Is H2 Vista selling poorly?

[redsteven]

I didn't get Halo 1 until it had been out for PC for a decent amount of time. But there were always a lot of people on.

I know Halo 2 Vista hasn't been out long, but there are often very few games running. Well... there are plenty of servers, but most are empty... and we can't even filter empty servers off the list like you could in halo 1.

But anyway... is the small amount of players due to the fact that the game is still new? Or maybe it's because the xbox version of halo 2 supports xbox live (unlike halo 1). Or maybe it's because potential buyers who had xboxes were smart enough NOT to purchase h2 vista because halo 3 will be out in like 4 months. I'm thinking the last reason is one of the most significant.
I think they really screwed up by releasing the game so late, pretty close to when H3 will be released.

[jahrain]

Its the high end PC specs and Vista requirement that chewed away potentially 10000s of early adopters of the game. Also allot of the issues and bugs the game is currently experiencing after releases is also shortening the play time of those who have already bought the game with high hopes. Its all mostly microsofts faults with the direction they went with the game For example arrogantly charging XBL fees to unlock important online multiplayer features that are standard with most other PC FPS games, even with Halo 1 PC such as hosting private servers, listening servers, or even server filtering. Thats is a another huge turnoff for PC gamers. If they had chosen to have all halo 2 xbox online features included with Halo 2 on vista at no extra costs or subscription fees, hordes of halo 2 xbox owners would flock to get in on the PC so that they no longer have to pay montly/annual fees to play their beloved halo 2 online. Instead, they didn't even include half the subscriber exclusive features into the PC version such as stat tracking, leveling, and matchmaking (quick join is nothing like match making on the xbox) and still charge for it...

Anyways, any way you look at it, they screwed this game worse than CE. We should be happy with the player counts we have now, after h3 rolls around, things might not be looking as pretty.

[the1]

thats why i plan to hack the ek as soon and quick as possible. if its anything like ce. you can edit the wigets and bypass certain... unwanted features. like checking for updates :P. or in this case. as you can imagin. skip connecting to xbox live and having all the filtering crap and that unlocked.
guess well have to find a way to get all the tags out of the mainmenu.map after we crack the ek though right?

[Melterx12]

This should pass, as it is inevitable that XP will die out, and people will move to vista. Most big computer providers like dell are already selling most Home Computers with vista only, which means when buying a computer from them, XP is not an option anymore.

[redsteven]

We should be happy with the player counts we have now, after h3 rolls around, things might not be looking as pretty.

Yeah that's what I'm afraid of. I guess for the next 4 months or so we'll have about 4 non-gold servers to choose from that have over 6 people... and then after that we'll have maybe 1.

[jahrain]

This should pass, as it is inevitable that XP will die out, and people will move to vista. Most big computer providers like dell are already selling most Home Computers with vista only, which means when buying a computer from them, XP is not an option anymore.
Its true that XP will die out eventually. The thing is they have chosen to make it vista exclusive WAY too early. Releasing any game to be Vista only would be something more reasonable if done 3 or 4 years from now as computers currently running XP now would be no doubt obsolete. No one likes to feel like they must be pushed and shoved to buy new computers and/or buy a new operating systems, its something people should feel comfortable doing when they they feel their time is right. Just like Halo 2, Vista is also still in it's early stages and needs lots of room and time for improvements, more drivers need to be better supported, more software needs be able to run on it, and more annoyances and hassles, such as UAC needs to be worked on before the average PC user may opt for updating.

And if a PC game is to be successful, it must at least run playable on the average household PC. Half life 2 for example could run on my uncle's old 1.3 ghz athlon xp, 256 ram, 64 mb NVidia Geforce MX 440 computer. That 5 year old computer was able to run Hl2 quite decently. Half life 2's graphics is better, if not equivalent to Halo 2. Plus it was able to even run on windows 98 or 2000 I think.

By the time the system requirements for Halo 2 become the average PC, Halo 2 will be quite obsolete and Halo 3 for the PC will probably be announced. So currently its in a bound to die young state.

[Con]

Its true that XP will die out eventually. The thing is they have chosen to make it vista exclusive WAY too early. Releasing any game to be Vista only would be something more reasonable if done 3 or 4 years from now as computers currently running XP now would be no doubt obsolete. No one likes to feel like they must be pushed and shoved to buy new computers and/or buy a new operating systems, its something people should feel comfortable doing when they they feel their time is right. Just like Halo 2, Vista is also still in it's early stages and needs lots of room and time for improvements, more drivers need to be better supported, more software needs be able to run on it, and more annoyances and hassles, such as UAC needs to be worked on before the average PC user may opt for updating.


You would expect them to somehow release Vista 3-4 years earlier? Or H2V the same time later? Sure, they could accomplish the latter, but like you said yourself, Halo 2 would be obsolete with Halo 3 for the PC. Moreover, people aren't going to be pleased in waiting that long. There's no really better time to release this game; it's stuck between the Vista release itself and Halo 3 PC. We have to be optomistic though, that's still a long time for a game to grow. MS just wanted to get the most out of it as they could, and thus released it as soon as they could. You could argue it was all about money, but they didn't have any other options in the first place. What I think they should have done? Made the game XP compatible instead of using it as an OS seller and making us feel forced. For once they should have thought about their customers and not their income.

[Mr Buckshot]

Well, here are my theories:

As we all know, Halo 2 is a great game but M$ and Hired Gun didn't do a great job of delivering it to the PC. In fact, this is one of the worst console-to-PC ports I have ever seen.

1. Crazy-ass system requirements for so little. The game does appear to use SM2.0, but it doesn't even show any use SM3.0, which is the rage at this moment. Hired Gun, if you're going to make us have a minimum of 2.0Ghz and 1 GB of RAM and a 128 MB video card, show us that those requirements pay off. Even on the highest settings, H2V isn't much better from H2X apart from very slight texture improvements, higher resolutions, and anti-aliasing. I guess there wasn't much time for a full DX10 makeover, but at least take advantage of DX9c (SM3.0) dude!

