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[IronTomato]

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[Tellemurius]

Here's why I can't:

My internet is limited. I can only send / receive 5 gigs per month and TF2 is 10 gigabytes. I get charged 10 dollars for every gig I go over, and I usually get *this* close to going over every month. That would mean paying those Verizon bastards 100 dollars so I could get this game. No thank you. I can't just go somewhere else like an internet cafe to download it, because the only portable devices I have are my tablet, and my laptop from my school. I can't download steam on my laptop (I tried, it asked for an administrator login) and steam doesn't come for android. I know TF2 comes with the Orange Box, but then I would have to pay for a free game, and I would have (3?) Other games that I don't want. Is there something I can do?

can you find a used copy of orange box?

[Facekillz058]

Why would you not want Half-life 2 or Portal, exactly?

[Frumple]

Huh. Anyone you can talk into downloading the TF2 files and letting you copying them over via a flash drive or somethin'? If you don't have a large enough one, you could use something like .7zip to bundle the thing up into multiple files, then make a few trips. S'about the only thing I can think of off the top of my head, barring genuine shenanigans (which would probably involve a usb wireless device and hauling your desktop strange places.).

[Thexor]

First, I'd like to point out that TF2 is online. Online games don't have a lot of data transfer, but it is a constant bandwidth drain, and you sound like you're pretty limited. Single-player TF2 against bots is possible but horribly unsatisfying.

* Upgrade your internet connection! Paying $100 in overage fees is obviously ridiculous, especially when you could probably upgrade your monthly allotment for a fraction of that cost. (Unless something else precludes an upgrade...?)

* If you can download it via an internet cafe, consider buying a large flash drive to transport it home. A 30-second look at Future Shop shows a 16-GB flash drive for $10-15, so portable memory isn't terribly expensive.

* Purchase a cheap netbook. $100 would get a passable machine that's 3-4 years old, which you could then use on a different network to download the game.

* Ask a friend! Surely someone at school has a decent connection. Heck, they might already have TF2 installed! If so, you can copy the files over via flash drive.
    * If you do this, start the Steam download, then stop it a minute later. This should create the correct directory structure, so you know where to copy the files.
    * Once you've copied them over, start the Steam download again. Steam should spot the files, validate them, and report a success.



Also:

* Buying the Orange Box almost certainly wouldn't help. I'm not sure whether TF2 has any on-disk data (some Steam games are simply a download code), but even if the game was on the disk, you'd have gigs worth of patches to download.

* Check your latency with Pingtest. If you're limited to only 5 GB/month, I wouldn't trust that Verizon has given you a decent latency, either. This goes double if there's a circumstance (like living in a rural area) that prevents you upgrading your monthly bandwidth.

[debvon]

Steam allows for pausing downloads doesn't it? You could let it hit 40% and then resume the download next month, and finish it off during the third month. I'm pretty sure you've already gone over this possibility, but it's better than nothing if you're strapped for cash.

[Girlinhat]

This is like someone asking "Can anyone get WoW on a flash drive for me?  I don't have internet at my place."

[Facekillz058]

This is like someone asking "Can anyone get WoW on a flash drive for me?  I don't have internet at my place."

[Rex_Nex]

I dont think it's unreasonable to ask about an easier way to get the game. In most circumstances, 5 gigs would be enough to comfortably play a online game...

However, TF2 is a bandwidth whore. You'll rack up a couple mb of data every minute of playtime. Combining that with the hellishly huge download, this just really doesn't sound like a good idea. If you need something to compare the bandwidth usage to, think Minecraft. It's very high.

[alexandertnt]

This is like someone asking "Can anyone get WoW on a flash drive for me?  I don't have internet at my place."

This would be true of the person in question actually lacked an internet connection, but they don't.
The problem here is with aquiring the game, not with not being able to play it once it has been aquired.

Buying the Orange Box would not help, as there would likely be a massive ammount of updates to download anyway. It seems the only real solution is to get a better internet plan, if that is even an option.

If you know someone with steam, get them to download the game and back it up onto disks. This is what I do with my slow internet connection (which is basically unlimited, but takes days to download the average modern-sized game).

[10ebbor10]

Yeah, the Orange box only contains about half of TF2's total file size.

[Hanzoku]

Actually, the issue is also playing the game. According to the OP, he uses nearly all of his free bandwidth as it is, without playing TF2. Adding the data transfer might very well push him over into the 'paying for overage' zone.

IronTomato - I'm guessing you're liking somewhere rural to have such a tiny data cap? (At least the articles I see complaining about it mention issues with internet in rural areas a lot.) In that case, I don't have any good suggestions for your internet, though in your place I would be shopping around for a different provider.

[Shadowlord]

Others have mentioned the bandwidth used by TF2 while playing, but I wanted to mention something else:

I can't download steam on my laptop (I tried, it asked for an administrator login)

Why would you need an administrator logon to download a file? Or do you mean that the steam installer demanded admin permissions for some reason? (A copy of the steam folder from your other computer, copied into your laptop's My Documents folder, might work)

That said, it doesn't sound like your school wants you installing anything on "your" laptop if you don't even have admin permissions to it.

(TF2 is also not as awesome as you may think!)

[ank]

You need administrative rights to install ANYTHING on new versions of windows.
My recommendation is getting access to the admin account, or barring that get a computer that is actually yours 

[Enzo]

(TF2 is also not as awesome as you may think!)

What is this.