F--king pirates!

Well, can't you get EA to shut down the account - so at least the wanker can't use it either? And maybe photo-copying the back of the CD case would be okay with them? That's only $0.10 instead of $30...

Matthew

Pirates are almost as awsome as ninjas!

You can still use cracked servers..

I don't remember how BF stores CD keys(think its the reg.) but if you shared the folder where it was in on a p2p network or on a LAN then anyone could have just downloaded it from you.

Personaly I'd prefer to bitch about the CD-Key itself instead of the pirate (Arrrrr!). I hate that crap like every other copy protection.

Keiichi, there's a simple sollutuion realy: Go grab a Key generator and make a new key for yourself.

You don't have a friend who owns a camera? Only dorks have camera-less friends. You're a dork

You could just get a cracked CD key yourself?

Hadmar said:

Personaly I'd prefer to bitch about the CD-Key itself instead of the pirate (Arrrrr!). I hate that crap like every other copy protection.

Keiichi, there's a simple sollutuion realy: Go grab a Key generator and make a new key for yourself.

Click to expand...

So you think Electronic Arts should let everyone with a CDR drive play their games online for free?

You could just get a cracked CD key yourself?

Click to expand...

Maybe he has something against stealing?

Its not stealing if he already paid

spm1138 said:

So you think Electronic Arts should let everyone with a CDR drive play their games online for free?

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What I do think is: Entering CD keys of any kind is extremely annoying and allowes tracking and I love my privacy, thank you.
What I do think is: Aww sh!t, the ****ing copyprotection dosn't recogize the CD again. I'm just lucky that I have a DVD drive that still somehow works with that crap (for Unreal 2 and Master of Orion 3 it took an average of three times to start the game) and not one that's completely incompatible to non standard CDs (what do you think copy protection is? It's non standard CDs plain and simple).
What I do think is: I'm allowed by law to make a backup copy of my CDs (I would have buyed UT like 4 times by now if I hadn't used a copy of the CD) and whoa, too bad I can't with them damned protection crap. I could use special software for that task... which I have to pay for. Great. Also which one to use? Sure, I can get that info from x pages on the internet but people who can't are pretty much ****ed couse the Mafia Industry used their ****in lobbying to make it illegal to write aritcles about software that can be used to circumvent AUDIO CD copy protection (distributing the software in germnany is illegal too). So WTF has audio CDs to do with it? Oh, the Mafia Industrys lawyer bloodhound riff-raff sends dissuasions worth 4000+EUR to admins of webpages who mentionin cl***CD in an article about backups of game CDs couse cou can use the software to make copys of audio CDs even if that's nowhere mentioned. Even a wepage that mentioned a tool for copying DVDs got one of those little bills couse you can copy music videos with it.

F U C K Copy protection of any kind.

spm1138 said:

Maybe he has something against stealing?

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Please edjucate me. What exactly is he stealing?

Your complaints about existing systems are valid but I would ask you to propose an alternative that only allows each legitimately purchased copy of a game to be used online by ONE person at a time and doesn't involve any of those systems.

The alternatives that I am familiar with are all used by pay-to-play games and if it's a choice between enterring a CD-key and paying-to-play Half-Life2 (as I believe your options for HL2 are) I would prefer the CD-key option.

He would potentially be stealing someone else's CD key and thus their ability to use the software they purchased online.

edit
There is a system that writes hidden information to your hard disk virus stylee but I don't find that very reassuring.

spm1138 said:

Your complaints about existing systems are valid but I would ask you to propose an alternative that only allows each legitimately purchased copy of a game to be used online by ONE person at a time and doesn't involve any of those systems.

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Sorry, but that's not my job. Frankly, I don't realy care for pirates (Arrrr!) and prefer no system at all.

spm1138 said:

He would potentially be stealing someone else's CD key and thus their ability to use the software they purchased online.

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That's not the most likely thing to happen and if it happens he would notice it sooner or later and could change the key again.

or you could go to kinkos or some other office store and have a picture taken of it. There are 1000 ways you could get a picture of it, your unwillingness to make an effort to show ea that you purchased the game itself says to me you deserve to pay for the game again. Sooner you stop feeling sorry for yourself the sooner you can make it right.

Hadmar said:

Sorry, but that's not my job. Frankly, I don't realy care for pirates (Arrrr!) and prefer no system at all.

That's not the most likely thing to happen and if it happens he would notice it sooner or later and could change the key again.

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No system at all = everyone can and will steal your software.

Why do feel people shouldn't have to pay for games?

