The gawd-almighty merged DRM in Silent Hunter V thread

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by trenken

blah blah blah.

You know, everywhere on the internet that I've read news about Ubi's scheme here, all of the user comments have been overwhelmingly negative. Your attitude is such that you think we're the people living in the dark ages and like totally get with the program, maaaan. Unfortunately for Ubi, it's not just us and they're about to find out that customers aren't going to buy into this. And unlike your "oh it's the way it is, why fight it" attitude, I predict a customer backlash like we're already seeing is going to lead to this hair-brained scheme being dropped at some point.

[sabretwo]

Originally Posted by trenken

You're a special situation though, you're travelling on business and playing on your laptop in hotels. Safe to say you're way down in the minority there.

Fact is most PC gamers these days have PCs that are always connected to the internet on broadband, so games are being made for them now.
I know a lot of PC gamers, all of them are on the internet 24/7, Ubi is well aware of this.

I understand a large percentage of North American and European gamers are on Internet conenctions 24/7. But aside from guys who travel like me, there are also a lot of subsimmers in countries like Topo65 above where satellite Internet connectivity gets spotty and goes down at times including a lot of the third world and even many developed countries. I have seen occassional service outages when traveling to several places in the Middle East and Asia. If you are US military or a contractor in Iraq or Afghanistan, service availability also gets dicey at times too.

PC Gamers in the US and Europe take good infrastructure for granted.

I used to be a fan of the Total War series. The latest total war game, Empire, uses Steam. Even with Steam, I can occassioanlly be online to authenticate the game and then play offline when I travel. But Steam authentication pops up so frequently that I don't even really play that game any more. Last year I got stuck in a hotel in Dubai for 24-hours due to a missed plane conenction and was unable to get an Internet conenction. (Dubai mind you, not exactly some third world country!) Steam was at a point where it would not let me play offline. I decided that was it. F''' Steam! I played SH3. I uninstalled Empire and haven't loaded it back on since.

UBI needs to very seriously rethink this one.

Wolfpacks, ending in 1943, and all that other stuff I can contend with. I'd still buy the game, hoping that the Modding community can improve it and get it where we want it. But any requirement for active internet conenctivity is a DEAL BREAKER.

Well, I guess this was the inspiration I needed to get back to work on my mod. I was working the past year on a highly improved Med Campaign for GWX 3 (a number of new harbors, improved shipping, scripting of a number of aditional battles, etc.). I got up to late 1943 and lost steam on it about three months ago. Maybe I'll start spending some of my hotel time working on that again and milk a few more years out of SH3 until SH6 comes along or maybe someone creates a crack.

[Captain Wreckless]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I'm betting all PC games will go to online authentication eventually. True, there are a few people on the planet who play games in their doublewide without internet accesss, and there are occasions where internet access is not available to play, but the PC gamer is usually connected to the web 24/7.

Unless you live in a very rural area or the Alaskan interior. Luckily I live outside of Fairbanks AK and have a cable modem and decent internet access. But there are areas here where cable/DSL is not available due to logistical issues and all there is, is dialup. I'm sure there are plenty of places in the lower 48 that have the same problem.

CW

[HeinzMcDurgen]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I'm betting all PC games will go to online authentication eventually. True, there are a few people on the planet who play games in their doublewide without internet accesss, and there are occasions where internet access is not available to play, but the PC gamer is usually connected to the web 24/7.

Too bad this also applies to anyone deployed. First the headache of buying a game at the PX only to find out you need STEAM to play it, now this... Awesome.

F- you internet-needing games.

-SGT Hinerman
82nd PATHFINDERS
RC South, Afghanistan

[IanC]

Originally Posted by HeinzMcDurgen

Too bad this also applies to anyone deployed. First the headache of buying a game at the PX only to find out you need STEAM to play it, now this... Awesome.

F- you internet-needing games.

-SGT Hinerman
82nd PATHFINDERS
RC South, Afghanistan

This form of game protection is actually denying the brave men and women who are defending the free world, from playing. Wonderful.
I guess that's just a small detail to the Ubi suits. As long as the pirates won't be able to make copies during the first year, and that nobody will be able to resale their games, that's the important thing...

[Nordmann]

Originally Posted by HeinzMcDurgen

Too bad this also applies to anyone deployed. First the headache of buying a game at the PX only to find out you need STEAM to play it, now this... Awesome.

F- you internet-needing games.

-SGT Hinerman
82nd PATHFINDERS
RC South, Afghanistan

Sadly, most people don't give a damn about the forces, so you can expect the games industry to follow the trend. It's disgusting really, but not surprising, given the anti-war sentiment most socialist liberals entertain these days.

[Seafireliv]

Originally Posted by Nordmann

Sadly, most people don't give a damn about the forces, so you can expect the games industry to follow the trend. It's disgusting really, but not surprising, given the anti-war sentiment most socialist liberals entertain these days.

Eh what? You are revealing more your deep seated personal point of view rather than the reality. I highly doubt socialism and anti-war sentiment made the suits in the boardroom decide to ignore the military while thinking about their DRM for a GAME.

The reality is greed. The military angle probably didn`t enter even the smallest minutes of the decision making; just like it didn`t take into account poor people with no internet and those who don`t have the area with good internet and just like it didn`t take into account how many people would be upset by this.


