chris talpas Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Sorry Guys, But I'm in vent mode. It burns me up to think some slime ball who pre-ordered is now filling the net with pirated copies of this game. Is there no sense of decency left in this world? I can't understand how someone with even a shred of a conscience could do this to Steve and Charles after they have worked so hard to bring us this game. This rant was brought to you by some guy who goes by the nick Macroshaft who posted in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical asking for links to a warez site since his file 15 doesn't work. Anyways, this guy is getting royally flamed and deservedly so!! I wish there was some way of disabling the game for non-registered users. Anyways, rant mode off Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manx Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Yeah....All we can do is try to help Charles & Steve combat this threat....your dead right, they don't deserve this. Now i haven't been around here as long as a lot of you guy's but it pisses me off to think that some slimeball will probably get this game before i do and without paying for it!..bastards!!!....Sorry about my language. ------------------ COMBAT MISSIONS- The Source For CM Ops & Scenarios WWW.COMBATMISSIONS.CO.UK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rother Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Well it shouldn't be too much trouble for BTS to have the files pulled from the Geocities site they're stored on. However I don't think it's the real thing. It's only a 45mb download and Macroshaft the Moron said it didn't work anyway. Rother Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sniperscope Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 chris, email BTS right away provide them with the link to the site ASAP. sniperscope Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest *Captain Foobar* Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Perhaps BTS could offer Registration for CM, and make future patches available only to the appropriate people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris talpas Posted June 24, 2000 Author Share Posted June 24, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by sniperscope: chris, email BTS right away provide them with the link to the site ASAP. sniperscope<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Okay, I've sent the post with the URL to Steve. A still fuming Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanuckinDixie Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Good Job, Cris!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G4A Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 And is it really a good idea to tell people about warez on this forum? From this thread I learned that I can go to csipgw-h and learn where to steal CM. Don't mention the warez. ------------------ "Oh, German! I'm sorry, I thought there was something wrong with you." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sniperscope Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 G4A, this type of info. should be sent via email to BTS right away. EVERYBODY in the world knows about warez. Just don't post the URL. This **** sets me off. Dam people just cant understand how important it is NOT to copy this game. sniperscope Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KwazyDog Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Yeah,I think thats a VERY good point G4A. I didnt know that CM had been pirated until I read about it on the forum here, and Im sure there were a dozen people that started searching for it as soon as they read that. My advice to all whom what to help CM is to please stop talking about it being pirated. Just take in what you can and pass it onto Steve and Charles. I think that is the best way you all can help with this problem. The less people know about it being out there the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris talpas Posted June 24, 2000 Author Share Posted June 24, 2000 Okay, you guys raise a good point. I may have inadvertantly helped the pirate scum by starting this thread. I guess it was that I was so darn ticked, I wanted a friendly forum to vent in. A now sheepish (but still somewhat fuming) chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KwazyDog Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Dont worry Chris, Im sure there are many out there feeling the same, including myself. In fact, Ive just passed on a site to Charles that will need to be ermm, delt with. The good part about most of these standard warez sites is that they use unsuspecting host to host their files, so as soon as you let the host know, they are happy to promptly pull them down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waffen Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 i think it best to just keep quiet on this stuff .i know it a pain ,but it happens .it will prob be a cut down version and not much good compared to the real thing anyway.shutting these sites down will do nothing they will be back up within hours .you dont need me to go into my warz blurb ,cant stop em ,legal loop holes etc etc .all we can do is pay $ for our copy and help put out the word to others what a amazeing game CM is and go buy a copy .this is the best way for us to support BTS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by chris talpas: Okay, you guys raise a good point. I may have inadvertantly helped the pirate scum by starting this thread. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Chris, just edit the name of the group out of your first post and that way anyone looking at it now won't know where to look. Fog of War, you know... ------------------ Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Scott Clinton Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Okay, this is just my two cents here. Take it for what its worth. I hate warez. I hate pirates. I'm in the software development industry. Enough about me. Now to my point... IMHO, the more you guys post about warez, and pirates the WORSE it will be for BTS and this goes for ANY kind of post about the subject. Take for example a would-be thief just browsing the site, trying to decide if he should buy CM. He then spots a this post...Even though this particular post has no details in it (unlike several others) it makes it VERY clear that a warez version of CM can be found. A little searching...one lost sale for BTS. The LESS posted about this subject on this or any site the better IMHO. BTS, IMO this entire thread should be deleted. ------------------ Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Guthrie Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 In reply to Scott I think it was a good idea overall to post about the pirated versions of the game (not to include links or directions to it of course). Whether we post this or not, those who want a pirated version of the game are going to look for it. By posting notice, at least the responsible consumers are aware that those they will be playing with might not be legit. When we discover these types of non-team players, we can at least give them a bit of the social condemnation they deserve, if not report them to authorities (I am not sure who these authorities might be, but I am sure there are some). There will probably always be thieves and socially irresponsible misfits, but at least we can attempt to sway those 'causal' thieves with social reproach and bring them back to a better, more responsible path. I suspect half the time, the people who do this really don't understand the impact they can have on a business. We could never do this if we didn't know cracks existed for the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Scott Clinton Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Sorry, I disagree. Many people out there are not nearly so savvy to the existence of this 'stuff' as