Forever Worlds: A Review and a Fool´s Errands

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Forever Worlds: A Review and a Fool’s Errands

By MrLipidApril 2004

A Bit of Background …

The first time I ran into the puzzle design of Courtland Shakespeare, it was 1995 and I was playing the three-puzzle demo of Jewels of the Oracle. And I loved it. The look, the sound, the physicality of the interaction with the puzzle pieces. As soon as I could, I picked up the full version and happily twiddled away many an hour, collecting a jewel for every correctly solved puzzle and delivering it to the Oracle. It was hugely satisfying to watch the jewels slowly fill the ring above the Oracle’s altar.

What Jewels lacked in compelling narrative it more than made up for in quality of puzzles and the race to fill the ring.  One more puzzle, one more jewel, and then, maybe, to bed. Or not.  Wonder how tough it would be to get this scarab to clear all the balls out of this maze? Hmm.

The publishers of Jewels went bankrupt. Two years after the release of Jewels, Shakespeare was back with another puzzle collection, Gems of Darkness, featuring veteran character actor Henry Ramer in the role of an archeologist directing the excavation of an ancient multi-leveled, multi-roomed site. Once again, every correctly solved puzzle yielded a reward: this time, a gem. As the puzzles were solved, a chest filled with gems, leading to the game’s final stumper. Gems, while more lushly produced, was in many ways a remake of Jewels. Not that I minded. I enjoyed Shakespeare’s puzzle sense and found the familiarity and continuity of the challenges comforting rather than repetitive. The publisher of Gems also went bankrupt, and Shakespeare was quoted as saying that he was done with the business of developing games. The rights to both Jewels and Gems were acquired by DreamCatcher, becoming part of the product line that financed what is now the Adventure Company.

Great Expectations …

Imagine my surprise and delight when, in the summer of 2003, I read that Shakespeare was again developing a game. And, rather than having it published by yet another company that was likely to go broke, he was working directly with the Adventure Company. The press releases and interviews hinted at something very different from the engaging twiddle puzzles found in Jewels and Gems.  Forever Worlds would be more than just puzzles. There were rumors of a story and other characters, both human and not, with whom players would interact. The game trailer, which is also the introductory cutscene of the game, revealed a retro hip graphic style and a cheeky affection for the conventions of pulp fantasy and science fiction.

Having only a vague idea what to expect, I remained hopeful, even as Forever Worlds missed its initial ship date, that it would be the game that would finally, if perhaps not completely, compensate Shakespeare for his previous good work while delivering another great gaming experience.

Though I know nothing about Shakespeare’s compensation, I’ve played his latest game, and this is the only sentence I will ever write that will contain the phrases “great gaming experience” and Forever Worlds.

A Detour of a Thousand Miles Starts on the Wrong Foot …

The sheer technical challenge of getting Forever Worlds to run on Win98SE and ME can be found here and the complete and utter lack of assistance from TAC in meeting that challenge can be found here.

The Only Thing Worse than Failure …

Perhaps the seemingly interminable—as in, say, forever?—effort of getting the game on its feet has colored my opinion of it. Perhaps.  All, or at least most, was forgiven the first time the game actually predictably loaded following a reboot. That honeymoon started to fade when I tried looking around. And it was a distant memory once I attempted to move. While the scrolling speed for looking around can be adjusted, it tends to be choppy and clumsy. I suspect few players will find it possible to smoothly glance around the landscapes and interiors of Forever Worlds. And though the cursor is smart and will indicate a puzzle, a path, an informational popup or a potential inventory item, the cursor is only smart once it stops scrolling. This produces a game rhythm of stop, scan, stop, scan. The lushness of the background fades as attention shifts to what the change in the cursor is indicating.

Of course, one can’t just look around. One has to be able to move.  And while movement is certainly possible in Forever Worlds, it is often a puzzle in itself. This has less to do with the Virtools game engine than it does with how the game engine was utilized.  The game engine, also used in Post Mortem and Syberia, is a series of linked spheres or nodes. One pops from the center of one node to the center of the next. Once inside a node, it is possible to look in all directions as well as zoom in or out on the image covering the node’s interior.

Nodes, of course, have been around for quite some time in adventure games. Usually nodes are linked to cutscene paths. “We’re moving via cutscene and now we’re looking around in the node and now we’re moving again via cutscene.” While there are a few cutscene transitions in Forever Worlds, most of the transitions are handled as jump cuts. “We’re looking around here in a node and, click, now we’re looking around there in a node.”

This can work if it is obvious where “there” is in relation to “here.” In Forever Worlds, it often isn’t. Because there is no standard distance between node centers, a substantial amount of mental energy needs to be invested in figuring out just where one is. And it doesn’t stop there. In more than a few instances, it doesn’t matter from which direction one enters a node: once inside, one always winds up facing the same way. Enter a node from the east and, as would be expected, one winds up facing west. Enter that same node from the north and, surprise! one winds up facing not south, but … west. Huh? There are several places in Forever Worlds where one simply has to ignore the screen and just remember where things are.

