Ubisoft busting out the online DRM beams

surrealitycheck

THREAD RULE: The only aggressive action one user can take against another in this thread is to hug in a confrontational manner.

In a fit of retardation, Ubisoft are busting out one of the most annoying DRM schemes I've seen in a while. Full low-down is here:

http://support.uk.ubi.com/online-services-platform/

But choice quotations:

Is there an "off-line" option?
No. The added services to the game (unlimited installs, online storage of saved games and the fact that you don’t need the game disc to play) require you to have an online connection while playing the game.

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. If the Internet Connection is unable to resume you can continue the game from where you left off or from the last saved game.

Will this system be available for every Ubisoft game?
Most upcoming Ubisoft PC games will make use of this system.

It's like they took a look at steam and decided "Hey, that's a pretty good idea - let's make it worse!"

Is anybody as cheesed off by this as I am, being a person who lives with internet that regularly fails?

Suriko

Well, all that means is I won't buy any Ubisoft... titles...

Assassin's Creed II is gonna have this, isn't it?

God damnit.

Elitistb

I don't like the idea of saves that aren't on my computer. Seriously, my cable line gets downed and suddenly I can't load?

surrealitycheck

I don't like the idea of saves that aren't on my computer. Seriously, my cable line gets downed and suddenly I can't load?

A cracked version will actually be the only version you can play when offline. HOW RAD IS THAT

YES GUYS THE BEST WAY TO STOP PEOPLE PIRATING YOUR SOFTWARE IS TO MAKE IT THE ONLY OPTION WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE INTERTUBES

mere_immortal

As much as I want to say "well everyone has internet now" that really isn't the point. What if I want to play on my laptop or like you said my net goes down?

Also this:

If the Internet Connection is unable to resume you can continue the game from where you left off or from the last saved game.

So if I don't save often during a long play session or the game doesn't autosave I could lose hours of progress? Bullshit.

Also how are unlimited install and online saves added services? Last time I checked I can install the rest of my games as many times as I want. Why would I even want to upload my save files?

I have no doubt this will be cracked wide open, just punishing the consumer.

subedii

Eh, we've already been discussing this in the Steam thread. Concensus is that it's retarded. However, I'm going to be honest and say I can't see this thread going anywhere good, instead branching off into the following areas:


- DRM is necessary > flamewar

- DRM is evil > flamewar

- This isn't bad at all you whiner > flamewar

- PC gaming is dying > flamewar

- PC gamers are pirates and this was brought on by yourselves > flamewar

- PC gamers are entitled bitches > flamewar


Let me know if I missed anything.

surrealitycheck

Man, it's all about the awareness-raising.

Actually I pretty much just watted so hard when I read the terms and conditions I felt I had to share this to see if it wasn't just me who thought it was jaw-droppingly dumbo-stupid.

subedii

surrealitycheck wrote: »

Man, it's all about the awareness-raising.

Actually I pretty much just watted so hard when I read the terms and conditions I felt I had to share this to see if it wasn't just me who thought it was jaw-droppingly dumbo-stupid.

Well like I said, most people on the Steam thread seem to feel it's equally retarded. You're not the only one who feels this is yet another stupid attempt at DRM that misses the point. Problem is when you try to convince other people there's inevitable some guy who'll come in and spout off the usual kick off lines about "necessary measures, protecting investments" and "stop complaining about nothing", other people say that's not what the issue is or start off flaming poster number 1, and then the whole thing usually descends into RAAAAAAAGGGGEEEEEE.

surrealitycheck

One sec I have a solution. You will be amazed when you see it

Daedalus

Hey, it's not as stupid as that one where your game wouldn't start if you had Microsoft Process Explorer installed, or that one that crippled your disc drive and if you fixed it it would go back to crippled every time you start the game.

Still pretty stupid, though. Somebody over there needs to learn the definition of "BTO vulnerability"

autono-wally, erotibot300

so when this inevitably gets cracked, the legal users will be the ones fucked the most again?

Daedalus

autono-wally, erotibot300 wrote: »

so when this inevitably gets cracked, the legal users will be the ones fucked the most again?

Why, it's almost as if we've seen this before.

Several times.

Pureauthor

The disconnect between the people making the decisions and the reality of the situation seems almost unreal.

Alegis

If they're so intent on reducing download numbers without a care for their customer userbase or product they might as well simply make a shit game no one would even bother to download and "save money" on dev costs. With an extra $10 on top for the silly gooses that do happen to buy it.

Great success!

Suriko

GTA IV was a far, far superior game once cracked. Saves were located in a sensible directory (My Documents/My games/GTA IV/), mods were available, no Social Club, no Games for Windows Live. Almost like a different game.

