Ubisoft putting in new piracy measures in its games

[Geraldine]

That's one of the reasons why I wait until a game hits the budget end of the market, for mainly three of different reasons, one, it's cheaper, two, all the patches that maybe required will have been done and three, hopefully any stupid DRM would have been removed. For me to pay the full price for a game it has to be something special.

[Pinback]

I think the move to online downloading and D.R.M has more more to do with the second handgames market than it does with piracy.That idiot from Epic games claimed anyone buyinga second hand game was little better than pirate,in a interview he gave a couple yearsago.

[sscadmin]

I'm going to use Modern Warfare 2 as an example of why to buy used. MW2 took the kids about 10hrs to beat the campaign on normal difficulty... 10hrs!! That's $60 down the drain, yeah they still play it because of the online matches but they are getting bored with it because they haven't come out with new maps (which they will charge for). They stopped putting in the mod tools to create your own content, just goes to show that game companies don't always have the gamers best interest at heart. Yeah MW2 made like 6billion so far in total sales, but if I would have known the game only had a very short campaign mode I would have waited to buy it used.One thing I like about space games in general it takes much longer than 6 hours of play to beat the campaigns. Long live content!

[Stardreamer]

Gaming is now being run by many publishers like any large business, the closest example probably being Hollywood films. Quality has given way to hype and spectacle. Keep the punters excited enough and they'll buy anything. The sad thing is that it works. There is now no incentive to produce a really great game when you can shove some code together written by a few reasonably talented slaves, hype it up, and still make millions. I keep promising to design a bomb that will remove these hapless game-buying sheep from our world but I never quite seem to have enough time or plutonium on my hands...I think this is why freeform Space Sims have practically died a death. "In business terms who wants to to create a living universe that players can inhabit for the next six months or more? "Think of all the $60 we could con out of them in that time for games that last 10-15 hours!" Only niche developers, Indies and talented amateurs will ever cater for our passion. Sigh.

[Geraldine]

Stardreamer wrote:
Only niche developers, Indies and talented amateurs will ever cater for our passion. Sigh.
Dont forget eccentric geniuses too Stardreamer, especially so if they stay in Cambridge!

[Stardreamer]

Quote:
Dont forget eccentric geniuses too Stardreamer, especially so if they stay in Cambridge!
Who?

[Mogymog]

Welp Ubisofts new DRM failed.. and of course like a broken record they are blaiming the pirates. The pirates attacked their servers DDOSed them and caused all the problems. What a load of Crap.

[Geraldine]

Mogymog wrote:
Welp Ubisofts new DRM failed.. and of course like a broken record they are blaiming the pirates. The pirates attacked their servers DDOSed them and caused all the problems. What a load of Crap.
I knew it! Serves them right. Hopefully they will learn from this costly mistake, although I wouldnt bet on it. :roll:And Stardreamer, what do you mean who? Who is rather famous in the space sim community and stays in Cambridge?

[sscadmin]

Mogymog you have a article on that I want to read it and get a nice smile

[Stardreamer]

Quote:
And Stardreamer, what do you mean who? Who is rather famous in the space sim community and stays in Cambridge?
I thought you meant Mr Braben but I don't consider him a genius. Elite was a work of genius, yes. But that took the combined efforts of two people to bring together. Mr Bell's contributions should not be overlooked. Further, what have either of them done since that has reached that level of inspiration, fortune and invention? Frontier was clever, yes, but flawed so it doesn't get the same accolade. FFE - cleverer, but more flawed (and merely built upon Frontier's foundations).I don't doubt he's an excepetionally clever man, is Mr Braben, (except where it comes to meeting our needs by releasing Elite IV) but I think the word genius gets applied to too many people and situations where it really shouldn't.

[Pinback]

Check out this months Retro Gamer mag,big interview with Breaden and he admitted that thecombat in Frontier could have been better.Good to hear that Ubisoft DRM failed.

[Stardreamer]

Quote:
Check out this months Retro Gamer mag, big interview with Breaden and he admitted that thecombat in Frontier could have been better.

