At the risk of being repetitive, since you ask, I'll tell you one thing: if you use Uplay, make sure to turn cloud saves off. That 'feature' is implemented in such a way that it deleted my saves several times. And it failed to load about half the time, too. It is an attempt at a feature client rich client, and Ubi seems fairly serious about it, but it sucks.

Well, we are talking about the guys that said that buying used games and piracy is the same thing. The guys that, together with EA, pushed Microsoft to put a system that wouldn't have allowed gamers to play used games on Xbox One, unless buying them on authorized shops with an online code to unlock them (a system that fortunately was never implemented due to a huge negative response from customers). The same guys that stopped printing instruction booklets for the physical copies of their games and said they did it for the purpose of environmental protection, while keeping the price unaltered, and while continuing to use plastic boxes for all games and paper contents for collector's editions.
I wouldn't trust those people even if they were giving away 100 dollar bills for free.

Just wait until publishers start making games where the AI code (or other gameplay features) is hosted server-side, so even if they crack the game it will still be unplayable unless your connected to the internet and a legit account at all times.

Even trying to "crack" such a game by making a private server (like how some people "pirate" World of Warcraft by making private servers) won't work because all the AI is on the hosting server.

Most publishers won't stop until they get to this kind of solution, not just always-online but also streaming parts of the game from host server, it could be a "perfect DRM" and would also give publishers 100% control of every product they sell, game "ownership" would cease to exist in a normal sense.

It's why so many big publishers are pushing "the cloud" and persistent online elements. It's a backdoor to total DRM control.

This was meant to be one of the big things about the SimCity deboot (according to the hype) but someone hacked the code and proved that the AI was all client side. This makes sense because having the AI on the server would be a crap experience for any real-time game and even making it work well on turn-based games would be difficult even with a mostly decent internet connection.

I think there was some other game that promised (but did not deliver) real time server side processing of graphics rendering which is an even dumber idea. Yeah streaming an entire game MIGHT work with a very decent low-latency internet connection but offloading just graphics rendering? Please.

All this talk of offloading core stuff like that is just nonsense and would result in shitty gameplay for everyone. The real danger is other "non-essential" gameplay features being chucked on the server. This would make the game "playable" without connection to any servers but would mean you have important parts of the gameplay stripped out. Anno 2070 has taken some early steps down that path by arbitrarily disabling the Ark (and related research) unless you connect to their servers.


tl;dr As much as publishers may love to have complete control via their servers, current tech makes this a practical impossibility even for places with very good internet.

I'd like to see Ubisoft crash and burn with an attempt, though. They're stupid enough to try and the result would be positively cathartic. And gloriously hilarious...

Well, like I said, ~in the future~ when average internet speed is much better, publishers might start looking into the possibility of offloading gameplay stuff server-side. Aren't Sony developing an entire streaming service for games, so you'd be playing the whole game off the net?

Streaming entire games is actually simpler then just offloading core parts of it. The only issue there is games like twitch shooters demand very quick response times so you'd better have a damn good internet connection and responsive servers.

I don't think that will be a danger to single player games any time soon though. Steam can handwave and act like you own the games but a streaming service can't even pretend you're not renting. Even the dumbest gamer will realise this and realise what this means. So, yeah, as an optional thing I could see it take off but I just can't see it replacing locally installed games.

It's like how Netflix is popular but people still buy films and box sets of TV shows.

Uplay experience for single player:
- as mentioned by others, turn off cloud save as it can mess up your savegames. While this is also true for other clients cloud saving, Ubi's attempt at it is probably the weakest. Not a critical option for me and if you want that, I'd advise to use a specific savefolder and sync it with dropbox or another online service.
- apart from that, neither the on- or offline option has any more impact on playing a single player game than Steam has.

DRM layer / features:
- it is first and foremost a DRM / stoping resells layer. I don't use any social features, so can't compare that. If you want a comparison with Steam then yes, it's just a barebone attempt. While I don't believe anyone can compete with the features Steam offers right of the bat, it's worth mentioning that I don't see any real attempt of Ubi to improve their client within the last 2 years.
- the one feature that stands out, is their way of handling achievements. There are certain points in various Ubi titles that rewards you with points once you reached them. With those points you can then unlock additional stuff, ranging from wallpapers, ingame costumes / items to bonus levels / missions.

It's not just a question of latency--although there is a large question mark over that, especially where a hypothetical AI-on-the-remote-server game is in open market competition with one that has the sense to run AI calculations locally. Programmers have enough trouble making effective use of multiple cores on the local CPU...

Until I see HOMM6 here with all the online crap ripped out, I don't believe a word...

Ugh, but I hate that feature! I don't care about hats and costumes, but give me one good reason for locking me out of actual game content until I've racked up enough meaningless "achievements"?

I stated that it stands out, not that everyone has to love it. :)
Most of it is skipable like wallpapers or skins. Some are rather nice like an additional map or challenge, stuff that get's sold as DLC for other games. So I don't see it as "cut" or "actual game content", but as a bonus. Like it or not, it certainly gives the whole achievements section a bit of a meaning beyond an epeen stat.

Riiiiiight, and they expect people to believe this.

They can back up that statement by offering last year's games DRM free on GOG, not talking about Rayman game number 200 here but more the likes of Assassin's Creed Series, Far Cry 3 / Blood Dragon, Anno 2070.

This message in no way means they will drop the DRM completely. They will still force you to authenticate through UPlay aka their so called "online services".


Oh how I miss the days where one used to insert the disk, install the game, perform a simple cd check and play their game without any clients or internet required.

Thank you both for the response. :)