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Meh
March 29th 2002, 10:15 MSK by Bailey Recently, Jedi Knight II: Outcast, went gold. Slightly less recently, JK2:O was distributed widely over the warez and P2P systems. While I appreciate Raven as a development group, I have to ask if LucasArts is going to remove their collective head from their collective ass at any immediate juncture. Hot sticky warez scenes and new games get along like a house on fire. This is, quite assuredly, an uncontested and assured fact. So the question begets itself: while the single player experience cannot be copy protected, (short of Black&White-esque spyware narcing you out to the nazis at Lionhead) the multiplayer experience, more often than not, works quite well with CD-keys, online registration, and all that song and dance. No problem. Moreover, when a game is being developed on an engine/license that is well known for being quite reasonably secure online (i.e. the Q3 engine in this particular case) there really doesn't seem to be any particular reason that the game shouldn't incorporate the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of it's predecessors. So the question is, why are a few thousand people jedi-ing it up on the Zone days before JK2:O hits the shelves? To reiterate, I like Raven. I really do. They make some funky games. And I have a passion for LucasArts which burns back to the Dark Forces/Sam n' Max days. But I find myself completely unable to sympathize with either party when their collective clusterfuck/game is distributed to tens of thousands of people a week before the boxed product is even in stores. This is akin to the whole fiasco surrounding Rune, a game which was on the warez scene in gold format an entire month before it was in stores. At which point, the staff posted on the forums about how it was stealing bread from the mouths of their children. Pardon me for saying so, but it's a bit frigging late to whine about the cows wandering off when you intentionally left the barn door unlocked and wide open with giant flashing neon signs screaming "BOVINE EGRESS" to one and all. Why would LucasArts not opt for some sort of security, CD-key, copy protection, of any kind whatsoever? Why would anyone throw away a good chunk of the profits for the past year or so of their hard work? Justify Episode One! The only immediate answer I can come up with is this: Everyone is stupid but me. |
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Rambar, #11: After you watched the Hamster Dance long enough, everything makes sense. |
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Is it not so that they can't enforce copyright if they have taken no precautions whatsover to protect that copyright? Bite me. No I'm serious, bite me.
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Ummm...go look at this (Flash required) right now. Like really seriously. I had heard the audio portion over a year ago but the animation adds a whole new dimension to it. Don't pull it up in front of people who are politically correct. |
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Interesting. How topical. I now have "ghettodilta5.swf" sitting on my desktop, playing over and over in my IrfanView freeware player with Flash plug-in. Is that so wrong? Anyhoo. I certainly don't object to there being no CD-check on JK2; CD-checks are crack-stupid, yo. However... no CD-key for online play? On a Q3-engined title, the same fucking engine that almost pioneered the CD-key system? On a title that allows people to use lightsabers against other people? That doesn't have a demo? This may actually count as proof that Lucas really is wholly out of touch with <50% of his fanbase. I mean, yeah, Jar Jar for kids, oh-kay, I can sort of believe that. But... making "Rebel Fighters" the picture of heroism for many people; making glowing swords the weapon of choice for many people; then telling many people that, "okay, yeah you can finally have that in a marginally acceptable technically realistic environment, but you gotta pay first, before you can even get a taste of it, because we're the LucasArts Empire and we say so"... well, whatever. Either they are stupid, stupid, stupid, or they're just being really nice to everyone, while simultaneously reducing their development and bandwidth costs... I mean, demos are just so passe now, right? At any rate, I find this debacle to be more entertaining than whatever single player story the game provides. Since I heard today that the versions of the older Jedi Knight games that come in the Limited Edition are not some kind of tricked-out W2K-friendly versions, well, screw the LE. I'll go troll bargain bins and find JK1, which I never played, while I wait for a) a patch, b) a demo, c) that lightsaber keychain to show up on Ebay, d) my Donkey to finish up. Meanwhile, I have Wizardry 8 waiting for me. Ahh, life's too good. "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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At least I can get it cheap now. Fine. I won't steal it. Then again, now I really know why there isn't a demo. I don't care to fill the website up with stupid text (right now, anyway), so I won't paste the whole deliciously stupid email advert I got, urging me to "Defy Lord Vader! Buy Jedi Outcast!" Talk about jumbo shrimp, for pity's sake. "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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http://dubose.home.texas.net/oops.html AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (office safe, not porno, amusing, military hardware, accidental, no deaths, no gore, no bloody, no nudity, no edited for televions) Ds Never argue with an idiot, theyll drag you down onto their level, then beat you with experience.
