Because my account date is new, it does not mean I am new, I was part of STO before PWE bought it and all these creepy things have happened before. The lack of forthcoming, the lack of telling us the truth and the hiding has always been part of PWE, before they bought PWE many of us said and asked STO not to do it. But money talks.
I have played many PWE games and this does not take me by surprise.
"Here are the complete technical details of everything Arc does, and the reasons behind these functions."
Let me know how that works for you. I've been wondering how Microsoft does it too. They have yet to release their source code for windows 8 and I want to know.
Then why does it intrusively scan my hard-drives every time I use it? All four of them, all of my partitions?
Also, can you explain why it insists on installing browser plug-ins?
Do you really expect an answer? :rolleyes: These questions have been asked a couple of times on this thread, without a single answer. While the torrent question is anwered over and over again, those questions like yours have been ignored for about ~49 pages.
In fact this already is a kind of answer as well....
Do you really expect an answer? :rolleyes: These questions have been asked a couple of times on this thread, without a single answer. While the torrent question is anwered over and over again, those questions like yours have been ignored for about ~49 pages.
In fact this already is a kind of answer as well....
Indeed like my question why I cannot have the choice to say I don't want to use it or I want to use it. Why I am forced to use ARC?
One thing I don't get it yet, why do you ask for feedback if you don't want to hear it?
99% of the posters are telling you we DONT want it.
now this issue with you not installing arc then saying i have no clue... hmm. cant ask questions on it you dont know of, so that ends that line of thought.
Okay, I've been very transparent about what I have and have not done. But I'll recap.
I have not installed Arc on the old family laptop. No reason to, yet.
I have installed Arc on my new laptop, because I needed to install STO anyway. It has never once tripped up any antivirus software. MacAfee, then Avast.
I looked at the memory utilization last night, just out of curiosity. It was a bit larger than expected, but still a drop in the bucket on a machine with 8 GB RAM. If you're on one of those 4 GB budget boxes, then you can expect to have performance issues with or without Arc.
I'll even open the questions up to everyone:
Have you installed the current Arc client? Yes or no? If so, what specific problems have you seen with it?
Have you installed the new Arc client beta? Yes or no? If so, what specific problems have you seen with it?
I have seen a handful of responses from people who've actually installed it and are actively testing it. They're providing specific details. I appreciate those responses and I take them seriously.
I am not entirely dismissing reports of security software triggering an alert, but I am savvy enough to know that not all such software is created equal and that there may be a potential for false positives. If some are and some are not, then there's room for doubt in either direction.
Heuristic malware analysis is a tricky, tricky thing from what I understand. It looks for any insecure software behaviors. That could be malware, or just insecure programming practices. It can't prove intent, and it requires a security analyst who knows what they're doing to follow up and figure out what's actually happening.
If there's a positive, you're right to question it. I hope that if PWE is getting reports of their software getting flagged by heuristic analysis that they will take it seriously. It could mean that they are using insecure libraries that they need to replace with better ones. It might mean that they need to fix code that's doing something in an insecure way. It might actually be a legitimate activity that's necessary for the program to work as intended. Or it might mean that they've intentionally planted malware... but if that were ever proven they would be done as a developer, so I find this very unlikely. Unless of course, they secretly work for the NSA or unknowingly have an NSA operative on staff.
The obvious remedy is to wipe your hard drives, reinstall your OS, never ever download a PWE game or any other software, and never ever connect to the Internet ever for any reason. Then you can be certain of your security. Short of that, you gotta trust somebody at some point and that's a personal decision as to how far you do.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
BTW with no exact statement to these issues above, this programm won't get installed. Even if the consequence is that i can't play that game anylonger. Definetly not my problem if the company has such a TRIBBLE communication policy.
why are you picking specific things apart outside the context of what i written out? use it all or dont use it at all.
What I have asked for is proof. You have to pick things apart to get at the heart of the matter. it is how you reason on things. that is how you fight things like fear mongering. All I've read is baseless accusation.
Now if some one wants to sandbox arc and do tests to prove it, then I'm all for it. Again we need proof.
I am on the same boat, right now I have managed to bypass ARC to be able to play STO, but if I am forced to download the new ARC to play STO, I am quitting this game, there are a lot of new games out there and more coming.
