Just to clarify, daemon tools is also installed by some external drives that make use of the USB port for laptops and desktops. Some of which actually require it to even use the external drive.
I never claimed Starforce hasn’t been cracked. It’s just that the strongest versions of it are very hard to crack, and the method differs by game. It’s not as easy to crack as other copy protections, so it would do its job. And you do realize it’s Russia we’re talking about, right? That country has a ridiculously high piracy rate. I doubt the sales of legit games is very high.
Did you just ignore the fact that most lawsuits filed in America are frivilous? Filing a lawsuit means nothing. The fact that the lawsuit was dropped means something. If you read the site I linked to, it sounds like Ubisoft insiders say the plaintiff dropped it because of a lack of evidence.
Um… wow, your reply had absolutely nothing to do with my quote. Try reading. My point was that Starforce was not the only copy protection that did not allow programs like Daemon Tools. I’ll do the proper thing and reply to your point. Tages also keeps its drivers installed after you uninstall the game. Its line of thinking is probably that you’ll likely install another game using the same copy protection later, and keeping it installed will save you a reboot later. And once again I’m going to say that every copy protection has its compatibility issues. Your own small sample size of one means nothing. I’ve never had any problems with Starforce protected games. Should I now generalize that nobody has problems with it?
Honestly, I doubt Starforce causes significantly more issues than any of the other copy protections out there.
Yes, I did read your post, unlike you not reading mine. Some of the programs I listed have security vulnerabilities too. Safedisc has a known security vulnerability from giving ring 0 access. Speedfan also has a vulnerability that gives ring 0 access to other programs. Having ring 0 access does not make your computer more unstable. It just raises the potential of your computer becoming infected, but if you use the computer smartly, that should never be an issue.
I’m well aware of why people don’t like Starforce, and I’ve been claiming the whole time it’s just been a train of misinformation. People jump onto anti-(whatever is bad at the moment) bandwagons all the time. The same thing happened with SecuROM. When that came out, people claimed it was the worst thing ever and claimed it caused a bunch of problems when a lot of them never used it. There are several major problems associated with Starforce that are most likely perpetuated by misinformation. Ruining optical drives? Yeah, right. There’s been zero proof that ever happened. Instabilities? Most of the problems I see claimed are BSODs, which are based on hardware faults, meaning software like Starforce could not have created them.
And the article you linked to? It says Starforce is the worst because of the public relations of the company, which has nothing to do with the technical aspects of it. All the other points listed are only things it’s accused of, but some were never proved. Do you believe everything you read on the internet? Just because a lot of people say something doesn’t mean it’s true.
first off sorry for being ambiguous (again :oops: ) in my reference to Newell, I should have only quoted the bit I wanted instead of just emphasizing it. I was refereeing to pirates being the competitor that companies need to deal with online.
as for the streaming of the game, many ways can be sufficient, like the approach used by some online libraries. Where you pay a monthly fee of 9000 yen for 5 slots and the you can add remove games from those 5 slots (with some larger games taking more then 1 slot). But again, this is a business process and I am a developer, so I won’t be able to discuss this method of delivering games. For starters, I still don’t know why companies* impose regional restrictions on online sales and block sales to regions they have no local representative for (I really thought that wanted our money!). And for the record, I have a slow internet connection, so even if an online store opens today that stream games, I won’t be able to make use of it (which is why I keep crying about MG not supporting download managers).
as for the console, I never played a VN on a console so I’ll take your word on the fact that it is inferior. But could you please define inferior? If, for argument sake, we assume that the title in question is not an ero title (ex. Clannad, C;H), how will the console title be inferior? The graphics? the music? the controls? I believe that the graphics on the xbox360 for those titles is better then what you have on the PC, the music is the same, as for the controls… well this is not a FPS, so they shouldn’t be any problem.
with the console approach, I am trying to reverse the current process of first releasing the title on the PC (and have a torrent for it the next morning or even before the official release date), then second on the console with the extras (if ever). We agree that their are people who will get the console copy for the extras, plus some people who might not have wanted the ero part of the VN. If you serve those people first, there is a small chance that some of the PC crowed will bite as well and even some of the freeloaders. Those who want the “extra” plus the ero part will get it in few months on the PC.
If my memory serve me correctly, there is a study conduct on some collage students some years ago in regards to piracy (sorry can’t find the reference, so please take my word for it), the result was, some of the students admitted that they would have bought the song had they not found the pirated copy (mind you, a very small number). The majority admitted that they got it because it was “there” and they had no intention of buying it if it wasn’t there. With the console approach, I am trying to get to the smaller number whom would have bought the title had they not found the torrent for it.
