A message from the Silent Hunter IV Dev Team

[Spaxspore]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

I agree, the only company i know who does what u have said is star dock, they dont assume every one is a pirate, they put no copy protection on thier games. U can run it off the hd, dont need to use the disc, if u register your S# with them it will allow u to dl patchs with new features and improvements, and u can even dl the game that u purchased from them directly if u dont feel like using the discs, or looking for them. God i love star dock, i buy all thier games that follow this protectino scyeme... they only release quality products.

[SharpShin]

Good post Anachronous, I made the same point yesterday and the whole thread was deleted lol.

[Dowly]

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:

I´m pretty sure that it was me who posted that. But the thing was, I shot it with 8 torpedos, only two were contact only fuses. AFAIK, hitting a ship with the contact influence fuse makes the torpedo go off slightly before it actually hits (correct me if I am wrong), so at times, it doesnt even hit the hull -> no hole for the water to go in, just maybe some fires on the deck.

I had the same thing last night while raiding a port, fired 6 torpedos to a T3, first 4 contact influence fuses, which didnt make hole. But only after the last two contact fuse torpedos punched holes to the ship it started to sink fast.

[OneTinSoldier]

Good point, but let me put it this way...


When I get my game(i'm going to try and see if I can get it at a store today), after playing it for a few/several days days, if I never see 2D paper thin crew or any bulging eyes, then I will chalk it up to historical accuracy. The CP is probably has an all or nothing effect. Let's say that guy that I mentioned who couldn't sink the T3 Tanker with 8 torps, couldn't sink it due to CP. Well, he probably had the 2D paper thin crew and bulging eyes at some point too.

[Harmor]

Well, the thing is that I cannot even start the game thanks to Securom, it says that a required security module cannot be loaded which is utter bs since I don't have any illegal tools installed. It might be the firewall, my anti virus, some other (LEGAL) tools I got .. whatever it is, it simply won't work .. so I wouldn't call those who get these bugs pirates per se. It just goes to show me that the devs are obviously not competent enough to handle this sort of aggressive cp in a way that legit buyers are not effected. Heck, the bugfest that SH 4 apparently is according to various ppl is prove enough for the obvious lack of testing that went into this game. Ubi Soft products have so drastically declined in quality (SC 4 anyone?) it is getting rediculous honestly.

*EDIT* Ahahaha I found out what is most likely causing it ... Sysinternal's Process Explorer. I am using it instead of the Windows Task Manager (cause by using PE you can monitor the processes running on your system a lot better, plus I need it cause I have issues with one of Norton's applications, CCProxy.exe, eating up my CPU resources so I have to kill said process using Process Explorer) ... yet apparently, Process Explorer isn't liked by Securom. Right, so .. I understand why a cp would prevent a game from starting if you had some anti blacklisting tool installed or whatever, but Process Explorer is a 100 % LEGIT tool .. and in all honesty, this is nothing but outragious.

[Mentalist]

Well said guys, well said. Stardock is the smartest company out there and they have the most respect out of any games company I've ever heard of from their users. And even without any copy protection they make massive sales and are very successful. Reason being? - They make kick-ass games. Simple as. They listen to the fans and they make brilliant software. Ubisoft make good games; the Silent Hunter series is clearly awesome as we all know, but they don't have much in the way of PR. They released an unfinished game. It doesn't matter how many patches they release for it because they KNEW before they shipped that they were releasing an unfinished game. That's not acceptable and it shouldn't be apologized for by the fans. Add to that this archaic CP software that will only end up hurting legit users and will be cracked anyway and you have yet another disrespect handed down to the community. They REALLY should of learned their lesson with Starforce. Clearly not it would seem.

And hey, I'm not one of those who complains for the sake of complaining. I'm more than happy to gush over the good aspects of what they're doing (high simulation, little in the way of dumbing down, ect) is to be applauded in a market saturated with the likes of EA games but when they screw up they should be taken to task for it and this is one big screw up.

[Liszt_]

Originally Posted by Dowly

I´m pretty sure that it was me who posted that. But the thing was, I shot it with 8 torpedos, only two were contact only fuses. AFAIK, hitting a ship with the contact influence fuse makes the torpedo go off slightly before it actually hits (correct me if I am wrong), so at times, it doesnt even hit the hull -> no hole for the water to go in, just maybe some fires on the deck.

I had the same thing last night while raiding a port, fired 6 torpedos to a T3, first 4 contact influence fuses, which didnt make hole. But only after the last two contact fuse torpedos punched holes to the ship it started to sink fast.

yea! I'm pretty sure many of the complaints about having to unload X torps are coming from people who arn't checking whether the torp is set to mag or contact. Mag is the default on a newly loaded torp so you need to manually switch it to contact for each tube at present before you fire.

If mag torps are really this unreliable, what is a proper situation to use them? It seems contact is the way to go 99% of the time.

