Bioshock - Demo on the Way?

so basically, no one else is looking forward to the demo...
 
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KasperFauerby if you are a Dev then I shouldn't have used the word, industry shill, appoligies.

I am indeed a Dev, but not on Bioshock. In any case - appology accepted! It seems it was not your intent to offend me, but it can sometimes be hard to see from a post on a forum.

"Why? Don't you have Internet? The only people I can see would have a problem with online activation would be the pirates",

This statement could resonalbly be taken as saying," if you have a connection and your against online regestration, you would be a pirate".

Ok - that was not my intent. I merely meant that, as I've argued for in my previous post, it is such a minor issue to activate a product over the Internet for most people that only pirates would be annoyed (and as many has mentioned, they probably wont - because the crackers can remove online activation checks as well).
 
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I'm not a pirate
I'm not worried about someone stealing my personal information
I have an internet connection and I'm not worried about connecting my gaming machine to the internet.

BUT I have a major problem with online activation. I like to play my games whenever I want. Sometimes I play them years after they were released and after their developer or publisher has gone out of business.

Since I already bought the game, that shouldn't be a problem right? Well if the game has to connect to their servers just to install it, it's a problem. Nobody has ever been able to give me an answer to this problem except that they wouldn't care if their old games didn't work any more. Well I do care. I keep a large game collection, and I hate the fact that more an more of that collection will only be usable for the short term. I don't blame companies for trying to stop piracy, but I do wish they could come up with ways that don't affect honest buyers so much.
 
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@Raldor:

That's exactly what I was going to say. I brought up the same point way back on rpgdot.

I have no problem when companies want to protect their software, but they need to do it in such a way that it doesn't inconvenience their paying customers.

Because we all know very well that there is practically no copy protection system that is going to stop pirates. All the software developers are doing is creating more entertainment for the pirates, and more headaches for their customers.

To be fair though, I really don't think it's the software developers fault. I think if it was up to software developers, most of them would choose not to use such systems. I think most of the time the publishers or other related entities force them to put such systems in place because they are more concerned with the bottom line than the customer, and publishers are far less in touch with how worthless copy protection really is.
 
To be fair though, I really don't think it's the software developers fault. I think if it was up to software developers, most of them would choose not to use such systems.

Yeah, because we all know that most software developers are completely selfless, altruistic, generous, self-forgetting entities that do not want to make money from selling their games :rolleyes: .
 
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@Moriendor

You miss my point completely. But then I expect no less from trolls. ;)
 
@Moriendor

You miss my point completely. But then I expect no less from trolls. ;)

Aw, I'm sooo seriously offended now. Me thinks little Mo is gonna cry himself to sleep tonight.
 
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I was not trying to offend you Mr. Moriendor. Simply stating a fact.

I posted a perfectly civil comment stating my opinions, and you post a very sarcastic a rude comment which you could have quite reasonably stated in a much more civil manner.

I did not (and still do not) feel like ending up in an argument with a troll, which is why I didn't counterpoint you.

If you want to have a *civil* conversation, feel free to post like a civil human being.
 
Or a sexy anthropomorphic fox.
 
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I have to agree with Mo here, at least in spirit. Unlike Raldor I am afraid.

I don't register games, or anywhere, thanks to hefty amount of spam I get in my box and the 5 people every night who want me to refinance my house with them.

Let's not forget the guy who spent $50 of my money in Peteluma. I've never stopped in Peteluma.

To say its not a big deal then either you probably haven't heard about BankOfAmerica's jpg cookie that linked to Doubleclick or American Express selling their names database to interested parties.

Don't try to downplay this Kaspar. I don't know you or anyone I could be giving my name to. Do you give your real name, address, phone number, or Social Security to anyone?

Maybe I'm wrong. If you can't trust a stranger you never met except on the internet, who can you trust?
 
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Lucky Day,

You live in the US. Everything you noted isn't up to the banks, it's governed by federal regulations, such as E, C, D, and CC. Even information sharing between inter company (say between bank of america's deposit services and boa's credit card, heloc, morgage, investment, or business or personal loan/loc departments) or 3rd party. You can opt out. When it comes to online banking and site redirecting it has to fall under those, so if there was a breach, boa is liable.

For instance, some company had an info breach, and has no web capacity (I keep thinking cenega or citrix, buts it's neither of course, but starts with a C for sure). The last big breach was due to someone leaving a lap top somewhere. In order to open a bank account you need a social (or TIN for a business) or the heb, visa crap, so your bank has to have a social, other than that, just don't provide it and make sure to call your bank and they disenroll you from all forms of info sharing.

How your debit card and credit card work has nothing to do with your bank, and is 100% governed by visa or amex. For instance, lets say you have 5k in the bank. You write a check for 5k to pay whatever, buy something online right after for 5k. The merchant authorization hold only lasts one business day, so when it fals off your account shows at 5k avialable balance. The check presents and clears. The next day the bank is presented with the reciept for the online purchase, since it was accepted at the time of purchase it has to be paid, regardless of how much it overdrafts the account. The bank cannot return it or refuse payment to the merchant and the merchant is guaranteed their funds (even if it was a blatantly fraudulent trasnaction after the fact, as long as they didn't breach their duty to verify customer accourding to transaction amount). Thats why accounts can be so overdrawn now, and why Credit Cards can be overextended on the credit lines and the customer complains why it was allowed to go through. We'll, at the time of purchase the bank saw available credit or funds and then recieved a different reciept after the fact.

