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The Evolution of Multiplayer Games and Online Play
Ranga14 writes "The recently announced Command & Conquer 4 seems to be following the same path of Blizzard's Starcraft 2 in having no LAN/offline multiplayer. They will require users to be logged in at all times to even be able to play any facet of the game. What will this mean for LAN parties, gaming events and those who don't play online? Is this a sound business decision, or do EA & Blizzard not get that this method of attempting to thwart piracy will fail like others have?"
I think it's a wrong move, but not because of LAN parties. LAN parties used to be a thing when internet was scarce, connections were slow and often you also had metered lines that only let you transfer so much traffic per month. Today, with bandwitdths that break the mbit borders easily and often hover about 10mbit, carrying your computer somewhere is, at best, something you'd do for special occasions. Events, maybe sponsored, where you may even win a prize for being good. Not just "getting together to play".
My argument against those mandatory online services is simple: What if the company ceases to exist or ceases to support the product? Good bye multiplayer (or even singleplayer)? Today I could still fire up a game of Starcraft, locally or through the internet, I needn't connect with BattleNet (let's assume it ever went away), I could play SC for as long as there is TCP/IP v4 around. Dunno if it works with v6, someone would have to try.
Tying a game to its maker essentially results in a better rental version. And I refuse to pay premium for renting a game.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you can't play the game except through their online service, I assume they're not actually charging you for the game software itself?
No, of course not. They'd never double-charge people for a game, would they?
If they really have taken this decision as a measure to prevent piracy I am not sure why the summary above is so sure it will fail. Sure, the game will still be pirated and will still be available on the Pirate Bay in no time however this measure will probably reduce piracy.
If I was required to buy a legal licensed copy of the game to play online I probably would. The alternative is I download a hack that enables me to play a pirated copy, but if they ever patch the game or server to detect this hack that is massive risk as they have a permanent record me having used a hack.
My favourite online game is Americas Army. If you do well on my server I will look you up on this site (http://www.aa-accounthistory.com/). If I see a linked banned account, your gone and added to my server as a MAC ban. Since this history site links accounts by IP, MAC and the GUID associated with your account getting a banned account listed on it can be a right pain. To be thoroughly clear you may need to change you IP if you have a static address and also use a MAC changer (or buy a new network card).
To play any game well online takes practice. If you are going to download a pirated copy and then play until you get caught and your account banned that practice is wasted since any sort of online league play is out of the question. Also, if they implement a similar history tracking site then you may find you a new legal account from a bought copy is also banned as it is associated with a hacked previous illegal copy. There is nothing legally wrong with this as the shrink wrapped licence you have to agree to when you install the software probably mentions this could happen.
Ultimately this is what they are aiming for, they do not want to stop all piracy of their game since that is obviously impossible. They do want to keep it to a minimum by preventing illegal copies from being able to play online and hence they people using them will miss out on a large part of the gameplay. This is a major reason why game companies are moving towards games that involve an online component, it gives people an added reason to buy a legit copy.
I dont read
This will only encourage people to build add-ons for the game that allow LAN play. Its happened with dozens of games and frankly this is just plain stupid.
LANS are there for people to get together and have a good time. A LOT of people use wireless connections in their house and that shit is attrocious for LAN play. You can say what you want, but most home hardware that people buy just isn't designed for 6+ people gaming over the internet at the same time. Forget the connection... just the hardware.
A $20 hub lets 10 people play in a LAN where it costs a lot more to setup the same level of connection over the internet in one location. You can try to argue with me but the fact is you're wrong.
I love LANS. People in the same room, talking smack, eating pizza, it's so much better than being on a headset talking over ventrilo. You can see their expressions when you nail em or overwhelm their defenses... It's also being able to come to a physical location, and as we get older, there are no kids, no annoying significant others (we have women in our group so saying wives would be wrong) who keep interrupting. They are there and not being hit with interruptions.
I've lost all real desire to play SC2. I was so excited about it... but the whole point of SC2 is playing with friends and removing LAN play removes half of the reason I play games like that. Sure... we can play online... but it limits us, or requires us to move equipment to other parts of the house so we can all hook up to the router physically since wireless is terrible, and most of us don't have wireless cards for our Desktops. Any gamer who thinks they can beat me while using a laptop is in for one hell of a spanking.
This is a risky move on their part. If you want an example of what can occur when a company does something like this, and then decides that it may not be as profitable as it hopes look no further than Steel Battalion: Line of Contact from Capcom. That game was only out for right about 1 year before they shut down the campaign servers. After that a large portion of the game became unplayable. I doubt the Command & Conquer franchise will die, but I would be willing to venture a guess that in a few years the game may no longer be playable once the company realizes they have no obligation to keep these servers up and running.
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
The commentary added to the bottom of the summary is wrong. This has a good chance of success at thwarting piracy.
The goal of anti-piracy measures is never to eliminate 100% of piracy until the end of time. That's nearly impossible, and they know it. What they really want to do is make it so that either you can't pirate it for the frst little while, or that you don't want to. Having no functional online play whatsoever in the pirated version is a pretty effective way of making the pirated version worse then the retail version. (That's the opposite strategy of stuff like SecuROM, which generally makes the retail version worse then the pirated version.)
LAN functionality is a real problem in that department now, because it's used primarily for pirates to play on Hamachi (and the like) with each other. Remove it from the game entirely, and the pirates no longer have to simply bypass SecuROM or an offline disk check. They have to emulate Battle.net in order to get any multiplayer working.
Will they do that eventually? Absolutely. Will they do that within the first 2 week sales rush? Highly unlikely. If it takes them a couple months before the pirated versions have online play, then by the standard of what the companies are trying to do, it's a successful anti-piracy measure.
As usual, you crooks who rip off games because you want free stuff are just screwing it up for everybody else.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I like to play Snakes on a plane.
Squirrel!
I loved the original starcraft game but didn't really like playing online because of the cheating and honestly it's more fun to play in a room full of people you know. I also don't support this designed obsolescence crap. I can still load up starcraft and play it with my friends and will still be able to in 10 years regardless of what happens to blizzard.
I just sent off an email to blizzard telling them I'm not buying their new version and I suggest you do the same. It only takes a minute and if everyone started doing something other than sitting on their asses things might change.
http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml?locale=en_US
I see no way to email EA without having an account. Maybe someone else can find a method.