Battle Dungeon (by Hunted Cow Studios)

[Hunted Cow Studios]

Originally Posted by MrMojoRisin

Any chance of releasing this as a single player game? I would still buy it in a heartbeat.

We're going to discuss it this week to see if it would be feasible, no promises at the moment though

- Hoofmaster

[Hunted Cow Studios]

Originally Posted by TheOctagonTheory

I think there should be some kind of user account validation, e.g. you have to enter your iTunes purchase receipt order number in order to get a user account. I don't know how that could be checked though. It might be a pain to impliment and a pain to users but there are more cheap ass bad ones then good ones out there. So let the good ones pay the price for the bad ones. This way the good ones will 'come down' on the bad ones. Piracy is too easily accepted as a matter of course.

We don't get that information when a user purchases an app. It could potentially be done by making the app free and activate an account by buying an IAP, but then I think there would be a lot of disgruntled users expecting a free game only to find you have to buy an IAP to play it.

- Hoofmaster

[Delusionaltool]

Originally Posted by Hunted Cow Studios

We're going to discuss it this week to see if it would be feasible, no promises at the moment though

- Hoofmaster

I have to chime in here, you should just add some lines of code to mess with the pirates, for instance devs like Westwood who made Command and conquer games if you had a pirated copy of the game your units would all explode 1 min into the game, Ive seen instances of that in some ios games and the devs are even funny about it , in this game they could encounter enemies they cant beat ever, or all the players go invisible something just ridiculous that only happens to the pirated copies of the game, then you will see them come on the forums complaining of a game breaking bug when really its no bug at all its just them admitting to there piracy....I think that you should look at this or something like it to screw over the pirates rather then pulling your own game for good....

i dont remember which ios games but i know there are alot with anti piracy code something in the game that knows it was dl from the app store and not from a jail broken website or what have you..im sure alot of the forum members know these games.

[TheOctagonTheory]

Originally Posted by Hunted Cow Studios

We don't get that information when a user purchases an app. It could potentially be done by making the app free and activate an account by buying an IAP, but then I think there would be a lot of disgruntled users expecting a free game only to find you have to buy an IAP to play it.

- Hoofmaster

As a failed iOS game developer I say (and I know it's not kosher) screw the disgruntled users expecting a free game. They are lame ass freeloaders anyway. And anyone who is so pathetic that they can't afford to pay 5 bucks for a game, let alone 1 buck, is a loser. Anyway they'll get used to the fact that nothing on the App Store is really free anymore, just as they've come to expect 1-Dollar quality games.

[TheOctagonTheory]

Originally Posted by Delusionaltool

I have to chime in here, you should just add some lines of code to mess with the pirates, for instance devs like Westwood who made Command and conquer games if you had a pirated copy of the game your units would all explode 1 min into the game, Ive seen instances of that in some ios games and the devs are even funny about it , in this game they could encounter enemies they cant beat ever, or all the players go invisible something just ridiculous that only happens to the pirated copies of the game, then you will see them come on the forums complaining of a game breaking bug when really its no bug at all its just them admitting to there piracy....I think that you should look at this or something like it to screw over the pirates rather then pulling your own game for good....

i dont remember which ios games but i know there are alot with anti piracy code something in the game that knows it was dl from the app store and not from a jail broken website or what have you..im sure alot of the forum members know these games.

Man I love that idea..hahahaha! And I got a wild imagination....hahahaha!

[Delusionaltool]

Originally Posted by TheOctagonTheory

Man I love that idea..hahahaha! And I got a wild imagination....hahahaha!

IVe seen a few ios games that had anti piracy stuff just to F with the pirates, there was a RPG type game the enemies were like impossible to beat the games code knew it was obtained illegally and not dl from app store so it ramped up all the enemy stats 100 percent to make it impossible, so people would complain on the forum posts on here and the devs were like well if you buy the game that wont happen haha....

the command and conquer one was the best tho, 1 min into the match everything blows up and the game is over ROFL....it looked for the registry key just some simple stuff...

god do you remember back in the day We had Code Wheels with our pc games LOL for copy protection or you had to find the 5th word from the bottom of page 45 of the instruction manual when they made those still.

[TheOctagonTheory]

I'd love to see that kind of copy protection. The only problem is that no one puts out physical manuals anymore. There's got to be a way. But yes. I remember code wheels and I didn't mind them or any other copy protection. I've been playing games since 1983 (or 1982..not sure) when I bought my 1st computer - an Apple II+. But I still started late as I was already 33 or 34 years old back then. And games were 30 to 50 Dollars then. AND being in Japan where all those games were imported I had to pay another 30 bucks on top of that. so 60-80 Dollar games were the way of the world for me. That's why these little shits complaining about free or 1 or 2 Dollar games (and pirating them to boot) drive me up the wall.

[Delusionaltool]

Originally Posted by TheOctagonTheory

I'd love to see that kind of copy protection. The only problem is that no one puts out physical manuals anymore. There's got to be a way. But yes. I remember code wheels and I didn't mind them or any other copy protection. I've been playing games since 1983 (or 1982..not sure) when I bought my 1st computer - an Apple II+. But I still started late as I was already 33 or 34 years old back then.

