5 ms·

Oh, there's a reason. Like Diablo III, the point is that it's effectively impossible to crack. With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates

by TillE 14y ago

Oh, there's a reason. Like Diablo III, the point is that it's effectively impossible to crack. With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write something that's almost a whole new game. This is the future that big videogame companies are rushing to embrace, one where customers do not and cannot own games, merely rent them for an uncertain period. Indies and smaller studios with Kickstarter funding are going to continue eating a bigger part of their lunch.

bearmf 14y ago
The irony is that it is not only impossible to crack, it is now impossible to play as well. Unplayable games are impossible to crack, but this does not make them any less absurd. DRM has come to its logical and absurd conclusion, it seems.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  It worked out the same way with music. For a short time the labels were experimenting with selling CDs that weren't actually audio CDs, but had been damaged in various ways to make them unplayable on a computer. The result of that experiment speaks for itself. Hopefully it will play out the same way here.
  - mmatants 14y ago
    The result is that we are increasingly switching to renting our music via services like Rdio and Spotify. And I can't say that this trend is all bad. I know what I pay for (temporary access), and I'm OK with that.
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      Apple seems to still be doing alright selling digital music, and they voluntarily stopped using DRM.
      - pwthornton 14y ago
        Apple didn't voluntarily stop using DRM; they convinced the labels to stop requiring it. Piracy isn't Apple's concern, but the user experience is. This is in service of saying that DRM isn't in the user's best interest and even big companies that care about user experience don't like DRM. Apple didn't ship DRM on its OSes when they were DVD based either. Yes they probably lost some sales due to piracy, but not having to deal with serial numbers is big for users.
        ariwilson 14y ago
        No, Amazon stopped using DRM to have a competitive advantage versus Apple, the music companies went along because it gave them a real competitor to iTunes, and eventually Apple managed to renegotiate their contracts so they could also remove the DRM.
        arrrg 14y ago
        Juicy, juicy revisionist history!
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        hatcravat 14y ago
        >they convinced the labels to stop requiring it. Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? People were building huge libraries of music that only worked on Apple products (iPods and iTunes) around the time the labels allowed Amazon to start selling DRM-free MP3s. Apple would have gained an enormous amount of leverage if the labels had allowed that to continue: "Oh, you won't accept our terms? Well, then your product won't be playable on 90% [0] of portable music devices [1] and won't be available in the largest online music store (and your competitors' will be)! I hope not all your artists have left by next fiscal quarter." For all he talked amount it, I'm not convinced that Steve Jobs ever wanted to see the iTunes Music Store go DRM-free. The market penetration of iPods meant that only path forward for the labels was one that allowed people to listen to music on their iPods. The only way to do that was selling DRM-free MP3s or protected AAC files. As a bonus, DRM-free MP3s worked on all the cheap flash-based players (which always had greater deployment than any of the DRM-compatible players from Sony and Microsoft). [0] A number generated by my PRNG (posterior random number generator). But the iPod Classic really does have an absurd share of the >64GB market (probably declining now that you can get tablets and phones with 128GB of flash). [1] Don't forget that Apple has only ever supported their own DRM. Protected AAC files play on Apple devices and only Apple devices. Apple devices support only protected AAC and DRM-free formats.
cryptoz 14y ago
I meant no 'gameplay' reason - I know that they have a financial reason to do this, or that they think they do, at least. If they lose enough sales and get enough hate, that removes even the financial reason that they thought they had for doing this. So perhaps, hopefully, maybe, they'll choose to stop doing it.
networked 14y ago
>Like Diablo III, the point is that it's effectively impossible to crack. With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write something that's almost a whole new game. I agree that this is a strong deterrent but given how even MMORPG servers have been reversed engineered [1] it's not impossible. If SimCity proves as enduring and as desirable as WoW we may well see it coupled with a LinCity-NG-derived [2] backend or similar. Edit: That said, a powerful stimulus for the development of MMO server emulators was that players dissatisfied with the official servers' community simple couldn't run their own server how they'd like it for whom they like. I assume that the new SimCity is designed to be a far less community-oriented experience and people in control of the neighboring cities are largely replaceable from a player's perspective. [1] See http://www.runuo.com/ http://www.runuo.com/, http://www.galaxiesreborn.com/ http://www.galaxiesreborn.com/, https://launchpad.net/aurora-runescape-server-emulator https://launchpad.net/aurora-runescape-server-emulator, http://arcemu.org/ http://arcemu.org/, etc. Note how many of those are community FOSS projects, even though running them with an official client is almost always a ToS violation. [2] http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
- networked 14y ago
  I've got to point out that my previous remark about a LinCity-NG back end was made half-jokingly and now that I've noticed that's not really obvious it's too late to go back and edit the comment. The difference between how your city is represented in SimCity 2000, 3000 and 4, on which LinCity-NG is based, and the new SimCity is quite profound and I thought I'd explain it further. First, the new layout engine finally allows you to construct roads at arbitrary angles and not just along the axes. This makes it fundamentally incompatible with the old grid-based map format used in SimCity since version one with few alternations [1]. Then there's the agent model of economics [2], a change from previous games' broad statistical model, that seems to be deeply integrated with the game's visualization. [1] The biggest change was likely the introduction of varying terrain height in SimCity 2000. [2] The developers give a brief explanation in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE. Looks like they've done some pretty interesting things with it.
- 14y ago
ececconi 14y ago
How much of D3's processing is done offloaded? Are there any articles online that I could read about this?
- vyrotek 14y ago
  Originally they told us quite a bit of logic was done on their servers. But then they announced that Diablo 3 would be playable offline on the PlayStation 4. Now I don't know what to believe. Could it be it was all just talk to stop us from trying?
  - reitzensteinm 14y ago
    The servers are almost certainly running from the same source base as the client. Swapping out who-does-what, compared to a console port, is trivial.
  - signed0 14y ago
    Or that the PS4 version is the first variant that has enough functionality built in for it to be playable offline.
    - querulous 14y ago
      they're probably just running the server code on the ps4 alongside the client. it's easier to secure there
  - gambiting 14y ago
    No, item drops are actually done on a server, to guarantee fair drops for everyone(you can sell them for real money, so you would rather make sure nobody just adds an item worth $$$ to their inventory). PS4 won't be connected to the Auction House, so most likely it will include just its own, internal version of the server that will generate item drops.
- flixic 14y ago
  Map generation, some enemy AI, and most frustratingly: combat action outcomes. My story was the same as numerous other players: started playing hardcore, died not because of a mistake, but because of lag (internet lagged for a few seconds, that was enough for monsters to kill me, when internet came back moments later I was told I died). At that moment I decided not give ANY more money to Blizzard, and closed my WoW membership.
betterunix 14y ago
"With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write something that's almost a whole new game." Sure, and with sufficient bandwidth and computational power you could actually hide all the game logic using a secure computation protocol. Only a complete idiot would do that for something as performance-intensive as a video game. The problem here is that we do not have reliable or fast Internet connections. As soon as your connection has a burp, or you get hit with some bufferbloat, or half your neighborhood starts streaming the Super Bowl in 1080p, your game starts to play worse. What EA failed to realize here is that the best way to make money in games is to offer a superior online gaming platform, not to try to sell individual games as products. Microsoft figured that out with XBox Live a long time ago.
scotty79 14y ago
Then when company goes belly up games die. Like Hellgate London multiplayer.
cdi 14y ago
>effectively impossible to crack. hack into their servers, steal binaries of game server, modify client to work with local server.

