Hi all,
I've posted a few comments on SHII in the Classic Subsim section, but this is my first post in the SHIII forums.
Basically my question revolves around the dreaded StarForce that comes bundled with this game. I've own SHIII since it came out, but only installed it once on an old Pentium in what now seems an eternity ago. When I found out about the StarForce I actually re-installed the WinXP OS to make certain I'd gotten rid of its drivers. I now know that it's much easier to get rid of them, but that's really not my point here.
The gist is this: I've heard terrible things about what StarForce does to CD or DVD drives, and with my shiny new XPS 630i I'm reluctant to endanger my expensive acquistion in any way.
Yet obviously there are just a ton of guys playing this game, and in another thread I've seen many of the regulars here laud this game as a good beginner's game, given the Naval Academy and the ability of the A/I to do routines that you can eventually take over on a manual basis once you've got your feet wet, so to speak.
I'm not a beginner (my first subsim was AODCD), but I've had this game sitting on my shelf now for years and it's just bugging me.
So what decision did you all make? Did you accept the danger and go ahead and install anyway? Or is the danger overstated? Has anybody actually had their CD or DVD drives deteriorate under StarForce? What's the scoop?
Thanks,
Smecty