A good example of this can be found in a puzzle involving a wedged-open door. In node A, the door, which is on the other side of the room, appears wedged open. In the adjacent node, node B, the door always appears closed. Once the door is wedged open in node A, the only hint in node B that the door is open is the change in the cursor from neutral to navigation. And once the cursor is clicked on the still apparently locked door in node B, the player, upon entering node A, is turned around and tossed all the way across the room, winding up looking, from a distance, at the still wedged-open door.

From First to Third and Back Again …

As disorienting as the travel from node to node can be, the cutscenes that link some nodes can be even more confusing. One moment one is in the middle of a first-person node and the next moment one is watching oneself in a third-person cutscene. And then back into a first-person node. While I wouldn’t necessarily ask for Syberia-length cutscenes where the protagonist walks all the way from Point A to Point D, having the cutscene end at Point B and the first-person node pop in at Point D is a bit unsettling.

And then there is the matter of who appears in the cutscenes. No sooner has our hero started on his quest than he has his body snatched.  His now-possessed body, which obviously looks like him, takes off to be with the hero’s girlfriend. The hero, stuck in a different body, begins his quest. That’s okay, except for the fact that the body that shows up in the hero’s quest cutscenes isn’t the body our hero now inhabits. It’s our hero’s original body! So what are we actually watching in the cutscenes? Are the cutscenes our hero imagining himself in the third person on this quest? Could be. Who knows?

Point and Click and Click and Click …

Interacting with the game environment has it own special set of challenges. Suppose you have an item in inventory and you know you need to use it on a specific screen. First you must click when the cursor turns into a triangle. This indicates an action is possible, and clicking sets the game to puzzle mode. Then you must click to open your inventory, click to move the needed item to the select item area, click on the item, click to leave the inventory area and then see where the item will be accepted, through clicking, by the puzzle screen. Once you pull something out of inventory, there is no scrolling to another portion of the node; the background screen is frozen. You must scroll first, look for the action cursor, set the screen to puzzle mode and then go through the item selection process. If you are in the right place and fail to set the screen to puzzle mode, you can wave the inventory item around all you want.  It won’t matter.

The Nightmare Begins …

Forever Worlds gets off on the wrong foot with its very first puzzle. The story logic is this: once the hero has entered a particular place, he cannot get out until he has fulfilled all of the tasks of his quest. The catch is that the player does not know this at the time. The inability to leave the area feels like a bug rather than a necessary step in the narrative. Click on the first puzzle and the error is compounded. One cannot save in the middle of a puzzle in a puzzle’s node. One must leave a puzzle’s node in order to save. Since the first puzzle location in the game is a single node, the player is literally trapped. There are only two ways out: solve the puzzle or hit Ctrl-Alt-Del. Not exactly elegant.

The fragile wagon that is the core story of Forever Worlds is slowly crushed under the burden of an overstuffed narrative that offers logorrhea in place of wit, whimsy or dramatic momentum. Our hero is soon stuck with a speed-talking lizard who, while beautifully realized, functions primarily as an expository fire hose, filling our ears with chatter that is supposed to make up for the failure of Forever Worlds to show rather than tell its tale.

And under the best of circumstances it would have been a challenging tale to tell. The fellow our hero is on a quest to save is Doc Maitland.  Doc has been tossed into the Forever Worlds and split into a number of different identities. The goal is to find him in each of the Forever Worlds and get him back in one piece. Our hero is motivated to do this because not only is the doc’s daughter the love of the hero’s life, the hero has had his own body snatched and has to rescue the doc in order to rescue himself. And, to add one more twist, once our hero is on the move in the Forever Worlds, he finds that he himself can possess its inhabitants, a ghostly race known as Fillers.

Read All About It!

I suspect that one of the reasons Forever Worlds was shipped with its Solution Guide was that the guide was the only way players were going to be able to make sense of the game’s story. It’s also one of the few ways players can tell if they are making any progress.  Unlike Jewels or Gems, there is no clear sense of accomplishment in Forever Worlds. Ol’ Doc Maitland could have been split into three, four, five or fifty different identities and it would not have affected the narrative in any way.

Combine the obscurity of an inert story with the labored whimsy of the game world (chocolate is the most valuable thing in the universe, giant imprisoned butterflies provide most of the world’s power) and about the only thing players can be grateful for is the game’s modest length. Put another way, while it may not do what it does very well, it doesn’t do it very long, either.

Of all the games I’ve ever played, the game Forever Worlds most closely resembles is another DreamCatcher interdimensional time travel steamer: Beyond Time. (You can find my full review of Beyond Time here.) That project also suffered from a story that was told rather than shown while players solved unrelated puzzles in a variety of colorful, if seemingly randomly selected, venues. Ironically, for all its other faults, there was a clear mission in Beyond Time: to collect crystals.

Make it Stop!

What draws me to a game is its ability to immerse me in its world.  If it pulls me in and keeps me playing, I am willing to make all sorts of allowances. And, out of genuine affection for Shakespeare’s two previous games, I was prepared to give Forever Worlds every opportunity to engage me. And yet, from the first screen, the game, sometimes by accident, sometimes by design, pushed me out of its world and held me at arm’s length. It started with the focus on the cursor. When I stopped playing the game and just looked at the scenery, it was stunning. Not at all interactive, but still stunning.  Start playing again and focus shifts back to the cursor.

