SSE pulls prank with pirates

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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Yarrr. Russobit M, publisher of the Fall, reported that in a pretty original effort to fight piracy SSE's 1.7 patch for the Fall does not actually block pirated versions of the game, but rather it removes all NPCs, making the game unplayable, as well as the PC's clothes, making him walk around in his underwear.

Further on it mentions that the Fall will be released in Russia "somewhere during the summer"

Link: Russobit M website (in Russian)

Spotted on the SSE fora
 
I don't get it. The story's leaving something out. Does the patch somehow target pirated copies only?
 
It would've arguably been very SSE if the patch did standard, but no, it singles out pirated copies and does this only to them.
 
Kharn said:
It would've arguably been very SSE if the patch did standard, but no, it singles out pirated copies and does this only to them.
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DISCRIMINATION! I'm pretty sure there's a lawsuit somewhere in this...
 
I would like to know how it discriminates a pirated copy from a legit copy. Does it look for no-cd cracks, or something like it, or disk emulation software?

Seriously, I would be pissed if it ruined a copy that I bought. If it ever comes out here.
 
That's moronic. How will it know if it's a copy? And if it does somehow figure it out (bloody unlikely) how will it know if it isn't a legal backup copy?
Maybe the game is unplayable without the patch?
That would seriously suck.
 
That would require some knowledge of what's needed to get the game up and running: keys, phone-home, SecuROM, what have you. Since everyone uses SecuROM these days, let's work with it.

You crack the game. Now you can play no CD, right? Yeah, we've all done it, even if it's just that one disk from the store that just doesn't love us or our computer, or it's single-player and we're too lazy to put the disk in or something at least marginally legit like that, that's right.

PROBLEM. It's patch time. It sees your game loader. The EXE file. But it sees the wrong size or date or something on it. Or that's all the same as legit, but it MD5s differently. But no, it won't say 'oh noes wrong EXE, stfu'.

No, it'll go ahead and 'patch'. But it gives you the bad patch. Then it goes "Hey guy, I'm all done here. Have fun. *muffled: Sucker.*"

Pirate goes "Cool, thanks!", loads it up, and 'HO SNARP NO NPCS NO ARMOR WTF M8?"

Or we can just say magic. Yeah, yeah I think we'll stick with that.
 
Then, when you want to patch it you just use the original exe. Which you have to use to patch a game anyway.
Besides, how long do you think it would take for someone from the scene to go around the prank, seriously?
 
DirtyDreamDesigner said:
Then, when you want to patch it you just use the original exe. Which you have to use to patch a game anyway.
Besides, how long do you think it would take for someone from the scene to go around the prank, seriously?
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Huh? The concept of "everything is hackable" pretty much stops at doing stuff on the internet. That's why most new games can't be played online if you have a pirated version. And think of windows, windows KNOWS if your version is legit and won't let you update your computer if it's pirated (at least XP does this).

It may be easy to fool the game itself, but it's harder to fool another program into thinking it's legit
 
Kharn said:
And think of windows, windows KNOWS if your version is legit and won't let you update your computer if it's pirated (at least XP does this).
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There are very simple ways of getting around this. As there are always.

I don't see this prank stopping anybody from pirating.
 
DirtyDreamDesigner said:
There are very simple ways of getting around this. As there are always.

I don't see this prank stopping anybody from pirating.
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Barely the point. I don't know of any ways of fooling Windows, though, nor need I know, this is not a pirateers forum

The thing is, for exactly this reason, software (up to some level) and games (more than software) rely heavily on first-few-month sales. These kind of jokes prevent widespread piracy for the first period while hackers are still figuring out a way around it. It's always worked that way.

They might expend less time and energy on it if people were to stop pirating, but hey...
 
Regarding Windows XP.

True, a hacked vanilla XP installation can't be upgraded to SP2 because the SP2 installer checks the "license" (i.e. serial number) somewhere during the installation (after it has inflicted irreversable damage by copying a part of the new files or somesuch -- resulting in WinXP being practically dead the next time you reboot).

However you can just use a (legit or non-legit) SP1 update disk and enter a warezed serial number if you're asked. SP2 will then install without even validating the serial for some absurd reason Bill Gates probably doesn't know either.

And activation isn't really needed if the vanilla installation is hacked accordingly.

Most likely there are hacked WinXP SP2 updaters around as well, but that's pretty much the routine I've seen so far.

Note that I'm strictly against warezing as I think that developers deserve the money they earn through sales. However I'm also strictly against forcing end users into buying inferior software by bribing the market into basing new products on it.

Just before someone assumes something: I own various legal copies of Windows, starting at 3.11 and up. The sole reason I didn't own a legit copy of either version for a while was that the tech company that sold me the PCs back then always "forgot" to sell the OS. Long story short: Warez are bad m'kay?
 
SP2 installer doesn't conduct a serial check because someone at Microsoft grew a brain and decided it's better to let all users - legit and non-legit - update their systems with necessary security patches and thus make their systems less vulnerable to exploits and malicious software, than force millions of non-legit users to run an outdated, vulnerable OS and pose a potential security threat to everyone else.