Okay, I've been very transparent about what I have and have not done. But I'll recap.
I have not installed Arc on the old family laptop. No reason to, yet.
I have installed Arc on my new laptop, because I needed to install STO anyway. It has never once tripped up any antivirus software. MacAfee, then Avast.
I looked at the memory utilization last night, just out of curiosity. It was a bit larger than expected, but still a drop in the bucket on a machine with 8 GB RAM. If you're on one of those 4 GB budget boxes, then you can expect to have performance issues with or without Arc.
I'll even open the questions up to everyone:
Have you installed the current Arc client? Yes or no? If so, what specific problems have you seen with it?
Have you installed the new Arc client beta? Yes or no? If so, what specific problems have you seen with it?
I have seen a handful of responses from people who've actually installed it and are actively testing it. They're providing specific details. I appreciate those responses and I take them seriously.
I am not entirely dismissing reports of security software triggering an alert, but I am savvy enough to know that not all such software is created equal and that there may be a potential for false positives. If some are and some are not, then there's room for doubt in either direction.
Heuristic malware analysis is a tricky, tricky thing from what I understand. It looks for any insecure software behaviors. That could be malware, or just insecure programming practices. It can't prove intent, and it requires a security analyst who knows what they're doing to follow up and figure out what's actually happening.
If there's a positive, you're right to question it. I hope that if PWE is getting reports of their software getting flagged by heuristic analysis that they will take it seriously. It could mean that they are using insecure libraries that they need to replace with better ones. It might mean that they need to fix code that's doing something in an insecure way. It might actually be a legitimate activity that's necessary for the program to work as intended. Or it might mean that they've intentionally planted malware... but if that were ever proven they would be done as a developer, so I find this very unlikely. Unless of course, they secretly work for the NSA or unknowingly have an NSA operative on staff.
The obvious remedy is to wipe your hard drives, reinstall your OS, never ever download a PWE game or any other software, and never ever connect to the Internet ever for any reason. Then you can be certain of your security. Short of that, you gotta trust somebody at some point and that's a personal decision as to how far you do.
+1 now that is a better response. provide positives and negatives and making sure the rest of the opinions both sides are taken into account. that i like bluegeek.
and yes nothing is ever 100% certain which is my ultimate point no matter what robdmc may try to blow a hole into and miss completely. thanks for your answer. nicely done .
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
What I have asked for is proof. You have to pick things apart to get at the heart of the matter. it is how you reason on things. that is how you fight things like fear mongering. All I've read is baseless accusation.
Now if some one wants to sandbox arc and do tests to prove it, then I'm all for it. Again we need proof.
You don't need proof, you already have made your mind that you will install the new ARC and I say good for you, enjoy it, I just want the option of choosing if I want to install it or not.
If the answer is that I must install it, then my days in STO are numbered because I will not install it.
You don't need proof, you already have made your mind that you will install the new ARC and I say good for you, enjoy it, I just want the option of choosing if I want to install it or not.
If the pitch were something as honest as "If you want to keep playing STO, you must install Arc," it would be different, but we're getting some cagey tap-dancing on that point.
What tap-dancing?
They already said it was going to be non-optional for new downloads and it is.
They flat out told people they could keep using the distinct launchers for now and even told us how to do it.
They've told people that they can continue to use Steam instead if they want. They're not promising that will always be true, and frankly I'm not sure I would believe them if they did.
They've made no secret that they want to eventually integrate all of the game launchers into the Arc client.
Personally, I suspect that time is at least a year or more away from today. I further expect that the Cryptic games will be the very last games to get fully integrated into Arc. That part is just my own opinion, but I think it's a reasonable expectation.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
0
dezstravusMember, Cryptic DevelopersPosts: 2Arc User
Then why does it intrusively scan my hard-drives every time I use it? All four of them, all of my partitions?
Also, can you explain why it insists on installing browser plug-ins?
And finally, I would ask that you release the source code. No I am not trolling here. Someone is feeding Marketing a line of BS about ARC and Marketing is doing their best to sell it. However real-world experience is telling US the consumer something totally different. TOTALLY. So lets see the source code, so we can pick it apart and find out why it does the things it does.
