Offline mode?

[Mutant1988]

I passed on the previous game because there's absolutely no reason to force always online on a game like this.

I know they made the game playable offline, but the progression is still locked to online, which will break the game once servers go down for good.

So will this game be arbitrarily crippled too?

[Kunovega]

You can play the previous one offline

[Mutant1988]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

You can play the previous one offline

You can't unlock anything offline. To actually make progress, you need to be online.

[Roly07]

Yeah hopefully they're not making this mistake again, unless they really don't care about what the community wants.

[never047]

Originally posted by Mutant1988:

I know they made the game playable offline, but the progression is still locked to online, which will break the game once servers go down for good.

Why would the devs break their own game? Can you just think about that for a second..

[Herbivorous Cyborg]

Originally posted by never047:

Originally posted by Mutant1988:

I know they made the game playable offline, but the progression is still locked to online, which will break the game once servers go down for good.

Why would the devs break their own game? Can you just think about that for a second..

There is no such thing as game servers which last forever. Think about that for a second.

[Mutant1988]

Originally posted by never047:

Originally posted by Mutant1988:

I know they made the game playable offline, but the progression is still locked to online, which will break the game once servers go down for good.

Why would the devs break their own game? Can you just think about that for a second..

Servers cost money. Ergo, servers won't be around forever. Why does a primarily singleplayer game need online connectivity in the first place? Leaderboards? I don't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about competing with other people, especially not to the extent where I want the implementation of such a feature to break the game in the future.

[never047]

So you automatically assume the worst and least plausible scenario, for them to 'break' the game?
When instead they could patch the game so it can retain it's full offline functionality once the servers do go down, just like a number of single player games with online drm did at some point in the past.

[Herbivorous Cyborg]

Originally posted by never047:

So you automatically assume the worst and least plausible scenario, for them to 'break' the game?
When instead they could patch the game so it can retain it's full offline functionality once the servers do go down, just like a number of single player games with online drm did at some point in the past.

There is no reason to believe they will expend extra effort to change the game in any way as you are suggesting. That would require them to spend more time and thus more money for no additional profit.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Appz:

That was Square Enixs decision wasn't it? WB is publishing this time, so expect lots and lots of microtransactions.

Massive difference, Square owned ioi at the time, they were not just the publisher

WB does not own ioi, and has nothing to do with development. They are a contracted partner to publish retail box copies of the game and share marketing expenses.

WB isn't making any of the design decisions, ioi is independent now.

ioi doesnt have the equipment to produce boxed copies of games and never have

When ioi made the original Codename 47 they were independent. They contracted with Eidos to publish the game. It sold OK, but ioi were struggling. Eidos then decided to buy them and continue to fund them and told them to produce the second game for both consoles and PC.

On consoles Silent Assassin was a mega hit, Edios was right and a franchise was born. Contracts and then Blood Money were the golden era.

For whatever reason Eidos then sold themselves to Square, ioi got dragged along for the ride.

Absolution was Squares design, we all see what happened there.

Hitman(2016) ioi was given some freedom over design (which is why its more of an evolved blood money), and they were going to release it in 2 parts (3 maps each), Square decided to make it 6 parts and call them episodes (we see how that turned out)

Not meeting Squares sales expectations, Square was going to shut down ioi and cancel the franchise. ioi found new investors and pooled their own personal money to "buy themselves" away from square, they are independetn again

As it stands, they remain independent as developers but still need someone to make physical copies of the game (rather than spend their own money on equipment)

By contracting with the WB they get a partner that will make the boxed copies of the game for retail (and consoles), and that's willing to help pay for marketing expenses (since they get a cut from all sales as part of the contract)

It's win win, but don't expect the WB to be making design decisions, ioi chose to stay independent for a reason, and hopefully they stay that way

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Khaezaid:

Originally posted by never047:

So you automatically assume the worst and least plausible scenario, for them to 'break' the game?
When instead they could patch the game so it can retain it's full offline functionality once the servers do go down, just like a number of single player games with online drm did at some point in the past.

There is no reason to believe they will expend extra effort to change the game in any way as you are suggesting. That would require them to spend more time and thus more money for no additional profit.

There is a reason to believe, ioi is 20 years old and some of the original founders are still with the company, they already promised to do what they can to maintain the game for the duration of their own lives

Absolutions servers lasted 6 years and only went down because it was Square that owned them, and Square doesn't care

ioi owns the Hitman(2016) and Hitman(2018) servers, I expect they will be up for the lifespan of ioi's existance, and that barring any major catostrophe the devs will keep their promises

I mean if you want to pick apart the history of ioi it's been a roller coaster of trying to stay in business, but they've managed to pull it off for 2 decades, and some of their worst decisions have been from publisher interference, which for the moment they don't have to worry about (as independants)

[never047]

Originally posted by Appz:

Never let me down so far. Skipped the securom version of Chronicles of Riddick, was rewarded with a DRM free version on GoG.

