Reaction To Diablo 3's Always-Online Requirement 591
Last week we discussed news that Diablo 3 will include a real-money auction house for items and require a permanent connection to the internet even for single-player games. Fan reaction has been loud and varied, with many decrying the restrictive DRM. Blizzard exec Robert Bridenbecker said he was surprised by the outrage at the online requirement, saying, "it really is just the nature of how things are going, the nature of the industry. When you look at everything you get by having that persistent connection on the servers, you cannot ignore the power and the draw of that." Some other developers came out in support of the scheme; id Software's Tim Willits said always-on would be "better for everybody" in the end. Max Schaefer, one of the makers of Diablo 3 competitor Torchlight 2, said he understands why they did it, even though Torchlight 2 is not doing the same: "... it seems that most of what they are doing is related to trying to keep a truly secure, cheat-free economy in Diablo III. Whatever you do, you have to make sacrifices. We sacrifice a cheat-free environment to give players the most options, they are sacrificing options and flexibility for security of the economy like you would in an MMO. I understand their approach and sympathize with the technical difficulties of what they are trying to do."
Single Player? (Score:3, Interesting)
it seems that most of what they are doing is related to trying to keep a truly secure, cheat-free economy in Diablo III
Could someone explain how a SINGLE player game would affect the economy of the ONLINE game?
The only possible reason for this is that they intend to let you buy items for your single player game from the Auction House.
As shown with Ubisoft games, it probably won't take long for the hackers to break the DRM and post the "clean" version on torrent sites. Which means that for those who have no interest playing online, once again the pirated version would be superior to the paid version as you could play anywhere.
Ironic.
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Could someone explain how a SINGLE player game would affect the economy of the ONLINE game?
no, because it's impossible. Bullshit excuse is just that, a bullshit excuse.
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The only possible reason for this is that they intend to let you buy items for your single player game from the Auction House.
You answered your own question.
No doubt the connection isn't just going to be a persistent online check. They're likely going to tie in drops, character, and inventory to the server instead of the client, so the concept of a patched offline version seems more like a pipe dream. If they control the generation and storage of items, they don't need to worry as much about people hacking in items and then trying to sell them.
Single Player Cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to a single player game, who cares if I cheat? If the game gets hard in a place, I have nothing against cheating. I can't stand endless grinding in single player RPGs so I cheat. If anything, I would rather have games that make it so I do not need to cheat. Batman: Arkham Asylum was, for me, the perfect game. There was no grinding, no real difficulty spikes, and never did I feel that any boss or puzzle was impossible.
For multiplayer, fine. put cheat detection, require Battle.NET, whatever. If I am playing with other people I want to feel that the games are fair. But don't restrict what I can do on single player. If what I do in single player impacts multiplayer so much that it requires these kind of measures, then that is just plain bad game design. Also, until I have broadband internet access everywhere I take my laptop, constant internet requirements are going to guarantee I will not buy the game.
Re:Single Player Cheating (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Single Player Cheating (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Single Player Cheating (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a design change that Blizzard choose to make.
Diablo II had PVP but there was still a difference between the online multiplayer character (battle.net) and the local character (single player/lan play). If you wanted cheat protections you played on battle.net, you're character was hosted on their servers and you had to have an active internet connection to play. If you wanted to play locally or just lan play with your friends you could use a non-battle.net character but you'd lose cheat protection.
You could never mix non-battle.net and battle.net characters so the only people affected by character or equipment edits were you and friends on your lan.
So Blizzard removes all that non-battle.net functionality in diablo III and tries to sell it as an improvement. And they wonder why there's a backlash...
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If the game gets hard in a place, I have nothing against cheating.
L.A. Noire did a pretty good job handling that, I thought. If you failed 3 times at a physical challenge (a car chase or whatever), it gave you the option of skipping that section. I tried to avoid it, but I did use it once--in that section where you're on the swaying platform of the movie set and have to balance it to get across. Fuck that noise, I'm playing L.A. Noire, not Uncharted.
