The always online "uproar"

Conan Exiles General Discussion Feedback
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I never understood this one. It is one thing to be upset a game that has not been online only suddenly become one, and that might prevent someone from playing it in certain occasions. But build a whole lot of arguments as to why always online is a “business malpractice” ? Really ?

I used to play Conan Exiles when out on travel to the “backwoods of Sri Lanka” and that is not possible with always online, but some of the arguments are way too stupid to care about.

Being always online alienate a lot of people ? Maybe.
Does most people care ? Not really.

Fallout 76 had way more problems than always online. So does most other games.

What I think is bad about it is the fact that it wasnt really all that spoke about. Had played offline until very recently, even had that problem with the coins and the only way to play was offline. I guess that told them that people who had unlawful access could use offline to play so they changed it.

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I usually don’t care unless a hurricane knocks out internet for a few days. Then its a bit of a nuisance. But I have to be online to play a server so that’s not really an issue with ‘always online’.

Though on the off chance I don’t have a connection for one reason or another and I want to try something in singleplayer than it can be a bit annoying, but I can still play otherwise.

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Come try PVC friend :wink:

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A business “Malpractice” is stretching it i agree, removing our ability to play games whenever and however we feel like it after we spent a lot of money is the issue, that is not malpractice, that is just the industry doing what it does and the rest is just us accepting it as the norm when it shouldn’t be.
The business didn’t do anything legally wrong, they just simply started doing something new and we let them get away with it by buying into a lot of the industry speak.

It does handicap some players as data caps are still a thing and if they ever lose their connection to the game for what ever reason they are basically sol for a game they spent their money on.

If they have a lot of dlc and the servers simply get their power shut off, people are out of lots of money.

We take that risk willingly for mmos of course, but games that are not mmos or have the option in general for single player modes many of us don’t buy that it has to be online cause reasons.
Single player games started as offline games, so there really is no valid excuse why single player games can’t remain that way or in the case of hybrid games that offer a choice of multiplayer online and single player that single player MUST also be online.

Even with all the so called piracy they liked to claim was some huge issue, they still made tons of money and guess what, the gaming industry didn’t just disappear over these claims either.
So it became more about, they just want to clamp down so they can get even more money, which in and of itself is not the issue, it’s that WE lose more and more control over property we spent not just a few candy bars worth of money over but lots of money over.

So while some of you don’t “Get iT” the rest of us are seeing that gradual loss of ownership of property we spent a goodly amount of money for.
I don’t condone piracy by the way, i don’t mind paying for what ever i buy even digital items as work went into the product and so forth, i am not blind to the notion we don’t own as much as we did before and they can take it away any time they want to , with or without our permission.
Also don’t mind them going after people who steal their property, i am just not convinced it’s the all scary boogie man they like to trot out every time for a price hike or why “EVERYTHING” suddenly has to have a connection either.

As a reminder we all accept that risk with mmos, you can’t play an mmo and not have some level of acceptance of that you don’t own anything it just goes with the territory, but single player games it’s a lot harder to buy and sell that excuse especially when for over 20 years single player games have survived and did just fine without a connection.

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As far as I know there are no “crime” that is punishable by the ability to commit it. Having the means to print fake money is “mistaken” as one, but that is because having the means to print fake money is a crime in itself, as no one would have the means to do it if they are not planning on doing it.

Which means, one cannot blame a style of business as a “malpractice” or a “way of doing something” that is not the only thing it serves.

Always online is the safest way to guarantee anyone using digital property has the right to use such property. Doing it offline is possible, but requires a series of additional work it might not be feasible for a small fraction of convenience to a small fraction of players who might be bothered or need to play offline.

When I was in the position to decide, all the times, there was simple question that defines what is the path to take: When I was working with a government agency, by the nature of their work, it was required that the security system would need to work offline, so extra work was needed, extra payment was demanded. When I was working with a small family business which might have wanted offline registration data, but had no means to pay for the work, online it is. Games follow the same pattern. To implement a huge system that allows for DRM to run offline, it must really make up for the extra work in revenue, which CE definitely hardly will.

And the company does not need to “remove access” as they “wish” in terms of only “pissing off players”. It would be very offensive to think Funcom is a petty company that would take away access from people for small stuff, like the many posts in these forums imply, yet, they still do not even ban people from servers which if were mine, I would have long ago, “for the good of the realm”.

Said it once, say it again, from the several companies I have played games from, Funcom is the one I am least worried about DRM online and their ability to prevent me from playing a game I bought or content I own. Arena Net, from all companies, is the one that did it, for a stupid decision from people to ban a bunch of people online in a certain place at a certain time, in which a group was engaging in some unsavory conversations, mostly people I had blocked even. When I sent them screenshots showing my no participation and the fact I had the people blocked, they answered saying “we dont care” in corporate speech. So I lost access to an account I had bought a whole lot of stuff. I lost, and they lost my whole guild, which had a lot of people who would have bought a lot of stuff.

