From Dust

So, a minimum effort Ubisoft port?

It sure feels like it. I've now revised my opinion on the controls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, at 30 frames, the gamepad works much better. Since the "Breath" isn't a cursor, the mouse is almost painful to use for the minute adjustments that the game requires. Well, I guess "requires" is a strong word, but who wants a rocky earth bridge? I don't.

In any case, I would wait for a patch.

Or just get it on the 360. Seriously, there just doesn't seem to be a reason in favor for playing this on a PC.

Hyetal wrote:

It sure feels like it. I've now revised my opinion on the controls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, at 30 frames, the gamepad works much better. Since the "Breath" isn't a cursor, the mouse is almost painful to use for the minute adjustments that the game requires. Well, I guess "requires" is a strong word, but who wants a rocky earth bridge? I don't.

In any case, I would wait for a patch.

Or just get it on the 360. Seriously, there just doesn't seem to be a reason in favor for playing this on a PC.

Thanks for all your updates. Bloody shame that it's a shoddy port. From Dust had the potential to be a very good god game.

My reason for not getting it on the 360 is that I won't be taking my 360 with me to Japan. I also won't have an internet connection for the first month (most likely). I did just buy a wired 360 controller so there's that.

My pleasure. The saddest thing is that most parts are in place for a good port. I have a feeling that if it were locked at 60fps instead of 30, the controls would be much better, and the biggest issue wouldn't be worth mentioning. But then there's Ubisoft's maniacal need for control.

It's a shame that the DRM seems to be a stronger deterrent for legitimate customers than it is a weapon against piracy.

In fact, I expect to see the game available through my favorite Argh-y venue before too long. Which is just pathetic.

It sure feels like it. I've now revised my opinion on the controls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, at 30 frames, the gamepad works much better. Since the "Breath" isn't a cursor, the mouse is almost painful to use for the minute adjustments that the game requires. Well, I guess "requires" is a strong word, but who wants a rocky earth bridge? I don't.

So far my only issue is that I had to create a profile to force "vsync on" in the nvidia control panel. Other than that, the game seems to be fine. No issues with the Ubisoft DRM. I started playing using a 360 pad but I switched over to mouse controls to try them out and they seemed fine to me. It was more precise than the gamepad. Also, how can you tell it runs at 30 fps? FRAPS?

Fraps, yes. The mouse *is* fine, but the low fps makes it feel a little stuttery, definitely not as smooth as the stick where I can control sensitivity more easily. Might be I'm too used to higher frame rates.

Edit: I feel it also applies to the triggers versus the mouse buttons, where doling out earth is much more accurate with analog than a static button press.

Does the game support gamepads? If it is going to be locked to 30 fps (WHY?!?!?), then at least being able to use a gamepad might mitigate the mouse issues.

I'm fairly sure that's been mentioned, but yes, it does. Swapping between is a check box away (not seamless like other titles, but it doesn't need to be, either).

Hyetal wrote:

I'm fairly sure that's been mentioned, but yes, it does. Swapping between is a check box away (not seamless like other titles, but it doesn't need to be, either).

My bad if it was posted, that's the skimmer in me coming out.

I'm with Vector, this is a shame because it could have been done much better.

I'm liking it a lot so far. Haven't tried mouse control, just using the controller. It's definitely different!

Hmm, may stay away from this one then until some sort of patch fixes the issues. Thanks for the updates Hyetal

For the record, I installed a couple hours ago, and have been playing, and experienced none of Hyetal's issues. I don't know about the frame rate, but it hasn't caused performance hitches. The game runs like a hot knife through butter. The mouse controls are a little counter-intuitive for what you expect from a mouse at first, but I got used to it VERY fast.

I have to agree, though, that they forgot to bring the fun. I won't say there isn't some novelty to forming the landscape, but I'm not feeling a tremendous amount of satisfaction at solving the puzzles yet. I'm still very early, so maybe they get more challenging.

Yikes, I didn't really like the keyboard/mouse controls so I went to a controller almost immediately which completely defeats the purpose of waiting for the pc version. Also, bor-ing. I think 20 of the 30 minutes I played were spent waiting for guys to run from point A to point B because, as far as I can tell, there is no fast-forward button. I'm still going to give it a shot but not a great start.

Can't seem to get the game to work, Steam installed it fine, but now the Ubisoft launcher just times out looking for updates and tells me there's a connection problem.

Edit: firewall was the culprit, working fine now!

Having had it on preorder since before the original release date, I am reminded of why I don't do preorders. Wishing I'd paid more attention to this thread.

The DRM does require a connection every time you launch the game. This is not a huge deal for me because I'm not sure that the game has the staying power to let me care if it still works a month from now.

It's very pretty. I'll give it that. Which just meant that I went looking for the settings as soon as it loaded, and was slightly disappointed when I found that there weren't any. I may put the time into trying to override its settings with the NVIDIA drivers, because it has to potential to look gorgeous.

I sincerely hope the game gets more interesting as you progress; all the levels I've played so far feel like it's still the extended tutorial. Not bad, but a puzzle game that explicitly walks me through solving the puzzles is a little pointless. I knew going in that there wouldn't be much simulation to the people, but I keep thinking that I could make an awesome god game using only the assets and concepts that are already in the game.

Edit to add: Oh, and on the controls: the mouse handles fine for me; it's the keyboard that's the issue. The WASD keys were clearly just mapped from an analog controller, they are begging for a ramp-up time or less sensitivity. Very twitchy as it stands.

