Ubisoft Steals ‘No-CD Crack’ to Fix Rainbox 6: Vegas 2
Written by Ben Jones on July 18, 2008“Piracy is BAD” proclaims every copyright dependent industry lobby group. “Downloading is stealing” is another popular one. How about “downloads are a lost sale”? Ubisoft clearly didn’t believe that last one, as they distributed a no-cd patch from the scene group RELOADED as a fix for one of their games.
Piracy can be a funny business at times, but the rhetoric is often extremely predictable. So when something unexpected happens it can knock you off your stride. Something like… a major game publisher distributing a Scene no-cd crack as a fix would do it, for instance. If it sounds unlikely, that’s because sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. In this case, the publisher is Ubisoft, the game ‘Rainbow Six: Vegas 2‘, and the Scene ‘no-cd’ crack , yes that’s there as well.
The situation revolves around that oddest of characters, Direct2Drive (D2D) – an online games store, owned by IGN, selling games over the Internet as protected downloads. Game code is modified to prevent the standard retail DRM from inhibiting game play (as there is no actual disc to check for) with Trymedia activation utilized instead. More importantly, since the code around the DRM has been modified and changed to a different system, regular patches from the game developers can’t be used. Instead, patches must be reworked by D2D to accommodate these changes. These changes are not always quick, a point D2D does try and defuse in its FAQ.
Thus we come to Rainbow Six: Vegas2 (R6V2) which, since its release in March, has had three patches released for it. The third, 1.03 provides a lot of changes, including new play modes, so legitimate purchasers of the game were eager to try it. The problem is, those that bought it via D2D can’t use it. This is the problem inherent in DRM. Those that buy the product are the ones affected, not those the DRM is designed to defeat.
After lots of complaining and attempts to fix things themselves, one Ubisoft employee found a solution. A zip file was uploaded to the help/support site, named “R6Vegas2_fix.zip”.
If D2D users patched to 1.02, then replaced the EXE with this one, they could then update to the new patch. However, someone ran a hex edit and it appears the fix was not Ubisoft code but actually a ‘no-cd’ crack released by the Scene group RELOADED, as shown here.
Since then, the zip file containing the fix has been pulled from the Ubisoft support site, so we’re unable to verify. The game’s community is as baffled by this as everyone else. Since the claimed origin of the fix, 10 days ago, there has been no word on it officially from Ubisoft, beyond a ‘Community Manager’ who states
We’re looking into this further as this was not the UK Support team that posted this, however if it is an executable that does not need the disc I doubt it has come from an external source. There’d be very little point doing so when we already own the original unprotected executable.
As soon as we find out more about this we’ll let you know.
_________________
Ubi.Vigil
Community Manager
Ubisoft UK
Although it is not unknown for a Scene release to be used to ‘fix’ a retail product, it’s certainly rare to have that fact promoted. That the ‘no-cd’ patch works, might have some relation to how brutal the Scene is when it comes to the quality of their work, especially in games. Whilst this is a validation that the Scene isn’t as bad as the lobby groups would have you believe (they fixed the game, and did it for free) you can bet that Ubisoft won’t be smiling at E3, and that they, and Direct2Drive, will continue to use DRM to annoy and inconvenience paying customers.
Previously: UK File-Sharers and the “Wireless Defense”
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61 Responses
Haha.. yet again the pirates do a better job then the scores of programmers can do..
Pathetic..
I love it, RELOADED should sue over copyright infringement….LMAO
@2- LOL! Good one!
Yeah reloaded is awesome. The funny thing is.. ive heard more people downloading cracks to games they legally own then I hear people actuley cracking it to pirate.
People DO have problems with the DRM crap these companies torture there customers with, and when you try and get support, they tell you your a pirate and ignore you.
What these companies don’t realize is, without these cracking teams they would be less successful.. people don’t want to have to put a stupid plastic disc in every time they want to play a game.. this isn’t Super Nintendo days anymore, you don’t have to have big cartridges to play a game.. neither should you have a PLASTIC DISC. I have a computer that doesn’t even HAVE a CD rom drive, because its not necessary. There are better more efficient ways to load data on a computer.
