The ANGRY Pixel is reporting that over at the BioWare community forums, technical producer Derek French has disclosed that not only will the PC port of Mass Effect require SecuROM validation, but it will continue to require internet authentication at least once every 10 days.
Responding directly to a user concerned about August 2007’s BioShock-SecuROM fiasco, French initially revealed the following:
Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.
After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez’d and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn’t become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can’t contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.
While the news that Mass Effect won’t require the disc to be inserted for each play session was likely well received, the rest of the post merely added to the anxiety of users already burned once by BioShock.
To their credit, French and other BioWare representatives spent the better part of 13 pages directly addressing individual concerns, and from a common-sense standpoint there may be little to worry about.
Let’s have a look:
1.) French says users will have three activations. (BioShock had two.)
2.) To a user wondering about how college students with restricted internet access might cope, French replied that the activation had been tested in situations with very limited network access.
3.) The authentication servers will be in-house at EA (Spore will apparently use the same system) and French assures readers that they are ready for the initial influx of authentication requests from new Mass Effect owners.
4.) If the authentication servers go down or are scrapped, French says BioWare will release an update to disable activation.
5.) The 10-day cycle is rather lenient — it will try to invisibly authenticate once every five days, and each day after that until it succeeds. If 10 days elapse without success the game will lock, but following a single successful connection to the internet, it should be good as new.
All in all, I expect there will be very few people who own computers powerful enough to run Mass Effect that they both use and simultaneously never bother to connect to the internet. You’re welcome to prove me wrong, though I suppose you’ll have to use a friend’s machine to tell me off.
That said, some questions still remain. First, while the technical producer remained optimistic, he admitted that the system had not been thoroughly tested on systems undergoing substantial upgrades, and some worry that one of the game’s three activations could be permanently lost if a user were to upgrade their system. More importantly, French did not address the fundamental reason for adding such restrictive DRM in the first place, leaving many to wonder why, unlike Stardock, BioWare insists upon punishing the legitimate user in hopes of deterring the pirate.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
hey there
this secuROM system is a major problem for me
the computer that i will be running MEPC off has no connection to the internet, and because of my situation has no possible way of connecting to the internet.
My question is will users be able to register their copy from a different computer?
July 7th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I think you’re out of luck, A.Bob, unless you can give your PC at least a temporary connection to the internet. SecuROM has been relaxed since this posting, but it will still require a one-time authentication when the game is run the very first time.
BioWare confirmed in the official FAQ that the game requires an internet connection.
Not to sound too presumptuous, but in order to post a comment here you must have been able to get onto the internet somehow… perhaps you could use the same method to secure your one-time activation. If your gaming PC has no network card, that’s an easy fix, as a basic card is quite cheap these days.