Assassin's Creed: Unity's Season Pass Has Been Cancelled

[Ambient_Malice]

I hate season passes, its a grubby way of making people pay twice for a game and i hope this proves to be the first of many nails in the Season pass coffin.

Im worried however that this is an indication that Ubisoft are cutting Unity loose and wont be making any serious attempt to fix all the bugs

They've already stated their commitment to fixing the game. They just released a major patch today. Far Cry 4 is getting steady patches.

IMO, AC3 was nearly as much of a mess as Unity, and Ubisoft patched that game into oblivion. (Lotta bugs left unfixed, but hey, they tried.)

Why is it that Ubisoft's attempt to be NICE to people is automatically deemed to be some sort of attempt to kill Unity?

 

[Quellist]

I hate season passes, its a grubby way of making people pay twice for a game and i hope this proves to be the first of many nails in the Season pass coffin.

Im worried however that this is an indication that Ubisoft are cutting Unity loose and wont be making any serious attempt to fix all the bugs

They've already stated their commitment to fixing the game. They just released a major patch today. Far Cry 4 is getting steady patches.

IMO, AC3 was nearly as much of a mess as Unity, and Ubisoft patched that game into oblivion. (Lotta bugs left unfixed, but hey, they tried.)

Why is it that Ubisoft's attempt to be NICE to people is automatically deemed to be some sort of attempt to kill Unity?

Hey, i'm not accusing them of it, i'm worried the efforts to bugfix the game wont be as intense as they would be were the game still having an active DLC future.

If they do fix it properly all power to UBI and the Season Pass thing isnt specific to them, i just dislike the whole concept

 

[VladG]

Wow. That was unexpected. But if the AAA companies that release these half-arsed untested games would just put the effort in to polish them in the first place then they wouldn't need damage control when their customers complain about their broken product.

I have no pity for Ubisoft as a company.

These broken AAA releases are never untested. In fact I can pretty much guarantee that 99% of bugs were found during testing (I worked as a QA tester for a major publisher). "Known Shippable" is the term used for such bugs/issues. And it's exactly what it sounds: Known bugs that won't be fixed and the dev/publisher is fine with releasing.

In other words, it's not incompetence or lack of testing, it's just greed.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

I hate season passes, its a grubby way of making people pay twice for a game and i hope this proves to be the first of many nails in the Season pass coffin.

Im worried however that this is an indication that Ubisoft are cutting Unity loose and wont be making any serious attempt to fix all the bugs

They've already stated their commitment to fixing the game. They just released a major patch today. Far Cry 4 is getting steady patches.

IMO, AC3 was nearly as much of a mess as Unity, and Ubisoft patched that game into oblivion. (Lotta bugs left unfixed, but hey, they tried.)

Why is it that Ubisoft's attempt to be NICE to people is automatically deemed to be some sort of attempt to kill Unity?

Hey, i'm not accusing them of it, i'm worried the efforts to bugfix the game wont be as intense as they would be were the game still having an active DLC future.

If they do fix it properly all power to UBI and the Season Pass thing isnt specific to them, i just dislike the whole concept

I didn't mean to sound accusatory. I apologise. As far as I can tell, the game's DLC future has not changed. One major piece of story DLC+some pre-order missions has been a trend for AC games for a few years now. I share your concern that Ubisoft will reallocate devs from patching Unity to working on whatever games they have on their schedule now. That sorta crap happens. From a financial viewpoint, fixing Unity's bugs won't significantly increase sales - it'll just result in happier customers.

 

[Quellist]

I hate season passes, its a grubby way of making people pay twice for a game and i hope this proves to be the first of many nails in the Season pass coffin.

Im worried however that this is an indication that Ubisoft are cutting Unity loose and wont be making any serious attempt to fix all the bugs

They've already stated their commitment to fixing the game. They just released a major patch today. Far Cry 4 is getting steady patches.

IMO, AC3 was nearly as much of a mess as Unity, and Ubisoft patched that game into oblivion. (Lotta bugs left unfixed, but hey, they tried.)

Why is it that Ubisoft's attempt to be NICE to people is automatically deemed to be some sort of attempt to kill Unity?

