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General discussionEpic Store games you can play without the Epic Launcher(884 posts) (884 posts) 
(884 posts) 
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 09, 2021
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MarkoH01: Have you ever heard of GOG closing an account just because some user used their refund option too often? I know that they decide on a case by case basis if they will refund the game in the end but it is the first time I heard that they actually closed an account because of overuse of the refund option.
No specific examples, though it costs the store (and developers) far more to deal with abusive refunds than direct piracy. Several games devs have also said they would actually rather nefarious people torrent games than buy illegal Steam keys for the same reason. Hopefully it won't become a problem here, but if it does I can see them freezing the ability to at least purchase new games on accounts, (and as GOG said when they introduced the 'no quibble' refund from the earlier 'only if you haven't downloaded it'), they'll keep an eye on it and can easily revert back if it gets abused. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet and hopefully it won't either. As for Epic, if millions of people bought games, downloaded then refunded, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't simply ignore it and freezing accounts is certainly one option.
Posted June 09, 2021
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AB2012: ... freezing accounts is certainly one option.
The question what this "freezing" (theoretically speaking) would mean. As long as only new purchases will be prevented, I think it is fair. However restricting access to the games you bought ... not fair.
Posted June 09, 2021
Personally I expect them, if there is a suspicion of refund abuse by a user, that they will just block refunds for, say... 6 months. You'd keep access to your account but requesting another refund would get denied for a while.
Posted June 11, 2021
high rated
Frost punk.
the PCGaming wiki says its drm free using -AUTH_PASSWORD=0 -EpicPortal
i have confirmed this on my machine.
i only bring this up because i couldn't find it on the spreadsheet.
if anyone can update that it might be useful to someone
Posted June 11, 2021
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AB2012: ... freezing accounts is certainly one option.
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MarkoH01: The question what this "freezing" (theoretically speaking) would mean. As long as only new purchases will be prevented, I think it is fair. However restricting access to the games you bought ... not fair.
The last part is not only not fair, it's not even legal in EU.
Same goes for HumbleBundle allegedly locking entire accounts because of "key reselling" (which IS legal in EU).
Posted June 12, 2021
I think I have discovered a new form of DRM on the Epic store...

So had been wondering if The Last Campfire was DRM Free. No one could tell me so I went and bought it since it's on sale.

I copied it over to a secondary hdd connected to my PC and closed the Epic Launcher. Ran it from E drive (a secondary HDD I have) and it gets to the title screen, then opens up Epic launcher. Ok so I closed everything again and go back tot he .exe to try something else... only it's gone. It had been deleted by the Epic launcher it seems.

No biggie I thought So I go to copy just the .exe and try to paste it in. It gives me a pop up box saying you have to have Admin rights. I click accept... but it doesn't go through and just keeps telling me that I don't have permission and can't do it.

I try to copy the whole folder again this time instead of just the .exe and it still does the samething. I even tried uninstalling the game and reinstalling, then try copying the folder again. Still does it...

I next tried copying it to a different place this time on my C drive (my main HDD.) This time though I made a shortcut to the desktop added the -EpicPortal. It worked! Stuipdly though just to test something I removed the -EpicPortal and it opened the launcher. Closed it all and tried to re-do the -EpicPortal... but guess what... the same shit from before happened again. Deleted the .exe and wouldn't let me copy the folder to the desktop now. So it's like I am locked out of two places now...

UPDATE: As I was typing this I thought of something and tested it out to see. Apparently it is locking me out of specific locations (such as folders, not the whole drive).

When I was copying it E drive, I was putting it in a folder where I have all my drm free Epic games copied to. When I copied the LastCampfire folder to a different folder on the drive, it worked just fine. Additionaly, while I apparently can't copy it directly to the desktop now, when I made a new folder on the desktop and then pasted it in that, it then worked...

This is weird and I don't know how to undo the lock outs (this is what I am calling them. Don't know what other name to use lol). At least I can confirm though that the -EpicPortal trick works for this gane.
Posted June 12, 2021
Update on my issue. Found that simpley restarting my computer fixed evrything. I can copy to the desktop and my DRM Free Epic Games folder on my E drive.

