Mike D Posted May 17, 1999 Share Posted May 17, 1999 BTS / BF, I got to thinking after reading through the copy protection discussion about another game (I believe it was the WarCraft series) a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly that game allowed a person to "spawn" a watered down copy of the game on a friends machine so that someone who had purchased the game could play head to head w/ a friend. The watered down version was installed on your friends hard disk and only allowed the second person to connect and play w/ a person who had the actual CD in their machine. I'm not sure if the original disk had some type of code, or not, to permit spawned copies to only play head to head w/ the original disk they were spawned from, but that may have been the case. In any event, the person w/ the watered down version could not play a single player game himself and could not play a multiplayer game against someone else that didnt have an actual CD of the game in their drive. I.e. a person w/ a spawned copy couldn't play head to head w/ someone else that only had a spawned copy. I assume the thought behind the spawning was to get more people interested in the game and hopefully boost sales as a result. I don't know if it worked, or not, but always thought it was a neat idea. I believe WC2 and maybe all the other games in the series that followed also had this feature. I know that it did result in my friend buying the game after we had installed the spawned version on his machine and played several games head to head because he wanted to do the following things that the spawned copy did not offer: 1) he liked the game so much that he wanted to go through the single player campaign, 2) more importantly he wanted to have is own copy of the game so that he could practice up in between our head to head sessions, and 3) Warcraft also included a map editor and scenario builder that he wanted to have because they are fun to play with. Bottom line is I havn't seen much of this type of thing done, maybe only 1 or 2 other games that I can't remember the titles of right off hand which have provided similar multiplayer capabilities from purchasing a single software license. In any event it might be something to consider for CM, or any of your other wargames for that matter. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 05-17-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted May 17, 1999 Author Share Posted May 17, 1999 Steve, The editing your prior messages thing works pretty well. Now that I've fixed the one above, can I delete this one? Probably not I guess. Anyway, in response to your reply below if you guys are considering "spawned" copies for head to head play that is great. Thanks. Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 05-17-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted May 17, 1999 Share Posted May 17, 1999 Being someone who has put in several hundred hours into Warcraft II (this happens when you work for a games company with 30 people connected via Ethernet <g>) I can say that it is a very nice feature. We will look into trying something like it. Can't promise anything though. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Rock Posted September 16, 1999 Share Posted September 16, 1999 I would strongly endorse this feature. I've often wondered why more companies didn't adopt it. I agree with Mike: it gave players a chance to try (limited) multiplayer play without having to buy two copies, and in any case often prompted people to go out and buy their own if they liked it. At least that's how it worked in the labs here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Peltz Posted September 16, 1999 Share Posted September 16, 1999 I think spawning would be an excellent thing to do. I pay a horrendous amount for games here in Canada, and I won't buy anything now unless I can get a demo or play a sample game from a spawn. As mentioned elsewhere, by the time I get my copy of CM, it will have ended up costing me close to $80 Canadian. I played a spawned version of Diablo, and although it seemed like a nice enough game, it wasn't really my bag, so I gave it a miss, and saved $70. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted September 16, 1999 Share Posted September 16, 1999 Demos are a must for me too Kevin. The only problem is when the Demo is really geared to make the game seem great when it in fact isn't. The ones most likely to do this are Empire Builders. You know, they let you go for about 20 turns and the cut you off. What you don't get is the full feel of the game, and the later these games go the more important things like balance become. Thankfully, CM doesn't have to worry about this. If you play a battle in the demo and think it is neat, the full version will only be better We still hope to get spawning into the first release. We have never done spawning before so are not sure what it will take. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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