Hey themarie,
Can you elaborate on the report regarding the hard drive scanning? Arc does check your drives to see if launchable PWE games are installed, but I'm not sure if this is the behavior you are referring to. Please share any details if anything seems amiss and I'll escalate accordingly. Alternatively, you can email us at arc_feedback@perfectworld.com.
In regards to the browser plug-in, I am currently researching that topic to find out more technical information and hope to have more info to share on this thread soon.
Can you elaborate on the report regarding the hard drive scanning? Arc does check your drives to see if launchable PWE games are installed, but I'm not sure if this is the behavior you are referring to. Please share any details if anything seems amiss and I'll escalate accordingly. Alternatively, you can email us at arc_feedback@perfectworld.com.
In regards to the browser plug-in, I am currently researching that topic to find out more technical information and hope to have more info to share on this thread soon.
~Dezstravus
If it checks my hard-drives once for PWE products that's fine. All it needs is a single runtime scan after installing. From that point forward... once ARC is integrated into my system... It should know when I install ANYTHING involving PWE. And it would be a simple matter for the program to do a checksum style test on any and all PWE products I use to determine if I'm a hacker.
Given the way it integrates into my system both of those things should be no challenge to implement.
Instead, EVERY TIME I open up Arc, all four drives light up, the system slows to a craw and stays this way for 10-15 min. All of my network functions outside of Arc/STO slow to a crawl too while ARC is running. It's doing something in the background and I have no idea what.
I'm running six cores, 32 gig of ram, 1 year old video card, Windows 7.
So what the heck is it doing if not scanning my hard-drives? And why does it usurp control of my connection and throttle everything?
You know if everyone on this thread went out and bought 100 shares of Perfect World Stock they could get together elect a spokesman and order Perfect World not to push through ARC.
I also know that a lot of STO players work for various U.S. companies. A few friends I play with do and use their own computers for both work AND to play STO.
In-fact, I'd say a lot of Star Trek fans, gravitate toward computer and technology industries.
Knowing these facts:
I ask myself where the hell is this software originating from ? Cryptic ? Or PWE ?
Who's pushing to make it mandatory and why ?
Someone's gotta be gaining something out of all this time and effort.
And I further ask myself if this software brings anything that I need, or that would enhance my personal experience. For me, so far the answer is NO.
I use in game chat, communicate with friends via teamspeak and don't play any other PWE games.
As a computer owner/user I treat every single piece of software I put on my computer as suspect and I have to way risks vs rewards before down loading anything.
I also have to utilize my computer's limited resources as wisely as I can.
We all do this. Anyone who argues in this day and age to just trust any foreign entities's software, regardless of whether they need it or not, is just plain crazy. Conspiracies schmonspiracies
NOW, If PWE were to give away free zen for using ARC.......... I'd be open to downloading
it.
You want to gather info about my system or my online activities? Fine, pay me for it.
It's really amazing that this announcement happened on the same day at both NW and STO. We have around 50 pages of ranting against Arc and they have a page and a half of complimentary comments about how convenient and cool Arc is for NW.
I wonder what explains that difference. I can't find a thread about it at CO either.
Different type of players in each of the Cryptic games. There is some crossover of course.
NW being the newest game and being a solely download only game, more of the people who play it have obviously had to do so by installing ARC. Which for them means ARC or no game.
STO and CO being older games and actually having physical discs may mean that players use those discs to install the game and have access to the launcher. So for now there is no reason to waste time or space on ARC.
As for why you can't find anything on the CO forums about ARC is because, well, no one plays CO. :P
I kid, I kid. There are a lot fewer players there though so the uproar may simply be so small it's slipping through the cracks.
My opinion on ARC is simple:
If I have to use it to start Cryptic games, fine. As long as I can shut it down after the game is launched I have next to no problem with it.
If it's something I have to keep running in the background in order for my game to stay running, *THEN* I've got a major problem. Especially if it's going to try and add things to my browser that I don't want. And from everything I'm hearing, it's sounding more like this is the route it's taking.
Now, it's still in beta and has bugs, obviously. Perhaps that's why it's setting off peoples spyware and antivirus programs. Could the program not be doing everything it's intended to be doing and perhaps doing things it's not supposed to do? Of course, otherwise they would have rolled it out by now and we'd all be using it.
