I have half a mind to start releasing cracks just so there's 1 cracker who isn't a fucking bigot.
EDIT: btw, didn't Voksi get arrested back in 2018? And EMPRESS started releasing cracks in like 2019. So are we to believe that Voksi goes to jail for a year, and immediately comes out and starts cracking again, all without receiving another visit from the feds? Doubt.
Fuck EMPRESS and SKIDROW, SKIDROW for dragging Voksi into the petty bullshit and both of them for their childish, edgleord bullshit.
I have half a mind to start releasing cracks just so there’s 1 cracker who isn’t a fucking bigot.
I have had this exact thought, but that would undoubtedly eat up what little free time I have these days. I don't have as much of it as I used to.
And that's why all those folks have mental issues. Having the skill is not enough, you need to pretty much dedicate your whole life to "the craft"
I don't get why people here are expecting pirates of all people to be polite company.
Fair point.
No need to crack games but hear me out: fork goldberg emu and maintain
Seems like no cracker or repacker is ever mentally sane. Like, defending DRM and trans-slurs? Really? Not like Empress is normal either but wtf
Yeah, the anti-gay and anti-trans commentary really made me repulse.
Most of the old scene thought of cracking DRM in games as a challange within themselves, and did it for the competition. Skidrow's thoughts align with this mindset. You can't blame skidrow for that.
You definitely can blame them for the slurs, and defending DRM really doesn't win over your fanbase.
What fan base? A thousand or so people that read the NFOs? 99% of crack users don't even pay attention to the group that released it.
Most people almost never download NFOs that's true. But if you're a regular then you pay attention to which team does the work at least, so you're not hacked or injected with cryptoshit.
When I torrent skidrow cracked games I usually don't even download the NFO
What the fuck? First they call out Empress for actually being a man from Bulgaria. Then they drop a transphobic slur. Then they defend DRM and publishers.
I can understand supporting the developers and promoting buying software you enjoy when you can. But one of the big motivations for cracking software is software preservation and removing DRM that harms legit user experiences. So I say again, wtf?
I didn't understand the DRM part neither.
There's this thing where they pretend they actually do it to be first and not because they want people to download their cracks. And that's how you get the crazy talk where they pretend they're pro-DRM.
The worst thing is that, compared to empress, they were quite moderate. I don't know what's wrong with them or why they're all so mad... but I love the drama, I'm looking forward to the next episode.
Raging people seldom make much sense or consistency.
🍿🍿
I did not have defending DRM on my bingo card. Transphobia is especially vile though.
Defending the intent behind DRM is fine, but DRM is the worst
Nope. The problem is DRM that works is always abused. Remember the unskippable ads on DVDs and Blu-Rays? Always.
Jesus, everyone involved in this shit is so deranged. God I hope the "Scene" dies out with the next generation, just chill people releasing cracks without following a tome of rules and schizoposting.
Is there some correlation with this insane low level understanding of software engineering and a mental health issues? A lot of the scene seems to be like this and good old Terry Davis (rest in peace you racist)
Unironically, yes. Multiple studies dating back years have found a link between high intelligence and various mental health issues.
There was one particular paper I read about a decade ago, where researchers surveyed a bunch of collage students to find demographic trends based on their preferred operating system. From what I recall, the demographics of Windows users were not too far off from those of the university as whole, and Mac users were similar, aside from women being significantly over-represented. Linux users on the other hand, were almost all men, and nearly every mental health issue imaginable was over-represented by a huge margin.
That's funny, but I'm betting my nutsack that you just made that up, or it's copy pasta.
As a CS dude who uses Linux and is around way too many people who seem like they genuinely are in need of some therapy on a daily basis, this entirely checks out, tbh.
I'm now mildly worried for my own mental state
It's ok amigo, from this one comment I've read of yours you seem like you are just fine
I use Linux, and my wife’s head in the freezer says I’m perfectly sane.
Well there's a million ways you can interpret that data. Apple usually makes very opinionated stuff ("this is how it works and this is how you're going to use it"). Autistic folks tend to do have big issues with that sort of stuff, so it's only natural they'll gravitate to something else where they can use it whoever they feel is better.
