Wolfire Games Forums

I'm not quite sure if it is or isn't...
David - Richard, my roommate from the Stanford Summer Session we attended way back when, alerted me to the fact that Lugaru is available for download on www.mofunzone.com and www.gamespot.com
From what I downloaded, everything looked legit - the game stopped in the usual demo areas, and the registration link lead to wolfire.com...
Now, I've been out of the loop for a while, so I'm not exactly the best source of synthesized info, but...
Just wanted to tell you, in case either they weren't allowed to distribute, or whatever...

-Fournine

They are just distributing the game, like Macgamfiles and Apple.com are.
If they were including a serial with it that would be a problem

If they were I would, to quote [someone, don't remember], track them down
and stab/put a carrot in their back!

Figured about as much, since the build seemed intact...
But it makes me wonder - think anyone out there has had the nerve to make a crack?

As the Lugaru's popularity goes up and demand increases, then surely SOMEONE will crack it someday/time.

I wonder, then, if David's making countermeasures?

Fournine wrote:I wonder, then, if David's making countermeasures?

Impossible, if you think about something like making Lugaru "non-crackable".
And doing something against cracker crews is impossible as well. The guys who crack games are anonymous.
The distribution of cracks is not illegal in every country, so you can't force websites to not distribute a Lugaru crack.
That's something developers have to live with these days. It has been like that for 20-23 years, by the way.
Cracking Lugaru is not interesting for cracker crews though. They usually just choose challenging copy protection and new products.

rkn wrote:As the Lugaru's popularity goes up and demand increases, then surely SOMEONE will crack it someday/time.

The Pirating of software is inevitable.
But putting an end to those cracks will push people to get more agressive with their cracking. Soon you are spending more and more time keeping up with the crackers. And putting in more and more annoyances to your legal customers for the sack of stopping some others from pirating it (Can you say windows activation)
The best option is to put in as mild a deterrant as possible that still keeps people from getting the software for free.
If you are selling a large piece of software, the fact it comes on a disk may be enough (as apple does with it's OSs)
If you are selling shareware, you have to have SOME kind of authentication. But going so far as to make a customer call in, or continously update their code after a certain date or if they change the ammount of RAM in thier machine just gets far to crazy.


wow...... long tangent there.....

They couldn't even protect halflife against crackers.

ThorPrime wrote: If you are selling a large piece of software, the fact it comes on a disk may be enough (as apple does with it's OSs)

Almost all new games/software come on disks, and they are almost all pirated.
Pirating OS X is extremely easy, if you have a disk(or a burned disk copy) you are good to go.

zip wrote:

ThorPrime wrote: If you are selling a large piece of software, the fact it comes on a disk may be enough (as apple does with it's OSs)

Almost all new games/software come on disks, and they are almost all pirated.
Pirating OS X is extremely easy, if you have a disk(or a burned disk copy) you are good to go.

The only problem there is if you try and auto-update and their system notices two OS's using the same serial number...BAM!! Fuxored update!!!

Grayswandir wrote:The only problem there is if you try and auto-update and their system notices two OS's using the same serial number...BAM!! Fuxored update!!!

how do you know?

Nuky wrote:

Grayswandir wrote:The only problem there is if you try and auto-update and their system notices two OS's using the same serial number...BAM!! Fuxored update!!!

how do you know?

My friend is an idiot. He downloaded 10.3 and then decided to use auto update. The computer wouldn't startup after that...even with the CD...heh
It could have been a computer problem, but it installed fine (it said) and then asked for a restart. It shutdown and then wouldn't start back up...I laughed at him for trying to pirate system software.

Actually, Apple intentionally does nothing to stop people from stealing the OS.
OSX has no serial codes to check. To require that would go against Apple's core idea of making software as easy to use as possible. Entering a 32 character, alpha-numeric serial code is not easy for say, your grandma. (Or at least, alot of grandma's) And those are the types of people apple tries very hard to reel in.
Alot of games require a serial because they can get away with it. Most gamers are more power-users.
Alias can make people go through insane loops to register their software because they are a giant selling software to professionals.

How would that stop crackers and warezmonkeys?
They'd just download the engine for free and surely someone would
upload their paid game data to BT, Limewire or whatever they want.