Moon
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Posts posted by Moon
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As mentioned in the other thread:
Sorry to hear that you guys feel "cheated". It certainly wasn't our intention to mislead anyone. Unlike previous manuals which were designed by us, the print and PDF versions were supplied by 1C this time around. Not that it makes any difference of course.We have learned from the last "misunderstanding" about physical goods (where people complained that the CM British Forces module came without a manual) and added an info bar to each product page since then, to make it more clear what is and what isn't included. I guess we're going to add page counts for the next releases.
Martin
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Sorry to hear that you guys feel "cheated". It certainly wasn't our intention to mislead anyone. Unlike previous manuals which were designed by us, the print and PDF versions were supplied by 1C this time around. Not that it makes any difference of course.
We have learned from the last "misunderstanding" about physical goods (where people complained that the CM British Forces module came without a manual) and added an info bar to each product page since then, to make it more clear what is and what isn't included. I guess we're going to add page counts for the next releases.
Martin
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Also another question? when am i getting my manual. i live in canada but why is it taking so long
From previous experience, it's probably Canadian customs
We've seen some delays there when shipping from the US in the past. -
You've linked to an article, not, say, the publisher's product page, so it's not a commercial link.
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Well I'm not buying the argument by some that they can read the manual for more than 5 min without getting a headache. So what if maybe 5% of the customers can read the manual with no problems. What about the other 95% of us that feel 'cheated' out of a decent reference manual.
Well the one good thing to come from the difficult to read manual is that I usually post more and learn more about my issue than the manual could have told me. However, I think I piss people off like 'Sea Monkey' who wonder why I don't refer to the manual before posting. Where there exist at least a PDF verison of the manual to alt-tab to:rolleyes:?There is a PDF manual installed with the game.
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I can't believe you actually thought this was a good idea.
Not a "good idea" but the best of two evils. The two options are: Either we split the manual and print only a portion of it to fit into the case, or we squeeze the manual within the 96 pages we have to fit into the case. Both have drawbacks and none of them is ideal, but those are the choices we have. (To see how people are "liking" the other choice of printing a partial manual, have a look inside the TOW Kursk forum...)
BTW, we cannot print a manual that is bigger than the DVD box since we are shipping finished goods for sale "on the shelf" by our distribution partners.
I dare anyone to read page 158 without going blind.I can read page 158 fine. None of the text or letters is blurry. It's small but readable. We went with hi-quality paper and print to ensure that it is. Again - ideal? No. But the only other alternative would have been that you would have to look up page 158 (and 100+ other pages) in your PDF file.
Anyway, the printed manual is nearly sold out already...
Martin
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Please submit a support ticket at www.battlefront.com/helpdesk. Several of the points you listed (e.g. points 1, 2 and 5) don't make sense. Something else must be blocking the installation. Also, if you had the runservice.exe file originally (under 2), then most likely this has nothing to do with eLicense. The fact that "nothing works" no matter what you do indicates that we're looking in the wrong place. Only by submitting a ticket will we be able to get to the bottom of this as it will require more information about your system.
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Sorry guys, there was some kind of error with the file on the Repository server. It should work now, though. The download (attempt) limit is for 24 hours only and automatically expires.
Martin
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Heh, no, I actually am short-sighted on one eye and far-sighted on the other. Makes for an interesting experience occasionally
The font size used is 6 point I think. No doubt small, but due to the crisp print I find it readable. Perhaps not for hours on end.
Martin
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I am wondering if it is possible to make a disc copy of the downloable version, given the DRM that comes with it.
The term DRM is way too casually applied to completely different systems. Our "DRM" is not a copy protection by design. It's actually the whole point of it. You can copy as much as you like. It's the "activation" of the game itself which is protected. That's whay we in fact strongly recommend that you make a local copy (burn to disc, USB stick, external HD) after downloading the setup files, but your download period expires after 365 days or 10 downloads automatically.
Martin
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There has been a problem with the files, it should be ok now.
Martin
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Morildar,
your comparison between Battlefront and the other services is comparing apples and oranges. The other services are digital download storefronts. They do nothing else but sell you games via download. They are online services and nothing else. As such, it would be weird if they didn't offer "digital storage" for your games. (Having said that, are you sure that the downloads are infinite? Have you bought the other games you mention 18 months ago as well or later?)
We are a games developer and publisher. You buy the game from us, we deliver it via download, and that's where the purchase contract ends. We do not offer digital storage for your games. Perhaps we will do at some point in the future, but we do not do it now.
The download limit is not unreasonable at all. If you compare us to the other apples out there, not the oranges, you will see that in fact our download limit is very liberal. There are publishers out there that allow you one or two downloads and that's it. Or that have a download limit of one month or even just 24 hours.
You also have to keep in mind that some of the companies that offer digital storage have their games locked in a way that you cannot copy them. Ours are freely copyable, so really, the extra downloads are an EXTRA if something goes wrong. Normally, you do not need more than one download at all, even if you want to install on several PCs. If your download is corrupt, or if you forget to make a backup and go back half a year later to redownload, that's what the extras are intended for.
The download will also expire in 365 days, regardless of the number of downloads(even if it's zero).No. This is incorrect. Your download period of 365 days starts with your first download. If your download count is zero, then your download will not expire in 365 days at all. You are getting worked up about something you do not seem to understand, and make incorrect assumptions about. There is nothing utterly absurd or unreasonable about it.
The $5 re-download offer is a ONE TIME remedy if you forgot to make a local backup, burn to disc, or if you lost your backup. We also do make exceptions in special cases were we simply extend the download, e.g. if it expired just a week or so ago, or if your house burned down or whatever. The $5 is not a SERVICE. It's an exception to the rule. We do not offer digital storage, and the $5 is not something that we want to make a business out of. But we do want to help customers that otherwise would be stuck.
