Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General After all the Starforce Complaints, HL2 is worse..

Assuming it does authenticate during the game, next problem: He who throws a LAN party. Does this mean they need to install 16 telephone lines so that all of their buddies can play?

No it means one person on the LAN, shares his/her connection. Then all can use 1 line to connect.

I've been to LAN parties. Internet is rare.

Thats because they choose to switch it off....

Lan parties are my business... internet cafe's are my business....

TRUST me, all you need to do is share the connection, and point the "client" computers to get its DNS from the acting "server"

I hope they come up w/ better protection than this.

It's crap that to play the SP that one buys at the store, you have to actually authenticate the game online from Valve. What for? I think The CD Key check should be enough proof that the game is legit --- this is my big objection w/ STEAM. HL2 does a CD Key Check & STEAM Validation, so you are hit w/ a double-whammy.

STEAM is taking liberties granted to the gamer in the past and basically stomping all over them. STEAM is not the worst offender. Crusader is right: Bioware's NWN Premium Mod sounds much worse. Each time you begin a new game in the Premium Mod or load a Saved Game from it, then it does an Online Validation Check.

I do like the idea of buying a game online & able to download it, yet not needing a CD period. It's a nice thought, but at what cost?

Until they come up w/ less intrusive measures for validation checks, count me out.

Take a look at the bigger picture :

The companies' urge for players to "authenticate" via online connection

prefers and protects those who have it.

Those who don't won't ever be able to play it and such games with similar "copy protection".

So, they actually force the industry that's responsible for online connections, forcing more and more games to put money into these "Provider-Companies" , because if they don't "buuy" an online connection, they won't be able to play games (anymore).

People in areas where people are too poor to be able to afford such online connections or people in areas where no hysical "connections" (I mean actual cables) exist, are shut out. Outsiders. Outcast from the gaming communities.

That's where it might lead to.

And if "Provider-Companies" or telephone-companies decide not to invest in cables in for example rural areas, these people are shut out, and can do nothing against it.

That's how it will go, I guess.

Yes, I have a simple Dial-Up connection at my house.

For me to download 6Mb it takes an average of 32 minutes for the download to finish.

I just got done reading over 6 pages of forum chatter on the Bioware forum.
Thread Title on the Dragon Age section:
This HL2 thing SUX !!! Will Bioware do the same?

I sure hope Larian does not go the STEAM HL2 route.
Sadly it seems Bioware is going that route too.

But again, I hope and pray Larian finds another way.

It would be a huge hassle for me to have to connect to the internet via my Dial-Up to get game authentication each time I wanted to play.
Not to mention the lengthy wait time for any updates done via the STEAM method, if Larian went this route or similar.

As with Everquest I would have to return the game and never play it.
I have yet to ever play an Everquest game.

Please, Larian find another way than that of HL2 and STEAM or anything similar to it.


Fafnir <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I hope Larian goes the way of Steam and ditches CD protections.

I don't because I believe that this would exclude people without internet connections.

Instead, I hope they would use the old-fashioned way of code cards. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
(Having bought the Micro Machines I a few days ago, I must say that this is the worst code-card-based copy-protection I've everseen !)

These days there are very small amounts of people with internet connections.
Down here in Australia broadband is picking up at incredibly fast rates and more people than ever have an internet connection.

Don't forget activation could be done over the phone as well.

Other means could involve e-mail activation with the seriel key that's generated internally inside the game upon installation. Send the key to Larian either through post/e-mail or phone.

The problem with every activation scheme is that the company (developer and/or publisher) needs to continue to exist for you to be able to install the game, and possibly to play it. Even if they are still around, they may decide to drop support at some point.

Then they can release a patch or they could simply build an activation termination date inside the game itself so it will not require activation after a specific date.

It's very easy to do and VERY secure from crackers, hell it's easy to build as well.

Protection no matter what kind will never stop theft. The point is to keep the game as secure as possible for as long as possible.
Activation achieves that far better than anything.

On top of that they can get rid of the useless overzealous cd protections.

There is one problem with adding a activation termination date to something.... you dont NEED to crack it. all you need to do is install your computer with the same date, but 28 years from now, even your calender will still be the same that way. and there is no way to validate that the date in the bios is actually right or not, not without AGAIN an internet connection.

The problem comes in with the way computers act... they are gullable, they believe everything you tell them, unless you provide them with a way to validate it, and a standalone station has no way of validating anything.

Even for HL2, they have already cracked it. so no form of copy protection is uncrackable. The main idea of copy protection is to slow down the piracy speed enough to get a decent sale figure.

even activation scripts are not secure, its never been for microsoft, it hasnt even been for HL2.

IMHO i believe that if someone is smart enough to come up with a copy protection script, someone will be smart enough to bypass it.

While we dont like the fact that we need to connect to the internet just to be able to play the game, its just another failed attempt to get better sales figures, resulting in unhappy gamers.

Unfortunately another thing is true, the better they make a copy-protection, the more hassles its bound to cause. Personally i think starforce is one of the better ones, unfortunately that makes it too fussy for some computer systems.

I wonder how many resourceful ideas can be implemented as a copy protection?

That will not work if you set the date internally and have it connect to a server at Larian to check the date.

