Octopus Overlords

Hi all,

I have SH3 and Brothers in Arms on order, and I'm worried about the effects of Starforce. While I understand that *most* people have had no problems, I want to be prepared.

So far (according to the SF removal tool that I downloaded from their site) I don't have Starforce on my machine.

What should I do to get ready? I've heard the horror stories of having to reinstall one's OS, etc, and I'm concerned because I've never had to do this. I've been a serious gamer for ten years, but OS and BIOS are acronyms that still send a chill down my spine. Aside from (obviously) backing up all of my important files, what else should I do to prepare for a crisis?

I hope that I don't have to post a thread later, "Help me reinstall my OS!"

Thanks for any advice, folks.

Paul

I really wouldn't worry about. I'm one of those who had huge problems with Starforce, but it is a small proportion of the gaming population. Most of the lads here have had no problems. What really annoys me is that some refuse to believe that we had those problems. Again I do think that the problems only effect a very small proportion of gamers. But so far not one major game has used Starforce, and not one Starforce game has been a huge seller. I'm hoping that Splinter cell 3 uses it, and then I think the picture about Starforces effects will be a lot clearer.

Despite being anti-SF, I agree that you don't need to do much if you want to give it a try unless you are using a USB or SATA hard drive, in which case you may want to back up vital data. The chances of having a full system failure are pretty remote - I've only heard about a couple. More likely are CD/DVD drive issues, which will give you the freedom to create your backups later if the issues actually occur.

Brothers in Arms I believe uses safedisc not starforce.

Yep, Ubisoft doesn't really use starforce. The larger companies probably realize that starforce's costs are foolish.

Turtle wrote:Yep, Ubisoft doesn't really use starforce. The larger companies probably realize that starforce's costs are foolish.

Uh, yeah they do. Ubisoft published SHIII and it does include Starforce.

All future Ubi titles will use Starforce, in addition, Codemasters bought Starforce for use in all future titles..

I heard from a biz guy at another publisher that 4 other major companies are in the pipe for buying Starforce systems to use on their titles this year.

Paul Roberts wrote:Hi all,

I have SH3 and Brothers in Arms on order, and I'm worried about the effects of Starforce. While I understand that *most* people have had no problems, I want to be prepared.

So far (according to the SF removal tool that I downloaded from their site) I don't have Starforce on my machine.

What should I do to get ready? I've heard the horror stories of having to reinstall one's OS, etc, and I'm concerned because I've never had to do this. I've been a serious gamer for ten years, but OS and BIOS are acronyms that still send a chill down my spine. Aside from (obviously) backing up all of my important files, what else should I do to prepare for a crisis?

I hope that I don't have to post a thread later, "Help me reinstall my OS!"

Thanks for any advice, folks.

Paul

You should be ok - check the game forums of SH3 if you are concerned to see how many effected. The Soldiers forum wasn't littered with dead machines or problems. In fact I can't remember a single thread on it (machines effected as opposed to SF )

Once you have it on your machine and you find it works then any Starforce title is up for grabs - go and try Soldiers, great title (sorry needed to plug it )

Tals

Thanks for the advice, all! My SH3 should be here this weekend. Hopefully I'll have no problems to report.

(*crosses fingers*)

FFG909 wrote:I heard from a biz guy at another publisher that 4 other major companies are in the pipe for buying Starforce systems to use on their titles this year.

I'm sure the logic goes:

Starforce is getting a huge amount of negative comments.
Negative comments could only come from pirates,
Therefore Starforce is great!

Personally I am neutral on Starforce totally neutral. But tbh on my pc which is first and foremost a games machine if Staforce kills it - so what? A couple of hours and I can have it up and running - reinstalling never did it any harm. At which point I would be in the against Starforce camp. But I just cannot understand the people hiding behind their sofas because of what they fear. It is almost laughable - sorry just my personally feeling

If its a work machine then totally different slant - I would never put a work machine or a machine used for work at risk.

Tals

I suppose it's better than Steam...
In that at least with Starforce I won't have to worry about getting permission from a possibly-non-existant company to install or run it 10 years down the road or more.

I'd much rather have a problem than CAN be solved (no matter how many copying programs I have to delete to do it) than have a completely worthless box full of CDs that will not run no matter what because the online activation thingy is no longer in use for whatever reason--most likely because the next big game with the next big online activation thingy has taken its place and the percentage of folks who really want to play a 10 year old game is so small as not to warrant keeping the activation thingy operational that long.

ANY draconian protection scheme is bad in my book--only penalizes the law-abiders and slows down the crooks a few days--but if I had to pick one over the other...Well there ya go.

Giles Habibula wrote:I suppose it's better than Steam...
In that at least with Starforce I won't have to worry about getting permission from a possibly-non-existant company to install or run it 10 years down the road or more.

