Fighting against pirates, fine. But storing saved data on a remote server? That's just stupid. Then there's also the fact that not all gaming rigs have an internet connection, as some people want to protect their computer that way from viruses, so authenticating a game online is, once again, a bad idea.

Nice try, fellas. Better luck next time?

Savegames on remote servers is BULLSHIT. How am i to play offline?

Online Authentication is nothing new, and that's not going to help at all,
Product activation is the same way.

This isn't going to work, and It's gonna piss off a lot of people.

Edit: Ubisoft is going to have lost more money, implementing and creating and maintaining this system then they will from piracy.

Saving on a server?

You can actually fuck off Ubisoft.
How do I play offline?
What if the server is down?
etc etc.

The internet really is interfering way too much with games.

Nope nope.

Saved games stored solely on a server? Did I read that correctly?

What if their servers go down?

Why don't they just do the decent version, and make sure the pirated copy is faulty in some way (or several ways preferably) like the did with Arkham Asylum.

Pirates get around this sort of thing in 5 seconds. It won't work.

Seriously, if my internet goes down for a month for whatever reason then I think "well I can still play games at least", I won't bloody be able to.

My game, I keep the files.

Ugh, it's like they're trying to make people pirate their games. Fact is, those very pirates they're trying to prevent from doing their thing, are going to have a workaround for this in a couple of days, weeks at the latest. Maybe even before the game is released! This doesn't stop piracy, it just pisses off everyone who actually BOUGHT the game. Ya know, the customer.

no internet=no game=bullshit

No.

Back to your room, Ubisoft.

I always had this problem with Steam that completely makes me hate this plan.

It was quite annoying that almost the entire time I had Steam I lost my connection to the Internet. Nowadays I only buy old games for the PC, because they're the only ones that work on my shite rig.

I dislike the idea of not being able to play offline.

Even steam has an "offline mode" option so you can play your games.

So what they're saying is: They're developing a new massively expensive activation system that works just like Steam, when they already sell on steam, that at most is going to up the time it take for a crack to come out from ten days to three weeks whislt at the same time denying everyone the chance to save and making them reliant on Ubisoft for their progress.
Begs the question what the fuck do you do when Ubisoft invariably pulls the plug on this service after two years.

As much as gamers like me insist PC gaming isn't dieing, the industry seems to be doing it's damndest to try and kill it. This is almost as pro piracy as an announcement can get without realising it.

If they aren't going to let me keep my own save, or play the game offline, I guess I have no choice but so source versions that do.

Edit: So that's Irrational and Ubisoft and EA off my buying list. At this rate I'll have buy a sodding 360.

Scorp123:
no internet=no game=bullshit

This.

And what if Anonymous or some other pretentious Internet hacker group decides to hijack the servers and delete everything?

Fuck you, Ubisoft.

Depends on the price for me, as well as the quality of the games. If the price is low enough then it will compensate for the fact that I have less control and access to the games. I'm normally connected to the internet through cable, a connection that is better than many have access to, and sometimes it is slow and occasionally it goes down. This could be really inconvenient even before I start thinking about things like the game not working any more when support dissipates. (I spell checked disappears, got dissipates and thought it was cooler even if it doesn't work properly. I'm tired and unhappy, leave me alone.)

These responses are AGNRY FAIC bordering on RAEG.

I do agree, however. The remote server save-system does have its ups and downs, the up being that you can load your progress on any PC with the game installed, the down being that if you're not connected to the 'net you're not able to do anything, and if your net is slow or Ubi's been DDoS'd or something it will take a long time to do anything.

Sounds like a pretty stupid idea to me, but hey, if Ubisoft want to commit corporate suicide, that's up to them.

It's a good move, but once again won't stop piracy. They will find the part of the game that says to save it on the FTP or whatever, and just change it to a location on your computer.

Steam is successful because you are able to play your games offline if you choose. Sure you have to be online to get it working, but you also have to be online to buy/download so the problem solves itself for the most part. This however, will be used for a box copy of a game.

What about people in the military, namely the ones on ships with gaming laptops? When my ship was underway the only games I could play were offline, is Ubisoft saying they hate the military? UBISOFT HATES THE MILITARY. /sarcasm. But really, it just screws people over to REQUIRE online authentication to play a game.

This is once again a service that will only aggravate legit buyers and will once again leave pirates in full control and happier. Sigh, game companies will never learn.

