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| 8 MAR 2004 at 4:57am |
AlpineSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 310
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | BacardiJim wrote "In 1991, Tampax dropped the number of tampons in a box from 40 to 32 without a corresponding drop in price. An immediate (and completely unorganized) boycott led to Tampax returning to the 40-count box some six months later."
Tampax also changed their advertising slogan to: "We may not be the best... but we're the next thing to it"
Bada Bing, Bada Boom
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| 8 MAR 2004 at 4:40pm |
SnowmanSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 309
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Man, do I feel sorry for this person on the TAC forum.
http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/tac/forums/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=85033&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1
Never do anything half-assed, always use your WHOLE ass!!
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| 9 MAR 2004 at 12:55am |
JoGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 3 NOV 2002
Location: AU, Qld.
Status : Offline | After reading all those posts of BacardiJim's and that BigJim person - all I can say is Whew!!! Can't for the life of me see why BigJim has to be so bloody objectionable - perhaps we should rename him "LittleJim" - very young and small-minded attitude. I totally agree with FairyGodmother regarding his probable age as well.
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| 9 MAR 2004 at 1:49am |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By Jo (9 MAR 2004 12:55am)
After reading all those posts of BacardiJim's and that BigJim person - all I can say is Whew!!! Can't for the life of me see why BigJim has to be so bloody objectionable - perhaps we should rename him "LittleJim" - very young and small-minded attitude. I totally agree with FairyGodmother regarding his probable age as well.
Well, he seems to have dropped it for now anyway. If the petition thread is locked he can't do much more damage.
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| 9 MAR 2004 at 3:02am |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4941
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | I hate the Starforce system as much as anybody, but assuming you're using WinXP, there are 2 ways you can get around the worst of its worst side-effects.
1) Before I install anything, I set a Restore point using WinXP's Restore utility. It only takes 30 seconds! Once done, if Starforce causes any crap, you can Restore to that point which essentially restores your Registry to its original state which is most important because Starforce inevitably does its dirty work thru the Registry.
2) Periodically (ie. every few weeks), I make an image of my C-Drive (and any other 'precious' drives) using Drive Image v7. It only takes a few minutes. Once done, if the worst happens, which would be an inability to run Windows at all, you can return to a full working system in minutes. When you consider how much time you spend getting your computer the way you want it and how much time it would take to set it up again if it crashed permanently, you can't afford not to take steps like the above! (Of course, you can use this method with Win98SE also.)
Sincerely,
SirDave the Techinator.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 9 MAR 2004 at 5:48am |
JoGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 3 NOV 2002
Location: AU, Qld.
Status : Offline | Well I was going to buy Broken Sword 3 as the price has come down in some shops here, but am still wondering if it's worth the money. Still using Win.98 (original versiion) and I do have a "time machine" that came with the computer that's supposed to restore your files to whatever date you choose. However the blessed thing seems to have a glitch in it and isn't working properly. There's no uninstall for it unless I uninstall the whole Aspire desktop and everything that goes with it - don't use their desktop anyway, but it really browns me off as I only recently re-formatted my hard drive and everything should be working smoothly. : Frankly I wouldn't care, but the thought of having a whole lot of rubbish from StarForce messing up the machine just for the sake of one game is a bit daunting.
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| 31 MAR 2004 at 8:25pm |
| Deleted User | Just thought it was time for an update. Back in December, TAC Tech Support representative Melissa assured everyone who was complaining about StarForce that in the case of future releases, TAC would happily inform customers which titles used the StarForce utility so they could make up their minds about purchasing them.
Recently, TAC has done an about-face on the matter. "Christos," one of Melissa's supervisors announced that TAC will not let customers know what titles utilize StarForce. In his words, this is being done because revealing the presence of StarForce on a game "compromises our company's confidential information."
Furthermore, TAC forum Moderators are now editing/deleting any posts on the forum which mention what games utilize StarForce.
You can read the full thread here.
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| 31 MAR 2004 at 10:50pm |
LonelyMindSpace Cadet
Posts : 176
Joined: 26 AUG 2003
Location: SE
Status : Offline | Thanks for your update BacardiJim.
I guess no more games from TAC for me, unless we can arrange something on this forum and make a list of new TAC releases and which of them uses Starforce.
Of course it's complete bull that it would in any way compromise their confidential information. They just like to rip customers off, selling unusable (for some) games. Seems like shady business practices to me withholding crucial information. But I guess we've already established that they don't care much about their customers after the purchase.
LM
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| 1 APR 2004 at 12:06am |
AlpineSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 310
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Odds of my buying Broken Sword 3 w/ StarForce included... 0%
Odds of my buying Broken Sword 3 w/o StarForce incl... 100%
I wonder how many other people feel the same way?
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| 1 APR 2004 at 2:47am |
SnowmanSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 309
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Odds of me buying ANY TAC game that I know has StarFarce on it.... 0%
Odds of me buying ANY TAC game until they clean up their act.... 0%
Never do anything half-assed, always use your WHOLE ass!!
