RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS THREAD!

[WorstUsernameEver]

Spellbound (the Arcania: Gothic 4 makers) announce a new Steampunk RPG: Ravensdale

 

Except they make no mention of its rpg-ness in their announcement.

[Sannom]

Ubisoft's DRM has been cracked (and this time it's not just an emulation of the server). I suspect that any new releases will be rendered DRM-free within a day or so of the release, if not on the day of the release, from now on.

 

 

But if it takes that much time to crack all of those DRM, Ubisoft won't do anything. It lasted for one month, so it served its purpose and proved its efficiency. Unless all Ubisoft games are cracked one day from release from now on, they will do something. But right now, they don't have any reason to do it.

[Mamoulian War]

Ubisoft's DRM has been cracked (and this time it's not just an emulation of the server). I suspect that any new releases will be rendered DRM-free within a day or so of the release, if not on the day of the release, from now on.

 

 

But if it takes that much time to crack all of those DRM, Ubisoft won't do anything. It lasted for one month, so it served its purpose and proved its efficiency. Unless all Ubisoft games are cracked one day from release from now on, they will do something. But right now, they don't have any reason to do it.

 

It did not served it's purpose, it scared away more people willing to buy it, than lured pirates, who were unable to play it without "proper" crack...

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Unless all Ubisoft games are cracked one day from release from now on...

 

There was, as mentioned in the article, an emulation-type "crack" -that is to say not a real crack- out in the first week or so. Also, new DRM schemes, and I mean really new ones and not just SecuROM 8.1 instead of 8.0, tend to take longer to crack but, once that is done, end up being day-zeroed for later releases.

[Morgoth]

Oh, and new Arcania: Gothic 4 screenshots right here. Looks better and better.

 

Oh, and that's how the new main dude looks like.

 

Edited April 25, 2010 by Morgoth

[Morgoth]

Really, RPG or not, in fantasy games, it always boils down beating stuff dead.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Spellbound (the Arcania: Gothic 4 makers) announce a new Steampunk RPG: Ravensdale

 

Except they make no mention of its rpg-ness in their announcement.

 

You know, if you talk about 'rpg' and say 'action game'...

Who cares anyway, considering how Gothic IV is turning up, I don't think there's much to expect from Spellbound.

Edited April 25, 2010 by Gorth
Quote edited

[LostStraw]

In response to the talk about the Assassins Creed 2 "crack" here's an insightful post I lifted from an AC on Slashdot

 

The actual hard work was done by a community of people who bought the game. They ran a proxy that logged all the "values" sent from the Ubisoft servers to the game. Each time the game progresses to another mission (or similar), it requires a different set of "values" to determine what game data to load (or a very similar method). The people who logged these values then submitted them to a community database, which collected them and sorted out any fake ones uploaded by Ubisoft employees or griefers.

 

This community also made a server emulator, which served the "values" to the game upon request. The server emulator, written in python, was a pretty simple HTTP server; the game connected to it by editing the system's "hosts" file and hardcoding DNS responses for ".ubisoft.com" to localhost (where the server emulator runs).

 

Thus, the game is only crackable once enough people have bought the game and logged all possible values for all possible missions states. It's not a total loss for Ubisoft in a sense -- it prevents "Pre" releases, wherein a release group distributes the game before the actual release date. It also ensures that a certain number of people must buy the game and contribute "values" to the community database; all in all this ends up lengthening the time from game release to full-working pirate release.

 

SkidRow's new crack is simply an IPC (inter-process communication) method of delivering the "values" to the game, bypassing the network connection to the game. Therefore SkidRow's version doesn't use a server emulator running on localhost, but rather patches the executables of the game and has the "values" hardcoded into the cracked DLLs.

 

The real issue here is that SkidRow took the "values" database from the community who initially logged them, and pretty much claimed it as their own work. The original cracking community inserted some fake "values" as trackers in order to determine when anyone stole their work and released it.

The talk about "the real issue" being about a cracking group stealing is humorous but the information that there hasn't been a real crack for the game this late after the release bodes well for Ubisoft's DRM scheme. Also note that The Settlers 7 still hasn't received any sort of "fix" for bypassing the DRM and that Ubisoft will only make it harder to crack from here on out requiring more emulation than simply returning static values.

[Pop]

So does anybody else have Starcraft 2 Beta access? I'm tired of playing with Halo generation ****heads.

[Tigranes]

Everyone I know who got the beta sold their invites on ebay, so no.

 

edit: those G4 screens look pretty Gothicy, but looks don't mean much...

[Pop]

If you preorder the game via Gamestop they'll send you an invite. It's how I got mine.

