A lot of them were unplayable on release or caused OS issues if you were lazy enough not to crack them as you should. 😠

Legally I've been looking into putting xdelta diff's onto github because as far as the DMCA is concerned its legal (until someone with enough money sues or the DMCA changes). So a diff or a patcher for a work where the "technological measure" no longer effectively controls or protects and where the usage of copyrighted works is only a 'part' so no sharing of modified binaries and copyrighted non drm files are allowed. Keep in mind that laws are different per country.

https://github.com/vogonsorg/OfflineGames

Haven't uploaded anything yet since along with researching the legality I've been testing the diff on macos, Linux and windows, organizing my files and testing and changing my backups. (switching from robocopy to ZFS replication).

It would be organized per game with a diff per version of the game. No automatic patching or scanning initially but I'd like to see where just like the old dos patchers you point it at your game or game folders and it does the work with DMCA verbage for CYA for floppy, CD and game store games.

A github seems most appropriate since less chance of it getting shut down and can be easily downloaded and replicated.

The above is why we have no issues with discussion of such on vogons, this is your software (yes I know the arguments) and as such you have the right to use what you own whereas most communities throw the TOS (even when it's wrong) of the dev/publisher/game store in your face and consider the matter verboten.

I believe that eXoDOS includes quite a number of no-cd patches. I'll not link to it, per Vogons policy, but it might be worth working with retroexo on an effort like that?

- Alex

If you do don't link, discuss or work on it here.

Okay I like there is an effort for reservation of no-CDs. However I wonder if using a delta patcher is the best option for localised games: there was probably a discussion for Tonic Trouble on this community because their executable patcher was not supported on the "different locale game", although the executable worked when extracted separately from supported games. Just in case if its feasible to patch all the different versions of a game, would it be feasible to test for the no-CD on all the different variants of the same game.

Btw there's another project that attempts to bring back SafeDisc DRM on Windows, SafeDiscShim; could it contribute to yout OfflineGames project?

I'm not familiar with the game you mentioned but an issue I have is a lot of these patchers\crackers\emulators have no source code and distributing knowledge of cracking isn't an issue so if you have documented the process to crack one version of the game then usually the process is similar for another version of the game especially within the same Developer\Publisher\Game store. So also putting up information on how to debug the games and the method used to crack would be nice while keeping in mind where the "technological measure" no longer effectively controls or protects.

IIRC SafeDiscShim doesn't remove the protection but intercepts and still requires the physical media and that media isn't getting any newer. It has a place but I'm not really interested in it except for edge cases where a game hasn't been cracked yet. It's yet another layer you have to deal with to get your games to work when the solution is to not have to deal with the DRM any longer.

Keep in mind that that patchers/crackers/emulators and modified binaries usually flag antivirus and browsers whereas a diff won't. (Although AV may still flag the file after it's applied but at least you won't have to jump through hoops to download). Also consolidating these and making them "official" would make it easier to submit to AV vendors to stop flagging them.

Also for archiving, I wonder how "modern" could be stayed before companies come after DMCAs. Similar case for old CD/DVD games whose actual DRM no longer works but the GOG/Steam release works, would distributing patchers for these games be feasible (eg Rayman 2).

Be careful with hiding behind words like "archiving" or "preservation". Be mindful of the words "copyright infringement" and "DRM".

Going by the DMCA and precedent in court cases the "technological measure" (game launcher/game DRM) no longer effectively controls or protects (which it cannot if the game client and/or DRM no longer works on the OS).
You had a game launcher or game that was working perfectly fine, the company that runs the game launcher decided not to support the OS you were using to use your software and the developer/publisher did not provide you with working software if the launcher broke your game and/or the game DRM stopped working.

If you put up the verbage that this is the intended use case with no ulterior motives (chats in discords talking about playing cracked day one releases for hardware and software that is still supported by the manufacturer) then should be fairly solid in a court case.
Documenting cases where you were monetarily affected by this may be another avenue as well in a case. Remember time is money.

Of course you can't stop anyone from coming after you for anything even if you do follow the law, whatever that law is for whatever country you are in.

Weirdly enough, the same site I used to use back in the late 90's and early 00's was still up last I checked. Checking now, it is in fact still up, and the banner even proudly proclaims 1998-2023. Guess they haven't updated it for this year. They even still have nearly the exact same layout as I remember.

I had wanted to grab a crack for Quake III so I could play my CD copy on my local retro LAN. That said, nearly every file I tried to download from it got dinged by my virus scanner, ESET Internet Security, so I gave up. Might have been false positives, but somehow I doubt it. Turned out I had a spare CD from a lot of games I'd grabbed anyways.

Sometimes I've been pleasantly surprised checking The Internet Archive.

Just a warning No-CD cracks are a high vector for viruses.