Now some might complain that this makes it too easy. To them I say:
1) You don't HAVE to use it. Feel free to set the game to
Re:Single Player Cheating (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares if you cheat in a single player game? Blizzard does. They care because they want to sell you those cheats for real money in their new auction house, and if you can cheat for free then you're not paying them to do it.
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I believe that it is a bad design choice. However, as someone posted above, a compromise to that would be to give an option when you create a character to have it be an online or offline character. Choose offline, and you can play the game without the anti-cheat constant connection requirement but without all the advantages that come with it. That way, those who want the online stuff can have it, those who want to play the game offline still can.
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not about the economy (Score:5, Informative)
This is not about the economy. If it was, they would do the same thing they did for diablo ii. Local games were not part of the economy. Battle.net games were. There's no reason they couldn't do the same thing for Diablo III. Unless their real purpose is preventing piracy.
I'm having a LAN party in September. Starcraft II is not on the game list. Starcraft: Brood War is. I own Starcraft II, but not everyone coming does. They would all buy it if it allowed LAN play. As it is, we will be content playing Starcraft, Unreal Tournament Classic, and Terraria.
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Casual LAN copyright infringement is still copyright infringement. I've done it, too, but I'm not going to try and claim it as some kind of right. I was playing games I didn't pay for. If companies come up with effective DRM that prevents me from casually pirating their game at a LAN, then guess what? I'm not going to casually pirate their game at a LAN. And if it's a particularly good game, if I want to play it at a LAN with my friends, then I will buy it.
The GP was not suggesting infringement.
Two points - first, he said his friends wouldn't buy SC2 (nor will I) because of no-LAN, always online nonsense, but that they all owned SC1. Second - and more relevant - SC1 had that AWESOME feature that let you set up a friend with their own secondary install. I forget what it was called, but you could join any LAN game as long as someone with a full copy created the game. No infringement, user-friendly design.
I like WoW, for what it is. I don't have a problem with
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Diablo piracy?? (Score:2)
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The thinking is that pirates have a very short attention span. Most pirates are (theoretically) uninterested in playing games that are months old; if you can keep the game secure for a month or two, then the DRM has justified itself. The people who were sitting on the fence will purchase the game, rather than pirating it, and the people who would have been freeloading are kept off your servers, reducing your operating costs.
Does it really work out that way, in real life? Who knows. But the MBAs really a
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single player was available right off the bat in warezed sc2, you are talking about bnet emulation that allows for lan play.
Being tracked (Score:3)
If I could sound sincere, I think I may almost have a decent point with this one. - Think of the planet [i don't]. How many extra tons of CO2 does this extra level of DRM cost our world? Every cpu in use and telephony item between here the there - needlessly used. Scale that up to millions of people worldwide
It's keeping me from buying it (Score:2)
I just won't get it or play it. I recently got a refund on a Ubisoft game because of their "always on" DRM. I haven't bought StarCraft either, since I heard it has a similar requirement. I really don't care if Diablo III has a multiplayer component at all, since I'd never play it online in the first place. Developers are free to design their games as they wish, and consumers are free to vote with their wallets. I played all the previous Diablo games and expansion packs, and was really looking forward t
I'm not always online (Score:5, Interesting)
My PC isn't always connected to the net - its a little hard to get a decent connection when you're out at sea. So I don't buy "always connected" games. Which is a shame, because there are some great single player games out there which have been crippled by needing a permanent net connection.
It was on my list of games to get - as I loved the previous Diablo games, but if they're going to cripple single player with online DRM then I'm out.
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What about a satellite connection? Could that work? Since all you need is a network connection, the latency shouldn't really be a problem.
Yeah, it sucks that they're using this online DRM, but there'll probably be some sort of crack, eventually. No DRM scheme is totally unbreakable. Anyway, there's always classic Diablo, plus the Diablo clones: Sacred and Sacred 2 were both pretty decent, though they both have pretty strong DRM, as well.
Re:I'm not always online (Score:5, Funny)
Out to sea...?
*Gasps*
Pirate!
