UPDATE: Scene group RELOADED have cracked the SecuROM DRM embedded into the game.
Original Article: Another good looking PC game has leaked on the internet. An untouched DVD Image (CloneDVD) of Company of Heroes : Tales of Valor has been released by veteran scene group AVENGED. This is the latest installment of Relic’s popular RTS series Company of Heroes which saw the light back in 2006. CoH : Tales of Valor is released as an standalone expansion and does not require the main game to run. The game was officially released to the public on the 9th of April and has been leaked on the same day.

COH : Tales of Valor is protected by Sony’s SecuROM DRM (with no online activation).  The protection seems to get bypassed when AVENGED image is used in conjunction with emulation software. However a valid CE Key or serial may be required to access some parts of the game such as online multiplayer. AVENGED release has now made its way into the public, including onto private torrent trackers:

[ Company.of.Heroes.Tales.of.Valor.CLONEDVD-AVENGED ] [ Uploaded first @ ScT 15m 9s after pre, followed by [ TV, RBy, TL, NT, ST, ACE, PTM, SCL, TD] ]

AVENGED are not a group known for cracking anti piracy protections or DRM on PC games. Their specialty is clones, or untouched DVD images of original game. Even though a crack is not included with CloneDVDs, pirates are usually able to play the game by emulating the protection using tools such as Daemon Tools Pro (works with some copy protections only).

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Update 3 : DarkC0der has cracked it. Read all about it in this article.

UPDATE 2: More info on DRM. It looks like this game is protected by TAGES + Internet Activation + Solidshield, a very new version of that too. GOW NFO does not specify this. A little worrying news for pirates because this protection is considered extremely hard to crack (several previous TAGES titles have been cracked, though. See second comment for this article by LST for specific cases).

UPDATE: [NUKED] not.cracked_activation.issues.still.occur. Also, there seems to be some kind of DRM present so we stand corrected.

Original Article: Actually the title of this post is a little misleading - there is no anti piracy protection embedded in this game to actually crack. But yes, the latest title in the famed Chronicles of Riddick series has been leaked on the internet, right on the game's official North American release date.

Surprisingly, Chronicles of Riddick : Assault on Dark Athena comes with no embedded DRM software which is a rare occurrence with PC games these days (EDIT: See UPDATE 1 and 2 below). The game's sole defence against piracy is the old school serial key protection, through which scene group GOW apparently got through pretty easily.

GOW's release which is around 7GB in file size includes a full DVD ISO of the game as well as a CD Key. Since there is no online activation or validation, a single serial will suffice for an unlimited number of pirates - however they will be royally screwed if they tried to use the multilayer component. Like all scene releases, GOW's release has now made its way into 'the wild'. It's now leaked to private trackers, public BitTorrent sites, public FTP dumps, one click hosting sites and pretty much anywhere else warez is hosted/tracked/linked. Anyways the contact E-mail address mentioned in GOW's NFO is interesting. It's the first time I've seen a scene group use a Gmail address.

Speaking of the game, I think this one is going to be a big hit in 2009 (the series's previous title (Escape from Butcher's Bay) too was a blast back when it was released. Developers seem to have done lots of thing right (including the decision to go DRM free) here so if you can buy it, go ahead and show some support.

Note: Do not post links to cracks, key generators, torrents or any other warez material here. We are a news site only.

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Great news if you are a fan of Asian movies – AvistaZ is having open signups once again. AvistaZ is a private BitTorrent tracker specializing in movies, music and TV Shows from Asian countries such as Korea, Hong Kong, China, Japan, India and Thailand. Majority of the content uploaded to this tracker comprise of movies – Lots of action movies, martial arts and kung–fu flicks are freely downloadable from AvistaZ. If you are not from an Asian country and wondering about language barriers, have no fear. Most movies on AvistaZ come with English subtitles.

AvistaZ is by no means a small private tracker – there are well over 100000 members (113800+ to be exact, as of 8/4/2009) and over 7500 active torrents. One of the best things about this site is that it has an excellent community. For example, there are AvistaZ members who themselves create English subtitles for rare (or less popular) movies and share them with other users.

Speaking of the content on this tracker, it’s primarily movies – lots and lots of movies from many different countries in the Asian region. Refer to the following screenshot to get a better idea on the content

It’s worth mentioning that video and sound quality of all movies I’ve so far downloaded from AvistaZ have been perfect. There are lots of DVDRips with 700MB and 1.4GB sizes which are pretty small and easy to download (as opposed to Asian DVD Club – a similar tracker which has untouched DVD-R movies (Signups Open)).

There used to be a time AvistaZ continuously had open signups. However public registrations had been closed for the past two or so months due to server limitations. Good news is that they’ve opened signups again. If you were thinking of getting into this site, now is your chance.

Site Name: AvistaZ (http://bt.avistaz.com)

Signup URL: http://bt.avistaz.com/account.php

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We’ve all heard about (and downloaded, of course) DVDRips of movies and TV shows. But have you ever wondered how to rip a DVD? If you thought you need l33t skills to rip a DVD, you are wrong. This is actually a pretty simple task and with software such as Cole2k Media DVD Rip pack things have become much easier. Cole2k media DVD Rip pack is a collection of software programs and utilities with which you’ll be able to create perfect quality DVD Rips. Best thing about this program is that it’s free – and so are all the other apps included in the pack.