It is possible Funcom eventually get to those ways ? Impossible it is not. Anyone company can do anything they can do. Do I believe they would ? Not really, no. I have played and bought stuff from Funcom from a long time, and despite the “one day” problems with access, I never had any reason to have any restriction about their willingness to keep things as they should.

That being said, I know there is a way to make some DRM controls that do not require being online all the time, and those are more demanding in terms of work, because they will require people to handle problems in a very work intensive way. Online, is not only a convenience to them, but a convenience to the user, which can have problems solved faster, as a simple change in a setting can resolve any issue that might occur, or any mistake done BY EITHER PART.

"For over 20 years single player games have survived … " is an either naive or deceptive assertion.

There is a huge difference in a game that has no shop, no singular content that is paid and the need to verify DRM on a asset by asset basis. Completely different business models to make assertions they all work the same way.

It is like saying there is no difference between a bicycle and a car, so we should not have to fill the gas to use a car because bicycles have been fine without it for 3 centuries.

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This isn’t true but everything you’re saying is already undercut by the fact that Conan Exiles is already cracked and distributed on the High Seas, and even has functional multiplayer (albeit you can’t play on OFFICIAL servers. No big loss, most people play Singleplayer/Co-op.)

As for why the rest of it isn’t true, you seem to forget that this works in reverse: see how millions of people now can’t access a product they bought because it has an online compoment that doesn’t work or was shut down; on the contrary, see how the High Seas constantly and consistently replicates/spoofs online compatibility allowing Sailors access to a superior product that has fewer disconnections and hiccups. It’s expensive and relies often on ring 0 anti-cheat/DRM to “enforce” ownership on digital media, which only makes the High Seas more appealing - or has no effect beyond a small window after release.

You’re advocating for a model where the High Seas provides a superior product. Stop doing that, if you believe in the axiom: that piracy is bad and people deserve to be paid for their work. Your positions are not compatible with the axiom here.

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You don’t need an always online connection period and the game industry has survived as a whole without it.
I am talking strictly single player games or games with a single player component or hybrid game where multiplayer and single player are separate modes.

I don’t agree with your analogy but i will offer this idea.
This is more like all of a sudden the car industry or govt wants to make all cars require an online connection and at any time, they can deny you access to your vehicle, on a whim even on cars you already own in some cases.

Don’t think they will do it?
Well i got news for ya, some already are doing it.
Sony has already been removing content from people’s accounts, though it’s not widespread, it certainly shows how easy it can be done and the once thought notion it would never happen is happening.
Like i said though, it’s not on a large scale (yet), but it certainly does happen and can happen.
Also as memory serves some drm blocks protected ip’s from even loading if said drm does not like what it sees.

They can do various methods to protect their ip’s for both single player and multiplayer without going to some of the extremes many of them have gone to or started going to.
Cash Shops are no exception and neither is dlc, it’s all in the methods they choose to employ are what many of us consider very anti consumer.
Not malpractice per se, but definately not consumer friendly.

They get more and more intrusive all the time, and we continue to buy the excuses.
Everything can be cracked at some point it’s just delaying the inevitable and i support them wanting to protect their material, but at some point, it’s time we the consumer draw the line and say hey… wait a minute, how come you guys in the industry are reaping all the rewards and we are getting squat in return?

We get buggy day one software ,in some cases the software is downright unplayable, we get material that is on disk but are charged extra, and they get to invade our machines doing who knows what.

At what point do we say this is not acceptable?
After the problem or before?
We have the ability to predict a lot of these courses before they happen based on track-records ie: attitudes of the industry they have shown over the years.
Some of the companies have a lengthy track record so it makes it even easier to predict.

Convenience is nice sure, but at what cost?
When will we finally say enough is enough, we are taking back our rights to the products we paid for.
We all accept and agree they need to shore up some cracks in the industry, but there needs to be a happy medium that favors both them and us.
And for me, they have crossed that line and we are not getting ANYTHING that benefits us in return.
Convenience has met it’s point of valuable returns at this point and is no longer that carrot on a stick and costs are going up and up, so something is just not balancing out.

I am a bit lenient with some things as long as the game is advertised multiplayer online and has online upfront nothing hidden, they have to deal with cheating, but even so, they can go too far here as well.
Single player games though or games with a single player mode built in?
They can do better here, a lot better here with their drm practices.
They just won’t, not that they can’t (that’s a bit of a cop out imo) they just won’t.

It costs money i know, but come on, the ceo spends 200 million on a new home every year but can’t deliver a product that is more respectful of it’s purchaser?
I am not unsympathetic, but i do have limits.

