General Discussions

One major thing people forget is, its more a protection scheme than anything else.

I keep saying it, warez users cried so much for an online checking system to games to preserve media etc, that when they finally got it, it wasn't so easy to get their warez for a while.

People who waited on Assassin's Creed 2 cried for weeks about it.

Like most games you can go offline, only a handful which uses online authentication has an online always function. And obviously people are exaggerating the seriousness way too much.

Old gamers are a dying race, because to be honest old gamers would play games normally first then use a trainer or cheats to experience everything on offer.

Since 6 years ago'ish that changed massively, now people cheat almost all the time on everything they get, but for most who do buy legitimately they will withhold cheating to a degree, only relying on trainers on difficult parts they have tried hard to get by but can't.

But as said the majority will cheat start to finish, then they complain about how short the game was.. LOL, yeah these people exist.

[Edited by DABhand, 3/8/2013 10:31:19 AM]

Generally, there is too much whining going on about how short a game is. I have 350 gaming hours for Skyrim, 130 for Saints Row. Meaning, I really enjoyed these two titles. Just Cause 2 I was in with almost 100, Kingsdoms of Amalur 160...

I don't mind being online while playing a game but if i do not have the possibility of playing by myself at all...I do not buy the game. Really doubt I am all alone with that opinion while I also doubt we're a majority. Yea, like Asylum said a little cheating is fun, pushing it makes it boring. There's always ppl who ruin a good thing by overdoing it. Way of the world.

And as I've read you have an insight into the industry...do you think they will completely abandon single player offline on AAA titles? Is that really the only way for them to make sure there is no cheating at all? I always could go back to "organizing" cracked titles. Don't you think they'd achieve the opposite result...forcing former legal customers (who like to cheat in single player games) to get cracked versions and have their way?

You may find AAA titles may rely on online functions to deter warez users, not all Publishers will use that though.

This is a day and age of digitial distribution so by default most protections schemes are online based now, even on retail media copies.

It's not an ideal thing as it won't reach 100% of customers, as some areas in the US there is still 56k users (and the same can be said in other countries), so they can't be always online and cope with high bandwith usage.

But the majority is broadband users either cable or ADSL, so it works in the background for them.

Titles like Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Assassin's Creed 2+, Far Cry 3, Sim City etc are online but some of them are able to be played offline.

An example of 2 of the above

Starcraft 2 obviously disables achievements
Assassin's Creed 2 Brotherhood etc had shops functions removed (as in unable to invest)
Far Cry 3 allowed playing offline, you just missed out on multiplayer functions and obviously no achievements as such.

Compared to the amount released last year, Always Online games was a small percentage of them, again proof that people are blowing the situation way out of proportions. They will not be happy their AAA title they wanted become always online so make up this story that it is happening to all/most titles.. that is obviously not true.

I know Dragon Age 3 which is being worked on, will not be always online, but will have online features. Same for the proposed 4th ME (its sketchy but so far again same as above).

EDIT: As for is it a deterring thing for cheats... no the always online function isn't to deter people who cheat, as said it is to deter the warez users as much as possible.

And as said because of the Steam platform, achievements are now a big thing but again not all games will punish you for cheating in SP, Fallout 3 and NV for example was fine with it as was Skyrim (they allow mods that are cheats and you still can earn achievements).

Most people complaining are people who were warned not to use cheats while online in games like Starcraft 2 as a good example, Blizzard warned people and they continued to use trainers and got banned. They will blame Blizzard of course en masse as if Blizzard took their right to cheat away, they didn't thats why it had an offline function.

And also with Black Ops 2 recently people used the trainer on the Zombie mode, and got banned because it had an online function, again people blamed the Devs and Publisher and in some cases even blamed the staff at CH.

People like that only have one person to blame themselves, but thats to hard for them to acknowledge and it's easier to blame others instead.

[Edited by DABhand, 3/9/2013 12:22:29 AM]

I mainly hate the whole online social functions in single player because single player isn't meant to be online. When I play a single player game I don't want to be bothered about what my friends are doing in the single player. When I play a single player game I want to be left alone when playing it and not have to be online or have social functions implemented into the single player.

If I wanted to play a story based game with people I would play The Old Republic or Guild Wars 2.

Don't get me wrong I agree that Single Player should be about you and you only.

But times are changing and more and more people prefer to keep in touch with each other even during gameplay, the social aspect is changing a lot. Once gaming was seen as a geek thing to do, as you could be outside socializing but now its the complete opposite.

Thanks, Dab, Dragon Age 3 is a game I will most likely buy and would hate to see it go MMO like The Old Republic did.

While I do understand the need for protection, I have come a long way before realizing that you destroy something if you use pirated copies (20 years ago PS1). But Bethesda does understand the community far better than Ubisoft for instance. They are not afraid of modders, their Skyrim title is hgihly respected in the community. I wish more companies were that open about gamers. You cannot have 100 % security that is the same as in life.

At the same time I don't want to see a good developer go bankrupt because the majority uses pirated copies and their benefits go close to none.

I remember connecting with a buddy to chat back in 1992 using the program Terminate. Back then we were babbling and fantasizing about playing a game with each other while both being at home. Nowadays this seems like using a landline to make a call. Lots of stuff has improved but as usual there are negative side effects. Best way is just to relax and wait and see.

I just hope they have decent market research to realize that lots of ppl want the option to play it SP offline whenever they want.

[Edited by ae_LON, 3/10/2013 12:14:30 AM]

About the pirating angle, I 'pirate' (read: download) a ton of old games that are either a, hard to find or b, not made or supported OR SOLD any more. However, (as with SS2) If it's on GOG or Steam for cheap I'll buy it (or Desura, I got Castles 1/2 for £3, worth it).

Well here's my thoughts it will never happen in my lifetime there are to many single players out there that purchase from Steam whitch is conveniant for ppl who a million miles from a good GAME store,the other thing is the amount of gamers that purchase games on Disc is huge.

As most of the regular users on CHU know i do not play online Check-out this post BF3 lol, and i am not in a minority,plus the amount of money it costs remember we have loads of young ppl out there as well who's mums and dads cannot afford online FEES.