And women in general have been pushed away from IT for a few decades due to how they're treated in those groups, so it's only natural they'll be underrepresented among Linux users.
In my experience, mental health issues are epidemic. The only question is if someone has been assessed, and then had a professional admit to them they have a diagnosis. Mind you, it's hard to be healthy, and most people are still functional (as much as our late-state capitalist society will let them) but we noticed that mental illness was epidemic in the 1990s, likely due to major societal shifts in the industrial age: We're used to having more of a social support system than we do. So I suspect that we're all mad as hatters, and it's intergenerational.
Nobody learns to do this stuff unless they are compelled to.
Drama aside, Skidrow really does "cracks"? I thought they were only repackers.
Voksi, you fokkin prick, DRM exists for a reason in this world, it protects legitimate interests of actual hard working people, that are entitled to get a decent income from their hard effort!!!!
I'm not on any "side" but wut? We are talking about a repacker to a cracker, I think they can be considered equally "guilty" in the sense of "making hard-working people lose money" by distributing the games themselves. And what the hell, I'm pretty sure that's not the reason DRM exists, and if it is, it's to secure the income of companies, not their workers.
A lot of scene people say they only do it for the "competition and glory" (which they said in here) because none of them really play the games they crack, but obviously it's hypocritical as fuck.
They cracked Denuvo on Fe recently. Granted that is a Unity3D game so the modular approach makes it slightly easier to crack.
Personally I don't give a fuck about all this drama, it's like a cockfight for me, but a scene group defending DRM !? Finally may be they got paid to avoid denuvo releases...!?
I don't pirate games but after reading this, I DEFINITELY will not pirate games. If these clowns are the ones cracking/repacking the games then I do NOT trust the games to not contain malware/bullshit/whatever. Maybe I'm being paranoid but I wouldn't go anywhere near software put out by these people. They sound like the types to include malware just to frame the other group or whatever. Idk. These people are morons.
The only repacks I trust are FitGirl's, mostly because they're compressed to all hell and she's always just... kept her head down.
That's the way. Just keep your head down and don't engage with morons.
nowadays I assume cracked software (unless if the crack script is fully open source) to likely contain some kind of malware and I just sandbox them since I play cracked games with bottles flatpak anyway.
What is bottles flakpak?
Flatpak is a linux package format.
Bottles is a gui software that makes it easy to run windows software (especially games) on linux (it is a very good gui/management tool for wine)
Casual wine/proton W
There are a lot of other legit crackers besides these two
I thought I read there's only like 1 that does DRM cracking anymore. That's not the case?
This is for a specific DRM called Denuvo. Most games don't have it, but the big titles do
Is there only 1 that does denuvo?
It appears only the most deranged of the bunch are willing to dedicate their time cracking Denuvo.
Anymore? Yes. Used to be more, but at this point it's basically just the shittiest person of the bunch.
I guess the takeaway is that Empress is deranged weird and Skidrow are creepy weird.
I don't really understand how can a pirate defend DRM
DRM cracking is treated as a sport by the Scene. They don't actually care about pirate philosophies and such, only the challenge.
They like to pretend so.
I'm out of the loop. Is there a tl;dr version of what has happened so far?
There is and it's too long.
But basically software hacker taking money and has some weird takes on stuff. Also says they're a girl but probably a guy apparently. Word on the street is they are the only one who can crack some type of DRM so they remain relevant for the moment
If they feel like they have a moral high ground, they're mistaken. Both empress and skidrow are a piece of trash.
Only goldberg was wholesome, till little kids did their thing
So.. no disrespect but, are all scenes/crackers really creepy and angry people then?
Crackers, maybe but most repacking and more scenes are super chill
Don't get me wrong, even thought I don't pirate as much as I once did in my younger days I'm super appreciative of the work they do, free mostly if I understand it correctly. But some of the things they say on this nfos (mostly homophobic slurs and name calling) are super out of place, but at the end to each their own lol
They say denuvo is insanely hard to consistently keep cracking
It’s crazy to be talented at reverse-engineering and needing all the attention. Guys, stop fighting a second, you need to be united if you want to defeat the DRMs!
well if they´re trying to get me to stop pirating and buy games even with drm in them well good job.