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| 1 APR 2004 at 2:56am |
| Deleted User | Why am I not surprised?
What a bunch of crooks. And now Christos is accusing his criticizers of slander and told them that their posts will be deleted.
Garbage.
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| 1 APR 2004 at 3:30am |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By BacardiJim (5 MAR 2004 6:57pm)
Actually, what I dislike is people who condescendingly call me stupid or ignorant when they can't even complete a grammatically correct sentence.
Also, be aware that by publicly associating my name with your fake petition against my wishes, you are commiting libel and have just opened yourself up for both criminal and civil prosecution. You should be tolerant to him if he's not a native to the language. On the other hand, he doesn't exactly deserve it.
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| 1 APR 2004 at 4:18am |
| Deleted User | What a bunch of crooks. And now Christos is accusing his criticizers of slander and told them that their posts will be deleted.
Garbage.
Thanks, Fickbro. I wasn't going to point out that exchange in the Open Letter thread because I thought it might seem a bit self-serving to do so. But I'm glad that you caught that. I hope others do too.
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| 1 APR 2004 at 11:56am |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By BacardiJim (1 APR 2004 4:18am)
Thanks, Fickbro. I wasn't going to point out that exchange in the Open Letter thread because I thought it might seem a bit self-serving to do so. But I'm glad that you caught that. I hope others do too.
Hopefully. :
I can't believe how heavy-handed that is. Surely he doesn't think that his company will benefit from threatening his customers and accusing them of slander. It'd be easier if they just banned everyone but the DC apologists.
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| 1 APR 2004 at 3:30pm |
SnowmanSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 309
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I thought that was a load of horsesh!t too, Jim. It's pretty obvious that they're trying to hide something and are afraid of losing money. They know that with the way word is spreading about StarFarce, that people are going to stop buying games that include it. So, they figure it is better to deceive people, not let them know they use StarFarce and get their money, rather than admit they've released a product that could damage systems.
Deleting posts of people simply because they inform people of what software certain games include is ridiculous!
Maybe we should keep a list of games that use StarFarce here, just to piss TAC off!?!
Never do anything half-assed, always use your WHOLE ass!!
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| 1 APR 2004 at 5:18pm |
| Deleted User | Christos's threat to ban me and delete my posts isn't just about the StarForce issue, Snowman. I have been chronicling a range of deceptive practices on TAC's part and Christos has decided that it is better to shut me up than to admit to or FIX their problems.
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| 1 APR 2004 at 5:28pm |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4941
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Been doing a little research on Starforce 3. This is one mother of a copy-protection system. For the life of me, I don't know what TAC is thinking. This is the sort of system that you might see applied to the more popular action games where young whippershappers are copying with wanton abandon over their college-dorm broadband connections.
I may be naive, but I just don't see rampant copying of adventure games. I'm not saying copying doesn't occur, but I just don't think TAC is losing the sort of sales to copying to justify something as intrusive as Starforce.
There is no way that I am going to allow a game to get imbedded on one of my computers so that I can't remove every last vestige of Starforce. That means that I may install a game but it has to be the last thing I've installed so that I can set a Restore point and remove the sucker when I'm finished.
Bad play TAC. Bad play!
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 1 APR 2004 at 10:11pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By SirDave (1 APR 2004 5:28pm)
I may be naive, but I just don't see rampant copying of adventure games. I'm not saying copying doesn't occur, but I just don't think TAC is losing the sort of sales to copying to justify something as intrusive as Starforce.
This is true. It's unlikely the software pirates are focusing on Traitor's Gate 2, for example. Still, there are some people who won't pay full price for a game no matter what they do. Some of our dear forum friends, for example.
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| 2 APR 2004 at 3:42pm |
adventuredogGuild Master
Posts : 3255
Joined: 14 JAN 2003
Status : Offline | So, why not start a thread here in Adveture Games Discussion that lists TAC games that include Starforce as a public sevice?
I don't think a blanket boycott of TAC is a good idea. There are the developers of all the other games to consider and I don't think they should suffer for the folly of a few.
(P.S. I had no problems on my system with The Black Mirror.)
Recent games that I know don't have it:
Schizm 2
Darkfall
and, probably also A Quiet Weekend in Capri (correct me if I'm wrong)
Still adventuring after all these years!
Patiently awaiting The Last Crown: Haunting of Hallowed Isle, and Bracken Tor...
... and Asylum if it's not tooooo scary...
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| 2 APR 2004 at 10:13pm |
JoGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 3 NOV 2002
Location: AU, Qld.
Status : Offline | Adventuredog said So, why not start a thread here in Adveture Games Discussion that lists TAC games that include Starforce as a public sevice?
I don't think a blanket boycott of TAC is a good idea. There are the developers of all the other games to consider and I don't think they should suffer for the folly of a few.
Good idea, I'd just love to know what other games have it. I think is Runaway is the only one that I have with it (which caused no problems on my machine so far as I know).
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