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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
| Spellforce 2: Demo @ Worthplaying |
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Thanks to Worthplaying for letting us know the <a href="http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=32516" target="_blank">demo</a> for Spellforce 2: Shadows Wars has just been released. Grab the 590Mb file by following the link. |
Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:33 am |
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Roi Danton
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 02 Mar 2006
Posts: 34
Location: Germany |
I have to say, that this is a very cool demo. They improved a lot of things in Spellforce 2 what wasn't there or was bad in the first game. Really liked the demo.
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www.withingames.net |
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Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:34 am |
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Sir Markus
Counselor of the King
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 369
Location: Columbus, Ohio USA |
When I go to install this, it says I have to let it install Starforce Protection to play. Why do you need copy protection for a demo? I think I'll pass. |
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Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:40 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
If it uses Starforce, I definitely won't be downloading the Demo and I won't be buying the game!!
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If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:17 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
If the demo is unprotected (apparently) data can be gathered that helps crack the full product, hence, demos of all games that use Starforce are protected.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:22 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
Hmm.......an interesting idea for a poll. I wonder how many people like me won't even look at a game or demo because of the use of invasive copy protection such as Starforce!!
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If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Fri Mar 10, 2006 11:46 pm |
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Sir Markus
Counselor of the King
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 369
Location: Columbus, Ohio USA |
It's definitely Starforce. I installed the game completely, no problems. Then, when I went to run it, a window popped up saying "You need to install additional files in order for game to run." In this window, there are 3 buttons. One says "OK" to confirm the installation of additional files, the other says "No" to decline the installation of files, and the third says "Info" well I clicked on that one and there is this rather long .nfo that details the installation of Starforce and what it is. Blech.
However, I will at least give Aspyr credit for telling you what's being installed instead of just installing it without the option to cancel.
Last edited by Sir Markus on Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:42 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:37 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Sure, let's do that. I suspect a lot of people might talk up boycotting Starforce but would quietly fold if a game was good enough...but let's ask.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:38 am |
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-Samhain-
Village Dweller
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 3
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Starforce doesnt bother me, I havent had any problems with it. Certainly wouldnt keep me from buying something. Perhaps if it made my system go haywire or something, I'd think differently about the whole thing.
It just seems strange to me that a company would willingly put malicious or detrimental software on a customer's computer, like purposefully putting a fly in someone's soup.
Im just wondering if anyone here who is fervently anti-Starforce has actually had anything happen to their computers as a result of it?? Or maybe it keeps a game from running? I dont mean anything by what Im saying, Im just wondering.
-edit i definitely have it on my pc, spotted it in the drivers. Ive spent a while now looking around online, and it seems that malicious or not, it definitely does not behoove anyone to include it in their game, because many people simply will not a touch a game with it.
My cd drive has been pretty noisy, geez now Im paranoid...
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"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats"-Colonial American Proverb |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:42 am |
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Guest
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Starforce is notorious for making systems unstable. End User License Agreement doesn’t assure copy protection to be safe but only to be legal. So, keep your eyes on what you are installing on your system. You may find this site helpful.
Also, famous brand names don't prevent them from attempting to install something malicious/suspicious on your system. Haven't heard of rootkit by Sony? |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:09 am |
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Sir Markus
Counselor of the King
Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 369
Location: Columbus, Ohio USA |
For anyone interested, here is link to a radio discussion about starforce with various professionals in the software industry, as well as some individuals who had their computers adversely affected by starforce.
The mp3 is about 8 or 10 minutes minutes long, and is actually fairly interesting.
http://downloads.cybershack.com/CyberShack-Features/StarForce-Feature-full-US-16k.mp3 |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:10 am |
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-Samhain-
Village Dweller
Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 3
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After spending a while looking around at much to do about this whole Starforce business, there's no doubt it's a huge mess. Where there's this much smoke, there's definitely fire.
I was loaded to the gills with the program myself, having played demos and full versions of a whole host of games that use it, and from the looks of it Ive had it a long time. I have had no negative effects that I have noticed, such as I said in my first post on the subject. My CD drive has been noisier lately, but I have no problem with burning or playing disks, or see any speed reduction. I have no doubt that people are having trouble with Starforce, but I cannot help but think that there is a degree of people whose computers are malfunctioning because of other factors, see Starforce, and automatically assume it's the culprit. Also, we are assuming all people reporting truly are truthful little angels, and would never do anything naughty.