Solution: (Score:2)
Time to say goodbye to Diablo (Score:3)
Sorry Blizzard, but you will not get money from me this time.
bye bye, then... (Score:5)
No singleplayer offline?
no money from me, then...
I don't really have a lack of connection options, I work for an ISP, I have broadband, I have 3G dongle I can use in my laptop, I even have a 'Droid phone i can get data through, should i have forgotten my 3G dongle...
Heck, in about a 1/3 of the commuter trains there's free wifi!
Don't change a thing.
Blizzard's bad gamedesign/need to snoop on my gaming sessions/me finding myself in an area without coverage is going to ensure that i will 'vote with my dollar' so to speak, and my vote goes to the company that makes a game playable for me, where ever I am.
If I choose to do a 'Kaczynski' and do my singleplayer gaming from a remote cabin in Wisconsin, it's my choice, not Blizzards.
Selling the milk instead of the cow. (Score:2)
Power companies don't sell you generators, wind turbines, solar panels, etc., they sell you power. After all, why make a handful of sales to you when they can keep selling you power every day, ad infinitum?
The Web is evolving, (or devolving), into the same model, with games such as Diablo 3, other cloud services, OS's that need to 'phone home' to function, etc. Sure, ISP's have always enjoyed the benefits of this way of doing business, but now other businesses are finding similar ways to cash in.
I don't lik
Ubisoft (Score:3)
Slightly offtopic, but at the end of TFA: "Last month Ubisoft said its strategy had resulted in "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection, and from that point of view the requirement is a success".".
Did Ubisoft also increase profit, or did it only reduce piracy?
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Seeing the source, my money is on "neither".
More bullshit from a bullshit artist. It's an industry wide epidemic. Thank God for indie games and the rise of F2P...
I'll subscribe to Torchlight 2 dev's newsletter (Score:4, Interesting)
DNRTFA
Now the developer for Torchlight 2 has given a clear and measured response that I can literally buy in to. Blizzard simply believes they are protecting the customer. For most customers this may work just fine, but I apparently am not like "most customers." Regularly I make trips to the in-laws up in the most remote part of Idaho. My father-in-law still uses dialup for his infrequent E-bay purchases and cattle futures report. When I travel to my in-laws, this is precisely the environment where I need a long single-player campaign that does not need a constant on-line connection. The original Torchlight kept me sane and entertained for hours while I avoided conflict with "the other side" of the family. It seems this will also be true for Torchlight 2, thus I will very likely buy the game - simply to preserve what's left of my sanity.
Diablo 3, not so much. I'm not one to spend money on a second game when the first still needs to be thoroughly played.
Now, I'm pretty certain Blizzard does not care about my lonely little circumstance. That's fine by me, I don't care much about their game if it appears to be unusable to me. I just hope developers like Torchlight continue to provide an awesome alternative, otherwise my money will go unspent - at least until I am committed to the asylum. Then it will be spent for white coats and medication. O_o
H0ek
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Blizzard simply believes they are protecting the customer.
You're not actually naive enough to believe that, are you? Blizzard simply believes they are protecting their bottom line, and fuck their customers if they have a problem with it.
all about the $$ (Score:4, Interesting)
It's really about the greed. the DRM is really *NOT* for piracy. honestly i dont think blizzard gives a flip about piracy, a major component of the game is online multiplayer. games like that have been hard to pirate back in the D2 days if your key wasn't legit bnet would kick you out. sure you could use a keygen for single player but online wouldn't accept the key.
this really stems from the micro trans shop. blizzard knows a lot of people like to start with single player to get a feel for a game before jumping in. they want you to be able to transition your SP character to a MP character and buy crap from their store to support that character.
personally i knew it was going to be like this last year when i didn't buy starcraft 2 because of their DRM bullshit. now i won't be buying D3. the saddest part is how completely unnecessary it is. they could easily secure a healthy online economy with old school cd keys and leave the single player alone and even offer lan or open bnet.
and offline SP isn't just about gaming in the middle of nowhere, i like to cheat in SP sometimes. i downloaded hacked lvl99 D2 characters just for shits in giggles an had a few hours fun obliterating the game and testing various builds to see which one i wanted to shoot for online.
