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Advice Needed: Space Rangers 2/StarForce copy protection.

Zeus

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,523
Heya guys,

From what I've heard, Space Rangers 2 is absolutely amazing. (I'm a sucker for any game where you go on missions in an open-ended world.)

But I've heard such nightmares about the StarForce copy protection, I thought I'd ask first before grabbing a copy on ebay.

Is there some kind of online authorization thing that keeps me from playing a used copy? (I'm thinking of Diablo II or Phantasy Star Online, two games with offline modes and online verifications that made me paranoid about buying used games.)

I know the copy protection company begrudgingly released a program that wipes it from your system -- will the game still work after I remove StarForce?

I know you can by it for $20 sans copy protection as a digital download, but then there'd be no printed manual (I had a hell of a time playing Arcanum because my cheap GoGamer.com copy has a .pdf manual. Making a character is alt+tabalicious!). Plus, I'm a sucker for boxed goods. I want the poster, the copy of Space Rangers 1, the whole enchilada.

Also, some Amazon reviewer said:

"[last updated 11/03/06]: Note that Space Rangers 2 (SR2) is now available without copy protection..."

But he's talking about the digital distribution, right? Or did they re-release a physical copy without the copy protection?

In summary:

1. Is there any way to get a boxed edition of Space Rangers 2 witout StarForce?
2. Any news on if Space Rangers 2 Gold is getting a boxed set?
3. Can I just install the game, play it, and safely remove StarForce when I'm done without ruining my DVD drive? I'm not bothered by random reboots or BSoDs, but if my DVD drive breaks, I'll be in trouble.

Thanks guys. Any help you can give me would mean a great deal. I can't believe I only just found out about this game last night, and now I can think of nothing else. It's love at first sight.

Now help this lovesick sonoffagun out. What do you say?

Edit: Okay, here's what I've decided to do, based on information from this thread.

I'm going to wait for SR2 Gold on TotalGaming.net (alas, it will likely be download only, but at least there'll be some new extras.) There's no chance I'm letting StarForce on my computer, as people have warned me it broke their DVD drives. Yikes. According to the advice I received, the only way to play the retail version of SR2 without becoming infected with StarForce is to import the UK version and crack the .exe before you play the game. I can't actually vouch for this, nor do I suggest anyone try it -- it's just what I've been told, and it sounds like a lot of trouble, especially for something you bought legally.

So, like I said, I'll buy SR2 Gold off TotalGaming.net when it arrives.

Thanks for all the help!

In the mean time, I'm going to go play some Mount&Blade. :)
 

Zhirzzh

Scholar
Joined
Nov 24, 2007
Messages
191
1: Not as far as I know
2: Not as far as I know
3: The new version of StarForce doesn't break DVD drives apparently, so you should be fine.
 

A user named cat

Guest
Just wanted to add I was a victim of Starforce once. Murdered my last DVD drive, would no longer read DVD movies and such. Thankfully they're cheap to buy now but still ridiculous. Glad they finally got that worked out.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I was a victim of Starforce once, too, and after that I never bought a game with Starforce ever again, no matter how much I wanted it, just out of protest.
 

Balor

Arcane
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Dec 29, 2004
Messages
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Russia
Well, at least in Russia, expancion of SR2 (Reloaded) shipped w/o Starforce.
Perhaps you should wait for it?
 

Binary

Liturgist
Joined
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Messages
901
Location
Trinsic
Use Linux and Wine, besides all the various obvious improvements, Starforce won't be a nuisance anymore
 

ghostdog

Arcane
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Messages
11,079
Buy the European edition of the game and use the gamecopyworld crack. Apparently starforce gets installed when you run the game for the first time, so with the crack you'll bypass that.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
or you can just burn your play cd using alcohol and then mount it into daemon tools. and that's all you need to do. I'm sure you can spare 600mb of hdd space.
or really... crack it.
because starforce is a fucking bitch. I remember fun times I had with it and Prince of Persia 3. the game would start only in 1 case out of 10 while in all other 9 starforce just rebooted my pc. good thing that only a few months later gbw and gcw came to the ultimate power.
 

sqeecoo

Arcane
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
2,615
oh, by the way, when is the english version of the expansion for sr2 coming out? I want to play it!
 

Dhruin

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
758
Buy the TotalGaming version. You don't need a manual for this like you might Arcanum - the character creation is very simple. SR1 is a waste of time and is completely superceded by SR2. And the poster? Get over it. They're providing a cheap, safe option - reward them for it.
 