2. Vista exclusivity for bullshit features. I know that XP will die out like older OS's, but it's currently too early to make this. Ok, if H2V had a full DX10 makeover, I would definitely buy Vista JUST to play a sweet-looking game, but all we get are some rudimentary features in Games for Windows LIVE, and there's no reason why such features cannot be built into the game itself. Heck, without Gold accounts we can't even make custom gametypes, and these TrueSkill things are worthless on the PC. Microsoft seems not to realize that just because something works on Xbox does not mean it works on PC. There's also no reason why H2V can't run on Windows XP with these LIVE features simply disabled. I have Windows Vista Home Premium, and I personally had no use for the LIVE "exclusive" features at all.

3. You have to activate the game or you can't finish playing. While this is a good way to prevent piracy, it prevents friends from lending games to one another, since some of us just want to beat the single player once and be done with it. For example, I borrowed Doom 3 and beat it once and never played it again after returning it. Now I can't lend H2V to my friends so they can play once and return the game This may sound silly, but M$, in its campaigns to make more and more money, is becoming antisocial...and by the way, this has already been circumvented without the need to hack or mod.

4. Unfair performance hog. There are many PC games that are even more demanding, such as Oblivion. But Oblivion justifies that with a fantastic visual experience and environmental interactivity. Other games which tap the GPU for physics processing show off good physics to demonstrate demanding performance. What has Halo 2 for Vista got to show for demanding so much system power? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It does not look terrible, but it doesn't look great at highest settings, so there's no fucking excuse for me not being allowed to run at 1680x1050 on max with 60 fps on a Geforce 7600 GT. Back in 2003, Halo was a bit of a performance hog too, but at least one could get 30fps at 800x600 on a Geforce 4 Ti 4600. By rights, a Radeon 9600 should be running H2V at 1024x768 on full with over 30 fps, judging by how "good" the game looks.

[Con]

I agree, and it's complete bullshit that they wanted to keep it as close to xbox as possble when they didn't even include cross-platform play. Shitty planning, poor execution, bad results.

[jcap]

3. You have to activate the game or you can't finish playing. While this is a good way to prevent piracy, it prevents friends from lending games to one another, since some of us just want to beat the single player once and be done with it. For example, I borrowed Doom 3 and beat it once and never played it again after returning it. Now I can't lend H2V to my friends so they can play once and return the game This may sound silly, but M$, in its campaigns to make more and more money, is becoming antisocial...and by the way, this has already been circumvented without the need to hack or mod.
While I am completely against product activation, this is exactly what product activation is meant to prevent. Product activation in in place to prevent users from violating the End User License Agreement everyone has to agree to before using the product. If you don't agree to it, you're not allowed to use it. This is taking a counter-measure to make sure that no one is in violation of it. It's not just Microsoft who is using this, but many other publishers as well. While some others might not have product activation, their EULAs usually still state that...

You may not rent, lease, or lend the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.
Yes, it is lame, but you have to understand it from their perspective that for the price of one person, many are able to enjoy it.

[ShadowCloud]

Fuck vista, no one will buy windows vista just to play halo 2.

[jcap]

Fuck vista, no one will buy windows vista just to play halo 2.
You'd be surprised at the number of people who supposedly did. Check out some of the users on Bungie's forums...

[Roostervier]

Fuck vista, no one will buy windows vista just to play halo 2.
I am so tired of hearing that. Yes, it's true, but H2V will still sell. The reason being that most people are just moving on to a new OS, or that they are buying new computers from retail sellers that no longer sell XP. So, if they already have it, why not buy a game to play it on? Vista isn't meant to be sold for the sole purpose of playing Halo 2.

[redsteven]

Well, here are my theories:

As we all know, Halo 2 is a great game but M$ and Hired Gun didn't do a great job of delivering it to the PC. In fact, this is one of the worst console-to-PC ports I have ever seen.

1. Crazy-ass system requirements for so little. The game does appear to use SM2.0, but it doesn't even show any use SM3.0, which is the rage at this moment. Hired Gun, if you're going to make us have a minimum of 2.0Ghz and 1 GB of RAM and a 128 MB video card, show us that those requirements pay off. Even on the highest settings, H2V isn't much better from H2X apart from very slight texture improvements, higher resolutions, and anti-aliasing. I guess there wasn't much time for a full DX10 makeover, but at least take advantage of DX9c (SM3.0) dude!

2. Vista exclusivity for bullshit features. I know that XP will die out like older OS's, but it's currently too early to make this. Ok, if H2V had a full DX10 makeover, I would definitely buy Vista JUST to play a sweet-looking game, but all we get are some rudimentary features in Games for Windows LIVE, and there's no reason why such features cannot be built into the game itself. Heck, without Gold accounts we can't even make custom gametypes, and these TrueSkill things are worthless on the PC. Microsoft seems not to realize that just because something works on Xbox does not mean it works on PC. There's also no reason why H2V can't run on Windows XP with these LIVE features simply disabled. I have Windows Vista Home Premium, and I personally had no use for the LIVE "exclusive" features at all.

4. Unfair performance hog. There are many PC games that are even more demanding, such as Oblivion. But Oblivion justifies that with a fantastic visual experience and environmental interactivity. Other games which tap the GPU for physics processing show off good physics to demonstrate demanding performance. What has Halo 2 for Vista got to show for demanding so much system power? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It does not look terrible, but it doesn't look great at highest settings, so there's no fucking excuse for me not being allowed to run at 1680x1050 on max with 60 fps on a Geforce 7600 GT. Back in 2003, Halo was a bit of a performance hog too, but at least one could get 30fps at 800x600 on a Geforce 4 Ti 4600. By rights, a Radeon 9600 should be running H2V at 1024x768 on full with over 30 fps, judging by how "good" the game looks.

