Lame NoCD Cracks !

[Grumpy]

hey is this slowly but surely turning into a secret HL2 thread? :P
Thanks to both Magnetic and Asimov I dont need to add anything further as I agree totally with what you both say.

[Luciel]

@ Asimov

I shouldve said i like STEAM for that particular matter although i agree because you arent getting anything physical (eg: the box and stuff) it should be cheaper

[H|LLJD00]

Originally Posted by k1rr3d

Check this out, the LameNoCD crack i've got for D-Day actually requires you to open up your box and pull out the IDE cables from your CD/DVD drives, mount the lame image in Alcohol and then reboot your machine.

Or... you cud just disable the cd/dvd drive in the Hardware Device section..

[JoyBoy]

Originally Posted by H|LLJD00

Or... you cud just disable the cd/dvd drive in the Hardware Device section..

If only it were that simple

[cyclops[0]]

Originally Posted by omni555

EXCELLENT points! I am sitting here right now looking at a collection of ORIGINAL BOXED games that would make EB, Babbages, Circuit City, and a bunch of others all drool collectively with envy!!! I would estimate that I have in this room RIGHT NOW approximately $20,000.00 worth (cost at time of purchase) of computer games... Hot D@MN!!! I didn't even REALIZE that it was so much until I did a quick calculation for this post!!! It's about 650 games at an average cost of $30 to $40 each... ...Maybe I should have my head examined and get rid of em all and go buy a decent car!!!

Anyway, I digress... My point is that I do NOT purchase a game UNTIL there is a no-cd crack published for it! I recently purchased Sacred (a game I LONGED to have on my PC) after a crack was published for the most recent update.

And a game that I waited with MUCH anticipation for I have NOT yet purchased, and WILL NOT until such time as there is some form of ACCEPTABLE crack published for it - that game is HalfLife 2. I TOTALLY detest what Valve has done regarding the implementation of Steam in the installation and playing of that game.

IMHO, excessive obsession with copy protection can ONLY hurt PC game sales. As has been pointed out, no matter WHAT CP is devised, there will be someone out there to come up with a crack or work-around for it. And as is the case of these Mini image cracks, the only people who will be HURT by the CP will be those HONEST customers out there who, like myself, simply do not WISH to take the time to hunt up cd's whenever we want to play a game, or who simply want to make a safe backup of their game.

Oh, DON'T get me started on how the manufacturers will "replace" lost or defective cd's!!! THAT goes into the same file as most warranties on small purchases, like watches, etc. You spend almost as much (sometimes MORE!) on shipping and handling to get your "replacement cd" as if you just went out and BOUGHT a new copy of the game!!! And even THEN you have to wait weeks or even months to GET it!!!

No, I am sticking by my guns here! I simply REFUSE to purchase a game over which I do not have the control that I WANT, and that means that I will be able to play the game without having to hunt for the cd, and I will be able to make a back-up copy for myself.

Again, those people who are (supposedly) being targeted by all this copy protection will ALWAYS be able to clone/dupe/copy games at will and give them to their "friends".

So, I will continue to visit sites like GCW to get no-cd cracks, use Virtual Drive and other software, etc to play my games THE WAY I WANT. I am just saddened that when I go to the store to BUY a game that the price is artificially inflated because of the lameheads out there who PIRATE the games, get them and play/distribute them without paying ANYTHING for them. The money spent on copy protection by the game publishers is TOTALLY a waste, since it is what inflates the costs AND discourages many people from BUYING the game.

One other thing about the inflated prices... I have heard a number of people talk about pirating games SIMPLY BECAUSE of the often outrageous prices. If the cost could come DOWN a LITTLE (maybe by eliminating the expense of copy protecting the games???) I know at LEAST a dozen MORE people who would become PAYING CUSTOMERS and actually BUY games rather than go through the hassle of pirating them!

I do not CONDONE their actions, but in today's climate I can at least UNDERSTAND it.

I thought I was bad!

[k1rr3d]

Originally Posted by H|LLJD00

Or... you cud just disable the cd/dvd drive in the Hardware Device section..

After reading the txt file that came with the crack, I had exactly the same thought, you know, "check these bozo's, why don't they just disable the drives in the Device Manager ?"

It didn't work, starforce still detects them In my minds eye I could just see the developers of starforce having a good chuckle while coding that bit of logic and saying "I wonder how many we are going to catch with this ?"

Although I dont recall trying to uninstall the drive in the Device Manager. Im tempted to try it, but Im haunted by a image of the starforce developers, now having a really good laugh and saying "We knew you'd try that next, loser !".

