hi - i'm REALLY sorry to have to ask this question here, and it's pretty likely that nobody will be able to help me - particularly as this, i think, is not a problem which is rooted with the people who made the game, but gamesplanet.com.

anyway, i bought the download of Pathologic a handful of days ago, and after i installed it, i went to enter the activation key to start the game... but i got a message which said "Unexpected error (14)" and there's no way i can progress past this. i'm *sure* the code is correctly entered (and, if it wasnt, i'd assume i'd get a message saying it's a bad code, not "Unexpected error"). the help/support page on gamesplanet says that, if you have any errors with the activation, you need to do some sort of "manual activation," which i'd love to do, but they dont tell *where* i need to go to do it. i *assume* the option to do a manual activation is supposed to automatically pop up if there's an error with the activation, but no such thing happens with me. i searched around, trying to see if there was some sort of program or something i was missing which would allow me to do a manual activation, but i havent found anything.

and the technical support folk on that website arent helping at all i explained my problem, and got an auto-reply which copy/pasted a small portion of the online help page (which i'd already read) and said that if this didnt help, i was to reply and they'd get me in touch with an actual human. and i did, and the actual human went and didnt read my email properly and gave me a *pictoral* explanation of how to do a manual installation - ie, they gave me no more information than what is already on their help page, didnt address where i was supposed to go to *start* the manual activation (it's kind of like if i wanted to send an email, but i couldnt find my email program - and the person i asked just kept saying "ok, in Outlook, click on 'new message' ..." etc)! i replied, explaining my problem again in more detail, and i havent heard *anything* from them in about three days now. if i'm unable to figure something out, i'll email them again, but, frankly, i'm starting to think they're ignoring me.

anyway... again, i'm really sorry to ask this, but does anyone know what i might do to fix this activation problem? or, how to *start* the manual activation - because i really have no idea. has anyone else here downloaded the game from gamesplanet successfully, run into similar problems, etc?

thanks!

Hi.
That really sucks. Sorry to hear about it

I have no experience with gamesplanet.com (though I notice they are 'powered' by Metaboli, so you might have more luck e-mailing them... maybe). I did a bit of searching and found a few people with similar problems to yours.

This thread might be useful:
http://community.codemasters.com/forum/ ... p?t=295096

It sounds like you have to e-mail your activation code to gamesplanet, then they'll (hopefully) send you a new code which you enter in exactly the same place (i.e. 'Manual activation' seems to be just the same as 'automatic' except you do it later).

People have also received e-mails saying that gamesplanet.com's activation server might be down, so the advice is 'try again later' or the usual 'check your firewall isn't blocking it.'

I don't know whether you can just ignore their activation and use a no-cd patch from GameCopyWorld... There are a couple of cracks on there. I haven't tried them myself, but you could try backing your EXE up and replacing it with one of them. Obviously, be careful.

Failing all that, I'd say grab this game off a torrent. You've paid for it, you deserve to be able to play it!

hey, hydra - thanks for the reply you're officially 100% more helpful than the technical support on gamesplanet

i did actually find that page you linked to - shortly after i wrote my first post. and, yeah, it certainly helps to shed a bit of light on things. i think my problem might be a little bit different, though there are some similarities. but, due to what i read on there, and a little bit else i've looked at, it DOES seem that the big problem is that the manual activation prompt is *supposed* to pop up right when an error happens. but it doesnt for me.

so! since i *still* havent received a reply from those guys, i'm gonna have to make another email to them. hopefully they'll start to pay attention...

anyway, sorry for the rambling, just wanted to thank you for the reply, hydra!

No problem. Keep us informed, and I hope you get it sorted out.

Good luck

well, i've arrived on a conclusion, though it was hardly ideal

after i emailed them again, i got another person who proceeded to copy-paste "answers" from the first guy, largely ignoring my problems. i finally emailed them saying that, if they couldnt fix my problem, at least they should refund me my money - and they just did that.

oh well...

hopefully there's another place i can get this game, ideally as a paid download - i saw another site that seemed to offer it, but i think i tried to order something from them in the past (not a download, an actual order) but they wouldnt send it to me (as i'm in canada, and they are in england).

I'm glad you got your money back, at least.

Gamersgate is meant to be good, though I haven't used them myself. They have Pathologic for €14.99.

hey - good suggestion! i've used that place in the past, but it was around a year or two ago... i'd forgotten about them.

and i tried them, and it worked, perfectly! (and, oddly, *they* dont even have an activation code with their download - unusual, since i think most of their other games *do*, but, hey, i'm not complaining). had typical sound issues at startup, but downloaded that open al thing (or whatever it was) and it fixed it up nicely.

thanks for all your help!

Awesome! Hope you enjoy the game.

By the way, did the download come with a manual? If not, you can get it here.

it did come with the manual, but thanks anyway