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Posts Tagged ‘Silent Hunter 5’

Ubisoft offering compensation to those affected by server problems

March 25th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

Admitting that you’ve erred is hard to do. Ubisoft has sort of done that. This was posted by UK Forum Manager ms-kleaneasy :

Earlier this week we advised members of the forums that Ubisoft was working on a plan to compensate those affected by the recent OSP server downtime.

Ubisoft have started sending out emails to those affected by the downtime so we would ask affected players to keep an eye on your email, not forgetting your spam folders etc.

I would also suggest double checking your profile settings on Ubi.com to ensure your listed email address is up to date and where this is not the case you update your profiles a.s.a.p.

We hope to have more specific information on the exact form the compensation will take soon and will update you all as soon as we have the information

The compensation offered is reported to consist of another game (H.A.W.X., EndWar & Prince of Persia have been named on other sites…amusingly, all of those titles shipped completely DRM free), or perhaps the extra content from the Special Edition of AC2 for owners of the standard version of the game. Blue’s News has posted that, according to an email passed on to them by an affected Silent Hunter 5 player, Shaun White Snowboarding and Prince of Persia are the games he was offered.

Of course, the server DRM system remains in place, so it isn’t as though they are completely stepping away from the ledge here. Also left unclear is exactly how Ubisoft is determining who was affected by the server problems.

Posted in Games

Tags: Assassin's Creed 2, compensation, Silent Hunter 5, Ubisoft

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Ubisoft announces servers down due to attack UPDATE : Under attack again UPDATE March 9th

March 8th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

March 9th Update : Again, in a Twitter post made last night, Ubi now says that European login servers have been at least partially returned to full service levels.

Login servers were partially re-established at 10pm CET and fully restored at 1am CET. The attack affected only those trying to login

As for their second sentence…since you need to be logged in to the servers to properly play the game, isn’t EVERYONE someone who is trying to log in?

UPDATE : Ubi just made another announcement on their Twitter feed stating that their DRM servers are once again facing an attack, and some users are unable to sign in and play.

Our servers are under attack again. Some gamers are experiencing trouble signing in. We’re working on it and will keep you posted

Ubisoft’s Twitter feed was alive with the sound of reasons for their server access problems over the weekend.

Apologies to anyone who couldn’t play ACII or SH5 yesterday. Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30pm to 9pm Paris time

95% of players were not affected, but a small group of players attempting to open a game session did receive denial of service errors

It is certainly unfortunate that certain people have decided that this sort of action represents a legitimate response to Ubi’s DRM system. It flat out does not. However, it is also unfortunate that the DRM servers are as vulnerable as they seem to be to being taken out of commission by anyone with the knowledge and an axe to grind. Regardless of the number of people affected, nobody should be rendered unable to play a game which they’ve purchased by the actions of some nebulous third party. Especially actions that are as sadly predictable as these were.

Ubi also had the following to say about the persistent talk that its system has been circumvented :

We’re happy to say ACII & SH5 are withstanding the efforts to crack them.We see the rumors but still confirm no valid cracked versions exist

Posted in Games

Tags: Assassin's Creed 2, servers attacked, Silent Hunter 5, Ubisoft, Ubisoft account system, weekend server problems

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Ubisoft’s DRM cracked already?

March 4th, 2010

Brad McGraw

Well if you believe Ubisoft, no it hasn’t. As reported by Computer and Videogames:

Ubisoft has told CVG that reports of its new always-online DRM system having been cracked already are false.

Well that’s a relief for Ubisoft isn’t it? I guess its just a prank by some punk kids. Wait. What?

Ubi added: “Please know that this rumor is false and while a pirated version may seem to be complete at start up, any gamer who downloads and plays a cracked version will find that their version is not complete.”

So it has been cracked, its just not the full version. So why tell us it hasn’t been cracked? The other thing odd is that there is no mention of what they are missing from the ‘full’ game. Is it just the ability to save games online? If so, then I fail to see how this would be different from any other game out there right now. Maybe a cracked version cannot get patches, and that constitutes not having a full game in the eyes of Ubisoft? This is all speculation though, and until there is more news out there about what a pirated version is missing, that’s all we can do.

*Update* Rock Paper Shotgun is reporting that some pirates are having problems playing through missions, which are supposedly on the Ubisoft servers and not loaded into the game. However some people are reporting they are able to play without problems. Its still a guessing game and until Ubisoft clarifies its rather vague comment, it will continue to be.

(more…)

Posted in Games

Tags: DRM, Silent Hunter 5, Ubisoft

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Ubisoft announces slate of games to use server access DRM

February 27th, 2010

Cliff Riseborough

It isn’t really a surprising announcement at all, seeing as how Ubi had stated previously that their ‘all access all the time’ server DRM system wasn’t just going to be a one off. However, it does sort of cement its status as their system of choice for the foreseeable future.

As reported on Softpedia, the entire known slate of upcoming Ubi releases will require permanent server access during play. That means :

-Assassin’s Creed II

-Settlers VII

-Splinter Cell : Conviction

-Silent Hunter 5 : Battle of the Atlantic

-Prince of Persia : the Forgotten Sands

-The upcoming Ghost Recon title

There you go. It was pretty obvious this would be the case, and now it’s official. Also, they have officially stated that progress loss if the connection is severed will differ from game to game :

The company is also confirming that if the connection to the Internet goes down, the effect depends on the title the player is engaged in. Those who have checkpoint-based save systems will lose the progress they made since the last one, while other games, like Settlers VII, will allow the player to continue exactly from the moment when loss of the Internet connection forced the game to shut down. It also acknowledges that the new DRM scheme will at one point be cracked, but it hopes that until then, players will go for the genuine product.

Posted in Games

Tags: Assassin's Creed 2, Ghost Recon, Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands, Settlers 7, Silent Hunter 5, Splinter Cell Conviction, Ubisoft, Ubisoft account system

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