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I agree with Bailey (it hurts to utter these words), no protection is just plain wrong. But... maybe Lucas Arts doesn't care? Maybe the 10,000 (by your guesstimate) pirated copies, they just don't think will affect sales... I don't know, but to put nothing for protection, it definitly hints at not caring about the warez action. Just your average curious bastard.
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I was shocked to see no copy protection at all. My only guess is that Lucas Arts paid Raven enough to make it worth their while to piss away sales and that LucasArts is doing an experiment of some kind ... can a game do decently without protection? I don't think it can, but we'll see. I am a magnificent three toed sloth.
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jafd: On a title that allows people to use lightsabers against other people? That doesn't have a demo? They uhmmm... owe you nothing :D "I'm not sleeping with a junior high-schooler, I have a life sized doll that looks just like one."
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They may believe that enough star wars hardcore fanboys will want to buy the collector's edition and that will offset the pirated copies. I have been reading all over from jk owners and from what I have read so far alot of people got the collector's edition. |
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That would never offset the piracy. The collectors edition would have to be several hundred dollars to even begin to make a dent. I am a magnificent three toed sloth.
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plenty of games have no protection, or only a cd check - which is as good as not having protection. But I will agree, on an A title, not doing the CD key thing is just stupid. The Suns rays are made up of many atoms.
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um The Sim's has a cd-key but no server authentication. Cd-key doesn't mean jack if you don't have server authentication. |
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Perhaps by not having CD-Key protection, and thus increasing the number of people playing online, it will make multiplay look more favourable to those buying the game... "Dream of me... and maybe, just maybe, this nightmare will end."
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um The Sim's has a cd-key but no server authentication. Cd-key doesn't mean jack if you don't have server authentication. Yah, I think we're referring to the multiplayer aspect of games only. As of yet there is no decent way of protecting single-player. "Dream of me... and maybe, just maybe, this nightmare will end."
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*whistles nonchalantly and skuffs sole of shoe on ground* I _did_ try to tell you that they werent putting any protection on it, and all the warez monkeys would be all over it, but got shot down saying it would have to have a protection key. ah well, next time people might actually read my posts... Ds Never argue with an idiot, theyll drag you down onto their level, then beat you with experience.
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Well, if it's deliberate... so be it. It's their choice. What's 10k times $40 to Lucasarts anyway? ;) On the other hand, nobody seems to have put forward the idea that it could be a manufacturing oversight. At a guess, it's perfectly feasible that beta copies, which quite often get leaked on to the warez scene (remember the Q3A IHV test?) wouldn't have any kind of protection on them. If it's an error, then, unfortunately, I'm sure Raven will get hurt by it (and, less unfortunately, Lucasarts will too... but who cares about them? They're evil corporate assholes, right..?) As I said above, if it's deliberate, then god knows why they'd do it, but they're fully entitled to make their own decision on that kind of thing. Hey, maybe there's some insidious hidden protection that causes your monitor to operate as a manure synthesiser, and explode, showering you in shit, if you get caught without a legit copy... Hit me - I'm wasting valuable time.
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*casts Ray of Anti-Smug-Bastard +69 at Ds* Hit me - I'm wasting valuable time.
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according to gamecopyworld, your source for no cd hacks, Jedi does have a No CD Check. which is becoming oddly common of late, as Bridge commander does the same thing; neither requires a code or uses Safedisc. Why 50 dollar games would not use Safedisc at least, while 20 dollar games like Serious Sam do, befuddles me. I mean, a 20 dollar game is less likely to get warezed anyway. It could be though that the cost of safe disc just isn't worth it, considering how easy it is to defeat with a 100 dollar lite on burner and either clone cd or cdmate, and yet is pain in the butt for normal users if their CDROM drives choke on reading the legit disk because of the protection. The Suns rays are made up of many atoms.
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jafd: They wouldn't release a demo because it wouldn't contain a keychain! I'm still mezz'ed by this keychain! :D |
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duality: They wouldn't release a demo because it wouldn't contain a keychain! couldn't they ship a temporary keychain with the demo, that evaporates after 30 days? "I'm not sleeping with a junior high-schooler, I have a life sized doll that looks just like one."
