[From Dust] droppin' lava like it's hot. out now on 360 and PC.

Arthil

eobet wrote:

Pasted from my post in the Steam thread:

Okie... so I bought From Dust and immediately regretted it:

The first thing that happens when you launch is some sort of "patching" progress that takes about a minute... problem is, it's not a Steam patching progress, but some sort of 3rd party implementation from Ubisoft. In other words, background downloading of patches in Steam wasn't good enough for Ubisoft apparently. They want the customer to explicitly have to wait when they launch an Ubisoft game. Great service! Oh, and there is almost zero information as to what is going on during this.

The second thing that happens is that you have to login. But you're already logged into Steam you say? No, that's not good enough either, you need to log in to Ubisofts Uplay as well. And after that you're presented with a "news" screen. Again, Steam already has this, but that's not good enough for Ubisoft (they want to present their Twitter feed to you).

I don't understand why Ubisoft feels like they need to push their branding on us customers regardless of what platform we chose to buy it on (choosing to buy THEIR games isn't enough, apparently). No, they want to offer an extra "service", pretty much like the bloatware you find on some newly purchased laptops and mobile phones. Well, fuck you Ubisoft, I already consider Steam a hurdle to get to my games, and I'm not going to jump through two hoops just to have a little fun time.

If this is where PC gaming is heading, I'm sticking to indie.

Honestly? I'd suck it up and give the game a proper go. I lost track of time completely playing this.

Artereis

Even if I do find the game compelling once I get around to creating a UPlay account, I still feel guilty for rewarding effort on this level.

Jephery

I stayed up late and finished the story plus all the challenge maps on the PC. The snake isn't the best thing ever, but I didn't have any precision problems, and I didn't mind Uplay at all because I already had an account because of Assassin's Creed 2.

The only thing they need to add is an automatic way to make the earth/lava you're dropping walkable. Other than that it was a blast.

Hardtarget

*eyeroll*

So I bought From Dust and think it's great. since I play lots of games, and ubisoft makes lots of good ones!, I already have a uplay account, i was even alraedy signed into it! Uplay launched, updated itself, then relaunched, updated the game, then relaunched, asked for my cd key since it auto signed me in, and then i hit play. The whole process took maybe 2 - 4 minutes and will never happen again. Game is quite fun btw but it's a bit of a shoddy PC port, locked at 30 fps, no advanced graphics controls, etc. But i like it so far.

Now for the uplay stuff, every. single. online. retailer. has been advertising the fact in big bold capital letters that From Dust used the Ubi DRM scheme. This is not news o ra shock to anyone, if you bought the game and you didn't realize this then you didn't read the description of the game. It was said that it used Ubi DRM on D2D, Steam, GetGamesGo, GreenManGaming, and others (i hunted around for the best deal earlier so I saw it in multiple places).

Morkath

Hardtarget wrote:

*eyeroll*

So I bought From Dust and think it's great. since I play lots of games, and ubisoft makes lots of good ones!, I already have a uplay account, i was even alraedy signed into it! Uplay launched, updated itself, then relaunched, updated the game, then relaunched, asked for my cd key since it auto signed me in, and then i hit play. The whole process took maybe 2 - 4 minutes and will never happen again. Game is quite fun btw but it's a bit of a shoddy PC port, locked at 30 fps, no advanced graphics controls, etc. But i like it so far.

Now for the uplay stuff, every. single. online. retailer. has been advertising the fact in big bold capital letters that From Dust used the Ubi DRM scheme. This is not news o ra shock to anyone, if you bought the game and you didn't realize this then you didn't read the description of the game. It was said that it used Ubi DRM on D2D, Steam, GetGamesGo, GreenManGaming, and others (i hunted around for the best deal earlier so I saw it in multiple places).

The problem being, ubi tried to pass it off as if it didn't require an internet connection to play the game. There was the whole "This game will not require you to always be connected to the interent to play it" comment they made when it was first announced that it did.

Stormwatcher

Arthil wrote:

eobet wrote:

Pasted from my post in the Steam thread:

Okie... so I bought From Dust and immediately regretted it:

The first thing that happens when you launch is some sort of "patching" progress that takes about a minute... problem is, it's not a Steam patching progress, but some sort of 3rd party implementation from Ubisoft. In other words, background downloading of patches in Steam wasn't good enough for Ubisoft apparently. They want the customer to explicitly have to wait when they launch an Ubisoft game. Great service! Oh, and there is almost zero information as to what is going on during this.

