61 replies to this topic

[threebkk]

Matt Diamond, on 23 April 2020 - 10:24 PM, said:

told right way that it needed to be renewed

Is that what happens with their games?
What does the screen look like?
Anybody have a screenshot?

[Matt Diamond]

mossy_11, on 26 February 2019 - 09:32 PM, said:

Hopefully we'll get some fix for the registration renewal problem, from the community if not from Ambrosia.

From: https://blobblubblob...ation-code.html

Quote

The registration system will accept codes if they are not older than a certain number of days. This means you can still register the game if you turn back your computer's clock to e.g. 1 day after the buying date. Not sure how many days of margin one gets, but luckily I keep all my mails (and I really mean all) so I knew exactly when I had been issued my old registration code and I set the clock to 1 day after.

So if you have the code and the date you can register a copy of EV: Nova, and probably other Ambrosia games as well.

[threebkk]

Matt Diamond, on 23 April 2020 - 10:24 PM, said:

Sounds like Snapz is using a different registration system.

Oops, maybe I need to update this:
I've just read a bad comment from somebody online (on CNET).
Looks like they had a later version than mine, possibly 2.2.3, back in 2010.
They were complaining about the registration expiring at inconvenient times.
So, I guess that maybe Ambrosia introduced that registration system into Snapz Pro X at some point later than my version.
It has not been my experience yet that it cuts-off.

[threebkk]

Camper-Hunter, on 27 February 2019 - 02:15 AM, said:

From the community the fix would be, basically, a crack.

There is one other way: Lawsuit.

It's not the kind of thing I want to see done to Ambrosia.
They were an important Mac developer early-on, and did some great things.
They're among the last ones I'd want to see sued.

But, dragging their customers down with the sinking ship sets a very bad precedent.
This kind of thing can't be allowed to become the norm, or standard business practice.

Would a civil court agree with this? I hope so.
Could damages be paid-out to customers who are now holding worthless bytes of data?
Would it cost Ambrosia less money to pay that out, or less to craft an update which removes the registration requirement?

Hopefully, a pending lawsuit would light a fire under their asses and convince them to take the appropriate action.
Absent of that, I don't see this being resolved.
And, like I said, it could persuade more developers to employ the same strategy… which is to be avoided!

[the Battle Cat]

Before you start passing out torches and pitchforks it would be a good idea to study the "agreement nobody reads before clicking to agree to it".  A company lawyer worth his salt has probably included verbiage to cover this contingency.  Not taking sides, just sayin'.

[Camper-Hunter]

threebkk, on 30 April 2020 - 06:34 AM, said:

There is one other way: Lawsuit.

Except the company is defunct (according to Wikipedia).

[threebkk]

the Battle Cat, on 30 April 2020 - 09:29 AM, said:

It would be a good idea to study the "agreement nobody reads before clicking to agree to it".

Yeah, but I'm not going to study it.
It doesn't interest me.
Public opinion is a much stronger force in a court of law than people realize.
It can supersede even a contract, especially if the contract is unlawful, deceptively crafted, or predatory.
: )

[threebkk]

Camper-Hunter, on 30 April 2020 - 01:40 PM, said:

Except the company is defunct (according to Wikipedia).

Yes, that's probably right.
I don't know.
However, it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the line.
Individual members of a defunct company could be compelled by a judge to correct negligence, especially if it affects many public consumers.

[threebkk]

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: If Ambrosia were interested in keeping their software registration server up-and-running for customers, I might be willing to maintain it for them. However, if it were very complex, costly, or very time-intensive, I wouldn't be able to do it. The details would have to be known first.

[Camper-Hunter]

Ambrosia isn't interested in keeping servers running, since Ambrosia is no more.
Their last Mac game was released 11 years ago. Their last iOS game 9 years ago. Their second to last utility (I couldn't find the last one's release date), 11 years ago. That was a long time ago (for computer software).
I think you're battling against windmills here. Time moves on, companies and software come and go. It's unfortunate a patch wasn't released in order to remove server requirements, but it's not the first and won't be the last defunct software with this problem. Let them rest in peace.

[threebkk]

Thanks for your comments in English. You write very well.

However, there is irony in your mentality. The French are generally well-aware that newer things often are not better than older things. Wine is one example, right? Cheese too?

Anything made by Apple is definitely an example of this, not because their older stuff has gotten tastier with age, or better, but because their newer stuff is just worse.

How much money have you spent in the past 10 years on new Apple products, perhaps needlessly? That's a rhetorical question. No need to answer if it's private. I'd guess it's a lot, maybe several thousand dollars.

Right now, I'm typing this on a Mac from 2010, purchased last year for a few hundred bucks. I purposefully bought it because it was older than my 2011 Mac which burnt-out, and which I had bought new. I wanted to natively boot an older OS, in fact it was necessary because their successive operating systems suck. They are basically useless to me.

This 2010 Mac runs very well (knock on wood), and is cosmetically flawless. My main OS is from the same general time period. I've done my best to take care of it. Apple have been doing their best to pull the rug out from underneath of me. Nice, huh?

