Themida (copy protection), Armagan's choice to use Themida, and the game's speed (because of Themida) have been questioned several times lately.
I have one simple question: WHY?
If you enjoy this game ... if you would like to see its continued development ... if you would like to see Armagan receive payment for his hard work (so that he can continue that hard work) ... then support his decision to use Themida!
The better software protection progs are hard to crack. Themida is one of the best. It renders most current cracking tools useless, which is why I think Armagan chose it. Is it impervious to cracking/pirating? No. Nothing is or (very likely) ever will be. It DOES however, stop the kiddie haxorz from ruining his income on such a great game!
Attempting to find cracked software (games especially) is simple and easy. Why? Because any 'wanna-be cracker' can get his hands on pre-built cracking tools and with very little know-how can pirate that software. Then they upload it to certain places on the internet and voila ... the sales for that software drop FAST. The vast majority of people will not pay for a product if they can get it for free. Morals? Ethics? Values? We are talking about people here!! Why do I mention this? Because due to Armagan's choice of software protection ... you can't download cracked/pirated versions of M&B!
Someone (can't remember who at the moment but its inconsequential) in one of the other threads compared Themida to StarForce. Do a google search on StarForce and do a google on Themida. StarForce *can* slow down your whole computer and on many systems causes serious failures, random reboots, and just generally sucks. StarForce = teh devil. I found very little negative feedback on Themida (well over an hour of searching) and the vast majority of what I did find was on crackers/hackers sites. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions.
StarForce is a cracker's nightmare come true. Sadly, StarForce is also the consumer's nightmare come true. Themida is supposed to be easy to crack compared to StarForce. In my LONG time of searching ... I found several posts on forums of people attempting to crack Themida protected software (including M&B itself) and didn't find one single crack for that software (again including M&B). I'm not saying that Themida is uncrackable ... I'm just saying that it seems comparable with StarForce in terms of security without all of the negative side effects that StarForce has. As a side note ... one of the threads I found that dealt with M&B directly was approx. three months old and they were still no closer to a crack than the three months ago when they started.
Recently, several people seem dissatisfied with the game's frames per second and question if this is due to Themida. It is a fair question and it is only right to worry and question things like that. Does Themida have an impact on fps? I have no idea. The demo is protected with Themida so there is no decrease in performance between it and the full game. If you were/are satisfied with the demo ... then I don't see a problem as far as performance is concerned. True, in later stages of the game there are far larger numbers of units ... but there is also a battle size slider for that same reason. Some machines can handle as many units as the game allows and some have problems with smaller numbers. Also, the game is still in beta and by the time it is completed, I'm fairly sure that Arm will optimize everything he can to get the best performance from it. Truthfully, I have doubts that Themida seriously impacts the game's fps enough to warrant concern anyways as I found little evidence or even accusations of it doing so (slow downs) on any program it is used on. This is the internet ... the place where people *****, moan, whine, complain, and often just make stuff up ... yet I found virtually nothing that even claimed that Themida impacted software's performance at all.
All of the threads and posts lately of cracking/pirating this great game sicken me. Armagan has created an awesome game and has put a lot of work into it. He deserves every sale he can get. Frankly, I'm amazed that he still sells it at a pittance of what its worth. As an avid gamer ... I spend insane amounts of money a month on games and can't remember a single (full retail) game (Elder Scrolls excluded
) where I enjoyed the game and got as much replay value as I have from M&B. Personally, I think the instant someone creates a thread that asks about pirating the game or things that advocate cracking the game ... the thread should be deleted and that account (and possibly i.p.) should be banned. I don't know if I would arbitrarily ban anyone that posts in such a thread ... but it IS a good way to stop the spammers and flamers from making such topics 'top topics'.
Feel free to visit Themida's website for a little better description of how it works, here.
Also, feel free to google any questions you may have on Themida.
I removed many links that I had here, pointing to crack/pirate/warez sites and forums that have so far been unable to crack Themida and a few that dealt with M&B directly. There is no need for them here, I don't want to be banned, and anyone that cares to look into it as deeply as I have will realize what I did ... theres no point and removing all the spyware from visiting those sites isn't worth the trouble.
To sum all of that up in a few simple statements ...
Themida is the software protection (copy protection) that Mount & Blade uses.
Themida keeps people honest and forces them to purchase the game if they want it.
Themida has been accused of seriously hurting the game's frames per second by a self-proclaimed cracker/hacker.
Themida is hated by crackers/hackers due to its ability to stop the vast majority of them from doing what they do: pirate.
Themida is in the demo as well as the full version so if you are satisfied with the demo then you should be satisfied with the full game.
Mount & Blade is still in its beta stages and is being worked on and improved with updates being released on a pretty consistent basis.
Themida (unlike StarForce) does not have countless complaints scattered across the internet about its inefficiency or ability to slow programs down.
Themida shouldn't be treated as a bad thing to mention ... it isn't a dirty word and it isn't an evil thing. It shouldn't be a taboo subject that people are worried about.
