Ubisoft’s Uber DRM Cracked Within a Day
Written by Ernesto on March 04, 2010Last month the gaming giant Ubisoft announced their new über-DRM which requires customers to be continuously online in order to play purchased games. Of course, this DRM was circumvented in a few hours and while downplaying this blunder, Ubisoft fails to see that they’ve only increased piracy.
As an anti-piracy tool DRM simply doesn’t work – and it never will, although not everyone fully realizes this. For example, Ubisoft recently decided to introduce a new solution to prevent pirates from playing their games. Their new DRM requires gamers to be online all the time when playing the game. Without an Internet connection the game simply won’t work.
The new plans were welcomed with skepticism by fellow game developers and the majority of gamers. Instead of hindering piracy the DRM only restricts legitimate customers from playing the game how and where they want, most people agreed.
A survey among members of the Subsim community regarding the DRM on Silent Hunter 5 shows that, if anything, the new DRM is putting off customers from actually buying the game. Only 15% of the respondents said that the DRM wouldn’t affect their plans to buy Silent Hunter 5, while 85% said they would delay or cancel their purchase until a DRM-free version becomes available.
From these responses it could be concluded that many potential customers would prefer to use a DRM-free (pirated) copy instead of the legitimate product, which is the opposite of what Ubisoft wanted to accomplish.
Silent Hunter 5 was released on Tuesday and just a few hours later a cracked version of the game was published on many file-sharing sites. Ubisoft, worrying that DRM-haters would download the game illegally, quickly responded to the news about the cracked DRM and released a statement in which they downplay ‘the issue’.
“You have probably seen rumors on the web that Assassin’s Creed II and Silent Hunter 5 have been cracked. 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,” Ubisoft quickly responded.
While many downloaders report that the game works just fine, Ubisoft’s statement does hold some truth because in their view the game is obviously ‘not complete’ without the DRM. At this point it is not entirely clear what else could be “missing” in the cracked version, but that is beside the point.
The bottom line is that their revolutionary DRM invention was cracked in a matter of hours, and although the crack might not be perfect yet, it will be eventually. The end result will be that the pirated version of the game will be more appealing and less restrictive than the actual retail product. Thus, the DRM is encouraging and increasing piracy instead of putting a halt to it.
It looks like Ubisoft has made a massive mistake with their strong focus on DRM. In fact, the time and effort spent on fine-tuning the DRM would have been better spent on game development, so that they didn’t have to release a patch with bugfixes a day after the game was released.
Let’s hope Ubisoft quickly comes to its senses and releases another patch that removes the needless DRM from the game.
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158 Responses
Its a habit of ubi and other dev.s to implement ‘code-breakers’ into their games – like with the poison gas thing in Batman, or what have you, or the galaxy map glitch w/ ME1, or whatever.
Chances are that there is some vital component within the game that will ‘break’ if the main executable is altered, so maybe halfway through the game you will find that your sub wont stop diving, and tends to crash on the ocean floor or something.
Ubi deserves the cold shoulder for their bullshit DRM, but in the end, nobody really wins – hopefully the cracks will circumvent any anti-crack attempts, but the end result will be the same:
Pirates will download and play it, legal gamers will buy it and play it, Ubisoft will come down hard on the pirates despite both pirates and legal gamers complaining about the DRM, and we will end up with an even more invasive DRM.
Its a vicious circle that will only continue to spiral downwards.
Fail.
Why would anyone want to buy a game if it means more trouble than to just download it for free?
…it was pretty obvious this would happen, what did they expect
They’re trying to shoot the enemy, yet all they’re doing is hitting friendlies.
This is just like the DVD piracy problem. If you have a legitimate copy of a movie, you’re still obligated to watch all the copyright warnings, all those other movie trailers (at least you can fast forward them) and the always annoying menu. On the pirate copy, you put the DVD on the player and the movie begins, simple.
The game industry required us many times to have the CD on the drive even if it wouldn’t be needed at all, and now we have to be online? Come on!
So true Anonymous, if it was a issue to play the DRM game versus no issue with non-DRM game I will pick the non-DRM game.
Secondly I say, HA!!! to Ubisoft. You won’t stop people from pirating games, movies, music ever. Stop trying. These people are smarter than you will ever be. All you care about is money. Well you need money to make money, so you will always be behind the curve. All they care about is free entertainment. Free needs nothing and is VERY motivating to learn something new. Let alone forcing your consumers to buy a gimped product just because you don’t get that extra billion dollars from the people who wish the game was free. No it doesn’t matter that you made 15 billion. Your so greedy you need to spend half a billion on this DRM shit just to get back the “supposed” 1 billion dollars lost. Prove you lost first. Wait there’s no real way to prove that is there? 0 times 0 is still 0
They don’t get it. It really is NOT A HARD CONCEPT TO GRASP, but they just don’t get it. Ubisoft, go fail some more.
@7
I agree completely. To prove that they lost anything would be an argument based on a logical fallacy (potential profits), and I think we all know that they might as well just put their face in a blender as it’s a more productive use of their time.
Omg!!!
I can’t believe how ironic it is.
Couldn’t agree more. When I used to actually buy games, first thing I’d do was to get a crack for it to get around the annoying DRM. Now I don’t even bother buying anymore; if I’m downloading anyway, may was well grab the whole damn thing. Only people you’re hurting is the paying customer. Copy protection/DRM has been tried since way back when games came on floppies; hasn’t stopped a single game from getting pirated. Only thing it’s doing is pissing off your customers and driving up prices.
It’s missing most definitely the “Save game” feature, which is quite essential for single player games indeed. Here is more about the Ubisoft’s new system and the cat-and-mouse game they are playing at the expense of PC gamers:
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2010/02/awful-anti-pirate-system-that-will.html
I will never ever buy anything from Ubisoft, and hope no one will either. They are now in the same “greedy crapheads” boycott list as Microsoft. What is there so hard to understand about that people will buy the game if they really, really like it?? Ubisoft made 155 € million Euros of profit in 2009. Aren’t they happy? Customers should avoid psychopatic corporations.
I’m going to pirate these games just because they tried to do this. For no other reason. I don’t even intend to play them, just add one more user to their opportunity cost.
Fuck you UBISOFT.
@ Lonewolf #1 comment……
arrrrggghhh matey……
Laughing my ass off, I knew this would happen :))
Dear Ubisoft,
Sometimes it’s better to stay quiet and have everybody think you’re a fool, then to open your mouth and prove them right.
Ubisoft knows their DRM will push people to piracy and that people will crack their games. The problem is they don’t care because they want total and complete control over what people do with their product. This never works in any society, as people will always take a stand against those who wish to control them.
Ubisoft = FAILSAUCE
The article neglects to mention that Ubisoft released Prince of Persia DRM-free as a test. It suffered the usual levels of piracy with poor sales so here is the backlash. PC gamers can’t moan at DRM when everyone is downloading the game for free.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88115-Ubisoft-Challenges-Gamers-With-DRM-Free-Prince-Of-Persia
Shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone
I knew it would be cracked within a day. Silly Ubisoft. I bet they’ll wonder why the sales for PC are so low and why it will get such a poor rating.
Thanks Ubisoft! You just saved me $60, by convincing me NOT to buy Assassin’s Creed 2. I similarly thanked Infinity Ward earlier for saving me money on Modern Warfare 2. I gotta wonder what companies are thinking. Are they really this dense?
