EA Editor Criticizes Command & Conquer 4 DRM 266
Command & Conquer 4's DRM hasn't garnered Electronic Arts as much bad press and fan outrage as Ubisoft's scheme, despite being very similar. Nevertheless, it's been causing problems and frustrations for some users, including EA.com's own editor-in-chief, Jeff Green. An anonymous reader points this out:
"Green wrote on his Twitter account late last week: 'Booted twice — and progress lost — on my single-player C&C4 game because my DSL connection blinked. DRM fail. We need new solutions.' He continued later, 'Well. I've tried to be open-minded. But my 'net connection is finicky — and the constant disruption of my C&C4 SP game makes this unplayable. The story is fun, the gameplay is interesting and different at least — but if you suffer from shaky/unreliable DSL — you've been warned.'"
Re:No problems here (Score:4, Informative)
Xbox360 is heavily pirated you know.
So is the Wii.
The only console that haven't been hacked yet, is the PS3.
Piracy: the better choice (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Give that man a new job (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No problems here (Score:5, Informative)
>>Oh, and thanks to Steam's constant stream of special deals, I don't have to pay 50-70 for each game.
The only trouble with Steam is that it requires... an internet connection.
People will say that Steam can run in offline mode, and that's true... as long as there's no patch pending for Steam.
If there is, then when you run Steam offline, it tells you it is trying to patch, and canceling or trying anything else results in it quitting. There's literally no solution until you get internet access again, which really sucks if you're on a laptop without access, or if rain gets into a conduit and your internet goes down for a week, like it did for me last Thanksgiving. I'd just bought Dragon Age, and being unable to play it for an entire week because of Steam's butt fucking retardnessness really turned me off to the platform.
It's been a "known issue" for, oh, since Steam began.
Dont worry Green, solution is coming (Score:4, Informative)
Razor1911 is on it.
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Informative)
The PC as a gaming platform is done.
Not done, but perhaps we're starting to see the sunset. I gave up on PC gaming when Microsoft moved past Windows XP. I couldn't even get my motorola phone to work on 64 bit Windows Vista or 7 even while following various sets of directions because Microsoft boned the whole driver signing thing, and I hate to dual-boot, so now I just run the handful of games which are both good and fun on Linux.
While the CPU power and abundance of input devices make it an attractive target platform, there are simply too many problems related to software piracy to sustain the PC as a viable platform for much longer.
All the piracy-related problems are actually developer-related problems.
With X-Box supporting all the latest DX technology,
It doesn't. DirectX has moved on from what the Xbox 360 has.
PS3 offering unparalleled processing power,
It doesn't. Not only is the Xbox 360 about as powerful as the PS3, but home PCs are available with vastly more power in all areas today.
and Wii providing an innovative user interface,
Having a remote-shaped replacement for a spaceball is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
DRM? It won't be an issue when the game is keylocked to your personal console and media. You won't even notice the DRM.
Won't be? Microsoft and Sony both have direct-download marketplaces which use this scheme. It's here already.
Re:I was about to buy this... (Score:5, Informative)
From the start of C&C you got 2 cd's. One with GDI and one with NOD. And you were explicitely permitted to lend one to a friend while you were using the other yourself.
Thats how I got hooked too.
If I remember correctly the first where this was not included/allowed was C&C Generals.
I'm not a happy bunny either (Score:5, Informative)
I've been stung by this one. There was little (or in fact no) warning in advance of release that the copy protection would take this form and, as this was an EA rather than an Ubisoft game, I didn't assume that it would. So, like a fool, I went and placed a pre-order with an electronic-only retailer.
Of course, the release day comes and various forums explode with news of the DRM. I had already made a decision not to buy any games with Ubisoft-style DRM... and now find myself accidentally in breach of that. I try to get a refund... and fail.
After a few days of unsuccessfully trying for a refund, I give up. I say "ok, I'll see for myself just how bad this is". So I pass up any lingering hopes of a refund and download and install the game. Just getting the launcher to start up is a hassle, as there are assorted known issues with it. Eventually, I figure out that I have to manually update the EA Download Manager (an entirely separate piece of software) before the game will run. Having done all of this, and created an account, I click the button to try to play the game. And get told that the DRM client "cannot connect to the internet". I check my net connection; no problems - I've had an IRC client running the whole time with no interruptions. Ok, maybe it's a router problem... nope, everything's fine there. I check a few forums and find that the solution is "keep trying, it works eventually."
Ok, so I do this. On the 7th or 8th try, it succeeds in logging in (so yes, it's just an inappropriate error message). The game starts, and I marvel at how retro and primative everything feels. Yes, it's defaulted my graphics to 800x600, despite the fact that pretty much every other game around these days will default to my desktop resolution and take a stab at estimating my graphics settings. Ok, no big deal, it only takes a few minutes to change things.