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a game like that wont need a demo to convince people to buy it - it is star wars and that alone is merit enough for thousands of people to get it. --
Wanna be adored? Go to India and moo |
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It may have been ignorant or foolish for LucasArts not to use the quake3 cd-key system but that still isn't an excuse for people to steal it. "Hey this game has virtually no copy protection! THAT MEANS IT'S FREE!" The rumor I heard was that they didn't want to pay for the auth system. Pure rumor though. :) --
Rambar |
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What would be interesting to see is JK2 sell a bazillion copies despite having no copy protection. I wonder what the industry response would be? Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
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From the id technology page: An added benefit of the QUAKE III Arena license is that it also includes our CD key security system for piracy prevention So if the CD key stuff comes with the engine, then why remove it. The only additional expense that I can see them incurring isthe costs of running an authentication server. Surely that's small change to the mighty Lucasarts? Eradicators! - www.eradicators.co.uk
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I _did_ try to tell you that Eh? I do read your posts, Ds (even the white space! honest!), and I don't recall you talking about this issue, at all. Can you tell us which thread, at least, if not which post? On this board, right? As of yet there is no decent way of protecting single-player. And, there never will be. Save for some kind of ultra-draconian .NET kind of game, which I can see happening at some point, but given the tenacity of a) geeks and b) gamers, I can just see them haxx0ring the whole thing and creating another server system to plug into. /shrug. I really see this no-no-cd-check thing as being a big step forward; CD-checks do nothing but piss people off and/or make them laugh. I can't grok the abscence of multiplayer online authentication, though, seems like a total natural. The rumor I heard was that they didn't want to pay for the auth system. Doesn't that come part-and-parcel with the Q3 engine licence? Or, is it that they didn't want to pay for the administrative costs, maintaining an auth server and issuing keys and whatrot? What... is Lucas suddenly working on tightening his belt? The more I consider the issue, the more it makes very little sense to me. Which means that I'm all done considering the issue, as over-analysis of a circumstance that I know very little about, accomplishes very little. One thing that really sticks out in my mind, however, is that Rescue on Fractalus was the first LucasArts game, IIRC, and was also the first retail game product to "hit the warez scene" in a big way. (Or, perhaps since it was tangentially a part of the Star Wars phenom, it got reported on more attentively.) What exactly is it, that LA has figured out for themselves after all these years of being so popular with "rebel scum"? "Hey this game has virtually no copy protection! THAT MEANS IT'S FREE!" Heretic II has 'virtually no copy protection' either... in fact, most games don't have cd-key online authentithithy-cation. UT, for example. What's the difference in this case? Oh, yeah, Sabers. Witness the frothing. "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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Doh, thanks Neale. Crikey, hasn't any of the drooling webjournalos asked the question of them yet? Where's m0nty when you need him?? "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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Well, the issue here is, it Lucasarts or is Raven responsible for the game? Did LA just sell the license to the game, and it's all Raven from there, or what? Arizona Diamondbacks 2001 World Series Champions
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Thread hijaak in progress....do not adjust your monitors.... Who's your daddy?!?! It's not everyone telling me it can't be done that bothers me. It's them interrupting me while I'm doing it!
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My understanding is that LucasArts is wholly responsible, and Raven iss "just" the hired gun. I have the game now. It is pure Raven-love, very much evolved since their most recent efforts, with a bunch of semi-stupid elements that a) could only have been approved of by Lucas, and b) really, really make me feel like I'm in a Star Wars movie. Which I can only assume is the intent, so in spite of how deleriously stupid some parts of it are, I'd still call them "successes." Someone cut me a check, and I'll write a review. Nyahh nyaah nyahh. "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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That's not a hijack. That's a p1mp. "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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dsmartie: Worst. Segue. Evar. Screenshots are all well and good, but I really need the actual product to get a real good indicator of how it looks. :> |
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jafd: Did you get plain one or suparfun keychain edition? |
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If they're going to release "special edition games," the least they could do is fucking put something remotely worth paying extra money for in the box. A "collector's tin" and a keychain do not justify a $20 price increase. Give me a documentary on the making of the game. Better, give me commentary tracks that can be played while I'm playing the game... designers talking about what they were trying to accomplish with the levels, artists talking about how much of a bitch getting the animations right for the Rancor was... whatevs. Stop expecting me to pay extra money for useless baubles that will rapidly find their way into a desk drawer, never to be seen again. Blizzard's special editions are vaguely close to what a special edition game should be like. Duality - you coulda bought the regular edition, and gone out and found a lightsaber keychain for like two bucks. :P -chris |
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Plain, of course. I still have my wits about me. "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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Yeah, what chris said. If the included copies of the earlier games were some well-supported W2K-enabled loving, then, yeah, sure, worth the money. But a hunk of plastic and some copies of games that are freely available in bargain bins across the world... for 20 bucks? /groan. "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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first comment: i thought copy protection was in the bailiwick of the publisher, not the developer. second comment: safedisc and safedisc2 are stunningly easy to get around. not that i'd know personally--i don't have those skillz--but i've watched, and it actually takes less time, in some cases, to burn a cd with safedisc2 than without. how bizarre is that. third comment: i don't have the manual for jk2 handy, but i could swear i read (in it yesterday) the sp and mp games in jk2 were like separate executables or something. struck me as odd that you wouldn't start the mp game from the sp menu or whatnot. is this the case or no? if it is indeed the case, it explains much. that's about it for now, though. - if you can laugh at it, you can live with it.
