Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

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Since it's now abandonware, you can download Emperor: Battle for Dune from archive.org directly or via torrent:

https://archive.org/details/EmperorBattleForDuneUSAEurope

(For others who, like me, want to try this game out with the wheybags patch :)

Just for fun, I also dug up the past pirate releases:

  releaseName                                              TYPE      releaseDate
  -------------------------------------------------------  --------  -------------------
  Emperor_Battle_for_Dune_v1_06_Update-RAZoRDOX            GAMES     2001-06-21 00:00:00
  Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.Update.v1.07.Cracked-MYTH        DOX       2001-06-30 16:16:43
  Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.All.Level.Saves-EyM              0DAY      2001-07-10 12:07:49
  Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.Update.v1.08.Cracked-MYTH        DOX       2001-08-17 08:17:39
  Emperor.Battle.For.Dune.Update.v1.09.Cracked-MYTH        DOX       2001-10-06 06:04:21
  Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.Update.v1.06.Cracked-MYTH        DOX       2003-07-11 22:33:37
  Emperor-Battle_For_Dune-NORDiC-DOX-RUSDOX                DOX       2003-07-11 22:33:45
  Emperor.Battle.For.Dune.Poradnik.POLiSH.PDF.eBook-KiOSK  BOOKWARE  2006-03-10 01:48:50
  Emperor.Battle.For.Dune.Money.Trainer-FLTDOX             DOX       2006-10-10 21:52:25
  Emperor.Battle.for.Dune.v1.06.Update-RAZoRDOX            0DAY      2006-10-10 21:52:30
  Emperor_Battle_For_Dune_Money_Trainer-FLTDOX             DOX       2006-10-10 21:52:30
  Emperor.Battle.for.Dune-DEVIANCE                         GAMES     2007-02-15 17:25:00
  OST-Emperor_-_Battle_For_Dune-CD-2001-DGN                MP3       2010-09-01 22:45:42

I was surprised to see there is even an OST soundtrack! Amusing.

The soundtrack for this game was badass, particularly the Harkonnen section. Easily one of Westwood's best. Here's a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1SUUkhKkXo&list=PL4E8A87285...

The soundtrack to Dune 1 was remastered and rereleased earlier this year, it's very good indeed.

https://stphanepicq.bandcamp.com/album/dune-spice-opera-2024...

The soundtrack from dune 1 (and the game itself) was done by Cryo, completely different game studio. The game and soundtrack is amazing for sure though. In general all the soundtrack by Stephan Picq are worth listening to

When I think of Emperor: Battle for Dune, I hear "Ride the Worm" in my head. The music really sells the majesty of the armies battling in feudal war across a dangerous desert filled with behemoth creatures that could devour them all. https://youtu.be/czXaKxcQNkQ

Point of law: in the united states, there is no such thing as abandonware legally, copyright is automatic and not selling it or maintaining one's copyright enforcement doesn't mean it is legal to make copies. This is pretty widely ignored, and there are ill defined exceptions to copyright defined by the library of congress. Internet culture seems to condone it for reasons of convenience and preservation, regardless of copyright holders rights. Seems to be an unsettled moral question to me, as copyright duration is so oppressive. Where did you find a list of Scene releases to generate that info?

I spot checked the weird out-of-order date on the DEViANCE release, but it was roughly consistent with https://predb.net/. It seems thorough databases are not so exclusive these days, which is cool!

Also, if you want to let the technicalities of copyright get in the way of you enjoying some solid abandonware, for a product which is no longer sold and unlikely to ever be sold again, that's on you. Live life on your own terms. Cheers!

How do you mount cue+bin on Windows 10? There is quite a number of apps advertised for this but I'm curious which one is the most trustworthy nowadays, also if there is a legitimate (no adware/spyware/etc) free one to use when I need only one virtual drive, no burning nor network features.

I think VirtualCloneDrive still works well for this!

Apparently it is 32bit-only and doesn't support mds+mdf while I still have some and some games on Archive.org come in this format. As long as I install a virtual CD driver I would like it to support this format as well. But I am hesitating to install Alcohol 120% (which I used in the past) because it appears 32bit-only and comes with a cryptominer (openly) and a DRM of its own nowadays. I also used DaemonTools during the Windows 2000 days but stopped as I read they were first to integrate some shady bullshit in the free version too (now its free version apparently is adware). Another alternative seems to be WinCDEmu but it somehow seems to be 32bit-only too. Installing a 32bit driver on a 64bit system doesn't sound great.

Hm, I wonder if I can get it to run under Linux with Proton...

Couldn't find a proton entry, but this looks promising, given that proton was a fork of wine. https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...

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