Hey Guys!:

I put this post in Chit-Chat, seeing as I don't think my petty qualms with crappy placement of stickers is important enough to merit mention in another section... I mean, I don't get it, they should put that thing where you can safeguard it, it's incredible, it's....... oh, nevermind. Getting way ahead of myself. This is the deal:

I play Half-Life. Specifically, I play Half-Life mods. Even more specific, my favorite mod is Natural-Selection. Well, if you check their site, you find out they are releasing version 3.0, "Combat". Well, I wanted to try out the beta for this version, but at their download page it said I should run Half-Life through Steam, software by valve (HL developer) to control it's own games. Little did I know that this converted, re-stored, and erased my game files (as in, client, executable,ect..) Since it's stored in steam version and it's linked to the net, you can't play your games if your not connected (even single player) This (which it said in the install but I failed to notice) ticked me off. So I uninstalled steam. To my horror, steam took all my game files with it! So I've had to reinstall half-life. Anyone who has played half life knows that you need a CD-Key to install. Well, I installed HL about... oh... 4 friggin' years ago! And the Key is on a sticker on the seal of the flimsy paper "cd case" that comes with the game...which I lost God knows when. Up till now, I've had to use key cracks to be able to play my beloved game (with bots....sigh). But see, NS doesn't have bots. And when I connected to play online, the game (which is still half-life) authenticates with the WON server, checks that my cd-key isn't real, and I can't play.
(Deep Breath).......ok. THis is obviously very frustrating, having to deal with issues of a copied cd when I really DID buy my copy of half-life.



Any Suggestions