So, time to start the game. I'm only interested in the singleplayer campaign. I don't tend to play non-subscription games online these days; I've long since gotten sick of tolerating the 14 year old pottymouths who infest pretty much any other kind of online play. So you can imagine how delighted I am to find myself in a chatroom full of said lowlifes... on the singleplayer campaign menu. Yes, while I try to read the mission briefing, I have a window open below it full of idiot children amusing themselves in the usual way. Clicking past that, I get into the mission.
I knew from the pre-release reviews (none of which mentioned the DRM) that the C&C gameplay had been radically altered; that base building had gone. I hadn't been massively enthused by this, but I'd decided to give it a go. After all, I got plenty of enjoyment out of Dawn of War 2 and its expansion, even though I would have preferred they stuck to the traditional RTS approach. Anyway, the first couple of C&C4 missions are tutorial type things, which is fine. I'm already starting to worry that we've lost some gameplay depth, but now I've committed my money, I'm determined to give it a go. The first two tutorials are over very quickly. I get into the third, and notice that while it's still a tutorial, it's a good bit longer. 15 minutes into it... disconnected from the server... progress lost.
Fantastic.
It takes me 10 minutes to manage to log into EA's servers again (and this isn't launch day, but several days later). When I get back in, I manage to complete that mission. I then get into the game proper, and choose my faction. Starting the first proper mission (for the Nod faction) my worries about the gameplay really start to grow. There's no robustness to the micro-level combat. You're just dragging a force around from one waypoint to the next. Mid-mission, my objective changes abruptly, from conquest to escort. Before I've really cottoned on to this, the vehicles I'm supposed to escort have wandered off and been destroyed. So I revert to a mid-mission save, and go again. This time, I'm ready for the objective switch. I escort the units across the map. Just as they're a
Re:As nice as this is on paper... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Give that man a new job (Score:3, Informative)
Jeff Green is the former excellent editor of Computer Gaming World magazine. He's always been on the level.
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Give that man a new job (Score:4, Informative)
If you read the comments, it says this [slashdot.org]:
this crack doesn’t work and the rlslog admins should delete this post. you can explore the city but won’t be able to start missions, also when you use the animus the game will freeze. what’s the point in speading a crack that does nothing good but let you play 5% of the game)?
and also
Silent Hunter 5 is not 100% functional. No missions only training
So it's practically useless, and win for DRM.
Re:I'm not a happy bunny either (Score:5, Informative)
If you're in the US, it's illegal in most states for them to refuse you a refund if the game doesn't work (and it sounds like it doesn't) within 30/60/90 days of purchase. Doesn't matter what store/company policy is, doesn't matter what the EULA says. Check your state's consumer protection laws. You may be able to unbreak that boycott.
Re:No problems here (Score:1, Informative)
This is not true. I had that result but the solution was to just disable your ethernet adapter. If steam can't even find an ethernet adapter on your system, it will ask if you want to run offline.
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Informative)
Renaming (or deleting, if you're feeling adventurous) your clientregistry.blob file should let you work around this bug.
Note: this is also the approved fix for when the system fucks up and you *do* have an internet connection,as happened to me just yesterday. Sigh...
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Informative)
I'll second this. I'm an avid gamer. Between my Wii, Xbox, PS3, and PC I probably have AT LEAST 500 games. Steam alone has ~150, Impulse ~50, disc-based games (and floppy before) make up the rest. I still have some old SNES (I lost my NES and Atari years ago, somehow only my SNES survived to my adulthood).
That said, I pirate games. Alot. As in, I pirated probably at least 1/2 of my steam collection, and just about every other PC game I own. Why? Because the demos honestly suck. One tutorial level and maybe a random campaign mission? Yea, right.
I pirate it, play it through (If I even get that far, most games don't make it past the 2nd-3rd area/mission), maybe do a skirmish or so to see how well the game balance is, and if I liked it, I buy it. Not just "Oh, I see it's on the bargain bin now for $5" buy it, I mean "Oh, this just came out this week, I pirated and liked it, so here's $50-70, good job guys" buy it. They're not only NOT losing sales due to my piracy, they're GAINING sales.
For instance, I pirated this one RTS game a year or so ago, played a couple campaign missions, did a skirmish. I really liked it, and bought it. At the same time, I gave my friends (Who I regularly game with) copies of the game and told them if they liked it, to buy it and we'd all play together. Not only did I manage to convince them to buy the game, but we all also bought the expansions.
Now, I know that there's only anecdotal evidence here, but what I'm saying is that the game company got $350 ($70 each for game + exp * 5) because I pirated the game, rather than $0 if I hadn't. I just wouldn't have really bothered with it unless it really caught my eye somehow, and I definitely wouldn't have talked a few friends into buying copies.
Conversely, this new DRM stuff (Tages, Starforce, etc) is so obnoxious, I just won't even bother pirating the games, because I won't be buying them. I simply don't have enough time to play ALL the games out there, so I really don't mind too much if I miss out on one or two titles - even if I was looking forward to them, as was the case with anno 1404. TAGES? Blah, not even a pirate from me. Sad that I couldn't play it? Sorta. I've looked at videos and it's just a rehash of the previous games. Nothing really new to see here, moving on.. :)