Will ARC be required to play neverwinter?

shadovarhk · May 2013

I am just curious if your new ARC platform is going to be required to play neverwinter like it appears to be
required to play your other games?

morbic · May 2013

Arc has always been optional to play any of the games so far... It just has some convenient and useful functions for those that do use it.

alignments · May 2013

OORLY?

"To play War of the Immortals, you must first download the powerful Perfect World Entertainment gaming platform Arc. Your War of the Immortals download will initiate once the Arc installation is complete."

alignments · May 2013

Deleted FB announcement. Pulled blog post. Some minor gaming sites have already reported it.

Before I invest more time and real dollars in game, please clarify on the nature of this platform.

Can you verify it being mandatory or optionial in the future?

People use Steam, sometimes begrudgingly, but much of the strife is offset buy a company head who people admire, being pro-indie devs, supporting a rich mod community and using a DEEP DEEP discounting system that sometimes seems downright foolish from a business stance, but the love and leeway it fosters is pretty priceless. Other platform pushers seems to just be about even more monetization, and thats fine too, but its not going to win you any love and understanding. Not for a place that already kinda gouges just a little on the old cash shop. A cash shop I dont mind using as im an adult with a job, this isnt a cash shop gripe at all.

So please tell me Im not going to have to install 1GB of bloatware to run in the background so i can relax and enjoy my friday, a payday friday mind you, in game. Thanks!

shadovarhk · May 2013

morbic wrote: »

Arc has always been optional to play any of the games so far... It just has some convenient and useful functions for those that do use it.

I was not aware that it existed prior to the facebook post today. I also don't remember seeing anything about it when trying to download some PWE games like PWI, and jade dynasty. They won't download unless you have ARC so I assumed it was new and was wondering if it would be mandatory for any/all pwe games.

jaymadiv · May 2013

uh...what's ARC? never heard of it until reading this thread.

alignments · May 2013

http://www.perfectworld.com/arc

There was a blog and FB post about it today, but they seem to have been taken down.

morbic · May 2013

Its a multi-game management/community utility that might be about 350MB in size. I haven't checked War of the Immortals since Beta, but I don't think any other games require it to download/install if they changed WoI post-beta to use it. I like it for having a transparent overly while playing to check out websites instead of alt+tabbing all the time.

jaymadiv · May 2013

morbic wrote: »

Its a multi-game management/community utility that might be about 350MB in size. I haven't checked War of the Immortals since Beta, but I don't think any other games require it to download/install if they changed WoI post-beta to use it. I like it for having a transparent overly while playing to check out websites instead of alt+tabbing all the time.

oh so it is basically like Steam, Raptr, Enjin Client, etc.?

but only for PWE games?

ifthir · May 2013

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/31/perfect-world-creates-its-own-gaming-platform/

lordarturius · May 2013

jmadfour wrote: »

uh...what's ARC? never heard of it until reading this thread.

Association for <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> Citizens. They take in broken appliances etc, repair/clean them, then sell them in ARC stores all over the country. It's a good program, maybe they should consider this game as a project and take a shot at fixing some stuff.

lewstelamon01 · May 2013

Arc (as it pertains to PWE and not the above, rather tasteless post) was formerly known as CORE. AFAIK it's for the PWE branded games (read: non-Cryptic involved) only.

alignments · May 2013

http://www.hackslashrepeat.com/threads/neverwinter-introducing-arc.4771/

Edit note* There was a blog post and FB post about it, but were taken down. Notice Neverwinter, very much on the ARC page picture.

pregnable · May 2013

God I hope I need ARC to play this game.

Actually, just go ahead and make me have all the ARC.

ARC all over my face.

Unknown · May 2013

This content has been removed.

kevinf08 · May 2013

This is a deal breaker.

I dont' want to download bloatware to play this game.

dezstravus · May 2013

Hey All,

Thanks for requesting clarification!

This is an application we at Perfect World are working on internally. Since we recently did a big update in terms of design and functionality, we wanted to give our players the opportunity to test it and try it out. Unfortunately, we had to take the Neverwinter one down since we discovered an issue with the download experience (currently, Arc allows you to download Neverwinter, but it downloads an old version which then requires a very large patch. It does work; it just ends up needing more bandwidth/downloading more data than the traditional download flow).

I don't have any information at this point regarding it becoming "mandatory" - right now it's just a thing we're working on and wanted to give everyone the chance to try out. Once we get that download issue sorted out it would be great for some people from our Neverwinter community to try it out and give us feedback on it. From the community side, we have some cool features in the works for letting people know if there is an outage or issue, so we are looking forward to trying those out and seeing how effective they are at keeping people in the loop!

Thanks for asking about this!

-Dezstravus

dahkohtlew · May 2013

dezstravus wrote: »

Hey All,

Thanks for requesting clarification!

