PlayFab Account

[Tracey]

I just saw, or found out, that I would need to make an account for/at PlayFab to play this game, or is it only needed for the coop part?

Wanted buy this game with a friend to play it, but now I'm no longer sure about it and have to talk with her about that. If the account is needed to play the game at all, then sorry, no longer interested in it.

[JB™]

Originally posted by Segoaban_Daedalic:

Folks, less bickering please.

You could stop the bickering by chipping in with a more comprehensive reasoning behind your decision to use this additional platform instead.

[Cleverbyte]

Be assured, we're reading every single post in this thread. When we started developing the game back in 2017, we decided to go this way, using PlayFab for account management which brings in a lot of different features we needed to make the game work.

I'll quote some of the messages from you now and say a few quick words about it.

First up, my own post to remind you there was already and official post here. No need to roast my colleague Segoaban for trying to calm down.

Originally posted by Cleverbyte:

It is required to log into the game indeed, even if played alone. It has a lot to do with saving game progress and making the game cheat-safe.

Narwhal proofed to know what he is talking about. Let me highlight what he said:

Originally posted by Narwhal:

PlayFab is a completely valid backend for hosting indie game servers [...] It's completely normal practise to host your multiplayer game data on a server instead of in plain, easily-hackable formats on the user's local machine.

Correct.

Originally posted by Dr. Damn Nation (and others):

The difference is, that Valve provides the entire structure for this already.

That is not correct, Dr. Damn Nation.

Originally posted by Narhwal:

Valve does NOT provide the infrastructure required for an indie developer to make reliable networked game.

@Dr. Damn Nation

Originally posted by Narwhal:

Last time I'm saying this - A Steam account does not provide a game-ready database for the developer's use, period.

Correct.

Originally posted by Narwhal:

It's your choice to buy the game or not [...] Spreading uninformed information about software is not your right though.

Correct.

We're currently not think about (nor even being able to) removing PlayFab as our account management tool.

It is our legal duty to inform players about what data we collect and what we use it for. That can be found in our Game's Privacy Policy[www.ayearofrain.com], before purchasing the game. PlayFab, Zeuz and Microsoft Azure is required to run this game. GameAnalytics is optional and don't need to be checked during the registration.

We're advising everyone to read this document first and then decide if they want to buy the game or not. It is up to you to decide. To some extend, I am sorry to say that we're not changing the currently running system anytime soon as stated above though.

My Offer
I am happy to delete accounts of you once you finished the campaign, so no data is left behind. We're obliged to delete an account when requested from the owner and I will do so if it helps any of you. Feel free to contact us via [e-mail] in those cases or via the email address stated in the Privacy Policy.


If you now please either abandon this thread or return to a civil way of communication, that'd be great. We'll answer questions about the Privacy Policy and data that is saved. We'll not answer questions on why we decided to use PlayFab or any separate account management tool. If the topic drifts too far away from the set topic, we'll close this thread and consider it done.

[d10sfan]

Sadly, since you are going to use PlayFab for everything, I'd have to decline buying the game. Having to have another online account, that could be shut down a few years from now, to play the game "offline" or single player, does not work well for me.

Wish you best of luck with the game

[Kurosu]

Originally posted by d10sfan:

Sadly, since you are going to use PlayFab for everything, I'd have to decline buying the game. Having to have another online account, that could be shut down a few years from now, to play the game "offline" or single player, does not work well for me.

Wish you best of luck with the game

This ^ . Before this thread gets closed ( because it will soon and its obvious) I suggest everyone to read the Privacy Policy link provided by the developer above and ask themselves if they are fine with giving all this data just to play the game on single player ( like who even cares if you would cheat there or where your personal campaign saves are). And after that its pure personal taste. This post is currently on the thick line of being a hate post so I wont comment further. It already reached 64 comments.

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by Cleverbyte:

Be assured, we're reading every single post in this thread. When we started developing the game back in 2017, we decided to go this way, using PlayFab for account management which brings in a lot of different features we needed to make the game work.