I´d rather pay extra to avoid this stupid drama. Seriously all I wanted was some free games not seeing them showing off their hate boners for the trans community.
We get it you secretly wanna fuck trans people, you´re just too chickenshit to admit it.
"sighhhhh"
What drama? Some random footnotes in an .nfo file? How does it effect you at all?
Footnotes? Lol, it's nearly the entire .nfo!
It's generally a good idea to check the included materials whenever you're using any software, including cracks. If those materials are packed with several paragraphs of pointless name calling it absolutely effects the end-user
Had quite a great laugh reading that and the empress channel firing back. I just love sitting back and watching it all unfold. I don't care for either group i just want the games. I could care less who does it.
I wish I was part of it 😭
Missing out on so much drama
What the actual fuck is wrong is people? What even are these idiots mad at each other over? I couldn't care less about this stupid bullshit. Absolutely fucking unreal behavior here.
Could someone please write a tldr?
Here is the shortest tldr I could make (I am not a bot):
Ur a Bulgarian dude, not a chick
U don't understand our work
Bounce them titties
Plus some decent ascii art
I want to pirate their Ascii header, anyone have a link? All I can find is the text version.
Better TL;DR:
"Empress is Voksi (a man who used to crack denuvo but arrested July 2018)"
"We decrypted the denuvo'd game logic (not 'generic code') and put it in a dll, not whatever you accused"
"send nudes tranny and we'll crack non-unity denuvo"
For real
EMPRESS is actually Voksi in a dress.
I scrolled a lot to find this request, who is insane enough to read this?
It's the half you probably don't want to be on anyway. Automated censorship is shitty.
I will run it through google lens later
I like how everyone is concerned about the trans slurs but completely ignores them dropping the n word. Sounds about white for the crowd here I guess
Tbf, I simply didn't see it because I stopped reading halfway through. On the other hand, "tranny" is right at the beginning (and I think somewhere else too), and they seem to intentionally misgender Empress quite a few times, so they stick out quite a lot.
Probably because
The n-word is dropped in a less interesting section of the rant that could feasibly be skipped
It's not a hard R
We don't know the race of the author
The t-slur comes way earlier and is seen on multiple occasions, perhaps prompting a comment prior to finishing reading.
It doesn't make it any less of a slur.
You're right we don't know for sure. But come on, we absolutely all know what fucking race the author of this post isn't.
This is clear and willful culture ignorance and I implore you to give Grand Theft Auto V a casual play as a relevant, reasonably modern, and prevalent example of how this isn't the case.
I'm not in the business of pretending I know someone's physical attributes based on some text. I've had multiple people throughout the years surprise me with info about who they are after literal years of "knowing" them.
Holy fuck I know you did not just say you can say the fucking n word because of GTA. It doesn't matter how many of your favorite rap songs say it. It doesn't matter if your favorite video game says it. You cannot fucking say it. Jesus fuck are we letting the racists just be on these communities now? Get the fuck out of here you racist piece of shit.
Idk I stopped reading and immediately assumed the rest was horseshit when I saw the t word. Didn't even get to the n word.
Why are so many hyper intelligent people on the internet these 4chan-esque pieces of human garbage
Any idea what the message to the p2p was?
I feel like smoking some weed might help with the edgelord angst
I'm not surprised if this came from smoking weed
I must've missed the original empress' rant. Anyone know where to see that?
I would've appreciated a trigger warning on the post since it uses a slur, but wow, it is amusing (I'm sure it'll be less amusing once I experience more overt transphobia).
Ok, trigger warning
Am I doing this right?
What's this?
?
I'm at least somewhat proud that Skidrow managed at least a halfway decent snapback at Empress.
Lost interest when they couldn't get through it without using slurs. There's no good guys here.
Not an unfair opinion to have; but at least they tried. Sadly the "Scene" is this fucked up. They don't adhere to the same standards of behavior that we do on the clear web...mostly because they interact on IRC or other private chatrooms and kick out anyone they don't like, or disagree with.
Seriously? their attack against an asshole transphobe is... calling her tr*nny and being exactly as shitty as her?
That's why it's so juicy, they're all such terrible people we don't have to pick sides
Literally Jersey Shore for nerds... Why do we primates love trashy drama so much???