The second thing that happens is that you have to login. But you're already logged into Steam you say? No, that's not good enough either, you need to log in to Ubisofts Uplay as well. And after that you're presented with a "news" screen. Again, Steam already has this, but that's not good enough for Ubisoft (they want to present their Twitter feed to you).

I don't understand why Ubisoft feels like they need to push their branding on us customers regardless of what platform we chose to buy it on (choosing to buy THEIR games isn't enough, apparently). No, they want to offer an extra "service", pretty much like the bloatware you find on some newly purchased laptops and mobile phones. Well, fuck you Ubisoft, I already consider Steam a hurdle to get to my games, and I'm not going to jump through two hoops just to have a little fun time.

If this is where PC gaming is heading, I'm sticking to indie.

Honestly? I'd suck it up and give the game a proper go. I lost track of time completely playing this.

Eobet hates things like steam and uplay too much. Better let him be.

Dark_Side

Does this run like shit on anyone else's PC? It seems like an amazing little game, but very hard to get into since by all accounts, it strikes me as a shitty port and it runs like a dog on my machine. What really sucks is there are zero options to go in and try to tweak it to run better, which is some serious bullshit in this day and age.

I'm unhappy about the UBI drm, I knew the game shipped with it, but they pretty clearly lied about having to have an internet connection to play it.

Basil

A virtual joystick?

Aw hell naw.

I'll just console myself with fond memories of playing in sand boxes.

Stormwatcher

Halfhand wrote:

so im never buying another ubisoft pc game again

All their main in-house games are working really well. From dust is the first one to be this broken in a long time.

Orca

You and me both, Basil.

Saints Row 2's PC port is unimpressive, but this sounds just plain awful.

CarbonFire

Dark_Side wrote:

Does this run like shit on anyone else's PC? It seems like an amazing little game, but very hard to get into since by all accounts, it strikes me as a shitty port and it runs like a dog on my machine. What really sucks is there are zero options to go in and try to tweak it to run better, which is some serious bullshit in this day and age.

I'm unhappy about the UBI drm, I knew the game shipped with it, but they pretty clearly lied about having to have an internet connection to play it.

Yes, the screen tearing is eye-gougingly bad. I've got AA forced through the ATI control panel, but I really wish there were actual graphics options. The fact that it is locked at 30fps is also pretty inexcusable. Also, my game has never synced with that abomination that is Uplay. Every time I start or stop the game it says "syncing", and every time it fails.

Despite all that, the core gameplay is really fun. Played the entire way through to the last level yesterday, can't wait to jump back into it tonight. I really kinda wish they had fleshed out the game more, as I could definitely see this being a much larger game. More disasters, more powers / element, maybe even some sort of village progression upgrade / RPG elements thrown in. The core sandbox idea is really sound, and even as just a quick proof of concept I think the game works great.

It's a real shame they bungled the handling of the PC port so badly.

Jephery

The core sandbox idea is really sound, and even as just a quick proof of concept I think the game works great.

Its lot like Portal in that way. We can only hope From Dust 2 is as good as Portal 2.

Gihgehls

You gooses having issues with the controls need to do this:

Hit ESC
Go to options
Go to control options (imagine that!)
Uncheck Mouse Scroll
Hit Apply
Hit Yes
Hit Back
Profit

Peewi

I didn't notice that option at all earlier. I did notice that it updated the second time I started up the game, so did that add it?

CarbonFire

Gihgehls wrote:

You gooses having issues with the controls need to do this:

Hit ESC
Go to options
Go to control options (imagine that!)
Uncheck Mouse Scroll
Hit Apply
Hit Yes
Hit Back
Profit

Yes, that is certainly better, but the scrolling towards the edge is more of a standard RTS-style convention, it's too bad they screwed it up so badly (the "edge" is nearly at the half-way point from center to the actual edge of the screen).

Lord_Asmodeus

From Dust is such an awesome game none of those problems really phase me. I haven't seen a destroyer so far, do they appear in the campaign?

Dark_Side

That's what sucks, I just sat around the first map making palm trees because it's so enjoyable moving earth around, but I kept crashing into the brick wall that is the horrible pc port. Regrettable.

Lord Jezo

More PC hate

http://www.platformnation.com/2011/08/17/pc-port-of-from-dust-is-a-technical-mess/

This all seems nutty as everyone who talked about the console version always added in that they would rather play it on the PC with a mouse because the gamepad controls were cumbersome. But now that it's out on PC everyone says it stinks there too.

