Black and White monitoring users.

Hobbes

discussion here

Shinji

Actually, it's quite a sensible system - all the game does is ping the black and white server when it's launched, in order to (a) ascertain whether you have a fully working net connect, (b) check for B&W patches, (c) get a WON-ID esque key for accessing online functionality, and finally, yes it does transmit your serial code - same way as Half-Life WON Auth does - and yes EA are using the system to track down warez kiddies.

So, you can use the warez by blocking off its net access, but you'll miss out a whole stack of functionality...

Greenbean

Standard run of the mill stuff. They've got some quirky in-game stuff to **** of people who warezed, which seems to have triggered the "spy-ware" panic and "invasion of privacy" bullshUt.

tHE vAGGABOND

buy the game ya cheap ****0r

Coyote

there is a fix for is
it changes the ip that it cons to
to 127.0.0.1
it's a great game by the way

Coyote

Draximus

is it out in ireland?

Chubby

Even if they're not actively using this to hunt down people warezing, it'd be good for reporting and see how many leaked version there are before the release date, legit vs warez version ratio later.

Gonna hunt down that ip fix now.

[This message has been edited by Chubby (edited 28-03-2001).]

DrunkLeprachaun

I'm expecting it 5/6 april. Not long to wait.

btw that's the same date as tribes 2 and POKEMON GOLD!!!!! and silver.

[This message has been edited by DrunkLeprachaun (edited 28-03-2001).]

Hobbes

Kind of like when Tribes was released. There was one main warez copy that all other copies originated from as it was released a week before it shipped to the public. However the name was set to the guy who warezed it. So you knew straight off if someone stole the game if they never bothered to change thier name.

There used to be a protection check a long time ago for Dungeon Master + some air game.

Basically when you copied it the game worked perfectly for 10 minutes or so and then something happened to get you killed. In the case of the airplane game an enemy plane came out of nowhere and blew your plane up. For DM it was some high level monster that was absolutly impossible to kill.

The protection worked long enough to fool the warez heads for a while.

They should do something similar with the online games. Don't break the game but make the game change in such a way that it becomes harder to play after a while. So for example in tribes I would release a warez copy a week or so beforehand which caused all your weapons to do 50% damage. It would also take x2 the time to get a server list. Something subtle enough to give the paying punters an edge.

TinCool

Yea, I have a vague rememberance of that Dungeon Master copy protection. Man that's going back a bit. Pretty cool I have to admit.

PHB

mm remember gansters, all y0our hoods were in jail if it was copied.

Chubby

This game rocks. Think I might just buy it when it comes out in the shops. Accidently dropped a rock in the middle of the village and the villagers ran screaming while the rock rolled and crushed some houses. And lots of fun slapping and stroking that giant monkey