I left out point 3 because I disagree with it being a major screwup, as stated by jcap.

However, everything else was stated very well, and points 1,2, and 4 are dead on.

[SMASH]

You'd be surprised at the number of people who supposedly did. Check out some of the users on Bungie's forums...

^^ = me + I like the look of Vista

Actually I didn't buy it. My bro-in-law works for bestbuy and got 2 versions, the 64 bit and the normal one. He sent me the 64 bit one cause his laptop would just use the normal one.

Also, I haven't been on lately due to comp issues but whatcha gonna do.

[Nick]

While this is a good way to prevent piracy, it prevents friends from lending games to one another, since some of us just want to beat the single player once and be done with it.Actually, you just defined piracy. Congratulations.

So you just want to play single player once through and never touch it again? That means you are looking for an entertainment experience. Production costs for the entertainment experience in question is easily in the millions. Purchase cost for the entertainment experience in question is significantly lower, around $50 MSRP and typically lower in retail stores. The entertainment experience in question typically lasts around 10 hours, which means it costs about $5 per hour of entertainment. Compared with a different medium's entertainment experience, movies, this price seems on par with what one would expect to pay for a movie ticket.

Now that we have established a financial comparison (on more than one level) between entertainment experiences provided by games and movies, let us put on our thinking caps. The last time you gave your friend a ticket stub to go watch this awesome movie you just finished watching, what happened when he tried to enter the theater with it? Oh, he was rejected? Well, I suppose that seems logical, as the admission price is per entertainment experience.

There is good news, though. Unlike a movie ticket, you can use and reuse your game to yours heart's content ... for yourself or, more specifically, your computer; you simply cannot let someone else use it, or more specifically, someone else's computer. Wait, there is more good news, by my above calculations, you got that multiplayer mode for FREE!

Nick

[jahrain]

You would expect them to somehow release Vista 3-4 years earlier? Or H2V the same time later? Sure, they could accomplish the latter, but like you said yourself, Halo 2 would be obsolete with Halo 3 for the PC. Moreover, people aren't going to be pleased in waiting that long. There's no really better time to release this game; it's stuck between the Vista release itself and Halo 3 PC. We have to be optomistic though, that's still a long time for a game to grow. MS just wanted to get the most out of it as they could, and thus released it as soon as they could. You could argue it was all about money, but they didn't have any other options in the first place. What I think they should have done? Made the game XP compatible instead of using it as an OS seller and making us feel forced. For once they should have thought about their customers and not their income.

Actually what I meant was if they are going to make a game "vista only" that would be something more reasonably done 3 or 4 years from now. Not that they should wait 3 or 4 years more to release Halo 2 on the PC. And by their effort of 'getting the most out of it as they could' they actually got the opposite. Yes some people foolishly bought vista just for halo 2 to only be later disappointed, but they are breaking up the trust these Microsoft customers may have once had for them, doing more damage to the company in the long run. I for one am extremely dissatisfied with vista, but I am still in all high hopes that things will improve for both Vista and Halo 2. Hopefully it will be hacked soon to work on XP if things don't get better for Vista on my PC.

I completely agree they should have released the game fully XP compatible, that would save this game at it's infancy and we would probably see 20x more players online to play with than we do now. They could have done better business by including extra bonuses for Vista users such as revamped DX10 graphics and cross platform multiplayer. Not doing shit to piss off and steam up XP users by purposefully and intentionally crippling the game on XP such as completely disabling multiplayer, or other crap they did with gold like locking the ability to create private servers. But hey, its Microsoft. Thats probably the thing they would choose to do as it would be more convenient for them.



Actually, you just defined piracy. Congratulations.

So you just want to play single player once through and never touch it again? That means you are looking for an entertainment experience. Production costs for the entertainment experience in question is easily in the millions. Purchase cost for the entertainment experience in question is significantly lower, around $50 MSRP and typically lower in retail stores. The entertainment experience in question typically lasts around 10 hours, which means it costs about $5 per hour of entertainment. Compared with a different medium's entertainment experience, movies, this price seems on par with what one would expect to pay for a movie ticket.

Now that we have established a financial comparison (on more than one level) between entertainment experiences provided by games and movies, let us put on our thinking caps. The last time you gave your friend a ticket stub to go watch this awesome movie you just finished watching, what happened when he tried to enter the theater with it? Oh, he was rejected? Well, I suppose that seems logical, as the admission price is per entertainment experience.

There is good news, though. Unlike a movie ticket, you can use and reuse your game to yours heart's content ... for yourself or, more specifically, your computer; you simply cannot let someone else use it, or more specifically, someone else's computer. Wait, there is more good news, by my above calculations, you got that multiplayer mode for FREE!

Microsoft
But wait! There is no problems or illegalities in lending my xbox games to friends and family members is there? Hell there wasn't even a EULA I had to agree to in order to play any xbox games. Try applying that logic to console games or DVD movies that you purchase to see how much that argument fails. I guess thats just the typical microsoft mentality; try to get customers to believe that getting less for more is a good thing!

Back in the good ol' days of PC gaming, we just required the original CD in order to play the game. If we wanted to lend the game to a friend, we would have to give them the CD to play the game and we would no longer be able to play the game, just like on a console. But now the tables have turned, all this unreasonable EULA and licensing crap, product activation annoyances, and just BS in general is something customers must face if they opt to buy the PC version of a game. Thats something I would expect from a $500 - $4800 piece of professional software, not a measly port of a 3yr old video game. Nice way to "bridge the gap between consoles and PCs" Microsoft.