I was reading in the latest issue of PC Zone that in the UK it is illegal to make a backup of any game due to a new rulling in European law. Yet in UK law it is legal to make 1 backup of any software you purchase, not music cds though. It is also ilegal for manufactures to put some form of copy protection on the cd to prevent you making your legal backup of the cd you purchased. So if i make a backup copy of a game i legally own, am i breaking the law or not, I know if i distribute it by anyform it is ilegal.

I'll post the article up on this thread in a few days, as the magazine is currently in my uni flat.

Mr. Apocalypse said:

You could just get a cracked CD key yourself?

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Yes he could, but then he couldn't play on most servers. BF servers check with a master server if the CD key is legit(ie. EA has sold a copy of the game that came with that specific key). This is where cracked servers come in, these servers don't validate your key via EA and all keys will be validated.

I must agree with Hadmar, it's the people who actually pay for the games that get hit by copy protection. I've downloaded quite a few games and overall I prefer warezd games simply because of the ease of use. You just mount a CD, C&P a cd-key from the nfo, install, copy over a crack and you're good to go. Whenever you want to play the game again you don't need to dig around for the disc, if it doesn't require a disc you can just play since the game is cracked. If require a disc then you just mount it. Easy, and no discs that take up physical space.

spm1138 said:

Why do feel people shouldn't have to pay for games?

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Why pay when you can get a better product for free?

LieLestoSbrat said:

I was reading in the latest issue of PC Zone that in the UK it is illegal to make a backup of any game due to a new rulling in European law. Yet in UK law it is legal to make 1 backup of any software you purchase, not music cds though. It is also ilegal for manufactures to put some form of copy protection on the cd to prevent you making your legal backup of the cd you purchased. So if i make a backup copy of a game i legally own, am i breaking the law or not, I know if i distribute it by anyform it is ilegal.

Click to expand...

unfortunately atm yes because European law takes precedence over UK law.....sux I know

One of the many reasons I am against any further British involvement in the EU

spm1138 said:

No system at all = everyone can and will steal your software.

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That's how it always was. And it's not stealing.

spm1138 said:

Why do feel people shouldn't have to pay for games?

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Where exactly did I say that?


And that law... er... ok I did miss most news since ~3 months but I kinda doubt it. I'd be interrested in that article. And unless I understood it wrong european law is not above local law. It's so that european law has to be made local law (there's a time limit for that) before it has any meaning.

LieLestoSbrat said:

I was reading in the latest issue of PC Zone that in the UK it is illegal to make a backup of any game due to a new rulling in European law. Yet in UK law it is legal to make 1 backup of any software you purchase, not music cds though. It is also ilegal for manufactures to put some form of copy protection on the cd to prevent you making your legal backup of the cd you purchased. So if i make a backup copy of a game i legally own, am i breaking the law or not, I know if i distribute it by anyform it is ilegal.

I'll post the article up on this thread in a few days, as the magazine is currently in my uni flat.

Click to expand...

Was it about EUCD?

well the only system that i can think of, off the top of my head to cut down on key-generators, would be to do something similar to the pay 2 play system. You buy the disc, and it comes with a login, password, and key. In order to play online you'd have to connect to the server and provide all 3 items, and fill out a registration form. After that they'd send back to you a real key. The trick would be to make the final key be difficult or very time consuming to replicate via a key-gen. Because the actual key isn't something the user ever has to type, it can now both be very large in length, and it doesn't have to be restricted to the 36? or (62? case sensitive) variable systems typically used. You could probably easily have 1024 variables per character X the max of 200,000 characters (200k file) would give you 204,800,000 unique codes possible. I'm not sure how many people are playing BF1942, but i'll be gracious and say about 1 million people. So that means you'd have less than 0.5% chance of scoring a legitimate key. and because the key would only effect online play, you'd have to test it each time you generated one. So... that's what about 30 seconds or so to test a key ( assumeing the system wouldn't ban your IP ( or worse ) for a period of time for imputing a number of false keys ) it'd take you a max of an hour + 40 mins to do about 200 tests.. that's still not good enough. So you set it to ban an IP for 24 hours after 5 false keys. (if you failed authorization you'd be given contact info for Customer service each time) So that's..... .5% each chance time a max of 5 chances.. that's what... a 4% chance of getting a legitimate key to work

The second thing you'd also need is a painless insurance plan. So you'd assume that it's possible for someone to duplicate one of the legitimate keys, but since each legitmate key is registered to one person, all you'd have to do is send a reply email to the registered user saying. We're very sorry, your key's been stolen, it's currently shut down ect ect ect please follow the links to download your replacement key ect ect ect.

That way the legitimate owner only has a tiny headache to go through if his keys' stolen..