Assassin's Creed II PC Requires Constant Internet Connection

[Druid]

Assassin's Creed II PC Requires Constant Internet Connection
Anti-piracy initiative from Ubisoft is extreme.

February 18, 2010 - In an effort to combat rampant PC software piracy, majority of Ubisoft's upcoming PC titles will now require players to have a constant internet connection. The first title to utilize this new DRM method will be Assassin's Creed II which ships next month.

As detailed in Ubisoft's FAQ on the subject, if a player loses internet connection while playing, the game "will pause while it tries to reconnect." If a connection cannot be found after some time, the server stores your last saved game, which can only be resumed once there is a reconnection. Ubisoft says this will apply to all game modes.

Players will also be required to register a Ubisoft account in order to login and play.

There are some benefits to this type of service, Ubisoft says. For one, there is no limit to how many times a game can be installed on one or more machines. Once installed, the game disc will not be require to play, either. Also, saved games are synchronized to your account online, meaning players can continue from any machine that has the game installed.

source - http://pc.ign.com/articles/107/1070151p1.html

I don't know what they hope to accomplish. I can't see this working.

 

[synergy]

What a ridiculous concept! First of all they said that this game wasn't coming to PC for a while because of piracy. Secondly, they're alienating more customers (people who won't buy it because of lack of Internet, or slow Internet) than they would lose do to piracy. Thirdly, regardless of what measures they take someone will likely crack the system anyway.

Ubi = Fail, IMHO

EDIT: LOL...read the comments! People are outraged (understandably)!

 

[wafflehammer]

LOL owned the pirates


I'll be blunt about it : anyone mad about this is either....

A: they don't have a stable connection (dial-up, etc)

or

B: pirates


This method makes sure that you have an account..and most likely a valid serial. So no pirating it...especially since it has to connect to their servers.

Sure it'll probably be cracked after awhile. But once it does they'll have to start making it more extreme.

So the more the pirates fight back..the more the companies will.

So in the end, is it worth not having to pay $50 just to go through the trouble?

If you want to play the game, pay the money and get over it... Just because I can't go to the movies doesn't mean I sneak into it :|

 

[Druid]

No matter what security measure gaming companies come up with, there is always going to be someone who will crack it. Singleplayer is never safe. All they can do is protect their multiplayer.

 

[synergy]

It's a desperate grab at a futile effort. This isn't going to hurt anybody but legitimate customers who can't play the game because they have one of the many variables that would keep them from playing. The variables are things like wireless ISPs that are notorious for dropping connections, people with dial-up who will have their game pause every 5 minutes so their slow connection can sync with the servers, people wanting to play at all offline on a laptop, people with no Internet connection at all, there's so many more.

No one got owned except Ubi because they will hurt more from loss of profit by excluding such a huge portion of the market than if they just took the losses from piracy (which, btw, will still be there.)

 

[Luke]

if i was still on my dial up connection i would be pretty mad since i have really been looking forward to this game. But honestly i think this is a good thing for those who have highspeed. No reason to be outraged,unless you planed to pirate the game. Sure it will tick of the very fwe amount that have dialup and/or bad connections, but the vast majority of the people who will play this game dont live in those types of areas.

 

[synergy]

I disagree. Broadband is still the minority of connections. I'm outraged and I don't/didn't plan on pirating the game. You know **** well there are going to be a lot of glitches and problems with this (firewalls, ISP issues, server-side issues, account issues...the list goes on and on) and people aren't even going to be able to play a game they paid good money for.

Steam is a perfect example. When it first came out, with the release of HL2, people couldn't even play the game for days because of the load on the servers and issues with the client. Steam works now because it's a mature platform that has had 6 years to work out the kinks, but Ubi are infants with this being their first attempt. I'll put money down that this will ruin the game for PC gamers because of similar issues happening. Why not just release the game exclusively through Steam if they're so concerned about piracy. It's essentially the same thing and will thwart piracy just as well.

 

[wafflehammer]

^^^ not really..they bypass steam and just like how MW2 has pirated dedicated servers too :|

Personally I just think game companies should hire special teams of engineers that design the game so it's un-crackable.......I'm sure it's nearly impossible but there has to be some sort of way to do it.

But this is the best bet towards it.

And for all the people that are "legitimate" about their games that still complain because it hurts you : why not put more of an effort into getting people not to pirate? There are so many people here who complain about these measures hurting the legit people but talk about "demo'ing" games and junk...so if you really wanted companies to stop doing these types of things you should stop that and make everyone else that pirates stop.

 

[Druid]

Dude, the people that write the games and everything to do with them are software "engineers." Whether this is an actual profession is debatable. They are already have the best people tasked with this. If it was as simple as you make it sound, I'm sure they would all be doing this already. No matter what they try, it will get cracked.

And seriously, some people might want to play games on a laptop when they go on a beach vacation or something. If the hotel doesn't have internet or is too troublesome to get access to, they're going to want to be able to play offline singleplayer games. This is ridiculous. I don't know about you guys but I always get bored as **** when I go to the beach with just my family. This summer, now that I have a laptop, some of my boredom should be adverted.

 

[wafflehammer]

Dude, the people that write the games and everything to do with them are software "engineers." Whether this is an actual profession is debatable. They are already have the best people tasked with this. If it was as simple as you make it sound, I'm sure they would all be doing this already. No matter what they try, it will get cracked.

And seriously, some people might want to play games on a laptop when they go on a beach vacation or something. If the hotel doesn't have internet or is too troublesome to get access to, they're going to want to be able to play offline singleplayer games. This is ridiculous. I don't know about you guys but I always get bored as **** when I go to the beach with just my family. This summer, now that I have a laptop, some of my boredom should be adverted.

I'm sure there are ways to stop it...but remember those ways will cost time and money, sure the software engineers are good...but if ubi only wants to pay them for a average job instead of a amazing job..then why would they do an amazing job? You get what you pay for...so I'm sure if companies done more they could do something


on the side note: I hate the beach too :| too hot and too much sand..only good time is walking on the beach at night when no one is around


EDIT: and to be honest..if I was a game producer I would NEVER release games on PC's just because the way people are...actually I probably wouldn't produce games for anything that uses a disc just so people couldn't pirate it.