A real solution to the StarF**k virus for everyone.
 

The beauty of this crack is that everyone of you can participate in its development.

The best crack for Starforce that works, is simple but will take a little patience and time.
Simply do what countless other PC owners are doing boycott (don't buy) any game that contains the StarForce virus, even, and I stress even if its a biggy release that you have been waiting for over 10 years.
This is a affective and permanent solution. Put the Starforce virus makers in the unemployment queue.

Time for action, don't leave it all to the poor overworked crackers.
You will still end up with your game the only difference being it will be SF free and in the bargain bucket. Publishers will soon lose their loyalty to StarF**k when their pockets start to empty.

You wanna get rid of Starforce forever? Then boycott today.

Sure so say we stop, what happens to the other 10 million people that have no idea bout what sf is and just buy the game cos they like it? Well sorry but im going to continue to buy them for the simple reason that sf has never given me any problems.

I hear you, but news and events entering the internet community are a very effective way of spreading the word, and each day because of the internet more people do become aware of the problems with SF, myself, I suffer with start-up and shutdown problems until SF is removed and other stuff that I haven’t noticed but has been reported on well known web site, problems like slow down in games and drive errors.
I’m glad that yourself and many others are happy with SF, but its up to those that are not happy to try and sort it out.
And I think maybe this is the chief role of discussion sites like this one.

What about the 10 million that boycott the game? 10 million customers is a lot to lose.

It is pointless this is what im trying to tell you in the last thread, no matter what you try to do there will always be protections to combat piracy.

No matter who doesnt buy, aslong as they beat piracy that is their main aim.

Hey dajunka,

To generalize things, this world is turning into a police state. The government, the police, all executive authorities are indirectly getting into the hands of large monopolies, including but very much not limited to software/movie/music publishers (not artists/authors/developers!). Laws not defending the customers and authors (well enough) are only one symptom of this trend.

However, as you can see, most people - like sheep - are comfortable with the current situation because they don't understand what's happenning around them. A few knights of freedom won't change this, I'm afraid. Self-conscious and determined customers would; but they're almost non-existant.

Joe

People are, boycotting games protected by SF for real, it’s not fantasy. And the publishers are quite aware of this trend as it is reflected in there profits.
What’s all this with Dream Catcher software publisher, where they release a hot game, not only minus Starforce but lacking any type of software protection what so ever. I am talking about the game Dungeon Lords recently released in the states. News is it started out very buggy but is getting fixed up nicely already having a patch out, all-in-all reports seem favourable and it looks like a hit.
But why has Dream catcher released this unprotected, when they are I believe a client for Starforce. Could it be that they are not only listening to their customers but also their bank manager.
I don’t think there is one gaming site that you can go to without some member or journalist slagging StarForce, it is becoming Common knowledge that this virus is bad and boycotting it is good, and the army grows not less but more.

If eveybody said; no body else is boycotting so why should I?
Then no, it wouldent work. But not all people seem to be thinking in this way.

Hi dajunka,

Well, if is true what you're saying, I'm very happy to have been wrong...! :D

Joe

Hey Joe,
yep it's true, Ive spent hours, days, weeks even; serfing stuff on SF, and you wont beleive some of it. While there are a great number of people say they have no problems with SF, this is only what they assume. The truth is, it most likely is causing them problems it's just that they dont notice the problems.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/48427

I have read some real horror story’s especially the ones where some poor guy/gal loses their entire raid array, photos, docs, personal stuff all lost because of SF attaching itself to their media drivers and wuks up big style.

I have games here that have SF, but cant play them and the shop wont refund or exchange except for one of the same. my problem with SF is lockups on start-up and shutdown but alls fine after I clean all the SF zhit of my machine.

I agree, boycott Starforce.
It sucks. It messed up my Alcohol 120%, it confused my old Plextor CD-R and classified all my (physical) SCSI drives as virtual ones.
SF is just a pain in the *ss. SF has gone way too far intruding users' computers and software.

Also all the efforts getting a SF protected game running from an image are just plain unnecessary and useless. NO ONE owning the original game would disconnect all his IDE stuff, attach a USB-IDE converter or use some other complicated and fancy methods just to play from an image.

