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Ubisoft disabling online service for multiple older games, which will make DLC unavailable
- Thread starter Flogger23m
- Start date
Sigh. You got me there. I have no comeback. I'm tossing cards into a hat now
Not preordering is for poor plebs.
DukenukemX
Supreme [H]ardness
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Pre-ordering is for the soon to be poor plebs. You know what they say about a fool and their money.
DukenukemX
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As Mcconnell said: "If you pre-order you just show the company that you're a cuck.. dude. I'm sorry, I'm gonna tell it how it is. It has no reason to exist anymore other than to say company I will suck your d*ck and balls and swallow. That's it!"
Asmongold: "And not only you will do it but you will do it ahead of time."
DukenukemX
Supreme [H]ardness
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Seems there is some community back lash for this. What was that about the worst that could happen to Ubisoft?
CaffeineMan
Limp Gawd
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Oof, I released software that went through QM that read "You will loose your order if you continue". I was making a change and saw it, I was modified. (J/K I was mortified)
CaffeineMan
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Why don't they just release the DLC for free and give the servers to fans. (I know, I live in the real world and they somehow think it will eat into profit).
Remember fan hosted servers in the early 2000s? That was awesome.
It would likely take a bit of work to change the multiplayer stuff over to use private servers and while this wouldn't even be an issue if games were still made to use private servers in the first place I do think it's reasonable for them to shut down MP servers at some point(even if they're just matchmaking servers). How long they should maintain them is certainly debatable however most of these titles seem fairly old.
On the other hand I don't think it's at all reasonable to remove access to DLC simply because they don't want to maintain the backend for the DRM that never should have been there considering that most if not all of those games require you to use their launcher that has it's own drm built into it. If they can't figure out how to unlock the DLC for those that have them they should just unlock them for everyone, it would be nearly free and generate good publicity rather than bad publicity and potentially lawsuits.
ElementDave
Limp Gawd
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Finally, someone who understands the heart of the matter. I like to carry this a step further by preordering games that don't exist. It's a great way to send developers suggestions for future titles.
Preordered games also offer a smoother gaming experience than their "ordered" counterparts — a fact that is not widely known. Some will argue that any perceived difference between binary identical games can be dismissed as a placebo effect, but they're usually motivated by philosophical ideologies instead of science.
CaffeineMan
Limp Gawd
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Remember them hell look at the Medal of Honor servers here: https://www.gametracker.com/search/mohaa/US/?
My kid still plays on them. 20-year-old game the fans keep it alive.
Edit to be clear, I am not sure how he connects, I just know he still plays MOHaa
DukenukemX
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While this isn't directly aimed at Ubisoft, but here we can see what happens when online services get shut down. Insignia aims to replace Xbox Live 1.0 for Xbox owners who have modded their console. Only a handful of games is supported. Really can't complain of online services being compromised and DLC pirated when they are no longer available.
GoldenTiger
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What if the company wants to reintroduce them to the market eventually? It's still their ip and pirating it is wrong.
jobert
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I am confused here. So will I still be able to play the single player games such as Far Cry 3 and Splinter Cell Blacklist? And what exactly do they mean by "Additionally, the installation and access to DLC will be unavailable" ? So that means I cant even play the DLC I already own for Far Cry 3? What the heck does single player DLC have to do with anything?
GoldenTiger
Fully [H]
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You can play the games but not the DLC. It's ridiculous.
LurkerLito
2[H]4U
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Are you sure you didn't buy any? Remember DLC is also part of "complete", "GOTY" or "gold" packages. So you might not have "bought" them individually, but you might paid for them in a different manner.
Armenius
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Don't buy any Ubisoft game, period, is what they're saying.
DukenukemX
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They won't. You're more likely to see a Remaster or a Remake than to see these services come back. Even if they do, it would most likely be because of piracy. This is similar to the situation that was World of Warcraft private servers in that the community offered something that Blizzard didn't. After the whole fiasco where Nostalrius was shut down and the community complained. Blizzard now offers classic servers, for a price. Though the whole reason they did it was to protect their IP.
I'm not one for morals when it comes to software. You don't offer it then be prepared for the consequences. Nintendo doesn't offer their games on PC then expect piracy. Ubisoft doesn't offer the DLC you paid for then expect piracy. Can illegally downloading your paid DLC be piracy? You take down online services for people to play their games on, then expect piracy. For game preservation, piracy is a necessity, and I consider that right.
