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Seems a lot of 'fringe' MMOG going free, like Shadowbane for some unknown PR reasons, instead of turning off the lights.

1) Release MMOG
2) Give it out for free
3) ????
4) Profit

Not sure what they hope for.

Ah, I am missing something indeed. In my defense, it was well hidden by the official news site.

http://mmorpgdot.com/#46951 links to http://chronicle.ubi.com/newspost.php?id=15088, which does indeed confirm free play. Weird. I wonder why that post doesn't appear in the news index.

Ubisoft, publisher of the Wolfpack Studios-developed MMORPG Shadowbane, has announced, via the site's official news page, that the title is now available to play for free without subscription fees

I have games that include SecureROM (GTA SA and VC) and SafeDisc (Sim City 3000) and I've never noticed them causing any problems or installing anything other than registry entries

Both of those protections use device drivers, to check for debuggers primarily.

StarForce, on the other hand, installs hidden device drivers, which totally fuck up a cd/dvd drive in some PCs.

Quite possibly. On the other hand, you really need to know how many false positives there are before having some reasonable debate about this. Hard statistics are difficult to come by, but an UbiSoft developer wrote a public report on it. Those statistics don't seem to show any serious levels of problems (blue screens or SF related hard locks were about 1 in 10,000 I think ...).

Now for sure, some people who have problems won't report them, they'll just unplug CD drives or dick about with the BIOS or whatever. But not all gamers are that dedicated. I'd say most gamers I know just want to play games, and aren't super technical actually. So I think if SF causes a lot of problems, most people will either report it to tech support or return the game.

On some XP machines, it can cause actual physical damage to the burner.

You're behind the times. That's the old rumour, however there is a big reward for people who can reproduce the problem. After the reward was posted (and it's now at $10,000 I think) the rumours changed - now it's that SF causes gradual performance loss in some cases over a period of months.

It also elevates access priviledges for user-level applications, although I can't imagine why the hell it does that.

Neither can I, and in fact though this rumour is also persistent I've never seen any reports of actual exploits or any technical data on where such the bug is. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a way to do it, because writing secure kernel code is hard, but that's why the rumour has such potency. I'll believe it once it's been conclusively proven (ie there's some kind of advisory or patch for it).

Funny thing is, there are four different cracked copies of the game's .exe file at gamecopyworld.

Didja try them? Do they work? StarForce definitely is crackable, and there are even generic cracks (as I was reminded on IRC the other day), but the generic cracks are a lot of effort and the games that get cracked usually have poor integration with the system. As pointed out elsewhere the developer has a lot of flexibility to protect as little or as much of the games as they like. StarForce 3 is also quite a few years old.

Now don't get me wrong. I hate stuff like StarForce, because it makes games protected using it practically impossible to play on Linux using Wine. And of course it does cause occasional false positives. But, I've also seen products I've worked on be pirated, even idiots who tried to get tech support for pirated copies, and I can understand why companies do it. The idea that games would make more money if they halved the price and removed copy protection is crazy, copy protection really isn't that expensive, for a big commercial game I think you only need a few thousand people or so to buy the game instead of pirate it and you make your money back.

I agree, I do not know why all the buzz about the Nintendogs game, it is not new at all, at worst it is a tamagochi rehash, at best it is a balant copy of the Petz series by Ubisoft. I have had Dogz 5 for quite some time. I do not play it a lot as I do not find it really entertaining, I got it (with The Sims 1 and 2) because of the A.I. agent abilities.

Er, why? Because he said he hadn't experienced those problems, and pointed out that there are two sides to every story?

OK, so I have some karma to burn. Here is the other side from somebody you may trust more, an UbiSoft developer posting in the forums in response to people who claimed StarForce was riddled with problems and would cause huge issues when they started using it.

Some relevant quotes may help:

So the subject of this post is to detail the problems encountered with the Starforce system. My study is based on four games published earlier this year by Ubisoft, totalling more than half a million copies over a few months, protected by Starforce. I believe this is a large enough population to derive statistics from. The number of reported problems totals 0,3% of sold copies. Splinter Cell 3, being a very popular title, generated more reports than usual (see below), and without this title, the level of problems drops to 0,1%. That's one user out of a thousand, and less than 500 reports all in all, worldwide.