Blizzard Can Blow Me (Score:3)
HAHAHAHAHA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Blizzard exec Robert Bridenbecker said he was surprised by the outrage at the online requirement
Then he's lying or he's had his head shoved up his ass for the last 5-10 years. The response to "always on" DRM has been almost universally negative. It indicates just how out of touch these guys are with the market and their potential customers.
"it really is just the nature of how things are going, the nature of the industry. When you look at everything you get by having that persistent connection on the servers, you cannot ignore the power and the draw of that."
Yup. You get a game who's very playability depends on a fragile authentication system that may not always be there. If either side has any connectivity or stability problems *POOF* no game! You have a customer that is completely unable to play the game they paid for. Bravo! Bravo! Monetizing downtime!
Some other developers came out in support of the scheme; id Software's Tim Willits said always-on would be "better for everybody" in the end.
HOW? Because it kills the secondary market? How is being absolutely dependent on an auth server EVEN FOR SINGLE PLAYER MODE good for the consumer? How is being unable to resell old games good for the consumer? What Timmy is saying here is it's "better for everybody who's a game publisher".
I want more than ten characters! (Score:3)
I'm surprised that more people aren't complaining about the limit on purely-offline, single-player characters. (I.e., you can't have any, and can have only ten online characters at a time, even if they never see any multiplayer.) It's enough to keep me from buying the game. I'm a chronic altitis [tvtropes.org] sufferer and I won't be able to relax and enjoy the game if I know I'm tapping a finite resource when I click the "New Game" button. Even if the game is good—especially if it's good—I'd rather avoid the temptation to get invested and be all the more be frustrated when I eventually hit the ten-character limit. Better to just play Diablo II and Torchlight instead.
And by the way, the game will still be cracked.
Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, there are some situations where you cannot connect to internet, but it's really in minority.
You probably wouldn't say that if you loved in a remote location. For some people connecting to the internet means driving to a wifi-enabled cafe or buying a satellite connection, i.e. the majority of situations they can't connect.
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You probably wouldn't say that if you loved in a remote location...
I've loved in what I thought was a remote location, but apparently behind the sand bunker on the 17th isn't remote enough.
I'm before the judge on Tuesday :o(
Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps those people are not the target market for this game, then?
Well - obviously not. But should they be denied the ability to play the game? How much further would you take it - if the next generation of Windows required to be on line would it be fair to remove their computers?
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Duh, obviously anyone that is not constantly connected to the Internet is a dirty pirate and deserves to have their house raided at 3am by SWAT for stealing bits.
Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in a mid sized city in new york state. My time warner cable connection drops randomly, several times a week, forcing me to reload and reenter things like forms(slashdot posts). It is saturatedand Time warner is cheap. I dont have an always on connection so now i cant play diablo III except for early in the morning.
Cable connectioms across the country arent stable enough leaving 100 million potentioal users in the dirt.
How about servicemen in afgahnistan? Or on deployment on ships? They cant play it either. They cant even play Starcraft againist each other in their down time.
Assuming an always on connection is always wrong.
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Did you not read my post? I have an always on connection from a major ISP. It isnt always on. At work all of our branches across upstate NY use Time Warner business class and guess what once a week one of the branches loses their connection for 2-4 hours shutting down that branch. We use VOIP phones, VPN to corporate, lose TW shuts down the branch from working. If businesses dont have a reliable always on connection then why are you ignorant that home users do?
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Diablo isnt a resource intensive game like WOW isnt any laptop made in the last 5 years should run it just fine.
Assuming a stable always on connection that will put users over their bandwidth caps is assinine. It isnt needed to play the game.
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Re:It seems good (Score:4, Informative)
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The significant difference is that it is a system requirement that does not need to be there. Having a particular video card is essential for computer to actually run the game whereas an internet connection active on a single player campaign is not (especially if its only purpose is increased DRM). Now if Blizzard decided to stream content to the game and have unique quests (or other elements) popping up in-game during different days, THEN such a connection would be justified as you would otherwise lose acc
Re:It seems good (Score:4, Interesting)
I know graphics cards can be a bit pricey, however, a new graphics card rarely requires that you change jobs and move to a part of the country with better Internet access.
