Steam stole my money when i bought this game, now i just want to steal it back..........

There were like a dozen threads last week crying how people couldn't get their Steam version to run properly.

I spend the morning downloading / testing / whatever, to offer some help. Sorry if this is wrong.

I've seen a bunch of stupid ass things, like run the game as admin, disable various Windows services, and what else not. Just wanted to provide a clean solution.

I'm not judging the morality of any of this. The rightness and wrongness of it all can be debated by more interested parties. I just don't think it belongs in a GOG forum.

true what if other people start posting similar stuff " make witcher 2 steam version run fast and [drm free]" just out of steam hate? and just post a crack in a zip as a solution its not right.....

I still prefer an officially DRM-free version over using unofficial cracks, even if it costs more. The cracks are just extra hassle.

Only now I learned that DotEmu sells DRM-free version of this game, for more that Steam version though (20€ I think). Still, if the DotEmu version really has no any kind of DRM (no authentication needed even when re-installing the game), it is worth much more to me than the Steam version with umbilical cord. Thus, as soon as I decide to get Bloodlines, DotEmu version is the one I'll get.

It wasn't quite clear to me though in the DotEmu FAQ, are all the games truly DRM free. They do say "DRM free", but I have no idea if that means "no 3rd party DRM". When the FAQ talked about reinstalling the DotEmu games, they mention logging to DotEmu account and re-downloading the game installation files. No mention of "You can archive your installation files and reuse them at any point...", even though that's how I expect it to work.

What if the official DRM-free version is using an unofficial crack? :)

Polish law says nothing about ownership. You may also create a backup copy of a software you lease. I think it's applicable to digital distribution. But there are no doctrine opinions about it, many of them are just simply out of date. Polish supreme court is silent in this case.

Polish law says also, when license agreement forbids you to create a copy, these provisions are void.

But when you lease a software, you have to destroy the copy, when your leasing contract expires.

That would be a fun one to see in court. I assume, were it ever to be raised, the argument someone like valve would use would be that your contract expired when you broke the contract, which you did by backing up the software. It could then be argued in defence that the terms of the contract contradict your right to back the software up.

Who knows where that one would end up, probably with the more expensive lawyers winning. We don't have any such laws in the UK, so we're valve's biatches the second we pay them the money. At least its clear :).

Yeah, but it's all purely theoretical.

I can't see Valve filing a lawsuit against some dude in Poland who backed up a game he paid for... :P

it might be even illegal, but almost unenforceable, so.. who cares? :D And I'm wondering how would Valve estimate the damage done by such actions, if I would be the only one who uses the copy. (of course, they would certainly ban me from steam :( )

Then they have made that crack official. :)

I prefer that they have made sure the crack really works with their release and its updates.

Also, the unofficial patch says that it comes with 1.2 version... Hell, that in itself is a modification of the vampire.dll, if I understand correctly.

Since when did Steam care about ethics? If there is no ethical consideration on their end then why should there be any on ours? I do know they care about money so as long as they get theirs I think they would prefer you buy and crack from them than buy from somewhere else.

As for what belongs on GOG forums:
There are mods. They don't care.

Just use the True Patch Gold, it already includes a no-CD crack and it solves all major bugs without altering gameplay. I'm almost finishing downtown and so far I haven't experienced any bug. I had a CTD once but it may have been related to having Firefox open or Raptr.
Optionally you can install a widescreen mod that comes with it too.

:)

But because I didn't label my post as a patch, I am on the wrong side, right?

Aren't your instructions for the crack only? the true gold patch includes the crack and more fixes all in one package.