New Ubisoft DRM
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*chortle*Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
*chortle*Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">WTF mate?!</div>From: <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62098" target="_blank">http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62098</a>
The important bits (and this will be used on all their upcoming PC games, ala Assassin's Creed II):
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Players will be required to login to their Ubi.com account to authenticate each and every time they wish to play--and there will be no support at all for offline play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Will I need to be online the whole time when I play the game? Including for single player?
Yes. You will need to have an active Internet connection to play the game, for all game modes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What will happen if I lose my Internet connection when I play the game?
If you lose your Internet connection the game will pause while it tries to reconnect.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Face, meet palm.
The important bits (and this will be used on all their upcoming PC games, ala Assassin's Creed II):
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Players will be required to login to their Ubi.com account to authenticate each and every time they wish to play--and there will be no support at all for offline play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Will I need to be online the whole time when I play the game? Including for single player?
Yes. You will need to have an active Internet connection to play the game, for all game modes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What will happen if I lose my Internet connection when I play the game?
If you lose your Internet connection the game will pause while it tries to reconnect.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Face, meet palm.
Comments
yeah best of luck with that ubi
I give it less than a two weeks before a fix surfaces, if that.
I don't quite see why they would invest in such a system though. Seems like a waste to me since it's bound to get by-passed anyway...
QFT.
Oooobee will fall flat on their face with this. Cracks will be developed and uploaded with vicious speed.
--Scythe--
I'd rather just use my gamestop store credit and buy it second hand for the PS3 rather than give Ubi money when they've implemented policies like this.
... and stupid people.
they must realise some people have ###### internet.
So you log in and press the offline mode button. Now you can play offline as long as you want. But if you go online again and then your internet gets cut off, you're pretty much effed.
Under the skin, not much. In execution, by a ton.
And yes, offline mode is buggy as hell. But at least it's there.
So you log in and press the offline mode button. Now you can play offline as long as you want. But if you go online again and then your internet gets cut off, you're pretty much effed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Gha:
Let me clarify this:
Steam offline mode:Check the "save my account information" box and login successfully. Now cut your internet connection. Reboot. And you can still start steam in offline mode.
The only requirement for offline mode is having a correct hash key for logging in once.
Haha so true.. !
.. and I love George Carlin too ;)
Face does indeed need to go to immediate vicinity of palm.
Let me clarify this:
Steam offline mode:Check the "save my account information" box and login successfully. Now cut your internet connection. Reboot. And you can still start steam in offline mode.
The only requirement for offline mode is having a correct hash key for logging in once.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While this works with most games (Crysis, Total War) I found out I cannot play HL2 single player in offline mode.
Actually, as someone who recently had internet outage for about a week at him home, you do.
Let me be more precise. You have to have saved all your login info. on the system in order to access your games. If not, after finding no way to reach the internet, it will try to figure out what account to log into and fail, thus dying a horrible death. Basically, for someone who's a non-password saver in fear of hacks, I'm locked out.
And yeah, no Valve games work in offline except for a few, like Portal.
My problem with this opinion is that the *only* people this DRM will affect is your legitimate customers. The pirated copy will remove this and the game wil be pirated regarldess of this new DRM. So all they are doing is causing pain and havok for their paying customers. People who pirate will have a better customer experience than someone who dished out cash.
Yes, most people have internet, but a good chunk don't. If you are travelling with a powerful laptop, you may not. Where I live, a lot of people work and live on remote oil rigs with next to no internet access and bring games along. Take a wild stab what these people will do when presented with the purchase or pirate choice?
Traveling for pleasure - five hour layover? Nothing to do? Can't play your game unless you pony up cash to pay for airport wifi. Or maybe you're staying with someone who doesn't have a router - I could go on and on about this.
Traveling for business - Staying in hotels without free internet, maybe going on a military deployment? Kiss your games goodbye. Sticking with the military angle, this pretty much rules out anyone in the Coast Guard or the Navy from ever playing their games - much less people with long deployment schedules to remote locations.
Internet is just out (it does that you know). Or maybe you just have unstable internet - that happens too. Game would be unplayable. I'd love to see the game pausing every 6 seconds for a moment because it dropped a packet or something.
People with strict caps, Fair Use or otherwise - a game constantly calling home to write and load save data or just to make sure you're even online is GOING to add up.
For about a week and a half after New Years, my internet was literally <b>unusably slow</b> for random periods of the night (speeds of about 5 b/s). I would not be able to play my game like this.
1) Piracy is a problem but annoying legit customers isn't exactly going to help games companies.
2) Most computers have an internet connection. Most people suffer their internet cutting out at random times. Imagine you're on the final boss or doing something awesome, your router packs up, and your game pauses and won't let you continue until you've rebooted the router (something I have to do like 6 times a day because it's crap) or if it's packed up completely, go and buy another one.
3) It probably will. I own another ubisoft game that uses a DRM system (starforce? I think), Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. It won't work on my computer because the DRM doesn't recognise vista, and vista does not recognise the DRM. They complain at each other like hell, resulting in the game not running. The vista patch for the DRM won't install, either, leaving me with a game I bought legitimiately not working on my computer for absolutely no reason.
DRM like this is stupid, I've always said it. Piracy is a problem, yes, but basically every DRM system I've seen seems to be completely missing the point. Think about it; if you can write a DRM system, someone else can crack it. A lot of pirates are just people who have a basic understanding of P2P systems, sure, but there are a lot of talented people out there who work to crack stuff like this, and they *will* do it. Once there's a <b>single</b> cracked game "out there" on the various P2P sites, every single person in the world has potential access to a free, non-drm'd version of the game, which means the only people who have to jump through hoops to get the game running are the people who bought it properly.
I picture DRM as a super advanced front door to your house. It requires 15 keys to get through, and a retinal scan, every time you want to get in. But a burglar? He's just going to smash the window and climb in, easily.
Please continue.
Please continue.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Stardock's method worked pretty well for them.
so yeah, lame.
It's a great idea, yes. I believe Steamworks uses it too now, hopefully more companies will catch on.
Huh?
Stardock doesn't have really any kind of DRM at all - Steamworks is 100% DRM platform... what are you talking about?
Steamworks is actually pretty ridiculous if you think about it - requiring me to install a <b>store</b> not even owned by the company that makes the damn game I'm trying to play? Didn't we used to call that adware?
Stardock uses unique executable file generation, Steamworks does the same. Both platforms offer many features other than DRM.
<!--quoteo(post=1749746:date=Jan 30 2010, 12:55 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Jan 30 2010, 12:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1749746"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Steamworks is actually pretty ridiculous if you think about it - requiring me to install a <b>store</b> not even owned by the company that makes the damn game I'm trying to play? Didn't we used to call that adware?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Steam is both adware and very ridiculous, yes. However it's also pretty much the best thing on-line distribution came up with, minding that Impulse misses a metric ton of Steam's features and products. On the practical level, both do nothing other than quietly sit in your tray with their vast 3Mb memory consumption, a lot better than rootkits that cause your OS to lock up randomly.