If UBI's DRM scheme is unacceptable...

[yellonet]

Originally Posted by GHarris

I strongly disagree with Gunslinger's view.

I have been looking forward to this new sim a LOT. For years. In spite of that, if there is much DRM to speak of when the sim gets released I will not buy it. I won't pirate it either - I'm not one of those "have your cake and eat it" types. I would boycott a sim that I have been anticipating more than any PC game released for years. Because DRM is wrong, that's my view, as simply as that. It doesn't work, it inherently cannot work. Give up on trying to stop the people who never pay for games from never paying for games (a radical concept, to be sure), and quit alienating the people who, for the moment, still respect you and will pay you for your work. "You" being publisher and developer combined - I don't care if the DRM was implemented by the publisher against the developer's wishes because I have no way of making that clear in a way that counts... I can't pay the developer without paying the publisher (I would often very much like to, though! ). I think that if a publisher says they are going to put DRM on a game the developer should look for another publisher. Publisher-imposed DRM is detrimental to their interests, in both the short and long term. DRM doesn't improve sales, leads to boycotts (among angry internet-folk at least ) and it turns hearts and minds against you so that a person who was enthusiatic about your work before is less so in the future.

I think I must be tired, the above paragraph is pretty "foaming at the mouth". Ah well, I stand by it.

Foam or no foam, it's still true and has to be told.

[WTE_Galway]

Even online activation will prevent me from buying it as my games machine is offline. I have FSX and have not played it in 3 years because it needs reactivating (and FSX has a phone activate alternative).

I would need to install it on my work PC just to get it going

[leggit]

this is the 21st century....if your using a machine without internet access you really should rethink your setup....i have to agree regarding this whole copyright protection arguement its old and out of date....the FACTS are that studios are turning away from the pc platform because of the constant problem of piracy...suck it up people if you want quality games for your pc in the future its got to have some sort of DRM...you can't have your cake and eat it anymore.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by leggit

this is the 21st century....if your using a machine without internet access you really should rethink your setup....i have to agree regarding this whole copyright protection arguement its old and out of date....the FACTS are that studios are turning away from the pc platform because of the constant problem of piracy...suck it up people if you want quality games for your pc in the future its got to have some sort of DRM...you can't have your cake and eat it anymore.

I do not have a television either. Nor do I own a GPS or a blackberry/iphone or a laptop. No internet at home of any type. No cable TV. No landline phone either just a 6 year old cell I occasionally turn on.

I do live in the colonies of course.

Meanwhile at work I am a system/network administrator for a research company with over 100 staff. Can't avoid the tech there, just try not to take it home.

Really depends if you are aiming for the "online furball air-halo crowd" (who obviously must be online) or the more traditional historically oriented player base I suppose. Seems to me a lot of people interested in historical aviation and WWII simulations are actually a bit anti-hitech.

[Avimimus]

Bless Oleg for knowing how hard (or impossible) it is to get internet connections in many parts of the world. In the majority of my country you can only get dial-up and there are many areas where no service is available. There are also a lot of people who can't afford a high-speed connection (even if they can afford the game and a joystick).

[MikkOwl]

The UBI titles that had 'constant internet connection required' had that disclaimer on the boxes. This one instead is the same that SteamWorks titles use.

I read an article some weeks ago stating that UBI would withdraw their 'constant internet connection required'.

UBI publishes all(?) their games on Steam. Some of them are exclusive, such as R.U.S.E. from September 2010.

Put these infobits together and you get big arrows pointing to SoW using Steam as delivery platform. Can buy it on DVD or through Steam. Have to activate it with Steam once regardless. Patched through Steam. Multiplayer (probably) through Steam.

Steam is tolerable because it does permit playing without needing to be online. The inability to resell the product is an agreeable tradeoff from them permanently storing & delivering the game to you online whenever you want.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by leggit

this is the 21st century....if your using a machine without internet access you really should rethink your setup....i have to agree regarding this whole copyright protection arguement its old and out of date....the FACTS are that studios are turning away from the pc platform because of the constant problem of piracy...suck it up people if you want quality games for your pc in the future its got to have some sort of DRM...you can't have your cake and eat it anymore.

Well, i agree with some sort of DRM. What i don't agree with is "i'll take any kind of DRM they throw at me". Nope, not gonna happen. If i can't play a game due to factors outside my direct control i won't support it, or at least i'll wait until it drops in price first.

And for clarification's sake, a problem within my direct control is a drivers problem or a busted graphics card. I can work to repair such a software issue or save some money, go out and buy a new GPU.

However, i can't do jack about a road construction crew accidentally cutting a bunch of fiber optic cables midway between where i live and the country's capital (where incidentally, the main hub to connections in other countries for all local ISPs happens to be).

This is not within my control and as such, it's not fit to have something that depends on it as part of the system requirements. If it is part of them, i refuse to support such a title at its initial asking price or completely.

And before someone says i got a wild imagination, this exact thing happened a couple of years ago and i was stuck with a DSL line that dropped the moment my router requested the slightest amount of traffic. Sorry, but i wouldn't pay for a car i can't drive whenever there's a storm half way across the globe, so i won't do something similar for a game either.

