UPlay - How much of a Pain is it?

D

defaultluser

[H]F Junkie
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So I've been eyeing some games in the current Steam sale (Farcry 3 Blood Dragons, Child of Light, etc), but I'm not sure I want to drop any cash to support UPlay, which traditionally sucked. I could deal with that five years back when UBI's best titles were the repetitive Assassin's Creed, but now they have a better selection.

In this year, has it gotten any better? Do I have to log into two separate services just to play a fucking game (Like Games For Windows Live on Steam did?) Are they synced up well, or do people have a history of losing their accounts, or the game keys?

I'm hesitant because the reviews on Steam for each of these games still complain about account issues between the two services. Is it worth the pain to dip my toes in the pool?
 
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It works okay most of the time...that's about all I can say about it. If you really want to try the games you don't have much choice.
 
I paid full price for Rocksmith on steam only to learn that some features are only available logged in to uplay. I refuse to make an account with them so I guess I don't really have a good answer for you except you may have gimped features.

still pissed
 
Wait, so can I play games single player without issue, like older Steam EA games? Or will I have to get a UPlay account no matter what, like most Games For Windows Live offline content?

I probably won't be playing these multiplayer.
 
You'll need the account to login/download and play no matter what. Same as steam I don't know play enough to know if it has an offline mode like steam though
 
Uplay works just as good as Steam, Origin, GoG etc for me...only issue I had with Uplay was it erased my save file once so after that I permanently disabled cloud saves...after that no issues
 
polonyc2 said:
Uplay works just as good as Steam, Origin, GoG etc for me...only issue I had with Uplay was it erased my save file once so after that I permanently disabled cloud saves...after that no issues
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I have been using it since Black Flag and never had a single problem. Other than the mild annoyance of running steam and uplay.
 
Yeah, I don't mind logging into two services, I just don't want to lose my saves randomly.

I'll just turn off cloud save and give it a go.
 
Never lost any saves games but I don't have a lot of games that use Uplay.

The cloud saves was slow a few years ago so I did turn it off. Turned it back on and it seems to be much faster.

Overall, haven't had any issues with Uplay.
 
defaultluser said:
Child of Light is fantastic, I'm glad they finally got U Play to be less horrible.
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UPLAY seems to work well nowadays. It never comes on unless I launch a game. Even then I have it set to Offline mode as I have one buddy that kinda annoys me with, "Can we play a game now? Please!!!" When I disappear in Steam, Skype, and Origin; the last thing I want is UPLAY giving my status away. :)
 
I think it works better now, but when I used it initially back when GTX 970 and 980 both had PYP offer, I had major problems with redeeming the codes given by nVidia, so I have not tried to use it for anything but to run the games.

I upgraded by OS and have not installed it since, as I could not get into any AC games.
 
I only use it for a few games (far cry 3, blood dragon, assassins Creed syndicate). It seems lightweight and I've had no problems.
 
Turn off cloud saves.
No issues with Uplay.

Profit.

Have about 30 games on Uplay and had once an issue where almost I was done 40% on Black Flag and due to fucking cloud lost the save (local data also corrupted). Since then swore off cloud and no issues.
 
From roughly 3 of the Assassin's Creed games, Far Cry 3, and Splinter Cell Blacklist earlier this year, I never had one ounce of trouble with Uplay.
 
defaultluser said:
So I've been eyeing some games in the current Steam sale (Farcry 3 Blood Dragons, Child of Light, etc), but I'm not sure I want to drop any cash to support UPlay, which traditionally sucked. I could deal with that five years back when UBI's best titles were the repetitive Assassin's Creed, but now they have a better selection.

In this year, has it gotten any better? Do I have to log into two separate services just to play a fucking game (Like Games For Windows Live on Steam did?) Are they synced up well, or do people have a history of losing their accounts, or the game keys?

I'm hesitant because the reviews on Steam for each of these games still complain about account issues between the two services. Is it worth the pain to dip my toes in the pool?
Click to expand...

I've used uplay mainly to redeem free game codes. Its not that bad once its setup and you have it save the username and password. Its a little annoying when its used with steam as its another layer that has to be started prior to the game loading. Other then that I've had no issues with uplay.
 
Its gotten better over time, but is still just an additional and unnecessary layer of DRM that offers none of the conveniences or functionality of steam, or even origin.
 
I have uPlay because of Anno 2205. I have zero issues with it. The only time I ever even see it is when I launch Anno and there is a uPlay or game update, and then it's only splash screen
 
polonyc2 said:
Uplay works just as good as Steam, Origin, GoG etc for me...only issue I had with Uplay was it erased my save file once so after that I permanently disabled cloud saves...after that no issues
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This. Uplay works fine.
 
My only key complaint of uplay is that they *removed* the cloud save feature. I had a pretty far along campaign in Black Flag that was stored on their cloud, and I switched computers thinking it would transfer. Welp, I was wrong. After a bunch of people complaining about the cloud save system ubisoft disabled it and you can't even recover saves that were on their servers.

Other then that, I would say it's the least intrusive launcher from the big publishers. Fairly lightweight app that runs compared to origin or steam.
 
I haven't experienced any issues using UPlay. Despite the numerous updates (Steam does the same thing) it works fine and hasn't given me any problems.
 
Not too many problems with it, games installed and played well. The cloud save feature is good. It allowed me to jump between mine and my wife's rig when playing Farcry 4.

