I have always been a fervent detractor of uPlay and, up till now, I refused to install the program on my computer, let alone buy anything from Ubisoft that required it. That said, people kept telling me how Ubisoft and uPlay have changed, and I'm all for giving second chances. That and Nvidia gave me Watch Dogs for free, and I'm a sucker for free things. I will, however, approach this with an open mind and be as impartial as possible.
INSTALLATION:
Installation was quick and painless. Nothing to mention here.
MEMORY FOOTPRINT:
The uPlay client is using 184,7 mb of my memory. Meanwhile, Steam is using 94,7 mb. This is weird because the steam client has a lot more features than the uplay one, and also happens to be downloading some game updates while the uplay client isn't. Quite memory hungry for such a small fellow.
1st IMPRESSIONS OF THE UI AND GAME STORE:
It looks like Metro filled with advertisement or social garbage. I'd rather have something more minimalistic and straight to the point (the point being "games" - they should be the first thing popping up in the client!). There is a big and bulky ad for a company called Adtech, for example. Why the hell should I care about it? I hope there isn't more advertisement down the road (game advertisement is fine, though). It also seems to be made with 720p in mind. Why is everything so oversized on my TV? So much wasted screen state. The client also seems blurry.
The "Free" tab is a mess. It mixes demos with F2P games. Demos should have their own category - it would be a better way to inform people that "you can try before buying our games here" as well as keeping the actual free game list (F2P or promotional offer, if they exist on uPlay) less cluttered. Easy access to content is one of the key features in any storefront and game client.
The client is extremely barebones. No customization options whatsoever (I'd like to get rid of that friend list thing on the side, for example). Links don't open inside the client. Can't navigate with a gamepad. I don't see a place to change your in-game username, so I assume that isn't possible (and let's face it, sometimes we choose usernames that end up being embarrassing down the road when we grow up, like xXxSasuke_NoScope420xXx - being able to change that would be nice).
Navigating the store seems snappier than on Steam, at least. Things load fast. This is good.
The price structure is bad, though. I checked out an ongoing promo and we see the price reductions, but not the percent at which that reduction happened. Why is this important: because it is easier to keep track of pricing milestones with percentages. "Oh, this game was at a 50% off 2 months ago, now it's at 75% off - I should probably snatch it now!" or "This probably won't go lower than 66% - when it reaches that amount, I will buy it for sure!". Adding a percentage reduction would be simple and would keep your consumers better informed to make a purchase.
Store information about the games seem quite incomplete as well. I see no metacritic score, no DRM information (should I assume all games use just the uPlay DRM or can the devs bundle additional DRM if they so desire?), no included features (online multi? SP only? uplay rewards available? And so on). I also don't see how I can wishlist stuff, so either you can't do that OR the process of doing it is convoluted enough that I couldn't find it after quickly looking for it. Without wishlists, you also don't have price reduction notifications, which is also bad.
Props for having Boleto Bancário as a payment option (though steam and origin also have it, it is still nice to see it there).
DOWNLOADING A GAME
Looking at my game collection now (which has 1 game - Watch Dogs that I got from Nvidia). I would like to have a link that would send me to the storefront of the game. Also, I don't see any place to show us news regarding game updates. That feels like an oversight to me. Do we have to go in-game to see those or open text files with patch notes manually? That is so last decade, guys. Leaving relevant information within an arm's length is in the best interest of everyone. Ideally, you would be able to see all these kind of informations at a glance (new DLC, new patch notes, achievement progression).
Anyway, I'm here to install the game, so let's do it. Downloading the game made the memory footprint jump to 203mb, apparently. Not a big jump, just casually mentioning it. Download speed is good - my (admittedly crappy) connection is maxed from the start (downloading at 1.3 mb/s, which is more or less the cap of my 10mb connection). Since the speed is capped, I can't measure how good the ubi server transfer speed is. I may try when I visit my folks on their 50mb connection.
PLAYING THE GAME
Finally, the game is installed. Let's take it for a spin. I may take the opportunity to make small comments on the performance of Watch Dogs since so many people have been having trouble with it, just for reference.
The computer where this is being tested is this one:
i5 4670k (no OC, so 3.8ghz)
EVGA 780ti ACX
Asus z87 Deluxe
16gb ram
Running from a common 7200rpm HDD
+Latest drivers on everything
Playing on a Xbox One gamepad
The game installed and started without issues. First thing I did was check out the settings. I immediatelly missed a "show FPS" option. It would also be nice to have a benchmark option like Sleeping Dogs has. Still, there is a nice range of graphical options to choose from. First thing I disliked - choosing the "uPlay" menu sends you to a screen where the gamepad doesn't work, so if you are playing on the couch like I am, that means you have to potentially leave your cozy place and reach for your keyboard or mouse to close it.