Getting to the first interactive location in the game put a bit more distance between me and the experience. Nothing quite like learning that what one sees and how one gets there have nothing to do with each other.

The first in-game cutscene animation, like all of the game’s animation, was very slick. Using that animation in support of a snippet of shtick from Wayne’s World was at best unimaginative and at worst lazy. Gazing at the cursor, overcoming the navigation, enduring the dialogue. What next?

Of course, what was next was what may become known as the Solve or Reboot puzzle, followed in short order by the appearance of the bloviating reptile, the oddly truncated third-person cutscenes, the first exposure to the convoluted inventory interface and the even more convoluted inventory puzzles.

And so on and so on, with no sense of how much remained to be done, all the way to the end. As the last string of disjointed cutscenes played out, I could only shake my head in baffled indifference.  It was like watching a film that, had everything gone okay, would have been just okay. Except everything didn’t go okay. It was as if every third reel had been stolen, half the effects shots had been lost in the lab and there was never time to do a full readthrough of the script.

Though the game world visuals are sumptuous and the animation in the cutscenes first-rate, the dialogue doesn’t play and the puzzles have none of the physical intelligence of the developer’s earlier work. The only thing Forever Worlds has in common with what Shakespeare has done before is the burst of stars that signals the passage from one world to another. Forever Worlds is a huge, huge disappointment.

Close Only Counts In …

Even the technical specs listed for the game on TAC’s website are wrong. It can’t be completed on 98 First Edition, it needs DirectX 9.0b, it only takes up about 800 MB on the hard drive and the CD speed is only an issue upon install (the game plays completely from the hard drive; no copy protection). Also, those playing Forever Worlds on 98SE or ME must have Windows Media Player Series 9 installed.

* * * * *

A Fool’s Errands: TAC Technical Support and Forever Worlds

On April 11, 2004, one day after receiving my copy of Forever Worlds, I posted the following comment on the Adventure Company’s technical support forum:

After the first install (which the installation log said completed normally), the game failed to load. The TAC and Hexagon Entertainment logos would appear and then the game would lock the system up tight with a black screen.

Uninstalled and installed again. Removed other programs that can be used to open .Avi files and associated all .Avi files with DivX. Same problem. TAC, Hexagon, black screen.

Uninstalled and reinstalled and uninstalled and reinstalled and…No change. The game always locks up after the Hexagon logo.

Not happy.

Athlon XP 3000+ 512MB GeForce 5200 FX SB Live! Value Win98SE

Under normal circumstances, reliving the unbending of an adventure game load failure would not appear to be all that useful. The odds that the solution to one game’s failure can be extrapolated to others, given the unique characteristics of individual games and systems, are small. Still, this is not a tale about actually getting a game to run. That story does not involve the technical support staff of TAC. This is, rather, an examination of the assumptions inherent in the suggestions offered by TAC and how those assumptions rendered TAC incapable of providing any useful advice.

The fundamental assumption was that Forever Worlds was thoroughly tested and would perform as promised on every Windows OS from 98 and ME through 2000 and XP. Starting from this premise, any operational problem suffered by a customer must reflect a problem on the customer’s system. Therefore, any technical advice would focus on diagnosing the customer’s system.

In short order, everyone who was having no luck getting Forever Worlds to load in 98, 98SE or ME was told to update his or her video drivers, make sure the CD was in the drive and not worry about virtual CD drives or CD burners. And if none of that helped, just submit an online technical support form.

The first clue that TAC really wasn’t offering game-specific advice is the bit about making sure the CD is in the drive. Forever Worlds installs completely to the hard drive and, since it is not copy protected, does not require a CD in the drive. I did submit an online technical support form. And, days later, got back the same sort of generic advice posted on the forum: update video drivers, etc.

The next burst of advice indicated that while Forever Worlds did need an MP3 player for its audio portions, it didn’t matter which player was installed. An uninstall and reinstall of the DivX codec and DivX player (needed for running the game’s cutscenes) might be in order, on the chance that the initial install was somehow faulty. And, just to put everyone’s mind to rest, the loading problems did not relate to Win98.

While this appears more specific, it’s really not. Forever Worlds, on the platforms upon which it fails to load, requires Windows Media Player Series 9 as its MP3 player. Nothing else will work.  On the other hand, Forever Worlds does not require the DivX player, just the DivX codec. And though it is possible to load Forever Worlds on Win98, the game can only be completed on Win98SE or higher.

When none of these suggestions produced results, additional generic advice was offered. Try the game on another computer to determine if the disks are defective. Run the DirectX diagnostic tool to see which version of DirectX is present and if there is a problem. Set the CD drive to no read ahead and to use Ctrl-Alt-Del to close all programs other than Explorer and Systray and then reinstall the game.

Since the game’s installation routine was incapable of setting the game up properly on a Win98SE or ME system, trying the game on a different system would yield nothing more than another failure.  Since the game won’t allow itself to be installed without DirectX 9.0b present, Dxdiag reveals that the version of DirectX installed is, indeed, 9.0b. And it’s just fine. As for a no read ahead install with nothing running other than Explorer or Systray, I’d already done that. CD Copier, my virtual CD drive, requires that the real CD drive be set to no read ahead. And, as mentioned in the original post, the game installation log revealed no problems. Nor did it indicate any problems on any of the subsequent reinstalls.

