lurker post
 

Hi, I'm a lurker and I've been waiting for SH5 ever since the rumors started... but I'm totally pissed about the whole DRM/OSP fiasco. :nope: Do these people seriously think thank sales will rise if the game becomes unsellable once bought? :damn:

Now... trenken, I've been reading lot of posts from you. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but your arguments are simply flawed I must say...

No it's not. You talk as if the whole gaming industry is going OSP these days, but there are still companies like Paradox Interactive who sell millions per every game they release. And guess what DRM they use? Nothing, not even a serial key, because they're business run on a philosophy that customers have to be bought, not enslaved to make profit. And I'm sure there are many new single player games out there (and will be out in future) that doesn't come with Big Brother package.

Hard drives have manufacturer warranty no? What guarantee is Ubisoft giving us for a stable server? Shouldn't people be responsible for their own data? Besides, hard drives don't fail that often, so it's not really the best comparison is it?

Again, poor comparison. How can you possibly compare technology that advances for the convenience of the customers (VHS -> DVD; higher quality and more compact) to Ubisoft's technological 'advancement' that only serves to give more power to the company to control its own customers? (freedom of play -> OSP; online check for installation, constant online monitoring, dependence on company server, online save, no resell, etc, etc...)

A better comparison would be the government installing surveillance cameras on every new home and car you buy just in case you are involved in illegal activities. I doubt people will sit and go with the flow if that ever happens. :har: Of course governments are harder to fight back than companies and that's exactly what people here are doing: rising up against Ubisoft's draconian DRM so that they will maybe reconsider implementing it before it is released. How are they going to know if people just stayed quiet? So people aren't making futile uproar if that's what you think it is. If they choose to continue with their new DRM policy then people will speak with their wallets and both parties will not be happy.

So does that mean you're going to stop "bitch"ing about people's opinion of the new OSP on this board? Because clearly you haven't changed the general consensus on the OSP/DRM issue yet. :hmmm:

What? The slowest loading picture in the universe? :O:

Knowing my luck it probably loaded my entire computer contents via some trojan as well .

Being used to not playing an online game when online doesn't work is one thing, it's part of the very concept. Being used to not playing an OFFLINE game because a server someplace in thye world doesn't work is, well, crazy.


You sound as if people who have a problem with their net connections cannot afford it. Before they moved a CO up close enough for my DSL connection, I had a long range, custom 802.11 setup---luckily from my house in the foothills I can see rooftops downtown---the set up alone was several hundred bucks, then my 1MB symmetric connection was more than DSL. Cost is not an object, frankly. We'd happily pay a couple hundred bucks a month for a really fast connection (even at 1.5 megabits, it takes a while for my wife to load up CT and MRI studies she needs to look at). Again, we simply cannot up here.

The point virtually everyone else is making is that single-player games that don't gain value from a constant net-connection should not have one.
I can only assume you are paid to support this nonsense by someone. Really. It's bizzare. If MY machine fails (any of the 4 of them) it's my fault, AND I have more machines. If Ubi's server fails, they owe me money, IMO. I want to play NOW, and I cannot, it's THEIR fault.

BTW, I've owned computers since 1984, and remarkably I've never had one crash. Not ever. Course I replace stuff before it fails to avoid that. Meanwhile, every single online game has unscheduled downtime. All of them.

True, but requiring a tether is NOT the wave of the future, mobile devices are.

Again with the cost. It's not even an object for me, really. My connection is even pretty stable, in fact more stable than the Ubi forums---which is exactly as stable as you can expect their game servers to be (ie: not very).

You apparently argue that unresponsive, frustrating gameplay is the wave of the future and should be embraced. Some of us beg to differ.

I used to listen to a lot of Rush. I bought that album when it was brand new, BTW.

You don't bitch about changes that will make your personal game time LESS enjoyable (the OSP can ONLY make it less enjoyable, or for the lucky exactly the same), but you DO make many posts about why no one else should bitch about it being less enjoyable. Odd, that. If you really felt as you pose, you'd simply not post at all, waste of time that it is. (the only plus, safety from personal HD failure is a non-issue since anyone with a good net connections and a brain that consists of more than 2 neurons held together with a spirochete has an offsite backup service anyway).

Name one "Pro" of an "always on" internet requirement for an offline game?

Name ONE. Be specific as to why it has to always have a connection, not just when it is required to send/receive data (say when saving the game).

Stops pirates. There, I said it.

To stop pirates it has to stop them, 100%. If it's cracked, it's cracked. The only possible mitigation would be if it took so long to crack, the next version was already out.

That's a major plus if it works. If it doesn't work, there are no other "pros", only cons.

It still retains the downside of resulting in frustration for users. I have some time to play, and ubi is down so I'm SOL. I simply won't ever pay to be annoyed like that.

I've been reading forums here and there about the new DRM on the last few days, but quietly. Reading some of the replies from people, laughing at some, agreeing to others.

Truth be told, nothing they come up with will ever stop piracy.

Why?

Cos everything done can be undone, when you're talking about software.

Everything, no exceptions.

The new DRM will serve only to ENCOURAGE piracy, cos most people will be so annoyed they cant play when there is no internet connection, they will download the pirate version even if they bough the original game.

Imagine yourself: You bough the game, but you have a laptop. Most people have laptops nowdays. Most laptops nowdays are good enough to run the game. You invested your money on buying the game and you invested your money on a decent laptop so you can run the game, cos lets face it, we will all love SH5, no exceptions. Now, you find youself in a car or somewhere else, you have to wait for a person or something, and you have a couple of hours in idle. You have somewhere to sit and you have your laptop. You would LOVE to play SH5, but there is no internet around. After a few episodes like this, where you paid good money for having the conditions of playing the game you like and yet after a stupid decision by Ubi you can't, you will eventually see SH5 to download on the bittorrent sites, you will eventually break. So, in my opinion, this DRM will only encourage piracy. It doesnt matter if you own the game or not, you are one more peer, one more person helping on another person's upload.

