Morning Caffeinated! -- Assassin's Creed key revoked, MMO debate continues

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 6, 2012. Topics include: Ubisoft took my serial key; and a further discussion of the state of the MMO genre. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!

John Keefer

September 6, 2012 7:50 AM

Almost to Friday, Shack, and as we get started, I want to give a special shout-out to Ubisoft for such wonderful goodwill they show to players when they make mistakes. And, when I say wonderful, I'm being sarcastic. On Friday, Alice was doing her usual look for Weekend Deals, and we came across the UbiShop's deal of the original Assassin's Creed for free. Since I had never played the original, I jumped on it, downloaded it and started playing. Pretty fun experience ... until yesterday. Ubisoft sends me an email telling me they had made an error. "It turns out we made a pricing mistake with the Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition. Unfortunately, this means we will have to revoke your game serial key within the next 48 hours." But to make it up to me, they give me a code for 50 percent off the next purchase I make. Apparently the title has been pulled off the store entirely. It is such an old title, and with Assassin's Creed III right around the corner, you'd think they would overlook their mistake to build some extra excitement for the new game. But logic isn't a strength with some publishers. I wonder if that high piracy rate they quoted includes codes they accidentally gave out for free? Just sayin' ... * * * * * Shacker dahanese has never been afraid to get me talking about my opinions in my columns or in my Chatty posts. Of course, being the head of community at Trion, she is well-versed in building good discussion in a non-confrontational way. In my column yesterday, I expressed my thought that recent high profile MMOs that had shown well at industry events and gotten good press were quickly crumbling only a free months after release. I lamented that I thought the MMO may be dying as a genre. Dahanese was quick to point out that the MMORPG--the games I has specifically cited in my post--were not the only MMOs on the scene any more.

Warface, an MMO shooter coming from Crytek

I know Trion has a couple MMOFPS games (Warface, Defiance) and an MMORTS (Rise of Nations) in the works. (Crytek has a good track record with its games, and the guys at Petroglyph know how to do an RTS). So, while I qualify my position, that yes, the RPG may be struggling, I have not seen enough big-budget games in these genres be successful upon release to give them much of a thought. That may be my loss, but the MMO framework in those genres is fairly new and untested. I really do hope some of the titles in development do succeed. But a developer can do everything right with their MMO, and generate good buzz, but still not have it resonate with players. The key to the next great MMO in any genre will be figuring out our fickle desires in a solid package. Are there any non-RPG MMOs that you play regularly that deserve a look? * * * * * Random bits & Quick hits: Valve is now charging $100 for Greenlight submissions. The debate over the merits of the charge has been interesting, but I think it is a good call. I know it won't bring quality to the top, but it will severely cut down on the time wasted with jokers making bogus entries. ... Electronic Arts is saying all their games will have an online component now. Troubling trend for those who love good single-player only. Never been a fan of the online aspect just for the sake of online. ... The Last of Us keeps looking better and better. Anyone else interested in the puzzle-solving? Flashback: Great discussion yesterday on games we'd want to play again if they were new. Next discussion topic: Which gaming story kept you riveted from beginning to end? I'd go with Knights of the Old Republic. The twist at the end was just too good. End of the week tomorrow. Try to behave until then.

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John Keefer

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September 6, 2012 7:45 AM

John Keefer posted a new article, Morning Caffeinated!: Assassin's Creed key revoked, MMO debate continues.

Ramblings and musings of occasional significance to the Shacknews audience. This is the morning edition for September 6, 2012. Topics include: Ubisoft took my serial key; and a further discussion of the state of the MMO genre. Wake up, scrubs, it's the Morning Caffeinated!
- shazbot27
  
   reply
  September 6, 2012 8:39 AM
  
  Yeah, I didn't even get to download the game as I just got the license confirmation (authorization a few days later). Then I get an email saying that it was Revoked but they were generous to give me a 25% off my next purchase.
  Sorry, Ubisoft but no thanks. Your support sucks and so does your customer service.
- Mecha Tofu Pirate
  
   reply
  September 6, 2012 9:00 AM
  
  I hope Valve continues to promote Greenlight, maybe by making achievements for it in future winter or summer sales. I can see people forgetting about it pretty quickly unless they do.
  
  Valve is usually pretty good about supporting things they've launched though. The only thing I can think of that they seemed to stop supporting was being able to download mods.
  - schmads
    
     reply
    September 6, 2012 12:42 PM
    
    Pardon me if I am mistaken in understanding you, but isn't the Steam Workshop essentially meant to make it easier to download mods? Are you speaking of mods acting as standalone games? I didn't realize that was no longer an option. I've been noticing gradually more Workshop integration with games, so from my casual mod user's point of view (i.e. I use a bunch of Skyrim mods and a couple of user-made Portal levels), it seems like mod support is better. Is it also more limited, now, from a mod author's point of view?
- Firefly1985
  
   reply
  September 6, 2012 12:45 PM
  
  And yesterday brought me a tiny bit closer to buying Ubisoft games again. Sigh, oh well...
- spazzium
  
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  September 6, 2012 6:06 PM
  
  I bought one of the ASSCREEDII titles and never finished it after it dropped a connection to their auth servers midway through and killed the game. Very likely the last Ubisoft product I buy. This sounds like par for the course.
  - Keefinator
    
     reply
    September 6, 2012 6:37 PM
    
    My first and last purchase from the UbiShop ...
- RookieCAF
  
   reply
  September 7, 2012 12:28 PM
  
  Yea, very poor form. Old game is old, and you would think they might have used the error to gain traction for the new version coming out, for those of us who have not played the series.
  
  Up yours Ubisoft. I won't be back.