Hey, i'm not accusing them of it, i'm worried the efforts to bugfix the game wont be as intense as they would be were the game still having an active DLC future.

If they do fix it properly all power to UBI and the Season Pass thing isnt specific to them, i just dislike the whole concept

I didn't mean to sound accusatory. I apologise. As far as I can tell, the game's DLC future has not changed. One major piece of story DLC+some pre-order missions has been a trend for AC games for a few years now. I share your concern that Ubisoft will reallocate devs from patching Unity to working on whatever games they have on their schedule now. That sorta crap happens. From a financial viewpoint, fixing Unity's bugs won't significantly increase sales - it'll just result in happier customers.

Its cool man, was just clarifying what i meant, i'm crossing my fingers they do some really good fixes because Unity is a good game behind all the glitches

 

[grey_space]

Hmmm all the treats and free stuff sound very nice as an apology, but Unity seems like a pile of shite and I won't be buying it.

How about large game publishers just publish games that work rather than having to fucking apologise for their expensive piles of buggy shite all the time?


As for season passes as a whole, I don't really buy into them as I disagree with the whole notion of planned-before-published DLC.

I do feel sorry for those who bought into the whole deal off the back of Black Flag because that was an awesome game.


Personally I have no faith in AAA games on PC they always seem to come with a caveat of 'game breaking bugs' and the problem seems to be getting worse across all publishers.

Thats why I leave my gaming PC for indies or older proven titles or strategy and the larger releases I'll play on console. I'll gladly play a game with less graphical fidelity if I can actually play the fucking thing rather than having it crash or bug out all the time.

Its a sad state of affairs but sure there you go.

 

[fix-the-spade]

This is one of the few cases where I see the "Torch it and run" approach big publishers often take towards stuff like this to be a positive.

I see this as extremely negative actually, Ubisoft have apparently decided to stick with their annual release schedule, so instead of actually fixing the product, they're just going to cut and run, abandon planned future content and they're keeping the money people spent on the promise of said future content.

I'd call that a bait and switch, there's no way they didn't know about the state of Unity before release, they were just hoping they'd get away with it, now instead of doing something positive they're making a perfunctory gesture (have a download of something we already released) and hoping nobody sues them.

What's to say they aren't going to repeat this little dance next year? I bet it costs a lot less than developing more content or patches.

Makes EA/DICE and Battlefield look like the good guys, that's impressive!

 

[Ambient_Malice]

This is one of the few cases where I see the "Torch it and run" approach big publishers often take towards stuff like this to be a positive.

I see this as extremely negative actually, Ubisoft have apparently decided to stick with their annual release schedule, so instead of actually fixing the product, they're just going to cut and run, abandon planned future content and they're keeping the money people spent on the promise of said future content.

I'd call that a bait and switch, there's no way they didn't know about the state of Unity before release, they were just hoping they'd get away with it, now instead of doing something positive they're making a perfunctory gesture (have a download of something we already released) and hoping nobody sues them.

What's to say they aren't going to repeat this little dance next year? I bet it costs a lot less than developing more content or patches.

Makes EA/DICE and Battlefield look like the good guys, that's impressive!

They haven't abandoned planned future content. Everything promised by the Season Pass will be delivered.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Hmmm all the treats and free stuff sound very nice as an apology, but Unity seems like a pile of shite and I won't be buying it.

How about large game publishers just publish games that work rather than having to fucking apologise for their expensive piles of buggy shite all the time?


As for season passes as a whole, I don't really buy into them as I disagree with the whole notion of planned-before-published DLC.

I do feel sorry for those who bought into the whole deal off the back of Black Flag because that was an awesome game.


Personally I have no faith in AAA games on PC they always seem to come with a caveat of 'game breaking bugs' and the problem seems to be getting worse across all publishers.

Thats why I leave my gaming PC for indies or older proven titles or strategy and the larger releases I'll play on console. I'll gladly play a game with less graphical fidelity if I can actually play the fucking thing rather than having it crash or bug out all the time.

Its a sad state of affairs but sure there you go.

