Computer problem :P

[Ameena]

Lol sadly I can't do that as I have to go to this place called "work" every weekday. And I'd probably starve to death . I don't want to have to spend between twenty minutes and half an hour opening and closing my disk drive just to get the game to load every time I want to play it and I couldn't find any kind of (legal) solution online. Gambit, if you've got any good ideas besides the one I've come up with, then please, share .
I believe I did find a post on the TQ forums by someone who'd had the same problem as me, but no-one had replied to it. I might have another look at some point, when I have time/can be arsed. I don't get much time on my comp these days (compared to before I got a job), so I like to grab as many spare TQ moments as I can, once I'm done with my regular checking of forums etc. I've still gotta playtest the latest version of DMDM's dungeon as well...

[Gambit37]

I believe I did find a post on the TQ forums by someone who'd had the same problem as me, but no-one had replied to it. I might have another look at some point, when I have time/can be arsed.

Be arsed, find a no-cd hack and be done with it. You're winding yourself up by not investing the time to solve the problem. Yes, it's annoying and you shouldn't have to use a hack to play the game, but if that's the only solution then do it, it's not hard:

http://www.gameburnworld.com/gp/gamefix ... uest.shtml

[Ameena]

No, I'm not winding myself up...ermm, anyway, that site seems to have a whole bunch of hack-fix things...I might take a look later and see which one is supposed to work with whichever version fo the game I have, but for now I've got to go to work so I'll have to do it tonight or something.

[Gambit37]

Forgive me, but it sure sounded like it. You're still looking for a solution two weeks after posting the initial request for help and there's been a bunch of solutions offered to you in the thread. You might not like that the solutions are "unethcial" but when the manufacturer makes it impossible to play the game legally, who's being most unethical? Use the hack!

[beowuuf]

Just make sure your virus checker is updated! I've had two worm attempts from legitimate sites who have obviously been compromised

[Gambit37]

Yes, it goes without saying to virus check your downloads before installing -- and no, AVG free doesn't cut it

[Ameena]

Oh yes, that was the other reason - I didn't want to download something dodgy (or from a dodgy site) that might fook up my whole computer, never mind just TQ. I don't think I have any virus-checky stuff on here except whatever default stuff might be in Firefox...I'm not sure, and I believe some anti-virus stuff can end up taking over your computer with stupid reminders and crap all the time for stuff you're not interested in. I'm not really sure what I'm doing when it comes to vaguely techy-type stuff so I tend to just avoid it and muddle along as best I can by myself, which has worked alright so far .

[Ameena]

Got a question about this copy-protect stuff some game disks apparently use - could different games by different companies all use the same copy-protect thing? For examples, I'm referring to games like Titan Quest (and its expansion...which as mentioned previously does work eventually after a few openings and closings fo the drive...in fact, a week or so ago, it actually worked first time! ) by Ironlore, Spore by Maxis/EA (disk has never worked in drive), and Two Worlds by South Peak Games (my newest game which I got on Wednesday and is being as much of an arse as Spore was).
Or is my disk drive just being a total arse?
Tech support was somewhat less than helpful...
I still don't know if it's a drive problem or a disk/copy protection problem. I hope it's not the drive, 'cause I'm quite sure it's gonna be one hell of a bugger trying to figure out how to get a new one (plus the lovely matter of it costing however-much-money ).

[beowuuf]

I think there area few standard ones companies can use

[Gambit37]

It's probably SecureRom -- it's used on many commercial games. Spore in particular is a bad one; they use the hard-core settings which requires net activation AND limits the amount of times you can install it.

It comes to something when the people most inconvenienced by copy protection aren't the pirates, but in fact the genuine buyer! If you don't like this, I suggest people start boycotting games that use it (though it's doubtful that would make any difference)

[Daecon]

SecuROM is notorious for causing problems with CD/DVD drives. At least, according to Wikipedia...

And yes, Spore is also infected with SecuROM (in fact EA have got into a lot of legal trouble for not telling you that!)

[Ameena]

If SecuROM is the problem and all these games I have are using it, do you know of a way I can get around it (or even find out if/where it is on my system)? Maybe remove it from the system somehow or just stop it from running, or something? Or would attempting to do anything like that risk smegging up my system for good?

[Gambit37]

There's an interesting discussion about the EA/Spore/SecurROM fuckup over here:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technol ... rom-d.html

I thought that this comment summed it up well:

In order for securom to work, it is a given that it MUST have higher authority than the administrator, otherwise a pirate could stop it from effecting their computer.

In order for securom to work, it is also a given that it MUST have the power to monitor, and prevent other programs from function.

In order for securom to work, it is also a given that it MUST be able to receive information from the internet.

Lets combine these three shall we? You have a computer program with higher authority than the user has, that can view and prevent other programs from working, and can be sent commands to have its 'orders' changed in patches whenever a user accesses the internet.

Does this sound like a program that you want on your computer? I think not. This program is not protecting a piece of software, it is one step away from forcefully taking over your computer at the programmer's digression!

There's a boycott petition here, though what good these things actually do is anyone's guess:

http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/ea-ga ... d-secu-rom

How to remove it:

http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/6467.page

[Daecon]

The Wikipedia entry on SecuROM has a link at the bottom to a forum posting about uninstalling it after playing a demo for Bioshock, I'm not sure if it'll help you any: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/98241 ... shock-demo

[Ameena]

Well, I just tried the SecuROM uninstall thing linked by Gambit, but the drive still won't recognise my Two Worlds disk . Maybe that isn't the problem then, in which case I'm no further along than when I started, grrrr...