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Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

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Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#151

Post by thaumasiotes »

ranger_danger wrote: post #2

Is it really fair to call these such algorithms "security through obscurity"? By that logic, wouldn't real symmetric crypto also be considered the same, since it's still just math that similarly swaps the data with other bytes, based on an "obscured" password or key?

If I ask you to pass on a message from me to someone else, and the message is encrypted using a symmetric key known to me, and to the recipient, but not to you, there's no security-by-obscurity in place.

If I ask you to pass on a message to someone, and the message is encrypted using a symmetric key known only to me, and I expect the recipient to be able to decrypt it because he knows that the key is written on the back of the paper, that's security by obscurity. You're just as able to do the decryption as the intended recipient is; I'm just hoping that you won't realize that.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#152

Post by anonzzzies »

beloch wrote: post #33

"For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). " ------ The title that made me go out and buy a CD-ROM drive was "Wing Commander III", released during the holidays of 1994, a year an…

When I was in university living in some crappy room at a friend of my parents, it was freezing and there were some transportation issues because of it, so I didn't go to classes and was bored around programming (I wrote Pascal those days for fun and profit), so a struggled to the closest shop to ask what's interesting; Phantasmagoria it was.

Good memories playing that one on that massively heavy monitor that was normal back then, under the blankets with ice on the inside of the windows and on top of the blanket.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#153

Post by nairboon »

adventured wrote: post #102

$55 ($9.95 CD + $45 activation) in August 1996 = $116 today, per the BLS inflation adjustment calculator. Gold was ~$400 back in 1996. Now it's ~11 times that. An expensive game however you gib it.

There was a lot less competition in the digital entertainment industry back then. Nowadays you still have AAA games going for $80 in a much more crowded market.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#154

Post by haspok »

virtue3 wrote: post #121
ryanjshaw wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely anybody who could download the keygen could just as easily download the pirated game? Only difference is time and dialup costs, but neither of those would’ve pushed somebody into the buy category.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point. That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites. mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too. And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

Oh, but that's why you went to the computer lab of your uni - those machines were on a 10mbit LAN and had a decent connection to the internet!

Although you still wouldn't download a CD, simply because... you wouldn't have been able to take it home with you! Hard drives were in many cases smaller than a single CD. Anything more than a few 10s of MBs would have been considered excessive.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#155

Post by wodenokoto »

How would the challenge/serial have worked if implemented correctly?

Since the challenge rotate every 5 minutes, there must be some way for a user to enter against an old challenge, right? Else they call, get a code and nothing.

But even with that out of the way, the decryption key must be the same across all discs, since there is only 1 master disc.

So the challenge/serial must combine to create a decryption key, which can be shared across users.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#156

Post by merb »

charcircuit wrote: post #100
merb wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there isn't a market for gamers buying games on DVDs these days. BlueRay the same. Of course there are voice that do want real disks but sadly that time is over. Digital sales won.

There is, at least for collector's editions. I'll continue to support physical for as long as possible.

Some collectors editions do come without a game cd nowadays.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#157

Post by _joel »

haspok wrote: post #154
virtue3 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point. That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites. mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too. And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

Oh, but that's why you went to the computer lab of your uni - those machines were on a 10mbit LAN and had a decent connection to the internet! Although you still wouldn't download a CD, simply because... you wouldn't have been able to take it home with you! Hard drives were in many cases smaller than a single CD. Anything more than a few 10s of MBs would have been considered excessive.

Connecting to office LANs and going on the internet was a magical feeling back then. The speed coming from a 56k dialup was jarring. We'd have network games of Quake (rocket jumps included) and watch Real Player versions of grainy South Park early episodes at er, lunch. Good times.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#158

Post by justsomehnguy »

Lorkki wrote: post #124
virtue3 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point. That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites. mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too. And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

If I remember correctly, actual pirated copies would have been maybe tens of megabytes, since they didn't include the CD audio. But that would still have been a hefty modem download.

That's why you had a download manager and left the machine running all night.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#159

Post by epihelix »

beloch wrote: post #33

"For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993) or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). " ------ The title that made me go out and buy a CD-ROM drive was "Wing Commander III", released during the holidays of 1994, a year an…

Myst was the CD-ROM killer game for me.

And yes, I think we both lived through the most rapid period of technological change (so far). Moore's law was real, the improvements each year were both felt and needed, and the software was coming along for the ride.

Quake was huge when it was launched - there'd never been anything like it. Of course, on my crappy Cyrix 6x86 and some similarly lame graphics card, I recall having to play it at something like 15fps. That wasn't great.

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