God Damn You, Ubisoft

[CleanShanchez]

Damn you to hell!

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177996

What could make things worse? This.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98927-Ubisoft-DRM-Authentication-Servers-Go-Down

Now the only way I can get a copy of Assassin's Creed 2 is to pirate it. Thanks for fucking up my life Ubisoft.

[Mr. Freeze]

[Technician]

This is bot /b/ freeze.

[Belial]

Timeline, not this shit again, who cares, etc.

CleanShanchez said:

Now the only way I can get a copy of Assassin's Creed 2 is to pirate it. Thanks for fucking up my life Ubisoft.

If not being able to play some game 'fucked up your life', then it must be a sad one indeed.

BTW,

article said:

At any point while playing, you'll be booted back to the main menu and lose any progress you've made since your last save or checkpoint if your internet connection drops.

My friend says it's bullshit. He pulled out the cable and the game continued until the next cutscene, where the Ubisoft 'screen of death' appeared.

[pavera]

Belial said:

If not being able to play some game 'fucked up your life', then it must be a sad one indeed.

Heh. Especially if that game is Assassin's Creed 2. I played through it, it was pretty fun, nothing to die over.

[Sporku]

I just can't bring myself to rage over this DRM 'crisis'.

[CleanShanchez]

Belial said:
If not being able to play some game 'fucked up your life', then it must be a sad one indeed.

It's not that sad. Sorry for my rash use of words.

What I was going to do was play AC2 along with my father (Who has a doctorate in medieval history) and see how many times the game screwed up on the history. That and we really wanted to kill Pope Alexander VI with a flintlock while proclaiming "Hey Alex, why don't you eat these chestnuts!"

I think I just told a joke that no one will get.

[Patrick]

lol. What do I usually say in this thread>; blah blah, DRM sucks,blah blah, corporate control, blah blah blah


that about sums it up. I guess it could be worse, it could be on a game that's actually fun, god forbid

[Graf Zahl]

Sorry, I can't pity anyone who got screwed by this. If you support such extortionist schemes by buying into them you are becoming part of the problem. The only thing that would help is a boycott.

[Viewtiful-Chris]

I've almost entirely lost interest in the modern PC gaming scene. Commercial, that is.

Besides, you have DOOM. Not much else you need. Certainly nothing by Ubisoft.

[iori]

DRM skyrockets the price of admission for me. I am the sort of person who does not like to be.. corralled, and to be treated like a criminal after legitimately purchasing something is inexcusable.

Gabe Newell did a bit recently on DRM and how it devalues the product it wraps around. link

I don't really have a problem with buying games on steam, if steam is the only DRM I have to deal with. I can live with that because Valve seems to value me as a customer.
John Carmack also talked about this subject a bit when he was explaining the integration with Bethesda. Bethesda is a large but privately traded company that, while making big-budget games, still manages to respect (most of) my freedom via disc-check.

Draconian schemes suggest that you are a resource for them, rather than an essential and valued part of their business model.

[Ahcruna]

I don't have anything against DRM's, that is unless they do something about that save thing, which as far as I heard isn't as bad as people talk about.

Then again games like Assassins creed are those that I buy for my consoles which doesn't have stuff like that.

I only play old games with my PC anyway, every now and then I do get games for my PC like Sins of a solar empire, but even then I wouldn't care if it had constant online play.

The only thing I'm a bit annoyed over is the "no LAN" support a lot of games are getting now days, but then again if I can live with the DRM so could I with this. no reason to pirate games which is the initial cause of this protection in the first place.

[Snakes]

CleanShanchez said:

What I was going to do was play AC2 along with my father (Who has a doctorate in medieval history) and see how many times the game screwed up on the history.

Why? I never understand why people do stuff like this. I know plenty of them, too (I'm a history major). So long as a game/movie is done well, I don't care if it messes with history a bit. Hence, I like Braveheart and Gladiator. As for history-driven games, can't say I've played too many, but I can comfortably say, "Same story."

[Technician]

Viewtiful-Chris said:

Besides, you have DOOM. Not much else you need. Certainly nothing by Ubisoft.

I like this guy.

[Belial]

Viewtiful-Chris said:

Certainly nothing by Ubisoft.

O RLY?

[Snarboo]

Belial said:

O RLY?

Counterpoint: Both CoJ games were developed by Techland and not Ubisoft, which probably explains why they were actually better than most Ubisoft games.

Also both games were completely free of restrictive DRM. :p

[ReFracture]

Pirating the game is not going to help get your point across to Ubisoft.

Personally, I played this on my Play Station 3, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I would not lose any sleep about missing out on it, especially since this game (like the one before it) do not cater to a mouse and keyboard.

PC Gamers take a back seat when it comes to console games, so stop being so surprised when it's inferior to the console version in some way or another.

Viewtiful-Chris said:

Besides, you have DOOM. Not much else you need. Certainly nothing by Ubisoft.

Indeed. I want an asus EEEPC, and somebody asks me "How could you possibly deal with such a weak machine that can't play newer games!?!?"

