Starcraft II DRM?

[smackababy]

yes the only GAME related item you give up is achievements

I'm sure they count other features like RealID and shit as lost when you're not online.

 

[AMDZen]

Are you sure it works?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/201967/whats_missing_from_starcraft_ii_launch.html?tk=rss_news

Its called a firewall

 

[RapidSnail]

I can't believe people are actually wasting time bitching about a one-time activation process for the game. It's like complaining because you can't make forum posts unless you sign into your account. Some of you guys sound like entitled little children.

 

[taltamir]

Blizzard, in their infinite stupidity, decided to NOT allow anyone to buy the game until it was actually released on 7-27-2010 at 10am PDT (thats noon exactly for us in central time)...

I dreaded what would come, and I was right, their credit card billing crashed and was unable to process the orders... I finally got through on 5:30pm...

Yay, I thought, finally I can play... well, not so fast, there was a 0-day patch, and it just went into a loop of asking me to patch, saying ok, and then asking again... a quick google search and I found the solution, go into safe mode with networking and apply the patch (no, simply restarting, turning off UAC, etc did not help... has to be safe mode for some reason)

Ok, fine... now I can play, right? well, no, battle.net is down... there is an offline mode for campaign only... but you have to log in at least once via battle.net to play offline...

Its now 11 am central time on the 28th and the servers are STILL down, and I still can't play the offline single player campaign... to add insult to injury, a working crack has been out since as early as 2010-07-28 08:22:42 GMT (thats 2 hours and 22 minutes after the game went live, 21 and half hours ago... aka, 3 hours before their credit card billing went back online and allowed me to even purchase the game)...

So thank for nothing blizzard, thank you for taking a dump on your loyal customers while the pirates enjoy playing the game (they have had it working for 21 and a half hours, I still can't play).

 

[Modular]

Crack is already out this morning, just use it

Let's get this straight:

You're so upset by a one-time 5 second internet validation (that's automated BTW) that you are going to go out to potentially malware infested sites to buy a (most likely) malware infested "crack" that you will then have to run/install separately from the game? D:

That makes absolutely no sense and is really, really childish. Both solutions require you to have access to and use the internet to play, and one of them is 100% secure and works perfectly, while the other is just asking for trouble.

The OP needs to update this thread title and OP IMO.

The game does not require you to be online to play: there's a one-time activation and then it's all yours. This one time activation is less work and way more secure than going out to some torrent site and downloading a worm, err I mean "crack" for the game.

But whatever, the internet is constant proof that there are far too many people lacking in any common sense in this world, but rather sheep after sheep willing and ready to be led. :thumbsdown:

 

[taltamir]

You're so upset by a one-time 5 second internet validation (that's automated BTW) that you are going to go out to potentially malware infested sites to buy a (most likely) malware infested "crack" that you will then have to run/install separately from the game?

if you know what you are doing then its clean and safe. malware is very rare from good sites, and read the comments first.
And the DRM itself is malware, introducing security holes into your OS, and damaging it, and gathering your personal info.

Anyways... the authentication servers are down, and have been since the game went live. its been 23 hours since the game went live, the pirates have been playing for 21.5 hours, and us legal customers still can't play our legally bought game

 

[lord_emperor]

Let's get this straight:

You're so upset by a one-time 5 second internet validation (that's automated BTW) that you are going to go out to potentially malware infested sites to buy a (most likely) malware infested "crack" that you will then have to run/install separately from the game? D:

Actually I *hypothetically* downloaded a file for free and *hypothetically* overwrote some files. Now the game *hypothetically* skips all the intro movies and the login screen.

Hypothetically of course.

 

[taltamir]

I am hypothetically tempted to do it too lord_emperor, I bought the damn thing 17.5 hours ago and it still doesn't work.

however, this is BS... I don't want to, I want the damn game I bought with my hard earned money to work!

 

[Glitchny]

if you know what you are doing then its clean and safe. malware is very rare from good sites, and read the comments first.
And the DRM itself is malware, introducing security holes into your OS, and damaging it, and gathering your personal info.

Anyways... the authentication servers are down, and have been since the game went live. its been 23 hours since the game went live, the pirates have been playing for 21.5 hours, and us legal customers still can't play our legally bought game

odd my friend installed his at midnight last night and was playing as soon as it finished. Had 0 issues with authentication.

 

[taltamir]

odd my friend installed his at midnight last night and was playing as soon as it finished. Had 0 issues with authentication.

maybe it was because its midnight... I bought the game at 5.30pm (their credit card service crashed when the game went live), I tried login every 30 minutes until 11pm central time, went to sleep, work up at 7am and have been trying every 30 minutes since... its now 11:30am CST and still no go.

 

[KMFJD]

odd my friend installed his at midnight last night and was playing as soon as it finished. Had 0 issues with authentication.

We had 8 people at work buy it with 0 issues authenticating....

 

[taltamir]

We had 8 people at work buy it with 0 issues authenticating....

lucky them... wish I knew why theirs work and mine doesn't. all i get is the picture from last post

 

[AMDZen]

Let's get this straight:

You're so upset by a one-time 5 second internet validation (that's automated BTW) that you are going to go out to potentially malware infested sites to buy a (most likely) malware infested "crack" that you will then have to run/install separately from the game? D:

That makes absolutely no sense and is really, really childish. Both solutions require you to have access to and use the internet to play, and one of them is 100% secure and works perfectly, while the other is just asking for trouble.

The OP needs to update this thread title and OP IMO.

The game does not require you to be online to play: there's a one-time activation and then it's all yours. This one time activation is less work and way more secure than going out to some torrent site and downloading a worm, err I mean "crack" for the game.