Narcissus
I have one simple question: WHY?
If you enjoy this game ... if you would like to see its continued development ... if you would like to see Armagan receive payment for his hard work (so that he can continue that hard work) ... then support his decision to use Themida!
The better software protection progs are hard to crack. Themida is one of the best. It renders most current cracking tools useless, which is why I think Armagan chose it. Is it impervious to cracking/pirating? No. Nothing is or (very likely) ever will be. It DOES however, stop the kiddie haxorz from ruining his income on such a great game!
Attempting to find cracked software (games especially) is simple and easy. Why? Because any 'wanna-be cracker' can get his hands on pre-built cracking tools and with very little know-how can pirate that software. Then they upload it to certain places on the internet and voila ... the sales for that software drop FAST. The vast majority of people will not pay for a product if they can get it for free. Morals? Ethics? Values? We are talking about people here!! Why do I mention this? Because due to Armagan's choice of software protection ... you can't download cracked/pirated versions of M&B!
Someone (can't remember who at the moment but its inconsequential) in one of the other threads compared Themida to StarForce. Do a google search on StarForce and do a google on Themida. StarForce *can* slow down your whole computer and on many systems causes serious failures, random reboots, and just generally sucks. StarForce = teh devil. I found very little negative feedback on Themida (well over an hour of searching) and the vast majority of what I did find was on crackers/hackers sites. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions.
StarForce is a cracker's nightmare come true. Sadly, StarForce is also the consumer's nightmare come true. Themida is supposed to be easy to crack compared to StarForce. In my LONG time of searching ... I found several posts on forums of people attempting to crack Themida protected software (including M&B itself) and didn't find one single crack for that software (again including M&B). I'm not saying that Themida is uncrackable ... I'm just saying that it seems comparable with StarForce in terms of security without all of the negative side effects that StarForce has. As a side note ... one of the threads I found that dealt with M&B directly was approx. three months old and they were still no closer to a crack than the three months ago when they started.
Recently, several people seem dissatisfied with the game's frames per second and question if this is due to Themida. It is a fair question and it is only right to worry and question things like that. Does Themida have an impact on fps? I have no idea. The demo is protected with Themida so there is no decrease in performance between it and the full game. If you were/are satisfied with the demo ... then I don't see a problem as far as performance is concerned. True, in later stages of the game there are far larger numbers of units ... but there is also a battle size slider for that same reason. Some machines can handle as many units as the game allows and some have problems with smaller numbers. Also, the game is still in beta and by the time it is completed, I'm fairly sure that Arm will optimize everything he can to get the best performance from it. Truthfully, I have doubts that Themida seriously impacts the game's fps enough to warrant concern anyways as I found little evidence or even accusations of it doing so (slow downs) on any program it is used on. This is the internet ... the place where people *****, moan, whine, complain, and often just make stuff up ... yet I found virtually nothing that even claimed that Themida impacted software's performance at all.
All of the threads and posts lately of cracking/pirating this great game sicken me. Armagan has created an awesome game and has put a lot of work into it. He deserves every sale he can get. Frankly, I'm amazed that he still sells it at a pittance of what its worth. As an avid gamer ... I spend insane amounts of money a month on games and can't remember a single (full retail) game (Elder Scrolls excluded
) where I enjoyed the game and got as much replay value as I have from M&B. Personally, I think the instant someone creates a thread that asks about pirating the game or things that advocate cracking the game ... the thread should be deleted and that account (and possibly i.p.) should be banned. I don't know if I would arbitrarily ban anyone that posts in such a thread ... but it IS a good way to stop the spammers and flamers from making such topics 'top topics'.Feel free to visit Themida's website for a little better description of how it works, here.
Also, feel free to google any questions you may have on Themida.
I removed many links that I had here, pointing to crack/pirate/warez sites and forums that have so far been unable to crack Themida and a few that dealt with M&B directly. There is no need for them here, I don't want to be banned, and anyone that cares to look into it as deeply as I have will realize what I did ... theres no point and removing all the spyware from visiting those sites isn't worth the trouble.
To sum all of that up in a few simple statements ...
Themida is the software protection (copy protection) that Mount & Blade uses.
Themida keeps people honest and forces them to purchase the game if they want it.
Themida has been accused of seriously hurting the game's frames per second by a self-proclaimed cracker/hacker.
Themida is hated by crackers/hackers due to its ability to stop the vast majority of them from doing what they do: pirate.
Themida is in the demo as well as the full version so if you are satisfied with the demo then you should be satisfied with the full game.
Mount & Blade is still in its beta stages and is being worked on and improved with updates being released on a pretty consistent basis.
Themida (unlike StarForce) does not have countless complaints scattered across the internet about its inefficiency or ability to slow programs down.
Themida shouldn't be treated as a bad thing to mention ... it isn't a dirty word and it isn't an evil thing. It shouldn't be a taboo subject that people are worried about.
Narcissus