BUT there are several reputable sites otherwise, even my beloved PC Gamer magazine took on this issue, and can back up some claims of probs with their own anecdotal evidence. And yes, it is bullsh*t for it to be surreptitiously snuck onto your hd...
That said, Starforce as a company are a bonafide bunch of idiots when it comes to handling things such as this. It's one thing for me to cast the shadow of doubt upon some of the users, but they surely need to treat users as the tech-savvy angels we all assume they are. Russians are suspect already by nature of their very being, but having Ivan Drago pretty much telling people to go take a flying leap really seals the deal: Starforce = Doom
But I do have some good news... well, for US users..
according to the Spellforce2 forums, the US version will not have Starforce, but the european version will
It seems easy enough to remove, I wiped it off with the removal tool
Now Im gonna go put it back on with the SF2 demo, yeeeehaaa 
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"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats"-Colonial American Proverb |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:02 am |
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Guest
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Idiots still using Starforce and for once for a good game oh well im not buying it with that protection thanks to that i'll just download the game and save myself $60  |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:54 pm |
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Wildefire
General Goods Vendor
Joined: 03 Oct 2005
Posts: 1
Location: USA |
Ouch, at its default settings this demo runs at about 1-2 frames per second on my desktop (2.2GHz P4, 1GB RAM, 128MB ATI 9600 PRO AGP, 7200RPM HD, on a clean games-only XP Home partition). It's a 3-year-old system, but damn this is the first game to truly cripple it. In-engine cutscenes are completely out of sync with audio, controls terribly jerky. Looks like I'm gonna have to wait on this one.
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For each toon kills the mob he 'groes, yet each toon does not die. |
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Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:53 pm |
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xSamhainx
Paws of Doom
Joined: 11 Sep 2002
Posts: 2192
Location: San Diego |
Just spent a couple hours messing with the demo, and I really liked it! Seemed to run well on my pc, running the 3.4 ghz pentium w/ 1 GB ram and a nvida 6800 GT. I say "well" because it wasnt perfectly smooth, but it wasnt unacceptable by any means either imho. I turned down the anistropic filtering and shadows a bit. Beautiful game still, and interesting combat just like the first one.
It is quite different in that it sorta switches around some set in stone RTS conventions, like control groups done al la control key and number, and the targeting system is different. It works pretty good once you get the hang of it, but at first it's a little awkward. Things are set more to physical buttons and tabs in the gui. Hit the tab key, strongest enemy comes up in your interface, target him with hero's special abilities which is a button under his portrait, tab again for next strongest, target him with another unit's abilities, tab again and sic a squad of run of the mill fighters on some other poor sap. It's a lot of clicking.
One thing that I hope they get a handle on tho in the full version is the weird way you cannot click commands regarding characters via their portrait. Basically, its a lot easier to have group #2 selected, click "follow" or hit the hotkey, than click on the lead unit's portrait. No such luck, you have to physically click on the unit to follow. Also, it doesnt appear that you can set heroes (or any unit for that matter) as production rally points, which can be quite handy when things get chaotic.
And thankfully, when you have a group in your army selected, you see all their health bars in your interface, so you can micro the wounded guys out before they get critical. While it does switch things around a little, it's all still essentially there (such as patrol,health bars,hold ground), unlike AOE3 which started just almost randomly tossing things out the window left and right that people have grown used to using and have indeed become standards of the genre.
In the end, I got some cool loot, leveled up my avatar a few times, was running around in 3rd person down on troop level with my homeys crackin skell skulls and havin a good time. It's like a mix between Dungeon Siege and a traditional fantasy setting RTS, with far more RPG than say Warcraft 3 and even Dragonshard and such titles that merely sprinkle in very minimal rpg elements. You get a lengthy skill tree to sink points into as your character levels, and you get loot drops of armor, jewelry and weapons.
And yes, I saw Starforce hanging out in my device manager again, but at this point Im like "So what". I aint losin' any sleep over it. If something happens, then something happens, and then I go berzerk about it and become militant. Until then like I said, it was on my system for quite some time, and everything seems fine. Knock on wood, of course ='.'=
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“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.”-Mark Twain |
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Sun Mar 12, 2006 8:44 am |
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