If it runs doom, it gets my approval!

[Aliotroph?]

DRM sucks. It stopped me from buying any EA games ages ago. I've never bought an Ubisoft game. Not interested. I'm pretty pissed they ramped up the DRM on Borderlands.

Bethesda is still good about this. The bonus for me is I like their games a lot. I've burned as many hours in Elder Scrolls games as I have in DOOM.

[Maes]

Shut up and suck it down, you pirating, freeloading commies.

[E.J.]

I agree to the point of calling this a fact:

If you want this DRM intrusion/violation to stop, you need to boycott (don't buy) UbiSoft's products. But, you also can not pirate their games either, or that will lead to even more intrusive DRM.

A short recap.

Don't buy, or play, UbiSoft's games, pirated or not. It's the ONLY way to get the point across. If you do either of the previous, YOU are contributing to the problem.

[myk]

That seems to imply that "it's up to the consumer" attitude which is something that comes mainly from a producers' perspective, since it makes them appear to not be responsible for the situation. Like when people say "oh, so fast food is unhealthy, don't eat it then." We forget this sort of food is ubiquitous and is being driven onto the market actively by its produces. They don't just passively sell their stuff to an active demand. The producer may even a greater degree of initiative, in the end, due to centralization. Some might be inclined to crack and pirate the products to destroy the usefulness of the security measures which are there to increase the buying price of products. Whether in the end it helps one cause or the other is up in the air. It's like an ongoing battle where some security measures have bit the dust because of the actions of pirates, some have been inspired by them.

[Maes]

I like it how some people on these forums are totally willing to e.g. give up on something as ubiquitous and continuous such as traditional TV services "because now everything is done via Internet. Welcome to the 21st century" yet they bitch and moan when a modern video game requires constant internet connectivity, just like "internet TV" would.

Well, make up your mind and/or stop applying double standards here. Either Internet can be taken for granted and is able to replace everything, or it's not. "Everything" includes traditional copy protection and/or local storage of data. Hey, it's all about "cloud computing" and "networking" now right? Welcome to the 21st century ;-)

[ReFracture]

Maes said:

I like it how some people on these forums are totally willing to e.g. give up on something as ubiquitous and continuous such as traditional TV services "because now everything is done via Internet. Welcome to the 21st century" yet they bitch and moan when a modern video game requires constant internet connectivity, just like "internet TV" would.

It's the nature of the service, it uses the internet to convey it's service. Complaining about not being able to use it without an internet connection is like complaining about not being able watch TV when your cable line is down.

It's understandable that a game like World of Warcraft would demand an internet connection, you are constantly online, interacting with people.

You can't say the same for Assassin's Creed II. It doesn't give us anything in return for making us stay online.

[Maes]

Mike.Reiner said:

You can't say the same for Assassin's Creed II. It doesn't give us anything in return for making us stay online.

That's because you're poking your nose too much into things you're not supposed to be poking at, number #1984 subject consumer gamer. Just pay for the damn thing and play it like a good, law-abiding citizen on your "always on" internet connection, just like any red-blooded Good American would do. After all, we ARE living the American Dream, aren't we? Unlike those damn commies!!! Welcome to the 21st century.

[Mr. Freeze]

Maes said:

My argument lost. I'll write silly junk in return!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derailment_%28thought_disorder%29

[E.J.]

A few thing to take into consideration.

1.) Ubisoft cuts out anyone from their base anyone who doesn't have access to broadband ISPs, or can't afford them.

2.) As a retro gamer, I'd like to be able to load up and play my games that I payed for, even after some service for my 15 year old game console is long dead.

Boycotts are the the American, free market, tradition for sending messages to producers of anything. Let's not start blaming UbiSoft, or any other corporations, for doing stuff (like this d*mn DRM fiasco) we let them get away with.

[Maes]

Mr. Freeze said:

My sarcasm detector is terribly broken, so let's try appearing holier-than-thou by linking to a psychology concept I can barely grasp but that sounds cool enough to use as a counter.

FTFY.

And why the fuck are going all over a subject that has been debated just a month ago?

The events haven't changed, the "protection" is still there, and the people's opinions aren't likely to have changed.

I still stand by my original conclusions: yeah, it's retarded and all but it's also how the market works today. If people accept dependency on a "best effort" service for things such as their TV, phone, radio etc. and they also accept using stuff like the iPod with its proprietary way of loading music, then they can also accept this, whether it's actually "good" or not.

[geekmarine]

I have to admit, the fact that their anti-piracy measure actually encourages piracy because the pirated copy bypasses the whole "mandatory internet connection" business is pretty damn funny.

[Ahcruna]

Well most of the people saying that are the people that were pirating the games even before the DRM =p

Those with common sense just don't play the game at all

And fyi that wasn't directed at you CleanShanchez, I only said most of the people that said that "not all"

[cybdmn]

Don't buy that DRM-infected crap, problem solved. By pirating you make them believe, that they're right with even more shit like that.
Let the packages get dusty in the shelves. THIS hurts, nothing more.

Otherwise you get exactly, what you deserve.