So I just creat a backup of the entire game folder before reinstalling/reimaging, put it back in once I’m done, and then install it?
Install the game. Activate the online DRM thing. After that, backup the entire bgame folder. If you slick and reinstall your computer, just copy the game files back on the hard drive to the same location they were: bgame will work fine. There are a handful of titles, that you might have to install the game again, and then copy your backed up files on top of them (i.e. overwrite). Your personalized DRM signature is on the backed up files.
If you have a spare Windows OS from an old computer or laptop that’s just collecting dust, you can also use Microsoft’s free Virtual PC. Install the game in a virtual environment, make a backup of the virtual image on a DVD for safekeeping. If you’re one of those anti-MS type people, VMWare also provides a free version of their virtual software.
Either way, all of these methods are legal if you bought the bgame and fairly simple to do if you’re comfortable with computers. Always keep the original not DRM’ed install, and your email with the activation code. Those are your “original copy” under the terms of Section 117 of the Copyright Act (I’m assuming you live in the US).
Lol, i never thought there would be anyone that patient (and risky :P). Now everyone can put off their rants about the DRM thing, because as Narg said, the activation times is no different than… infinite.
Until they go broke (should this come to pass). Sure, it’s possible they could do something about the activation problem if they go under. But when a company goes under, things like this are usually the last thing anyone spends time on; the people who could develop and test such a patch are probably already let go by the time the decision is made to close up shop.
So if MangaGamer goes under, I expect games to simply be unactivatable. You’re just SOL.
Only you’re not if you have a backup of your DRM-activated files. Is it really that hard and difficult to make a backup of them game files? I mean people do it everyday with their iTunes music. As someone who dabbled in network administration, I think people who don’t backup their important or hard to replace computer files, shouldn’t own a computer in the first place.
Backup your MG files and you’re perfectly fine. 15 to 30 minutes of your life - if even that. Windows even does it automatically, if you’re that computer illiterate.
As a matter of fact, MG titles are more “ensuring” than an MMO. When an MMO goes under (not if… even the almighty WoW will someday close shop when profits stop rolling: be it ten or twenty years from now), all your hard work and investments will be down the toilet. Owning the server side software is illegal (no private servers). At least with MG, you can make an archive to ensure it always works.
Again: I say this entire DRM thing is overrated. It is NOT impossible to play an MG game, if that company goes out of business. NOT IMPOSSIBLE… and doesn’t require a lick of illegal activity to do it.
i can vouch for this i recently decided to preorder sumaga limited edition from himeya. $125 and then later $20 more for shipping and handling my wallet is seriously bulimic right now .
i never bought xenosaga because the in-your-face religous hammering bored me . evangelion mimics are a dime a dozen.
Despite Narg’s insistence to the contrary, there’s plenty wrong with Xenogears/Xenosaga. But ripping off Evangelion is actually NOT one of those faults. Xenosaga’s ultimate plotline is different.
According to Tetsuya Takahashi, Xenogears is a homage to all “mecha” series past and present (at the time of the game’s publishing), including but not limited to: Escaflowne, Evangelion, Gundam, Tetsujin, Macross, Chodenji Robo, etc. So when people find thematic similarities, that’s because it did ripoff Escaflowne, Evangelion, Gundam, Tetsujin, Macross, Chodenji Robo, etc. All he did was combine everything, throw in Biblical references, and add his personal thinking on human psychology (which just so happens, those last two factors were the core inspiration of Evangelion, in combination with some old school Go Nagai material) - again by admission of Tetsuya Takahashi. Not in those exact words; but in the gist.
And yea… Xenogears sucks so bad, it sold over 1 million copies, earned scores like 9 out of 10 in IGN, 9 out of 10 for Gamespot, blah, blah, blah. Plenty wrong… same goes for Pokemon… or Zelda… or Devil May Cry… or Metal Gear Solid… The entire industry is plenty wrong.
