Daikatana Galore

Would you like my peanuts?

The Ten Commandments (In Ebonics)

1. I be God. Don' be dissin' me
2. Don, be makin hood ornaments outa me or nothin in my crib
3. Don' be callin me for no reason - homey don' play that.
4. Y'all betta be in church on Sundee.
5. Don' dis ya mama ... an if ya know who ya daddy is, don' dis him neither
6. Don' ice ya bros
7. Stick to ya woman
8. Don' be liftin no goods
9. Don' be frontin like you all that an no snitchin on ya homies
10. Don' be eyein' ya homie's crib, ride, or nothin.

there you go you heathens.
smackdaddy

Y'know... I am so tired of seeing the whole warez thing hashed, rehashed and then for a little variety, hashed some more. People on both sides of the issues feel very passionate about their views, and it's silly to think that by posting one "You shouldn't warez, man, it's really wrong!" or one "It's only fair to check out the game, see how many bugs there are, I'll buy it if I keep it, I swear" message that anyone, anywhere, is really going to see your point and changes their ways.

I mean, c'mon, take someone who has warezed for 5 years, bought some of the titles they warezed and didn't buy others, burned a few CD's for buddies, surfed the net for The Sims, just to see what all the frickin hoopla was about... You seriously think they're going to read your post, have an epiphany, delete all the warez they have on their system, swear off warezing forever and enter a 12-step program? Shyeah... and monkey might... well, you get the idea.

The flip side is also true... Take someone else, takes the (IMHO more ethically problematic) position that warezing is wrong, always, and that you are taking bread out of the mouths of people who worked long and hard to earn it when you warez, that if it continues some people/artists will just say "screw it" and not produce quality work anymore... You seriously think there's a chance they're going to read your post, stop buying software, jump into IRC, spam "I have seen the light" and start FServing like crazy? I don't think so.

Since many of the arguments seem to be semantic-related, as opposed to content-related, let's define "theft", shall we? I think not many would disagree that a simple, working definition of "theft" would be "taking goods or services without paying for them". Nice and simple - very clear, yes? It's up to the seller to determine the price and content of their good/service, and up to the buyer to make the decision to purchase. Price too high? Don't buy it. Sales restrictions too binding (for example: "You are licensed for one and only one copy of this software")? Don't buy it.

This brings us to, I think, the primary defense of Warezing - shitty product. "I want to try it before I buy it - if I like it, I'll buy it, if it sucks, I won't and I'll delete it." Is it shareware? If yes, then that attitude is fine - that's part and parcel of the sales restriction placed upon the product - you like, you buy, you don't, you don't buy - no harm, no foul. However, if the produt is not shareware then if you don't buy it, you're stealing.

Brace yourself, here comes something big... Does the content suck? TAKE IT BACK. A revolutionary concept, I know, but there it is. Return the friggin merchandise, no harm, no foul. I guaruntee you that if a software company initially sells 10,000 copies of a piece of software, and 60% of it gets returned, one or more of the following things will happen: 1) The company will lose an assload of money, 2) The distributors used by this company will be less excited about distributing their product in the future, 3) The company will soon be out of business, and/or 4) The company will see that the market will not tolerate a shitty offering and up their efforts and standards on their next product. Can you imagine what would have happened if every single person with a bitch about Q3A returned it to the store where they bought it? Man, the price would have fallen through the floor, and Id would have been scrambling to make up lost market share and consumer confidence. So now we see the primary argument for Warezing for it really is - I'm too lazy to go to the store, buy the software, use it, not like it, and deal with the hassle of returning it for credit.

Now, then. Having said everything I just said, I freely admit to having warezed in the past. I'm sure I'll do it again in the future. If something is especially good, then I'm usually pretty good at popping down to CompUSA and picking it up once it drops below $40 - I like to have the real CD around, and I don't mind shelling out money for a worthwhile product. There are games that I have paid $50 for that got played for 4 or 5 hours and then shelved. There are others that I have warezed, loved, and immediately paid $50 to get a legitimate copy and played the shit out of ever since.

The big difference here? It's wrong, and I know it's wrong. I don't try to parade around in some delusional suit of bullshit, justifying pure theft with cries of "it's too expensive", or "I'll buy it later." Have the courage of your convictions, people - call a spade a spade. If you warez, then you steal. It's that simple. Don't like being called a thief? Don't warez.

