From Dust - Ubisoft - PC, XBox, PS3

[Engels]

http://www.fromdustgame.com/

Dev diary trailery thing here: http://gamingbolt.com/from-dust-tech-demo-is-phenomenal

Anyone heard much about this game?

Looks like a god sim with lots of terraforming. Could be fun, could be a one-trick pony that gets to be boring after an hour.

Not to be released till Spring, I think.

[Malakili]

Strikes me as Black and White meets Minecraft.  I saw this trailer the other day and was impressed.  Honestly though, this was just a tech demo and its going to really depend on how good the game the build around it actually plays.

[schild]

God that art style is gorgeous.

[jakonovski]

It's Eric Chahi! I remember my mom buying me the French version of Future Wars in the hopes would learn the language better (I had just started French classes in school).

edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETHGr3Gv_nk

[Mrbloodworth]

There was an article about it in the last game developer mag. Very impressive.

[ffc]

Strikes me as Black and White meets Minecraft.  

My thoughts exactly. 

It's on Xbox Live / PSN so I am unsure whether it can develop into a compelling game.  The water looks amazing though so I would stare at that for a while at least.

[Samwise]

That looks like the parts of B&W I loved multiplied by what I wanted Spore to be.

[Mrbloodworth]

I was thinking Populous.

[Ghambit]

Reminds me of Ryzom.

[Paelos]

I get a Populous feel meets Black & White vibe. I liked parts of both, but wasn't amazed by the whole.

That being said, I saw the developer and immediately thought, "Ah, right, the asshole DRM bandits I won't purchase shit from." 

It's a shame they come up with interesting ideas.

[ffc]

I did read somewhere (maybe in a YouTube comment) it is the spiritual successor to Populous.

[tgr]

Good to see I'm not the only one thinking the very same thing re: ubisoft. They have some damn interesting games, but I'm not buying them. It's really a damn shame.

[Samwise]

It's a single-player game, so you can always just pirate it.   

[Tairnyn]

The land-building aspect looks cool, but I hope it's not a one trick pony. I have a hard time envisioning how the shiny erosion engine would interact meaningfully with challenging and enjoyable gameplay.

[apocrypha]

That being said, I saw the developer and immediately thought, "Ah, right, the asshole DRM bandits I won't purchase shit from." 

That's exactly what I thought too.

I'm dying to know if people like us are the cranky old weirdos in taking this stance and 99.9% of their potential market don't give a shit. Are Ubisoft's PC sales actually impacted by their DRM asshattery or not? How can we find this out?

[tgr]

My impression the last year has been that their main income is from younger people who don't really care about "minor things" like how they don't own a game, how they can't mod it, how the controls might be more awkward than necessary, etc etc etc. And they don't really give a flying fuck about PC gamers (like most of the PC developers these days), we're just icing on the cake for their profitability.

[Kail]

I'm dying to know if people like us are the cranky old weirdos in taking this stance and 99.9% of their potential market don't give a shit. Are Ubisoft's PC sales actually impacted by their DRM asshattery or not? How can we find this out?

Pshhh, it's easy.  Go to a torrent site and check how many people are downloading our game compared to older titles with less annoying DRM.  If fewer people are downloading our game, it means our DRM is working, and we should continue to make it more intrusive to drive piracy down further.  If, on the other hand, more people are downloading it, it means our DRM is ineffective, and we need to make it more intrusive to counter the upswing in piracy.

[jakonovski]

I may actually prostrate myself before the Ubi DRM gods for this game. Srsly it's Eric Chahi!

[UnSub]

UbiSoft is only using Steam's DRM for the release of RUSE.

So they are testing to see how different methods work out for them.

[Demonix]

UbiSoft is only using Steam's DRM for the release of RUSE.

So they are testing to see how different methods work out for them.

Yeah, but they can patch it in later;  that's what happened to Borderlands.

[Paelos]

That and they are going to test it on games I don't give a shit about, then declare it terrible when people don't buy them as much as their other more-anticipated titles.

[tgr]

Oh, release it on steam, get the sales, then force people to use the UBI auth servers?

I'm going to be giving UBI a wide berth for a while yet. From Dust looks interesting, though, so I do hope they'll keep on going in this direction (if they must have something online to start with).

[Xuri]

UbiSoft is only using Steam's DRM for the release of RUSE.

So they are testing to see how different methods work out for them.

