Everyone seems to be talking about how easy this will be to pirate. I think the solution is fairly obvious:
Buffer the parts of the game that, if delayed, would slow down gameplay (textures, sounds, etc). Leave much of the logic on the server. This will allow for a responsive gaming experience while keeping key parts of the code away from crackers. It can be fairly trivial to crack "offline" forms of copy protection, but if the crackers need to rewrite entire AI routines, I think they'll look elsewhere. You can't crack code that you don't have.
BTW, this is the same reason why.NET programs *should* be difficult to crack.
Your Orwellian.sig is incompatible with your litigous opinions. That you quote a novel about governmental oppression (1984) while simultaneously advocating government intervention is absolutely hilarious.
"Microsoft... decide[s] to implement encryption/authentication in their browsers that only accept (sic) data from... IIS"
Your scenario is absurd. Microsoft, a publicly reviled company that was almost broken up due to anticompetitive practices, will now take over the Internet with a strategy that will turn everyone against them. Furthermore, if "M$ suxorz" so much, then it shouldn't be difficult to break their encryption, should it?
The transparency of your "slippery slope" rhetoric should be obvious to even the staunchest "M$" basher. But apparently, it is not. Instead, our moderators have chosen to let their bias show through, by giving your post a +4. Although I have thorougly rebutted your pathetic argument, we all know it's unlikely that my post will be so well-received.
I want to congratulate the Linux community on the TPC win. As an avid fan of SQL Server 2000, I must respect the TPC results. However, I find it interesting that the TPC was said to be a worthless benchmark by most "M$" bashers until Linux came out on top.
d00derz!!! Now we can get 320x240 without giving M$ a penny! d00d, I'm s0000 glad we can get a reflective screen without supporting Micro$oft. Bill Gates $uxorz!
Umm, SQL Server doesn't use the Jet engine. Jet is the Access database engine. SQL Server uses *surprise* the SQL Server engine. Furthermore, a MySQL backend is NOT faster than a SQL Server backend. I don't know where you got your information. No offense.
Then you're an agnostic. People who believe there is no God are atheists. People who never think about God or don't "know" there is no God are agnostics.
For the record, I'm a Deist.
Virtually EVERY software company does this. As usual, most of the comments on Slashdot read as though M$ is the only one engaging in a given (negative) practise.
In fact, your beloved Sun Microsystems, without whom your precious "M$" anti-trust lawsuit would not be funded, engages in the very same practise.
I'm not condoning the policy. I'm just tired of hearing about how evil "M$" is and how wonderful all other companies are.
However, I'm sure my voice will fall upon deaf ears and closed minds.
The funniest thing about eco-liberals is that so many of them drive gas-guzzling SUVs. That, and they actually want to increase the size of the biggest polluter of all - the US government.
I'm sure we'll eventually see region-encoding for websites anyway. Uncensored access to information is too dangerous to last.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 running on 2000
on
A Letter from 2020
·
· Score: 1
I would expect the socialists at SlashDot to embrace this sort of drivel. Windows NT (pick your version) does not crash any more than *NIX. Moderate me down, socialist motherfucker.
Umm, hasn't the world figured out that socialism doesn't work? Show me a successful socialist country.
[insert long silence here]
I know socialism makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but is that more important than rewarding human excellence? Do we want to turn the most powerful country in the world into a grand experiment? There are only two reasons why you would want to interfere with our current working system:
1. You are inferior, and therefore you aren't making any money.
2. You feel bad because you aren't inferior.
Nader = Lamer
This doesn't change the fact that PalmOS sucks
on
Speak To Your Palm
·
· Score: 1
Linux and PocketPC are superior OSs [please note, the proper way to pluralize an acronym is NOT to use an apostrophe:-]. Both OSs can be programmed in modern, fourth-generation languages like Perl and VB (see footnote). Linux can (of course) be extended to accomplish virtually anything, so no more really needs to be said about the advantages of Linux as a handheld platform.
Evaluating PocketPC, however, requires careful steps to ensure objectivity:
1. Pretend that Microsoft didn't make PocketPC. Instead, let's pretend that the OS was written by a company called . . . say . . . Obscure Systems.
2. Open this site in another browser window (or another instance of Lynx, if you're too l33t 4 a br0wz3r).
3. Pretend that instead of an ASP page it's acutally a PHP page.
4. Pretend that instead of being hosted at obscure.com, it's instead hosted at CommandLine.com.
5. Substitute all instances of the words "Microsft" and "PocketPC" and "Internet Explorer" with "Obscure" and "Winux" and "Netscape", respectively.
6. Read the comparison carefully.
7. After making absolutely sure that you have followed the above steps, draw conclusions about PocketPC, er, "Winux".
Footnote:
Before you say that VB sucks, please remember that it is by far the world's most popular programming language. To save you the embarrassment of claiming that VB doesn't even support inheritance, 0bjectiv3 reminds the informed reader that VB7 will support true inheritance, thus making it completely OO capable. VB7 will also allow for static linking and better error handling.
The benchmarks are irrelevant unless conducted by the TPC. Last time I checked, MS held the top 45 spots in TPC-C price/performance and 4 of the top 5 spots in TPC-C performance.
Technical decision makers have the obligation to rationally evaluate all potential solutions without personal bias. Our decisions should be solely based upon a product's merits. That's why I don't care what any of the companies do, so long as their products meet my customers' needs. For all I care, Bill Gates can be a racist child-molesting serial killer. It's still a fact that the TPC-C records for performance and value are absolutely DOMINATED by MS SQL Server and Windows 2000. Stop whining and get over it. Oh, and visit http://www.tpc.org ! Mmmmmmkay???
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone seems to be talking about how easy this will be to pirate. I think the solution is fairly obvious:
.NET programs *should* be difficult to crack.