The irony…
Sounds more like they’ll do anything to get out of actually working.
Really interesting… probably the programmers were too lazy to program a no-cd fix themselves and one already had or just found that crack…
(Like the saying “When something already exists, why recreate the same thing?”)
Very interesting strategy…
I hope it stays that way, with the difference that game companies distribute no longer DRM versions at all and stand to their own updates, not investigate them… good work stays good work, doesn’t matter who made it, once released…
Typical money-grubbing have-it-both-ways corporates fuxx.
Havent EA done this before? cant remember the game….
I’m not sure how these no-cd cracks work…but isn’t it possible that the Scene crack was just a leaked copy of the original unprotected executable in the first place? So when the Ubisoft tech put up internal code, it appeared identical to the crack which was already available from Reloaded?
Like I said, I’m not really familiar with the technologies involved here, it just seems to me like that might be a possibility.
Louis, if that were the case, then the reason the fix contained tags for the scene release would be??
The only way the fix would have the tags would be for it to come from the reloaded release.
Of course, again I must point out that I, as yet, have not seen this ‘fix’ zip so can’t verify it.
stupid americans show their true colors once again lol
yeah unreal tournament 2004 used the crack made by the scene in patch 3369… (the final patch)
lolu wud have thought they cud have least stolen off a decent cracking group instead of rld…
wasnt this just another one of rld’s crack that used that vm shit?
maybe vitality nxt time eh ubisoft?
@Zz
You morron, this is a french companie, it was made in their Montreal, Canada, studio.
So I guess Studid anti-american showed their true colors once again
Great work RELOADED ;)
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1991064316/m/1691091476
see, it’s the incompetence that losing you money, not piracy
Google cache someone?
yea waiting for a vitality proper :P
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1991064316/m/1381029176
> “lolu wud have thought they cud have least stolen off a decent cracking group instead of rld…
wasnt this just another one of rld’s crack that used that vm shit?
maybe vitality nxt time eh ubisoft?”
What’s wrong with Reloaded?
Or in leet scene talk: “wtz rng wt rld?”.
@22
“What’s wrong with Reloaded?”
like all of their rls’s are nuked and then propered by vitality… (as said before ususally do to a poor crack (e.g. VM crack..))
Ontop that they are a generally just poor group that make a mess of things (see assassin’s creed)
not complaing, just commenting…
and i dont no whos comment u where reading @ the time but the onli one of those abbriviations (?) i used was rld(=reloaded)
and thats cos its their tag… (see any of their rls’s
(rls means release…)
THAT’S UBI-SOFT FUCKED THEN
The first thing I do after buying any game is to get a nocd crack.
Why should I break my cd drive by having keep inserting it whenever i want to play the game.
If it don’t need shit off the cd, it don’t it fullstop.
RELOADED, sue Ubisoft now, go, get money!
@4 – Bang on the money!
I occasionally buy games and the first thing I do after installing is…go looking for a patch so I can put the discs away safely!
‘wud’, ‘cud’, ‘nxt’, ‘rld’
Yeah, the only abbreviation you used was ‘rld’…
Net-tards – *shrug*
“I have a computer that doesn’t even HAVE a CD rom drive, because its not necessary. There are better more efficient ways to load data on a computer.”
Such as?
There’s USB flash drives, but they’re more expensive than CD/DVD media. Plus while they may be small, carrying a bunch of flash drives would be awkward. No to mention the problem of labelling them so you know what’s on each one.
You can plug in an external drive, but again it’s going to be more expensive than CDs/DVDs and the files have to get on THAT drive somehow.
You can network your system to another computer and transfer files that way, but that’s not practical if the other system is a desktop that’s not owned by you.
You can use the net, but few people have connections fast enough to rival the speed of copying from a disc.
@29: The hard disk. All the data is there already if the game has been installed.
