i would settle for an .iso or a self-contained portable executable with no login, DRM, no telemetry, no phone-home bullshit.
i remember getting GTA 1 because a guy at my school came over with a ZIP drive+disk and copied a folder over to my C: drive. to play multi, when just had to create a LAN and choose multiplayer at the menu.
I remember the original Diablo let you install “spawn” copies on your friends’ computers. This was a limited, co-op only version of the game, and you could all play together using only one full retail version.
Missionforce: Cyberstorm (one of my favorite games of all time) came with two copies of the game so you could give one to a friend. It also had the option to do a full install (a whopping 300+ MB!) to be playable without the CD.
I miss this with Starcraft. I still have that file for it around somewhere probably. Maybe one day LAN parties will come back as some sort of retro thing.
Dudes on School computers had a pirate portable copy of Counter Strike 1.6 and just copied to a pen drive and to all Computers to make a Lan party at school. circa 2013
Those were the good days. I also remember with Diablo and Starcraft if I lost the case I could randomly type in numbers for the CD key and it would eventually land on a real one.
i would settle for an .iso or a self-contained portable executable with no login, DRM, no telemetry, no phone-home bullshit.
i remember getting GTA 1 because a guy at my school came over with a ZIP drive+disk and copied a folder over to my C: drive. to play multi, when just had to create a LAN and choose multiplayer at the menu.
RETVRN
I remember the original Diablo let you install “spawn” copies on your friends’ computers. This was a limited, co-op only version of the game, and you could all play together using only one full retail version.
This was a feature that was fairly common in PC games at the time, I vaguely remember Red Alert being able to do this too to play LAN games.
Missionforce: Cyberstorm (one of my favorite games of all time) came with two copies of the game so you could give one to a friend. It also had the option to do a full install (a whopping 300+ MB!) to be playable without the CD.
I miss this with Starcraft. I still have that file for it around somewhere probably. Maybe one day LAN parties will come back as some sort of retro thing.
Dudes on School computers had a pirate portable copy of Counter Strike 1.6 and just copied to a pen drive and to all Computers to make a Lan party at school. circa 2013
Those were the good days. I also remember with Diablo and Starcraft if I lost the case I could randomly type in numbers for the CD key and it would eventually land on a real one.