Zeus

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,523
Look at all these suggestions! Thanks for getting back to me, everyone. :)

@ghostdog: Apparently starforce gets installed when you run the game for the first time.

Wow. That's good to know. Can anyone confirm this?

@skyway: or you can just burn your play cd using alcohol and then mount it into daemon tools. and that's all you need to do. I'm sure you can spare 600mb of hdd space.

Will this work with the U.S. version? I buy the game, install it, copy the Play CD with alcohol and mount the ISO? No special tricks to "strip the StarForce" out of the ISO required? (I ask because the U.S. version apparently doesn't have any cracks.)

If so, I think you have just found the perfect solution to my problem. :D

@Dhruin: Buy the TotalGaming version... They're providing a cheap, safe option - reward them for it.

Call it personal preference, but it's a little hard to justify paying twice as much for a digital download when an unopened retail box goes for $10 on ebay.

Besides, my bumper sticker reads, "I <3 tchotchkes".
 

inwoker

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Kyiv, Ukraine
Zeus said:
Look at all these suggestions! Thanks for getting back to me, everyone. :)

@ghostdog: Apparently starforce gets installed when you run the game for the first time.

Wow. That's good to know. Can anyone confirm this?
yes, but starforce needs to be installed in order for game to run.

@skyway: or you can just burn your play cd using alcohol and then mount it into daemon tools. and that's all you need to do. I'm sure you can spare 600mb of hdd space.
please explain further, maybe i dunno something. but starforce can't be tricked like safedisk and securom and itages, can it?

Will this work with the U.S. version? I buy the game, install it, copy the Play CD with alcohol and mount the ISO? No special tricks to "strip the StarForce" out of the ISO required? (I ask because the U.S. version apparently doesn't have any cracks.)

If so, I think you have just found the perfect solution to my problem. :D

@Dhruin: Buy the TotalGaming version... They're providing a cheap, safe option - reward them for it.


Starforce can be avoided only in one way as far as i know. Removing cd protection from exe file is the way.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
Zeus said:
Will this work with the U.S. version? I buy the game, install it, copy the Play CD with alcohol and mount the ISO? No special tricks to "strip the StarForce" out of the ISO required? (I ask because the U.S. version apparently doesn't have any cracks.)

don't burn it as ISO, burn it as MDF and with all options related to preserving sectors turned on. then just mount MDF into daemon (4 or higher of course) and play. it worked for me with russian version perfectly.
if starforce will still ask for cd - just download YASU and run it - but in my case I didn't need it.

Dhruin said:
SR1 is a waste of time and is completely superceded by SR2.

I disagree. SR2 was "more of the same" game compared to SR1. SR2 to SR1 is like GTA:SA to GTA:VC. more spacestation types you can enter, more text quests and unneeded stuff like planetary battles, which were repetitive and boring - but unfortunately not optional if you wanted to complete the game. because instead of 1 boss you now have 3. a hyperspace mothership, a usual space mothership and a mothership landed on a planet.
 

hicksman

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
164
I just scoured the forums and couldn't find any news on the expansion. The current word is that its coming in April, so since April is one day from gone, I wouldn't spend any time waiting for it.

Regardless, from what I hear its an expansion, so if you buy SR2 now you won't be rebuying anything when Gold comes.
 

Zeus

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,523
Wow. Dead DVD drive, huh?

There's no way I'm letting StarForce on my computer.

Looks like I'll have to buy the European "DVD Edition" off GoGamer for $30 (which probably doesn't even have a printed manual) or get the digital distribution... in which case, I'm waiting for the Gold Edition!

Thanks for all the information, guys. You helped me make an informed purchase, or some junk like that.

Zeus
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Personally, when it comes to Starforce crap, I suggest heeding the wisdom of Pirate Cat.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
inwoker said:
please explain further, maybe i dunno something. but starforce can't be tricked like safedisk and securom and itages, can it?

yes it can be. I personally tried this with starforce from 2.0 to 3.5 (SR2 has 3.5) in multiple akella and 1c games incl. SR2, as well as some western ones (like X3 which had SF 3.5 until v.2.0) and it worked just fine. with starforce 3.6 and up however you will need to use YASU. however since SF 3.6 release I prefer to use nocd cracks as they are much more safe and it was the time when they started to mass-appear.

