hrlaser@pnet02.cts.com (Harv Laser) (11/11/88)
nsw@cord.UUCP (Neil Weinstock) writes: > [a long commentary about Starglider-2 and why he doesn't like the disk loader and the password copy protection] Knowing that Jez San would probably like to reply to your comments about Starglider-2, I forwarded your posting to him via People/Link. What follows is his reply, commented into your original post. Jez' network accounts are listed in his .signature. I'm glad to provide this little "service" for you and the net in the spirit of international relations ;-) (parenthetically, and addressed to those of you in the UK who may read this, if there are any "public access" sites in or near London thru which Jez could read from and post to Usenet, please email any relevant info to me and I'll pass it on to him - I know he'd like to participate here if possible) ----------------- >Has anybody had success copying Starglider II? I really, really hate to >run off the original disk every time. When you purchase the StarGlider-2 package, you are given a registration card to send back to Rainbird in Menlo Park, CA. If you had done so, they would have offered you a backup copy for a very low sum (eg: $5 - $10). StarGlider-2 is being pirated very heavily, more so than most arcade games due to very high consumer demand and slow-but-sure distribution. For this reason, I would rather that you DIDN'T copy it. Although most people in this world are honest, it only takes a small minority to spread pirate copies onto the bbs's for all to download free of charge, thus hurting small software companies like ours, and also hurting the industry in general. >This game really does have nice graphics and sound. I can imagine that with a >68020 it just cooks. Thankyou very much for the fine compliments! We do appreciate them! >OK, so I'm at the World of Commodore show, and I feel like getting some >killer new game, so I pick up a copy of Starglider II. So far so good. I'm very glad you did! We need your support. Good software doesn't grow on trees, and 8 man-years of work went into the creation of this product. >I pop it in the machine: "Not a DOS disk". Great, a custom boot disk. >Fine, I reboot the machine, and the program runs. And what am I greeted >with? A "look up the word in the manual" copy protection scheme. OK, fine >(well, not fine). Our ADLS disk format (Argonaut Disk Loader System) is an innovative design of hard work. It not only allows us to pack an awful lotta data on a disk but it also lets the disk boot up on both the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga!! So quite naturally its 'not a DOS disk'... that would be an achievement! With regards to 'Novella Protection' our studies have shown that its the least offensive to the majority of users. It's only ONE word they have to type, and its only ONCE per bootup. We're not here to punish legitimate users, only to discern just who is legitimate and who isn't, as painlesly as possible. If you can suggest a better way, that still deters piracy, then please for gawds sake tell the world, and we will all start doing it! >After playing it for a while, I got one of the high scores (no big trick). >It asks me for my name, then tells me it can't write to the disk. So I tell >it to abort the disk operation. Then it tells me a disk error occurred, so >I *again* tell it to abort. Now I'm at a point where I can play again. >(I look in the manual and it tells me that the high scores disk needs to be >in custom Rainbird format.) Marauder (not the newest version) won't copy the >main disk. Are you sure you asked it to abort the first time? Once aborted, it should give up. And anyway, StarGlider-2 will format a disk for you in to its own requirements... no hassle at all. It'll even ask you if you want to, having supplied a blank or used diskette. >Now then, let's review the bidding. I can't put the game on my hard disk. I >can't make a backup copy of the disk. After I boot, I have to deal with >*another* layer of copy protection. Unless I devote a disk to high scores for >the game, I have to deal with two error messages every time I get a high score >(that's incentive for ya). The ADLS dual-format system is not a copy-protection. Okay, so it's rather difficult to copy, but thats unintentional. It's that format because that's the way our dual-format system works, not because it was made difficult to copy. So we feel the password-protection is our only attempt at copy-protection. The game cannot be put onto your hard disk because its a big game that wants to be in RAM, and use it all up. You don't get graphics that fast, and sound that good... and gameplay that deep by having a 200k game. StarGlider-2 is a 512k game, and if you have a 1 meg machine, it'll take advantage of that too.. and load in the title music! To use all the chipram in your machine, we need to load from a known medium, using our own special-loader software that gives us the freedom to utilise the machine to the fullest. Therefore we can't have hard disk support at this time. Please understand. Its because we push the machine so hard, that we have to take control as much as we have. >Now, Starglider II is a nice game, but the implementation is ridiculous. Maybe >it's all a result of Rainbird making their one disk boot both an ST and an >Amiga. That's a neat trick, but I only know the end result, which is that the >game is a pain in the ass. (Ye gods, do I sound like Jerry Pournelle?) Pity, >I won't be purchasing any other Rainbird Software any time soon. I disagree with your comments that the implementation is ridiculous. I think you are taking it to the extreme. Lets face it, 99% of the intended gamesplayers do NOT own fancy machines with hard disks, so we took a realistic decision to push the limits of the typical games player's machine, at the expense of lost convenience for those with very expanded machines. The game is NOT a pain in the ass. It loads from floppy in a mere 35 seconds, which is using our fastloader... even a Hard Disk wouldn't load it so much faster that you would need to worry! You DO sound like Jerry Pournelle. In fact, I'd go so far as to say you are even FUSSIER than him. It was he, who a year or so ago suggested that StarGlider-1 should be Game Of The Year! If you aren't going to buy anymore Rainbird Software again, then you are probably one of those silly cut-your-nose-to-spite-your-face types! Why categorise Rainbird this way!? They are a Publisher, not an Author. Argonaut Software are the authors of the game, so any beef you have is with us, not Rainbird. We recognise that we can't please everyone. Luckily, we have had a number #1 in England, Germany and the USA with this game.... which leads us to assume that someone out there recognises a good game when they see it. We put so much work into this product that it really hurts to have a guy like you slag it off. Sure we can take criticism, and often do... but its hard when its obstinate and idealistic. This is the real world. Very few games get written that run off your hard disk.... and if they DO manage such a feat, then they probably aren't worth running... or are 100% artwork based with zero programming effort. >Is anyone else out there annoyed by all this? Am I expecting too much from >game publishers? Even F-18, with the code wheel, can be made to run off hard >disk, and at the minimum backups can be made. You mean you actually prefer a CodeWheel more than a Word-from-Novella !???? You must be absolutely brilliant at finding the right numbers from the code- wheel... I always get it wrong, and am always dismayed at the amount of fiddling and thumbing that ive got to do to get Fa-18 to work! I personally think that finding a specific word, when given a page number, paragraph and word number is far more intuitive and everyone can do it without a degree in mathematics. Also, you may notice, we picked some quite funny and even interesting words for StarGlider-2! Some people even ENJOY waiting to see what word crops up..!! Hope this hasn't been too boring, reading my reply to Neil's message. Take care everyone.... thankyou for listening to YASSA! 'Yet Another Starving Software Author'. |---------------------------------------------------------------------| | Jez San |-----------------------------------------------------| | Argonaut Software Limited, London, England. On Plink: UK JEZ | | 1 of the 8 authors of StarGlider 2. 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