My 2 cents...Cd to play SC

[P z B]

I was a little surprised when I got SC without any form of copy protection. I actually questioned it, nonetheless welcomed it from a personal point of view.

As quite a few here on the board has pointed out, playing SC on multiple puters without having to worry about where the cd is, is one of SC's charms!

Introducing an ad hoc solution after the first patch has been released is impotent! It will not keep those not so die hard gamers, that most likely wouldn't purchase the game anyway, from finding a copy and enjoy the game without the latest patches.

The only one that gets bothered with it are the loyal customers that now have to count cons & pros whether to intstall patches above 1.02 at all!

Pleeeaze Hubert...take it away :=)

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

agreed

[gunnergoz]

Concur.

There must be a reason why otherwise reasonable and player-oriented developers like Hubert all eventually go to the CD in the PC format. I refuse to think that piracy alone is the reason. Could it be that they cannot get development funding without copy protection? This seems to be a decision made by banking bean counters and not programmers or developers.

Thoughts, anyone?

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

all i know is i refuse to DL something that requires the CD to be in the drive

[Geordie Irish]

Computer piracy will not be stopped by the requirement to put the cd in the machine because

1. The cd can copied easily by anyone with a CD-Rewriter. The so called "protection" measures on commercial cds are easily worked around (so I have been told..ahem)

2. There are web sites who make no-cd patches available for download. If the requirement is left on SC 1.03, 1,04 etc. then a SC no-cd patch will be produced for download within a matter of days.

Please please please leave it off!!

[J Wagner]

I'm simply curious as to what caused this to occur in the first place? It wasn't an issue when the game was released. It also was not a problem when the first two patches were developed. So I wonder what happened between v.1.02 and 1.03 to cause the change? I know, bottom line, it's not my business, but I do wonder about it.

[Hubert Cater]

There must be a reason why otherwise reasonable and player-oriented developers like Hubert all eventually go to the CD in the PC format.

I understand the frustration and I do apologize for the sudden change, but please believe me it is in no way meant to punish those of you who have already purchased the game. As most of you already know I am still very new to this business, and if it were up to me and I could just concentrate on game development and not worry about hackers and piracy I would be more than happy... no actually make that ecstatic!!! But the sad reality is that this is the world that exists and right now I've entered into this world with game development.

Long story short, the CD check was always supposed to be a part of the release, and to err is human, and it seems like I have been doing a lot of that lately. Blame that on lack of sleep, pure devotion to this product, whatever you want to call it, but it was something that was always meant to be there for better or for seemingly worse.

For a little more information as to the why... yes everybody seems to have CD burners these days, yet casual piracy accounts for about 90% of the problem, and well for the other 10% there is actually a very good reason why the CD check is included, problem is if I say it explicitly it let's the cat out of the bag and defeats the whole purpose.

Yes it's a small headache, but unfortunatly necessary and all a part of the big picture for me to continue to bring good wargaming products to the market.

Hubert