Made me regret paying $100 (damn you, Australia) a lot less.

subedii

surrealitycheck wrote: »

One sec I have a solution. You will be amazed when you see it

THREAD RULE: The only aggressive action one user can take against another in this thread is to hug in a confrontational manner.

:^:

Peewi

If I bought a game with this and my internet connection is fine, but the service is down for maintenance or something when I want to play, I'd be annoyed.

General_Win

I would like to see the game they think people will tough this out for.

When Blizzard makes dumb decisions about how they're going to release SC2 its okay, because people are going to buy SC because its SC.

What game do they think they make where people are going to over look this and be like: welp it can't be that bad.

Pureauthor

Um... Trackmania 2?

Mace1370

subedii wrote: »

Eh, we've already been discussing this in the Steam thread. Concensus is that it's retarded. However, I'm going to be honest and say I can't see this thread going anywhere good, instead branching off into the following areas:


- DRM is necessary > flamewar

- DRM is evil > flamewar

- This isn't bad at all you whiner > flamewar

- PC gaming is dying > flamewar

- PC gamers are pirates and this was brought on by yourselves > flamewar

- PC gamers are entitled bitches > flamewar


Let me know if I missed anything.

Ooooo! I'd like to take options two, with the concession that four is happening. I'd also like to add six to make sure I fully instigate the flame war. Aaand I'll toss in a "console gaming is superior to PC gaming you guys are teh succk!" just to make sure.

*hugs confrontationally*

autono-wally, erotibot300

General_Win wrote: »

I would like to see the game they think people will tough this out for.

When Blizzard makes dumb decisions about how they're going to release SC2 its okay, because people are going to buy SC because its SC.

What game do they think they make where people are going to over look this and be like: welp it can't be that bad.

SC is mainly played online anyways..

Alegis

Mace1370 wrote: »

Ooooo! I'd like to take options two, with the concession that four is happening. I'd also like to add six to make sure I fully instigate the flame war. Aaand I'll toss in a "console gaming is superior to PC gaming you guys are teh succk!" just to make sure.

*hugs confrontationally*

Sir, your order qualifies for the Mega Flame Bucket package. Please enjoy this complimentary zippo and oil drum.

strebalicious

Whoever came up with this thing is a ruh-tard.

I just love how they consider unlimited installs and ability to play without a disc as 'added services'.

Mr Fuzzbutt

The thing that annoys me is that publishers know that DRM doesn't stop piracy. The problem is, they have a duty to please their shareholders, who know nothing about the gaming industry. They go, "I heard that piracy is a problem! What are you doing to prevent it?" The publisher feels they can't say "Nothing!" and expect their share prices to remain high.

Mace1370

Mr Fuzzbutt wrote: »

The thing that annoys me is that publishers know that DRM doesn't stop piracy. The problem is, they have a duty to please their shareholders, who know nothing about the gaming industry. They go, "I heard that piracy is a problem! What are you doing to prevent it?" The publisher feels they can't say "Nothing!" and expect their share prices to remain high.

I think also that they hope such DRM will be annoying enough to crack that some people break down and buy the game before their DRM is broken.

subedii

Mr Fuzzbutt wrote: »

The thing that annoys me is that publishers know that DRM doesn't stop piracy. The problem is, they have a duty to please their shareholders, who know nothing about the gaming industry. They go, "I heard that piracy is a problem! What are you doing to prevent it?" The publisher feels they can't say "Nothing!" and expect their share prices to remain high.

There are other anti-piracy measures besides this. I mean Bioware went with installation limits on ME1. After feedback from the community they've removed those (and the online verification) for ME2, and are just going with a simple disc check. Similar with Bethesda and Fallout 3. Those are freaking huge titles too.

A more effective means of maximising your profit on the platform is to simultaneously ship, instead of delaying for months on end because of fears that piracy will kill your console sales as well. There's no point in waiting past the point where all the hype has gone, all the advertising's been forgotten, and there are new exciting games being released at the same time whilst nobody even knows you're releasing a new port.

Wren

this will obviously stop piracy dead in it tracks

General_Win

autono-wally, erotibot300 wrote: »

General_Win wrote: »

I would like to see the game they think people will tough this out for.

When Blizzard makes dumb decisions about how they're going to release SC2 its okay, because people are going to buy SC because its SC.

What game do they think they make where people are going to over look this and be like: welp it can't be that bad.

SC is mainly played online anyways..

Diablo3 or whatever else they have. You know what I mean.

autono-wally, erotibot300

Also mainly played online. People (at least myself) do not really care about having to be online to play SC or Diablo, because it's about the same as if they told you "You have to be online to play World of Warcraft!"
You have to anyways

Peewi

subedii wrote: »

Mr Fuzzbutt wrote: »

The thing that annoys me is that publishers know that DRM doesn't stop piracy. The problem is, they have a duty to please their shareholders, who know nothing about the gaming industry. They go, "I heard that piracy is a problem! What are you doing to prevent it?" The publisher feels they can't say "Nothing!" and expect their share prices to remain high.