IMO, the problems with Unity have been grossly exaggerated. It's buggy, sure. It has performance issues, sure. But people calling the game some sort of disaster clearly haven't played an actual disaster. Games released on an annual schedule having bugs and rough edges is nothing new. But nowdays, for better or worse, games get the ever loving crap patched out of them post-release.

As for PC launches, frankly the problems are more often than not grossly exaggerated. There's the usual nonsense where the game acts up depending on whether you have an AMD or an Nvidia GPU, and Ubisoft games have a history of weird quirks. But some idiots have a tendency to take the smallest niggle and turn it into some sort of world-ending disaster. You wouldn't know that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare had an almost flawless PC port from the way some people talk. Or that Far Cry 4 was actually in pretty good shape when it was actually released. (Pre-release whining was based on an unfinished game.) I'd argue the problem isn't getting worse - it's just that the whiners are getting louder because they can't handle the fact having a PC doesn't automatically mean you can run everything on ULTRA.

Practically speaking, PC games aren't fit to play until they've been released and GPU vendors have released drivers designed for that specific game.

edit:
I must say I'm disappointed by how PC games get their reputations tainted by pirates. Especially dumb pirates. I know for a fact that one of the major pirated copies of Unity floating around is corrupt. The corruption is the root of the "Pantheon" crashes\character freezes some users are reporting on PC. Now in fairness, Uplay downloads can corrupt for anyone. But I'm willing to wager many of those who complain about crashes in that district are running a pirated copy.

Also, people complaining about Far Cry 4 bugs which are only present in the pre-release copies.

 

[themilo504]

Mixed feelings all around, I like that ubisoft is giving away free stuff but the option to refund your season pass would have been nice.

I really hope that ubisoft stops releasing yearly assassins creed games, I like the series and feel that it still has a lot of potential, but give the series a rest for a few years and then make a ac game that actually has good combat.

I feel the need to point out that what you consider good combat might be considered by Ubisoft as "inaccessible" combat. The last thing Ubisoft want to make a game which has excessively difficult combat which pisses off fans who aren't interested in mastering a combat system.

True, to be honest what I would love most of all isn?t so much good combat as combat that encourages stealth, assassins creed is a stealth game and I feel that trying to fight more than 3 guys should get you killed very quickly, but thats never going to happen.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

though at the end of the day this does nothing to detract from the actual issue: that Ubisoft released a sloppily-made product. They released a game that was, by all means, unfinished and fully expected people to find it satisfactory. Furthermore, this offering is highly flawed; what if someone just isn't interested in the titles offered? What if they already own them? What if they just want a refund instead? And even then, the damage is still done. There has been a loss of trust. What reason do people have to still trust Ubi? What reason do they have to not believe that Ubi is just going to rush out another product and be forced to do this again? They don't. Ubi has a lot of work to do. And to think they could have avoided this by just testing the game properly.

 

[Vivi22]

Surely in some regions it'd be the law that they'd have to provide a refund instead of just exchanging it for something else?

I don't see why they'd be obliged to refund since you're still getting the content you paid for. It's just that everyone else now gets it for free, and you get a free game on top of that.

No they aren't. People bought a season pass, its been cancelled, they don't have an option to get their money back.

Not precisely. The season pass is no longer being sold. Those who have the season pass are still recieving the DLC they paid for, and on top of this they now get a free game.

Except that they paid the money for the DLC, and now everyone is getting the DLC without paying. Giving them free stuff rather than their money back is not an adequate resolution, especially if they have no need or want for the free stuff.

If you put down the full price to pre-order a game and then the company selling it decided to cut the price in half by launch for some reason, having some freebie games thrown in would not be appropriate resolution for everyone. They already paid full price for DLC which is now being given away, and getting their money back should be an option. This is nothing but a lame attempt by Ubisoft to try and keep their money while giving them something that costs Ubisoft nothing in return.

That wouldn't fly with most physical goods, and it shouldn't fly here. By all means, offer them the option, but people who want refunds should damn well get refunds.

 

[ash12181987]

Holy crap that... wow.

How to say: "We screwed up" in action.

