Atari offers time-limited full version of ToEE through... Kazaa?

[SA]

It is not a joke. I'm downloading it now. The file is 843mb in size
and works for 6 hours.

Is this a joke? I don't have Kazaa but I read about this on a ToEE message
board. Seems sort of left-field... but overall a good idea.

[Michael Cecil]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 22:34:16 +0100, Memnoch

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work for more
than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by rights should be
smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire thing when in 6 hours you
won't see any of it?

It's just a simple way of spreading the warez. You download the
official program, get the timelimit crack (no doubt appearing on
servers as we speak) and away you go into the world of hack and slash
bliss!

[LugoMan]

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work for

more

than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by rights should be
smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire thing when in 6 hours

you

won't see any of it?

From what I understand, it's the full game not a demo. You can unlock the
time limit if you liked the game for $50.

[chainbreaker]

Post by LugoMan

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work
for more than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by
rights should be smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire
thing when in 6 hours you won't see any of it?

From what I understand, it's the full game not a demo. You can unlock
the time limit if you liked the game for $50.

They must be mightily sure of their time-lock scheme to do something like
that. Not that it would make much difference regarding the pirates, but it
still takes cojones, IMO.

[Knight37]

Post by chainbreaker

Post by LugoMan

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work
for more than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by
rights should be smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire
thing when in 6 hours you won't see any of it?

From what I understand, it's the full game not a demo. You can unlock
the time limit if you liked the game for $50.

They must be mightily sure of their time-lock scheme to do something
like that. Not that it would make much difference regarding the
pirates, but it still takes cojones, IMO.

...

Its been done before. ID put out a Quake shareware CD-ROM that not only
allowed you to unlock via phone payment that game for the full version, but
also several DOOM versions Heretic and Hexen. Of course, it wasn't long
before it was hacked so that you could get the full versions of all of
those games without paying them anything if you had the disc and were so
inclined. I personally think unlock schemes are not very smart for the
above reason.

[Memnoch]

Post by LugoMan

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work for

more

than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by rights should be
smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire thing when in 6 hours

you

won't see any of it?

From what I understand, it's the full game not a demo. You can unlock the
time limit if you liked the game for $50.

That's not a bad idea I suppose.

[Ken Rice]

Post by SA
It is not a joke. I'm downloading it now. The file is 843mb in size
and works for 6 hours.

Is this a joke? I don't have Kazaa but I read about this on a ToEE message
board. Seems sort of left-field... but overall a good idea.

What is the site URL for downloading this file?

[Julie d'Aubigny]

Post by Ken Rice

Post by SA
It is not a joke. I'm downloading it now. The file is 843mb in size
and works for 6 hours.

Is this a joke? I don't have Kazaa but I read about this on a ToEE message
board. Seems sort of left-field... but overall a good idea.

What is the site URL for downloading this file?

I checked out on Kazaa and found no 843mb ToEE files, although I found
many of varying sizes purporting to be ToEE.

[Christopher Tong]

[The ToEE demo]

Post by Julie d'Aubigny

Post by Ken Rice
What is the site URL for downloading this file?

I checked out on Kazaa and found no 843mb ToEE files, although I found
many of varying sizes purporting to be ToEE.

You have to either search for ToEESetup.exe (on Kazaa-lite... hope
you're very patient) or get the full (ie. spywared) version of Kazaa and
click on the link to ToEE on the front page.

Chris

[Christopher Tong]

Post by Julie d'Aubigny
I checked out on Kazaa and found no 843mb ToEE files, although I found
many of varying sizes purporting to be ToEE.

Atari would have been far better advised to release ToEE through their own
Bittorrent tracker, which they could easily set up and host. This is exactly
the kind of convenient, cheap, secure, swarming P2P distribution scenario
Bittorrent was designed for.
By contrast, the Kazaa/Fasttrack network, which doesn't provide any kind of
hash/checksum verification for downloads, is a veritable holocaust of virii,
trojans and fakes. Be particularly suspicious of anything ending in .exe

...

It does have some sort of verification. The file is linked to from the
main page and has a little gold icon beside it. Also, the file is
downloaded directly from Kazaa's servers, not over the p2p network
(unless you're using Kazaa-lite). My recommendation is that if you want
this demo that badly, get the real Kazaa, install it somewhere far away
from k-lite and anything else you want secure, then, after you get the
download, uninstall Kazaa.

Chris

[Julie d'Aubigny]

Post by Christopher Tong
My recommendation is that if you want
this demo that badly, get the real Kazaa, install it somewhere far away
from k-lite and anything else you want secure, then, after you get the
download, uninstall Kazaa.