- by companies I don’t mean the online store, but the owner of the title such as Ubisoft.
[quote=“Reikon”]
I never claimed Starforce hasn’t been cracked. It’s just that the strongest versions of it are very hard to crack, and the method differs by game. It’s not as easy to crack as other copy protections, so it would do its job. And you do realize it’s Russia we’re talking about, right? That country has a ridiculously high piracy rate. I doubt the sales of legit games is very high.
[quote/]
And what figure do you have to back that up? besides playing on our assumptions on Russia? USA, Japan, Canada, every country has lots of pirates, what makes Russia so special?
[quoteDid you just ignore the fact that most lawsuits filed in America are frivilous? Filing a lawsuit means nothing. The fact that the lawsuit was dropped means something. If you read the site I linked to, it sounds like Ubisoft insiders say the plaintiff dropped it because of a lack of evidence.[/quote]
Unless you just changed your post, there was no link.
I believe in your post, you said there is nothing wrong with Starforce,
which you are contradicting here since you just admitted about compatibility issues, so, what’s compatibility issue? Game not working, screwing with SATA, that’s compatibility issue.
Tell me, what does it mean to use your computer smartly? That’s as vague as it gets. My friend visit five websits when he got a computer, I watched him, and they were safe sites, guess what, he get adware and malware warnings. If you think that simply being cautious with your computer will make it stable, you are living in another world. Speedfan, I don’t recall that coming with any game or is mandatory for you to play ANY games. In fact, I believe it’s free. Starforce games are NOT free. I can understand speedfan, a free program will have problems but when I buy a game for 50 bucks I expect it to not only leave my system stable, I also expect it to run.
Gee you are starting to sound like one of those PR’s. I have never claimed the RUINED optical drives, I do say that they mess with them, I’ve had my optical drive, a 8x on my gaming laptop, run with a speed of .5x after installing a starforce game, I’ve had to go back and mess with my optical drive properties. I know how to do that, but not everyone knows, in fact most probably don’t that’s probably why they think it destroyed their physical drive which, if you don’t know how to fix it, is pretty much the truth. It matters little if your optical drive isn’t physically damaged if its not working they way it should and you don’t know how to rectify it. As for the other faults; so, what you are saying is that the many posts all have bad hardware and gets the BSOD and random restarts when they try to run a starforce game, look at your argument, if it doesn’t convince you, what makes you think it will convince others? You seriously believe that everyone who had problems with their computers after installing starforce had bad hardware. That’s as likely as seeing a genetic copy of yourself out on the street. I have had BSOD, there was absolutely nothing wrong with my hardware because after I shut it down and did a cold boot, everything was fine. BSOD does not mean hardware failure. As for truth, I don’t rely on the internet for that, I’ve had problems with starforce, which is more than enough to convince me. I may not be a programmer but I do know enough about computers to troubleshoot my own PC’s problems. So sites which is pretty well known like toms hardware are lying through their teeth.
If they would make a successful online h-games with monthly fees,
and content updates that would be a problem of the past. 
You could do a H-MMORPG, in which you have female monsters, you fight them and when you beat them you have sex with them - simple as that
Then you get an item according to your performance. Double xp if you make the monster reach climax before you do xD
This also eliminates the chance of you having sex with a fat hairy guy playing a girl playercharacter.
The whole concept is a bit fucked up, but it would be fun nonetheless xD
I mean�� guilds with penises on their guild banner… come on, how can that fail ? It makes me laugh.
Or an Online Multiplayer Visual Novel where you join a free slot in the lobby and then you play it simultaneously,
the catch being that there are 5 players but only 4 girls, and 1 ugly chick/trap that the loser gets if he doesnt win any girl over before the others do.
Wouldnt that be hilarious ? xD
ORRRR … something like Little Big Planet - an Online Visual Novel Engine with a plaza to download user created novels and resources such as characters,
backgrounds etc to make your own and then to upload it to the server.
Come on… Eroges need to make a step forward, a generation jump to breathe new life into the genre ;D
nice post PeachPrince, and such a MMORPG is already available… it is called “second life” :mrgreen:
although it doesn’t give you all the options you wanted :lol:
P.S. I know that second life is not a RPG, but let us take into consideration that most if its players are people who couldn’t “level up” in first life :twisted: they are better off playing eroge IMHO :lol:
Online galgames were already tried: Tokimemo Online failed and I don’t expect much from ai sp@ce. OTOH, the success or failure of the latter will tell since one could say everything wasn’t decided yet.
:lol: that is so true
But imagining this is funny and disturbing at the same time.
