"free version of fantasy grounds"

[Davi]

Hi.

In Orkut I have a community of FG 2, and in another community also about FG, (they call them selves official), there are a post offering a "free" version of FG2. It is allocated in pirate bay. Is there anything you guys can do about it?

I hope everybody that uses pays, it is the only way to have an always evolving FG

Thanks.

[Valarian]

Not a lot us other users can do about it (other than boycotting the web site), but if you can send details (web site link etc.) to the support email address ([email protected]). I'm sure that the developers would be very interested in talking to whomever is involved.

Other than the demo available here, there is no free version of FGII.

[joedog96]

Darn thepiratebay, they strike again....

I am a paying player, and It just tears me to see that people are playing free (illegally) on something I payed for.

Dissapointing.

[Doswelk]

Hi.

In Orkut I have a community of FG 2, and in another community also about FG, (they call them selves official), there are a post offering a "free" version of FG2. It is allocated in pirate bay. Is there anything you guys can do about it?

I hope everybody that uses pays, it is the only way to have an always evolving FG

Thanks.

Indeed may anybody who downloads that and uses FGII without playing have numerous nasty things happen to them!

That said unless the download contains a keygen it's not going to be much use, as FGII will not connect if there are duplicate serial numbers.

[Spyke]

That said unless the download contains a keygen it's not going to be much use, as FGII will not connect if there are duplicate serial numbers.

And presumably it would not be beyond the wit of man to update FG so that it would never connect to an identified pirate version.

Thinking about this, it would surely be possible to use the Update feature to disable an identified pirate version.

Spyke

[Valarian]

I like that idea. With FGII relying on the update feature, it shouldn't be too hard to blacklist installations. All you'd have to do is ban the update really. One update down the line and all the pirates have to play with are other pirates.

[Spyke]

I like that idea. With FGII relying on the update feature, it shouldn't be too hard to blacklist installations. All you'd have to do is ban the update really. One update down the line and all the pirates have to play with are other pirates.

Exactly, and they'll only be able to play with pirates who happen to have separate unidentified versions.

Spyke

[EugeneZ]

Honestly, I'd rather see Smiteworks spending their development time fixing some of the problems with FG2 and adding more features. Battling piracy is a fight all developers will always lose. The smaller you are, the more time (money) you are wasting trying to fight it.

Blacklisting is a fine idea but it's one step away from full-fledged DRM, and downloading a blacklist every week is something I honestly don't want to deal with if I can avoid it. These sorts of counter-measures (well, more like SecuROM) are the reason I *do* thank The Pirate Bay that they exist. Sure, piracy of software like FG2 is the bad side of that coin, but what you folks are suggesting is, in my opinion, the wrong way to deal with the problem.

On the other hand, blocking server-side updates via a server-side blacklist makes more sense to me. Just have the client report its serial when getting an update, and have the server deny the update if the serial is blacklisted. Of course, there are simple methods to get around that but in my opinion its the least instrusive option for us, the users, while still being cheap for Smiteworks to develop and will make it hard enough on a certain percentage of pirates that they might just pay for it.

[Valarian]

On the other hand, blocking server-side updates via a server-side blacklist makes more sense to me. Just have the client report its serial when getting an update, and have the server deny the update if the serial is blacklisted.

This is exactly what was being suggested.

[Dachannien]

Darn thepiratebay, they strike again....

I am a paying player, and It just tears me to see that people are playing free (illegally) on something I payed for.

Dissapointing.

People getting something for free when I had to pay for it isn't really what bothers me. I mean, I've bought stuff from Steam only to have it discounted 50% the next weekend. What bothers me is that, in this case, SmiteWorks is a small developer, and they depend on the money that they get from FG in order to improve the software and offer updates. While a few (hundred, thousand, etc.) people ripping off Spore isn't going to make EA go under, it's quite possible that if too many people pirated FG instead of buying it, SmiteWorks could end up out of business, and then nobody would get any updates.