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Ubisoft does it again


Wolferz
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Ubisoft releases Silent Hunter V with a new form of DRM that requires an internet connection to play single player. Pretty much thumbing their noses at travelling Laptop owners and everyone else without internrnet access. The first few days after release, Ubisoft suffered several days of a DDos attack on their servers that rendered the new title totally unplayable for everyone that shelled out the sixty bucks to buy it. As is usual for Ubisoft, the game was released with a myriad of bugs and blatant omissions. They have taken anti-piracy to a whole new level with this internet only DRM scheme. The scuttlebutt on their forums has not been pretty. Complaints have ranged from a useless manual to a clunky user interface and I can't figure out how to drive my sub because I'm using the manual to level a table.

Assassins CreedII will use the same DRM.

This is all ramping up to their new Uplay idea. They want to be like Microsoft's Xjunk Live and Sony Online Entertainment. So far, they look to compensate their customers for this latest debacle by offering them Uplay points to spend on downloadable content. A useless gesture if the Chaos Club continues to attack them.

It has also been reported that all of the Collectors Edition copies of SH V sold in Germany had to be recalled for illegal symbols being found in the printed materials. Germany has a distinct aversion to Swastikas. :(

I swore off Ubisoft products after the last two Sub simulator games were released in beta form and sold as complete, working titles and then abandoned.

Silent Hunter III and IV would have gone the way of the Dodo if it weren't for selfless fans modding them into great titles. The same thing is happening with V

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you depend on your paying players to debug, finish, and fix your games.

The only reports in the good category for SHV have been the graphics.

Derek, maybe you could give Yves Guillemot a call and let him in on the secret....

"Graphics do not a good game make" and " Ball and chain DRMs won't stop software piracy"

His answer to under performing sales is "Throw more advertising money at it"

IMHO, the only games that should require an internet connection are MMOs. Not stand alone single player games.

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Its not just Silent Hunter, Assassins Creed has the same problem.

This is just a ploy to get everyone on consoles.

That is a possibility. Microshaft has been trying to turn every PC out there into a console for quite a while now.

If Ubisoft wants to go strictly console, then they should stop publishing PC games.

Only one problem with that idea... Most of their console offerings are shovelware. They even admitted to producing shovelware for the Wii. I don't think Sony will put up with that kind of crap. Microshaft might, if they throw enough ad money at them.

If it really is a ploy, they're failing miserably.

I have a PS 3 and I'm not too keen on playing games bearing the Ubishaft "Black Hole" logo.

They are rip off artists and I have chosen not to help finance them.

I'm glad I didn't run right out and buy Silent Hunter V the search for more Das Boote money.

At the moment, the Ubisoft web presence is non-existant....citing some kind of security problem. Probably a continued Ddos attack from all the Germans they pissed off.

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all upcoming ubi titles will have this drm.

im a subsim (and all kind of sim) fan, but ill not buy this crap. tbh one of my friends pre-ordered AC2 and he cant play the game for several days.

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all upcoming ubi titles will have this drm.

im a subsim (and all kind of sim) fan, but ill not buy this crap. tbh one of my friends pre-ordered AC2 and he cant play the game for several days.

What a shame. Ubisoft is so afraid of software pirates that they are scuttling the boat.

I guess if you sink your business, you don't need to worry about a few pirates stealing your IP. :troutslap:

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You wouldn't NEED DRM if people wouldn't PIRATE games anyway.... oh wait.. that's a concept most people don't seem to understand or get :troutslap:

Though I am glad I decided to hold off on getting SH5, will eventually. That being the case; you want to stop DRM? Get rid of the pirates, or.... *gasp* LOWER the prices of some of these damned games. It seems that recently, standard edition for video games now run $59 a peice.. it'll get to the point where video game companies will lose money to pirates not JUST for the DRM but also because of the price (I refuse to pirate due to the higher likelyhood of virus's and trojans in the games)

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You wouldn't NEED DRM if people wouldn't PIRATE games anyway.... oh wait.. that's a concept most people don't seem to understand or get :troutslap:

Though I am glad I decided to hold off on getting SH5, will eventually. That being the case; you want to stop DRM? Get rid of the pirates, or.... *gasp* LOWER the prices of some of these damned games. It seems that recently, standard edition for video games now run $59 a peice.. it'll get to the point where video game companies will lose money to pirates not JUST for the DRM but also because of the price (I refuse to pirate due to the higher likelyhood of virus's and trojans in the games)

I'm with you there, Kal, but getting rid of software pirates isn't exactly something your average Joe Gamer can do. I don't download pirated anything for the same reasons you don't.

