And I thought no LAN for SC2 was a bad idea, looks like EA decided to 'top' it
Looks like 'player progression' is code for DRM.
I wonder how long it will take for pirates to get an offline crack. I also wonder how many people with a legal copy will use the crack.
I did not say the problem is simple in nature. But I still claim that the solution must be proactive, not reactive. That means rising to the challenge of reducing piracy, not challenging the pirate scene.
As for masses, graphics and gameplay, you are quite right about the obsolescence. It is, however, another flawed idea stemming from industries which have nothing to do with games. In other industries, making a long-lasting product can and often is seen as detrimental for future profits. However, making games with long-lasting appeal does not mean people would not be interested in new games.
Why? Simple. Every toaster is the same. New generations of toasters may toast better or faster, but in the end all you get from it is - toast. Games are more like interactive books. Each game has (or should have) its own unique content, flavor, and packaging. I have a lot of books. Some are brilliant, and from time to time I take them up for another read through. But never has a brilliant book stopped me from buying new books... if anything, reading a good book *inspires* me to go buy new ones in hopes of finding something new and equally good or better.
So if game studios made a truly great legend of a game... that would not prevent people from buying new games in the least. They would be just more inclined to buy the next title from the same studio.
Now I doubt the publishing company executives see this. Probably because very few of them actually understand what gaming is all about. They are business men, thinking like business men... when first and foremost they should be thinking like gamers.
In other words, instead of adapting their business to their consumers, they are trying to forcefully "adapt" their consumers to their business. Hence the spoonfeeding of recycled content and visual/audio glamour without any real substance.
"Well, it looks like everything we've ever done to prevent piracy has failed. It's given us terrible PR, many people claim that they'll never buy our products again, and the pirated versions were released the same day as our games, any ideas?"
"Let's ramp up our DRM and make it harder!'
"We've done that for the past ten years, and it's never, ever worked."
"Oh. Well, we're still making millions of dollars off people who to buy new copies of the game for more activations, and second hand gaming is impossible now as well. It all adds up."
"Millions eh? Lets just market the game as a single player mmo then."
Yea, because none of you guys are on the internet right now......
Epic fail with logic on that one...
I'm on a 3g network myself, and the reliability isn't there since I'm also in the ass end of nowhere.
So requiring it on all the time certainly makes things interesting...but not necessarily all that 'good'.
Still, I'm willing to see what they're offering before passing judgement.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/commandandconquer4/news.html?sid=6213111 GS: We also understand that the game will introduce the kind of persistency that people might expect from a massively multiplayer online game--that players will gain experience from both single-player and multiplayer matches that they can carry over to a single profile. How will this system work? How will the single-player experience be balanced out against the multiplayer experience? SB: Essentially, whenever you play Command & Conquer 4, be it in single-player, co-op, skirmish, or online, you earn experience that collects in your persistent player profile. Within the profile, you use your experience pool to level up your classes, earning new units, structures, powers, and upgrades. Since your profile is persistent across the game, you can then take your new toys and put them to use in any of our game modes. Beyond the obvious compulsions this adds to the game, the player progression system lets us tackle one of the biggest issues we've encountered as RTS developers. To put it simply, when--as an RTS newbie--you install the game, enter your first match, and find yourself faced with 13 units, 10 structures, and an ungodly number of additional powers and upgrades. Where do you start? By having our players enter the game with a limited but carefully chosen selection of units, we create a much smoother learning curve, giving you time to come to grips with our core gameplay systems before we bombard you with added complexity. However, since players are guaranteed to receive a steady drip of new toys, they soon become conversant in the deeper gameplay elements and can compete at a higher level. Of course, we also want to make sure our more hardcore players gain access to the stuff they want when they want. The better you are at the game, the more quickly you'll advance through the levels. Command & Conquer 4 has more units than any RTS we've ever developed, so we've got more than enough toys to go around.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/commandandconquer4/news.html?sid=6213111
GS: We also understand that the game will introduce the kind of persistency that people might expect from a massively multiplayer online game--that players will gain experience from both single-player and multiplayer matches that they can carry over to a single profile. How will this system work? How will the single-player experience be balanced out against the multiplayer experience?
SB: Essentially, whenever you play Command & Conquer 4, be it in single-player, co-op, skirmish, or online, you earn experience that collects in your persistent player profile. Within the profile, you use your experience pool to level up your classes, earning new units, structures, powers, and upgrades. Since your profile is persistent across the game, you can then take your new toys and put them to use in any of our game modes.
Beyond the obvious compulsions this adds to the game, the player progression system lets us tackle one of the biggest issues we've encountered as RTS developers. To put it simply, when--as an RTS newbie--you install the game, enter your first match, and find yourself faced with 13 units, 10 structures, and an ungodly number of additional powers and upgrades.
Where do you start?
By having our players enter the game with a limited but carefully chosen selection of units, we create a much smoother learning curve, giving you time to come to grips with our core gameplay systems before we bombard you with added complexity. However, since players are guaranteed to receive a steady drip of new toys, they soon become conversant in the deeper gameplay elements and can compete at a higher level.
Of course, we also want to make sure our more hardcore players gain access to the stuff they want when they want. The better you are at the game, the more quickly you'll advance through the levels. Command & Conquer 4 has more units than any RTS we've ever developed, so we've got more than enough toys to go around.
