Diablo III Released 594
Almost 12 years after the launch of its predecessor, Diablo III has now been released. The game went live last night with over 8,000 midnight launch parties across the world. 2,000,000 players showed up for the beta test prior to launch, including 300,000 concurrently during an open beta weekend, but even so, the login servers struggled for the first few hours after launch. Diablo III had been in the works for quite some time — another example of Blizzard's notoriously long development cycle — and game director Jay Wilson said it was in "polish mode" for the past two years. "One of our sayings internally is 'polish as you go.' We have a belief that when you put a feature in, you should prototype, but then after you prototype you should do the real thing, and you should polish it to shipping quality." For those of you who are familiar with this type of game, there's an official game guide in which you can browse class skills, items, and other game information. There are also YouTube videos showing how each of the classes work.
Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
But should we really be celebrating one of the first major single-player games to *require* that you have an internet connection to even play in solo mode? You can still pop in your ancient copies of earlier Diablos and play. Will the same be true 10 or 15 years from now when the Diablo 3 servers no longer work, or if you should lose your internet connection for some reason (or if Blizzard ever goes belly-up)?
I know they want to fight piracy and all that. But once again, I think the people who will pay the price are the honest gamers who are going to be forced into piracy some day just to play the game they actually paid for. You try to do the right thing and end up having to make a choice between either not playing the game at all or becoming a criminal.
Now maybe they'll release a patch some day that will override this, or maybe they won't. But you can bet that the one group that will *definitely* have a patch are the pirates.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:4, Informative)
Will the same be true 10 or 15 years from now when the Diablo 3 servers no longer work, or if you should lose your internet connection for some reason (or if Blizzard ever goes belly-up)?
Sure, just Google for a crack to apply to your legally-owned copy. The Internet will always come through.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
Except under the DMCA cracking the game would still be illegal.
At this time we have no legal recourse to play a game if the DRM servers are taken down. Even in 15 years, they can still come after you for pirating the game if they wanted to.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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That is, the crack only becomes legal if Blizzard stops their servers.
And it will still be illegal to create the crack, since Diablo III will presumably still be under copyright by the time Blizzard pulls the plug.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Informative)
And it will still be illegal to create the crack, since Diablo III will presumably still be under copyright by the time Blizzard pulls the plug.
Er... the interoperability clause is part of copyright law, so no, it wouldn't be illegal at that point.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, but if the company goes belly up in 15 years who is going to pay the lawyers to go after the hackers?
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, but if the company goes belly up in 15 years who is going to pay the lawyers to go after the hackers?
Whomever bought the IP rights of the company for cheap when it goes belly up.
What? You think Blizzard is going to go out of business without selling it's IP? You know nothing of business.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
If you haven't realized that U.S. law applies everywhere now, you certainly will when the FBI asks your country to extradite you and they comply.
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\internet-toughguy-mode
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:4, Informative)
Your remark begs the question whether my country would actually extradite someone for a copyright infringement or something of the sort. Actually, I seriously doubt any country would
IIRC, New Zealand, Britain, and France have all done it. So I wouldn't make that assumption so quickly.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope.
The game client is "dumb" - all the AI and such is done server-side. It's similar in execution to an MMO with only a single player (or small group).
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:4, Insightful)
At 7.76GB installed, that's one helluva a "dumb" MMO client. You are right of course, I'm just throwing that out there for everyone ponder. Video and music take up space, sure. But is there really that much texture data?
Executable code is tiny by comparison. All that data is textures, models, animation, and audio (sound effects, voice, and music). So, no, there's nothing to ponder, really.
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My EVE Online folder is 10.2 gig and my World Of Tanks folder is 8.9gigs...so 7.7g isnt much.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit more complicated than just hacking away some license check. Each game happens in it's own randomly generated game world.
The world generator code & data is server-side only. The game client does not have the code to generate a world, it can only display and navigate a world. I heard that some (or all?) world generator stuff was shipped with the closed alpha test builds, but was removed before beta test.
It would take somebody to code something emulating a Blizzard D3 server with quite some logic.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:4, Insightful)
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except that most probably the crack will not be able to provide exactly the same experience as the backend server of diablo III. Ever tried to play on an illegitime wow server ? It's the same word, yet, people are unable to provide the same information about what is going on in the background. I guess that they kept most of the important stuff on their diablo III backend, and that even a crack could not fix that.
