SEV: What am I REALY getting for my money? - Page 4

Draxis · #31 August 14th, 2006, 04:20 PM

From what I know of networking (which is not that much, did not do well in the subject at university) most networking protocols are designed to prevent *accidental* imperfections, but there are a lot of possible variations of a single block (say 256Kb) that would all pass the same validation hash. Assuming every single block of a torrent had an associated MD5, to sabotage the theft, you only need to send a differnt block but the block would hash out the same MD5. When the entire file was finished, it would almost certainly fail any check on it, but that is still a few hundred megs that has to be redownloaded, and would only take 1 dodgy block to break again.

Fyron · #32 August 14th, 2006, 04:54 PM

I don't think that will really work out too well in practice though... BT uses SHA1 hashing, not MD5. While an attack vector has been found for SHA1, it is not yet computationally feasible to create faked pieces of data that would let you disrupt a BT transfer. You can bet that as soon as viable methods for creating collisions in the SHA1 algorithm are found, the BT protocol will just switch to a newer algorithm that is not yet possible to break.

Sivran · #33 August 14th, 2006, 05:09 PM

I don't think Draxis knows too much about hashing.

Collisions (ie, two differing blocks of data that produce the same hash) are so supremely rare that a big deal was made of it in the crypto community when someone managed to find a way to make MD5 collide. The method was impractical, of course, and IIRC, only a few bytes could be changed. This was with a small dataset. Creating collisions out of larger chunks would be infinitely more difficult.

Now, out of OT mode...

If SE5 would only be sold on Steam, I would not buy it. In fact, I'm going to wait for the first reports from the community-- if SE5 has any crap in it, I won't buy it. If it's not portable as SE4 is, I will think twice but it's not a game breaker.

Draxis · #34 August 14th, 2006, 05:29 PM

Your right Sivran, I'm out of touch, I used to play around with that stuff a lot though

I never looked at the SHA1 but after a little reading it has me interested. Hate having to go to a job all day, I cant play with numbers!

frightlever · #35 August 14th, 2006, 08:34 PM

SE4 (and earlier) was probably pirated massively long before the deluxe(!) version. I seem to recall a Q&A with Aaron where he said as much.

Copy protection definitely stops games getting into the hands of casual pirates. I'm a bit more sceptical whether it actually encourages sales. I think people willing to pay will pay and those who can't, or won't, won't pay no matter what. I don't buy the idea of a pirate furiously exhausting his options for ripping off a game and then as a final resort reluctantly trudging to the game store with a bunch of grubby bank notes in his hands and a tear in his eye.

The Boycott Starforce (never had a problem with Starforce) proved that harsh copy-protection discouraged people from buying games. Stardock had a top-selling game (at Walmart!) with no copy protection.

I would say it's a cert that come what may SE5 will have copy protection, either through Steam or through a CD-in-drive disk checker. I couldn't tell you where my SE4 disk is (bought for about a $80.00 off a specialist import shop in the UK! Best value for money ever.) so I'll miss just starting up a game whenever I want but I suppose that's progress.

Getting back to the original reason behind the thread though - I'm still not convinced that these real time land battles and wotnot are going to do the released game any favours. As a straight 2D turn based war game SE4 fit into a comfortable, if no longer mainstream, sterotype. A reviewer seeing a lacklustre attempt at a RTS is going to tear it a new one in the review.

Look at the RTS battles in Space Rangers - pretty much universally put down by reviewers (though forgiven because of the strength of that game as a whole) and from what I've seen the SR RTS battles look a lot better than the SE5 ones. If they played like Warhammer 40K Dawn Of War then fair enough...

Renegade 13 · #36 August 14th, 2006, 08:43 PM

Pirates buy games too. I personally know of some examples of people who pirated a game, then bought it because they liked it. I'm not saying I support such a thing, but it does happen.

You mentioned Starforce, and not having had a problem with it. I know this thread isn't about Starforce, but I have had problems with it. I had a CDRW drive die on me for no particular reason, shortly after installing a Starforce protected game. Now, that could be coincidence, but coincidence only goes so far.

But anyways, this thread isn't about Starforce so I'll shut up now.

Sivran · #37 August 14th, 2006, 10:25 PM

I've pirated games. I deleted the ones I didn't like, and bought the ones I did. The remainder I either never bothered installing or just simply forgot about. The "didn't like" and "forgotten" categories are by far the largest. This and the appearance of StarForce have a significant impact on my game buying.

Whenever I'm at Fry's looking at games, I really DO think to myself, "Can I find this game online? Is this game infected with Starforce?" It's the Starforce question that tips the scales toward putting down the box, going home, and either forgetting about the game (in this way Starforce hurts even those who don't use it!) or looking up the list or an illegitimate source. On the other hand, if I've downloaded a game--demo, or warezed--and I see it at Fry's, I might just pick it up as an impulse buy. Hell, I bought GalCiv II for no other reason than its lack of copy protection. I might install it one day, I've heard it's fun.

dogscoff · #38 August 15th, 2006, 08:19 AM

I too will be holding off on my purchase of SE5 until I've heard some feedback on this forum regarding the copy-protection methods used. If it makes the game unplayable, or it means I can't install it on more than one PC, or can't install it on a replacement PC, or it's going to break my PC by installing a rootkit or something, then I won't be buying it until it's fixed.

frightlever · #39 August 15th, 2006, 09:54 AM

To quote myself "I think people willing to pay will pay and those who can't, or won't, won't pay no matter what." which just agrees with you that copy protection or lack therof hasn't got a bearing on whether a game will sell. If you're going to buy it you'll buy it. If you're not then there are plenty of excuses to make to yourself why not.

I'm amazed at the way forums have been taken over by anti-Starforce sentiment in the last year or so. There are plenty of good reasons why I may not buy Space Empires 5 but copy protection definitely isn't one of them. I'll likely pre-order a physical copy and then crack on release day and buy the download too. I ended up buying 3 copies of Silent Storm because I liked it so much I just wanted to spread the word.

As for Steam, which I never really touched on, if you want to play a MP game you need to validate through Steam but if you're playing a MP game you're probably either already on the Internet or on a LAN and if you're on a LAN in the 21st century I can't believe there are too many times you won't have some Internet access.

Again I want to stress I'd prefer it wasn't the case but OTOH I'm not that worried about it. Your life must be pretty sweet if you consider this a hardship. Running a house and holding down a job (to spend on food and games) give me more than enough grief for me to worry about copy-protection.

Phoenix-D · #40 August 15th, 2006, 11:37 AM

You have to validate SP games as well frightlever. And I'm not keen on spending money on a game only to have it turn into a coaster a few years down the road. Starforce is unlikely to work when you upgrade your OS, for example.

And that's not even counting its tendancy to kill CD drives, the scummy tactics of the people that make it, etc.