Hi everyone, - I'm a long-time lurker, this is my first post. SH3 certainly has a great community here
I actually downloaded a dodgy copy of SH3 from somewhere that had had starforce removed. After playing the game a few times and realising how great it was, I went out and brought my own copy - I've done this with quite a few games. If I'm going to get many tens of hours of fun from a game, then I should do the right thing.
Anyway, I ended up finding SH3 in the bargin bin in a games shop here in NZ. I installed it, patched it to 1.4, and disabled starforce as Boris has mentioned. Friends don't let friends install starforce.