They need to bring back oldschool copy protection

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Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 18, 2006
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Remember back in the old Dos days when game copy protection consisted of asking questions that could be answered from the manual? The idea being you could install on multiple computers but it was slightly harder to photocopy the manual...

I remember playing cyber empires (great game btw) and they asked things like "how many hitpoints does the dragoon have?" and told you to turn to pg 12 or whatever to find the answer. I ended up losing the manual but had played enough that I remembered the answers....ahh good old 386

They need to bring that back, its foolproof...
 
Remember back in the old Dos days when game copy protection consisted of asking questions that could be answered from the manual? The idea being you could install on multiple computers but it was slightly harder to photocopy the manual...

I remember playing cyber empires (great game btw) and they asked things like "how many hitpoints does the dragoon have?" and told you to turn to pg 12 or whatever to find the answer. I ended up losing the manual but had played enough that I remembered the answers....ahh good old 386

They need to bring that back, its foolproof...

How many hitpoints does the dragoon have? I need to know for my pirated copy. (You get the idea)
 
But don't you think that it would be even easier to steal a game? Honestly, even if there were 100 random questiions to install, people will write answers down and attach the .txt file to a torrent or w/e. What they need to do is do what steam does. It makes it harder to steal, that will cut down on piracy.
 
They should bring back the code wheel copy protection. That way at least pirates will have to print out the wheels and attach them together somewhow.
 
They should bring back the code wheel copy protection. That way at least pirates will have to print out the wheels and attach them together somewhow.

Or just write up a quick script to simulate the wheel. There is no copy protection that works or at least works for long.
 
What if it had 1 million wheels? :confused:

It'd be much easier for a pirate to write up a piece of software that simulated a million code wheels than it would be to a publisher to prints 30 million copies of 1 million different wheels. Let's be practical though.
 

for multiplayer yes, but you could play HL2 offline... steam cant stop play from happening offline in anyways shape or form, online, simple single key logging, one key can be logged in at one time.... and only keys they created can get access, any emulated keys are blocked if they are in their system
 
for multiplayer yes, but you could play HL2 offline... steam cant stop play from happening offline in anyways shape or form, online, simple single key logging, one key can be logged in at one time.... and only keys they created can get access, any emulated keys are blocked if they are in their system

Well, once the new internet launches, I think that things will change. The upload/download speeds will be so great, that there may not be a need to install the game on your pc. If that can ever be the case, then I think we may see piracy come to a conplete hault.
 
Well, once the new internet launches, I think that things will change. The upload/download speeds will be so great, that there may not be a need to install the game on your pc. If that can ever be the case, then I think we may see piracy come to a conplete hault.

Actually piracy will probably expand considerably.because there's no longer any large CD/DVD images to torrent around. Since some code still has to run locally. Hackers, will find a way to spoof the authentication mechanisms and still get access. The beginnings of this can be seen with WGA.
 
Plus, games will cost $10 more than they do now, because the publishers will say they have to pay for all this infrastructure and bandwidth costs and such. Then, at random you'll lose your 'license key' and have to pay for the game again. And you'll pay for the game again if you want to play it on a new computer.
 
I played the original master of Orion with a photocopied manual.... but that was only because the guy who i bought it from owned a fishing trawler and had a computer on there that he played it on, and he didn't want to risk getting the real manual wet. :p He got bored of the game, sold it to me, but couldn't find the manual. :p
 
As pointed out, copy protection only works for as long as its not busted open by crackers.
The game companies that utilise copy protection know that it will be cracked pretty soon after release, they hope they will get a few months where people are forced to buy the game after its release to get the bulk of their sales.

Copy protection does also deter the casual hacker so can prevent a fair amount of redistribution especially amongst kids and the unknowledgable.

I really hate that we have to suffer the horrible copy protection having bought the game but I fully understand the need for it.
What makes it a really bitter pill to swallow is that pirates get to play the game without most of the copy protection issues.
ie they dont have to find the CD/DVD, often they dont need to have the copy protection mechanisms installed.
They also dont get told they cant play the game because your DVD drive isnt compatible!

