Ubisoft's DRM future: one-time activation

That's the word from John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, the man that finally got this interview with two very uncomfortable people from Ubisoft.  Here's the quote:

We have listened to feedback, and since June last year our policy for all of PC games is that we only require a one-time online activation when you first install the game, and from then you are free to play the game offline.

The rest of the interview really isn't worth reading, as it's mostly a series of very good questions followed by sanitized corp-speak.*  But, the news is still good, and credit is due to Ubi for finally taking the path of sanity (at least for now).

Ubisoft has been on my "do not buy" list for about two years now.  That blacklisting mostly came from their DRM policies, and the abysmally stupid public statements Yves Guillemot and others have made about DRM and piracy (as recently as late august of this year).  I can't say yet whether this news changes my stance towards the company, but it does give me something to think about.

I suppose I'm ready to forgive them for Splinter Cell: Conviction, at least.

_______________

* To be fair, Ubi has been living a PR nightmare for a long time now. I can hardly blame them for being over-cautious.

Scout v. Witch

The loveliness of Source Filmmaker:

So, yeah ...

... I did something today:

http://rvbeve.com/red/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=296541

At 60 km, I was way outside the range of his guns.  Took him to about half armor, then the rest of the fleet showed up, pointed and webbed.  He popped, and I called it a night.

For my first night out in a Drake, I'll take it.  The sun shines even on a dog's ass once in a while.

Ludicrous speed ... GO!

I thought I was a badass getting my Condor up to 5km/s.  Nope:

Eve Online Ice Price Tank

Remember when I said that the new Eve Online patch was going to cause market prices to tank on minerals?  Well that didn't quite happen - but only because I didn't realize that the real miners only mine ice.  The change was that with the huge ore holds on the Mack and Retriever, you can set up to mine and walk away.  No need for a Hulk and a transport alt character in order to do your high-yield mining.    Today I literally went to an ice field with my retriever, clicked to start mining and came back later to have 26 chunks of ice in my hold.  Those 26 would have sold for close to $300k isk a month ago, now will go for around $120k due to the market saturation. Check out this graph to see what I mean about the price of ice.  The component materials it refines into have seen a similar drop in value but not quite as severe:

Borderlands 2 GeForce GTX PhysX Trailer

Let's just say the difference is noticeable:

Come and Get Me

Pandora's new head honcho Handsome Jack explains how fruitless your quests will ultimately be.

Team Fortress 2 co-op

You read that right.

It's called Mann vs. Machine, and it's coming tomorrow:



General (nuts) details here, and more specific (bat shit crazy) details here.

Borderlands 2 trailer

Love at first blight.

War in Delve

Finally. We can put aside all the cartel bullsh*t and watch a real war occur. I hope it lasts for a while.

It looks like the main players are:

Pandemic Legion + TEST + Clusterf*** (has Goons)

.....versus 

Nulli Secunda + Against All Authorites + SOCO + Raiden + Solar,

with additional allies and mercs being recruited by the minute.

Here's the Goon call to arms:

"We – and 'We' means 'Everyone' – are going to Delve, and it will burn. No mercy, no respite, no 'freeports', just brutal conquest – conquest which will not stop until this threat to our bloc is extinguished. If that means that we must set all of Catch on fire to remind this ex-NC, ex-IT, ex-BoB excrement of their proper place in the universe, so be it." – The Mittani

And here's the first propaganda vid: