Steam and copy protection.... Is not working! So why?

[Fighter]

What was the point of having a single player game having to connect to the internet. I am lucky to have fast internet connection, but many people dont.

If it was antiparacy thing, well it is not working! Because a couple of my freinds got the game in Russia for 4$ like they always do. No steam, no internet authentication, nothing....

This uber protection that valve designed was broken in one day as with any other game before it. The only thing they accomplished is encourage people to by pirated games. Why? Well for one because it is so much easier to use.

I know that if I had no internet or even a very slow connection, had trouble with steam/installation/authication that some people seem to be having. I would say screw everyone and get the pirated game. (Mind you I have a legal copy now and it works fine for me)

 

[johnstone]

Its not just the piracy they want to stub out.

Their games now need steam to run. They want people to use Steam to access HL2 so not only do you have a robust platform to run the game from you also have a system that will update your copy quickly and easily.

Steam is more than just anti piracy.....

 

[ChronosWing]

Meh, you can't stop pirates. Even the most dedicated of crackers will ALWAYS find a way around a game and crack it, but they always encourage people to buy the real game and support the company, most cracking groups crack games basicly for fun and just to see if it can be done. Sure what their doing is illegal, but nothing can be done about it. At least they try to tell people to buy the retail copy, this is why back in the day people used to just release rips of games, missing music and speach, sometimes even high res graphics and the likes, in which case sure you could play the game begining to end but you would be missing out on alot of the games key components. I wish they still released rips today instead of entire iso's, would encourage the pirates to buy their games if they liked the ripped copy, as is you can't play multi with a warez copy, one because the warez copy of hl2 emulates steam but doesn't really use it, and you can't play hl2 mods without steam. And almost all pirated games have no online play, best you can do is lan. This being because of cd-key's that come with pirated games are always either generated by a keygen or are fake to begin with just to get the game to install.

 

[PvtRyan]

Yeah, most people who warez it now will still buy it in the future when mods are coming out and CS:S really gets rolling. And if we're lucky, maybe even some multiplayer expansion.

Ontopic: their main aim with the online authentication was to stop pre-release leaks, and it worked flawlessly.

 

[Fighter]

The only reason you cant play online is cdkeys and no steam required there..... Then I am not talking about online, I bought HL2 for the single player campaign.


Sure I will be playing mods in the future. But I am not talking about them, what I am saying is let the people play single player without steam. Counter-Strike blows anyway.

As for automatic apdates: most "normal" games have autoupdate function anyway.

 

[ChronosWing]

well like ryan said it was to stop pre-release leaks. And it worked, maybe in the next couple patched you won't need to authenticate through steam anymore who knows.

 

[Fighter]

Ontopic: their main aim with the online authentication was to stop pre-release leaks, and it worked flawlessly.

For one day........ Until some pirate bought a legal copy via steam, registered. Then proceded to break it the same night and you had it in pirate shops the next morning.

As I mentioned: Here in Russia it was available on the 18th at the latest in most places. Someplaces the same day as official.

 

[ChronosWing]

Well valve accomplished what they wanted, they didn't want it to be leaked early, and it worked, they probably knew it would get cracked in less than a day but oh well, thats how these things go. Like I said maybe in the next batch of retail copies you won't need to authenticate with steam.

 

[miked4o7]

you might be surprised how big of a difference in sales it makes not to have your game cracked pre-release.... even if it just for one day. Besides that though, like people were saying, steam is supposed to be so much more than anti-piracy. In fact, I think steam is an absolutely brilliant idea... it's execution has just been less than stellar so far, but I have high hopes for it in the future.

 

[Fighter]

Yes, I see your point. But if you ever saw a pirated copy, you should not get prerelease leaks anyway because often they are not complete.

Most games accomplish what you describe without anything as fancy as steam. Farcry, Doom3.. ect.. None of these new games had a prerelease leak.

The only way you can have a prerelease leak is if the full copy is stolen before it goes into production. It really is not that hard to make sure nobody steals it via internet.

 

[Fighter]

you might be surprised how big of a difference in sales it makes not to have your game cracked pre-release.... even if it just for one day. Besides that though, like people were saying, steam is supposed to be so much more than anti-piracy. In fact, I think steam is an absolutely brilliant idea... it's execution has just been less than stellar so far, but I have high hopes for it in the future.

I have no doubt that this is the future...

But I am just worried. What next? You will have to play single player completely online?

I am concerned for the people that dont have access to internet. Maybe in your country everyone does. But in mine alot of PC users do not.

