You can play it without starting steam. but it still checks with the tages master server. Also i do not know of a crack that works with the steam version.
The devs do not even post in the english clear sky forums. They talk to the russian speaking members in the russian side of the forum. From whats been passed is that a few people were fired at GSC and that they plan on patches in the next few weeks/months.
valve says that its not them and that they can not help. GSC will not help and tages says that its not them. Yet everyday on the stalker and steam forums people are posting about running out of activations.
So far no one has got helped by anyone. As soon as someone gets a crack out for this...
Luckly enough, my clan as over 22 members. We all have planets in the same system or the next system over. So backup incase of a raid is allways within a few minutes. The thing is that over 15 of us are making the push at the same time of if a few of us gets hit the others will have the death...
You use the same key, you can only use it five times. Uninstalling the game then changing hardware, then reinstalling would still use another key. You only get 5 activations no matter what. Hell uninstalling the game then reinstalling the game without changing hardware still burns another...
For the steam install you activate the key right before you start to play. Its the last thing you do. Leaving the boxes blank will not let you click next.
You guys got starforce, we got tages. Also do not add any new hardware or tages will freak out! I added another secondary HDD and tages made me reactivate. So I now have 3 activations left.
Hmmmm, you only get 5 key activatings because of the tages DRM. Tages is in the cd/dvd and steam downloads for the states.
So after you install the game do not change any hardware or upgrade the OS.
Available: September 15th, 2008
This game will unlock in approximately 1 week, 2 days and 6 hours
........ What happend to the steam release Tonight/2AM in the morning my time. **** all day its been counting down hours. Now another week.
It says 6 hours on the steampowered site...