The encouraging bit for me is that Ubi's in-house DRM already failed and mr. Maddox himself has said he's not partial to such solutions.

I've never used Steam and i'm getting mixed opinions and reviews about it from different people. To be honest i'd prefer they have their own infrastructure just for activations and maybe an integrated multiplayer server browser, with the rest of the network traffic being exchanged between the users to keep bandwidth costs down. All the server browser would need to do is tell your installation that it needs to "talk" to a certain server/host/IP, then your PC would communicate directly with that IP address.
As long as the rest of the game runs locally on our PCs without a constant connection requirement the traffic would be cheap enough to manage for someone like Ubi, but since they went "all or nothing" on their previous DRM that flopped so badly maybe they can't afford it anyway

The ideal process for me would be something like this:
1) Go to the game's website and create an account.

2) While the sim is installing log into the website's members area with this account, go to your profile, click on "bind your account to your product key" or something similar and input the product key found in your DVD box. This tells the service that your account corresponds to the owner of a legally purchased copy.

3) Use this verified account to log into the game in order to "unlock" your installation and you're done, but ONLY the first time a fresh installation of the game is being executed.

4) Allow unlimited installs/uninstalls. This way i can grab the DVD box, my TrackIR and my stick, go to a friend's house while we're having a LAN party, install it on his PC, log in with my account to activate it and do some free advertising for the game. But how will this stop me and my friend from "sharing" one key so we can both play the game? See next point.

5) Whenever i'm connected to the internet the game communicates with the authentication servers in random intervals. It could be once a week, once a month or even every single time, whatever, but it ONLY happens when i'm ALREADY connected to the internet. If i'm not if won't ask me to.
So, if i am online and it detects that the same key is used more than once simultaneously, both players get an "multiple log-ins detected" message and they need to reactivate. I can, since i know my account details, my friend can't since he doesn't. If he likes the game that bad, he's gonna have to buy it

6) Want to take this one step further? Allow customized "client" installations without any activation required. What for? So we can fly in multi-crew with people who don't have the game yet. Restrictions for such an installation would be
a) unable to fly any single player missions (apart from 1-2 sample missions or certain QMB scenarios, hey, presto, we got a demo this way)
b) unable to host multiplayer sessions
c) able to join a multiplayer session hosted by a player with a fully activated installation, or a dedicated server
d) once joining a multiplayer session, unable to act as the only human player in the aircraft (so, no piloting single seaters for you if you don't buy the game, actually, no piloting bombers either if you don't have a registered fellow in the same airplane)
e) able to join in with a player who has an activated installation into the same aircraft, either as pilot/copilot or as a bomb aimer/gunner.

This way i could install "client" installations on all my friends' PCs and give the game some extra exposure, without enabling them to play it for free. It would just get them interested in it and they might buy it.
Out of about 10 people i regularly game with there are 4-5 that have an interest in WWII history, one i already managed to get into flying IL2 with me (he was into falcon 4.0 back in the day) but the rest think sims are "too difficult/time consuming". That's where the Tiger Moth and the multi-crew feature comes in, teaching them to fly. Sooner or later, i might be able to convince an extra two guys to buy a cheap stick and the game.

See, there are ways to do this that can be mutually beneficial to the fans and the developers/publishers alike

[TUSA/TX-Gunslinger]

Well, then you won't buy it I guess. The world won't change one iota because you didn't.

You'll miss out on whatever the product is and no one will have to listen to more discussion about things beyond their control. Ooops - I'm being overly optimistic there. No matter what DRM scheme is employed, I'm sure someone will have to listen to it somewhere.

My point was and is - there is not anything in this thread that will be said - which has even a 2% chance to change the world as we know it now - or in the future.

Just in case you don't understand where, I'm coming from - Why not focus your efforts on things in life (or sim) that you have a prayer-in-the-sky of changing?

Look, we have years of blathering to look forward to with this product and we haven't even seen it yet. Think of all the great threads to come:

- My Merlin is porked and Oleg did it
- My Daimler-Benz is porked and those whining Red guys did it
- I can't shoot and get kills like the Red guys so I'm going to subject all of you to endless streams of statistics and even start a web site to prove it
- Why can't the X do what my favorite dead pilot wrote (who I never knew anyway)

Do I have a bad attitude - or am I simply too old for the "revolt"?

S!

Gunny

[nearmiss]

Blackdog_kt

but the rest think sims are "too difficult/time consuming".

You said it all with that one sentence. If people aren't into our genre (air combat with realism) they won't be interested.

I gave a friend IL2 1946 as a Christmas present. He messed with it for about 6 hours and hasn't done anything else with it. Too much to learn to enjoy it...so back to his WOW.

I even offered to install the 4.10 and he said I could do it if I wanted, but he wasn't real interested to do any more with it. Typical gamer I'd say.

[SEE]

I work away from home four days a week but have a PC with IL2 installed (no internet unfortunately) but SP campaigns keep me occupied and happy. I asked this in another thread and wondered if it will be necessary to buy a copy for each PC?

I can bring my second PC home and connect to the internet for activation but, WOP for example, only allows a single installation and has to be deacivated before it can be installed on another computer.