Still dunno what was causing that but thank god it wasn't permanent.
Posted June 12, 2021
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Crimson-X: Update on my issue. Found that simpley restarting my computer fixed evrything. I can copy to the desktop and my DRM Free Epic Games folder on my E drive.

Still dunno what was causing that but thank god it wasn't permanent.
Glad it worked out. I would do a virus scan just to be sure.

It seems Microsoft GamePass locks you out of the games folder, wich is funny because your locked from your own computer folders with a higher level account than admin, MS account. Not sure if could be bypassed but booting from Linux should ignore all the permissions.
Here I was thinking Epic gone full retard mode and finally implement some obnoxious DRM, doing it MS style. And even more funny, seing MS let 3rd parties control your computer...

Also, playing with Windows permissions can go south very quickly.
Posted June 12, 2021
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Crimson-X: I think I have discovered a new form of DRM on the Epic store...

So had been wondering if The Last Campfire was DRM Free. No one could tell me so I went and bought it since it's on sale.

I copied it over to a secondary hdd connected to my PC and closed the Epic Launcher. Ran it from E drive (a secondary HDD I have) and it gets to the title screen, then opens up Epic launcher. Ok so I closed everything again and go back tot he .exe to try something else... only it's gone. It had been deleted by the Epic launcher it seems.

No biggie I thought So I go to copy just the .exe and try to paste it in. It gives me a pop up box saying you have to have Admin rights. I click accept... but it doesn't go through and just keeps telling me that I don't have permission and can't do it.

I try to copy the whole folder again this time instead of just the .exe and it still does the samething. I even tried uninstalling the game and reinstalling, then try copying the folder again. Still does it...

I next tried copying it to a different place this time on my C drive (my main HDD.) This time though I made a shortcut to the desktop added the -EpicPortal. It worked! Stuipdly though just to test something I removed the -EpicPortal and it opened the launcher. Closed it all and tried to re-do the -EpicPortal... but guess what... the same shit from before happened again. Deleted the .exe and wouldn't let me copy the folder to the desktop now. So it's like I am locked out of two places now...

UPDATE: As I was typing this I thought of something and tested it out to see. Apparently it is locking me out of specific locations (such as folders, not the whole drive).

When I was copying it E drive, I was putting it in a folder where I have all my drm free Epic games copied to. When I copied the LastCampfire folder to a different folder on the drive, it worked just fine. Additionaly, while I apparently can't copy it directly to the desktop now, when I made a new folder on the desktop and then pasted it in that, it then worked...

This is weird and I don't know how to undo the lock outs (this is what I am calling them. Don't know what other name to use lol). At least I can confirm though that the -EpicPortal trick works for this gane.
Hey, are you using Windows Defender? There's a setting (Protected Folders) under ransomware protection that may block access to certain user folders. Sometimes it does it silently, but its in Event Viewer.

I also have The Last Campfire. Epic launcher isn't even installed, and apart from popping up a webpage to log into Epic (which can be ignored), it runs and copies fine.
Posted June 12, 2021
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Crimson-X: Ran it from E drive (a secondary HDD I have) and it gets to the title screen, then opens up Epic launcher.

Update on my issue. Found that simpley restarting my computer fixed evrything. I can copy to the desktop and my DRM Free Epic Games folder on my E drive.
Glad you got it sorted though this is why I definitely recommend temporarily renaming EpicGamesLauncher.exe (usually located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Epic Games\Launcher\Portal\Binaries\Win32) before each test (eg, call it EpicGamesLauncher.drmtest or something that removes the .exe extension altogether) just in case something is hard-coded in a game .dll to call an .exe at that location even if it's run from another folder / drive, then rename it back afterwards. As for blocking access to folders it could be a Windows file system permission issue or Windows Defender. Or just Windows 10 being randomly finicky... ;-)