There is only one “cure” to piracy of any sort: make a product worth paying for.
It won’t stop piracy entirely of course, nothing will. But concentration on making quality products, combined with early releases of betas to increase interest, will do much more to reduce piracy than screwing everyone over with DRM.
Problem is few if any companies care about their customers anymore. It’s all about lining their pockets.
@dave9k
“It suffered the usual levels of piracy”… while their heavily drm products generally suffer higher than normal levels of piracy.
+1 #16
Once again your justifying a crime.
Games are done for business, they are the creators and its valid for them to put as many locks as they want, they created it.
You want to play Assasin Creed? PAY FOR IT.
You won’t die if you don’t play it, there are plenty open games out there.
The same for music, movies, etc.
¿Why do we always want everything for free?
dave9k has a vald point. I don’t think DRM is what makes people pirate games. But when DRM starts becoming an inconvenience for legal owners vs just a inconvenience to pirates, that’s when the problem occurs. Ubi flubbed it on this one, but they are still trying diffrent things. No need to hate on a company simply because it wants to get payed for what it developed.
@16:
I pirate a game to try it, then I buy it if I like it.
And PoP to the PC wasn’t even complete, it still hasn’t gotten the DLC with the ending that the 360 owners has. Ubisoft sucks and everyone knows it.
I remember the days they said the VCR would make the movie theaters obsolete….
..
I’m not the first one to say this, but I’m also certainly not the last one as well: FAIL.
/\/\You completely missed the point sir…
Its about the DRM that cripples the product for the paying customer. Pirating it means that we wont have to deal with it, therefore, its more appealing to do so. Having the game free is most definitely a plus, but I cant count how many pc games I have purchased only to go and pirate the damn thing anyway to circumvent the DRM locks.
that post was for #21 btw
good post.
People who want free will get free. Companies should be aware of this and stop hurting paying customers.
I purchase many of my games because I willingly want to support the company to release sequels or what-not. It sickens me when I try to play my game offline and am blocked because the online authentication failed (I’m looking at you Steam).
Again, those who want free, get free. Those who will pay, still get fucked.
My fail-o-meter has broken down.
#23 BS. There are demos, and they exist to “try”. You’re not sure about a game, listen carefully: DONT BUY IT! DONT PLAY IT!
#26 Do you really think it does? If you pay for it, you don’t enjoy it? In the box, the game enlist its requirements, you are (even before buying it) what you need to play it. I don’t like DRM too, then I DONT PLAY THESE GAMES.
When you buy and install a game you’re agreeing some rules, if you don’t like them don’t buy and don’t install it. Its really simple.
Really, you have to be more critic with your own decisions.
The companies have all the right to sale and protect their creations. So do you have all the right to no buy something or to create your own games.
Yep, it increases piracy, I play a pirated version of spore and would absolutely love to pay for it and play a legitimate copy but the draconian DRM forced me to go with the only option that i saw as a viable choice… So if anyone of importance reads this, please cut out the bullshit DRM and we’ll start to buy your games that you’ve spent so many millions of dollars developing. And you’ll also save yourself more money by not having to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars developing something that gets circumvented in a matter of hours
Id prefer to play half a drm free game than a whole drm-ed game.
The SKIDROW version is uncomplete as stated by Ubisoft, they fooled another time people who can’t wait a couple hours and read comments. Btw POP was a flop as expected because it was the worst of the saga.
Ubisoft = Uberfail
DRM hurts the legal buyers. Just like DVD’s with anti piracy warnings, they don’t stop pirates. DRM encourages piracy.
So what is the news on the sales of DRM-free Prince of Persia. If possible please do an article about it. The result might me very interesting.
It’s like when you watch a rented/retail DVD, it is the most annoying experience. They are LOADED with anti-piracy/FBI threats (obviously it’s not enough to print the warnings in the DVD case) and then you are forced to watch a parade of previews, which (at least in my case) I cannot skip or fast-forward through because the DVD has code to disable those functions in the DVD.
When you watch a ripped movie, on the other hand, it’s just click on it with your mouse and watch it!!!!!
I for one, refuse to buy another product from ubisoft until they remove this DRM, and I usually buy all of the games I play, there are two companies I will no longer buy from until they change their ways, 1. Activision, for what they have done to infinity ward and wanting to raise the price of games, and 2. Ubisoft for their restrictive DRM that I believe is limiting the users freedom, furthermore, a pirated version is superior in Ubi’s case because you can play it whenever you want, unlike the legit version, what will happen five years down the road when you decide to play it again (having a legit version) but can’t because the servers you were supposed to be connected to are down for good?
every new protection is a challanger that crackers look forward to.
you can’t beat pirates
and for sure you cant beat the CRACKERS ….
R35P3CT !
challenge*
The online requiement puts ALOT of power in their hands. Totally different than an offline game.
I’m skeptical the cracked game actually performs 100%.
Is online World of Warcraft cracked?
I totally understand why they do it. You wanna play it you gotto contribute to development.
@lonewolf
very well said!
failed there, ubisoft, i remember the days of “rayman” really fun jump’n run there in the 90s..
ubi fail
As if someone would want a game made by Ubi that isn’t Chaos Theory.
@39 But you don’t have to do you? In fact, life is much easier for the pirates, while the legitimate customer gets it in the neck. Which only leads to more piracy when the customers legitimate copy no longer works.
Those customers become frustrated, and (whether they go down the piracy route or not) they stop buying the games.
So the developers lose customers and money. The developers then blame piracy. And so the vicious circle continues…
*cycle
Ubisoft must/should be scared shitless for DDoS attacks on gameservers, it would temporary render all valid games useless.
Given the strong reactions it is not farfetched.
First of all, wow! That was fast. Either Ubisoft made an enormous error or those hackers where REALLY motivated.
But to all who say they pirate to try, I agree with #30, there are demos for that.
But personally I’m quite happy this happens. I always buy games before pirating them (it’s just so much more convenient to use them when cracked), so I do pirate, but I don’t really feel guilty as I’ve payed for what I use.
@39 Hey man, ever heard of WoW private server??
In a way, WoW have been cracked, and really easilly.
Fail.
I do hope companies like Ubisoft bite the dust. That`s what they deserve and that`s what`s coming at them for ignoring the most important piece in any marketing/sakes strategy: the client.
@12
Great link, captures the essentials why this game isnt easily cracked (unlike all futile offline DRM attempts).
I received my copy of Assassin’s creed today. Took roughly an hour to actually get the game up and running, having ot sign up for a ubisoft account, wait nearly 25 mins for an email, for files to download/decrypt, and the initial ‘sync’ took 12 mins.
Once the crack is known to be 100% working, I’ll sure as hell being using it. The instant your network connection drops, the game stops working completly until reconnected. Which has happened quite a few times in the 3 hours I’ve played.
@Ricardo Vega
It is also valid for people who are paying for their computers and internet connections to do whatever they want with them. As long as its not hurting anyone of course.
And who the f are you ordering people to “PAY FOR IT” if they want to play it?
Also, those Ubisoft executives wont die either if they don’t make as much money as they were hoping to make.
