A real solution to the StarF**k virus for everyone.

[Eagle]

I agree, boycott Starforce.
It sucks. It messed up my Alcohol 120%, it confused my old Plextor CD-R and classified all my (physical) SCSI drives as virtual ones.
SF is just a pain in the *ss. SF has gone way too far intruding users' computers and software.

Also all the efforts getting a SF protected game running from an image are just plain unnecessary and useless. NO ONE owning the original game would disconnect all his IDE stuff, attach a USB-IDE converter or use some other complicated and fancy methods just to play from an image.

I am sick of these SF discussions.

[dajunka]

And so say all of us.

Tis true, this is the only real and lasting cure against this ever increasing problem.
We do have hope in the likes of Dreamcatcher with Dungeon Lords, who’s giving the no protection policy a try in America, I suppose if the sales are okay there, then they will adopt the same policy when released in Europe, come on you yanks buy this game. How great to be shut of all this poo intrusion protection software and get back to some sort of sensible protection or even better none at all we could all exercise our right to make backups.
The way things are going buying a game will be a nightmare.

1 Buy the game Pacman 2030 at mind boggling price in crappy case with no manual.
2 Shove CD in and Start Install.
3 Enter CD key.
4 Wait.
5 Activate game by on line registration.
6 Wait for game files to be decrypted.
7 Enter account details, user name and password.
8 Wait for email to arrive with activation code.
9 Enter code.
10 Wait while code checked against online database.
11 Start again as web site crashed.
12 Get to game start-up screen, told there is an error, "please wait for patch to resolve this issue."
13 Wait 4 weeks
14 install patch.
15 Get to start-up screen, told "error please insert correct CD."
16 Get in touch with support. Get told to knob off.
17 Buy new CD rom, insert game cd.
18 Get to start-up, get told "hardware change detected please reinstall."
19 Reinstall game and go to site for new activation code.
20 Get told "error Cd key and user details already in use."
21 Kill yourself.

or

21 Get game to finally work only to find out is a Atari 1200 port-over from 1963

[DABhand]

The thing is you have to think why this horrible protection is out on the market?

Its the fault of the general public who didnt buy games, that forces these horrible protections out.

Ive been lucky with SF and not been badly affected. But with others they have.

This is the norm, even older protections cause problems with certain systems, at the end of the day, not all PC systems are the same so you will never write a protection that will work on everyones PC's 100%.

But like I said, blame the people who steal rather than the developers/publishers/coders.

[dajunka]

Originally Posted by DABhand

But like I said, blame the people who steal rather than the developers/publishers/coders.

I can't do that.. That’s like saying Some dude on the other side of the world goes and wastes some other dude on the other side of the world, then the fuzz coming round my house and arresting me for it. You can't pass the buck over to the innocent for the crimes of the guilty, that just isn’t right, the publishers, in this case are at fault, theres always been pirates but there's never been aggressive protection on this scale before.

[Luci]

if the gameswere a little more cheap i would buy a game every week.they are expensive but those guyz work 1 year minimum.they deserve the money but you don't want either to give a fortune right.

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hey Luci,

Enthusiastic game developers do it for the fun and the fame; it is good that they even get money for it but they might even do it for free, too. It is the game publisher that gets most of the money, from your purchase. It's like banks: No matter how much money you earn, as interest, by putting your money into the bank, you can safely bet that the bank will earn tons more! Simply, because you have no other choice and have to accept their (biased? outrageous?) conditions.

(A friend of mine and his friends have been doing a retro-style isometric shooter with a flying dragon for years. They've been doing other stuff -productivity software and software translation - to earn money while coding the game. Now that it's finished, they're not finding a publisher for it. Kind of end of the story. Ridiculous or sad, you choose...)

Joe

[Grumpy]

Yes I too have experienced problems with Starforce and will gladly boycott buying any more Starforce protected games!
I too had problems with Alcohol 120 and my drives after installing a Starforce game!
I too will not go to the extremes of disabling drives etc to play the few starforce games i have, instead prefering to just use the original discs.
From now on the only Starforce game which will be played on my 3 systems is Race Driver 2 as this has never caused me any problems before. It is just the later Starforce Protected games!
The way things are going with PC games we will all eventually have no choice but to buy one of the console machines. This would be a shame to have to do as ive always believed, for most games, the experience is way better on a top end PC. If we all went to consoles the gaming industry would still make their money from the games! It almost seems as if this is what the industry wants us to do!
So yes, no more Starforce Games for me!

[Eagle]

One question that bugs me for ages: Why do pure multiplayer games have to have a copyprotection? A serial/cd key that is checked on every connect to a game server is IMHO fully sufficient.

[JediKnight]

Piracy is way of life.... if you have the money to buy originals, do it. If not, get an illegal copy and use a crack.

[DABhand]

Silly boy.


As I said Blame the people who steal.

There is hundreds of thousands perhaps millions who download their games, about 15-20% are projected loss of sales. Which is quite alot of a loss.

In simple terms it is stealing bottom line. No matter what the excuse of the person is.


There is no point in trying to bycott anything, sure they may lose peoples as customers, but what they lose in customers they gain in new people venturing into the PC market with their new machines, its an evergrowing circle.

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by Eagle

One question that bugs me for ages: Why do pure multiplayer games have to have a copyprotection? A serial/cd key that is checked on every connect to a game server is IMHO fully sufficient.

Because of the chance people may make a public server for games, they would prefer to use protections so no tom **** or harry can copy the game and take home to play free on a public server.

[Morglum007]

@DABhand:

FIRST:

I would like to know if u are in the distributors part, or in the real game publisher part. As i know, game developers are WAITING for its game to be released on p2p nets. If game have acceptance, then they pick up a champagne bottle and celebrates it like a birthday. Game will be sold. If it does not appear, then worry about.
People who doesn't like that are publisers, and thats the people add copyprotections to games they distribute. Just THINK about this:
Commandos SAGA; Pyro studios; EIDOS:

Game studio: 3-5€ per copy sold (Pyro)
Distributor: 12-20€ per copy sold (EIDOS)
Shop: 12-20# per copy sold
TOTAL final PRIZE: 27-45€ per USER copy
Do u see SOMETHING there???????? I think u should be BLIND to avoid it. Game market is like pointed above, so please don't talk about things u don't know.

SECOND:

U should know how SF works inside ur box, and then u will worry for ur windows integrity. Futhermore, do u know how SF sends/receive IDE info??, i think not. Do u know whats Themida is?, and its compatibility problems?
U are so happy by now, till something becomes hard, then u will begin to think about.

Read and learn.

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by dajunka

I can't do that.. That’s like saying Some dude on the other side of the world goes and wastes some other dude on the other side of the world, then the fuzz coming round my house and arresting me for it. You can't pass the buck over to the innocent for the crimes of the guilty, that just isn’t right, the publishers, in this case are at fault, theres always been pirates but there's never been aggressive protection on this scale before.

Murder and Piracy are 2 different things, you cant compare the 2.

But in a business, as it always has been for decades, if one company has losses they make up for the losses by increasing prices.

As does software publishers.

As I said before the reason protections are so much in a huge scale is because the countless people downloading illegally. Once apon a time the net was full of free webspace providers, like xoom etc, they all closed that services because of warez sites. Now they are doing the same with games, introducing a protection that may well affect 3-5% of the population (but SF has been kind to make fixes for people which many of you have forgotten). PC's arent all the same, my systems is different from your own, but SF has caused me no problems whatsoever.