Can we know how you guys fixed it? Strange how it went all unreachable. And thanks for fixing it on a sunday, of all days!
Firstly I am sure you guys do your best when these things happen ..... BUT ! and it is a very big but .... This should not even be a problem in 2016 and is due 100% to the what is a truly terrible requirement of having to ALWAYS have an internet connection to play the game ~ please remove or modify this draconian system. The internet is very slow where I live and is not uncommon to go off the air and in just one week there have been numerous times when I cannot play due to internet slowing down. I am very new to RRRE having bought in only a week back and so far really think this is a Racing SIm of highest quality & calibre, the physics & sound deserve accolades, and the tracks are up with the best. However I did not know at the time of paying for quite a big swag of content, of this Always Online DRM requirement and had I known it would have affected my decision to buy in. Do not get me wrong I love this sim and I understand the need to protect your IP and content but this is not the best way to do it. I had believed that because RRRE has a large Single player component with AI that this would never be a problem for me because there is no necessity at all for internet connection to play single player against AI. At the most the system should check my credentials via Steam at Startup and if there is a connection problem allow me to play in Offline mode. It could make more detailed checks of my system at other times but 100% Online checking 24/7 is crazy and horrible for customers like me. Once the game has established my system & IP and that I am a registered paying customer, where is the need to be constantly and insistently checking my credentials ? Maybe this complaint about an otherwise brilliant Race sim will fall on deaf ears but, please guys there are other ways to keep your sim copyright safe etc. and it should never be at the expense of the end-user and loyal customer enjoyment. I would very much appreciate an official comment from the Game Producer or other Sector3 people responsible for the decision to include this awful DRM because it is really, really annoying me now.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before in another post. We are aware of the issues linked to having an always online DRM and plan to improve things but it will take quite some time due to various things such as priorities and the much smaller team size we have now. Due to the free to play nature of things we have to have an online connectivity but we intend to change some things around to avoid not being able to play if/when servers go down.
I really appreciate your reply Sonat, and as I am very new here I did not know anything about your plans to modify or change the way the Always On DRM is implemented. Really look forward to that happening, as it is killing the game for me at the moment. cheers Mark Blanes
I apologize for things happening slow as it was a while ago when I mentioned our plans and we still haven't done it. It's unfortunate but it is due to the realities of shrinking team size and different priorities dictated by the publisher. There were a lot of ambitions when it all started but a lot has changed since then. What we currently have in the backend is a complex set of systems that are unnecessary for what RaceRoom is. The team handling these systems and services is also a lot smaller so maintaining is just as big of a problem as changing things. So we are eager to change things in these areas as well, It is painful for us to see people not being able to play the game due to server problems and we want to improve things. While a full offline version may not be possible, we will definitely look into alternatives such as limited offline capabilities in the case of a server issue.
Thanks Sonat, I do not mean to be overly critical and I am sure you are doing what is humanly possible. I race a few other sims and believe this one surpasses them in few critical areas. Just is very frustrating having friends to show and cannot because of the lousy internet at times here in Australia -even in a big city - and inability to play offline. If that alone can be sorted out it would be huge progress and do more thorough DRM checks at other times maybe. Anyway thanks again for your interest and response, very much appreciated