But.. I've had problems with multiplayer. Several times I have attempted to coop Farcry 3 and it failed on each attempt. I really wish that Ubisoft allowed Lan play. I shouldn't be forced to use Ubisoft's broken online multiplayer when both our computers are on the same network.
 
Majinhoju said:
Not too many problems with it, games installed and played well. The cloud save feature is good. It allowed me to jump between mine and my wife's rig when playing Farcry 4.

But.. I've had problems with multiplayer. Several times I have attempted to coop Farcry 3 and it failed on each attempt. I really wish that Ubisoft allowed Lan play. I shouldn't be forced to use Ubisoft's broken online multiplayer when both our computers are on the same network.
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Okay yeah, the "issues" are a bit clearer now: mostly online game play, and occasional corruption of cloud saves. But offline game play seems to work well, so I'll go for it :D
 
My only issue with Uplay are the games you buy on Steam that require BOTH Steam and Uplay to run properly. If you buy a game on Uplay (sans Steam as a middle-man) that's a non-issue.
That and it seems like it has been linked to more game stability issues than other clients. In particular last year there were lots of people reporting that cracked versions of Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs, and AC: Unity were far more stable with Uplay out of the picture.
Otherwise it's essentially just like Steam, Origin, and GOG Galaxy.
 
defaultluser said:
So I've been eyeing some games in the current Steam sale (Farcry 3 Blood Dragons, Child of Light, etc), but I'm not sure I want to drop any cash to support UPlay, which traditionally sucked. I could deal with that five years back when UBI's best titles were the repetitive Assassin's Creed, but now they have a better selection.

In this year, has it gotten any better? Do I have to log into two separate services just to play a fucking game (Like Games For Windows Live on Steam did?) Are they synced up well, or do people have a history of losing their accounts, or the game keys?

I'm hesitant because the reviews on Steam for each of these games still complain about account issues between the two services. Is it worth the pain to dip my toes in the pool?
Click to expand...

I don't recall ever having problems with it, but it's definitely fine now. I wouldn't let the requirement to use Uplay stop me, if the games I wanted to play required it.

That said, it is obnoxious that it's required at all. Why can't games just be an icon on the desktop like they used to be, and why does every publisher have to insist on having their own little tray icon that I have to go uncheck the "start this program when I log in" box for? :mad:
 
schizrade said:
It is much better than it was 3 years ago. No complaints.
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This. I haven't had an issue with it in just as long. UPlay automatically logs you in just like Steam and Origin, so I don't see what the issue is. Unless pressing "Play" a second time is really that difficult for some people. It even uses less resources than Steam.
 
As much as I hate having an additional platform to log into on top of Steam, some of my favorite games (FarCry's and Assassin's Creed's) use U-Play, and I've got hundreds of hours in u-play games without any serious issues. One time I had to uninstall and re-install U-Play 'cause it failed to install some update, and I've seen it frequently fail to synch saves with the cloud, but between u-play's shenanigans and my locally saved game files, I've never had issues with losing saves or not being able to play my games when I wanted, so I can't really complain much.

At least it's not like Origin where all the games are now sold exclusively there.
If u-play ever switches to exclusive sales of their games, the odds of me buying any titles directly from them are pretty much zero.
 
Child of Light is great. I'll put up with Uplay for it. Not that big a deal really.
 
Never had an issue with it. I've been using it off-and-on for about 2 years now.
 
It's not bad, I actually like the interface somewhat, better than Origin. Sometimes I wish everyone would just integrate with steam but I can see why companies would want their own platform considering how big of a cut steam gets.
 
NickJames said:
It's not bad, I actually like the interface somewhat, better than Origin. Sometimes I wish everyone would just integrate with steam but I can see why companies would want their own platform considering how big of a cut steam gets.
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UPlay is just a DRM launcher at this point, having removed the store and other features similar to Steam from it a year or so ago. I think I would actually use it more if I didn't have to launch into a separate external website just to buy products for it. It's such a headache for games I've gotten through promotions and I want DLC for... At least with Steam the DLC can still be purchased through its store.
 
What I hate most about uPlay is the horrible company that owns it. CDPR for instance I support because for one they FINISH their games before release and also cultivate an excellent vision of DRM-free and pro-consumer practices. Ubisoft does none of these things.
 
I've had no technical issues with it, and it only runs when you play a game, goes away otherwise. The only reason I dislike it is because Ubisoft are being cheap bastards with it. You would expect that it was for content distribution like Origin or GOG. Nope, you buy a game on UPlay, and then have to install and use Steam because Ubisoft is too cheap to distribute their own title and you have to get the files from Steam. In my mind that makes it a worthless extra.

However it doesn't hurt anything.
 
Sycraft said:
I've had no technical issues with it, and it only runs when you play a game, goes away otherwise. The only reason I dislike it is because Ubisoft are being cheap bastards with it. You would expect that it was for content distribution like Origin or GOG. Nope, you buy a game on UPlay, and then have to install and use Steam because Ubisoft is too cheap to distribute their own title and you have to get the files from Steam. In my mind that makes it a worthless extra.

However it doesn't hurt anything.
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Say what? All the Ubisoft games I've played recently download using Uplay.

What games are you referring to that also require Steam?
 
Farcry 3 and Might and Magic X are the two most recently that have done that which I recall.
 
I've got 3 games that use Uplay: Farcry 3, BF4, and Assasin's Creed Black Flag. The only issue I have had was that I had to turn off the cloud saves because it was making Assassin's Creed crash every few minutes. The other games have not had any issues. Overall, Uplay itself hasn't really been a problem at all.
 
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