[Tigranes]

Ah, that's pretty cool. Not wanting to pre-order yet though, I have no intention of buying 3 Starcraft games and want to see how it pans out.

[Oner]

So does anybody else have Starcraft 2 Beta access? I'm tired of playing with Halo generation ****heads.

I haven't played it for like 2 weeks, so I guess I'm "in the mood" for it.

Boo probably still has his keys too.

 

Oner.thelazyone is my identifier.

[Calax]

Ah, that's pretty cool. Not wanting to pre-order yet though, I have no intention of buying 3 Starcraft games and want to see how it pans out.

Note; you don't have to keep the preorder there forever, just throw 5 on it and get your code, then when you don't want it, come back and remove the 5

[Pop]

Actually there's a stipulation in the deal that once you get the Beta code you can't renege on the preorder. And you pay full price up front.

[Calax]

Actually there's a stipulation in the deal that once you get the Beta code you can't renege on the preorder. And you pay full price up front.

not on my reciept.

[Tigranes]

Arcania: Gothic 4 gameplay video.

 

Really really looks like Gothic 3+.

-> More reasonably, the UI finally has a minimap. The question marks on top of questgivers is stupid, though, can we stop making everything a WoW clone?

-> City section minimap hints at a decently sized settlement, similar to Gothic 3.

-> Old companions (Gorn, Diego, etc) return.

-> Lockpick minigame, what a piece of ****.

-> Combat is similar but spells seem to cast faster.

[Bos_hybrid]

Arcania: Gothic 4 gameplay video.

 

Really really looks like Gothic 3+.

-> More reasonably, the UI finally has a minimap. The question marks on top of questgivers is stupid, though, can we stop making everything a WoW clone?

-> City section minimap hints at a decently sized settlement, similar to Gothic 3.

-> Old companions (Gorn, Diego, etc) return.

-> Lockpick minigame, what a piece of ****.

-> Combat is similar but spells seem to cast faster.

 

But remember PB aren't the devs on this one. I'm skeptical on what we will get.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Arcania: Gothic 4 gameplay video.

 

Really really looks like Gothic 3+.

-> More reasonably, the UI finally has a minimap. The question marks on top of questgivers is stupid, though, can we stop making everything a WoW clone?

-> City section minimap hints at a decently sized settlement, similar to Gothic 3.

-> Old companions (Gorn, Diego, etc) return.

-> Lockpick minigame, what a piece of ****.

-> Combat is similar but spells seem to cast faster.

 

I already know enough info to be reasonably sure that it will turn out ****ty.

Being able to join all the factions in the same playthrough, not being able to come back to old sections of the map after you finish a chapter, normal level system without trainers... the minimap, I'll wait before judgin' it, if you gain it only after having bought/stolen/gained a map it's ok for me otherwise... yeah I can turn it off but it's another atmosphere killer for me.

Mind you, it can still turn out a decent game, it won't be Gothic for me however.

[mkreku]

I think it looks pretty good. It reminds me more of Two Worlds than Gothic though.

 

One funny thing they mentioned in the video: the cartoon-like, colourful version of the game is aimed for the North American markets and the toned-down, more realistic version is aimed for the European market. I like that!

[HoonDing]

I haven't really been given this game attention, but I liked what I saw in that video. Seems like Gothic 3: Enhanced Edition.

[Tigranes]

Considering the whole switch of devs and how awesome Risen was (spirit of Gothic but with sensible improvements & potential for even better), I didn't really care about Arcania - but I mean, it really looks like they've really tried to recreate G3.

 

Obviously the big things to wait on will be quest reactivity, combat balance and world size, but right now it's great. I sort of forgot everything I ever heard about Two world, sso don't know what that is?

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Also note that The Settlers 7 still hasn't received any sort of "fix" for bypassing the DRM...

 

One was released today, or at least reported today.

[Meshugger]

I think it looks pretty good. It reminds me more of Two Worlds than Gothic though.

 

One funny thing they mentioned in the video: the cartoon-like, colourful version of the game is aimed for the North American markets and the toned-down, more realistic version is aimed for the European market. I like that!

 

Interesting. On what basis has it been determined that north american gamers want games to be more "colorful or cartoony" than the european ones and vice versa?

[mkreku]

Interesting. On what basis has it been determined that north american gamers want games to be more "colorful or cartoony" than the european ones and vice versa?

I'm not sure, but I know the discussion has been up on Piranha Bytes official boards before. They're also making their games with two differently coloured versions. Deep Shadows was also supposed to do the same to their games (White Gold/Precursors), but they seem to have gone out of business. There has to have been some research to support this since three different developers (all from Europe/Eastern countries) all support the same idea.