HL2 offline without steam?

[bob]

Ive been going to lan partys locally as much as I can, but as anyone knows with steam, every friggen time you open it, it has to update at least 20 times in a row. Now, internet is avalible at the LAN's but usually less than 512k download. So 10 people steaming up a 512k connection... the lan would last a week, 3 days of which would be spent updating. We've been looking to play Halflife-2, we all have legit copies we bought, and Halflife-1 is getting old.

Im not looking for a crack, patch, warez... Nothing. Heres my idea:

Find some way to let the steam clients update offline, from a single downloaded patch-file on the FTP server.
Install a captive portal on the internet router/gateway letting people know that steam will be blocked.
Block steams ports on the internet router.

My mind gets me that far, then I think... What if we want to play online? Hmm. Is there any possible way this can be done?

 

[Goran]

Pretty sure you can go online then check the play offline button and restart steam or something. But there really is no reason you should be downloading 20 updates unless you never play it or log onto steam regularly...

 

[bob]

Pretty sure you can go online then check the play offline button and restart steam or something. But there really is no reason you should be downloading 20 updates unless you never play it or log onto steam regularly...

Im guessing you live comfortable on high speed internet, as do most of the people you know? Ever try using a connection out of town so far that your lucky to get a 26k dial-up connection?

Directly from wiki - "Another major issue is the auto-update model. To play a game offline, Steam and the game itself must be fully updated; and updates are always checked for when starting Steam while online. If there is an update the game is marked as not up to date, regardless of whether the user wants to update or not. They must then update the game before being able to play offline again. The worst affected are dial-up users: not only are they the ones who are most likely to use offline mode, they are the ones least capable of updating."

This is one of the good reasons to not update online when 10 people are sharing one connection.

 

[133]

update steam before you go to the lan...
go to a friends house w/high speed and update...
get to the lan early so your the only one using the connection...

once its updated, its updated, it doesn't update everytime you open it unless new updates are released..which is once a week or so.

 

[TekSomniaK]

Well buddy you're being a little too paranoid about Steam. I was just at a lan where probably more than half of which (probably around 70-75) were steam users and we had absolutely no problems. We had broadband of course but it wasn't really that fast, so I don't think you have anything to worry about with only 10 people.