When I worked for bank of america there was a huge problem with old people and their inability to understand the new check clearing regulation. They would scream and yell that they weren't getting their checks returned with their statements. We'll, whatever the reg name is, merchants can make a electronic copy of your check and then electronically draft your account, but legally has to destroy the original copy of the check. The bank never gets the check back to send back to you, or an image, the merchant has it on file, and has to for 7 years. They don't get it because they are old and slow and taught that if they yell load and become annoying enough things will happen to shut them up, which is true to things that can be changed, but in that case in can't.

Purchasing online does not put your account in any more risk than not. The safest way to not worry about anything is to use a po box so you don't have to worry about mail theft, and don't use a wallet or purse, and always use cash. But if you have mail sent to your house and you carry a wallet or purse around, online transactions are a small worry. When i worked for bank of america the biggest online problem was people getting an email from bank of america asking them to submit all this info (like social, etc) for account verification or some other reason, which of course never was bank of america, but was just a fraudulent e-mail phishing for stupid people to actually submit that.

I'm 100% safe because I have all my crap under fake names. Its easy to beat the system if you know how it works. SOme advise to keep your accounts safe no matter what:

Open online accounts with slightly false info, or even blatantly false info. If you earn less than $10 interest you don't and won't need a 1099 or 98, so the bank or goverment doesn't care about you or your business. Make sure you have a different address listed for the debit card than your stament mailing address (if possible). Under the patroit act banks have to have a physical address for you on profile, even if you have mail sent to a po box. That way when someone tries to buy something online, it will be denied because the shipping or billing address is diffferent than the one on file with visa and the bank, even if your actual address/mailing address has been compromised along with your other fake info on the false name account.

No need to watch your accounts like a hawk. You have sixty days to file a claim through your bank. If you see $50 spent at peteluma and it seems fishy, call up, once its posted, and put in a claim. You should have $50 temp credit that day, and you'll need to fax in some info before it turns perminent, but you'll get it with minimal fuse and/or hasle.

Sometimes, it will be authorized. For instance, if you go to old navy it shows up as gap in like Wisconsin, because gap owns old navy and their financing department is with their HQ in like Wisconsin. If you make a payment to MBNA it might show up as bank of america or priority card services in a state you've never been in before. Just call up and find out.

The lion's majority of fraudulent activity on a debit card is through theft. Its stolen and you see a bunch of gas and mcdonald's purchases that equal about $20-100 before the card is blocked by the bank due to fraud protection. The lion's share of claims put in aren't even unauthorized or fruadulent activity, its authorized. For instance, I had an account with blockbuster. One day there was a debit for like $100 on my account from blockbuster. I put in a claim through my bank, and got a fax back with the agreement I signed with blockbuster that indeed did state that if my account with them had an outstanding balance for over 1 year, they could debit my account with a debit card number they had on file. Wily bastards. But they got me fair and square.

The other problem is loan or check cashing places. They have you sing all this crap that basically authorizes them to draft your account whenever they want for whatever they want. And they are geniuses when it comes to getting around stop payments. They drop the amount down a penny, switch the words in their name around, and submit drafts electronically through a banks ACH department, etc.

Well, I could go on and on, but the moral is, online isn't unsafe, and is actually safe if you aren't stupid and just send anyone who asks for info info. Lie, lie, lie. Having a wallet, purse, or having mail sent to a physical address is a lot riskier in reality. And older people tend to have a 1995 mindset still and fail to understand that a lot of goverment heavy handedness has come down when it comes to online transactions. Read reg E.

I'm sure no one sane read this whole thing, but if you did you must be even more bored than I am. Well, anyway, I'll stop now.
 
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Why? Don't you have Internet? :) The only people I can see would have a problem with online activation would be the pirates - otherwise it's just a transparent part of the normal installation. Most people with a computer that can run Bioshock is probably connected to the net constantly - I know I've been for the last 8 years or so...

Sorry, but to me that's the opinion of an overfed person - overfed with the newest technology, especially the Internet.

My biggest gripe against Internet connections is that in rural areas telecommunications companies and cable companies rarely invest - too few people, too many conservative people (the environment shapes the people), too long cables needed or too many antennas for WLAN, too few DSL connections, too many people who are still connected via the fgood old telephone.

I know similar areas.

I know areas that are far away from the nearest town and let's vase it : telecommunications companies just hate to place loooooong cables with their invest comingback to them in maybe 10 years. Okay, I'm exaggerationg, but you know, companies are mainly interested in short-term return of investment, not in long-term return of investment (we here in Germany call such companies which are only interested in short-term return of investment "Heuschrecken" = Locusts, Grasshoppers, which go to one place, eat, then go to the next place).

