- Expand Your Empire Your Way Experience more freedom than ever before as you choose your own custom strategy.
- Innovative Victory Point System A new level of tension is reached as you and your opponents collect points based on victories you achieve throughout the game.
- More Customization than Ever Before
- Build Your Own Castle Assemble your castle from a wide range of styles, designs and architectural details. You and your friends can share your creations online.
- Social Networking Integration Deep social networking integration lets you bring your gaming experience to your social circle
Product Description
Choose your own path to victory in The Settlers 7 Paths to a Kingdom, the long-anticipated sequel to the award-winning strategy game. Embark on an exciting quest to create, build and manage your kingdom in the most innovative, customizable and re-playable version ever!… More >>
The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom
I have long been a fan of the Settlers. While Settlers 7 does improve upon some of the criticisms of the last game, they have actually managed to make others worse. And to top of the whole fiasco Ubi Soft has decided to use this game as a vehicle to launch the most intrusive form of DRM seen yet.
For starters the game switches to a more true 3D aspect, while this may sound improved… it’s not. The problem is it tends to be much more difficult to move around the map and control the camera. I understand the desire to improve the graphics but switching from a more 2D isometric view to 3D is not always needed. Secondly town building has become much more cluttered and your villages will end up feeling like gigantic messes.
Lastly and the most damning thing for this game in my opinion is Ubi Soft’s inclusion of a new form of DRM. You are now required to log into Ubi’s servers to conduct just about every action you do with this game outside of playing. To launch the game, load the menu, save a game or load a game you must connect you Ubi’s servers. If you cannot connect (playing on a laptop, serving overseas or your ISP goes down) you can not play or save/load any games. Not only must you connect to Ubi’s servers but you must also have a Ubi Soft account. It’s also worth keeping in mind that ALL your saved games have been hijacked by Ubi and are now stored on their servers and not your computer.
Rating: 1 / 5
Having purchased this product and played it for about a week I have to say it is the best of the Settlers series so far. Also, the game is almost completely ruined by the DRM.
Not only do you have to have a constant internet connection to play, but their servers go down quite frequently. Ubi’s servers down = you cannot play a single player game you paid good money for = epic fail. I wish I could take back my purchase.
This is the last Ubisoft product I will ever buy.
Rating: 1 / 5
I guess ubisoft doesn’t care about the customers that have slow internet or want to play on a computer not connected to the internet. Bad Idea for them, they have completely lost my business and I have been purchasing games from them for over 25 years.
Rating: 1 / 5
Settlers 7 is a wonderfully fun game – in the little time I’ve actually been able to play it. However, with the DRM that Ubisoft chose for this game, I would STRONGLY advise against any customer purchasing this software. I read the warnings of other consumers before I bought it, and noticed the requirements, but I thought “I have a great internet connection – I’m not going to have any troubles.” How wrong I’ve been.
Please do yourself a favor and check over at the Ubisoft Settlers forums before you go any farther with this purchase.
Just to clarify, Ubisoft’s DRM requires that:
(A) You have a constant connection to the internet while playing the game. This includes playing the single player portions of the game. I have not lost my personal internet connection even once while playing.
(B) You are able to connect and validate on their servers. This is the killer. Their servers have been down almost every time I’ve attempted to play. There are numerous posts on the forums where other users are experiencing the same issue: My internet is up, your server is down. The only communication from Ubisoft at this point is “we’re looking at it.”
To make matters worse, if you lose (A) or (B) during your game (even single player), your game will lock up, crash to the desktop, or occasionally simply notify you that the network connection has been lost and then exit to the desktop “gracefully.” Please notice that *none* of these “connection lost” options include the ability to save your game.
Buyer beware.
Rating: 1 / 5
The game requires several tries to start, and randomly kicks you out of the game for server disconnects. I have high speed, and have no problem being online – I presume the issue is their servers.
Yes, the single player campaign will not let you play unless you are online 100%, no offline mode at all. If they have Internet problems, or if you do – your game pauses then exits after a bit. VERY annoying!
The gameplay is more like the old style Settlers and so far (from when I can play) is enjoyable, the graphics are good and it looks like it could be really fun. But in its current state the game simply is not worth your time or money.
Rating: 1 / 5