There isn't a lot I can say about uPlay's performance while gaming. It didn't seem to hinder the experience. Watch Dogs, on the other hand... Oh boy, what a ride. Jumpy framerate with multiple configurations while driving with the occasional framerate sudden drop and the game locked up after maybe 20 or 30 minutes playing. I am not impressed by the optimization done on this - and this is a game supposed to work well on nvidia! The game does look pretty, though. I will wrestle with it tomorrow.
FINAL THOUGHTS
uPlay certainly isn't as bad as I thought it would be. My computer didn't turn into a borg collective nor has Icarus found me, prompting me to run while I could after installing it. On the other hand, I can't really see any added value by using it as of now. Sure, it will keep your games updated - but then again, any client does this nowadays. You get some rewards from ubi points, but they are all inconsequential things that would be bundled with the game in the past (and aren't now just because of uPlay).
It is hard not to compare it with the competition. The one that obviously comes to my mind is Steam. Steam has loads of features, some of them quite unique, that make their client so appealing that people end up adding non-steam games to use the overlay on them. Some of my favorites are steam cards (useless on their own, but they can net you store credit that you can trade for actual games - a lot better than the uplay reward system in my opinion. Play certain games early enough and you might end up making back the money you spent on it by selling the cards alone), Big Picture (my PC is linked to my living room's TV despite being in another room, so that is really a godsend), game streaming to another PC (nice for laptop gaming) and game sharing. There is also Origin, and while I have yet to try it (but I will very soon since they gave away BF3 for free recently - like I said, I'm a sucker for free things), their 30 day refund on their AAA games with no questions asked really shows their commitment to repairing the awful image they have gotten over the past years, and may signal a change of heart (I'm still skeptical). uPlay, on the other hand, doesn't have a lot to show for when compared to these services (though, to be fair, Origin is probably just as devoid of features - the refund is still nice, though).
It is also important to note that I had little time with it, so this is mostly a hands-on evaluation. It is possible that, with sufficient time using it, a whole host of problems would crop up - but that is neither here nor there.
So, the service is lacking - but how to improve it...? I have some ideas:
FEATURES I´D LIKE TO SEE ADDED SUMMARIZED:
- Modular uplay client (up to a minimalistic thing similar to, say, foobar) with optional theming support
- Ability to move installed games to different HDDs
- Show how much % a game is currently discounted
- Show the DRM on the game store page (or are all games on uplay using only the uplay DRM?)
- Allow us to freely change our in-game handle
- Make it controllable with a gamepad (so we may launch it from XBMC and navigate it with the same gamepad)
- A button to go back to the game store from your game collection screen
- A local savegame backup utility integrated with uPlay (with a convenient "save all" feature - look at savegame backup manager for inspiration). The cloud is a fickle mistress, and as such many of us do not trust it with ourprecious save games.
- Wishlists and price drop notifications
- Mobile client just to help with purchasing games on the go
- Copy as many steam features as you can
- Copy Origin's 30 day refund policy for your games
- Remove advertisement that isn't related strictly to games
- Show us patch release notes on the game page in our game collection and in the storefront
- Put a link to the forum of the game on the storefront
- Allow devs to show us the metacritic score of their game (if they want) on the game store
- Allow us to toggle each DLC on and off. Important because the DLC in some games can break the balance and feel like cheating
- Allow us to choose the patch version. If that is impossible, at least allow us to rollback to the last patch if we so desire (in case the patch borked things).
These things would be good starting points, at least in my opinion. Long time users surely could give you further feedback on it.
THINGS I DIDN'T GET TO TRY:
- Ubisoft support
- Offline Mode - it's too late and I'm tired
- Online play
- Auto patching
- Double DRM scenario (but I have Rocksmith 2014 on Steam, so I may try it later. I may ammend this thread when I do it).
BEFORE YOU POST A REPLY, READ THIS:
I didn't write this to warn current or future uplay users of anything - in fact, this isn't aimed at you guys at all. This is my honest feedback to Ubisoft and their staff. I had the vantage point of being a first time user, so I thought that documenting the first exposure to the service could give an interesting sort of feedback related to the very first experience with the service and the challenges that come with it.
Will they listen or care about it? I frankly doubt it, but I like to think I did my part.