I have yet to find anything on this planet that is worth stealing.

Still, software piracy is not something you can combat by punishing your paying customers that don't have a 24/7 internet connection. Even the ones that do have internet can't play the games because Ubisoft pinches pennies on their servers and the employees that run them.

Requiring the disc in the drive is more sane than this new garbage.

I can sum it all up in three words....

Dumb

Retarded

Moronic

Goodbye Ubisoft

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If you ask me, all DRM does is annoy the paying customers. I've yet to see a single pirate protection not cracked before/just after release.

Scutt;ebutt has it that the pirates have already cracked the new DRM and are happily playing SH V offline, :troutslap:

One must wonder who the hell is running Ubisoft? Lars Ulrich?

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Star dock is probably the hardest company to pirate off.

Updates via steam, and they have like multiple expansion packs, not to mention updates every month or so. Impossible to have your client to the latest version, steal product keys, and play online. That's how a company should be run.

And hey, there will always be pirates. Thats how they make a living, and you can't really hate them for trying to make one.

And paying anything more than 50$ for a game is ridiculous imo. But i guess they have to make money somehow

So yeah, i wish these guys luck on anti-piracy. If you're gonna have drastic measures and a super high price for a game, let alone a crappy game, it's gonna be pirated.

Can't wait for that day where every game costs 20$ and theres only 1 gamesystem thats perfect in every way and costs 200$ :/

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That day won't come, so for now the only thing we can do is stick with those game maker that goes to the market with good games, good support and always an eye to the needs of their customers.

I'm now playing Dragon Age Origins and I'm pretty much happy with Bioware's products since Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

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That day won't come, so for now the only thing we can do is stick with those game maker that goes to the market with good games, good support and always an eye to the needs of their customers.

I'm now playing Dragon Age Origins and I'm pretty much happy with Bioware's products since Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

Dragon Age is the shiznitz. Mass Effect wasn't bad either. Neither of those titles had bugs. At least none I could find.

Every Ubisoft title is released half finished. Full of bugs. And with no fixes in sight. Little if any support. Mostly garbage disc filler.

And now they are using this new DRM without the needed infrastructure to properly service it.

DO NOT BUY games from Ubisoft.

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Stardock is one of my favorite companies. I didn't get any grief at all when installing/updating Galactic Civilizations 2 or SOASE. And you don't even need the disk to play it, so +1 in my book. But even Ubisofts packaging is sub par. After rebuying my Morrowind GOTY edition but with a Ubisoft distributed package I didn't get the manual or paper map included with the previous one.

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Yup, I used to be a fan of Ubisoft back in the days they made some good products and had some good support......yup...I'm getting old. LOL!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update on Ubisoft' latest debacle... aka OSP DRM....

It turns out that the reported DDOS attack on their authentication servers was a LIE!

There was no attack. It was merely their clumsy attempt at implementing the new Ball and Chain DRM systems. The hardware couldn't handle the load of literally thousands of Assassins Creed and Silent Hunter fans trying to play their "single player" games. Probably all on the same server I would bet. The fan base is pissed! Understandably so. There are still ongoing problems as of this date.

I can understand Ubisofts' position. It's only fair that they collect on their IPs and throw up the old middle finger at the software pirates. Most of which are likely to be Asian. A market they don't sell in.

But it also gives the finger to the honest gamers that don't have an always on internet connection.

Gamers like travelling business people. Soldiers and sailors on deployment, just to name a couple.

It also fingers the gamers fair use rights by preventing you from selling the license to someone else.

Or loading onto a laptop for portable gaming at the lake.

File it in the dumbest idea of the twenty-first century folder. Because they can't guarantee that their end of the bargain will always be there.

Something that is missing from the requirements list on the box. It only states "broadband internet connection is required."

So, if Ubi or any other publisher wishes to commit corporate suicide, I say let the lyiing bastards do it . We're better off without them.

EA figured it out. The publishers of Rise of Flight figured it out. They dumped their OSP DRM schemes poste haste.

Ubisoft could have used the same authentication process that Microsoft uses with their software. Check the license during updates and disable it if it isn't kosher. Oh, wait Ubisoft doesn't fix what they sell. Disregard

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Yeah I don't like the whole must connect to internet to play singleplayer thing. Its much nicer to just have to verify it once and be done with it. This very thing stopped me from buying C&C4, and almost Napoleon Total War.

