No Joke: GOLD Thursday, 9/9 P.D.T

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

And pray tell, why? The no-cd crack just lets you run your legal copy without the CD in the drive. So you dislike something that makes your use of the software easier??? Hello???

It has other benefits, it also keeps the game from writing to the registry on the following boot--something that you would really hate if you understood the risk that involves. There is no real need for the CD in the drive, and there is no need for the game to be dicking with the registry and risking nasty corruptions. What the current anti-piracy system amounts to is software vendors treating all of their customers like thieves and causing their legal customers unwarranted trouble...hmmm...I see a theme developing... As an aside, have you ever noticed in MS Office that just about any search you type in "Help" will contain a link somewhere to fighting software piracy? And MS should worry since they charge twice as much for an "upgrade" each time, while providing less.

No matter what sort of anti-piracy scheme you develop, it will be cracked. What you really want to minimize piracy is for your customers to feel like they are getting a good bargain. That revolves around both convenience and a good product. The CD schemes in common use defy the convenience aspect.

I have no problems with the CA folks continuing to make a good profit off of these games, I very much want them to and will make my small investment/donation to the cause each time. I also detest true pirates. However, I don't see no CD-cracks as piracy, any more than I see gun owners as killers, or a guy drinking a beer as an alcoholic, or someone who happens to own a burner (that could be used for piracy) as a pirate...

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Agreed. In every point.

I find myself shocked and saddened that a discussion on the nature of theft is even necessary. ~:(

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And pray tell, why? The no-cd crack just lets you run your legal copy without the CD in the drive. So you dislike something that makes your use of the software easier??? Hello???

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It does not really make my use of the software much easier, since most games I play have come with a full install option. Like I say I have nothing agaisnt one cd sitting in the drive for the purposes of authentication when the game runs. Since most games such as Doom 3 or Max Payne 2 mainly use a "Play disc" when they run I do not see the point of using a CD-Crack on them since after the install they only use the one cd.

But to be honest I think the main reason why someone would want to not use their cds is that they were sending those cds over to their mates for them to play. In that case it does constitute piracy.

As long as the CD-rom is not accessed heavily I am happy with it.

I find this topic quite tiresome.
Especially given that the sum total time difference between release in the US & locally is a shocking 2 days ~:flirt:

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Originally Posted by hoom

I find this topic quite tiresome.
Especially given that the sum total time difference between release in the US & locally is a shocking 2 days ~:flirt:

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Actually, it is likely to be 9 days later, if not further delayed.

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Originally Posted by hoom

I find this topic quite tiresome.
Especially given that the sum total time difference between release in the US & locally is a shocking 2 days ~:flirt:

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Exactly it is very tiresome.

At any rate no official announcements have been made regarding a Europe release date, so all this 1st October stuff is just an estimate by the retailers really.

From the .com front page:

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Rome: Total WarTM has been released to manufacturing and will be shipping to retailers in North America on Wednesday, September 22. The game will be shipping to retailers in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, September 29 (and should be on sale around the 1st of October). Other release dates will be announced soon.

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if thats true then judging my those dates the US gets it on the 24th September and we get it on the 1st October.

Only a measely 7 days between the two dates... I sugguest you go out and enjoy life in that time, because RTW will probably take it over afterwards!

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Originally Posted by The_Emperor

But to be honest I think the main reason why someone would want to not use their cds is that they were sending those cds over to their mates for them to play. In that case it does constitute piracy.

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lol! Actually, i like having ALL my games just a shortcut away. Each of my games has a desktop icon that DOESNT need a CD, as well as being linked into my graphics control panel, which basically creates profiles for individual games and thus changes the display settings for each game once they have been loaded, saving me even more time/effort.

Again, we come back to convienience. Id rather not have to load a CD, and change the display settings between EVERY game. If there is the software out there to do this with fully licensed/purchased software than i will do that.

For the sake of pressing a button and putting a cd in the drive i just don't understand where all the strain is involved... Besides I don't have to change all my display settings for each game I play. My hardware is good enough to work with most stuff without tweaking.

