Ubisoft's Draconian DRM

[nomdeplume 0]

Yeah I liked Anno 1404 until I played a skirmish and discovered how fast you have to expand and build, and how the naval conflict was handled really irked me too (so many times I lost ships because I didn't realise they were in danger until they'd already been attacked - and by then they're too damaged/slow to be able to evade the enemy).

Not really a fan of fast-paced RTS at all, but it seems really weird to have that kind of fast-paced gameplay in a game that's mostly economy-based. I liked the sedate feeling of earlier Annos and Settlers much better.

Also I really really wish they'd made the trade routes more flexible so you didn't have to channel all your resources to one place. Oh wow, I'm off-topic in an off-topic thread!

[MrBump 10]

You're right, I think there's a lack of balance in the game, still it's chewing up all my free time. :)

[RaXz 0]

Yes, I was suprised too, the pace seems way too fast. It's just plopping down buildings as fast as possible, I want to take my time building up my city, make it look more city like. Instead of building only in the most fast and efficient way.

But don't forget the slowdown feature, you don't have to keep that button pressed to slow the game down. If you press F11, you can toggle the slowdown feature on, that way you can play it at an much slower pace. Anno 1404 has an really awesome interface that you can customize, you can even drag the slowdown button to one of the quickbars. :bounce3:

Another nice feature that I just discovered, is that you can drag resources from the warehouse to the informationbar in the upperleft corner, so that you can easily eyeball how many of a certain good you have, can be handy in some situations. :)

And to be ontopic, I really dislike the DRM. I made a downright stupid choice to buy SH5, won't do that again. If I can't resist, I will buy something from Ubisoft at bargainbin prices, but I rather want to avoid them altogether. If I look around on the net, I can see that Ubi's reputation took a massive hit on the PC market. They should just give buying customers more support and services to stimulate the buying of games, now they are just scaring customers away with it's big brother system.

UBI and EA are now in the same boat, both with idiotic DRM's and destroying franchises to appeal their shareholders.

[dm 9]

I can see that Ubi's reputation took a massive hit on the PC market. They should just give buying customers more support and services to stimulate the buying of games, now they are just scaring customers away with it's big brother system.

UBI and EA are now in the same boat, both with idiotic DRM's and destroying franchises to appeal their shareholders.

Its a double edged sword unfortunately. We stop buying because of retarded DRM, the management of companies like UBI and EA see the dwindling sales as "the death of the platform" and use it as an excuse to switch exclusively to console development.

Fucking sucks that anything decent is currently being driven to destruction by bean-counters (accountants) and do-gooders (the "you cant do that because it might offend someone!" people)

We live in the best of times, and the worst of times. Fingers crossed common sense will prevail...

[sputnik monroe 102]

"ts a double edged sword unfortunately. We stop buying because of retarded DRM, the management of companies like UBI and EA see the dwindling sales as "the death of the platform" and use it as an excuse to switch exclusively to console development."

Personally I'd like to see EA and UBI soft leave the PC publishing scene altogether. I don't buy their games or have any interest in them what so ever to begin with, any I might show a glimmer of interest in will be on the consoles any way. If the two of them and Activision would just go away to consoles it will create a vacuum which independent developers and publishers can fill.. This of course means less shelf space in your local store but who cares. I work in a electronics department for a living, the PC game aisle is just an entire aisle of garbage, I'd sacrifice that for a smaller selection of interesting titles. Quantity is not quality.

I believe it's time for the PC to become a niche market for simulations, strategy and art house games again instead of being the 'also ran' 4th game console after Wii,PS3 and the 360.

[bangtail 0]

"ts a double edged sword unfortunately. We stop buying because of retarded DRM, the management of companies like UBI and EA see the dwindling sales as "the death of the platform" and use it as an excuse to switch exclusively to console development."

Personally I'd like to see EA and UBI soft leave the PC publishing scene altogether. I don't buy their games or have any interest in them what so ever to begin with, any I might show a glimmer of interest in will be on the consoles any way. If the two of them and Activision would just go away to consoles it will create a vacuum which independent developers and publishers can fill.. This of course means less shelf space in your local store but who cares. I work in a electronics department for a living, the PC game aisle is just an entire aisle of garbage, I'd sacrifice that for a smaller selection of interesting titles. Quantity is not quality.

I believe it's time for the PC to become a niche market for simulations, strategy and art house games again instead of being the 'also ran' 4th game console after Wii,PS3 and the 360.

/QFT

There is no need for Ubisuck et al to make PC games. They are rarely anything more than distinctly average.

If people want to play that dross, they can do so on consoles.

I think you are entirely correct. If these greedy morons would stick to consoles, it would really open the market up for more companies (BIS, GSC etc) who actually bother to design/develop quality games for the more discerning gamer.

[Hans Ludwig 0]

"ts a double edged sword unfortunately. We stop buying because of retarded DRM, the management of companies like UBI and EA see the dwindling sales as "the death of the platform" and use it as an excuse to switch exclusively to console development."

I can't agree with you more.

[RaXz 0]

True, it's a double edged sword. But on the other hand I am getting tired of the dominating publishers, it looks like they feel way more important than the devs. It even goes so far that I can't skip the intro of the publisher, but I can with the one from the dev house. It really shows the mentality, it's just like what's happening in the music industry. More and more revolving around moneygrabbing and increasing the profitmargins, and then they ask themselves why there are so many pirates.

I agree with Sputnik Monroe too, it's already heading that way. There come a lot great PC games from both Europe and Russia that aren't dominated by dictating megacorp publishers that want to please as much of targetgroups as possible, preferable the biggest ones. (looks at the downfall of the Rainbow Six series :mad:)