Ubisoft Masterserver down? (merged)

[cappy70]

Originally Posted by mikeydredd

I've just got a simple question to ask John Channing and any body else who has bought this game -

What made you think that a game that has to be connected to remote servers to play 100% of the time was ever going to be 100% reliable?

The point as I said in my prev. post: When we were doing the testing of this "other" DRM game, the real issue was the "constant" Internet connection; Why?,,due to various facts that we all know, one among others is of course the word "constant", Internet doesn't mean "constant".

[tater]

Spot on, jscones.

A proper car analogy:

A car service hires out cars with drivers to take people to the airport. People book this service weeks in advance, and they do hundreds of pick-ups and deliveries per day. They have exactly the number of cars they need to do their X hundred trips per day, no more. Their cars are left each night in an unlocked yard with the keys on the dashboard. The limo company also hires drivers known to be only somewhat reliable and they have exactly the number of drivers they need, 1 per car.

Now, if any of the unsecured cars is stolen or vandalized, someone misses a flight. If an employee doesn't show, someone misses a flight. If a car needs maintenance, someone misses a flight. Note that people only know they will miss their flight when the car doesn't show up, they are given no warning.

Now in the above example, when cars are stolen from the lot is IT partially the fault of the thieves/vandals that people miss flights. But it is MOSTLY the fault of the limo service for not having the due diligence that locking the gates and keys up would represent. It's also their fault for not having excess employees or cars, so that if one or more are sick/not working, that the schedule can still function.

There's your car analogy, John.

[Onkel Neal]

Here's your car analogy, tater. Terrorists rent a plane and drop a bomb and blow up the lot.

[Bilge_Rat]

How many players are still having problems logging in?

I played last night and this morning and had zero issues logging in. This is from Canada.

[RSColonel_131st]

That would be a tad more unpredictable than a DDOS attack on a high profile game server, Neil.

I really ask: At what point - in your opinion - begines UBIs responsibility to maintain their servers? Only in a world with no hackers?

[Schunken]

Im out, I do not get it....

Can we do some math instead this stupid analogys in a foreign language?


Andreas

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Schunken

Im out, I do not get it....

Can we do some math instead this stupid analogys in a foreign language?

Andreas

Lol, I love you, man

Originally Posted by RSColonel_131st

That would be a tad more unpredictable than a DDOS attack on a high profile game server, Neil.

I really ask: At what point - in your opinion - begines UBIs responsibility to maintain their servers? Only in a world with no hackers?

Well, Colonel, I would agree with you that Ubisoft and Steam and Blizzard and ATT and Comcast have an obligation to keep their services available, but no one, not ever Obama, can ensure total reliability in the face of deliberate and provacative attacks. No system is perfect. Heck, you see me post here every day and cannot even spell my simple name correctly.

[Gammelpreusse]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Well, Colonel, I would agree with you that Ubisoft and Steam and Blizzard and ATT and Comcast have an obligation to keep their services available, but no one, not ever Obama, can ensure total reliability in the face of deliberate and provacative attacks. No system is perfect. Heck, you see me post here every day and cannot even spell my simple name correctly.

But that is the whole point why folks get so upset. A single player offline game, which due to its very nature should never have the problem the likes of big internet games, gets all the disadvantages coming with the latter without a single benefit. As you stated yourself, no system, especially internet based systems, are perfect, so the very promise beforehand of stable servers was a lot of hot air to begin with.

Your very entry here makes this clear. Is a certain hostility towards such a policy that hard to understand?

[RSColonel_131st]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Well, Colonel, I would agree with you that Ubisoft and Steam and Blizzard and ATT and Comcast have an obligation to keep their services available, but no one, not ever Obama, can ensure total reliability in the face of deliberate and provacative attacks. No system is perfect. Heck, you see me post here every day and cannot even spell my simple name correctly.

The whole point a lot of us made before release was "No system is perfect."

But UBI designed something that implies a flawless, always available internet connection from your end to their end. If that isn't the definition of "Perfect", then what is?

Besides, unless there are some really hardcore cyber criminals at work here, with millions of botnet zombies, this DDOS (if there is one) can't be that large.

