Time I will never get back and piracy, the easy way out

d_brennen

d_brennen

d_brennen

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First off I am not a serial pirate, I buy my games. But some of the games take the biscuit. I bought GTAIV on D2D ages ago as I'd lost my DVD (so I own the game twice essentially) and had no end of trouble installing it. Twice downloaded a corrupt archive of the game, then had to install their crappy Comrade software which to be fair did get the file down in one piece, but I have no other purpose for it. So nearly 45GB of data downloaded I finally get my game. But wait! It requires Rockstar Social Club to run (which wasn't installed by default - WHY?? IT'S REQUIRED!?!?) so off into the downloaded folder to find the exe. Now I must point out at no point was RSC offered during install, or any warning that the game wouldn't launch without it. Not even a message pop up when I tried to launch the game. Just me looking at my hard drive LED waiting inevitably for nothing to happen.

So RSC installs, I have no interest in sharing video or playing online buy whatever. I try again. RSC prompts me to sign in, I politely decline whilst swearing quietly under my breath. Nothing. No message, no HDD activity, nowt but me sat like a plum watching nothing happen, Maybe I need to reboot?

Upon reboot I try again (and RSC installs itself as a startup program FFS, didn't ask me but just did :mad:), by this time weary and not really in the mood to play. Lucky really because a whole lot of nothing happened again.

It's late and I go to bed annoyed, my gaming time is precious, to me anyway

What could it be? I patched my GTAIV but it said it was up to date. GFWL!? It must be Games For Windows Live that's causing the hold up! So off I go to get the client

Microsoft said:
We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found.
See below for search results close to your request, or try a new search.
Click to expand...

You're sorry? I'm starting to be sorry I even bother to play a game

After much thrashing about I get GFWL down and sign in. I have had a GFWL account forever and tbf have had no issues with the service, but that's probably because I never use it. On sign in it says it cannot log in, that

Microsoft Windows Marketplace said:
There is a problem with your account that needs to be rectified
Click to expand...

wtf I think, what could this problem be? Haxors buying MS point with my GFWL account? Pigeon nesting in my account file? Following the link I'm led to a page with yet another EULA that I'm not ever, ever going to read (gaming is a past time not a profession or have I missed something?), click accept, and that's it. That was the problem. Why oh why could the client not tell me this, like Steam does, like any worthwhile piece of software would? Clue - GFWL is worthless

Anyway, spurred on by this magnificent success and knowing I must be close to getting onto the mean streets I continue. With a bead of sweat or possibly a tear on my cheek I double click the shortcut.

RSC pops up, I tell it to eff off, GTAIV splash screen apprears (\o/), GFWL pops up and asks me to sign in (I am signed in already?!) so I do so.

GFWL said:
Client update, this may take a few minutes
Click to expand...

Why? What did I spend the previous 10 minutes doing? 10 minutes isn't a few btw Microsoft.

GFWL said:
Downloading profile, this may take a few minutes
Click to expand...

Why? My profile has nothing but by name in it. This takes 30 seconds mercifully

After all this build up GTAIV really anticlimaxes, hard. Crash to desktop with no message FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUU. Repeatedly.

I go to bed a little more annoyed than the night before.

** Removed - email sent ***
/rant

TL;DR: DRM does not work the way it should. Pirates have it easy

Cool story
OK
etc
 
I never have these issues with GFWL?

Some no-cd cracks are pretty useful so you don't have to insert a disc I suppose.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
GFWL is the worst ever program if it goes wrong.
Click to expand...
I like it when it works. When it doesn't, it's another story entirely.

Fallout 3 gets on my bad side once or twice every day. You have to sign in with your Live profile before you can access your save games. Until this point, Continue appears grayed out. Sometimes GFWL doesn't sign in at all, sometimes it does and still doesn't activate the Continue button! Fortunately once I'm all loaded up, it's fine...
 
Don't talk to me about GFWL, just don't talk to me about it.

Struggled most afternoon to get Bioshock 2 working which I bought on Steam and for some reason this POS software kept poking it's ****ing nose in, not allowing me to save unless I'm signed in. ** Removed - please don't condone pirating **
 
OP, rest assured that I felt very guilty whilst chuckling at your post!

I feel your pain. I've used GFWL for precisely one game, AoE 3, when they essentially gave it away, and I pretty much had to do its work for it. It buggered up the download and when I asked it to kindly install the game it was like "do what? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I had to piece the game together myself from the enormous pile of .cab files it dotted around my hard drive.

Yeah, **** you Microsoft. I will never, ever buy another GFWL game.

But the real moral of the story, as you so rightly point out OP, is that when DRM goes wrong it's actually worse than useless; it drives people to piracy. When pirates have an easier time than paying customers, publishers really need to put down the crack pipe and take a good, long look at themselves.

I hope you enjoy the game after all that!
 
regulus said:
Don't talk to me about GFWL, just don't talk to me about it.

Struggled most afternoon to get Bioshock 2 working which I bought on Steam and for some reason this POS software kept poking it's ****ing nose in, not allowing me to save unless I'm signed in. Guess what, it didn't want to sign me in either. ***
Click to expand...

I had the same experience.
 
Why repirate the while game wouldn't xliveless.dll that you use to get gta mods working right work in any other game? As it just disables gfwl
 
I can sympathize with a lot of that

I don't pirate either, I believe in supporting the developers/buying a product I am getting hours of enjoyment from, etc

But it has to be said.. I think it was the bloke from GOG (goodoldgames) at one of the conventions that said a root cause of piracy was something along the lines of "pirates providing a better service than retailers" and honestly from somebody thats spent easily 1000's on gaming the last 10 years I can definatly see it that way

Reminds me of when I bought settlers 7 during a steam sale ages ago.. found ontop of needing steam running to launch it, needed to have ubisofts launcher running, as well as make an account with them.. ah bloody nightmare
 
I also hate GFWL


I remember when i first bought one the batman games off steam and the game wouldn't load..
It was because i didn't have that crap GFWL installed...
I was there for dam ages trying workout why the game would not load up as it didn't pop up any messages saying it need GFWL installed
 
That xliveless thing is needed to get old save games working anyway so very few people play it fully legal I suspect

way to criminalise the population, very 1984. hence why all people should oppose SOPA and other stupid politics
 
GFWL is the bane of my existence. I never knew what true primal rage really was untill I tried to play dirt2 a few weeks back.

Whoever conceived of this monstrosity needs to have his balls thrashed in a meat cleaver.
 
Been there myself, bought 2 copies like the op, had similar problems too, but persevered and eventually get it to work, play it for a few nights/levels putting in a good few hours and bam, the OS HD hits a meltdown!

New HD and OS later, rinse and repeat, have a screaming match again with my reflection in the monitor, launch the game only to find my last saves don't work even though they were on a different HD in the first place!

Response to that was XXXX it!

Bought it twice and between GFWL and Rockstar Social Nutters, GTAV won't be coming my way!
 
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silversurfer said:
That xliveless thing is needed to get old save games working anyway so very few people play it fully legal I suspect

way to criminalise the population, very 1984. hence why all people should oppose SOPA and other stupid politics
Click to expand...

"Piracy" isn't a criminal offence anyway. Though I do get your point and it's just another example that shows accusatory DRM does not work at all.
 
I've not yet any problems with GFWL, though I do agree it is a long winded affair. Luckily, nearly all of the games I've played for quite sometime don't have anything to do with it.
 
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