Rise Of Nations Beta Has Been Pirated!!!

[Solver]

I think that piracy of unreleased software is generally worse, there may actually be things that the developers want to remain hidden.

Yes, most probably, the majority of Apolytoners did some or other acts or piracy. Some people use only pirated sofware, others just have some. A shame, but it's clearly a fact. Note that in most countries other than the USA, people DO NOT MORALLY consider themselves wrong when pirating software. Especially true for non-EU countries, and in Russia, you can't sometimes find a legal version of a program.

That being said, I admit that I have sometimes tried games before buying. An example is Civ:CtP, after hearing so much controversy on it, I first acquired, and then bought it.

[Sava]

I don't think pirating is MORALLY WRONG unless you are selling it. If you are simply copying a game for your friends, or leeching, it's fine.

Smart developers include online play that requires a unique ID in order to play. These CD-keys are usually checked by an online source (like WON.net for Half-Life and its mods) and can't be duplicated or generated by a key-gen. And throughout my warez career (dating back to BBS's in the early 90's) I've always bought a game that was good.

[General Ludd]

Ah, I just discoverd it too while doing my nightly rounds. It doesn't have many sources (I don't see any with the complete file) but the queue is geting real big.


That there are only a few sources does not make it less likely it's real, fakes are often re-names or fake files with nothing in them and thus have alot of sources.

[Solver]

Sava... I've not seen a thing that can't be cracked, with all those IDs.

For instance, the cracked Age of Mythology doesn't work on multiplayer. If you apply any CD crack or something, it won't work. Still, some smart guys found a way around this.

And, mind you, AoM is NOT available in ANY shop in my city, and never WAS. If you ask the shopkeepers why, they'll tell you because noone buys legal stuff in our country anyway.

[flash9286]

its still not on Kazza yet

[Homunculus]

Just my opinion on piracy.
I think its a valid alternative to (often non-existant) demo's ie.. you likeit, you buy it.
Although most game boxes/books say "may be returned to shop for refund" NO shops here in the Netherlands accept that..

and i aint gonna pay €50 (around the same in $$) for a game which then turns out to be crap and/or has issues with my hardware...

[mactbone]

It depends - sometimes I'll download something to check it out. In this case I just wanted to see if Tass was right. I didn't see, but even if I did I don't think I'd DL it. I have too many exams and I'd rather wait for the full version.

[Solver]

And generally, buying full boxed versions, it works better than the ones you pirate. Pirated versions give a good general impression of what the game is though.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Solver
And generally, buying full boxed versions, it works better than the ones you pirate. Pirated versions give a good general impression of what the game is though.

That isn't true, unless you are talking about rips (but who uses those these days?)


Infact, Master of Orion 3 didn't work out of the box for me because of the over-zealous copy protection they have, I had to download a no-cd crack to get it to run. If I pirated the game I'd of gotten it sooner, and it would of worked straight off the bat. (Not to mention that the game was a let-down anyways)

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[tenordruid]

Infact, Master of Orion 3 didn't work out of the box for me because of the over-zealous copy protection they have, I had to download a no-cd crack to get it to run. If I pirated the game I'd of gotten it sooner, and it would of worked straight off the bat. (Not to mention that the game was a let-down anyways)

That's another thing! the copy protection is just ridiculous. I don't have a really ols machine. And there are 2 games I've just recently bought (AOM and C&C generals) that that never started. It installs just fine but then when you start the game, the cd rom drive runs then glitches and it asks you to put the cd in the cd-rom drive. So I have to look for a no-cd crack to make it work. Jsut rediculous. And most companies hound you for even implying on getting a no-cd crack. I've contacted their repsctive tech oersonal and they had no idea oin how to fix the situation. They tols me to get another cd-rom drive. HMMM I'm don;t have a lot of moeny to spend. What? do they think money grows on trees. (I always loved that ezxpression)

[Bridger]

Originally posted by Osweld
Ah, I just discoverd it too while doing my nightly rounds. It doesn't have many sources (I don't see any with the complete file) but the queue is geting real big.


That there are only a few sources does not make it less likely it's real, fakes are often re-names or fake files with nothing in them and thus have alot of sources.

What program you guys using? I need a new good program, i havn't gotten any mp3z since....napster lol.

[theponyguy1]

kazaa

[General Ludd]

I'm not telling you what program I'm using. I don't think the mods would appretiate that, since doing so in this thread would be essentially telling you where to get the pirated Beta. But I'd never use Kazza, I can tell you that.

I don't see anymore sources today, still only about 10mb of the file floating around. Looks like whoever put it up had second thoughts. (or is not on very often...)

[vovan]

Well, you could make a more or less educated guess from the looks of Tass' screenshot that the he is using eDonkey...

[Solver]

Yeah, anyone with serious computing (or is it warez?) experience can make guesses from screens. I have recently taken a digicam photo of myself near the comp... and I can just finely see that I'm running Windows XP and making some downloads in a download manager on that photo .