Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - No Copy Protection - Congrats to everyone involved

Cybergangster · 28 Mar 2006 at 15:40

I can't all this animosity towards StarForce. I've read some complaints about it messing with users computers but I've never seen anything first hand. As I've never had a problem with it and because it's proved so hard to crack I can't understand why anyone would skip games just because it uses a certain type of protection.

mark_t50 · 28 Mar 2006 at 15:44

wnb said:
Whats the problem with starforce? The only downside to it that i can tell is that it installs drivers which you can't uninstall. I've read ppl who tell horror stories about it but the company who makes starforce has offered $10,000 to the first perosn who can prove starforce is the cause and as of yet no one has collected.

I was going to contact them about this because when I installed GT Legends it bluescreened my PC and eventually killed it. I posted on their forums about it at the time but never got a satisfactory response really:

http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=165&hl=

I thought the reward was only for if their starforce software actually broke your cd/dvd drive though.

This is the problem with star-force, it caused me to lose all my data and have to rebuild my machine, I don't use pirated software, yet it was me paying a high price for it. It didn't put me off though, I still use games that use star-force now. I'm just very careful.

Emlyn_Dewar · 28 Mar 2006 at 15:54

Thank the lord Oblivion doesn't use Starfarce! It's begging me to buy it and I will have to give in soon, not before the end of April though, must be strong...
Probably should watch what you say about Starforce though, from reading some forums it appears you have a chance of receiving some lovely threatening emails for daring to criticize the shoddy piece of crap...

kdd · 28 Mar 2006 at 16:21

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Thank the lord Oblivion doesn't use Starfarce! It's begging me to buy it and I will have to give in soon, not before the end of April though, must be strong...
Probably should watch what you say about Starforce though, from reading some forums it appears you have a chance of receiving some lovely threatening emails for daring to criticize the shoddy piece of crap...

That's not true, just there's a hate campaign started by whoever against starforce, the thing isn't perfect but nowhere near in a million years as bad as some people make it out to be. Never had a problem and i have several sf protected games.

Dutch Guy · 28 Mar 2006 at 16:22

Cybergangster said:
I can't all this animosity towards StarForce.

It is prolly one of the hardest protections to crack so people will hate it as it stops them playing downloaded versions of games :confused:

And then there are the legitimate buyers that get screwed like mark_t50

But there are other protections that don't work with certain DVD players so you can't even install the game you bought on your system while the warez peeps have no trouble playing a cracked copy :mad:

HangTime · 28 Mar 2006 at 18:07

Galactic Civilisations 2 is a better example of a game without 'copy protection', in that legitimate users aren't penalised at all

Lord-Jaffa · 28 Mar 2006 at 18:19

I liked it so much i went out and bought it. If every game was as full of content (and ran as well on lower spec machines while still looking good) as this we would all be happy gamers indeed.

Westyfield2 · 28 Mar 2006 at 20:59

Starforce

Agree with G.O.A.T. Would buy GT Legends but won't because of Starforce (Just know it will mess up X64).
The demo even had starforce and caused BSOD's and random reboots on 32bit XP home.

Davey_Pitch · 29 Mar 2006 at 00:31

A couple of people have made some very stupid comments in this thread (others deleted without comment were just over the line without being stupid). If it carries on, I'll simply delete the thread rather than cleaning it up. Please keep the conversation inside the rules of the forum, without advocating piracy at all, or suggesting ways to bypass copy protection.

clapton is god · 29 Mar 2006 at 12:24

hope i can find it still

G.O.A.T · 29 Mar 2006 at 15:37

HangTime said:
Galactic Civilisations 2 is a better example of a game without 'copy protection', in that legitimate users aren't penalised at all

And they sold more copies in the first week than GC1 did in it's entire product lifetime. I guess the secret to getting more sales is to..hmm..make a good game?

Caustic · 30 Mar 2006 at 09:57

I have to say, I think PC games need copy protection. Nothing overly harsh, a cd check is fine. GalCiv2 does have a very clever system tho'. There is no need to go over the top against pirates, as they will always win in a single player game. CD-Keys are excellent and requiring a key for online stuff, patches, updates etc, is very clever.

A balance is needed.

ajgoodfellow · 30 Mar 2006 at 13:30

I had trouble with the StarForce protection with the GT Legends DEMO - it would cause my machine to crash with a BSOD

It was fixed with the DEMO patch though

My only issue with it now is that I've migrated to XP x64 and IIRC StarForce doesn't work on XP x64

Dutch Guy · 30 Mar 2006 at 13:52

The problem with Starforce is that it can mess up your system by installing a lot of crap you do not want and can't stop while you are not allowed to change anything or use another file to stop the DVD being needed after installing.

I can live with CD-keys and copy protection that prevents the ability to copy a DVD by inserting errors on the media etc... but installing another program that can mess up my system is just a step too far.

Westyfield2 · 30 Mar 2006 at 13:57

ajgoodfellow said:
I had trouble with the StarForce protection with the GT Legends DEMO - it would cause my machine to crash with a BSOD

It was fixed with the DEMO patch though

My only issue with it now is that I've migrated to XP x64 and IIRC StarForce doesn't work on XP x64

Agreed. Not willing to risk it as High Street Games stores say 'no returns if it doesn't work with your PC'
Checking on planetamd64.com for any Starforce working on X64

Phalanx · 30 Mar 2006 at 15:53

The game probably has sold loads but look on any torrent website, there are thousands (literally) of people seeding the game. It's a bit of a shame. 6000 x £30 = £180,000 lost

nikebee · 30 Mar 2006 at 15:59

Phalanx said:
The game probably has sold loads but look on any torrent website, there are thousands (literally) of people seeding the game. It's a bit of a shame. 6000 x £30 = £180,000 lost

less than that i would imagine... think about it, each company that sells the game takes a certain percentage of each sale for themselves.

but still... i get yout point, its still around the £100,000 mark

Dutch Guy · 30 Mar 2006 at 16:02

Phalanx said:
The game probably has sold loads but look on any torrent website, there are thousands (literally) of people seeding the game. It's a bit of a shame. 6000 x £30 = £180,000 lost

Maybe out of those 6000 there are 5000 people that would not buy the game anyway if they can't get it illegal meaning the lost revenue is only 30k which is a fraction of the production cost and definate sales

Emlyn_Dewar · 30 Mar 2006 at 18:31

kdd said:
That's not true, just there's a hate campaign started by whoever against starforce, the thing isn't perfect but nowhere near in a million years as bad as some people make it out to be. Never had a problem and i have several sf protected games.

How do you know it isn't true?
I was shafted for Splinter Cell : Chaos Theory and Silent Hunter III as I used X64, thanks Starforce. Any copy protection that causes problems for people who buy the games is just wrong in my eyes and for that reason I have a problem with starfarce.

Lagmeister · 30 Mar 2006 at 18:51

The problem with starforce is the fact that it installs, silently, provides no easy means of removing it and thus is generally accepted as a nasty piece of spyware, for the most part it isnt at all, which is why I would prefer people who are so anti-sf to go and look at the facts, but still I disagree with its methods of hiding on the computer, it would be simple enough to link it to a game so that its removed if no longer needed, or to implement a count of the installed programs that will use it, and so I dislike sf, if they made some changes to the way its installed and removed I would be perfectly happy with it.