I wouldn't be affected by the problem of an Inadequate Internet connection, mine was good enough to play WoW (and go on 40 man raids), but I won't be buying Diablo 3 (I own a copy of both Diablo and Diablo 2). Frankly, I probably wouldn't have bought it anyway, but this always on restriction validates my decision. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned the Blizzard that produced the games that I used to love is dead. It died shortly after it sold out to Vivendi.
Re:It seems good (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it died when those shitheaded SOB's at Activision bought Vivendi and created "Activision/Blizzard."
The "Always-On Requirement" is the kind of shit that comes out of the heads of the PHB-style suits who've been running franchise after franchise into the ground over at Activision.
As for "Who would want to play single player"? ME. I don't really care too much about the "multiplayer experience." I'll play the game on my own and that's fine.
Moving on up, you have people with ridiculously throttled connections. You have people who are living in remote locations who don't have consistent connections (a friend of mine is an oilfield services engineer, trust me, you don't get shit for a connection when you are out on a rig). You have people who are traveling on a laptop and don't have a free wi-fi connection nearby. You have servicemen and women in the armed forces. You have people who may have an "always-on" service but are in one of those fringe areas where TW, Cox, Comcast, etc don't give a crap about service and take weeks to repair any problems.
There are too many reasons NOT to do what Blizzard did and I hope they get a rude awakening at the sales counter. Every copy of Diablo 3 should have a 5-inch fucking sticker added to the front labeled with "NO SINGLE PLAYER. FUCK YOU. SIGNED BLIZZARD."
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I really don't understand all the hoo-ha - maybe the people who don't have a reliable net connection should buy one of the MYRIAD of competing products which don't have that requirement?
There is no competing product for sale. Blizzard has a monopoly on Diablo 3. Other games in the same genre are not going to be nearly as good.
Fortunately, the pirate option remains.
Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of the things blizzard is doing this move is needed to help stave of some serious issue that can arise with RMT. I think they are bold for doing this and it makes sense why they would. In this iteration of the series SP has taken a backseat, especially given the popularity of MP in D2.
No, it doesn't make sense. I can respect the desire to avoid cheating and to emphasize solid MP gameplay. But from a technical perspective, how hard would it be to give you a choice of local or server storage for your character at the beginning of a single player game? If you choose server storage, you need an Internet connection and you can use that character in online games. If you choose local storage, no connection required but that character can only be used for single-player games.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. It is not aimed at those who have trouble with the internet. Your troubles with the internet does not supersede the design and direction of the game.
Of course I have the option of not buying it. I also have the option of bitching about a stupid requirement to play a game. My bitching is not aimed at players who see no problem with the requirement. It's aimed at Blizzard, to let them know why I won't be a customer for this game. Your irritation with my bitching doesn't supersede my right to bitch or to let Blizzard know that they have potential customers who are not actual customers because of this decision. If you don't like my bitching, don't read/listen to it.
For what it's worth, my perspective is influenced by serving twenty years in the US Navy. When you're stuck for six months on a ship at sea with no personal Internet connection possible, games become a great way to pass the time. As more and more games make an Internet connection a requirement for playing even single player games, it'll soon get to the point where you aren't choosing to not purchase a particular game but are being forced to give up gaming entirely.
Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps those people are not the target market for this game, then?
Yeah fuck them! How dare they play games when they don't even have internet.
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What about Linux support? Blizzard ports all their games to the Mac, but they've expressed absolutely no interest in porting to Linux. Are they fucking over the Linux users? Or are the Linux users just not in the demographic that they're shooting for?
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They don't port to the Mac, they simultaneously develop the Windows and Mac versions side by side as they always have done since the early days.