But whatever, the internet is constant proof that there are far too many people lacking in any common sense in this world, but rather sheep after sheep willing and ready to be led. :thumbsdown:

I'm not even sure why I'm replying to this ignorance but I was responding to the people who have an issue - I didn't say I was one of them.

 

[Bryf50]

One big thing you guys are forgetting is that if there is no LAN play for skirmishes, if battle.net goes down you are screwed and stuck with single-player only.

And when I say battle.net goes down, I mean goes offline forever. Don't think it is a real concern, then you have no valid real-world vision of how corporations work. They can and do drop all the time, get bought, sold, etc... And when that happens, what happens if SC2 isn't considered "profitable" enough to keep the servers online for it?

On top of that, I just realized, are they going to be charging monthly to play on battle.net servers? Or are they free-play servers?

If they charge for the online servers monthly, I will be returning at least one if not both copies I have sitting on my desk. To not allow LAN play for free for skirmishes is one of the big reasons I bought this to play with my 12yo son. I will have to look into it further.

Yes, Battle.net 2.0 is free. Considering the original battle.net has been running for longer the 12 years with no announcements of it being shut off, I doubt there's much to worry about. Also, they're planning on using Battle.net 2.0 for all their future games so your worried that one of the biggest gaming companies in the world will suddenly cease to exist.

If you have two copies of the game you and your son can easily play together. You just have to start the match in Battle.net. What most people don't realize as well is that once the games started you are actually directly connected to the other players. So technically you'll still be playing over your lan.

 

[Athadeus]

Taltamir, you need to check your stuff out, because as far as I know, the login servers have not been down at all since the game released. Blizzard has pretty good tech support, so check their forums or call them if necessary. I'm sure they ramped it up for this release, so as a paying customer, they should gladly and effectively help you resolve the problem.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Damn it, online activation.

I'll be waiting for sub $10 sale or removal of said online activation. Either way I'm in for a long wait.

Oh, and to those who can't possibly imagine why anyone wouldn't like online activation, get you panties out of that bunch and exercise your brain for a change.

 

[smackababy]

Taltamir, you need to check your stuff out, because as far as I know, the login servers have not been down at all since the game released. Blizzard has pretty good tech support, so check their forums or call them if necessary. I'm sure they ramped it up for this release, so as a paying customer, they should gladly and effectively help you resolve the problem.

They have pretty good tech support when you can get through. Anytime during prime playing hours (when school is out) is pretty much a "call queue is full try again" message when you call in.

 

[taltamir]

what is their phone number? I will give them a call... I can't find it on their site (only a useless faq)

Taltamir, you need to check your stuff out, because as far as I know, the login servers have not been down at all since the game released. Blizzard has pretty good tech support, so check their forums or call them if necessary. I'm sure they ramped it up for this release, so as a paying customer, they should gladly and effectively help you resolve the problem.

google disagrees with you... there are tons of people all having the exact same problem as me.

I googled for "blizzard phone number" since it was too hard finding it in their website... http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&tag=contactbilling&rhtml=true
I called and I got the following message "unfortunately our hold queue is full... call back later"

 

[KMFJD]

Damn it, online activation.

I'll be waiting for sub $10 sale or removal of said online activation. Either way I'm in for a long wait.

Oh, and to those who can't possibly imagine why anyone wouldn't like online activation, get you panties out of that bunch and exercise your brain for a change.

I believe you have the people with their panties in a bunch confused....

 

[ibex333]

You will need an internet connection to play. This probably applies to single player as well.

Not if a crack can help it. ; )

Instead of bitching, people need to adopt and overcome. A crack is already available and very much working. And Blizzard can suck it.

I bought the game, and I have the right to play it any way I want. Online or offline.

 

[ZzZGuy]

I believe you have the people with their panties in a bunch confused....

Ummm, I'm waiting for it to be either cheap or have the DRM removed. Bunch panties not found.

Now people who jump on people like me for not liking the DRM, I sense serious bunching issues.

 

[Modular]

I'm not even sure why I'm replying to this ignorance but I was responding to the people who have an issue - I didn't say I was one of them.

Not sure how my post was ignorant...but whatever. Seeing as how most people reading this thread still seem to believe that they must have an internet connection each time they want to play, I thought I'd clear it up a bit. Not only that, but there are many people who seem way too upset that they need to have a net connection to validate, in that case they would also need one to DL a crack. So what's the point of the crack? You may as well just validate the one stinking time and be done with it rather than hassle with the BS of an installer for the crack.

I also have validated the game and played the SP campaign a bit. I'm not sure why people are having trouble but I'm betting that in most cases, the PEBKAC.

 

[BladeVenom]

I'll wait for LAN support, which any decent multiplayer game has had for the last two decades.

Bobby Kotick is going to make you his bitch, suck it down.

 

[Glitchny]

I'll wait for LAN support, which any decent multiplayer game has had for the last two decades.

Bobby Kotick is going to make you his bitch, suck it down.

meh, since the friends I have that play SC2 are no where near me LAN is a non issue, hell a few of them don't even know what that means. The last time I played a LAN game was over 8 years ago so I'm not really being made a bitch.

But it's all about personal use, if I was someone that did LAN a lot I'd be pissed, but in general it's a non issue to a majority of people.

 

[Iron Wolf]

I've was able to play the game yesterday evening and then again early this morning with no problems.

It's the exact same login process that I have gotten used to from the last three years of playing WoW, so I am used to it and it is no big deal. I'd rather have this form of "DRM" rather than always having to have the disk in the drive or hunt for the serial number when I have to reinstall.