Sacred Patch 1.5 - May Fuel the Fire of Software Pirates.

WARNING - don't install the 1.5 patch for Sacred, many users have been complaining on the Sacred forums about problems with disk verification after the game has been patched.

It seems that the days of the software pirates aren?t numbered, though new forms of copy protection are produced, many of them have severe flaws. Sacred?s new form of copy protection seems to have problems when you patch the game to version 1.5. Theirs still been no official response to problems caused by this patch, however since the patch has been release many players have not been able to play the game.

The only advice many users give is don't install patch 1.5, and if you have, uninstall and remove all trace of the game and re-install and play the game un-patched. If this is the case, why have the Sacred developers not commented or pulled the patch from the site. With actions like these many players of the games are considering tracking down Illegal programs in order to play their new game.

In my opinion its major issues with copy protection which can and in many cases will boost the following of software pirates. Even users on the forum are hinting that the pirates will get version 1.5 working on all systems before the developers.

In my own experience of the game, I sometimes have to try three of four times before I can even get a directory listing of the first disk. If this is an issue with the way the copy protection has been formatted on the disk itself. Ascaron could loose a lot of money having to re-issue 'disk one' to every player who bought the game, adding even more fuel to the pirate's fire.

If no solution is found soon, more players of the game will end up not being able use what they have spent their hard earned cash on. Something needs to be done before the fans of the game loose faith and turn to unscrupulous methods to get the game running. The race is on will the pirates be the first to get the patch working or will the developers come up with a solution.