Cracking is not a big deal after the LFSP got close, but it is still hapening there is probably lots of s1,s2,s3 servers for DEMO liced guys. Devs don't you think is time to make something to LFSW which will compare your lfs.exe with a original lfs.exe (on LFSW) on every join o every host?

crackers use ippatch which edits lfs.exe

And if you add also car detection to licence detection it would stop them (hopefuly)

custom lfs.exe = cpw
any s1+ car on DEMO liced account = cpw or joos

(again sorry if this was alredy asked for but i think it would help you guys for devoloping lfs more ) )

The trouble with checks like that is that they can be spoofed - it's an arms race that has been going on since the 2nd generation of computer viruses, which would intercept instructions to read the file they'd infected and simply return an uninfected copy to the checker.

I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, just that it's not easy and won't ever last for long.

My opinion: Definitively not spend too much time on this because indeed its an arms race which even the biggest company's fail to succeed at. Sure there could be some improvements to make it more difficult but licensed people already waiting eight years now for some update on the physics. This has more priority then some 14 year old kids f*in around on some lame cruise or drift server in some illegal environment.

I mean, it's not really racing quality whats out there. As far as I know. (no potential Bottas people).

It can be easily removed from a launcher (LFS.exe) if added. Creating things against crackers can be a endless work, as crackers can create tools to bypass the protections.

To decrease cracker's, in my humble opinion, the quality of cracked servers must be lower than the quality of licensed servers. How to do? Limit their help with InSims, create instabilities on their connection (admins knows better than anyone how to emulate packets to almost freeze new connections to ip-servers), and similar things, but I don't think they wanna do it.

Quote from Skinzinho :

It can be easily removed from a launcher (LFS.exe) if added. Creating things against crackers can be a endless work, as crackers can create tools to bypass the protections.

+100500

Spend time to develop the game.

Put Denuvo on this game, no LFS cracker has 0.000001% of the skill to crack Denuvo.

Quote from BeNoM :

Put Denuvo on this game, no LFS cracker has 0.000001% of the skill to crack Denuvo.

Using Denuvo means extra cost to the game, which is not good nowadays. To be honest, maybe Repeat agree with my at this point, but Denuvo won't work in this case. Denuvo works to prevent "cracking" from the game which use key/cd/internet activation, where the game looks for the key on every launch. In this case, crackers must create a different .exe file to bypass all programming that "activate" the game.

Live for Speed doesn't work like this. LFS crack does not change anything regarding how the game activate itself, but it creates a kind of "paralel" server that says to lfs.exe something like OK THIS PLAYER IS LICENSED, UNLOCK ALL CONTENT TO HIM, instead manipulate something inside LFS to unlock the content. Maybe I wasn't too clear, but I don't know how to explain better without giving more details.

Regarding knowledge to crack, Ok, maybe I don't have the knowledge to crack the game, but other people have. And if they decided to crack LFS even with Denuvo, they will reach this objective. As I said, it's like a endless game between developers and crackers, which usually increase the cost of the software.

Quote from Skinzinho :

if they decided to crack LFS even with Denuvo, they will reach this objective.

I'd never heard of it before this thread, but Google results suggests that denuvo does seem to be doing a decent job at hindering even top-drawer crackers. I'm not saying LFS should use it (or not use it), just that it seems, currently, to be a 'big gun' in said arms race.

wikipedia lists 78 games using Denuvo.
51/78 are listed as cracked.
The ratio does not look so good for Denuvo.
It looks worse when you consider of the uncracked ones:
--3 are not released yet
--5 were released very recently (between 3-14 days ago)
--a few are console-only (probally harder to crack)

The goal is not to have unbeatable protection anyway.
Protection works because video games make the most money in the month after release. The protection only needs to delay piracy for a month or two and then it has done its job.
For example FIFA 16 is supposedly uncracked, and it might remain uncracked because FIFA 17 (which is cracked) already exists. And soon FIFA 18 will be released.
Similiar with the uncracked Need for Speed from 2015: Since then two new titles of the series have been released and a third one is announced.

Yeah, those numbers are not looking as good as the discussions I saw suggested...

Quote from Gutholz :

wikipedia lists 78 games using Denuvo.
51/78 are listed as cracked.
The ratio does not look so good for Denuvo.
It looks worse when you consider of the uncracked ones:
--3 are not released yet
--5 were released very recently (between 3-14 days ago)
--a few are console-only (probally harder to crack)

The goal is not to have unbeatable protection anyway.
Protection works because video games make the most money in the month after release. The protection only needs to delay piracy for a month or two and then it has done its job.
For example FIFA 16 is supposedly uncracked, and it might remain uncracked because FIFA 17 (which is cracked) already exists. And soon FIFA 18 will be released.
Similiar with the uncracked Need for Speed from 2015: Since then two new titles of the series have been released and a third one is announced.

Yes Denuvo gets cracked, just like any other protection. But all the games cracked are on big platforms like Steam, Uplay and Origin. The non-platform games never got cracked such as The Climb or any of the Oculus titles. I doubt crackers would pay much attention to LFS if it had Denuvo.

