Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Update on DRM Removal?

Last year sometime it was brought up in a thread that you were going to patch out the DRM for Dragon Knight Saga. Is there an update on this?

I'm one of those guys who refuses to buy a game with Securom because it has locked me out of a game I own. Now I've been holding out since day 1 to play this and will keep on holding out until the DRM is patched out. I understand wanting to protect your sales but don't you think over 2 years for the original game and 7 months for Dragon Knight saga is enough time? Any update would really be appreciated.

Thanks.

As it happens, the discussion on this was started today. We need to get a green light from our publishers for this, but from the first sounds they're not against it. If they give us the go, it'll take us some time to prepare it, but eventually it should lead to a no-DRM patch being released. We'll keep you posted.

Good to know, publishers can be a pain about that sometimes, still waiting to play Assault on Dark Athena because the publisher won't let them patch the DRM out. Can't wait to play it if you can get the no-DRM patch out.

That would be great news, if it actually happens.

Awesome news indeed.

I agree with this.. The DRM did it's job but has become rather pointless and a possible irritation now. Let's hope all goes well.

I agree.

DRM is around to basically "try" to stop the pirates from stealing a $50-60 brand new title BEFORE the game's initial release, Zero Day Piracy, and when the game is on the shelves [retail and digital] selling at top dollar.

When the game gets a lot cheaper [I'm thinking say $20 USD or less] and has basically made its rounds of big-time sales [if it has any], it's probably not necessary to keep DRM around it - especially since by that time, the pirates are already likely going after "the next big game."

Hmm...DRM "did its job" by triggering a boycott in my case. Removing it would be good news (and I would then consider purchase) *but* FoV/DKS is no longer generally available (only one UK retailer is listed as having it and only a few units left).

If Larian want DRM removal to have a financial impact (i.e. generate sales) they'll need to consider a re-release, perhaps using GOG (who already sell their first 2 games).

I know your new to the forums so I won't be too cruel though you have pretty much irritated me.

First off, Larian has not wanted to deal with DRM since the first game as they've always ended up releasing a patch to remove DRM off of Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity.

2nd, the DRM wasn't that bad as it did a CD check. Threw the Larian Vault (digital download) it is just an online activation or can be done by phone and that is it.

3rd, In a few years DKS will most likely be on GOG.

Now a company worth boycotting is UbiSoft as their DRM is just beyond invasion of privacy.

Personally, I don't like wording like this.

This sounds as if you were MR. President himself and would perhaps like to lower your mighty skyscraping presence towards a tiny bug err company if they decide to perform his wishes.

This is not politely formulated, imho.

Been registered here since November 2003 (only a few months less than you) so don't feel you have to mince words on my behalf, subject to forum TOS.
Saying they don't like DRM doesn't excuse them from using it, nor does it entitle them to support from those who object to it or who are inconvenienced by it.
Larian have so far only released a DRM-removal patch for Beyond Divinity (the GOG version of Divine Divinity requires purchase, so cannot be considered a "patch" for existing DD owners). That's 1 out of 4 games released.
DKS requires online activation.
If the DRM is going to be removed, why wait a few years? One of the points of my post was that retail availability of DKS is very limited so an immediate GOG release would be of greater financial benefit.
I boycott anything requiring online activation and have done so as far back as Half Life 2. So yes, that includes Ubisoft and EA's recent releases.
When it comes to my own PC and its setup, I am not only President, but King, Emperor and God.

I did however have my fingers burnt on a previous occasion, seeking out a copy of Beyond Divinity when Larian removed Starforce (no stores stocked it which meant running the eBay gauntlet) - I bought a game with tedious enough gameplay (speaking as someone who quite enjoyed Divine Divinity) that I never got past the Imp village. So once burnt, twice shy?

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/103810-cd-projekt-red-sued-over-the-witcher-2s-drm-removal.html

This might have scared off a few developers.
Silly publishers.

I suspect that may be an excuse, with CDP switching to another publisher being the actual reason. However I'd agree with your sentiments regarding Namco Bandai.

We often have the case here of gaming magazines coming with olde, but fuull games.

And very often they are without any DRM.

I'm currently buying these versions exclusively now.

Other versions include the "Software Pyramide" versions, which are *sometimes* without DRM, but sometimes they re. The problem is : One cannot know it before opening up and actully playing the game ...

In some rare cases I received an DRM-less .exe file from developers after I had *politely* asked for removal of DRM. But that was rare.

Virtually all my recent purchases have been from GOG, though I do sometimes purchase retail copies after having verified that (a) no online activation is needed and (b) if a media check is present, that a no-CD patch from GameCopyWorld is available.

Once you look further afield, there are quite a number of smaller developers offering DRM-free titles - particular kudos for the likes of the HumbleBundle which covers all the bases - no DRM, downloadable via HTTP or BitTorrent, supports charity and let you choose the price! (while even that has been pirated, the current version has raised over $2 million in sales).

Indeed I have enough of a games backlog now that I don't really need to worry about the consumer-hostile attitudes of most mainstream publishers. On the other hand, CRPGs are very much an endangered minority so I would like to be able to support a developer producing them.
That approach has some merit, but it does mean having to pay upfront and taking a chance upon the "reasonableness" of the developer - not an easy thing to judge.

GoG for the win! I just like how you can just install the games from there, how you can just burn or redownload the games and install them whenever you wish and that you can be sure they'll keep in working as long as the software and hardware carry the GAME (and not the DRM in addition).

DKS without DRM would be a pretty nice thing. I'm all for it.

Yes,there is: removedrmfree.net

Remove DRM can remove protection from WMV, WMA, M4P, M4V, ASF and convert these DRM protected files into all common video: MP4, MPG, MPEG, 3GP, RM, RMVB, DAT, MOV (QuickTime Video), FLV, AVI, Xvid, VOB, MKV, etc.

Few month later - publisher still thinking about the possibility...

A slow publisher indeed.

Of course they are slow on this matter.

They're probably waiting for the game to make the round of sales that they want it to make, first...

It's funny because DRM didn't stop the piracy of the game at all in the first place. There were working torrents for DKS days after the game got released.

At this point it's doing nothing but preventing people from buying the game. There's a bunch of people on the Steam forums who won't buy the game (even on sale) because of the DRM.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2257430