Ubisoft to require permanent internet connectivity

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[Worth buying or not?]

Worth buying or not?
Worth Buying	13 (92%)
Not Worth Buying	0 (0%)
Undecided	1 (7%)
Total Voters: 14

Anno 1404 Venice Poll
Goto Poll Topic >>

[Khalan]

So it seems that Ubisoft will require permanent connections in order to play their upcoming games, including Settlers 7.

"you will need to have an active Internet connection to play the game, for all game modes"

It will authenticate itself online each time you load it, and then save remotely every time you save.

So from now on, beginning with Settlers 7, potentially all Ubi PC games will require you to check in with them to let them know you’ve started playing their game, and then tell them every time you save, send them all the data in doing so, and then say bye-bye when you’re done playing for that day.

Quotes are all from a recent Rock Paper Shotgun article:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/01/27/new-ubisoft-games-must-always-be-online/

Seems ridiculous to me.  So if my internet goes down, I can't play my purchased Ubisoft games.  I can't play them on my laptop while travelling or away.  At least Steam offers offline access to your own games.

[City Builder]

I really don't like this sort of authentication.  Cities XL has this as will the rebranded Cities 2011.  If you're not connected to the internet, it can't authenticate you to allow you to play, which is just a drag.  There are some very rare times that my internet goes down for 2 to 6 hours (usually in the middle of the night) that I might want to then play a game but can't when they use this sort of authentication.
I stand corrected, there is a way to bypass the 'launcher' in Cities XL to play 'offline' without needing to go through the authentication server, however it is speculated that any addons or gems purchased will not be available to users when 2011 comes out if bypassing the authentication server.


It will certainly make me think twice about purchasing Settlers 7 unfortunately.

I agree with Crowebird below, I am at that point in my gaming life where if a developer or publisher demands to have another DRM added to the steam DRM then will rarely buy the game, and I will usually be found with at least one complaint on the steam forums about it.  I've had enough of being treated like a thief with my own games that I've payed for, it's time to just say NO.

[crowebird]

In terms of pass or fail:

Epic fail:

- Khalan already got the reasons spot on. With that note, steam is my favorite form of DRM becuase it does nothing to piss me off and does not get in the way.  Games that are released on steam that impose another form of DRM just get a bunch of unhappy people ranting about the idocracy of these developers.  From what I have seen DRM encourages piracy as people don't like these hidden systems installed on the computer to check for validity (which half the time are hard to uninstall), and games are starting to impose 3-5 install limits, etc. that just piss of the consumer (I bought the game, I install when I want as many times as I want).

[RhiannOn]

I'm quite disgusted and very disappointed that Ubisoft have taken this option for perm connection for Single play...whatever next

 I was also looking forward to the settlers 7, but have now changed my mind.  I don't mind disk checking and an online activation (ie steam) but the idea of having to be online to play a single player just sucks.  What if the isp has down time, which does happen here (not a lot tho) that means I can't play the game I bought for 90 bucks.......  What about folk who want to play whom only have dial up? That means their phone line is hogged up.  Such a stupid, stupid idea   
Give me the simple days when I could just put the game disk in the drive, install and play.

[City Builder]

I'm almost certain that there will be hacks that defeat their authentication system, there almost always are.

I understand and appreciate the whole thing about saving remotely on their servers, however when their servers are down or my ISP is down, that means I can't even access my saved games if I should want to.

I say vote with your wallets on this one and JUST SAY NO!

The only way they will hear that we dislike this method is to not purchase their product.

[crowebird]

See thing is, steam got it right, they started their 'cloud servers' which save your information online (assuming the game supports it), so you can install anywhere and always have the same save file... but if your offline, your save file is also saved remotely... I really like it becuase both trine and torchlight use it, which I was so happy becuase when I reformatted I realized I did not backup my saves correctly, but the saves were still there.

[City Builder]

I had no idea that torchlight was using this.  Torchlight was my favorite low budget game when it came out, but the community seemed too slow in producing quality addon dungeons etc so I kind of let it slip a bit, I guess I should read the forums when I'm up to it and see what new progress has been made in new dungeons to explore.

[Khalan]

Here's the official Ubisoft FAQ:
http://support.uk.ubi.com/online-services-platform/

One good thing is that you can at least install the game on as many computers as you want.  And with the savegames being online, you will be able to continue your game from any computer.

But I don't think the positives outweigh the negatives - if your connection drops, so does your game if it cannot reconnect.  No offline options.  And like Rhiannon mentioned, there's still a lot of people, especially here in Australia and New Zealand, that cannot access more than dialup connections.  That means unless you have a second phone line you cannot make or receive landline calls while connected.  And who knows whether dialup would even be fast enough to synchronize and access saves without timeout errors?

I was planning to get Silent Hunter V, but with it using this protection method, I'm having second thoughts.  Perhaps if (or when) the system is hacked or bypassed, I'll buy the game.

[City Builder]

  Perhaps if (or when) the system is hacked or bypassed, I'll buy the game.

And we know it will be.  They always are, the only games I've not seen hackable are Tages and Starforce, the rest of them always get hacked and this one will be no different, and as soon as it's available hacked I'll pick up a copy, assuming it's on sale.

[Khalan]

I'm sure you're right.  Incidentally, official Ubisoft support provide instructions on their forums on how to circumvent the Starforce protection for Silent Hunter III, which I'm playing at the moment:
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/857101043/m/5941041408