Because Bioshock protection was a WINNER. Right?

[Spyhop]

I will render this whole discussion moot by completely simplifying DRM in a very true way.

People who buy games will continue to buy games.
People who pirate games will continue to pirate games.
DRM will change neither fact. It's existence is therefore pointless.

[Hard core Rikki]

People who pirate games will continue to pirate games.

I'd say that pirates will actually start moving back to being legit actually, however surprising that might look. At some point, living without DRMed stuff would just become so unacceptable a switch would be expected. With games, just giving up the online multiplayer gaming (and official competitions) could be seen as an unacceptable loss not worth the 'benefits' of DRM-stripped versions of games.

[mudlord]

DRM will change neither fact. It's existence is therefore pointless.

Try telling that to the deluded market executives of EA, Take-Two and others.....

and to Valve. Thier Steam copy protection has been cracked ages ago, and it still is. There's Steam emulator DLLs and cracked clients around

[Paratech]

I still haven't decided to cancel my order for the game, but I may go looking for a patch and not open the game until I get one. I've done that for all the Starforce games I own, except the one I can't find a patch for and haven't installed, Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe.

Don't bother telling me it's wrong to buy a game and patch it, I don't care. I buy a game. I'll play it on my PC the way I intend to to play it. If the software companies don't like it they can **** themselves...

BTW, I'm not asking for help in finding a patch for any game. I know the rules and can use search engines.

[refraction]

Originally Posted by Paratech

I still haven't decided to cancel my order for the game, but I may go looking for a patch and not open the game until I get one. I've done that for all the Starforce games I own, except the one I can't find a patch for and haven't installed, Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe.

Don't bother telling me it's wrong to buy a game and patch it, I don't care. I buy a game. I'll play it on my PC the way I intend to to play it. If the software companies don't like it they can **** themselves...

BTW, I'm not asking for help in finding a patch for any game. I know the rules and can use search engines.

your reasoning is the only reason places like gamescopyworld and megagames are still alive. the cracks are intended for those who bought the game and wish to play it without the cd and silly amounts of over protection. Talk of downloading the game on there n wanting a crack gets you banned.

Personally i dont see anything wrong with that (nocd cracks i mean). Ive paid for assassins creed and Oblivion (amongst others) and i use cracks on both of them. Oblivions i usually make myself (im on gamescopyworld too xD) but the hastle of having to find the damn dvd in the mess of my room, risk scratching the crap out of it, just so i can play the damn game, just isnt worth it.

[Cid Highwind]

Such a shame, while I don't like a game like this calling home all the time, it is something I could even accept, in a tradeoff for not having to use the DVD. The bitter pill for me is that I simply don't trust Securom. With Test Drive Unlimited I also got the message that my key wasn't valid, it gave me so much ****he I had to resort to using fake images to make the game run. I'll wait for the community to do the beta testing of the copy protection. I've played the game already so I don't feel the need to play it that desperately.

Anyway, I'm with you Refraction, I make no secret out of it that I'll alter game files at my own discretion, it's my good right as the owner of the game. I could only wish that more people would actually invest some money in their fav hobby.

[Thanakil]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Such a shame, while I don't like a game like this calling home all the time, it is something I could even accept, in a tradeoff for not having to use the DVD.

I do believe we'll be able to play without a DVD in the drive constantly. I'm not entirely sure, but I think they're giving up on "Please insert CD/DVD" protection and replacing it with this completely.

(that's just what I heard tho, so it could be wrong, will wait until the game is released to see... But I personally would rather have the DVD inside instead, having my game activated every 10 days kinda s**k, especially for people without the internet to do so, I've seen people complain on the Mass Effect forum cause they can access internet at work or at school, but never at home, making it impossible to play)

[jonc2006]

Originally Posted by refraction

your reasoning is the only reason places like gamescopyworld and megagames are still alive. the cracks are intended for those who bought the game and wish to play it without the cd and silly amounts of over protection. Talk of downloading the game on there n wanting a crack gets you banned.

Personally i dont see anything wrong with that (nocd cracks i mean). Ive paid for assassins creed and Oblivion (amongst others) and i use cracks on both of them. Oblivions i usually make myself (im on gamescopyworld too xD) but the hastle of having to find the damn dvd in the mess of my room, risk scratching the crap out of it, just so i can play the damn game, just isnt worth it.

right i use nocd cracks for the majority of the pc games i have due to that very same reason, its a pain in the ass to have to break out the disc and keep it in the drive every time i want to play something. ive noticed that there are a few publishers that remove the copy protection and cd check after a few months with an offical patch of some sorts, therefore eliminating the need for a nocd crack, but the ones that dont do this tend to get under my skin because it does get annoying to have to go through all that just to play a game that you paid for. when it comes to protection, even something as simple as a cd check is overkill imo.

[Hard core Rikki]

GameJackal has it good. Too bad these fookers tie their nocds to specific rigs.