With no one reporting success yet, the torrent of generic advice continued. Download the DivX codec directly from DivX. Check which version of Windows Media Player is currently installed. And, again, assurances that Forever Worlds had been tested on Win98 systems and no problems of the sort I or others had encountered had been found.

Turns out the downloaded version of the DivX codec was no different than the version that shipped on the Forever Worlds CD. While checking the version of the Windows Media Player was not a bad idea, there was no suggestion that a particular version might be needed.  And the assurance that game ran on Win98, minus any idea how that Win98 system had been set up, rang hollow.

By this time, April 14th, I was beginning to run out of patience.  I suggested that it might be an idea to contact the lead programmer of Forever Worlds and see what he might have to offer regarding the load failures. As far as I know, TAC never acted on this suggestion.  Five days later, I would, but more on that later.

More generic advice. Install the latest version of Windows Media Player. Submit another online technical support form. Run msinfo32 and submit its report to TAC Tech Support.

While the installation of the latest version of the Windows Media Player was a not a bad idea, there was no hint that it was offered as anything other than yet another “just try this.” Since the first online technical support form had yielded no useful advice, it seemed pointless to submit another. Msinfo32 generated a 1.3 MB report that, once submitted to TAC, disappeared without comment or response.

The next few posts from TAC technical support confirmed the suspicion that TAC really didn’t know the specs of the Win98 system upon which Forever Worlds had been tested. However, a TAC technical support person took a copy of Forever Worlds home with her and found that it ran without a problem on her home system. And, since it was not possible to replicate the error, there was little more that could be done. The last bit of advice from TAC technical support was that those having problems download a registry cleaner.

And that was pretty much all TAC technical support had to say.  As of April 16th, there were no further official responses. The implicit message was clear: Those who bought Forever Worlds in hopes that it would run as claimed on 98 and ME were just going to have to solve the problem themselves.

On April 19th, I sent the following note to Michael Adams, the head of Quality Assurance, and then forwarded the note to Richard Wah Kan, the President of TAC.

Mr. Kan,

Below is a message I recently sent to Michael Adams:

Mr. Adams,

Anyone putting any effort into figuring out why Forever Worlds doesn’t run predictably on 98 or ME? When it does run, it runs beautifully. Unfortunately, it doesn’t load very often. And when it tips over, it freezes the system completely, sometimes to the point of requiring the reinstallation of video drivers.

Looking forward to hearing of any progress on this front.

Here’s the April 20th response from DreamCatcher, sent by Joel Dreschler of Technical Support:

Hello Bradford,

Thank you for your email

Here at Dreamcatcher Games Interactive we take all problems very seriously when they surface with our products. We are currently working on a fix for the problem that some of our users have been experiencing with Forever Worlds on Windows 98/ME.

Thank you for your efforts in our forums for this!

Neither Adams nor Kan ever responded to my note.

The same day Joel Dreschler e-mailed me, he posted the following on the Tech Support Forum.

Hello all,

If you are having problems running Forever Worlds on a 98/ME machine please take the following steps:

Check that you have the requirements:

Please verify that you have a video card with at least 32 MB and a processor of at least 400 MHz. To do this you can from the main desktop press on the start button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. From there chose run and in the dialog box type dxdiag

In the first screen or tab you will be given system information including the Processor, Memory and version of DirectX. If the version of DirectX is older that 9.0b it is out of date and can be updated at www.Microsoft.Com/directx

On the third tab, display you can view your video card information.  The Device area has Name which will have the video card. If the name is sis, s3, trident or intel these are on board graphics cards and not a separate video card. For this game you must have at least a 32meg card. Also ensure that the date of the driver in the top right hand corner is <3 months. Please do not do this through windows update, but through your computer manufacturer or better yet, through the manufacturer of your video card.

Some general steps:

– Please ensure all other programs are closed prior to running the game. This includes any anti-virus software you may have installed on your system. A way to check that all other programs are closed, perform the following while on your windows desktop:

1) Using your keyboard, press the CTRL, ALT and DEL key simultaneously and a “Close Program” window will appear.

2) Within this window it will display what programs are currently running. To reduce Windows to its basic functionality, the only two programs that absolutely need to be running are “Explorer” and “Systray.” Any other programs that are listed can be selected, then press on “End Task” to close the program.

3) Perform steps 1 and 2 again until only “Explorer” and “Systray” remain.

4) When this is completed, attempt to play the game.

NOTE: All the programs that you have closed will restart the next time Windows starts.

– Uninstall and reinstall the game as it may have not installed correctly.

– If possible please try the game on another machine as it maybe a defective disk. If you are unable to do so please exchange the game for another copy.

If you are still having problems please email us at techsupport@dreamcatchergames.com with the following attachment so that we may better troubleshoot your problem, please provide us with your system’s information.  To do this, please follow these steps:

1) From your desktop, click on the Start button, click Run, then type “msinfo32” without the quotes.