I don't even pirate software anymore, just here to pass the popcorn.
I have half a mind to start releasing cracks just so there's 1 cracker who isn't a fucking bigot.
EDIT: btw, didn't Voksi get arrested back in 2018? And EMPRESS started releasing cracks in like 2019. So are we to believe that Voksi goes to jail for a year, and immediately comes out and starts cracking again, all without receiving another visit from the feds? Doubt.
EDIT2: lol here's Voksi's response: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/2218172
Fuck EMPRESS and SKIDROW, SKIDROW for dragging Voksi into the petty bullshit and both of them for their childish, edgleord bullshit.
I have had this exact thought, but that would undoubtedly eat up what little free time I have these days. I don't have as much of it as I used to.
And that's why all those folks have mental issues. Having the skill is not enough, you need to pretty much dedicate your whole life to "the craft"
I don't get why people here are expecting pirates of all people to be polite company.
Fair point.
No need to crack games but hear me out: fork goldberg emu and maintain
Seems like no cracker or repacker is ever mentally sane. Like, defending DRM and trans-slurs? Really? Not like Empress is normal either but wtf
Yeah, the anti-gay and anti-trans commentary really made me repulse.
Most of the old scene thought of cracking DRM in games as a challange within themselves, and did it for the competition. Skidrow's thoughts align with this mindset. You can't blame skidrow for that.
You definitely can blame them for the slurs, and defending DRM really doesn't win over your fanbase.
What fan base? A thousand or so people that read the NFOs? 99% of crack users don't even pay attention to the group that released it.
Most people almost never download NFOs that's true. But if you're a regular then you pay attention to which team does the work at least, so you're not hacked or injected with cryptoshit.
When I torrent skidrow cracked games I usually don't even download the NFO
What the fuck? First they call out Empress for actually being a man from Bulgaria. Then they drop a transphobic slur. Then they defend DRM and publishers.
I can understand supporting the developers and promoting buying software you enjoy when you can. But one of the big motivations for cracking software is software preservation and removing DRM that harms legit user experiences. So I say again, wtf?
I didn't understand the DRM part neither.
There's this thing where they pretend they actually do it to be first and not because they want people to download their cracks. And that's how you get the crazy talk where they pretend they're pro-DRM.
The worst thing is that, compared to empress, they were quite moderate. I don't know what's wrong with them or why they're all so mad... but I love the drama, I'm looking forward to the next episode.
Raging people seldom make much sense or consistency.
🍿🍿
I did not have defending DRM on my bingo card. Transphobia is especially vile though.
Defending the intent behind DRM is fine, but DRM is the worst
Nope. The problem is DRM that works is always abused. Remember the unskippable ads on DVDs and Blu-Rays? Always.
Jesus, everyone involved in this shit is so deranged. God I hope the "Scene" dies out with the next generation, just chill people releasing cracks without following a tome of rules and schizoposting.
Is there some correlation with this insane low level understanding of software engineering and a mental health issues? A lot of the scene seems to be like this and good old Terry Davis (rest in peace you racist)
Unironically, yes. Multiple studies dating back years have found a link between high intelligence and various mental health issues.
There was one particular paper I read about a decade ago, where researchers surveyed a bunch of collage students to find demographic trends based on their preferred operating system. From what I recall, the demographics of Windows users were not too far off from those of the university as whole, and Mac users were similar, aside from women being significantly over-represented. Linux users on the other hand, were almost all men, and nearly every mental health issue imaginable was over-represented by a huge margin.
That's funny, but I'm betting my nutsack that you just made that up, or it's copy pasta.
As a CS dude who uses Linux and is around way too many people who seem like they genuinely are in need of some therapy on a daily basis, this entirely checks out, tbh.
I'm now mildly worried for my own mental state
It's ok amigo, from this one comment I've read of yours you seem like you are just fine
I use Linux, and my wife’s head in the freezer says I’m perfectly sane.
Well there's a million ways you can interpret that data. Apple usually makes very opinionated stuff ("this is how it works and this is how you're going to use it"). Autistic folks tend to do have big issues with that sort of stuff, so it's only natural they'll gravitate to something else where they can use it whoever they feel is better.
