Some kind of cd-key verification required for online play would be ok. But for the love of God, please don't add SecuROM or Ubisoft's DRM.
I really don't see the problem with the security system.. never had a single problem with it ! You CAN'T trust people.
All protections have been cracked, so those satisfied with only offline play with be satisfied either way. ISI needs to find the best balance between protection and least screwups for paying customers. SecuROM certainly doesn't fit there. The best IMO would be cdkey verification for online play. That way you need a legit copy at least for the online experience (which is rFactor's strength anyways).
i***ing is not cracked yet or am I wrong ? (ok you HAVE to have a connection running as you always run online, but imho it's one of the best trick to counter piracy !)
That would be the best copy protection system RF2 could have. Without a valid Key, you cannot enter online sessions.
why not checking "offline" sessions too ?? I don't really see a problem with that.. I guess 99,9% of the sim racers have a constant internet connection !
because there still plenty of people who don't have a stable internet connection, or don't have their games computers connected to the internet. Once-off checks on install is all that should be needed for off-line
That smells like Ubisoft's DRM and that didn't get a good welcome when the validation servers went down . IMO, one should be able to play and practice even without a working connection.
i agree... there's a possibility to save the backup of trymedia file, and in case you finish the activation, the email to gjon is always available, and usually respond very soon. ciauzz
Like others say best idea is to bind one key for account , do not waste time or resurses on stupid drm or other scurerom type of protection , the offline will be cracked for shure so just focuse on online (the most important) A good example of a game is Mount and Blade Warband . But for the love of god do not use steam or complicated protection ,(oh yeah steam games get offline and online cracked verions very easly)
No solution is perfect. Even if you had a key check to play online, the game would be cracked and private servers used. Whatever is done, key check for offline play is pointless and people are more prone to seek cracks then. DRM is always a balance between the difficulty to crack vs. annoyance of the paying customer. And the games always get cracked one way or another. Using some light DRM works to stop people think it's free, but more than that isn't really needed. As some people can be perfectly happy with offline only game, I don't think ISI would opt for only online key check. They could probably afford it though as majority are going for the online play.
I hope the developers know that there is a NO-TRYMEDIA-CRACK on the web and works perfectly and thats why so many brazilians and east europeans poped out on rfactor coming from nowhere. I must recognize too that many people who own the game but cant speak english or know how to get their key back use this Crack this days. I love STEAM is the best pcgame platform if I may called that on the web, or the only, im not sure, the others D2Hard sites are just simply eCommerce sites. Maybe ISI could come out with a Central server that you had to login to play the game at least online, if not to lauch the game at all. Lets BAN ALL CRACKERS from our community
I bought my copy of rF1 on DVD. I didn't like the sound of limited activations and then having to contact support for more activations. For digital distribution I would prefer Steam. I have bought 50+ games via Steam and for the last 5 years or so I have had no problems with it (it wasn't very stable around the release of HL2 though).
This would be the most common problem I've see through out the community. Trymedia has been good for me but I haven't had this issue come up because I back up the activation code and just reload it after I do PC maintenance were these things are deleted. The only time I've had to get a new activation is when I get a completely new PC and it's not like I get a new one every year. Never had a problem when updating hardware. I put a secondary HD in and transferred two installs of rF to it. Both work fine plus my install that I use for racing with. The other two are development installs. Each only has one community mod. If there's anything about rF2 I don't like it'll have to be the fact that it will only allow one install on your PC so I have to have my racing and both development mods together in one. Dev can sometime crash out rF if there's a problem and a reinstall is the best and fastest fix. Sorry bit off topic but my point is if rF2 would run more then one install, Would steam or another coding system support multiple installs when Trymedia does?
Well, Trymedia is really, really easy to crack, so I dont think that would be a very good protector at all. But the weak protection is not its biggest disadvantage, its biggest disadvantage is that it does not check if a player has a valid license when he hops online. This means that casual gamers will download the pirated version, hop online and cause havoc, driving the wrong direction, intentionally wrecking other people. Basically they make public racing unusable. It is also impossible to ban anyone properly, since their user account is not tied to the license. I would much rather see a system that required people to log in to be able to play online, and that it would be possible for server admins to ban a users license from racing on that particular server. This would massively increase the viability of online public racing.
Finding a server running a track you have and a mod you have and having people on it at that time is nearly impossible anyway. In plain fact I don't believe I have ever raced on a public server. It has always been a server hosted by either Race2Play, RaceDepartment, or one of my friends over hamachi and those all have passwords. Who really wants to drive with people you don't know and can't yell at over vent or similar voip software. iRacing's system blows the doors off every game when it comes to things like this. Officially hosted servers up 24 hours a day with races starting every 2 hours or something like that. With all players accounts watched/checked and safety points awarded and removed based on your performance. I would recommend a safety rating system for rFactor just with the ability for a server to enable or disable it. Then you could just set a minimum rating for random people trying to join. That would keep most mingebags off of a real server. But you would need to make sure that rating could not be hacked.