Orange Box/Steam Frustration

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Eltorro

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Hi Guys

It was my Birthday this past Saturday and one of the gifts i got was a PC-DVD copy of The Orange Box. You can only imagine my excitement as i've been looking for a copy everywhere so i don't know where my sister got hold of it, she apparently ordered it a month ago. Anyway, i open the box stick in the DVD disc and to my surprise the PC doesn't even use the DVD. It downloads all the info from the net, i registered, followed all the steps and still my friends I am not playing Half-LIfe 2. You can imagine how p*$$%d i am. I have looked for shortcuts, how to disable this update crap, to no avail. Now why would i not want to download? I'll tell you why! I have a 500MB HSDPA connection and steam tells me that HL2 is something like 9GB to download, What the F*$#K!!! Do you guys know how much that'll cost??? What's the DVD for then????? And that's only HL2! That's not even Episode 1&2, Nor is that Portal or TF2. Have i got this all wrong? Can someone please help and tell me whether it is actually that big to download? Should i get a PS3 and a copy of PS3 Orange Box or will i still have to download those big Files. Someone please give me info on your experience with this BLOODY frustrating STEAM!!

Sorry for the Outburst!
 
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The games are most certainly installed from the DVD. All updates and config files needed for the Steam platform are then downloaded. This usually runs about a few hundred mbs....certainly not 9gbs :)
 
The games should be installable from the dvd but I can't tell you how as I downloaded mine from steam rather than the dvd.

The other thing to keep in mind is that steam will probably try to update all the game with their latest patches, which can be rather large and steam also needs to authorize the dvd content before you can play it - I have no idea what it downloads during that stage though.
 
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Thanks IwoJima for the quick reply, but when i go to the steam menu, choose my games option and click on properties for Hlaf-Life 2 only, that's not the others, it tells me that the download will take 3hr25minutes and the size is 9715MB. I have read this over and over to make sure i am not reading it wrong. But that is what it states! Is this information wrong that i'm getting? And is this couple of hundred MB for all for games or is it only for Half-Life 2, what about the other 4 games? And when i have downloaded the couple of hundred MB, can i disable downloads?

Sorry for all the questions Iwojima, but i think you can understand my frustration, especially as there is no reading material packed with the game.

Thanks for your help!
 
Eltorro said:
Thanks IwoJima for the quick reply, but when i go to the steam menu, choose my games option and click on properties for Hlaf-Life 2 only, that's not the others, it tells me that the download will take 3hr25minutes and the size is 9715MB. I have read this over and over to make sure i am not reading it wrong. But that is what it states! Is this information wrong that i'm getting? And is this couple of hundred MB for all for games or is it only for Half-Life 2, what about the other 4 games? And when i have downloaded the couple of hundred MB, can i disable downloads?

Sorry for all the questions Iwojima, but i think you can understand my frustration, especially as there is no reading material packed with the game.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

If any of your friends have it, ask them to back it up and then you can restore from those backups. But when I installed it, it didnt take 9GB to unlock and update... closer to 300MB (if i remember correctly)
 
Thanks eltherza, I'll go home tonight and do the download as none of my friends have the orange box. Hold thumbs! I'll report back as soon as i have downloaded.

Can i disable Auto downloads and use the offline feature when i'm done?
 
Something isn't right here.

Are you sure you haven't just installed Steam? Did it install all 5 of the Orange Box products (HL2, HL2:E1, HL2:E2, Portal, Team Fortress)? Run the setup again and make sure all 5 games were installed. Steam is only a 3MB application.

9GBs? I don't believe that. That's roughly the size of all 5 games put together. As eltherza said, the updates should only be around 300MB.
 
Hi Lord Spaceman. Nothing is installed on my PC yet. All that was installed was Steam. It asked me to setup an account and so i did. then it directly took me to the Steam user interface. I then had a look at my games, selected Half-life 2 from the list of which the other 4 also states uninstalled. When i selected Half-Life 2 for installation it started to download off steam and showed 9GB to be downloaded, ofcourse i immediately cancelled the download. It doesn't use the DVD disc. It just downloads from steam, is this right?