Sadness.

CarbonFire

Lord Jezo wrote:

More PC hate

http://www.platformnation.com/2011/08/17/pc-port-of-from-dust-is-a-technical-mess/

This all seems nutty as everyone who talked about the console version always added in that they would rather play it on the PC with a mouse because the gamepad controls were cumbersome. But now that it's out on PC everyone says it stinks there too.

Sadness.

It's probably still better with the mouse. It's just not as better as it should be

Rorus Raz

The DRM is annoying but tolerable. The quality of the port is not worth it.

The game chugs a lot on my PC despite meeting the requirements and then some. But hey, no problem. We can just turn down some detai- oh wait no, graphics options are almost non-existent. Well, fuck.

Controls are just...not right. Moving the cursor also moves the camera, which is not smooth and very distracting. The cursor is also very weird. It may be great for a console game, but it's not necessary in a PC game.

I'd hold out for a patch or something, because I'm regretting the 15 I spent on this.

CarbonFire

Rorus Raz wrote:

The DRM is annoying but tolerable. The quality of the port is not worth it.

The game chugs a lot on my PC despite meeting the requirements and then some. But hey, no problem. We can just turn down some detai- oh wait no, graphics options are almost non-existent. Well, fuck.

Controls are just...not right. Moving the cursor also moves the camera, which is not smooth and very distracting. The cursor is also very weird. It may be great for a console game, but it's not necessary in a PC game.

I'd hold out for a patch or something, because I'm regretting the 15 I spent on this.

As Gihgehls mentioned, you can turn that off. It's annoying, but a better alternative than having the camera moving on you all the time.

Rorus Raz

Oh, that's cool, but it doesn't solve the terrible framerate issues.

Drez

Hardtarget wrote:

*eyeroll*

So I bought From Dust and think it's great. since I play lots of games, and ubisoft makes lots of good ones!, I already have a uplay account, i was even alraedy signed into it! Uplay launched, updated itself, then relaunched, updated the game, then relaunched, asked for my cd key since it auto signed me in, and then i hit play. The whole process took maybe 2 - 4 minutes and will never happen again. Game is quite fun btw but it's a bit of a shoddy PC port, locked at 30 fps, no advanced graphics controls, etc. But i like it so far.

Now for the uplay stuff, every. single. online. retailer. has been advertising the fact in big bold capital letters that From Dust used the Ubi DRM scheme. This is not news o ra shock to anyone, if you bought the game and you didn't realize this then you didn't read the description of the game. It was said that it used Ubi DRM on D2D, Steam, GetGamesGo, GreenManGaming, and others (i hunted around for the best deal earlier so I saw it in multiple places).

Uplay is pretty fucking stupid though. In every single way. Not just because of the DRM.

Why in god's name do we need a SECOND system of achievements? Can't they just use the Steam/XBLA/PSN systems in place? They have to throw their shitty overlay on top of it.

Look, I won't not buy a game because it uses Uplay, but I absolutely hate Uplay in every way. The DRM is actually the least reason for me to hate it. I think it's an awful, awful, awful thing and all criticism of it is well deserved.

Hardtarget

Morkath wrote:

Hardtarget wrote:

*eyeroll*

So I bought From Dust and think it's great. since I play lots of games, and ubisoft makes lots of good ones!, I already have a uplay account, i was even alraedy signed into it! Uplay launched, updated itself, then relaunched, updated the game, then relaunched, asked for my cd key since it auto signed me in, and then i hit play. The whole process took maybe 2 - 4 minutes and will never happen again. Game is quite fun btw but it's a bit of a shoddy PC port, locked at 30 fps, no advanced graphics controls, etc. But i like it so far.

Now for the uplay stuff, every. single. online. retailer. has been advertising the fact in big bold capital letters that From Dust used the Ubi DRM scheme. This is not news o ra shock to anyone, if you bought the game and you didn't realize this then you didn't read the description of the game. It was said that it used Ubi DRM on D2D, Steam, GetGamesGo, GreenManGaming, and others (i hunted around for the best deal earlier so I saw it in multiple places).

