Uplay Struggles Affect Watch Dogs and Other Ubisoft Games

[The Artificially Prolonged]

It seems Uplay is the cause of much frustration every time a big Ubisoft game is released. Honestly you could probably set your watch to it.

I still have yet to buy a pc game that uses Uplay as I've heard so many stories of Uplay's server problems leaving games unplayable that cannot justify buying them even when they go on sale as I cannot be bothered with the potential hassle.

 

[kajinking]

Another reminder not to pre-order most games, m'kay?

/sigh

It's worst when you remember this exact same problem effected Anno 2070 and literally every Assassin's Creed game on the PC, in one case making the game in question unplayable for a whole fucking month after it was released.

I think after all that and other pre-order incidents like Colonial Marines, anyone who pre-orders voids their right to complain when the inevitable happens, especially when it's a game which had so much publically known behind the scenes drama as this one.

Yeah all this kind of stuff has gotten me to the point where I won't pre-order even games I'm pretty sure I'm gonna love and don't have any history of launch issues.

"Oh Tropico 5 is coming out soon, I love that series! They're even offering a 15% discount for pre-ordering instead of some crappy DLC everyone else is gonna get eventually anyway. This seems like a completely fair deal and I shoul...OH GOD X-REBIRTH AND DUKE NUKEM FOREVER FLASHBACKS!!!"

 

[Laughing Man]

Well after 2 days of trying to get my GMG purchased PC Digital Deluxe Watchdogs key to work and being told that it is invalid and being told by GMG customer support to just wait it is due to server load on Uplay I have given up and demanded that they give me a refund.

I let my guard down after the always on DRM fiasco just long enough to let them fool me in to thinking Watchdogs would be worth it, I guess I can only laugh at my own stupidity here.

 

[major_chaos]

oh no. I can't use the multiplayer in games with shit multiplayer. I'm enraged. grrrrrr. can"t you see my rage ppffftttt I can't even type that with a straight face. Going to continue not caring, can't wait till my paycheck comes in next Friday so I can buy watch dogs. Honeslty I have never had a single problem with Uplay, Meanwhile Steam the so called "best thing ever" continues to make me chew through my mouse cord every time I open the damn thing. I guess I just have inverse luck.

 

[penthesilea180]

As of this afternoon, Microsoft added another service alert. This one isn't Uplay specific, but it did prevent me from purchasing and downloading Watch Dogs. Oh well, I guess I just saved $60.

"Are you having trouble purchasing content? Don?t worry, Xbox members, we?re currently working to get this issue fixed as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience in the meantime. We?ll update you again in half an hour."

 

[geizr]

What I never understand is why people continue buying from Ubisoft, a company that has a notorious and well-known history of enjoyment-disabling DRM. I guess it's in the same vein as how everyone complains about EA constantly, but, as soon as EA announces the next OMG! SHINY GRAPHICS! XX, everyone's running to buy it, completely forgetting all the fume and fury they just went through with the last game. These companies will never see any incentive to treat their customers better as long as people continue buying without discernment. The crying on the Internet is just noise that gets ignored as long as the money keeps rolling in.

 

[truckspond]

I was unintentionally able to avoid most of the launch day problems with Watch_Dogs because the uPlay downtime over the past week has forced what would have been a simple overnight download and install with Steam to become a 3-day marathon download that I would have to nurse to the finish line every step of the way with the download frequently slowing down from the ~240 KB/s that I was getting (Australian ADSL2+, need I say more!) to a whopping 700 B/s - LITERALLY slower than dial-up! Pausing and resuming the download seemed to fix it however as I left it to download overnight and couldn't restart the download the total bandwidth went below SmartPower's 15 Kb/s limit and as such my system automatically shut itself down (It's a good way to save power when the software does not have an option to shut down when downloads finish!)

And don't even get me started on the inexcusable 15 hour delay between release and code issue that I had with GMG!

 

[weirdee]

uPlay: We Cause All The Problems, And Fail To Solve The One Imaginary Problem We Made It For

 

[shintakie10]

oh no. I can't use the multiplayer in games with shit multiplayer. I'm enraged. grrrrrr. can"t you see my rage ppffftttt I can't even type that with a straight face. Going to continue not caring, can't wait till my paycheck comes in next Friday so I can buy watch dogs. Honeslty I have never had a single problem with Uplay, Meanwhile Steam the so called "best thing ever" continues to make me chew through my mouse cord every time I open the damn thing. I guess I just have inverse luck.

