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Beware


Sanman maui

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I didn't know there was postage on top of that. Well that just seals it. Pity

I'd just like to point out though, before the hounds pounce, that I am not being tight here. I have a wife, two kids, a dog and two guinnea pigs and they ALL come before my hobby.

That is why I do not want to pay £15 postage! I see it as a complete waste of money.

I've already made my feelings clear about digital downloads....although I might as well make the enquiry...is TOW2 an exe file? I ask because it was actually Combat Mission Shock Force from Gamersgate that I was talking about before...I have a file on my drive called launch.dat and I cannot do anything with it outside of the Gamersgate utility...which, I see, they have now dumped.

And that was specifically what I was talking about when I mentioned digital downloads before...having some file you cannot do anything with without some sort of online activity...something I do not care for anymore...as well as other times I've been ridiculously burned by DRM (be it online, eLicence, limited installes or disk DRM)...it's an outrageous state of affairs nowadays. I am not a thief...I am a legitimate customer.

Rant over and sorry for off topic. If someone from battlefront could just tell me what is involved with the eLicence and what is required. Limited installs (I know about limited parallel installs)? Unlicencing before upgrading computer?

Thx

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BillyR,

Although Im not from Battlefront, I can answer your question :)

There are unlimited installs. However, in order to play the game, it has to be Licensed. This is done through the internet. You can have TWO active licenses for ONE game. Meaning you can install the game on two pc's and play a lan battle between those PC's. The only thing (and the only 'bad' news) is that you have to Unlicense the game before uninstalling. So if your HD crashes, you have a problem. Or if you forget to unlicense and upgrade your pc / format your HD.

However Battlefront support is very forgiving in this, I guess especially for 'old-farts' ;)

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I too dont like the cumbersome licensing/DRM, etc, things. For me its not a real problem since I work in IT so my HD's never crash (at least no because of user 'stupidity') and I have a good memory so I wont forget to unlicense :D

However all the Grogs in this forum must be with their heads somewhere between 1944-1945, so forgetting about unlicensing is something easily done. Windows OS systems are also quite vulnerable in the hands of non-professionals and hence HD formatting is done quite often. I guess it is not so hard to use up those 2 licenses, so BF's friendly support is quite necessary.

However, without any anti piracy measure, a company like BF could lose a lot of 'new' customers who dont have any reason anymore to buy the product after they downloaded it for try (if the downloaded game works fine and does update, why pay more for nothing? Everyone might claim they will buy the product if they like it, but it is a fact that humans are layzie and the transaction might never happen, altough the intention is there :D).

It is sad however that at the moment it is sometimes more easy to use a cracked version of a game then to use the legal version. There are instances of published game where legitimate customers 'had' to use a crack to play their game, because anti-piracy measures had made it impossible to play the game.

Something 'funny' is that, at least one company should actually be quite happy with all the piracy in the world. If the original Windows versions weren't used so much in 'cracked' home pc's, there might be a lot less businesses using Windows / Office installations. It is cheaper to buy a license for a product your employee already knows, then to train them on another OS AND buy that license. So M$ practically has achieved their current market share because of piracy, instead of 'despite' piracy.

The reality is always more complex then one can imagine.

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Lethaface

Thx very much for the reply.

Unfortunately it's only made me hold my position on the matter. I came foul of the limited installs "per licence" with another company because I changed something (can't rememember if it was several pieces of hardware (motherboard, CPU AND graphics card) or just the graphics card), but I forgot to unlicence the product. I was then left without being able to play the game from Friday night until Tuesday night...something I think is just not right for a consumer.

I'm afraid that particular instance (in fact I think that was the second time...I'm pretty sure I fell foul of this method with Armed Assault) made me decide I was not going the obtrusive DRM route.

I understand they have to protect their software, but I do not want to have to jump through hoops to play a game.

I'm afraid I'll leave this one. If it ever shows up on store shelves, I will probably pick it up...

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BillyR

ToW is distributed as ordinary setup file and doesn't require installation of any proprietary utility. I understand your dislike of download purchases, but IMO hard copies sometimes mean even more hassle. Why pay postage costs for hard copy you can do yourself?

BTW, you mean that there is no way to use this Gamersgate data file now? This means a lawsuit then, no?

Lethaface

Interesting point of view:)

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I don't know that there's no way to use the file...but it's called launch.dat...I have no idea how I can utilise that.

As for the download v disk...I know I could download and play right now and believe me...I am totally aware of some of the draconian disk drms out there. But I have made my point I think...unlicencing isn't an option for me. I forgot to unlicence once before and the other time (ArmA) I installed a patch which used another licence and both times I ended up with games I couldn't play until I got support...and I choose not to go through that as an option.

I have a family and a dog...I have very little gaming time and the gaming time I do have, when I choose what game to play, I like to sit down and play it...not write emails and wait on support.

I'll drop it now, because this started out as a different thread and has become my own personal bitching ground. Sorry. I just choose not to buy games with this kind of drm.

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