What will stop cracked versions of Starbound from connecting to legit servers?

I'm wouldn't really feel comfortable playing online with people who pirated the game. Well... you wouldn't know, and I bet most of them are swell guys but then again, I paid for the game while they're just playing it for free.

An authentication would be awesome. Enter your key or something... or a requirement for Steam to play online. Most games can do that. If the devs can do it, then fine by me.

 

Nothing is good if you pirate it, since you give no money to the developers. Also, some pirates like to abuse that they don't care if they get banned, so they will grief other servers. Pirating is only good if the pirate decides that it's a good game and buys it.

 

Also these guys are Indie. They're not like Activision or EA. But then again, pirating AAA games is also bad. It's just that pirating an Indie game feels so morally wrong.

 

Exactly this.... I don't feel nearly as guilty if I pirate a AAA game. The Indie developers need the money much more than them.

 

I definitely want people to buy the game, but I really don't want the developers wasting their time on anti-piracy crap. There are always going to be people who will pirate it anyway.

 

True but the harder they make it to pirate and enjoy the game... the more likely (in my friends case and similar cases) they would be bent towards buying it because its just simpler or easier to buy it.

 

I hope youse realize that what youse demanding here, pirates shall have a harder life to play this game, will also makes it more annoying for youse when the features dont quite work as intended (typical DRM issue) ... beside the already mentioned facts that it costs a lot of money or plenty of time to implement.

Everyone wants to become rich and live a happy life, yet realism is something different.
The optional Auth mode for servers seems to be a good thing, lets see how it ends.

 

One thing that's being overlooked a little is that the people who design DRM systems KNOW they're going to fail eventually. They design with that in mind; their goal isn't to protect the game for its entire lifetime, it's to protect the game while it's still selling for full shelf price to secure all those delicious launch week dollars. After they've recouped their costs, made their profit and the title goes on sale it's nowhere near as important.

Given how well the preorder/kickstarter is going here, I don't think Chucklefish is going to need to worry about that.

 

If you buy a cracked version of Starbound a penguin riding a giant walrus with laser eyes will come up and destroy you.
Totaly legit.

 

Heh. They could do this in-game. If yours is pirated some random monster will seriously own you in the beginning. Would be fun.

 

Angry dragon spawn of satan penguin laser demon unicycle riding tophatted Walrus.
AKA The bouncer of Starbound

 

Kinda like how they did in earthbound? Basically what would happen is if you had a pirated version super powerful monsters would spawn and just mob you and make your day very VERY hard. The game would let you get to the final boss, however once you got into the fight really with him it would delete your whole save. Though, maybe in this games case you probably wont be able to pick up boss loot or something

link: http://earthboundcentral.com/2011/05/earthbounds-copy-protection/

 

I would be fine with session servers like minecraft uses. But only for online play. Offline instances should never try to go on the internet.

 

Several games already did this. Serious Sam 3 did it (I think). It was really funny because there's this scorpion which the player can't kill and continue pursuing you. Arkham Asylum kinda did it, adding a bug where you can't glide. These are still crackable, however. Nothing is uncrackable. (Chrome says crackable and uncrackable are not words. Well, f*ck the police, LOL)

 

What cracked versions?
Anybody who doesn't buy a legitamite copy to support the devs, is out of her/his mind.

 

DRM costs money to develop, and lots of money to buy it from a 3rd party. It's money wasted on an illusion. The people that buy a game because they're impatient for a crack to be released are want-stuff-now children, a sub-species of human that needs to be removed from the gene pool. Any real pirate will wait patiently for a proper crack to come out.

In essence, use a simple CD-key to install, no validations other than the algorithm. Use a separate .exe for single and multiplayer. Have the multiplayer one require a log-in to the non-mandatory registered account where you activated your CD-key (if you so chose). Have the single-player .exe require nothing to start.

Any more DRM is a waste of time and money, both of which are better spent making the actual game.

Side note: don't make the mistake of generalizing those dirty dirty pirates. You cannot, in your short lifetime, ever understand the motivations or thought processes of a single other person, let alone a group of people.
Many different factors make people pirate games (and other media, though I don't see the point in it). Yours is not to judge. Shun, vilify, hate us if you like, but don't ever presume to judge.

 

Aerionop, did you just admit that you are a pirate? You are advocating for a weaker defense from what I can see, why? Why not have things set up just like earthbound in a ways. You pirate the game, sure, play it but prepare for disappointment and headaches (some enemies not dying to your shots/swings in multiplayer or single, waiting longer to pick up loot in multiplayer if even being able to pick it up, ect.)

It's not 'that' hard to implement, sure, time and energy to make sure it doesn't backfire on the honest people who payed for what they are playing but i say its worth it. A ounce of deterrent is worth a pound of cash for the development team because if they have problems while playing, then they will either A.) Quit, B.) Buy C.) Complain or D.) Wait for a workaround while honest people play and enjoy the game.

 

Yes, poor eyesight, black flag and everything.

I honestly don't care what they do, I couldn't give less of a f*** about multiplayer, but any effort spent on some pathetic drm that will be cracked in a day or two at most is a waste. The only sure-fire way of blocking pirates from playing your game is to use an always-online always-suspicious always-verified drm, and look how well those that chose to use it are doing.

Point is, an indie dev should not waste their meager budget on this, not even big companies with huge budgets can win, it's pointless.

Whatever, they'll do whatever they think best, not my concern.

 

Always on, always verified DRM? They were cracked in SimCity after a week.

 

I just want that authenticated mode for servers. Actually it would be great if "pirated" and "verified" can co-exist, at least on my server I could make the offline mode players have read-only access