Yeah, but they can patch it in later;  that's what happened to Borderlands.

That's interesting. I bought Borderlands on Steam a while back when there was a good offer, but have yet to try it. Are you saying they've patched the original Borderlands release with new DRM since then?

The graphics/physics engine in From Dust looks sweet (even more so from a developer/world-building perspective than from a player one, I suspect), but yeah. Ubisoft. 

[Trippy]

The first two Borderlands DLC expansions have some obnoxious DRM (a particularly heinous version of SecuROM) on them. It took me forever to get them to install properly.

[NiX]

The first two Borderlands DLC expansions have some obnoxious DRM (a particularly heinous version of SecuROM) on them. It took me forever to get them to install properly.

Makes me glad I didn't pick them up, even on the cheap.

[Samwise]

UbiSoft is only using Steam's DRM for the release of RUSE.

So they are testing to see how different methods work out for them.

Yeah, but they can patch it in later;  that's what happened to Borderlands.

If that's their track record, I guess it's not safe to buy it even if they release a DRM-free version.  

Or can you maybe uncheck the "keep this game updated" option on Steam to keep it from patching in the herpes?

[Azazel]

UbiSoft is only using Steam's DRM for the release of RUSE.

So they are testing to see how different methods work out for them.

Yeah, but they can patch it in later;  that's what happened to Borderlands.

Wait, what?

[Paelos]

How the hell do you patch in DRM? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having it? I mean, it's already hit the street at that point. The box is wide open. That does absolutely NOTHING but piss off your customers.

[tgr]

How the hell do you patch in DRM? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having it? I mean, it's already hit the street at that point. The box is wide open. That does absolutely NOTHING but piss off your customers.

I hope you're not suggesting logic applies to management.

[Paelos]

Management can be hilariously stupid, but not all the time. Sometimes they are just shortsighted in trying to do what they perceive will provide the most return for the business. Overly invasive DRM is one of those shortsighted things when it puts so much pressure on paying customers to jump through hoops. However, there is an actual argument for it, even if it's weak. Management typically does things for a reason, even if it's a ridiculous reason that has no basis in reality.

There is no argument for security months after the fact. There is no monetary gain associated with that. It's a wasted cost. If someone is actually trying to explain how such a move would be value-added beyond just saying, "Well we'll lure in customers with false promises then drop the real hammer on them," they are flat lying. Also, if that's the actual reason, they are shooting any goodwill they have with the customer in the foot.

I'm not saying they couldn't do it. I'm just saying if they are doing it, the company is doomed.

[UnSub]

Just watched the video. Pretty.

[tgr]

I think that what they did with borderlands (which might not have come through well enough in this thread) was that the core game was with steam drm only, but the DLCs were protected with securom. If that's the case (I can't say either way, as I waited for a few weeks before looking at buying borderlands, and it sounded like it was a major disappointment so I won out), then there is probably some sort of argument that can be made for putting extra DRM on there.

[Paelos]

Securing DLC to a "non-secured" game on the Steam format doesn't make sense. You know for a fact that you have customers out there who bought the legitimate title, and you know there were those that pirated it. Adding the DRM won't stop the pirates from doing it again with your DLC, and even if it does, who gives a shit? What you stopped them from getting access to is something worth $10 when the $50 game is already out there.

In addition, why would a paying customer who owns the base game suddenly decide to pirate the DLC? That's a rather large leap for people to make when they already own a legal copy, unless you fuck up the DRM so bad that they don't want to buy it for fear of their computer getting AIDS.

[DraconianOne]

Srsly it's Eric Chahi!

I concur. "Another World" was one of my favourite Amiga games ever. And Paul Cuisset's "Flashback" was also in the running.

[tgr]

In addition, why would a paying customer who owns the base game suddenly decide to pirate the DLC? That's a rather large leap for people to make when they already own a legal copy, unless you fuck up the DRM so bad that they don't want to buy it for fear of their computer getting AIDS.

I don't really remember 2k's position on the "used games market", but I know EA and UBI have been very vocal about how much money they're losing on that, and how DLC is the way to either make people pay more for their game, or to get the gamers who bought a used game, to pay them some for their game. In that regard, putting on some form of DRM does make sense.

No, I don't agree with it, since well, I think steam is enough. But I wouldn't be surprised if that's their reasoning. Or maybe they just forgot that the original game didn't have 3rd party DRM on. I don't know.