hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) (04/07/89)
I've read so many interesting articles in this group this week, it's a shame to be complaining like this, but I'm really pissed off about things, so here goes... I heard a lot about Falcon, from Spectrum Holobyte. Saw folks playing it (in monochrome) on Macs at work, people just loved it. Heard that the ST version is the best implementation of all of them (AT, Mac, Amiga...). Well, I went to the local store, ordered a copy, waited for it to arrive, and tried it on their machine. (This is a long time span, much compressed...) Looks great, boy, I'm impressed. Bring it home, the damn thing won't boot. I get variously - plain desktop, 2 bombs then the desktop, or the startup screen followed by 4 minutes of disk grinding, followed by an Exception message that horizontally scrolls across the screen. Gee, I guess I have a drive speed problem or something. Can't believe that the game would have trouble running on my Mega. Also bought Tetris. Also from Spectrum Holobyte. This game also pisses me off. It as well as Falcon is distributed on two single sided floppies. Fine, that's usual. Why can't I install these things on my hard drive? They take forever to load, and in the case of Falcon - will never load. What is this? I have to send in $10 per game just to get legal backups? After just spending $80 on the games themselves? As a software buyer aren't I entitled to usable copies of my software? Tetris invariably crashes after playing 10 times in a row, after accessing the disk. It seems to be checking for some protection flag on the disk and not finding it. Perhaps I'm not expressing myself very well at the moment - I spent a very frustrated couple of hours with these two packages, late at night after some intense hacking. Words fail me as I attempt to convey my frustrations. Sort of like the irritation I felt with Dungeon Master, which is also heavily protected. I spend all this effort to put together a fast system with fast hard drives, and I get tied to slow, unreadable floppies for commercial software? Huh? The Mac and PC versions of Tetris and Falcon have been copied all over creation, but the evil cheapskate Atarians can't be trusted not to pirate software? Geeze, for further insult I have to squint at this stupid "codewheel" just to be allowed the privilege of playing the game that I rightfully purchased. (Falcon.) Assuming the computer is able to read that much of the disk. There's a good, sensible rule I read in the Atari Developer's kit (which I finally received. Good stuff here.) which says not to hard-code drive names or paths into your software. Makes sense, let the user move the files around as they see fit. All of these programs appear to have hard-coded pathnames. Bleah.... There's certainly something to be said for protecting one's investment, but I am utterly disgusted here. I'm picking on Spectrum Holobyte here because I think they're being grossly unreasonable. Copy protection that doesn't interfere with operation of the actual software is fine, but protection that hinders operation is worse than obnoxious. It's criminal. (And don't tell me about that "no warranty express or implied" clause - shrink-wrap licenses like that are another sore point. "Breaking the seal implies agreement to these terms" on a piece of paper wrapped in shrink-wrap is a total crock.) For Falcon - a very complex game, one you couldn't even think about playing without the (huge) manual. Then they add in this STUPID disk protection, and this funny codewheel thing. Geeze, why can't you just have plain old, every-day readable backup-able disks and use something else for the key? How about a stupid joystick/cartridge/whatever port dingus, or a specially protected Key disk that has to be in the drive, but doesn't actually have any of the software on it? That would at least allow installing the software onto other than the stupid floppies... I suppose what really irks me at this point is seeing everyone copying the same programs all over the place on their Macs, while I'm sitting here with a couple worthless disks on my ST. Gee, if suddenly overnight the ST were to completely replace every Mac that'd ever been sold, would that stop piracy of Atari software? Software companies *seem* to think that they don't have to worry about "professional" machines because their users are Too Honest for that. @#$%#@$%^$%^&$%&@#$@!! I guess I should just get back to hacking... I get more use out of PD software anyway. My $80 is utterly wasted. (The store owner won't accept returns on software because "disks are so easily pirated." !@#@#%@^#) By the way - even if you don't mind dealing with protected disks, I'd stay away from Tetris. The ST version is particularly slow and unresponsive. It often misses keystrokes, making it impossible to do well at higher levels. The sound routines also, in a word, suck. They lose time with screen and mouse activity - pop up a menu, hear the music skip a beat. Drag the cursor around a bit, likewise. For $35, you deserve better, and can easily find it elsewhere. -- -=- PrayerMail: Send 100Mbits to holyghost@father.son[127.0.0.1] and You Too can have a Personal Electronic Relationship with God!
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (04/09/89)
CLAP CLAP CLAP!!! Howard, you echo my sentiments exactly! I posted a somewhat scathing rebuttal to Spectrum Holobyte's open letter that they are now passing around labelling the ST as a 'pirate' machine - you can read it in the latest ST- Report (nr. 81) I went off on this in the post, but I sick of S-H's attitudes and ridiculous comments. This compnay releases a game for the ST, DOESN"T ADVERTISE IT, and then procliams that piracy is costing it sales after the game had been on the market a mere SIX WEEKS! The ads for the game only started appearing last month and yet S-H had already started labelling the ST a 'pirate machine'. And now they have the gaul to spread their 'open' letter to non-ST specific magazines like Computer Gaming World! And while all this is going on FALCON is selling like hotcakes and is the NUMBER ONE selling program even in Europe! This company deserves a swift kick... Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com Pro-Choice, Anti-Fanatic
reynolds@dasys1.UUCP (Brian Reynolds) (04/13/89)
I bought the Atari version of Falcon as soon as it came out. Right
out of the box disk 2 was bad. My dealer was kind enough to replace
it with his personal copy of disk 2. I played it for a while and then
put it away to do "serious" work with my machine. When I took it out
again recently disk 2 was garbage. I wrote to Spectrum Holobyte
explained what happened and ordered the backup disks. The disks came
with an invoice (I had to pay for the new disks) that had the reason
for replacement marked "User error." I don't know about you but to me
storing the disks in their original box (away from magnets, etc.) for
a couple of months is not user error!
I then figured out that the only way to get the disks to work was if
I physically removed the hard disk cable before turning on my machine.
Now both sets of disks work. I assume that if you have an internal
hard disk you're stuck.
You are supposed to be able to copy disk 2. I have yet to get a copy
of disk 2 to work. Spectrum Holobyte's answer was to send them my
disk so they could copy it.
Other than the copy protection and the stupid code wheel (which does
not look like the on screen graphics) Falcon is a fantastic simulator.
I read in a magazine that Spectrum Holobyte is upset that there are
already code wheel diagrams and other "cheat sheets" for the Atari
version on some BBSs. What do they expect? The manual is the same as
the FalconAT manual (the table of contents even says FalconAT) and I
assume it uses the same type of code wheel. I know all the keys are
the same. Don't they realize that someone with a copy of the cheat
sheets for the IBM version retitled it and posted it for the Atari? I
also read that Spectrum Holobyte is going to release Orbiter for the
Atari. Orbiter was a really acurate space shuttle simulator that was
way too slow on a PC. It should be better on the Atari, but I won't
buy it if it uses the same protection as Falcon.
By the way, I had similar problems with Gunship but after ordering the
backups disks they were nice enough to reply to my letter. I guess I
always like MicroProse anyway.
ttfn,
Brian
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