[Patrickssj6]

I like my Windows XP.:)

[Amit]

I still like vista way more than XP, it just seems faster to me and less cluttered. Plus it doesn't look as dull as XP. Most of the problems for me on Vista are the annoying UAC pop-ups, it does, however, help to keep those that are not so intelligible about computers from screwing your PC over. And prevents some viruses from executing by themselves.

[Nick]

Back in the good ol' days of PC gaming, we just required the original CD in order to play the game. If we wanted to lend the game to a friend, we would have to give them the CD to play the game and we would no longer be able to play the game, just like on a console. But now the tables have turned, all this unreasonable EULA and licensing crap, product activation annoyances, and just BS in general is something customers must face if they opt to buy the PC version of a game. Thats something I would expect from a $500 - $4800 piece of professional software, not a measly port of a 3yr old video game. Nice way to "bridge the gap between consoles and PCs" Microsoft.The EULA was always there, people like you simply violated it endlessly. Product activation is simply enforcement of the EULA, it stops dishonest people from agreeing to and then breaking the EULA and keeps honest people honest.

Get a job and pay for the entertainment experiences you want. If you cannot afford a game you wish to play, then you simply do not get to play it; playing a video game is far from a right. You get nothing for free, welcome to the real world. Honestly, people make me sick; if you want to experience something, pay money to support those who poured years of their lives into making it.

Nick

[Mr Buckshot]

Thankfully I have Vista on one HDD and XP on the other. RAID ftw.

I don't think it was illegal for me to borrow Doom 3, play it once, and return it to my friend. I didn't have much interest in the game - I just wanted to experience the ultimate groundbreaking title of summer 2004, and see just how good it was back then. Plus, I returned the game, and no money was involved between my friend and me. I'm sure good friends all lend each other DVD movies or video games to try out at one point or another. Now, if said friend illegally copied the movie or game before returning it, that would be plain wrong.

I don't think many sane people buy Vista just to play Halo 2. I bought it because I was aware that a new OS can be better, and I wanted to experience all the cool stuff about Vista. However, in its early stages, you cannot deny that Vista is a little problematic since the first service pack isn't out yet.

H2V won't sell at this moment, but once Vista finally dominates XP as the most commonly used OS, I think H2V's sales will go up since people will be like "Ok, I couldn't play it before, but now I have Vista, let's give it a shot."

I've been playing Halo 2 for a bit, and the part I really hate is how H2V is a performance hog but yields nothing. GRAW has fantastic physics and an incredible outdoor environment. Oblivion has impressive draw distance and a high level of interactivity. FEAR has some awesome intense gunplay and each individual bullet has to be an actual object (for bullet time). Quake IV had improved Doom 3 visuals and sound. Halo 2 has nothing.

[Nick]

I don't think it was illegal for me to borrow Doom 3, play it once, and return it to my friend.Well you are entitled to believe whatever you like, but the legally binding agreement your friend made when installing the game on his machine for his personal use was pretty straight-forward.

Nick

[-£§- §age]

Well you are entitled to believe whatever you like, but the legally binding agreement your friend made when installing the game on his machine for his personal use was pretty straight-forward.

Nick

Nick = Bungie operative.
Plus, you don't install jack shit on your Xbox. It simply plays, dumbass.

[Kornman00]

So all you have to do is let him borrow it first so you're not breaking your EULA :-3

[jahrain]

The EULA was always there, people like you simply violated it endlessly. Product activation is simply enforcement of the EULA, it stops dishonest people from agreeing to and then breaking the EULA and keeps honest people honest.

Get a job and pay for the entertainment experiences you want. If you cannot afford a game you wish to play, then you simply do not get to play it; playing a video game is far from a right. You get nothing for free, welcome to the real world. Honestly, people make me sick; if you want to experience something, pay money to support those who poured years of their lives into making it.

NickHaha... What EULA? There is no EULA for any xbox games that I know about. I guess only at microsoft is it possible for someone to violate an EULA that doesn't exist. :downs:

And you can't make me pay for what ever you want me to, I'l pay for what ever the hell I like. Thats far from any of your business. When anyone with common sense can get something of value for free, or even at a lower cost they will take it. Sorry but yours/microsoft's vision of a utopia where everyone delightfully pays them out their ass for anything and everything just out of good will to support to their empire != the real world. I'm also sorry that people make you sick. If I was emo too, people would make me sick as well, but frankly, like many other microsoft customers, I'm just sick of the microshit. The view of how customers don't deserve jack shit and should be grateful they got anything at all after paying for it, and that the only ones who matter are yourselves and your profits at microsoft perfectly reflects why people don't want to delightfully pay for their crap, regardless of how many years of their life they poured into taking that crap. It doesn't surprise me when people would rather happily instead of shamefully take what ever they can back away from them instead of seeing their money getting used to buy microsoft executive's fish private jets.

It makes me feel really bad and sorry for the innocent guys like Bungie and Hired Gun who have to suffer all the negative feedback and blame from microsoft crapping all over their work, but at least they have already been paid their money beforehand. If Bungie was still an indi-dev who supports the open source community, I would not only joyfully support them for their work as I do with many other indi/open source developers for things things I enjoy, but I would be an avid donor too. I would know it would be going directly to them to make great games, not to some massive profit driven, market dominating, nearly monopolistic empire who would only use my money to recursively find new ways to suck even more money out of me.

[Nick]

I'm too tired and too stressed to deal with your shit right now; in fact, I didn't even read your entire post.

So, I've decided to stick to the simple facts and reply with something that will get me flamed by the jahrain pity party.

You're poor.