I’m not sure how/if they succeed @ cracking it. (Many) pieces of code are running on distant servers. Network exchanges are of course decorated with your gaming context to make them unique and non symetrical :| That’s all and everything: good luck to the people willing to reverse engineering that. Of course some parts of the game should work to some point, but *only* to some point… Well i’m skeptical.
@47
actually not, but I’ll take your word for it.
May be soon all single-player games will completely run on remote servers.
Player will send keyboard/mouse signals and receive a picture.
So Ubisoft just made first step in this direction.
@#16
Prince of persia didn’t interest me. I have bought Sins of a Solar Empire and Cyrostasis just as political statements for being DRM free.
I knew what it was when I saw it. They would turn around and say “See? They pirate anyway. That gives us an excuse to screw our customers.”
Why should I waste my money to buy a game I didn’t even want when they released the game to make a statement opposite of what I want? I’m not interested in Cyrostasis or Sins of a Solar Empire. I just want to support companies taking a non-invasive DRM way.
Shame on anyone that pirates a game without DRM from a company encouraging consumer rights. Thank you to pirates who pirate DRM infested games from anti-consumer companies.
I have no interest in play/pirating/buying this game, but I have never wanted to see any other game cracked more than this. With all the statements Ubisoft made, and the level of bullshit that was this DRM- I wanted to see if busted only days after release.
This story made my day. This is what they get for crossing the line with DRM, and then telling people they can’t crack it.
What people like UBISoft and Ricardo Vega fail to realize about DRM, is that it doesn’t work! Someone will always circumvent it and then share it. The customers are always inconvenienced because DRM has almost always been glitchy. Mention DRM and the company could expect to drive away customers that otherwise might of been interested in buying the product.
I bought a game with DRM in it. It glitched and was unplayable. Call/Emailed customer support. Provided all the information they wanted. Even faxed them a photocopy of the receipt and the product. Their solution? Buy another copy of the game. Can you say FAIL!?
After that, I hit the company’s forum and vented! Then repeated this on all other forums. I got a letter from them telling me to stop it. I told them to fix the problem otherwise I will keep with my “word of mouth” campaign.
They actually sent me to small claims court. After 30 minutes in court the judge stopped the trial and awarded me with the win as I had done everything reasonable and then some to prove that I had a legit copy that didn’t work because of DRM. The judge ordered them to give me a DRM-free copy of the game or refund me for the cost. The company ignored the court decision and wouldn’t do anything for me.
With treatment like this, and you wonder why people fileshare creacked DRM-free games?
Ubisoft fail again.. no surprise here.
Get a clue morons, im downloading just out of spite..
The more you act like idiots.. the more we as consumers punish you.
Dont like it? Thats fine. Dont think its fair? Thats fine too.
I.DONT.GIVE.A.F*CK.
@54
“May be soon all single-player games will completely run on remote servers.
Player will send keyboard/mouse signals and receive a picture.
So Ubisoft just made first step in this direction.”
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.
A server emulator makes much more than a couple of hours to make and will be full of glitches and so on. That would really be the answer in my opinion.
Well, a certain amount of copyright protection is fine! No multiplayer for pirated versions, it doesn’t affect non-pirated people, so it’s great.
But when you have to be continually online, it’s just getting ridiculous. People are going to pirate the game. That’s it. Just stick to limiting certain features of the game. It works!
Look at GTA4, DRM filled rubbish. (Which I didn’t buy) San Andreas on the other hand, massively popular, even a multiplayer mod which is really popular.(I bought)
DRM FAILS.
If they keep using this then people in rural areas that don’t have high speed internet are like me use satellite Internet are going to use the cracked copy.
http://www.movietorrentblog.com
I’ve enjoyed The Settlers series for a long time, spent countless hours playing and have been quite happy to buy the Settlers games.
I look forward to playing The Settlers 7. Ubisoft can look forward to losing a paying customer.
Expect me to rely on your servers and my internet provider to always be at 100% to play a single player game, that I’ve paid for, whenever I want?
How ’bout Ubisoft go have a nice hot cup of go fuck yourself. DRM is bad enough, that level of DRM is appalling.
@57 – care to post some sort of proof? If you are telling the truth, a story like that would go a long way in terms of solidifying the idea that DRM really only hurts legitimate customers.
I draw the line like so – if there is DRM on the game that does not interfere with me gaming, allows me to play online and offline, doesn’t touch my personal information, and lets me install as many times as I want to, then I’m not going to complain. If the game wants to phone home now and then, fine, as long as it doesn’t mess with my game.
If your DRM requires me to be on the internet at all times – how the hell do I play on my laptop if i’m travelling? or on my desktop if the wireless is spotty? What if you phoning home every 10 minutes lags my game? What if your DRM is incompatible with a driver on my system, or makes my system unstable? thats bullshit – and I might just pirate your game.
Then again, I have a 360 and PS3, so if it has DRM on the PC, i can just get it on console and ignore the issue altogether.
Gamr writers don’t want to put time and money into DRM, Piracy is what drives DRM, the company’s need to protect sales that rewards their prior investment. DRM will continue to get tougher, penalties for cracking will skyrocket, a few hackers will be caught and convicted and eventually we’ll see if hackers find cracking a game worth risking lengthy imprisonment.
Cracking the drm on a game? Pathetic. Genius applied to a dumbass goal like that is still dumbass.
Their security team should all be fired…
DRM programmers would do well to remember this:
When a pirated copy is functionally superior to the retail product, then it’s time to rethink the whole DRM strategy.
It’s real simple:
Pirated copy: Contains all the advertised features of the retail product. Can still play if internet connection is out.
Retail copy: Contains all the features of the advertised retail product. Cannot play if internet connection is out.
Doesn’t take a genius to pick the better option. Ubisoft needs to grow a brain.
LOL.
One gets tired of these arrogant gaming companies.
When one buys a product it should be superior to the pirated version, not inferior.
When oh’ when will they learn?
Spore anyone?
So is anyone playing the pirated version now?
How far have ye got? What problems are ye coming across?
I will never pay a company for a game with DRM like this one.And if I had the time to play silent hunter I would download it and play.
And the cracked version works too.
Yeah I remember I wanted to buy Prince of Persia for the PC too, a game I truly loved. But then I saw the game wasn’t complete and was without the “real” end.
Epic fail Ubisoft! I truly hate this company!
stupid ubisoft, ill make sure to seeds whatever crap you have released this time just to spite you thinking you could take on piracy.
THINK ABOUT IT YOU MORONS! The people who write your crappy code are no smarter then the people who crack it….difference is they do it for money while “crackers ” (lol not white guys) do it for fun!yeah FUN…thats right, undoing your hard work is FUN.
UBISOFT FAILS TREMENDOUSLY! Hope your share price takes a shot to the gut!
“bugfixes” lol
Man, I had this game preordered from about 6 months ago, back before it was -delayed- on PC. Pretty obvious now what they delayed it for, huh. So I went into the retailer, and cancelled the order for my very expensive, very profitable limited edition.
I wish you all possible misfortune, Ubisoft. Burn.
Guys, stop being so hard on Ubisoft.
We all know that treating your paying customers like criminals is a time-tested formula for success, right? :-P
Well Ubisoft got what it deserved. there’s a saying, that fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Well this actually goes well with Ubisoft. They just can’t learn from their, nor others mistakes and still keep doing the same mistakes. Anti-picary methods will be broken, there’s no doubt about it.