(sic)Ooo, wouldn't mind reading that. Is it a worthwhile read?
Quote:
Good to hear that Ubisoft DRM failed.
I'm not so sure it did fail, Pinback. There hasn't been a definitive Fail/Not Fail verdict on the issue yet - too much confusion abounds. Yes, the servers failed due to a DDOS attack but hacking isn't proof of the system itself failing. And according to Ubisoft the issues only affected around 5% of players. Any torrents out there seem to be missing parts of the game as this is what the game servers download to your machine when you are connected to them. Maybe the pirates will eventually piece together the whole thing but so far I wouldn't like to bet any money either way.For the record I don't approve of Ubisoft's new system, nor am I a big fan of piracy.

[Geraldine]

"Stardreamer" wrote:
Mr Bell's contributions should not be overlooked.
Absolutely agree with you there Stardreamer. It would be wonderful if both Braben & Bell could hook up again, but I guess too much water has passed under the bridge now. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//cray.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Yes Bell would be a genius too. I really wish he would start coding again.Still think though that Braben is a genius in his own right (so I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_lol.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' />), in my view,no one has made a space sim as deep and massive as the Elite games, despite many trying. You said it yourself, "Elite was a work of genius, yes." although it too had flaws just like Frontier and FFE. No game can be perfect afterall. There is some hope however that Infinity will finally be a true successor to the Elite legacy. Time will tell I guess, but it shows just how difficult it is to follow these games when you consider how long ago FFE was released.Braben's later games expanded on the original Elite (astronomically correct star systems and Newtonian physics) and its my wish this will be continued with Elite IV and it will come, it's just a matter of faith, patience and hope, mustn't forget that! <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

[Grimloon]

Stardreamer wrote:
I think the word genius gets applied to too many people and situations where it really shouldn't.
The word genius is far too often applied based on a flawed points system - very few actually do anything with it. Technically speaking, muggins here is amongst them - nah! Not happening, I'm just good at logic problems.A work of genius is a different matter and doesn't necessarily mean that the people who produced it are geniuses - they're probably much more down to earth than that. You need your feet firmly on the ground to make a castle in the clouds (to paraphrase Mr Pratchett) and there is the odd one among many with the genius tag that can carry that off. Nothing meant as a detriment to the creators - Elite is/was/always will be a work of pure genius in my mind, just not necessarily something created by geniuses. I'd like to give them more credit than that. I didn't enjoy the sequels - it felt like a touch too much effort was being put in - but that takes nothing away from the original. I'll still give Elite IV a damn good go given the chance though!Back on topic, Ubisoft have claimed in a press release that the outage was caused by a DDoS attack yet won't put said release on their own site. They have also stated that "95% were not affected" but the official forum thread runs to 39 pages. Not many people affected then, eh? OK, so some of it can be put down to forum spam by parties that feel particularly aggrieved but allowing for that this would give maybe 10 pages of posts regarding the problem? Allowing for the fact that 97.3% of all statistics are randomly produced from an unspecified bodily orifice it's all a load of old tosh really! Their DRM failed in the worst possible way, it's just a frantic CYA exercise now to pass the buck.Incidentally, I generally buy games I like at full price and don't mind a CD/DVD check (easily bypassed ayway) or Steam authentication but permanent internet connections just aren't an option in my part of the world. Rural, old exchange = frequent connection loss

[Mogymog]

um.. I would Dark.. but I believe the articles are now in the archives of this site.. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/ .. and I have no idea how to get to them or id link ya... but yeah. totaly hilarious. And it is fail, cause like Silent Hunter 5, and several of their 'newer' DRM online games have been fully cracked. Only one that hasn't been succesfully cracked is AC2, but give that a few weeks and no problem. But this crack isn't baout killing the industry, or hurting anyone. This is about the deliberate statement of 'You piss of legal customers, we as sure hell gonna make you suffer for your idiocy.' And I for one cant blame them. Forcing people to stay connected 24/7 to play a game is by far the retardest thing to ever exist.