Mass Effect and Spore to require online activation...

Azza

Azza

Azza

Caporegime
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every 10 days!


Sorry if this has already been posted.


clicky


BioWare technical producer Derek French has said that the PC versions of both Mass Effect and Spore will make use of copy protection that will require online validation every ten days in order for the games to continue working.
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Which will fail every 10 days causing grief to legitimate users and be completely stripped from exe in pirated version. You just know it's going to happen.
 
well if there going to continue coming up with crap protection ideas like this that annoys legit users no wonder there will be hacked files for them. I for one will buy these and will bypass the 10 day activation out of principal.
 
I casually flicked through a few pages of the Mass Effect thread and thought "Meh, I've already completed it on the 360 and didn't fancy buying a dodgy console port anyhoo." But now they're going to stick this 'Phone Home' malarky on Spore! Great. :(

I have limited experience of the more aggressive forms of copy protection, but the one or two I've had have not been good. I suppose I'll be trawling the murky depths of the web for a means to stop my PC from collaborating with the enemy, once Spore has been released.
 
So what happens if you go on holiday for a fortnight, and as such you don't have access to your computer to "re-activate"?
 
BobbyBBB said:
EA ****ing up gaming, what else is new tbh.
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I think you forgot to mention Bioware in there somewhere? :o

Shamikebab said:
fixed
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I'm not being funny but the only posts I've seen out of you in this forum tonight are to do with how you're pleased this or not worried that because you play on console, or pointing something out that doesn't apply to console. One might begin to suspect that all you're doing is looking for a reaction.
 
So this activation, does it just check once in 10 days whether your disc is original or is it then going to be tied to that PC? If it's the latter then we can forget about second hand copies (I suppose EA don't mind since they are against it anyway).
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
I'm not being funny but the only posts I've seen out of you in this forum tonight are to do with how you're pleased this or not worried that because you play on console, or pointing something out that doesn't apply to console. One might begin to suspect that all you're doing is looking for a reaction.
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Thats not the case, I'm just annoyed at how the PC is getting treated compared to the consoles. I actually bought Bioshock on PC despite all the annoyances. I really hope companies would have seen the bad feedback that got and how little it stopped the pirates and reconsidered their strategy but that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
neoboy said:
So this activation, does it just check once in 10 days whether your disc is original or is it then going to be tied to that PC? If it's the latter then we can forget about second hand copies (I suppose EA don't mind since they are against it anyway).
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I've just been rooting through the thread this was all brought up in on the Bioware forums and the admins there seem to be totally dodging this issue, but they are saying: -

"If you are reinstalling on the same machine, then its the same machine and there game will reactivate without any issues. The activation is for the computer itself, so if you have 12 user accounts on there, these are not different activations. With the current settings, its not really possible to "lose" an activation on the same computer."

Note they don't say anything about installing the game on another computer, or upgrading the computer. :o

Shamikebab said:
Thats not the case, I'm just annoyed at how the PC is getting treated compared to the consoles. I actually bought Bioshock on PC despite all the annoyances. I really hope companies would have seen the bad feedback that got and how little it stopped the pirates and reconsidered their strategy but that doesn't seem to be the case.
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Understandable, I didn't mean any harm by it. Just took it the wrong way. :)
 
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Just found some more information about multiple systems: -

Some guy: "If something goes wrong, and I have to reinstall and I am past my limit, I'm screwed?"

Bioware admin person: "No, because this first would mean that you have already installed the game on three different computers and if you were being blocked, you would contact EA Support and they will get you fixed up and running as soon as they can."

So it looks like you can install on three different machines, but after that you have to ring. :o

So as usual, pirates and legitimate buyers using cracks win. Install, crack, job done.
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
Just found some more information about multiple systems: -

Some guy: "If something goes wrong, and I have to reinstall and I am past my limit, I'm screwed?"

Bioware admin person: "No, because this first would mean that you have already installed the game on three different computers and if you were being blocked, you would contact EA Support and they will get you fixed up and running as soon as they can."

So it looks like you can install on three different machines, but after that you have to ring. :o

So as usual, pirates and legitimate buyers using cracks win. Install, crack, job done.
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agreed it doesn't effect pirates apart form waiting for the crack a bit longer maybe, the witcher was a pain at times and since the 1.2 patch it sucks.
 
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