“…and here a 40 people bukkake raid party is going to take on Ragnacock, the final boss of the Molten Whore dungeon. We have a player of the guild ‘Brotherhood of the Flaming Penis’ here who can tell us more about that raid, would you ?”
“Ah yes… I play a level 34 pole-adin. My job is to keep my groups Sexual Stamina up by casting Viagra II on members that have low Libido, mainly caused by the debuff ‘vengeful vagina’. (Just for the record: Ragnacock is a homosexual demi-god who seeks to enslave all that is hetero and basically to turn the players into his personal playthings.)”
“Why exactly is this battle so difficult ?”
“Well, the most challenging part is after you brought down his Sexual Stamina to 50%. Ragnacock will then summon his hookers. This is when everyone has to switch their gear to protection gear, equipping condoms and other contraception items. If you fail to do that in time, the hookers will get the group down pretty fast with severe STD debuffs. Once our Penile Warriors are down we are fucked. Literally.”
“Is all this hassle worth it ?”
“Well, if we survive that massive gangbang on Ragnacock we get a ton of epic rewards.
There is for example the “Lament of the Singing Genital”, a trinket that allows the player to fire a bolt of lightning from his genital, causing a lot of damage.
Or the “Chastity Belt of Vaginal Fire”, which damages attackers when you take sexual punishment.”
“Thanks for that little initiate insight on such a massive game. Next week we will continue our coverage by following a lvl 69 Asspirate into the 20 player dungeon Sexxramas where will encounter the Bitchking. And we will also give you a sneak preview of the new Bedknight class and its ability to summon nymphomanic ghouls. See you then !”
hahaha… too funny
Tokimeki Online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvPADpzlYLw
Might be true, but I love the idea nonetheless.
I just wonder why crappy games such as Second Life take off and others dont.
Errrrr, “Tokimemo” is correct a calling. >_<
“Tokimeki Online” is in fact “Tokimeki Memorial Online”, which comes from the “Tokimeki Memorial” game series, which has been abbreviated as “Tokimemo” for decades by its fans.
You’re awesome OLF. 8)
I agree. This is exactly the reason. In fact, I’d even go so far to say that bgame sales in Japan are determined BEFORE the game is actually released: preorders alone make more than 50% of total game sales. Piracy is huge in Japan, but because bgamers are so loyal to series/fetishes they enjoy, it doesn’t even matter. The reason why Vitamin (much to my horror) is always able to release a new Ijitte Princess every 3 months, is because sales for that game ALWAYS stay consistent. It doesn’t matter if the next game is better or worst than the previous: the loyalists will buy it. This is NOT the same in the West. No where near the same. That’s why Dragon Quest and Harvest Moon are best sellers in Japan, but it’s an ultra small following in the West.
It’s because the mentality of Japanese and Americans are completely different. Why is The SIMS one of the greatest selling games of all time in the United States, but merely mediocre in Japan? Why did Baldur’s Gate succeed so well in the West, yet failed to even find a licenser in Asia? Why does Princess Maker see release in Korea and Taiwan, yet get looked over by the EU and US?
Games like Second Life and The SIMS cater EXACTLY to the consumerism mentality that’s so engrained in the United States. Not to say Japan isn’t flooded with consumerism either (it is), but neither of those titles are the kind of consumerism that the Japanese enjoy.
An online bgame will consistently fail, because their entire presentation format is NOT what the typical bgamer is looking for. The most successful MMO models are the result of American and Korean ingenuity: therefore most MMO games are derived from American and/or Korean gaming theories and methodologies. Tokimeki Memorial Online was built on a Korean MMO format. End result? Failure. If a bgame MMO is to succeed, it will need to be designed from an original Japanese model: one tailored specifically to bgamers, rather than something bgamers are merely expected to tailor themselves to enjoy. However the key question that many a designer (and fan) has asked: is it even possible to tailor the interests and needs of a bgamer through the MMO format?
The answer Konami thought was, “Yes we can!” So they poured millions into making something, based on the success of Korean MMO like Ragnarok Online, and importing their Tokimeki intellectual property into it. [u]FAIL[/u]. Konami should have built something totally new from the ground up… however Konami (now) freely admits they couldn’t think of anything original that would work or was feasible in the MMO medium. So they used Korean MMO development (because an American MMO derivative was deemed even more pathetic).
You still didn’t know that, Narg? 
…I’m also somewhat not completely indifferent to Azifu~
Ugh, I had a long post written up and was about to post it when I accidentally closed my browser (I hit ctrl q instead of ctrl w. :(). I’m not going to bother retyping it since convincing such a blindly rabid anti-Starforce person like you is a waste of my time. I’ll reply to one quote since I still have the website open.
