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EA Editor Criticizes Command & Conquer 4 DRM
Command & Conquer 4's DRM hasn't garnered Electronic Arts as much bad press and fan outrage as Ubisoft's scheme, despite being very similar. Nevertheless, it's been causing problems and frustrations for some users, including EA.com's own editor-in-chief, Jeff Green. An anonymous reader points this out:
"Green wrote on his Twitter account late last week: 'Booted twice — and progress lost — on my single-player C&C4 game because my DSL connection blinked. DRM fail. We need new solutions.' He continued later, 'Well. I've tried to be open-minded. But my 'net connection is finicky — and the constant disruption of my C&C4 SP game makes this unplayable. The story is fun, the gameplay is interesting and different at least — but if you suffer from shaky/unreliable DSL — you've been warned.'"
Jeff Green used to be part of 1UP's editorial team as a former video games journalist. Very frank guy, very funny guy. Even if he gets fired from EA because of this, which I doubt, there are tons of games publications needing an accomplished and insightful editor or game publishers wanting Jeff's charisma for their public/community relations.
I've been stung by this one. There was little (or in fact no) warning in advance of release that the copy protection would take this form and, as this was an EA rather than an Ubisoft game, I didn't assume that it would. So, like a fool, I went and placed a pre-order with an electronic-only retailer.
Of course, the release day comes and various forums explode with news of the DRM. I had already made a decision not to buy any games with Ubisoft-style DRM... and now find myself accidentally in breach of that. I try to get a refund... and fail.
After a few days of unsuccessfully trying for a refund, I give up. I say "ok, I'll see for myself just how bad this is". So I pass up any lingering hopes of a refund and download and install the game. Just getting the launcher to start up is a hassle, as there are assorted known issues with it. Eventually, I figure out that I have to manually update the EA Download Manager (an entirely separate piece of software) before the game will run. Having done all of this, and created an account, I click the button to try to play the game. And get told that the DRM client "cannot connect to the internet". I check my net connection; no problems - I've had an IRC client running the whole time with no interruptions. Ok, maybe it's a router problem... nope, everything's fine there. I check a few forums and find that the solution is "keep trying, it works eventually."
Ok, so I do this. On the 7th or 8th try, it succeeds in logging in (so yes, it's just an inappropriate error message). The game starts, and I marvel at how retro and primative everything feels. Yes, it's defaulted my graphics to 800x600, despite the fact that pretty much every other game around these days will default to my desktop resolution and take a stab at estimating my graphics settings. Ok, no big deal, it only takes a few minutes to change things.
So, time to start the game. I'm only interested in the singleplayer campaign. I don't tend to play non-subscription games online these days; I've long since gotten sick of tolerating the 14 year old pottymouths who infest pretty much any other kind of online play. So you can imagine how delighted I am to find myself in a chatroom full of said lowlifes... on the singleplayer campaign menu. Yes, while I try to read the mission briefing, I have a window open below it full of idiot children amusing themselves in the usual way. Clicking past that, I get into the mission.
I knew from the pre-release reviews (none of which mentioned the DRM) that the C&C gameplay had been radically altered; that base building had gone. I hadn't been massively enthused by this, but I'd decided to give it a go. After all, I got plenty of enjoyment out of Dawn of War 2 and its expansion, even though I would have preferred they stuck to the traditional RTS approach. Anyway, the first couple of C&C4 missions are tutorial type things, which is fine. I'm already starting to worry that we've lost some gameplay depth, but now I've committed my money, I'm determined to give it a go. The first two tutorials are over very quickly. I get into the third, and notice that while it's still a tutorial, it's a good bit longer. 15 minutes into it... disconnected from the server... progress lost.
Fantastic.
It takes me 10 minutes to manage to log into EA's servers again (and this isn't launch day, but several days later). When I get back in, I manage to complete that mission. I then get into the game proper, and choose my faction. Starting the first proper mission (for the Nod faction) my worries about the gameplay really start to grow. There's no robustness to the micro-level combat. You're just dragging a force around from one waypoint to the next. Mid-mission, my objective changes abruptly, from conquest to escort. Before I've really cottoned on to this, the vehicles I'm supposed to escort have wandered off and been destroyed. So I revert to a mid-mission save, and go again. This time, I'm ready for the objective switch. I escort the units across the map. Just as they're a