[OneTinSoldier]

Originally Posted by Dowly

I´m pretty sure that it was me who posted that. But the thing was, I shot it with 8 torpedos, only two were contact only fuses. AFAIK, hitting a ship with the contact influence fuse makes the torpedo go off slightly before it actually hits (correct me if I am wrong), so at times, it doesnt even hit the hull -> no hole for the water to go in, just maybe some fires on the deck.

I had the same thing last night while raiding a port, fired 6 torpedos to a T3, first 4 contact influence fuses, which didnt make hole. But only after the last two contact fuse torpedos punched holes to the ship it started to sink fast.

Ahhhh, it was you eh? Man, sounds like T3's are pretty tough! Well, I'm glad to hear that you were able to figure out what it takes to sink a T3!

And I hope you don't think that I was trying to make you sound like a pirate. I was just using your situation as an example of something that might be possible with the Copy Protection.

Cheers

[Dowly]

No worries, mate. Still a lot to learn about the torpedos, but from now on, I will only use contact only fuses.

[Spaxspore]

Originally Posted by Mentalist

Well said guys, well said. Stardock is the smartest company out there and they have the most respect out of any games company I've ever heard of from their users. And even without any copy protection they make massive sales and are very successful. Reason being? - They make kick-ass games. Simple as. They listen to the fans and they make brilliant software. Ubisoft make good games; the Silent Hunter series is clearly awesome as we all know, but they don't have much in the way of PR. They released an unfinished game. It doesn't matter how many patches they release for it because they KNEW before they shipped that they were releasing an unfinished game. That's not acceptable and it shouldn't be apologized for by the fans. Add to that this archaic CP software that will only end up hurting legit users and will be cracked anyway and you have yet another disrespect handed down to the community. They REALLY should of learned their lesson with Starforce. Clearly not it would seem.

And hey, I'm not one of those who complains for the sake of complaining. I'm more than happy to gush over the good aspects of what they're doing (high simulation, little in the way of dumbing down, ect) is to be applauded in a market saturated with the likes of EA games but when they screw up they should be taken to task for it and this is one big screw up.

Couldnt agree more, i was on galciv2.com forums when titan quest came out, talkin to them almost about this exact same problem. THQ (publisher of titan quest) put secrom 7, many people who legally purchased it couldnt play it(you think these forums were bad when sh4 came out.... thiers was 100x worst) I know i bought TQ,which was a really good game and addictive. But Over zealous copy protection almost killed it. THQ later released in a patch that removed secrom 7 completely. And now its new expansion just has cd checks, which is what it should be. Cause if some one is goin to pirate a game they r goni to do it. Just pissing off paying customers isnt goin to help any one. If anything it will hurt you more then the pirates.

[Seminole]

Originally Posted by cherbert

This is great news!!! Thanks Neil. (and thanks Dev team!!)

The anti-protection system explains why I've never experienced the popping-eyes and paper thin crew members. (clever!)

Yep...ain't it delicious...... ....all day yesterday I kept watching for these horrors to pop up....and they never did...I guess you do indeed get exactly what you pay for.

[Potoroo]

I'm very much a Stardock fan too. Unfortunately, I think it will take years more before the message sinks in to the suits: copy protection only hurts legitimate users.

With the current exception of SH4 I don't own a game for which I don't have the N*CD crack - and I'm perfectly happy to show off my pile of retail game boxes and all the rest. I'm a legitimate user protecting himself against idiots, nothing more.

[OneTinSoldier]

Originally Posted by Liszt_

If mag torps are really this unreliable, what is a proper situation to use them? It seems contact is the way to go 99% of the time.

For the most part, to wait until later in the war at which point most of the problems with them had been worked out. Of course I'm an XO from the year 2007, don't tell your 1942 Skipper or XO that you heard it from me, they'll think your looney.

[sjw985]

Open letter follows.

*****
3/23/2007 (a.k.a. 23/3/2007)

Dear Ubi,

Thank you for publicly acknowledging our concerns regarding image quality.

Please consider this an official notice of our intent to extend boundless and neverending gratitude to you upon resolution of this issue.

(Pun intended.)

SH4 can and should be a worthy successor to SH3. Ensuring that image quality meets the highest standards and expectations of the community will contribute mightily to the long-run success of SH4 as well as our enjoyment of it.

Sincerely,
sjw985
Founding member of SSWRBM (Simulated Submariners With Really Big Monitors)
**********

[Anachronous]

Furthermore. Game OWNERS are forced to control software on their systems. Such as being forced to remove certain emulation software or burning software that can have perfectly legitimate uses. This is a protection scheme that allows one company, to tell a consumer what other company's software they can have on their OWN PC.


Also. Hardware protection for consoles and portables (PSP, PS2, XBOX), all of which are cracked too, and if pirates are going to go to the level of hardware modification to run ANY game, then why would a little software bother them.

Again those hardware protections only stop the consumer from making backups (not pirates). Yes the company might sell more disks to people who destroy their originals, but that has limited ability. Instead they lose customers who refuse to buy consoles because they cant make backups so their kids can play without risking hundreds of dollars in the process (Like me and many others).