This is an application we at Perfect World are working on internally. Since we recently did a big update in terms of design and functionality, we wanted to give our players the opportunity to test it and try it out. Unfortunately, we had to take the Neverwinter one down since we discovered an issue with the download experience (currently, Arc allows you to download Neverwinter, but it downloads an old version which then requires a very large patch. It does work; it just ends up needing more bandwidth/downloading more data than the traditional download flow).

I don't have any information at this point regarding it becoming "mandatory" - right now it's just a thing we're working on and wanted to give everyone the chance to try out. Once we get that download issue sorted out it would be great for some people from our Neverwinter community to try it out and give us feedback on it. From the community side, we have some cool features in the works for letting people know if there is an outage or issue, so we are looking forward to trying those out and seeing how effective they are at keeping people in the loop!

Thanks for asking about this!

-Dezstravus

Translation , yes it most likely at some point will be required , as otherwise you'd say no it will just be an option.

Gotcha.

Honestly I'm hoping I'm wrong , let's just say with the current PWE track record of how well they let exploits through their games , I don't have much faith in installing something like this from PWE either.

alignments · May 2013

dahkohtlew wrote: »

Translation , yes it most likely at some point will be required , as otherwise you'd say no it will just be an option.

Gotcha.

Honestly I'm hoping I'm wrong , let's just say with the current PWE track record of how well they let exploits through their games , I don't have much faith in installing something like this from PWE either.

Hahaha, pretty much.

pregnable · May 2013

Bring on the ARC!

lewstelamon01 · May 2013

dahkohtlew wrote: »

Translation , yes it most likely at some point will be required , as otherwise you'd say no it will just be an option.

Gotcha.

Honestly I'm hoping I'm wrong , let's just say with the current PWE track record of how well they let exploits through their games , I don't have much faith in installing something like this from PWE either.

I dunno. CORE was a lot like this but wasn't required to play any of the games it supported. Then again, Pando has been its own bag of cats with issues and therefore I see the reasoning behind ARC being the new download and play platform of choice....PWE having their own in-house app to use rather than relying on a not-completely-reliable (and in some opinions, shady) app like Pando Media Booster.

athanshadow · May 2013

pando has been my worst experience so far in downloading a game.so if they have decided move away from them,then that has been one good decision made.i personally liked being able download just the client using the torrent option.the less programs i have to update and then them breaking from said updates,the better.

noobzor · May 2013

ARC it to me baby! SOUNDS FCKING AWESOME!

rhoric · June 2013

To the whiners. Beat it. I am already using ARC from installing STO and Jade Dynasty. It is not bloatware as the most it takes up with the 2 tasks showing up in task manager is under 150MB of RAM total. ACR Browser takes the most at around 120MB and the ARC exe file uses like 20MB

celendis · June 2013

I installed ARC and found that it installed Pando along with it. It uses Pando for all downloads, so don't get your hopes up if you wanted away from that nonsense.

However, I fully expect PWE to push this as a requirement for all games in the future. It makes smart business sense to expose all of their games to its customers as well as provide quick links to support and purchasing options. It would also be extremely good (for PWE) to have zen purchasing in a game overlay rather than dragging you out of the game entirely.

If you're interested in getting this working with Neverwinter and not downloading the entirety of NW again, here's the Neverwinter section of my configuration file located at C:\Users\username\Appdata\Roaming\Arc\gameinfo.xml_0

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<root>
    <game name="Neverwinter" id="2002" status="5" downtool="0" version="" eulaversion="0" installdate="2013-5-31" downtime="531225835" new="2" order="0" hide="0">
        <addedtime year="2013" month="5" day="31" hour="22" minute="48" second="28" />
        <lastplaytime year="2013" month="6" day="1" hour="6" minute="0" second="13" />
        <path installpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Neverwinter\" downloadpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\" clientpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Neverwinter\Neverwinter\Live\GameClient.exe" clientcmd="" launcherpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Neverwinter\Neverwinter.exe" launchercmd="" patcherpath="" patchercmd="" uninstallpath="" uninstallcmd="" />
    </game>
</root>

rhoric · June 2013

Are you sure it installed Pando as I dont have it installed on my computer after installing ARC.

bostish · June 2013

Go forth my child, gather 2 of each download, bring thee upon the ARC and it will be good.

celendis · June 2013

After fiddling with ARC some and installing Champions (to delete email from STO), I found that it really doesn't like names that do not include the _en_gameID suffix to installation folders when it is trying to patch them.