.. and ..

Most problems (more than 60%) have to do with the activation key or the disc check ... The reported problems are either that the key was mistyped, or not valid anymore, or that the disc check failed, or not found. When the disc check is failed, it is easy to solve, so the legal user will have opportunity to play anyway ... A large number of problems (20%) are specific to SC3, and linked with users trying to start an ISO image of the game with an emulator. In such a case, the protection prevents the game to be launched, as it is supposed to do ... What can be considered real troubles are system crashes, or driver problems, or hardware problems. This is around 10% of reports. So that's about one player in ten thousands. I think this is a level consistent with ANY windows application.

If MMORPGS were all about the gameplay then a rather small one known as Shadowbane wouldn't have died off so quietly (or at all). Let me explain In Shadowbane, UbiSoft paid a guy who goes by Meridian to write lore for them. They wanted an MMO because they felt that it would make a ton of money. So he did, and they came out with the classic swords, magics, barbarians and priests etc. that a lot of games do. But he also came out with a story mostly his own, and several different religions. So this sounds like the kind of world where developers get to do whatever they want, and that's the point of this article -- this should happen more. right? Well these guys took it a step further, and didn't fill in the lore. They gave outlines like what we know of medieval Europe - sure there were some battles that we know about, and we know the major ideas, but when it comes down to it, the details are created by the people at Renaissance Fairs. Similarly, Shadowbane was a server with a blank landscape. You go out with a guild or by yourself, and you level up etc. and you build a city. You wage wars. You and your guild control territory. The only NPCs are the ones in towns that are equipment-bots and trainers for people who're starting. So there you go - fully functional fantasy warfare (INCLUDING siege) and the players are the ones who move the story along. On a personal comment, i'd say its as successful for the single person to small, say 3 person group as for the 50 man guild. http://chronicle.ubi.com/, http://www.shadowbane.com/us/WhatIsShadowbane.php ... The gameplay was (is?? there's a 10 day trial) really buggy, but perhaps it's better. but there you go - gameplay =/= name recognition

Maybe not the best software for a child but definitely a good one for a grown up. And like the parent said, for now you're still the best teacher there is for your daughter =)

Detectig and studying non-luminous objects like Buffy is a lot harder than luminous ones like Sirius B.

What about detecting and studying Lumines itself? And, if you value Freedom, what about Luminesweeper?

I have not played Nintendogs but for all I have seen I can see that it is just a copy of these games:

http://petz.ubi.com/

Intelligent-like virtual pets, I have the Dogz in my computer, although I started playing it some time ago just as a reserach experiment (I am on AI research) I found it not really entertaining. For the AI point of view it is nice, as the Creatures game series (http://www.gamewaredevelopment.co.uk/creatures_in dex.php)
and The Sims... but I think it is not inovative at all.

Ah yes. Originality. Just like this!

Or maybe this!

Or in a weird way, this!

Or Will Wright's this!

Or maybe even millions of these!

:P

I'll agree with Nintendo playing on the cuteness bit, but to be honest, games that are more or less exactly like this have been produced for years. It's certainly nice that at least ONE console gaming company puts a modicum of effort into reaching the other 50% of the world out there.

Is it just me or does this seem like a rehash of a PC game title that is still around?

I'm not sure how many people recall the "Catz" and Dogz" series of virtual pet games that have been around for years. When I first saw this game that was the first thing I thought of, "Oh! They ported Dogz to the Nintendo DS....um and this is big why?".

Ubisoft still makes/distributes the games/sims or whatever you want to call them. Check them out at:
http://petz.ubi.com/

I was wondering why peruvian rebels had a "Motley Crue" screensaver on the one computer located at their camp...

