So as not to disrupt the ecosystem of their microtransaction boosters for weapons and XP made available in the cash shop for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Ubisoft will be sanctioning gamers who attempt to farm XP using the game’s Story Creator utility.

Back on June 11th, 2019 Ubisoft made a thread on the Ubisoft forums informing the community that they would be sanctioning gamers who exploited the ability to farm XP using the Story Creator in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.

The community manager wrote…

“Story Creator Mode was designed to be a tool for players to let their creativity and imagination run free as they build their very own Stories to share with others, using a modified version of the tools our own designers used to develop the quests in the game. However, since the launch of the beta we have noticed an increasing flow of “farming quests,” that exploit the tool to get large amounts of XP. These exploits risk jeopardizing the overall quality, integrity, and purpose of Story Creator Mode and results in less visibility for the creative, interesting and frankly fantastic community stories that have been published. “We want to focus on rewarding creativity by highlighting quality quests and we are working on fixes and adjustments to reduce the impact of such farming quests on the player experience. We are also changing Story Creator Mode’s terms of use to prevent creators from publishing these kinds of Stories.”

Obviously this makes no sense for a single-player game.

Who cares if people want to exploit the Story Creator to make quests where you just farm XP? They paid for the game and if they want to dick around, let them dick around.

However, the reason Ubisoft wants to prevent people from stockpiling XP quickly is due to microtransactions.

GamesIndustry.biz points out that this move from Ubisoft to sanction players is not without a financially motivated purpose, with the article detailing that there are XP boosts and higher grade weapons available from the cash shop for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. In other words, if players are creating stories that allow you to quickly farm XP, you have no reason to purchase the XP boosters from the cash shop using real money.

As noted in the forum post, Ubisoft will be sanctioning players who use the Story Creator to design missions themed around farming XP, with the post concluding…

“We are working on the following fixes and adjustments to reduce the impact of such farming quests on the player experience, shifting the focus back to the tool’s intended design and use – as well as actively combatting exploits moving forward: “XP farming quests will not appear in our automatic recommendation system – this includes the Hall of Fame and the trending section. “Stories that are reported for exploitation or cheating will be hidden moving forward. “Our terms of use will be updated to reflect the misuse of the tool. “We will be sanctioning those who continue to willingly and intentionally misuse the tool. “Implement further solutions with upcoming title updates. We will share more information as we near these updates.”

So you can’t even have fun the way you want to. That’s what live services bring to the table and what the “all digital future” entails; corporate overwatch on everything you do, preventing you from making simple levels or quests to overcome the purposeful grind that companies implemented into their bloated AAA titles in order to goad you into spending real money to buy boosters so you don’t have to play their game as much.

To reluctantly quote Jim Sterling, “You’re paying not to play”.

It’s a ridiculous notion as far as the concept of gaming is concerned, but it’s how business works. And if Ubisoft can squeeze a few coins out of your cotton crotch coverings so you can pay them not to have to play their annoying game, then by gosh that’s exactly what they will do.

In this particular case, gamers looking to create quick ways to gain XP will be punished for doing so. I mean, really, why would Ubisoft allow you to bypass their insufferable grind when you can pay them to do so?

(Main image courtesy of Agent Max)