Define "intrusive software":

[Link]

Originally Posted by Cloudbringer Kyrvias, we do not support software piracy on Ironworks . Please refrain from discussing any such acts on your part or encouraging software piracy.

And as such, you might have well read the fact that he doesn't support it either, but seems to be forced because of the anti-piracy programs prohibiting him from doing his normal stuff on the computer.

Come on, moderators. You disencourage using swearwords as well, but I see the use of "shit", "bastard" and the occasional f-word all over this place. Even in posts made by our beloved Webmaster.

In short: there's no need to yell out at every fart made around this place. You're here to keep things calm when the shit (!!) hits the fan, not when someone's just taking a crap.

[JrKASperov]

What about speaking against the thieves that are the publishing companies?

[Luvian]

There is a difference between the occasional slipped profanity and piracy. One is a crime and one is not. Ziroc want his website to remain in legality and that's his right. Heck, even websites like Megagames that are the number one distributor on no-cd files ban discussion of piracy on their forum.

No one's telling you what you can and can't do outside the forum, just don't discuss it here.

[Sever]

Originally Posted by Luvian Heck, even websites like Megagames that are the number one distributor on no-cd files ban discussion of piracy on their forum.

Ah, so that's where i can get 'em. Thanks for the info, Luvian.

[Cloudbringer]

Originally Posted by Luvian There is a difference between the occasional slipped profanity and piracy. One is a crime and one is not. Ziroc want his website to remain in legality and that's his right. Heck, even websites like Megagames that are the number one distributor on no-cd files ban discussion of piracy on their forum. No one's telling you what you can and can't do outside the forum, just don't discuss it here.

Originally Posted by Link And as such, you might have well read the fact that he doesn't support it either, but seems to be forced because of the anti-piracy programs prohibiting him from doing his normal stuff on the computer. Come on, moderators. You disencourage using swearwords as well, but I see the use of "shit", "bastard" and the occasional f-word all over this place. Even in posts made by our beloved Webmaster. In short: there's no need to yell out at every fart made around this place. You're here to keep things calm when the shit (!!) hits the fan, not when someone's just taking a crap.

Link, we're here to keep the rules as Z puts them down in ToS and to the mods. As Luvian points out there's a big difference between illegal piracy discussions and the occasional lapse in linguistic good manners.

And you've been around this and other forums long enough to know mods can't be everywhere all the time nor are they 100% perfect, so occasionally something gets by. But that certainly doesn't make everything else fair game.

As for telling us what we're here to do...well, Z does a fairly good job of that already! There's even a little something in the ToS that applies to mods and interacting with them. In other words... that fart stinks, please avoid the fan! And for the rest of it.. for goodness sake, use the restrooms! *does flight attendant imitation, pointing to the rear of the board*



RTB, I do have to say I agree with your point about the programs being added to my pc that I only have because of the game/application I purchased and intended to use. When that bit of software is on the the pc AFTER you delete the other main program it came with, there should be a fix available to remove it. Seems to me that everything should go when you uninstall the main application.

[robertthebard]

Just a note here, since I've had a chance to sleep on this; I'm not going on about NWN 2. The game is a non issue for me now. The fact is, I could run the game on this PC. However, the fact that Securom was installed without my knowledge, or consent bothers me. This thread, however, is about a specific problem I'm having with the DRM, when it shouldn't even be on my PC any more. The game it's designed to protect is gone from my system. It installed with that game, why doesn't it uninstall with it?

Sony did settle a lot of lawsuits on the matter, and still has some pending, the one I remember off the top of my head being in Texas. Making an effort to protect a publisher's investment does not give the publisher the right to attempt to gain control of the enduser's machine. The fact that the software only affects purchased copies of the game should be indicitave of how much the solution doesn't solve anything.

Edit: Seems that Cloudy and I cross posted. That kind of thing's going to happen. As I've indicated though, that is the issue I'm having now, as can be seen by the two links I recently posted. The game is gone, and the software is still exerting control over my machine, in so far as I can tell.

[Micah Foehammer]

The flip side to this whole argument is that anyone who had purchased NWN2 has had the option from DAY 1 to buy either a hard copy version or a digital download.

The digital download comes securRom free, allows for back-ups and it actually runs FASTER than the hard copy dvd / cd versions. The only issue that I've seen is a temporary problem with limited re-installs when PCs crash and have to be rebuilt. And those problems can and have been solved.

SecurRom isn't a secret and it never has been. It's NO secret that Atari has used it on other games in the past.

Part of being a savvy consumer is knowing what you are buying. Quite frankly, I can't believe that someone with your experience with NWN1 wasn't aware of potential problems with SecurROm before buying NWN2.

In fact, RTB, that raises a VERY intersting question. I'm sure that you were copying cd's on your old machine, correct? And I am willing to bet that you also had NWN1 installed at the same time. right? So please explain to me, IF SecurRom is the cause of your problem, then WHY weren't you aware of it with the OLD system. And knowing that, why did you then buy NWN2 in the hard drive format? If it was NOT a problem on your old system perhaps the issue is NOT SecurRom at all, but rather something about the way your current system is built and NOT exclusively a SecurRom issue!?

As I suggested before, why not TRY to get different CD burning software, and see if THAT will solve the problem?

"Making an effort to protect a publisher's investment does not give the publisher the right to attempt to gain control of the enduser's machine."

It can and does if that control is limited to prevention of piracy which you agreed to in the EULA anyway. I WILL concede that any control BEYOND that use IS intrusive, but RTB you have NOT proven that it functions in that manner.

