Note: "[i]Please refrain from the mention of DRM
circumvention, such as 'no-cd patches'.[/i]"
Sorry, no can do. As said, a whole bucketload - a very large
percentage - of pc games working on CrossOver depends on no-cd
patches. You know it, I know it, we all know it. So it's nigh-on
impossible not to mention those in a lot of cases.
I would say that's incorrect, or at best subjective, and it's entirely possible not
to mention those cases ; you simply don't type the words, you refrain from commanding
your fingers to press those keys. I see you are not an advocate, so I don't really
expect you to know the intrinsic playing field, nor expect you to be aware of how much
this topic has been debated ; you should read the advocate forum postings about same
.... indeed, I myself have really played 'nemesis' wrt this very subject in C4 and wrt
crossover usage -- that said, I have put in quite a bit to better what is ...imho...
a bad situation to begin with...
...you've omitted the participle noun in your statement, but it gives to demonstration ;
I personally have something in the order of 400 'PC' games, only 3% of those are on
optical disc (and all of those are relics from my son's childhood growing up with windows)
... (he now runs OSX ftr ;) .... of those discs, 3 titles have official DRM removal patches
(only one of which work with OSX iirc), and all but 2 (Rollcage & Rollcage2) I've since
replaced with digital download versions... so my view is a very small percentage of PC
games depend on DRM circumvention software ...
...what you, I, and many other people know, is that disc based DRM mechanisms employed
by many software distributors when publishing a software game title on CD/DVD media, more
often than not do not work in crossover/wine for a multitude of reasons -- ok, that's a
bit of an overstatement, as (particularly) Mac users are always asking "why does it say
the disc is not in the drive when it is" ... it's usually disc based DRM failing...
I can understand you guys in the US not mentioning them because of
that moronic DMCA law (or whatever it's called) which prevents you
from even talking about means to circumvent equally moronic
copyprotection mechanisms, even if they're just used for getting
legal games to run,... but I'm European. I'm not bound to that law.
(So Codeweavers can delete my talking about necessary patches here,
(even though lots of perfectly legit American forums, blogs and
sites mention them aplenty) but that doesn't mean I won't mention
them as a usable solution - since they're often simply necessary for
legal usage. Doesn't mean I'll mention where to actually get 'em,
btw...)
...I'm in .AU actually, but we're subject to the same laws. The 'lots of American sites'
you speak of that mention these things aplenty ; one supposes they're all equally placed
as Codeweavers is, being a corporate/commercial entity involved in the creation and sales
of a software product, which according to your comment, is itself a playground creating
the need for the use of DRM circumventing softwares in actual usage? That would be one
perception a person could have here, regardless of the fact that's the -not- the intent
of crossover/wine usage at all. If I was a company in Codeweaver's position and corporate
locale, I'd certainly be taking active measures to demonstrate firm adherence to whatever
laws were binding my operations (or could effect same).. as J. White put it...
http://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/dmca
..and that is 'end of story' ; it's not as though Codeweavers perse are the 'enforcers'.
If one asides all the political brouhaha for a moment, it boils down to this - this is
Codeweaver's website, and what they say goes, simple as that. If you want to think of
car references, then consider that although I'm licensed to drive a car in Australia,
if I drive a car in another country, I'm required to obey -their- road laws, not those
I am used to at home ... here, the vehicle is the internet, and by posting to and/or
using this website, you're driving on Codeweaver's roads - you have to obey different
road laws compared to, say, posting on winehq... or anywhere else for that matter..
The fact the DVD release doesn't work, is 'par for the
course' .. that is, everyone in linux pretty much knows windows
disc
based DRM doesn't
always work, and in the Mac case most all of them don't work (due
to
Apple's scsi driver
design) ... and blablabla ; this info is 15years old more or
less...
Sorry, I disagree. Dunno about you guys in the States, but here in
ol' Yurp games are still normally sold on disc by the bucketloads,
available in every neighbourhood shop, as well as digital downloads.
As I said above, most of the stuff I run came off (legally) bought
dvd-rom's. It's simply not true that only downloaded stuff is
relevant and all the games we bought on disc over the years, and are
still buying that way, are not.
From the customer's point of view, it only matters if a game runs or
not. Whether it's on cd, dvd, or digital download doesn't really
matter - as a legal buyer, you only want it to work, period.
(Otherwise, CrossOver Games would be labeled 'only works on digital
download versions'. It's not.) If only Steam or download versions of
a game would work and all the other versions wouldn't, it's simply
not up to the 'Gold' standard. 'Gold' means it just about all works,
otherwise it's Silver at most.
