A message from the Silent Hunter IV Dev Team

[Mentalist]

And on topic:

The fact that Ubisoft has the ability to spend time adding aggressive CP to a game that was rushed and pressed in an unfinished state is bad form. They should of spent the time fixing fundemental problems with the game. Ubisoft really need a chat with Stardock. That is a company that knows the score when it comes to customer relations and the fact that CP of this ilk is obsolete and retarded. As is patently obvious, legit users are suffering problems already due to it. The "right" to use a N*CD patch for those who own the game has also been taken away. Yet they couldn't even push the game for a proper development cycle?

As someone with experience in both cracking and hacking from days gone past I could probably remove this protection from the game in an matter of hours. I don't need to because I bought my copy but nobody should be under the illusion that others won't do the exact same thing. First Starforce and now this.


It's a waste of time and they should of spent it on improving the game or at least finishing it.

[ryuzu]

Originally Posted by redsolo

I dont agree. The best copy protection Ive seen was in the Operation Flashpoint game.Operation Flashpoint would randomly kick out players from multiplayer servers stating "Real gamers doesnt cheat"; and the accuracy of the rifles would degrade over time. The good thing was that the hackers thought they hacked the game, and would move on to newer games; which meant that they had to re-release cracks several times to improve the hack. Meanwhile we who owned a legit copy always smiled when someone complained about missing all the time, and when someone was randomly kicked out from a multiplayer game.

This is a better CP than the common ones where the crackers directly see if they have hacked the CP or not. WIth this fuzzy CP, people will start to play the game and get engulfed with it (see it like a big demo), but then as the game degrades they might buy the game.

OFP - had text to let you know at least.

The devs only said 2D crew and bulging eyes were copy protection - not much of a gamebreaker are they.... Making all torpedos duds, or messing with the shot calculations - that would stop people enjoying an illegal copy. Perhaps those things do happen, who knows? The problem is, perhaps one in 5 of my torps is wildly off track because of copy protection, but I don't know because my perfectly legal copy of the game is apparently working normally.

Regardless, without some text (like OFP had and ArmA has) then who can tell whether a bug is a problem with the game or the copy protection and therefore how to report it?

r.

[Mentalist]

Originally Posted by The General

Thanks for the help guys. I have 1 GB of RAM. My GFX Card is listed on the back of the box as being a 'minimum' system requirement. However the game is unplayable, which is a little ridiculous with a 3.5 GHZ processor et al.

I guess I better bite the bullet and get a decent GFX card.

Unless you have oodles of cash to throw at a top range card (most of us don't) then may I reccommend this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...C-pr1c3grabb3r


It has to be the best price to performance ratio out there. A very powerful card for a very reasonable price.

[ReM]

Maybe Starforce would've been better as copy protection.....

[Guido]

It's a waste of time and they should of spent it on improving the game or at least finishing it.

here here!

what he said...............

[DragonRR1]

Originally Posted by ryuzu

OFP - had text to let you know at least.

The devs only said 2D crew and bulging eyes were copy protection - not much of a gamebreaker are they.... Making all torpedos duds, or messing with the shot calculations - that would stop people enjoying an illegal copy. Perhaps those things do happen, who knows? The problem is, perhaps one in 5 of my torps is wildly off track because of copy protection, but I don't know because my perfectly legal copy of the game is apparently working normally.

Regardless, without some text (like OFP had and ArmA has) then who can tell whether a bug is a problem with the game or the copy protection and therefore how to report it?

r.

Great news regarding the resolution and AA!!

I don't think any official has acknowledged that the game has fade protection at all..... I don't really see how anyone running a modified version of the game (nocd crack or whatever) can really complain if a modification causes problems. On the other hand I totally agree that IF legit users have issues then the protection is over the top.

[Spaxspore]

Originally Posted by Mentalist

And on topic:

The fact that Ubisoft has the ability to spend time adding aggressive CP to a game that was rushed and pressed in an unfinished state is bad form. They should of spent the time fixing fundemental problems with the game. Ubisoft really need a chat with Stardock. That is a company that knows the score when it comes to customer relations and the fact that CP of this ilk is obsolete and retarded. As is patently obvious, legit users are suffering problems already due to it. The "right" to use a N*CD patch for those who own the game has also been taken away. Yet they couldn't even push the game for a proper development cycle?

As someone with experience in both cracking and hacking from days gone past I could probably remove this protection from the game in an matter of hours. I don't need to because I bought my copy but nobody should be under the illusion that others won't do the exact same thing. First Starforce and now this.


It's a waste of time and they should of spent it on improving the game or at least finishing it.

AGreed! FOR example leaving METERS in the game, when your on the a WW2 US boat is extremely sloopy at best, makes it look like a hurried port from sh3.

[Lt commander lare]

neal can you pass along the information to the dev team about the crew all just start dying on the way home and see if they can correct this in the next patch the fact there working on some items thanks

lt commander lare

[OneTinSoldier]

Originally Posted by ryuzu

The devs only said 2D crew and bulging eyes were copy protection - not much of a gamebreaker are they.... Making all torpedos duds, or messing with the shot calculations - that would stop people enjoying an illegal copy. Perhaps those things do happen, who knows? The problem is, perhaps one in 5 of my torps is wildly off track because of copy protection, but I don't know because my perfectly legal copy of the game is apparently working normally.

