I recently purchase a game from here, and my friend also did.

1. I bought this game from gog.com
My friend cannot conect to me in Armed Assault Gold. He gets "illegal copies may degrade" cd key in use problem. why? and is their a help.

It's the multiplayer CD key issue. GOG, at least for the moment, doesn't have a way of distributing personalized copies of the games it sells, and Arma is one of the games that requires such for multiplayer. GOG support will email you a personalized key on request, though.

Thanks. but it's weird because. How come I did not have this problem? I should have that problem and so should my friend, why does he?

Also. When my friend who is having the illegal copies may degrade problem, this is strange. if im in a server, he joins, it kicks him. if he is in a server, i join, it kicks me...

You won't notice the problem at all in singleplayer; it's only in multiplayer that the problem appears, and that's because the program 'sees' another program using the same multiplayer key. When that happens, the hosting copy boots the connecting copy, and that 'illegal copies may degrade' warning appears.

Here's why the keys are the same: The game was originally intended for CD distribution, and each CD had a unique key on it to mark that copy as unique. GOG doesn't (yet) have the infrastructure to distribute unique keys automatically, so games that require keys to run, Arma among them, get a default key that will let the game play singleplayer just fine. This key is the same for every copy of the game downloaded from GOG.

And, as I said, the solution is to email GOG support. They're well aware of the issue, and will send you a personalized patch. Your friend needs to email them too, and install the patch they send him. You'll then both have unique keys, and will be able to play multiplayer without any further difficulties.

Somewhere around here, there's a list of projects GOG is working on, and an automatic key distribution system is among them. It'll be nice when they finally get it working; until then, they're pretty quick to mail keys on request.

I have had the same problems as just about everyone here, only that GOG is not returning my requests for a personalized CD-KEY, nor were they forthcoming with the fact they KNEW this was going on. I bought ArmA II mostly for the dayZ mod, so playing online is a HUGE deal for me, especially when I was supposed to play with friends, I bought the game October 17th, it is now October 27th and I have still yet to get my personalized key -- I've sent receipts, (cropped) bank statement, download information, you name it - - my purchase was legitimate but it seems GOG does not value it's customers' and for me (my facebook friends, and anyone in the tech community that I know) GOG will not get our business anymore.

Hope you guys had more luck than I'm having -- I will eventually play but I'd rather it be sooner than later.