Re: One more reason to say "*** Starforce"

In article <121ntmp3pumrb77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Briarroot <woodsyl@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bent C Dalager wrote:

This is probably what "Someone" referred to as copy protection then.

Not at all. Here's what he said:

Well, he is a bullshitter in that he says the game has no copy protection.
It's true that the original CD has none, but you need to activate the
patches. All they've done is move the product activation process from the CD
to the patch. It's the old soft shoe side step.
Like Steam, if Stardock goes under, you're left with a crappy bugfest to
play.

There is *no* product activation, the game is playable right after
install. You do not have to rely on Stardock.

But you do need to go through a product activation-like scheme to get
any patches for the game.

How playable/stable/etc. the game is out of the box remains to be
seen, but one must assume that so long as they are releasing patches,
you won't be able to get the "real" GC2 that you thought you were
paying money for without going through some sort of copy protection
barrier in order to get there.

I understand that the patches also contain all-new material that
aren't patches so much as added content, so I could understand them
wanting to make the customer form a closer tie with them to get this
(e.g. create an account on their server), but to demand it for bug
fixes seems somewhat underhanded when they're practically advertising
it as a game without copy protection.

If Stardock ever goes under, you will still be able to re-install the
game on a new or upgraded system along
with all patches you have previously downloaded. Stardock is irrelevant.

That isn't so much the point though. Stardock's scheme may be orders
of magnitude more benign than e.g. Steam, but they still do include
copy protection that is reminiscent of product activation. I do not
consider it a very important issue (I'll still buy the game when it
shows up in a local store), but one worth mentioning all the same.

It seems strange to me that they even bother to do this when the CD
itself is unprotected though. The difficult part would have been
cracking the CD. Getting the patch file and putting it on a web site
is trivial in comparison - even a near computer illiterate could get
that done just using his web browser.

Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd@xxxxxxx - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
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