P.S. NFS 2015 is uncracked because it's also online-only, so cracking Denuvo on it wouldn't achieve anything.

Quote from Racon :

I'd never heard of it before this thread, but Google results suggests that denuvo does seem to be doing a decent job at hindering even top-drawer crackers. I'm not saying LFS should use it (or not use it), just that it seems, currently, to be a 'big gun' in said arms race.

But as I said, LFS programming for online playing/activation is completely different than other games, and Denuvo wouldn't have any effect.

Encrypting the communication between clients and master server is better than adding softwares that can be bypassed without increasing the final cost of the game. Idk if developers are taking actions regarding this subject, and to be honest I don't care, but I already made this suggestion.

It is in "your" topic?

Quote :

I do plan to update the communication with the master server so it's harder to crack in future. I can't spend too much time on that but a few days on it would be worth while.

Yes, it's in "my" topic.

I'm not sure how many times I will need to repeat that I do intend to encrypt the master server protocol to improve security. Maybe if I say it 100 times, you will believe me? I expect not - you'll only believe it when you see it. Well, that is fine, but you don't need to keep making negative comments about how the devs don't seem to care about piracy and so on.

In that case, the devs don't care about physics. The devs don't care about graphics. The devs don't care about tracks. The devs don't care about cars. Yes, we do, and we are working on them, but it takes time. I'd be grateful if you could learn a little patience, and understand that YOUR priority does not rank about everyone else's priorities.

Each time one person goes on about their own personal priority, we can't just stop everything else we are working on, just to try and shut you up. Please, be a bit more mature and have some PATIENCE!

I don't think most people think before they speak. Not only are you working on something for LFS, but each one of the devs also have a LIFE to live. A family to care for. I usually just ignore these posts, the fact that the devs are still developing LFS is just amazing. Keep it up

Quote from Scawen :

I'm not sure how many times I will need to repeat that I do intend to encrypt the master server protocol to improve security. Maybe if I say it 100 times, you will believe me? I expect not - you'll only believe it when you see it. Well, that is fine, but you don't need to keep making negative comments about how the devs don't seem to care about piracy and so on.

In that case, the devs don't care about physics. The devs don't care about graphics. The devs don't care about tracks. The devs don't care about cars. Yes, we do, and we are working on them, but it takes time. I'd be grateful if you could learn a little patience, and understand that YOUR priority does not rank about everyone else's priorities.

Each time one person goes on about their own personal priority, we can't just stop everything else we are working on, just to try and shut you up. Please, be a bit more mature and have some PATIENCE!

Who you mean with "you" ?

Skinzinho of course, does everything needs to be quoted to be understood? Repeat generation.

Quote from cargame.nl :

Skinzinho of course, does everything needs to be quoted to be understood? Repeat generation.

To me? Because I'm talking to another player in this board about this subject?! I didn't start this thread, didn't ask anything to Scawen, and I enforce that I don't care about developing priorities.

If Scawen's message was really to me, so Scawen please do us a favor and remove me as a reseller.

Do not act like a 21 year old

Quote from Skinzinho :

To me? Because I'm talking to another player in this board about this subject?! I didn't start this thread, didn't ask anything to Scawen, and I enforce that I don't care about developing priorities.

If Scawen's message was really to me, so Scawen please do us a favor and remove me as a reseller.

Not to be rude in any way, but I literally smashed my head so hard in my desk as I read your comment. As a reseller, you act like a 6 year old with a big mouth. Even IF he meant you, it wouldn't necessarily mean he'd revoke your rights and ban you lmao

Everybody here want this game to keep on living and it does as far as the developers are saying they are still working on it. Just a little patience and progress will come and these vitriolic replies will all be dust in the wind.

Quote from kristofferandersen :

Not to be rude in any way, but I literally smashed my head so hard in my desk as I read your comment. As a reseller, you act like a 6 year old with a big mouth. Even IF he meant you, it wouldn't necessarily mean he'd revoke your rights and ban you lmao

Haha exactly, @Skinzinho you need to calm down my man

Cracking happens in all games, and cracking is not the problem with LFS.
I don't think I need to repeat what the current (and for the last 10 years) issue that LFS has.......

Hopefully, the LONG awaited physics, user created input, etc update will result in the resurrection of online racing, which is currently dead in this part of the world.

Still, there are many other racing titles which do have current updates to keep us racing online while we continue to await the promised updates to LFS.

And, at least people do believe that LFS is a title worth cracking and racing with, that's something I suppose

So can someone fill me in as to why you all like to defend the Developers so much. I mean they're trying and all but its been 10 whole years... I raised 2 kids in that time.

Anyways...To the subject at hand.

City Car Driving uses their own activation thingy that's pretty basic. Its actually quite hard to "crack" into it as most ones that promise to are just viruses.

In my opinion this conversation isn't really necessary because if you weigh in this issue with others, i'm pretty sure others surpass the amount of attention needed. But carry on

Also Skinzinho did nothing wrong. All he did was state very good information to the tread. if arguing is "acting like a 6 year old" then you obviously never heard of consumer criticism. I've seen worst comments from 2K customer service this is nothing to that forum.

P.S. Miss you Cargame.nl