UBISOFT Splinter Cell Chaos Theory March 2005 README.TXT 1.01 snippet :

User Statement:

This game incorporates technology of Massive Incorporated ("Massive") that enables certain in-game objects (eg advertising) to be temporarily uploaded to your pc or console and replaced in-game while connected online. As part of that process, no personally identifiable information about you is collected and only select non-personally identifiable information is temporarily logged. No logged information is used to determine any personally identifiable information about you. For full details, see Ubisoft's privacy policy [http://ubi.com/US/Info/Info.aspx?tagname=PrivacyP olicy%5D or Massive's privacy policy [http://policies.ubi.com/massive%5D."

I was wondering why peruvian rebels had a "Motley Crue" screensaver on the one computer located at their camp...

UBISOFT Splinter Cell Chaos Theory March 2005 README.TXT 1.01 snippet :

User Statement:

This game incorporates technology of Massive Incorporated ("Massive") that enables certain in-game objects (eg advertising) to be temporarily uploaded to your pc or console and replaced in-game while connected online. As part of that process, no personally identifiable information about you is collected and only select non-personally identifiable information is temporarily logged. No logged information is used to determine any personally identifiable information about you. For full details, see Ubisoft's privacy policy [http://ubi.com/US/Info/Info.aspx?tagname=PrivacyP olicy%5D or Massive's privacy policy [http://policies.ubi.com/massive%5D."

I don't see 64-bit games anytime soon because other than FPS games, most games do not need the newest, greatest hardware.

Ubisoft

This supports most of what you want to do.

you cant be serious in considering that Java is a reputable alternative to writing robust recent good quality 3D openGL apps can you?

Oh, get over it. People said the same thing about C++ several years ago. Back then, no one would have believed that in a few years games like Konami's Metal Gear Solid would be using scripting languages for a lot of their gameplay. Now games are a mixture of several languages - from assembly on up to scripting.

The first commercial game to use Java was Tom Clancy's Politika, and that came out in 1997!

Some commercial games that use Java include:

• Star Wars Galaxies
• Law and Order
• IL-2 Sturmovik
• Tribal Trouble

the benchmarks on this site were for all 800x600? huh? that is so dated. no one writes 3D apps/games using 800x600..and Quake 2?? come on now isnt that a bit outdated?

That's the point. The whole argument is outdated. The language has been capable for years.

The Myst series is completely driven with one mouse button. Uru may be a bit difficult, but Myst, Riven, Exile, and Revelation are in the clear.

I know this is a bit shameless, but my current project Antidote will also be great. It's the same type of game engine as Myst but more focus on character development than puzzles for puzzles sake. It will be available in April.

having all the game houses making all the games for your console.

Microsoft seems to realize this, their strategy seems simple; BUY ALL THE GAME HOUSES!

So far this doesn't seem to have worked to well for them with the exception of Bungie, although I personally think Halo stinks. Rareware hasn't released a decent game for the Xbox yet, and Microsoft had to shut down/sell their entire Sports division now that EA and Take-Two have shut them out of Football and Baseball. Most of the games I've enjoyed on the Xbox have been put out by Ubisoft, which is still owned by the Guillemot Family and releases most of their games for all consoles(Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil).

- URU: Myst's online game (fan site) was very different for example a game, which focused on group interaction and problem solving. Saddly, it didn't make it past Beta but many new cutting edge models don't. Its user group was very different from 'typical' MMORPGs... Overall older and very loyal to the game. It's focus wasn't on killing anything at all actually it was more of a history lesson approach (about a fantasy group of people though).

- There.com is also a different type of MMORPG, which has no fighting system at all. It's described as, "There is an online getaway where you can hang out with your friends and meet new ones--all in a lush 3D environment that's yours to explore!" This description is only about the social aspect, however there are other aspects such as users making game objects and clothes for other players to buy so the game economy (although hard like in RL). It can even allow great modelers to make some RL cash (I wouldn't go into it for that since there are honestly only a few who have pulled it off, and the risks are with RL money but it is an interesting concept to explore).

Sorry, Myst 5 will be the last in the series according to Cyan Worlds. A shame, but I guess all good things must come to an end. It would be even worse to draw the franchise out (a la Star Trek).