- "Hey, how 'bout this: fuck you." -LPMiller |
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$20 extra? It's $10 extra here. i like monkeys. are you a monkey?
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crash: the sp and mp games in jk2 were like separate executables or something. I presume that's because the Q3 codebase doesn't make allowances for the single-player aspect of the game, which Raven would pretty much have done from scratch. I seem to recall they did the same thing with Elite Force. Eradicators! - www.eradicators.co.uk
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Duality@45 Screenshots are all well and good, but I really need the actual product to get a real good indicator of how it looks. :> Oh, thats easy. Lookie here, see. It's not everyone telling me it can't be done that bothers me. It's them interrupting me while I'm doing it!
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Well, that's worst case figures; LE is $60, while best price I found for vanilla is $40. Shipping and sales tax cancel out. The point is, for sixty bucks, I demand better value than an alloy box, a hunk of plastic, and the "generous" inclusion of two games that sell for approx. five bucks in the marketplace today. I have my copy of Q3 in an alloy box. I no longer need to get that spot punched out on my geek card. How much was that "collector's edition" Q3 when it was released? Sixty bucks? Well, I paid twenty for mine; does that mean I got ripped off because I had to wait a couple of years, just to save forty bucks on getting that glint of "steel" out of the corner of my eye when I walk past my bookshelf? Irregardless, it's a rip off regardless. One thing that cd-key authentithyickyicacation does, is guarantee to the legitmate user, that when you go online, you aren't playing with a bunch of choads and warez whores from day one. Thus, by not spending the cash on an auth server, they have diminished the value of the product... yet they're still charging $40-$60 for it. Is my position becoming more clear, perhaps? "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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According to a Raven designer on the jediknight2 forums at jediknightii.net ,It was decided by Lucasarts who didn't want to deal with customer service issues based on Cd-key generators. really Dumb reason. I feel sorry for Raven. |
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The point is, for sixty bucks, I demand better value than an alloy box, a hunk of plastic, and the "generous" inclusion of two games that sell for approx. five bucks in the marketplace today. I think the point is that your local retailer is robbing you blind. EB has the tin box for $49, regular for $39. i like monkeys. are you a monkey?
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SUDDEN INSPIRATION: This is all so obvious now I think about it - Lucasarts are treating this as a loss leader for Episode 2. Think about it - the best way to get massive market coverage is to give the product away for free. If they can get some money on the side by selling it in boxes for $40 a pop as well, so be it... I know I'll be totally psyched for Episode 2 once I've played JK2... The sneaky bastards... I'm actually quite impressed. Hit me - I'm wasting valuable time.
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crash: the sp and mp games in jk2 were like separate executables or something. Same as it was with RtCW and Elite Force. Q3A was built solely for MP and therefore the code is probably MP only. I think you'd have to strip certain things from the MP code (checking for an internet connection probably amongst others) to make it suitable for SP, hence you get 2 separate .exe files. Weird though that MOH had only 1 executable but I think that executable just calls up the menu. Then whether you choose single or multiplayer decides which app would be run, the SP one or the MP one. "I'm not sleeping with a junior high-schooler, I have a life sized doll that looks just like one."