Zeus said:
There's no way I'm letting StarForce on my computer.

the wisest decision. SF was chicken shit since some cretin came up with the idea to create this piece of poo that will damage your pc instead of actually protecting something.

btw I really like iTages, SafeDisk and SecuROM - shits don't protect anything as well, just there for cosmetic looks or something, completely sucking when it comes to alcohol/blindwrite image in your DT virtual drive.
 

Nightjed

Liturgist
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Jan 27, 2004
Messages
675
Location
Wasteland
ive been playing some starforce games lately, and the crack from gcw seems to prevent starforce from being installed (i looked for the driver in hidden hardware devices and didnt find it, and anyway even if it gets installed im not using the dvddrive for reading so its not forcing it until total failture)

and btw, the new copy protections that keep asking me to kill daemon tools are pissing me off, i wonder if theyll wise up soon and go drm free like music, even the movie ind. is annoying me with their crappy drm : we dont have bluray here yet and some new dvd drm refuses to play on my dvd player forcing me to make a drmfree backup everytime i want to watch something, jeez ...
 

Dhruin

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
758
skyway said:
Dhruin said:
SR1 is a waste of time and is completely superceded by SR2.

I disagree. SR2 was "more of the same" game compared to SR1. SR2 to SR1 is like GTA:SA to GTA:VC. more spacestation types you can enter, more text quests and unneeded stuff like planetary battles, which were repetitive and boring - but unfortunately not optional if you wanted to complete the game. because instead of 1 boss you now have 3. a hyperspace mothership, a usual space mothership and a mothership landed on a planet.

Huh? Planetary battles are entirely optional. The interface improvements alone make SR2 much nicer to play than SR1. Out of all the people here who enjoyed SR2, very few (if any at all) went on to put any serious time into SR1 after they'd played the newer one.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
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Jul 3, 2007
Messages
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Location
Urkanistan
I've played SR1 as a first one, when it just came out. and then SR2. SR2 is better of course, however it doesn't give the feel that it was something new to me. just more stuff to do and more differences between ships. and btw some quests were copied from SR1 to SR2 - so it felt more like an addon or something.
 

Higher Game

Arcane
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
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Female Vagina
SR2 is basically SR1 with fewer bugs and more balanced gameplay. It's basically what SR1 should have been. It's a great game.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Nightjed said:
and btw, the new copy protections that keep asking me to kill daemon tools are pissing me off, i wonder if theyll wise up soon and go drm free like music, even the movie ind. is annoying me with their crappy drm : we dont have bluray here yet and some new dvd drm refuses to play on my dvd player forcing me to make a drmfree backup everytime i want to watch something, jeez ...
The stupidity of this DRM nonsense is such that even if I had to pay the same money for either, I would still choose the pirate version because it is a superior product. That fact alone is enough to guarantee that they're shooting themselves in the foot.
 

Dhruin

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
758
skyway said:
I've played SR1 as a first one, when it just came out. and then SR2. SR2 is better of course, however it doesn't give the feel that it was something new to me. just more stuff to do and more differences between ships. and btw some quests were copied from SR1 to SR2 - so it felt more like an addon or something.

Right...so why would you want both at the same time? If you have SR2, then SR1 is entirely superceded.

To the OP, it's your prerogative to buy whatever you want but $10 difference (or whatever) seems a tiny amount to reward TotalGaming for a DRM-free game and you'll be off and playing a great game, instead of stuffing around with forum posts and Starforce.
 

Zeus

Cipher
Joined
Apr 25, 2008
Messages
1,523
@Dhruin: To the OP, it's your prerogative to buy whatever you want but $10 difference (or whatever) seems a tiny amount to reward TotalGaming for a DRM-free game

I already said a few posts up that I decided to wait for the Gold edition of SR2, which in all likelihood will be on TotalGaming. :)

But all this talk of "rewarding" Stardock for providing a DRM-free digital download is a little bewildering. They already bundled their games with with software that apparently breaks your DVD drive. Should we really be rewarding them at this point? Forgiving them is more like it. I'm not sure it's time to break out the cookie jar just yet.

Edit: Okay, so Stardock didn't originally publish SR2, they're just publishing it now on TotalGaming.net. I was little confused. It was late. Please forgive me. *grins* All this talk of supporting TotalGaming.net is making a lot more sense now that I realize they were never responsible for StarForce-infected games in the first place.
 

Gragt

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin
Stardock did not distribute games with Starforce, I guess you are refering to another publisher.
 

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