About the Fall patch - this kind of copy protection is pure bullshit and an excellent indicator that the company which released it treats its customers like shit. You see, it targets not only players who own a pirated copy, but all players who use a no-CD fixed .exe file - which is just about anyone who hates switching CDs. The only possible outcome of this idiotic endeavor are hordes of pissed-off customers who bought the game legitimately, installed a perfectly legitimate no-CD fix, applied a much-needed patch and ended up with a broken game. Nice way of showing appreciation to your fans, Silver Style fuckheads - I bet dozens of EA executives are jerking off in awe at the masterful manner in which you fuck over your own customers. Copyright infringers, on the other hand, will be unperturbed - they are used to this kind of hassle and probably smart enough to ensure they have a working fix before attempting to patch their game.
 
Ratty said:
SP2 installer doesn't conduct a serial check because someone at Microsoft grew a brain and decided it's better to let all users - legit and non-legit - update their systems with necessary security patches and thus make their systems less vulnerable to exploits and malicious software, than force millions of non-legit users to run an outdated, vulnerable OS and pose a potential security threat to everyone else.
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When I downloaded it from Microsoft Windows Update last weekend it still did, tho.

About the Fall patch - this kind of copy protection is pure bullshit and an excellent indicator that the company which released it treats its customers like shit. You see, it targets not only players who own a pirated copy, but all players who use a no-CD fixed .exe file - which is just about anyone who hates switching CDs. The only possible outcome of this idiotic endeavor are hordes of pissed-off customers who bought the game legitimately, installed a perfectly legitimate no-CD fix, applied a much-needed patch and ended up with a broken game. Nice way of showing appreciation to your fans, Silver Style fuckheads - I bet dozens of EA executives are jerking off in awe at the masterful manner in which you fuck over your own customers. Copyright infringers, on the other hand, will be unperturbed - they are used to this kind of hassle and probably smart enough to ensure they have a working fix before attempting to patch their game.
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1. Install The Fall
2. Install the update
3. Install the NoCd patch

Where's the exact problem?
 
Ashmo said:
1. Install The Fall
2. Install the update
3. Install the NoCd patch

Where's the exact problem?
Click to expand...
The problem is that a lot of people - many of whom purchased the game legally - won't follow that procedure. They will end up with a broken game and a poweful urge to strangle someone.
 
Ratty said:
About the Fall patch - this kind of copy protection is pure bullshit and an excellent indicator that the company which released it treats its customers like shit. You see, it targets not only players who own a pirated copy, but all players who use a no-CD fixed .exe file - which is just about anyone who hates switching CDs. The only possible outcome of this idiotic endeavor are hordes of pissed-off customers who bought the game legitimately, installed a perfectly legitimate no-CD fix, applied a much-needed patch and ended up with a broken game. Nice way of showing appreciation to your fans, Silver Style fuckheads - I bet dozens of EA executives are jerking off in awe at the masterful manner in which you fuck over your own customers. Copyright infringers, on the other hand, will be unperturbed - they are used to this kind of hassle and probably smart enough to ensure they have a working fix before attempting to patch their game.
Click to expand...

Is that really how it works? It targets no-cd cracks as well? See, I haven't seen info one way or the other on it. The way I interpreted it was that the Russian pirate versions that have been floating around for a while now since the German release were the targets of this. There was a leaked copy of TF that was repackaged and sold in Russia. I am asking the SSE devs how it actually works, but I haven't seen info saying that legit copy owners will have anything to worry about. It could still potentially be a problem, but I don't see info one way or the other yet. Seems kind of premature to begin bashing SSE over something that we haven't seen in action or have any details on.

EDIT: Removed stuff on Russobit being responsible for this, since I'm not totally sure it is just them.
 
If it's Russobit-M I can't blame them. Without any government support whatsoever and pirating being basically legal, Russia is one of the hardest spots on the earth to fight piracy.

Yarrr
 
Well, I just went back and did some more reading, and now I'm not entirely sure it is just Russobit. My initial read gave me that impression, but since SSE is the one actually putting out the patch...I don't know. Does Russobit need to make modifications to the patches before it can be released for the Russian game?
 
Tayl said:
Well, I just went back and did some more reading, and now I'm not entirely sure it is just Russobit. My initial read gave me that impression, but since SSE is the one actually putting out the patch...I don't know. Does Russobit need to make modifications to the patches before it can be released for the Russian game?
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Depends on what the patch does. Patches often fix up small errors in dialogue too, so Russobit would have to localize it and probably has a full right to do so. I dunno, ask Carsten.

That said, I don't think there's any way for it not to target legit NoCD cracked versions, if it is targeting all nocd-ers and not just a specific group of Russian illegal copies. Wouldn't know about that either.

PS: Hey, look at that, complaints about the German patch 1.8 on the SSE forum. It just keeps getting better and better.
 
Yeah, I see all the people on the forum...I usually ignore the German forums, I think I'll take a look now.

And you are right on the second bit. It could very well target no-cd cracks, I have no idea. I was just trying to say that condemning SSE before we know either way seems kind of silly. Odds are it will, but I dislike attacking someone or something before knowing all the details.
 
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