Can some one confirm this DRM thing - Surely it a joke

[rascal101]

Who'd buy the legitimate game if they could track down a pirated copy and play offline without all the crap. Not encouraging the practice just thinking out loud.

Nice one Ubi your encouraging the pirates to get really serious in their efforts, and encouraging the innocent majority to become pirates


Just my perverse sense of humor

Rascal

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

May make it harder but not impossible
Within a week or 2 will be pirated allowing those pirates to play offline where as those who buy it will be stuck online always

[capthelm]

little harsh i think they should provide offline mode, register once online thats it.

online yes i see seriel and passward register login.

[tater]

Originally Posted by GreyOctober

And how exactly have you reached the conclusion that the game CANT be modded? SH5 retains the same file structure of SH4 and even has a few improvements to make it MORE modable.

Let's see. Mod uses JSGME to swap out stock files. Crank up SH5. Connects to net and auto-DLs and overwrites modded files.

Mod is now FUBAR (as it might be with any update), but now JSGME is hopelessly confused, and when mod is disabled, it then puts the new, updated files... dunno where. Bottom line is that the game is not updated properly ND the mod is likely FUBAR.

Yipee!?

Or does SH5 include organic mod switching support so that when an update is automatically applied it uninstalls mods first? Or does it not automatically update, but ask you first?

What about the modder himself. Modding involves exiting and reentering the game, well, a lot. It is in fact the single most annoying aspect of modding, IMO (happily improved in SH4 with S3D which we won't have). If entering the game is slowed at all by this DRM, multiplied by the thousands of times you have to do it to mod stuff, it will get pretty time consuming.

From a marketing standpoint, when has a new DRM scheme been welcomed by consumers, particularly gamers? It should have been 100% predictable that the reaction on subsim and other forums would be. The percentage of people willing to give it the benefit of the doubt is tiny, and you're not going to change that.

Presumably the Ubi marketing people have decided that lost sales are made up for by a reduction in piracy. Seems unlikely to me since the people who would pirate in the first place are unlikely to pay regardless of the DRM used, they'll simply play something else.

More concisely, the pirates were never, and will not be the customers. Stopping 100% of piracy will keep them from enjoying the game (good), but will not affect sales in the least since they'd not have bought regardless. So, piracy at zero in the "pro" column. In the "cons" column... you PO people that were sure bets to have bought the game who now don't.

Sales gained from pirates paying instead of stealing? Vanishingly small.

Sales lost from honest customers? 80% of posters on subsim, whatever that translates to for the pop at large.

add to what tater just said is

"what" files were updated?

can you imagine a RFB or TMO and an update "breaks" it, ok so you have to forensicly examine every file and every setting of every file? because auto update means your never going to know all the changes the update makes but only a general description of things that are improved if you even get that much info.

[John Channing]

Yes, it's true.




And don't call me Shirley.

JCC




Can't believe no one did that yet.

[THE_MASK]

Some people kid themselves . If you dont have an unmodded game you probably wont be able to play , simple as that . 12 months down the track guess what , you need to subscribe to ubi servers . Would you like some ubi downloads you have to pay for . No thanks .

[JScones]

@trenken: Can you pls remind me, for I have forgotten, what game is it that you have been playing and for how long? I'm sure I read it somewhere, once, or maybe twice, perhaps three times, hang on, there's a fourth...

BTW, aren't you the guy that had us entertained in SH3 days with your 150 posts in like, what, two days of joining? Welcome back. I see you are making the same impact all over again.

Originally Posted by tater

Let's see. Mod uses JSGME to swap out stock files. Crank up SH5. Connects to net and auto-DLs and overwrites modded files.

Mod is now FUBAR (as it might be with any update), but now JSGME is hopelessly confused, and when mod is disabled, it then puts the new, updated files... dunno where. Bottom line is that the game is not updated properly ND the mod is likely FUBAR.

Yipee!?

Oh no, I can see a new swag of "JSGME is stuffing up my game" accusations, sigh.

Originally Posted by tater

Or does SH5 include organic mod switching support so that when an update is automatically applied it uninstalls mods first? Or does it not automatically update, but ask you first?