Edit: There is a dispute over whether D2D is SecurRom free or not. The real issue though is not whether it's there, but if it designed to function with a DISC IN THE DRIVE, and there isn't one there, what function does it REALLY serve?

RTB, you told me that you bought NWN2 BEFORE you had a system that could play it which you seem to think invalidates the choice you had of buying a D2D version. My response is that it was YOUR choice to buy before your system was upgraded. You COULD have waited.

[robertthebard]

Originally Posted by WebShaman Ok, folks. It was amusing, interesting, and sometimes fascinating to read all the posts. Time to drop the bomb. X900BattleApple, I would be interested in what you think of the following : I have the D2D version of NWN2. Obviously, this version has a one-time online activation system. Please tell me why SecuRom is in it? I have no disk that I can run in my disk drive. I also do not need one. I can happily burn as many copies of NWN2 as I want with my D2D version. So why is SecuRom packaged into it? I know that SecuRom is packaged into it, because I have found it "hiding" in my reg files, and elsewhere. Also, if I have my Process Explorerrunning, NWN2 will not start. Please tell me a good reason why SecuRom is included in my D2D version of NWN2 - obviously, it is semi-deactivated (but it will still prevent NWN2 from running if I have any of the SW installed that it does not like). So if Atari thought that I did not need SecuRom to check a disk, allows me to copy my game to disk as many times as I want to, then WHY is SecuRom included in my version of NWN2? My game is already validated through an online check. SecuRom obviously serves no purpose, other than to prohibit me running various SW! As one can see, one can obviously deliver NWN2 with other types of systems that validate if one is really a game owner. I just cannot understand why SecuRom is bundled with this version! It serves absolutely no purpose, has absolutely no value in and of itself, and causes me only problems.

I went ahead and found this at Atari's forum. As I indicated, with NWN installed on the old rig, yes, I could burn cds. However, the version of Securom used in NWN is not the same as the version that came on the disc with NWN 2, which I, as a fanboy of NWN, had to rush out and buy, just like everyone else. I had the money at the time, and it was available. The uninstall of NWN 2 on the old rig resulted in my having to format the harddrive, which I had assumed at the time it was a problem with the .NET framework stuff.

I indicated this in a previous discussion; I'm not prone to just jumping on any bandwagon. Discussion about other games having Securom has ocurred on other forums, and if that raises prices for other consumers, well, it's really not the fault of affected consumers, but publishers that don't care what their paying customers have to go through to use a product they purchased. I referrenced both NWN 2, and Bioshock as having problems with the newer versions of Securom, and a simple Google search will verify those without having to spend the countless hours I have spent reading post after post concerning the problems, and discussing them. You may feel free to have my posts censored at your leisure. You may insist on having them deleted as it conveniences you, but these facts will not go away with the deletion of my opinions, or posts.

:shrug: In some things, there is no point in discussion. As far as some people are concerned, this is an outright assault on what people see as a legitimate business. However, as Sony found out with their CD rootkit, there are laws, and there are new laws since then about secretly installing stuff with other software. Did a pop-up window come up during your NWN 2 installation telling you that software from Sony was being installed? Is it labelled anywhere on the box that a Sony product is included with the game? It's not on my box, and I had no such pop-up during installation. This is a secret.

My guilt lies in not doing more research before I installed, of that I take full responsiblility. However, I did not put this software on the disc. I did not hide it from the public, and I sure didn't intend to put anything by Sony on this rig. I won't even play any of cds I own on it, for fear of installing something like this on my PC. I can't remember the last new cd I bought, since Sony has their fingers in just about every major label. My Playstation, which was given to me, is a glorified cd player, because I will not support Sony. However, with the purchase of this game, I did. I did so unaware of it, and I installed it, also unaware of the problems it could, and is causing.

[Luvian]

A customer shouldn't have to do extensive researches to see if he's going to experience serious problems when buying something as simple as a game, nor should he have to do researches to find out what get secretly installed on his computer.

[Micah Foehammer]

Originally Posted by Luvian A customer shouldn't have to do extensive researches to see if he's going to experience serious problems when buying something as simple as a game, nor should he have to do researches to find out what get secretly installed on his computer.

The fact that NWN1 had Securom bundled with it was known FIVE years ago, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if Atari published NWN1 and it had securom that NWN2 might ALSO have it.

It wasn't a secret Luvian. That is a total misrepresentation of the facts imo.

I just did a simple google search of NWN2 securom and the FIRST hit I got is one for a petition dated september 2006 calling for its removal.

In fact, with all the furor in the past few years over securom and starforce (i think thats the name) buyers SHOULD be asking what type of copy protection is on their software. I won't TOUCH anything with starforce on it. People scan consumer guides ALL the time for even mundane household appliances. You're going to drop 50$ on a game and you don't want to be bothered with doing a web search to check on issues with it?

My biggest issue is with those people who claim that their problems are securom related and offer NO solid proof. In point of fact, RTB falls into that category. He was able to burn cd's on his old machine without problems and yet he had NWN1 AND Securom on that machine. Now with Nwn2, a new machine and probably a revised version of securom there IS a problem. We are expected to take a leap of faith that Securom IS the problem and not something ELSE.

I am NOT unsympathetic to those people who have REAL VERIFIABLE ISSUES with Securom, but I also wonder how many of those alleged cases are in fact ACTUALLY caused by securom.

I will simply ask this. How many people on these forums, aside from possibly RTB, have actually had a verifiable problem with either NWN1 or NWN2 that they can PROVE is directly atrributable to securom?