Why do I need to DL a no-CD hack just to play my CM 03/04???

[Blackadar]

Copy protection will kill PC sales if this crap keeps up...

Not only do we have garbage like StarForce, which in my book is Malware, but it just screws up games. I could point to a ton of cases, but this is the latest to draw my ire...

I just got CM 03/04. Love it...when I can get it to boot. Therein lies the problem because about 50% of the time, I can't get the game to start. It goes through it's little copy protection crap and won't start up the game. So I'm left with a "spinning disk" symbol on my PC and only rebooting will get rid of it.

This is a known problem with CM 03/04 by the looks of their SIBase, but the suggestions there are pretty worthless - make sure you have the patch, make sure you don't have a cracked copy, etc. I'm not picking on SI - heck, I'm far more comfortable that they'll fix the problem than with most other companies - but this crap just wants to make me go buy an X-Box and say goodbye to PC gaming.

RANT ON (only semi-serious)

I may turn into a pirate and stop paying for the games if I'm going to be forced to DL no-CD hacks just to play them. Of course, to DL a no-CD hack, then I have to fight a different battle...the ongoing battle of spyware and viruses that are often attached to such files. If I have to fight through all of that, it doesn't seem like stealing so much because it seems that my time and money is being stolen when I can't play the games I've purchased.

RANT OFF

[BreizhManu]

If you want I still have an official (given by SI) 4.1.5 no cd (that was the first version, the next ones weren't no-cd) http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Bee]

I don't really understand the CD in the drive protection. It annoys legit consumers (like me) and doesn't do a damn thing to stop pirates from what I see. I mean, look at all the games out there that have no-cd cracks...obviously it's not that hard to get around, so why bother. I have no problem with copy protection and making things harder on the hackers, but this one just seems to be nothing buy a minor annoyance to the hackers and a major annoyance to the legitimate consumers. I really hate having to dig through CDs to find a game that I want to play after not playing it for a couple months. I just did this earlier with CM 03/04...after 15 minutes of looking for the CD I decided to just go watch tv and look for it tomorrow. :(

[Karim]

I've never thought that this was an issue as I usually just leave the CD in the drive. I'm usually only playing one game at a time during a long stretch so it's either in the drive or really close by that there's no inconvenience.

I suppose if you have hundreds of games it would be a different story.

[Alf]

Then you have the Virtual CD readers too...