Freaking Ubi.
Is Anno any good? I hear it's the new simcity.
'Sorry to disappoint you - the game is indeed restricted to 3 hardware changes and there simply is no way to bypass that.' HAHA, of course there isnt...
You can say the same for any Steam/Origin/other game as well- that the pirated version is the best since there's no DRM.
You can say the same for any Steam/Origin/other game as well- that the pirated version is the best since there's no DRM.
Does this need a net connection to check the number of activations? So the number of licenses left is stored on a server at Ubisoft somewhere?
What happens if you activate it with a net connection, then change the graphics card and then try to play the game again without first hooking it up to the net? Does it just say, "Something's changed, and we can't check whether that's OK, so you're not playing at all."?
Not sure if this is available on Steam, but if not here's a general question.
If a game is bought from Steam does it still have DRM over and above the Steam login?
You know who wins again in this shit fest?? Pirates.
Freaking Ubi.
Is Anno any good? I hear it's the new simcity.
Maybe people should just stop using the term "pirates" as it's really misleading and doing the whole issue a huge disservice. It's the act of liberating products from artificial limitations, and there are illegitimate as well as legitimate reasons to do so. The publishers' job should be to offer fair solutions to all legitimate issues (or accept the consequences if they don't), not push those affected customers into the bunch of people decried as "pirates".
Huh?Maybe people should just stop using the term "pirates" as it's really misleading and doing the whole issue a huge disservice. It's the act of liberating products from artificial limitations, and there are illegitimate as well as legitimate reasons to do so. The publishers' job should be to offer fair solutions to all legitimate issues (or accept the consequences if they don't), not push those affected customers into the bunch of people decried as "pirates".
Right, but on a scale from bad experience to good experience:
Worst experience: People who pay money and try to obey Ubisoft's rules
Bad experience: People who pay money and then need to track down a crack
Good experience: People who don't pay money, download pre-cracked torrent or whatever
Clearly I'm pro-crack rather than pro-piracy, but the term pirates accurately describes the group of people who expend the least effort and no money and get the best game experience.
No, that shit was there since just before COH:OF when they decided to force you to log in for even SP. I don't think it's a big deal but for a game that basically now requires you to download the base game + 2 expansions worth of data (whether or not you have it) and makes you patch it to the latest version (and there are no big stepping patches, you have to start from whereever you left off), it is rather daunting to do.All this talk about PC gaming meant I got the fancy to play Company of Heroes. I've had the expansion pack Opposing Forces for years but never played it so I thought I'd set it off installing when I got home from work. Guess how much gaming I got done last night?
It was ridiculous, it loaded up, took me straight to a sign into our online service thing, otherwise I "wouldn't be able to play online" even though I didn't want to, but the 'Setup account' button was greyed out and it wouldn't let me through to the single player.
I ended up signing up on their website instead, but then when you tried to sign in it wouldn't let you do anything before patching it. Of course, the patch wouldn't even begin to download, it would sit for a while and then kick me back to the login screen where it asked me to download the patch and round and round again. From forum posts I found it would appear that they've stopped supporting the game since 2010 (it only came out in 2007!) so back to the internet to trawl for info on how to sort it out.
Thanks to one guy's very helpful forum post it became clear that I needed to download and patch it manually. I had to download over 2GB worth of patches from third party sites spread over about 10 different files, install each one separately in the correct order before it finally let me log in and get to the single player. I got through the first two tutorial missions (about 10 minutes in total) before it was time for bed. Thanks PC gaming, you've just saved me a ton of money as I was getting the upgrade itch again (it comes and goes).
Sorry to whine, but I thought it would nicely illustrate the problems DRM causes when the developer stops caring (after only 3 years in this case!). Yet if I'd downloaded a working copy or a crack to play the game as it was shipped on the disc (presumably that version works or why would they ship it?) I'd be a 'pirate'.