I will agree on how insane Himeya’s charges can get… then again i personally don’t mind EMS over normal mail if only for the fact my games take 1-2 days (not counting weekends xD) to get to me once they are shipped and they are tracked so u can tell if something went wrong =3 Thats not to say i’m not over the overpricing of some games tho xD Hell IIRC they’ve even stopped sending those nifty 5% of coupons now =( You used to get an online coupon after every purchase to use for anything u buy for the next month =(
Personally I think the big fuss over the DRM is that its a tad bit too restrictive for most people’s taste. I’m not saying get rid of it but there has to be better ways to implement a DRM… i particularly like the DLSite’s licensing system for its Maniax PRO section… where u just basically dl a license ap which stays on your comp and registers it to the server to allow you to dl/install/play the game when u first run it. If u ever have to reformat (as i had to do) it’s just a simple matter to redl the license ap to reactivate all the games again by connecting online as it automatically connects the computer/game to your license from DLSite. Less fuss and less worries about limits.
What can i say? New company needs some bits of money to get them goin’ well, the prices are always high at first, no exception, then it will reduce to an acceptable level. MG isn’t a veteran in this business like Peach Princess, they’re only selling 2 titles, and look at how many titles PP has got. I mean, MG can’t hope to get enough profit just by selling them with the equivalent price as PP’s titles, and i doubt that at the current state they have enough money to make hard copies at all.
Oh well, done with the pricing and the DRM, we only have to wait until 15th Sep to see if the translation quality in Edelweiss is any better and toleratable.
Kinda related to the conversation in this topic: Remember when Himeya used to have an eroge translation company? They even gave us a taste of twincest. I wish they lasted longer… company had a lot of potential that was squandered and handled wrong.
Good ol’ days eh? Wish any b-games would have those prices… 
Actually, the prices that I payed for them back then were a little bit different…
Himeya Soft translated some VERY good titles, especially Desire (but Eve was great, too). They really were an asset to the english-VN-translations world. Shit, imagine if they got to translate YU-NO…
Not only are they taking suggestions for games, but they’re also taking suggestions and feedback about old games seriously. I know there was a landslide victory for including honorifics in their games, and right now they’re allowing me to keep them in Suika. In fact, they’re keeping quite a few Japanese terms (though ultimately decided by me – some of the ones the translators kept were absurd) in the game and are allowing me to create translation notes, which is actually getting quite long.
So I say keep with the feedback and maybe they’ll improve enough. 
Well, you should keep some of those terms to make more sense out of the story, for example
In the 2nd chapter, if Souji didn’t use “Sayaka-senpai” to call Sayaka, i’d have never known that she was actually older than the guy :lol:
Most of them are being kept. Even many much more obscure than what you mentioned. I’m going to assume that very few people can complete the game without referring to the translation notes unless they don’t care about missing some details. For example, I kept pretty much kept all food dish names, and there are some more obscure ones there (I have a pet peeve about the stupid “English equivalents” people use when translating food names. They’re usually not even close, make it vague, or just sound really stupid and unnatural.) I can only remember removing two Japanese words/phrases, and one of those was the translator deciding to romanize ??? (oyasumi) for some reason. There’s a perfectly natural English equivalent. :lol: I have no idea why it was kept.
And I actually did change one thing regarding Sayaka-senpai. The translator kept translating senpai as Sayaka-senpai, and I had to keep deleting the name.
Oyasumi - unless the reader is a really hardcore anime fan, (s)he would have no idea that it was just a simple “Good night”. The translator who suggested to keep it romanized is either really arrogant or really ignorant to assume that everyone should understand what oyasumi means :roll:
At least MG follows your suggestions 
Well, there was a translation right next to it, so I don’t think they assumed everyone would understand.
And I think pretty much everyone who would play this game would be hardcore enough to know at least the common, basic Japanese words. :lol:
It’s actually quite a struggle for me to fix what they overtranslate and undertranslate. They seem to be completely random in what they do.
And I’m not the only one they listen to. They chose to include honorifics because of the demand on their forums. Everyone should just keep sending suggestions, and they may actually follow it.
Hm? O_o Their forums? I never heard about MG havin’ an official forum of their own. May i know which forum you’re mentioning?