The disk/internet connection/flash drive/external drive should only be needed *once* to copy the data over to the hard disk.
that file was internal, and sum fuckin clown thought he’d slap in the team logo
i bet one of the RELOADED team work for Ubisoft….
come to think of it, Ubisoft have an unusually high ‘pre’ count….
you only went and fucked up now…
Using a no CD crack does not mean one is a pirate or using software in a pirated way. Just like bittorrent it is only a tool how one uses it is up to them. I myself do not feel the need to have a cd in my rom drive(wearing it and the cd out for no reason) every time i play a game.
Thats jokes…
> “like all of their rls’s are nuked and then propered by vitality… (as said before ususally do to a poor crack (e.g. VM crack..))
Ontop that they are a generally just poor group that make a mess of things (see assassin’s creed)”
All I know is that I thought they were one of the best, along with Fairlight and Deviance. Maybe I was wrong :P
> “and i dont no whos comment u where reading @ the time but the onli one of those abbriviations (?) i used was rld(=reloaded)
and thats cos its their tag… (see any of their rls’s
(rls means release…)”
I know what the abbreviations mean :) I just like laughing at them. Usually they’re just used by people who are trying to act cool and look down at all of us P2Pers who have to wait an extra ten minutes to download a release.
I do appreciate that you haven’t been rude though :) Many people who say “rls” are.
@Zz
Your a douchebag!!
Amateur hackers+crackers, you dominate and kik az)))
What you do needs privacy+anonymity, so maybe its hard to get cred outside the scene;
but know this: you should be proud, and u haz my props.
Good job!
Piracy is bad you dumbasses. Torrentfreak only want to make money off their jewish gay stories, but they sucks ass!
….
.
.
.
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x ghfd ghfgh
Notice how that thread now has about 66,000 views! Ubisoft should be held accountable for their actions. They broke their own EULA!
Also notice how “Vigil” edited his final post that locked the thread. Ubisoft knows this is bad press & they’re trying to cover it up. They ac like they’re “researching” the issue…but they’re just buying time hoping this will blow over.
cool its nice to see that there is some common decency in the world,
i wasnt really expecting a friendly reply so thanks…
its wierd i really was expecting a flame war.. so thanks,
i was sort of maybe trying to be rude a little (i assumed a lot less of you before) so i apolagize for that…
its seems strange talking to someone online without starting a flame war.. or just an argument…
:) so thanks again!
If anyone wants to confirm that the Ubisoft “patch” was indeed a RELOADED no-cd crack. You can download it here: http://www.badongo.com/file/10457834
And then open it with a hex editor like PSPAD: http://www.pspad.com/en/download.php
and if you scroll down you can see the “RELOADED” tag in the code. Priceless… :)
I’m not surprised we had to fix their dedicated server program from crashing when it was released.
Anyone using custom camo joining a server would crash it.
Technically patch “1.02″ was a fix from the community so the servers could stay online.
They did fix that bug a month later.
It’s said that we’ve come to expect so little from Ubisoft that this fiasco doesn’t even come off as all that surprising.
It goes to show you how Ubi handles things.
Hi Ubisoft, I *OWN* Rainbow 6 and of course I got the NOCD patch for it. Glad to see you finally got the message, but “Sins of the Solar Empire” know to ignore that CD CP crap from the outset.
“Such as?
There’s USB flash drives, but they’re more expensive than CD/DVD media. Plus while they may be small, carrying a bunch of flash drives would be awkward. No to mention the problem of labelling them so you know what’s on each one.
You can plug in an external drive, but again it’s going to be more expensive than CDs/DVDs and the files have to get on THAT drive somehow.
You can network your system to another computer and transfer files that way, but that’s not practical if the other system is a desktop that’s not owned by you.
You can use the net, but few people have connections fast enough to rival the speed of copying from a disc.”
Network installations and internet installations (like steam) are far more efficient, for one thing, you dont have to go anywhere to get the CD. I think that all software should be instantly available to get (like on steam), the fact that I have to get up and go to the store to get discs is stone age.
