Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!daver!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Psygnosis Missed the Point! Re: Psygnosis Missing The Boat? Message-ID: <1991Jun6.063912.23994@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 6 Jun 91 06:39:12 GMT References: <1991Jun3.115402.22740@ssd.kodak.com> <6798@vela.acs.oakland.edu> Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 94 lmbailey@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Laurana Bailey) writes: > hoffmann@acl.kodak.com (marty hoffmann) writes: >> If I were paranoid, I would say Psygnosis did >> this key disk protection thing on purpose, so no >> one will buy the hard disk installable Lemmings >> and they can claim that hard disk installability >> (if that's a word) is not something that people >> really want. That's if I were paranoid. That's exactly the effect it has on my plans to buy lemmings -- shoots them dead. Psygnosis _still_ hasn't figured out what people _hate_ about their games. > You might have missed it, but a few months back > there was a big thread on this newsgroup blasting > Psygnosis for their lack of HD support. A good > friend of mine was part of that thread and the end > result was that several people frm Psygnosis saw > it, replied, and agreed to produce a Hard Drive > installable version of Lemmings. It was a major > victory among the masses. I was one of the people screaming loudest for a change, and even promised to buy the new version if it met my objections. As far as I'm concerned, they wasted their time; they'll get no money from me. What seemed a victory turns out to taste of ashes. > The key disk protection issue doesn't bother me. > The version of Lemmings for the PC is HD > installable and also requires Key Disk protection. > I don't mind Key Disk protection as long as I can > install it on my HD although I prefer Manual Word > lookup if any protection is going to be used. Let's _once_ _again_ take a look at the problems (aside from playability, not a problem with Lemmings, from all reports) with Psygnosis games, and see how they did: 1) Beats floppy disk drive to death No change. with copy protection checks. 2) Requires fumbling around to find No change. floppy disk among dozens to 1000's, instead of just clicking up the game from the HD. 3) Slow to come up from death of one Probably improved. set of characters to playing again. 4) Survival of game limited to failure Worse; now beats one prone floppy disk media failure rate. track to death instead of whole disk. 5) Risk that game will be dead on No change. arrival because copy protection requires tight floppy drive tolerences. After receiving The Killing Game Show DOA, with reports here from several others that the copy protection was requiring more than my _working_ floppy drives could deliver, and the game had arrived DOA for them, too, and watching several other copy protected games suffer media failure before I could finish playing them, I set a rule, no more games with disk oriented copy protection, no more games I can't run strictly from my hard drive, no more games I can't back up and run from that backup. (Yes, I have backup copies of every game on my HD; HDs don't last forever, either). Key disk schemes do not satisfy these simple, understandable customer needs, and so I will continue to boycott and suggest that others boycott Psygnosis games. I don't have any intention of pirating games I buy, but I do have intentions of playing them, and copy protection schemes that make the games either immediately unplayable or soon unplayable will get no more of my limited game buying budget; too many other companies have found code wheels and manual lookup schemes suffice, and those meet all but my second concern above, a tremendous improvement; I still have to unbury the code wheel or manual, but that's mostly my own fault. Kent, the man from xanth.