Posted May 10, 2012
One of the two SPAZ devs here. I am the one SirPrimalform had contact with. I wanted to throw in my two cents so you guys know we do care.
In the original post here: [url=http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2776 ]http://www.spacepiratesandzombies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2776 [/url] look about 14 topics down.
First off, I should have not given a date but it was not definite. At the time, things seemed to be wrapping up, but things changed and we decided to continue development on SPAZ.
I say that we will "most likely" do this by May 9th. The "most likely" part fell through. The reason for this was our planned inclusion in a bundle deal before May 9th. The bundle was delayed, and we spent our time releasing a free bounty hunter expansion pack, and now mod tools. SPAZ is still being added to even one year after its initial release and our priority has been providing new free content instead of capping the game. We try to take very good care of our customers, as I hope you can see.
From our perspective, the disabling of the DRM is a measure to future proof SPAZ when we move on to our next project. Since we are still actively working on SPAZ providing content and patches, the activation server's future is secure so there is no need to bypass it and build a cd-key system or other work around, which would just be a waste of time that we could spend on content. Keep in mind that there are just 2 of us.
When we do deactivate the DRM, we will also not be building a CD-key system. Instead we will simply tell the game that if it cannot contact the server, then assume it is dead and run the game no matter what. If it can get valid info from the server, then the server is still up and it should check, if not, then ignore and run. This is the simplest approach, future proofs the game and seems pretty fair.
SirPrimalform is likely more disappointed because he has been in direct email contact with us and at one point I mentioned that if he has not heard from us in 3 months, it will be HIGHLY likely that the DRM will be off. This was meant to get him to take a look again in three months instead of having us follow up with him individually. We get a lot of mail and try to reply to all of it, so we wanted to have him do the checking in three months vs us committing to track him down and tell him individually when the DRM is off. I apologize for this and will send him a key that he can choose to use or not.
I hope this clears things up. Also, if you want a free key, just email me at ahume@spazgame.com and you can have one. I will put a cap of say 50 total over the next 24 hours on this so it isn't abused long term. It is a fun game and I hope you will give it a try.