Oddly, for a god/RTS/high-third-person-perspective game, I keep wanting to zoom in just a little bit closer, so I can actually get a better look at the gorgeous scenery that I'm editing.

It seems steam is issuing refunds for this for those that want them. Ubi isn't getting good press from this at all.

Actually, checking the fine print on Steam, the line "UBISOFT MAY CANCEL ACCESS TO ONE OR MORE SPECIFIC ONLINE FEATURES UPON A 30-DAY PRIOR NOTICE" on a title that only uses the online connection for the DRM might be enough to push me over the line and ask for a refund.

I'm a little torn on whether to do it, but taking an extra month and producing this horrible port is ridiculous.

Scratched wrote:

It seems steam is issuing refunds for this for those that want them. Ubi isn't getting good press from this at all.

Lucky for me I saw the warning sign ahead of time (PC game by Ubisoft) and decided to wait. It's good to hear that Steam is refunding the victims.

Scratched wrote:

So, a typical Ubisoft port?

Fixed. I had completely forgotten that Ubisoft had specifically said the game could be played offline after a one-time activation. I guess that's why Steam is offering refunds. The lack of communication between the silos in that company is ridiculous. Between that and the sh*t port job, looks like I'll be waiting for a sale on 360 at best. I've tried the demo a couple more times though and based on that experience and what I've heard about the later levels requiring you to play the exact way the designer intended, I may just skip this.

The main problem I think isn't that the game shipped poorly, but the lack of communication which is characteristic of Ubisoft. They couldn't even get their story straight before release on the DRM, and even then it turns out they were wrong, about their own product.

There's always going to be people raging about any little thing (and big problems), but I think most people are reasonable if you own up to problems and what you're going to do about it. Looking at Ubisoft in the last few years, I sadly think this will be given a few slowly developed patches, and then just left to die.

Ubisoft don't need to worry about taking backhanders to delay the PC version and avoid showing up the console versions, they're taking care of that themselves.

(edit: nice, you can see the bitterness growing as I wrote the post.)

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Scratched wrote:

So, a typical Ubisoft port?

Fixed. I had completely forgotten that Ubisoft had specifically said the game could be played offline after a one-time activation. I guess that's why Steam is offering refunds. The lack of communication between the silos in that company is ridiculous. Between that and the sh*t port job, looks like I'll be waiting for a sale on 360 at best. I've tried the demo a couple more times though and based on that experience and what I've heard about the later levels requiring you to play the exact way the designer intended, I may just skip this.

Hm, that link doesn't work for me.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Scratched wrote:

So, a typical Ubisoft port?

Fixed. I had completely forgotten that Ubisoft had specifically said the game could be played offline after a one-time activation. I guess that's why Steam is offering refunds. The lack of communication between the silos in that company is ridiculous. Between that and the sh*t port job, looks like I'll be waiting for a sale on 360 at best. I've tried the demo a couple more times though and based on that experience and what I've heard about the later levels requiring you to play the exact way the designer intended, I may just skip this.

Hm, that link doesn't work for me.

They appear to have taken it down but they have a new post about it. I submitted a refund request so we'll see how that goes.

Over the next couple of months, I'm looking at more than a couple weeks of travel, during which internet access is a bit of an unknown at times. Last week I was traveling for work and there are still many airports that don't provide free wi-fi. This is why I'm picky about DRM requirements, because when I feel the urge to play a game, I want to be able to!

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Over the next couple of months, I'm looking at more than a couple weeks of travel, during which internet access is a bit of an unknown at times. Last week I was traveling for work and there are still many airports that don't provide free wi-fi. This is why I'm picky about DRM requirements, because when I feel the urge to play a game, I want to be able to!

Oh Quintin, this is why we're friends. We think the same.

That is my fancy way of saying "Me too!" or "+1" or whatever the kids are posting.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Over the next couple of months, I'm looking at more than a couple weeks of travel, during which internet access is a bit of an unknown at times. Last week I was traveling for work and there are still many airports that don't provide free wi-fi. This is why I'm picky about DRM requirements, because when I feel the urge to play a game, I want to be able to!

It's kind of odd to see all the different perspectives on always-on. There almost seems to be a mindset of disbelief that someone could possibly exist without a 5-nines uptime internet connection, and that to be even asked to consider that is like asking for multiplayer compatibility with a toaster.

Scratched wrote:

multiplayer compatibility with a toaster.

Vector wrote:

"Me too!" or "+1" or whatever the kids are posting.

... And here I was so excited for the pc release.

Scratched wrote:

It seems steam is issuing refunds for this for those that want them. Ubi isn't getting good press from this at all.

By the way, this is not true. Either they did it for a while and then stopped or somebody got really lucky.

Vector wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Over the next couple of months, I'm looking at more than a couple weeks of travel, during which internet access is a bit of an unknown at times. Last week I was traveling for work and there are still many airports that don't provide free wi-fi. This is why I'm picky about DRM requirements, because when I feel the urge to play a game, I want to be able to!

Oh Quintin, this is why we're friends. We think the same.

That is my fancy way of saying "Me too!" or "+1" or whatever the kids are posting.

Then why you hurt my feelings by never being on IRC?

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Scratched wrote:

It seems steam is issuing refunds for this for those that want them. Ubi isn't getting good press from this at all.

By the way, this is not true. Either they did it for a while and then stopped or somebody got really lucky.

It's a case of they knew how to word the request, per Rock, Paper, Shotgun.