Linky.

that Ubisoft has announced Chessmaster® 10th Edition and we all know how evil Chess is.

Diablo II, Starcraft, Warcraft
Unreal Tournament 2004, Neverwinter Night, Dungeon Siege, Civ III
Myst, Riven, Exile
Medal of Honor and expansions, Battlefield 1942, Ghost Recon
Ghost Master
Quake III, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein
Escape Velocity Series, among others

There are plenty of other games for the Mac platform as well, check the Apple website for a larger list.

I didn't see any mention of farcry. It's on par with Doom3 and Half-Life 2 and it's reviews have been very positive... check it out.

Maybe you don't like Mexican candy because it is full of lead.

I would disagree that Japanes games 'are almost always of higher production quality, are more enjoyable, are more aesthetically pleasing...' etc. You state these things as fact, when in reality they are only your opinion. I personally do not agree at all. One of the few Japanese games I do like, is Dance Dance Revolution. (And even then, there is some Hawaiian tie-in that I can't figure out)

But this is not a xenophobic choice...I like American games, but some of my favories are actually Canadian, or French.

much. Unless you are trying to simulate reality I don't understand the continued obsession with improved graphics. With the Dreamcast hadn't we reached the golden age where any game imaginable can be created? What about using stylized graphics like Jet Set Radio instead of realistic graphics? Would The Simpsons be funnier if it had more realistic drawings or real actors instead of voice actors and simple drawings which look less real than Disney's Snow White from the 1930s?

Look how anime gets away with simple "graphics", but is able to quickly communicate emotions. Same with "South Park." We need to be more worried about what we do in games and how we do it (look at the success of novelty items like the eye toy) instead of only trying to push visuals.

I understand the excitement over new graphics when they enabled new games. Pong->Space Invaders->Pac Man->Super Mario->Street Fighter II->Super Mario Cart->Virtua Fighter, but I just don't see the point any more.

Here are three screen shots; which looks most fun?
fake far cry
real far cry
gish
Personally after watching the gish movies I think it looks the most fun :) But even the fake far cry screen shot, which won't happen until far in the future, doesn't really look more fun than the real far cry screen shot.

I found his synopsis of Shadowbane to be interesting. I just recently killed my account on that game. I played since it was release (Mar. 03, I think).

If you ever wanted to see what it was like to be in a Mad Max movie then this is it. Except there's no cars. :)
A total gank fest. Not that this is a bad thing, but it is definately a game designed for a specific segment of the MMO market. New players are best advised to stay away from this title. It can sour their view of MMO's almost irreparably. Someone who has played in other games before stand the best chance of acclimating to this game.

For those of you who are interested in seeing what a bloodbath is like, Ubi offers a 15 day trial.

A pity really. I had fun with SB. But the bugs just drove me insane.

Now if only I could set it up in a "Neko" mode where it can play "chase the mouse" with the mouse pointer...that would be cool.

Note that what I am talking about has nothing to do with the help system. I suspect that the majority of the people who actually "like" the Office Assistants are probably fond of them for toy value, not as a way of searching for help. I seem to remember that the "Dogz" and "Catz" system toy programs were somewhat popular a few years back. Those programs still seem to exist... http://petz.ubi.com/.

Ubisoft also just cancelled the MMO component of Uru. Sounds like Ubi's MMO division is not doing well.

This has to be one of the best deals on games right now. If you don't already have Prince of Persia, you've got to get the 2 for 1 deal now! And BG&E for $20 is a steal!

The deal's at ubisoft's store and I'm sure you can find it elsewhere too.

Ubisoft's Store

My wife used to nag about "all that damn time you spend on the computer" until recently. I heard from a friend about a new game called URU that is like a sequel to Myst and Riven. I don't normally play games and my wife definitely does not...but we bought this and we're actually pretty impressed. It's not a shoot em up, and you pretty much just figure out puzzles and stuff but the graphics are great and the online version is just about ready.