Nick

[StankBacon]

your 12 years old. :XD:

[jahrain]

And I'm invincible and can fly too.:haw::neckbeard:

[DaneO'Roo]

Ah, the good ole days are here :D


Can we hurry this up Nick, the forum fight about "why god made me awesome and them not" has been been postponed for way too long now. I expect you'll have made the thread once I get back with popcorn and my middle classed Coca Cola in 15 minutes?. Though, I'd like to sit back and watch the flames with a wine so expensive, it cost a family of Eskimos their lives to deliver, but I'm afraid I'm just too dam poor for that :(

Though, I think this arguement is better settled over a phone call. If I ring customer service, and ask to consult with "Captain Suck'N Munch about mai Vistaz", I'll get thrown on hold for 40 minutes (no doubt because of the endless stream of complaints you guys would/should be getting) then passed over to you, Mirite? Just making sure.
Also, tell the guys in the office to move their solid gold "Teet Sucker of the Month" statues to somewhere else other than their desks, they create feedback over the speakers in my home phone :o

Well, at least something's sending SOME sort of feedback over the phone :haw: oh SNAAAAAAP

[Kornman00]

I guess you don't read your game manuals do you :haw:rain?

[jahrain]

Well because nick says I'm poor, I choose to buy those ghetto used xbox games at gamestop for $3.99 and 99% don't come with manuals, hell, your lucky if you can get them with the original case. As for PC and wii games, I buy them only new.

[Bodzilla]

I'm too tired and too stressed to deal with your shit right now; in fact, I didn't even read your entire post.

So, I've decided to stick to the simple facts and reply with something that will get me flamed by the jahrain pity party.

You're poor.

Nick
grow the fuck up. -rep

Lmao Nick

another fail of a post. Leave money and Class's out of your post(s).
This is an internet forum where that shit means absolutely nothing.
Take note of above statement.

[Patrickssj6]

I don't know what to say so here it goes...


Bleh.

[solomondg1]

Vista is a horrible operating system and is not worth getting (at least as a primary OS) just for halo 2. I have vista as a secondary OS just ot run halo 2. I think its true about what people say about the porting job....its horrible. I have a high-end computer that runs oblivion, fear and half life 2 at highest res and settings. Halo 2 runs ok on my comp on its highest setting but at certain points the fps dies to about 10. For such a simple game with such shitty graphics (compared to today's pc games) it takes alot out of a machine. Also, there is no reason to get vista at all. Vista is just XP SP2 with a new skin on it, and besides, SP2 is the shittiest thing M$ ever released. It does not help the computer in any way, it removes certain networking abilities, it gives you anoying messages about security and updates and it slows down the computer. I stick with SP1 and I love it.

[bcrt2000]

Top-Selling Software, Week of May 27th - June 2nd, 2007 1) World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
2) World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi
3) The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
4) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Electronic Arts
5) Halo 2 - Microsoft
6) The Sims 2 Celebration Stuff Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
7) Civilization IV - 2K Games
8) The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
9) Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows Of Angmar - Midway
10) Half-Life 2: Episode 1 - Electronic Arts

[Phopojijo]

Haha... What EULA? There is no EULA for any xbox games that I know about. I guess only at microsoft is it possible for someone to violate an EULA that doesn't exist. :downs:The back of the box... "For use only with Xbox 360 entertainment systems with NTSC designation. Unauthorized copying, reverse engineering, transmission, public performance, rental, pay for play, or circumvention of copy protection is strictly prohibited"

So yea... usage of more than the licensee (purchaser) could be considered public performance. Loosely written contracts are biatches, eh?

[jahrain]

The back of the box... "For use only with Xbox 360 entertainment systems with NTSC designation. Unauthorized copying, reverse engineering, transmission, public performance, rental, pay for play, or circumvention of copy protection is strictly prohibited"

So yea... usage of more than the licensee (purchaser) could be considered public performance. Loosely written contracts are biatches, eh?
I said xbox, not xbox360. And no where am I prompted to agree to it before using the product. Btw, if that applies to xbox 1, then prom team has violated parts of that EULA. Are they still planning on halo 3 support? The EULA says no unauthorized copying or reverse engineering, 2 major things required to support halo 3 modding.

[Pooky]

While I am completely against product activation, this is exactly what product activation is meant to prevent. Product activation in in place to prevent users from violating the End User License Agreement everyone has to agree to before using the product. If you don't agree to it, you're not allowed to use it. This is taking a counter-measure to make sure that no one is in violation of it. It's not just Microsoft who is using this, but many other publishers as well. While some others might not have product activation, their EULAs usually still state that...

Yes, it is lame, but you have to understand it from their perspective that for the price of one person, many are able to enjoy it.

I hate product activation, but it does do exactly what it's meant to. Raven Software was silly enough to ship Jedi Outcast without product activation, and they lost a LOT of money on it. I don't know exact figures, but 3/4 people playing the game online pirated it, even at release time =\

Not bringing my personal opinion in there, just a neat little figure of what happens when companies trust people by not requiring activation

[Nick]

Btw, if that applies to xbox 1, then prom team has violated parts of that EULA. Are they still planning on halo 3 support? The EULA says no unauthorized copying or reverse engineering, 2 major things required to support halo 3 modding.How are we doing any unauthorized copying? Oh, that's right, we are not.

As far as reverse engineering, that clause has to do with other game developers (or, let's just say interactive software and simulations vendors) reverse engineering the game to use the R&D (like the awesome water in Halo 3) and trade secrets (the sauce that makes Halo fun as hell) in an unauthorized way.

17 U.S.C. § 1201(f) allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes. Prometheus is an independent software application that seeks to interoperate with Bungie-engine games.


(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.

(4) For purposes of this subsection, the term “interoperability” means the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged.Nick

[Kornman00]

I MUST SPREAD MY LEGS SOME MORE BEFORE I GIVE YOU REP AGAIN NICK <:mad:>

[DOMINATOR]

I MUST SPREAD MY LEGS SOME MORE BEFORE I GIVE YOU REP AGAIN NICK <:mad:>

i wish you would givez it to me kmzzpp :saddowns:

[Phopojijo]

I said xbox, not xbox360. And no where am I prompted to agree to it before using the product. Btw, if that applies to xbox 1, then prom team has violated parts of that EULA. Are they still planning on halo 3 support? The EULA says no unauthorized copying or reverse engineering, 2 major things required to support halo 3 modding.Dead Rising was the first game I pulled off the shelf... it says the same on Far Cry Instincts for the Xbox, albeit with Xbox instead of Xbox360.