[k1rr3d]

Originally Posted by k1rr3d

the LameNoCD crack i've got for D-Day actually requires you to open up your box and pull out the IDE cables from your CD/DVD drives, mount the lame image in Alcohol and then reboot your machine.

Thanks to a little utility called Starforce Nightmare (previously called Starf**k), I no longer need to open up my box and pull out the IDE cables from my CD/DVD drives to get the mini-image crack working.

I use Starforce Nightmare to disable my master and slave devices on my secondary IDE channel (No reboot required), mount the mini-image in Alcohol and play the game. When Im done playing I use Starforce Nightmare to enable my master and slave devices on my secondary IDE channel. I dunno how these guys do it, but it works perfectly for me.

Starforce Nightmare can be downloaded here :
Starforce Nightmare

I strongly recommend you read the txt file that accompanies the utility before using it....the following is an excerpt from the txt file:


Before using this program keep in mind: all what you do, you do on your own risk.
Be carefull, if you are using it: not all features will work for every one, it depends on your hardware and software combination.
If you are not sure about it, delete this program.


Like I said it works for me with D-Day 1.0, my machine is setup as follows:
Windows XP SP1 + various updates done via automatic updates, so its probably SP2.
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe motherboard.
Primary IDE Channel
master: Maxtor 80 gig HDD
slave: Maxtor 80 gig HDD
Secondary IDE Channel
master: Samsung CD-R/RW
slave: LG DVD writer

My cd/dvd drives are master and slave on my secondary IDE channel. You will need to know which position and channel your cd/dvd drives are on to use Starforce Nightmare.

This is what I did to determine the position (master/slave) and channel (primary/secondary) of my cd/dvd drives:

1. Open Device Manager.
To open Device Manager, right click MyComputer, select properties then click the Device Manager button on the Hardware tab page (hopefully I dont need to tell you that you must first select the hardware tab page by clicking the word hardware which is located between the words Computer Name and Advanced ).

2. Change the view to "Devices by connection".
Click View|"Devices by connection"

3. Expand the storage controllers node.
My storage controllers node, was under the PCI bus node and was called "Intel <blah-blah> Ultra ATA Storage Controllers.

4. Expand the Primary and Secondary IDE Channel nodes.
Under the storage controllers node you'll find the Primary and Secondary IDE Channel nodes, expanding these will reveal which devices are on which channel.

Now you know which devices are on which channel, to determine the position, right click on the device node under the channel node and then select properties. On the "General" tab page check the location, on my machine, Location 0(0) denotes master and Location 1(1) denotes slave.

Use this utility with caution, read the txt file it contains important information.

Lastly, a word of thanks to the developers, I appreciate your efforts. I agree, you obviously do have deep expert knowledge of the hardware architecture.

Thanks,
k1rr3d

[DABhand]

I wish people would learn things, before they decide to go full force shouting at people making mini-images, like...


1. Why its hard to crack StarForce

2. Mini-Images are a universal no matter what patch you have installed to play a game with no-cd/dvd

3. Its not messy as Starforce Nightmare.


Why do people always think that crackers are being lazy because a crack for a patch or game isnt out within days of a release? Maybe its because its a difficult one?


Just wish they would do some homework first before typing, would save alot of embarassment on their parts.

[DABhand]

Originally Posted by omni555

One other thing about the inflated prices... I have heard a number of people talk about pirating games SIMPLY BECAUSE of the often outrageous prices. If the cost could come DOWN a LITTLE (maybe by eliminating the expense of copy protecting the games???) I know at LEAST a dozen MORE people who would become PAYING CUSTOMERS and actually BUY games rather than go through the hassle of pirating them!

I do not CONDONE their actions, but in today's climate I can at least UNDERSTAND it.

Unfortunately not true because...

1. People are greedy bastards and wont buy nothing even if it was cheap

2. Price excuse has been around since 8bit computers, its just an excuse to hide the fact that most wont admit they are stealing.

[Joe Forster/STA]

And game publishers are stealing from you (who playes the game) and the game manufacturer (who creates the game) because they charge money for doing pretty much nothing useful. See the same problem with pressed audio CD's; it's not as black and white as you'd think...

[DABhand]

Its up to them what they want to charge, like I will charge what I like if I fix someones PC. Thats how it is.

Again the price excuse, still doesnt mean you have to steal it yes? If you disagree with a price then dont buy it.

At the end of the day, people are gonna steal even if it is affordable.


And for the people who are going to come in and say Prices blah de blah, remember why the prices are so high.

