I refer to the game as MdNN, because it was originally named Minna de Nyan Nyan and LMM is already taken.
I see someone’s post just went bye bye…not that I can’t guess why.
The cracking community for bishoujo games is largely populated by amateurs who’s only goal is to essentially get the game shared so many can download it for free because they see the prices for the games as unreasonable.
Having been inside a emule community for a while (I assure you not to contribute illegally) I have learned that many simply hate the games being released and demand for games like Air, Kanon, Canvas, etc to be released. But seeing as the common thought is that the Japanese are too racist to give us their all mighty good games we’re likely to see lower quality games released in english for quite some time.
Anyways back to my main point this so called refreshing “Pax V-Mate” will not last forever. The ones who were involved in cracking the previous games released are motivated by greed and their so called “Robin Hood” antics. But with systems like V-Mate out it is very likely to attract the attention of groups such as DEVIANCE, FLT, Rzr911 etc. These groups are motivated not to steal but to satisfy their curiosity and meet the challenge of an “uncrackable” system to break through.
IF they find out about virtual mate and choose to devote their time to it they will cut through that pathetic protection like a hot knife through butter. Steam has already been cracked and millions are enjoying a pirated version of Half-Life 2 as we speak…
I hope that clears things up. So enjoy the peace while it lasts.
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for piracy or promotion of piracy in this post. I am simply stating an opinion on the future of the v-mate system. Furthermore, I am not officially taking a side on this matter, I am simply informing.
quote:
Originally posted by Absurdist:
But seeing as the common thought is that the Japanese are too racist to give us their all mighty good games we're likely to see lower quality games released in english for quite some time.
This is a stong statement you make. The common thought of who? Pirates? Fans? The average American? You?
I'd hardly call a simple business decision based on available information and current Japanese business standards "racist." Conservative, maybe. Racist, no.
I just wanted to announce that an anonymous user has notified me that formatting your primary hard drive (the one that contains the active OS) WILL subtract from the 3 computer limit for V-mate games, contrary to Vaga42Bond’s earlier statement in his update of my FAQ.
quote:
Originally posted by Vaga42Bond:
Formatting your hard drive, or reinstalling a V-mate game will not affect the 3 computer limit because your system hardware has not changed.
Due to a hard drive format, this user is now unable to play one of his/her V-mate games. I have updated my FAQ to reflect this new information.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-17-2005).]
Accidentally hit the “quote” button instead of the “edit” button…
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-17-2005).]
Well, I cannot confirm that a crack to V-Mate has been made but there is one to MNN and it works. What it does is bypass the V-Mate internet check and run the game. If anybody who rightfully own the game want to try it, it can be found on the web. If you can’t find it I ask permission to a moderator or administrator to post a link with the cracked exe.
See ya!
[This message has been edited by Duran (edited 01-17-2005).]
[This message has been edited by Duran (edited 01-17-2005).]
quote:
Originally posted by Dark_Shiki:
I just wanted to announce that an anonymous user has notified me that formatting your primary hard drive (the one that contains the active OS) WILL subtract from the 3 computer limit for V-mate games, contrary to Vaga42Bond's earlier statement in his update of my FAQ.Due to a hard drive format, this user is now unable to play one of his/her V-mate games. I have updated my FAQ to reflect this new information.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-17-2005).]
Duh? That's a new one. I have no idea what the hell that's doing that, but if you send in the information, I'll see that testing gets to that. That should definatly not be happening.
Edit: Oh, hell, I just notice that you said anonymous user. That's going to make it trickier, since presumably he/she wants to stay that way. Well, gather the details as best you can, and then you send them in.
[This message has been edited by Vaga42Bond (edited 01-17-2005).]
This anonymous user has already contacted GC on the matter. GC referred him/her to Interlex. I don’t know if this user has pursued the matter after getting the run-around like this. This user is a respected member of this BBS, and a frequent reader, so I’m sure he/she will contact you personally on the matter if he/she feels it will go anywhere. I’ll e-mail him/her anyway, just in case.
Maybe (s)he did a low-level formating of his/her harddrive (which normally is unecessary)? That’s the only way I can think you could change the “physical” layout of the harddrive and thus count it against the hardware limit. Or maybe changed the partition setup, and V-Mate reacts to that (which seems odd). You’d think that normal formating triggering this reaction would have been discovered by Interlex themselves before releasing the system.
[This message has been edited by AG3 (edited 01-17-2005).]
Unless Interlex just doesn’t care, of course. Personally, I would be infuriated if the company that made the game referred me to some third-party company who could probably care less about customer support. They deal with companies, not customers, and making end-users happy surely isn’t their priority.
Man…v-mate!
How is that thing?
Usually, I would suggest to him to contact G-Collections and tell them his case, so they could unlock the one usage that got fried one day after he installed the game first.
