Octopus Overlords

Give me the German voices version and you've got a deal.

FFG909 wrote:Also, i'm taking bets it wasn't cracked, that one of the devs leaked out a preview or final builds version without SF that caused this. Otherwise, we'd see all SF games cracked suddenly, and we don't... WTF is Soldiers, Chaos League and GTR?

Suddenly, Chaos League has been cracked by the same group that recently cracked SH3.

Starforce's days are numbered.

Just for shits and giggles i thought id point out that The Sims 2 NON star force protection took longer to crack than SH3.

Scanner wrote:

FFG909 wrote:Also, i'm taking bets it wasn't cracked, that one of the devs leaked out a preview or final builds version without SF that caused this. Otherwise, we'd see all SF games cracked suddenly, and we don't... WTF is Soldiers, Chaos League and GTR?

Suddenly, Chaos League has been cracked by the same group that recently cracked SH3.

Starforce's days are numbered.

I saw that too. They completely stripped Starforce from it. Looks like they may be going to go thru the list and "re-release" those uncracked SF games.

haha

esloan wrote:Starforce does more to inconvenience legit owners of games than it does to inconvenience pirates. I am sorry but that is a pure indisputable fact!

Speaking as a gamer who has never and would never pirate a game, and who had his old computer completely and permanently f*cked up by Starforce (I know this for a fact), I am pleased that the hackers have solved this particular form of copy protection.

Beergut wrote:

esloan wrote:Starforce does more to inconvenience legit owners of games than it does to inconvenience pirates. I am sorry but that is a pure indisputable fact!

Speaking as a gamer who has never and would never pirate a game, and who had his old computer completely and permanently f*cked up by Starforce (I know this for a fact), I am pleased that the hackers have solved this particular form of copy protection.

Same here. Maybe now the appeal of the "uncrackable" protection will fade and they won't try to kill my mother trying to protect a game.

If it means more people actually try out Soldiers i'm happy as well As the key in Soldiers in not unique if it ever gets cracked properly the game will be playable online as well.

Whether people then feel they should buy the game if they enjoy it is down to their own consience imho

Tals

tals wrote:If it means more people actually try out Soldiers i'm happy as well As the key in Soldiers in not unique if it ever gets cracked properly the game will be playable online as well.

Whether people then feel they should buy the game if they enjoy it is down to their own consience imho

Tals

That is the one game that I most miss not being able to play because of Starforce. Reading about how great it is from all you guys who love it... hurts.

I predict it will be stripped of starforce soon. Another one just fell... Colin McRae 2005. Completely stripped.

Jeff Jones wrote:That is the one game that I most miss not being able to play because of Starforce. Reading about how great it is from all you guys who love it... hurts.

Stay strong, man, and remind all those others that they are traitors to the cause.

There is no way I'm going to play a pirated version just to "stick it to the man", but hopefully these developments will get publishers to abandon the abomination that is Starforce.

While I was never interested in that particular game, I'm still bummed about SH3. I was an early proponent of the game, too, after doing a preview last year.

I think it's awesome! I went out and bought Silent Hunter 3 because I knew that there was a crack, which reassured me about the game. Now that it is installed, I find that I haven't even bothered to get the crack (of course, I haven't tried to burn any CDs or anything ...)

Also, the good news has inspired me to add Soldiers: Heroes of WW2 to my birthday list. I passed on the game at first, but now I'm going to give it a shot. And it really is just because of the copy protection, which is a crying shame because I'm sure the developers would've preferred selling more copies at full price.

Add Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory to the conquered list. And with record speed. (less than 24 hrs after release)

I think it's safe to say that Starforce has been defeated.

Jeff Jones wrote:Add Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory to the conquered list. And with record speed. (less than 24 hrs after release)

I think it's safe to say that Starforce has been defeated.

Damn you beat me to it.

Jeff Jones wrote:Add Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory to the conquered list. And with record speed. (less than 24 hrs after release)

The Splinter Cell release was a fake, an April Fools joke.

Prolly wont take long for a real version though, if SH3 was anything to go by.

Ahh well then the protection is still strong then, most of the other protection seem to be cracked in hours.

