/facepalm
That was the last time it was patched, in other words the last time they copyrighted it in the game. Copyrights last 50 or so years.

The last patch (1.16.1) was in January 09.

Nonetheless, copyright terms in the US are near-infinite, so no, it's not out of copyright.

It says copyright 1998-2007... Kind of straight forward one would think. Because games aren't going to last for very long before they're outdated, but who believes the game will last that long...

Books copyrights last a very long time because books never get old, and games do. It's around 150 years for a book I believe.

Maybe someone could pull-up an article to clear things up.

1998-2007 the time range it's been copyrighted without taking the 80-year length into account, IIRC. In a more regularly-updated game, it would read 1998-2010.

Well in laws it would be their mistake for not putting 2010 and wouldn't be our problem, but whatever...


How do you manage this? When I try to copy it, it just says ERROR (cyclic redundancy check). Canceled.

Do it from a less broken CD (all of them are the same).

I sort of only have 1 CD

Then download another. I don't know if it will work with a Blizz Store version (free dl if you register your CD-Key) but it's worth a shot.
You can still torrent the CD. Since you have a valid key this shouldn't be illegal.
I've done this many years ago, this is why my CD is still in mint condition. Always played with an image until the official no CD patch was released.

= CRC error if that term is more familiar to you. It basically means the data read contained an error.

You could even use the Blizzard Store version just to get the StarCraft.mpq and BroodWar.mpq files to use with your existing installation. Rename your Starcraft folder to something else so you don't install over it, install the version from the Blizzard Store, move StarCraft.mpq and BroodWar.mpq to your old Starcraft folder, delete the folder that has the new install, and rename the folder for the old install back to what it was. I don't remember whether the download has StarCraft.mpq and BroodWar.mpq available without installing it. If it does, then you actually wouldn't need to install it to get those files from it. It's been a while since I've seen it though, so I don't remember what form it was in.

My CD is scratched on the top (= perma and immediate don't work), but fortunately it only is across the ISP install files and my INSTALL.EXE is perfectly intact.

The installer is a downloader.

I finally got Starcraft on my flashdrive =) .

EDIT: Never mind. I got SCMDraft working too.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 18 2010, 8:47 pm by Newb.

Yes

Technically you only need 5 files for Starcraft and 6 for Broodwar.


Also, smackw32 isn't necessary for the menu if no SMK files are loaded (must be modded).

What if you combined all of the MPQs? If an mpq isn't found, will StarCraft cry or is that only if a file isn't found in the archives?

Stardat is required, not sure of Broodat is too(for Broodwar), and patch_rt.mpq isn't.

It's possible because we can play without a CD now.
So, just copy and paste all the files in the Starcraft folder onto a USB.
And there you go.. you have a portable Starcraft.

Starcraft decides whether you have plain Starcraft or Brood War based on whether you have Broodat.mpq, regardless of which exe you have. In fact, the only difference in Starcraft.exe between the two versions is the icon stored in the exe and I think a single text string for the path to the debug symbols.

Then what is "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Blizzard Entertainment\Starcraft\Brood War" for?
(Though on a portable copy this may not exist ...)

Without standard.snp, the campaign refused to run. I had the CD inserted, I haven't tried it yet with the no-cd.