I am sick of these SF discussions.

And so say all of us.

Tis true, this is the only real and lasting cure against this ever increasing problem.
We do have hope in the likes of Dreamcatcher with Dungeon Lords, who’s giving the no protection policy a try in America, I suppose if the sales are okay there, then they will adopt the same policy when released in Europe, come on you yanks buy this game. How great to be shut of all this poo intrusion protection software and get back to some sort of sensible protection or even better none at all we could all exercise our right to make backups.
The way things are going buying a game will be a nightmare.

1 Buy the game Pacman 2030 at mind boggling price in crappy case with no manual.
2 Shove CD in and Start Install.
3 Enter CD key.
4 Wait.
5 Activate game by on line registration.
6 Wait for game files to be decrypted.
7 Enter account details, user name and password.
8 Wait for email to arrive with activation code.
9 Enter code.
10 Wait while code checked against online database.
11 Start again as web site crashed.
12 Get to game start-up screen, told there is an error, "please wait for patch to resolve this issue."
13 Wait 4 weeks
14 install patch.
15 Get to start-up screen, told "error please insert correct CD."
16 Get in touch with support. Get told to knob off.
17 Buy new CD rom, insert game cd.
18 Get to start-up, get told "hardware change detected please reinstall."
19 Reinstall game and go to site for new activation code.
20 Get told "error Cd key and user details already in use."
21 Kill yourself.

or

21 Get game to finally work only to find out is a Atari 1200 port-over from 1963

The thing is you have to think why this horrible protection is out on the market?

Its the fault of the general public who didnt buy games, that forces these horrible protections out.

Ive been lucky with SF and not been badly affected. But with others they have.

This is the norm, even older protections cause problems with certain systems, at the end of the day, not all PC systems are the same so you will never write a protection that will work on everyones PC's 100%.

But like I said, blame the people who steal rather than the developers/publishers/coders.

I can't do that.. That’s like saying Some dude on the other side of the world goes and wastes some other dude on the other side of the world, then the fuzz coming round my house and arresting me for it. You can't pass the buck over to the innocent for the crimes of the guilty, that just isn’t right, the publishers, in this case are at fault, theres always been pirates but there's never been aggressive protection on this scale before.

if the gameswere a little more cheap i would buy a game every week.they are expensive but those guyz work 1 year minimum.they deserve the money but you don't want either to give a fortune right.

Hey Luci,

Enthusiastic game developers do it for the fun and the fame; it is good that they even get money for it but they might even do it for free, too. It is the game publisher that gets most of the money, from your purchase. It's like banks: No matter how much money you earn, as interest, by putting your money into the bank, you can safely bet that the bank will earn tons more! Simply, because you have no other choice and have to accept their (biased? outrageous?) conditions.

(A friend of mine and his friends have been doing a retro-style isometric shooter with a flying dragon for years. They've been doing other stuff -productivity software and software translation - to earn money while coding the game. Now that it's finished, they're not finding a publisher for it. Kind of end of the story. Ridiculous or sad, you choose...)

Joe

One question that bugs me for ages: Why do pure multiplayer games have to have a copyprotection? A serial/cd key that is checked on every connect to a game server is IMHO fully sufficient.

Yes I too have experienced problems with Starforce and will gladly boycott buying any more Starforce protected games!
I too had problems with Alcohol 120 and my drives after installing a Starforce game!
I too will not go to the extremes of disabling drives etc to play the few starforce games i have, instead prefering to just use the original discs.
From now on the only Starforce game which will be played on my 3 systems is Race Driver 2 as this has never caused me any problems before. It is just the later Starforce Protected games!
The way things are going with PC games we will all eventually have no choice but to buy one of the console machines. This would be a shame to have to do as ive always believed, for most games, the experience is way better on a top end PC. If we all went to consoles the gaming industry would still make their money from the games! It almost seems as if this is what the industry wants us to do!
So yes, no more Starforce Games for me! :(

That's the spirit.
There are 3 games coming out this year that I will be buying on day of release, X3 , COD2, and Black and White 2. I am really looking forward to playing these games. But I will be checking on the copy protection that they come with, and if it's SF, then it's a big flat NO!. Ill buy something else with my money.