you are. Couple that with the dozens of powerful search engines on the net and the very mention of this 'subject' makes it fairly easy for someone to rob BTS. But more importantly, what point does it serve here? It doesn't help BTS; emails can do this just as well. Everyone 'in the know' already knows about it. So the only point IMO is to inform those that are not aware of this subject. Even if 1 in 10 of these people are thieves that is a 10% loss in possible sales for BTS. Just not worth it to 'vent' or 'inform' others. You will also note that on NO other company-sponsored forum is ANY mention of this subject tolerated (none I have seen anyway). The above reasons are why. But as always this is just my 2 cents. ------------------ Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudee Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 I have friends who had no problem finding the pirated version of CM on the Internet. Unfortunately, pirated software (warez) spreads through the internet like a cancer. You can't get rid of it. Once a single person gets a hold of it, the number of sites with the pirated software will double, triple, quadruple, etc in a matter of hours. After a couple days have passed it will be impossible to stop these sites from spreading it because there will be far too many. And if you remove one, ten more pop up. Nothing you can do but shake you head. I'm waiting for the game to arrive in my mailbox. I can't wait to read the manual as I hear it's awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apoc Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Over a year ago patrons to this board warned Battlefront.com that warez copies of CM will spread like fire. There was a staunch group of folks who screamed about anti-piracy, copy protection formats. Even so much as a few patrons who specifically told Battlefront.com that any form of copy protection was an insult to the purchaser. Now... Well, now the reality of the situation has become apparent. I hope Battlefront.com does not lose too much revenue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XPav Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Copy Protection a la SafeDisc does not work. Pirates laugh at it, and legitimate buyers are annoyed by it (because some CD-ROMs have problems with SafeDisc protected CDs). No form of copy protection will prevent piracy, and will only piss of those that buy the game. Hence, copy protection does not help. The reason it is present on many retails games is because distributors think that is WILL help, forcing publishers and developers to put the known broken copy protection on CDs. It may stop casual piracy, but that's not what we're talking about, and all of us on this group have said that we will NOT do the "copy the CD for a friend" thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumbo Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 Copy protection doesnt work but one thing BTS CAN do is release a constant flow of patches. Each one putting back in the CD check in the EXE which was hacked out. Pirates are by their very nature lazy (otherwise they would have a job) so after the 6th patch in a month they tend to get bored and people who still want to play the game find themselves in the position of having to buy it or having an out of date version. By the way this is why game publishers are heading towards pay for play, everyone wants some of that zero piracy UO and EQ money. cheers _dumbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G4A Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dumbo: after the 6th patch in a month they tend to get bored and people who still want to play the game find themselves in the position of having to buy it or having an out of date version.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> After the 6th patch in a month, most of the people who bought it would start to get very angry... I know I would. And what is this CD check, you mentioned? I don't have the game yet, but I thought it was possible to play without the CD in the drive. ------------------ "Oh, German! I'm sorry, I thought there was something wrong with you." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumbo Posted June 24, 2000 Share Posted June 24, 2000 No there is a CD check. Actually I dont think legit users would mind about that many patches. After all each patch would also have a minor improvement. Also we can all help by refering to the manual page & para to answer questions from folks where possible rather than posting answers, I dont think any legit user would mind this. _dumbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apoc Posted June 25, 2000 Share Posted June 25, 2000 Combat Mission can use digi-keys via email. Steve has records of everyone who's purchased the game so a fluent database-person could write up an authorization list. In any event, software companies go about copy protection the wrong way, entirely! Pirating protection should be the FIRST code implemented and then the game around it. What we see in the industry is a 'last minute' add-on code to dissuade pirating. When companies worry about copy protection at the end of production, they generally resort to Safe-Disc/Macrovision/etc etc... in an attempt to lock the CD from pirating. *shakes head in dismay* The code itself needs to have cryptographatic tinges within it, such that the code must be supplied with a propper Key(s) (RTF, whatever) in order to continue. And I'm not writing about a single check, either. The code needs to be laced in so many places with varying forms of counter-pirating tinges that anyone who decides to hack it will only succeed with their own copy. Once the copy is distributed via warez, the company need only acquire the bootleg copy and bar the Keys from any further updating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudee Posted June 25, 2000 Share Posted June 25, 2000 Apoc Your ideas sound nice on paper, but the reality is pirates love the challenge. And to say that the pirates will give up after 5 or 6 patches is laughable. Not gonna happen. We had a popular first-person shooter called Unreal Tournament on our network at our School. I think it at least a half-dozen patches, and each patch had a crack that came out only days later. BTS isn't going to solve the problem of pirated software by themselves. Many companies have tried in the past and every one of them has failed. For every bit of protection code, CD check, authentication, etc, there is a way to crack it. It's not that software companies are trying to solve this situation the wrong way, the fact is, there is no right way to solve it. The face of a software "pirate" is changing. The typical pirate could be the kid next door, one of your co-workers, the manager of your local computer shop, etc. The point is, the profile of these people is not typical. Chances are that at least 2 thirds of the people who are reading this post have pirated software of some sort on their computer right now. Is it wide spread? Yes. Can it be stopped? No. Can it be reduced? Possibly. But to think you can easily put an end to pirated software is wrong. Personally speaking, I have no need to download pirated software. I'm interested in the Internet, but I'm not the typical gamer who spends hours on the PC. I've only ordered two things online: A autographed baseball jersey, and Combat Mission. I do enjoy a good heated discussion or two. I find the whole pirated software issue interesting. If I purchase a used music CD from a garage sale, am I pirating it? The artists didn't receive a penny from me, yet I am enjoying their music. Some friends of mine who download this "warez" claim that the developers aren't losing any money from him because he wouldn't of paid for the game anyway. Interesting point... I'm just playing the devil's advocate here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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