Ack! Don't do that, unless you have a spyware removal tool, i.e.
http://lavasoft.element5.com/software/adaware, handy. Uninstalling Kazaa
doesn't uninstall the nasties (or didn't).

There was one time installing Kazaa lite installed the spyware. Very
strange, very unseemly.

[The Posting One]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 17:08:15 +0800, "mr bernard langham"

Post by Christopher Tong
My recommendation is that if you want
this demo that badly, get the real Kazaa, install it somewhere far away
from k-lite and anything else you want secure, then, after you get the
download, uninstall Kazaa.

Ack! Don't do that, unless you have a spyware removal tool, i.e.
http://lavasoft.element5.com/software/adaware, handy. Uninstalling Kazaa
doesn't uninstall the nasties (or didn't).

A good firewall is your friend. It doesn't matter what spyware is
installed if it cannot make a connection.
Lynley

...

Except for when the spyware announces itself as "Microsoft Word is trying to
make a connection? Allow?" And everyone clicks Yes, because MS would only
have good intentions for connecting to the net with a word processor. In the
mean time it is a nasty icky virus. Also, I some spyware hooks right into
TCP/IP and tracks when a trusted connection is open and then piggybacks its
requests right after the trusted one, blowing past the firewall. Your only
friend is Ad-Aware (with updated reference files).

[Memnoch]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 17:08:15 +0800, "mr bernard langham"

Post by Christopher Tong
My recommendation is that if you want
this demo that badly, get the real Kazaa, install it somewhere far away
from k-lite and anything else you want secure, then, after you get the
download, uninstall Kazaa.

Ack! Don't do that, unless you have a spyware removal tool, i.e.
http://lavasoft.element5.com/software/adaware, handy. Uninstalling Kazaa
doesn't uninstall the nasties (or didn't).

Just use Kazaa Lite and you don't get the nasties at all.

[Memnoch]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 16:20:54 +0800, "mr bernard langham"

Post by Julie d'Aubigny
I checked out on Kazaa and found no 843mb ToEE files, although I found
many of varying sizes purporting to be ToEE.

Atari would have been far better advised to release ToEE through their own
Bittorrent tracker, which they could easily set up and host. This is exactly
the kind of convenient, cheap, secure, swarming P2P distribution scenario
Bittorrent was designed for.
By contrast, the Kazaa/Fasttrack network, which doesn't provide any kind of
hash/checksum verification for downloads, is a veritable holocaust of virii,
trojans and fakes. Be particularly suspicious of anything ending in .exe
In the absence of an official Atari Bittorrent stream, I'd suggest waiting
until the eMule community (through, probably, www.sharereactor.com) puts out
a verified, MD5 hash-secured, safe, working version of ToEE--then, at least
you know what you're downloading.

...

Problem with eMule is it is almost always interminably slow compared to Kazaa.
I have left downloads running for days and days and they never complete.
Always manage to be in a queue yet the buggers who I upload to are there all
the time 24/7!! Very annoying.

[Tonto]

Post by Ken Rice

Post by SA
It is not a joke. I'm downloading it now. The file is 843mb in size
and works for 6 hours.

Is this a joke? I don't have Kazaa but I read about this on a ToEE message
board. Seems sort of left-field... but overall a good idea.

What is the site URL for downloading this file?

Wouldn't let spyware like Kazaa anywhere near my system. I see the
warez version is being posted to alt.binaries.comp right now anyway :)

[Christopher Tong]

Post by SA
It is not a joke. I'm downloading it now. The file is 843mb in size
and works for 6 hours.

6 hours isn't a very long time... depending on how messy the rule system
is, I could spend 6 hours browsing the help. Particularly if they
jammed the entire D&D 3.5 ruleset into the game (how does scry affect
initiative on teleportation into combat?) Of course, this IS a D&D
CRPG, and based on how simple D&D CRPG rulesets have been, it shouldn't
be THAT complicated... Right?

Chris

[hammertstein]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 01:17:10 -0700, Christopher Tong

Post by Christopher Tong
6 hours isn't a very long time... depending on how messy the rule system
is, I could spend 6 hours browsing the help. Particularly if they
jammed the entire D&D 3.5 ruleset into the game (how does scry affect
initiative on teleportation into combat?) Of course, this IS a D&D
CRPG, and based on how simple D&D CRPG rulesets have been, it shouldn't
be THAT complicated... Right?