Piracy is way of life.... if you have the money to buy originals, do it. If not, get an illegal copy and use a crack.

Silly boy.


As I said Blame the people who steal.

There is hundreds of thousands perhaps millions who download their games, about 15-20% are projected loss of sales. Which is quite alot of a loss.

In simple terms it is stealing bottom line. No matter what the excuse of the person is.


There is no point in trying to bycott anything, sure they may lose peoples as customers, but what they lose in customers they gain in new people venturing into the PC market with their new machines, its an evergrowing circle.

Murder and Piracy are 2 different things, you cant compare the 2.

But in a business, as it always has been for decades, if one company has losses they make up for the losses by increasing prices.

As does software publishers.

As I said before the reason protections are so much in a huge scale is because the countless people downloading illegally. Once apon a time the net was full of free webspace providers, like xoom etc, they all closed that services because of warez sites. Now they are doing the same with games, introducing a protection that may well affect 3-5% of the population (but SF has been kind to make fixes for people which many of you have forgotten). PC's arent all the same, my systems is different from your own, but SF has caused me no problems whatsoever.

Because of the chance people may make a public server for games, they would prefer to use protections so no tom **** or harry can copy the game and take home to play free on a public server.

@DABhand:

FIRST:

I would like to know if u are in the distributors part, or in the real game publisher part. As i know, game developers are WAITING for its game to be released on p2p nets. If game have acceptance, then they pick up a champagne bottle and celebrates it like a birthday. Game will be sold. If it does not appear, then worry about.
People who doesn't like that are publisers, and thats the people add copyprotections to games they distribute. Just THINK about this:
Commandos SAGA; Pyro studios; EIDOS:

Game studio: 3-5€ per copy sold (Pyro)
Distributor: 12-20€ per copy sold (EIDOS)
Shop: 12-20# per copy sold
TOTAL final PRIZE: 27-45€ per USER copy
Do u see SOMETHING there???????? I think u should be BLIND to avoid it. Game market is like pointed above, so please don't talk about things u don't know.

SECOND:

U should know how SF works inside ur box, and then u will worry for ur windows integrity. Futhermore, do u know how SF sends/receive IDE info??, i think not. Do u know whats Themida is?, and its compatibility problems?
U are so happy by now, till something becomes hard, then u will begin to think about.

Read and learn.

Morglum dont make me pull out your real name ;P hehe

Anyways hehehe, im talking on the publisher end, I know the developer would be happy whatever the price the game is set at aslong as money is coming after their publisher contract (i.e. royalties).

Before you assume my understanding of how software/hardware works. Do have a look at the coders forum, I do have knowledge of ASM, API's, etc etc. And im in the business of Selling and Buying, Upgrading and Building PC's and components.

Then, u have similar knowledge i have, so then, u should understand me without problems.

Respecting SF stuff, i think i have advantaje, both code and physical working, but who knows.... ^^

I will never buy a SF protected game
never!! :cool:

Same here, I’m in, no more games with this unrighteous protection shall ever see my hard drive.

One of the threads on this forum had 186000 views, so if everyone of those people said no to a game using starforce costing £30, then the publisher would be out of pocket for £5580000, friggin hek, He would have to eat at McDonalds. :)

Hey Morglum007,

Don't bother with DABhand, he has been blinded with the stupid, demagog whining of game publishers about piracy and he cannot get rid of it...

Piracy is blown up by them, as a good reason for them to A) add copy protection and/or B) raise final product prices. On the other hand, the true problem lies in low quality games sold for high prices. It is not the "not so casual pirates" who are greedy, it's the corporations. (And this applies to the movie and music industry, too, not just the video game industry!)

Joe

Joe you still have to answer my question about your law.

What is your intepretation of the "contract" which is said in the line you pasted?


