What I just E-mailed Aspyr, Sick of their shoddy ports and copy protection.

[Xavier]

Yes! Because they've received plenty of feedback from their customers that they are irritated by this limitation, and yet Aspyr does nothing. Furthermore we can't even seem to get a human response from them. Just "Have a nice day "
They are completely indifferent. So whether annoying legit users was their original intent or not, they are certainly aware of how we feel but obviously don't care.

Your overlooking the point of CD verification. It is not to annoy the user of the product, but an effort to try and prevent piracy.

 

[nagromme]

I wrote a polite letter to Aspyr a month ago (thanking them for the games, with a big BUT) about the disc check issue. Never got a reply, but here's what I wrote:

(For the record, I am happy with their products on the whole--and Quake Wars in particular is the best gaming money I have ever spent. But THIS issue is still a big one.)

Subject: Comments on the Quake Wars disc check

Hi -

Thanks for bringing a great game to Mac! I know why you need to protect your business from piracy, but Quake Wars on other platforms relies on user accounts alone, with no need for a disc check.

I've purchased Quake Wars anyway, but having a disc check is a VERY big problem for a lot of people, and there are reasons you may or may not have considered.

3 small reasons:

1. You have to put the disc in to play--obviously an inconvenience. Especially if you can't find it and give up.

2. You have to SWAP discs to play other disc-check games.

3. You have to SWAP discs to use your optical drive for anything else, like burning data or watching movies.

And 3 BIG reasons:

1. The disc is easily damaged or lost, and then you have nothing. It makes a product that should last forever into one that wears out and is gone. (I've lost games in the past to scratched discs.) It's safest if you keep the disc in the drive all the time, but that's not practical.

2. Laptop users lose portability; you have to lug a case with a disc inside--for EACH game. And the risk of loss or damage only increases on the go.

3. Keeping a disc in your drive, aside from the annoying noise that results, SLOWS DOWN a lot of system functions when you're not playing:

- Every time you open or save a file, the disc has to spin up first. Often for network volume access too.

- Every time you do a Spotlight search (instant search is a feature of Macs, remember) the disc has to spin up first.

- Lots of Finder operations cause the disc to spin up first.

As a result, a LOT of really common operations on your Mac go from instant, to taking several long seconds. This is copy protection that slows down your whole machine even when not gaming! Unless you remove the disc (risk of damage again) and have to hunt for it each time you play.

In addition, these problems can lead otherwise honest people to educate themselves on ways to break your piracy protections, in order to more easily use the games they legally bought.

So please consider removing the disc check in a future patch for Quake Wars. With that one change, I'll be able to wholeheartedly recommend the purchase to other Mac gamers.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Chone]

Developers know that they don't need DRM but they need it to satisfy their publishers, additionally, if something ever goes wrong again, they just draw the big ol' piracy scapegoat and let it take all the blame so the company ends up in a good "innocent puppy dog" light.

It's a routine and a brilliant marketing scheme, if you think about it, none of the companies whining about piracy have poor sales or financial problems... I thought it was hilarious when Infinity Ward whined about piracy... they have sold 10 frigging million copies of Call of Duty 4.

If your game sucks and no body buys it because it's a horrible unpolished boring game, no problem, instead of citing problems with the game as the reason, you just say piracy took all your sales away. People feel guilty/bad for the publisher/developer and feel more encouraged to support the publisher.

Think about it, Aspyr is probably made of hundreds of gamers, they probably know how annoying and unnecesary cd-checks are, but they need to reserve their right to whine about piracy in case their games flop.

 

[erikistired]

Just to name another 2 games that don't require the CD.

Warcraft 3 and Halo. Not Aspyr games, but Aspyr should try and make games without CD verification

blizzard has freed up all of their games at this point i believe. warcraft 3 and diablo 2 for sure, and i think the latest starcraft patch took away the cd check as well.