And you are not prompted to accept when you launch the game... true... but you accepted the contract by opening the box and putting the game in the tray which I'm assuming you needed to do before playing the game. Just a thought :p

And yes people violated part of the EULA by reverse engineering, whoopee-dee-do... they never enforced it against the modders. They're enforcing it against public performance.

Do I think activation is bullshit? Definitely... but it is their legal right to do (which I also find bullshit, but that's my opensourced nature coming out again)

[jahrain]

Do I think activation is bullshit? Definitely... but it is their legal right to do (which I also find bullshit, but that's my opensourced nature coming out again)
I just think activation is something thats worse off for the company. It's something that inconveniences and hassles only the honest legit users. Dishonest users just find various ways to bypass or crack the activation process giving them less hassles. Whats retarted about H2 Vista's activation process is that I can only install and activate it a whopping 2 times... If my PC crashed and I had to reinstall it, my legit activation key would be denied because I activated it my one single computer twice already. Thats a nice big boot in my face for being an honest user who legitimately purchased the software realizing now that I have to go call up m$, sit on hold for an hour, talk to someone who is hard to understand, just to get my activation renewed. How ever if I had not purchased it and downloaded some activation bypass, I could install it as many times on my computer as I needed with 0% hassles.

To me activation is just like DRM, you strictly enforce restrictions on legit users, more users will go non legit just so they don't have to deal with the unreasonable restrictions and hassles to enjoy what ever product. Legitimate users should be rewarded, not punished.

[Pooky]

I just think activation is something thats worse off for the company. It's something that inconveniences and hassles only the honest legit users. Dishonest users just find various ways to bypass or crack the activation process giving them less hassles. Whats retarted about H2 Vista's activation process is that I can only install and activate it a whopping 2 times... If my PC crashed and I had to reinstall it, my legit activation key would be denied because I activated it my one single computer twice already. Thats a nice big boot in my face for being an honest user who legitimately purchased the software realizing now that I have to go call up m$, sit on hold for an hour, talk to someone who is hard to understand, just to get my activation renewed. How ever if I had not purchased it and downloaded some activation bypass, I could install it as many times on my computer as I needed with 0% hassles.

To me activation is just like DRM, you strictly enforce restrictions on legit users, more users will go non legit just so they don't have to deal with the unreasonable restrictions and hassles to enjoy what ever product. Legitimate users should be rewarded, not punished.

Yeah, but just try and come up with a functional way to prevent piracy. That's why companies are going to such extreme lengths. If piracy wasn't such a huge problem in the first place you wouldn't have to use product keys. Try and see it from the companies point of view, most of them (including small developers) can't see a way to prevent piracy without seriously hassling consumers because of crackers =\

[Nick]

Try and see it from the companies point of view, most of them (including small developers) can't see a way to prevent piracy without seriously hassling consumers because of crackers =\
Was that a racist comment?

jahrain: I feel neglected; why did you not reply to my absolute destruction of your comments about Prometheus?

Nick

[jahrain]

jahrain: I feel neglected; why did you not reply to my absolute destruction of your comments about Prometheus?

Nick
Oh I missed it, I did not read the other page. :p

Lol Your just too full of yourself. I did not see any of that stated in any EULA for any halo games. The law permits you to rights to do many things, but by agreeing to a contract such as an EULA, you are in fact signing away your rights upon agreement in that EULA. If the EULA simply says no reverse engineering and you agree to it, even if you may have a right to it, you agreed not to do it or else you are in breach of the contract. You took it upon yourself to judge what type of reverse engineering they are saying is not permitted to bend it in your favor. Something I'm not accusing you guilty of, but just to spotlight your hypocrisy and superiority complex against all others who do things that breach EULAs.

By my understanding of that same piece of text you quoted there, another reverse engineering tool that it deems as acceptable is online game cheating hacks. As an online cheat application, such as an aimbot interoperates with the software and identifying and analyzing those elements of the program is exactly what an aimbot does to take control of your mouse and aim for you. But the EULA disallows that as well as if also falls under the category of reverse engineering, so I may have a right to use an aimbot, agreement to the EULA denies me that right.


Yeah, but just try and come up with a functional way to prevent piracy. That's why companies are going to such extreme lengths. If piracy wasn't such a huge problem in the first place you wouldn't have to use product keys. Try and see it from the companies point of view, most of them (including small developers) can't see a way to prevent piracy without seriously hassling consumers because of crackers =\
But you see, the thing is its impossible to completely prevent piracy. In the desperate panic, they are thinking irrational and doing things that are hurting themselves even more by doing things to hassle legit user while the non legit users which they are trying to stop remain are left untouched. The fatal flaw about DRM schemes, and software activation schemes is that they are built by humans. Just about anything that is built by humans could be destroyed in only a faction of the time it took to build it. Its hurting the small independent software developers more than anything because they have to spend the time, money and effort to research and develop piracy prevention methods that just get bypassed and broken down in a fraction of the time it took to develop making no difference but more money lost and the costs passed onto the legitimate users. And at the same time, these methods bug, irritate and hassle the legitimate users making the use of the illegitimately obtained piece of software more appealing and causing piracy to grow even more. In many cases, some of these schemes completely prevent many users from legitimately obtaining the software and/or media leaving them no choice but to obtain it illegitimately. Copy protection methods of this day and age are far more advanced and used more than ever before, but piracy rate are far far higher than ever before as software companies report an accumulated loss in the billions due to piracy. So they are really putting them selfs in an perpetual loop with the way they have been doing business because the more they do to prevent piracy, the more piracy spreads, and they try to do even more extreme measures to prevent it, and it spreads even more. I can see it from there point of view because they really don't know what to do, but if they choose do anything about it, no matter how good it looks on paper, it just hurts them more in the long run. You won't sink in quicksand if you don't wiggle or move, but then how do you get out? Thats the position that they are in.

