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OK - MY thoughts on the v1.1 Copy Protection


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besides the fact that I'm running the software and have no problems and never had despite previous games such as colin mcrae that run the same software?

 

I never had problems w/the copy protection interfering w/my CD/DVD drives but other have. Just because you aren't having problems don't mean they don't exist. You're quite the egocentric.

 

So you can say the exact opposite. You are having trouble and you can blame it all on starforce? Don't you see the hypocrisy in going to the other extreme and claiming yourself superior? Duh.

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Most of the thread's been dealt with, I'd just like to address this bit - think it was edited in after I passed over it:

 

i have followed many of your posts britgliderpilot and the funny thing is you have never once said anything bad or critisized any part of Eagle Dynamics it makes me laugh every time.

 

 

I suggest you haven't been watching closely enough. I don't think ED are perfect (they're human, after all), and I know they've made mistakes before. I've asked for improvements and future developments in Lomac, and I've commented on things that I believe are inaccurate or improvable, wherever they've come from.

 

 

I see no point, however, in unreasonable attacks on the people who are working hard to give us a flight sim. Negative criticism achieves very little, and I try to stay away from that. The recent bouts of criticism directed towards ED have been largely unwarranted . . . . worse than that, they've been childish tantrums.

 

If there is serious criticism to be made towards ED, I'll support it. I will not support, take part in, or condone any criticism of ED because they don't do things the way you want them done, criticism by people who fail to understand why things are done the way they are, or criticism of things ED can't actually do anything about right now.

 

 

I believe ED want to create a good product, and are capable of doing so. I think they're limited by time, budget, and team size . . . . . i.e. things they don't have control over.

 

Is that an unreasonable belief?

 

Added to which, through the various readmes from development of Lomac since Flanker 2.0, and the forums here, I've seen ED show a great deal of interest in (and direct response to) constructive criticism.

 

I won't slag off ED at random, because they don't deserve it, and it achieves nothing. If you find that amusing, maybe it's time for you to reconsider what ED are actually doing for you.

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Just reading all these posts I see that most ppl who are complaining have no clue whatsoever. Just thinking of this whine about SF being installed with a free demo ("omgplz" etc). If you'd take your time and done some minor research you would find out that this is in fact a part of the SF protection. This is done to prevent pirates from using similar but not encrypted demo files to crack those in the release version.

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Re: OK - MY thoughts on the v1.1 Copy Protection

 

IF YOU JUST SPENT HUNDREDs OF EUROS/POUNDS/DOLLARS ON A NEW RIG, WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT $35? REALLY?

.

 

To SOME people the difference between feeding there family or not. Not everyone has the resources to to spend $35 as & when they want to. There are alot of people that have skrimped & scraped for a long time & gone without some essentials to upgrade or buy a PC & then to find that they MAY (note I said may not WILL) have to pay out again for a product that they already own is totally UNACCEPTABLE.

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Re: OK - MY thoughts on the v1.1 Copy Protection

 

IF YOU JUST SPENT HUNDREDs OF EUROS/POUNDS/DOLLARS ON A NEW RIG, WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT $35? REALLY?

[...]

Get over the hysteria and start thinking rationally.

 

It's not hysteria, it's not about $35 - that's the matter of priciples.

I simply refuse to support activation schemes. I my opinion this is infringement of my rights as customer and PITA in using the product I payed for.

 

If I would pay for FC 1.1 this would sign to ED I am OK with that - my problem is I AM NOT.

 

Although I was so excited about this new release, I will vote by my wallet this time and - I am sorry ED but you won't see my money.

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oh c'mon. PC games are selling less than GC games for crying out loud. PC as a gaming platform has been dieing for years.

 

What's the reason for this? pirates, warez and all that shit.

 

Now that gaming companies try to copy protect their games all hell breakes loose. Just buy the 1.1 add-on and be happy. All hell is not gonna break loose and your system will work as it did before. It's a copy protection scheme that actually seems to work somewhat. It's not the end of the world.

 

I know I'll be buying 1.1 and won't spend a single second worrying about SF. If something goes wrong I'll deal with it then.

 

All this hysteria and uninformed people going mad is really ridiculous. Most of you are adults for crying out loud, something worse than this has prolly happened in your life at some point .This is a piece of entertainment software worth of 35 dollars. Please try to put things into context.

 

(besides, it seems to be one heck of a game too, be happy)

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oh c'mon. PC games are selling less than GC games for crying out loud. PC as a gaming platform has been dieing for years.

 

What's the reason for this? pirates, warez and all that shit.

 

Well there's a broad sweeping statement if I ever saw one..

There's no doubt that piracy has cost the industry a lot of money over the years but it is also true that the numbers quoted by the industry tend to be a best-case scenario where everyone downloading a pirate copy would have bought the product at full price.

 

The primary reason that PC games have been in decline the last few years is the competition from consoles, both for customer base and also, more importantly, for developers. PC game development is much more complex than for console because of the wide variety of hardware that needs to be supported. A playstation is the same everywhere in the world, with only one variation - the TV format generated.

 

The customer base is also huge - there are a lot more people who own a gaming console than who own a gaming PC (yes there is a difference). From an economical point of view it really makes perfect sense: Developing for consoles costs less and reaches a much larger customer base. Those who still develop primarily for the PC platform must therefore be doing it because the platform offers unique features not found on a console (a keyboard and mouse for instance...) or because of the raw power offered by this platform compared to the cheap and relatively weak components that consoles are built from.

 

So while there is no doubt that piracy is a big part of the picture it is not the primary reason for the decline in PC game sales.

 

Now that gaming companies try to copy protect their games all hell breakes loose. Just buy the 1.1 add-on and be happy. All hell is not gonna break loose and your system will work as it did before. It's a copy protection scheme that actually seems to work somewhat. It's not the end of the world.

 

Again you make a big sweeping statement with no supporting facts. Personally I work in a large IS Operations department and one of our biggest problems is keeping our farm of windows hosts secure in the face of massive security flaws. I recently had the misfortune to suffer a complete harddrive failure due to a bad drive, and while reinstalling windows I accidentally connected my public interface to the internet before I'd installed a firewall application. Within half an hour I was infected with several worms that eventually forced me to wipe my OS partition and reinstall again. The primary reason this can happen is that the security mechanisms present in both the Operating System itself, and in the applications that run in it, are designed in a fashion that lends itself to being exploited and requires constant attention both from the developers and from the end-user.

 

And to exacerbate the problem we have these wonderful little applications, often so-called "security products", that take it upon themselves to circumvent those measures taken in the OS to protect the system from invasion, and usually end up introducing massive security flaws just waiting to be exploited. StarForce seems to fit nicely in this category - their desire to protect their investment (ie stop you from copying a CD) overrules the end-users need for a secure system, and so you end up paying them to compromise your system.

 

Many of you may know what a DDoS is, and why they are such a huge problem for any internet-connected host. But did you also know that security holes such as the one discovered in StarForce 1.X is exactly the type of loophole that these worms use?

 

Right now, this instant, the probability that someone will write a worm that uses StarForce to propagate itself is rather remote, because the target platform is relatively small compared to the potential host base that an Internet Explorer explit would reach for instance. But if/when StarForce becomes a commonly used standard in PC games, most consumer systems will have this driver installed. If the loophole is easily exploitable, it's fairly certain that someone will write a trojan that actively uses it as part of its suite of known exploits. If this happens, StarForce will have joined the steadily increasing ranks of "Security Companies" that rather than being part of the solution, have become part of the problem.

 

But hey - at least their legitimate customers won't be making illegal copies of THEIR protected software. Nossir. They'll leave it to the long-suffering IT departments, and their competitors who HAVE A CLUE to sort out that particular mess.

 

I know I'll be buying 1.1 and won't spend a single second worrying about SF. If something goes wrong I'll deal with it then.

 

All this hysteria and uninformed people going mad is really ridiculous. Most of you are adults for crying out loud, something worse than this has prolly happened in your life at some point .This is a piece of entertainment software worth of 35 dollars. Please try to put things into context.

 

(besides, it seems to be one heck of a game too, be happy)

 

I'll leave it to you to decide who the uninformed great unwashed masses are - I don't like fingerpointing myself.

 

As for context - you said it. This is a $35 piece of entertainment software, and I had my mind set to buy it until this latest fracas. Now I am pretty much decided not to buy it, for reasons that should be obvious. I am entirely capable of protecting myself against whatever security explits I might be introducing into my own system, however the best protection is to Just Say No. Which I am doing here and now.

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The primary reason that PC games have been in decline the last few years is the competition from consoles

 

certainly that is a big reason too, whether it is the "primary" reason can be discussed. Piracy has killed computer games business before, why couldn't it do so now (amiga, C64)

 

Developing for consoles costs less and reaches a much larger customer base.

 

Somewhat true, although devkits do cost a fortune and getting one for xbox is impossible atm

 

 

So while there is no doubt that piracy is a big part of the picture it is not the primary reason for the decline in PC game sales.

 

I beg to differ, but neither of us has any evidence to back us up I guess.

 

Again you make a big sweeping statement with no supporting facts. Personally I work in a large IS Operations department and one of our biggest problems is keeping our farm of windows hosts secure in the face of massive security flaws.

 

you go on, but basically what does this have to do with anything? SF ain't a virus nor is it a trojan. Protecting an individual computer is anyways easier than protecting a corporate network. Besides, I haven't seen you providing any facts either.

 

I agree that it is a bad design decision if SF really has this alleged security hole, am still not worried.

 

Many of you may know what a DDoS is, and why they are such a huge problem for any internet-connected host. But did you also know that security holes such as the one discovered in StarForce 1.X is exactly the type of loophole that these worms use?

erm, no. (read my next comment)

 

Right now, this instant, the probability that someone will write a worm that uses StarForce to propagate itself is rather remote, because the target platform is relatively small compared to the potential host base that an Internet Explorer explit would reach for instance. But if/when StarForce becomes a commonly used standard in PC games, most consumer systems will have this driver installed. If the loophole is easily exploitable, it's fairly certain that someone will write a trojan that actively uses it as part of its suite of known exploits. If this happens, StarForce will have joined the steadily increasing ranks of "Security Companies" that rather than being part of the solution, have become part of the problem.

 

AFAIK it needs a local host exploit, so I don't see this as a big problem really. If it comes to this, you already have a running trojan on your system and it could do bad things with or without StarForce. And if you have a running trojan on your system your comp can be used in a DDoS attack

 

I'll leave it to you to decide who the uninformed great unwashed masses are - I don't like fingerpointing myself.

 

hmph

 

As for context - you said it. This is a $35 piece of entertainment software, and I had my mind set to buy it until this latest fracas. Now I am pretty much decided not to buy it, for reasons that should be obvious. I am entirely capable of protecting myself against whatever security explits I might be introducing into my own system, however the best protection is to Just Say No. Which I am doing here and now.

 

frankly, I can't understand how (obviously) intelligent fellow like you would consider this to be that big an issue. Are you sure you aren't making this a bit too big a thing?

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Re: OK - MY thoughts on the v1.1 Copy Protection

 

 

 

IF YOU JUST SPENT HUNDREDs OF EUROS/POUNDS/DOLLARS ON A NEW RIG, WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT $35? REALLY?

 

If it means that ED's game is less piratable, I will continue to not care until a virus kills all the coursework on my system. Now . . . . something like that has never happened. Not to me, not to anyone I know. And I continue to believe that this software brings no more serious risk to your PC than browsing the internet and using email every day.

 

It is not the question to pay 35 bucks for LOMAC 1.1 or not.

 

There already was a discussion about the StarForce copy protection on the Swiss/German foum at http://www.lockon-forum.ch/php/forum/index.php, when I raised this topic there.

The point is - an this is common opinion over there - that

 

1. StarForce as a copy protection software is crap, and that this piece of junk software will scare off many potential buyers of LOMAC 1.1 as it was posted over there several times.

 

2. Any copy protection is bogus, because it usually take only some weeks that a No-CD Patch or key generator or you-name-it will be available for those really looking for it so why is ED doing this anyway ?

Let's face it, any copy protection will not disrupt pirating a new game, only slowing it down - who wants to play a stolen copy will find a way doing this. And honest buyers like me and you and the vast majority here and in France/UK/Swiss/Germany will pay for the game if it's worth it. No doubt that LOMAC 1.1 IS worth it!

I don't like the idea to have a piece of software (StarForce) installed on my PC, which I cannot have entirely control over (like WinXP - who really knows what it really 'phones back home' to MS ?) and that repeatedly caused trouble with other games like ToCa - Race Driver 2, Black Mirror, Traitor's Gate 2 and Broken Sword 3 and any virtual drives.

 

The last thing that I need is a copy protected LOMAC 1.1! :evil:

I pay for the CD or Download and that's it. I recommend that everbody does a search on the internet to find out about this copy protection software "StarForce" in order to make up your mind about the possible trouble that it will cause.

 

Start here: http://www.bigkid.com.au/2004/06/13/starforce_protection_blues/

 

Just my 0.02 $

kind regards,

Raven....

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Now that gaming companies try to copy protect their games all hell breakes loose. Just buy the 1.1 add-on and be happy. All hell is not gonna break loose and your system will work as it did before. It's a copy protection scheme that actually seems to work somewhat. It's not the end of the world.

 

Vipe-, I don't think so:

 

see http://club.cdfreaks.com/lite/t-97861

 

1.

"The StarForce device drivers conflicted with the device

drivers for my USB memory drive, and caused my machine to

crash (BSOD) whenever I plugged in my memory drive. This

problem has not yet been resolved by Dreamcatcher."

 

2.

"Here's some proof. http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=75718&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1 That's all we have so far, though. I'm sure the Starforce drivers take up unnecessary CPU cycles which also slow your computer down. Also, imagine the trouble that could cause if all these different copy protections started inserting drivers that you didn't know about..."

 

3.

"

star-force drivers need to be updated at every Windows Service Pack. They rely on undocumented features of the OS which are subject to change at any time.

 

Don't believe me?

http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1061548782/#details

 

From http://www.star-force.com/index.phtml?category=107&type=5 (i.e the FAQ)

 

This means the publisher needs to provide support for years to come for their star-force protected game. If they don't (which is what usually happens), then on the next ServicePack/windows update, your computer will throw a nice Blue screen of death at you, and you will not be able to play a game you paid for.

 

I smell law suits"

 

..Just as an entree. These postings are at least enough to further investigate this subject.

kind regards,

Raven....

[sigpic]http://www.crc-mindreader.de/CRT/images/Birds2011.gif[/sigpic]

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Guest ruggbutt

 

I smell law suits"

 

 

And the other thing that hasn't been discussed is this. Good luck w/any recourse. You're gonna hire a lawyer to sue a company based in teh CIS? Lawsuits are completely out of the question.

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copy protection

 

I didn't want to participate in these starforce panic threads.. but I just couldn't stand in anylonger

 

so my 2 cents:

 

The best solution to convince people to buy the game is

UNIQUE CDKEY REQUIRED FOR ONLINE PLAY

.period.

 

not any starforce, someforce, cdcheckforce or whatever kind of protections, that are broken moments after the release.

I can bet my money FC will be cracked and crack will be on .ru sites ;) in matter of days after FC release :evil:

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golfsierra2: I'm aware that there is issues with SF, I also know that it is a somewhat working copy protection that is really hard to crack.

 

Not saying it won't be done but still, it ain't that easy and every hour that 1.1 stays uncracked means some sales to ED.

 

shamandgg: that would work if most users would even go online to play LOMAC

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Re: copy protection

 

I didn't want to participate in these starforce panic threads.. but I just couldn't stand in anylonger

 

so my 2 cents:

 

The best solution to convince people to buy the game is

UNIQUE CDKEY REQUIRED FOR ONLINE PLAY

.period.

 

not any starforce, someforce, cdcheckforce or whatever kind of protections, that are broken moments after the release.

I can bet my money FC will be cracked and crack will be on .ru sites ;) in matter of days after FC release :evil:

 

this requires a dedicated server and last I check there was no dedicated server hosting by ED. THe only checking only works if the company is prepared to run a lobby type system like EA

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Re: copy protection

 

I didn't want to participate in these starforce panic threads.. but I just couldn't stand in anylonger

 

so my 2 cents:

 

The best solution to convince people to buy the game is

UNIQUE CDKEY REQUIRED FOR ONLINE PLAY

.period.

 

not any starforce, someforce, cdcheckforce or whatever kind of protections, that are broken moments after the release.

I can bet my money FC will be cracked and crack will be on .ru sites ;) in matter of days after FC release :evil:

 

This is the best thing i hear here...this kind of security works very well in raven shield

Rodrigo Monteiro

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How about clearing cmos booting to windows then overclocking? Or how about just a bios update. Doing these things makes my cpu register diff so I guess if lockon does its typical lockup and I have to clear the cmos I would have to pay for a new key after a couple online sessions?

 

:roll:

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