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Originally Posted by ah_dut

I agree with Gil here an official nocd patch would be nice.

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Noted, it will be discussed with the Powers that Be.

As to the whole piracy debate: it's illegal. It's also morally wrong - we've worked damn hard to get this game out the door, and when you play a cracked, illegal, unlicensed version, that's the dev team's bread & butter you're stealing. It's also harmful to CA and the future games we can create - if Rome doesn't sell, we won't be able to get as large a budget for the next game, and quality will suffer. And lastly it's also harmful to Activision, who as the publisher are often portrayed in the worst possible light in these things, but who've taken chances by allowing us to add innovative features and giving us the time to get the game up that extra level in quality, and should receive credit and their fair share for that.

It's not an abstract, wishy washy thing. This is the hard nuts and bolts of how it works, and these things do affect us -- and not only us but also ultimately our loyal fans and the Total War community as a whole. It is not possible to seperate them.

Firstly, I agree that pirating a game is completely wrong, both legally and morally.

However, we must all face the facts and accept it occurs on a large scale for whatever reasons.

Doom3 became the most pirated game ever in a very short time. It has subsequently emerged that the majority of illegal copies were downloaded in Europe. The reason for this was that the game was released in Europe some two weeks after the US release.

Fact: some people have no patience, as I hope the Doom3 example demonstrates.

We can forever debate the reasons for this and why it is a virtue more people should show, but we must accept that some people simply aren't patient and are willing to break the law to gain something sooner rather than later.


Now onto my main point. We all want good games, like the Total War series, and as Jerome points out, this costs money, lots of it. Taking into account the amount of marketing that has gone into R:TW, I'd like to think it was on a similar scale to Doom3, and I sincerely hope it sells in the same sort of numbers. However, this means that if the release date in Europe is a similar sort of time after the US release, which seems likely, it means that a similar scale of pirating is possible, if not probable, which leads to a large loss of revenue for Activision and CA.

I find it hard to believe that this large loss of revenue due to pirating is smaller than the costs of distributing the game in the US and Europe at the same time. I can understand that it may take longer to get to Outer Mongolia and other such extremities in the world, but publishers need to face up to the fact that the EU is just as big a market as the US.

Since enlargement earlier this year, the EU has approximately 150 million more people than the US. It is the largest single trading entity in the world, and the only reason the US has a higher gross GDP at the moment is because of the internet (historically it was smaller than Europe). The EU is quickly closing this gap and will soon surpass the US in economic terms in the not too distant future. The fact that so many people in Europe were able to download Doom3 in such a short time proves this.

I can understand why developers and publishers are unwilling to take expensive steps to attempt to stop a small group of dedicated pirates downloading their games illegally, but surely the time has come for them to realise that they are losing serious amounts of money by staggering release dates in the US and the EU. The amount of money it would cost to have a simultaneous US/EU release is becoming increasing pitiful when compared to the amount of money they are losing by staggering their release dates, especially when it comes to blockbuster games such as Doom3 or R:TW.

Got any evidence that they found out that it was the case that Doom 3 was mainly downloaded by Europeans?

it sounds more like speculation to me. Anyway it cannot be justified and my experience is that people who regularly download pirated stuff never buy unless they have to.

oops, forgot to get back here... move along, nothing to see here! :embarassed:

I read it in a newspaper article a couple of weeks ago, and as the developer in chrushinators post said, you can, and they do "monitor this stuff".

At no point did I say it was justified to pirate anything, I thought I made that pretty clear.

I also said that I could understand why publishers didn't want to spend lots of money trying to stop the dedicated pirates. However, as people have said in earlier posts, it seems most people are willing to pay for their games. I was expanding on this by saying that they are willing to pay, as long as they don't have to wait unnecessarily.

What is speculation would be me saying that if Doom3 had a simultaneous release, the amount it was pirated would definitely be much lower (although I personally believe this would have been the case).

