Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

ign.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 207 posts

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#101

Post by sbov »

corresation wrote: post #94
sbov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. The simulation is not serverside. If you disconnect from the servers you can play your city all you want. The only serverside aspect is saves and social (including region play), which would be relatively easier to recreate.

Why did they have to disable accelerated time in the single player game? I'm not disputing what you are saying -- the notion that it had a server-side engine for single player games seemed silly -- but that aspect of the story struck me as very odd.

The theory is that the client communicates with the server for saves based upon in-game time not wall-clock time. So cheetah speed forces the client to talk to the server more often for this purpose.

I made my statement based upon my experiences playing. For one, I played the game for 3 hours disconnected from the servers - I knew my progress wouldn't be saved but I just wanted to play. It seemed to work fine aside from region play and that my progress wasn't saved.

Another time I lost my internet connection for 15 minutes. I continued to play. When I got it back, it claimed it re-sync'd my game with the server. As a test I logged out and back in and it all looked the same.

Maybe there is some simulation on the server side. But it doesn't seem necessary based upon my experiences playing the game.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#102

Post by danielweber »

drobati wrote: post #95
danielweber wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but piracy seems to be our only guaranteed method of preserving them You aren't going to pirate Sim City 5. This is the future of gaming. Companies are just going to avoid all the grief of piracy and weird DRM by either moving to locked-down platforms (iOS and consoles) or into games that have essential online components. It's a classic prisoner's dilemma. I'd love to by a game and install it on my PC without it taki…

This is not the future of gaming. Look at how badly SimCity flopped. Let me compare to DotA2 which I play a lot. It's exclusively multiplayer and thus needs an internet connection, yet it's free to play. How much have I spent on it? At this point at least $75+ dollars. THIS IS THE FUTURE OF GAMING. Valve has the right model. I know valve didn't create the F2P model but it has implemented it the best as far as I know.…

Online-only play is exactly what I am talking about as the (dystopian) future of gaming. Pushing more and more of the game into the cloud, so it becomes SaaS instead of worrying about DRM.

Freemium versus pay-up-front are both flavors of that.

Do we know that SimCity "flopped"? It's gotten lots of people angry at it, but that's not at all the same as not making money.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#103

Post by betterunix »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #83
betterunix wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Server woes are a necessary evil with MMOs" I am not sure that is true. What other than DRM stops people from setting up their own competing servers? What other than a lack of incentive for the game makers prevents community-run servers from interoperating, creating an enormous peer-to-peer universe?

What other than DRM? There is no DRM in an MMO. What stops you is the lack of them giving you the server software. Facebook doesn't give you their server software either, would you call that DRM? This is absolutely no different. Considering that a huge proportion of Hacker News is devoted to web based startups, you would think that this would be fairly obvious.

"There is no DRM in an MMO"

Thus explaining why people need to do things like patch the game and/or modify their hosts file in order to connect to third-party servers. If trying to authenticate the server you connect to and leaving you with no options for connecting to third party servers is not DRM, what would you call it?

"What stops you is the lack of them giving you the server software."

Nope, the protocols are reverse engineered and people create their own server software.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#105

Post by Laremere »

corresation wrote: post #94
sbov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. The simulation is not serverside. If you disconnect from the servers you can play your city all you want. The only serverside aspect is saves and social (including region play), which would be relatively easier to recreate.

Why did they have to disable accelerated time in the single player game? I'm not disputing what you are saying -- the notion that it had a server-side engine for single player games seemed silly -- but that aspect of the story struck me as very odd.

Another theory other than sbov's theory is that there is calculation done on the server side, but only for cities in a region not currently being played. As long as someone is playing in a region, the other cities are basically on rails, so nothing really changes for the players, but they still will correctly interact with cities currently being played.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#106

Post by accountoftheday »

corresation wrote: post #94
sbov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. The simulation is not serverside. If you disconnect from the servers you can play your city all you want. The only serverside aspect is saves and social (including region play), which would be relatively easier to recreate.

Why did they have to disable accelerated time in the single player game? I'm not disputing what you are saying -- the notion that it had a server-side engine for single player games seemed silly -- but that aspect of the story struck me as very odd.

I am only speculating here but the server may be verifying a client's simulation to prevent IAP/multiplayer cheating. (Who hasn't played the old SimCity games with infinite cash?)

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#107

Post by treeface »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #89
npsimons wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the future of gaming. Then I guess I won't be gaming anymore. Not that I do much now, and I've mostly quit for other unrelated reasons, but if is the future of gaming, you can count me, and I'm sure many others, out. I used to game a lot. I used to spend a not insignificant amount of money on games. If the publishers want to basically steal my money and call me the thief, then they can forget about having me…

Actually it is the future, and like you I too don't buy games much any more. Your kids or your peer's kids though will play games this way because it is the only way to get them and they will think its 'normal.' Eventually you'll be called an 'old timer' and derided for all your comments about how in your day when you bought a game it didn't need to download 4GB of 'patches' nor did it require Internet access to run.…

There are countless games coming out that don't use draconian DRM. "The future of gaming" is a lot less monolithic than the two of you would suggest.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#108

Post by lotharbot »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #89
npsimons wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the future of gaming. Then I guess I won't be gaming anymore. Not that I do much now, and I've mostly quit for other unrelated reasons, but if is the future of gaming, you can count me, and I'm sure many others, out. I used to game a lot. I used to spend a not insignificant amount of money on games. If the publishers want to basically steal my money and call me the thief, then they can forget about having me…

Actually it is the future, and like you I too don't buy games much any more. Your kids or your peer's kids though will play games this way because it is the only way to get them and they will think its 'normal.' Eventually you'll be called an 'old timer' and derided for all your comments about how in your day when you bought a game it didn't need to download 4GB of 'patches' nor did it require Internet access to run.…

> "So eventually keeping a game 'alive' starts generating negative money"

When a game nears that point, the publishers can theoretically push a patch that removes the "must be online" components and/or allows connection to self-run servers, so the community can keep it alive.

I'm aware of a few companies actually doing something like this. Years ago, Parallax/Outrage/Volition (of the Descent series) went out of their way to give the community the assets they'd need to keep the series alive.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#109

Post by Apocryphon »

npsimons wrote: post #76
danielweber wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but piracy seems to be our only guaranteed method of preserving them You aren't going to pirate Sim City 5. This is the future of gaming. Companies are just going to avoid all the grief of piracy and weird DRM by either moving to locked-down platforms (iOS and consoles) or into games that have essential online components. It's a classic prisoner's dilemma. I'd love to by a game and install it on my PC without it taki…

This is the future of gaming. Then I guess I won't be gaming anymore. Not that I do much now, and I've mostly quit for other unrelated reasons, but if is the future of gaming, you can count me, and I'm sure many others, out. I used to game a lot. I used to spend a not insignificant amount of money on games. If the publishers want to basically steal my money and call me the thief, then they can forget about having me…

Kickstarter-funded indie games and revivals led by '90s-era developer icons will be viable alternatives.

Re: SimCity Burning: A Warning to Publishers on The Dangers of Always-Online DRM

#110

Post by rohern »

I do not understand the gamer community. EA has been treating you guys like crap for years and you keep coming back for more. Just stop buying their products. I know it sucks not to have access to a new game, but make a stand for an industry you care about and stop supporting a lousy company that has distain for you.
Post reply on HN