EB2: The Big Question

[antisocialmunky]

Even worse - it was under twenty-four hours.

Many popular games are cracked a week before they actually come out.

[Ludens]

Could we leave politics out of here, please? If you want to talk politics, go to the Backroom (membership can be requested in your user CP).

Due to this, SEGA are the only ones with the power to officially allow SecuROM's removal. The only problem is they are not actually part of the community, so don't see any of these problems the ordinary consumer is facing. In addition, I doubt they look around to investigate the success of their strategies, so probably are ignorant to SecuROM's failure.

I am rather suprised you think that. The software industry is very competitive, so you bet they look very carefully at whether their strategies get results. SecuROM is a failure, but no more than any other attempt to stop piracy, and while it is not going to stop the really determined hackers, I suppose it had some effect at "schoolyard software distributors". Perhaps.

Not that any of this makes the inclusion of malware more acceptable.

[bovi]

Securom is the reason why I have had to download the cracked Kingdoms executable, precisely for the reason that Foot says. I have to use FileMon occasionally, and Kingdoms refuses to load if it has been run at any time since last boot. When I took it up with Securom, they said I should reboot before playing. Having to reboot just to play is not good enough for me, and it has no effect at all on pirates. Securom/Starforce has only ever helped annoy paying customers. Those who are unwilling to pay for the game will continue unperturbed.

I think the only copy protection scheme that has ever worked is Stardock's. Which is no protection at all, until you download patches that improve the game immensely. Only those with a legal purchase can download those updates, it's painless and effective. Those who don't care about the game enough to pay to get those are probably the same people who would not pay to get the game in the first place, so no money is lost.

[hellenes]

Securom is the reason why I have had to download the cracked Kingdoms executable, precisely for the reason that Foot says. I have to use FileMon occasionally, and Kingdoms refuses to load if it has been run at any time since last boot. When I took it up with Securom, they said I should reboot before playing. Having to reboot just to play is not good enough for me, and it has no effect at all on pirates. Securom/Starforce has only ever helped annoy paying customers. Those who are unwilling to pay for the game will continue unperturbed.

I think the only copy protection scheme that has ever worked is Stardock's. Which is no protection at all, until you download patches that improve the game immensely. Only those with a legal purchase can download those updates, it's painless and effective. Those who don't care about the game enough to pay to get those are probably the same people who would not pay to get the game in the first place, so no money is lost.

But you see the CA=SEGA company is one two patches kind of deal they dont patch their games frequently....
Ive removed SEcurom and still enjoy Kingdoms either way SEGA=CA should understand that until the net is tamed through nazi like regulations piracy will be unstoppable...A single player game and piracy is like a 10 years old girl in a room with a paedophile...

[born2dive67]

I also dont have any problems what so ever using deamons, hacks, keygens, AVG. everything works on my puter as good as new. no problems what so ever.

I think the problem is just like when steam came out and everyone freaked on that one.

[bovi]

But you see the CA=SEGA company is one two patches kind of deal they dont patch their games frequently....

Seeing as the total war games the last couple of years have been really weak in their first iteration, including Kingdoms which doesn't even get any patches for advertised, broken features, they certainly would benefit from adopting this model.

A single player game and piracy is like a 10 years old girl in a room with a paedophile...

Galactic Civilizations 2 is a single player game and works fine with it. Those who pay get improved AI that can counter exploits that become known, new features (a few, most are reserved for expansions naturally), improved interface etc.

[Dibran88]

I have a question of my own. for the love of God why is every faction in EB1 speaking Greek. Illiriyan's never spoke Greek. neither did romans and what not. No disrespect to the team or anyone who is Greek. but either add some diversity with native tongues or make it all English in game. one of my friends was playing against a Serbian or rather Baltic faction, and they were speaking greek.?

is this a feature that hopefully will not be included in the next version.

Again no disrespect to the team or anyone who is Greek. i just believe for more accuracy, either have them speak the native tongue if you can find it, or just have it all in English ( when you click on the faction and they recite there profession).

[Admetos]

I'm sure I just read that exact post in another thread...

[Foot]

I have a question of my own. for the love of God why is every faction in EB1 speaking Greek. Illiriyan's never spoke Greek. neither did romans and what not. No disrespect to the team or anyone who is Greek. but either add some diversity with native tongues or make it all English in game. one of my friends was playing against a Serbian or rather Baltic faction, and they were speaking greek.?

is this a feature that hopefully will not be included in the next version.

Again no disrespect to the team or anyone who is Greek. i just believe for more accuracy, either have them speak the native tongue if you can find it, or just have it all in English ( when you click on the faction and they recite there profession).

Not all voicemods have been completed yet, this is an ongoing project. In the end the most appropriate language for every faction will be implemented, as long as it is a language that can reasonably be reconstructed.