Yep, that's all they said, ahem, mentioned. For all we know there is more to it than just those 2 items. It's seems I have seen some people say something like they put 6 torps into a Merchant but it would not sink! I saw one guy(can't remember if it was on here or the Ubi forum) say he put 8 freakin torps into a T3 and it was still going strong. He posted a screenshot. From the screenshot I wouldn't have said it was still going strong, far from it. It was ablaze all over, listing to the side heavily, and water was well above the waterline would normally be(undamaged), but it hadn't sunk. If he really had put 8 torps into it like he said he did, then hmmm. :hmm:

Anyway, my point is, they only mentioned those 2 items. It certainly doesn't mean there might be more to it than just those two! Is there some reason we should think they are going(or want) to reveal them all to us? :hmm:

[maerean_m]

Originally Posted by Spaxspore

AGreed! FOR example leaving METERS in the game, when your on the a WW2 US boat is extremely sloopy at best, makes it look like a hurried port from sh3.

The 1.1 patch fixes the problem: you can switch between metric and imperial measurement units before you start the patrol.

[tonyeh]

Originally Posted by Mentalist

And on topic:

The fact that Ubisoft has the ability to spend time adding aggressive CP to a game that was rushed and pressed in an unfinished state is bad form. They should of spent the time fixing fundemental problems with the game. Ubisoft really need a chat with Stardock. That is a company that knows the score when it comes to customer relations and the fact that CP of this ilk is obsolete and retarded. As is patently obvious, legit users are suffering problems already due to it. The "right" to use a N*CD patch for those who own the game has also been taken away. Yet they couldn't even push the game for a proper development cycle?

As someone with experience in both cracking and hacking from days gone past I could probably remove this protection from the game in an matter of hours. I don't need to because I bought my copy but nobody should be under the illusion that others won't do the exact same thing. First Starforce and now this.


It's a waste of time and they should of spent it on improving the game or at least finishing it.

I agree completely.

Tony

[ryuzu]

Originally Posted by OneTinSoldier

Yep, that's all they said, ahem, mentioned. For all we know there is more to it than just those 2 items. It's seems I have seen some people say something like they put 6 torps into a Merchant but it would not sink! I saw one guy(can't remember if it was on here or the Ubi forum) say he put 8 freakin torps into a T3 and it was still going strong. He posted a screenshot. From the screenshot I wouldn't have said it was still going strong, far from it. It was ablaze all over, listing to the side heavily, and water was well above the waterline would normally be(undamaged), but it hadn't sunk. If he really had put 8 torps into it like he said he did, then hmmm. :hmm:

Anyway, my point is, they only mentioned those 2 items. It certainly doesn't mean there might be more to it than just those two! Is there some reason we should think they are going(or want) to reveal them all to us? :hmm:

And that is exactly the problem. Legitimate players may be seeing weird things, and assume it is historically accurate, when in fact it is the copy protection.

It seems to me if the copy protection doesn't alter the gameplay, then it is pointless it being there at all.

So now you start to question - did that torp miss because it historically could have, or because my game thinks it is illegal? Is that fuel burn accurate or not? Did that destroyer detect me too early or not? etc etc If these kind of changes are in the copy protection how would you know?

I also wonder what impact this may have on modding the game. External data files are probably ok but anything deeper than that may cause a problem...

r.

[gmohr]

I took a risk and bought this game knowing all the present faults, and hoping the dev's would make good. They've come through bigtime! Thanks guys, we all await your fixes!!

[Anachronous]

I generally have around 10 different games installed on my PC at any given time. I also have children....

This makes it quite a pain to keep an eye on disks. Especially disks that you cant make a backup copy of. So if one gets under the wheel of the chair (has happened) or sat face down on the desk and becomes useless, thats another 100 bucks I need to throw at buying another disk even if i OWN the game still, i cant PLAY it.

In SH3, i managed to find a forum post that showed how to make a 1:1 backup of your own disk so you can run it through a Virtual drive, and this worked great. The best of all was when the 1.4 patch came out and finally there was a NOCD for it. That saved me 4 gig of space for an image.

Much like Macrovision, or whatever its called these days. Doesnt stop people copying DVD movies. It just makes it so if I want to watch my BOUGHT DVD via remote box on the other TVs in the house (No dvd player in bedrooms, just remotes), i have to make a copy of it, because the original wont work. How REDICULOUS is that.

COPY Protection DOESNT stop pirates at all, in fact there isnt a single popular GAME or MOVIE. out there that hasnt got its protection cracked or bypassed.
If it can be engineered, it can be reverse engineered. Also most those pirates probably wouldnt have bought the game, even if they couldnt copy it. In actual fact, it's probably good advertising to have a game out there and popular, which many people wouldnt have known about otherwise.

It just punishes those who own the software. Stops us game buyers being able to backup our expensive disks, or letting our children be trusted with those disks. (yes we can teach them proper handling, but they are KIDS, and kids have a tendancy to get distracted or not pay attention to all those little things). This is even more of an issue for laptop users and people who spend a lot of time away from home. So in the end, the pirates are probably better off, because they can use their disks free of all these limitations.

In this day and age, it seems archaic to think you need to have a disk in your drive to play, for the purpose of a copy protection scheme that DOESNT WORK.

I think that money spent on false protection would be better served adding content to the game that makes it worthwhile to buy. Such as multiplayer (requiring a CD key), Online unlockable content (BF2, BF2142), special manuals, and limited edition boxes.

Stop chasing those imaginary customers, that wouldnt have bought your software, even if they couldnt copy it and focus on making it more attractive to the buyer, instead of punishing them.

Protection software companies are snake oil salesmen, and they have the game publishers suckered.

BTW I own each game installed on my HDD. Before you ask.

[Spaxspore]

Originally Posted by maerean_m

The 1.1 patch fixes the problem: you can switch between metric and imperial measurement units before you start the patrol.

yes i know, my statement was reflecting on the games release.. not the patch.