.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Nordmann

Sadly, most people don't give a damn about the forces, so you can expect the games industry to follow the trend. It's disgusting really, but not surprising, given the anti-war sentiment most socialist liberals entertain these days.

To further derail the topic, anti-war does not mean anti-soldier. And your opinions are out of place here. Take it to GT if you want to spout that nonsense.

Back on topic now - it will be interesting to see if the pirates pull off a DDoS attack on the Ubi DRM servers once Assassin's Creed 2 is released. I've heard rumblings of such....I doubt SH5 will be a big enough release for them to do so, but AC2 will be. It will be a trial by fire on Ubi's master plan. Wonder how it will hold up.

[eB]

I would say that it is very clear now, that SHV will have the new DRM(http://forums-de.ubi.com/eve/forums/...161085487/p/14).
Has he got false informations? I wouldn't hope.
And I have got the feeling that the game structure of SHV is designed for the new DRM.

Well, goodbye SHV.
I know so many guys who haven't got DSL...

[Safe-Keeper]

I hate the online part of BF2142. I'll fire up a map for testing and run about offline, on my own computer, all by myself, and all of a sudden I'm booted to the main menu with the explanation that "connection to the EA master server has been lost".



But I'll reserve judgment until I get to actually try it out, and if it can reduce piracy, so much the better .

[Gilbou]

The DRM is not here to stop piracy. It is here to kill games resales.

Check this :
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...ther_with_.php

Near the end :

"Publishers aren't stupid. They know that DRM doesn't work against piracy," he explains. "What they're trying to do is stop people from going to GameStop to buy $50 games for $35, none of which goes into the publishers' pockets. If DRM permits only a few installs, that minimizes the number of times a game can be resold."

Ubisoft does not allow resale of games authenticated online through this system (you will not be allowed to resale your game ; in some US states, it is illegal to prevent first-buyer resale but you will need to go to court for that, and most people don't have the money to spend over for).

Ubisoft does not allow you to sale a game with the Ubisoft account either.

The next step will be game renting : you will pay to keep active your online account.
It will store all the authentication, no game resale will be allowed nor possible.
Stop paying : you cannot play any registered game, anywhere.

Now, you might think this is not a problem. So let's apply this to books you currently use.

Books, like games, are not really your property. You do own the book, the material piece. But the contents of the book,
the intellectual creation of its author, remains the author property (the copyright) and he lives on sales of the book.
You can offer the book, resale the book to anyone, friends and strangers.

I would be innaceptable to have to register to be able to buy a book, and read it.
Having to call someone on the phone to tell them "hello it's me. I want to read 1984 again, can I ?"
knowing that if the phone doesn't answer, you are not allowed to read the book anymore or again.
And forget about giving for free the book, or lending it, or even reselling it. No.

This is exactly the same thing with games. They want you to pay when you buy.
Make sure no one can lend (account is personnal - sharing is forbidden) nor sale (account is
personnal and all games and saves linked to it - selling the account is forbidden, so while you
can sell the box with the DVD you cannot sell the account where the game is registered...).

And some of you think there's no problem here ?

They are going much farther than the common copyright law allows. They want to kill game
resales.

People using pirated copies won't be affected by DRM. So DRM effectivness against piracy is
nil. They know it. They say that's why they put DRM but they are lying.

The lies must stop.

[Seeadler]

The new system not only affects SH5 but all new Ubisoft PC games planned for release in 2010, eg Assassian Creed 2 or Prince of Persia.
The users in Ubi forums for these games are also upset.

[Reece]

I'm sorry if you have no internet and live in the boonies, but cutting edge PC gaming is not something you should be doing, fair or not. Just like you should not be buying a Ferrari to drive on them dirt roads.

Dictator Highbury has spoken!

[Hornet]

Well, I had issues with Ubi for sometime now over some aspects of SH3. You can't play human dd's in multiplayer and things like that. I felt that was the only thing missing from a perfect game....bring back the SH2/DC days...I LOVED it....which would have made SH3 even more awesome.

But I was actually looking forward to SH5 coming out because I thought UBI would actually listen to the modders, players and mission designers and give them what they wanted....BUT NOOOOOO, looks like they messed this up too...I've always questioned who was running the show over there.

If all of this IS true, then that might add about 5 years to SH3....LOL


Guys: if I ever win the lottery and have millions of dollars...I promise you this....We will design a game based on SH3 campaign, multiplayer and have everything in it we want.... Even If I have to hire the best people in the world to make it happen and sale it for a loss to get what we want. At that point I would be rich so what would I care???...Anyone have any lucky numbers I can play? Or just know a rich uncle?

Hornet

[Lanzfeld]

Originally Posted by Hornet

Guys: if I ever win the lottery and have millions of dollars...I promise you this....We will design a game based on SH3 campaign, multiplayer and have everything in it we want.... Even If I have to hire the best people in the world to make it happen and sale it for a loss to get what we want. At that point I would be rich so what would I care???...Anyone have any lucky numbers I can play? Or just know a rich uncle?

Hornet

I have had this dream myself. LOL.

But sadly it seems this will be the only way we will ever get a good AOD style sim again.