Lovely, it doesn't work.

[General Ludd]

This is what I get for breaking my rule of "try before you buy" and buying the game without first playing a pirated version - it always seems to be a huge disapointment or lesson in frustration.

I've bought the game, installed it, click on the Icon and... nothing. The cursor will quickly flash into a CD icon and back, but nothing happens. Suspecting that this is due to over-zealous copy protection I tried creating a cloneCD image of the play disk and running it in daemon tools, still no luck.

As it is, I have no idea what the problem is. But I still suspect it's due to copy protection. I'm wishing I didn't cancel the download of the game I had going when I was able to reserve a copy earlier today - would be nice to have a no-cd crack available to try.



If this turns out to be because of copy protection, I seriously doubt that I will ever buy another game. Certainly not from developers or publishers that insist on using "copy proection", anyways.

[Corentor]

sorry to hear that.... worked without a hitch on my system...

[Todd Hawks]

Try it on another computer (if available) to see if it is just your CD ROM drive that doesn't like the copy protection. And just wait for the NoCD crack. Shouldn't be long and maybe one is out already (I didn't check as I don't need one).

[General Ludd]

Lots of other people have the same problem and that seems to be the consensus, Todd Hawks.

I haven't been able to find a no-cd crack yet...


This is really stupid. The people who come up with these copy protection schemes must be complete morons - do they not realise this has no effect on pirates what-so-ever, only on their legitamte customers?

[CharlesBHoff]

Originally posted by Osweld
Lots of other people have the same problem and that seems to be the consensus, Todd Hawks.

I haven't been able to find a no-cd crack yet...


This is really stupid. The people who come up with these copy protection schemes must be complete morons - do they not realise this has no effect on pirates what-so-ever, only on their legitamte customers?

Most likely they arenot aware of that or it their are they donot care. It remain me of the late 1970 's and early 1980's disk base copy protection which was worst than the one use today on CD's. First the copy protect damage you 5 1/4 inch and 3 1/2 disk drive. Second it can damage the disk or disks which have the program on then so either the first time or N time it would not load the program into memony.

[Pax]

I'm not sure if this is the same problem or not, but my cursor was flashing in and out. Mainly out. I did several things. I think what dd the trick was going into one of the files on my C drive and changing the cursor selection from 1 to 2. I'm not at my home computer so I don't remember the name of the file but maybe this will help someone.

[be0wulfe]

You're kidding right? What stops you from buying the game - rewarding their effort - and downloading a no-cd exe?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by be0wulfe
What stops you from buying the game - rewarding their effort - and downloading a no-cd exe?

Ethics.

I'm not going to pay them if they insist on these idiotic buisness practices. It's the corporate executives who inflate prices and waste money developing these useless systems that only punish their legitimate customers.



Besides, if I had continued downloading the game instead of going to the store and buying it, I would be playing it right now. Instead, I have to go hunting for a seperate no-cd crack - which, coincedantly, is illegal and you wouldn't be allowed to ask for one in their tech forum even though it's required to get the game working.

Serves me right for buying a game I thought was good instead of pirating it.

[Nephilim]

"a seperate no-cd crack - which, coincedantly, is illegal"

No-CD cracks are, in fact, perfectly legal, as long as you legitimately own the software they were written for. Distributing cracks is not.

[gunnergoz]

Most games have copy protection. IIRC, the problem is apparently with certain CD drives and how they handle it. It's too bad that the manufacturer of the CD drives elected to not make them compatible with well-known software standards. Developers have a right to protect their intellectual property, after all.
The vast majority of buyers have no problems installing or running the game. Sorry some folks have this problem, but it is symptomatic of a peculiar hardware combination and not the game's fault.

[danwhit]

Do we know that the problem is my cd-drive? Before I go buy a new one, when I thought mine was fine until now. I don't have any idea how or where to get a no-cd patch and attempts in the past to find one for me have failed. And what to do with it when I get it.

Beowulfe-this has obviously never happened to you, or you would have a much different opinion. I always support all their products and to end up like this is a nightmare.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by gunnergoz
Most games have copy protection. IIRC, the problem is apparently with certain CD drives and how they handle it. It's too bad that the manufacturer of the CD drives elected to not make them compatible with well-known software standards.

From what I have read, Plextor - well considered to be the best in the industry - has stated that they will never officially support copy protection because it interferes with the quality of their drives.

Also, it is the software developer's responsibility to make it work on the hardware, not vice-versa. There is no mention of any specific CD drives that will or will not work in the requirements.

Developers have a right to protect their intellectual property, after all.

Protect it from what, their customers? No one who pirates the game has to deal with this because they have the means of bypassing it easily.

And I'd question their right to sell purposely flawed products. (That is, as I understand it, what most copy protection is - flaws and errors on the CD that can not be easily reproduced.)

The vast majority of buyers have no problems installing or running the game. Sorry some folks have this problem, but it is symptomatic of a peculiar hardware combination and not the game's fault.

Actually, it seems that a great number of people are having difficulties with this in some form or another. Many people have been complaining that it is over-working their CD and constantly running it, which can also cause slowdowns and stuttering. There are also lots of others who can not get it to run at all.

Do we know that the problem is my cd-drive? Before I go buy a new one, when I thought mine was fine until now. I don't have any idea how or where to get a no-cd patch and attempts in the past to find one for me have failed. And what to do with it when I get it.

I would ask in the official forums to be sure... but I've yet to see any techsupport there answering questions.

[General Ludd]

Oh, and you might want to try some of the suggestions in this thread on the official forum, danwhit.

Didn't help me any, but it might help you.

[General Ludd]

I've finally found a no-cd crack on eMule. It fixed my problem. Thank god for the pirates!
(If you want to get it form there, don't get the ~60kb files, they are actually phone dialers. The crack I got was roughly a 2.2mb .rar file - search for "moo3")


danwhit (and anyone else who is having this problem): if you are unable to get it working, PM me and I'll get back to you later.

[asonetuh]

...

@Nephilim - No-cd cracks are, in fact, very illegal in the U.S. - please see the anti-circumvention clauses in the DMCA (see http://www.chillingeffects.org/anticircumvention/ for starters). I believe Britain also has a very similar law, that probably also makes no-cd cracks very illegal. It does not matter if you bought the game or not.

@Osweld - For you to stand there and say "Ethics" is why you won't purchase a game with cd copy protection *and yet still play it*, is stunningly hypocritical. "Greed" would be more accurate. The solution is simple - if the game has cd protection and you do not like that, then do not play it or buy it. You do not have an innate 'right' to play a game, especially when a lot of hard work went into its creation. If you believe in "ethics", perhaps you also believe in "karma". I sincerely hope something you pour a lot of time into is stolen, just so you understand the other side.
The sad thing is, copy protection exists because so many people have your kind of "ethics". If everyone had a more altruistic sense of ethics, copy protection wouldn't be needed.