Ahahahahha major dent in PC piracy, these people have a really great sense of humor, the only dent they will put is in their sales since this system will only actually affect the people that buy the game and not the pirates .. since they will play their cracked version without the need of an internet connection, pirates will still pirate no matter what protection they use, just take an example from EA and stop wasting money on protection.. this way you will actually have a bigger profit since 1. more people will buy because they won't worry about a crappy DRM and 2. you won't spend a huge amount of money on copy protection software.

Is it really that hard to grasp that no amount of protection will ever actually help ?

I like this and hate it at the same time. One thing that drives me crazy about Steam is when I'm without internet for any period of time, I'm completely screwed on playing my single player games. Of course, this kinda DRM is way better than any of the other crap they're shoveling out... ugh, so conflicted. For the most part though, this is good.

Sounds like a good idea in theory. But it needs some work before implementation.

Wait, what if the game is old? What if only a handful of players still play it? What happens to them, do they get a full refund?

I give it 6 weeks before someone figures out how to trick the program into believing that a local storage space is the remote server.

We want to play games from the cloud and save locally, not play locally and save elsewhere. This idea is completely retarded.
You're not Valve, Ubisoft, and I don't think even Valve could get away with this shit.

Here's a scenario: I wake up and my Dragon Age saves are corrupted because some disgruntled hacker decided to screw with Ubisoft.
In this scenario my logical next step is to head over to the closest Ubisoft headquarters and set the building ablaze.

manaman:
I give it 6 weeks before someone figures out how to trick the program into believing that a local storage space is the remote server.

What?

"Someone" can just make the game save games on the hard drive.

Again, a system that hurts legal players more than pirates. Also, isn't this basically GFWL?

That's a grand vision they have there.
Next thing they'll want us to physically go in their offices to play their games under direct supervision.
And you know what, Ubi? I still hate your guts for not releasing the ending for the last Prince of Persia game on PC.

What about people who don't have internet? What if their internet is down and want to play an Ubisoft game offline? This really isn't a good idea since it basically assumes a few things:

A. Everybody has access to the internet;
B. Their servers will work without downtime
C. The buyer will have no problem with not actually owning the game(since your entire progress and your ability to play the game is dependent on an outside source rather);
D. The internet works without a flaw and there's never any downtime.

Really, this is a bad scheme. If Ubisoft really thinks this will rack up sales for the PC version or that customers won't be pissed, they're mistaken. Companies need to stop worrying about copy protection and just focus their attention on making the game good.

manaman:
I give it 6 weeks before someone figures out how to trick the program into believing that a local storage space is the remote server.

What 6 weeks? All you need to do is find the variables in the system that deal with the actual connection part and the saving part. Then you need to rewrite them and voila.

Abedeus:

manaman:
I give it 6 weeks before someone figures out how to trick the program into believing that a local storage space is the remote server.

What?

"Someone" can just make the game save games on the hard drive.

Again, a system that hurts legal players more than pirates. Also, isn't this basically GFWL?

No GFWL lets you play with an offline profile, you can't get achievements, but no internet connection required, games are also saved locally.

_Nocturnal:
That's a grand vision they have there.
Next thing they'll want us to physically go in their offices to play their games under direct supervision.
And you know what, Ubi? I still hate your guts for not releasing the ending for the last Prince of Persia game on PC.

StarForce too

Cloud-based saves should be a added bonus, not a requirement, as the ability to download a game to a different computer and resume from where you left off last is actually a wonderful selling point.

Telling people they won't be able to save or access saved data without the online connection? Not so much!

Abedeus:

manaman:
I give it 6 weeks before someone figures out how to trick the program into believing that a local storage space is the remote server.

What?

"Someone" can just make the game save games on the hard drive.

Again, a system that hurts legal players more than pirates. Also, isn't this basically GFWL?

Provided they actually keep up remote servers until the game moves into obscurity and then release a patch to remove the need to connect the server then the only ones it hurts are those without a reliable internet connection. You don't even need a really high speed internet connection, the saves files are not going to be gigantic after all.

As for what I was saying. Someone will crack the program and it will save to the local drive. They cracked Mass Effect, which required an always on connection to play.

I'm pretty sure that absolutely nothing the producers can come up with can prove to be more than an annoyance for pirates.

I mean, tons of people are playing Modern Warfare 2 online. For free.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

On an unrelated note, is it just me, or does The Settlers 7 look like something Peter Molyneux would do on a slow day?