Having different release dates seems unnecessary in the US and EU (but I can understand more far-flung corners of the world) and encourages large-scale pirating that would not otherwise occur, thereby costing both developers and in the long-run gamers, as the quality of games would fall due to smaller development budgets.

I totaly agree with you LordHugh. But anyway what is done is done, and we'll get the game 10 days later that's all...

This situation will last as long as managers will consider the EU like a lesser market, although it is much bigger than the USA's one.

That's the wrong idea. It takes time because of localization issues to send games to Europe. Doing simultaneous release means the game is already available in North America but it just isn't sold in stores yet.

Blizzard has done worldwide simultaneous release. What happens is that many retailers actually ignore them and sell the games the moment they get them. Blizzard holding on to all these games before the release will create inventory costs and distribution problems. You want to ship the CDs out ASAP the moment they're done and let the retailers hold inventory instead.

Also, simultaneous release means that people in the U.S. will have more time to pirate the game. Games, especially the more popular ones, get pirated during the gold copying stage. Simultaneous release never means that other countries get it earlier. It means the U.S. gets it later. If CA does a simultaneous release, we will all get the game on October 1, which means more time for pirates in the U.S. and not less time for the pirates in Europe.

Unless Europeans adapt a single language and a single game ratings system, there will always be delays because of localization issues. Somebody on the official forums already posted how difficult and time consuming it is.

The EU isn't a single market. Single market means you can sell the same thing to everybody, unaltered. However, RTW needs different versions in Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, etc., etc. That's not a single market. That's the business reality of it.

Well said.

1 October, heh, my back of beyond bit of the planet is expecting it on the 24th ~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by The_Emperor

But to be honest I think the main reason why someone would want to not use their cds is that they were sending those cds over to their mates for them to play. In that case it does constitute piracy.

As long as the CD-rom is not accessed heavily I am happy with it.

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From the sound of it, you might want to find some better mates. Mine wouldn't be too keen on pirating as you suggest.

Beware of assumptions...especially ones where you are flat out mistaken and where you impugn the character of every one on the opposite side of the discussion. Calling every one who uses no CD cracks pirates is assinine (as you did in a roundabout way.) If you want to dig out the CD every time you swap apps, terrific. If you want it fiddling with your registry, terrific. Many of us don't. However, until we educated you on the issue you weren't even aware.

Any company shipping to UK/Ireland? http://www.dvdempire.com was all I could find via Froogle. Please help! :help:

Good posts Lord Hugh.

I play in an Enemy Territory Clan and was privy to an interesting conversation between 2 players from another team (who use our voice comms server). The conversation went along the lines of this:

player1: Just saw some screenshots of doom 3. people in the US have it now and it looks great. I'm desperate to get this game!!! ... just 2 more weeks to wait!!
player2: i'm not waiting. I'm just going to download it
player1: what? how can you just download it?
player2: just go and [insert downloading instructions here]
player1: cool i'll give it a try. I can't wait to play!

And a new pirate was born :furious3:

This is just a perfect example of publishers giving potential buyers another reason to pirate the game. I guarantee if the game could have been purchased from a store (or even better downloaded leagally on a high-speed server, or pre-downloaded similar to hl2 with steam) the potential buyer never would have thought of downloading the game illegally.

I'm not saying this persons actions were right (if fact i had a right go at them for it) but this IS the reailty of what is happening. I'm not saying there is any one easy fix for this, but it is something that publishers must try and address.

I think the idea in the Brad Wardell article i posted gives some good ideas about regular ongoing updates through a secure channel is a great idea for the developers and the customers :)

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*TuuSaR-gs* Can player declare war whenever against Senate starting from turn number 1.?

No. The player will first have to build up enough popular support from the people. Popular support can be gained in a number of ways such as controlling and maintaining a large empire, owning Wonders, keeping tax rates low, building public amenities, and lots of other things... When popular support is high enough the player can choose to attack any of the other Roman factions. This will effectively instigate the civil war... Also as the player's popularity with the people and the player's military power increases the senate will become increasingly threatened - and may decide to demand the suicide of the player's faction leader. If the player refuses, the senate will start a war against the player's faction - effectively kicking off a civil war.

