dominions copy protection

Gandalf Parker · #1 October 13th, 2003, 05:36 PM

Copy protection is just that. Its not piracy protection and its not meant to be. Casual copying by good buddies is a much more important target. Piracy is a fun side issue to do damage to whenever possible.

The argument that "it doesnt work and shouldnt be bothered with" is used for security, laws, religion, government, schools, etc etc. If they thought they were trying to stop it then yes they would probably give up. But if they consider their job to make it as hard as possible, for as many as possible, for as long as possible... well then they are doing just fine.

Pocus · #2 October 13th, 2003, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:

quote:
Originally posted by Pocus:
False. The updates which can be found are the major patches, which are delivered with a cd key, right, but are downloadable and archivable. The incremental patches, which are installed progressively as you download them, are surely not found on the internet.
Major patches are made by Gal Civ to allow Users to archives them and reuse them as they wish, with the big drawback that they are pirated.

You are very wrong again. All of the Galciv patches can be found on the net. Propably someone using the method what Ive mentioned above.

I bought gal civ, have you? I know for sure that the major patches are distributed without much protections, but the incremental patches are only downloadable thru stardock utility, which downloads the components and then upgrade your game on the fly. I would be very surprised to see incremental patches on P2P servers or on warez sites, as it would asks for an hacked copy of the utility. Can be, but this would be a major hassle, as the utility is itself patched nearly all weeks (and work only with a secure connection toward stardock). What you see is certainly the big patches. If stardock only permitted DL thru his securized connection, I think this would slow down greatly the hacking of the game.

I maintain that the download of patches only available thru secure connections made between the user and a certified server, with a list of Banned keys, is a scheme which impede greatly pirates. Thats IMO anyway, you can disagree

And I think that most honest Users are not that bothered by a scheme like this, because they know that the time they loose when they DL a patch with their key is a very small loss, compared to all the hassle incured by pirates to get a given Version of the game (and as soon as a patch his DL with the same cdkey too many time, ban it, to the despair of all pirates).
(IMO again)

[ October 13, 2003, 17:02: Message edited by: Pocus ]

Mortifer · #3 October 13th, 2003, 06:03 PM

Pocus, I dont know about these things but.....if you say: major patches. Well arent the major patches what those warez ppl need? I guess major patch means v1.1, v1.2 etc. Am I right?

What is a incremental patch anyways?

Saber Cherry · #4 October 13th, 2003, 07:41 PM

I've lost a few CD keys, and it was really a pain. Now I always write them on the game CD... but in general, if a game requires key, I think it should be marked on the original CD (not the jewel case or box).

Any "activation" ala Windows would prevent me from buying any software (except Windows... sigh). If I were to release a game, I would probably allow patches to be downloaded for free, but require a key to be entered for the patch to be installed. That way, keys could be revoked in the future (if some were found to be massively duped), but there would be no Online BS to mess with (patches could be mirrored, etc). This would require big keys, with so many possiblities that if somebody cracked the keygen, any random new valid key generated would have a statistically zero chance of matching an existing customer's key - in other words, a duplicated key means that somebody gave his key to someone else. And if a flawed, crackable keygen was used, the only people to suffer would be the people that chose the keygen.

There are no perfect systems, but if you can make it take more than $39 worth of work to run the game illegally - without ever harming legit customers - the level of piracy will be insignificant. And BTW, I think requiring a CD in the drive to play constitutes "harm"

-Cherry

Pocus · #5 October 13th, 2003, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mortifer:
Pocus, I dont know about these things but.....if you say: major patches. Well arent the major patches what those warez ppl need? I guess major patch means v1.1, v1.2 etc. Am I right?

What is a incremental patch anyways?

sure you can play with only major patches. By major, I mean the ones released by Stardock, that are available y regular download. But Stardock, almost weekly, release incremental subpatches, which are only available thru their utility (witch a check on the cdkey). Once in a while, they release a 'summary' patch, which cover all the tweak dones for some weeks/months.

I understand that they release these big patches to not piss off customers, but this is what permit pirates to get updates, which are then disseminated on the internet.

DominionsFan · #6 October 13th, 2003, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pocus:

quote:
Originally posted by Mortifer:
Pocus, I dont know about these things but.....if you say: major patches. Well arent the major patches what those warez ppl need? I guess major patch means v1.1, v1.2 etc. Am I right?

What is a incremental patch anyways?

sure you can play with only major patches. By major, I mean the ones released by Stardock, that are available y regular download. But Stardock, almost weekly, release incremental subpatches, which are only available thru their utility (witch a check on the cdkey). Once in a while, they release a 'summary' patch, which cover all the tweak dones for some weeks/months.

I understand that they release these big patches to not piss off customers, but this is what permit pirates to get updates, which are then disseminated on the internet.

No one cares about 'little patches'.
All major patches are on the net for Galciv..

If you ask me there is no perfect protection against crackers, and propably never will be. Sadly we must live with this. Always.

[ October 13, 2003, 19:46: Message edited by: DominionsFAN ]

LordArioch · #7 October 13th, 2003, 09:26 PM

The harder you make a game to play illegally, the harder people will work to break through your anti-piracy setup.
It's probably best not to try, because all trying does is waste trouble and usually make things more annoying for people who bought the game, while just providing more challenging practice to the software pirates.

They're pretty through too...I know people that know about that sort of thing...and I'm pretty sure there was even a warez Version of Dominions I. Although it's really sad if anybody got that...
Traitors to Illwinter! Destroy them all!