I am not here attacking funcom’s practices or at least i don’t mean to outright make them a villain or their game one even though there are bugs that are long over due for being fixed, but i am trying at least to draw attention to the industry as a whole how it has gotten more aggressive towards consumers in some areas over the years and we are just in many cases blindly accepting it.

There really isn’t more to say here, i have said in more than one way how i feel on this issue not just based on my opinion, but based on facts that i have gathered on the industry over the years, the scales are beginning to tip out of alignment and i refuse to just sit idle and accept it without voicing my concern and grievances and in many cases withholding money.

It may seem like a lot of complaining and complaining alone won’t do, but how else will they know what the issues are if we don’t speak up.
Some people get a bit dramatic, but you have to make some allowances (some) as not everyone of course majored in english or speech writing.

At any rate, thanks for reading, that’s it for me in this thread for the time being unless i feel like i need to return for some reason to respond, but i will probably go silent as i don’t really feel i have much more to say on this topic as i have said all i really wanted to.

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Funny how people always confuses “you dont need to” with “you should not” when it is convenient.

I guess bothering about always online is a rhetoric statement along the lines of bothering you cant go in a store and open containers drink from it then put it back without paying. Kinda, ok, you are not free to do that, but what reason is there to be free to do that ?

Things that go nice on a song, but in real life, most people dont care.

Half of the people who complain about a game having to be “always online” are always online while playing, they just want to make a point that “no one cares what they think about it”.

“Crack” … ok.

Unless you are living in a bubble for the last 40 years, that is something that happen to everything computer. That is exactly why there are laws for that.

The average “warez” forums measure the time taken to break security of things that matter in days after publishing. There isnt a way to prevent. No reason to put it into the argument.

Always on line is one of those things like “always on camera”. Sure, a certain “demographic” think that it is “an attempt on your privacy”, or some such non sense. Your privacy of what ? You right to do what ? Your “moral imperative” to do what ?

To me, I played the game since it was possible to play it, and always online or not, I am playing almost the same way I always did.
Only thing I would not be able to do was play it while traveling as I once did. That is not a “problem”, I play something else while traveling and then when I get to the place I am going, I play it again.

Still not seeing what is the “violation of anything” with the always online.

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Always online requirement can be frustrating depending on the game. Some games that require the always online bit, get shutdown due to poor performance or whatever, rendering your game useless.

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Without going too deep, I would argue that it is no stretch to call it a malpractice.

As a fact, people who bought the game in the past with the expectation of not playing online or inability to do so are now either inconvenienced in playing a game that they already owned or completely unable to do so. The affected group is a minority absolutely, but it’s an issue generated from nothing nonetheless. If you wanted to discuss severity alone, I could agree that this change isn’t bad. If we were talking about “fairness” or justification, though, I don’t really believe any of the updates to the game can truly justify the switch to always online.

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It’s their game to do as they wish. Pc windows indeed have piracy, so it’s logical for every gaming company to fight piracy with any mean.
Piracy however is not the reason online issues exist nor what people complain about.
Consoles have zero piracy, so they deserve to play single player and have a perfect performance, isn’t it?
Well…
They don’t :woman_shrugging:t4:.
If a company sells a copy of a vanilla game, the game should perform correctly, no matter the console.
On PlayStation 5 it doesn’t, on PlayStation 4 it’s joke.
That’s why people complain, are they wrong?

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Your response falls apart - again - but this time in your second sentence instead of your first. Kudos, I guess.

Like with Sailing, many companies (or stores) don’t police theft because it costs more than it reduces shrink. Companies are finding out it costs more to police sales in the same way.

Of course you’d be one of those “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” people. It’s not some omniscient and impartial AI with the camera, though - it’s humans.

So you admit your behavior changed because of always-online DRM, and somehow dismiss the concern regardless? Very silly.

Also, you haven’t really addressed the fact the game is distributed on the High Seas. That still completely undercuts any argument you make, because the version you purchase is inferior.

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This is probably one of the bigger red flags tbh: online connectivity is required for consoles when they don’t have anywhere near the marginal issues with piracy PC does. So why are they doing it?

Well, the long story short is that you can then have a business model with microtransactions and/or sell consumer data to data brokers for extra capital, since you’ve already agreed to the EULA.

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Thank you for this but i don’t know what to do with it :rofl:.
The reason people playing on consoles is to press a button, lay on a couch and enjoy their free time. Release the crazy stress of the day. Getting frustrated while opening their game and see a weekly effort of building totally vanished should not be an option :woman_shrugging:t4:.
That’s just an example of many a player will suffer playing on PlayStation.
Don’t get me wrong, nothing breaks me anymore. And the only reason i cannot be broken it’s because of online gaming. Playing online this game i received a myriad times more than i payed.
And it doesn’t have to do with the game it self but with the people i met. And yes Funcom is responsible for it as well. I ain’t ungrateful. But truth to be told single player suffers :confused:. And i say this out of love!

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