So, after how many years am I supposed to just throw-away a perfectly good computer? There was no mention of a time-limit at the cash register, or on Apple's website.

Are we now allowed only 3 years? How about next year? I've noticed that their cadence is getting faster. I'm among those who are not willing to participate in the Forced March, especially now that it has become a forced run.

Older software, and incremental versions of it, is essential to myself and other users who think like me. Not everybody is eager to just throw-away the recent past and pretend that everything is getting better as we run forward.

Quite the opposite, I'd say that Apple had their peak in quality about 10 years ago, and everything since then has been pretty bad by comparison. Maximum earnings apparently equates to minimum quality. Even Steve Jobs wasn't this greedy. (Ambrosia's demise could even be linked to this. Look at the timing.)

So, where do we go from here? The only solution that I can see is to continue using the products from those peak years until Apple clean-up their act, if ever.

Also, up there, you're giving examples of initial release dates, not the most recent updates which often had improvements and added features. Snapz Pro X, just one example, was last updated around September 2016. Not that long ago. It's compatible with Sierra… as if I care.

Okay, there are plenty of people who think like you, and it is a valid approach. I'm just trying to show you that there is another approach which is equally valid.

Have you ever seen the website called LEM (Low End Mac)? It has some good content for people who would like to maximize the longevity of their Macs, but now it seems to be near death too, probably because everybody is forced into buying new stuff all the time.

[Frost]

FYI if you can find any of your old e-mails from Ambrosia with your serial numbers, you can still use them. I had an urge to play EV Nova again the other day and it's unplayable on the Mac now, so I finally went and got the PC port which still works great (if you make use of a couple third party mods to bump the resolution up on both the game and the galaxy map). Found out via the Escape Velocity subreddit that if you know the date and time when you got a code e-mail from Ambrosia, then you use the following steps to successfully register a product:

• Disconnect from the internet
  
• Install your Ambrosia software fresh
  
• Do not launch it yet
  
• Change your Mac or PC date and time to the date and time you received the e-mail from Ambrosia
  
• Launch the registration software and input your code and it will accept it!
  
• Reconnect everything

Did that with EV Nova on Windows using my old Mac key requested from Ambrosia in 2016 and it worked like a charm, so I'm assuming it should work with anything else Ambrosia.

[Matt Diamond]

Frost, on 02 May 2020 - 09:23 PM, said:

FYI if you can find any of your old e-mails from Ambrosia with your serial numbers, you can still use them. [..]  if you know the date and time when you got a code e-mail from Ambrosia, then you use the following steps to successfully register a product:

I did mention this above a couple weeks ago, but I guess it looked like I was responding to a current poat, not a much older one.

[Frost]

Matt Diamond, on 03 May 2020 - 02:36 PM, said:

I did mention this above a couple weeks ago, but I guess it looked like I was responding to a current poat, not a much older one.

Sorry, missed that!

At least there’s a quick and dirty guide in the thread now.

[threebkk]

Frost, on 03 May 2020 - 02:59 PM, said:

At least there's a quick and dirty guide in the thread now.

Yeah, it's nice to have that handy.
Thanks for posting that, both of you.

Of course, problems can occur while running a Mac with a modified system clock.
And, forgetting to set the clock back is hard to avoid which tends to amplify those problems.

“Step 6: reconnect everything”
Does that mean the clock can be changed back at that point while the game is running?

[Matt Diamond]

You only need to change the clock during the registration check. Change it back when you are done.

[threebkk]

Matt Diamond, on 06 May 2020 - 09:34 AM, said:

You only need to change the clock during the registration check. Change it back when you are done.

Thanks, good info.

-- -- --

Revised version. Safety first.

• Disconnect from the internet
  
• Install your Ambrosia software fresh
  
• Do not launch it yet
  
• Quit all other applications, preferably even the Finder
  
• Change your Mac or PC date and time to the date and time you received the e-mail from Ambrosia
  
• Launch the registration software and input your code and it will accept it!
  
• Immediately change your clock back to normal before you forget
  
• Reconnect to the internet, and launch other applications at-will… only after your clock has been corrected!

Frost, on 02 May 2020 - 09:23 PM, said:

Did that with EV Nova on Windows using my old Mac key…

Does the modified system clock cause problems with the saved game file in subsequent gaming sessions?

[Matt Diamond]

threebkk, on 07 May 2020 - 09:54 PM, said:

Does the modified system clock cause problems with the saved game file in subsequent gaming sessions?

If you are worried about it, don't save any games until you switch your clock back.

[Frost]

threebkk, on 07 May 2020 - 09:54 PM, said:

Does the modified system clock cause problems with the saved game file in subsequent gaming sessions?

Nope. At least, not for me. But I did change my clock back after registering and before launching the game.

[threebkk]

Frost, on 12 May 2020 - 02:56 AM, said:

Nope. At least, not for me. But I did change my clock back after registering and before launching the game.

Thanks for that update.

So, if you change your clock back and the registration doesn't break, then how does the game know when registration needs to be renewed? Is it a certain amount of time? If so, how does it count that time if the system clock isn't involved? Is the registration renewal triggered via the internet?