I'd much rather have a problem than CAN be solved (no matter how many copying programs I have to delete to do it) than have a completely worthless box full of CDs that will not run no matter what because the online activation thingy is no longer in use for whatever reason--most likely because the next big game with the next big online activation thingy has taken its place and the percentage of folks who really want to play a 10 year old game is so small as not to warrant keeping the activation thingy operational that long.

ANY draconian protection scheme is bad in my book--only penalizes the law-abiders and slows down the crooks a few days--but if I had to pick one over the other...Well there ya go.

It is possible to get nearly the same thing with Starforce. What happens when Windows 2020 comes out. Who is going to make a Starforce driver that is compatible with the new Windows if the company that owns it dries up and blows away?

Giles Habibula wrote:I suppose it's better than Steam...
In that at least with Starforce I won't have to worry about getting permission from a possibly-non-existant company to install or run it 10 years down the road or more.

You realize that if Steam/Valve was going under, they could create a no-Steam patch, yes? It is not unlike what a number of games have done with removing cd checks in follow-on patches.

Rip wrote:

Giles Habibula wrote:I suppose it's better than Steam...
In that at least with Starforce I won't have to worry about getting permission from a possibly-non-existant company to install or run it 10 years down the road or more.

I'd much rather have a problem than CAN be solved (no matter how many copying programs I have to delete to do it) than have a completely worthless box full of CDs that will not run no matter what because the online activation thingy is no longer in use for whatever reason--most likely because the next big game with the next big online activation thingy has taken its place and the percentage of folks who really want to play a 10 year old game is so small as not to warrant keeping the activation thingy operational that long.

ANY draconian protection scheme is bad in my book--only penalizes the law-abiders and slows down the crooks a few days--but if I had to pick one over the other...Well there ya go.

It is possible to get nearly the same thing with Starforce. What happens when Windows 2020 comes out. Who is going to make a Starforce driver that is compatible with the new Windows if the company that owns it dries up and blows away?

Are we likely to care at that point. Sure I can probably startup some of my old DOS games - I have a few (Crusader No remorse, tie fighter etc) but revisiting a game that old (which previously I worshipped) is for me usually a pretty depressing event

Tals

Could someone do a no-steam patch? Sure. Will they? Who knows?

I'm currently running Crusader on my PII 266 in the other room. Happy to be able to do so. The point is that being able to run Crusader in 10 years was within my control. HL2 is not.

Were I to run HL2, it would NOT be on whatever my current rig is in 10 years. It would be on this very rig right here-My 2600+ w/ 6600GT. I got a ton of games that run beautifully on it. Therefore I will keep it for those games.

Sure, not everyone is as loony as I am and have all their old rigs on hand. But that part is entirely within the consumer's control - If he wants to keep his old rigs and run his old games, he can do it.

Hey if you guys don't give a crap about playing HL2 in 10 years that's fine with me. But I better not hear you whining about not getting it running when that time comes.

Long live progress! Screw nostalgia!

tals wrote:

Rip wrote:

Giles Habibula wrote:I suppose it's better than Steam...
In that at least with Starforce I won't have to worry about getting permission from a possibly-non-existant company to install or run it 10 years down the road or more.

I'd much rather have a problem than CAN be solved (no matter how many copying programs I have to delete to do it) than have a completely worthless box full of CDs that will not run no matter what because the online activation thingy is no longer in use for whatever reason--most likely because the next big game with the next big online activation thingy has taken its place and the percentage of folks who really want to play a 10 year old game is so small as not to warrant keeping the activation thingy operational that long.

ANY draconian protection scheme is bad in my book--only penalizes the law-abiders and slows down the crooks a few days--but if I had to pick one over the other...Well there ya go.

It is possible to get nearly the same thing with Starforce. What happens when Windows 2020 comes out. Who is going to make a Starforce driver that is compatible with the new Windows if the company that owns it dries up and blows away?

Are we likely to care at that point. Sure I can probably startup some of my old DOS games - I have a few (Crusader No remorse, tie fighter etc) but revisiting a game that old (which previously I worshipped) is for me usually a pretty depressing event

Tals

Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I really still enjoy many old games. Like Aces of Deep, Earl Weaver Baseball, Front Page Sports Football and Baseball, Harpoon, Jagged Alliance.

High Heat Baseball is an excellent example. 3DO died and the license was bought by someone with zero interest in actually doing anything with it. I will play it for many years, and I feel I have the right to when I purchase a license. Time bombing a game even by accident should be illegal.

A lot of people still play Duke Nuke' em 3D, Doom and the classic Wizardry games. I still play Ultima 7, Sam and Max, DOTT and Daggerfall.

I still play games from the C64 era, let alone DOS era.

If you want to play the classics for free drop by here:

http://home.swbell.net/jekenn/abandonware.htm

HFI

Paul Roberts wrote:Hi all,

So far (according to the SF removal tool that I downloaded from their site) I don't have Starforce on my machine.

If this is the same tool Dreamcatcher put on their site, I'd suggest looking manually - I ran it and after reboot, some, but not all of the Starforce "drivers" were gone. Some I had to remove manually.