No LAN or Dedicated Server Support for C&C 4

[[NE]Fobby[GEN] 10]

I think I've played LAN and multiplayer the same amount of times for the RTS genre. Ah well, I probably wasn't going to get this anyway. It's like everything we knew and loved about C&C has been thrown away and replaced with a DOW2 copy.

Edited February 22, 2010 by [NE]Fobby[GEN]

[sith_wampa 6]

Ah the doom and gloom returns. Are you people even C&C fans? Ever since The Ascension Trailer over the weekend I've been looking forward to SP campaign. I have a feel it may surprise people and actually be damn good.

Me too. That trailer was epic.

 

Once again paying customers get the shaft while pirates get the best features.

This is a real problem. They should do what Stardock did with Sins of a Solar Empire. No copy protection at all. If pirates want to pirate the game then they will. Don't force the paying customers to have to deal with the madness.

[Aaron Kaufman 0]

Ok to be clear, Destructoid was incorrect in saying our game does not have "dedicated server support", more than anything that pertains to FPS games, not RTS, so that alone is simply an incorrect and misinformed interpretation.

 

Our server now is a packet reflector with our own internal EA servers, the game is no longer peer to peer which for starters is a HUGE win. Now, the client should accurately report disconnects, win/loss, accordingly as you must be online/connected to the server all the time. The key is that there is no need for a dedicated server since there’s very little logic done on the server itself, which reflects back to what Sam Bass said about our network system being more efficient now. Also all the game rules are decided by the clients.

 

What is true as well, we do not have LAN in Command & Conquer 4. We've been fairly clear about this for a while and I agree for those who have loved LAN over the years, it is unfortunate. I agree on the arguments stemming from the popularity of LAN centers in Asia, or garage/where house LAN parties, and if you lose your internet connection for a while, but one thing cannot be denied, aside from losing your internet connection, everywhere else has online connectivity.

 

Just about everywhere in this world is CONNECTED. I don't know a single person without internet or who cannot reach internet. I think the days of moving towards "connected all the time" have as much, if not more to do with the benefits to server-side gaming that brings and not just the typical "its us against the pirates" arguments. Yes, being connected online definitely helps piracy against "MOST", but there will always be the elite hackers that just find there way around everything, no matter what you do.

 

Being connected all the time, how we implemented for C&C 4, is going to teach us a lot about how we continue on with connectivity in the future. There will be positives and certainly some negatives to get over (like no LAN).

 

One thing I am pretty confident about - every single person on this thread and every other I've read, is likely connected to the internet 99% of the time and will be able to play C&C 4 just fine. I personally think its more of an "attitude shift". Nothing is easy to get over, breaking tradition, all of that, its hard to move past until you get used to the "new thing"...whatever that is.

 

I am not being naive to the rest of the world in my opinions above about online connectivity, I sincerely think nowadays more than ever anyone who plays PC games has an internet connection. 400 million + Facebook members, 15 million WoW players, the list goes on, gamers are connected. But there is a nostalgic hardcore breed that dislike change, I can sympathize with that, but change is a coming my friends, and its not just from us here on the C&C team, arguably, we're behind the 8 ball in respects to some other giants.

 

-APOC

Edited February 23, 2010 by EA Apoc

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Our server now is a packet reflector with our own internal EA servers, the game is no longer peer to peer which for starters is a HUGE win. Now, the client should accurately report disconnects, win/loss, accordingly as you must be online/connected to the server all the time.

 

Ooh Apoc I love it when you talk nerdy to me.

 

I don't know a single person without internet or who cannot reach internet.

 

To be fair though, you live in southern California. There are places in the US, much less the rest of the world, where people aren't as fortunate. (Usually due to distance from metropolitan areas.) We rank in the twenties when it comes to broadband penetration.

 

 

I think the days of moving towards "connected all the time" have as much, if not more to do with the benefits to server-side gaming that brings and not just the typical "its us against the pirates" arguments.

...

I personally think its more of an "attitude shift". Nothing is easy to get over, breaking tradition, all of that, its hard to move past until you get used to the "new thing"...whatever that is.

...

