Heroes of M&M V Beta from Fileplanet

[Signe]

Unfortunately, it's only for subscribers at the moment, I believe. 

There you have it.

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/hmmv/

[Trippy]

Starforce! (Yes it's on the beta).

[HaemishM]

Why the fuck do you copy-protect a fucking beta client you are giving to anyone who is willing to plunk down $8 a month to Vileplanet? If you distribute it for marketing purposes, you WANT people to copy it.

Fuckheads.

[Strazos]

I saw the thread title and thought, "Yay!"

I saw "starforce" and felt slightly nauseous.

[schild]

You all aren't saying it right.


STARFORCE.

Also, what really pisses me off here is that I LOVE HoMM. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT. Now I HATE IT. I can't buy this on 360/xbox/whatever, and have to get a Starforce laden version.

HOMM DOESN'T EXIST TO ME ANYMORE.

[Strazos]

I love HoMM....

But damn if those games didn't take almost as long as a good game of Civ to complete.

[Righ]

Won't be going anywhere near this. Once sneakily installed, the Starforce driver offers privilege escalation to other software, and it takes meticulous editing to fix the Windows system to restore security. While installed, any user level program can use the Starforce driver to gain system privileges. You might as well surf random websites using an old IE as Administrator if you're going to use anything with Starforce on it. This shit is worse than Sony's XCP from a security perspective.

I too loved HOMM, but I won't be playing any UbiSoft or Codemasters games until they stop using this crap and treat the people buying their games as customers rather than criminals. Shit, even criminals generally have more rights than a fucking software customer.

[HaemishM]

You all aren't saying it right.


DIGITAL HERPES.

Fixed that for you.

[Signe]

I can't believe it's even in the beta tests!  I won't be playing any games using this shite, either.  I had never even heard of this until you guys brought it up.  I'm sure the hubby would have waggled his fingers at me if I had actually downloaded it.  But I didn't.  I fear his finger waggling.

[MrHat]

This is a sad sad sad day.  I played so much Heroes of Might and Magic.

Oh how I loved it.  Never did get to play it multiplayer though.

[Soukyan]

So if I were to say, give away my key to someone, would there be any takers then? 

[schild]

Worldwide, Jan. 26, 2006. A group of Heroes of Might and Magic community Websites today launched a collaborative effort to persuade Ubisoft executives to delay the launch of their highly anticipated title Heroes of Might and Magic 5. SaveHeroes.Org is a concerted community effort to further that cause.

This effort, and the reasons behind it, started largely because of the open beta test, which started on GameSpy on Monday, January 23rd. With Heroes of Might and Magic 4 having received poor sales in comparison to its predecessor, Heroes 5 is seen by most as a make or break game. If it fails, so will the entire Might and Magic franchise. If it succeeds, then the product line would gain the support it needs for a long term at Ubisoft.

With these facts in mind, community websites, including Celestial Heavens, The Oracle League, Age of Heroes, Heroes Community, The Genies Lamp, Guardians Grove, and many others started posting petitions and banners to "Save Heroes 5". Not long after, these same leaders gathered to try and organize a collaborative effort to attempt to show Ubisoft that releasing an unfinished game would not go over well at all.

After the rough start and continued issues of the Open Beta, and some investigation, these leaders realized that there was little time to act. Ubisoft's fiscal year ends on March 31, coinciding with the release date. Ubisoft was also the target of a takeover bid in December of 2004, something they are not likely to forget easily. Wanting to hit or exceed their yearly targets could be a reason for the March 31 release date.

However, such short-term plans are exactly what doomed Heroes 4, New World Computing and The 3DO Company. SaveHeroes.Org is now open to try and prevent such a thing from happening.

Apparently they don't realize that removing Starforce would probably save Heroes. I like people.

[Righ]

As the esteemed editor of a highly respected Intarweb gaming community, you should take it upon yourself to write to them and outline our concerns.

[schild]

Who?

[Righ]

YouBeSoft.

[Wolf]

What's the deal with Starforce? I mean besides giving "teh scene" fits, I didn't know it was eeeebil. Can someone link me to an article or something?