And women in general have been pushed away from IT for a few decades due to how they're treated in those groups, so it's only natural they'll be underrepresented among Linux users.
In my experience, mental health issues are epidemic. The only question is if someone has been assessed, and then had a professional admit to them they have a diagnosis. Mind you, it's hard to be healthy, and most people are still functional (as much as our late-state capitalist society will let them) but we noticed that mental illness was epidemic in the 1990s, likely due to major societal shifts in the industrial age: We're used to having more of a social support system than we do. So I suspect that we're all mad as hatters, and it's intergenerational.
Nobody learns to do this stuff unless they are compelled to.
I don't even pirate anymore, I'm just here with the popcorn
Drama aside, Skidrow really does "cracks"? I thought they were only repackers.
I'm not on any "side" but wut? We are talking about a repacker to a cracker, I think they can be considered equally "guilty" in the sense of "making hard-working people lose money" by distributing the games themselves. And what the hell, I'm pretty sure that's not the reason DRM exists, and if it is, it's to secure the income of companies, not their workers.
A lot of scene people say they only do it for the "competition and glory" (which they said in here) because none of them really play the games they crack, but obviously it's hypocritical as fuck.
They cracked Denuvo on Fe recently. Granted that is a Unity3D game so the modular approach makes it slightly easier to crack.
Personally I don't give a fuck about all this drama, it's like a cockfight for me, but a scene group defending DRM !? Finally may be they got paid to avoid denuvo releases...!?
I don't pirate games but after reading this, I DEFINITELY will not pirate games. If these clowns are the ones cracking/repacking the games then I do NOT trust the games to not contain malware/bullshit/whatever. Maybe I'm being paranoid but I wouldn't go anywhere near software put out by these people. They sound like the types to include malware just to frame the other group or whatever. Idk. These people are morons.
The only repacks I trust are FitGirl's, mostly because they're compressed to all hell and she's always just... kept her head down.
That's the way. Just keep your head down and don't engage with morons.
nowadays I assume cracked software (unless if the crack script is fully open source) to likely contain some kind of malware and I just sandbox them since I play cracked games with bottles flatpak anyway.
What is bottles flakpak?
Flatpak is a linux package format. Bottles is a gui software that makes it easy to run windows software (especially games) on linux (it is a very good gui/management tool for wine)
Casual wine/proton W
There are a lot of other legit crackers besides these two
I thought I read there's only like 1 that does DRM cracking anymore. That's not the case?
This is for a specific DRM called Denuvo. Most games don't have it, but the big titles do
Is there only 1 that does denuvo?
It appears only the most deranged of the bunch are willing to dedicate their time cracking Denuvo.
Anymore? Yes. Used to be more, but at this point it's basically just the shittiest person of the bunch.
I guess the takeaway is that Empress is deranged weird and Skidrow are creepy weird.
I don't really understand how can a pirate defend DRM
DRM cracking is treated as a sport by the Scene. They don't actually care about pirate philosophies and such, only the challenge.
They like to pretend so.
I'm out of the loop. Is there a tl;dr version of what has happened so far?
There is and it's too long.
But basically software hacker taking money and has some weird takes on stuff. Also says they're a girl but probably a guy apparently. Word on the street is they are the only one who can crack some type of DRM so they remain relevant for the moment
If they feel like they have a moral high ground, they're mistaken. Both empress and skidrow are a piece of trash.
Only goldberg was wholesome, till little kids did their thing
So.. no disrespect but, are all scenes/crackers really creepy and angry people then?
Crackers, maybe but most repacking and more scenes are super chill
Don't get me wrong, even thought I don't pirate as much as I once did in my younger days I'm super appreciative of the work they do, free mostly if I understand it correctly. But some of the things they say on this nfos (mostly homophobic slurs and name calling) are super out of place, but at the end to each their own lol
They say denuvo is insanely hard to consistently keep cracking
I don't think a sane person would enjoy it
Man Voksi got fucked for absolutely no reason(https://www.reddit.com/r/PiratedGames/comments/15szahz/voksi_denies_having_any_relation_with_the_empress/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), let the man live his life. Skidrow and Empress both are Idiots.
unless...