Im not the one blinded, im stating facts, im not happy with high prices, but im not going to blame them for it, as you well know and wont admit if it wasnt for piracy and warez these prices wouldnt be so high.

And as ive said before ive heard the countless favourite excuses, ive been around since early atari consoles etc, ive seen prices exceed due to piracy.


But im still waiting to hear your answer on that question, that you non-challantly gave a wide berth in an earlier thread a month or so ago.

Hey DABhand,

I have nothing more to answer you as I gave you my answer back then already! If you didn't understand it or didn't want to accept it, that's your problem, not mine.

As it has been pointed out by others on this forum, too, local, country-specific laws have priority over any EULA. There's nothing to be dicussed about it. If you think there is, you gotta "read and learn", as Morglum007 kindly put it.

As for my country, Hungarian law gives you the right to make one backup copy of your original software. There's nothing to be dicussed about it. If you think there is, you gotta learn Hungarian and translate that sentence - or see the original on the Artisjus page - yourself.

So, for the Nth time, what are we arguing about when I'm stating facts and you're just babbling around?!

Joe

Thats why I asked you, what your intepretation of the contract was.


The contract is an agreement on both parties you and the publisher, and only time you do this is by saying yes to the EULA. That is the contract, and your law says aslong as both parties agree you can make a backup of your software. But, if in the EULA it says it does not you cant.

If by law you are to make a backup of anything, then publishers would be breaking the law by selling software with protections in your country, since you cant easily make a backup.

Im not babbling on, im not giving my intepretation of things, im stating what is and how it is.

And its people who read one persons outrage about something then adopt it themselves without even thinking it out themselves, this leads to all these "Publishers are evil" threads, when as I said the publishers are not to blame entirely, but your ordinary people who download. If it wasnt for those ordinary people downloading, you may have seen more easier to use protections even simple ones.

Im having a debate here, not looking for a fight or a flame war, but it is suprising that many wont view other ideas or facts and think their way is the only way.

Just because I dont share the same ideal views as yourself or others, im supposedly noobish or not worth listening to?

There is always a 2nd side to everything, and I mean everything.

This is for everyone, if you start up a thread for discussion or debate, you must be willing to accept or debate about another persons view. If you dont you shouldnt start up these threads, as you will never get a 100% agreement on anything.

To sum up on this debate, ill put my main points across and leave it at that.

1. Starting up a group to bycott games with SF isnt the best way, not only will the publishers not care they wont listen to what you have to say then, they will view you as non-purchasee i.e. not worth time and money. Best thing to do is get your specs of your PC, with problems using SF protected games, your views both pros and cons and then send to Starforce or the publisher themselves, that way they can work out what is going wrong and correct it. Just like game patches are supposed to do.

2. Blaming the publisher or protection makers is also not the way to go, the only way these bizarre (and yes some are badly made) protections are around is because of the projected loss of sales due to piracy, piracy is here will be always here and probably wont stop. Its the greed of individuals that causes these more bizzare protections to appear on the market.

3. Wether people like it or not, Alcohol 120% or daemon tools is an essential warez app, if you have installed the protections will stop thinking you may or may not have a illegal image of a game, it doesnt know this 100% so to be safe it will detect the emulation and stop. What a protection should be doing, that is what it is made for.

4. As in JediKnights post as I quote "Piracy is way of life.... if you have the money to buy originals, do it. If not, get an illegal copy and use a crack." This is the usual response from a warez kiddy, when you download a game it is not Piracy! Piracy is illegal selling of a game, your just stealing downloading it, but it as just as bad. Now imagine a few million JediKnights thinking the same thing. How many would actually do what was originally said, do you think if they have money go out and buy a game? No offcourse not, they download it cause its free. Stealing plain and simple. And as said before, it doesnt matter if a game is badly designed etc, it is the same stealing.
But what most dont realise is, games like KOTOR2 etc were downloaded alot, so game quality doesnt promise good sales. Even if a game was $5 people would still steal it, that is how it is.

@DABhand
All we want to know is are you going to join us and boycott starforce protected games or are you not?

hehehe I guess my lost post was long winded a bit :P

Nahh there is no point boycotting, help the SF makers by giving them your PC specs and error msg's etc that occur, im sure by helping them they will help you.