[Nick]

The law permits you to rights to do many things, but by agreeing to a contract such as an EULA, you are in fact signing away your rights upon agreement in that EULA. If the EULA simply says no reverse engineering and you agree to it, even if you may have a right to it, you agreed not to do it or else you are in breach of the contract.Actually, this is incorrect. There is a reason that you will find, in almost every EULA, a clause that says something along the lines of: "If any part of this EULA is determined to be invalid or unenforceable, it shall be considered omitted and the remainder of the agreement will remain in effect." The reason is that courts often find parts of EULAs unenforceable, most notably when the agreement attempts to remove provisions of federal law.


You took it upon yourself to judge what type of reverse engineering they are saying is not permitted to bend it in your favor.It does not matter that they do not explicitly allow what I stated; such allowance is implicit because it is written into the U.S. Code. A company cannot remove "fair use" through a simple agreement; the "fair use" laws exist to protect individuals who are using copyrighted works in an allowed (by the U.S.C.) way from companies.


The law regarding reverse engineering in the computer software and hardware context is less clear, but has been described by many courts as an important part of software development. The reverse engineering of software faces considerable legal challenges due to the enforcement of anti reverse engineering licensing provisions and the prohibition on the circumvention of technologies embedded within protection measures. By enforcing these legal mechanisms, courts are not required to examine the reverse engineering restrictions under federal intellectual property law. In circumstances involving anti reverse engineering licensing provisions, courts must first determine whether the enforcement of these provisions within contracts are preempted by federal intellectual property law considerations. Under DMCA claims involving the circumvention of technological protection systems, courts analyze whether or not the reverse engineering in question qualifies under any of the exemptions contained within the law.Since you seem to not know what "fair use" is, I'll go ahead and quote the law for you.


Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.Now that we've gotten that cleared up, we can advance to your next paragraph - hooray!


By my understanding of that same piece of text you quoted there, another reverse engineering tool that it deems as acceptable is online game cheating hacks. As an online cheat application, such as an aimbot interoperates with the software and identifying and analyzing those elements of the program is exactly what an aimbot does to take control of your mouse and aim for you. But the EULA disallows that as well as if also falls under the category of reverse engineering, so I may have a right to use an aimbot, agreement to the EULA denies me that right.I have no desire to debate the legality of online cheats; I will say that the EULA cannot deny you the right to use them, though. What the EULA can do is define penalties for detected prohibited action, such as cancellation of service (for something like Xbox Live, for example). I would love to find precedent for the legality of cheats when it comes to fair use, but I'm pretty sure no one has been taken to court over that yet.

Regardless, as I've said a few times now, just because the EULA says you cannot do something does not mean that statement is enforceable, even if you did agree that you would not. If anti-reverse engineering clauses really did overrule federal law, then OpenOffice (http://documentation.openoffice.org/faqs/various_topics/012.html), Samba (http://us1.samba.org/samba/what_is_samba.html), Wine (http://www.winehq.org/site/about), every hardware (C64, NES, PS1, etc.) emulator ever created, etc. would be illegal. All of the mentioned projects rely on reverse engineering and it is a pretty safe bet that all the applications and platforms those projects reverse engineered had an anti-reverse engineering clause in their license.

If you wish to read more about reverse engineering and copyright, I suggest starting at page 1608 of this document (http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/111-7/SamuelsonFINAL.pdf).

Oh, and before you "go there", circumvention of copy protection schemes is explicitly deemed illegal by 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a) (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201----000-.html); therefore, that part of the EULA is most certainly enforceable and fully justified.

Nick

P.S. This lesson was provided free of charge. Future schoolings may have fees associated with them.

[jahrain]

Well nick, that looks like some pretty hefty work you did there to go dig up all that information. To bad most important points were not anything new to me as you highly and giddily anticipated.

I always knew that if you sign away your rights in an agreement, they cannot be enforced if brought to court if they violate federal law. So I was correct about how you can breach a contract or agreement. I never said that it had to be or can be enforced. Thats some words you tried to slip in my mouth. The fact remains that by doing any reverse engineering, you are still breaching the agreement, but in many cases, it can't be enforced by law. Very few agreements I have read stated anything about parts of the contract may be omitted if in breach of federal law however. But software developers will always say otherwise. Read Nintendo's little "Roms, emulators and you" (http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#copy_illegal) article on the topic of emulators. But I thought you were against the whole "Breach an EULA as much as you want as long as it can't or won't be enforced." thing. That was the original point of my post. If not, them your just like me as I may breach a EULA if I know such things can't be enforced.:lol:

No where did I say it is 'illegal' to use online game hacks, I just said that the quote deems such activity as 'acceptable'. Which I disagree to. There should be some law to protect official tournament hosts and sponsors in which where money is involved on such things with online cheating. But I don't know where you get off on putting words in my mouth to satisfy your "hay I b a edjumacator!" fetish.




P.S. This lesson was provided free of charge. Future schoolings may have fees associated with them.

**Yawn** Your a boring teacher, I wouldn't take your class even if you paid me to do it.

[Chronos]

Woa isn't this going way of topic here guys?

I think you both proved your points and you both have different perspectives on this EULA stuff, can't you just accept that and let it be..?

Sorry, had to post this.

[jahrain]

Woa isn't this going way of topic here guys?

I think you both proved your points and you both have different perspectives on this EULA stuff, can't you just accept that and let it be..?

Sorry, had to post this.
I agree, but EULA bullcrap is some what contributing to the topic. I just love it when anyone mensions the word 'prom' Nick gets on a raging stampede of defense.

