CD Key Question (Not Your Usual One)

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KoshiJoshi

Certified FlakMonkey
Dec 13, 2005
105
0
0
England
I was reinstalling UT2003 the other day for the second time when I was asked for my CD key, I entered it as seen on the box of the game and when it had been installed I went, out of curiosity, to check if I could still go online ;)

I was surprised when I was able to because as far as I knew you cannot use CD keys twice as I had installed UT2003 previously, so we come to my question...

How exactly does the CD Key validation system work on UT2003/04?

I've been thinking up various theory's but I want cold hard knowledge :D
 

KoshiJoshi

Certified FlakMonkey
Dec 13, 2005
105
0
0
England
Do you reckon that every CD has a database/file that holds all the valid CD keys but only allows one of those to be the true assigned online play key for that CD or copy of the game?

Im not sure If you get me but that is what I'm thinking
 

Sfisher7

A.G.M.R. Mod Team
Feb 8, 2006
28
0
0
In UnrealEd :p
Renegade Retard said:
I believe that, as long as the same CD key isn't being used more than once at the same time, then you're fine.

I may be wrong, though.
I have one UT2k4 on two systems and it's fine, I bought two, but one never showed up (it's been 4 months). I paid for both, so it's legal. Anyways, I don't think that's the way it works because both systems can be online at the same time with no problems. :con:
 

Kantham

Fool.
Sep 17, 2004
18,034
2
38
virgo47 said:
I know about the case when at least two players played online on registrated pub server with the same key in the same time with no problem at all. So it is not so strict.

Yes. Happen on my server. I've seen this more than once.
 

_Lynx

Strategic Military Services
Staff member
Dec 5, 2003
1,965
8
38
40
Moscow, Russia
beyondunreal.com
The CD-Key is not used-up after you install the game once - you may install it as many times as you want without any problems. Also - as you already noticed there's a quite common thing that master-server allows two players with the same CD-Key. The CD-Key also defines player's Unique ID (seen in Settings -> Game ). The installer has some simple check - all the key generated by keygens will allow you to install the game but will fail the on-line check, causing master-server to reply that your CD-Key ither invalid or is already in use. The master server makes some more accurate check - this one, I guess really checks the CD-key against the some list, including a blacklist of banned CD-Keys.
 

Taleweaver

Wandering spirit
May 11, 2004
2,630
0
36
43
Off course
Sfisher7 said:
I have one UT2k4 on two systems and it's fine, I bought two, but one never showed up (it's been 4 months). I paid for both, so it's legal. Anyways, I don't think that's the way it works because both systems can be online at the same time with no problems. :con:
Just a second here...if you visit a server with both copies, it's likely (not 100% sure) that you'll be kicked for using the same key twice. As you can imagine, Epic is not informed of your mismatched error, so they aren't to blame if things go wrong.
If I were you, I'd complain about not having received the other copy, because the CD-key is what you actually pay for.

In the worst-case scenario, you could scan your proof-of-payment (whatever it's called) and contact Epic about it, so they at least know you're using the same key on two machines.
 

hyrulian

Rainbow Brite
May 20, 2001
9,548
0
0
42
Chula Vista, CA
hyru.ath.cx
Kantham said:
Wow that sucks.
Yeah, it's the truth ... you can reinstall on the exact same machine as many times as you want, but if you upgrade enough to the point that Windows doesn't think it's the same PC, it will require manual re-activation, and there's only so many times you can do that before they won't let you anymore. :mad: