Maniaplanet Forum

Since I am quite sure this question will be asked, and I can understand why, I will answer it even before it is done

On one side, I believe a publisher should do the best to protect the sales of the games. It is his responsibility even toward the developers. If some players think that they should be able to play for free, I think it should be the producer decision, like Nadeo did already two times in the past.

I also believe a developer should do the best to improve the quality of the game. So, a protection should be the less annoying as possible. For example, I would rather look after a working internet connection ^_^ than a CD check. It is obligatory of online games and most of your computer activity these days. In that respect, I feel that Ubisoft effort is in the good direction (if they can stabilize their stuff)

So, it should be a question of balance and I will see how things get in the future in order to make my mind.

And to add to the debate, I think that if some players are able to play without a protection, because of the existence of a cracked version, I rather think that releasing somewhere the equivalent would be fair. On the other side, I like to know that people that bought the game are not feeling that they are the only one to do it, so I would prefer that a crack does not exist. If we want it to exist, we know how to make it ^_^

And by the way, even if our previous publishers still used other protections, we released TrackMania Forever without any. The game reached a particular time and it was my choice at that time to do things like this. Since maniaplanet will be even more online, I see less reason to protect it, but at the same time, I see less reason not to do it.

I will come back to you as soon as I have more information or I am making my choice over this. I would bet around September.

Florent 'Hylis' from Nadeo

I dont see any kind of reason to use Ubi's DRM since you didnt use any on TMU and you still really cant play it online without a real key.

we trust in you to make it good for the people.
we're just concerned for special "occasions" like LANs and offline track editing while travelling for example, where required online connections are not likely to be available.
~ looking forward for future statements ~

hf everyone.

well I bought all the Nadeo games until now and I will do so in the future of course. It's about helping their publishers and the developer of course. I dont really care about Ubi DRM to be honest, but I hope it will be fixed at some point in time

Im more fan of a stable connection through the internet and not through a cd like good old starforce. Hope nadeo makes a nice way of things and makes a good and final decision on this.

try to stick to the tmuf protection. it is really cool to be able to play without having the cd inside all the time and it is impossible to play so far without a key. i think that nadeo has done the best trick for protecting the game from piracy and i hope you won't change it much since ubisoft DRM and other protections have been really really really really really annoying

Relying on a stable internet connection seems to be unpopular with other games, especially in the strict way Ubisoft implemented it, where wireless network hiccups will cause the game to stop functioning.

I'm also more a fan about the TMUF protection system, because my internet connection is totaly unstable, but it's just enough to play mostly without connection loss online.

i somehow understand why you want to protect your games (even though you didn't with trackmania united, and as far as i know, that worked fine), nevertheless protection is already outdated nowadays. people have internet, people have torrents, people can hack. it's just a matter of time before a protection is cracked. instead, there's this huge possibility to USE the fact that games are cracked as an advantage for the developpers. of course this is still controversial, and some good thinking is necessary, but this would be a win-win situation.

for me personally, there are two reasons for absolutely not liking ubisoft's DRM protection scheme.

- as ubisoft claimed theirselves, how good it might be, they expect it to be cracked in a couple of years anyway. in my opinion that makes it already a completely waste of effort.
- even though i've got a stable internet connection, i want to play offline sometimes as well. for example when there's no wireless connection around (a couple of weeks a year i'm living in a house in a tiny village, where internet still practically does not exist). that would mean that it's impossible to run the game, or build a track. don't you agree that these situations are just plainly countering those who have nicely paid for the game?!

in my opinion, how stable it might get, DRM is NOT the option. i'd rather even have starforce or any other kind of cd-check. or no protection at all, which appeared to work really well with TMU.

i sincerely hope you will also think about those who don't have internet connections all day long, and therefore not use such a plain and inconsiderated system.

JumperJack wrote: i sincerely hope you will also think about those who don't have internet connections all day long, and therefore not use such a plain and inconsiderated system.

+1, I don't always have one either

A few years sounds optimistic! I don't know about the ubisoft drm, but many games already get hacked before release...