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Actually most of the "private" WoW servers are carbon copies of blizzard's own servers. Blizzard leaks a whole lot of code server side apparently.
The reason for "different experience" lies in various modifiers applied to servers (like gaining way more exp) as well as oftentimes asshole-ish owners.
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Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because then I'd be supporting a company that supports DRM. Instead, I'll just not buy the game at all.
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In this case, I'm pretty sure there is more than just activation/validation being processed on the servers. Certain aspects of item generation (read: loot drops) is not local to your machine, to prevent cloning/forgery/imbalance in the marketplace.
So cracked Diablo III (if possible) is likely to be Diablo III without exclusive, sweet loot. There's no telling how much of the game is on the server, and replacing that server code is going to be far trickier than no-opping over some validation checks.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
It wouldn't surprise me if down the road they patched Diablo III to no longer require an internet connection.
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But there is no guarantee of that.
15 years down the road, if they take the servers down will anyone care? Will anyone even remember this post?
But then we'll have a ton of games that are on a planned obsolescence scale.
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Yeah; I don't know why people are assuming that Blizzard will shut down the D3 servers any time soon. They are pretty good about keeping their game servers alive.
You are missing the point. The point is, if Blizzard shuts down servers, the game is unplayable (currently, lets see how it's crack goes). Diable II, that game is very playable without the internet, or a Blizzard server.
Doesn't matter if Blizzard has NEVER shut down a server, the point is, if they do, the game is no longer playable. Not even the single player portion.
Think about it.
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HAHAHHAAHa.
Straight from Wikipedia. Yeah. Activision sure doesn't pressure them on accounts, of growth. Nope not at all~
Hint: No one buys a company to NOT control it in some way.
Riddle me this, Batman:
How and activisionBlizzard be separate companies when it has the same ticker ? ATVI
http://www.activisionblizzard.com/corp/index.html [activisionblizzard.com]
and the annual report:
http://investor.activision.com/annuals.cfm [activision.com]
Tell me how you can read those and thing they are completely separate? Clearly Activision publishing has input into
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Question: who does blizzard CEO answer to, and who sets strategic goals as well as general policies in the company.
Hint: not an employee of a company that starts with a B.
Long term support, removal of security, etc (Score:5, Informative)
Blizzard is one of the few companies to patch their older games years later to no longer require the CD's to play. It wouldn't surprise me if down the road they patched Diablo III to no longer require an internet connection.
Just to elaborate on this for those unfamiliar with Blizzard's older games. It is *not* that they simply put out a patch to remove the CD requirement.
The older starcraft and diablo games have been actively supported for over 10 years. Periodic updates for bug fixes, exploit fixes, new features, new support for communities and tournament organizations (thinking about some starcraft 1 updates), etc.
Blizzard has a team dedicated to actively maintaining and enhancing their "old" games. It is *not* an afterthought for the original dev team if and when they have time like at other companies.
Re:Long term support, removal of security, etc (Score:5, Insightful)
'actively maintaining' is an overstatement. Usually Blizzard promises some patch 'soon' and 2years later it is still nowhere in sight. I don't know if WC3 players got their promised last patch ever. In case of SC1 few patches fixing meaningless shit nobody cared about, botched the community antihack and few other useful features for no benefit whatsoever and the community had to fix the shit again instead of waiting for some blizzard intern to change 3 lines of code and get approval for release which could take months.
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Unfortunately as I learned last week when I bought a copy of Diablo II from the Blizzard store, that's not always the case; D2 isn't supported under OSX 10.7 and above. That's not Blizzard's fault, as it was Apple who removed support for PowerPC applications, but it's an exception to your argument.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
While it's anecdotal for a single company, you can still play Diablo and Diablo 2 on Battle.net, not just on single player. As long as Blizzard exists you'll probably be able to play Diablo 3. It's not perfect, but at least it's not as bad as some companies (EA, Ubi).
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Informative)
the difference is that here you got almost mmo requirements - server does much more than it did in case of older titles, which was facilitate connection between players. You don't need much power to do that. Afaik in D3 the servers provide monster AI, control the amount of map data sent to the client (to fight maphacks?), manage drops and shit - the computing power required stops being trivial and the maintenance will cost some serious dough.
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Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
To quote the PC Gamer "live review":
I alt+tab out to check my net connection, and it’s working fine. When I get back in, the game’s quit to the main menu with an error saying there’s been an error – it has a number but no specifics. When I try to get back in, it throws up another error that says to make sure all of my party is ready. I’m playing single player. In a few minutes I’m able to log back in and play again. I’ve lost all my progress through the current zone and the world has reset and repopulated with monsters, but my character, items and quest status are intact.
There’s a lot to say about the fact that this can happen even in single player, but I’ll keep it brief: this is utter bullshit.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I will not be playing this one. Even pirated. Torchlight II will get my money, time, and affection. Blizzard can FOAD.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. I will not be playing this one. Even pirated. Torchlight II will get my money, time, and affection. Blizzard can FOAD.
I agree, for a third of the price (1/4 if you find 3 friends) you can get Torchlight 2. I've already bought the 4 pack and am eagerly waiting for torchlight 2 to go live. They are doing beta testing now so hopefully it won't be too much longer.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:4, Interesting)
Both will get my money and time, and neither will get my affection.
Affection is for people, not companies.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Funny)
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I'd rather it didn't FOAD just because of this game. I'm still enjoying SC2 custom maps
SC2 has no lan play. Blizzard can FOAD because of both games.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:4, Informative)
Just checked it out, Torchlight looks pretty sweet. Diablo III is out? Time to buy Torchlight!
Oh and you get a free copy of Torchlight if you pre-order torchlight 2. Another reason to get it over Diablo 3.
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I don't think one "finishes" Torchlight.
Let me have my many offline alts! (Score:5, Informative)
The real evil here, where players will suffer even if they don't mind jumping through the hoops, is the limit of 10 characters per game copy, even if they are only used for single player. That pisses me off. I've been told you don't "need" more than that many, because there are only five classes times two sexes, and apparently no exclusive character choices such that you would need alts for game-mechanics reasons. But you're SOL if you want to enjoy the game experience from level 1 forward and don't want to delete any of your old characters.
But... I went and picked up my collector's edition this morning anyway. I already play all-online games such as World of Warcraft with similar limitations. I can reluctantly live with with paying for Diablo III as long as I think of it that way: as a limited Internet service and not a game you can really, you know, have. It would be a better product if it were the latter, but oh well. Hopefully it will at least be fun.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Informative)
You are, of course, severely late to the party; a lot of interesting discussion on this point happened way back in August. Here's the Slashdot conversation from then [slashdot.org]. I believe the consensus is that since this is Blizzard and not EA, no boycott like the one that marred Spore's release will transpire, and the loss of flexibility will simply be accepted.
Another controversy from about the same time (which didn't receive Slashdot attention) is that all gameplay-altering modifications are banned [kotaku.com] in D3, a somewhat harsher stance than the one Blizzard took with WoW interface mods. There has been some concern [battle.net] that DarkD3 [technabob.com], a mod that diminishes the game's 'painted' look to make it clearer and crisper graphics may be cause for a ban, but so far the word is "probably not".
at least simcity 2013 will only need it to start (Score:3)
at least simcity 2013 will only need it to start the game.
Now why can't it be once a week?
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
Pre-ordered a copy a couple of weeks because a bunch of friends are also going to play it, despite me normally avoiding always-on DRM for single player games like the plague. Retail copy arrived today, get home to play. Had already preinstalled the game, put my retail code in via the website... And have spent literally the last hour (6.30 to 7.30pm UK time) trying to login to the bloody thing to play single player, nothing but error 37 and error 75.
Fuck Blizzard for requiring always-on DRM, and then cheaping out on enough servers to meet demand. Fuck em right up the arse.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Funny)
Pre-ordered a copy
Fuck Blizzard for requiring always-on DRM
They'll be sorry now!
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
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Fuck Blizzard for requiring always-on DRM, and then cheaping out on enough servers to meet demand. Fuck em right up the arse.
You shoulda said that before you got down on your knees and sucked their cock by paying for D3 and its abusive internet-based DRM.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Informative)
I've had a general policy of not buying games for any platform if their PC version requires an always-on connection (aside from MMOs, which it would be unfair to penalise, as "always on" is the very nature of the game there). This means I've missed out on every Assassin's Creed game since the original and a few other titles to boot.
