Family Fun Pack - No Piracy

[wishy-washy]

According to this post:

http://bbs.thesims2.ea.com/community/bbs/messages.php?threadID=326009a24a5d6a6e39bfc8ba6e3ab310&directoryID=2&startRow=1&hideFramework=true&openItemID=item.2,item.43,item.41,item.23

The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff has a serial number, you need to put the disc in to play the sims 2 and there is a new desktop icon. So I guess the, "oops...how did the sims 2 family fun stuff find it's way onto my computer?" option is out.

Mind you I guess it doesn't really matter seeing as how the pack doesn't even exist yet, eh Pescado?

[BlueSoup]

OFB and every other EP is the same deal, and OFB was on bittorrent a few hours after official release. 

[wishy-washy]

I guess I don't really know how things work. How can you play without the disc? Or a serial number for that matter.

[Ashleigh]

There's a wide variety of emulation software and it isn't that hard to get a code. Of course, I'm in no way advocating illegal downloads or usage. I just don't think that Maxis has come up with anything new to stop unpurchased usage.

[BlueSoup]

Yeah, what she said.

(That's what happens when I have to work in between posts, it takes me 10 minutes to type, then 10 more to edit like this.  )

[Motoki]

Puuuuuuhhhhhhleeasssseee. I've seen things with MUCH tougher security software and still get cracked.

C-Dilla is a real pain in the ass and people have still found ways around that.

I'm sure all the BBS kiddies will buy into it being uncrackable but that's nonsense. I mean if Microsoft has problems with piracy for god's sake I hardly think Maxis will be immune. 

[idtaminger]

I just saw the art pics for the family pack, and I just have to say, how can the objs look so great in the sketches and so listless in game?

[Motoki]

Because those early shots were pre-rendered in a professional 3D program. You can make ANYTHING look good with a still render. There's all sorts of filters and lights and effects and such. It's like an airbrushed model on a magazine. Looks nice, but not representative of the real thing.

[idtaminger]

Because those early shots were pre-rendered in a professional 3D program. You can make ANYTHING look good with a still render. There's all sorts of filters and lights and effects and such. It's like an airbrushed model on a magazine. Looks nice, but not representative of the real thing.

Nah. I was talking about the pencil sketches. They're so cute and quirky. When you see the final product, half the features have been shaved off and what you're left with is an approximation of a ginormous box. (Talking about the dresser specifically here) Not right.

[Simsbaby]

Mostly because of polygon issues, Maxis would rather slow down peoples games with bad coding then high poly meshes. 

[RainbowTigress]

I'm not advocating piracy either, but I will say this, where there's a will, there's a way.  As long as software companies try to keep people from copying their software, there will be hackers who find it a challenge to find a way to do it anyway.

[Renatus]

I'm not advocating piracy either, but I will say this, where there's a will, there's a way.  As long as software companies try to keep people from copying their software, there will be hackers who find it a challenge to find a way to do it anyway.

Especially as the anti-copying measures continue to get more and more extreme and start impeding the use of users who purchase the software legally.

[dusty]

I'm not advocating piracy either, but I will say this, where there's a will, there's a way.  As long as software companies try to keep people from copying their software, there will be hackers who find it a challenge to find a way to do it anyway.

Especially as the anti-copying measures continue to get more and more extreme and start impeding the use of users who purchase the software legally.

Exactly - I bought a "copy protected" CD a while back that wouldn't play in my stereo. However, the copy of it I made with CD Clone worked great.  That's just crazy and made me angry I'd bothered to buy it instead of just downloading it or whatever. 

[Paperbladder]

No matter what "counter-measures" EA takes to prevent people from pirating this pack, they won't work.  I doubt they'll require a disk to run the thing since it's installing Maxian Custom Content after all.

[Mike]

Im not buying any "booster" packs for reasons like this.

[Ellatrue]

I suspect there is some serious anti-piracy craziness going on with OFB. The other day I couldn't get it to run at all, WITH the CD in the drive- the auto-run started when I inserted the disk, it began to load, and then I got the error message before the splash screen telling me that the disk had to be in the drive (it WAS). Because of stupid stuff like this, now I am actually looking for a no-cd crack when I wouldn't have cared about it before... but most of the possibilities out there for OFB seem to be giving people trouble. Either it modifies the .exe and can't be patched, or they are having weird problems with some additional copy protection... so yeah, while I don't think any company can stop people from pirating their software, they can certainly make it difficult enough to deter the average person and to slow down the process, at least for a while. I just wish it didn't cause so much craziness with my machine, as I suspect it has.

 I'm not even getting in to how OFB plus patches somehow uninstalled Nightlife on my computer, I don't even know if that is related, but it should NOT be POSSIBLE, even if I did things in the wrong order or whatever. Why are the gaming companies putting out crappier and crappier products with less customer service? Is it because EA is essentially a console company and really doesn't care about computer games? AAARGGGHHH!!

/rant over

[Motoki]

Ella: I noticed that when I have two CD drives, even if one is emulated, the darned OFB CD won't be recognized until I disable one. It seems like it only looks for the first available CD drive as far as I can tell.

[Ellatrue]

That's the odd thing- the drive was actually disabled at the time, the program was closed, and I had been playing the game earlier that session, WITH the cd.

[jsalemi]

Yea, you can't just use something like DAEMON Tools with OFB to run it without the CD; it uses the latest version of Safe Disk 4.x, which won't load an emulated CD if it finds IDE CD/DVD drives on the system.  A little utility called 'sd4hide' toggles hiding the built-in disk drives on and off, and with them 'off', OFB will load fine off the emulated CD drive.

(Note: for the record I have a legitimate copy of OFB -- I just use the emulation software because I hate having to constantly switch CDs when I want to play a different game or load software or something.  Plus, it loads a lot faster reading the copy protection off the hard disk. )

[Paperbladder]

There's still a way to run OFB on a virtual drive with DAEMON tools, but it requires another utility.  I don't know about OFB CD-cracks, but I think they do exist now.

The "Family Fun Pack" requiring the disk won't happen.  They'd rather just require expansion pack activation like what Windows and Photoshop do now.

[HelloKit]

I thought the Family Fun Pack was going to be downloadable like the Holiday Pack was... how can they make it CD-required if it's downloadable?

[uaintjak]

I thought the Family Fun Pack was going to be downloadable like the Holiday Pack was... how can they make it CD-required if it's downloadable?

Knowing Maxis, they will make it downloadable, and then will also require you to have the disk to play.

[Argon]

I'm using CureROM along with DAEMON to get my OFB to play without the cd, but even still it doesn't work 100% of the time (more like ~85%). It's the fault of a new SafeDisc version.

Maxis hasn't said anything about this being downloadable from their wretched EA Downloader program, I think that idea kind of died quickly...

[Jysudo]

Actually do you people really need that party pack so much that you even bother to look for a pirated copy of it?

Dang! This website is stil in plain text to me. Cannot see the emotes and it doesn't even allow me to ctr-c and ctr-x ...

[RainbowTigress]

Use www.moreawesomethanyou.net from now on.

And *IF* I were to somehow find a copy of Family Fun somewhere, it would be for the fun of it, not because I necessarily *needed* it.  I had almost forgotten about it with all this other stuff going on until I saw this thread again.