And if you look at Rise of Flight - which has now dropped this online requirement - they managed multiple unpredicted (and a few planned) server downtimes entirely without any DDOS attack.

Heck, you run a massive web forum, I don't need to tell you how fragile internet infrastructure is. But then, maybe UBI shouldn't have set on such an easy to break system?

[tater]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Here's your car analogy, tater. Terrorists rent a plane and drop a bomb and blow up the lot.

With all respect, Neal, that's not a good analogy at all. Terrorists bombing a car lot is simply without precedent. People stealing or vandalizing cars on a lot is COMMON. DDOS attacks are COMMON. Other game servers have also been attacked, and any competent network admin would know this.

The analogy of an unsecured, or poorly secured lot in in fact demonstrably true, as last weekend demonstrates clearly.

Again, if you want an analogy, you cannot cite some extremely unlikely event that disrupts service, you need to pick a COMMON event that disrupts service since DOS attacks are COMMON.

[tater]

Neal, as was said above the inherit unreliability and lack of control over connectivity is THE WHOLE POINT.

Since it is prohibitively expensive to guarantee connectivity—and even then, as you say, nothing is perfect—a requirement for connectivity is fundamentally wrong-headed.

I think it is entirely fair for customers to demand 100% reliability for the game company in connectivity if it is a requirement of ownership (meaning 100% reliability of the game company servers). 100%, no visible failures to the end user EVER. If Ubi (or anyone else) cannot guarantee that at least they can hold up their own end, they need to do something else for DRM.

I for one will never buy a product dependent on someone else's computer unless there is a truly compelling reason to do so (and no, I will not back down, if my wife bought me SH5 I'd take it back, if I was given one I could not return I'd not install it). Such a reason would be a requirement for connectivity fundamental to gameplay or simulation. Not ginned up, either, fundamental. Like human opponents, or weather delivered in real time based on current weather everywhere on earth, etc (like you look at the most recent RL sat picture, then look up n game and the clouds match). Even weather is marginal there, frankly. Past some AI played by humans I can think of little that is really compelling frankly.

[razark]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Here's your car analogy, tater. Terrorists rent a plane and drop a bomb and blow up the lot.

And that makes the car you already purchased and drove home stop working?

[tater]

Originally Posted by razark

And that makes the car you already purchased and drove home stop working?

He was responding to MY analogy of SH5 as a service like a limo/taxi service.

Note that my analogy already absorbs the notion of SH5 as a SERVICE and not something you OWN.

[blackdog_kt]

This analogy game is fun

My take on this whole DDOS attack is that Ubisoft decided to use a system without taking into account the prevailing threats against it and they should be held responsible.

In playing along with the analogy game, let's say a company designs a different kind of "car", one that's meant to transport people in hazardous environments, like for example soldiers in a combat zone.

If the company does not account for the prevailing threats in the theater of operations where the vehicles will be used and the soldiers drop like flies, then who do you think the "customers" of the vehicle (the army) will hold responsible for that failure? The enemy combatants? Well, they are already on opposing sides, but most of all, they already expect them to act that way.

And that's why they get irritated. A company that takes their money to provide them with a certain service doesn't expect and fails to account for things that they as customers already know will happen. That means the company is either too stupid and should be in a different business field, or too caught up in the pursue of its own goals to provide reliable service for the cash it receives. Since stupid people don't go far in business, it's looking more and more like the company is preferring short term money benefits over long term benefits that stem from customer satifsaction, off-loading any and all implications of their poor design on the customer as a result.

Sure, if such a company was responsible for designing a faulty IFV where a few dozen soldiers were killed, everyone would say that the casualties were primarily a cause of enemy action, but would still demand reparations from the company for failing to take into account the prevailing threats when designing, advertising and selling it.

[razark]

Originally Posted by tater

He was responding to MY analogy of SH5 as a service like a limo/taxi service.

Note that my analogy already absorbs the notion of SH5 as a SERVICE and not something you OWN.

Ack. I see now. There's too dang many car analogies around here these days.