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LPMiller: I mean, a 20 dollar game is less likely to get warezed anyway. Everything gets warezed. Everything. Doesn't matter whether or not it's useful to anyone, it'll get warezed. Rambar: The rumor I heard was that they didn't want to pay for the auth system. Pure rumor though. :) Which auth system ? Presumably they would have gotten the Quake 3 system when they licensed the code, no ? Neale(ish): An added benefit of the QUAKE III Arena license is that it also includes our CD key security system for piracy prevention There, see !? Neale: The only additional expense that I can see them incurring isthe costs of running an authentication server. Well that's probably why right there; in order for the authentication server to have any effect, the user would have to be on-line before they fire up the game. Which works for Quake 3, since it's an online game, but who wants to connect to the internet to play a singleplayer game ? Obviously the Quake 3 authentication isn't server based. Actually, I know it's not, because the first time you launch it, it asks you to enter your key and won't let you play a game of any description until you do so. Which just makes Raven's failure to use Q3's authentication code all the more bizarre. jafd: I really see this no-no-cd-check thing as being a big step forward; CD-checks do nothing but piss people off and/or make them laugh. Depends on the game, but normally they don't annoy me that much. A game like DeusEx, for example, reads a lot of data from the CD, so you're gonna have it in there anyway. Quake 3, on the other hand, can be installed entirely on your HD, so shouldn't require the CD to be in the drive. I like that fact that after a few months id generally releases a patch that removes the CD check code. you think you're funny ? I'll cut a hole in your head and piss through it...
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"According to a Raven designer on the jediknight2 forums at jediknightii.net ,It was decided by Lucasarts who didn't want to deal with customer service issues based on Cd-key generators." How many times do I have to repeat this fact before.. Someone stops blaming Raven. Raven definitely would have prefered using the cd-key. But Lucasarts didn't want to use it. End of story. It's not raven's fault. It's Lucasarts. |
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Evilash: How many times do I have to repeat this fact before.. Someone stops blaming Raven. dude, a little advice: after you've said some factually untrue things, it'll take some time before the other crappers will stop ignoring your posts. Trust me, I know. }:> "I'm not sleeping with a junior high-schooler, I have a life sized doll that looks just like one."
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I think the point is that your local retailer is robbing you blind. EB has the tin box for $49, regular for $39. Well, you think wrong. It isn't a question of my getting robbed; I'm speaking on behalf of the lumpenproletariat, those fools who walk into the Shop of Evil, see a shiney box, and plop down their money without realizing that they're paying extra to get shafted with no lube. I realize that it's very hip these days to only be concerned about oneself and let everybody else go hang, but ignorant != stupid. At $50, it's somewhat of a good deal; admittedly, a lightsaber keychain holds some appeal for me. I have long ago lost the one I had back in 1986, and, they're so diifcult to come by nowadays, right? Anyway, I said, or meant to say, the $60 is the worst price for the LE, and $40 is the best price for the vanilla. You will see me slobbing knobs in Hell before you see me paying $60 for a game without a demo, truly. A game like DeusEx, for example, reads a lot of data from the CD, so you're gonna have it in there anyway. Interesting point. However, as old a game as Deus Ex is, I still had enough room on my 10 GB HD to do a full install of the 600 MB game. Additionally (and this is a really interesting thing, thanks for reminding me), the CD check for Deus Ex was defeatable by... using Notepad.exe to adjust the user.ini file by two characters. All you had to do was change the drive letter and path from your CD-ROM to the place where you installed the game, worked flawlessly. That's an intelligent form of CD-check; it doesn't stymie the folks who actually care about putting needless wear and tear on their hardware and media, stops the ignorant from playing without owning the CD... and doesn't require legitimate users to go to asstacular sites like GameWhoreWorld, just to get full functionality out of what they paid for. The whole explosion of rampant "piracy" in the world today, has come about mostly as a backlash against publishers being such ricockulous fucktards for all these years. Hell, even Roger Ebert has come out on the side of sanity of late: Peter Cohen reports that Universal plans to offer refunds to customers who buy a disc and find they cannot play it. He also observes, "Many retailers employ a no-return policy once the CD's wrapper is off." And wisely so, since it would be the easiest thing in the world to buy a disc, rip it to your computer through your stereo, post it on the Web, and then return the CD for a refund. Did I just say that? Anyways. Deadlock, I can't believe you just said that Q3 can be installed entirely to the HD, but Deus Ex couldn't be. The difference in installation footprints is less than 200MB, certain, likely much less. Are you of the opinion that DX was too long, as well? In summary: LucasArts left the online auth out of Outcast because they are a) clever, b) stupid, c) diabolical, d) love warez monkeys. Anyone want to take a stab at that pop quiz, or add other possibilities? "JWITIWO... TPMBI!"
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Darkseid I _did_ try to tell you that they werent putting any protection on it, and all the warez monkeys would be all over it, but got shot down saying it would have to have a protection key. I think the issue was, as several people here have mentioned, is that the concept is so frigging out there that it was a hard pill to swallow. Don't take it personally, but don't feel too smug either. You are making my being drunk at one in the afternoon a less pleasant experience.
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