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The last question the developer's chat was excellent. Demand the suicide of a player - wonderful. It makes the waiting so much harder.

A later date does not give piracy some sort of moral validity. While no one here is saying that, angry posts mentioning it will make some scumbag think he would be a hero if he puts an image up for some p2p downloading service. Were it not for the evil EU rating policy caused ultimately by evil fat bastard tabloids trying to trigger a moral panic, the release date would be nearly simultaneous - I think.

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Originally Posted by Patricius

Any company shipping to UK/Ireland? http://www.dvdempire.com was all I could find via Froogle. Please help! :help:

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You might wanna check amazon.co.uk

They will release on 1st October. I would be able to get the game then anyway. What I am looking for is to have it a few days earlier than 1st October by ordering from the US or other places that get RTW earlier.

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Originally Posted by Patricius

They will release on 1st October. I would be able to get the game then anyway. What I am looking for is to have it a few days earlier than 1st October by ordering from the US or other places that get RTW earlier.

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i looked into and it doesn't really seem worth it

i was told that often it can take a week or more for the game to arrive (due to customs delays etc). So it is quite possible the gmae will arrive after it is available in the UK :dizzy2:

price-wise it would be around £45 for the game + 2-3 day delivery with no guarantee it will arrive in that time (also you may have to add customs charges to that as well :inquisitive: )

www.importmadness.com does these sorts of imports

The Wednesday release is the problem. If it were out on a Monday it would order from Gamestop or others with reasonably fast shipping. I have read complaints on Importmadness, so I would be very cautious in regard to them. Still an importer (I assume it is one) is often better than a US retailer - complaint resolution would be far simpler. Three to five days is a typical promise - given that weekends can often be discounted for deliveries - that might mean only three or so days early for a lot more money - duty on top of postage of $15.00.

I will not go near either here or .com for a week upon after US/Canada/Australia/New Zealand release. Others having it and I not having it would be cruelty unbounded :no: ~:mecry: . I would have to use my imagination :duel: or turn into a raving madman :furious3: . Actually no need for any turning there ~;p .

DVDCrave.com have a posh man's post :toff: that will get here within 2-4 days for $36.24. How badly do I want it....?

I have no connection with them, but:

http://www.strategic-plus.co.uk/

worked for me when I was too desperate to wait an extra week for Master of Orion III to reach UK shops, and if 1st October turns out to be the release day for R:TW in the UK, I'll probably use them again. MOO III arrived at my front door 1 or 2 days after it hit shops in the USA.

Of course, it wasn't their fault that all that got me was a week's head start on my countrymen on realizing that MOOIII was a piece of half finished, worthless crap.

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Originally Posted by Patricius

Any company shipping to UK/Ireland? http://www.dvdempire.com was all I could find via Froogle. Please help! :help:

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You could try www.gameplay.co.uk

Release date Oct 1st and at a good price of £24.99. Add £0.99 for 1st class delivery and you'll get it on the day of release.

Regards

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If you want it fiddling with your registry, terrific. Many of us don't. However, until we educated you on the issue you weren't even aware.

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Don't patronize me, I know full well what Windows does to the Regristry in many of its basic functions.
But in the end most of those alterations that having a Cd in the drive upon boot could possibily cause are so minor as to be inconsequential!

Your getting nervous about nothing, and if you are nervous about your registry you can always make a backup of the registry!

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Originally Posted by Lord of the Isles

I have no connection with them, but:

http://www.strategic-plus.co.uk/

worked for me when I was too desperate to wait an extra week for Master of Orion III to reach UK shops, and if 1st October turns out to be the release day for R:TW in the UK, I'll probably use them again.

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Well, I emailed strategic-plus asking for more information about the release date for the US edition and got this reply:

"Supplies from the US will probably not be with us until the UK release date,
Wednesday 29th September. So providing that the UK date will be kept we will
doing the UK edition and not the US one."

So that's one source for imports gone. Anyone know any others?