SBlade FTW!

[nicethugbert]

From reclaimyourgame.com/:

A Grose Injustice on the NWN2 forum!
Monday, 31 August 2009 14:53

Sblade, the owner of SecuSphere, an Admin at Prism/RYG and a long term anti-DRM campaigner appears to have recently fallen foul of an attempt to marginalise and exclude him as a “troublemaker”.

Recently, Sblade was permanently banned from the Neverwinter Nights 2 forum. The initial reason provided was that he was bashing SecuROM and there had been complaints. The Bioware Community Coordinator Chris Priestly (Bioware) had stepped in and instigated the ban. Which is weird to say the least, because Sblade has never received any complaints from Matthew Rorie, Obsidian Community Coordinator, not even a single warning as this is his designated area.. On further inspection of his posts, no-one could find a clear reason based on his posts as to why he could be seen as “bashing” SecuROM.

Furthermore, he wasn´t only banned from the Neverwinter Nights 2 forum, but from all the Bioware boards, including Dragon Age and the Mass Effect ones. Which is yet more weird, as the Bioware banning system allows to make differences between different forums.

Sblade's banning was queried with the relevant people at Bioware, who then clarified that Sblade had apparently shared around an unprotected .exe.

To give you the background as to why this can be seen as somewhat ironic, the same Community Manager had previously given Sblade a ban warning for stating that SecuROM caused blue screen of death issues. As a result of the information Sblade provided to the developers of NeverWinter Nights 2, the issues causing the BSOD was rectified via patch 1.0.23.1765....that removed SecuROM.

He provided the unprotected exe for educational purposes to prove that SecuROM was causing these issues. He is legally allowed to provide this .exe for educational purposes, so he has broken no law.

We're awaiting a more reasonable explanation from Bioware as to why they have targeted our member in this way.

[Kaedrin]

He deserved the ban. He shared an unprotected EXE as a way to beat copy protection and made several posts about it (including linking to the exe).

[nicethugbert]

Didn't he prove that the DRM was a useless bugger? Did SBlades actions prevent anyone from solving the Securom bugs and the fact that it can be bypassed making it useless? Seems to me that he did us a good thing. Otherwise we would still be putting up with securom bugs for no reason.

[Beldar]

I can't really defend or criticize SBlade because I don't have all of the facts, but I can say that I hate Securom. The thing that has always annoyed me about all of the DRMs is that the pirates get a superior version compared to the paying customers. The pirated versions generally load faster and use less power (no CD spinning) which is important for some laptop players.

On the other hand, if the DRM wasn't there, a lot of the people that currently lack the competence to be pirates (and wow, cause it is not that hard), would probably pirate software. I can see why companies put DRM on their stuff. I just wish it didn't have to be so burdensome for the paying customers.

[siegelayer]

Yeah, Swiftblade FTW!!! . . . wait. . .

Yeah, DRM sucks, especially on downloaded games. I love putting in a manual unlock code every time I start up Test Drive or Titan Quest. Never buy direct download games, especially from Fileplanet. They think you shouldn't mind the inconvenience.

[nicethugbert]

Besides my on topic sympathy, Siege, NEAT! sig.

C'mon, K, can't you use your pro dev powahs to enlighten us some more on your view versus the claim that securom was a useless bugger? Otherwise, SBlade may achieve martyrdom.

[Mammoth]

SecuROM is a worthless load just like every other DRM

Here is how it works. Either you create an online server that keeps track of CD keys and forces only one person to use the same one at a time or you give up.

Forcing a CD check every time you fire up a game reduces load times. Most randomly check again every few minutes just to check up on you. The worst games check every time a map loads witch increases load time more than the already bloated code requires.

Adding DRM of any kind challenges the crackers out there to invest time and effort into your game and create a new crack every version as the exe seems to like to check various files in the install with each update because again DRM is junk.

Most games are cracked before they even hit the shelves so its just screwing the customers as using mini isos, cracked exe, and cracked dll make the game load faster, not randomly check for the CD, and reduce map loading.

No, DRM in any form other than online game servers is a complete waste of a paying customers time for all the troubles they cause. I use cracked just about everything and I still pay for my games. I dont want to get banned because I got my key online from some random guy. My keys are clean and paid for, but I still find myself not wanting to swap out CD/DVD every time I decide I want to play another game so I either make mini iso's or I hit up the best gamer site in the world and download myself a cracked exe/dll set and problem solved. Also keeps my CD/DVD sets from getting scratched. If I like a game so much that I feel that even doing that might scratch the discs to much I create a pure iso clone and burn off an installer set so my game discs never see the light of day til I have to burn another clone set.

Think thats wrong? I have the right to backup all copies of all purchased software in my household as long as I do not allow other people to borrow them while they are installed my on PC, or sell them.

[nicethugbert]

I don't think it's wrong at all, MMT. I have no problem with IP holders protecting their IP as long as they don't cause me problems like useless buggy Securom does. If the DRM does not do it's job but instead is a bugger then I don't see a problem with proving that. The story I am getting is that SBlade proved that Securom was causing BSODs. I think the bigger issue here is that The Pubs and The Devs didn't fix it sooner, somebody else did it for them job.