Blizzard has the right idea, user name and passwords and valid cd keys are only allowed online period theres not much to get around that. games like Battlefield 3 where it requires a origin account and a valid cd key period.

but devs should just do what other ios devs do to combat piracy in the games code if the app is not dl legally from itunes or the app store then something bad happens, the sky is the limit making the game harder, making the game do stuff that is just bizarre, or just causing the game to crash to the home screen.

Apple should have there own thing built into the device if game or app is not dl from the appstore then it wont install something , but the problem is hackers will learn to exploit that its a constant battle.

[Ayjona]

Originally Posted by sakinnuso

Actually, the issue is definitely piracy but that's a problem with ALL iOS stuff. Can't necessarily fight that. The thing that was killing the company - actually directly financially hurting them - is the strain on the servers. This game was unique in that every single action was sent to the server, thus making it an incredible strain (i'd imagine) on the system. Highborn and other similar games don't quite work in this fashion.

Changing the game to fit the structure of its peers, ie, how you play a turn and how that data is communicated, would be less actual architectural strain on the developer. Again, I'm making broad assumptions here based on what has been reported. That was why I suggested a re-examination and re-release.

Possibly, though I am not at all convinced the greater numbers of sent orders (as compared to other TBS titles) was the defining technical limitation. Devs, do correct the stuffing out of me.

Also, it is entirely possible Hunted Cow might not feel comfortable streamlining the experience and removing one of the defining traits of the experience, especially if, as you say, the game was made unique by the fact that every single action was sent. Might have been a another bad business decisions for reasons of quality, differentiation and the original gameplay vision.

Originally Posted by sakinnuso

I'm certain that Hero Academy and Highborne were also pirated, and they were considerably higher profile games. Yet, they weren't completely destroyed upon the game's opening weekend debut due to piracy.

I fear the validity of the comparison between Hero Academy and Battle Dungeon might be moot. HA has been free from the outset, effectively making piracy of anything but IAP (a very tricky process, at best) void. As a result, Robot Entertainment had a much higher return on product acquisition by players (the product in their case being additional teams and visual customization), probably (since the game is still going) allowing them to support the backend needed to scale with demand (even if the profits were earned after launch, and they had to invest in server architecture based upon estimations). Furthermore, as the developers and publishers of a free title, Robot Ent. probably estimated a much higher initial server load, and stood prepared.

As for Highborne, if it was indeed more high profile, perhaps the increased revenue from being a higher profile game was enough to support more and more powerful servers.

Originally Posted by sakinnuso

I'm only suggesting that, perhaps, by changing those elements, they might be able to salvage a sellable title without killing themselves.

Originally Posted by Delusionaltool

I have to chime in here, you should just add some lines of code to mess with the pirates

Why take an unorthodox and drastic approach, when there is a conventional and powerful solution? I'd much rather see a user account system, as discussed by me and DaviddesJ a few pages back. There is a reason MMOs, MOBAs and other online competitive titles commonly suffer less from piracy than most or any other genres, and that is because the only two piracy-inspired options that allows someone to play such games for free are either private servers, a very ambitious solution for a 5 dollar iOS game, or for any game considerably smaller than WoW, and also technically less accessible thanks to the requirements of either jailbreaking or iExploring an iDevice in order to point the client at a new server adress. The other option is account hijacking, which also only works for a short while, until the account is reported to be hijacked, upon which the hacker will, at the very least, lose the credit card that was financing his free play, and thus have to pay for the account himself (with freemium titles and one-shot payments being obvious exceptions, yay for the hackers), or at best see the account returned to the original owner. This method requires keyloggers (not generally applicable to iDevices), email tricks, etc.

This model works equally well for freemium titles (LoL, Smite, BLC, Tribes, DDO, PotBS, LotRO, etc), monthly payment MMOs (all those dinosaurs of the early 2000s), and one-shot cost titles (Savage 2 and the early iterations of HoN, Guild Wars, etc). For an iOS app that does not rely on monthly subscriptions, to prevent pirates from being allowed to create a lifetime account as soon as they launch the pirated app (thus bypassing the whole reason for having user account validification), the game should probably be released for free with a trial mode, with the one-time purchase available from within the app (with IAP being considerably harder to pirate at best, and not viable in the case of some apps, this would shut out the vast majority of iOS pirates, who currently rely on THAT SERVICE to download iOS software).

There really is little, or no, reason for most online-only premium iOS titles not to use accounts and user logins.

[heppi1234]

Originally Posted by Hunted Cow Studios

Hi heppi1234,

If you click this link:

https://www.huntedcow.com/support

Then where is says 'Select Game' choose 'General Support', then in the box to the right select 'Other Issue'.

Well I tried this, I registered an account, went to log in, kept getting the notice "username or password incorrect". So I went through the lost password link, received the link via my email, clicked that link which then said a new password had been sent to my email....no password received!!!