You can play the online game for free right now while they are working out the bugs but the features that may interest you are voice chat (not yet implemented, so currently it's text chatting) and the fact that you can explore with whomever you want. You can create avatars that actually look like you and overall the game seems to have a lot of potential...if you like that kind of game.

2 things to warn you about. You need to play this game on a pretty decent computer with a good video card, and if your girlfriend ends up like my wife...you won't get as much work done anymore! Instead of her constant nagging about just plain being on the computer too much, now it's nagging that I spend too much time working when we should be playing the game together :)

-Pat

Yeah! And look at Ubisoft's Prince of Persia!!!

You can now buy Prince of Persia and get Splinter Cell for free at Ubisoft's online store! Both classic games!

I just hope the game companies do it again next year! I'll wait for the after xmas sales!

What about Harpoon 4? It has been in development for as long as Duke Nukem. According to the project website the project has been in the works since 1997. Unfortunately the project has been dropped by another in a long line of companies that have worked on it. Maybe someday I will be able to play Harpoon 4 or at least finally hold a funeral.

Another project long-anticipated by grognards is World In Flames by Australian Design Group. At least they have the excuse that the project was run in-house for most of the development time before being handed off to Matrix Games in October. I still play around with the last publicly available beta. What will I do with all the free table space once WIF is finally released?

I've heard a few people talking about this game and I guess it has something to do with the games called myst and riven. I've played neither of those but I went to their website and downloaded the demo. I was blown away by the graphics and sound and my wife and I played it for a couple of hours before we figured it out. I've just ordered the game from amazon so I hope the rest of it is as much fun as the demo.

I should mention that it seems more like a game where you just figure stuff out and not a shoot em up. Apparently there will be an online version of this as well which should make it interesting. One thing to note is you definitely want to have a fast computer with a good graphics card to play this. I don't play games that often so I don't know how this one stacks up to others this year but it certainly impressed me!

-Pat

You're kidding, right? Cell Shading has been around for ages and has become a recent trend in video games, ala Nintendo's latest Zelda game.

http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/xiii/

XIII is done totaly with cell shading. Looks and plays like a comic book. The demo at least.

Mark.

It may have been about the PS/2 that time.

Co-op games are the best when playing video games with your wife. You don't need the added stress of being antagonists in the video game world.

You may need to branch out from your world to play cooperatively, as FPS does not really lend itself to real co-op play.

My wife hates the computer, so I don't have any experience with PC games to share with the wife. Obvious titles come to mind from what I play with friends:
Diablo II
Neverwinter Nights

Since your wife likes puzzle games like Myst, and you want co-op, you may want to try URU Live. I was on the beta test for it. Assuming the on-line version is up and running, you can create avatars to look anyway you wish (my wife thought my self portrait was so accurate it was scary) and work together to solve puzzles. Some of the puzzles would be easier with two people. The graphics and sounds are awesome!

I hope this helps

No, in the USA, we make games that let us shoot cops, escape jail, be terrorists...

Chessmaster can be set to play like a player of any rating. If you're too cheap for that, I've found that TI-Chess for the TI-89 (for which there are several emulators if you don't have the real thing) plays at around my level, and I'm a 1000ish player.

I would also like to see Ubi-Soft and the actual developers of the game Monolith Productions actually work with companies that will do the Macintosh and Linux development so we don't run into the whole deal where one platform is left behind or end up not even having the ability to play with the windows users. If you choose Linux or Mac, I would seriously suggest contacting Monolith and voicing your opinion.

... when it comes out. I'm just guessing on the content of this article since it's already Slashdotted and no one seems to have posted a copy, strangely enough, but it seems that he's beored with over-defined "games" that require significant blocked time effort and mandate certain types of social interaction to achieve anything "fun".

Frankly, maybe you should re-visit the type of "game" you play. I plan to start Uru (aka Mudpie, aka Online Myst) as soon as it comes out for just this reason. You completely free to explore on your own, and you're also able to explore with others, if you so desire.

