This is a great laugh with friends, there are usually a few servers with enough people on to make it fun.

​You tried to be smart

You failed

"This deal is now over"

Thanks op...will give it a try.

Here is the link for anyone else who wants to try

Link

Have you just got that key? When I click the link I get "This promotion is over". Fair play if still on but not showing for me

Doesn't seem over to me?

Lol... Maybe because people don't realise it's free?? I check the freebies regularly & didn't spot it, but I've seen now it's expired as the promotion is over, so this is now the cheapest place to get it

This is a free game on bundlestars: https://www.bundlestars.com/en/giveaway
Why this is even remotely warm is bizarre

Thanks for the information heat added

Finally from me, if you wish to see for yourself what the fuss is about BEFORE purchasing, I recommend you check out this youtube video. It is some people who regularly make youtube videos playing the "World Leaders" map, which basically is Maggie Thatcher, Tony Blair, George Bush and, bizarrely Osama Bin Laden hunting each other! I laughed hard at this one!

Unfortunately there don't appear to be any active World Leaders servers at the moment... Perhaps a HUKDer can make one?? There are guides for creating servers on youtube

To find a multiplayer server

I've taken this from here, so credit goes to the author of this post. I've tested it and it works. There are 24 servers of which, at the time of posting, 6 have active players. Hopefully we can get a few HUKDers to swell the ranks!

This is a VERY simple guide on how to join a server, nothing else, no "high level strategies" and such here ! (edit: i made a guide which can give a couple of tips, that guide can be found here:)

The master server is down, so the new way of joining servers is by "searching" for em, though there are probably more site's that do this, the 1 i use is http://www.gameserverdirectory.com/search/the-ship/

After doing that, you can choose between servers, click on 1 of those server names.

If done correctly you should see a green line of numbers at the top left, copy that line.

Then, inside "The Ship" you need to activate the devolper console. (its the same as in all other half-life 2 games so feel free to skip this part if you know how to enable it already)
-Go to "Engine Room" (this is the "options" menu here)
-Select Keyboard
-Select Advanced
-tick "enable developer console" on

Now, back to the reason why you copy'd that line of numbers a while earlier, press on the ` key (this is to the left of the "1"/Under escape/Above tab
You should see a box pop up, in this box type :
Connect "the line of numbers"
i.e
Connect 789.489.495.228;27015

Now you are on your way to a multiplayer server :smiley:

Thanks for reading, i made this guide becouse i want to avoid the massive amount of questions at the "disccussions" tab, which is why there are not any strategies or tips here.

Edit: you can also go to the "favorites" tab in the server browser and then press "add server", if you type the IP there it will stay there forever, removing the entire process of going to the site and such. (thanks for the tip: Flaming Waffle and Tyrak)

Edit2: You can also look at all available servers in the steam client by going to: View > Servers > Change the filter for "Game" into "The ship", this will then also show a list, rightclicking on a server and then looking at its server info will then give you the IP of that server