No Dedicated Servers or LAN Play in Command & Conquer 4

[AceDiamond]

Good. Fucking. God.

You know I had high hopes for C&C4 but now I don't want to get it just because they're gutting out so much of the multiplayer. I don't care really about the dedicated servers part but getting rid of LAN? Unacceptable.

EDIT:

But I don't know the map names.

How can you not know the map names? They tell you what they are when the map is loading! At least in TF2 it does.

 

[Aurora219]

I for one can guarantee you that I am not going to buy C&C4: Tiberian Twilight. I've given up on their entire range of post-Westwood Studios products, despite giving both Red Alert 3 (albeit not the expansion) and C&C3 a good run. Both games were downright terrible in comparison to their older games, with balance issues, gameplay flaws and sometimes entirely misjudged themes.

With the removal of bases as well as the removal of dedicated serves and LAN play, I don't really see anything to entice me to play the game at all. It's promising to arrive as a confused, jumbled mess with about as much identity as a hermaphrodite with amnesia.

 

[pwnzerstick]

And I can already hear the boycotters FREAKING OUT!!

 

[Bob_F_It]

And I can already hear the boycotters FREAKING OUT!!

Oh, I don't think this is even one where a boycott is needed. This has just made it an unsatisfactory product.

 

[BonsaiK]

This is why people all over the world needed to NOT buy COD:MW2.

Because PC gamers bought it anyway, the message has now been sent - PC gamers will be willingly shafted. There is no turning back now. Company after company will continue to do this.

 

[Dommyboy]

Well, Command and Conquer hasn't been fun since Westwood primarily created it. Doesn't matter anyway, people just pirate horrid games.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

So C&C4 is using a system like Ubisoft now then is it?

 

[Arcticflame]

I was interested in this game. But following this news, I won't purchase it.

 

[CrafterMan]

What. No LAN?

WHAT?!

But! LAN was/is awesome!

Goddamit developers are taking the piss now.....

Yeah man right on! LAN is just so much fun, why do devs not get this!

Games+Friends=Fun

 

[BeeJAyP]

Seems as though while consoles are losing splitscreen PCs are losing LAN/dedicated servers.

Play with people you know huddled around a television with splitscreen is amazing.

Playing with people you know lights off in a basement till 2am on a LAN is equally amazing.

Why do companies all of a sudden hate playing games IRL?

If you get rid of splitscreen you can make each person buy a copy of the game if they want to play against each other, same goes with removing LAN support for PCs, though in that case it's more to get rid of piracy, people usually pirate the one copy amongst themselves to play, this way they can't, atleast not very easily, it's a simple money making exercise.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I don't care for dedicated servers, per say (because I am a MW2 fanboy) but... no LAN? Seriously? In a fucking strategy game?

 

[xDarc]

And in other news- another game I won't be buying. This trend will fail. PC gaming will live on. The very notion of having a dedicated console for gaming is insane when in 5 years, they will have 300 dollar netbooks that will run Crysis maxed out, surf the web, pick up your kids and scratch your balls.

Purpose specific electronics are on the way out- NOT IN.

It's an inevitable side effect of better hardware constantly becoming cheaper.

 

[Agayek]

PC gamers need to get it through their collectively thick heads - developers are dropping dedicated server support because it is becoming prohibitively expensive. Now while I can understand a slight bit of rage at not being able to pay for and host your own dedicated servers, you cannot honestly believe EA, IW, EPIC or anyone else owes you free dedicated servers now can you?

No one is asking the developers to host their own dedicated servers.

All the section of the internet that's outraged over this wants is the ability to host their own servers and the ability to join the servers, or connect via LAN, through the game client. It only costs the developer the initial development time, which is comparatively small.

I can see why developers are doing it; it's both an anti-piracy and cost-cutting decision, but that doesn't make it any less of a pain in the ass. LAN for RTS, or most any multiplayer game really, is one of the most fun features. They're basically saying that we aren't allowed to get together with friends and play the game in the same room. It's dumb and incredibly annoying.

Dedicated servers aren't as much of a loss, in my opinion, but it's still aggravating. Servers tend to attract the same people over and over again, and you get to know them through it. I've made a few fairly good friends through this kind of thing, so I'd be sad to see it permanently go the way of the dodo.

Really, it doesn't cost much to do (if anything, it's probably cheaper/easier to create the software for a dedicated server system than the matchmaking thing that's so popular), and, if not a majority, a large portion of the consumerbase would greatly appreciate the ability.

 

[ultimateownage]

"if you go to another machine - friend's house, Internet café - whatever, you can login with your profile and all the stuff you've unlocked is accessible to you there. It all lives on a server so you can't really do dedicated servers with that."

Uuuh, yes you can? It seems to have worked for steam and steam cloud.

 

[Jared]

They are very quickly alienating a whole cummmunity? For what reason?

/sigh

 

[feather240]

They are very quickly alienating a whole cummmunity? For what reason?

/sigh

...because they are the enemy, and they hate us. Don't fret though, this isn't MW2 where everyone and their dog bought a copy and RTSs are primarily PC games. A PC boycott would slaughter them like Dramamine to a scarecrow.

 

[mooncalf]

I don't really think of dedicated servers when it comes to RTS, aren't they typically peer-hosted anyway?

As for LAN... Well the downward spiral of PC gaming continues. Please folks, make your purchasing decisions concientiously, avoid titles entirely if they don't meet your standards of fair practice. No matter how shiney or anticipated.

 

[3LANCER]

C&C games never had dedicated servers if I'm not mistaken. There was a central server (something like Battle.net) and people would host their own games through it. Kicking out the LAN play is very bad, it means we won't see the game on this year's WCG or almost any other non-online tournament.

 

[MNRA]

Thier way of saying "The C&C franchise has been dying for a long time now, and if this game bombs then we will be able to kill it witihin a year"

Well from what I've read this is supposed to be some sort of conclusion to the whole saga. Which I sincerely hope it is, since i think it's time to lay it to rest.

-----

On a more personal point I will never ever pay money for this game. Just like SC2, MW2, and what seems to be the whole Ubi-array for eternity, I will never buy a game that requires me to have an internet connection/register/play on someones server etc. I'll just buy them from piratebay instead and not give money to deplorable tactics.

And to think that I was going in the right direction. I've been pirating less and less as the years go by, and I have some 150 original games in my collection from just the last 5-10 years. And all it took was some anti-piracy measures to make me join the ol' skull-and-crossbones again.

 

[brunothepig]

I don't think it's a huge deal that we lost dedicated servers. Though, when it seems like there isn't any reason it is a bit of a kick in the nuts. But, No fucking LAN!!! What!?? Why would they do that? Hell, I only recently got Command And Conquer after playing it at a lan party. And it was epic fun. Now they're telling me I can't LAN this game? Why? Give me a reason Bass.
Ok, some people have said that it is supposed to prevent piracy so that one person doesn't buy/pirate the game and share it with their friends. But, you do realise that many people buy these games for lan parties? Yeah, we sort of stole it, we have some computers at the store in my town lol. However, when someone has the game, they're free to install it as many places as they want. The owner just hosts some small parties, we have the games on the display PC's. Now I'm almost certain none of us will buy it.