Before you assume that G-Collections is unreasonable, and evil, and everything else that’s been said about them, please CONTACT THEM and explain the situation. I met with them and talked about problems like this, and they said that in a situation like this (problem with one install causes it to go bad, etc) they will cheerfully add an install back in for the account. Come on, people, you are their customers and they love you – they’re going to be reasonable.
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Payne:
Come on, people, you are their customers and they love you -- they're going to be reasonable.
Does the same go for the question "What does a year after end of sales mean exactly?" ?
After all, I am still all set to buy even their V-Mate-protected games AFTER their official patch is released. It doesn't matter to me how long I have to wait for that though.
However, buying in advance and trusting in the later release of that patch blindly is to me just as inacceptable as using an illegal hack.
quote:
I met with them and talked about problems like this, and they said that in a situation like this (problem with one install causes it to go bad, etc) they will cheerfully add an install back in for the account. Come on, people, you are their customers and they love you -- they're going to be reasonable.
.... did you not read the rest of the thread where someone in such a situation DID contact G-Collections, and they absolutely did not do any such thing to help them? [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
Unless there's been an update we've missed. DS, has your friend gotten his/her game working again yet?
quote:
DS, has your friend gotten his/her game working again yet?
I tire of this all this he/she business, so from now on I'll follow Mr. Payne's lead and refer to the person as "he" (whether "he" is male or female).
No, he hasn't gotten the game to work. In fact, he gave up on it, despite my urgings. This person has many other games to play, and he just doesn't see the point in struggling over this anymore. I can guess that he's already gotten all the endings (he's that type of person), so he doesn't have much reason to play it again anyway.
But really, it shouldn't matter. GC shouldn't be dealing with this on a case-by-case basis. A bug in the system has been reported (and they can confirm for themselves if a hard drive format was 100% certain the cause of the problem). They should fix it, and not turn a blind eye until a customer happens to actually report the problem. In a couple years, EVERYONE is going to be having this problem. Why wait to address it on a case-by-case basis?
quote:
Originally posted by Peter Payne:
Before you assume that G-Collections is unreasonable, and evil, and everything else that's been said about them, please CONTACT THEM and explain the situation. I met with them and talked about problems like this, and they said that in a situation like this (problem with one install causes it to go bad, etc) they will cheerfully add an install back in for the account. Come on, people, you are their customers and they love you -- they're going to be reasonable.
Let me remind you that he did contact G-collections. G-collections did not "cheerfully add an install back in for the account." They referred him to Interlex, i.e. they gave him the run-around. Interlex might have helped him, and then again, they might not have. I guess we won't know until the issue arises again.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-25-2005).]
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 01-25-2005).]
If the V-mate system weren’t so annoying than everything would be great. Couldn’t they just make a sort of CD key type thing where you register upon installing the game and the code you use would be the barcode off the box. But I guess I can’t really complain, the games are 40$ now which isn’t a lot compared to back when they were 50$. That’s about the price of a decent Xbox or Nintendo game.
That’s my real complaint with the VM concept.
If CD code/activation code is good enough for Microsoft, Maxis (SimCity, Sims and its expansions, Sims2, etc), EA, and the rest of the English entertainment industry, then what exactly is VMate doing? There’s no point to it, is there? Other then annoy the snot out of the legal customers. What else is it doing? It is giving them marketting info. How often have you started a VMate game, and which one. What else it is doing, I don’t know. But the fact that it has to validate the first time you start your machine gives them that info.
I have to saw, I hope a lot of nasty things happens to the companies that insist on such measures. If they want my marketing info, its easy to get. GC knows I like stuff from their various “email us your box’s special code found at XYZ, and we will give you a link to get some bonus artwork from this product!” . But I don’t like it being forced. And that’s all VMate is doing… validating that you are registered to run the game. Great marketting metric…
The more I think about this, the more I’m tempted to buy the game, and hunt down the crack for it. I don’t want the english B-game market going under, so I know they need my money. But I don’t like companies trying to suck out more info. Just ask, and if I like your products, I’ll tell you. win-win, right?
quote:
Originally posted by Darkstar:
But the fact that it has to validate the first time you start your machine gives them that info.
Incorrect. It validates every time you start the game. Only with the bypass can you limit the check to once every time you start your computer.
I wasn’t aware of the problem, no. Would the person who had trouble getting the game to work please contact me directly (email me through the J-List site)? I’ll be happy to intercede and make sure the problem is fixed. I do believe that if the V-Mate system works on 99% of computers and not on one, it’s likely to be a problem with his system that he may have to try to fix in other ways. We’ve seen, deal with PCs, that there are PCs (home built ones, low-end ones from China and so on) that just won’t “play nice.” In any event, please have him contact me and I’ll help him out.