Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!rsfinn
From: rsfinn@athena.mit.edu (Russell S. Finn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Pirates!  by MicroProse (not a review, a complaint, please read)
Message-ID: <1990Jan5.055220.4463@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 90 05:52:20 GMT
References: <84978@linus.UUCP> <1031@pmafire.UUCP>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Reply-To: rsfinn@athena.mit.edu (Russell S. Finn)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 24

In article <1031@pmafire.UUCP> geoff@pmafire.UUCP writes:
>My father-in-law recently bought this game and was incredibly frustrated
>with the copy protection.  He said that it got in the way so much that
>it essentially made the game unplayable.  He decided to "just say no"
>and called MacConnection and got an authorization to return it. 
>
>So, the advice seems to be -- AVOID THIS GAME.

As the author of Pirates! for the Macintosh when I worked at
MicroProse, I'm genuinely curious about this, as I tried to make the
copy protection as unobtrusive as possible, within the dictates of
company policy.  With Pirates!, you need to (1) insert the master disk
briefly when starting the program, and (2) look up a piece of
information in the manual when creating a new character, which should
happen fairly infrequently (once you've gotten into the game).

That's the theory, anyway.  Which part didn't your father-in-law like?

Disclaimer: I am now a full-time graduate student at MIT, no longer
emplyed by MicroProse, and I do not receive any kind of royalties or
payment based upon sales of Pirates! for the Macintosh.

Russell Finn
rsfinn@athena.mit.edu