Valve sends word that the Steam 2 beta will be starting today:

Steam Beta 2.0 begins today at 3 pm Pacific. The beta is open to the public, anyone can join by downloading and running the 4MB install applet.

For the first few days, this beta will include the coming versions of Counter-Strike (1.6) and Team Fortress Classic. Further updates to these games, as well as additional content, will be made available to participants throughout the beta.

Steam is a broadband platform for the delivery and management of digital content. More information on Steam and this beta can be found at www.steampowered.com.

Update: Valve have suspended the beta due to the massive response:

Steam Beta 2.0 Admission Suspended

The Counter-Strike and Team Fortress communities have maxed out the Steam 2.0 beta servers, resulting in the temporarily suspension of admission to the beta as more content servers are put online. The current Steam content servers offer over 500 megabits of bandwidth, all of which the community is consuming right now.

Stay tuned for more updates.

FIRST POST!

w00t!

We are all doomed!

im in and updating :)

Let me get this straight, if you want CS 1.6 you have to use this service there will be no other way of updating?

yup, and its damn slow... this is only a beta tho

I'm waiting for someone to exploit Steam and DoS it

or u can do what normal ppl do, wait for it to come out.

"Oh, by the way, even if you already have CS 1.5 you'll still have to download 409 MB of content(!!!). "

500 megabits of bandwidth and it came crashing to a halt!


it may be old and a gay game, but that just proves its popularity....

cs will be here for at least another year :/

409 meg for a few tweaks 1 new map, 2 weapons and a shield... what the hell have the secrectly stored in all that?!

500mbit isnt that much at all! thats like only 500 100Kb/s connections!

Yeah, that's only half your months usage if you're on a bpa 1GB plan .. f*** all really.

ITS A f***ING PATCH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

hey wait a minute, it's cs, why do I care?

409 meg for a few tweaks 1 new map, 2 weapons and a shield... what the hell have the secrectly stored in all that?!

The entire game.

ohh i thought it alot more bandwidth, my bad :(

"409 meg for a few tweaks 1 new map, 2 weapons and a shield... what the hell have the secrectly stored in all that?!"

dont forget the engine tweaks it so sorely needs

didnt have to download 400mb, only about 30-50mb