What about the modder himself. Modding involves exiting and reentering the game, well, a lot. It is in fact the single most annoying aspect of modding, IMO (happily improved in SH4 with S3D which we won't have). If entering the game is slowed at all by this DRM, multiplied by the thousands of times you have to do it to mod stuff, it will get pretty time consuming.

Spot on. Seems that any claims that SH5 is "more moddable" may be largely negated by the DRM. Ah, the Ubisoft Group of companies - where it seems the left hand doesn't even know where the right hand is...

[GreyOctober]

You people are jumping to conclusions again. Have a bit of patience please

[McBeck]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

But is it worth modding if ubi will keep auto updating when you are connected ?
All ifs and buts at the mo

Speculation at this point. The devs have clearly stated that this game i more open to mods than any previous SH game.

Ubisoft have no obligation or interest to check ALL game files. They will most likely check files that contains copy protection to make sure they are not tampered with. Since those files are not changed by mods, I think we are in the clear about that.

In regards to patches being applied without knowledge or choice. That may be, but please consider the frequency of patches of SH.

[karamazovnew]

Originally Posted by tater

Seems unlikely to me since the people who would pirate in the first place are unlikely to pay regardless of the DRM used, they'll simply play something else.

More concisely, the pirates were never, and will not be the customers. Stopping 100% of piracy will keep them from enjoying the game (good), but will not affect sales in the least since they'd not have bought regardless. So, piracy at zero in the "pro" column. In the "cons" column... you PO people that were sure bets to have bought the game who now don't.
Sales gained from pirates paying instead of stealing? Vanishingly small.

Not quite... I'll use Youtube as an example. Youtube has blocked and deleted more than half of my favorite clips. They were all music videos, either AMV's or concerts, all very hard to find, one of a kind. They view it as "piracy". But because of that piracy I became interested in a lot of things and actually bought a lot of stuff. Here's a short list:

- Final Fantasy Series + a Playstation 2 to play them, all because of a few AMVs
- All Radiohead's albums, I'd never heard about them before seeing concerts on youtube, plus Radiohead has supported Youtube for a long time, even releasing a one hour long video especially for Youtube.
- Every Barbara Bonney cd I could find, plus I plan to travel to Salzburg after my next trip to hear her sing.
- Countless other cd's of classical music with a particular artist (I really can't count them all)
- All Dio's Black Sabbath and Heaven & Hell disks
- Studio 4C's best anime movies as imported DVD's from Japan (I knew someone there)
- I went to a Placebo concert after seeing the "WIthout you I'm nothing" duet with David Bowie. That particular video has been deleted twice or more.
- etc, etc, etc, etc...

Game piracy is slowly moving into a "grey" area of "try before you buy". A very dark grey still (95% or so black). With less and less GOOD games out there, I keep seeing comments like "Just finished this splendid game twice and now bought it to play MP, suggest you all do the same!". It's a slow process and it has been "helped" by a few game companies that offer a lot in the original box. Or by companies that offer a certain "trust". There are games, great games without DRM at all. You really feel bad about pirating them. I ended up searching for such games (World Of Goo is a good example) buying a few of those just to support the idea. I didn't even care if they were downloadable or box (I prefere a box). A LOT of people (pirates) bought MW1 and MW2 because of the MP and the night vision goggles. A lot of people played L4D in singleplayer and then bought the game for MP. Games that are viciously protected, like GTA4 was, are eventually cracked but met with a lot of hostility. Further more, now that some games are cheap as crap on Steam, some have begun "collecting" them or searching for them in bargain bins. And these are hardcore pirates with a parrot on their shoulder and the police in the back. They're not blind, they can all see what a turn for the worse the gaming industry has taken. They individually use piracy as a weapon to punish bugs and poor ports and reward good games.

As I've said, it's a "grey area". I can't suggest to Ubisoft "hey just drop the DRM because the pirates will buy your games". Hell no. But some of the pirates might've been persuaded by quality to buy the game. And since Ubisoft will implement this online DRM for all of its games, the crack teams will hold no quarter in breaking it. Then no pirate in his right mind will BUY any title because the Original Game will present the problem of having to be online all the time. For example, I've finished Assassin's Creed 2 for XBOX. A friend borrowed me his console and game. Ubi gained no money from me Yet I didn't do anything illegal. I loved the game and was planning to buy it for PC. Hell if I will now. It's a lose-lose situation for Ubi.

