A Canadian Cat Posted January 28, 2018 Share Posted January 28, 2018 7 hours ago, TheBlackHand said: You will need all your licence keys This is my problem. All solvable. If you have the email info etc support can help you out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted January 28, 2018 Share Posted January 28, 2018 7 hours ago, TheBlackHand said: The anti-hacking methods have become anti-player methods. LOL, yep that is the nature of DRM. It causes speed bumps for determined hackers and big fat pains in the butt for some legitimate customers. Weighing those factors is always necessary. I think for games it is pretty clear it is necessary. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted January 28, 2018 Share Posted January 28, 2018 27 minutes ago, IanL said: LOL, yep that is the nature of DRM. It causes speed bumps for determined hackers and big fat pains in the butt for some legitimate customers. Weighing those factors is always necessary. I think for games it is pretty clear it is necessary. And frankly BFs implementation is not particularly difficult. If you find the current licensing model that hard, I can’t imagine how you manage to play the game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBlackHand Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 I've been playing the game since about the year 2000. I've purchased every iteration and expansion module. Yes, it is rather difficult to maintain the discs and keys and everything else that it takes to play this game in 2018. Of course, it's easy for someone like you. So is being an asshole. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 8 minutes ago, TheBlackHand said: Of course, it's easy for someone like you. So is being an asshole. Well that was uncalled for (regardless of who you are talking about). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 1 hour ago, TheBlackHand said: I've been playing the game since about the year 2000. I've purchased every iteration and expansion module. Yes, it is rather difficult to maintain the discs and keys and everything else that it takes to play this game in 2018. Of course, it's easy for someone like you. So is being an asshole. Well, that earned you a 1 week time out. I get that you're frustrated, but lashing out at others and breaking Forum rules is simply unacceptable. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 With that unfortunate, and completely uncalled for, incident taken care of... We hate DRM more than our customers. It costs us a LOT of money to license, it costs us a ton of time to implement, and it costs us even more time to support. We also understand that our customers don't like it and that it produces ill feelings towards us, despite our best efforts to keep the impact of DRM to a minimum. Nobody has more incentive to get rid of DRM than we do. Period. Yet we use it DRM. An intelligent person, frustrated or not, would presume that because we still use DRM that we do so for a pretty darned good reason and not to torture ourselves and our customers. And the simple reason is that gamers are prone to not paying for things if they aren't forced to. Oh for sure, not ALL gamers. Absolutely. But in this thin margin, niche business we're in we can't afford to have even a small percentage of our customers bypassing compensating us for our work. We would be out of business pretty soon. The argument that we'd attract more paying customers if we dropped DRM is a foolish experiment that others are welcome to try out, but since it means losing our ability to earn a living... not something we're interested in playing around with. Also, as a consumer I don't like being in a situation where I pay for what I use while someone else has the option to not. Therefore, I think it is completely irresponsible as a game maker to expect a few good people to make up for the fact that others are getting a free ride. We aren't running a charity here and so I don't think any of us should be thinking it's OK for people to play without paying. With all that said, it is our responsibility to make sure we have the least invasive DRM we can reasonably have. That has, over time, changed as our games and the DRM software we use have evolved. Engine 4 marks a big improvement over the somewhat chaotic legacy methods we had previously used. As of Engine 4 we have a universal installer for each Family that contains 100% of all data for that Family. We still offer Update installers which are incremental because that's very useful for people who aren't doing fresh installs. All in all our DRM is much less invasive than others out there. There's still some legacy issues that will be with us for a long time, such as the old method of issuing printed license keys for physical products that can't be retrieved electronically. Engine 4 allowed us to move away from that nonsense too! Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Jack Ripper Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 50 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said: Yet we use it DRM. DRM has been around since software was invented. Once upon a time, when you bought a PC game, it came with a 16 digit serial number that was printed inside the game manual. That serial number had to be entered during the installation process, or you couldn't play your game. Period. Your setup is largely similar, and is not difficult to use. I don't get why people are complaining... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 Once upon a time, you had to have the original disk in the slot. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 1 hour ago, SLIM said: DRM has been around since software was invented. Once upon a time, when you bought a PC game, it came with a 16 digit serial number that was printed inside the game manual. That serial number had to be entered during the installation process, or you couldn't play your game. Period. Your setup is largely similar, and is not difficult to use. I don't get why people are complaining... I do. Well, at least why some are complaining Up until Engine 4 there's been a slightly different course of action for each of the Families because they were made at various times and were not yet unified. Which meant that installing CMFI v3 was different than CMBN v3 and different from CMRT v3. Etc. Confusing, for sure. Now everything uses the same installer strategy so all products have the same experience for installation. The other big issue, for some, is keeping track of keys. For those who purchased only a few download products from one store account (instead of making multiple ones) it's pretty easy to keep track of and/or retrieve keys. The more products one owns, the more keys to maintain. And if some of those products are physical ones bought years ago before we had the ability to provide digital keys it is even more difficult. Currently I think the most amount of frustration comes from people who try to piece together installations from multiple installers. Even more frustrating for them when they try to do it for multiple Families concurrently. Especially if they don't follow instructions and install something older over the Engine 4 installation. No good comes from doing that! These are all valid complaints about CM's DRM, which is why we have addressed them as best we can over the last few years. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 13 minutes ago, Erwin said: Once upon a time, you had to have the original disk in the slot. WHILE playing the game too! Ugh, those were not good days. Especially because 5.25" floppies were not very robust. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Jack Ripper Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said: These are all valid complaints about CM's DRM, which is why we have addressed them as best we can over the last few years. Yes, and you've done a good job making the licensing system easy and intuitive. It certainly is a far cry from the old E-License System used for Shock Force. I do think the customer deserves to take some responsibility for using the product correctly though. Having recently installed Shock Force, Battle for Normandy, and Fortress Italy, using three different installation types (fresh on my Win 10 machine), using both physical media (Shock Force and CMBN + Commonwealth + Market Garden) as well as the all-digital installers (CMBN 3.0 and 4.0 Upgrades, and CMFI Master Installer), I had absolutely no problems with any of it, so long as one actually sits down and thinks for a few minutes before clicking the 'Install' button. At any time one can simply come to the forum and ask for help. People here are more than happy to provide step-by-step instructions for those having difficulty. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 It could be that us oldsters having gotten used to one way of doing thing, then learning a new way... now it's different again - well something about teaching an old dog new tricks. FWIW: I absolutely detest being forced to learn a new OS (Win 10) when I spent ages learning Win7 after Win XP after Win 98 etc etc etc... and Win 10 does nothing for me that Win 7 already does very well. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted February 1, 2018 Share Posted February 1, 2018 4 hours ago, SLIM said: Yes, and you've done a good job making the licensing system easy and intuitive. It certainly is a far cry from the old E-License System used for Shock Force. I do think the customer deserves to take some responsibility for using the product correctly though. Having recently installed Shock Force, Battle for Normandy, and Fortress Italy, using three different installation types (fresh on my Win 10 machine), using both physical media (Shock Force and CMBN + Commonwealth + Market Garden) as well as the all-digital installers (CMBN 3.0 and 4.0 Upgrades, and CMFI Master Installer), I had absolutely no problems with any of it, so long as one actually sits down and thinks for a few minutes before clicking the 'Install' button. At any time one can simply come to the forum and ask for help. People here are more than happy to provide step-by-step instructions for those having difficulty. Yep. I have a simple file on my pc where I keep all my license keys (and not just the ones for BF products) and have it password protected. I need my keys, there they are including the ones that still have physical media (CMSF). I also have the instructions for shock force copied on that same file. My intent was not to be a jerk to anyone, but CMSF is the hardest of the games to install and I have done it multiple times no problem. It really isn’t that hard. It is much harder trying to remember how to avoid my guys getting killed fighting from a balcony etc. pretty soon even shock force will be a single installer with activation keys. It really is not that hard. Honestly the hardest thing for me is trying to keep a good place for storing the physical media. I am way happier with the current download model and storing copies on USB, cloud storage etc. pretty soon having a disk is going to be useless as you wont have a reader. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dauntless_dad Posted February 3, 2018 Share Posted February 3, 2018 On 12/30/2017 at 1:59 PM, Elvis said: I'm probably too late to help too but I'll put this in case anyone else reads it looking for the information..... If you purchased the 4.0 Big Bundle, to do full installations of each game you would download the Full Windows/Mac versions for each title. For instance the full game installer for a Windows computer for CMBN is called "CMBN 4.0 Full Windows". That will install everything through the 4.0 Upgrade. The base game and every module, patch, Upgrade and Pack. From there you will need to activate things. Here are the keys you'll need for each title....assuming that you own everything (some items may be part of a Bundle but I think you'll get the idea): CMBN: 4.0, 3.0, Market Garden, Commonwealth, Vehicle Pack, Battle Pack CMRT: original base game and 4.0 CMFI: base game, 4.0, 3.0 and Gustav Line CMBS: base game and 4.0 As mentioned above, CMBS also has the 2.01 patch that needs to be installed. The 2.01 patch and CMBS Battle Pack are the exact same download. The only difference is that when you purchase the Pack you get a key to "unlock" the content. I can dig how much of a pain it may be to dig through your account for all of the key. Whenever I get a new key for something I add it to a Word document that I keep so that I can get to them easily. This is exactly the information I was looking for. Thanks, Elvis! I just downloaded all of Engine 4 installers and am planning to uninstall my old versions (at least BN and FI) and do a clean install of the latest versions. I'll also be doing fresh installs on a future gaming laptop sometime this year (fingers crossed). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted Posted February 3, 2018 Share Posted February 3, 2018 I'm not sure if this has been mentioned here or is relevant but if you go to "My Account" from the battlefront home page it will show you all your purchases and all the License Keys. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PIATpunk Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 ^^ that. I don't understand the frustration myself. But then again, I have friends my age that still don't know what Windows file explorer is. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dauntless_dad Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 I just updated all five of my games and I didn't find it difficult at all with a printout of the forum instructions in hand. Unlike what I said above, I decided to just install the upgrades and not do full reinstalls of the games. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBlackHand Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 Note to self: When your intelligence has been insulted by someone with a higher post count do not respond to this provocation in direct terms as you will be sent to the corner while Teacher's Pet gets to gloat. Now, back to tearing the room apart in a futile search for ancient jewel cases emblazoned with secret codes with which to access a game that I've payed hundreds of dollars for. Yes, I'm sure this is all my fault and I should be more careful with my money. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFCElvis Posted February 10, 2018 Share Posted February 10, 2018 19 hours ago, TheBlackHand said: Now, back to tearing the room apart in a futile search for ancient jewel cases emblazoned with secret codes with which to access a game that I've payed hundreds of dollars for. Yes, I'm sure this is all my fault and I should be more careful with my money. If you open a ticket with the Help Desk I might be able to help you with some of your search. Let me know if I can help. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6plus1SMC Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 Hi all I had a PC crash and need to re-install CMBN, CMFI, CMRT and CMFB with all expansions. From the thread above I understand I only need to DL the Upgrade 4 (and all keys) for all games, but when accessing the files under my account I see two Windows Files - I am correct in assuming that both IS needed. Please see screenie attached regarding FI - I Need both the marked - and shall install the " 2 full" first and then the "Upgrade 4"? Thank all in advance. Best regards Morten Lundsteen Denmark 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 On 2/9/2018 at 9:53 PM, TheBlackHand said: Note to self: When your intelligence has been insulted by someone with a higher post count do not respond to this provocation in direct terms as you will be sent to the corner while Teacher's Pet gets to gloat. Now, back to tearing the room apart in a futile search for ancient jewel cases emblazoned with secret codes with which to access a game that I've payed hundreds of dollars for. Yes, I'm sure this is all my fault and I should be more careful with my money. You have had a direct response from Elvis, who runs the Help Desk, that he can assist you if you OPEN A TICKET. That has been suggested to you earlier in this thread. A suggestion: when you find your license keys (or get new ones) write them down. I keep a document in my Battlefront folder which contains every key I have for these games. It takes a few minutes to set up and enter the key. But then it's easily accessible anytime I need it. Just a thought. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6plus1SMC Posted February 25, 2018 Share Posted February 25, 2018 Thank You C3K I think I found the solution I simply used the mentioned files for each game and all Into menus states that It's running "Game engine 4" so I think all is good. As to your suggestion - Thank you - I have carefully saved all keys on a TXT file placed in a save place in the cloud. Best regards Morten 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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