The reason why we do not offer digital storage is the cost associated with it. Bandwidth is not free. You may not be paying for it directly these days in many cases, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't cost anything, rather that someone else is paying for it. In order to allow people to download games of often well over 1 GB in size at will we would need to invest in infrastructure to make this possible at a reasonable cost. As it is, the cost for one download per game is roughly $1 for us!
One of the reasons for this is Battlefront's size. We're too small to simply set up our own server park. We are not a storefront re-selling 2000 game titles. On the other hand, we're too big for the various "cheap bandwidth hosting" solutions out there. Our monthly bandwidth is in the Terrabytes range. At the same time we're delivering games to customers worldwide and we have huge peaks after releases (such as this month for example). All of this requires way more in infrastructure than a free Mediafire account
Or even just one dedicated server.We may offer digital storage at some point. Other things that services such as the ones you mentioned do are not lost on us, most of all the digital matchmaking/community part. In addition to making games we do work on some solutions to this regard, and once we introduce them, unlimited downloads would have to be part of the package naturally. The investment and the effort needed to implement something like this anytime soon however is beyond our current resources as a small team.
Martin
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Please check the www.battlefront.com/helpdesk for "I launch the game and nothing happens" in the eLicense category. Most likely the proper installation of the game was already blocked by either UAC, your anti-virus program, or DEP. You can verify this by looking into the c:\Windows folder. If you do not see the file runservice.exe there, then the game installation was blocked.
I would try to uninstall the game, set the installer to Run as admin (copy it from disc to your HD if needed first), and then try to install again. Temporarily disabling your Anti-virus program or setting an exception to leave the file alone may help as well.
Martin
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Sorry to hear that you feel this way. Personally, I find the manual absolutely readable despite the small fonts.
The manual is large, about 200 pages. Only about 100 will fit into a DVD box. So we had to make a choice - either split the manual in half and print one half and leave the other, or print it in full in the way we did. The former would have been nicer looking but less practical, because you'd have half of the manual in PDF only, and half in print. The latter is looking less nice, but it's more practical, because you have everything in one printed reference. There are pro's and con's for both approaches - and we have in fact chosen differently for a couple of games in the past. For SC Global we felt that a FULL printed manual was the better choice, especially because the print is very clear, so even the small fonts are absolutely readable.
Martin
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The proper place for tech support is www.battlefront.com/helpdesk.
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Please submit a support ticket at www.battlefront.com/helpdesk. I believe Ian has a solution for this.
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I can't be more precise because it depends on the partners. I would imagine sometime in the mid to late summer.
Martin
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A German version will be released later this year by a distribution partner.
Our (english language Battlefront.com version) boxed games are beginning to ship as I am typing this.
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Really? Games like IL2 manage it OK, and there is a lot going on there.
Actually, there is much less going on there than you think. Don't confuse a lot of eyecandy with the stuff that CM has to do under the hood.
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The downloadable version includes a PDF manual. There is no way to download a printed manual
So if that's what you want, you should order the "download & mail" or "mail only" option. The printed manual I guess is why most people order that option, that plus the fact that your download expires and some people find it nicer to have the original CD rather than having to burn their own backup copy. -
eLicense is encrypting these (and other) files to prevent the game from being hacked. This encryption is very good (it hasn't been cracked), and your AV program cannot decode it. Not knowing what it is, it has therefore flagged the file as possible virus. But it's not. Depending on which AV program you're using, you have various tools to improve this behavior of your AV program, e.g. by setting exceptions, turning off heuristic scanning (which is the equivalent of the AV program "guessing") etc. Either way, it's a "false positive" - there is no virus contained in those files. Reporting this to the company that produced your AV program may help, too, as they sometimes issue updates to avoid such problems in the future.
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I am the admin so saying I should run it in admin mode will be a moot point.
Actually, as of Windows Vista, it's not because even if you are running with your main account, you do not automatically have administrator rights. Having said that, this shouldn't be an issue for the demo either way, so it's definitely not related to having or not having admin rights.
Just like I see there is a patch already within only a few days of its release.. Whats up with that.It's a sign of dedication to the games we publish and develop. We patch games not only to fix bugs but also to add and expand and improve features that are in the game. This specific patch for Kursk for example improves the Computer AI player by a lot.
The game has been tested and works on the 64 bit edition, it is in fact even listed in the "recommended specifications". The problem is most likely something else, like a driver/video card problem for example. You *may* get support here as the devs as well as our own resident tech guru, Ian (Schrullenhaft) are frequenting the forum, but the official place for tech support is www.battlefront.com/helpdesk.
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All of our games are using eLicense protection. It isn't a DRM as such but rather an "activation" system for you game. There are many DRM systems out there and measuring them all with the same yardstick is a bad approach, because there are good ones and bad ones. eLicense is a good one. You can find more details about eLicense in our Knowledgebase at www.battlefront.com/helpdesk.
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Please note that the correct place for technical support from the devs is www.battlefront.com/helpdesk.
We've seen some delays there when shipping from the US in the past.
Well the one good thing to come from the difficult to read manual is that I usually post more and learn more about my issue than the manual could have told me. However, I think I piss people off like 'Sea Monkey' who wonder why I don't refer to the manual before posting. Where there exist at least a PDF verison of the manual to alt-tab to:rolleyes:?
Or even just one dedicated server.
Hard copy "manual" with physical order is somewhat under whelming
in Theatre of War 2 : Kursk 1943
Posted
No, people pirate PC games regardless. We have learned this lesson the hard way with T-72, which was massively pirated (it was released by us without a copy protection) and yet it came with a large 80 page or so manual.