Foot

[hellenes]

Seeing as the total war games the last couple of years have been really weak in their first iteration, including Kingdoms which doesn't even get any patches for advertised, broken features, they certainly would benefit from adopting this model.


Galactic Civilizations 2 is a single player game and works fine with it. Those who pay get improved AI that can counter exploits that become known, new features (a few, most are reserved for expansions naturally), improved interface etc.

But you see these stuff can be found online for free still...same with STEAM that was cracked days after launch...On the other hand try playing on any private WoW server the lag will make you vomit...

[mlc82]

Has noone noticed that the only way this affects people i have seen so far is if they are taking part in illegal activities? By breaking the laws of computer companies, you lose all their protection, that is how this works, obviously. Of course i do not want this kind of thing on my computer, but then again, i dont want to be caught on camera an average of 100 times a day, but it never does and probably never will even warrant my notice. Not to mention that if anything did happed fraud wise, you would likely make an enormous profit out of a lawsuit, they wont take that risk beleive me.

Actually, with StarForce, it did. I didn't know Silent Hunter III used Starforce protection (or even what SF was) when I bought it, installed it, and soon afterward realized that the cd drive I installed the game from started running at the slowest speed it could. That drive would take upward of an hour to install any other game on a single CD, while my other drive would install the same game in the less than 5 minutes. I can't PROVE that SF was the problem, however the drive worked fine both before installing Silent Hunter III, and while installing it, then just slowed itself to a crawl.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to speak on the forum of how to legally buy a game and still get around this sort of copy protection (it requires use of a "patch I shall not name" that isn't official, and allows playing the game without the CD in the drive)...

[Pharnakes]

I have a question of my own. for the love of God why is every faction in EB1 speaking Greek. Illiriyan's never spoke Greek. neither did romans and what not. No disrespect to the team or anyone who is Greek. but either add some diversity with native tongues or make it all English in game. one of my friends was playing against a Serbian or rather Baltic faction, and they were speaking greek.?

is this a feature that hopefully will not be included in the next version.

Again no disrespect to the team or anyone who is Greek. i just believe for more accuracy, either have them speak the native tongue if you can find it, or just have it all in English ( when you click on the faction and they recite there profession).

I have no idea about the baltic people, but the Romani most definately don't speak Greek, they speak latin.

Maybe they spoke greek in 0.7X, but since 0.8 its definately been Latin.

[bovi]

But you see these stuff can be found online for free still...same with STEAM that was cracked days after launch...On the other hand try playing on any private WoW server the lag will make you vomit...

You're right, I guess I just didn't check the net for the patches. Indeed you can find some of the updates on Filefront etc. I don't know whether these work on non-registered versions.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft managed to wipe the net of their updates to Rise of Legends though, and that one I have checked, as they botched up their own update service so that the game can't actually update at all.

[Meneldil]

Has noone noticed that the only way this affects people i have seen so far is if they are taking part in illegal activities?

Do you have anything to support the claim that Mouzafphaerre, Bobolicious, or for that matter, any of the dozens people who stated they wouldn't be buying Kingdom are actually taking part in illegal activities ?
Yeah, you don't.

Just to sum it up : if I was taking part in illegal activities, I would not even bother about securom. On the other hand, if I buy kingdom, I might find myself with a game that can't run on my PC or screw up other programs. Thanks, but not thanks. I already *bought* a game that *wouldn't freaking work at all* thanks to Starforce, I'm not even going to see what will be happening with Securom.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I have no idea about the baltic people, but the Romani most definately don't speak Greek, they speak latin.

Maybe they spoke greek in 0.7X, but since 0.8 its definately been Latin.

They didn't speak Greek in 0.7x: the Greeks spoke Latin and so did the Romans (in EB 0.7x not in the *real* world). Culture bug.

[russia almighty]

Even though I don't like it secrom is no where near as bad as starforce . That has been known to fry optical drives .

[eddy_purpus]

soooo . . .
kingdoms have malware man ?
because im buying a laptop to play the total series . . .
does any antivirus stop that malware you guys are talkin about ?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Kingdoms contains Securom AFAIK. And that one has been classified as Malware.

Whether it is still the case when some anticipated patch is out, I dunno. There appear to be tools to remove Securom with, though but then Kingdoms won't work anymore or so the story goes. I, myself, don't know mainly because:
1) I haven't played M2TW-K yet.
2) I haven't bothered to remove Securom et all yet.

[Spartan198]

...putting something on your computer that you didn't ask for...

That's exactly what put Kingdoms one slot beneath the T-virus on my list.
EB2 for Kingdoms = No EB2 for me.
Sorry.

[antisocialmunky]

Well, then you're missing out or not thinking outside the box hard enough.

[hellenes]

That's exactly what put Kingdoms one slot beneath the T-virus on my list.
EB2 for Kingdoms = No EB2 for me.
Sorry.