But there is a nostalgic hardcore breed that dislike change, I can sympathize with that, but change is a coming my friends, and its not just from us here on the C&C team, arguably, we're behind the 8 ball in respects to some other giants.

 

I personally see no benefits. I wouldn't call it nostalgia, or specifically not liking change... I think it might be best described as a control issue. I do not like not being in control.

 

I like to build my own computer, tweak its performance, tweak my OS, tweak the programs running on it, maintain close watch on my firewall and running processes, etc.. When I am in charge of everything that goes on in my system, I know what's going on, I know that any failings are my own fault and not the fault of Craig the intern who tripped a circuit breaker to the air conditioning system that fried a server room and destroyed all that I love. There are fewer variables and points of failure.

 

I hate 'the cloud' and letting other people manage my information. It's a terrible idea. I don't trust them, I don't trust their security, I don't trust their "privacy policies" or whether or not they have good intentions.

 

So in my opinion, localized is better than distributed.

[sith_wampa 6]

One thing I am pretty confident about - every single person on this thread and every other I've read, is likely connected to the internet 99% of the time and will be able to play C&C 4 just fine. I personally think its more of an "attitude shift". Nothing is easy to get over, breaking tradition, all of that, its hard to move past until you get used to the "new thing"...whatever that is.

Here's a perfect example of why LAN is useful. I was on vacation this past week and stayed at multiple hotels where the wifi either cost money or the connection was too poor to do anything useful. My brother and I were able to play Starcraft over LAN, but something like C&C4 would not work. I'm sure people could think of a thousand other instances where not having LAN support would suck.

 

Surely, if the dev team wanted to, they could fit LAN into C&C4, even if it would have to function differently than online play. This is just one useful feature that has been thrown out, and if this decision isn't really about piracy, it doesn't make sense not to include it. Having to be connected online at all times seems silly. The player should be able to play skirmish and LAN offline even if he cannot earn experience or whatever.

[Aaron Kaufman 0]

Those are both great examples and I honestly have no great defense against them. All I can say is, they probably account for about 1% or less of the play style instances C&C 4 gamers will experience over the indefinite lifetime of the game. I agree your situation at the hotel stinks, and if you bring a labtop and want to play your games, that definitely sucks. I personally think you will face that issue with a lot of future games as well.

 

But good points nonetheless.

 

Regarding trust and "out of control", well, your money is in a bank right? Do you trust the bank? =) I think your bets are safer with our servers. I don't foresee that being an issue for the long future, if ever. Given the games online structure, you're practically taking it off the shelf if you take the servers offline. That's a lot different than turning off "online MP" for older EA sports games and others you've seen recently.

 

And I can assure you, if there ever was such a scenario, which I strongly doubt, but IF, cause there has to be an IF, as a business serving its customers, we would have to do development work for an offline mode. I can't see any other around it business wise.

 

My 2 cents, I understand trust and hotel situations, and the many others that can be concocted. My opinion is, I think those situations in general represent a very small subset. Not one to be ignored, which is why I always say, we'll learn from this and see how it goes.

 

-APOC

[sith_wampa 6]

And I can assure you, if there ever was such a scenario, which I strongly doubt, but IF, cause there has to be an IF, as a business serving its customers, we would have to do development work for an offline mode. I can't see any other around it business wise.

This is my point. Why not do it anyway? Sounds like a nice patch to me.

[Sonic 295]

Thanks to APOC for coming in here and explaining a few things for us. And could someone go an kick the Destructoid crew in the ass for reporting false information. I'm in both camps on the whole no LAN debate. Part of me doesn't care that it won't be part of C&C 4, while another part of me understands it has always been a traditional C&C thing. However C&C 4 is about moving forward, embracing new things so I'm all for it.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

But aren't you "a uber hardcore PC Nerd/player"?

Not always.

 

Just about everywhere in this world is CONNECTED.

And I counter with this: so what? That should be irrelevant for singleplayer.

[sith_wampa 6]

Firstly, thanks to APOC for coming in here and explaining a few things for us. And could someone go an kick the Destructoid crew in the ass for reporting false information. I'm in both camps on the whole no LAN debate. Part of me doesn't care that it won't be part of C&C 4, while another part of me understands it has always been a traditional C&C thing. However C&C 4 is about moving forward, embracing new things so I'm all for it.

Yes, thanks APOC. You know CNCNZ is the best.

 

While moving forward is important, is LAN support something worth ditching? I'm not so sure.

 

And I counter with this: so what? That should be irrelevant for singleplayer.

Especially skirmish, campaign is slightly more understandable.

Edited February 23, 2010 by sith_wampa

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Regarding trust and "out of control", well, your money is in a bank right? Do you trust the bank? =) I think your bets are safer with our servers.

...

My 2 cents, I understand trust and hotel situations, and the many others that can be concocted. My opinion is, I think those situations in general represent a very small subset. Not one to be ignored, which is why I always say, we'll learn from this and see how it goes.

Oh right, I should have mentioned that I was referring to 'the cloud,' apps that have to 'phone home,' or online info storage in general, not that I don't trust EA's servers or think my security would be compromised by C&C4 or anything. I'm doing the most that I can to keep the majority of my data/software under my own control. Big brother already watches too much.

[Gben 20]

Thanks for post APOC, and especially your follow-ups... they're the most important ones!

 

An although it's a reasonable statement to say most of your customers are persistently connected to the internet, and I certainly concede that this is an industry standard that continues to evolve... you've not done a good enough job 'selling' the benefits. There are obvious benefits to you in terms of piracy, but not as a SP gamer/consumer.

 

Remembering the two camps of gamers - single players and multi players - the stats are meaningless together, because AI and human counterparts continue to play differently and continue to require different skill sets. As an exaggerated example, becoming top rank and unlocking all the units through SP gameplay of C&C4 and then taking those stats online for some MP gameplay is in my mind like combat soldier for came first in boot camp and is dumped in Iraq... Live Combat is a totally different environment to boot camp, and the stats tell a very limited part of his story and experience. The bottom line, is my SP stats and my MP stats, are two totally different persona's in my opinion and should be kept separate.

 

There is no credible reason why we can't have an offline personna or temporary guest account purely for a LAN party. The original point still stands, C&C4 is designed as a team based game with VOIP.... it is the perfect game for a LAN environment and it makes no sense that it is not supported.

[BioBen 3]

Same... And I'm not an uber hardcore nerd, A casual LAN party every 3 or so weekends is fairly normal and I'm pretty sure plenty of people do it.

[sith_wampa 6]

Thanks for post APOC, and especially your follow-ups... they're the most important ones!

...

There is no credible reason why we can't have an offline personna or temporary guest account purely for a LAN party. The original point still stands, C&C4 is designed as a team based game with VOIP.... it is the perfect game for a LAN environment and it makes no sense that it is not supported.

All of this. Nicely said Gben.

[PurpleGaga27 40]

Not only Destructoid is giving wrong information on that so does Kotaku.

 

We thank Apoc for the confirmation about this.

[Neroon 0]

Not only Destructoid is giving wrong information on that so does Kotaku.

 

We thank Apoc for the confirmation about this.

 

Yes, its nice of him to confirm such bad news.

 

APOC might want us to accept totally giving up control of the games we buy but I think its totally unacceptable. APOC might also think "its the way of the future" but to me he is more or less saying EA does not want any PC customers anymore.

 

Since the data needed to play the game and the format of the data used in saving the profile and loading it will be wide open to the pirates its not at all unlikely this scheme will be hacked in a week or less. Normally I´d wait until a good crack gets made before purchasing a game. In this case I dont want any developers getting the idea that this is a good way of making buissness. Ill never buy this game and Ill be sure to point out why to as many people as possible.

 

The mere thought that I couldn't count on being able to play Spore if my internet access had been out for more than five days (which only happens when I move to a new apartment) made me skip that game. This game uses an even more silly DRM-scheme and Id rather eat my own foot than giving the developers anything for it. Even the thought of loosing internet access for a day and because of that not being able to play the game I paid to play makes me angry (and no, its not like a MMORPG since that NEEDS internet to be a functioning concept).

 

Im sad that the C&C team is so badly in touch of the community and I do feel a bit sad for APOC since he is the community manager.

 

I could go on and on about bad purchases the last few years but its really no point. I think you understand what I mean.

Edited February 23, 2010 by Neroon