Question on Data Rights Management

[Lempereur1]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Hi!

Jutland looks like a good game, but I have a question about the Data Rights Management (DRM) scheme: does that mean that I can no longer play the game if (Heaven forfend) Storm Eagle Studios goes under and the website is no longer available?

Thanks!

Pablo

Pablo: Thanks for your interest in Jutland!

This is a great question that comes up often.

In the event of the worst, i.e. Storm Eagle Studios going defunct, With the flick of a compile switch, Storm Eagle can release a final patch that can be applied locally, to remove the DRM.

If you think about it, should we did go under, why would we not do this?

Since we would be in a situation of not sellling the game any more, why would we care about copy protecting it?

Norm Koger, Conductor here at Storm Eagle, is still providing support to people who bought his first game, Stellar Crusade - 1988 SSI, 21 years later!

Can you name anyone else in the gaming industry with that kind of record?

Jim Rose
StormEagleStudios.Com

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Lempereur1

If you think about it, should we did go under, why would we not do this?

For one the code would be an asset, so if SES owed anyone money you just couldn't legally turn over your assets to fans. All one has to do is follow "your" postings on the gamesquad forums to date to get a feel for what kinds of actions "you" might take. Benevolence isn't in your DNA from what I've seen. Apologies to Norm Koger.

[Lempereur1]

Looks like we cant hide from you no matter where we go...

Ok you got me...

Take me to your......

Who do you work for?

[AVGWarhawk]

I really do not understand the concern or upset over data rights and protection programs in this game or any game for that matter. Maybe one day someone can explain it to me. Until then, I play the games and not worry about protection programs, etc.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Lempereur1

Who do you work for?

The makers of Starforce, we're just mad that you came up with DRM worse than ours.

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by em2nought

The makers of Starforce, we're just mad that you came up with DRM worse than ours.

No more. This wannabe developer seems to suffer from the same delusions, game appears to be extremely unpopular, too

[Bullethead]

Originally Posted by em2nought

The makers of Starforce, we're just mad that you came up with DRM worse than ours.

That's not in any way an accurate statement.

Starforce was a complete abonination, I agree. Besides sinking roots all through your system files that were nearly impossible to get rid of, IMHO the worst part about it was that it poisoned the whole world against the entire DRM concept. When folks hear "DRM", they think of Starforce, or perhaps Spore which is bad in different ways, and go on the warpath.

Our DRM has nothing in common with Starforce or Spore's system. It does nothing to your system; it's all within the game itself. If you uninstall our game, there's no trace of our DRM left on your system. And while it's still on your system, it affects nothing else on your system. You have unlimited uninstalls and reinstalls. You download the game onto as many computers as you want and easily transfer the license between them all as often as you want.

[AVGWarhawk]

I see nothing wrong with this DRM. It is the nature of games today. They come with a copywrite protection system. There is no way around this as far as I can tell. Oh well, my game fires up and my computer is just fine. What is the worry

[GlobalExplorer]

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, actually.

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I see nothing wrong with this DRM. It is the nature of games today. They come with a copywrite protection system. There is no way around this as far as I can tell.

Well I think It is a bit like pay TV, there's always a way around which is to avoid it.

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Oh well, my game fires up and my computer is just fine. What is the worry

Sure some people are happy to live for the moment.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Bullethead

That's not in any way an accurate statement.

Let me quantify that, to someone still using a dial-up connection SES DRM/patching is worse than a game having starforce. At least with starforce I could still play Enigma Rising Tide, that is until I had to reformat and throw away my cdrw. Steam is just as bad to me. FWIW

[Bullethead]

Originally Posted by em2nought

Let me quantify that, to someone still using a dial-up connection SES DRM/patching is worse than a game having starforce. At least with starforce I could still play Enigma Rising Tide, that is until I had to reformat and throw away my cdrw. Steam is just as bad to me. FWIW

Apart from making the patches take longer to download, how does dial-up make things worse? All you have to do make contact at the start of the game, you don't have to maintain it during the game. And as mentioned above, you don't even need to make contact at all for days at a time, with no ill effects.

Dial-up is perfectly adequate for the game phoning home. Bandwidth matters not a bit for that; all it has to do is make contact. Seriously, doesn't your telephone work just fine for vox?

I myself live way out in the boonies so only have broadband via satellite, and I only got that about a year ago. Thus, much of my work on Jutland, and everything I did with the RJW game, was over dial-up. This never caused me any problems other than the long time required to download files. And because I have a development build, my DRM is WAY harsher than the retail version. In fact, dial-up in my experience is far more reliable at making contact than satellite, it's just way slower when it comes to downloads.

So I'm somewhat at a loss to know why you think our DRM won't work for you because you've got dial-up. That certainly doesn't match my own observations.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by em2nought

For one the code would be an asset, so if SES owed anyone money you just couldn't legally turn over your assets to fans. All one has to do is follow "your" postings on the gamesquad forums to date to get a feel for what kinds of actions "you" might take. Benevolence isn't in your DNA from what I've seen. Apologies to Norm Koger.

I don't think SES plans to "turn over the code", they would simply patch the game so that it would not use the DRM.

[Lempereur1]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I don't think SES plans to "turn over the code", they would simply patch the game so that it would not use the DRM.

Leaving gamers hanging would go against everything we have ever done in Gaming.
WE recently tried to count all the PC and board games that we have been involved in over the last 27+ years and we stopped counting at 68!

If we were in this strickly for the money, we would be making first person shooter games.