Battle For Middle Earth II [v1.06] on LAN

[c4p0ne]

The problem is we've purchased 15 copies of this game and now realize how God forsaken and unscrupulous these vigilante-like protection companies are. We've already had one copy stolen from us (16y/old punk ran out with the DVD) so we've obviously stopped giving the originals out which is something that was tedious and extraordinarily IMPRACTICAL to do with over 3 CD/DVDs ANYWAY.

We've gone and used daemon-tools and a "maxi" image of BFME2 with patch v1.06 (which everyone was asking about for whatever reason). It seems to function normally in single-player mode but the "3/5 minute time bomb" is going off during multi-play which is basically ELIMINATING our gamers ability to play on LAN. Is there anything TF we can do? It seems the BFME2 is IMPROPERLY cracked as well from versions > v1.01 I believe.

What happens is with the v1.05/v1.06 cracks, is that, again, the game plays normally in single player but is UNABLE EVEN to connect for LAN play because of the improper nature of the crack. When you go to "settings" you can see that instead of the version number "eg. v1.05" being displayed, a RANDOM garbage number "120340532" is present instead. This number changes EVERY time the game is run (possible vigilante protection measure?) which means the game can't connect for LAN issuing the error "version mismatch".

At least with daemon tools the version is displayed properly and a LAN game can be commenced, but it's all USELESS if every 5 minutes our players are receiving the dreaded "You are Defeated" message.

Has anyone had any experience rectifying this issue? Because although crackers are modern-day heroes, I don't think when they are cracking the game that they take into account how the games will react when being played in a multi-player setting. And nowadays games like this are almost exclusively played on LAN and/or Internet.

[Joe Forster/STA]

Closed, forum rule #1. No help with using cracks in a commercial environment!

[Grumpy]

Contact the game publisher, tell them your story, and see if they will help you!?

I know you are going to be very disapointed in their answer!