From all the point-of-views, this decision is just plain stupid.

Agreed....nor mine.

The ROF example is a good one.

If the weight of anti DRM opinion here and over at the Ubi forums is replicated across other forums (which I suspect is the case) then there is always hope that changes may come about, if not prior to release then shortly after.

To be fair, stealing something you paid for is not piracy. If I buy some software and have to end up using non-traditional means (like I crack) to get it working then that is covered under the "Backup and Maintenance" clause of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (2001.)

That's a benefit for the Publisher, not for the Customer. I don't want to trade in Customer Rights (like the ability to resell a game) for Publisher Benefits.

If that additional money earned would result in better, more-featured, longer games with more details, it might be a Customer Benefit.

But has the removal of printed manuals and large boxes resulted in better, cheaper games? Has the inclusion of online streamed advertisements ever resulted in better, cheaper games?

Everytime the Publisher saves money on Games, it usually makes the shareholders happy. Not the Customers. So where's the benefit for Customers when it "stops piracy"?

'Nother good point there. :up:
I really miss the big boxes, big manuals, extra stuff within those boxes. It made you feel that you had something great in your hands. And while DVD boxes made it good for shelf space back home, I really miss the boxes. The manual that came with "The Ultimate Doom" was thicker than that of SH3. :down:

There is none. As you said it's for making shareholders happy and to maximize the profit. A shareholder invests to get a big yield on his shares. If he likes to, he wants his (increased) money back by offering his shares. If noone wants these and alot of other shareholders think of offering too then the share price descends, what could result in financial problems for the company up to bankruptcy.
So again, no benefits - just profit greed...

Ah capitalism is a wonderful thing ain't it?:D

To be clear: I don't dislike Capitalism, I agree that Companies need to protect their assets (Intellectual Property) and I'm happy for every Developer/Publisher Team that makes good money on good games.

I'm just saying that for me personally it is of no difference if a new system really stops piracy or not. If your favorite Burger Joint is selling you new Hamburgers made with a cheaper meat which saves them money, but you get less taste - will you see this as benefit?

And I firmly believe that there are methods to protect against piracy which are far less of an intrusion. If two or three big publishers worked together, they could by now have created an "Universal USB Dongle" that works offline, can be filled with licenses for new games online in a store or offline from a disk, the same license could even be used online when the dongle is not present (for example on a laptop).

The DRM that Steel Beasts 2 Personal Edition uses is such a dongle with these features. The only reason "dongles don't fly" in mass market products is the initial cost of the Dongle you have to buy once, but if multiple games used these it would quickly be offset.

The method used by these products is actually fairly similar to online DRM - you can only decode the game files by a key provided to you online or from the dongle. The whole idea behind these DRM systems is to have an decryption key stored somewhere safe where it can't be duplicated, either on a remote server where your access is your unique serial key/account or on a copy-proof bit of hardware. So in theory (and actual practice) it would be very much possible to create a combined offline/online system of authentication that would be 99% hack proof.


But obviously such a system, while much more beneficial to the customers, doesn't do what the publisher wants: Increased customer ties, increased marketing ability and removal of the second hand market. Whenever I see overbearing DRM used in a product, I see a publisher using Piracy as an excuse to squeeze more money out of legit paying customers.

Not that there isn't a problem with piracy - but these responses are disproportional to the cause to such a degree it makes you wonder...

The problem is that companies years ago invest 10 and want to obtain 50 and now with the same cost want 100 or 1000 of benefit

Ive already gone through this. Ive mentioned the saving online which is convenient for me. Not only is my save kept away from my crappy computer, but I can just go to work, log into my SH5 account on my work machine and continue from where I left off at home.

Moving on, having your users constantly connected allows you to stream updates to them, sometimes invisibly. What this does for them is allow them to put together patches easily, its easier for them to implement, and therefore benefits us with them fixing bugs behind the scenes.

You can even do things such as update textures and whatnot just by streaming the updated files to us. You would get a prompt saying something like "a new build is avaiable". You can either restart SH5, or whenever you're ready.

Just because you have no played games that do this doesnt mean there are no benefits. You're assuming there's no benefits just because you dont personally know if there are, but I do. Im a fan of it, so while you continue to complain about everything in every thread every single day, ill be enjoying the game.

Let's say that ubisoft suffers an outage that takes out its servers.

The servers have to be re-booted, and downtime is say about 24 hours. Now you can't play the game you paid $50 for because an unknown issue took out the servers which are located in another State.

With Ubisoft, it's hard enough dealing with their buggy games that need significant patching and modding after release, but now add to that having to use their servers, and you are going to end up with a lot of casual gamers trying to take this game back to the store they purchased it at and then being told that they can't get their money back.

This is going to be an ugly experience for all in my view.

Until they pull the plug cos it's no longer supported, yes that's right, the game can be thrown in the bin, enjoy!:O:

Besides the fact that I pre-ordered the game, didn't cancel it and being not on an opposite side towards you, but you are from another planet aren't you? Read your own post and tell me that streaming content invisibly, so-called updates and whatnot (you know what "whatnot" is? spyware), is a good thing... :nope:
When I read your posts the thought, that you worked on that DRM thing and now try to "sell it" to us, still haunts my mind...