by TillE 14y ago

bearmf 14y ago

The irony is that it is not only impossible to crack, it is now impossible to play as well. Unplayable games are impossible to crack, but this does not make them any less absurd. DRM has come to its logical and absurd conclusion, it seems.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
fusiongyro 14y ago
It worked out the same way with music. For a short time the labels were experimenting with selling CDs that weren't actually audio CDs, but had been damaged in various ways to make them unplayable on a computer. The result of that experiment speaks for itself. Hopefully it will play out the same way here.
- mmatants 14y ago
  The result is that we are increasingly switching to renting our music via services like Rdio and Spotify. And I can't say that this trend is all bad. I know what I pay for (temporary access), and I'm OK with that.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    Apple seems to still be doing alright selling digital music, and they voluntarily stopped using DRM.
    - pwthornton 14y ago
      Apple didn't voluntarily stop using DRM; they convinced the labels to stop requiring it. Piracy isn't Apple's concern, but the user experience is. This is in service of saying that DRM isn't in the user's best interest and even big companies that care about user experience don't like DRM. Apple didn't ship DRM on its OSes when they were DVD based either. Yes they probably lost some sales due to piracy, but not having to deal with serial numbers is big for users.
      - ariwilson 14y ago
        No, Amazon stopped using DRM to have a competitive advantage versus Apple, the music companies went along because it gave them a real competitor to iTunes, and eventually Apple managed to renegotiate their contracts so they could also remove the DRM.
        arrrg 14y ago
        Juicy, juicy revisionist history!
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - hatcravat 14y ago
        >they convinced the labels to stop requiring it. Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? People were building huge libraries of music that only worked on Apple products (iPods and iTunes) around the time the labels allowed Amazon to start selling DRM-free MP3s. Apple would have gained an enormous amount of leverage if the labels had allowed that to continue: "Oh, you won't accept our terms? Well, then your product won't be playable on 90% [0] of portable music devices [1] and won't be available in the largest online music store (and your competitors' will be)! I hope not all your artists have left by next fiscal quarter." For all he talked amount it, I'm not convinced that Steve Jobs ever wanted to see the iTunes Music Store go DRM-free. The market penetration of iPods meant that only path forward for the labels was one that allowed people to listen to music on their iPods. The only way to do that was selling DRM-free MP3s or protected AAC files. As a bonus, DRM-free MP3s worked on all the cheap flash-based players (which always had greater deployment than any of the DRM-compatible players from Sony and Microsoft). [0] A number generated by my PRNG (posterior random number generator). But the iPod Classic really does have an absurd share of the >64GB market (probably declining now that you can get tablets and phones with 128GB of flash). [1] Don't forget that Apple has only ever supported their own DRM. Protected AAC files play on Apple devices and only Apple devices. Apple devices support only protected AAC and DRM-free formats.

