Official Sims 2 Thread

[Dimensio]

Originally Posted by crazygamelover

Holy mass paranoia! Batman.

Its a game not some malicious attempt to kill computers worldwide. Maybe we should go to defcon 4 here. Just kidding!

Caution: Play at your own risk.

Remember what the uninstaller for the unpatched Pool of Radiance (the disastrous "sequel", not the original Gold Box) did?

I'd say that my paranoia is justified, especially in light of the incompetence and/or malice that I explained earlier.

[crazygamelover]

You do have a valid point but one mishap doesnt mean that everyone is out to get you. The likeliness that there is foul play involved in this instance is almost inconceivable. I hardly doubt there is need for parnoia, however I do agree that one should always be prepared for the unexpected. In this regard I do see your point but none the less it is just a game.

Your thoughts are duely noted and all are advised to proceed at your own risk, when dealing with homebrew software. I do feel that we do not need to fear eachother though cause we are all on the same team here. Everyone here works together to help eachother not maliciously hurt one another. If that was the case this site would suk and I can assure you this site does not suk. As a matter of fact it is the best and the formost authority on every kind of backup known. It is the best website on the net in my book.

If we could spread mass parnoia throughout the entire gamer society, we would surely cut down the piracy rate though.
I know alot of companies that would love it if we had the power to stop piracy all together but there are those who do break the rules and when caught they face the conciquences.

Gaming is always at the risk of the end user and a certain trust must be enstilled otherwise we are all doomed to our own creativity. Leave the lil buggers alone and they will leave you alone (most of the time)! As for the more aggressive worms/virus', we have to deal with them as they present themselves. Meanwhile back on the Ranch, the rest of us can relax and play the original if it becomes to paranoid to play a backup. Either way No Worries there m8! Btw Cheeers on the good point you made and I hope you see mine as well. Good day Miss!~

[Dimensio]

I'm actually less paranoid about the homebrew community than I am about developers screwing up in a way that massively screws with my system.

For example, Thief III has a little in-game check to make sure that the user playing is running with full Administrative rights, even beyond the CD check. If a non-Admin player tries to run the game, it deletes its own system files, rendering the install useless. This is an act of pure malice. It is easily circumvented by disabling write-access to the files (after which the game runs without problem), but it's a clear case of the devs sabotaging their own game to enforce an arbitrary and technically stupid requirement.

What happens if they screw up the 'delete the system files' code so that it is activated even when an Admin runs the executable? What happens if it goes from 'delete the game's system files' to 'delete arbitrary files on the machine'? When developers are pulling that kind of ****, I don't want to run their software under my Admin account.

Finally, my ultimate point is that while some people don't care about recommended security measures, I do. I do not run things under my Administrator account unless it is specifically an administrative task. I don't appreciate companies like EA/Maxis deciding that they know better than security experts, and when game companies pull this kind of crap I have to rely on the crack community to provide a proper workaround. Unfortunately, thus far, nothing has come out for this particular game.