2) From the System Information window, click on the File menu, then click Save (save itas text file).

3) Save this file to a known location such as My Documents.

4) Attach this file to your next email and send it back to us.

——————– Happy gaming!

Joel Drechsler Technical Support

This post, prominently displayed on the TAC Technical Forum and locked to prevent any response, continues the tradition of assuming that all game problems originate in the player’s system and not in the actual game or, as in the case of Forever Worlds, the game’s installation routine.

Early in the evening of the previous day, Monday, April 19th, I finally did what I had suggested TAC do five days earlier: locate the e-mail address of the lead programmer on Forever Worlds and ask for help. He responded quite promptly, providing both clear instructions on how to setup a Win98SE and ME system for Forever Worlds and a concise explanation for why such a setup was necessary.  The entire time elapsed between deciding to find him and implementing his recipe for success was roughly five hours.

On April 20, I posted, on the TAC Technical Forum and elsewhere, his setup routine for running Forever Worlds on Win98SE and ME.

Looking back, it is now apparent that the TAC Technical Support person who took Forever Worlds home and had no trouble running it had, without realizing it, followed the recipe for setting up a Win98SE system: Install DirectX 9.0b, Windows Media Player Series 9, the proper video drivers and the DivX codec. Given the assumption that the game should run and that any problems could be attributed to an individual player’s system, the successful loading of Forever Worlds on a tech’s home system served as little more than confirmation of that assumption. The posting of a meaningless string of fool’s errands on the TAC technical support forum under the title Forever Worlds on 98/ME problems suggests that TAC Technical Support has chosen to learn nothing from any of this. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Hexagon Entertainment Publisher: The Adventure Company Release Date: April 2004

Available for: Windows

Four Fat Chicks Links

Player Feedback

Screenshots

Click to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlargeClick to enlarge Click to enlarge

System Requirements

Win 98/ME/2000/XP Pentium II 400 MHz (700 MHz recommended) 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended) DirectX 8 compatible sound card 1.2 GB free hard disk space 16X CD-ROM (24X recommended) 32 MB Direct3D compatible video card (64 MB recommended) 16-bit color (24-bit recommended) DirectSound compatible sound card Mouse, keyboard, amd speakers

(There are at least two errors in the Solution Guide. On page 38, there is a reference to clicking on the red button. This is not necessary. On page 41, clicking on the meter (Fig. 78) does nothing.  One needs to click on the bee poster to the right of the machine in Fig. 79. Also, there are references to touching Doc Maitland at the end of each episode. This is not possible since the transitions back to the Departure Booth occur automatically.)

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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29 Responses to The Long, Sordid Tail of DRM

  • Meho

    Good one.

    Of course, it will be very interesting to see the battle between crackers and UBI’s cryptographers. PC version of Assassin’s Creed II is already circulating the warez scene, although as yet uncracked. Everybody seems to think it will be cracked in a couple of weeks time at worst, which, admittedly is better for UBI than what usually happens (games cracked before release). Of course, I won’t be buying it because I find this practice unnacceptable (and I do have the console version anyway) but the success of this game and its DRM might mean quite a lot in the future. Of course, we ARE moving towards the age where you will be required to be connected to do any playing at all, whatwith the Gaikai and OnLive systems rearing their heads on the horizon. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, eh?

  • Spike

    I went to the Ubisoft website and looked at their list of published games.  It seems that the last of their games I played was the last Myst game in 2005.  In fact the only Ubisoft games I’ve played have been Myst games.  So I don’t see that their new DRM crime-against-my-privacy will have much of an effect on me.  But I hate the idea.  It’s an “Off with their heads!” kind of development.  Reminds me of the idea that people will put up with lost privacy in exchange for security.  In this case the security is only to benefit Ubisoft.  Yes, I allow my privacy to be violated every day – each time I visit Amazon, or read Google News -the list goes on and on.  BUT THOSE ARE MY CHOICES.  I also have a choice about where and how I spend my money, and I’d refrain from buying a game that allows so much intrusion into my computer/life.  A game that tells me how I must live my life even in the smallest of ways such as always being connected to the internet is a game I can forgo.

  • Jason O

    Consoles CAN be connected to the internet 100% of the time, but there are still many consoles that never go online. Modern Warfare 2 sold over 11 million copies, yet XBox Live only shows 840,000 users that have been on-line with it. That’s not played online, that means they played the game in any mode while connected to XBox Live.

    Games that have required an internet connection and were multiplayer only have a history of vanishing quickly from the console marketplace. Phantasy Star ONLINE did much better on the Gamecube then it did on the XBox. What was the difference? Oh yeah, you could play PSO without an internet connection on the Gamecube, the XBox version require a live account and an internet connection. That’s hardly the only example but one that is near and dear to my heart.

  • Bennet

    No, no, you don’t get it! Ubisoft’s “always connected” requirement isn’t DRM, it’s value-add for you, the beloved customer. Just like the Albertsons supermarket chain requires employees to plaster obnoxiously bright orange “Thank you for shopping with us!” stickers on your Coke and milk not because they think you’re stealing them but to express their sincere gratitude for your patronage.