cryptoz 14y ago

I meant no 'gameplay' reason - I know that they have a financial reason to do this, or that they think they do, at least. If they lose enough sales and get enough hate, that removes even the financial reason that they thought they had for doing this. So perhaps, hopefully, maybe, they'll choose to stop doing it.

networked 14y ago

>Like Diablo III, the point is that it's effectively impossible to crack. With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write something that's almost a whole new game. I agree that this is a strong deterrent but given how even MMORPG servers have been reversed engineered [1] it's not impossible. If SimCity proves as enduring and as desirable as WoW we may well see it coupled with a LinCity-NG-derived [2] backend or similar. Edit: That said, a powerful stimulus for the development of MMO server emulators was that players dissatisfied with the official servers' community simple couldn't run their own server how they'd like it for whom they like. I assume that the new SimCity is designed to be a far less community-oriented experience and people in control of the neighboring cities are largely replaceable from a player's perspective. [1] See http://www.runuo.com/ http://www.runuo.com/, http://www.galaxiesreborn.com/ http://www.galaxiesreborn.com/, https://launchpad.net/aurora-runescape-server-emulator https://launchpad.net/aurora-runescape-server-emulator, http://arcemu.org/ http://arcemu.org/, etc. Note how many of those are community FOSS projects, even though running them with an official client is almost always a ToS violation. [2] http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

networked 14y ago
I've got to point out that my previous remark about a LinCity-NG back end was made half-jokingly and now that I've noticed that's not really obvious it's too late to go back and edit the comment. The difference between how your city is represented in SimCity 2000, 3000 and 4, on which LinCity-NG is based, and the new SimCity is quite profound and I thought I'd explain it further. First, the new layout engine finally allows you to construct roads at arbitrary angles and not just along the axes. This makes it fundamentally incompatible with the old grid-based map format used in SimCity since version one with few alternations [1]. Then there's the agent model of economics [2], a change from previous games' broad statistical model, that seems to be deeply integrated with the game's visualization. [1] The biggest change was likely the introduction of varying terrain height in SimCity 2000. [2] The developers give a brief explanation in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-UGPRilUE. Looks like they've done some pretty interesting things with it.
14y ago

ececconi 14y ago

How much of D3's processing is done offloaded? Are there any articles online that I could read about this?

vyrotek 14y ago
Originally they told us quite a bit of logic was done on their servers. But then they announced that Diablo 3 would be playable offline on the PlayStation 4. Now I don't know what to believe. Could it be it was all just talk to stop us from trying?
- reitzensteinm 14y ago
  The servers are almost certainly running from the same source base as the client. Swapping out who-does-what, compared to a console port, is trivial.
- signed0 14y ago
  Or that the PS4 version is the first variant that has enough functionality built in for it to be playable offline.
  - querulous 14y ago
    they're probably just running the server code on the ps4 alongside the client. it's easier to secure there
- gambiting 14y ago
  No, item drops are actually done on a server, to guarantee fair drops for everyone(you can sell them for real money, so you would rather make sure nobody just adds an item worth $$$ to their inventory). PS4 won't be connected to the Auction House, so most likely it will include just its own, internal version of the server that will generate item drops.
flixic 14y ago
Map generation, some enemy AI, and most frustratingly: combat action outcomes. My story was the same as numerous other players: started playing hardcore, died not because of a mistake, but because of lag (internet lagged for a few seconds, that was enough for monsters to kill me, when internet came back moments later I was told I died). At that moment I decided not give ANY more money to Blizzard, and closed my WoW membership.

betterunix 14y ago

"With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write something that's almost a whole new game." Sure, and with sufficient bandwidth and computational power you could actually hide all the game logic using a secure computation protocol. Only a complete idiot would do that for something as performance-intensive as a video game. The problem here is that we do not have reliable or fast Internet connections. As soon as your connection has a burp, or you get hit with some bufferbloat, or half your neighborhood starts streaming the Super Bowl in 1080p, your game starts to play worse. What EA failed to realize here is that the best way to make money in games is to offer a superior online gaming platform, not to try to sell individual games as products. Microsoft figured that out with XBox Live a long time ago.

scotty79 14y ago

Then when company goes belly up games die. Like Hellgate London multiplayer.

cdi 14y ago

>effectively impossible to crack. hack into their servers, steal binaries of game server, modify client to work with local server.