Or Steam.
Either way, I'll wait until the finished product rolls out to base my final opinion on it. But, since they asked for feedback I'll give them mine below...
ARC seems like a good thing for PWE games, just not Cryptic/PWE games. Cryptic already has a unified launcher that can and does launch all 3 of their games with little trouble. I also understand PWE wants to bring all their properties under "one roof", so to speak. Allowing Cryptic games to maintain their own launcher system as well as be incorporated into ARC may be a compromise. If an individual player wants to go the ARC route they can, or if they wish to continue using the old launcher they have that option.
I know that having the launcher and ARC will never fly and PWE has spent too many resources to NOT use ARC as the one and only way to play their games, aside from Steam, currently. So once PWE feels ARC is bug free enough, they will disable the Cryptic launcher and we'll be stuck with ARC or Steam. And since Steam is an option, I will likely be headed in that direction until PWE pulls Steam support as well.
Which if they do, could raise one heck of a crapstorm.
tl;dr
I don't want ARC, Cryptic games don't need ARC and I really don't want to use ARC. If I am to chose between ARC and Steam, I'll pick Steam. And I really hate Steam. If PWE pulls support for the Cryptic games away from Steam and makes ARC the one and only way to play Cryptic games, then maybe my days of playing Cryptic games will be at an end.
Hello. My name is iamynaught and I am an altaholic.
I used ARC for a time, and uninstalled it due to performance issues. That's my stance on it. I can run STO without any major problems as long as ARC isn't on my system. I have a proper gaming rig waiting on me that can handle running ARC better, but I sill keep STO installed on this one, and will continue to use this laptop.
If ARC is forced, I could live with it, but the option needs to be made to shut it down after STO starts.
PWE should keep in mind that there are poor players of games that don't have the high-end computers required to handle running a bunch of stuff at once.
Weyland-Yutani Joint Space Venture - Always open to new members!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
My name is Rage, and I too support a revised Galaxy family.
I used ARC for a time, and uninstalled it due to performance issues. That's my stance on it. I can run STO without any major problems as long as ARC isn't on my system. I have a proper gaming rig waiting on me that can handle running ARC better, but I sill keep STO installed on this one, and will continue to use this laptop.
If ARC is forced, I could live with it, but the option needs to be made to shut it down after STO starts.
PWE should keep in mind that there are poor players of games that don't have the high-end computers required to handle running a bunch of stuff at once.
^ This
Had also serious performamnce problems while having Arc installed.
I also know that a lot of STO players work for various U.S. companies. A few friends I play with do and use their own computers for both work AND to play STO.
In-fact, I'd say a lot of Star Trek fans, gravitate toward computer and technology industries.
The report allegedly implies that Huawei and ZTE install backdoors and other mechanisms that allow them to spy on the packets traversing networks containing their gear. The reports also implies that these companies? close ties to the Chinese government mean that they would share information gleaned from their snooping with the Chinese government. Thus, buying gear from these companies is akin to letting the Chinese spy on your network traffic.
Scary stuff, but maybe I'm just putting on a tin-foil hat here, because it's fun to do so every once in awhile.
Can you elaborate on the report regarding the hard drive scanning? Arc does check your drives to see if launchable PWE games are installed, but I'm not sure if this is the behavior you are referring to. Please share any details if anything seems amiss and I'll escalate accordingly. Alternatively, you can email us at arc_feedback@perfectworld.com.
In regards to the browser plug-in, I am currently researching that topic to find out more technical information and hope to have more info to share on this thread soon.
~Dezstravus
I can confirm this, ran a cat log on Arc, Arc accessed all directories but only accessed the exe file for NW and STO, no other files where accessed, in further testing I named a blank bin file Star Trek Online.exe and it tried to access it and then discarded it.
Arc does check your drives to see if launchable PWE games are installed
No small amount unhappiness is coming from this point of operation in the software, perhaps if it were changed so it were an opt-in feature, or as a process to add PWE games manually. Perhaps it might go some small way to help alleviate concerns of "malicious" behaviour concerning the software.