I'll quote some of the messages from you now and say a few quick words about it.

First up, my own post to remind you there was already and official post here. No need to roast my colleague Segoaban for trying to calm down.

Originally posted by Dr. Damn Nation (and others):

The difference is, that Valve provides the entire structure for this already.

That is not correct, Dr. Damn Nation.

Originally posted by Narhwal:

Valve does NOT provide the infrastructure required for an indie developer to make reliable networked game.

@Dr. Damn Nation

Thats the problem when quoting out of context, it becomes faulty.
To my knowledge, Steam provides the means necessary to integrate a lot of what is necessary for the game, including account linking with external servers.
The same that other games are doing, a login without an additional verification step for the user.
Let alone a new account creation.

I cant see why somehow A Year of Rain cant do that.
Just so no one tries to state that im pulling that out of my head, the Steamworks Docs state that its possible to link your steam account with a third party account using the steamworks backend API to achieve exactly what i have said before is possible using Steamworks:
"Additionally, if new 3rd party accounts can be automatically created and linked when a new SteamID is encountered, the Steam user will never have to be aware that a secondary authentication is taking place at all. Instead, their single Steam account can grant access to all of their games, streamlining the user experience and removing potential barriers to installing and trying new games. [...] This eliminates the need for Steam users to do any sort of secondary login to 3rd party account systems."
[https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/auth#website]

Doesnt look like im "incorrect"(?).

Im by far no expert, really far from it. But from what i understand out of that is this:
User enters game with SteamID and connects to external server. External server creates a unique Account automatically and links it to the SteamID of the new user.
The new user now has an account on the external server (Daedalic Server), without the user noticing it as its an automated process.
On top, the data is probably even more secure, because every User gets a randomized account number on the external server, making it nearly anonymous.

Whether you want to do that, is a different question, but previously i havent said anything about whether using Steamworks is a good option, just that this option exists.

Regarding the next argument, which was anti-cheat. Thats also provided by Steamworks, aswell as DDoS Security.
Other things that steamworks provides is matchmaking systems and leaderboards.

I totally get, that you probably want to have all the stuff you need under one umbrella at your studio and its a lot easier for you to make it work with the game.
I assume.
But its not wrong that Steam provides a lot of that already.

Other indie developers use several analytic tools and have the same structure using steams environment.
To my knowledge Steamworks even provides analytics tools and theres a google analytics implementation for Steamworks.
I could call at least 4 games where i know that its used to get gameplay data to improve the game.

Your game might need other means to function properly and yeah probably Steam cant provide everything you need for this game in detail. I cant judge that.
But overall, it does exactly provide the stuff you would need in a game like that if i take its parts.

My question to you would be, was it absolutely necessary, or was it just the best decision because its more convenient that way?
Thats a major difference to claiming that its just not there, which would be untrue.
I gladly take to be wrong, at last im no developer, but of what i see, they have it.

[Axiom]

Originally posted by Kurosu:

This ^ . Before this thread gets closed ( because it will soon and its obvious) I suggest everyone to read the Privacy Policy link provided by the developer above and ask themselves if they are fine with giving all this data just to play the game on single player ( like who even cares if you would cheat there or where your personal campaign saves are).

IP address, email address and your PC platform? You give that information away literally every time you visit a website and log in to anything (including Steam).

I'm curious what you see as mischievous in their privacy policy; it looks fairly standard, no?

[Dareo Larix]

As a German company they must abide to harsh privacy laws. Way way harder than any privacy laws in the US for example.
I don’t mind making an extra account that doesn’t want any personal information other than my spam mail account.

[Cleverbyte]

Originally posted by Dr. Damn Nation:

To my knowledge, Steam provides the means necessary to integrate a lot of what is necessary for the game, including account linking with external servers.
The same that other games are doing, a login without an additional verification step for the user.
Let alone a new account creation.