Here is an updated gameinfo.xml_0 with less brokenness. Remember to move your install folders appropriately:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<root>
    <game name="Star Trek Online" id="1003" status="5" downtool="-1" version="" eulaversion="0" installdate="2013-5-31" downtime="" new="0" order="0" hide="0">
        <addedtime year="2013" month="5" day="31" hour="21" minute="13" second="15" />
        <lastplaytime year="2013" month="6" day="1" hour="5" minute="39" second="20" />
        <path installpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Star Trek Online_en_1003\" downloadpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\" clientpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Star Trek Online_en_1003\Star Trek Online\Live\GameClient.exe" clientcmd="" launcherpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Star Trek Online_en_1003\Star Trek Online.exe" launchercmd="" patcherpath="" patchercmd="" uninstallpath="" uninstallcmd="" />
    </game>
    <game name="Champions Online" id="1004" status="5" downtool="0" version="" eulaversion="0" installdate="" downtime="531225816" new="0" order="2" hide="0">
        <addedtime year="2013" month="5" day="31" hour="22" minute="58" second="15" />
        <lastplaytime year="2013" month="6" day="1" hour="7" minute="6" second="46" />
        <path installpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Champions Online_en_1004\" downloadpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\" clientpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Champions Online_en_1004\Champions Online\Live\GameClient.exe" clientcmd="" launcherpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Champions Online_en_1004\Champions Online.exe" launchercmd="" patcherpath="" patchercmd="" uninstallpath="" uninstallcmd="" />
    </game>
    <game name="Neverwinter" id="2002" status="5" downtool="0" version="" eulaversion="0" installdate="2013-5-31" downtime="531225835" new="2" order="1" hide="0">
        <addedtime year="2013" month="5" day="31" hour="22" minute="48" second="28" />
        <lastplaytime year="2013" month="6" day="1" hour="6" minute="0" second="13" />
        <path installpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Neverwinter_en_2002\" downloadpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\" clientpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Neverwinter_en_2002\Neverwinter\Live\GameClient.exe" clientcmd="" launcherpath="C:\Program Files (x86)\Perfect World Entertainment\Neverwinter_en_2002\Neverwinter.exe" launchercmd="" patcherpath="" patchercmd="" uninstallpath="" uninstallcmd="" />
    </game>
</root>

cyresofbsgo · June 2013

dezstravus wrote: »

Hey All,

Thanks for requesting clarification!

This is an application we at Perfect World are working on internally. Since we recently did a big update in terms of design and functionality, we wanted to give our players the opportunity to test it and try it out. Unfortunately, we had to take the Neverwinter one down since we discovered an issue with the download experience (currently, Arc allows you to download Neverwinter, but it downloads an old version which then requires a very large patch. It does work; it just ends up needing more bandwidth/downloading more data than the traditional download flow).

I don't have any information at this point regarding it becoming "mandatory" - right now it's just a thing we're working on and wanted to give everyone the chance to try out. Once we get that download issue sorted out it would be great for some people from our Neverwinter community to try it out and give us feedback on it. From the community side, we have some cool features in the works for letting people know if there is an outage or issue, so we are looking forward to trying those out and seeing how effective they are at keeping people in the loop!

Thanks for asking about this!

-Dezstravus

also we used to be able to use our Cryptic log-in in launcher, after PWE entered the mix, and for a while it was player choice, ether log in with PWE, or Cryptic. for a while this worked fine, then we was given X months to combine our Cryptic account to PWE account, that entire time I TRIED TO DO THAT, but failed, it was 3 MONTHS after I was locked out, because I only could log with a PWE account when all my stuff was on Cryptic account, currently my account name, my forum name AND my in game @names are ALL COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!! and that's after finally successfully getting them merged.

#1) I have HotN here, in NW as you can tell by the tittle
#2) I have lifer in STO
#3) I have Lifer in CO
#4) I HATE STEAM!!!!
#5) if this is ARC is even remotely close to the look/feel/hint of steam at all..........

....... well you can look up my frakking purchaseing reacords, and notice that 1 thing that I NEVER PERCHASED, was "Steam only sales" includeing the Steamruner in STO.
#6) this ARC better not be required EVER, I already have way to much on my PC as is to have bloatware also added.

sincerely:
someone that has spent a lot on Cryptic games, and still plans to... untill a day comes that "Steam" or something simular is required to play Cryptic games.

P.S. I have played Wastland, and every Fallout game up to FONV... why? it was "Steam required"

I loved that game series, but I hate Steam so much that I will NOT touch FONV... I also like Cryptic.... hope nothing shows up that I hate more than the love for Cryptic.

daowace · June 2013

So it's just like the other <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> clients that ijji, Aeria and other misc F2P publishers in the US have used.

IF this ever becomes mandatory, I'm gone. I don't install worthless tripe on my system, especially not on my smaller OS SSD, ESPECIALLY when all it mainly does is download games and can be a potential security risk.

klixan · June 2013

No! I'm sorry Dezstravus but this is a deal breaker for me. If or when you implement this, that is the day I stop playing Neverwinter.

I've been pretty tolerant and forgiving of most things, but not this!

Will ARC be required to play neverwinter?

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