I respect your right to disagree, but I am not sure that you get my points
since each one seems to be ignored in favour of your perspective that has
been posted before.
The bottom line is that no one should have to upgrade/change/add an
otherwise functioning ROM drive to run a game designed to run on a ROM
drive. It is a completely different point than upgrading all of the rest of
the hardware to "keep up" or to make the game run better, which is
inevitable. I wasn't accusing Sierra of promoting this approach--I read it
here from people posting in r.a.s.
Copy protection schemes--admittedly needed--cannot and never will be so
stringent as to prevent the average person from using the product. I would
love to hear a developer or publisher agree with your logic that preventing
casual copying is more important than preventing interested, paying,
potentially repeat customers from using the product.
I just proved that at least one of the problems was due to a bad pressing,
since the second disk works perfectly on the same system in the same DVD
drive that first one failed. I am suggesting a bad pressing because I can
only assume that the second disk also contains the copy protection scheme.
I did not return the game, as many have suggested. What a ludicrous
approach. That leaves the person with no N4 to use. I am returning my
unneeded, malfunctioning first copy since I now have a second working one to
use--the whole point of buying it in the first place.
Marc.
> On Sat, 17 Feb 2001 15:25:33 GMT, "Marc Collins"
> >Aside from a big raspberry...
> >Two questions...
> >1) Do you think Sierra wants to employ a copy protection scheme that
> >prevents potential paying customers from running their product...of
course
> >not.
> I think Sierra has to use stern copy-protection to -increase- the
> sales of their products. As the casula user copying technology
> increases with each new version of CloneCD, etc., they have to
> improve their copy-protection or lose sales.
> [snip]
> >As I have stated before, there is a specific problem with N4 and it needs
to
> >be addressed at point of sale.
> It -is- addressed, Marc. If it don't work... return it.
> Or, alternatively, if you chose to buy it where it couldn't
> be returned, then use Sierra's money-back guarantee.
> >I wouldn't have considered replacing a relatively recent Panasonic DVD
> >player under any circumstances anyway,
> You don't have to -replace- your DVD player with a new CD drive. You just
> add the CD drive to your existing system. Of course you don't have
> to do anything at all to your hardware if you don't want to.
> > but I think that others may be led to
> >go buy CD-ROMs just to get the game to run. This is a gigantic waste of
> >money
> I guess that depends on the user. If it is worth an additional 40 bucks to
> them to be able to run this sim, then so be it. You wouldn't be
> upset about users reporting that they bought another stick of RAM,
> or a new SB Live..
> >and lets Sierra off the hook for either poor quality pressings of the
> >CDs or for using a botched copy protection scheme.
> I don't know about quality of the CD pressings. What most of us
> have been discussing is the copy-protection issue.
> Different stuff.
> >N4, GPL, etc. cost enough money to upgrade CPU, memory, video,
sound...you
> >shouldn't encourage people to spend money to replace a ROM drive that
runs
> >everything else fine.
> They aren't encouraging anyone to purchase a new CD drive, Marc.
> There has not been a single report, here, of Sierra mentioning that.
> That's a choice that the user has to make for themselves....
> >I'll be returning my first N4 at the first opportunity--as a defective
disk.
> ..just like you're doing.
> >Marc.