I heard that it was removed from C&C 4

At least EA isn't totally brain damaged.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Yeah, I won't touch SHV with a 10 foot pole. SHIV was bad enough, but like you said, a MASSIVE modding community really made it into something special.

What really started pissing me off about UBI was that the final official patch for SHIV was released with the UBoat missions - and they CHARGED FOR IT!

Ubi's business model seems to be, release incomplete game, patch it a bit, create new content to go with next patch, sell content+patch, and still have an incomplete game.

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My last SH game was SH3. The mod community did a great job at making it playable.

When SH4 came out I hesitated for a long time before deciding not to buy the game after all.

With their new DRM scheme Ubi made that decision for me not to buy any of the products anymore.

That's no way to treat your customers. I didn't even know they made you pay for patches.

Microsoft would be out of business if they did that...

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My last SH game was SH3. The mod community did a great job at making it playable.

When SH4 came out I hesitated for a long time before deciding not to buy the game after all.

With their new DRM scheme Ubi made that decision for me not to buy any of the products anymore.

That's no way to treat your customers. I didn't even know they made you pay for patches.

Microsoft would be out of business if they did that...

That's the thing: the Silent Hunter series is a unique niche. As such, they know they can milk that crowd for all its worth. Ubi is a garbage company, in some respects. On the other hand, Ubi is the only company that would take on such a niche genre.
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Actually if Ubi dropped the whole WW2 subs sims market, I'd expect Sonalyst Combat Simulations could take the lead. They've been making hardcore wodern ASW warfare sims for some times now, and really good ones at it. It should be noted that Sonalyst not only makes games but also software for real military applications.

I didn't buy SH4 neither 5. I also wont buy anything from Ubisoft untill they show large improvements on their DRM scheme and will stick to Indie games and companies such as Stardock and SCS as I've been doing for a few years now. I mean, how many companies give their old games for free (like Derek does) ? Who still makes decent demos (which *really* give you a taste of what to expect from the full game) ? Who spends much

time and effort fixing bugs and listening to the playerbase rather than rushing TheGameOfDoom:The Return 5 before xmas?

Yeah, sorry Ubi, I used to love some of your games but it's over now.

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Actually if Ubi dropped the whole WW2 subs sims market, I'd expect Sonalyst Combat Simulations could take the lead. They've been making hardcore wodern ASW warfare sims for some times now, and really good ones at it. It should be noted that Sonalyst not only makes games but also software for real military applications.

I didn't buy SH4 neither 5. I also wont buy anything from Ubisoft untill they show large improvements on their DRM scheme and will stick to Indie games and companies such as Stardock and SCS as I've been doing for a few years now. I mean, how many companies give their old games for free (like Derek does) ? Who still makes decent demos (which *really* give you a taste of what to expect from the full game) ? Who spends much

time and effort fixing bugs and listening to the playerbase rather than rushing TheGameOfDoom:The Return 5 before xmas?

Yeah, sorry Ubi, I used to love some of your games but it's over now.

The only companies I can think off the top of my head that do those things are 3000ad, (of course) Bethesda somewhat (they release their games for free, not so much the rest...), and Stardock. I doubt I can count how many patches have been released for Galactic Civilizations 2, and most of them have done a good job. The current release only has one gamestopping bug I can think of. I myself have been sticking to companies I know make decent games and will likely continue to do so. Ubisoft is done for me as well, anything with their logo I'm not buying unless I really, really want it.

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Actually if Ubi dropped the whole WW2 subs sims market, I'd expect Sonalyst Combat Simulations could take the lead.
I can't see Sonalyst being even slightly interested in the WW2 market. Besides, their games have been just as buggy, but without the DRM ... which is just like SHIV.
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  • 3 weeks later...
Actually if Ubi dropped the whole WW2 subs sims market, I'd expect Sonalyst Combat Simulations could take the lead.
I can't see Sonalyst being even slightly interested in the WW2 market. Besides, their games have been just as buggy, but without the DRM ... which is just like SHIV.

No you are quite right unfortunately, the poor sales of the very good but hardcore Dangerous Waters pretty much killed off the interest from Sonalysts in continuing. And it looks like it might well be the end of the road for Ubi now too as far as Silent Hunter goes, a real shame as it was a series I have always enjoyed and once modded up a superbly atmospheric experience.

I wonder if Derek has ever considered doing a WWII naval simulation game? I'm sure that would be quite something in terms of depth & detail and something I'd really like to see.

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