Honestly I couldn’t care less about the DRM on Ubisoft games. I lost the interest after they created starforce, that really screwed up very many computers. I won’t buy their games, but neither will I download them. I just couldn’t care less. Ubisoft died for me when they started to harass the legal paying customers and I don’t like being harassed.
Maybe their strategy is to get more people to learn how to download pirated games, reasoning that it’ll hurt their competitors more.. ah no, only Ubisoft is so “singleplayer” oriented, everyone else make great multiplayer games worth buying.
Well I guess I will vote with my pocket book….I will NOT be buying a game that I have waited for about 2 years (AssCrack2) because I normally only play games when I travel…(ie. non-reliable or non-existant internet)…with the saved games on their server and no way to play without connecting to the internet…I guess I will buy someone elses game…
They do have a bunch, and I just bought 2 from Steam (which you don’t need constant connection to play)….
Sorry Ubi, even though you have offices in Canada, no love from me..and I really wanted to play AC2.
Old Timer
If they would release a patch to the game that would automatically save any progress when your Internet connection went down, maybe they would regain a lot of their customer base. Then again, what with boneheaded decisions like this one, Starforce, and even one game patch causing so much trouble they had to resort to a pirated scene release to fix it, maybe not.
For many gamers, this was the final straw. Some will resort to piracy, while others will neither buy nor pirate any of Ubisoft’s games.
As others have already said, UbiFAIL!
JL you accusse Ubisoft of being greedy for trying to get people to pay for their product while big up people who are nothing but thieves.
If you don’t want to pay you don’t have to have the games and frankly they’re not particularly expensive anyway.
As for “free entertainment” its not free ubisoft hired the developers to create it and they are due some payment back.
DRM is absolutly the wrong way to go about this but targeting file sharers and banning then from the internet is the correct way.
Oh and let’s not forget how having to be connected to the internet in order to play their games, leaves you open to privacy invasion.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100302/0354498358.shtml
Bogus Copyright Claim Silences Yet Another Larry Lessig YouTube Presentation
Nearly a year ago, we wrote about how a YouTube presentation done by well known law professor (and strong believer in fair use and fixing copyright law), Larry Lessig, had been taken down, because his video, in explaining copyright and fair use and other such things, used a snippet of a Warner Music song to demonstrate a point. There could be no clearer example of fair use — but the video was still taken down.
Same as DVDs.
You want the movie, not unskippable trailers, FBI warnings and other shit.
The pirated product becomes more desirable than the authentic product and not just because it’s free… but because it’s a nicer experience for the consumer!
That’s right, punish those that are willing to pay, well done, good business decision right there! :D
For the rubes “rebelling against society” and their mothers and screaming “every game will be pirated I’m so angry at you” STFU: it is not possible to pirate any MMORPG, or for that matter any other game that uses a similar server side content delivery of gameplay. These games can be massively successful as evidenced by WoW and many others. They are successful because players buy them when there is no option for piracy.
Slowly all games will evolve towards this model (as anyboy who doesn’t use this website solely as a source of infomation will know).
And to the people who claim DRM is driving cutomers towards piracy I call BS on that too.
Piracy rates before DRM were about 95%.
Piracy rates in the DRM era are about 95%
When a company listens to gamers and release titles without DRM the amazing rush of people buying the game “because it has no DRM” never happens (which is unsurprising as that concept people spout off about is ridiculous – so much easier to say something to aid your argument but still the same reasons not to do it)
Evidence: http://www.neowin.net/news/gamers/09/04/17/stardock-anti-drm-stance-not-working
Sure, I wouldn’t disagree that DRM is a PITA to legitimate customers but the evidence clearly shows that people pirate titles if they can regardless.
Pirates making up all these reasons such as:
DRM is so bad I’d rather pirate the game.
DRM has “teh rootkits” (god thats a woeful misuse of that terms by the clueless) so I won’t buy legit.
DRM is “all about controlling me” and I won’t be controlled (rebelling against everything due to living at home in basement and feeling like the loser that it implies they are … but I’ll still buy Wow cos I have to, “hey Mum, can I have some money lol)
… and so on…
is not bourne out by any evidence at all – piracy rates between pirateable games with and without DRM appear to be about the same.
So companies may as well use DRM in other words, they’re games are pirated by teh same people anyhow.
I didn’t think the crack fully worked. Didn’t it stop working after the tutorial mission or something when you get to the annubis for the first time? Also, if I recall correctly, you couldn’t save your game either.
Pardon me, I meant “Animus”.
“I didn’t think the crack fully worked. Didn’t it stop working after the tutorial mission or something when you get to the annubis for the first time? Also, if I recall correctly, you couldn’t save your game either.”
There is not “the crack”. There are cracks made by p2p wankers (people who aren’t good enough to be in The Scene and release cracks for e-fame and attention whoring). Naturally these losers release a shoddy product and don’t test their exploits.
The crack released by The Scene, contained in the directory Silent.Hunter.5.Battle.of.the.Atlantic-SKIDROW hasn’t been nuked or propered yet which is a good guide that it works seeing as this is a notable title.
Of course many p2ptards will download non-scene cracks as they are clueless about how to pirate and think that all there is too it is “go to pirate bay and will work”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULFUXvHKous&feature=youtu.be
The Alex Jones Show: Converting The Economy Over into an Armed Spy Camp
ubisoft has been added to my boycott list (from my wallet anyway)
Nothing of value was lost.
Alex Jones is a delusional newb.
He listens to anything said by anybody and believes it fully without doing any research or thinking on his on.
http://conspiracyscience.com/articles/alex-jones/
Amongst his great work on informing the gullible (he is a full blown attention whore of epic proportions after all) is reporting that cameras and microphones are placed into TV set top boxes to spy on people in their lounge rooms and putting video of these alleged itmes being found onto his prison planet website.
As he does no independent reearch on anything he talks about he was unaware the video had been made as a joke.
There will always be gullible people who are unwilling to research anything someone says and suspend disbelief such as the above poster.
Often it’s the case that people who believe in conspiracy theories also have a marked superiority complex and believe they are “in the know” because they “read it on the internet” – they think they have secret infomation that the “sheep” (normal people they delude themselves into thinking are less intelligent – because they are smart enough to swallow wild sounding conspiracies) don’t have.
Actually, you can pirate MMORPGs.
I have a pirated version of Wow that worka fine, isn’t missing content, and there are a lot of online players as well.
I live by myself and am not financially dependent on another.
And DRM is enough to make me not want to buy a game. It’s not an excuse.
I bought GTA IV soon after it came out. Discusted with the DRM on it, I ripped the game, downloaded a crack, and sold the game for $25. A $30 loss.
Never wasting my money with DRMd games again.
Some troll’s here keep missing the point…
Prove that a downloaded copy is a lost sale or your trash talk against “pirates” is BS.
@Sean: “I have a pirated version of Wow that worka fine, isn’t missing content, and there are a lot of online players as well.”
Links? I call BS…
Recently downloaded games: Mass effect 2, Dragon Age, Bioshock 2.
All those games were promptly uninstalled BECAUSE I DIDN’T LIKE THEM. And I only beat the first level/mission/quest/whatever.
So you’re telling me I’d be fucked over 50 euros for each game if I had bought them?
No. This will not stand.