If it's for real I think it's a marvellous idea, but I personally
would have stuck it on the binary newsgroups, .nfo file and
everything. All they are doing is making sure the warez kiddies have
no defence in saying that they only download warez versions so they
can see how good a game is before they buy it. IMO 6 hours is ample
time for anyone to determine whether they are going to enjoy the game
or not, and it's also long enough for you to be nicely engrossed in
the story, and spring the wallet open the moment the game stops
working..

I admire cunning like this.

j.

[mr bernard langham]

Post by hammertstein
If it's for real I think it's a marvellous idea, but I personally
would have stuck it on the binary newsgroups, .nfo file and
everything. All they are doing is making sure the warez kiddies have
no defence in saying that they only download warez versions so they
can see how good a game is before they buy it. IMO 6 hours is ample
time for anyone to determine whether they are going to enjoy the game
or not, and it's also long enough for you to be nicely engrossed in
the story, and spring the wallet open the moment the game stops
working..

...

Or spring the "Search: ToEE time crack" the moment the game stops working.

[Magius]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 08:44:04 GMT, hammertstein

Post by hammertstein
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 01:17:10 -0700, Christopher Tong

Post by Christopher Tong
6 hours isn't a very long time... depending on how messy the rule system
is, I could spend 6 hours browsing the help. Particularly if they
jammed the entire D&D 3.5 ruleset into the game (how does scry affect
initiative on teleportation into combat?) Of course, this IS a D&D
CRPG, and based on how simple D&D CRPG rulesets have been, it shouldn't
be THAT complicated... Right?

If it's for real I think it's a marvellous idea, but I personally
would have stuck it on the binary newsgroups, .nfo file and
everything. All they are doing is making sure the warez kiddies have
no defence in saying that they only download warez versions so they
can see how good a game is before they buy it. IMO 6 hours is ample
time for anyone to determine whether they are going to enjoy the game
or not, and it's also long enough for you to be nicely engrossed in
the story, and spring the wallet open the moment the game stops
working..
I admire cunning like this.
j.

...

It is an interesting step and maybe a good one, but to be honest all
that's going to happen is that someone will post a crack to get rid of
the time limit and people will still have it without having paid for
the game.

Lynley

[The Posting One]

Post by hammertstein
On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 01:17:10 -0700, Christopher Tong

Post by Christopher Tong
6 hours isn't a very long time... depending on how messy the rule system
is, I could spend 6 hours browsing the help. Particularly if they
jammed the entire D&D 3.5 ruleset into the game (how does scry affect
initiative on teleportation into combat?) Of course, this IS a D&D
CRPG, and based on how simple D&D CRPG rulesets have been, it shouldn't
be THAT complicated... Right?

If it's for real I think it's a marvellous idea, but I personally
would have stuck it on the binary newsgroups, .nfo file and
everything. All they are doing is making sure the warez kiddies have
no defence in saying that they only download warez versions so they
can see how good a game is before they buy it. IMO 6 hours is ample
time for anyone to determine whether they are going to enjoy the game
or not, and it's also long enough for you to be nicely engrossed in
the story, and spring the wallet open the moment the game stops
working..
I admire cunning like this.
j.

...

Cunning? Somewhere in that file is a number that says "6" for hours, or
maybe "360" for minutes. Someone will increase that number to the max, or
most likely, just edit the code to always report back "6 hours are left!"

Atari just screwed themselves and Troika (I am sure it wasn't their idea)
royally by doing half the work that the pirates usually do.

My only question is: no CD check?

[hammertstein]

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 14:24:43 GMT, "The Posting One"

Post by The Posting One
Cunning? Somewhere in that file is a number that says "6" for hours, or
maybe "360" for minutes. Someone will increase that number to the max, or
most likely, just edit the code to always report back "6 hours are left!"
Atari just screwed themselves and Troika (I am sure it wasn't their idea)
royally by doing half the work that the pirates usually do.
My only question is: no CD check?

Look, fairlight and deviance have both already released the warez
version and it can be gotten off of the newsgroups by anyone with half
a brain. In there is the nocd crack...so, if you know where to look
you can get it all for free. Atari have not in any way helped these
guys, or even affected how they work, they were way ahead of atari
anyway.

I didn't consider a 6 hour limit as the cunning part of this endeavor,
I consider the fact that they are beating the p to p warez dudez to
the punch by distributing the whole thing first (albeit in a
restricted form) the cunning part. They are giving people what they
want, and they will almost definitely make money from this venture,
even if only 1 person actually pays up.....The people that weren't
going to pay up have probably already gotten the warez version from
the newsgroups, or are searching for the crack before they even start
to play.