With the help of included software you’ll be able to perform a wide array of DVD related tasks ranging from ripping to resizing, splitting and merging VOB files. The following programs are included in the DVD rip pack:

• DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0 - The finest decrypter on the planet.
• ImgTool Classic 0.91.7 - A great ISO program for use with DVD Decrypter.
• DVD Shrink 3.2 - The latest and most compatable version of DVD Shrink
• DVD Shrink 2.3 - The best solution for large DVD resizing.
• DVD Shrink 1.03 - The best solution for simple DVD resizing.
• VOBrator 0.2b - For VOB minipulation.
• VOBsplitter 2.6 - For VOB splitting.
• I-Media FileMerger - Great for merging VOB's.
• Adaptec ASPI 4.71A2 Checker + Installer files.

Download

As mentioned earlier this program is free. It can be freely downloaded from the publisher download page.

[Click Here] to download Cole2k media DVD Rip pack v1.55 from official page

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As you already know, our latest invitation giveaway was for the rare/classic movie torrent tracker Cinematik. It’s with great pleasure we announce that the giveaway was a huge success. Within a few hours after the post, more than 200 requests were made – this was something we did not expect. As promised we have now given out 99 invitations codes to the first 99 requests posted at the thread. However, more than 100 invite requests were left unfulfilled because we ran out of invite codes.

Don’t lose hope if you didn’t get a code this time around - we might post another thread which will have a list of invite codes that can be utilized on a first come first served basis (much like Cinematik giveaway No. 03). Note that we’ll have to discuss this with Cinematik admins first so the time and date of next giveaway is not confirmed yet. Thanks to all who contributed and special thanks to Cinematik team – you guys have created a hugely popular niche tracker!

Keep reading FILEnetworks Blog – more tracker invite giveaways are on the way!

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If you are a member of the private games torrent tracker Blackcats-Games (BCG), here is some good news. A new set of referrals (BCG alternative to invites) have been issued by the site owner stoi. The referrals were issued on the 3rd of this month and I don’t know for sure if they were given to all user classes or just to a selected number of members. When I checked my profile on the site (Class ‘User’ (SPU before user class change), Badge of Honor), there were 3 referrals allocated to the account.

The following announcement is posted on the site regarding the new referral codes. If you are thinking of inviting new members, I suggest you read it, specially the parts in bold:

Hi there,

since Stoi has been so nice to issue a new set of referrals I think it's time to remind you all what referrals are about.
First of all you're supposed to read the instructions properly before generating a code, because once they are lost you will NOT get them back.
http://www.blackcats-games.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=20522&st=0&start=0

Then again another important note about referrals: You are responsible for who you bring into the site. This means that YOU explain rules and FAQ to him, you see to it that he understands how this site works (Seed Points, rules, etc.).
This also means that if you fail by explaining it correctly you will be punished as well with a few GB on your DL.
This ranges from 1GB to 100GB (for the cheaters and traders among you....I'll get you sooner or later).
If you're good in doing this, the person you referred will also be good. So we can all profit from it and staff can concentrate on more coding.

And another important note: You don't have to use those referrals. Better invite somebody you know and that you trust or that you think of will be an asset to the site than just giving out your referrals or trading for another site. You won't be the first to end up with me in #help channel to discuss why you probably lost your account.
While I'm at it....read rules and FAQ again. It can't hurt.

Greetings Cirno

So there you have it. Be very careful about who you invite and make sure you explain all the rules and other important information to the new invitee. Not doing so could bite you in the ass!

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Popular private BitTorrent tracker CZONE has undergone a lot of changes in the past few days. The site now has a new name (CZTeam) and can be accessible via the new URL http://torrents.czteam.ro. As you may already know, CZONE tracker was owned by an actual Romanian ISP named CZONE. CZONE was recently bought by RDS (Romania Data Systems) and the new management did not like the idea of operating a BitTorrent tracker. This prompted CZONE tracker admins to move their server to a different location, re-brand and re-launch the BitTorrent tracker without letting it die.

Quoted below is a noticed sent to use by the CZTeam tracker admin which contains some useful information for existing members:

First we want to thank you on behalf of Team C-ZONE for the fact that you have been great from the start! Years and years you were with us, we laughed together at the best and we put away the bad nerves when we had problems. The fact that you were with us was our main goal, and for you we tried to make this tracker as close to your preferences as we can. I listened with love any ideas, I appreciated the words of praise from torrents comments and forum, but I took your criticism seriously and tried not ever to disappoint you.

At this time C-ZONE Tracker suffers a little modification. He will change the address to which it can be accessed.

New address of C-ZONE Tracker/The New CZTeam is:
http://torrents.czteam.ro
This address comes into effect from now! C-ZONE Tracker will be available for a period of time at the old address to, but we recommend you to use this new address. Structure, staff and quality of the tracker will remain the same, only the DNS (address to which it is accessed) will be changed for various reasons.