 

[KagePrototype]

Yes, I see your point. But if you ever saw a pirated copy, you should not get prerelease leaks anyway because often they are not complete.

Most games accomplish what you describe without anything as fancy as steam. Farcry, Doom3.. ect.. None of these new games had a prerelease leak.

Um, Far Cry and Doom 3 did, hell Doom 3 was leaked a few days before the US release, and everyone in europe who was too impatient to wait two weeks for their release date downloaded it. Estimations showed that they lost close to a few million dollars with that one, it was all over gaming news. This was the sort of thing Valve were trying to avoid, and since HL2 was one of the most anticipated games of the year, it was bound to happen unless they stopped it.

 

[ChronosWing]

Yes those 2 games were leaked long before their release. Someone always steals a copy when the game goes gold and is shipped to warehouses for packaging. Thats how it gets cracked a leaked everywhere.

 

[Kommie]

As for arguments Against copy-protection there are literally TONS of them (cause system crashes , kill performance, make game unplayble) the only people that copy protection stops are the average every day guy (or gal) The kind of person who doesnt know how to go about cracking a video game and doesnt want to own pirated software.

Copy protection is kind of like a no trespassing sign, people just ignore them, and its not going to stop you from trespassing when you aren't going to anyway is it?

Well valve accomplished what they wanted, they didn't want it to be leaked early, and it worked, they probably knew it would get cracked in less than a day but oh well, thats how these things go. Like I said maybe in the next batch of retail copies you won't need to authenticate with steam.

Why would that be? They have a comparitvely good way to really keep people from pirating their game with this new system, what are they going to simply switch copy protection methods? It would probably take more effort to change it than to keep it the same, and I know when I installed the game i couldn't help but think "damn thats alot of security" which may be a deterrent to piracy (however slight). You guys realize of course that everyone KNOWS that copy-protection is pointless in the long run (including valve or vivendi or whoever) but its the fact that its a deterrent and it also keep the dummies from piracy. And thats why they use it. It may very well be their best and only defense.

 

[Fighter]

Then what about the people who dont have stable internet or simply dont want to deal with steam for whatever reason.

I'd say they are encouraged to get a pirated copy. And those are not nessesarly the people that would otherwise get a pirated copy.

 

[ChronosWing]

I was saying just out of my ass, not like valve may do it, but they could just as easily in the next batch of retail copies have the unlocked files on it and all you would have to do is enter you cd key and install like most normal games. I don't see why not since the threat of a leak is over with and its already been cracked wouldn't matter.

 

[asd-hl]

What was the point of having a single player game having to connect to the internet. I am lucky to have fast internet connection, but many people dont.

Funny, i can play HL2 completely offline and w/o connecting to the internet. maybe i have read the sticky? :cheese:
As for "russian friends" did they told you about not working AI, missing textures or missing lips animations? ( sometimes, but possible). Half-Life2 is yet to be fully cracked and it has been plenty of time since the release. I would call it "almost unhackable" :thumbs:

 

[ChronosWing]

Funny, i can play HL2 completely offline and w/o connecting to the internet. maybe i have read the sticky? :cheese:
As for "russian friends" did they told you about not working AI, missing textures or missing lips animations? ( sometimes, but possible). Half-Life2 is yet to be fully cracked and it has been plenty of time since the release. I would call it "almost unhackable" :thumbs:

As far as I've read from posts at bittorrent forums the hacked version works flawlessly.

Emporio is the hacking group who cracked it, and I've never known Emporio to release non working cracked games. According to their NFO and people who have downloaded it, it work 100%.

 

[ChronosWing]

btw here is a link to their NFO, it states their first release was broken, but the latest release works 100%.
http://nfo.ngindex.com/viewnfo.php?md5=57e25641a1266534fedbcd9cf7023046&hl=half life 2

 

[Lep]

Then what about the people who dont have stable internet or simply dont want to deal with steam for whatever reason.

I'd say they are encouraged to get a pirated copy. And those are not nessesarly the people that would otherwise get a pirated copy.

You only need the internet to authenicate? You do realize you can go into offline mode in steam right?

 

[asd-hl]

btw here is a link to their NFO, it states their first release was broken, but the latest release works 100%.
http://nfo.ngindex.com/viewnfo.php?md5=57e25641a1266534fedbcd9cf7023046&hl=half life 2

worked, ok. But is there someone who actually managed to play through the whole game? Well i can only judge from some other forums where some ppl do have this *cough* release. and they arent that happy with it and installing plenty of fixes to get it working. Looks like Valve created some hidden stones which are kicking in slowly