Troll teacher,
Obviously some downloads people would not have bothered to pay for if it wasn’t there to download for free or in reality wouldn’t have been able to afford but its a sad way to justify being a thief.
No matter how greedy or whatever you want to call the entertainment industry. If you take someone elses creative product without their permission it makes you nothing more than a common thief.
Don’t dress it up or pretend your some sort of righteous hero, your nothing more than a petty criminal.
I actually miss Reasoned Mind. At least he didn’t make idiotic typos.
Also, define “creative product”.
@ Lucky de Cat
Actually,
“A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it”.
I also go to school and make music, so I’m more than you amount me to be.
“You wouldn’t steal a car….”
Um, if it involved me placing my hand on said car, creating an exact duplicate for me to keep leaving the original in its place unscathed then yes, I would frickin’ steal a car.
@Nubcakes… Just take a look at WoWEmu servers. The protocol and game data is well known and documented. Mangos, Ascent and Trinity are all great examples of wow emu server projects. – Although not all cover cataclysm just yet, the Trinity core is up to WotLK (WoW 3.3.0+) so for people who haven’t got cataclysm yet – there’s pretty much no missing content.
I know this because I help support a popular wow emu server that has thousands of players active at any one time. (It was one of the first servers to support WotLK)
[quote]
While many downloaders report that the game works just fine, Ubisoft’s statement does hold some truth because in their view the game is obviously ‘not complete’ without the DRM. At this point it is not entirely clear what else could be “missing” in the cracked version, but that is beside the point.
[/quote]
AHAHAHA =))))
This made my day !! :)))
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL…
Not even in Dante’s Inferno there is a similar retaliation law…. XD
Well done! DRMs are one the most stupid thing ever imagined. Personnaly, I intended to buy Assassin’s Creed II until I learned you had to be connected to Ubisoft’s servers to play it. Even offline. No way I buy this crap: I’ll download it as soon as I’ll find a cracked copy. Thx Ubisoft, you’ve saved me 50 euros… It’ll pay my rapidshare premium account.
Just “wow”. *fail facepalm* xD
UbiSoft deserves condemnation. I hope they spent allot of money on developing their DRM, because it’s all money thats been pissed up against the wall.
Ubisoft’s Uber DRM Cracked Within a Day
Ha ha!
@ 87 Mar 05, 2010 at 07:03 by Alex Jones & The Gullibles
just go back to sleep sheep. 1984 is 2010. watch the movie if you can’t see it already. You are obviously a dis info agent.
Just thought I’d throw this out there.
I will be buying Crysis 2. Why? Because the first two games are the best fps I’ve ever played(graphics). Warhead was only $30 and was downloadable. I have about 30 PC games and the only one I bought from the manufacturer was Crysis Warhead because it was worth it and not that expensive.
Ubisoft, if it’s worth it and not $45-$60 (more like $10-$30), more people will pay!
#21
“You want to play Assasin Creed? PAY FOR IT.”
I have NO problem in paying for it. The problem is that I MUST have a continuous internet connection to play it. Dial up users are f** up with that. If my ISP is down I am f** up and cant play the game I PAID FOR.
Here is the real problem. And that’s the ONLY reason I WILL download the cracked version of Silent Hunter 5. I’ve paid for Silente Hunter 3 and 4, but WILL NOT pay for this new version.
The only game I have ever considered paying for was Modern Warfare 2. Though I opted not to and to just play SP, I feel that they are just going about it the wrong way.
I think all games should have their SP free, and have their MP be awesome with extra features, but require a paid serial.
I mean, why pay when there is Battlefield Heroes, Combat Arms, WolfTeam, AmericasArmy, CrossFire, WarRock, Wolfenstein and so on… Always being updates, always free. Learn from them guys, find a way to make your money some way else…
@ Lucky de Cat
I find it very amusing when companies are more willing to spend money trying to prevent illegal copies that wouldn’t give them any money at all anyway than improving the product they are trying to sell.
“Don’t dress it up or pretend your some sort of righteous hero, your nothing more than a petty criminal.”
Who isn’t nowadays? Behind your fancy nick you are no different than the rest of us, you just don’t want to admit it. Plus, that kind of “personal” insult just proves that you’ll resort to easy getaways in a conversation, making you another troll that can’t have a decent conversation, your nothing more than a petty person.
total epic fail
They are acting like a 5 year old kid,
telling lies when get caught,
annoying people who loved them,
wasting time and energy for something that are completely useless,
always making the wrong conclusion,
Really, they need to grow up…
Soes this mean I can’t play UBI games on the games PC in my basement? The one that doesn’t have access to the Interwebz
Oh well. I guess there’s no point in me spending money on UBI games in future.
So I guess this means I can’t play UBI games on the games PC in my basement. The one that doesn’t have access to the Interwebz
Oh well. I guess there’s no point in me spending money on UBI games in future.
Absolutely correct!
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5332261/1985_Computer_Chronicles__Software_Piracy
[Sorry, only torrent with 1 seed at this post timestamp, but worth watching if interested in how long DRM's have been ineffectual.]
How old is that??!!
Were trying to make the point back then when ‘puters when 386 chips were top of the range and Commodore 64 ruled the developed world because so simple compared to IBM or Acorn etc.
Decades on, DRM’s are still being used in vain by antipiracy, however the tech’ curves rise, DRM’s remain futile.
What was it old Albert Einstein said about insanity?
Peace. :)
Should be…
Were trying to make the point back then when ‘puters *that had* 386 chips were top of the range and Commodore 64 ruled the developed world because so simple compared to IBM or Acorn etc.
Peace. :)
Again people who paid their money for a software have to suffer. I’ve thought that after Spore-disaster gaming industry understood that stupid limitations are not a good idea to protect the game. The funniest thing here is the fact that I am wondering what will happen with Ubisoft AC servers used for online verification in let’s say 10 years from now. I’m doubting they will exist (no new income from the game, and someone has to pay for the hardware or even goddamn electricity). So, I will not be able to play in that game in the future – even though I’ve paid for it. And do not say we all will be playing then in CrisisXII – even today am returning to good old games like europa universalis 2, rome total war, operation flashpoint, firts ghost recon etc.
gg ubiCRAP!
i want to play offline.
Hey guys, I just wanted to get this out.
I was actually going to buy the game just to support the Assassin’s Creed game series.
UNTIL I heard of the DRM, then I got pretty skeptical about if I should even buy the game… So I canceled my preorder just to reconsider.
And now that I see that the DRM has been cracked, I will just play the cracked version instead of buying it, to protest against this kind of shit.
Cheers from Finland.
I pirate, I buy a few games but the main reason I pirate is because its free and I dont wanna spend money if I dont have to.
Same reason I steal gum from convience stores and sneak into movie theaters.
Saying the DRM forced you to pirate is hilarious, just admit you dont give a shit about other people and only about yourself.
All these self rightious people saying they pirate for some just cause are dumb and paint us in a bad light.
We pirate because its free and we dont care about you. Call me sick but in reality I’m just telling you your thoughts.
Everyone went to complain
When DRM sent their game down the drain
So they whipped up a hack
Applied a working crack
Now Ubi is the one that’s payin’
DRM is a hassle only to those that pay for the privilege of owning the product. I have bought games but why should I put up with the lag as it accesses a disk? The game is installed on the PC. First thing most of us do is grab a cracked EXE to eliminate that. The obsessive exercise of control on a product after it is sold though is what drives folks to consider alternative sources. I buy a DVD why should I have to sit through the repeated threats of jail time, hefty fines etc. I obviously paid to avoid that and you know bloody well those the message is targeted at have ripped that out.