Please help!
 
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There is no way just Steam is on that DVD. Run the setup (off the DVD) again and see if it wants to install the 5 games (like it should). Alternatively, snoop around the DVD. Perhaps there is a seperate installer for the 5 games.
 
There's a known bug.. Stop the download, go offline, and try with the dvd again. From take2's comments on Orange box:
"I discovered on the web that it is an issue with the install and you need to start the install on steam, then disconnect, autorun the DVD again and click on re-install, this makes it install from the DVD, but only 98% (Stops people copying the DVD) the other 2% odd comes from steam."

http://www.take2.co.za/product.php?id=2568342
 
i bought it on wed and no problems at all installing it
busy updating it now ...
 
Eltorro said:
Hi Guys

It was my Birthday this past Saturday and one of the gifts i got was a PC-DVD copy of The Orange Box. You can only imagine my excitement as i've been looking for a copy everywhere so i don't know where my sister got hold of it, she apparently ordered it a month ago. Anyway, i open the box stick in the DVD disc and to my surprise the PC doesn't even use the DVD. It downloads all the info from the net, i registered, followed all the steps and still my friends I am not playing Half-LIfe 2. You can imagine how p*$$%d i am. I have looked for shortcuts, how to disable this update crap, to no avail. Now why would i not want to download? I'll tell you why! I have a 500MB HSDPA connection and steam tells me that HL2 is something like 9GB to download, What the F*$#K!!! Do you guys know how much that'll cost??? What's the DVD for then????? And that's only HL2! That's not even Episode 1&2, Nor is that Portal or TF2. Have i got this all wrong? Can someone please help and tell me whether it is actually that big to download? Should i get a PS3 and a copy of PS3 Orange Box or will i still have to download those big Files. Someone please give me info on your experience with this BLOODY frustrating STEAM!!

Sorry for the Outburst!
Click to expand...

Hd the same problem installed about 70% and stood downloading for 5 days on my 64k connection............................... I still have not found a solution, best way to get files from a firend and download updates!
 
how big is the team fortress 2 update ?
its been updating for a while
 
Orange Box relief!!

Hi Guys, Good news! Avatar was right, Orange Box does have a bug and does not use the DVD unless you disconnect after installing steam. That's only after steam updates around about 146MB. When i did that, it gave an error message saying that "This operation cannot be completed unless steam is connected.." But then it uses the DVD anyway. It installed disk 1 and then asked me for DVD disk 2. I was overjoyed! But after that it updated to about 320MB in total (This includes the previous 146MB), just like LordSpaceman said. When i then looked in the games properties menu it said that it was fully installed and then started updating the game. I now have the option of pausing updates, which i didn't before and says nothing about 9GB needed to be downloaded.

Geeze, the updates really sucks bandwith though, it went through 200MB like nothing and it's only sitting on 4% for all 5 games. I was wondering, i haven't played the game yet, can i play without updating the game? Or am i forced to do this before i can play?

I am sure many people do not know about this bug and i think Valve should really let people know, In this day and age it should not be this complicated to install something you've bought and paid for, I'm sure you guys agree. I know about all the piracy bull, but come on guys!! I have read too many reviews about the frustration with Valve's Steam App.

Big Up to all you guys who helped me along, I really appreciate it!!
 
You can play single player without updating but multiplayer requires that everyone has the same version, albeit the latest updates.

Agreed, steam sux big balls big time :mad: and the updates are a little too crazy for us Saffers.
 
Jonny Two Shoes said:
You can play single player without updating but multiplayer requires that everyone has the same version, albeit the latest updates.

Agreed, steam sux big balls big time :mad: and the updates are a little too crazy for us Saffers.
Click to expand...

Steam works really well in countries which have proper broadband. Of all the crappy DRM schemes we get saddled with it is by far the best.
 
Blitz.0 said:
I hear it's 200 meg( the largest so far). Gonna have to wait a while for this update :mad:
Click to expand...

darn it just updated it last night to get it working and now another update :mad:
steam is a bandwidth hog LOL
 
New Map came out Saturday I think lol got it done at 11 last night now for the other games to update :D
 
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