2021-04-13 12:49:07

guys, on thursday i sent a message to aaron and he didn't answer. i have my license registered in a pc connected by eternet, can i register it to my laptop connected wirelessly? because being eternet and wireless changes the ip.

2021-04-13 13:29:15

Yeah, if you have the name and the license you can register the game. Is there like a limit to how many different computers you can register it on?

"Snake, don't worry about it. There's more to being a good person than just having a stereo television."

2021-04-13 14:05:00

Wireless and ethernet doesn't change your IP

2021-04-13 14:41:08

the desktop has one ip and the notebook has another one.

2021-04-13 16:49:42

I think that's just your two different computers, not your different types of access.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!

2021-04-13 17:32:29

I believe up to 2 or 3 devices, but I'm not exactly sure

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2021-04-13 17:53:11

I'm about to register the license, but in case it crashes, can I do anything? or if it crashes I'm screwed.

2021-04-13 19:46:41 (edited by Trajectory 2021-04-13 19:51:42)

You will not have a problem.
The license is for one human being. That's you. Not your computer. As long as you don't give the license to another person, you're fine. What you cannot do is connect to the online services from two different machines at the same time.

Official server host for vgstorm.com and developer of the Manamon 2 netplay server.
PSA: sending unsolicited PMs or emails to people you don't know asking them to buy you stuff is disrespectful. You'll just be ignored, so don't waste your time.

2021-04-13 20:06:02

Yeah I think the limit is 3 because I registered it on 3 machines and then my key died. Oh well, I suppose. Great customer support there, not replying when I sent an email. But it shouldn't crash, @8 is correct.

2021-04-13 20:57:10

@9 I can't go into specifics obviously. But I'll say this much.
There is no automation when it comes to banning keys. There is automation for drawing attention to accounts based on certain criteria, but the data is reviewed and decisions are made manually. While I have no part in this review process, I've seen Aaron do it and I know he's pretty conservative when it comes to pulling the trigger.
You can register on multiple computers, you can even travel and battle your friends while you wait in airport after airport. You just can't let another person besides yourself use your key. Is it possible that something in your usage statistics could have made it look like your key was distributed?

Official server host for vgstorm.com and developer of the Manamon 2 netplay server.
PSA: sending unsolicited PMs or emails to people you don't know asking them to buy you stuff is disrespectful. You'll just be ignored, so don't waste your time.

2021-04-13 21:03:27 (edited by Quin 2021-04-13 21:06:17)

It very well could've, I was traveling, as well as having lots of computers. Either way, him assuming it is fine. What isn't, is not replying to emails about it, even though I sent multiple. I also had the key in a text file in a Dropbox folder that was *not* shared, AFAIK, my DB wasn't hacked and it wasn't taken, but I could be wrong there. That has happened before though, and so my days of storing files in Dropbox just so they can be between machines are over.

2021-04-13 21:39:25

@Turret: Glad you left Flopbox behind. Dropbox=easily hackable and malware-ridden. Get yourself Nextcloud or an NAS. Or at least a good password manager with secure note support such as Bitwarden. You should never, ever store anything sensitive in plaintext on anything other than an external hard drive or disk. It's just bad practice. I'm not saying this automatically means your key inadvertently fell into the wrong hands, but the fact you were storing it on Dropbox makes that plausible even if a remote possibility, shared folder or not.
Most software will say it is at least partially your responsibility to saffeguard your key from loss or damage. This includes making reasonable efforts to mitigate the possibility of it falling into the wrong hands. I.e. if your computer or storage got hacked and you had good defenses that's one thing, but storing on a file storage with a known history of exploits? Quite another matter. Again, this doesn't mean your key would get outright banne,d it's just something to keep in mind when storing private information.
In addition,

email wrote:

Please save this email for your records, as VGStorm is not obligated to replace lost registration information.

Should he be using a service like LimeLM that automates reactivation and key replacement? You were notified upfront, especially given activation tasks are manual, that the obligation to replace all keys immediately did not come with your purchase.
Now should he perhaps invest in an activation system such as LimeLM/TurboActivate that handles reactivation and replacements automatically? Absolutely. But that's a little hard to do with BGT. Hell, integrating TurboActivate in a language that isn't officially supported is a pain in the ass in and of itself as you need to write up both the class and the ui elements for it.

2021-04-13 22:18:26

@Turret Did you check the spam folder for the email reply?
The email server is a private server, so even though we've been building reputation with the big email providers for many years, there's still a theoretical risk of the reply being falsely marked as spam by your email provider.
I'm inclined to believe that your key ended up in someone else's hands curtesy of Dropbox somehow. Perhaps you shared the folder with someone at one point and forgot that you did, so it ended up on your friend's machine?
I don't think that Aaron would hastily deactivate your license based on limited or no evidence of key distribution and then just ignore you when you wrote to plead your case, especially when everybody knows that just a small handful of PayPal complaints can result in permanent loss of PayPal seller privileges.

