FTX Piracy and how it affects us all ...

[John Venema]

All order numbers are validated against your account at FSS using tools which only Orbx staff have access to. So anyone copying order numbers trying get support will be quickly found out.

[solareagle]

I know some users want to be able to see the support forum before purshase to see how the company handles support requests, and to see what kind of issues people are seeing.  With something like FTX that modifies various FSX files that may be of special interest to some.  One of airline devs has their support forum locked down and there has been quite a stir at avsim by displeased potential customers who don't like the idea of being barred from seeing what kind issues and potential problems/inaccuracies they might be buying into.

[Maurice_King]

Maybe someone might download one of these "pirated copies" and add a wee little virus hidden well in to it, then re-post it !

Hack the hackers ! If you know what I mean .

I hear the AV08 virus  in a nasty peace of work !!

....mmmmmmmmmm

Already done, and what I put in there is REAL nasty, let me make it clear I have done this purely in retaliation to these scumbags and I am in NO WAY receiving any remuneration nor reward from ORBX or FTX .

Good work mate.

Cheers

Hugh

Let me make it clear that my actions are in no way sancioned by ORBX but I am a firm believer that these guys have worked Hard and Long and Piracy is just that Piracy and cannot be tolerated.

[Tonyla1]

I agree with solareagle, keep the support forums open for anyone to read. Of course, only people with an order number quoted should actually receive support.

The issues that people have encountered, and the responses from orbx and their customers are helping me to decide what hardware I will need to buy when I build my new rig in the very near future. I have already purchased AU Gold and Blue and can't wait to buy YMML once my new computer is up and running. BTW, thank you so much for the freeware AUTraffic.......I'm having a ball with it.

Thats my two cents worth anyway

Cheers

Tony  

[Hugh Johnston]

Let me make it clear that my actions are in no way sancioned by ORBX but I am a firm believer that these guys have worked Hard and Long and Piracy is just that Piracy and cannot be tolerated.

I understand that but i'm still 100% behind you mate.

Cheers

Hugh

[}SkOrPn--7]

Tough one too read about that's for sure but I admit I'm no angel no matter what game it is if it requires a disk to be played or a hassle to install after your purchase then I'm out searching for ways to get around it. I must admit ORBX is one of few products that don't require such measures and is smooth sailing on all fronts so that's a plus and positive note that you have made it smooth sailing for the consumer but it's clear in this case someone has gone out of there way to share.

Still being on that site because of Swedish law you would be pushing crap up hill to have anything done about it so that must be painful right there.

[flyhalf]

I still can't see the benefit in quoting order numbers in your sig, as the smart pirate just stays silent and searches the forum for a post that matches his problem. Odds are it's in here somewhere.  no need to quote a number, no need to fake a number. But I suppose that's all you can enforce against these idiots I guess.

They all read this too, no doubt, so they know what the scene really thinks of them. Losers who misguidedly think they are internet tough guys based on some loser scene they think they are a part of when in reality no one gives a shit.

[Tim Harris]

Orbx need to give people special Avatars when their order numbers are kosha.  and if anyone whines about it they must have stolen it

all genuine purchasers will be identifiable on this forum then.

I would be Proud to be recognized as a genuine owner

I also 100% think you need to REALLY step up security on your product by installing a certain device that **** or **** used, It would deteriorate the product over a short time to render the product useless

I have 2 of these games in my possession

.......one of them is a soccer game, and under a test I did, after a few days of using the product WITHOUT registering it, it started to behave weird, the ball when you kicked it would not go in the right direction, sometimes the football would go into to orbit on a dropkick.... such that it would fly out of the stadium and render the game un-usable as the ball was "in" the game still but just never came down from the sky.

....the other is a shooter FPS game and same thing happened; after a few days the guns started to become very inaccurate making it impossible to shoot someone.

upon registering the product became fully workable.

this could be applied to FTX also I am sure....and I would welcome it

stealing FTX is the lowest of the low, considering the VERY reasonable price (unlike the vast majority of other flightsim add-ons)

but problem is most pirates have looked at the support forum and got any info they need from just reading others posts....Lock it i think...again the whingers will be only be the pirates

my 2c

[Rusty073]

Ok to cut a long story short and it may be an upset to admin. John and JayKae Have individual support forums and only allow those with an order number into them as you know your order number is for a specific user name and this will be displayed to admin so they know whos who in the zoo. Now i for one dont have much troubles with any of orbx products and i will buy them all whether i use them or not. But for the few that do this will be the easiest way to manage the situation. I run my own forums on my VA so i know you can allow selected people on different boards. I know this will be a hassle but as far as i see why should these free loaders benefit from anything the Devs have put in. The reason you need to do this is your answers are Publically known and these pirates could benefit from them without legally aquiring a copy.