Piracy isn't a right, it's a crime.
techie81
[H]ard for [H]ardware
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When you buy something with your hard earned money and someone takes it away from you, what do you call that?
It depends on what the specific item was that you bought. Was the purchase contractually bound to an end user license agreement?
Armenius
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EULAs are not legally binding. As far as I'm concerned, when a publisher terminates a product, the EULA is terminated with it.
westrock2000
[H]F Junkie
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Rather coincidental & bizarre twist that many of the games have words in them that elicit feelings of death & decay
Revelations
Forgotten Sands
Silent
Junk
Blacklist
Zombi
San Francisco
Revelations
Forgotten Sands
Silent
Junk
Blacklist
Zombi
San Francisco
UnknownSouljer
Supreme [H]ardness
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It’ll never die. It’s too big an asset. If Valve were to fold, Steam for sure would get sold to someone else. Granted, that new entity could be more malevolent than Gabe/Valve, but I don’t think it as a service is going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
The message I'm receiving is that I shouldn't be playing anything but my old games I have the physical copy of that doesn't require the internet for shit.
Then, I don't need a new video card. And I don't need a new PC. And I don't need any new accessories. It really saves a lot of money, if you think about it.
Thanks, Ubi.
GoldenTiger
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As well as games off gog.com since they're drm free
.I don't buy their games. Honestly don't find anything they have enjoyable.
DukenukemX
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A surprise mechanic.
Wait and see what happens to your iTunes music when Apple goes under. Apple users have exactly the market they deserve.
This is a problem with online services in general as they're subject to change at any moment. Valve is about as likely to go under as Apple is right now. That being said, we should really consider enforcing our ownership rights as consumers. Foamy did warn us after all.
They don't have to go under, they only need to change their mind or be forced to by someone else (publisher, government...). You don't own anything you don't physically have. GOG > Steam
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For that, you would need the backing of regulators. The regulators are controlled by Congress, or your country's government, who are in turn controlled by lobbyists. The game industry has a lot of money invested in said lobbying activities, so we know how this will go. The industry will win, and your local partisan representative will tout is as a "victory for innovation" or some BS like that.
Well, iTunes users, they have it pretty good, as good as anyone could possibly hope for?
I can still download my itunes purchases and drag and drop them to my android or sandisk or whatever. Hell, a CD-R or even an off-site tape drive if that's still a thing people do.
Of all the companies I have to praise on this issue. Feck.
Armenius
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Ubisoft finally released an update explaining what is going to happen. Why could they not have provided this explanation in the first place? It would have prevented all of this negative attention.
The gist of it is that the content will still be available if you bought and/or activated it. Basically like all other digital games that get removed from sale. As long as you do that before October 1, you will still be able to download and play the DLC after that date. I guess this doesn't affect consoles since the DLC is hosted on Sony's and Microsoft's servers instead of their own.
https://discussions.ubisoft.com/top...-for-several-ac-games-october-2022?lang=en-US
The gist of it is that the content will still be available if you bought and/or activated it. Basically like all other digital games that get removed from sale. As long as you do that before October 1, you will still be able to download and play the DLC after that date. I guess this doesn't affect consoles since the DLC is hosted on Sony's and Microsoft's servers instead of their own.
https://discussions.ubisoft.com/top...-for-several-ac-games-october-2022?lang=en-US
Darunion
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Sometimes i wonder if companies keep out important info like that just to set a tone so it spreads like wildfire. Wouldnt have gone as viral if they just were upfront about it right?
That's an improvement from the original announcement but I notice that they specify story DLC and don't mention all the other DLC content like weapons and armor, both Far Cry and Assassins Creed series have DLC weapons that I'd miss. They also could have done a better job explaining what they mean be "activated", mainly whether it needs to be downloaded and activated to use and can't be downloaded again in the future or if it just needs to be activated once and then can be downloaded again.
Considering it took them a month to post this also makes me think this represents a change in plans and not a clarification of what they already had planned to do. Time is important on these things and a carefully crafted PR response takes 24 hours max while technical changes could easily take oh say a little over a month...