There has been much talk about a Linux WoW client over the years, and I believe they had some internal builds for testing, but ultimately it's a marketshare problem that is further compounded because you can get their games to run in Wine. Linux gaming is where Mac gaming was several years ago - some dedicated developers who release on the platform (and do more than
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Good economy only applies to multi-player. If you don't care about multi-player and just want to play single-player, then there shouldn't be the restriction for being online. It wouldn't be difficult to make it so multi-player is always online while single-player can be offline.
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less fun? what separate offline single player has to do with fun people have on bnet? oh, that's right - nothing.
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You don't complain about lack of single player in MMO games either, do you?
No, but Diablo III isn't an MMO. If they wanted to make it an MMO, they should have just done that. Instead it seems like they want to make a half-assed Single-Player/MMO-ish hybrid.
I can't wait until the Chinese gold farmers descend upon Diablo 3, though. That's definitely gonna make for an awesome online experience for the rest of us
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It motivates people to get online and play within the economy and the world. You don't play MMO's as single player either, Blizzard has obviously designed the game more like an MMO than a traditional game. You don't complain about lack of single player in MMO games either, do you?
And my answer is: fuck you. I don't WANT to "get online and play within the economy."
I don't want to be online and have a bunch of 6-year-olds shouting "gay" and "fag" in my game. If I wanted to do that, I'd get on Xbox Live. Hell, even when I played City of Heroes I played mostly with the sound turned off and my stereo on in the background, and I only opened a chat channel long enough to look for a group. There was always some asshole on there, usually connected to a griefer guild set up by some weirdo nam
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Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa there. Now you've made the jump to always online DRM making the game a more fun gaming experience? I have played Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 and I can't think of a single reason that turning it into yet another shitty MMO is going to make it a "more fun gaming experience". We have a long history showing that whenever a major change is made to a game just so that a more-restrictive DRM scheme could be implemented it has never, ever made the game better. Do you really believe that the online and "MMO-like" elements of Diablo 3 were added first or do you think they added them strictly because they're looking for a way to add DRM? What are the odds that an element added for that reason is going to actually make a game better?
No BS, friend, who do you work for?
Re:It seems good (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoa there. Now you've made the jump to always online DRM making the game a more fun gaming experience? I have played Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 and I can't think of a single reason that turning it into yet another shitty MMO is going to make it a "more fun gaming experience". We have a long history showing that whenever a major change is made to a game just so that a more-restrictive DRM scheme could be implemented it has never, ever made the game better. Do you really believe that the online and "MMO-like" elements of Diablo 3 were added first or do you think they added them strictly because they're looking for a way to add DRM? What are the odds that an element added for that reason is going to actually make a game better?
No BS, friend, who do you work for?
I'm on the verge of thinking that you're falling the other way in the argument, in automatically assuming a malicious motive for adding this stuff.
It can entirely be that there is a synergy. They want to enhance the game (which I will grant, always-online can add some really cool enhancements to the regular gameplace) but that's the point, these are enhancements and should thusly not be mandatory. Sure, my X-Box 360 does some really cool things when it's online... but when it's offline, at least I can still play my games.
The problem is that they want to add this always-on draconian DRM, and using "enhancements as mandatory" to justify it. YES, provide cool online enhancements, and sure, require always-on DRM to use those online enhancements, but there is not a single enhancement in that group that justifies making it mandatory for playing it single player.
Not even "preventing cheating" is a good enough reason to remove all ability at single player offline play. I'm not playing with anyone else after all.
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Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
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People like myself, who buy lots of video games and have always bought their products are apparently not their target market.
Fine with me. I'm sick of all this DRM stuff. I'll just have to find a more meaningful use of my money then buying video games.
That's their right, so I won't complain about it anymore. I just wanted to let them know that I was going to buy diablo 3. I don't like the direction their company is headed, I won't be buying their products.
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People are going to buy a game. Are you saying "tough shit you can't play it?" due to having a spotty connection? You just cut off approximately 50% of the market *AND* gave them a reason to pirate the game: so that they can play it at all.
Welcome to "why piracy exists 101". It's not "to get shit for free" it's to be able to use something they purchased in the way they intended.
Re:It seems good (Score:4, Insightful)
In 80 years I'll still be able to play a lot of games, but no game with online drm will be playable then. So it's a time limited rental. And if that is the case, the price should reflect that.
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Blizzard seems to be good at removing DRM with patches when they begin to stop support for it. Looking at Diablo 2 which used to required the CD to be loaded had that removed some time ago. I would like to believe that if the day comes that they stop supporting Diablo 3 that they may release a set of patches that would remove the DRM and allow for offline single player (and hopefully LAN multiplayer).
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If I'm still playing video games in fifty years, I'll be so fucking happy to be alive that I won't care about DRM.
Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. Every heard of that concept of moving out of your basement?
Whenever you're on the move, you don't have a connection.
The pirate copy will likely not require Internet at all, so only legitimate users will hurt from this.
Re:It seems good (Score:5, Insightful)
The pirate copy will likely not require Internet at all, so only legitimate users will hurt from this.
exactly. some time ago I started to play Morrowind again (still fun, though the graphics are not competitive anymore) - and it sucks without the no-cd patch/crack; I don't want to plug in the external DVD drive.
the user experience with cracked software is often better than with the original shipment, so it is arguable a sane consumer choice to start with pirating.
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purchase the game, install it, patch up to the latest crack, install the crack, play worry free
I did it this way. and stopped buying games - too much hassle. I'm too lazy to fix broken proprietary software, why should I invest time after I just paid 40EUR?
I was never one of the hardcore gamers so probably the software industry don't needs me as customer; but they lose selling opportunities. if I need some hours of senseless gaming I use my 8+ year old purchased games or opensource software (like UFO:AI or Widelands) - those are enough.
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I actually travel quite a lot. I lived whole last year traveling in Asia. Other than while in airplanes or on road, there really isn't that many spots where you cannot get onto internet, especially while actually staying somewhere. Even the cheapest places offered wi-fi. Besides, I would want to get online anyway.
Whenever you're on the move, you don't have a connection.
The pirate copy will likely not require Internet at all, so only legitimate users will hurt from this.
Yes, and those players are also missing the multiplayer and all the extra gameplay elements to single player that online connection brings
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And, if you want to play single-player, you shouldn't need that online connection. What do you get for being online in a single-player game?
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i am curious: do you consider lag to belong to that 'a lot more in exchange' thing?
What if someone couldn't care less about achievements and prefers to play alone with no unnecessary lag? I know i do, i played SP 99% of the time, i had quite a few hardcore chars solo and i wouldn't do that if the network lag could kill my char while i am unable to prevent it in any way.
please, stop with the false dichotomy. Offline and secure online are not mutually exclusive.
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Really?!?!
What kind of dark age do you live that don't have 3G mobile USB sticks?
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I agree that the trade-off has value. I haven't bought a game in a long time, and see no reason to start now, so I've saved a LOT of money compared to what I used to spend.
You do realize, don't you, that in the case of either a temporary or permanent outage, while the servers are down, you have NOTHING for the money that you spent on the game. Additionally, if/when your ISP starts counting the bytes, you will be paying THEM to play a game that you "bought" in the store or on-line.
I've got a 2K box that st
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So, why do I have to suffer so your game can be cheat free?
What if I don't ever connect to anyone but my friends? I can reasonably assume my friends have not cheated so I don't need Blizzard guaranteeing that. All this is doing is adding a level of complexity that isn't needed.
Also, talk about a one sided article.
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Besides, this can be mostly blamed on pirates
Damn straight! Curse those pirates for breaking into Blizzard and adding stupid things into the middle of the design document! Something must be done!
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For the small trade-off you get cheat-free economy
Any developer that manages to create a truly cheat free economy in a game of any significant scale should probably take as their next project the development of a bug free completely secure web browser. Blizzard's move will certainly make it more difficult to cheat by modifying characters and items offline, but if you believe Diablo III will be cheat free then I have a bridge you may be interested in purchasing.
While you can't play the game in an airplane, the overall return for that trade-off is much better.
