I liked the RTS game “Rise Of Nations”. I saw a copy of the Sequel, “Rise Of Legends” in the discount bin for $10 and I bought it.
The game has a “connect to patch server” feature. However, the publisher, Big Huge Games, is now bankrupt. The patch server no longer exists!
Because Big Huge Games went bankrupt, I can’t patch the game I bought!
The developers thought they were being clever. The only allowed people to patch in-game, as a form a DRM. You can’t download and install the patch separately.
That’s the fallacy of DRM. If the publisher goes bankrupt, the DRM is useless. Because of the “download patch in-game” feature, I can no longer patch the game I bought!
I should have researched my purchase better, but it was only $10.
It turns out that you can download the patch manually. If you download the files and put them in the right directory, you can patch it manually.
Someone put made a copy of the patch, and put it up for download. However, they put the files on Megaupload! They’re gone now. When I search for “Rise Of Legends Patch Download”, all the search results point to the same dead Megaupload link!
I’m angry at Big Huge Games. I can’t patch Rise Of Legends. The patch server went down when they went bankrupt. I tried downloading the patch manually, but all the sources are Megaupload.
This is an excellent example of evil DRM. Once a publisher goes bankrupt, the DRM is useless.
I asked on a retrogaming BitTorrent tracker, and someone uploaded the patch for me (http://www.magnetoid.com/RoL_Patches.7z) (link now broken, see below)! He said I could share the link. That link died, so I re-uploaded it here.
That is amusing. People complained to Microsoft about the patch server being down, and got no answer. I asked on an “illegal filesharing” website, and got an answer. I get better customer service from an “illegal filesharing” website than from Microsoft!
Edit (Feb 09 2013): The original link is now broken. I had already downloaded the file, and I re-uploaded it here.
Here’s the new link. Let me know if there’s any problems.
I downloaded the file, but I don’t know what to do with it. I tried to open the file RoL_Patches.7z from the link on this page that goes to realfreemarket.org and my Windows 7 asks me what program I want to use to open the file. Is this file zipped or compressed? What’s going on with it? How do I install the twelve-or-so patches to my Rise of Legends game? Can someone help me?
7zip, open source.
Many people are switching from “classic zip” to 7zip format, because 7zip gives better compression rates.
Once you unzip it, follow the instructions.
It turned out that the DVD I bought already included the v2.5 patch! After all that, I didn’t need it!
From the readme:
>The way you know if you succeeded is if your version number on the game’s main menu says 0.0704.1001.0000 instead of 0.0604.1602.0000
so, that’s the last patch? I had it and erased it because i tought that it must say 2.5xx. … then the 0.0704. … is the last one? redownloading xD
Thank you. I re-installed this game after several years and was looking for the patches.
how do you unzip those patches once you have moved in to your main folder… i have downloaded 7zip, but the file is name “RETAIL…” and 7zip says it cant open the file when i try to extract them…
i have patch but this is only working windows xp sp2…………….
http://www.magnetoid.com/RoL_Patches.7z
100% working
my email
exclusive.robin@gmail.com
i have patch 100% working but only windows xp sp2……….
my email
exclusive.robin@gmail.com
patch link
http://www.magnetoid.com/RoL_Patches.7z
any patch that works in sp3
I downloaded it… now what? all it has is the blank file and no way to extract it or to apply the download. If you could give a step by step from after the download that would help
You need a program called 7zip to extract it. I said that in a previous comment.
Does anyone have a new link to the patches. I dug mine out of the closet and need the updates…I just downloaded the 7zip.
I also would like a link to the patches. Much appreciated.
I see that the link broke. I’ll re-upload it here.
Thnx for re-upload
Thank you for doing this. You are a good person.
This saved my day, I was playing it on the version it shipped as, on Windows 8 x64, and there were so many graphical glitches, and the game just completely locks up sometimes. So this is awesome. I actually like this game.
Been looking everywhere for this patch.
Cheers
Thanks for this mate.
thanks man looking every where for this.
My THANKS to a really great bunch of guys for helping is all to obtain and install this patch. After 7 years I have decided to once again go through the campaigns. I tried earlier today, and of course the game locked up. I’m confident with these patches installed it will run fine now. I could never have done this without your caring and generosity. Thank you again.
Ken
Great! – Thank you for your Help
This is great! Just installed ROL on a new windows 8 laptop and had the connection issues as well. downloading the patch now. THANKS!
THanks a bunch…Just reinstall this game and didnt have any patchs on it.
and would not run in vista….
patch it and runs great..
This was a great guide. I had the RTP files on another machine, so I didn’t need to download I just needed to know to use patch to apply the patches.