    Maybe my memories of a time when consumers paid for a product and got the product, unadorned by FBI warnings and impossible to open wrappings and authentication servers that can vanish at any time without warning were planted by aliens. In the current cultural climate it’s certainly difficult to believe that time ever existed.

  • Meho

    But Steerpike makes a good point: business model, retail model is lagging behind the times. And developers, instead of researching ways to use the existing systems to sell more games rather research new ways to piss off their paying customers.

    Seriously, in my opinion, pirates pirate games because they are better value than retail games. Not just in the sense that they get to spend less money on them, but they get them faster, do not have to go through any hassle with DRM and have full control over the game. I think that Gabe Newell put it best saying that Valve sees pirates as customers who haven’t been served yet.

    I think UBI and their ilk should look for ways to make retail games more valuable to their customers than (free) warez copies. Yes, stuff like achievements/ trophies helps a little, sure. There are other ways too and one of them is resale value. But, oh, what a surprise, used games market pisses publishers off MORE than pirates do. In fact most of the current DRM schemes are only effective against resales. EA’s ten dollar project and all other free DLC on day one initiatives. So, honestly, I’m afraid that UBI’s online-all-the-time-or-no-service DRM is basically only going to affect sales of used games. The crackers are going to bring their games to pirates eventually. I believe that draconic DRM schemes such as this will only inspire people like GeoHot, Dark Alex and Yoshihiro to spend more of their time on circumvention. Their street cred is going to be huge after all…

    What Valve seem to understand is that playing games through Steam should make playing MORE valuable/ comfortable than not playing games through Steam (which is, at the end of the day a DRM system). Being able to instal a game on as many machines as you want and not having to have a disc in the drive is exactly what pirated games give us too, but with Steam you also retain all your stats, friends lists, achievements and everything. So it’s BETTER than playing pirated games. I only hope that UBI wake up and realise they have to ADD value, not just subtract freedoms.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not really sure I see their DRM as a huge problem.  If my PC is turned on, so is my internet.  I’m fully aware that my name is probably on a million data bases already, and although it might be annoying knowing that Ubisoft have implemented such a security feature, if you don’t physically notice it, I don’t particularly care.

    I’m currently playing Myst at the moment, having never before.  What an odd game…

  • Meho

    Well, you know, just from a philosophical standpoint: if the game is unplayable as soon as you don’t have Internet connection (which, I’m afraid, happens to me more regularly than I am comfortable with) for no other reason than making sure you have paid for it then to me this is pretty much unnacceptable. Requiring a connection for something that is a function of the game itself is OK, but enforcing it just for the sake of protection of the publisher, sorry, no sale.

  • Lewis B

    True Meho.  I had 40 minutes the other day before I went out and thought I would have a quick skirmish on Dawn of War II.  Steam (despite my love for it) wouldn’t launch the game because for some reason it kept freezing and refusing to connect or launch in offline mode.  I couldn’t actually locate the source directory either to boot the game up manually. So, I didn’t get to play and instead spent 40 minutes in a fit of rage cursing Valve and all who work under them. 

    Not exactly the same situation, but not hugely dissimilar.

  • Gregg B

    I’m really not concerned about the privacy issue simply because that illusion is just that, and doesn’t really comfort or unsettle me. My problem with this whole thing is that internet connections can be temperamental at the best of times and the idea that if the connection falters I will lose my progress (and thus my invested time which I’d argue is more valuable than my money) then quite frankly Ubi can fuck off. I’ve been pretty placid up to press with DRM simply because it’s not seemed that intrusive but this will affect the paying customers more than the pirates. It devalues the product and I fear it will push otherwise paying customers to download cracked versions that don’t suffer from this shit. Which, of course, will play into Ubi’s hands.

    Am I right in believing all this stems from the hideous retail model that just refuses to die? Physical retail creates pressuring deadlines, costs considerably more due to increased physical production (and overheads in staffing and floor space), it’s inflexible with stock limitations and shelf space dictating the range of titles available in any given store and by the sounds of things is the sole reason for this ‘tail’. If you look at Steam, it isn’t always the newest games that sell the most due in no small part to their sales and weekend deals.

    “I wonder if we’ll ever get to a point where a person would be just as likely to invest in a beloved classic as a hot new release.”

    From my experience there are a lot of people who simply can’t stomach old looking games, even some of my friends who’ve been playing games since they were young have turned into total graphics whores. Seriously you want to see the totally underwhelmed look on their faces when I show them XCOM for any period of time. We’re at a stage now where graphics are so advanced that for a lot of people going back so far to sample an allegedly classic title is simply too much. Thankfully GOG is doing a fantastic job of making these titles as accessible, and valuable, as possible.

    EDIT: Spot on Meho. My point exactly.
    See what I mean though Lew? Time. Valuable stuff. A quick skirmish on DoW turned into a 40 minute skirmish with Steam.

  • Mat

    This seems like an awful idea.. or at least one which sounds like a good idea to somebody somewhere, but in reality is unworkable.

    Since I’ve been a paying internet customer I have lived at 3 different addresses and used around 5 different ISP’s. I have ALWAYS had problems with my internet connection. With my current set up it tends to go down if a menacing looking cloud passes overhead..

