A typical example is the bastard trick Novalogic used on some of their games,
killing the "simple" cd-check wasn't enough, No cd -> some buttons disabled.
Add some huge oversized files to deal with and a intro file which needed to be stripped.

fake toc wasnt it on all those delta force etc cd's, i remember those, piece of piss tho

yup, that's correct. No hazzle to get a 1:1 backup, but a little more complicated to remaster the whole thing, include all updates and a nocd on a 700mb disc....still love the fact when installing all needed files got their correct sizes...then it was, like you said, piece of piss....pretty much generic for many of their games ;)

nope he seems clueless whats he´s talking about reverse engineering.
good-bye

Weeee....biggie fonts to boost your ego...just go ahead talking "lame"...I'd vote that one for "Dumb f*ck of the year"...Now Mike Tyson can step of that throne :rolleyes:

hang on bytemare, i think mr bush should be on that throne for a long long time ;)

Why?
 

I came across this thread while searching on google. I am just starting to look around on instructions on how to "crack" game.exe files. I am very disapointed to see that all threads are the same. People getting into threads just to attack other people and avoid the original reason for the thread to exist. I don't agree with the way pee went about it but he was right. Someone like me who is willing to learn to do something for themselves, insted of relying on other peoples slow and steady work, being turned awayand discuraged. Finding good working game fixes is getting harder and harder. The older ones are disapearing and the newer ones are going to fixed image files. It took pee's post to anger everyone in here to prove him wrong to get information out. Slaming is alot easier to do than helping I guess. I am not trying to anger anyone in here and I don't want to be slammed for being a nube. I am going to take the programs listed in here and advice into account. If anyone wants to help me out please TEACH me how to make a working modified exe or tell me where a can find them other than gamecopyworld and megagames. I would rather learn to make them.

the point is that teaching is a long time consuming process, and most people only want the 'help me to make a no-cd' for only one game, meaning that once they're done they dont bother... that and most of them dont want to put the required time into learning.. where they have to learn about win32 (and now win64) api's, how the chips work (register sets... mnemonics and so on), and assume that the task is easy.. it isnt that easy, but if they are willing to put the time in then it might work... sadly most of them give up at the first hurdle and if you noticed while googling, there are lots of tutorials out there and lots of other helpful information and most people dont even bother starting there, they just want spoon fed.. had someone come along asking for help on a no-cd that they were attempting to do and showed sufficient information that they actually tried, then people would be more willing to help i think.

Yup, that pretty much says it all... (almost) everybody wants a fast crack, not a long boring reversing session...it seems to be more fun to just play than actually learn something...damnit, I started to crack games just because I could NOT play a game with the original ;)

Heads Up
 

Props to you all who are running these forums, I'm a newb to this too, I have programming XP, and have been a tech in many areas for 10 yrs, so most of this stuff makes sence, but since I haven't done this specifically theres a lot to learn. I'd have to agree (to an extent) with pee's first post, it was harsher than needed but the point I believe is that the first reply to the other newbs question through the point of view of other newbs and some readers was a blow off, definately not helpful, (it wasn't anything someone couldn't do and figure out on their own and save the time posting here) and also had some rude flavor. If your gonna have a forum here to help people with this stuff then that is going to rub a lot of ppl the wrong way... Sure a lot of ppl aren't serious, and doing this awhile probably has you assuming ppl under the most common standards you've had to deal with the majority over time, but some are, like me, and maybe the original poster, theres easy ways to find out... See ya

No one is going to give you anything on a gold platter. Its your job to find that platter and load it with what you want. Most people who RE just do it as a hobby. Its a lot of fun to beat a protection, and its sorta like solving crossword puzzles in the Sunday newspaper. There are tutorials out there that can help you crack every protection. There are tuts on Safedisc 1-3 (4 hasnt changed that much, no need to write an entire ****ing tutorial for nano-size changes) Securom 4-7, and there are even a bunch of tuts in Russian on the REing of Starforce Pcodes. On some forums, you can even find step by step instructions how to bypass Starforce antidebug, which a lot of ppl are having problems with. So there really is no need for us... All you need is google and a translator. Don't just post here after you can't be able to find the stuff I just said after 20 min. of googling. It took me about 3 hours of translating **** from Russian, French, Swedish, German... On a handful of forums, following a bunch of links provided... And I finally find what I am looking for. It might take you 10 min to find this ****, or a couple of hours like for me, but the point is, it is out there. The two tools you need are a good search engine and a translator, and a desire to learn. Thats it.

Don't expect a gold platter. Make one yourself.

Most ppl are here only to help you with minor things, like:

"Why wont my MOV EDX, B0001119 assemble in Olly?"

Not to say:

"Ok here is how you can crack starforce in less than 30 min..."

You gotta do stuff yourself. Nature gave you a brain. Use it.

"No one is going to give you anything on a gold platter" No but you could trying to point to where he might find the platter. Telling him to use the search button would have been good enough but the "so i'd give up if i were you" doesn't help much. At least "peee" try to help him.

nothing like resurrecting a ~3 year old thread is there...

the "so i'd give up if i were you" was because i've seen this before, the sheer fact that he thought that the strings did the checking showed his lack of comprehension on the whole thing, and i know the amount of work ahead of him that he would have to learn (which is where the vast majority of people give up and expect to be spoonfed)...

Nice Compilation of Tools. Great Work done ! :)

LOL I am surprised the post is still there after all that time.