Namrok wrote on 2024-03-29, 15:32:

Weirdly enough, the same site I used to use back in the late 90's and early 00's was still up last I checked. Checking now, it is in fact still up, and the banner even proudly proclaims 1998-2023. Guess they haven't updated it for this year. They even still have nearly the exact same layout as I remember.

I had wanted to grab a crack for Quake III so I could play my CD copy on my local retro LAN. That said, nearly every file I tried to download from it got dinged by my virus scanner, ESET Internet Security, so I gave up. Might have been false positives, but somehow I doubt it. Turned out I had a spare CD from a lot of games I'd grabbed anyways.

Sometimes I've been pleasantly surprised checking The Internet Archive.

Just from your description I think I know the site, last word world?
I was surprised that site was still up and not "modernized" almost nostalgic in itself.

I thought one of the official Quake 3 patches removed the CD check?

but yes I've also noticed no-cd cracks are becoming harder to get however almost found some pleasure in finding cracks for the latest patch of games I owned back in the day and still have them backed up.

I only own 2 games on Steam with no real intention to buy any more and this week I've started to try find pirated copies of them as well. I don't play modern games and my Win7 PC is already overpowered.
I don't want to be forced to upgrade to a later OS in the future just because Steam client no longer works on my version of windows.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-04-02, 04:50:

Namrok wrote on 2024-03-29, 15:32:

Weirdly enough, the same site I used to use back in the late 90's and early 00's was still up last I checked. Checking now, it is in fact still up, and the banner even proudly proclaims 1998-2023. Guess they haven't updated it for this year. They even still have nearly the exact same layout as I remember.

I had wanted to grab a crack for Quake III so I could play my CD copy on my local retro LAN. That said, nearly every file I tried to download from it got dinged by my virus scanner, ESET Internet Security, so I gave up. Might have been false positives, but somehow I doubt it. Turned out I had a spare CD from a lot of games I'd grabbed anyways.

Sometimes I've been pleasantly surprised checking The Internet Archive.

Just from your description I think I know the site, last word world?

You got it. Once upon a time I had all my cracks for LAN party games backed up. But eventually hard drives failed, computers got Theseus'ed, etc, etc. Weirdly enough I did find an old "Install CD" full of utilities I wanted to recover quickly when I had to reformat my PC for whatever reason. Had all kinds of fun stuff, like Geoshell, Winamp 2.91, codec packs, daemon tools 3.47, but no CD cracks. Oh well.

An archive of no-CD cracks, or a program that contains a database of the inner workings of the cracks and can perform the functions of those cracks, would be very useful to devoted PC gamers, and I'm surprised that there isn't (apparently) a major project to do so. No doubt some of the cracking groups in the past tried this, but their collections probably only numbered a few hundred.

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-03-29, 15:59:

Just a warning No-CD cracks are a high vector for viruses.

Yes, and even worse, many anti-virus programs deliberately flag even the virus-free cracks as being infected, even when they are not. Which no doubt results in many people thinking that the particular crack that they have just downloaded is probably not really infected, just being flagged as infected because the anti-virus program's makers want to dissuade everyone from using no-CD cracks. And so that person disables the AV program long enough to apply the no-CD cracks, and possibly infect the PC.

It's more out of paranoia of compressed binaries than anything. The scene tends to have a habit of shrinking things (SMALLER iS BETTER) and viruses love the same benefits of code obfuscation mutually.

leileilol wrote on 2024-04-03, 00:30:

The scene tends to have a habit of shrinking things (SMALLER iS BETTER)

I wish all software developers still thought like this like they once did. Even though total HDD space went backwards when SSD's became mainstream programs still like to eat up more and more disk space.

I don't know what this claim of viruses in no-CDs is about. I've used a lot of them for many years and don't remember having issues, although I tend to not use random ones made by who knows who.

eddman wrote on 2024-04-04, 05:01:

I don't know what this claim of viruses in no-CDs is about. I've used a lot of them for many years and don't remember having issues, although I tend to not use random ones made by who knows who.

Scare tactics, just the other day I had Windows 10 Defender come up with a warning for "HackTool:Win32/Crack"
Read the description and it says

"Hacktools can be used to patch or "crack" some software so it will run without a valid license or genuine product key.
Beware of running hacktools because they can be associated with malware or unwanted software."

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/ … atID=2147890699

eddman wrote on 2024-04-04, 05:01:

I don't know what this claim of viruses in no-CDs is about. I've used a lot of them for many years and don't remember having issues, although I tend to not use random ones made by who knows who.

Personal experience first hand but you know, FAFO. This was not even detected at the time by Anti-virus.

DosFreak wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:38:

Legally I've been looking into putting xdelta diff's onto github

Thanks, this sounds much nicer than running some random patcher, if I can even find one!

Shagittarius wrote on 2024-04-04, 07:36:

Personal experience first hand but you know, FAFO. This was not even detected at the time by Anti-virus.

Do you remember for which game it was? Was it made by a known group or generic/unnamed?

Was it really a virus or one of those false positives?