More info:

Open Directory Project on Myst

Uru Live

Here is the response as seen in the forum on their site:

Given the state of the computer market, the PC client was developed first, and Cyan has since run out of money for further development of additional platform support. We've been given assurances by a couple of people at Cyan that if the PC version of the game sells well, there will be a Mac version released at a later time, similar to (though hopefully with less of a delay than) realMYST. Of course, if the PC version bombs, it won't matter either way... so talk it up to your PC-owning friends!

Reference

Also, it was quiet interesting Americas Army came out before UT2K3 using the UT2K3 engine. So the engine does look good on other non-bouncy fps games. (Any other U2K3 engine based games out?)

From the Unreal Wiki, released UT2k3 engine games:

America's Army
Devastation
Raven Shield
Splinter Cell
Unreal 2
Unreal Championship
Postal 2 ...and of course itself, and any others I have forgotten.

Notable upcoming Unreal Engine games include:
Deus Ex 2
Thief 3
XIII

Unreal Warfare, Epic's worst-kept secret, is next-generation (from UT2003's engine) and is said to rival Doom 3s and Half Life 2s. Speculation I have heard is that is seems to be a large scale combat game (either that or i'm getting this confuesd with Digital Extreme's Stargate game), perhaps in the style of BF1942 or PlanetSide (yes, there are games in development (unannounced) that are using the Unreal Engine as a platform for a MMORPG, so it is a possibilty).

We will be bringing all the Shadowbane servers down for an emergency client and server patch. This patch will optimize the login server process and extend the length of time-out messages. This patch will also close down several teleport and summoning exploits. We estimate that this patch maintenance will cause the servers to be offline for one hour.

So, how much does it cost to be a beta tester these days?

Cyan folks have said that they're actively pursuing a Mac version. I think the hesitation is coming from the publishers rather than the developers.

The Official Uru Website also has Wallpapers. On the UbiSoft E3 website there is a cool Trailer![2nd game down]

Cyan also runs a in character site. Its called the DRC, and without getting into too much detal, the DRC is an organization from within the Uru Story. There are more screen shots and even music that you can get from DRC Site.

There are many cool community sites, including MystCommunity. Cyan even releases some Open Source software from this website.

Looking at the screen shots this could be one of the most visualy inspiring games in a long time. If they can pull off this Hybrid MMOG way to gamming(you did RTFA didn't you?) it will be very cool.

There have been quite a few articles on Uru recently, to find most of them, just do a search on Google News

The Official Uru Website also has Wallpapers. On the UbiSoft E3 website there is a cool Trailer![2nd game down]

Cyan also runs a in character site. Its called the DRC, and without getting into too much detal, the DRC is an organization from within the Uru Story. There are more screen shots and even music that you can get from DRC Site.

There are many cool community sites, including MystCommunity. Cyan even releases some Open Source software from this website.

Looking at the screen shots this could be one of the most visualy inspiring games in a long time. If they can pull off this Hybrid MMOG way to gamming(you did RTFA didn't you?) it will be very cool.

There have been quite a few articles on Uru recently, to find most of them, just do a search on Google News

Actually there are three books released. Book of Atrus, Book of Ti'ana (technically a pre-qual), and Book of D'ni.

There is a forth book in the works, but no imformation has been realsed as to a publishing date. I personaly would guess it would co-inside with the release of Uru and/or the Myst mini-series.

Presumably, most people here have a fair familiarity with the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) phenomenon, but here's a rundown of the major products out there from my bookmarks, for anyone who's interested but not wholly informed. Feel free to correct any of this if my understanding of any of these games is in any way flawed:

Anarchy Online
Asheron's Call
Dark Age of Camelot
Everquest
Shadowbane (just released - very buggy)
A Tale in the Desert
Ultima Online

Horizons
Eve Online (final beta - close to release)
City of Heroes
Dragon Empires (in beta)
Everquest 2 (in development)
Lineage II (in development)
Star Wars Galaxies (closed beta)
Imperator (very early development)
World of Warcraft (very early development)

Most of these games don't release specific subscriber base numbers. However, a series of very good guesses is compiled here.