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  1. #21
    This game is best possible arcade racing for me right now. I loved TDU, but with wooden physics and dated visuals I can't get back to it, while The Crew has more than acceptable visuals (actually game still looks very good), "soft", fun to drive physics and biggest advantage is territory. Level of detail is simply mindblowing along with day/nights cycle and different weathers.

    If support of this game ends, it will really break my heart. I play this solo 99% of times, while having absolute blast with it. I play with others only when I just need to (like Summit Crew events and PvP).

    I do not believe The Crew 2 can be better game and a replacement for me, at least not in a long while, because as far as I know map will be mostly the same, and air/water transport doesn't interest me that much. The Crew 1 has almost everything I need from open-world arcade-style racing. Why would I need to switch? For example, in TDU 2 I really enjoyed Ibiza. If developers could bring Hawaii map (or some other island, maybe one in Europe like Ibiza?) it could be good deal for me, or I bet many of us, but that's unlikely to happen.

    The only thing I lack from The Crew 1 is absence of several car manufacturers. Now, people, just close your eyes and imagine for a second:
    Offline The Crew with full mod support! Is that not a sweetest dream?...
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  2. #22
    By my estimates, this game has anywhere from 1 - 5 years of life left in it before it is shut down forever. 4 years seems to be the standard for less-than-than-most-popular games, 9 years seems to be the upper limit for online support from Ubisoft. Unfortunately, while past Ubisoft games can still be played without online support, since The Crew is tied to their central server, the game will become completely unplayable, despite having a rich single player experience. As others have pointed out, with games like TDU still playable today, there is not technical reason it needs to be this way, this is solely a design decision on the part of either the developers or publishers. In other words, this is an entirely preventable situation.

    I've tried contacting the community manager twice and Ivory Tower about this with no response. The fact that they're unwilling to give me a reply all but confirms they have no plans to keep this alive once they shut the servers down. I find this very troubling as The Crew is easily one of the best games I've ever played. To throw all that work on the game away forever feels incredibly wasteful.

    Personally, I think the practice of a company taking money for a game that is rendered unplayable BY DESIGN, with no disclaimer of how long it will operate should be illegal. That's obviously not the case, but if anyone has any information of organizations I could try to contact about getting more exposure towards this practice to eventually change it in the future, please let me know (either here or PM).

    Looking at the recent backlash of lootboxes in games, it's obvious players can change the course of games in the future, but only if they're coordinated. I really feel more light needs to be exposed on this issue. After all, we PAID for the game! It doesn't seem like too much to ask to be able to PLAY it, whether the company has decided to support it or not.
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  3. #23
    Stuntman---Mike's Avatar Member
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    Originally Posted by CYJAN3K Go to original post
    I think this is good idea. You could leave The Crew behind(not like it already didnt happen but this time official) we wouldnt worry about this game working everytime.

    Best option is made it offline and give people chance to modify it. Just leave the crew for community. I am sure there are players that could make awesome mods for this game and you wouldnt have to worry about it anymore
    This is the only sensible thing to do. UBI can save a lot of money and time of the programmers, which acn than be invested into new releases. As Crew 2 is going to have the same environment as Crew 1, why not leave the support of the "history" and dump it into the hands of enthusiasts who are not asking for money.

    Come on UBI, this is from business perspective a sensible thing to do. And keep in mind: with an epic game like this, you can make a Memorial for the game and loose a bit of the image of a pure money making company.
    Investing all resources into the new game will certainly pull many to the new game, if the result is somehow a huge improvement and following the requests of the community.

    But honestly, I do not believe they are able to do this. I am working for a huge car OEM, and like all big business, they rather loose respect than giving away something they cannot control any more!!!
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  4. #24
    Originally Posted by Stuntman---Mike Go to original post
    This is the only sensible thing to do. UBI can save a lot of money and time of the programmers, which acn than be invested into new releases. As Crew 2 is going to have the same environment as Crew 1, why not leave the support of the "history" and dump it into the hands of enthusiasts who are not asking for money.

    Come on UBI, this is from business perspective a sensible thing to do. And keep in mind: with an epic game like this, you can make a Memorial for the game and loose a bit of the image of a pure money making company.
    Investing all resources into the new game will certainly pull many to the new game, if the result is somehow a huge improvement and following the requests of the community.