Sad fact is the entertain industry created the pirate. Customers want alternatives. I own DVDs however I watch the rips on the HTPC. Why? Convenience plain and simple. DVDs are bulky and a pain. They are prone to damage.
You wanna talk about lost sales? I’ll give you a lost sale: Ubisoft, until you remove this DRM, I will not be being AC2. THAT is a definitive lost sale. You can go on moping about how a million pirates are all theoretical lost sales, but I guarantee that blocking all of them would not boost your sales.
I got a pirate version of Call of Duty 4 PC, played it 4 times begin to end in all levels of difficulty, wonderfull game, i liked it so much that i wanted to buy it, i wanted the original box and disk, i live in Brazil and games arent exactly cheap here but… i looked everywhere, stores, physical and online, and i couldnt find a single copy to buy, IT WAS SOLD OUT completely.
So i waited for Modern Warfare 2 PC, and started looking for it, cant find anywhere, so i go to the web and find out that the PC version wont come to Brazil because “piracy rates here are too high”…
WHAT THE FUCK are these morons talking about???? Modern Warfare 1 is SOLD OUT i cant buy it, what more do they want to sell, air???
How can piracy rates be high on that game if there is not a single copy available to buy??? FUCK.
So thank you Activision, now i will play MW2 for free.
By the way, i was playing Assassin’s Creed 1 pirate, middle of the game (i loved it too), i bought the original, copy the saves and delete the pirate, very happy that i did it.
I am not going to buy AC2 with that fucking DRM until is gets cracked 100%, if it doesnt get cracked i will play the pirate version the way it is, even if incomplete.
Stupid Ubisoft, stupid Activision.
Sorry for the bad english.
@93 (TrustAvidity)
Greatest quote I have seen in some time. I’ve never seen a better response to the “You wouldn’t steal a _____, so why would you steal software?” argument before.
I know a certain website with, um, images and videos on it, that had drm protection for its videos. Less than half a year later, they wised up and removed it. I can’t believe someone thought the same bad idea would work for games.
Silent Hunter 5 and ACII are one player games, not online multiplayers. Therefore if I’m sitting around at, say, my parents house while my kids are visiting, and I want to kill some time playing the game I -bought- and paid for that -isn’t- supposed to be an online game. I should be able to. I AM able to if I download it. If I used the copy I bought, I’d be sitting twiddling my thumbs instead thanks to this DRM.
I don’t think I will ever buy a PC game again. They just don’t understand. So I am going to vote with my wallet!
I’m not even interested in either of these games and will not download either. I’ll play some online poker instead. :)
I have to pay for the game and I have to pay for the bandwidth to play it? No thanks…
Torrent freak, you mentioned this would fail before and now its obvious it will. Good call :D
I will buy UBI games the moment they remove this shit DRM.
Although the games sound like overrated poop, if I wanted them, I would just download them because I refuse to pay for DRM software. But then again, I am a ‘pirate’ not a ‘customer’…Right Ubi? Who cares what people like me think.
@93 BS point I’m afraid
You cant prove a negative
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I can’t prove ghosts don’t exist.
I can’t prove each dowload is a lost sale.
But if you wouldn’t have bought it and no-one puts a gun to your head to buy anything.
Why do millions download stuff then? Cause they want i for free. They want to see it, use it or listen to it, but they don’t want to apy for it. Therefore they have stolen it.
Ha ha ha ha, nice one ubi I have just completed it!!
Time for a nap then hopefully when I wake up assassins creed will be ready..
hehehe.
And please stop feeding the trolls then they shoo off to suck masters balls.
@133
Let me share a story with you.
There was a man (me) who was really excited about SPORE and stood in total awe when it was released. Then went to the store to buy it. When he got home he installed the game, after that he spent 3 days talking some retald at customer support to get the game working. Then SPORE Galactic adventures came out. He bought it of course. This time he spent 5 days e-mailing with another retard at cusomer support then in the end, after 5 days EA offered him a refund.
After this he downloaded the pirated version and it worked fine.
End of story.
@ Reasoned Mind
Piracy isn’t what drives developers to make ludicrous DRM, fear of piracy and greed does. How simple is it to release a blockbuster title for 60$, and when its pirated, blame the decline in sales on that?
Maybe you should take into account the fact that not everybody has exorbitant amounts of cash laying around, and that 2/3 of $100 per game isn’t fair for content they burn to 0.15$ discs and sell.
As well, you’ve just insulted hundreds of peoples’ hobbies and lifestyles. Take into consideration that they crack this and put work into this for nothing. They do it because they like to and have the skill to do it. I’m pretty sure you’d be offended if somebody came by and outright insulted your interests. Watch what you say, an opinion on an issue is one thing, but insults like that are unwarranted and unwelcome.
http://pulsedmedia.com/clients/aff.php?aff=006
My SeedBox Provider
100Gb Storage, Terabytes of transfer with 1Gbit peaks Seedbox for JUST 9.95 euro per month!
PFF after my experience with GTA4 im totally turned off from buying games. I have the stupid thing loaded and dont feel like going thru all the garbage(windows live and the other stupid thing) when i start it up. I bought L4D2 from Steam, 2 copies actually, one for me and one for my son, and thats been an incrediable mess with Steam not connecting and my sons account being all messed up. We spent 3 hours lastnite trying to get a new password set-up and have a trouble ticket awaiting reply. All we wanted to do was kill some zombies!!
And besides the fact theres just too many damn games, the communities are all split up and divided and theres just not that many players for every game.Some games will be a hit and most will not be. You cant have a home run EVERY game thats put out. I think their sales have alot to do with that alone. All the games I have dloaded for free and dont play over 20 minutes, hmmm ALMOST every one. They are just not any good. So until I can return products that suck, I will keep taking my chances pirating.
Decline in sales happens because people.
don’t.
think.
it.
is.
worth.
buying.
Really, doesn’t take a genius to work it out.
über-DRM
über-fail
And yet another reason why Ubisoft = UberFail: http://consumerist.com/2010/03/ubisoft-authentication-servers-go-down-no-one-can-play-anything.html
That ought to increase the piracy rates of their games considerably. And for those who don’t pirate, that will definitely result in lost sales.
Imagine that. Something other than piracy causing lost sales. It kind of blows that tired logic out of the water.
If they spent more time fully testing there products and zero time with counter measures protection they might release a product thats worth buying.
I bought assassins creed 1, but wish to play the game even if my net connection is down, or for example, I am on a plane flight with no net available. Sorry ubisoft, pirated copys are always an option, I buy games because I want to support you, not because I have no other options, so this time im going warez.
And a fun update, the authentication servers at Ubisoft were down (maybe still are) and nearly all people that bought the game and didn’t crack it, were stuck unable to play the game.
I’m also wondering, if they have problems with the fileserver that stores the savegame data, (like a complete wipe with the last valid backup being a week old) that would mean many avid gamers loose their entire save for certain games :@ (I played Mass Effect 2 in 4 days with all quests and nearly all achievements)
Idiot DRM at its best
Let me see, which of the 3 options is more appealing:
1) Buy the game legally, no need to wait for a perfect crack but can’t play everywhere and need an Internet connection.