Atari have no overheads for this action, and will probably make more
sales because of it....people that buy games will buy the game, people
that download games as warez versions will use the newsgroups as
before...those people that download the kazaa versions, or the demo
versions may well download this version, and a percentage of them will
pay up.

j.

[hammertstein]

IMO 6 hours is ample time for anyone to determine
whether they are going to enjoy the game or not

Are you kidding? Six hours is barely enough time to roll up a party of
characters! (actually, judging by the amount of space that reviews
devote to character generation, maybe that's enough...)

If I'm six hours into a game and I'm still trying to figure out if I
like it, chances are good that I don't ;o)

j.

[Brian Christopher Robinson]

Post by Christopher Tong
6 hours isn't a very long time... depending on how messy the rule system
is, I could spend 6 hours browsing the help. Particularly if they
jammed the entire D&D 3.5 ruleset into the game (how does scry affect
initiative on teleportation into combat?) Of course, this IS a D&D
CRPG, and based on how simple D&D CRPG rulesets have been, it shouldn't
be THAT complicated... Right?

Yeah, it took me about 4 hours to do the tutorial, create characters, and
explore the majority of the town before I even had my first combat. 6
hours would just give you a taste of the game.

[p_conrad]

Post by Brian Christopher Robinson

Post by Christopher Tong
6 hours isn't a very long time... depending on how messy the rule system
is, I could spend 6 hours browsing the help. Particularly if they
jammed the entire D&D 3.5 ruleset into the game (how does scry affect
initiative on teleportation into combat?) Of course, this IS a D&D
CRPG, and based on how simple D&D CRPG rulesets have been, it shouldn't
be THAT complicated... Right?

Yeah, it took me about 4 hours to do the tutorial, create characters, and
explore the majority of the town before I even had my first combat. 6
hours would just give you a taste of the game.

...

I don't know about you, but playing it as a demo, I wouldn't fully
explore the character building options. I'd just crank out a team of
adequate guys to see if it works at all and then go looking for
combat. Provided I could find combat quickly, and talk to a few
villagers, I'd know in a couple of hours if I was interested in buying
it or not.

But then again, six hours is a lot of time in my world. I buy a lot
of games that never earn six hours of my free time, which is far more
precious than money for me these days.


PBC

m.m.m.m.m.m.m....What was my e-mail address?

[Darin Johnson]

Post by Brian Christopher Robinson
Yeah, it took me about 4 hours to do the tutorial, create characters, and
explore the majority of the town before I even had my first combat. 6
hours would just give you a taste of the game.

6 hours is over 3 days of playing time! Not everyone sits down for a
6 hour session when playing a game. That's longer than my typical
work day :-)

Oh wait, some of you are stuck at home because of a hurricane and have
nothing to do...

[Ken Rice]

Post by Darin Johnson

Post by Brian Christopher Robinson
Yeah, it took me about 4 hours to do the tutorial, create characters, and
explore the majority of the town before I even had my first combat. 6
hours would just give you a taste of the game.

6 hours is over 3 days of playing time! Not everyone sits down for a
6 hour session when playing a game. That's longer than my typical
work day :-)
Oh wait, some of you are stuck at home because of a hurricane and have
nothing to do...

That is true, but instead of playing a CRPG for the last four hours, we have
been discussing the merits of a whole house back-up electrical generator.

[YanquiDawg]

It's the full game.You can pay with a credit card and get a key to unlock it.

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work for more
than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by rights should be
smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire thing when in 6 hours you
won't see any of it?

[Alexander Mars]

You have to download more files if you decide to buy in that way, the demo
lacks some sound and video files. I think the second d/l is 400MB.

Date: 9/18/2003 11:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time
It's the full game.You can pay with a credit card and get a key to unlock it.

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work for more
than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by rights should be
smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire thing when in 6 hours

you

won't see any of it?

-Well, God was my co-pilot....but we crashed into a mountain and I had to eat
Him.

www.atar.com/alexmars (yet another useless web site)

[Russell Wallace]

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 22:34:16 +0100, Memnoch

If I wanted to download something that big I would want it to work for more
than 6 hours! Nothing more than a demo really, which by rights should be
smaller. What's the point of downloading the entire thing when in 6 hours you
won't see any of it?

Unless your ISP charges by the megabyte, it doesn't matter how big the
file is. I find I'm clear about whether I'm going to like a game
within one hour let alone six, so it strikes me as a clever idea. But
if you're going to run a program downloaded from Kazaa, I'd be careful
about exactly where it comes from.