I've got the DRM Steam version and it worked without issues like a year ago when I last tried it. I see some folks had problems with the tages drm on win10 but from what I see there are working workarounds

Originally posted by Khaezaid:

There is no reason to believe they will expend extra effort to change the game in any way as you are suggesting. That would require them to spend more time and thus more money for no additional profit.

Dude, the meat of the game is already available offline. I doubt it would take them much effort or money to get challenges and unlocks working in offline as well. And assuming the game is still on the market at this point - patching would be the right course of action for additional profit. Who'd buy a half-working game? Yeah..

[Herbivorous Cyborg]

Originally posted by never047:

Dude, the meat of the game is already available offline. I doubt it would take them much effort or money to get challenges and unlocks working in offline as well. And assuming the game is still on the market at this point - patching would be the right course of action for additional profit. Who'd buy a half-working game? Yeah..

You don't understand the amount of man hours that go into making and testing even very small changes. First you have to architect the solution. Then a peer review process is pretty important. After a solution is agreed upon, comes the implementation phase. Along with the implementation, a good developer would also write automated tests to ensure that the new/changed functionality works correctly. Then the automated test suite must be run and the results analyzed to ensure that there are no regressions. Once this has all been completed, play testing is required. Given the amount of money that people in technical roles make, even small changes are expensive. It's naive to think that they can just go in and make a quick change and call it done. That's not how major dev teams operate.

Also, your assumption that the game would still be "on the market" is not a good one. The scenario we are describing would be one years in the future when the game is not being actively sold anymore. Why would the game servers go down while the game is still being marketed and sold? Most likely it would happen as the result of the company going out of business or being taken over. There are a variety of different possibilities that could result in the end result of the game servers being taken down. However, it's foolish to assume that the game will still be "on the market" at that time, as nobody has said that and it is a strawman argument at this point in the conversation.

[Ash//Fox]

Originally posted by never047:

So you automatically assume the worst and least plausible scenario, for them to 'break' the game?
When instead they could patch the game so it can retain it's full offline functionality once the servers do go down, just like a number of single player games with online drm did at some point in the past.

I've recently found some of my favorite games from about 10 years ago are basically non-functional due to DRM that isn't compatible with Windows anymore. EA is still around and they don't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about going back and patching ♥♥♥♥ to make it work.

If anything I think the least plausible scenario is for game companies to go back and fix a few games that would be a decade old that probably not a whole lot of people play regularly just to make sure the hundred or so people who care can still play it.

[never047]

Originally posted by Khaezaid:

You don't understand the amount of man hours that go into making and testing even very small changes. First you have to architect the solution. Then a peer review process is pretty important. After a solution is agreed upon, comes the implementation phase. Along with the implementation, a good developer would also write automated tests to ensure that the new/changed functionality works correctly. Then the automated test suite must be run and the results analyzed to ensure that there are no regressions. Once this has all been completed, play testing is required. Given the amount of money that people in technical roles make, even small changes are expensive. It's naive to think that they can just go in and make a quick change and call it done. That's not how major dev teams operate.

I'm not saying it's a matter of flicking the switch, but it can be done and was done by major dev teams in the past. Remember AssCreed 2 or Sim City and the talks how the always-online DRM was an integral component of those games? See how that went..

Also, your assumption that the game would still be "on the market" is not a good one. The scenario we are describing would be one years in the future when the game is not being actively sold anymore. Why would the game servers go down while the game is still being marketed and sold? Most likely it would happen as the result of the company going out of business or being taken over. There are a variety of different possibilities that could result in the end result of the game servers being taken down. However, it's foolish to assume that the game will still be "on the market" at that time, as nobody has said that and it is a strawman argument at this point in the conversation.

Okay, so we're talking what, 20 years into the future? Because Codename 47 got released close to 20 years ago and that's still very much on the market. If you're really worried what will happen with your games in twenty years time..well, you worry too much then

[never047]

Originally posted by Fox:

I've recently found some of my favorite games from about 10 years ago are basically non-functional due to DRM that isn't compatible with Windows anymore. EA is still around and they don't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about going back and patching ♥♥♥♥ to make it work.

Which games would that be?

This is a genuine question btw, I'm not trying to be a smart-ass