2) Download the game which might not work 100% for free, no restrictions and perhaps for a better crack.
3) Buy the game to support the game developers, then use a crack to play it everywhere.
Hmmm. Touch choice, but not really. I bought a legal version of Spore, then downloaded a cracked version just in case the authentication servers go down. Doing that was already a WTF for me (What was the added value of buying my game?), but now they even toughen up the restrictions?
Normally i download games and buy them afterwards if i like them. But now i got a feeling i will just download these and play for free – even if they are fun. If they can spend money on such a load of bullocks, they obviously don’t need – or deserve – mine.
As many have said: the only way to make more people pay for your game is to make it good enough that people want to buy it. Ubi obviously doesnt understand the scene community…while there are those that pirate games just to get them free, myself and everyone else i know that pirates games does so because we want to see if the game is worth $60 or not. If it is, we WILL buy it so we can play multiplayer. Crappy tittles, poor support, and ever-more restrictive copy protection that often backfires and results in paying customers being unable to play drove this movement in the first place. The only way to fight it is to concentrate more on quality, less on quantity. If the game is good it will sell, and if it stinks (as most titles do in gamer’s minds, dont even get me started on the decline of gaming quality and the rise of graphics), well, a game that stinks wont sell whether you make it unpirateable or not, and the few copies you do sell will likely not be purchasing another of your products because they feel jipped. I wouldnt pay 200,000 dollars for a ford pinto with a ferrari logo on it, and neither would you. All gamers want is their $60 worth. Give them that, and they will pay.
Have you guys seen the latest load of bull from ubisoft? Suypposedly the problems that have been keeping paying customers from playing are due to a denial of service attack. I’m calling bulls**t on that…Does anyone really expect ubisoft to stand up and admit that their just launched product has flaws, proving everyone that was against their drm scheme correct? Theres 27 PAGES of complaints on ubisoft’s forums. 19 pages on steam forums. Well done ubisoft, you’re 5 1/2 feet down, keep diggin that hole….
TF- yes, we’ve been keeping track, and talked about this very problem over on Freakbits
@148
Even if the servers are down because of a DDos attack it just goes to show how fundamentally flawed their DRM is. Someone with a big enough botnet stops people playing their bought and paid for games… If I’d bought SH5 or AC2 I’d be livid!!
And just to set the record straight the DRM hasn’t been fully cracked. Sorry to rain on everyone’s parade. I wish it was as much as the next guy, so UBI could suck it hard, but right now the crack is only partial.
Both SH5 and AC2 don’t work 100% with the cracks that are out. I’ve no doubt it’s just a matter of time until fully working versions are released, but lets stick to the facts please.
I’m very interested to see whcih cracking group deals the final death blow to this piece of sh!t DRM
@149:
It’ll certainly be quite the feather in their cap, won’t it?
I sent mine back, even though I had the White Edition and I *am* a little sad that I’m missing out on the statue. But no statue is worth the hassle that Ubisoft is putting us customers through.
I buy an *offline* game, I want to *play* it offline – like on vacation, for example, when I actually have *time* to play. But no internet – which is why it’s a vacation!
I’m all for protecting products from piracy. I *buy* my games, my DVDs, my CDs, in order to support the artists and the developers. But I won’t let a company tell me when, where and *if* I’m allowed to play a game that I paid a lot of money for and that’s being sold as an *offline* game.
When I want a MMORPG, I log into my EQ2 account.
So. No AC2 for me. Maybe better that way… *eyes stack of work on desk* ^^
@dave9k
You’re missing a crucial point here. Prince of Persia failed because it was a shit game. I should know, I actually PAID for a legal copy. Waste of money. Don’t let that stop you blaming the pirates for everything though.
@152: indeed that game was shit. They can blame poor sales on piracy all they want, but in reality nobody wanted to buy it in the first place. You can’t blame poor sales on piracy when you make a shit product.
If you go with ubisoft well… ubigay then.
From a user named ZYGMYNT on ubi forums abt sh5:
I’ve bought LEGAL copy of Silent Hunter 5 (becouse i love the series, and above all i have only legal software in my comps, pirate sucks when you already earning your own money, its good for dull kids).
BUT
Most often im using my laptop G3 radio internet connection due to large number of trips and so on, i dont have any games on my stationary comp.
So…
I’ve come with new Silent hunter 5 box Veryhappy to my house and…
I installed bow, configured Typing that game and so.. I ve GET TOTALLY ****ED Mad BECOUSE i paid for it and its MINE MINE MINE!!!! Angry UBISOFT MOTHER****ERS! Smash
Which idiot from zou developed that freaking protection of that ****ing DRM ?
I want play in my house up in the forest when i have NO INTERNET in anyway, cable or radio, so what im supossed to do?
IDEA!
I’ve searched forums with potential cracks and scene of crackers only to find that we have no any working solution ( when we use one of them we don’t have possibility to advance in campaign becouse our mission progress is stopped , no matter how good we did our patrols or how many ships we sunk) , its sucks.
So i discover solution by myself and hues what its working!
SO MY BROTHERS IN THE SEA!! Lets roll our campaign without any illegal cracks! **** THE UBI and **** the Pirtaes!
S T E P 1 -> LEARNING the GAME STRUCTURE Briefing) lets choose briefing and listen news about situation on the front.
After that lets look on the upper left side of the briefing screen, You will see grey menu with crosses and orange triangle icon below them.
Crosses are MAIN camapign OBJECTIVES called MISSIONS. Each Cross represent one of the MISSIONS that will show up on the specific date.
Yes, yes you are thinking good – its a simple script text trigger, well stated in some of the game CFG FILES. Lets left theory of that for later now.
Each MISSION have 2 main PARAMETERS , represent by the MISSION WAYPOINTS and MISSION PROGRESS BAR (that small bar , you can see after click at MISSION WAYPOINT – it is shown under MISSION DESCRIPTION).
Okay, MISSION PROGRESS BAR is the MAIN PAIN for us all here.
NOW …
Lets leave our lovely Dock for a while and press ALT+TAB .
Lets follow to the Silent Hunter 5 install directory, lets use a template location for an example:
F:\SH5
so we go there.
Inside our main game folder we go to the DATA : F:\SH5\DATA next to the CAMPAIGNS : F:\SH5\DATA\CAMPAIGNS ,
here lies our kingdom of evil.
Lets take a look at Achievments.cfg file with little help of WORDPAD.
As you can see here we have CAMPAIGN MISSIONS rewards and their ID names .
Now lets take a look at another folder inside called CAMPAIGNPROJECTS so F:\SH5\DATA\CAMPAIGNS\CAMPAIGNSPROJECTS
here we have 2 main interesting files/folders
One is called COMMON (folder) and rest are the names of each CAMPAIGN in the game, first is TOTAL_GERMANY (folder).
Its a first CAMPAIGN we can play after the tutorial and a door to the whole game.
Main problem to player without net connection , using no net crack is that game BLOCKING , MISSION BAR PROGRESS and we can’t have our MISSIONS completed, they just last
in the CHIEF NAVY COMMANDER [CNC] after return from our patrol, no matter how well we complete MISSION OBJECTIVES (i.e. sunk 50.000 tonnage, sunk ships at Coast of UK etc) , MISSION CROSSES nad MISSION PROGRESS BAR stay at zero level. When MISSION is complete, MISSION CROSS should change from empty symbol to metal/silver cross symbol.