[Thanakil]

GUYS.
A few things :

- The protection doesn't require the DVD to be in the drive (confirmed).
- They decided to modify the protection system.
You only need to activate the game once (on each computer that you install it) and afterward, you don't have to do it anymore. So you can install it on three computers, activate with the key one time, and then play as much as you want (without any DVD in the drive and without the need to activate the key again).
- You can ask to install on more computers if needed, if you contact Customer Support and ask for it, they'll do it on a case by case basis, since leaving it to "unlimited" installations would easily promote piracy with the same key (especially since you don't have to activate anymore every 10 days, thousands of people could install with the same key in a few days before it gets banned...).

- You WILL need to activate the game again but ONLY if you download additional content.
Example : If you download a patch (I guess) or if you download the additional content being released for the 360 version, being ported to PC. In this case, you'd have to activate the game again (once) with your key to download this stuff.

Bioware Backs Down: BioWare Backs Down From Draconian Mass Effect Authentication

It's a little better than it was before.

[jonc2006]

its still overkill. legitimate, paying customers should not have to deal with this bs. do they actually think such things are going to deal a noticable blow to the pirate community? all it is going to do is contribute to it and the only people who are getting nailed by this are the people who are buying the game. its just totally uncalled for and its going to backfire on them real bad one of these days.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Hard core Rikki

GameJackal has it good. Too bad these fookers tie their nocds to specific rigs.

GameJackal does this because of liability reasons. Even if circumventing copy protection might be illegal, it looks better at a legal standpoint if only the person who owns the original game can use the nocd "crack" that was created by the program....in other words: it lets Slysoft play the Fair-Use card

I have a lifetime license myself. Slysoft does a great job at keeping up with new game updates

[mudlord]

Slysoft does a great job at keeping up with new game updates

Not to mention, the company is situated in a country where DMCA and equivalent laws don't exist, so they are immune to legal threats.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by mudlord

Not to mention, the company is situated in a country where DMCA and equivalent laws don't exist, so they are immune to legal threats.

considering their headquarters is located in the West Indies (Antigua, to be exact)....and their financial department is in the booze-stricken country of Ireland, they are pretty much invulnerable to DMCA takedowns

[Squall-Leonhart]

FACT: One Good crack will take any technicaly advanced copy protection down.

They thought Sims 2 wasn't fallible due to the tamper protection.... though the latest Securom copies are for now... (which is why i've put a ban on buying the newer sims 2 games)

[Exodus]

I've put a ban on playing the Sims because, well, it's the Sims.

It's nice to hear they've backed down on their protection. And on the topic of no-CD cracks (or CD images), I like them. Why should there need to be a CD in the PC to play?

[Paratech]

Originally Posted by Spyhop

I will render this whole discussion moot by completely simplifying DRM in a very true way.

People who buy games will continue to buy games.
People who pirate games will continue to pirate games.
DRM will change neither fact. It's existence is therefore pointless.

I'll disagree. Many Starforced game would have sold better if they weren't Starforced. That protection scheme got a lot of bad press and for good reason.

I won't install a Starforced game unless I find a no-CD/DVD crack for it. As I mentioned earlier, I have every patch, except for the Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe for the PC. I have the Gamecube version as well...

[cottonvibes]

let me say this,

when huge multi-billion dollar corporations such as Microsoft can't even prevent people from Pirating their OSes, you think some game company will be able to do it?!?


plus, lots of games use the same type of copy-protection (securom has been used in countless games), once one hax0r finds out the way to break it (which has been done already), then creating the hack for other games shouldn't be that hard.

[Cid Highwind]

Originally Posted by Thanakil

GUYS.
A few things :

- The protection doesn't require the DVD to be in the drive (confirmed).
- They decided to modify the protection system.
You only need to activate the game once (on each computer that you install it) and afterward, you don't have to do it anymore. So you can install it on three computers, activate with the key one time, and then play as much as you want (without any DVD in the drive and without the need to activate the key again).
- You can ask to install on more computers if needed, if you contact Customer Support and ask for it, they'll do it on a case by case basis, since leaving it to "unlimited" installations would easily promote piracy with the same key (especially since you don't have to activate anymore every 10 days, thousands of people could install with the same key in a few days before it gets banned...).

- You WILL need to activate the game again but ONLY if you download additional content.
Example : If you download a patch (I guess) or if you download the additional content being released for the 360 version, being ported to PC. In this case, you'd have to activate the game again (once) with your key to download this stuff.

Bioware Backs Down: BioWare Backs Down From Draconian Mass Effect Authentication

It's a little better than it was before.

I take this as pretty good news, I hope they won't be anal like MS when I'd upgrade something in my computer though, and that it merely changes a registry setting, or something in the executable for that matter. And of course the activations need to be reclaimed upon uninstall. And thinking of that, it's still way too intrusive for me. Hopefully Bioware can do like they've always done in the past: Remove the protection after a year or so.

On the other hand, once my 3 uses are gone, I'm sure the game has a valid crack to take care of the rest. The reason why I'm not going to call is simple, usually there's no Dutch phone number and I'll have to call to the UK.