As you probably anticipated the torrents will have to be announced to change under the new addresses: CZTeam
Therefore we call for your help to follow these steps to keep seeding the torrents with the new announce:

1. Identify in your mind the torrent you have to seed. (those with green arrows pointed upword in utorrent)
2. Acces Torrents section in CZTeam Tracker (there are the torrents)
3. Re-download .torrent file on the tracker (click click click)
4. Open it in utorrent and select the OK, when prompt (obviously)
5. This is absolutely everything. (epic win)

The new announce will be written in the torrent that you are allready seeding, without any request/more strees to select manually the path where the torrent is saved to your HDD.
Thank you our dear users. This is the FIRST major step in improving our tracker. We assure you that in the next period will bring u a series of beautiful surprises and contests.
Thank you,

CZTeam™

The server move has actually gone very smooth and no data have been lost – all torrents, user accounts, stats, ratio and everything else remains the same. We at FILEnetworks Blog wish all the best to CZTeam Tracker, it’s staff and the administrators.

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Welcome to Cinematik invitation code giveaway number 04. If you could not obtain a Cinematik invite from our previous giveaways, here is yet another chance to grab one for free. Cinematik is a private torrent tracker that offers downloads of classic, independent, rare and outlandish movies. The site has a lot of rare releases all in untouched DVDR (DVD5/DVD9, PAL+NTSC) format. Cinematik signups are currently closed and the site has not been open to the public in a long time. Use our free invite code to create an account for yourself on this great tracker – no strings attached.

UPDATE: This giveaway is now over. Please read this article if you applied for an invite here.

Although Cinematik is a niche tracker, the site is well established in the BitTorrent scene. It has an active user base close to 10000 members and tracks over 12500 torrents. A screenshot of Cinematik’s torrent index is posted below:

Coming back to the invite giveaway, this time around we’ve made a slight change in the way invites are handed out. We will no longer post a massive list of invites codes all at once as we did on previous occasions. Instead – those who are in need of invites will have to post a comment to this article with their E-mail address (We know this is an annoyance but we have no other choice, sorry).

IMPORTANT:

• Request invites only if you are interested in becoming an active member of the site – collectors are not welcome.
• Post a valid E-Mail address – the invitation will be sent to the address you post here. Post your E-mail according to the following format: yourname[at]host[dot]com (this is to prevent spam bots from harvesting email accounts)
• Please wait at least 2 days before contacting us about invite codes not being received.
• Do not make multiple accounts. You will be banned.
• Read Cinematik Rules and FAQ

Currently we are ready to hand out 50 free invite codes. Note that all these codes were provided by administrators of Cinematik themselves. The number of invites given away may (or may not) be increased as per the demand.

Once you receive the invite code, signup using the following URL:

Signup URL: http://cinematik.net/register.php?with_invite=1

Good Luck!

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This post will hopefully be useful to those who download untouched DVD-R movies, TV shows and documentaries released by groups from the warez scene. As we have mentioned before, all scene releases should conform to a pre specified set of rules if they are not to be nuked (trashed). However you might have already figured out that even sceners do not pre perfect releases - you may have come across DVD-R’s that have out of sync audio, missing menus, missing or out of sync subtitles and various other issues. Did you know that there is a site that indexes all sorts of fixes for such problematic DVDR releases?

DVDRFIXES is a site that offers direct download links to various PROPERs and FiXES for DVD-R’s pred by release groups. Note that this site is not a torrent tracker – it offers direct download links and all files are hosted on the site itself. It should also be noted that DVDRFIXES does not host any movies – only the fixes can be downloaded. Speaking of these so called 'fixes', there are many types of them out there - Syncfix, Subfix, PROPER, PPFFix, Fix, MiscFix. MenuFix, Audiofix, Navfix, Patch, Labelfix, and a whole lot of others. The names may look weird to the average user but these are scene terminology derived as per scene naming rules.

So far I’ve downloaded quite a few files from this site and haven’t found any nasties (trojans, malware, etc) in any of them. As for instructions on how to use these fixes, they can usually be found in the accompanying NFO file.

Site Name: DVDRFIXES (http://www.dvdrfixes.com)

Registration is not required.

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About three weeks ago we posted about a private tracker that offered downloads to street racing, drag racing, rally, off road, Nascar, MotoGP and all sorts of other motorsports torrents – The Monkey Kingdom (TMK). However, much to the disappointment of its users, TMK was down in the past few days. There is no reason to worry as the site is now fully back up – they’ve changed the name to Formula Monkey and have moved to a new domain.

The downtime or the URL change has not caused any data loss at the Formula Monkey. They still track over 4300+ active torrents and has a user base of over 3600 members. All users stats including ratio and bonus points too remain unchanged. More information on this site’s content can be found our previous article located here.

If you registered on this tracker back when it was open, you can use the same user account to log in even at the new domain. If you are still not a member and want to get into this site, the new we have is not good – the site is currently closed for public registrations. We will update on the homepage when/if The Formula Monkey ever opens signups again.

Site Name: The Formula Monkey (Link Removed)

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