Half Life 2: What will you do to play it on the 16th?

[PaulBot]

Gonna ditch work/school/wife/kids/etc etc etc ????

I work on the 16th but not the 17th, so I was going to beg my wife to let me have the evening after the kids are in bed (8:30pm) to game my brains out until I coudn't see straight. But then CBS goes and puts the Amazing Race premiere on from 9-11pm!!  :evil:  I could just shoot them!! That is one of my MUST WATCH shows, and I refuse to watch it later on tape.

So I was thinking of playing HL2 at 11pm for a few hours, and I was wondering if I could even keep my eyes open very long to make it worth my while.

My next idea was to get up early on the 16th and put in a couple hours before work. I'm starting to like that idea. It puts my priorities in order: being fresh for HL2, then go to work  

What will you do?

[Daehawk]

Nothing..I wont be playing it sadly..Im broke and will be super duper extra lucky if i can get woW on the 23rd.

[Thin_J]

I already have it steam'd and ready to go. I'll probably still be up at 3am awaiting the moment they unlock it for me with baited breath.

[warning]

Wake up early and unlock my Steam copy.  Play it for an hour or two.

Come home for lunch.  Play it for an hour.

After work I'll be on till my eyes bleed or my wife hands me divorce papers.

[PaulBot]

Wake up early and unlock my Steam copy.  Play it for an hour or two.

Come home for lunch.  Play it for an hour.

After work I'll be on till my eyes bleed or my wife hands me divorce papers.

Unlocking the Steam copy early in the morning would give a warm fuzzy feeling all day knowing that it's working and waiting for you to return  

It should take your wife a couple days to draw up the papers, so you could get in a good, long stretch of gaming before then.  :lol:

I think my plan will be very similar. My Steam copy is on my hard drive, but I'm waiting until I see the Sunday newspaper ads to make sure nobody is going to sell it for less than the $49 that Valve wants via Steam.

[Calvin]

I am currently deciding whether to take off next tuesday for Half LIfe 2 and Vampire and the following Tuesday for WoW. Considering the hammering the servers are likely to take next Tuesday (if the stress and open beta test are any indication).

HMm, I was thinking definately the 23rd, but right now it seems like it might make a lot more sense to enjoy the 16th with two games instead of one game whose servers are getting hammered.

[Jeff]

1. wake up

2. roll over

3. turn on PC (start coffee during bootup)

4. dbl-click "Steam"

three hours later

5. go pee

[disarm]

i got lucky and have the day off...but i haven't gotten it off steam, and don't have a pre-order in for the game.  i'm taking a chance at waiting to see if someone is selling it a little cheaper...the local Wal-Mart is good about knocking the prices down (got Doom3 for $42 on release day).  my plan is to head over to whatever B&M store in the area has a good price and pick it up in the morning.  fortunately, i live in an area where people won't be going so nuts over the release that all the copies will be taken if i hit the store early.  once i have the game in hand, i'll come home and play all day

[\/\/olverine]

I don't think I'll skip work or anything (already did that recently) and missing school at this point would screw me, so I think I'll just happily pick my reserved copy up on the 16th and play it for 2-3 hours that night unless its insanely good then i'll probably log around 6 hours, and dedicate some time during the weekend. I'd like to complete it before I get bored of it.

[Kevin Grey]

Alas, I will be out of town on the 16th.  I'm getting in at 11:30 pm Thursday, the 18th, and have Friday off.  I plan on starting it up as soon as I get home and I wouldn't be surprised to see an all-nighter follow.

[Turtle]

I have classes all day on the 16th, and I've also missed too much classes.  However, I can skip out on my last animation history class early to pickup the game and head home.  That's not an issue with the instructor or my studies since we're mainly watching movies by then.

Then, I have the 17th off, which is both good and bad.  Good in that I can play all day, bad in that I'd rather be working and making money so I can afford all these games that are coming out.  It sucks to be between jobs at this time of the year.

[Fafhrd]

While I do have it paid for and will be picking it up 11am on Tuesday the 16th, I will also be picking up Bloodlines. I will be playing Bloodlines all day and night and the next day and night. Half-Life 2,  I've waited this long, I can wait another 3-5 days it takes me to beat Bloodlines.

[Laner]

I'm taking off the entire week of Thanksgiving, so I can wait a few days, then completely dive into it (and Halo 2, and Medal of Honor: PA, and Call of Duty: UO, etc. etc.)

[ChrisGwinn]

Fortunately, my wife has to work tuesday night and won't be home until 10:30 or so.  So I'll pick up some takeout on the way home from work and then fire up my steam copy.

[CeeKay]

I'm going to get some champagne, get her drunk and stick oh wait a second, we're talking about a game.  :wink:

I'm not going to ditch work, and I may wait to pick it updepending on when my new HD and stuff arrive.  I'm looking forward to some quality time with it and Bloodlines on Thanksgiving weekend.

[Jumangi]

The one game this year I'll be getting as soon as it goes on sale. Will probably be one of those schmucks waiting in line several hours to get the pre-order. Sorta sucks seeing now that their releasing Bloodlines the same day. Really interested in that game but HL2 is 6 years in waiting and I know I won't be able to hold out.

