Solid Shield during Install + UPlay and Other Notes.

[bad_at_dota]

There was some discussion in another thread that Solid Shield was patched out. I said I would make a post after purchase.

Just bought it and installed it with the following results :

During install there is a key verification and activation by Solid Shield CORE Library, version 2.9.0.0, Copyright 2010-2012 Tages SAS.

An autopatcher is then run, game is updated, EULA is displayed and must be agreed to.

UPlay Updater runs, updates UPlay, game is bound to my UPlay account with a UPlay activation message.

At this point it runs and plays like any of my other UPlay games.

I am not sure if an activation limit exists. If I ever bump into one you can bet I'll post here after contacting Ubisoft.

It would seem, however, that SolidShield is indeed a part of the DRM of the game.

[bad_at_dota]

Once in game there is then a 3rd key activation for UPlay / SolidShield

[Elegant Caveman]

That's some very interesting information, thank you sh33p.

Especially the bit about there requiring a third SolidShield activation once you're in the game, which counters the most hopeful news I'd heard about TAGES (i.e. that it's included in the original install, but then gets patched out, as I mentioned in point #3 in this post).

This would imply that SolidShield doesn't get deactivated, and is still in full effect.

[bad_at_dota]

Well having completed everything, it seems that the 3rd activation in game is for the deep sea expansion pack; it was mandatory that I submit a code that steam provided which then resulted in another autopatch being run at which point I am now in game with all the DLC showing as activated.

The game was ambiguous about whether or not the 3rd activation (which appeared to be for the DLC, but this was not explicitly stated) involved SolidShield or was just a key check.

I was offered a chance to take a survey about Anno 2070 once everything was installed; when I came to the free answer portion I gave them a piece of my mind about their lack of transparency regarding this absurd multi-layer DRM situation.

[Elegant Caveman]

What makes you think that the third activation is in any way related to SolidShield? Is it simply an assumption, or were there any ambiguous hints?

[bad_at_dota]

Yeah exactly Elegant, just an assumption based off it being the same style box with the same color scheme. The default input for the box said "solidshield" but there was no other branding and no other UPlay identifiers; it was all in game. I copied/pasted over the default wording in the box with my CD key and then it tossed me out into the autoupdater.

[Elegant Caveman]

Hmm... so, still inconclusive. An update (for Deep Ocean, I guess) still came after.

So it's theoretically possible that SolidShield does get deactivated, but we don't know for sure.

And we do know for sure that it's at least there initially.

Well, some info is better than no info, I guess.

Thanks for your report!