On a slightly related topic, I have no problem whatsoever with the CD-Key schemes we are seeing nowadays. For me, all it does is make me go to the store to get the software, instead of cruising IRC. What it means is that the developer gets more money than if everyone was warezing, and has an incentive to develop more quality product (and if they don't develop quality product with the money I give them, they have to give me my money back, and they don't get any more of it - what's more fair than that?). For the number of people playing HalfLife, you sure don't hear as much whining about CDKeys as you did with Q3A. Maybe they did initially, but it sure has died down - it may do the same with Q3A - I certainly hope so.

The thing I love is how The Romero™ is running it about his beloved game like it has already been released and it has sold like mad or something. Memoirs of a Myopian...

The Screenshots are nice, the official Daikatana Strategy Guide was an interesting read, but...

* R E L E A S E · T H E · D A M N · G A M E ! *

Then feel free to reflect on the past four years or so.

Thanks!

-LBs

224, you miss the point

I steal, evaluate and delete or buy.
I am better than MOST warez'ers, besides unlike the US market some countries dont let you return games "just like that" you buy it it's YOUR problem over here in .AU

infact most of the amazing stories I hear about america fascinate me, the shit you can get away with.

I've even heard of people buying something, retaining a receipt and when a price drop comes in one week later, going back complaining and being credited the difference (WHAT THE FUCK?)

Sorry this country dosent work like that, you buy it you keep it, unless it's broken.

Demo's rarely show the full game, PLUS we have to wait for the final to hit our shelves...
So in the case of half life, I leeched the OEM loved it.
full came out, I leeched it and loved it and finished it
FINALLY it came out in the STORES and I purchased it

There's no way I could buy it, and go back a week later, "sorry it blows" and expect a refund, that kind of attitude will SERIOUSLY not work here, it's incredible to see consumers with such an arrogant attitude, yet I still want to go to the US to live ... amazing

It's like the buy.com mistake with the 19" monitors for 150$ or some shit like a year back
people were threatening to SUE because some poor bastard made a mistake, sorry motherfuckers but it was a mistake they would make a LOSS on selling a monitor for 150$ (19").

So they fixed the price up, you all KNEW it was a mistake and still ordered some hoping you would get one for that price (sure who wouldnt I admit), so buy.com realised (it was buy.com right?) that they made a mistake they fixed it AND apologised.
Sure ok you miss out they realised it's a mistake, ok we can live with that it was worth a shot but NOOOOOOOO you arrogant motherfuckers (well some US people not neccessarily you reading this) had the nerve to threaten to SUE them over it, sorry but that mentality is fucked up! - and they ended up shipping 100 monitors to the 1'st 100 orders for a LOSS just to shut you whining fuckers up ... jesus, i wish we could be that arrogant here....

Jesus you people get it good over there, and you wonder why we warez something for 3 weeks because it hasnt even hit the shelves here yet - we dont ALL live in the ultimate consumer country (US) you know...

So i can and WILL justify me warezing a game before I purchase it, plus there's less competition in this country, when a game 1'st comes out it's only in a few select places here and competition is scarce, so we pay 70 - 90$ for the game if not more, you people can find a deal for the latest games for like 35$ US within a matter of a week of it being released.. that rocks .... sorry we dont all have it good dude, but i'm gonna keep warezing (and evaluating), if you dont like it, you can just buy 2 copies to make up for it buddy.. :)

The chat is on, children.

Warez games are often missing parts of the game that are deleted in the warez process to make them easier to download. Stuff like music, cut scenes, and voices. Most of them can't be played online, or patched.

Funniest warez game: Blood II. The warez version had all the voices taken out, and because of that, the cathedral level (level 10 or so)would not end after you beat the boss. After talking - voicelessly - to a character, you'd just stand there, nothing to do. People would show up in forums asking "How do I end the cathedral level?" Some of the responses were quite humorous.

Blockbuster rents PC games in some stores, but it's mostly older stuff, like Rainbow Six.

I love some of the favorite warezer arguments:

1) Warezing keeps software prices down.
2) The game company won't miss my $40.
3) I'll buy the game if it's good.
4) It's the only way to know if the game is good or not.
5) Companies like it when people warez their games; it's free publicity.

The difference with warez, is that one person *steals* the game/app, and then "lends" it to 1000 "friends". There was no original purchase behind all of those warezed copies of UT floating around.

Because the people you are "borrowing" it from didn't pay for it in the first place ;)

that screenshot sucked my ass.

I think Ion Storm thinks they can release the game 1 screenshot at a time.

Mmmmmm... This game looks good.

If game play is as good as it looks, it will kick ass.

Hope they release another demo!

dammit i missed the most important part.

i got q3a the moment it came out in stores, the boxed retail version and all :)

but it felt like warez when i played through it :)