[Trippy]

It's evil because it installs its own device drivers to handle the copy protection, unlike the other popular copy protection schemes used on games published in the US.

Starforce Wiki

[Merusk]

I feel for all of you.

But I still think HOMM < MoM. Never could get into HOMM, it just felt gimped.

[HaemishM]

As the esteemed editor of a highly respected Intarweb gaming community, you should take it upon yourself to write to them and outline our concerns.

You mean this wasn't hint enough?

[Signe]

As the esteemed editor of a highly respected Intarweb gaming community, you should take it upon yourself to write to them and outline our concerns.

You mean this wasn't hint enough?

I'm sure those Game Company Mafia Guys don't scare you!  (get a gun... just in case.  I think all they have are waggly fingers)

[Sairon]

I don't see why they keep on fucking around with Starforce. There's ways around it, even if some are troublesome. I don't think there's a large crowd of pirates who feels "damn this shit pisses me off, I have to fuck around with my drivers to get this working. Better buy it instead and support the use of it in the future".

[Murgos]

I don't see why they keep on fucking around with Starforce. There's ways around it, even if some are troublesome. I don't think there's a large crowd of pirates who feels "damn this shit pisses me off, I have to fuck around with my drivers to get this working. Better buy it instead and support the use of it in the future".

Exactly my view on copy protection in general.  The only people it prevents from making copies are legit users.  The pirated versions have all this crap stripped out of them long before they are distributed.  The pirates never even know the software was protected in the first place.

I guess it works to stop casual piracy, "Yo dude, you gotta play this.  Here let me burn you a copy." but I'm sort of of the opinion that that kind of word of mouth generates more sales than it does losses. (*cough* Doom, Civ, etc...)

[ahoythematey]

I'd rather rub my peen against an active belt-sander than let starforce find a way onto my computer.  This move by Ubisoft does nothing to diminish my extreme prejudice against the frogs, because I was hoping I'd at least be able to get some HOMM5 from a test/demo without being subjected to software hepatitis.

[MrHat]

Guess I'll just wait for a free hacked version to show up online.

[schild]

Guess I'll just wait for a free hacked version to show up online.

No one has figured out how to hack the latest version of Starforce. Hell, no one has figured out how to hack year old games with starforce.

And it's not "free" it's stolen, you skanky pirate.

[Strazos]

See, if you would simply not pirate OR buy the game, maybe StarForce wouldn't be neccessary,

[HaemishM]

See, if you would simply not pirate OR buy the game, maybe StarForce wouldn't be neccessary,

I forgot we were just asking for it wearing that slutty dress.

[Calantus]

They fuck the franchise with HOMM4 and now they want to bring me back by installing stupid shit on my computer? Yeah. That's gonna happen.

[Sky]

Different 'theys'.

Supports widescreen natively, apparently.

HOMM4

HoMaM. Or HMM. HOMM makes no sense, unless you refer to Heroes of Might Magic.

[Signe]

Different 'theys'.

Supports widescreen natively, apparently.

HOMM4

HoMaM. Or HMM. HOMM makes no sense, unless you refer to Heroes of Might Magic.

Did you break up with your girlfriend and go back on drugs?  There is a limit to how pedantic you can acceptably be when not on drugs.

[Sky]

No. Tempted to. But no. I like pot. But I love my girlfriend. Besides, marijuana isn't "drugs".

However, that HoMaM thing has been my little diatribe for years now.

[ahoythematey]

I've been using the HOMM acronym for years, along with everybody else I know of that loves the game.  I'm not sure why anybody would give a shit either way, so I second that you must be on drugs.

[Signe]

Must be hardcore drugs too, since pot isn't a drug. 

We should have an intervention!  It'll be fun!

[ahoythematey]

I'll bring the salsa and chips; you bring the shackles.

[Trippy]

No. Tempted to. But no. I like pot. But I love my girlfriend. Besides, marijuana isn't "drugs".

However, that HoMaM thing has been my little diatribe for years now.

Don't blame the "HoMM" people, blame the "MM" people then -- i.e. the people who call Might and Magic "MM".