Subject:
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Re: Lego Creator Success
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Sun, 10 Jan 1999 09:21:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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702 times
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Mike Stanley wrote:
>
> Joshua Delahunty <dulcaoin@alumni.cse.ucsc.edu> wrote:
> > > Requiring the CD in something that amounts to a game or home fun
> > > program is the norm, no matter how much you install.
> >
> > Not anymore, IMHO.
>
> Well, opinions, humble or otherwise, are mostly irrelevant with
> respect to this. I buy a ton of games and "home" software and get to
> use even more because my friend works at Babbages and he lets me try
> some things before he buys them for me with his discount. With the
> exception of multiplayer-specific games that allow some sort of
> spawning or use of an audio CD during play, the vast majority of your
> games, card-making, goof-off home-type software (which is what Creator
> is) require the CD in the drive. It's a simple and mostly effective
> (for most people) anti-piracy device.
>
> Yes, it can be a pain, but it is the norm. There are exceptions, of
> course, but they are exceptions.
Whoops. Dunno what I was thinking.
I didn't really respond to what you wrote, but rather to something like
"having <copy protection> in something that amounts to <entertainment
software> is the norm, not matter how much you install."
In my opinion, true "copy protection" such as that seen with Creator,
is no longer the norm. That died about the time that "gaming machines"
such as the Atari and Commodore lines faded away, and the PC became a
viable alternative for gaming. The market got big enough, and (some
said)
insistent enough that copy protection was a passive agressive attack on
legitimate users that non-standard-media style protections went away,
since they're prone to cause more problems than they solve.
> > I can't think of one piece of CD software I own (all entertainment
> > titles) where I can't either install it all to the hard drive directly,
> > install it all the hard drive and change the drive letter in an .INI
> > file, or at the very least use virtual CD software to not require the
> > use of the CD as a dongle. Certainly not any that can't be backed-up.
>
> Well, there you're talking about *you* taking steps to circumvent the
> CD checks. That doesn't mean having the checks isn't still the norm,
> it means a good many of them are almost laughably easy to defeat and
> you've found ways to do it. I do it myself, mostly just because I
> have so freakin many CD's, on the order of a couple hundred or so that
> I would consider games or apps that I "currently" use (I just put
> Warcraft 2 in the old box a while back, but much newer stuff went that
> way long ago).
The checks are there in most cases, but not checks that require this
type of media corruption that causes the media to appear non-standard
to standard duplication means.
> > Except for Creator.
> >
> > You and I are on the same page with this, BTW. I've noted your
> > mentioning your inability to assert your rights to make a backup of the
> > software, and that in itself is a major reason that this copy protection
> > scheme was a bad idea.
>
> Yeah, not trying to be argumentative here, but I can't be mad about
> them requiring the CD in the drive. It IS irritating, but the backup
> issue is much more customer-unfriendly.
Yeah, and that is really where I'm at too.
...and really, I allowed this to get off track without mentioning that
my
original complaint still stands... The instructions very clearly
indicate
(or at least very strongly insinuate) that a full install means you
don't
need the CD again.
If you combine the two conditions (CD won't read in my NEC 12-24x drive,
plus
the insinuation that such a thing might not be possible), well it pisses
me off
even further.
Really, after I went through a lot to get it flying (borrowed a 3x drive
to get it to load), I am not that impressed with the software. I will
be sure not to buy any further LEGO Media titles unless I'm sure they
don't try the same thing again.
> It burns me up, that's for sure. I can tell you this - if ANYTHING
> ever happens to my Creator CD I am going to hold TLG to the same
> replacement policy they provide for lego pieces. It's their fault you
> and I can't back this thing up, not ours. So if it gets scratched or
> damaged, they can foot the bill for replacing it.
That's great until the (extremely short) half-life of software causes
TLG to not carry it anymore. Then it'll be like asking for the green
female torso from the Forestmen.
> > The biggest reason I feel negative about the situation, however, is
> > that placing non-standard data tracks on the CD has rendered the
> > software UNUSABLE on standard machines. My drive is NEC. It's nearly
> > brand-new. I would expect that this sort of "digital trickery" would
> > fail on at least SOME drives, and that's makes the scheme a bad idea.
> > The fact that the drives are high-speed CD and DVD-ROM drives is even
> > worse. The folks with the faster hardware (and therefore most likely to
> > get the best speeds out of the software) can be unable to even launch
> > it. Grrr.
>
> I haven't noticed any problems with Creator with respect to its funky
> track layout, and I've installed it and used it on everything from an
> old IDE 8X CD to a new 32X IDE and my Plextor 12-20X SCSI CDROM.
My NEC drive, and others I tried it in (all in Dell systems, so all
probably
Dell, though not all 12-24) failed to read it. I've only gotten an NEC
(I'm only surrounded by NEC, as it turns out) 3x and 6x to run it.
I was, BTW, able to run the software on a Pentium 100 with a Matrox
Millenium (not Mill2) at work, and it was actually in the realm that
I've seen some poor slob diehards call "workable" (folks I've known
who think slide-show Doom was playable), so that was mildly impressive,
I suppose.
> > I'd also point out that this situation didn't occur with LEGO Island,
> > which is ironic to me since Creator is -- at least potentially -- much
> > more interesting software to me. They didn't try this with any of the
> > Mindstorms software or the 8299 software either. Perhaps those titles
> > wouldn't be as interesting as pirate material, but it is an unbalanced
> > approach.
>
> I bought Lego Island and returned it within the hour. :) No reason
> to back it up. It is strange - and something I can't stand.
Every time I've gotten a hardware upgrade of some kind that might help
LI seem like a better piece of software, I've dusted it off and tried
it again. Every time, it's still sucked. You can dress up a pig...
Next stop will be trying it with Voodoo acceleration. I won't be
holding my breath.
I feel pretty much the same away about Creator, but there at least it
gives us a few element codes for use in LCAD, so it's not a total
loss. :-P
-- joshua
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Lego Creator Success
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| (...) LI runs fine on my new 400 with generic 3D acceleration. Now the problem is the race car seems impossible to control. I keep crashing into everything. Steve (26 years ago, 11-Jan-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Lego Creator Success
|
| (...) Well, opinions, humble or otherwise, are mostly irrelevant with respect to this. I buy a ton of games and "home" software and get to use even more because my friend works at Babbages and he lets me try some things before he buys them for me (...) (26 years ago, 9-Jan-99, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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