In case you don’t want to read it all,
I can help with moar proof. :o
http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_p … ws&id=1901
http://www.caltradereport.com/eWebPages … 67802.html
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/ru … d/238754/0
Russia and China are the worst offenders in the world. Some say those two countries combined, constitute more than half the digital piracy worldwide (production, distribution, etc). I’m not joking when I say those two nations are:
1. Pirate software
2. ???
3. Profit!
But it is the same. Just not for the particular things that interest you. Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Wheel of time, Sword of Truth … the effect is much the same anywhere, I would expect.
There is no Star Wars Episode 3, of course, so it must have been in some kind of strange dream I was having where a friend of mine and I were talking. He said “It’s supposed to be much better than 1 or 2!” I said after episode 2 wasn’t a significant improvement, I didn’t care about Star Wars anymore. He said 'Don’t you want to just … see it? Just to know?" I said no – I said I didn’t care anymore, why would I want to see a long movie I care nothing about? After he kept getting flustered and saying “but – but --” I eventually figured out that what he REALLY meant was “I want to go see it, but I don’t want to go by myself.” So I went along. To a movie I had no intention of ever watching. Thank god it was all just a bad dream
Those are movies and novels. They aren’t the same as games. Western gamers are far more critical and selective than movie goers and book readers. One of the significant reasons is money: your average games costs $50 a pop. Movie tickets and novels are around $10 a pop. You don’t compare Wheel of Time to Ijitte Princess: you’d compare it to Scrapped Princess. You’d compare Star Wars to Gundam. Etc.
The examples you’re looking for are Guitar Hero or the EA Sport titles that have years in them… However seeing how Guitar Hero style games are universally loved by millions of gamers around the world, that doesn’t really count. According to sales data, technically you’re odd for NOT liking them.
Sports fans are just as rabbid as Otaku… so that’s a perfect correlation. :lol:
However the loyalty of general Western gamers is very erratic. Devil May Cry 2 got lambasted, despite being superior to DMC1 in gameplay mechanics. Dragon Warrior 4 for the NES, was practically left to die. Castlevania fans bitch constantly about Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin looking too anime (or something to that effect). Mega Man’s popularity is more chaotic than the decay of unstable elements. The incarnations of Star Ocean gets consistant poor sales. Etc.
EDIT
Actually, now that I think about it: Mega Man makes a GREAT comparison of how Western and Japanese gamers react to long standing series; since CAPCOM has gone out of their way to ensure most titles are released for both sides of the ocean. You’ll notice where mainstream Western gamers grew bored and abandoned the series at several points in it’s history, the Japanese maintained their unbroken devotion.
MM5 to MM8 sufferd poorly in the West, MMX5 to MMX8 laguished, RMZ3 and RMZ4 took hits, etc.
Western Mainstream Gamer: It’s the same phail over and over. Only n00bs and sux0rs want this.
Japanese Mainstream Gamer: ROCK-SAMA! 1000 Gets! Over 9000! ROCK-SAMA!
I personally always attributed it to higher levels of disposable income in Japan.
If the credit market crash is indicative of anything, that didn’t stop Americans from getting things they wanted, even if they couldn’t afford it. 
“Moar graphics and less story pl0x”
“game is fail cause isn’t revolutionary”
“This game doesn’t reinvent anything. Pass.”
“Yawn. Don’t get it, it’s the same thing they have in every other game”
Best comment was someone reviewing an RPG(Persona 4 no less) saying “They needed to shut up with the story and let me kill more”
Just a few quotes from the lovely Western market audience.
It’s not like Western gamers are entirely wrong though… I mean using Mega Man as an example again: the later game entries were copies of each other (only in different skin). However it’s the mentality of the cultures.
Western gamers tend to believe in the mantra of bigger, better, faster, stronger. We expect the sequel of things to be superior or more innovative. Look at our PC game market: a top of the line machine from a year ago, can’t run the top of the line games from today. We want to push our gaming experience to the limits.
Japanese on the other hand are more conformist and open to conservation. They don’t mind if a series doesn’t evolve beyond the basic foundation that established it. Sometimes they get upset if a title is too innovative. Look at the Japanese PC game market; obviously dominated by bgames. You can still run many recent eroge on a Windows 98 platform.
Westerns want a game that offers new experiences with each incarnation: there’s nothing wrong with that. Japanese want a game that offers the same experience as the original title that got them hooked: there’s nothing wrong with that either. However when the two ideologies clash… things can get… messy…
Of course this isn’t the same for everything. For example Pokemon follows the “no massive change” experience, and does exceedingly well in the West. We also have all those EA sports games… However in counter argument, I feel the whole metagaming and competition nature of them offsets that to a large degree.