Re: Very nasty surprise.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I slap myself on the forehead for the obivousness of that statement but I dont think anyone ever brought that scheme up specifically before. I would be worth a discussion.

So the host would still check IDs but would allow other machines to play if their CD keys matched the host? Hmmmmmmm

No come to think of it someone would probably setup a site where they would host games and say "download this" so that hundreds could play for free. mmmmm I dont think that would work well.

The "big company" thing you mention usually means they can have programmers who will work on headaches like "lan recognition while not allowing other computers not on the lan". Thats not as simple as it seems and gets harder every day just like any other protection scheme.

Re: Very nasty surprise.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I slap myself on the forehead for the obivousness of that statement but I dont think anyone ever brought that scheme up specifically before. I would be worth a discussion.
[...] </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sorry,
I intended what Cainehill told:
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">for me it would be good

Re: Very nasty surprise.
 

[quote]Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

Quote:

[qb] So the host would still check IDs but would allow other machines to play if their CD keys matched the host? Hmmmmmmm No come to think of it someone would probably setup a site where they would host games and say "download this" so that hundreds could play for free. mmmmm I dont think that would work well.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, it'd be easy to make it work well.

First - these "spawning" games would limit how many other human players were allowed - something like 2 or maybe 3 would be reasonable.

Second - spawning servers would definately check with Illwinter to verify the CD keys. One CD key per IP address, period - this keeps multiple people from doing this with a single pirated, er, "shared" copy of the game. (Actually, all server games should do this, probably, Norfleet's concerns (and my own lesser ones) be damned.)

The server might also pass on CD key and IP information to illwinter, only for the spawnees. [IE, the reporting only gets done when the same key is used for multiple players.] This makes it easy to track abuse if it turns out 37 different IP addresses are using the spawn capability, but might not be necessary.

Third, and more complicated to implement, would be to limit the number of such spawned games being run concurrently by a server. Again, possibly not necessary - there probably isn't a huge black market area for MP games limitted to a max of 3 or 4 players. But if done, it'd make it tougher for that hypothetical site hosting dozens or hundreds of bootleg games via the spawn functionality.

"Spawnees" wouldn't be allowed to play unless they allowed the packets to go out to Illwinter - they didn't pay for the program, they can't complain if they tell Zonealarm or routers to do egress filtering. No communications to Illwinter, no comm for MP games - they could still legitimately play hotseat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ April 08, 2004, 19:48: Message edited by: Cainehill ]

Re: Very nasty surprise.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There are a lot of greys between black and white.
I'm very fond with this game, my friends are fond too, but not like me, and 50E for a game is much (I don't think things could be different if there were an EU publisher).
I think that, if a single key allowed mp games, the game would be a lot more played, even between friends and not only between fans. I don't think I'll spread the "DomII word" in Italy, I'm from a small town and have other things to do, but I think communities would born and grow much faster.
But I'm not marketing man of Shrapnel.

Re: Very nasty surprise.
 

Beorne,

While I might agree that the MP license policy is a bit restrictive (and counterproductive), your friends could always install and play via the demo Version. True, they'd be limitted in their choice of races, magic research is capped, and the game ends around turn 40 - but that would probably allow them to decide if they enjoyed the game enough to buy it.

On the other hand, I fail to see why you refer to a "Very Nasty Surprise" - you bought one copy, not three, so why would you expect it to allow three (or 10, or 20) people to be allowed to install and use it?

Finally - there's several other Italian players out there; I've run into at least 2, Cohen and one other.

[ April 08, 2004, 12:48: Message edited by: Cainehill ]

Re: Very nasty surprise.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As others have mentioned, it allowed one purchased copy to allow, typically, two other computers to play the game, but only in MP mode, and only with the machine with the "master" installation hosting the game - I think they tended to use the CD as indication of which machine was the legit/master.

You might be able to do something like this for server games, but I don't see how it'd work for PBEM....

Unless ... If the CD keys are encrypted into the turn files, and all the turns are coming from the same CD key, allow the game to proceed as though it was a somewhat less limitted demo. Maybe keep the turn limit, but allowing race selection & research as normal. This has the benefit of requiring minimal changes to the program - checking the keys, and ending the game early if all keys are the same.