Half-Life 2 already cracked?

[nFury8]

Steam is a good attempt at curbing piracy. But apparently not good enough cause it seems there's already a working half-life 2 crack (http://www.ubersite.com/m/51772) out.

[Sycho]

i know, that's how i got my copy working.

[Mug Funky]

haha! i was about to go off at you guys for warez discussion... but you're right, this crack is too good to miss :)

[nFury8]

Originally posted by Sycho
i know, that's how i got my copy working.
Hopefully that crack wasn't shitty for you.

[voy1d]

It's amazing how companies try to stop piracy. They will never stop it. They are the ones that let it get out of hand in the first place.

[dani82]

@voy1d

how so?



forget the crack, worry about the servers, and something about a 3 gb download:

http://www.gamepro.com/computer/pc/games/news/39550.shtml

[voy1d]

@dani82

Well if they had taken the threat of piracy to their property a little more seriously 7-8 years ago, they would've stopped or made a huge dent in the infancy of piracy. Now people are experienced so whatever the publishers/developers throw at a cracker they can circumvent it.

[Bootsy]

Originally posted by voy1d
Now people are experienced so whatever the publishers/developers throw at a cracker they can circumvent it.

Not entirely true, several titles with starforce 3 have not been cracked.

[voy1d]

Ahh righto, I've kind of lost track of everything since being out of the scene for so long...

[Mug Funky]

hmm... game devs have fought piracy for longer than 7 years.

remember all those DOS games? after ~10 mins of play a nag window would come up saying to pick the image that is on page 13 of the manual... if you didn't have the manual (or a recognisible photocopy :)), you wouldn't be able to play on.

of course, die-hard geeks could memorize the right answers to any question. my brother played "master of orion" for years, never once guessing the wrong ship-class.

[Joe Fenton]

One game I used to play was even easier to "crack". The keywords you were supposed to supply were part of a poem. It was childsplay to memorize the poem. Instead of random words or dry numbers, they gave a POEM as the protection. :rolleyes:

[dragongodz]

this thread is going way off topic and in to areas that are not suitable for this board. so lets please end such talk now.

if anyone hasnt actually looked at the link they should. you will find its not what you think. much much scarier. :)

[fccHandler]

I looked at it, but now I wish I hadn't. :eek:

[Doom9]

though cracking and warez is really not suitable for this board.. I buy every game I play these days (I've always been saying that once I get out of college and make some money I'd pay for software and I try hard to stick to that despite the temptation), but all those copy protections that only inconvenience me as a paying customer really piss me off. Why do I need to have the CD in my drive if the whole game is on my HD? People using warez don't have that problem. Why do I need to activate my copy of HL2 at valve and have I don't know what data transmitted to them (same as for WinXP/Office)? I gave you my money, why do you need to put a few roadblocks in the way? That kind of screwing the customer can actually get people to get illegitimate copies in the first place so it is highly counterproductive.

[dragongodz]

Doom9 - are you asking for a warning ? :eek: :D

actually i do agree things like having to have the cd in the drive all the time is a pain and online activation, especially windows xp with it having to reactivate when you do a few upgrades, is madness. but its way off topic for whats behind that link. :)

I looked at it, but now I wish I hadn't.
i did warn you it was much scarier. :D

[Mug Funky]

hmm... how about a USB dongle. but not a regular boring one - what about one with game art on it, or even a little game character with the USB plug in it's butt? something like that would add to a game's value, i think. it would also force them to have interesting characters (i'd love a little Sumomo from Chobits as a USB flash disk...).

[markrb]

Now then you are just giving them another thing to rate.
G rated dongle = cuddly puppy
PG = cool looking fighter
PG13 = hot looking anime chick
R rated = naked hot looking anime chick
X rated = full on usb motion

So then you will end up with a rating for the game then the dongle. Sheesh will these people ever stop? Now they want to rate my dongle.

Mark

PS it's late foe me.

[fccHandler]

Originally posted by markrb
Now they want to rate my dongle.
Would you prefer they rate your crack? :p

[dragongodz]

man this is really getting wierd. :scared:

[Mug Funky]

hmm. man, i'm really starting to like the idea of humourous USB dongles now :)

if they were to put flash memory on them, i think it would be worth a bit of extra cost. they'd become accessories.

(damn, maybe i should pitch this idea to some gaming people before someone steals it?)

(c) 2004 Mug Funky (aka adrian) :)