    But honestly, I do not believe they are able to do this. I am working for a huge car OEM, and like all big business, they rather loose respect than giving away something they cannot control any more!!!


    I think it's not a matter of them being concerned about control or not, so much as paying one penny more than is necessary. You say it's sensible from a business perspective, but I disagree. The business perspective is to make as much money as possible, which means minimizing costs.

    Since they decided not to include an offline mode from the design phase, adding one now means additional cost as opposed to just shutting down the server and not letting anyone play again. In short, since they don't have to keep the game running, they won't. With most games, this isn't an issue, since you can continue playing locally, or on a private server. Since The Crew is on Ubisoft's server, you'll never be able to play it again once they drop support.

    Again, I think this practice should be illegal. A complete lack of response from Ubisoft and Ivory Tower has motivated me to look into consumer law further. In some countries, games are considered products, regardless of what the EULA says or if they are called a service by the company or not. There may be some legal protections Ubisoft is violating by doing this.
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  5. #25
    Stuntman---Mike's Avatar Member
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    Originally Posted by chilledinsanit4 Go to original post
    I think it's not a matter of them being concerned about control or not, so much as paying one penny more than is necessary. You say it's sensible from a business perspective, but I disagree. The business perspective is to make as much money as possible, which means minimizing costs.

    Since they decided not to include an offline mode from the design phase, adding one now means additional cost as opposed to just shutting down the server and not letting anyone play again. In short, since they don't have to keep the game running, they won't. With most games, this isn't an issue, since you can continue playing locally, or on a private server. Since The Crew is on Ubisoft's server, you'll never be able to play it again once they drop support.

    Again, I think this practice should be illegal. A complete lack of response from Ubisoft and Ivory Tower has motivated me to look into consumer law further. In some countries, games are considered products, regardless of what the EULA says or if they are called a service by the company or not. There may be some legal protections Ubisoft is violating by doing this.
    I am aware of what you say and this is what most companies are doing - a.k.a you are right.

    The gaming software development logic, of letting it grow (ripe) at the customers desk (SCRUM Projects) by asking the full amount of money, is wrong.
    The idea behind SCRUM is to show the customer the development of the software in many stages - but the customer has major influence on the next steps.
    You can find this positive behaviour in the gaming industry as well. I am a little hooked on Empyrion, a space survival and development game in early release. They have just send out a questionnaire on what they should focus next. They are now on a fairly stable development stage, and before they focus on something people don't like they are asking the community. OK - they gave us a number of around 20 major features to make it easier for them, but as the game is very popular the response will be pushing them in the right direction. Updates were coming (up until a week ago) almost daily with huge improvements.
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  6. #26
    Originally Posted by Stuntman---Mike Go to original post
    I am aware of what you say and this is what most companies are doing - a.k.a you are right.

    The gaming software development logic, of letting it grow (ripe) at the customers desk (SCRUM Projects) by asking the full amount of money, is wrong.
    The idea behind SCRUM is to show the customer the development of the software in many stages - but the customer has major influence on the next steps.
    You can find this positive behaviour in the gaming industry as well. I am a little hooked on Empyrion, a space survival and development game in early release. They have just send out a questionnaire on what they should focus next. They are now on a fairly stable development stage, and before they focus on something people don't like they are asking the community. OK - they gave us a number of around 20 major features to make it easier for them, but as the game is very popular the response will be pushing them in the right direction. Updates were coming (up until a week ago) almost daily with huge improvements.
    I think we're talking about two different things. Ubisoft could release the entire game as 1.0 and never patch it again, or they can have agile updates like you mentioned and have it evolve as time goes on. I'm not criticizing either method, I figure that's up to them.

    What I'm talking about is what happens to the game AFTER that? If the answer is "the game you paid money for stops working and can never be played again" then that's unacceptable in my eyes. I think it's a light form of fraud, and yes, you're right in that it's what many game companies are doing. That doesn't necessarily make it legal; I can't think of any other industry where you're given no assurance of how long the product will function AND it's designed to stop working entirely as soon as the company drops support.

    If Ubisoft's public policy was "the game will remain online-only via our server until support ends, then we will release a final patch so you may play offline afterwards" then I wouldn't even be making this post. It's utterly obvious to me that is NOT their plan however, so we have a game on death row essentially.
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