  • xtal

    Some people may like to play a game offline now and then; this is especially easy with older ones before the dawn of activation codes and online authentication. While those aren’t that annoying, having to maintain a constant internet connection just to play a game that you paid for, which is not specifically a MMO, really bites.

    Gregg B said:
    “Am I right in believing all this stems from the hideous retail model that just refuses to die? Physical retail creates pressuring deadlines, costs considerably more due to increased physical production (and overheads in staffing and floor space), it’s inflexible with stock limitations and shelf space dictating the range of titles available in any given store and by the sounds of things is the sole reason for this ‘tail’. If you look at Steam, it isn’t always the newest games that sell the most due in no small part to their sales and weekend deals.”

    I agree with this. Just a few years ago I couldn’t see myself paying for intangible, digital goods. Fast forward to now and it’s really my preferred method of computer gaming, whether it’s GOG, Steam, or elsewhere, I find it’s the model that works best for the customer. If I’m not mistaken, I believe once upon a time that was who the industry was trying to serve, no? The customer?

  • Cesar

    You know, I’m from Brazil and there piracy is HUGE. Maybe for that reason I feel for the industry and understand the efforts to stop it. However, I suspect this crack delay would have a very minor impact in markets like Brazil. People can’t afford the games, so they wouldn’t pay full price anyway.

    It is a shame that we don’t have privacy anymore. The other day a friend of mine on XBox Live sent me a message to congratulate me on a goal I scored in Fifa 10. I didn’t know but apparently not only you can see I’m playing Fifa, but you also see when I score and my avatar cheers! While that sounds very cool, it is also very disturbing. But like Matt points very well, privacy is already gone. And since I don’t have it anymore, why not help stop piracy?

    On the other hand, the plurality of solutions is a different matter, it becomes a hassle. I think the solution should be platform dependent, not publisher dependent. In Brew phones, the control is embedded in the system and you cannot use an app if it cannot be verified, which means if you are not connected to the network you can’t play.

    Unfortunately that cannot be applied to consoles, there’s a considerable number of devices outside the internet umbrella. But if the game constantly checks if you are online and tries to authenticate the copy, online piracy will suffer a big hit and the technological move towards full connectivity will make the practice more and more efficient over time.

  • Andrew

    Not going to buy the game, long tail or not, it sucks to have that kind of persistent connection needed for offline play. Not even just startup authorisation either. I must admit any Game For Windows Live games can be similar (Dawn of War 2 being one of them necessitating it) although most of them allow offline profiles, and most of them allow the saves to be moved easily between any online or offline accounts.

    Oh, and if you’re disconnected it won’t kick you out of the game too, even Microsoft didn’t get that wrong.

    I don’t even understand how privacy comes into it, my main issue is twofold:
    – The above note about simple, offline play (and disconnects for blips in service)
    – The fact it isn’t just your connection that is necessary, it is THEIR connection and servers

    The second point as a partial game historian leads me to wonder how many years (not decades) the servers will be there. Publishers have removed much more necessary servers quickly if they are a cost liability (or they want to push people onto a newer game…). Downtime is also, considering some of the services require payment (Xbox Live for instance) devastatingly poor considering the user base sizes, especially on high load days (and I wonder if we’ll see “Assassins Creed 2 unplayable at launch due to server overload” at all, heh). Lucky it’s “just games” though, no worries if we only have 99% uptime right?! 😉

    (Also, frankly their Assassins Creed 1 port was poor until they patched it, where at least then it was playable (in full on 16:9…for some reason), which makes me wary of any PC release of a console game they do. I wonder also if they still have unskippable cutscenes, I’ve not checked it out on the consoles).

    The fact they’ll never have enough sales of this PC version due to the earlier console release to either say this is a roaring success or roaring failure. It’s the longest end of the tail in the first place. Or they’ll lie about whatever happens anyway. It’s utterly bizarre…I just don’t understand it.

  • Meho

    Cesar: I’m in Serbia and here piracy reigns supreme (much worse than Brazil, I imagine) but still, this is pure and simple bullshit. I purcahsed BioShock 2 today, for my PS3 even though I’d prefer to play it on my PC just because of the stupid DRM that won’t let me control the use of a game I pay for. They can fuck off with that. So, my purchase was influenced by DRM, depsite the game being more natural to play on a PC. Protection measures should not create this kind of bitterness in a human being.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    The issue of server overload on release days is significant. Think about it – a game like Modern Warfare 2? Or any other hotly anticipated release? Of course the servers would go down. It’s not cost-effective to install a server infrastructure capable of handling Day Zero traffic. That would royally piss people off.

    Ubi and others who use draconian DRM typically insist that if they ever go out of business or shut servers down, they’ll issue patches so the games can be played offline.

    Around the holidays here, big stores like Best Buy station a guy at the exit. His job is to go through your bag and consult your receipt to make sure you haven’t stolen anything. That’s a very similar ideology to this one: treat all consumers like thieves in hopes of catching the few who are.

  • Lewis B

    Considering most MMOG servers cannot cope on launch day, I see it as a gaurentee that when the next Modern Warfare is released, if they do follow through with this, would see many unhappy players.