As a nice side effect, since C&C4 requires players to be online all the time in order to prevent cheating, we'll be shipping without any form of DRM.
*shrug* I hope that means I don't have to sit through an ungodly boring campaign intro like usual.
Hey, never said I acted on that logic, did I? Really though, if they're going out of their way to place something on their product that doesn't serve its intended purpose, but inconveniences the average customer, do they even deserve to make games?
I dunno man, I feel pretty average and don't feel particularly inconvenienced. I'm sure they'll take some flak for it, but it's not like every software company isn't taking flak for something.
Personally I think it's kinda cool. Wierd, but cool.
I need to put that up on the wall at work. Hahah. I don't think it'd go so well, but it'd be funny.
That looks more like a Raptor, not a T-Rex.
I have this on my wall at work. What industry do you work in where they wouldn't allow something to personalise your space?
I'm a night auditor at a hotel. That's why I'm always posting at 3AM or so.
I'll get a real job eventually. Now doesn't seem to be a good time for it.
I wonder how much of the game itself will runs on the server? Did Frogboy post something like this might eventually happen where some or most of the game will run on a server? If that's true it may make it a little harder to pirate the game.
They might host the executable and possibly some of the units, but I doubt they run much of anything on the server.
Well, if they managed to pirate WoW and set up illegal servers, I doubt they will have much trouble with this.
And the executable (client) is never hosted on a server - what would be the point?
IIRC, what you are referring to was Frogboy's ultimate antipiracy scheme for GC2 - simply exclude the AI coding from the client version. When you hit turn, the game would basically save, load that save to the AI server, the AI does the turn for each opponent, then saves and loads that save into your computer. With no publicly available AI programming it would be impossible to run the game without being connected to the server. I don't know how practical something like this would be for a real time game.
From what I understand, the private servers are nowhere near the same quality as the official servers, and lack much of the newer content. Not to mention all the various viruses and keyloggers you might get.
It's not about having connection to the internet; it's about using the Internet to create new hoops paying customers must go through to play the game they purchased a license for.
An MMO or being online for multiplayer functionality is one thing; it's another to treat PC's like a console. Case in point: Battlestations: Pacific.
Someone please explain to me how a persistent internet connection keeps the game from being copied, unless the publisher and/or developer defaults at assuming that everyone who purchases their game is going to make copies and spead them far and wide.
No thanks.
Bottom line - you are giving up control of your play experience to servers somewhere in the ether under the draconian winds of antipiracy schemes today. There is no functionaly reason from a game play standpoint I need to be online to play a single player campaign or a single player experience that doesn't have a multiplayer element. Keep your achievements tracked in Redmond, WA. I played the game; I know what I accomplished.
I suppose if you treat each new game just as disposable as kleenex with no replay value I could understand it. For that reason alone why bothering with the game?
With the exception of Stardock (Impulse/Goo), I want no part of it.
I have a laptop and a desktop, and if things are tracked server side I have more reason to play on both, not just one machine.
I'll happily give up some control if it does what I hope it does. Every other game I have to play on one machine or the other (unless it's an MMO) because I can't be arsed to copy savegames over every time I want to play something.
We'll see if its that too, or just the unlocks hosted, but either way its already more compelling to play on both.
Ooof, bad idea. Oh it would be effective, but you don't get more draconian DRM than that. Even the most stringent DRm schemes today require you to only have an active internet connection on startup, this would not only require an active internet connection the whole time even if its a single player game, but also a relatively good one. Otherwise you may end up waiting an inordinate amount of time for the turn to end. Not to mention that if the AI server fails for whatever reason, you can't play at all. And there's also the cost of running the servers as well, the data load per client may be small, but with a popular game you may end up paying back all the earned cash you got from selling the game in the first place.
Well, yes, of course. But it can be done, technically. And that's a MMO, which is notoriously hard to do since you basically lack the whole server-side architecture, which is required for playing. C&C4 is a single player game with a multiplayer component, which is a whole new ballgame.
No one ever said it was a good idea, it was just his version of the ultimate uncrackable DRM.
after the mess that was generals / cnc3/ red alert 3 , who would actually buy cnc4 ?
i'll watch the cutsenese on youtube and be happier i didn't waste my time / money.
I loved Generals and Red Alert 3, so I couldn't tell you. CnC3 wasn't my fav though. Good tech, just never was into the remake scene.
Bah! I just saw the CnC4 trailer and it made me go buy Kanes Wrath. And I haven't even finished CnC3.
Clearly I'm insane. But it's not like I have too much else to do at the moment, so time to finish CnC3!
(Ahem, maybe this would've been better posted in the other CnC thread. Hmm, sorry. )
Clearly the above poster have been in a cave the last 10 years.If DRM have learned us 1 thing it is that it dont stop pirates. It stops legit buyers. Why devs and publishers havent figured this out is mostly because they have shit for brains.
Regardless of what kind of DRM SC2 will be using ill be playing it anyway. Without the DRM if it comes to that.
Nothing is uncrackable, and no DRM scheme is unbeatable. On the contrary, the more stringent the scheme, the more grief goes to legit buyers, who have to jump through hoops just to use their property, while pirates enjoy an easy experience with versions which have DRM components neutered or stripped out.
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