Steam Problem - AKA I hate games

[ali_james]

Hi all

I've already had a problem since being at uni with trying to play games..

Last week I bought Bioshock only to find that the auto-updater could not connect. This is due to the internet connect I've got here at uni (LAN service run by the university).

This week thinking fine I can do without Bioshock, I bought Half Life Orange Box. Now I've come to install it, Steam installs.

That's as far as it goes, Steam launches then begins to grind away on the dreaded Auto-Updater of doom I've had a google and can't find anything to suggest that I can play this at all. Does anyone else know ? Is there any way around this?

I am incredibly pi$$3d off at this. I'm not sure at who most, probably our uni as we can't decline use of their service and get our own provided (extreme I know) but as I am paying for this service I don't believe it should be forced upon me as the only option to use

This could be better fitted into the rant section but hey.

I hope Crysis doesn't pull any of this autoupdatingcr@p on me

Any help is very much appreciated, but I believe this may be a lost cause 'til I get home. Home to my terrible ntl connection. How I miss it. I dream of the days of playing warcraft 3 with massive lag. Life was good..

 

[!TIMMY!]

Im guessing they have blocked all the ports that popular games use. Many Uni's do

 

[youpla]

Well I had the same problem with Steam update, and i am not at uni. Simply the update isn't working at all and get stuck. moreover the speed is awfull, under 2kb/s. Left it overnight several times thinking the update will finlly work. Never did and steam didn't launch after that. I decided that I will never buy a game that need Steam anymore since then whatever the game is.

 

[Rastalovich]

Only suggestion I can make is to grab the nearest linux nerd and talk to him about proxies.

May end up getting u booted tho.

 

[ali_james]

Yes I think your right, youpla. I will try to avoid steam in the future..

Games really should come with a substantial warning that says that the game needs to be updated online blahblahblah if you have no or partial connection do not buy this game.

But no. Sadly.

Rast, thanks for the idea I have a google and maybe an ask around the computer gaming society

I saw an advert for 3 mobile broadband but its too expensive, I think its about the only wireless broadband service I know of.. but really I can wait 'til December to get them working.

Cheers guys