The problem being, ubi tried to pass it off as if it didn't require an internet connection to play the game. There was the whole "This game will not require you to always be connected to the interent to play it" comment they made when it was first announced that it did.

good thing I've been connected to the internet for the past decade i guess

Local H Jay

but what about when nuclear winter hits?? how will we play our games with no internet UBISOFT??

ronzo

Valve is offering refunds due to the DRM bullshit that ubi pulled

Edit: regardless of your feelings about alway-online drm, saying your game won't have it, then doing it anyway make you an utter asshat

Maddoc

Drez wrote:

Hardtarget wrote:

*eyeroll*

So I bought From Dust and think it's great. since I play lots of games, and ubisoft makes lots of good ones!, I already have a uplay account, i was even alraedy signed into it! Uplay launched, updated itself, then relaunched, updated the game, then relaunched, asked for my cd key since it auto signed me in, and then i hit play. The whole process took maybe 2 - 4 minutes and will never happen again. Game is quite fun btw but it's a bit of a shoddy PC port, locked at 30 fps, no advanced graphics controls, etc. But i like it so far.

Now for the uplay stuff, every. single. online. retailer. has been advertising the fact in big bold capital letters that From Dust used the Ubi DRM scheme. This is not news o ra shock to anyone, if you bought the game and you didn't realize this then you didn't read the description of the game. It was said that it used Ubi DRM on D2D, Steam, GetGamesGo, GreenManGaming, and others (i hunted around for the best deal earlier so I saw it in multiple places).

Uplay is pretty fucking stupid though. In every single way. Not just because of the DRM.

Why in god's name do we need a SECOND system of achievements? Can't they just use the Steam/XBLA/PSN systems in place? They have to throw their shitty overlay on top of it.

Look, I won't not buy a game because it uses Uplay, but I absolutely hate Uplay in every way. The DRM is actually the least reason for me to hate it. I think it's an awful, awful, awful thing and all criticism of it is well deserved.

Because they have their own thing going where your achievements give you their "Uplay currency" to unlock things in their games.

Hardtarget

honestly the uplay currency isn't even that bad, in some ways it's kinda neat. I'll get some uplay points from doing stuff in one ubi game that I decide not to cash in on that game cause i don't think that bonus is necessarily worth it, well then another game comes out with some bonuses I think are kinda cool and boom I can cash it in for that stuff before I've gotten enough currency from that game, etc.

with that said Uplay works much better on the consoles, it's completely unnecessary on the PC but most of my ubi titles are 360 games so I was already all set up for it anyways. Honestly, I have more important thing sin my life to get worked up about.

Rorus Raz

Hardtarget wrote:

Morkath wrote:

Hardtarget wrote:

*eyeroll*

So I bought From Dust and think it's great. since I play lots of games, and ubisoft makes lots of good ones!, I already have a uplay account, i was even alraedy signed into it! Uplay launched, updated itself, then relaunched, updated the game, then relaunched, asked for my cd key since it auto signed me in, and then i hit play. The whole process took maybe 2 - 4 minutes and will never happen again. Game is quite fun btw but it's a bit of a shoddy PC port, locked at 30 fps, no advanced graphics controls, etc. But i like it so far.

Now for the uplay stuff, every. single. online. retailer. has been advertising the fact in big bold capital letters that From Dust used the Ubi DRM scheme. This is not news o ra shock to anyone, if you bought the game and you didn't realize this then you didn't read the description of the game. It was said that it used Ubi DRM on D2D, Steam, GetGamesGo, GreenManGaming, and others (i hunted around for the best deal earlier so I saw it in multiple places).

The problem being, ubi tried to pass it off as if it didn't require an internet connection to play the game. There was the whole "This game will not require you to always be connected to the interent to play it" comment they made when it was first announced that it did.

good thing I've been connected to the internet for the past decade i guess

There's a vast world out there, and get this: it's populated by people that aren't Hardtarget. These people have an array of internet connections of differing stabilities and conditions. In some cold, bitter parts of this planet, there are people who can't rely on their internet or maybe they have to forgo internet for days, week or (dare I say it?) months at a time. And for those people, this kind of DRM sucks royal amount of ass.

But hey, as long as Hardtarget is happy, I guess we should just drop the issue. You got yours, am I right?

Rorus Raz

ronzo wrote:

Valve is offering refunds due to the DRM bullshit that ubi pulled

Edit: regardless of your feelings about alway-online drm, saying your game won't have it, then doing it anyway make you an utter asshat

What's the procedure for doing this?

I'll be happy to buy From Dust once they remove this shit and clean the actual port up a bit. But if they have my money, then there's less incentive to do that.

Hardtarget

ya but I don't care about those people since I'm not them.

also wtf is the point of your post, obviously this is all opinions and my opinion is that I'm not gonna let having to be online at launch ruin my fun of a game I've been waiting for for months, especially when it's a 15 dollar game that is what 4 or 5 hours long? Am I really going to play it again in 5 years when i might not have a net connection? I seriously doubt it.