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by McBeck

Speculation at this point. The devs have clearly stated that this game i more open to mods than any previous SH game.

Ubisoft have no obligation or interest to check ALL game files. They will most likely check files that contains copy protection to make sure they are not tampered with. Since those files are not changed by mods, I think we are in the clear about that.

In regards to patches being applied without knowledge or choice. That may be, but please consider the frequency of patches of SH.

Yes a certain amount of speculation there and yes we do know how slow ubi are with patches but even one patch applied without knowing can cause the loss of hundreds of hours of modding and potentially screw your installation
All that aside the worst part of modding is starting the game checking then exiting ,alter then do all over again
Add connecting to a ubi server each time you start and the process becomes even longer
There are times in construction of GWX that I started the game literally hundreds of times in the course of a day
Am sure that side of modding will be made a lot easier by having to connect to a ubi server

And as this debate has been raging for a couple of days now and the devs have been online not once have they disputed any of the speculation rife in this forum at the moment
Even a simple " patches wont be appled auto or streaming " would help

[tater]

Originally Posted by GreyOctober

You people are jumping to conclusions again. Have a bit of patience please

Enlighten us. How does the DRM scheme published by Ubi deal with mods?

Simple questions to answer. Does it include organic mod support? That wasn't in the Press Release, if it does it should be.

Does it prompt before updating the game, instead? Somehow I doubt this because they'll want to be able to patch security holes on the fly without allowing the user to disallow the fix.

Auto-updating and mods are mutually exclusive propositions.

[McBeck]

Originally Posted by tater

Enlighten us. How does the DRM scheme published by Ubi deal with mods?

Simple questions to answer. Does it include organic mod support? That wasn't in the Press Release, if it does it should be.

Does it prompt before updating the game, instead? Somehow I doubt this because they'll want to be able to patch security holes on the fly without allowing the user to disallow the fix.

Auto-updating and mods are mutually exclusive propositions.

Where have it been stated that DRM will check all files?
More importantly..where does it state that it will autoupdate?
Nowhere...so its too early to say how it will influence modding.
What if it let you choose the patch level for your game?
Whay if it only monitors core files and not files that are modded? (F.ex the EXE file to run the game)
I know im speculating, but the point is - so are you.
We dont know the detailed facts yet

[McBeck]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

Yes a certain amount of speculation there and yes we do know how slow ubi are with patches but even one patch applied without knowing can cause the loss of hundreds of hours of modding and potentially screw your installation
All that aside the worst part of modding is starting the game checking then exiting ,alter then do all over again
Add connecting to a ubi server each time you start and the process becomes even longer
There are times in construction of GWX that I started the game literally hundreds of times in the course of a day
Am sure that side of modding will be made a lot easier by having to connect to a ubi server

And as this debate has been raging for a couple of days now and the devs have been online not once have they disputed any of the speculation rife in this forum at the moment
Even a simple " patches wont be appled auto or streaming " would help

If the game is autoupdated and if DRM are checking all files - then you are so very right. Then we are in a world of hurt!!

[tater]

You are right, we don't know all the facts. If a company elects to publish the fact they are using a new DRM, then they damn well better be explicit about EXACTLY what it will and will not do, or they will face situations like this. I'm not giving them a pass on terribly marketing, sorry. I will assume the worst until proved otherwise.

Look at the Il-2 "copyright" fiasco—even SH4/5 pay the price for this, the video I saw recently has Brewsters on the deck of a carrier in the Med. All this because they used other company names on the box of a game without attribution/rigts/etc (Grumman, etc). Had they had ANY lawyer check the box art—heck, even a decent copy editor—they'd not have had the problem. If you can't touch-type ™ or © you don't deserve to be working prepress on product art.

Assume the worst is entirely reasonable.

As I said, I'm actually fine with DRM, but not this requirement to constantly be online, that's invasive, IMO, and I won't pay money to be treated that way, sorry. It's not more complicated than that. Since I don't want to play u-boats anyway, not buying is an easy choice for me. Given the same scheme, it would be a slightly more difficult choice were this SH6 in the PTO—but my decision would be identical.