Slowtrain

Dozens of times, on at least 4 different computers over the years. I thought it would recheck every 10 days as well? I'm quite illiterate on SecuRom stuff. But I do understand it when Derek French tells me I can only install a game three times, then poof. Do you know how many times I've reinstalled BG2 alone? Damn, this is why I hate piracy with a passion, because it forces gaming companies to do draconian crap like this. I know I'm not going to run out on May 28 and buy the damned thing, that's for sure. I'll be perusing the BioWare Support forums to see just how much of a problem others smarter than I are having. Damn. Again. AS I understand it you can install/uninstall as many times as you like on one computer. But you only get three different boxes, or upgraded boxes, I suppose if you upgrades are significant enough. Again, when I was reading through the BIo thread last night I believe I recall Derek saying that you could call EA tech support and get more installs if you run out. Frankly, I can't imagine how he managed to type that without bursting out laughing.

Nope, no doom here. Just commentary.

DIal up will work ok for the activation though. SO technically that shouldn't bother you. But it continually comes back to recheck, and if your computer can't be accessed for 3 rechecks (from what I understand) your game will no longer run. BTW, I finally got wireless a while back so I'm not hobbled by 24kbm dial-up anymore. I understand that rampant piracy has brought these draconian measures, but damn. It's a horrible thing to do to BioWare's long-time and loyal fans. It requires a check every ten days and starts trying to check with the securom servers at -5 days. So you have a 5 day window. As long as yiu are connected to your ISP at some point during those five days when you run the game it shouldn't be a problem, dial up or not.

Derek French said that EA tech support shoudl be able to help gamers through al problems with the CP. ANybody ever called EA tech support? I find it preferable to simply bludgen myself with the phone. It's less painful.

DIal up will work ok for the activation though. SO technically that shouldn't bother you.

me, too, exactly.

The main theme is terrible. I mean, it is oK in general, but it does not fit Fallout AT ALL. It belongs in Oblivion. Its only main title music though so not a big deal. The other 2 are both pretty forgettable, but they are not really meant to be listened to by themselves, I guess. ANyway, the consensus at the FO forums is pretty much the same. Although there is some love for the Into the Wastelands piece,.

Sorry. But in fact you've now become an example of exactly why this approach is a problem. You wanted to buy the game, and now you're reconsidering. I might have considered buying it, but knowing the level of authentication Bioware will put me through and the level of distrust and suspicion that naturally comes with it, I'm very unlikely to buy and play it now. Between the two of us, that's probably at least one lost sale already. And we're the potentially paying customers. The issue will not matter to the pirates, who will find a way around the authentication anyway. And while I suspect you and I will not get a pirated copy in order to play, choosing instead not to play at all, you can imagine people out there who feel the same way, but who want to play Mass Effect anyway and so get an illegal copy. Hence, sales are lost to piracy. Not really because the pirates are evil, but more because Bioware's measures to prevent piracy drive more people to it, thereby making their claim of pirated copies of their games a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alas... Well, you guys all raise good points. Even if some of them don't bother me as much, I still can't deny that the implications of where things might go from here are not something I really like, and I don't know if I can really support those sorts of decisions with my money. However, I'm not particularly inclined to believe that if either you or I or both of us plus Gorth and Tigranes and so on don't buy the game that Bioware is really going to care much or attach any sigificance to it. They will probably just chalk to up to the fact that no one buys pc games anymore and not even bother porting their next release to pc at all.

Crud. I was totally planing on buying Mass Effect for PC. It would have been my first Bioware game in years and years. Now I am having second thoughts. Damn you all.

Some things never get old!

I just want to point out that I am not defending MS decsion to shut down their old DRM servers without having a plan to bring people forward with their music. If it were me and I had a lot of money invested in MSN music, I would be really upset, since I think one of the advantages of digital media is that it can be moved from platform to platform much easier than old analog media so why not take advantage of that fact. But I was just thinking about the other side of the argument as well.