Time is a funny thing; There is always too much of it. Except when you need it the most, then there is never enough.
I can confirm this, ran a cat log on Arc, Arc accessed all directories but only accessed the exe file for NW and STO, no other files where accessed, in further testing I named a blank bin file Star Trek Online.exe and it tried to access it and then discarded it.
OK now that really does need to be streamlined. Would explain a lot of resource hog reports on these forums. Especially for those who who have more complicated file structures.
Maybe a run once on install and then a manual scan after in the options.
Edit: I'm still setting up my virtual machine to do further tests. Curious to see how this interacts with mapped network drives.
When we first announced the new website and client, many of our players expressed concerns over a sudden migration to completely new technology. Since this is a very large user experience across the board, we felt that it would be more comfortable to let everyone try it all out and give feedback before it takes the place of our legacy infrastructure. Our primary goal for this beta will be to integrate improvements based on player feedback, and allow our players the chance to test out the new site before it goes live.
To be honest I have to give Cryptic credit here. They admit we have concerns about it and they are trying to give us all a chance to test Arc and give feedback on improving it and fixing bugs and whatnot.
If 2013 was any indication, Cryptic has shown they are taking feedback into consideration much more often now as there are a lot of various things in the game that they have added and/or improved upon based on what we told them.
Lobi Crystals made account bound finally a while back. If that doesn't say "Cryptic is listening", I don't know what does. lol :P
Comments
I have played many PWE games and this does not take me by surprise.
Let me know how that works for you. I've been wondering how Microsoft does it too. They have yet to release their source code for windows 8 and I want to know.
Other then distrust, do you have proof?
why are you picking specific things apart outside the context of what i written out? use it all or dont use it at all.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Do you really expect an answer? :rolleyes: These questions have been asked a couple of times on this thread, without a single answer. While the torrent question is anwered over and over again, those questions like yours have been ignored for about ~49 pages.
In fact this already is a kind of answer as well....
Indeed like my question why I cannot have the choice to say I don't want to use it or I want to use it. Why I am forced to use ARC?
One thing I don't get it yet, why do you ask for feedback if you don't want to hear it?
99% of the posters are telling you we DONT want it.
Okay, I've been very transparent about what I have and have not done. But I'll recap.
I have not installed Arc on the old family laptop. No reason to, yet.
I have installed Arc on my new laptop, because I needed to install STO anyway. It has never once tripped up any antivirus software. MacAfee, then Avast.
I looked at the memory utilization last night, just out of curiosity. It was a bit larger than expected, but still a drop in the bucket on a machine with 8 GB RAM. If you're on one of those 4 GB budget boxes, then you can expect to have performance issues with or without Arc.
I'll even open the questions up to everyone:
Have you installed the current Arc client? Yes or no? If so, what specific problems have you seen with it?
Have you installed the new Arc client beta? Yes or no? If so, what specific problems have you seen with it?
I have seen a handful of responses from people who've actually installed it and are actively testing it. They're providing specific details. I appreciate those responses and I take them seriously.
I am not entirely dismissing reports of security software triggering an alert, but I am savvy enough to know that not all such software is created equal and that there may be a potential for false positives. If some are and some are not, then there's room for doubt in either direction.
Heuristic malware analysis is a tricky, tricky thing from what I understand. It looks for any insecure software behaviors. That could be malware, or just insecure programming practices. It can't prove intent, and it requires a security analyst who knows what they're doing to follow up and figure out what's actually happening.
If there's a positive, you're right to question it. I hope that if PWE is getting reports of their software getting flagged by heuristic analysis that they will take it seriously. It could mean that they are using insecure libraries that they need to replace with better ones. It might mean that they need to fix code that's doing something in an insecure way. It might actually be a legitimate activity that's necessary for the program to work as intended. Or it might mean that they've intentionally planted malware... but if that were ever proven they would be done as a developer, so I find this very unlikely. Unless of course, they secretly work for the NSA or unknowingly have an NSA operative on staff.
The obvious remedy is to wipe your hard drives, reinstall your OS, never ever download a PWE game or any other software, and never ever connect to the Internet ever for any reason. Then you can be certain of your security. Short of that, you gotta trust somebody at some point and that's a personal decision as to how far you do.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
A lot of others think the same.