It’s crazy to be talented at reverse-engineering and needing all the attention. Guys, stop fighting a second, you need to be united if you want to defeat the DRMs!
well if they´re trying to get me to stop pirating and buy games even with drm in them well good job. I´d rather pay extra to avoid this stupid drama. Seriously all I wanted was some free games not seeing them showing off their hate boners for the trans community.
We get it you secretly wanna fuck trans people, you´re just too chickenshit to admit it.
"sighhhhh"
What drama? Some random footnotes in an .nfo file? How does it effect you at all?
Footnotes? Lol, it's nearly the entire .nfo!
It's generally a good idea to check the included materials whenever you're using any software, including cracks. If those materials are packed with several paragraphs of pointless name calling it absolutely effects the end-user
Had quite a great laugh reading that and the empress channel firing back. I just love sitting back and watching it all unfold. I don't care for either group i just want the games. I could care less who does it.
I wish I was part of it 😭
Missing out on so much drama
What the actual fuck is wrong is people? What even are these idiots mad at each other over? I couldn't care less about this stupid bullshit. Absolutely fucking unreal behavior here.
Could someone please write a tldr?
Here is the shortest tldr I could make (I am not a bot):
Ur a Bulgarian dude, not a chick
U don't understand our work
Bounce them titties
Plus some decent ascii art
I want to pirate their Ascii header, anyone have a link? All I can find is the text version.
:)
okay, that TL;DR didn't make much sense.
now we just need someone to give us Context lol.
You forgot the most important part. They are pro DRM.... Wtf
Better TL;DR:
"Empress is Voksi (a man who used to crack denuvo but arrested July 2018)"
"We decrypted the denuvo'd game logic (not 'generic code') and put it in a dll, not whatever you accused"
"send nudes tranny and we'll crack non-unity denuvo"
For real
EMPRESS is actually Voksi in a dress.
I scrolled a lot to find this request, who is insane enough to read this?
Imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/TF3NZlY
I would like to put it in plain text for better accessibility, but I guess that would get me banned from half the fediverse.
Edit: I tried to post it on pastebin and it was instantly blocked for offensive content. There was better luck on privatebin.
It's the half you probably don't want to be on anyway. Automated censorship is shitty.
I will run it through google lens later
I like how everyone is concerned about the trans slurs but completely ignores them dropping the n word. Sounds about white for the crowd here I guess
Tbf, I simply didn't see it because I stopped reading halfway through. On the other hand, "tranny" is right at the beginning (and I think somewhere else too), and they seem to intentionally misgender Empress quite a few times, so they stick out quite a lot.
Probably because
Holy fuck I know you did not just say you can say the fucking n word because of GTA. It doesn't matter how many of your favorite rap songs say it. It doesn't matter if your favorite video game says it. You cannot fucking say it. Jesus fuck are we letting the racists just be on these communities now? Get the fuck out of here you racist piece of shit.
Idk I stopped reading and immediately assumed the rest was horseshit when I saw the t word. Didn't even get to the n word.
yeah that's pretty crazy lmao
I ain't reading all that shit. Just crack and distribute is what I'm here for.
Anyone has a link to what prompted this response?
Here’s Empress’s NFO mentioned in the above NFO https://i.ibb.co/thSxL8s/Judgment-EMPRESS.png
Why are so many hyper intelligent people on the internet these 4chan-esque pieces of human garbage
Any idea what the message to the p2p was?
I feel like smoking some weed might help with the edgelord angst
I'm not surprised if this came from smoking weed
I must've missed the original empress' rant. Anyone know where to see that?
I would've appreciated a trigger warning on the post since it uses a slur, but wow, it is amusing (I'm sure it'll be less amusing once I experience more overt transphobia).
Ok, trigger warning
Am I doing this right?
What's this?
?
I'm at least somewhat proud that Skidrow managed at least a halfway decent snapback at Empress.
Lost interest when they couldn't get through it without using slurs. There's no good guys here.
Not an unfair opinion to have; but at least they tried. Sadly the "Scene" is this fucked up. They don't adhere to the same standards of behavior that we do on the clear web...mostly because they interact on IRC or other private chatrooms and kick out anyone they don't like, or disagree with.