Official server host for vgstorm.com and developer of the Manamon 2 netplay server.
PSA: sending unsolicited PMs or emails to people you don't know asking them to buy you stuff is disrespectful. You'll just be ignored, so don't waste your time.

2021-04-13 22:39:02

Hi.
I would just like to point out that Turret is by no means the only one who has had his emails ignored. There have been other people saying this. In fact this very thing happend to me. Mind you I did eventually get my issue resolved, but it would have been nice if Aaron would have at least acknowledged that he received my email. I'm sorry, but that's just good customer service.

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2021-04-13 23:12:52

@bryant: Good customer service should also mean more than one person handling requests, and as it stands it seems like it's just him. So it pays to bring a dedicated person on board, at the very least for routine tasks such as licensing, so that he can be free to focus on serious bug reports nad the like. Again, this is why most smart developers used to use Armadilo, and now can turn to TurboActivate. Rolling your own drm system is all well and good until you realize how much of a pain it is. At that point, it becomes a balancing act, how much autonomy can you realistically code in without breaking something due to a lack of knowledge of asymmetric cryptography and the right machine identifying techniques (something that TurboActivate balances perfectly). It's just that, again, BGT and its limited reach for external resources. It only just barely manages to work with Armadilo, and probably wouldn't do too well with TurboActivate either.

2021-04-13 23:49:46

I'll have to try sending an email again. I'm not sure if my Manamon 2 key got taken, but it could've. My GoldWave key did, and that was the reason I stopped using dorpbox. I looked in the spam folder, but didn't see anything. Let's see if I get a reply this time.

2021-04-13 23:58:33

Yeah. Get Bitwarden, that's a nice safe cloud provider to store secure notes.

2021-04-14 00:33:23

@Jack I self-host both Bitwarden and Nextcloud on my remote server, couldn't be happier with them. I submitted accessibility bugs to both the Nextcloud server team and to the client team, the server team responded while the client did not. I think the client side could use some accessibility improvements, but the server is quite good.
The licensing for Manamon is in fact fully automated. There's no manual order fulfillment. Decisions about deactivating licenses are manual.

Official server host for vgstorm.com and developer of the Manamon 2 netplay server.
PSA: sending unsolicited PMs or emails to people you don't know asking them to buy you stuff is disrespectful. You'll just be ignored, so don't waste your time.

2021-04-14 03:29:47

Trajectory: I figured as much, I was referring to license management being manual in addition to automated fulfillment.
Re, Nextcloud: So you're also getting radio-silence from the client team too I take it?
I'm hosting a nextcloud over here as well. Predictably, the server accessibility is rock solid while the client leaves a lot to be desired. It stands to reason that the client is virtually set it and forget it, but only if you know how to navigate your way around the inaccessible controls and ignore the (slightly broken) usage hints. There are things such as folder sharing that are just better left alone on the client-side though otherwise you're in for a lot of object navigation. Been there, done that.

2021-04-14 04:26:15

Hi, I do have a question. How can I unregister my key from a computer just in case, I'll need to reformat?

2021-04-14 04:32:55

I do agree that it is the users responsibility to back up their registration information, indeed I have mine backed up, but Aaron also needs to realize that things happen beyond our control. I'm not saying replace every single key for every single person that emails, but at least be a little more considerate of that fact.

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2021-04-14 05:22:52 (edited by Chris 2021-04-14 05:24:17)

As far as I know, you don't need, and are unable to deactivate. The license information is most likely stored somewhere in the registry, but I have no idea where and I wouldn't recommend poking around when you don't know what you're doing. It's safer to format your drive or get another computer/drive and license the game again.

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2021-04-14 05:31:05

It's a plain dword value, but even then as has been said you don't have to worry about deactivating the game. There is no hard-fast limit for the amount of activations you can make.

2021-04-14 05:50:49

Thanks everyone for the answer! smile

2021-04-14 17:08:24

@Jack Yeah, same experiences re:Nextcloud. Great responsiveness from the server team, dead silence from the client.
I submitted an issue about accessibility of the users page with Voiceover and had a working solution within a couple of months. Client ticket has gone unanswered for over a year.
As for activations, there are no activations. Just don't let your key be used by someone other than you, and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Official server host for vgstorm.com and developer of the Manamon 2 netplay server.
PSA: sending unsolicited PMs or emails to people you don't know asking them to buy you stuff is disrespectful. You'll just be ignored, so don't waste your time.