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Graeme on Q3 Keys

by Steve Gibson, Dec 06, 1999 4:41pm PST
Related Topics – Quake

Graeme made some more updates to his .plan so I'm carrying this story up to the top of the page again.As I mentioned earlier this morning people are trying like heck to hack the Quake3 CDKey stuff. Graeme made a .plan update a little while ago on the topic giving out a few details on the key saying the chances of guessing a key are 'billions and billions to one' so there you go.

Okay. Hacker attempts with invalid keys are outnumbering real keys by a factor of 2:1 or so. Obviously this is somewhat validating the use of CD keys. <snip> The actual algorithm is a 64 bit DES key encryption method open to a very small window. The chances of coming up with a real valid key is in the range of billions and billions to one. A random pass through the available keys shows no sign of repeating sequences, it looks like good old chaos (in fact, statisical math proves this).
6:40 update: Graeme added this important bit of information which should make a few of you go "ooooooh" or something:
Secondly, CD keys are "leased", so if you log on through a dialup, play, then disconnect your modem and log right back on, your CD key will have to timeout on your previous IP before you can play again. This timeout period is currently set at 5 minutes.





Comments

265 Threads | 266 Comments






  • #255, I understand your point about opinions, and that was part of my original post here.

    I personally HATE little rooms, little halls, little platforms, etc etc. I\'ll give you that Peak LOOKS very nice, but to me it plays crap. I figured out after playing it a time or two that you can dominate the map against most players just by getting in the flak room and shooting stuff down the stairs when you hear something, as long as you look out the door occasionally to protect that side. I\'m not a camper, but if I\'m on a map cycle, and I don\'t feel like dropping, I find myself doing that, just to get the map over with fast. I feel guilty, but I really do hate that one.











  • #241 i know exactly what your talking about as far a grafix feel, i thin to some extent its the map desighn but it goes deeper than that i might be that most non quake games are directx but i dont know enough about that to say if that will change the appearence of the game, non quake engine games always give me a cardboard box feel like everything is fake. im a m used to the texture style in quake, some games have textures and skins that have a different feel and make you think like your on a stage, not in real life or something, maybe its the way the skins change at the corners of the polygons or something but it just alienates me. i guess i just grew up playin id software and now everything else tasts like store bough spagettii (dont mind my spelling)

  • I totally agree about the feel thing... I definitely prefer Quake engine games because mouse control feels more accurate. Unreal feels like you have mouse acceleration set to full, and there is some sort of crud on the mouse\'s rollers.

    Graphics are nice, and I\'ll prolly get a new vid card to make Q3 play better (GeForce DDR) but gameplay is where it\'s at. If the gameplay sucks, I won\'t be back.

    Almost forgot... saw this tip over at the RA2 page (thanks crt). TO make UT feel more quake-ish, set the fov to 120 by typing fov 120 at the console...

    ///Gonzo





  • But Duke (#228), you CANNOT compare these games to Q3 and UT...you can\'t! Blasphemy! These are single player FPS masterpieces. Single player. Lemme say that again...single player. When I want something with atmosphere and story, 1/2 Life and JK are it. When I just want to \"blow shit up\" UT and Q3A are it. That\'s why asked the second question in my original post. Are you talking DM only? Because if you are, then yes I guess 1/2 Life and JK would seem inadequate for your needs. Crap, wish they\'d make a third Dark Forces. Anyone heard anything?

  • I know exactly what some of you are talking about with \"feel\". I started real online gameplay with Unreal, then migrated to Q2/QW after a couple of months...not due to networking, but due to the control feel issues and the weapons.

    UT is OK, and I can get used to it, but it feels too...\"twitchy\" and \"loose\" at the same time. It is very hard to describe. This is all a personal opinion, but very important to me. To be honest, all this hype about original weapons is overblown. The mix of weapons pretty much have equivalents in other shooters, they just look different.

    I took a week or so off from Q3test to play UT. I enjoyed it a lot, BUT, when I got that Q3 disc in the drive and loaded up Q3 and started moving around in q3dm0, I just had to sigh with relief. I felt like I\'d just gotten home and put on the shorts and t-shirt after a long day\'s work :)

    It may be that I\'m influenced by what I\'ve spent more time playing, but shoot me, that is the way I feel.

    I\'m sure others like the UT \"feel\" for exactly why I like Q3 better.

    I\'ll play both a lot, but my home is Q3.







  • Hhhmm, I take what I said back, about (trying to) pirate Quake3. After reading the posts bashing on \"shithead\" posters, I came to the conclusion that my previous post was a \"shithead\" post. I only pirate games (Just download them) to try them out, and if I don\'t like it, away with it, and if I DO like it, I go out and buy it. I think that the good game producers deserve more credit (and $$) than they receive. I don\'t respect the people who sit there all their lives and download, download, and download all the games from the Internet. I used to do it, but hey, I don\'t think it\'s right anymore. Show a little respect, eh? There, my 2 1/2 cents and my apoligies....
    Also, I think the reason why many people \"scream and whine\" in their comments or whatever, is because some of them are still kids. I\'m talking 10 years old, judging from some of the posts I\'ve read....

    -Pendejo






  • Thradar, its quite possible to not be blow away by Half-Life or Jedi Knight...

    I played Jedi Knight for a couple of hours, got bored, discarded it.

    Half-Life had me for a while, until Xen.

    I got Opposing Forces this weekend, and played it for a couple of hours. After having nothing but Q3 and UT for a couple of months it just felt... not right somehow, empty. Jumping puzzles annoyed the shit out of me, but I like the atmosphere and will stick with it and finish it.


    I know what #220 means by \'feel\' even though my definition of it is different than his. I don\'t get his feeling of \'wrongness\' with UT, but it certainly feels different.