2. Laptop users lose portability; you have to lug a case with a disc inside--for EACH game. And the risk of loss or damage only increases on the go.

this is a big one for me. i have enough junk to carry around, i don't need fragile cds as well. not having to have discs for diablo 2 and warcraft 3 has lead me to play them more when i'm out of the house than other games these days, because i don't need a cd to play them anymore.

 

[punkybadhip]

"It needlessly decreases the life of a drive, causes extra noise and uses more power etc, takes longer to load."

It is a CD check, in most cases I doubt it is loading information from the disk.
You are contradicting yourselves!
Thus why I am laughing at the people complaining even more!

It is easy to assume, that some people are just upset that they downloaded a game from a torrent, and can't use it because of a CD check.

PC companies have a new form of protection, it is called "keys" and it is why you see some games without CD checks. Sure, you download a game and play it on your computer, but I doubt that download is going to include the key required to register an account and play online.

Oh wait, I am "too young" to understand! LOL
I just know why companies (and myself) include some form of protection.

 

[Eric5h5]

Lets keep the insults out of it ok? I haven't attacked you personally, your argument shouldn't require you sending an ad hominem my way either.

What in the world are you talking about? Unless your name is punkybadhip, your response is nonsensical, as I wasn't talking to you. Try reading the thread again.

--Eric

 

[palebluedot]

What in the world are you talking about? Unless your name is punkybadhip, your response is nonsensical, as I wasn't talking to you. Try reading the thread again.

--Eric

Haha I'm sorry. I'd been up coding for 24 hours in CSS and I was delirious.

"It needlessly decreases the life of a drive, causes extra noise and uses more power etc, takes longer to load."

It is a CD check, in most cases I doubt it is loading information from the disk.
You are contradicting yourselves!
Thus why I am laughing at the people complaining even more!

It is easy to assume, that some people are just upset that they downloaded a game from a torrent, and can't use it because of a CD check.

PC companies have a new form of protection, it is called "keys" and it is why you see some games without CD checks. Sure, you download a game and play it on your computer, but I doubt that download is going to include the key required to register an account and play online.

Oh wait, I am "too young" to understand! LOL
I just know why companies (and myself) include some form of protection.

My friend, you need to learn how computer hardware works. The simple act of putting a DVD in a slot loaded drive puts wear and tear on the drive and disc. The game does infact send a call to the disc to ensure that it is the actual disc in the begining of the gmae. Because of this the disc continues to spend (not to mention if you open finder or do a call to search the connected volumes, i.e. open a file.) So yes, the disc is being used and putting wear and tear on the drive and disc. Quit trying to pretend like its not, because it simply does and theres nothing more any of us can say on that topic.

Thanks for the refresher course on modern gaming. If you had read any of our threads you would have noted that we said the game HAS A KEY CHECK. ALL MODERN GAMES HAVE A KEY CHECK. Even the ones that use archaic DRM like Quake Wars Aspyr port. That is why this is pointless. You can not play the game online (or any game for that matter) without a legit, store bought key. That is why CD DRM is pointless. Back in Half Life 1 and the old WON NET days you needed the cd check because you could forge a key and play. Now you cant.

Also, when people download a game from a torrent it comes included with the necessary cracks and nocd-nodvd files. Thats why its funny. The Zero Day release of a game has all the crack necessary before the first person has usually legally bought the game, thus invalidating the whole point of the DVD CHECK system in the first place. People who dl Aspyr's Quake Wars from a torrent or usenet dont care about the check because its a non issue. More often then not they probably dont even realize there is one if the crack has already been applied as is often the case. The only people who realize it are the unlucky saps like us who give our money to Aspyr.

Quit trying to mock us and act like you know what you are talking about because your last post just showed you obviously dont. You ignored 80% of what we said and, to quote you "contradicted" yourself with the rest. GG.

 

[0098386]

He's a pirate because he knows how to pirate games? I know how and I've never pirated a game or app in my life. As a dev myself I hate pirates as it (if they enjoy the game and don't buy it) affects my income.

Just looking over a torrent site and most games come with "No CD hacks" in the form of an extra .exe or .reg file. It's not hard to understand really. Anyone who understands how a computer works would likely know.