Actually, yes. But that wasn't my point. My point was that you too have installed games on over three different machines since it is rare for people to manually uninstall games when they switch system and I'm quite sure that that would be required for Securom to redeem that install. This means that three dead motherboards would probably make your copy a coaster. Noone has answered how much in your system has to change for it to use up one of the three installs but I wouldn't be surprised if a dead motherboard would do exactly that. Besides that you're also spending an install when you forget to uninstall a game before you reformat your computer or just gets a new system without uninstalling your game from the old one. I see your point, but many times and for how many people would this really be an issue? I mean if it it only bothers a handful of people who constantly reformat their drives or update their hardware, then it is not realyl fair to expect a company to make that a concern. They are going to be concerned with what affects large numbers of people on an ongoing basis. True, but my point was more along the lines that even non-digital media eventually become unplayable due to advances and changes in technology. I've got my huge collection of record albums and VHS tapes to prove it. I spent a lot of money building those collections over the years, but they really aren't usable for me any more as media holders, though I still like much of the music and movies they contain. Didn't a lot of people go out and replace all their VHS with dvds? Why should expectations be different with digitial media?

Yes, I agree with all that. If you are exercising outside your training zone you can definitely casue problems. But the so called "fat-burning zone" is in the lower range of a persons training zone. I can't recall the exatc numbers at the moment, but iirc the fat-burning range is roughly the low end of your training zone. My training zone is 126-162 bpm. If I want to get the most efficieny for energy expened to fat calories burned I am best off exercising at around 126 bpm. In this area I will be burning the highest percentage of fat calories. As I raise my intensity level and move up toward the higher end of my training zone, my percentage of fat calories burned begins to drop as the the body calls on other fuel stores. Howvere, as the intensity rises more total calories are burned, including a greater absolute number of fat calories. I think now that you are referring to operating outside yoru training zone all together (which for me would be > 162bpm) and yes I agree that is a really bad idea.

That was a good post by that dev. Too bad it seems so not the way most game developers and publishers do business. SOmetimes ti seems that we are unable to grasp some elements of human nature effectively. One is that it is very very difficult to stop someone from getting something they really want. Whether it is booze, guns or pirated games at some point the cost of preventing people from acquiring something becomes greater than the cost of just letting them have it. Obvious, I would think.

What about my betamax collection?

Otoh, looking at the MSN thingie, you could also say that if I had invested thousands of dollars in record albums over the years, no company or store that I bought them from is under any obligation to make sure that I can still have a record player to play them on in twenty years.

ANother instance: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071...-with-fans.html

ars technica has a better article on that: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080...c-drm-keys.html It seems they will play OK, but will be forever stuck on whatever computers you had authrorized as of AUg 2008. That ios not so bad for one or two songs, but what if you have invested thousands of dollars getting music from MSN over the years?

I can definitely understand why that would piss people off . On the surface, that woudl definitely seem to be either arrogance or ignorance on the part of MS. Unless it is mention in the EULA it would probably be grounds for a class action lawsuit. It might be grounds even if it is mentioned in the EULA.

I don't disagree with that at all. The only way for publishers to "win" the battle against piracy would be to implement measure of such a draconian nature that they would alienate every run of the mill user and consequently end up costing the war. But I guess I don't see some of the methods discussed in this thread as Draconian. I'm just curious why others do.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/...25&from=rss SO does that mean that peoples downloaded songs are stuck to whatever computer they downloaded it to? I would assume that MS would have offered a solution to people who wanted to bring their songs forward. Did they?

I was reading an article that was quoting some studies that show that the amount of nutrients in foods such as potatoes and broccolli and oranges has diminished dramtically in recent years, possible due to all the selective farming that is done for appearance and transportability etc. I think one of the studies said that you had to eat 8 times as many oranges now to get the same nutrition as compared to some years ago. Maybe people are eating more these days simply to get the nutitrion the body needs.

Has that ever happened? I don't disagree about the essential foolishness of taking anti-piracy measures to an extreme, and if they were to break my machine I would be really irritated to be sure. But simply authenticating or checking in every ten days doesn't seem to be an issue in that sense. @moat: Have you ever installed a game to more than three machines?

WHy does the idea of authentication, internet check-ins, etc bother people so much? I'm curious, since I've never really understood why people get so lathered up about authenticating windows and so forth. Is it a matter of principle? That you just shouldn't have to do it? Or is there a pragmatic concern that makes you not like the idea?