Tals

I'm shocked Splinter hasn't been cracked yet given the massive popularity of it.

It will be the true test of how much the latest Starforce can withstand I guess.

Jeff Jones wrote:Looks like they may be going to go thru the list and "re-release" those uncracked SF games.

Superpower 2 just got cracked, so I think you're right.

Scanner wrote:

Jeff Jones wrote:Looks like they may be going to go thru the list and "re-release" those uncracked SF games.

Superpower 2 just got cracked, so I think you're right.

Would you say for the pc market the fact these games are getting cracked is good for the future of pc gaming or not.

My own view is it is bad - I just look at the torrent sites and I look at the demise of PC gaming.

Tals

Scanner wrote:

Jeff Jones wrote:Looks like they may be going to go thru the list and "re-release" those uncracked SF games.

Superpower 2 just got cracked, so I think you're right.

Sounds plausible. Once they "Busted" the older version of SF3, its logical they would backtrack. But older titles already made their cash for the companies so at least that doesn't hurt too bad, anyone that wanted it, already bought it.

Developers need to release patches to update their crap like SH3 did. I noticed 1.1 still hasn't been busted. I believe Chaos Theory came out with an updated SF as well.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes to bust that blockbuster title.

Zekester wrote:Well, maybe they could start charging just a little more for each copy to recover some of the piracy-loss costs instead of using shit like SF.

That'd be fine with me.
I'd have gladly shelled out another $20 for a non-Steam HL2 I could be assured of re-installing on this machine as far into the future as I wanted.

Spending another $20 is nothing compared to the freedom of running my old games.

well, here goes. After reading all these Starforce threads, I'm scared to death, but unable to resist the lure of a great game. SH3 is now unwrapped and sitting here ready to install on my pc with two separate RW drives--I sense impending doom, but I must try.

Y'know, I didn't used to actually feel fear when installing a game. And I'm not liking the feeling.

GH let us know how you get on - good or bad

Which game caused you to sucumb?

Tals

tals wrote:My own view is it is bad - I just look at the torrent sites and I look at the demise of PC gaming.

Tals

And why again is invasive, destructive malware good for gaming?

tals wrote:GH let us know how you get on - good or bad

Which game caused you to sucumb?

Tals

It went fine, but then again the only copying software I have is whatever came included with my drives.

Game looks fantastic - very smooth. I spent about an hour just fiddling with camera controls and steering the sub and just messing around with shit. The game looks like it's got quite a learning curve, so I'll be getting into it slow, I have a feeling.

Not sure what you meant by your question. I own HL2 in spite of the Steam thing. I also own a lot of Starforce-protected stuff, but SHIII is the first of those I've tried to install. And I actually prefer Starforce over Steam (both are bad, but if I had to choose one...), since I can play my game long after the game dev goes kaput years from now, providing I'm motivated enough to keep my current rig running all those years (as I've kept my last 6 rigs over the last 13 years just for that purpose).

Well the CP doesn't bug me, but when I can't play a 3 year old game because the developers never patched a bug in it, now that pisses me off.

My youngests favorite game is Monster Jam on the PC. Works great on any graphic card before the current generation, but won't even load on Nvidia 6600 or 6800 series. It appears to be a memory allocation error issue when it loads textures, which is magnified to the extent it crashes newer cards.

Of course, no patch, no customer service, and no support.. It IS 3 years old, but I only purchased it for the kid last month. The last machine in this house running previous generation cards was just upgraded today to a 6X series card - so my son can't play it now. I've tried everything.

Of course, the devs are nowhere to be found, and UBI probably won't care when I call them tomorrow.

Since this thread was really never about SH3 but about Starforce, I'm moving it to PC Games in General. Sorry to take so long to do this - I've been trigger happy about moving threads in the past, just thought I'd try to average it out.

By the way, you've all done a good job keeping this civil. I hope you continue to do that after the move.

Whoa this SF must still be a tuff nut to crack even once it's been cracked!

It's on 1.2 now and still only the 1.0 crack.

Hmmm maybe all we'll get is the 1.0 fix. Hopefully they'll get around to 1.2. :/