News From Dust does have Ubi DRM afterall

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/08/18/from-dust-does-have-ubi-drm-afterall/1

 

Yep. I'm having weird lockups, bugs etc too - and it always fails to sync my savegames. Awesome.

 

I was going to buy it but I'm thinking twice now


Edit: I think this was in the other From Dust thread.

Steam offering From Dust return/refund
http://lo-ping.org/2011/08/18/steam-offering-refund-for-ever-sold-copy-of-from-dust/

 

**** You Ubisoft

 

I've always wondered how someone could sue for potential profits. It would be like me suing the 91 Freeway (if you live in Cali, you'd understand) for preventing my buisness from having more potential profits because people don't have the time to go to my store due to traffic.

Or suing the guy across the street from me for doing the same thing for stealing my potential profits. Or suing people who do the same service that I do for free/lowered price.

They're suing competition for being competitive??

All sarcasm aside, this is a pretty **** move, and while DRM is necessary, a CD-Key is usually (and probably) the most effective way of piracy prevention, no need to tether everyone to yourself, just use a CD authentification. The legit sales won't be too bothered and the pirated versions would lose out pretty badly.

Or just lock the game via updates. Updates check for a specific file and allows it to update from there. Something simpler eh?

 

Just bought this last night on Steam, glad to know I can get a refund. Fun game, terrible DRM (even though it has little impact on me personally).

Worst part is, between Steam's built in online activation and the provided CD key it's already more pirate proof than Uplay.

 

I held off to get the pc version of this, it seemed like it should've been a better fit. Shame it sounds like they botched it. I hope they sort it out.

 

It's not like I expected at all. It's covered in the stupid Ubisoft DRM stuff, the front menu text looks pixelated and made me think the resolution was wrong, so I went to check the settings and couldn't find any visual quality settings other than res which was correct. No AA options, will try to force it later. Started a game and found mouse controls a little clunky, slowly acclimatising but will see how that goes. Played for a bit and then quit, when the game closed the Ubi DRM window was there "syncing savegames" and it took minutes. Nothing wrong with my internet, it just took forever. Going to look for a configuration tool outside the game but haven't found one. Feels like an Effortless console port. Shame.

 

Heh - UPlay, "the DRM that dare not speak its name".

Given Ubisoft's past antics, I do wonder that people still buy their products. Companies that go to this level to inconvenience customers are hardly going to bother about things like quality gameplay. Treat them as the software industry's equivalent of a drug addict - prepared to tell any lie to finance their next fix - and you'll avoid disappointment.

You may wish to check that link further - many refund requests are being turned down. Even if you do have a legal case (e.g. under UK law) Valve are under no obligation to respect it since they have no UK/EU presence (so no UK/EU court ruling could be enforced).

That leaves the option of a credit card chargeback for the item in dispute as a last resort - but Valve have a nasty habit of terminating Steam accounts (and blocking access to every past purchase) in response.

 

So, you're enjoying the game, and the DRM doesn't affect you..... Why would you want a refund?

 

Wow let's see how long it takes me to pirate this game with this amazing drm that's supposed to stop me it's so stupid why do they do it all they is put me off ever buying a game from them.

 

o well, will purchase it on steam when I don't have to logon to unisoft or create any account etc etc and don't have to be always conencted...so never most likely.

 

It has already been cracked and has something like 1728 Seeders and 1700 Leechers on TPB and it is already up on cyberlockers since 16.08.2011...

 

To be fair to the devil Ubisoft, they do have a number of older games available DRM-free on GOG (such as Far Cry and the Heroes of Might and Magic series). I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on this though, it's likely to take a while...

 

The game does not require a constant internet connection. It does require you to be online when you sign in, and that's it. If you don't believe me start a game and unplug your ethernet. Then enjoy playing for hours without being desynced.

Freaking gamer ragefest over nothing. Who doesn't have broadband internet these days? If you're raging on the internet about the game making you authenticate with Ubi's servers, I fail to see your "problem." And the lack of graphical settings? That's not a Ubisoft thing, since lots of games are like that, and Ubisoft generally has decent to very good options. For the pile of crap the story in it was, FarCry 2 had great graphics options, I never had to force anything through cp or anything. Same can be said for any of their AAA titles. However, the lack of any real settings may be worth a -1 to the game's rating.

I just think it's pathetic that the PC gaming community hears the word "DRM" and is suddenly up in arms without knowing wtf their talking about.

The game requires you to be online to log in, but to say it requires a constant internet connection is talking out of your ass.

 

Greetings!

Yep. Everytime you want to play. Ubisoft initially said "one-time only activation", not "phone home every time you want to play the game".
Ubisoft lied.

 

Ever considered what might happen if Ubisoft's Internet connection fails or their servers fail to cope with demand? It's not been that long since the Playstation Network outage so you should surely be able to figure that companies are not "always online".

And what happens when the game hits the bargain bin? Ubisoft will no longer be making money on it so will have no incentive to spend money on continual activation (and read Shamus Young's Authorization Servers article on why there's unlikely to be a DRM-removal patch once the game is more than 2-3 years old).

Now maybe you're the sort of gamer who's yet to build up a collection of cherished games and therefore has never considered replaying something purchased more than 2-3 years ago. The key point about activation systems like this is that you can't expect to - they are tied to the publisher and will die when that publisher goes - or decides to cancel support (see the Two Worlds activation thread for an example of the problems purchasers have run into, for a 2007 release).

"Activate when you play" raises other problems like privacy (the company can collect data on where and when you play), inability to play when offline (e.g. ISP problems, playing on a laptop with poor wireless/3G reception or on a tightly secured network blocking activation traffic) and loss of access if the company close your account for "breaches", real or imaginary, to their TOS (as Electronic Arts did a few times).

The question shouldn't be about a "gamer ragefest over nothing" but why anyone would pay (presumably) hard-earned money for something almost guaranteed to give them grief in future - especially when every such doormat serves as encouragement for other control-freak publishers to follow suit.

 

Greetings!

- http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/20/drm-research-continues-at-fubisot-hq/
- http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...-dust-drm-ubis-war-on-pc-gamers-continues.ars

 

Greetings!

 

Sounds like good news - probably best given Ubisoft's past record to wait until the patch is actually released though.