how stardock figths warez

[Mestro77]

Geez Mark!

You deleted my post to Saurus!?
I was just gonna try to help him! If he has high bandwidth I could send him the game and then I could purchase the serial online for him with my credit card - and he could pay me using PayPal! In return he and a buddy of mine could share the serial - just like someone might share a VHS video tape or something.

And I even indicated he should email me directly to take the issue out of the group since it's not really relavent here.

Holy Smokes! I know you're the moderator, but you're being just a LITTLE heavy handed with your authority, don't you think? Man....I've read your other posts and you seemed like a friendly and reasonable person.....but this action sure stinks of overactive censorship.

Will you even allow THIS post to stand in your forum? I'm just trying to help someone - isn't that the point of the forum?

[Saurus]

Originally posted by unic
Saurus - and you don't know anybody with a credit card either? Relatives, friends, anybody?

I don't have a credit card either, and that's what I did... asked a friend to order it for me, and payed him in cash. (Though, of course, it would have been preferable if the game was distributed here in Europe...)

/unic

Your statement is logical but helps me very little.
All my family members are very wary about shopping
on the internet (they have, as they put it, seen too many documents on TV regarding missuse of creditcard numbers on internet) Thus they do not want to use their credit card for internet-shopping.

None of my close friend happen to have a credit card either. (actually they do, but they are all local and works only in certain stores and locations mostly in Finland only)


Your proposed solution probably works for most people, though.

Maybe this just is not my lucky life

-S

[MarkG]

in a thread about warez you asked someone to mail you cause what you want to suggest was not appropriate for the forum. what did you expect i would think?

[unic]

Saurus: I don't know if this will help you either... but there are ways besides having credit card to buy it directly from Stardock.

Look at http://www.stardock.com/sales_faq.html and http://www.stardock.com/order.txt and see if that helps.

Especially, quoting from the former:

"Q: I don’t have a credit card. How can I purchase Stardock software?

A: We also accept checks or money orders in US funds (no Eurocheques, please, as they are not certified funds). Please print and use the order form at http://www.stardock.com/order.txt (also found in the directories of Stardock’s shareware products) and mail with payment to:

Stardock Systems, Inc.
17292 Farmington Rd.
Livonia, MI 48152
USA

Visit http://cnnfn.cnn.com/markets/currencies/ for current information on exchange rates."

So, if you can get a suitable check or money order through your bank, that would be a workable way of ordering it too.

... if that is not a possibility for you either, I don't really have anything to suggest but waiting.

/unic

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Lemmy
ravagon, if you want to dl updates without having the game installed, you'll have to enter your email and serial in the dl page found on the site. But AFAIK only the big updates will be available to dl at the site.
If you want the smaller more frequent updates, you'll need to use stardock central, and then you must have the game installed to dl the updates.

Excellent. Just what I needed to know.
Ta very much.

[darcy]

As far as I can tell, "deleting the galaxy class" does not refer to a file, it refers to a C++ object.

Furthermore, the complete protection has meanwhile been broken and a valid keygen is available. Apparently the generated serials are working in the online updater, too.

Kudos to Stardock anyway, their protection lasted longer than most commercial CD encryptions.

[MarkG]

hmmm serial numbers are connected to a e-mail and a name in the stardock db.
i wonder what could be done with it....

[MarkG]

As they say, good things come to those who wait.

the thing is that it's good as it is now. in which case there are two options
a) spend money for six months on improving it according to what the dev.team thinks is good and then release it
b) release it and spend money for six months on improving it according to what THE PEOPLE (who are already enjoying a good game) and the dev.team thinks is good and then give the updates for free, extending players' value for their money

i like option b much much better

[Mestro77]

Folks,

May I make a suggestion? I don't wish to wade into this discussion about if it's good or bad that they're planning patches and a year of support. But I would like to suggest that if this particular topic is going to continue to be discussed, would the next poster please start a fresh thread specifically for such a discussion? And could make a final post in this thread giving the title of the new thread for follow ups.
THIS thread was initially begun as a discussion of Brad's interesting, inovative, and admirable approach to warez and piracy prevention. This topic interests me and I've set an email notification for this thread. But the last dozen or so posts have gone off on a complete tangent and I keep wasting time coming back here to find off-topic arguements and are degenerating into insults. I'm not trying to stifle anyone's input - but folks, please begin a fresh thread when the topic veers so significantly......
Thoughts?? Mark, perhaps you could stear the topic to a fresh thread please?

[MarkG]

indeed mestro

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=83288

[Solver]

Hillarious protection mechanism.

While I believe in buying any games you like, I'm also a supporter of trying them via warez before you buy those... however, I must admit, this one makes me feel like getting a pirate verison just to see what it looks like.

And while anything can be cracked... hey, it must be lots of fun cracking this one .

[Rasbelin]

Solver has a good opinion on this one. I agree with him.

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Saurus

I cannot get a credit card since I only have a part-time job (witch is not enough to apply for a credit card here)

You don't need a credit card for GalCiv. I don't have a credit card either, but I still order from USA, UK and other European countries. How? Cheques, SWIFT cheques, bank transfer and wire transfer.

[Al'Kimiya]

Originally posted by Solver
While I believe in buying any games you like, I'm also a supporter of trying them via warez before you buy those... however, I must admit, this one makes me feel like getting a pirate verison just to see what it looks like.

I got it by warez and for the first time in like ten years I stuck with it for more than a few days and bought it. I love this game!

[Lorteungen212]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I would think the best way to fight pirates is to make your game worth the $.

Very true. I don't know how well this copy protection works, I have a warez version and it seems to work. If the game is good I'll buy it but if it's crap I'll just delete it. I used to buy games before trying them out but I've wasted too much money on unfinished products to do that again. I foolishly bought MoO3, ignoring all the negative reviews because I'm a fan of the series; I've never been so dissapointed by a game in my life. I've only played one game of galciv so far and it was kinda boring to be honest, but I'll give it another chance before I decide to buy it or not. It seems to more like the old MoO games than MoO3 was.