Re: OT: And so it begins...

bk039@xxxxxx (Raymond Martineau) looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 11:25:22 -0500, Xocyll <Xocyll@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>bk039@xxxxxx (Raymond Martineau) looked up from reading the entrails of
>>the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>>
>>>On Thu, 03 Nov 2005 17:31:43 +0100, Mean_Chlorine
>>><mike_noren2002@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Because pirates aren't affected. They're not affected by any
>>>>disk-based copy protection.
>>>
>>>They can be - the developers only need to release a patch for the game that
>>>adds a new feature. Unless the game is ultra popular, the latest stuff
>>>won't be as easily accessable as pirates don't like to do maintenance work.
>>
>>Say what?
>>
>>Hate to break it to you, but the pirate groups release crack patches too
>>for popular games. As in does the same patching and require the
>>XYZ-release of the game (where XYZ was the name of the group that ripped
>>it.)
>>
>
>As I said: "Unless the game is ultra popular, the latest stuff won't be as
>easily accessable as pirates don't like to do maintenance work."

I'm disputing ultra.
Popular is not the same as ultra popular.

>>Look in a group for old warez sometime and you'll see old game rip get
>>posted as well as each and every patch that was released for it.
>>
>>In cases of the smaller "indy" games each and every new version of it
>>may get ripped and posted.
>
>That is true, but not everything does get cracked properly, especially when
>new versions come out. Worst case scenario is Operation Flashpoint, where
>NO-CD seems to work but the AI players gradually become ultra accurrate.

This is true of anything though, popular or not.
Well ok if it's popular they may try to crack it again.

This is a demonstration of a REAL and EFFECTIVE copy protection.
Well ok it's not that new to have a second layer of security; Eye of the
Beholder2 had something similar with it's manual lookups that could get
patched to accept anything (like a nocd crack) - only later if the word
entered wasn't actually one of the right words the game would crash
whenever you got hit by a spell - and since there was a spot where you
HAD to get hit, you couldn't proceed.

>>>They are also affected by the other form of disc protection: A DVD can
>>>hold 4GB normally, 8GB on dual-layer, and 9GB on overburn. Larger files
>>>slow things down, take up more bandwidth, etc.
>>>
>>>It may be easier to transmit 4GB in the future - but for now, distribution
>>>will be more difficult than a comparable 2GB. (It also takes up a greater
>>>upload ratio as well - and also annoys ISPs as well.)
>>
>>Just take a peek into alt.binaries.games and you'll see dvds being
>>posted.
>>Not rips of dvds with data removed, entire disc images.
>>Mostly from guys in the Netherlands.
>
>Access to alt.binaries is limited to those who pay for premium news server
>access... costs about $25/month on Giganews, plus what you pay to your ISP.

Really?

Funny, I've _never_ paid extra for a newserver, it's included in the
basic ISP bill and always has been.
Not many ISPs do news now and a fair number of them link to one of the
big pay jobs as a bulk order (IK was using supernews before and has
switched to giganews apparently [looking at my headers].)

I never connected to supernews, nor do I connect directly to giganews, I
go to my isps news server and get redirected.

>In this case, it is more expensive to download. The alternative is a
>torrent, where you basically need to upload a similar quantity - something
>that may have been suited for better games (such as Jets'N'Guns). Some
>ISPs treat continuous large-scale uploading as suspicious...
>
>>The very fact that game DEMOS are running a gig+ now should tell you
>>that 4 gig or so is hardly a "large" amount these days.
>
>Yes, I've been noticing that recently as well. However, a 240GB hard drive
>can hold either 240 1GB files, or 60 4GB files.

So what?

Are you really assuming that they'll have them sitting on the drive all
the time? Or that there's one centralized computer holding everything
and it can only have one drive?
You have heard of multiple harddrives on one computer right?
You have heard of offline storage right?

>Likewise, a user with a 40 GB monthly cap (which most ISPs implement
>in-spite of the fact that they advertise "unlimited") can grab 40 1GB
>files, or 10 4GB files. The extra GB might not seem like much
>individually, but when combined, can easily add up into a significant
>slowdown.

So What?
With all the gig plus demos and videos it's really just not the issue
you're making it out to be.

You are making the exact same argument that was made at the point where
games were shifting from floppies to CDs, that the extra bandwidth
needed would kill piracy.
Well it sure didn't did it, and it's not going to now because bandwith
has gone up by at least as much as the content to be downloaded has.

>Either the pirate is slowed down, or has to expend additional resources.
>While first-level warez network can still handle the extra load (i.e.
>distributors), individial users would have to have the downloand running
>longer in the background before use.

What you aren't taking into account is the bandwidth increases.

You really think it's taking longer for someone to download a 4 gig dvd
(or 5-6 cds) over high speed internet (and in places in Europe its VERY
high speed) than it took to download multiple floppies over a 14k4
modem?

Game size has increased but the bandwidth has increased even more.


You are also making two fundamental mistakes.
1. is assuming there's some kind of "warez central" that stores
everything. If there was they'd have been busted in short order.
a
2. is assuming that EVERYONE wants to download everything - which is
nonsense; there's those that only want FPS games, and those that only
want RTS or RPG or whatever, and noone usually wants EVERYTHING offered
in the genre since some of it is crap.

Little Joey can wait and download only Quake4 if that's what he's really
after - and since he's not downloading various demos and videos, he has
download capability to spare if it's capped.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
.