You cant change human nature unless there is a beady eye constantly on everyone and thats almost what they are trying to do now.
The copy protection companies will try whatever they can get away with and only stop when there is a big enough outcry.
Such is life.
 
This is why singleplayer games are going to die, or start requiring a login ala Steam or Stardock Central.
 
Yeah, I'm sure that that would be a really tough Google search. :rolleyes:
 
Stardock games don't have DRM, FWIW.

I think it works like this in that case: Tons of people pirate it...
and only the people that LIKE IT buy it. This way nobody feels screwed out of their cash... and all you're really buying in many cases, is a CD-Key to update your torrent version.

Sounds like a win-win situation to me. edit: Except for the fact that the patches end up eventually on TPB... but I think most people still end up buying it in the end.
 
I think it works like this in that case: Tons of people pirate it...
and only the people that LIKE IT buy it. This way nobody feels screwed out of their cash... and all you're really buying in many cases, is a CD-Key to update your torrent version.

Sounds like a win-win situation to me. edit: Except for the fact that the patches end up eventually on TPB... but I think most people still end up buying it in the end.

... I hope you're being Stardock-specific. I think it is quite proven that millions of people will like and play a game and still not buy it.

(I just came from the CoD4 piracy thread.)
 
It's kinda funny, but i own a legit copy of MOO. Hell, i bought more than one as my original disks went bad on me. And even though i have the game manual somewhere, i cannot find it. So i play with the ship types from a website that i printed out. Illegal? Not really, i did pay for the game. But those old school copy protection systems are no match for the internet.

It's a constant race between crackers and producers. Producers know that it will eventually be cracked, it's inevitable. But as long as they make back their developement costs and a decent profit, i don't really feel they have anything to complain about.
 
I wouldn't mind this very much, but I actually lost my King Quest 5 manual... and that was a pain in the ass.
 
The best antipiracy method was making games before the internet.
 
Remember back in the old Dos days when game copy protection consisted of asking questions that could be answered from the manual? The idea being you could install on multiple computers but it was slightly harder to photocopy the manual...

I remember playing cyber empires (great game btw) and they asked things like "how many hitpoints does the dragoon have?" and told you to turn to pg 12 or whatever to find the answer. I ended up losing the manual but had played enough that I remembered the answers....ahh good old 386

They need to bring that back, its foolproof...

yep, I remember having to answer random questions on ultima 7 and savage empire back then, but I think it would be easier to ask your friend for the answer than obtain a valid cd-key, so it may not be a good idea anymore.
 
This is why singleplayer games are going to die, or start requiring a login ala Steam or Stardock Central.

Oh no, the sky is falling! You don't have to login to play Steam or Stardock games in single player mode at all. The only time you need to be online with a Steam game is for MP or the very first time you activate it.
 
I think another way developers could go about this is like "warrock", they offer a free version with limited stuff, leveling and maps. I played it enough that if I could afford to buy a freaking license I would. I know 30 bucks isn't much, but when you live in mexico and you make pesos that changes things. One option developers should consider is the off shore market, make "light" versions. Obviously this has to be cost effective for it to work. I wouldn't mind paying 10 bucks or less for the games coming out. I know this can't work with every single game but I think it's a way they could make some profits outside of the us. I think I heard something about microsoft selling hard copies of xp in china for about 3 bucks or something. Who knows this might work for them.
 
I agree that something needs to be done about how easily people can pirate a game or software. But I don't think that it should incorporate some kind of on-line activation/check for SP. MP, yes, that is great. But not for SP.
Case in point: My friend lives out in the sticks and had to bring his PC to my house to be able to install Bioshock (i think that was the game) because there is no internet available where he lives. Not even dial-up. (something about the age or type of lines in his area)
Anyways, here is a quote:
"Nearly 75% of U.S. households have Internet access at home, according to a Nielsen//NetRatings survey."