What I have asked for is proof. You have to pick things apart to get at the heart of the matter. it is how you reason on things. that is how you fight things like fear mongering. All I've read is baseless accusation.
Now if some one wants to sandbox arc and do tests to prove it, then I'm all for it. Again we need proof.
+1 now that is a better response. provide positives and negatives and making sure the rest of the opinions both sides are taken into account. that i like bluegeek.
and yes nothing is ever 100% certain which is my ultimate point no matter what robdmc may try to blow a hole into and miss completely. thanks for your answer. nicely done
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
You don't need proof, you already have made your mind that you will install the new ARC and I say good for you, enjoy it, I just want the option of choosing if I want to install it or not.
If the answer is that I must install it, then my days in STO are numbered because I will not install it.
I never said I'm installing arc.
What tap-dancing?
They already said it was going to be non-optional for new downloads and it is.
They flat out told people they could keep using the distinct launchers for now and even told us how to do it.
They've told people that they can continue to use Steam instead if they want. They're not promising that will always be true, and frankly I'm not sure I would believe them if they did.
They've made no secret that they want to eventually integrate all of the game launchers into the Arc client.
Personally, I suspect that time is at least a year or more away from today. I further expect that the Cryptic games will be the very last games to get fully integrated into Arc. That part is just my own opinion, but I think it's a reasonable expectation.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Hey themarie,
Can you elaborate on the report regarding the hard drive scanning? Arc does check your drives to see if launchable PWE games are installed, but I'm not sure if this is the behavior you are referring to. Please share any details if anything seems amiss and I'll escalate accordingly. Alternatively, you can email us at arc_feedback@perfectworld.com.
In regards to the browser plug-in, I am currently researching that topic to find out more technical information and hope to have more info to share on this thread soon.
~Dezstravus
Can you please assure us that this is the ONLY reason for such a scan?
If it checks my hard-drives once for PWE products that's fine. All it needs is a single runtime scan after installing. From that point forward... once ARC is integrated into my system... It should know when I install ANYTHING involving PWE. And it would be a simple matter for the program to do a checksum style test on any and all PWE products I use to determine if I'm a hacker.
Given the way it integrates into my system both of those things should be no challenge to implement.
Instead, EVERY TIME I open up Arc, all four drives light up, the system slows to a craw and stays this way for 10-15 min. All of my network functions outside of Arc/STO slow to a crawl too while ARC is running. It's doing something in the background and I have no idea what.
I'm running six cores, 32 gig of ram, 1 year old video card, Windows 7.
So what the heck is it doing if not scanning my hard-drives? And why does it usurp control of my connection and throttle everything?
http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/11/14369266-officials-say-chinese-spies-have-targeted-every-sector-of-the-us-economy?lite
http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/Huawei-ZTE%20Investigative%20Report%20(FINAL).pdf
I also know that a lot of STO players work for various U.S. companies. A few friends I play with do and use their own computers for both work AND to play STO.
In-fact, I'd say a lot of Star Trek fans, gravitate toward computer and technology industries.
Knowing these facts:
I ask myself where the hell is this software originating from ? Cryptic ? Or PWE ?
Who's pushing to make it mandatory and why ?
Someone's gotta be gaining something out of all this time and effort.
And I further ask myself if this software brings anything that I need, or that would enhance my personal experience. For me, so far the answer is NO.
I use in game chat, communicate with friends via teamspeak and don't play any other PWE games.
As a computer owner/user I treat every single piece of software I put on my computer as suspect and I have to way risks vs rewards before down loading anything.
I also have to utilize my computer's limited resources as wisely as I can.
We all do this. Anyone who argues in this day and age to just trust any foreign entities's software, regardless of whether they need it or not, is just plain crazy. Conspiracies schmonspiracies
NOW, If PWE were to give away free zen for using ARC.......... I'd be open to downloading
it.
You want to gather info about my system or my online activities? Fine, pay me for it.
Different type of players in each of the Cryptic games. There is some crossover of course.
NW being the newest game and being a solely download only game, more of the people who play it have obviously had to do so by installing ARC. Which for them means ARC or no game.