Its not just the multiplayer. A lot of people can't even play the game period because of the uplay garbage.

 

[FogHornG36]

Really? i got a buddy that pirated the game, and says that it plays just fine, he even got to start playing it a day before the release, i will have to take his word for it though because i don't think i can convince myself to buy it until it goes on sale.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Why do you people expect to play the games you paid for? That's not how uPlay rolls. You buy the game on launch day, and in a week or so, then you will get to play it. Can you imagine the outrage if you would see if you could play the game whenever you wanted?


(This was an anti-DRM sarcasm heavy message)

 

[Kerethos]

I never had any problems that stopped me from playing with Uplay on the Xbox 360. But even then I just found it to be slightly annoying, slower than a crippled snail, but also mostly ignorable. And last I checked it was still, after years of being in the way, since at least Assassin's Creed 1, considered a beta on the consoles.

But on the PC I just thought the damn thing was in the way all the time. Or it crashed, and messed up my game. I dislike it to such an extent that it's put me of buying more Ubisoft titles for the PC, and since that's the case they're really just doing it all wrong.

I mean they add nothing new, aside from problems. Steam already does all that Uplay does - without getting in the damn way - and I don't need another system drain having to start up before I can even launch the game, reminding me I got a damn achievement, a friend's online or pestering me with it's damn cloud synchronizations. Synchronizations that crash or fail every once in a while... and that's if the damn thing even manages to log on.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

This is the thing, no matter how unobtrusive (although I certainly wouldn't call uPlay that) DRM is when everything is working, it's when something stops working that you see the true stupidity of it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Hopefully this get fixed by tomorrow, I've left the weekend completely free for Watch Dogs. Be pain if uPlay screwed that up.

You should have scheduled in a uPlay problem. I'm serious.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect games to work at launch, but I think once you've seen the pattern Ubisoft (for example) has going, it's time to just stop buying games until you know they work. If they're not going to make their games work, we shouldn't be rewarding them with money.

Why do you people expect to play the games you paid for?

You'd be surprised how many people said that straight.

oh no. I can't use the multiplayer in games with shit multiplayer. I'm enraged. grrrrrr. can"t you see my rage ppffftttt I can't even type that with a straight face. Going to continue not caring, can't wait till my paycheck comes in next Friday so I can buy watch dogs. Honeslty I have never had a single problem with Uplay, Meanwhile Steam the so called "best thing ever" continues to make me chew through my mouse cord every time I open the damn thing. I guess I just have inverse luck.

Uplay affects games without any multiplayer content. This isn't just a MP issue.

 

[sXeth]

Xbox service warning in news post. People rambling about the tribulations of uPlay on PC games in 90% of replies.

Forum logic is working as normal, it seems.

(uPlay was cumbersome on PC in the only title I had of theirs (Heroes Six, whatever the subtitle was of it), though I know I've played that entirely offline, so I can't say it ever managed to totally sideline the games functionality.)

 

[RicoADF]

People actually re ordered/ bought this thing day one after the constant alarm bells? 0_o

I can't say this surprises me in the least. U-Play is just putting a slightly nicer face on their always on DRM. Uplay is a parasite, it is the new GFWL. It is still just crappy DRM that messes up people's gaming experience.

Consumer advice in reviews is going out of the window. Technical issues are getting more and more hidden from review copies. There wasn't much coverage of the shoddy state of the PC port either (just don't buy it, don't give ubisoft your money until they can be bothered to unbreak it).

It's no the reviewers fault. They were all given review copies of the PS4 version, the best version, and the technical issues have only come to light once the game has gone live. Once again 'controlled environments' cripple journalists ability to be able to give accurate consumer advice.

This is why I bought the PS4 version, it was clearly the favored system. Preorder it with my PS4 a year ago and waited a week to check the reviews for any hidden suprises, gonna give it a play tomorrow

 

[PuppetMaster]

Heh, like I didn't see something like this coming. UPlay is a scourge, be it PC or console players I can see..

I finally caved to UPlay when they withheld content in AC:Black Flag. They haven't had a community challenge in over a month, and now I know why; I've been... UPlayed

 

[Briantb]

I don't own watch dogs yet but I haven't had any issues with uPlay I own I would say 20 games from Ubisoft with uPlay on them between my steam account, CD-ROMs, and ps3 games and I've never had any issues playing any of them. Maybe I'm just lucky.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

How I enjoy this kind of news. Maybe some day uPlay will follow GFWL into oblivion...

We can only hope...