Shane

[Ken Hall]

I am amazed at how many posts here have no order nos, I'd like to encourage every one to add there order no to there signature, if nothing else it makes it more obvious when a no order no post appears.

[Butch]

Orbx need to give people special Avatars when their order numbers are kosha.  and if anyone whines about it they must have stolen it

all genuine purchasers will be identifiable on this forum then.

I would be Proud to be recognized as a genuine owner

I also 100% think you need to REALLY step up security on your product by installing a certain device that **** or **** used, It would deteriorate the product over a short time to render the product useless

I have 2 of these games in my possession

.......one of them is a soccer game, and under a test I did, after a few days of using the product WITHOUT registering it, it started to behave weird, the ball when you kicked it would not go in the right direction, sometimes the football would go into to orbit on a dropkick.... such that it would fly out of the stadium and render the game un-usable as the ball was "in" the game still but just never came down from the sky.

....the other is a shooter FPS game and same thing happened; after a few days the guns started to become very inaccurate making it impossible to shoot someone.

upon registering the product became fully workable.

this could be applied to FTX also I am sure....and I would welcome it

stealing FTX is the lowest of the low, considering the VERY reasonable price (unlike the vast majority of other flightsim add-ons)

but problem is most pirates have looked at the support forum and got any info they need from just reading others posts....Lock it i think...again the whingers will be only be the pirates

my 2c

Tim, Building on your suggestion, 

If it's not a legit version, the textures slowly melt away to reveal the..............argh, cough, splat...cringe, default textures.

I did a flight out to Broken Hill a few weeks ago and it was desert!

[John Bosch]

I did a flight out to Broken Hill a few weeks ago and it was desert!

Umm ... speaking with the wisdom of having lived there for the first 20 years of my life .... it is desert 

But, I agree. The default Broken Hill is pretty bloody horrible. I don't recall there being palm trees in the streets!

[John Venema]

Orbx will not be restricting access to these forums to customers only. We have an open policy for access to guests from day one, and that won't change. If it means that pirates get the benefit of solved problems, so be it.

We will continue to be polite and courteous, but apply the order number request at all times.

I may close this thread soon - what has been said on this matter is enough I think.

[AdamC]

Ok my 5 cents worth.

Firstly,      I have not purchased any FTX programs at all as i do not have the computer specs or FSX for that matter to run them. I'm still an FS9 dinosaur and john i would really love to see YMML in FS9 if it can be done.

secondly,    I believe piracy is a thing of the future, there is so much of it out there that even computer stores are not selling games anymore. All you have to do is go to ebay and have a look on there, yep any game you want for a cheap price.

People who have bought and sold games on ebay will notice that some of the games on there for sale are pirated or burnt copy's of a game as the quality of the game degrades everytime you burnt it. I'm not going to go into eanything else about priacy because it shits me to tears.

and thirdly,  Ok i believe that restricting this forum to users that have only purchased FTX programs will most likely turn a lot of people away and may encourage some to buy. Over time i would think that the forum will just become the same people posting and not introducing new people to FSX and FTX for that matter will have a big effect on the flightsimming community.

As for putting viruses and so forth into the pirated downloads, one will realise that yep it is illegal and is most likely a waste of time as the most of the people that do the pirate thing are computer wizards and work out the virus to get rid of it before using the program.

Well thats my 5 cents, i hope that this forum will not be just for FTX user as i enjoy reading and sometimes posting to a great buch of people. I've had some problems in the past with my PC and yep it was people here that helped me sort through those problems.

Well cheers for now

Adam

[Remko]

I'll keep it short - indeed a lot has been said about this topic already, which I think reflects the support of true customers for Orbx and its excellent products. I agree John the forums are a selling tool, I wouldn't have bought any Orbx products if it wasn't for the forums and the excellent support and help that can be found there, so keep them open.

Inserting viruses is definitely not a good idea. However, maybe it is possible to insert some cunning signatures (e.g. something related to order number) into the product files themselves. It may even be possible to embed these in graphics. Not sure if this would generate too much overhead at FSS (as each download file would need to be individually tagged), but if it was widely known that illegal copies may be traced to the original purchaser hopefully this would deter people from "sharing" this.

[John Venema]

Thanks everyone for your contributions to this discussion. Time to close this off as as well as seem to be on the same page on the issue and further discussion will be circular.