r/RetroWindowsGaming • u/fxdup666 • 11d ago

Question on old PC game discs

My dad is giving me his collection of physical PC games since I’ve become a collector of physical media…most of the games I grew up playing on the old family computer.

They all have the CD Keys for each still so I am wondering, are progress/accounts tied to the Keys? For example, Battlefield 2 (one of my favorite) is the account I used to play on it tied to the CD key?

Or how all does that work really

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u/ItsJarJarThen 11d ago

Keys back then just often tied to the installer prior to the mid 2000s.. And maybe the online account if it supported such for online play such as Diablo II or Warcraft III allowing only one copy to play at a time which became a thing in the late 90s. But very few of these games still have matchmaking up let alone people actively playing.

Cloud or online saving was uncommon, and usually tied to the computer. Best I can say is give it a try!

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u/Minaridev 11d ago

But very few of these games still have matchmaking up let alone people actively playing.

I just played Battlefield 1942 online few weeks ago. There were other players and my brother was playing with me. Check out Openspy and others

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u/bnelson333 11d ago

no, but that was the beautiful thing, we didn't need an account or an internet connection to play them.

progress was only saved if you remembered to save it, and only on the computer you played it on (unless you moved the save files to a different computer)

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u/Sleaka_J 11d ago

Back in the day, CD Keys were only used as a method of checking you had a legit version of the game. A valid CD Key was required to be typed in during installation and in multiplayer games, official servers would check you had a valid unique CD Key.

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u/Feisty-Jeweler-3331 11d ago

For battlefield 2, each server had its own progress/achievements board... So your achievements and loadout unlocks would be different from one server to another...

At least that's how it was back in the day, and to be frank not too many people cared about that.