Gobliiins 4 - 9.99 Til Aug 30 on Stardock (Includes 1-3)

Jorpho · Post by **Jorpho** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 4:09 am

If you were thinking about buying these, now might be a good time:
http://www.impulsedriven.com/goblins4

Graxer · Post by **Graxer** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 7:18 am

I'm seriously considering this at that price!

Is it possible to get the SCUMMVM files from this? I gather you need extra software to play the game

I have never heard of impulse Driven before, is it a good service?

EDIT: Well, I seem to have bought it on an Implulse now, so I hope it works out for me.

Graxer · Post by **Graxer** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 12:07 pm

Ok, I've got them all working in ScummVM. They are all CD DOS versions 1.02 (English, German, French, Italian & Spanish)

MapleSyrup · Post by **MapleSyrup** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 4:14 pm

Thanks for telling everyone about this. I've been wanting to get the Gobliiins games for a while, and almost bought this a week ago at it's original price. I'm glad I waited.

raina · Post by **raina** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 9:10 pm

Very interesting, but I'm a little hesitant because of this Impulse "distribution platform" thing. Feel free to skip the next two paragraphs if you're not in the mood for ranting.

I mean I already have Steam installed for a couple of nice games but I'm not that crazy about it. The fact that it has to be always running on the background while playing is not the biggest issue but rather the mental separation it creates between Steam apps and non-Steam apps. It's very annoying. Automatic updates are nice but I've already experienced minor hiccups where games would disappear and reappear only after a system reboot. So, keeping my fingers crossed I'm subconsciously waiting for the day I have to contact Valve with PDF receipts to have them restore my DRM'd goods gone missing.

Ok, enough about my Steam anxiety, there's also GOG.com. The basic idea is the same but the respect and trust they show towards their customers is practically the polar opposite of Steam. As is their games' total independence of a distribution platform.

Impulse's page on Gobliiins4 wrote:* Impulse must be installed in order to download and update software.

Graxer, you said you can run the 3 games in ScummVM, which is a great relief. But how is Impulse in general? More like Steam or GOG.com? Does the 4th game run independently of the platform? Is what they say true word for word and it's only required for downloads and updates?

Graxer · Post by **Graxer** » Fri Aug 28, 2009 11:06 pm

raina wrote:
Impulse's page on Gobliiins4 wrote:* Impulse must be installed in order to download and update software.
Graxer, you said you can run the 3 games in ScummVM, which is a great relief. But how is Impulse in general? More like Steam or GOG.com? Does the 4th game run independently of the platform? Is what they say true word for word and it's only required for downloads and updates?

What they say is true! Impulse seems to be a very good service. You do need to download and install through Impulse (For some reason it required me to do the full download of 732Mb [compressed] twice before it started the extraction and installation.) However, the good news is that I just discovered a shortcut in the Start Menu that lets me run Gobliiins 4 completely independantly of Impulse. So, once installed, it is no different from playing something from GOG.com. (Where I bought The Feeble Files)

Impulse works similarly to the GOG.com downloader software that you can choose to use. Impulse downloads and installs the files for you, then you never have to run it again.

The installation creates a seperate Gobliiins4-Bonus-install.exe setup file in "C:\Program Files\Snowberry Connection\Gobliiins 4\Bonus" which will install, without using Impulse, Gobliiins 1-3 (configured to run with a bundled version of ScummVM, and without EXEs, but with extra unneeded datafiles.) I just moved the needed files to their own folder alongside all my other ScummVM games and added them in in my own copy of the latest ScummVM build.

I am very pleased with my decision to take the risk and buy it. I personally would recommend buying it while the offer is available.

Mud · Post by **Mud** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 12:07 am

Do you know if it uses StarForce or not?

Graxer · Post by **Graxer** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 12:17 am

Mud wrote:Do you know if it uses StarForce or not?

It doesn't appear to. I used this method to check:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2286051_find-st ... puter.html

raina · Post by **raina** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 12:55 am

Graxer wrote:Impulse works similarly to the GOG.com downloader software that you can choose to use. Impulse downloads and installs the files for you, then you never have to run it again.
[...]
I am very pleased with my decision to take the risk and buy it. I personally would recommend buying it while the offer is available.

Thanks for sharing your experience. The good news makes the deal even sweeter.

EDIT: Ok, bought, and everything seems fine. Except like with Steam, I wasn't asked WHERE I want the game (Gobliiins 4) to be installed.

marzipan · Post by **marzipan** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:41 am

raina wrote:I mean I already have Steam installed for a couple of nice games but I'm not that crazy about it. The fact that it has to be always running on the background while playing is not the biggest issue but rather the mental separation it creates between Steam apps and non-Steam apps.

There is a way around this, but I'll leave that to you to find out.

Nice to hear somebody's distributing an English version of the trilogy anyhow. I was led to believe only certain countries in Central Europe were entitled to them.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 10:54 am

Graxer wrote:
Mud wrote:Do you know if it uses StarForce or not?
It doesn't appear to. I used this method to check:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2286051_find-st ... puter.html

The StarForce driver is sometimes renamed so that the name matches a game. For example, if you check for StarForce among non-pnp devices and you have Simon the Sorcerer 4 installed, you'll see two drivers called:

Simon the Sorcerer 4 Environment Driver
Simon the Sorcerer 4 Synchronization Driver

The whole StarForce driver mess started with the version 3.0 of the protection and since then StarForce [now 5.x] should come with a configuration utility to manage installed drivers.

For more information about StarForce check Wiki article and reference links, and Boycott StarForce webpage.

Whether or not an application is using StarForce can also be determined by analysing the executables with one of numerous protection identification programs. For obvious reasons I won't post any links to these, but they can be easily found on the internet.

Graxer · Post by **Graxer** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 1:33 pm

Morden wrote:
Graxer wrote:
Mud wrote:Do you know if it uses StarForce or not?
It doesn't appear to. I used this method to check:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2286051_find-st ... puter.html
The StarForce driver is sometimes renamed so that the name matches a game. For example, if you check for StarForce among non-pnp devices and you have Simon the Sorcerer 4 installed, you'll see two drivers called:

Simon the Sorcerer 4 Environment Driver
Simon the Sorcerer 4 Synchronization Driver

The whole StarForce driver mess started with the version 3.0 of the protection and since then StarForce [now 5.x] should come with a configuration utility to manage installed drivers.

For more information about StarForce check Wiki article and reference links, and Boycott StarForce webpage.

Whether or not an application is using StarForce can also be determined by analysing the executables with one of numerous protection identification programs. For obvious reasons I won't post any links to these, but they can be easily found on the internet.

Without downloading any additional software I can't see any sign of Starforce running on my PC. I checked for Environment Driver and Synchronization Driver.

Graxer · Post by **Graxer** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 1:44 pm

I just read this:

Stardock (the creators of Impulse) does allow for DRM's such as Securom on Impulse and leaves the decision on DRM's entirely up to the third party companies publishing on their platform. However any form of DRM is always disclosed on Impulse, and Stardock are the only digital distribution system to provide this information to the customer up-front.

I don't see any mention of Starforce on the game's listing.

KuroShiro · Post by **KuroShiro** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 4:42 pm

Many Stardock games (Sins of a Solar Empire notably) don't even have copy protection. I sincerely doubt they'd be using something as invasive as Starforce considering their overall company line. Then again they do allow Securom so who knows.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 5:17 pm

You never know. GamersGate used StarForce ProActive to protect their Gobliiins 4 bundle.

A forum user named jefklak bought the bundle and had some problems with product activation. You can read about those here. I guess that's the main reason why people ask whether or not StarForce is used.