[Veegie]

I think it's the idea that inept retard touts around as if he's... right.
That irks nearly everyone.

[Patrickssj6]

blablabla

[Nick]

Well nick, that looks like some pretty hefty work you did there to go dig up all that information. To bad most important points were not anything new to me as you highly and giddily anticipated.It is not a lot of work to find a few links to provide the uneducated (you). I knew all of the information I posted before I posted it; I looked into it many years ago when Prometheus was first started. I also took a year and a half of law in college (that's certainly not to say that I am a lawyer, though), so I'm comfortable navigating the U.S.C.

You can say that you "already knew" all of the information as much as you want; I don't buy it. That is a common "defense" of yours, to act like you already knew something when the truth is you didn't have a damn clue. It is okay to not know something jahrain, learn to accept that; on the off chance that you actually did know even a fraction of what I posted, then you should work on not sounding like a complete retard when you make complete statements to the contrary a few posts prior.


I always knew that if you sign away your rights in an agreement, they cannot be enforced if brought to court if they violate federal law. So I was correct about how you can breach a contract or agreement. I never said that it had to be or can be enforced.Careful jahrain, if you back peddle any faster the fabric of the universe itself just may be ripped to shreds.


Very few agreements I have read stated anything about parts of the contract may be omitted if in breach of federal law however.Then you have read very few agreements, and certainly not the Halo 2 agreement.


14. LEGAL EFFECT. This agreement describes certain legal rights. You may have other rights under the laws of your state or country. You may also have rights with respect to the party from whom you acquired the software. This agreement does not change your rights under the laws of your state or country if the laws of your state or country do not permit it to do so.That is another way of saying, "if any part of this EULA agreement is unenforceable, it should be disregarded and the remainder of the EULA is in full effect. A quick search on the magical internet turned up numerous EULAs that have such a clause in more verbose terms; here are a few for your edification.


If for any reason a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision, or portion thereof, to be unenforceable, the remainder of this License shall continue in full force and effect.


g. Severability. You and Blizzard agree that if any portion Section 14 is found illegal or unenforceable (except any portion of 14(d)) that portion shall be severed and the remainder of the Section shall be given full force and effect.


If any provision of this EULA is held to be void, invalid, unenforceable or illegal, the other provisions shall continue in full force and effect.


But software developers will always say otherwise. Read Nintendo's little "Roms, emulators and you" (http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#copy_illegal) article on the topic of emulators.They're free to say what they want, but it doesn't mean a thing if there isn't a law to back it up. Most of their answers are incredibly assumptive.


But I thought you were against the whole "Breach an EULA as much as you want as long as it can't or won't be enforced." thing. That was the original point of my post. If not, them your just like me as I may breach a EULA if I know such things can't be enforced.:lol:One, I never said that I was against breaking the EULA if the part being broken was unsupported by the law; I also never said that you should break it because it "won't" be enforced. Two, never compare me to you; there is no need to flame me in such a horrid and offensive way.

The difference, and this is very important, between myself and the likes of you is that the part of the EULA that you violate actually has legal backing saying that you cannot do it, where the part I violate has legal backing saying that I can do it. Just because you don't want to pay for a game doesn't mean you have the right to not do so; just because you want to give your friend a copy of the game doesn't mean you can do so legally (without full transfer of your original copy and permission from the copyright owner).


**Yawn** Your a boring teacher, I wouldn't take your class even if you paid me to do it.No worries, I never plan to teach at any of those "special" schools; our paths will never cross in such a way.


I just love it when anyone mensions the word 'prom' Nick gets on a raging stampede of defense.I was in this topic before you mentioned my project. You suggested, in the context of this thread, that my project is violating the law. You expect me to not comment on the bullshit you are spreading? Sorry, that's not going to happen, especially since I was already involved with this thread.

If you want to get away with making false statements behind people's back, so you can spread lies without resistance, go find some forum where I am not already registered. I suggest the Apple, Nintendo, or Sony forums; you will be with like-minded individuals there.

Nick

[Con]

I don't see how prometheus could be illegal; the H2V EULA states you cannot modify their software to get around limitations, but says nothing against simply creating your own software to bypass them.

[jahrain]

^ No one in this thread said anything about prom being illegal. nick just assumed and insisted I said that so he would have an excuse be a troll and flame members to appease his superiority complex, like usual.

Allow me to quote my original post that sent nick off the defensive deep end:
Btw, if that applies to xbox 1, then prom team has violated parts of that EULA. Are they still planning on halo 3 support? The EULA says no unauthorized copying or reverse engineering, 2 major things required to support halo 3 modding.
As nick stated, foolishly assuming I was uninformed of, it is possible to legally breach certain terms of an EULA. Which is why he drew the implication that by me saying if it breaches the EULA, then i'm saying it is illegal which is indeed false and every reply was under that implication.

None of nick's replies really had any point but for him to try and make himself feel superior and just to be arrogant as usual. If its not about how he has more money than others and how his money makes him superior to those who aren't paid by m$, its about trying to make other look retarded to make himself feel more educated. Some people who have money and knowledge use it to do good and be productive, others however, just take it for granted and use it to be an arrogant asshole to others who lack in it or don't suck up to them.

[Nick]

foolishly assuming I was uniformedThe only uniform I've ever imagined you in was an orange jumpsuit, but that wasn't in this thread so I am not sure what you're talking about.

Nick

[Chronos]

If you want to get away with making false statements behind people's back, so you can spread lies without resistance, go find some forum where I am not already registered. I suggest the Apple, Nintendo, or Sony forums; you will be with like-minded individuals there.

On the like-minded individuals part, that's were you've just made a false statement and a generalization. I hate that, generalizations about people, I really do. So please, don't.

+ I would close this thread.

[Kornman00]

Nick Wins :XD: