CD-Rom Protection and T:V

Well actually.. I forgot that T:V will have a single player :p ... so I guess some protection is in order, otherwise (like Thrax said), someone will just copy the CD and give it to friends (just for single player).

Why not this idea though... Have a "solo" and "online" (just like T2), but this time... have it require a CD when playing "solo" (offline), and NOT when you're playing "online". Just require a login (that can be set to autologin, mind you), when playing "online".

Eh EH EEHH???
How about no.
It's not that big of a deal to put the cd in the drive to start the game. If they care enough about having to put the cd in the drive they'll find a nocd.

Well, unless it's a DVD, one CD only holds 700MB. Many games are multiple CD's now, so do you not only want to have to have a CD in there, but have to swap them as well? ;)
I think the last game I played that made me swap CDs was Baldur's Gate 1.

I don't know about where you guys live, but here if you buy for example warcraft 3 or Half-life you can't return them because of that you need the cd-key to play them.

And no matter what copy-protection they put on the cd it will still be cracked.

But since I love Tribes I'll definitley buy it

All Sierra games have a return policy.

that complicates matters, but as I said earlier it will be cracked, no matter how hard they try to protect it. So just put in enough protection to not make it too easy and not too much so that you drive the legal gamers insane with the complexity.

It's not SecuROM, that's for sure. Check the copy protection on Homeworld 2. That's our standard set. It does exactly what we expect of it, and it does help stop piracy. Remember, less than 5% of our audience are sofisticated computer users. The job of the copy protection is to stop casual copying of CDs. I'm not trying to stop Ixiterra or other TW folks from installing a no-cd. I am trying to keep my Uncle from making a copy for his buddy at work.

Please bitch all you want about copy protection. The day people stop stealing my software is the day I'll stop trying to prevent that theft.
Actually, despite having drivers installed I could not run HW2 with my HP cd/r/rw. It is not an obscure drive but for some reason it just wouldn't do.

I actually had to go disect an external drive intended to go through a parallel or printer port (can't remember) and put that drive into my machine. The 36x or whatever drive couldn't make it work but no problems for the 4x one. :(

I really liked the T2 style but I realize that would not protect the single player aspect. What about that for multiplayer and CD required for single player? That way someone who's finished the game and only playing multi could even give the CD to a friend and they might get hooked and buy the game so they can play multi.

Protect you creation! Not adding copy protection is like having sex without a rubber. Next thing you know, duplicates will be everywhere.

How about no.
It's not that big of a deal to put the cd in the drive to start the game. If they care enough about having to put the cd in the drive they'll find a nocd.It's a big deal to people like me who don't have 3 or 4 CD drives, and play several games (that require CDs). I play online portion of games, a LOT more than the single player... in fact, I probably start and stop T2over 10 times a day. It would drive me up the fucking wall to have to make sure the CD is in the drive, everytime I wanted to play. And no, I'm not going to waste a ~700MB more space on my harddrive and use Daemon.

I think the idea of not requiring the CD, when in "online mode" is ingenious. Think about it.. the "online" part (hopefully), requires you to login with a (hopefully) unique login... that way NO ONE can warez/share a CD and play online (like T2). There is NO reason to REQUIRE a CD for online play.

Now in "solo mode" (single player, whatever)... it should require a CD, so that (as Thrax said), so-in-so's cousin doesn't just copy the CD for his buddy and play the game all he wants (sinlge player).

Hmm, just out of curiosity...
You know these games that apparently know if you're using an emulation drive or not?
Can't you just burn the image to CD and run off of that?

Hmm, just out of curiosity...
You know these games that apparently know if you're using an emulation drive or not?
Can't you just burn the image to CD and run off of that?
The whole point is to not have to use a cd...

How about this idea...
Allow the player to have the option of playing the single player game with CD + CD-Key, or by Internet validation of a CD-Key only. Multiplayer is CD-Key Internet validation only.
Either way, you need a CD key.
Under this type of protection, yes...it is still possible to share 1 copy (of single player only) with a friend. But that friend would likely be motivated to purchase a license in order to play multiplayer with you.

But the bottom line is: This provides sufficient protection against casual copying, while at the same time - the hardcore gamers have no need for a nocd crack.

The whole point is to not have to use a cd...

Yeah I know, but my point is that in general, users that are competent enough to use emulation software are also competent enough to burn CD's using such programs. Thus this method is not as effective against warez. It is more of just an inconvenience to legit users.

Granted, it *does* cause the warez user a bit more trouble, since now s/he has to purchase the CD-Rs (0.33 USD per CD or less) and spend a whole 5 mins (or less) waiting for the burn </sarcasm>.

How about this idea...
Allow the player to have the option of playing the single player game with CD + CD-Key, or by Internet validation of a CD-Key only. Multiplayer is CD-Key Internet validation only.
Either way, you need a CD key.
Under this type of protection, yes...it is still possible to share 1 copy (of single player only) with a friend. But that friend would likely be motivated to purchase a license in order to play multiplayer with you.

But the bottom line is: This provides sufficient protection against casual copying, while at the same time - the hardcore gamers have no need for a nocd crack.

:clap:

Think about it.. the "online" part (hopefully), requires you to login with a (hopefully) unique login... that way NO ONE can warez/share a CD and play online (like T2)..

I have seen alot of people say this but I believe I have seen thrax say many times that this would not be in T:V or that he is not for it. So I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

blizzard made an emergency patch to the copy-protection stuff, not sure exactly what they did. This is the patch notes:

- PATCH 1.13b

FIXES

- Fixed an issue related to copy protection.

I see the need for the copy-protection designed for the average user, and I see why the computer-savvy people are against it. There can't be an agreeable medium, so I think that most people who want to get around it will either download a crack or mount it. I'll probably end up mounting it, or just leave the CD in the drive.

No matter what copy protection is used , there is always someone who can breach it. The only thing that bugs me is , having a top o the line machine, only to have it limited, by having to use the CD-Rom ( Can you say big time bottle neck, 3 times fast! ) Every time your system has to go to the CD-rom to get information , it slows you down! 5,200 rpm apposed to 7,200 rpm is a big diff. Even bigger if your running 10,000 rpm raptor's or a 15,000 rpm scsi Drive. Basically i would rather i get all the info off my HD and deal with the swap file , than the CD-rom. In a perfect world we would all have enough System ram to have a ram drive , after all memory is the fastest in your system.

--Fatal

better late than never I guess

I use mounting from images for ease of use. T2's login system is the best software protection I've seen yet, it does its job and doesn't put any huge burden on a legitmate software holder.Except it really didn't work at stopping multiple logins.

I'm still pissed off that my relatively new cd-rom drive cannot read these crap install discs. And it isn't the discs, they worked fine on a machine at work. Nevertheless, I'm exchanging them at EBGames claiming they are defective. New cd-rom is on it's way via fedex. I'll keep returning stuff till I get a combo that works, first time without a hitch.

Recommended Specs - 24x or faster CD-ROM drive :p