EB2 for kingdoms + NOCD exe=NO securom=EB2 for me...

[antisocialmunky]

= warning for posting about illegal altered EXE's.

[hellenes]

= warning for posting about illegal altered EXE's.

=not in all countries NOCD are illegal.... If you own the original copy of the game you have the right to make a backup or not use the DVD in order to preserve it...
Anyway malware rootkits have no place in my PC...my bank account details are FAAAR more important to me than SEGA and CA combined...
Nothing personal just business...

[Spartan198]

Well, then you're missing out or not thinking outside the box hard enough.

It's the fact that Kingdoms would install software on my machine without my permission. Malicious software,at that. My system is set so that even the administrator account needs manual permission to install software of any kind,whatsoever.
Would I be missing out on both Kingdoms and EB2? Yes,no doubt. I can't describe how much that sucks. But if SecuRom damages my system,I would be missing out on Kingdoms,EBII,M2TW,RTW,BI,RTW XGM,Alexander,etc..

Please don't misinterpret me here,as I'm not bad-mouthing EB2's crew or growing fanbase in any way,but I gotta protect my system,EB2 or no EB2. If that's what you mean by not thinking outside the box hard enough,then I'll keep my mind inside that box,thank you. If the EB fanbase alienates me because of it,well,then so be it. It's not the only mod in existance.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

You guys can download it if you want, or leave it alone. The decision has definitely been made and the mod is being created on Kingdoms for a while already now. No if's, and's, or but's about it - that is the platform. If you can reverse-engineer it or something like that, to get it back to vanilla M2TW, then great, but if it's not, there is no need to worry with it.

[antisocialmunky]

=not in all countries NOCD are illegal.... If you own the original copy of the game you have the right to make a backup or not use the DVD in order to preserve it...
Anyway malware rootkits have no place in my PC...my bank account details are FAAAR more important to me than SEGA and CA combined...
Nothing personal just business...

True, but isn't there a no illegal stuff clause somewhere since in alot of places, modifying retail EXEs is illegal in certain places and its not good for having relationships with game companies.

@Spartan Glory, I was hinting at what Hellenes said. Go get the NoCD thing and get rid of Securom if you want.

Sigh, people really over react to this sort of thing. There are more dangerous things than a badly designed disk verification system.

The things a piece of badly implemented crap that makes my stomach turn that anyone in their right mind would use. But to be fair to Sega, I don't think that I've even seen any research supporting that its a big security hole People just seemed to automatically jump to the conclusion that that's what it will do. This version hasn't yet proved to be so problematic.

I think many of the people initially concerned about it were still running off the post Bioshock fallout. Which I believe used a different implementation since my antivirus flagged that and not the kingdoms EXE. The truth is that I don't think anyone that has posted here including myself has a complete understanding of what's exactly going on internally since no one has picked it apart yet.

The thing borders on rootkit because of what it does to the registry, the fact that it keeps a very low profile, and because it stays on your computer after you uninstall the game(which makes sense... I mean STEAM does the same thing). The only real problem is that its hard to delete and it impacts the performance of your computer.

Like I said before, I don't think that anyone has proven that it opens up a gaping security hole like the BMG disk thing that Sony put out. Of course you're entitled to your decisions but while it is important, don't blow it out of proportion... PLEASE.

You'll just create panic where only awareness is needed.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
I'd expect better from you than this kind of bravado rant Teleklos.
.

[Spartan198]

@Spartan Glory, I was hinting at what Hellenes said.

You posted right after me with no quote as to who your comment was directed toward,so I wrongly assumed that it was me ,and I apologize for my hostile statement toward you.

My point,while not directed anymore toward Munky,still stands. I'm not trying to bash the EB2 crew or fanbase,push EB2 to another Total War game,or anything like that. If anyone else already has or plans on getting Kingdoms to play EB2,SecuRom or not,that's your choice and I respect that. My statement just reflects what I believe to be most ethical right now for me alone,no one else. Not the team,not the fans,not anyone but me.

Off topic: I've been trying to download EB from the Total War Center,but I just keep getting a "cannot display webpage" message.
A little help,please,unless the EB crew feels the urge to skin me alive?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

.
I'd expect better from you than this kind of bravado rant Teleklos.
.

really? That is one of the least ranty posts I've made in a while I would think mouz. honestly. We decided as a team to use the kingdoms build, and there is zero talk inside the team about doing something differently. Look back over my post again - it's just simple really: we're already working on the kingdoms version and that's about it.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yeah, TA no 1 () is absolutely right there: EB2 has already begun; and it has already been begun with M2TW-K in mind. For instance, all in-game stuff showed (save for the units perhaps) is from an EBII mod on kingdoms; using the 'new' version of the modswitch.