Also as I said ive not had any problems in shape or form with Starforce. Im just one of the many lucky ones I guess.

Hi DABhand,

The law doesn't expect software publishers to allow you to easily make backups of the original software you purchased from them. (I'm not sure how it is phrased, though: if A) "publisher must allow easy backing up" is not mentioned in the law or B) "publisher does not need to allow easy backing up" is explicitly mentioned. I would vote for A) but, for the result, that doesn't really matter anyway...)

Joe

I did. I asked SF support why SF wouldn't accept a game cd from any of my 3 SCSI CD/DVD drives. They answered: It's intended because virtual drives are also using/faking SCSI techniques.

I asked them when they got that brain-fart and returned the game for a full refund.
Still waiting for an answer though... :D

Hopefully you asked them in nicer words :P

Starforce3 is trash . Safedisc and Securom i can respect cause they won't load the protection drivers constant . only when the game is running the protection drivers are running.., with starforce you have to reboot after installing and the protection driver is running always after that..so this spoils youre memory .

DABhand, unfortunately, SF guys will not HELP u anymore with problems with its prot. The way SF is turning is by eliminating any thread that could get its protection system compromised. This way, SF will not stop even if many systems get crashed.

I have no problems with SecuROM or Safedisc, and i hadn't too with SF before SCCT arrived. The problem now isn't a cracking/not cracking/copying/not copying/emulating issue. SF is becoming a very interesting system, and it is close to be FULLy cracked.

What i'm trying to say is that SCCT implemented its new SF system to intercept IDE calls "on the flY", checking or not original CD, and this CRASH FOREVER some DVD drives, such LG, Toshiba, or some SONY. When i say crash, i'm saying to buy a new one, cause older does not burn anymore.

Drives without a very stable writing system, like "Just Link", at the end will be ****ed by the intrussion of SF in IDE calls. SF, as someone stated earlier isn't a passive driver anymore, it is fully active ALWAYS, even when extracting DPM or burning DVDs. This way, Just link overloads and then, drive motor spins up an down without any ritmic control. Finally, drive DIES. This is not a foolish warn, thats what spanish people from almost everywhere reports, and we know why. I simply recommend not to use SF to protect their drives, but at ur own ( as said in english).

PS: I have a lot of ORIGINAL games, even with SF, but not for playing the standart way( some of then DOESN'T work on my MACHINE due specs, but i don't care). I use cracks to play them ( to PLAY), even having original, cause i know how SF works, and don't like how it runs.

Null warns are most times useless, thats what i recomend.

Morg

As burning you mean with Alcohol I guess, I have blindwrite and nero and ive yet to have the same problem as you said.


Perhaps its the virtual drive api's conflicting with SF, cause I dont think the programmers at SF would make something that would intentionally screw up drives, they would be liable to cost if that was indeed the case.

Im not saying they are all good, but nothing is perfect, even protections some will have conflicts while others who use the same dont have the same problems.


Thats why I was saying to help them find out why, by giving them details. At least they can work towards this not happening.

DABHand really??????????, heheheheh it is the newest and nasty second effect they WILL NOT fix cause it is PART of COPYPROTECTION. It is NOT a BUG, it is INTENDED to BE. Or this, or RPMS could be authenticated, and of course it wont like that.

I didn't thought u were so innocent :D, and u are facing problems like others, When u had to BUY a new recorder, lets see what face u put and what oppinion u have on Starforce.

TIP: I do not mean burning with Alcohol, i mean drive DEATH, so no more burning with Alcohol, BlindWrite, Nero neither any burning APP u could find. When i say dead, i say a new drive. U said, virtual APIs conflict, well, u are mixing IDE commands, from real IDE drives or virtual ones. The effect is bidirectional, and optical devices gets compromised. Remember that the idea is to make SF to think a virtual drive is a real one, so if u "****" one, will "****" the other too. It is part of SF policy.

CdSTeam

I’m sorry DABhand but you really do need to wake up and smell the coffee. :)