Bullshit marketing speak - this is highly subjective. I've played the Diablo series from the star
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but if you believe Diablo III will be cheat free
Where exactly is the line drawn on cheat-free exactly? I'd say they can probably stop item duping and hacked items with ridiculous stats. My guess is the majority of "cheating" in D3 is going to trend towards farming bots. With official approved real money auctions, the motivation for highly advanced bots is going to be that much higher.
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Yeah, I can understand why they're doing it (given the insane piracy and cheating rates in Diablo I and II), but it's still something that I'd rather they didn't do. Personally, I played almost exclusively on battle.net (hardcore, then hardcore ladder), but there were some single player characters that also played, when my internet connection went down, battle.net was unreachable, or I needed the ability to pause the game. I played a few LAN games, too, but the vast majority of my time was spent on battle
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And this is why The Witcher 1 and 2 are better games, because they appeal to those who want that darker game world. I am also sick of the "let's make all games for teenagers, and ignore that there are more adults out there playing games" attitude out there right now.
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You myopic, apologetic fool.
People like you are the cause such DRM schemes go forward, you disgust me.
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For the small trade-off you get cheat-free economy
Cheat-free is only applicable in online multiplayer games. You have to be online for that anyways so it doesn't have to be a problem. However playing a single player offline game shouldn't require a connection.
and you can play both single-player and multiplayer with the same characters
How is having the ability to use the same character for single and multiplayer games affected by this "always on" DRM?
Remember if you limit the game by DRM only the pirates will have the games without limits!
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I was going to buy Diablo III. I really enjoyed D1 and D2 and I had no problem whatsoever with the idea of giving them my money for D3. But now, I will pirate it. Guaranteed. Because I don't have a connection it can use? Because it's inconvenient? Nope. To shove it right in their fucking faces. Maybe I'll mail them a copy of my receipt for whatever game I choose to buy instead just for funsies.
How's that "anti-piracy measures that only hurt legitimate customers" thing working out for ya so far, Bl
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Instead of pirating it, and thereby giving them your mind-share and potential future purchases, you could just not play it at all. Which hurts them even more and gives you something to do with that other game you bought for its receipt.
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Bastardization of one of Raph's laws: Never trust the client or the middlemen, and look askance at your own servers. As important as items are in the Diablo world, this is the way to go.
HEX
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Sure, there are some situations where you cannot connect to internet, but it's really in minority.
The problem with "always online" DRM is not that "there are situations that you can't connect to the internet". The problem is that you rely heavily on the other site and the medium for it to work flawlessly.
Let me give you an example (there is a problem with it and I reckon right from the start): It's a matter of only 2 or 3 years that Blizzard changed the maintenance cycle of their oceanic servers in WoW to coincide with the Oceanic timezone. Before that, any WoW player in Australia (for example) would ge
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calling a vocal majority a minority just shows people how out of touch with reality they are.
Being online will not prevent cheating, but it will ensure that you can't play diablo without an internet connection. Guess what? That's a fucking problem. Can't do lan parties like that either.
There is no return for this shit. The game could still be anti-cheat without being "online only". Piracy has nothing to do with "online only" your magic 90% piracy rate means that you're full of shit. If you can't profit and
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Re:Evolution in action (Score:4, Funny)
They do this because PEOPLE STEAM THEIR GAMES, plain and simple.
When they outlaw steaming of games, only outlaws will steam games. I for one enjoy placing my game discs in my Veggie steamer. It gives my broccoli a nice tangy flavor. A copy of StarCraft is the only way to make good Sushi rice.
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"In a Bizarro universe way, I wish they WOULD forego DRM, get hugely pirated, lose tons of money, and fold up shop, just to prove once and for all that it's not THEIR fault, it's the PIRATE'S fault."
And here you have the damning evidence that piracy is nothing to do with it. I have absolutely no doubt that they "lose" money through piracy. But I equally have absolutely no doubt that the proportion they lose is vastly less than the amount they spend on "DRM measures".
Just how much do you think it costs to
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not really surprised. They fake surprise because the alternative is worse. They just don't fucking care.