Network installations is perfectly practical on computers you dont own, I just did it with computers that werent even part of the same workgroup, I also do it all day with computers that are on/off a domain. Current technology is GigE networks with SATA interface.
I admit that CD’s aren’t completely useless, but due to these industrys holding back technology, we have been on it WAY too long. Its too mechanical and its too physical.
If only Ubisoft would have given credit where it was due then all would be fine.
Even though Ubisoft uses anti-piracy techniques it is a fairly common practice in the videogame industry to do so and Ubisoft itself has never spoken out against piracy (to my knowledge), so we can’t really give them the third degree about it. People share their stuff, Ubisoft shares other people’s stuff- it’s the circle of life on the Internet.
Again, this would’ve been completely acceptable if Ubisoft would have at least given credit to the Scene group responsible.
Heres an idea. Maybe Ubi coders added the ‘Reloaded’ bit to their code as a nod to the crackers?
Then someone with too much time found it and started jizzing all over the place and throwing claims about.
> Why should I break my cd drive by
> having keep inserting it whenever i
> want to play the game.
break the cd drive or break the cd itself, or even both together if you’re unlucky
yeah that DRM crap is more annoying to customers than to pirates
It’s RainboW not RainboX.
Diablo 2’s most recent patch is a “no cd” patch. don’t know the source but it’s worth mentioning.
Yup, hypocritical pigopolistas are at it again. And got caught! Rope it to’em guys and give ‘em a taste of the court action they hand out to others. How about piercing the ‘corporate veil’ and suing the 88 years old grandmothers of the major stockholders. THEN the ‘drm’ers will get the message!
HAHAHA Someone in the UbiSoft or D2D coding teams is going to get fired I think.
Well this is truely tough shit for Ubi!
I don’t think it was an experienced programmer’s error. I can imagine a noob marketting/support/sales person making the obvious mistake thinking it was either the right fix or that it would at least temporarily help out the gamers without doing other harm.
Either case, just goes to show that the scene DOES have a value. Most of the old sceners are todays game developers anyway..
reloaded never cracked a R6V2 patch.
so basically ubisoft not only used a cracked exe to fix their cd-check problem but also downgraded the game exe of updated games to the retail version. that’s brilliant work by ubisoft’s support team.
R6Vegas2_fix.zip
Nuke: stolen from P2P
Nuke: VM sht!
For every single game I own, I always download a crack to break the DRM. I hate that crap. I don’t want to have to search for my cd to play my game and I don’t want to have to have to go online and log in to a service in order to play a game (like Half-Life 2) offline. I hate activation as well because I reformat my computers a lot.
Now a days, unless the product is extremely good and I really like it a whole lot, I refuse to purchase (and instead pirate) things that have DRM on them. Why should I buy something legitimately when I get punished for it?
I forgot to add: I’d buy a lot more stuff if it didn’t contain DRM. For instance, I bought GalCiv 2 even though I don’t play it that much. I would be more inclined to buy other games if they didn’t have the DRM. I bought GalCiv 2 over them because of it’s lack of DRM.
reloaded shud ask for copycopyright infringinment lol
firstly the “crack” is their code to begin with thats stolen by the crackers – they removed code and put it out there for download.
so;
1. They got idiots to do their job for free
2. Its originally their product so they didnt steal anything
Yeah and those “IDIOTS” save up alot of money for me every year, you stupid. its just unbelievable, instead of thanking this group for the good job they do, which is saving my money and permit me to buy a new iphone, you insult them.
The sad thing about DRM is that it stops absolutely -0- piracy. The only people that ever even *see* the DRM are people A) Cracking it for a scene release or B) Legitimate customers that payed for it who don’t yet know about a no-cd crack for it… everyone else downloads the file from somewhere and applies the cracks and never has to deal with DRM. I really can’t understand why publishers and developers can’t get it through their head that DRM is a no win for anyone.
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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