I partly agree with this, but if you know where to get the crack from then generally you will know where to get the full game too.

You can never stop crackers or hackers. Actually Scawen can be very happy, because playing online isnt possible without a license atm.
Cracked versions are even a benefit somehow, because more people play it, and they might tell others, who might buy LFS
As long as those cracks dont work online, it's not s serious problem imo.

Quote from Kegetys :

In my opinion the time it would take to improve the unlocking system would be much better spent on improving the game, as that would give more 'value' to the product and encourage more people to buy it. There's nothing you can do about people unlocking it illegally as long as there is some way to play the game offline. And there's always the danger that too annoying copy protection mechanisms discourage people from buying the game (Starforce has done this to me for example), the current unlock system already causes some hesitation as its not a "hard copy" that you're paying for.

The best way to fight piracy is to make the product worth buying for. It wont make everyone buy it, but even a protection that would be impossible to crack wouldn't make everyone buy it, people would simply play something else.

That's the problem with anti-piracy. Most see it as a game. So when it's made harder, the crackers enjoy the challenge. But the normal legal users have to put up with shit, so in the end they either don't play, or just crack the game. TOCA RD2 is one of those games. If you have any virtual drives on your system (which I always have one or two). The game wont work. Leaving you two options. Remove virtual drives, or unhook your CD-Drive.
Far Cry was another. If you have any CD Copy/Creation software on your PC it wouldn't install, and if you installed the stuff after the game wouldn't open.

I don't think any companies see that if you over do it, you just turn people off your product. Look at the recent Sony events. Their music is being boycoted by so many people because of the rootkit they have been using.

I don't understand the idea. I think the idea is to make it harder for people who haven't paid to download the game. But most games aren't even downloadable at all and they still get pirated.

Also, doesn't rFactor do exactly this?

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

That's the problem with anti-piracy. Most see it as a game. So when it's made harder, the crackers enjoy the challenge. But the normal legal users have to put up with shit, so in the end they either don't play, or just crack the game. TOCA RD2 is one of those games. If you have any virtual drives on your system (which I always have one or two). The game wont work. Leaving you two options. Remove virtual drives, or unhook your CD-Drive.
Far Cry was another. If you have any CD Copy/Creation software on your PC it wouldn't install, and if you installed the stuff after the game wouldn't open.

I don't think any companies see that if you over do it, you just turn people off your product. Look at the recent Sony events. Their music is being boycoted by so many people because of the rootkit they have been using.

Yep, Sony messed up bad. Not i comes to light it also phones home and hackers are already using the rootkit to hide game cheating software from detection.

Sony thought they were being smart but in the end it was found. All software can be hacked. Its just to what level. The current LFS security is fine.

Quote from Lible :

It`s a good idea. I know, that someone would always upload it somewhere. But there wil be a maximum five or ten copies free for downloading.

i'm sorry, but that's really funny!

Have you ever heard of edonkey or bittorrent? there will be thousands of copies free for downloading.
But it doesn't matter, there is no working crack for online play (and probably will never be) and that's what LFS is about!

Quote from Woz :

Yep, Sony messed up bad. Not i comes to light it also phones home and hackers are already using the rootkit to hide game cheating software from detection.

Sony thought they were being smart but in the end it was found. All software can be hacked. Its just to what level. The current LFS security is fine.

Well yeah, rootkits are hard to come by and that don't get detected. Sony have just given crackers/cheats/virus makes a new toy that's undetected, and if it is by anti-virus software, screws your system. Lose lose for the end user. Win win for someone who downloads music off the interweb as they don't get the problem.
Plus it only effects Windows users, or people who have autorun enabled. Turn it off, and open the CD in my computer, rather then run their apps, and everything is all there anyway.

Great way to stop pirates Sony illepall

the bad thing is, they will lose sales through this (hopefully), and in the end they blame it on the pirates illepall

Quote from avih :

Since AFAIK, there's no crack that allows to play online, as others said before, i think such crack will only drive ppl to pay for the license. Seeing how good the content is (cars, tracks), and how fun online racing is (from the demo), the only possible conclusion is buy a license and support and enjoy it.

I don't know exactly how's the authentication of client/server/master-server works, but i think it is/should/can be pretty resistable to "master server emulation" attacks. that's the beauty of an online system. unless you've cracked into the master database, you can't get login data. without login data you can't get further data that allows you to race, etc.

I'd say that the current system of distribution is good enough. focus on other improvements for now

you don't have to crack the database for this. just sniff all network packages, sent to the master server and received from the master server, when logging in. with this information it's not very difficult, to find out how the master server is working. so an emulator is not that problem. see WoW: there's already a big network of cracked servers connected with each other.

Quote from VorTeX3k :

you don't have to crack the database for this. just sniff all network packages, sent to the master server and received from the master server, when logging in. with this information it's not very difficult, to find out how the master server is working. so an emulator is not that problem. see WoW: there's already a big network of cracked servers connected with each other.

unless you identify yourself with each online server that you connect to, and this server validates it against the master server. although cracking the racing server too and allowing it to accept any user would allow to establish a network of cracked master and racing servers... oh well.

eventually i hope it boils down to the fact that decent users and racing fans will buy it to appreciate the work beeing done. There's only that much you can do against cracking, and there's a subtle balance, as others have said before, between usability and protection. IMHO it's working well for LFS ATM.

Quote from inCogNito :

the bad thing is, they will lose sales through this (hopefully), and in the end they blame it on the pirates illepall

Oh course, if it wasn't for pirates then they wouldn't need so inane protection. It's funny, but some guy at Sony said "Well most people don't know what a rootkit is anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem" or something along those lines... some backup

Back when there was no protection, more people paid cash for the game because to crackers there was no game in it. Now the protection is so painful for legit users, more get the cracked games as it get rid of all the shit.