Expect the demands for a refund to blow the internet up, given that they just basically admitted that Unity was broken and beyond repair. I mean they are offering to give people FarCry 4? That was released concurrently, so it's x2 the value of the season pass, if not like x3 the value.

 

[Firanai]

I'm so glad that I cancelled my preorder and instead waited for far cry 4.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Anyone else think that that picture looks like the aliens from They Live?

That was the VERY first thought in my mind, yes!

 

[clippen05]

I like how they make it seem like they had no idea it was going to be a bad launch. 'Unfortunately this happened?' Well you guys made the god damn game and clearly you would know this is what would happen with the poor job you guys did!?

 

[Ipsen]

This should hopefully end some speculation:

Q: What about the other content from the Season Pass?

A: Season Pass holders will continue to have access to a variety of additional content, including Assassin?s Creed Chronicles: China.

http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/en-GB/community/liveupdates/live_updates_details.aspx?c=tcm:154-186650-16&ct=tcm:148-76770-32

Are we all happy now? As I said, Season Pass holders will get EVERYTHING they paid for.

I feel sorry for Ubisoft because although they've been monumental screwups ever since Splinter Cell 2, nobody bothers to actually read their press releases.

If this was really EVERYTHING that they paid for, instead of, say, ubisoft just SAYING that the other content is provided (IE:throwing whatever incompletion they have into DLC)... Why did they cancel sales on the Season Pass at all? Your apologetics are going a bit far now, because there's STILL plenty to be concerned about in this situation.

Personally, while it may be ludicrously expensive to give the option of full refunds, I still believe it should be an option, considering the standing that a company such as Ubisoft has in the industry.

With what they've done here, you don't have much of an option to be disappointed, exclusively in terms of the failure of the Season Pass. You get a free game as reimbursement alongside....whatever the current uncertain state of the DLC will be. You MIGHT be able to wash the taste out of mouth with this, but as it's been stated previously, what if you have the games listed already? Or what if you miss the giveaway period? Now it's an even truer loss of $30! This is just Ubisoft, or just about any large company committing the like, passing their risk off onto consumers.

It's about messaging; Since consumers (in this case) have virtually no input as to what is considered 'valuable' to them, an admitted failure from the company that DOES have such input is a big deal; if you the company are disappointed in the product (that consumers have already paid for), how much more disappointed are they going to be? At least, If a refund option is given, some, even many would take it and run, but it clears the table at the point of failure (this is something both within Ubisoft's power and unarguable for the consumer, since payment is all that is typically asked of us). Consumers could come back to another product without the sense of disappointment from the failure, that was entirely of Ubisoft's doing, that we HAVE to feel.

But perhaps Ubisoft doesn't care about messaging. I hardly buy AAA games these days because it seems that the model going forward is to sell to any and every dope who feels that s/he has no tolerance for learning if they'll be screwed over or not, even after the fact. But if AAA companies want to act like dogs, I can treat them like dogs.

 

[J Tyran]

I feel the need to point out that what you consider good combat might be considered by Ubisoft as "inaccessible" combat. The last thing Ubisoft want to make a game which has excessively difficult combat which pisses off fans who aren't interested in mastering a combat system.

I certainly wouldn't consider the combat in a game like Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor "inaccessible" and for all intents and purposes I'm a 3rd person fighting game rookie, the last game in that genre I played was Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag and the one before that was even further back and was three years before that (I should really get around to the Batman Arkham games I have in my backlog after I got them in a Steam sale). Obviously as I play the genre so infrequently I don't have a lot of experience, practice and honed skill in 3rd person fighting games like Assassins Creed or Shadows of Mordor.

Yet the combat in Shadows of Mordor felt a lot more engaging and satisfying than it does in Assassins Creed despite sharing some similarities, even I find combat in Assassins Creed to be too easy yet in Shadows of Mordor it felt weightier with some epic, brutal and spectacular move sets and just challenging enough to give fights at least some tension without being frustrating for me when I'm pretty inexperienced with this genre and still giving the impression the character is a virtually unstoppable bad ass.

Ubisoft have plenty of room to improve the combat without turning it into Devil May Cry 3 and keeping it "accessible".

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

why not give the option for a refund as well?