HL2 Safeguards

[Draklyne]

Half Life came with a CD key, and, in counterstrike at least, generated a different WONid. My question is, will half life be similarly protected? What systems can they possibly use to prevent pirating? There are CD protections, serial numbers, possibly accounts...
anyone have any idea? any links or news?

PS I'm just curious - I'm gonna buy the game, in case you were wondering

 

[bx|ch3f_0z]

good question , Im thinking they may go along the same lines. PB matching wonids. But i would like to see something new. Maybe more of a indebth account with more personal info pc specs matching of some sort. OR just a longer serial number. hehe

 

[SpuD]

Or they could give the game out for free, then no one would steal it.

 

[sickbits]

I've always said 2 CD-keys are the way to go, one for when you install the game, and another CD-key for playing online.

To get the 2nd CD-key send off with your details and sign a forum saying you won't cheat. After that you get sent your online cd-key that only works with you install CD-key.

If you cheat your online cd-key is banned for 7 weeks or something like that.

This would stop most all of the public cheating. Just think, people would think twice about cheating if valve had there address and if couldn't just use another cd-key.

And not forgetting cut down on copying.

 

[Munro]

Your wonid can already be deactivated for periods of time from 'secure' servers using valves anti cheat.

 

[sickbits]

Yes, i know.

But you can also change your CD-key and wonid.

 

[The Mullinator]

Its too early to know what Valve has up its sleeve when it comes to anti-cheating. Im sure whatever they have will do the job just fine though.

 

[figge]

Rainbow6 3 Raven Shield has a good system
If you want to play online you need to have a CD-Key, you can't even play on LAN without a legit Key...
...The Game sends a query to a database: "is this a legit CD-Key?"
if yes then continue...

 

[The Mullinator]

They shouldn't do that for LAN's because that means everyone has to connect to the internet, something that could slow everything down at LAN parties.

 

[SidewinderX]

Raven shelid had a good idea, but i'd say take out the LAN part....

Even if you buy it via steam, you would be given a cd key anyway.

 

[derby]

I seriously worry about anti cheat software. Valve's current anti cheat is known for banning people when they weren't actually cheating (due to memory corruption). It is really unfair to be banned from using a product that you paid for because of one of these 'false positives'

I would rather see a less strict system, perhaps a warning for first offense instead of a ban, as the chances of one person getting two false positives are very low.

 

[SpuD]

But its a 2 hour ban right now....

 

[Zerimski]

I like the WONID system, anbd I hope they use something similar as it makes banning very very simple.

 

[SidewinderX]

or they can include soemthing like americas army has. cleaner.exe, which is a program that resets your system files to the default, so a) you dont get falsly accuseed of cheating, and b) to remove cheats you might have.

 

[The Mullinator]

Wouldn't that make it difficult for some mods to work?

 

[SidewinderX]

ahh true. i forgot that there ar eno mods for aa. jsut forget my previous post.