STO and CO being older games and actually having physical discs may mean that players use those discs to install the game and have access to the launcher. So for now there is no reason to waste time or space on ARC.
As for why you can't find anything on the CO forums about ARC is because, well, no one plays CO. :P
I kid, I kid. There are a lot fewer players there though so the uproar may simply be so small it's slipping through the cracks.
My opinion on ARC is simple:
If I have to use it to start Cryptic games, fine. As long as I can shut it down after the game is launched I have next to no problem with it.
If it's something I have to keep running in the background in order for my game to stay running, *THEN* I've got a major problem. Especially if it's going to try and add things to my browser that I don't want. And from everything I'm hearing, it's sounding more like this is the route it's taking.
Now, it's still in beta and has bugs, obviously. Perhaps that's why it's setting off peoples spyware and antivirus programs. Could the program not be doing everything it's intended to be doing and perhaps doing things it's not supposed to do? Of course, otherwise they would have rolled it out by now and we'd all be using it.
Or Steam.
Either way, I'll wait until the finished product rolls out to base my final opinion on it. But, since they asked for feedback I'll give them mine below...
ARC seems like a good thing for PWE games, just not Cryptic/PWE games. Cryptic already has a unified launcher that can and does launch all 3 of their games with little trouble. I also understand PWE wants to bring all their properties under "one roof", so to speak. Allowing Cryptic games to maintain their own launcher system as well as be incorporated into ARC may be a compromise. If an individual player wants to go the ARC route they can, or if they wish to continue using the old launcher they have that option.
I know that having the launcher and ARC will never fly and PWE has spent too many resources to NOT use ARC as the one and only way to play their games, aside from Steam, currently. So once PWE feels ARC is bug free enough, they will disable the Cryptic launcher and we'll be stuck with ARC or Steam. And since Steam is an option, I will likely be headed in that direction until PWE pulls Steam support as well.
Which if they do, could raise one heck of a crapstorm.
tl;dr
I don't want ARC, Cryptic games don't need ARC and I really don't want to use ARC. If I am to chose between ARC and Steam, I'll pick Steam. And I really hate Steam. If PWE pulls support for the Cryptic games away from Steam and makes ARC the one and only way to play Cryptic games, then maybe my days of playing Cryptic games will be at an end.
Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.
If ARC is forced, I could live with it, but the option needs to be made to shut it down after STO starts.
PWE should keep in mind that there are poor players of games that don't have the high-end computers required to handle running a bunch of stuff at once.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
My name is Rage, and I too support a revised Galaxy family.
Are you familiar with resource monitor in windows 7? It has some interesting filters that might help show them what is happening.
http://i.imgur.com/JPwRhgw.png
http://i.imgur.com/22qG77f.png
^ This
Had also serious performamnce problems while having Arc installed.
It seems it's not that uncommon:
Scary stuff, but maybe I'm just putting on a tin-foil hat here, because it's fun to do so every once in awhile.
You'll see one day, someone will discover that the whole arc is actually a ninja bitcoin miningtool, distributed on millions of computers... :eek:
I can confirm this, ran a cat log on Arc, Arc accessed all directories but only accessed the exe file for NW and STO, no other files where accessed, in further testing I named a blank bin file Star Trek Online.exe and it tried to access it and then discarded it.
No small amount unhappiness is coming from this point of operation in the software, perhaps if it were changed so it were an opt-in feature, or as a process to add PWE games manually. Perhaps it might go some small way to help alleviate concerns of "malicious" behaviour concerning the software.
OK now that really does need to be streamlined. Would explain a lot of resource hog reports on these forums. Especially for those who who have more complicated file structures.
Maybe a run once on install and then a manual scan after in the options.
Edit: I'm still setting up my virtual machine to do further tests. Curious to see how this interacts with mapped network drives.
To be honest I have to give Cryptic credit here. They admit we have concerns about it and they are trying to give us all a chance to test Arc and give feedback on improving it and fixing bugs and whatnot.
If 2013 was any indication, Cryptic has shown they are taking feedback into consideration much more often now as there are a lot of various things in the game that they have added and/or improved upon based on what we told them.
Lobi Crystals made account bound finally a while back. If that doesn't say "Cryptic is listening", I don't know what does. lol :P