[Caine]

me, i'll be waiting to hear when my order ships.  i had it sent 2nd day, as overnight was more than double the cost.  should get it by the 18th.  so, in short, i hate all of you  

at least i got the ce for $60 bucks, + shipping + tax.  so, really, it's almost like a deal.  in total it was ~$75. damn i wish they didn't have to charge me tax.

[Big Jake]

Am I the only guy who wonders what's going to happen when they simultaneously, worldwide let everyone try to login at once to steam to verify their copy?

And before you say, 'they've prepared for it', think how just about every MMO has been at start-up.

On the 16th, I'm probably going to be outside an EB saying, "we can uninstall steam after activiation.  It'll be ok.  It won't be there forever.  I love Big Br...", and go inside after ten minutes and buy the damn thing.  

I will have eight of ten days off starting friday of next week.  I figure I should be good.

[Jeff]

Am I the only guy who wonders what's going to happen when they simultaneously, worldwide let everyone try to login at once to steam to verify their copy?

I'm mentally prepared for Steam to fail that day. I'll be disappointed, but not surprised. They've got a helluva lot of faith in it holding up to an incredible number of logins.

Come to think of it, it might not be a bad idea to stay up till 3am to unlock it, since most will be asleep at that time.

[belfong]

Ah.. but you forget people who live on the other side of the world. 3am will be around 5pm here and I'll be activating MY copy. YAY!

[Jeff]

Ah.. but you forget people who live on the other side of the world. 3am will be around 5pm here and I'll be activating MY copy. YAY!

I didn't forget. You'll be using different servers

[AttAdude]

I plan on going to bed early.  Gonna put in my 8 hours, wake up at 3pm and shoot stuff till i have to go to work at 8:30.  That should fuck up my sleeping scheduel beyond recognition but will let me shoot at stuff.

[Gryndyl]

I have to work the 16th but have the 17th off. I'll just let it ride, like any big realease day and come up the evening of the 16th and start playing, knowing that I can play as late as I want and all of the next day

[Hetz]

I have the next 2 weeks off of work, so it's game time baby!

I will get up early on the 16th, unlock my copy on Steam...and play until my wife forces me off the computer...  :wink:

[Rob_Merritt]

I bet steam will fold and no one except for a lucky few will be playing it for several days, weeks later

[Calvin]

I just cannot understand this constant concern that Steam is going to collapse. Lets say the EXE file is 1 or 2 megs..that seems large given the size of most. Vlave has been sending 2-3 GIGABYTES of data to people computers who preloaded Steam not to mention distributing all the other games in the catalogue for MONTHS. So, presumably, the early bird, maybe 100,000 people each downloading 1 mb of date is gonig to crash Steam? Come on guys, this conspiracy theory stuff is pretty silly.

[halcyon]

I have the 16th off thanks to a stockpile of unused vacation days I have to burn before the end of the year. At 2 AM Steam wil unlock the files and I will stay up all night and play :-) BTW I got my Platinum box of goodies today. HL2 hat (very cool), posters, soundtrack, sticker, "Hello from City 17" Postcard (now magnetted to the fridge -- much to the GF's amusment) and Prima guide. I don't want to actually look at the guide and give anything away for myself, but just quickly flipping through -- it is really nice looking -- better than regular Prima stuff.  Very meatty too. Also covers Counter Strike Source

I am completely revved up now for HL2. Bring it on!

[warning]

I just cannot understand this constant concern that Steam is going to collapse... Come on guys, this conspiracy theory stuff is pretty silly.

Obviously your never had Steam eat your newborn baby!  I can tell you once you've had your baby eaten by Steam, you'll never trust that piece of crap again.  And just last night Steam misplaced my slippers too!  And don't even get me started on the ties between Steam and the Illuminati...

I still miss little Baby Murgatroyd.  

[Rob_Merritt]

Expecting bad service from something that has consistantly delivered bad service isn't a conspiracy.

[ChrisGwinn]

I'll just leave my computer on all night and hope the steam client is smart enough to poll regularly.  I can't imagine that they didn't build that in.

I just looked at their bandwith charts - they have  alot of capacity.  They also recently brought the inventor of bit torrent onboard.  If anyone knows how to handle this sort of problem, he does.

[Rob_Merritt]

Steam doesn't seem to have a lot of problems pushing large amounts of data. Its always been good for that. The problem it has is allowing the games to run.

[dangerballs]

I'll just leave my computer on all night and hope the steam client is smart enough to poll regularly.  I can't imagine that they didn't build that in.

I just looked at their bandwith charts - they have  alot of capacity.  They also recently brought the inventor of bit torrent onboard.  If anyone knows how to handle this sort of problem, he does.

Actually you will probably have to exit and restart Steam to allow ito update itself.  It can update games silently sometimes, but not the Steam program.

I hope that the 16th goes better than the 7/8th went when the Steam offers went on sale.  The servers were absolutely swamped and nothing was happening for a couple of hours.

[Big Jake]

Well, from what I've seen, I'm pretty much on the forefront of being the wierdo 'conspiracy nuts' regarding steam here, so I'll presume Rage and Warning were directing their posts at me.

Where did I say anything about, 'steam is so evil, it will eat our brains on the 16th" in this thread?

I don't see how asking how a company which has NO experience in enteprise software market will succeed at a launch when every MMO has problems is a 'wacko conspiracy' question.