This form of auto activation failure can be triggered if the Larian activation server has been set to no longer activate and the server can upload a file that will automatically override default activation protection.

This would work if the activation was done after the game is installed.

Valve have already offered an offline activation patch.



No one to my knowledge has "cracked" it. They have a Steam emulator which bypasses the need to use Steam.



Exactly! The first few weeks of sales are vital to a company's profit.
After a few weeks Epic release a patch that gets rid of the CD protection.
So have other companies.



I reiterate my above idea about phone/e-mail/post activation.

Gamers will be unhappy with any kind of protection because in the end all protections will cause some inconvenience.

Internet activation has always been painless for me(and many, many others I have spoken with) as all I have/they had to do was push a button or two.



That's no different from people having to use protections that automatically doesn't work because the user has certain software/hardware installed that automatically decides that user is a pirate for having a CD writer or imaging tools.

Worse yet, I have neither of the above and it had taken me an hour in order to get the game to install.

It isn't just me either, others have had the same problem.

I have had my fair share of installation problems aswell, but then again, running full raid causes problems with more than a few games. As for imaging programs, i have 4 installed out of nesessity, and 11 active imaging drives due to the work i do. I can assure you i KNOW about installation problems.

All the online activation scripts are meant to work smoothly, and true they do, but they are easy enough to bypass, which is what i referred to with MS and HL. It took them less than a week, to come up with a authentication emulator. The irony of the emulator, is its a smaller file than the 6mb activation file. and you only download it once!! you dont need to download it everytime you play the game, or everytime the game gets the urge to authenticate your code.

With the date issue, again the need for internet, the very thing that type of protection is meant to NOT need. and a authentication server is easy enough to emulate.

I think choosing / creating a protection script is one of the most difficult things to do ever. (not the physical coding) The process of making it compatible with the very programs that is made to bypass it, yet to have those programs no be able to make the protection any more unsecure. The choise of what type of headaches you are going to put your clientelle through. Its a situation that you just cant win in. Someone somewhere will be unhappy, someone somewhere will say "i am not going to buy XXX because of the XXX protection", someone somewhere WILL crack the code and publish it.. Personally i think it is so wrong that these measures are a nessesity.

I am one of the unlucky people that very often need to apply patches, just to get a legal game working on my system. But then again, i hope that most gaming machines arnt burdened with hi-end video conversion tools and devices, my pc is acting as my universe though... if it crashes, i am out of orbit.

This is a situation where there are no right / wrong answers, even the answers that seem best at the time, are bound to either be too insecure, too easy to bypass, or have too many headaches attached.

Please do not understand me wrong, i am not against any of your ideas, in the case that their weaknesses can be overcome, they are great ideas, but they do have weaknesses, as has every protection on the market at the moment.

What I'm more interested in is why don't more companies get rid of the protection(in the game itself) after the peak sales boom?

It can fix a lot of problems (maybe except installation problems as a result of StarForce).

I think the reason would somehow be related to the fact that if that becomes common practise, most people would just wait the couple of weaks / months. Resulting in the lack of the sales boom they are trying to secure.

I do think that something like that would work though, if they release a patch that rids the protection, after about a year. by then sales have dropped down to a trickle, and the effect on future markets should be positive, since it would generate a new boost in their sales for a short time (though i suspect this would be minimal, the sales on the pirate market would be boosted a lot rather than the sales that they can get royalties from).

I got Hl2... I read it.. I researched the install beforehand.. I gave it away to my nephew.
Its one thing to check my cd.. have at it.. thats cool but I am not going to be forced to install STEAM. Just my prefference.
I have a cable connection and that part doesn't bother me .. its that it was very misleading before my purchase I read the box.. It says nothing on the one I got about having to be online.
No biggie I waited and only spent 38$ on it but I don't want Valve style spyware on my PC.

If you check the bottom of the box.... in the VERY VERY VERY small print, there are a short list of requirements..... the last one is an internet connection...

I own the original (i host lan parties... so that forces me to buy originals ALL the time...).... BUT after i bought the originals, i went out and bought a pirate copy, just so i can play it without having the hassles of STEAM...

STEAM is just too much a risk for me to run in a LAN game... since most people choose to disable antivirus, firewalls, packet scanners, etc, during the games (performance issues mostly), its just too dangerous to have an internet connection active at the same time.

So... they forced the good ol' hardworking folk, to go and buy pirated copies ASWELL, just to be able to play without any worries.

Aww well, at least the pirated copy was only R50. (8$), and it works harder than the originals (which is all still sealed, except for 1 <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />

Thank you.. : )
Thats what I was trying to say by Steam "STYLE" Spyware..
and risks. I disable VP/FW before gaming also.
I even go as far as to disconnect the 10baseT cable from my system and snug it under the coolpad until I'm done.
I was unaware you get a copy that didn't require STEAM I will have to look further into this. since I baught it in the first place I don't think thats wrong.
Doom3 is a great game.. I mean ya ok HL2 appears to be even better but Doom3 didn't exactly suck.. and Id didn't turn into Fort Knocks to get in and play.
O and BTW I know about sys req's. I pulled the Tape back.. and there it was..
ALLLLLLL the way at the bottom under the tape..I thought I was seeing them all.
Peace
Nilrem
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