There are other anti-piracy measures besides this. I mean Bioware went with installation limits on ME1. After feedback from the community they've removed those (and the online verification) for ME2, and are just going with a simple disc check. Similar with Bethesda and Fallout 3. Those are freaking huge titles too.

While install limits is a bad thing, I prefer online activation to disc checks. I'm lazy. Sometimes too lazy to get up from my chair to fetch a disc if I want to play a game and I thought it was really nice that ME1 didn't require having the disc in the drive.

surrealitycheck

While install limits is a bad thing, I prefer online activation to disc checks. I'm lazy. Sometimes too lazy to get up from my chair to fetch a disc if I want to play a game and I thought it was really nice that ME1 didn't require having the disc in the drive.

There's steam for ME2 though, so all is good for lazy peewi.

TurboGuard

The only way to "stop" piracy is for developers to stop being lazy, selfish asshats and actually put care into the games they create and give their audience lots of goodies/good online support/etc.

Too bad those days are long gone, and it seems like the consumers even welcome all this new bullshit with open arms (yes, even on gaming elitist online groups such as these here).

Sometimes I wish I could get stuck in a Groundhog Day-esque time loop from 1990 to 2000.

Ah, those were the days.

acidlacedpenguin

I made a game with the ultimate DRM scheme.

See, when you install it, it detects if you're installing it to a computer. If it finds that you're installing the game to the computer it formats all HDDs and then shred-writes them, making data recovery near impossible.

I can conclusively say that this has stopped 100% of all pirates from pirating my game.

Unfortunately, Norton doesn't like my game :_(

Ultimanecat

Well, I was a bit excited to play AC2 on my PC. No access to my 360 here, but have been gaming on my capable-enough laptop to make up for it.

Then Ubi announces that AC2 will be $60 on the PC...which is a bit confounding but no real loss to me since I'll just wait the obligatory 6 months before it goes on sale for $20 or less on Steam.

Then Ubi announces this...and well, now the game is out of the cards for me. I don't have permanent internet access. I can connect reliably for an hour or so a day. So, now my plan is to wait the whole thing out, and buy it a year or two down the line when either Ubi or some enterprising individuals strip this out. AC2 isn't even a multiplayer game so the incentive to leave the game pristine and grudgingly accept this simply isn't there.

SirUltimos

A year or two? I give this about 6 hours before someone cracks it.

subedii

Ultimanecat wrote: »

Then Ubi announces this...and well, now the game is out of the cards for me. I don't have permanent internet access. I can connect reliably for an hour or so a day. So, now my plan is to wait the whole thing out, and buy it a year or two down the line when either Ubi or some enterprising individuals strip this out.

Try a week, two weeks tops. I'm not even joking.

stopgap

I find myself hoping strongly that I will not find any games I want to buy from Ubisoft in the near future... as this seems rather Idiotic. I have a decent internet connection, so connecting will not be an issue, but considering what they think is a Service, I worry about further requirements they may add to the DRM.

Example: to play this game you must pat your head while saying Ubisoft is king into the microphone.

mere_immortal

It wouldn't suprise me if AC2 is leaked a week before retail with this already cracked.

cooljammer00

So then I assume this means that Ubisoft can never EVER have their servers down, lest they face some sort of litigation (needless or otherwise) regarding a game that was purchased that can't be played?

Or did I read it wrong? There's a bullet point in the OP that says that if your internet dies during a session, you can keep playing? So I assume you need a DRM online check at the start of a session and then periodically throughout, but the starting one is the most important?

Ultimanecat

Oh, I didn't mean it wouldn't be cracked immediately. But I'm still going to buy the game (as opposed to pirating), just not until it is some piddly amount like $10 or $15; maybe by then Ubi will have seen the error of their ways and removed the DRM like other devs/pubs, or cracking it will be documented enough that I can do it without issue.

Edit: cooljammer00, I had to read that bit over again as well, and I think it is saying that if your connection drops, it'll pause the game and try to reconnect. If that doesn't work, the game is borked until it can but you will be able to pick up from where you left off once everything is working again.

subedii

Ultimanecat wrote: »

Oh, I didn't mean it wouldn't be cracked immediately. But I'm still going to buy the game (as opposed to pirating), just not until it is some piddly amount like $10 or $15; maybe by then Ubi will have seen the error of their ways and removed the DRM like other devs/pubs, or cracking it will be documented enough that I can do it without issue.

Your not purchasing the game lowers total sales.

Sales are only ever lower than expected because of piracy.

Therefore, stricter DRM is needed.