Ironically enough, the only people this won't affect are pirates/cracker's. They'll have long ago already downloaded a cracked iso for free. Dumbass devs.This.
This is actually really disappointing. Anno 2070 looked really cool. It was going to be the first game of its kind I'd buy. Then I saw this. -1 sale.
Call me when Ubisoft learns how to make a PC game.
This sort of thing is such a shame, because in my opinion, it's by far the best game released last year .
It is a shame, but it's also the only way that things will ever change for the better.
You're quite the optimist, aren't you?
Here's how I see it. Ubi will close BB, because nobody* bought the game.
*except ze Germans.
“This sounds more like a bug than a deliberate choice by Ubi. Is that the case? Will there be a fix forthcoming to ensure people can change basic hardware without losing the ability to play Ubi games?
“While it’s correct that copies of Anno include three activations and that changing hardware may trigger the need for reactivation, the vast majority of Anno customers never encounter this scenario. On the rare occasion when a customer does need additional activations, Ubisoft customer service is available to quickly resolve the situation, and we encourage those customers to contact us directly so that we can ensure they are able to continue to enjoy their game.”
Tages is a little odd, however, not offering the option to deactivate an installation. Ubisoft insists this is fine, because when you uninstall it leaves behind a config file on your PC that means it’ll remember itself, and not need reactivating on reinstallation. Of course this makes no sense – should you need to format your PC, or reinstall Windows, that file will be meaningless, and despite not changing configurations, you’ll still be using up an activation.
If they're eager to give you more activations when you need them why don't they allow more to begin with...
This sort of thing is such a shame, because in my opinion, it's by far the best game released last year .
Ubisoft said:"While its correct that copies of Anno include three activations and that changing hardware may trigger the need for reactivation, the vast majority of Anno customers never encounter this scenario."
If you buy vCoH / OF / ToV on Steam, you download the same thing for all intents and purposes, since Relic wanted all CoH games to be expand-alones. If you are missing an xpack, by all means buy that one and add the CDKey to your RO account. I'm just saying it's probably more convenient to have it on Steam because you don't have to spend an entire day patching incrementally.So to get round their bullshit I have to buy the game twice? I know you're trying to be helpful and thanks for the explanation, but God damn they make it hard to play the game I bought.
If they're eager to give you more activations when you need them why don't they allow more to begin with...
Pretty much.Buy the game: after 3 hardware upgrades, you can no longer play it.
Pirate the game: happy gaming!
Ubisoft: incentivising piracy, just because we can!
DRM defense force?Oh no, they were snarky, that really makes me mad grrrr >:[
Noooo, I never knew this! Damn, I hardly play most of the games I own, so if I knew this I would've boycotted this gameThis is also why I'm probably never going to play Crysis, which is as far as I can tell only available as an activation-limited rental with no way whatsoever to restore activations.
This is also why I'm probably never going to play Crysis, which is as far as I can tell only available as an activation-limited rental with no way whatsoever to restore activations.
They're joining Activision in the shittiest developers out there.
DRM defense force?
thisisneogaf..
Oh no, they were snarky, that really makes me mad grrrr >:[
Frankly, they're much worse at this point: Activision doesn't do online passes, they don't do activation-based DRM (or always-online DRM outside of Blizzard), all their PC games use Steamworks, etc.
I'm convinced that out of EA, Activision, and Ubisoft, Activision is the lesser of the evils. Yeah they try to milk their consumers as well but they're more transparent about it. EA's shady with their marketing and Ubisoft at this point is pretty much antagonistic to one segment of the gaming community.
http://www.guru3d.com/news/ubisoft-changes-anno-2070-drm-after-guru3d-critique/Hi Hilbert,
Just wanted to let you know, that we now remove the graphics hardware from the hash used to identify the PC.
That means everyone should now be able to switch the GFX as many times as he/she wants.
Cheers,
Are you seriously defending Ubisoft here?
Guru3D said:You may install Anno 2070 on three PCs as you get three activations. That's fair and OK we feel.