Personally, I got GT Legends on a legal cd version last week. As it
happens, this version didn't have Starforce protection. Runs fine.
So it's not like all cd releases are hopeless anyway - far from it.
...yes, I know..and I agree about the medal ranking thing - as do the Ninjas ; silver
should be highest for such releases. Trouble is, medal rankings are derived on a per
app/game basis, regardless of the distribution media used, and so you'll see the
'distributor comparison table' often tabled as cd/dvd=knoww not to work; steam=work
and gamergate=work etc etc, folks cast gold medals against the digital download version,
and the app gets the gold medal ... I was one of those who pushed for the distributor
comparison table, for exactly this reason - to somehow delimit the gold medal rank
from cd/dvd media which were undeserved of same. As I say though, in the advocate's
forum, this topic has been teased to death...
...you cannot put 'only works with digital download versions' because that's not true.
As I explain, some disc media does work after official patches, some disc media can be
registered/activated online, and yet another disc media works 'as is', which is entirely
dependent on with host OS is being used -and- which particular DRM has been employed...
...'does not work with all Windows based DRM softwares' is probably closer to the mark,
as that encapsulates disc media and also accounts for those online DRM mechanisms that
at present are known not to work in crossover/wine..ie; 'gameguard', 'starforce' (online
& disc), 'securom' (some disc versions work in linux & online for both OS') etc etc....
..understand though, I think the point is moot here ... I chose linux as my OS of choice,
as a primary personal computing decision...I use OSX as well, but I will not run Windows.
I use bootcamp so I can run linux on the iMac, not Windows, I have never owned a 'dual boot'
machine that does linux/windows on ix86 - I am not interested in M$' meanderings. I knew,
at the time of making that decision, that I would need to use wine technology to play/use
those win32 games/apps I was otherwise interested in regardless of OS fashion, and I still
exercise that same end-user freedom of choice everytime I see some games software on disc
that's no doubt got disc based DRM on it -- I know it's not going to work for me, why would
I buy it? I wouldn't .. and don't ... which is why I have 400+ 'PC' type games, most all of
the digital download type... I know what's going to work for me with a minimum of hassle
and give me the maximum enjoyment.... and that's what I buy...
...the way I see it, if you continue to buy that product which is aimed at a different
end-user using a different OS, all the distributors are going to see is your purchase
as being another windows user who's happy to buy discs .. no more, no less. In a way,
your purchases help fund future disc based releases which also may well not work on your
OS of choice and software you use. I prefer to work the other way, by buying the digital
download versions of these products, make -those- sales look bigger/more worthwhile than
continued disc pressing, and then reporting to crossover/wine users the fact (or not) that
avenue to acquire and actually play that title, is a viable thing on their OS of choice
without the use of Windows... {shrug} ... could be just me, but I really wouldn't get a
kick out of continually having the fill out the distributor comparison table with 'CD/DVD
== known not to work' after having spent 'x' dollars on something that doesn't work 'as
expected' ... when I knew that was likely the case before I bought it ... no... I get more
of a buzz by buying software online 'just like Windows users do', and installing it 'just
like Windows users do', and then playing it 'just like Windows users do', so I can fill
out the distributor comparison table with 'Gamersgate==works', create a crosstie to further
ease installation, and report it works 'just like it does in Windows' .. without Windows...
I did check if that patch would apply in CXG-10.x ...it won't ...
not directly anyhow, so
I sidelined all of this for the next crossover release ; you could
try a nightly build I
suppose to see where things are at...
Yeah, I know - read the forum conversations on the matter and
checked up on the issue at WineHQ. But it's a bit hard to track
where Codeweavers are at - roughly - in terms of incorporating new
Wine versions. Searched, but couldn't really find the relevant
sections on this site. Where are the nightlies at, for one thing? Or
the listings of the actual Wine versions used? Couldn't find them,
must say. I have sort of an account-for-life since I'm a journalist
by trade and (apart from buying CrossOver myself) reviewed CGames
for a Mac magazine, but maybe some sort of extra-special account is
needed to see them.
..regarding versioning, there's a changelog.txt file included in the crossover installation,
and it typically announces which wine version the current cxwine build is based on. As for
the nightly builds, and advocate's forum etc etc, you merely need to apply to become an
advocate to obtain access to those areas (and the nightly builds download area)...
Cheers!