Its like the old conundrum, "What came first the chicken or the egg?" as in this case "What came first high prices or piracy?"

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hey DABhand,

Apparently, you need to learn a bit more about this topic - docs are lying around the Net...! Game publishers say they want to disallow "casual pirates" from copying original CD's/DVD's by introducing copy protection.

However, exactly "casual pirates" are the ones who are having major problems with the sophisticated and, as Starforce's example shows, sometimes very incompatible copy protections. Also, "mass CD/DVD duplicators", complete factories manufacturing pirated copies of CD's/DVD's in some countries, are not affected as they have enough money for their own means of defeating, circumventing or duplicating the copy protection.

Conclusion: With copy protection, trying to make the honest customer stay honest is similar to trying to make the tall customer not get shorter. (A not letter-by-letter quote from a conference about the pointlessness of DRM.)

[Edit] Damn, I forgot to mention that "casual pirates" are the usual people who might be asked to copy their original games for the neighbor, without knowing they break the law by doing that...

Joe

[omni555]

Originally Posted by DABhand

Its up to them what they want to charge, like I will charge what I like if I fix someones PC. Thats how it is.

Again the price excuse, still doesnt mean you have to steal it yes? If you disagree with a price then dont buy it.

At the end of the day, people are gonna steal even if it is affordable.


And for the people who are going to come in and say Prices blah de blah, remember why the prices are so high.

Its like the old conundrum, "What came first the chicken or the egg?" as in this case "What came first high prices or piracy?"

DABhand, I can see much of what you are saying in this and your previous posts, but I am afraid that I cannot agree with you.

I have the ability to "pirate" almost EVERY game that I own - ues, I said OWN! - but I use this ability only to make things easier for me when I actually PLAY the game(s).

In the past, I have FREQUENTLY "pirated" copies of games when there was no good demo available, only to go out and BUY the retail copy when I saw that it was something that I would be wanting to continue to play. If the game was crap, I would simply destroy the "pirated" version and wave a fond "Bye-bye!" at the publisher!

There have been a NUMBER of games that, when the initially come out, are priced too high to make it practical for me to add to my collection. Usually, I wait either for them to drop down in price or to become available through the bargain bin or the "Pre-Owned" section of my local seller.

There ARE some lame-heads out there who just want to make a "game" out of getting whatever they can for nothing, and no matter WHAT anyone does, these people are ALWAYS going to find a way to GET what they want. They have a doggedness about them that makes it appear as a CHALLENGE to them personally when an "unbeatable" copy protection scheme is developed. Those people wouldn't buy a game if the games were FREE!!! They mostly enjoy the challenge of "getting one over" on the publishers, and THAT will never change.

The people I am referring to when I talk about lowering the prices to gain more PAYING customers are those who, like myself, don't see paying $40, $50, $60 and more for games that often come out buggy as hell and are often NOT what we anticipated. As I said earlier, I have MANY THOUSANDS of dollars worth of games within arms reach as I type this, and I know many OTHER people with similar collections - ALL bought and paid for with honestly earned money!

But getting back to the original topic, I firmly believe that copy protection is ONLY going to target those HONEST people who will be hurt by it in some way, and will NOT in ANY WAY affect those out there who are intent on getting "free" games to play.

As for who is laughing at whom, let me say THIS. The publishers are "laughing" at people like ME who would BUY and PAY FOR their games, and who are getting FRUSTRATED as all hell trying to get the game set up to run the way we WANT, but it is the REAL PIRATES who are sitting back laughing themselves SILLY at the PUBLISHERS for their lame attempts at making life harder for their TRUE CUSTOMERS while the PIRATES just take a few days longer and get what they want ANYWAY!

[Ehaaland]

moron. copy protection is there to deter piracy which means more people buy their games which means their games stay at a reasonable price. if there were no star force and such everyone would copy the game and to even make a profit the game companies would have to start charging 10-15 dollars more per game. now tell me that copy protection hurts the consumer when it keeps the price the same. also, the only reason copy protection causes you trouble is because you want to play the games you dont own. i can tell you with 99% assurance that if you didnt do anything to your system and you use NO cd cracks, every game in the market with copy protection will work, be it out of the box, or beyond no more than a simple patch from the manufacturer. sorry but it's the truth.

[Luciel]

Originally Posted by Ehaaland

i can tell you with 99% assurance that if you didnt do anything to your system and you use NO cd cracks, every game in the market with copy protection will work, be it out of the box, or beyond no more than a simple patch from the manufacturer. sorry but it's the truth.

WRONG! you need to do some research my friend, also, banned for a week, keep your language in the toilet