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Dark_art_: It seems Microsoft GamePass locks you out of the games folder, wich is funny because your locked from your own computer folders with a higher level account than admin, MS account. Not sure if could be bypassed but booting from Linux should ignore all the permissions.
It's possible that ExecTi could bypass it. It's quite a powerful utility that also allows access to protected registry keys too. Regardless of what Microsoft do with Windows permissions though, as long as a disc isn't encrypted you can usually access the files from a Live Linux distro and copy it elsewhere (ideally zip it up then unzip it to perhaps remove any NTFS specific meta-data), at least for non-UWP apps. Having said that, most people aren't going to do that and combined with Microsoft's love of Denuvo-style "Arxan" DRM and sandboxed "UWP" apps, MS Store is probably the least DRM-Free friendly one.
Posted June 12, 2021
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Crimson-X: Update on my issue. Found that simpley restarting my computer fixed evrything. I can copy to the desktop and my DRM Free Epic Games folder on my E drive.

Still dunno what was causing that but thank god it wasn't permanent.
You should probably do a full drive virus scan (everyone should do that every once in a while).
Beware tho that such scan run from the potentially-infected system is going to be pretty worthless (no way to detect active rootkits this way for example).
You would have to use livecd for this to make sense.

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Dark_art_: Also, playing with Windows permissions can go south very quickly.
You can literally accidentially create a predicament in which no user in your entire system has any permissions :P
I know this from experience xD
Hint: removing inherited permissions while not paying 100% attention is playing with fire :P
Posted June 12, 2021
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B1tF1ghter: You can literally accidentially create a predicament in which no user in your entire system has any permissions :P
I know this from experience xD
Hint: removing inherited permissions while not paying 100% attention is playing with fire :P
YES!!!!!

I managed to break Windows to the point of being easier to reinstall, precisely because playing with fire is dangerous O.o

One time I want to find some files on a SSD. Just connect through USB and get the files, right? Yes, no problem at all after taking permission of a couple system folders to get the files.
Now booting the said SSD and correctly use it was another matter, funny thing is I'm not only misinformed but also stupid because in my process to fix the permission problems, I managed to broke it even more XD

Since that that time (probably WIndows 7 era?) I try to stay away of permissions on Windows, just let the system do his thing...
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AB2012: It's possible that ExecTi could bypass it. It's quite a powerful utility that also allows access to protected registry keys too
Thank you!

I had used a couple of WinAero programs before but was not aware of that "simple" utility. Saved!
Post edited June 12, 2021 by Dark_art_
Posted June 24, 2021
high rated
Just tested Sonic Mania on Epic and it is sadly locked by Epic's DRM. I tried the -EpicPortal command-line argument and the game boots but it refuses to go beyond the title screen without a user log-in and won't even play in "No Save Mode" (which is bad already).

Horizon Chase Turbo is sadly the same deal as Sonic Mania, locked behind Epic's DRM and does not go beyond the title screen and instead gets stuck in an infinite loading screen...
Post edited June 24, 2021 by AmethystViper
Posted June 24, 2021
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AmethystViper: Just tested Sonic Mania on Epic and it is sadly locked by Epic's DRM. I tried the -EpicPortal command-line argument and the game boots but it refuses to go beyond the title screen without a user log-in and won't even play in "No Save Mode" (which is bad already).

Horizon Chase Turbo is sadly the same deal as Sonic Mania, locked behind Epic's DRM and does not go beyond the title screen and instead gets stuck in an infinite loading screen...
Did you also try these parameters?

/c=.. -AUTH_LOGIN=unused
Posted June 24, 2021
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AmethystViper: Just tested Sonic Mania on Epic and it is sadly locked by Epic's DRM. I tried the -EpicPortal command-line argument and the game boots but it refuses to go beyond the title screen without a user log-in and won't even play in "No Save Mode" (which is bad already).

Horizon Chase Turbo is sadly the same deal as Sonic Mania, locked behind Epic's DRM and does not go beyond the title screen and instead gets stuck in an infinite loading screen...
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MarkoH01: Did you also try these parameters?

/c=.. -AUTH_LOGIN=unused
No luck, sadly. I tried every argument that we've confirmed works, but nothing lets it run.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionEpic Store games you can play without the Epic Launcher(884 posts) (884 posts) 
(884 posts)