge.
Click to expand...

My two hard drives are in a RAID 1.5 array. It uses raid 1 and raid 5. If
one hard drive fails, replace it and the array is rebuilt with absolutely no
data loss. The only way you lose your data is if BOTH hard drives fail at
the same time. The chances of this happening with 300,000 hour MTBF drives
is something like 1 in 150 million years.
 
Ok, so RAID 5 provides parity support, so you need 3 'devices'. You
still need to mirror them so you do not lose 2 devices. You also have
some space lost in RAID 5, but I am sure you know this. But that is
besides the point I was taking about backing up the games versus
having the games on CD in the first place.

Oh, as for HD failure rate, I have had 2 Maxtors, 1 WD, 1 Seagate, and
5 IBMs fail in the span of 1 year. The MTBF is a load of crap, sure,
they replaced the drives, but still a pain. And no, this wasn't on 1
system.
 
Ok, so RAID 5 provides parity support, so you need 3 'devices'. You
still need to mirror them so you do not lose 2 devices. You also have
some space lost in RAID 5, but I am sure you know this. But that is
besides the point I was taking about backing up the games versus
having the games on CD in the first place.

Oh, as for HD failure rate, I have had 2 Maxtors, 1 WD, 1 Seagate, and
5 IBMs fail in the span of 1 year. The MTBF is a load of crap, sure,
they replaced the drives, but still a pain. And no, this wasn't on 1
system.
Click to expand...

The question is, did any of those drives fail, in tandem and in a RAID 1.5
config causing a system wide loss of data? If not, then spouting off drives
failing is meaningless in the context of the message, since he is showing the
redundant nature, the odds against a catostrophic loss of data in a redundant
setup, and you mistakenly postured originally that it was 2x likely to fail not
realizing (or forgeting) a redundant setup.

Mark



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ATI Radeon 9700 Pro @ 343.5/343.5
SONY GDM-F520 21" Trinitron Monitor
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