Okay.
But ,lets focus on the fact that MISSION TRIGGERS are updating , becouse they are closely linked to the PASSING CALENDAR DATES, (just above MISSION menu – left upper corner) , as well as in the game and same in the script text files. So best exmaple is mine campaign, after skipping tutorial (its a must to skip that, becouse if you don’t do that you don’t have starting mission choices in the first talk to [CNC]. When i skipped tutorial moronic mission” INVASION of POLAND” i have 2 missions to choose 1″BRITISH SUPPLIES” and 2″BRITISH COASTAL WATERS”.
So i choose 1 (supplies) and sail to my first real patrol.
As time passed by i get third mission while being at open sea (that damn stormy Atlantic) called “BLOCKADE of GERMANY” , so mission pop-ups depended on DATE is working.
Thats the fact.
Lets get back to our F:\SH5\DATA\CAMPAIGNS\CAMPAIGNSPROJECTS folder.
Lets enter folder with TOTAL_GERMANY campaign.
There will be file called: CAMPAIGN.CFG open it with WORDPAD.
Lets take a closer look at first section of that file (all campaigns have exactly same structure in files):
—————————————————————————————–
in >>> … <<>>ITS A MAIN CAMPAIGN INFO in GENERAL<<>>ITS A MAIN CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES and VICTORY INFO in GENERAL<<>>ALSO WE HAVE MAIN CAMPAIGN COMPLETE and FAIL INFO , and SCRIPT NAME<<>>>ITS A START OF MISSION TREE text files, and here we have MISSION NAME/
ID name of the OBJECTIVE/POINTS of CAMPAIGN TRIGGER/ MISSION NAME/ID name of the OBJECTIVE/POINTS of to continue to next CAMPAIGN (side paths in campaign)its is called OBJ, as you can see we have also
“ObjActivationAchievements=” its a required OBJ to have if TRIGGER of some of the missions should work
and same thing to some campaigns <<<>>>Below they are lines with above mission’s SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES “PERSOBJ” [PO]
as You can see we are given objectives of the tutorial mission here, look at
the :
“IsTonnage=false
Tonnage=0
NumOfShips=3
“We can see that its not important how much tonnage we gonna sink but number of ships, in this mission we have to sink 3 of them ” , yes second idea we have here is, WAIT these mission OBJECTIVES have progress, when we sink these 3 ships we have MISSION COMPLETE STATUS and can go further, yes without need of connection to the UBISOFTCKERS SERVERS (try with patch no net), it works, why? We must get closer look at that mission and compare it to others. Lets take a look at the below line called: “RelatedMapLocations=” , look after = we have nothing , no specified area of operations not like in the for example WESTERN APPROACHES circle (its a British Supplies mission), interesting ? huh?<<>>>That’s all , in this file below we have next mission SCRIPT TEXTS
same scheme like above. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT take closer look and note that we have
2 more important things here (look at first 2 blocks of text:
1) “VALUE POINTS” [VP]
2) ” IS COMPLETED=false” / “IS FAILED=false” trigger <<>>TYPE HERE TRUE<<>>TYPE HERE TRUE<<>>TYPE HERE TRUE<<>>TYPE HERE TRUE<< DANCING WITH THE TEXT FILES AND SCRIPTS >>enter that line i mean Happytimes40<<>>enter that date i mean 19400610<<>>make sure it is YES<<<
Interior=data/Interior/NSS_Uboat9/NSS_Uboat9
UnitType=200
MaxSpeed=19.3
MaxSpeedSubmerged=6.9
Length=87.7
Width=7.6
RenownAwarded=140
[Salvo]
1=1,3,2,4
2=1,2,4
3=1,3,4
4=1,4
5=2,3
6=1,3
7=2,4
8=5,6
[Properties]
PeriscopeDepth=14;meters
SnorkelDepth=15;meters
CrashDepth=70;meters
MaxDepth=500;meters
SurfaceDepth=8;meters
TorpLaunchMaxDepth=20;meters
StormConditions=12,0.4;max wind speed [m/s], max rain intensity [0,1]
[EngineProperties]
AllStop=0.00
AheadSlow=0.20
AheadOneThird=0.30
AheadStandard=0.6
AheadFull=0.80
AheadFlank=1.00
BackSlow=-0.2
BackStandard=-0.40
BackFull=-0.53
BackEmergency=-0.66
Okay!
As u may have noticed the previous comment is incoplite becose i didnt want to fuel the pirates,but the point is that drm has been cracked as intended.It appears the online thing just retags mission config files as completed and nothing is downloaded,and i guess the same goes for Ac2.
But u ppl are missing the point.This is not about the pirates anyway it is about control.What they are doing is in direct conflict with US 1st amandment(feel free to do a reaserch),not to mention canadian laws.Do a reasearch about copyright and study Eula.U will sure get the kick out of it.
Well, it’s official, the security DRM on silent hunter 5 has been completely defeated. A combination of the skidrow crack and a manual workaround to flag missions completed by editing .cfg savegame files has allowed players to enjoy the full game with no connection to ubisoft’s drm servers whatsoever. Is this solution yet easy enough to drive ubi’s paying customers into playing cracked versions over the legal copies they purchased? Not yet, no. But, in just one week, the “uncrackable” DRM has been completely defeated. Now that the pirate community knows how to fool the game into thinking its getting the information it needs from the server, it’s only a matter of time until someone packages it into one neat, easy, hassle free to use crack and ubisoft can kiss their legal user base goodbye, especially if they continue to have any kind of disruption of service whatsoever. Contgratulations ubisoft…pirates-1, you-0. I hope the massive loss of face amongst gamers you have suffered due to your greed was worth the 7 days it took hackers to defeat your copyright protection, and I seriously hope that these games become the most pirated of all time. Ubi may say that we have to “get used to it, because its here to stay”…but a “beatings will continue until morale improves” policy is not the way to put money in your pockets. Some idiots will always be parted from their cash, but 85% of the subsim.com community refuses to buy sh5 until the DRM is removed…that proves that ubisoft is on the wrong track if they want to stay in the gaming buisiness. Companies like ubi need to talk to companies like valve and futuremark and realise the only way to defeat piracy is to create a game that gamers WANT to spend their money on.
I just want to make sure that i make this clear…The person that discovered the way to bypass the DRM to allow mission progress was a legal owner of SH5 that was unable to play due to spotty internet. The solution was originally posted to ubisoft’s forums, but they swiftly removed it (heaven forbid anyone else see!). Fortunately they didn’t remove it in time to prevent somebody seeing it, and the information has already spread around the internet, with copies of the posting appearing in links on sites like the pirate bay. 7 days ubisoft. JUST 7 DAYS.
NEVER bet against the internet. These are the only people in the world balsy enough to challenge the church of scientology. These are the people that governments seek not to prosecute, but to offer jobs in information security. Hard to immagine that governments are being more proactive about realising that you cannot defeat them, only hope to get them to join you…but its the truth. You hear that ubisoft? You officially fail worse than the US federal government.
the scene should launch an attack on ubisoft servers
would be a good thing
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