But hey, as long as Rorus Raz makes it clear that not everybody is me!!!!

Magic Radio

Damn Ubisoft and their Orwellian ways! Such a horrible and unspeakable crime they have committed in making me sign up for their thing so I can play this fun game.

Maddoc

Yeah, I mean I'm totally open to the prospect that I'm a bad person or something, but even with my mediocre internet I generally manage to stay connected almost all of the time.

So I just don't care if people in the middle of bumfuck nowhere have no internet and thus can't play. If they have no internet they have better things to complain about than not being able to play From Dust.

For example, they could complain about not having any internet.

EDIT: Alt response, I am the Hardtarget, it's me.

Rorus Raz

It turns out you can raise your hackles over a variety of subjects simultaneously and to a number of degrees. Shit, I have internet almost all the time. This will never affect me. Damn my empathy for people that aren't me. I will adopt a more self-centered attitude immediately.

Oh, but the port is still very subpar. That does affect me, so I can still advise people to not buy the game over that?

Maddoc

If you want to get yourself all riled up on behalf of those unfortunately hypothetical people who will be affected by this DRM, say people who have no difficulty downloading a near 2gb game but can't keep an internet connection stable long enough to start said game, then that's totally your business.

But trying to guilt trip people over it is pretty damn silly.

Rorus Raz

I mean, if you don't have an issue with the DRM. Then fine. But it's incredibly odd to insist that other people can't raise concern or complaints about it just because you're doing hunky-dory with it.

Maddoc

I just get the distinct impression that pretty much everyone complaining about this DRM is just doing so because of its existence, as opposed to any negative effect the DRM has had on anyone they know, or even anyone that they know knows. And then to lend credence to these grievances, they pull out the hypothetical people out living out in the wastes of the planet who have no internet and thus can't play this game that they downloaded from a digital download service.

Actually the really funny part is that the existence of this DRM has actually benefited me, because now if I want to refund it because it's a bad port I can do that.

So from where I'm standing, this DRM has done nothing but positive things.

Dark_Side

Magic Radio wrote:

Damn Ubisoft and their Orwellian ways! Such a horrible and unspeakable crime they have committed in making me sign up for their thing so I can play this fun game.

Let's not do this, it's just gonna get the thread locked. Ubi's love affair with over the top DRM not withstanding, it still doesn't change the fact that for a game on steam, it's pretty unnecessary. It's also redundant and lame to have to sign in to two separate services to play a 15 dollar game and people are not wrong to complain about it. It also doesn't change the fact that Ubi flat out told people the game wouldn't ship with this DRM scheme, and there's nothing wrong with complaining about that either.

I'm pretty even handed with how I treat games, and even I feel ripped off by this. Not so much by the DRM, but because this is a really, really lazy port. And that should not be a thing in this day and age from a AAA publisher. The simple fact is I will never buy another Ubisoft product, and I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. So while I'm sure their anti-piracy measures are cutting edge stuff, all it's done is piss off their actual paying customers, which will only cost them in the future.

Rorus Raz

Maddoc, I've lost internet in the past for over a week. The internet I have right now isn't incredible, and I do get 12-hour or so outages every few months. Saying "I'm connecting to the internet 24/7/365" is not honest because shit does happen.

It's not as bad when it's a primarily multiplayer affair like Starcraft II, but for a single-player puzzle game? Not really necessary.

EDIT: The port IS bad, and I am glad that the DRM is giving me an out. But I do like the game and hope Ubisoft wakes up and gets a patch going.

Magic Radio

Dark_Side wrote:

Magic Radio wrote:

Damn Ubisoft and their Orwellian ways! Such a horrible and unspeakable crime they have committed in making me sign up for their thing so I can play this fun game.

Let's not do this, it's just gonna get the thread locked. Ubi's love affair with over the top DRM not withstanding, it still doesn't change the fact that for a game on steam, it's pretty unnecessary. It's also redundant and lame to have to sign in to two separate services to play a 15 dollar game and people are not wrong to complain about it. It also doesn't change the fact that Ubi flat out told people the game wouldn't ship with this DRM scheme, and there's nothing wrong with complaining about that either.

Oh, it's totally redundant and silly. However, it's not so crippling that I couldn't just click through it and be on my marry way. However, if they publicly stated the game wouldn't have this Ubiplay thing, than people have a legitimate place to hurl stones from.