That quote comes from here:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0403/

This is an older article, but the point remains the same. Not everyone has the ability to have the internet. Either because of physical reasons or even financial reasons. Then there is the rest of the world to look at as well. I would be willing to bet that if you looked at stats on other countries you would find this percentage much lower (with a few exceptions such as China, ect..)

So, just for the sake of this discussion, if nearly 75% of the WORLDS population (just to have a number to use as an average) have access to the internet, that would mean that out of the World's 6.7 Billion people, there are roughly 1.7 Billion people that DO NOT have internet access. And like I said, that 75% I just used as an average is probably much higher than the actual WORLD WIDE average, which would make the number of people without internet much higher than 1.7 Billion.

It is this reason that Microsuck, ... Umm I mean Microsoft decided to can the "Internet only" activation that they were planing when XP first was in developement. They cought some serious flack behind that. That is why they still have the option to phone supprt to activate Windows.

Anyways, just my 2 cents.
 
This is an older article, but the point remains the same. Not everyone has the ability to have the internet. Either because of physical reasons or even financial reasons. Then there is the rest of the world to look at as well. I would be willing to bet that if you looked at stats on other countries you would find this percentage much lower (with a few exceptions such as China, ect

I think you'll find that it's higher, with the exception of Africa or w/e.
 
Case in point: My friend lives out in the sticks and had to bring his PC to my house to be able to install Bioshock (i think that was the game) because there is no internet available where he lives. Not even dial-up. (something about the age or type of lines in his area)

Out of idle curiosity, he can't even get satellite?!
 
Oh no, the sky is falling! You don't have to login to play Steam or Stardock games in single player mode at all. The only time you need to be online with a Steam game is for MP or the very first time you activate it.

If you want to play a Steam game offline, you have to put it into offline mode while you're online. Case in point, my internet went down for a few hours so I thought I'd play some more HL2... but no.

It's a minor failing, but IMO it's something that should be fixed somehow.

EDIT: I'm wrong, see post later in this thread. Steam just making me look stupid. :D :p
 
Satellite internet requires a dial-up upload connection. So if he can't have dial-up internet where he lives, he can't have satellite internet.

You're behind the times, dude. Satellite internet hasn't needed a dial-up connection for years.

(ninja edit)
 
If you want to play a Steam game offline, you have to put it into offline mode while you're online. Case in point, my internet went down for a few hours so I thought I'd play some more HL2... but no.

It's a minor failing, but IMO it's something that should be fixed somehow.

since when? everytime i launch steam when not connected it just takes an extra minute to load the says staring in offline mode.
 
The sad thing is that if your game requires some activation method for it to work (I'm looking at you, YES YOU 2K for Bioshock) and either the game is not supported anymore or the company/publisher goes under then honest people are stuck with a non-functioning game or have to resort to finding a crack to get it to work.

The same situation applies to games that depend on a central server to play, like anything delivered on Steam or BF2142. (Anybody remember Motor City Online?)
 
The sad thing is that if your game requires some activation method for it to work (I'm looking at you, YES YOU 2K for Bioshock) and either the game is not supported anymore or the company/publisher goes under then honest people are stuck with a non-functioning game or have to resort to finding a crack to get it to work.

The same situation applies to games that depend on a central server to play, like anything delivered on Steam or BF2142. (Anybody remember Motor City Online?)

The activation can be nulled with a patch once they decide to drop support, this is quite easy so is quite likely to happen.
Less likely but possible is that a patch for multiplayer games like BF2142 will be released to allow hosting of servers.
I say less likely cos they will no doubt have to support the home servers for a while to make sure the code is stable.

I imagine someone enterprising will step forward with a homebrew solution if the game is still good enough and there is no Server addon.
 
horrible idea because all it takes is one simple website to publish the answers. Cracks would be even simpler to make.
 
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