Command and Conquer 4 requires constant internet connection

And another.

There's no reason for this. At all. It's lame and obvious why they want to do this.

The reason why I care? I play any game I buy for years on end and I don't appreciate BUYING something only for it to be inevitably crippled later on due to blatant stupidity.

Make this game online only or scrap the "must be connected to the internet AT ALL times".

Guys, Steam requires you to be connected to be able to play. Do you guys have games on steam?

@ Ballistic H

Actually... no. It doesn't. You can run it in offline mode and everything works perfectly well. It may be connected online a lot of the time, but does it *have* to be? No. And I'd suggest next time you do some research before you say something like that, next time.

This game is REALLY going to sell.
/sarcasm

Lost mine too. I've been a fan of the C&C games from the start (I bought many of them twice because I wanted the First Decade pack too) but my net connection is spotty at times and if C&C4's going to throw a fit because my connection dips during a skirmish or single-player game, it's not for me.

EA once again prove that they haven't learnt a damn thing

Yup they have been going downhill with the series ever since EA bought Westwood... I just want a good RTS like the good old Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2, not that playing that stuff on LAN is getting old, but something more modern that is as good or better would be fun to have. As for this MMO bit, they better explain what the hell its all about, because right now im not planning to buy it any time soon.

Lost another purchase here.

Agreed. Single-player, especially since it'll likely require me to have the disc in the machine like every other C&C game, should not require an internet connection. I have a laptop, I want to be able to play my games anywhere, not just places that have wifi.

"if C&C4's going to throw a fit because my connection dips during a skirmish or single-player game, it's not for me."
It just tracks your data, it's not going to exit your game if you lose connection!

That's exactly what it is, just a different way of applying DRM. Instead of some restrictive install limit, hidden and un-uninstallable "spyware", requirement of CD and/or CDKey, or combination of all three, they instead chose this way. Many have an internet that's constantly connected, so no one will really think about it when they read that.

Yet what happens if your internet gets cut out? Will they just say "F*** you you're a pirate" and not allow those people to play? Be a bloody stupid thing to do, but hey, who ever said the Gaming Industry required common sense.

This is just what I was going to come in and comment on. It seems like a convenient excuse to try and prevent piracy. While I applaud trying to prevent piracy, I'm not always connected to the internet when I'm gaming on my latop.

Head of this nail be hurtin pretty bad.

You got it dude. They want to make sure the game you're playing is a legit one. That's all there is to it.

But I really feel sorry for the kids who take their laptops with them to "Internet-less" grandma's house and want to play to escape the boring. What will they do? Won't someone please think of the children?

You can get high speed internet for $15-20 today... Get with the times...

You can get a blowjob from Luenell for half that price.

No you cannot. $30 a month in my area for minimum DSL coverage, upwards of $60 or so for Cable.

My empty bean can and string are going to get pissed!

I've recently moved to a rural location, and my only real internet solution is an EVDO modem. It's fine for everything I do, but it does lose signal and crash several times a day (imagine being on your cell phone for 12 hours straight, how many times would the call drop?). Would this mean that everytime I had to take five seconds to reset that modem, the game would kick me out, possibly costing me whatever progress I had made?

This is distinctly consumer unfriendly for a game that includes single player content.

Suburb of Chicago here and guess what? $40-$65 a month for Cable. $30-$40 for DSL when I last checked but the service is horrible.

Seems to me someone else needs to get with the times...

i live in alabama and i pay $30 a month for 20Mbs cable.

WTF is an Alabama?

its a state

Further proof that sarcasm does not translate well over the Interwebz.

Don't forget people in rural areas who can only get sattelite.

I also live in Alabama, but I haven't seen a 56k connection in at least 8 years. Hell, I have donkeys, horses and goats living across the street from my neighborhood and I still have a 20mb connection.

Wow. Good one. You're so witty.

Steam has an offline mode

Likewise, if a game decides to implement this sort of thing, I wouldn't really mind either. I'm constantly connected anyway. It's not that I'm a Stream user, but I don't (or know anyone) who disconnects from the Internet, so I don't see it as an issue.

On the other hand, if they are going to implement this, I hope the game just doesn't instantly cut off if your Internet so happens to get disconnected (my router sometimes disconnect me for whatever reason), but go into a pause mode.

Anyway, during discussions of piracy prevention methods a while back, either I (or someone else) suggested this sort of method, but I (and no one as I recall) really gave it credit because it didn't seem like companies would have the balls to implement such a thing and piracy (at least PC) may be enormous, but it's not that bad to require such an extreme method.

Considering we're in a recession and companies have been releasing safe games for as long as video gaming as has been around, I still don't think they have the balls to implement such a extreme method unreasonably, so piracy must be a bigger issue than I thought (after all, I had been surprised before, especially when I heard Crysis/COD4/Sims 2's piracy rate).

Either that or maybe C&C4 really does have something special that requires constant Internet, but I doubt that as of this moment.

@ Mutaoid Man - yes, it's actually really quite different. I don't know of many games where I must be connected to the Internet to play single player mode. In fact, I don't think I own any at all. It doesn't mean they aren't out there.

Also, I have a large lan set-up in my garage without internet access. So now if I want to play I not only have to be connected to the internet, but to even due so I have to upgrade my entire secondary home network.

Some people just enjoy have a space in their home/room to display something that they love.

I used to do that, but I just don't want the clutter until I can get a room devoted to that kind of stuff.

Although, I do love Steam and with the savings from the many discounts Valve offers I can do things like buy TF2 posters and Hunters to display my fanaticism.

Yeah, it is just too bad that Valve completely gouges their customers with shipping and handling fees. I was going to buy a $15 TF2 baseball cap, but Valve wanted me to pay $13.50 for shipping and handling. I live in the same fucking country! There is no way I'd ever pay that much for shipping and handling on an item shipped from within my own country.

I've heard that it is even worse for Europeans.

I would really, really like to buy some of the stuff Valve has on offer in the Valve Store, but I refuse to give them any of my money until they charge less for shipping and handling.

Oh really? I actually haven't bought anything myself from there.

Seems like I now have a good reason....

Jump through hoops? I just click "File>Offline mode" and restart steam. Is that jumping through hoops?

Don't forget, you have to play the games at least once before you can play them offline.

You have to be connected to Steam to enable offline mode for a game. That means if your internet goes out due to inclement weather, or whatever reason, you're SOL. You can't play those games until your internet connection comes back.

Again, no. You only need to activate offline mode once. Maybe once per game, but I haven't even observed that. Anytime after that, if your internet connection craps out, it'll come up asking if you want to play in offline mode.

The only time you should have any issues is if it's in the middle of updating a game when your ISP crashes. Other than that, you're wrong.

From what I understand, you do not need to be connected to the internet to go into Offline mode at all.

You hit the nail on the head.

"But I'm very nervous when $50-60 retail games are digital rental licenses rather than a product I physically own."

I've been saying this for years.

This is exactly the issue with this sort of copy protection scheme (that's really what it is), and I don't know why others here don't grasp this fundamental problem (see: "It's just like Steam", "Why do people even want discs?"). I'm playing the original X-Com right now, and if Microprose had used this sort of DRM, I'd have to pay for it again, through Steam or GoG or whatever, in order to be able to play it. Why should I have to pay for the same game twice just because the original company can't support it anymore? Anyone?

@AtomicPlayboy dude I'm playing x-com :D Wicked game btw.