Actually, you are kind of right on this one. As described in PlayFab's API Documentation (LoginWithSteam Call)[api.playfab.com], using your Steam Account Link to log into the game is possible. If that is what you're looking for, the issue you have seem to be different than I expected.

Logging into our game using your Steam Account will create a player profile in PlayFab anyway, linked to your Steam account. Literally, the only step you're saving here is entering a password every time. And the only data we wouldn't save in PlayFab in this case, according to our Game's Privacy Policy, would be your email address (which we use for logging in). Everything else is the same. But right now we don't even have a email verification. So you can use a trash email address as well.

No matter how you twist and turn this thing. Steam is no full backend provider for this kind of games. There is always a third party account management system behind it - if you see it or not. Even in your favorite games that don't tell you about it like we are obliged to. Just if you log in via Steam, you as the user probably won't notice. Thanks, European Privacy Laws that open up the eyes of many and brings me as a German community manager in the position of making public what is common practise for years already behind the scenes.

And to back this up. let me quote the same paragraph you quoted from the Steam Partner Documentation:

[...] This eliminates the need for Steam users to do any sort of secondary login to 3rd party account systems. [...]

^ "eliminates secondary login into 3rd party account system". It does not say "eliminates using a 3rd party account system".


If your only point here is that you don't like logging in with a separate password everytime and/or using your real email address, the whole Data Privacy discussion from the past 60 messages is pointless imho.


@Dareo: You got it right :D

[Cleverbyte]

I deleted three posts unrelated to the topic we're talking about. Passive agressive posts is not what we'll tolerate in this topic. Ask your questions if you have any, but don't put up assumptions to trigger an defensive response from us. I call that trolling.

Originally posted by Cleverbyte:

If you now please either abandon this thread or return to a civil way of communication, that'd be great. We'll answer questions about the Privacy Policy and data that is saved. We'll not answer questions on why we decided to use PlayFab or any separate account management tool. If the topic drifts too far away from the set topic, we'll close this thread and consider it done.

[kuhpunkt]

How was asking about fragmentation unrelated to this? This thread is about the PlayFab thing. There's nothing passive aggressive about that. I'm just asking when enough is enough?

Steam. gog. Battlenet. Bethesda. Origin. Uplay. Discord. Epic. Xbox Live. Oculus and so on... how many accounts are people supposed to manage just to play some games?

[Cleverbyte]

No worries. Your post was deleted soley because it was referring to an deleted post. Sorry.

There is nothing bad about fragmentation. I sometimes have the feeling my password vault software explodes because there are so many accounts in there. Though, then we need to go away from the whole "Data Privacy" topic, because if we use Steam as a Single-Sign-On, we'll still collect the same data like with a new account.

If you all say, you prefer Login via Steam - that is something we can make happen. I'll write it on the list for our developers. That is way easier than getting rid of PlayFab - the thing I thought we're talking about all the time.

[MoroKahn|DL|]

I red through all of this, as i am (still) interested in the game.

the two things i can read out of these textwalls are:

-login via steam as mentioned by Cleverbyte
(a thing that i would like to have, yes, only mere 5 seconds at best that i might save, but im lazy ^^)

-being able to play fully offline, for only singleplayer-mode
(i did not understand, if my savegames are stored locally and online (at playfab?) or just one method of the beforementioned. can someone tell me again? might have overlooked it...
i dont mind playfab or anything, if i have an option to opt-out of the detailed-data-thing.)

if i buy this game, i will buy it for its online content tbh. , so i fully understand why i should have an internet connection.

Last thing: Thx Cleverbyte for reading ^^

[Cleverbyte]

Thanks MoroKahn! :)

According to our developers, it is saving your progress online and offline. Though, the offline copy of your progress is just to assure that in case you loose your internet connection while playing the campaign, it'll save your progress offline and report it to your online profile once your internet connection is back.

[Grandchado]

so can we play offline or not?

[Tchey]

Hi,

Just here to add my (kind) voice to the "no to 3rd party login to play, and even more no to play solo".