  • lakerz1

    This new DRM policy will totally be screwing me over because I have a wireless internet setup, but my signal is a bit weak so here and there it drops out for a 10-15 second period before it reconnects.  Plus my wireless router is a bit wonky and will just stop working once in awhile until I cycle power to it.  So, until my setup changes, I will be forced to avoid all Ubi PC games that use this.

  • Igor Hardy

    I seriously doubt a person which would normally pirate a game, will pay money for it just because she has to wait a short while longer for the cracked version. This can work only for very cheap games – like 1$ cheap.

  • Meho

    Just for those keeping tabs: the Russian version of Assassin’s Creed II has apparently been successfully cracked, with a fix for the saves too. Of course, I don’t KNOW this for sure but that’s the word circulating through the grapewine.

  • Cesar

    Brazil is a strong competitor in the piracy rates. 95%-97% if I am not mistaken.

    Anyway, I don’t have a problem with the privacy issue. Not even with the assumption that we are all thieves. If you extrapolate that idea, you will conclude we shouldn’t have patrol cars on the streets. They assume people will commit crimes and have to keep watch. Homo homini lupus. Society isn’t perfect and even though losses are part of the model, no one is ready to lose out of good faith alone. I don’t mean to say DRM and police watch are the same thing, I’m just saying it’s not that simple to draw a line where it becomes offensive to monitor society.

    That being said, it is not acceptable to have a DRM impact gameplay at all. I don’t mind it authenticating my copy. But if I am offline it has to work. And if I loose connection during the game I shouldn’t be kicked out.

    And while the efficacy of the solution might be questionable under these circumstances, like I said in the previous comment, it only tends to increase.

  • Andrew

    “Ubi and others who use draconian DRM typically insist that if they ever go out of business or shut servers down, they’ll issue patches so the games can be played offline.”

    I have seen this happen to absolutely zero games ever. The fact that it is nearly impossible to sanction any work on IP if a company is in administration is the key. That and it is non-trivial to get around your own disk DRM by producing an installer that will work with your disk copy to install it.

    I’d love to be proved wrong…this is by far the most worrying thing of the deal, just installed Bioshock 2 and it has online activation (sigh)…worried I might need to download cracked versions to install it in the future!

    Oh, did you see the patch notes of the first patch? It makes the DRM very very very slightly “better” (I mean, better as in “still shit”):

    http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/17456/Assassin%27s+Creed+2+Patch+1.01+-+US

    “Game can now be continued from the exact same point when connection is restored”

    Ho ho ho. Ho.

  • Gregg B

    I like this bit:

    “Only those who purchased a copy of ACII or SHV legally appear to be affected. Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem.”

    Is it apparent pirates are having no problems yet? If they’ve properly cracked it then what I feared (above) is true. Last I heard was that the DRM apparently downloads levels or important files as you play. I don’t know whether this is true or not though.

  • Spike

    Meho beat me to it.  I just read a similar article on The Register.  I don’t suppose that the DDoS attack will make Ubi rethink its evil ways, but this might (I can dream, can’t I?):

    “Meanwhile Ubisoft’s much criticised controls have been broken by software hackers. A hacker group called Skid-Row managed to bypass DRM restrictions on Silent Hunter 5 less than 24 hours after the game was published. Skid Row has releasing a crack for the game based on this work, Zdnet reports. ®”

    Full article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/08/ubisoft_anti_drm_hack_attack/

  • Littermate

    Spike.  RE: The Register article
    There is a comment to that article that claims the crack for SH5 is not a complete crack and would only allow an incomplete experience, because not only are save games stored online but some of the game data files are stored online too, implying that the boxed game you buy is incomplete.  This seems plausible and effective IMO, because if I was demanding an internet connection for my software this is how I would do it.  It demands not only that a games code be cracked but that missing data files be supplied too.

  • Spike

    Having just read this article – link below – I’m thinking that DRM will be fine and dandy AND hunky-dory with me as long as the packaging it comes in is “green”.  Yep.  That makes it more palatable.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/1620105/ubisoft-green-recycled-case-digital-manual-sustainable-packaging

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    I would kind of like to buy games in potato cases.

  • xtal

    I was thinking… and remembered one of the most creative instances of “DRM” if you can call it that: King’s Quest VI! I looked it up and sure enough it is mentioned on KQVI’s Wikipedia page:

    A booklet titled “Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles” (written by Jane Jensen) is included in the KQVI package. Aside from providing additional background to the game’s setting, this booklet serves as part of the game’s copy-protection. The player will not be able to pass the puzzles on the Cliffs of Logic that guard the Isle of the Sacred Mountain without information from the booklet. The booklet also includes a poem encoding the solution to one of the puzzles in the labyrinth on the Isle of the Sacred Mountain.

    I guess that’s not very feasible today, what with widespread use of the internet around the world. I still think it’s more creative than the “thank you for your money, we intend to treat you like a criminal” method.

  • Bluebogle

    I played the KQVI game with the booklet. I was a kid at the time, and thought the booklet was so cool! It really added to the whole game’s experience.

    The quest for Glory games came with fun booklets as well, though I don’t remember if they had copy protection elements to ’em.

    Ahh, the good old days..

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