Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!utastro!bigtex!pmafire!geoff
From: geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Pirates!  by MicroProse (not a review, a complaint, please read)
Message-ID: <1041@pmafire.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jan 90 22:44:29 GMT
References: <84978@linus.UUCP> <1031@pmafire.UUCP> <1990Jan5.055220.4463@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen)
Organization: WINCO Computer Engineering, INEL, Idaho
Lines: 32

rsfinn@athena.mit.edu (Russell S. Finn) writes (quoting me):
>>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. 

>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).

I believe he said that he had to insert the master disk every time he
restored from a save.  This was terribly annoying.  He felt like he was
going to wear out the master disk in no time (and Copy II wasn't able to
make a backup copy -- MicroProse will sell master disk backups for $10,
I understand, but that's more than he's willing to pay).

Also the fact that the game hits the player with a double whammy was
annoying.  Not just key disk copy protection, not just look-it-up-in-
the-manual copy protection.  One or the other, he could live with, but
both was just too much for him to tolerate. 

I'll send him a copy of this (he's not on the net) and see if he has any
more comments for you.

-- 
Geoff Allen                  \  WINCO doesn't believe in Macs, 
{uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!geoff  \  so of course these are my views.
ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff   \