Another group to mention is Knights Of Doom. Bunch of high school kids from Turkiye, they were rebranding already existing cracks/warez releases. One of the innovation that they brought to the scene was self-typed serial number boxes. So, you insert a CD to setup a game for example, you go through installer and then you realise serial number is already typed in. They even had their own forum so.
Razor 1911
51–60 of 126 posts
Re: Razor 1911
#52They had an incredible capacity to compress large games... as a broke person with ~1MB/s ADSL, it was the only reason I was able to pirate GTA IV back in the day. They really thought about the common gamer...
Re: Razor 1911
#53Ah, Razor. Sadly it seems that DRM companies like Irdeto, makers of Denuvo, are now simply hiring talented crackers such that there are very few people now able to crack games beyond simple DRM. Empress is the only one remaining.
There are still more talented crackers in the wild, emulators still getting worked on, new DRMs being defeated, denuvo is the exception. Sadly you can't expect people to work a month+ for free for cracking games with arguably less quality every year. Also a pet theory of mine is that teenagers (the ones with actually free time) currently tend to pick these skills less often, more computer and internet access but tons…
> Sadly you can't expect people to work a month+ for free for cracking games with arguably less quality every year.
True, at least one solace is that Denuvo is now a time-restricted SaaS, so if a game is old enough, Denuvo is often removed as the license duration has passed. So at the very least, we are still getting DRM-free games, we just have to become /r/patientgamers, a great sub by the way for these kinds of discussions on older games.
> Also a pet theory of mine is that teenagers (the ones with actually free time) currently tend to pick these skills less often
I've noticed this too, apparently lots of Gen Z don't know what a file system is as they only ever grew up with tablets and phones which don't expose these (usually iOS, while Android does to some extent).
Re: Razor 1911
#54To prove that you are elite, what do these mean: RZR, FLT, DRG, TDT, TRSI? Oh wait, you can just look these up on the internet :(
I miss tKC (The Keyboard Caper) and Phrozen Crew. FAiRLiGHT was popular during the game CD / SecurROM days iirc. PARADOX, CLASS, SKIDROW and RELOADED I remember as well. Reading .nfo files was fun, the artwork was great too.
One of the "Commander-class" file managers had a quick view that displayed the contents of FILE_ID.DIZ if you navigated to a directory that had one.
Re: Razor 1911
#55They had an incredible capacity to compress large games... as a broke person with ~1MB/s ADSL, it was the only reason I was able to pirate GTA IV back in the day. They really thought about the common gamer...
Funny to think of GTA IV as being "back in the day", but also didn't actually realize it's been 15 years already
Re: Razor 1911
#56Btw the same group whose GTA cracked copies Rockstar were using to sell: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37394665
Reminds me of when we were writing subtitles in Portuguese for pirated US only to see the fan subs copied verbatim on the actual cable channels months later, when episodes would finally get released in Brazil
https://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/18881/18881.PDF
RIP InSUBs
Re: Razor 1911
#57Definitely not me but man I remember headbanging to my friends keygen software from Razor1911
The artist behind a lot of that still makes music - under the name dubmood! I like this song for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7RE8ue6V74
Re: Razor 1911
#58The Scene is a fun and related miniseries worth mentioning and checking out. [0][1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scene_(miniseries) [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC2FCB2871C396459
The first season of The Scene is better than the second season (yeah it exists) in my opinion.
Re: Razor 1911
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say you'll feel miserable and will wonder what is it you are missing from the old days. We look at it with rose tinted glasses, but for all practical purposes, everything was significantly worse back then. The kind of hardware and software we have available today was the stuff of the wildest dreams and imagination. I remember we could spend entire weeks in 4 player Doom 2 deathmatch during summer with my friends.…
Recently I played a game of Civilization 1. It actually did take a me back to that feeling of awe that I had as a child, except now the sound worked and I was able to read English so I actually knew how to play, which enhanced the experience.
Reminds me of playing life on a minicomputer at my dads work in 1970. It's hard to grasp the feeling of seeing that when nothing like it exists elsewhere. Almost everything mechanical in 1970 was a purely mechanical device without a shred of agency.
At the heart computers can represent and transform complex structured data iteratively. That was new new 50 years ago.
Re: Razor 1911
#60Side note, I have and will continue to pronounce "Warez" like the Mexican city Juarez. I know it's wrong, but I read the word years before I heard someone pronounce it and it's stuck in my head that way.