Will T. wrote:
It was an admin mistake apparently, misinterpreting the OP's statement about owning "free Portal" (in this case acquired through Valve's giveaway) as an admission to pirating the game.

For years, people who could play maps but not run Hammer were pirates, because when you got Portal through Steam, you always got the SDK with it. Apparently there was some one day promotion where you could get Portal for free, and it doesn't let you use the SDK either. The symptoms ("free" and unable to use Hammer) were exactly consistent with previous incidents, thus my mistake.

I swear, Valve did it just to mess with me.

Yeah I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking that if they didn't know about the promo. It never even crossed my mind that the free promo wouldn't give SDK access either. I guess it makes sense since you still didn't pay for it even though it was through Valve ...

I think the distribution may have been outside of Steam too (I remember they had a website you had to go to to get it), which further complicates matters.

No it was through Steam, you went to a website on the Steam site to get an access code or something.

I think it's all free promotion stuff that doesn't give SDK access. To my knowledge, the free promotion version of HL2:DM doesn't give SDK access either.

When I got Deathmatch free years ago I didn't get the SDK. And since I didn't have a credit card, I had to beg for some1 to buy me HL2 in order to fiddle around with the SDK.

And because I am such a cheapskate, I got Portal free when it came with the promotion. I couldn't wait for Portal 2 though. Purchased immediately when it was available.

I have like 4 copies of portal... and 4 copies of tf2, and 2 copies of Portal 2...
I think in all, i probably paid less than $75* for all of it...
Portal 1 and TF2 i got through the orange box. Got 3 copies of portal 1 for free during the promo/and such. bought 3 copies of TF2 at $1.89 (or whatever it was during that halloween sale). 1 copy of Portal 2 i got for $44 through newegg, and then I got a second copy from best buy for roughly $7, thanks to a best buy coupon mistake!

*Edit: If you take in to fact that the cost:value ratio of portal 1 and tf2 was much lower if bought through the orange box

**Edit2: Back On Topic -

msleeper wrote:
Hober wrote:

He wouldn't be able to play destroyed aperture maps in Portal 1. Also, presumably, if you had a legal copy of Portal 1, Steam would let you download Hammer for it.

I'm fairly certain that if you got Portal during the free 1 day promotion a while back, that you can't download Source SDK. I could be wrong though.

Nope your wrong, This account has the free Portal and if you look at my youtube I make portal maps all the time ;D

So you can download SDK

No, there's no exeptions to the rule. If you have ONLY the FREE DEAL VERSION OF PORTAL in terms of VALVe games, you cannot access the SDK. If you have ANY OTHER VALVe GAME (excluding L4D-L4D2 and Portal 2) this gives you access to the Source SDK and Portal's mapping branch.

I should know since the first game I got on steam was P1, and for awhile I couldn't map. Then I bought HL2 and it opened up.

Fuckin' weird.

Groxkiller585 wrote:
No, there's no exeptions to the rule. If you have ONLY PORTAL in terms of VALVe games, you cannot access the SDK. If you have ANY OTHER VALVe GAME (excluding L4D-L4D2 and Portal 2) this gives you access to the Source SDK and Portal's mapping branch.

I should know since the first game I got on steam was P1, and for awhile I couldn't map. Then I bought HL2 and it opened up.

Except that's not true. I bought a hard-, retail-copy of Portal before anything else ever made by VALVe entered my hard drive. You know what? I downloaded the SDK and started mapping.

WinstonSmith wrote:
Groxkiller585 wrote:

No, there's no exeptions to the rule. If you have ONLY PORTAL in terms of VALVe games, you cannot access the SDK. If you have ANY OTHER VALVe GAME (excluding L4D-L4D2 and Portal 2) this gives you access to the Source SDK and Portal's mapping branch.

I should know since the first game I got on steam was P1, and for awhile I couldn't map. Then I bought HL2 and it opened up.

Except that's not true. I bought a hard-, retail-copy of Portal before anything else ever made by VALVe entered my hard drive. You know what? I downloaded the SDK and started mapping.

I think he meant Valve's free copy of Portal, not the bought version

MasterLagger wrote:
WinstonSmith wrote:

Groxkiller585 wrote:

No, there's no exeptions to the rule. If you have ONLY PORTAL in terms of VALVe games, you cannot access the SDK. If you have ANY OTHER VALVe GAME (excluding L4D-L4D2 and Portal 2) this gives you access to the Source SDK and Portal's mapping branch.

I should know since the first game I got on steam was P1, and for awhile I couldn't map. Then I bought HL2 and it opened up.

Except that's not true. I bought a hard-, retail-copy of Portal before anything else ever made by VALVe entered my hard drive. You know what? I downloaded the SDK and started mapping.

I think he meant Valve's free copy of Portal, not the bought version

That was my first impression, but since we'd already established that fact (and the way he worded his post) made me think otherwise.

WinstonSmith wrote:
That was my first impression, but since we'd already established that fact (and the way he worded his post) made me think otherwise.

I did mean what MasterLagger said, and I assumed that would be assumed because that was what the conversation was about. I should word my phrases more clearly next time.

Groxkiller585 wrote:
WinstonSmith wrote:

That was my first impression, but since we'd already established that fact (and the way he worded his post) made me think otherwise.

I did mean what MasterLagger said, and I assumed that would be assumed because that was what the conversation was about. I should word my phrases more clearly next time.

Ah.

We need a judgement/official-written-on-papyrus-scroll declaration from VALVe on when the SDK is accessible and when it is not.

I think the sdk's should always be accessible, though I can understand why. "Why would you want to make maps for a game you don't (legally) own?"

rellikpd wrote:
**Edit2: Back On Topic -

Crazy, that looks like someone I know, but without the weird as mouth thingo.