Buffer the parts of the game that, if delayed, would slow down gameplay (textures, sounds, etc). Leave much of the logic on the server. This will allow for a responsive gaming experience while keeping key parts of the code away from crackers. It can be fairly trivial to crack "offline" forms of copy protection, but if the crackers need to rewrite entire AI routines, I think they'll look elsewhere. You can't crack code that you don't have.
BTW, this is the same reason why
Your Orwellian .sig is incompatible with your litigous opinions. That you quote a novel about governmental oppression (1984) while simultaneously advocating government intervention is absolutely hilarious.
... decide[s] to implement encryption/authentication in their browsers that only accept (sic) data from ... IIS"
"Microsoft
Your scenario is absurd. Microsoft, a publicly reviled company that was almost broken up due to anticompetitive practices, will now take over the Internet with a strategy that will turn everyone against them. Furthermore, if "M$ suxorz" so much, then it shouldn't be difficult to break their encryption, should it?
The transparency of your "slippery slope" rhetoric should be obvious to even the staunchest "M$" basher. But apparently, it is not. Instead, our moderators have chosen to let their bias show through, by giving your post a +4. Although I have thorougly rebutted your pathetic argument, we all know it's unlikely that my post will be so well-received.
I want to congratulate the Linux community on the TPC win. As an avid fan of SQL Server 2000, I must respect the TPC results. However, I find it interesting that the TPC was said to be a worthless benchmark by most "M$" bashers until Linux came out on top.
Oh well, at least we can agree on something now.
d00derz!!! Now we can get 320x240 without giving M$ a penny! d00d, I'm s0000 glad we can get a reflective screen without supporting Micro$oft. Bill Gates $uxorz!
Umm, SQL Server doesn't use the Jet engine. Jet is the Access database engine. SQL Server uses *surprise* the SQL Server engine. Furthermore, a MySQL backend is NOT faster than a SQL Server backend. I don't know where you got your information. No offense.
Then you're an agnostic. People who believe there is no God are atheists. People who never think about God or don't "know" there is no God are agnostics. For the record, I'm a Deist.
"Morris' top-secret "Project Sherman," which comprised a superstar group of antitrust authorities, would span three months and consume $3 million of Sun's money."
It's in bold, around halfway down the page.
Virtually EVERY software company does this. As usual, most of the comments on Slashdot read as though M$ is the only one engaging in a given (negative) practise.
In fact, your beloved Sun Microsystems, without whom your precious "M$" anti-trust lawsuit would not be funded, engages in the very same practise.
I'm not condoning the policy. I'm just tired of hearing about how evil "M$" is and how wonderful all other companies are.
However, I'm sure my voice will fall upon deaf ears and closed minds.
Don't read everything you believe . . .
They probably figured out a way to make it only play Sony CD-R discs.
The funniest thing about eco-liberals is that so many of them drive gas-guzzling SUVs. That, and they actually want to increase the size of the biggest polluter of all - the US government.
I'm sure we'll eventually see region-encoding for websites anyway. Uncensored access to information is too dangerous to last.
I would expect the socialists at SlashDot to embrace this sort of drivel. Windows NT (pick your version) does not crash any more than *NIX. Moderate me down, socialist motherfucker.
Umm, hasn't the world figured out that socialism doesn't work? Show me a successful socialist country.
[insert long silence here]
I know socialism makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but is that more important than rewarding human excellence? Do we want to turn the most powerful country in the world into a grand experiment? There are only two reasons why you would want to interfere with our current working system:
1. You are inferior, and therefore you aren't making any money.
2. You feel bad because you aren't inferior.
Nader = Lamer
Linux and PocketPC are superior OSs [please note, the proper way to pluralize an acronym is NOT to use an apostrophe :-]. Both OSs can be programmed in modern, fourth-generation languages like Perl and VB (see footnote). Linux can (of course) be extended to accomplish virtually anything, so no more really needs to be said about the advantages of Linux as a handheld platform.
Evaluating PocketPC, however, requires careful steps to ensure objectivity:
1. Pretend that Microsoft didn't make PocketPC. Instead, let's pretend that the OS was written by a company called . . . say . . . Obscure Systems.
2. Open this site in another browser window (or another instance of Lynx, if you're too l33t 4 a br0wz3r).
3. Pretend that instead of an ASP page it's acutally a PHP page.
4. Pretend that instead of being hosted at obscure.com, it's instead hosted at CommandLine.com.
5. Substitute all instances of the words "Microsft" and "PocketPC" and "Internet Explorer" with "Obscure" and "Winux" and "Netscape", respectively.
6. Read the comparison carefully.
7. After making absolutely sure that you have followed the above steps, draw conclusions about PocketPC, er, "Winux".
Footnote:
Before you say that VB sucks, please remember that it is by far the world's most popular programming language. To save you the embarrassment of claiming that VB doesn't even support inheritance, 0bjectiv3 reminds the informed reader that VB7 will support true inheritance, thus making it completely OO capable. VB7 will also allow for static linking and better error handling.
The benchmarks are irrelevant unless conducted by the TPC. Last time I checked, MS held the top 45 spots in TPC-C price/performance and 4 of the top 5 spots in TPC-C performance.
Technical decision makers have the obligation to rationally evaluate all potential solutions without personal bias. Our decisions should be solely based upon a product's merits. That's why I don't care what any of the companies do, so long as their products meet my customers' needs. For all I care, Bill Gates can be a racist child-molesting serial killer. It's still a fact that the TPC-C records for performance and value are absolutely DOMINATED by MS SQL Server and Windows 2000. Stop whining and get over it. Oh, and visit http://www.tpc.org ! Mmmmmmkay???