Starforce in Armed Asault

Tis Peition was put Online to show possible Armed Assault Publishers what the BI Gaming Community thinks about the possible use of "Starforce" as a copy protection for Armed Assault.

Starforce is a program that is well known for causing problems with people PC systems. This goes form simple Windows reboots on disc check to Hardware failure and the need of clean Installations of a fresh Operating System.

Starforce is also not a protection to keep people from spreading cracked versions of the Game over the Internet. Even the latest titles that used the latest version of Starforce have been cracked already.

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Why are we boycotting it?

Starforce has received criticism for installing its own device driver onto computers. The Starforce drivers are often linked to system instability and computer crashes. If these problems occur, the end-user would be unware as to the cause of the problem, and would be helpless to solve the problem.

For example, here's one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down. Eventually it will revert to 16bit compatibility mode rendering a CD/DVD writer virtually unusable. In some circumstances certain drives cannot cope with this mode and it results in physical hardware failure (Most commonly in multiformat CD/DVD writer drives). A sure sign of this step down occurring is that the burn speeds will get slower and slower (no matter what speed you select to burn at). Starforce, on a regular basis, triggers this silent step down. Until it reaches the latter stages most people do not even realise it is happening.

Read more about Starforce:
http://www.glop.org/starforce/

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So this shows that Starforce does not damage peoples PC systems but that it is also a useless Software that will only screw with Publisher sales figures. Many people who might have bought Armed Assault wouldn't buy it because of this and rather get a cracked version of the game without the Starforce protection.

The OFP Community has been dedicated to Operation Flashpoint for 5 years now and this is a call to the Community Members to Boycott the use of Starforce as copy protection in Armed Assault. Sign this Petition now to get the message out to the Publishers and Bohemia Interactive.