I don't know how much time the so-called "internet connections" might need, but through good old MOdem connections, time is money. And not all companies are willing here to grand their customers flat-rates. The number of them is increasing yes, but we are still away from the ideal of low-cost connection rates.

In towns, yes, things are different. lotsa of DSL connections, high speed, low cost, fast return of investment for communication companies. So - are gamers mostly townspeople ? Is this all in all kind of an discrimination of people from rural areas over townspeople ?

In the big, huge high-tech envirionments people simply seem to forget where things come from. Town childen of today don't know where their milk comes from. How cows look like. Where the wheat comes from. How grain gorws. How people live in rural areas.

High tech makes people forget that. Instead, they take things totally naturally for granted which wouldn't be that, if they'd take a much closer look.

And I don't like internet activations as well, because I don't know whether a company might still exist within the next 10 years.
You might laugh. What about Sierra ? What about there WON onlöine service ? What about CompuServe ? What about MSN beforte it because the MSN we know today ? What about Westwood ? With their well-known series of Command & Conquer ? Nox ? Kyrandia ? Nox has still a "check for online updates" funcion included, that doesn't work, of course, anymore.

To me, taking things for granted is similar a thought pattern that is - to me, personally - just too superficial.
 
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I'm arrogant? No. I'm tired. Tired of the personal insults and threats game fans hurl at each other and at game devs. Complaining about a game is one thing, but threats and insults are over the line. Even something as mild as "corporate schill" is one straw too many for this camel's back.
 
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Boy, some major disturbances in this thread. Let's bring it down a notch, huh?

Anyway, from my perspective, this is my preferred form of anti-piracy measure. I know some of you have all sorts of arguments about how any anti-piracy measure is a waste of time but the absolute reality is that publishers are going to seek to protect their assets in some way or another.

I would rather an online activation that will take me ten seconds (probably even on a dial-up line - c'mon, we're talking about activation here, not downloading the whole game) than CD-based measures that we have all argued against a million times.
 
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so basically, no one else is looking forward to the demo...

I never said that I aint lookin forward to it homeboy, I'm just kinda scared of it. The damn thing is prolly going to be 12 GB and make my (id like to think) still relatively powerful 3.4ghz 2GB 7800GT overclocked-far-as-it-can-be system go all slideshowy on me.

If anything, it very well may serve as a great benchmarking tool for my next pc
 
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Since I only get 12 GB a month downloads, any demo that large wouldn't even enter my considerations!! :)
 
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Don't try to downplay this Kaspar. I don't know you or anyone I could be giving my name to. Do you give your real name, address, phone number, or Social Security to anyone?

He heh, relax :) Why do you guys keep talking about giving out all this sensitive personal information? The discussion was about online *activation* - most likely a process where the game connects to some server for a hand-shake. If Bioshock decides to ask for my bank account or social security number - then I would indeed be scared!! :)

Sorry, but to me that's the opinion of an overfed person - overfed with the newest technology, especially the Internet.

In the big, huge high-tech envirionments people simply seem to forget where things come from. Town childen of today don't know where their milk comes from. How cows look like. Where the wheat comes from. How grain gorws. How people live in rural areas.

Whoa! We do get around in this discussion, don't we? I argued that online activation isn't such a bad thing - and that's led to me being an overfed super-techie that doesn't know what a cow looks like?? :)

I'm sorry - but in my world, calling the Internet the "newest technology" just doesn't make any sense. I'm well aware that many people still aren't connected to the net - but it *has* been around for quite some time and by now many, many people are indeed connected, all over the world. I remember walking around in a poor fishing village just outside Luxor in Egypt a few years ago. People were living in primitive huts, baking bread over open fires in the streets, and still - over a worn-down door leading into one the huts were a sign saying: "Internet" :) In any case, an online gaming forum seems to be a strange place to discuss whether or not the Internet is available for gamers :)
 
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You haven't heard of the Westerwald in Germany, have you ? Lots of woods and fields, no industry, except at some towns.

Major income for centuries : Stone. And Clay. Nothing else.
 
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He heh, relax :) Why do you guys keep talking about giving out all this sensitive personal information? The discussion was about online *activation* - most likely a process where the game connects to some server for a hand-shake. If Bioshock decides to ask for my bank account or social security number - then I would indeed be scared!! :)

All right I'll concede to you and roqua. Maybe I'm going too far. Its just that I've seen several of companies make claims just to sell you on the idea to get your personal information.

There's a lot of money it getting people's personal information and the large companies know it too. Intel had the serial code on the PIII and ran ads to get people to get people to go to their website. Sony had that rootkit fiasco, etc. Heck, my own job made $10 million one year then $20 million the next by data mining their customers until the majority realized what was going on. Even their vendor couldn't convince them to stick with it.

I will say this though. Why should such a useful tool be taken advantage of to put up another roadblock to an honest buyer. Things like this get frustrating and there was no need for this this before. Its like being punished for having something decent.
 
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