I agonised about Diablo 3. It did look, at face value, like a straightforward case of Ubisoft-style DRM. However, Blizzard did push quite hard the line that the game had integral features that meant they couldn't have done it without the always-on without making serious compromises to the game. I was... unconvinced. So I decided to wait and see how things went at launch.
As it happens, Blizzard then wheeled out that "subscribe to WoW for a year get Diablo 3 free" thing at just about the time when I was in the market to get back into an MMO. On balance, I decided that I might as well go for that.
Now that I've had a few hours with Diablo 3, I can conclude that if it hadn't been for the WoW special offer, this would still have been firmly in the "boycott" camp. I've yet to see any online features that could not have been made 100% optional at no expense to the player (though possibly at some expense to Blizzard through lost real-money auction house fees). If you're in the "undecided" camp on D3 over its DRM, my advice would be to avoid it.
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Re:Is This Progress vs Tradition? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trolling but honestly looking for insight
Here's the insight: The server for the US zone are offline for "emergency maintenance [battle.net]." This means people who purchased Diablo III cannot play the game in any way shape or form, including launching a single player campaign.
I will repeat that again - On launch day, nobody in the US can play the game because of the DRM.
If you can't see the problem with that, I don't think you will ever see it.
Re:Is This Progress vs Tradition? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except even at it's best it doesn't come close to being an MMO. Games are limited to a player cap of what, 4? That's a Multi-player Online, although not massive in anyway except price and hype.
I had beta access since some time in November. I played it on and off a good bit. I frankly prefered the older skill swapping system although the skill system as a whole leaves a lot to be desired. One of my complaints about Torchlight was that the skills were so limited and 66% of the skill trees were identical between character classes. And now Diablo 3 has come along and taken a page from their book and gone with a dumbed down skill system.
And they completely nuked the idea of having individualized characters. With skill swaping the way it is everyone is practically speaking identical. That would be great if this were a Team Fortress style game, but it's in the Diablo franchise, character building was a large part of the fun.
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You must also like losing characters, items and hosted environments and getting locked out of the game thanks to bugs and connection troubles and game balance changing patches you can't reject.
That's what I was sorely missing from my single player games, yep.
P.S.: With a bit of symlinking, I just make most of my games save on Dropbox. It's free, it retains older versions if corruption happens and it leaves me offline copy, which gives ability to easily move to another cloud storage service. No need for Bliz
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Ok, I'll bite on this and admit that you have at least the bones of a reasonable argument there, and that a couple of your points are valid. However, I don't believe that taken as a whole, they amount to an argument against Diablo 3 needing an offline mode.
Over on the consoles, games that actually require online connectivity to play are few and far between. There are certainly games that lose a good bit of functionality if there's no internet connection present; Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 and Your Shape 2012
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yes, I'd prefer it if there was an offline single player mode with modding possible, but I understand why they don't have one and that there are benefits to doing it that way.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure everyone remembers what a mess dupers and hackers made of Diablo II
What could dupers and hackers possibly have to do with single player or LAN play? Dupers and hackers are only a problem on internet matches. The solution to that problem should only apply to internet matches.
Those who would sacrifice essential functionality for temporary security deserve neither.
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I see. So, instead of "to stop the pirates," it's now, "to stop the pirates and to stop the evil hackers!" Why does punishing everyone to get at a few people still not seem like a good thing to me?
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who doesn't play online, I'm not terribly sympathetic. Why should that be my problem, and why shouldn't I just buy another game if Blizzard insists on making that my problem?
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, by virtue that I am not poor and can afford the game and have access to constant broadband internet. Also 10 - 15 years from now, Diablo 4 will be out requiring probes stuck in various orifices to play so why would you want to play a 10 - 15 year old game that doesn't use probes?
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration (Score:4, Informative)
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I believe he is referring to bnetd. I can see how a younger person might not have known about that.
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Why would I possibly care that I might possibly only get 10 or 15 years of gameplay from somehting I paid $60 for?
I care because the restriction (if it happens) is completely unnecessary. Simply more nonsensical piracy paranoia with no way to escape from the DRM (that would be their intention).
NewFail (Score:5, Interesting)
NewEgg has failed me for the first time in a decade. I pre-ordered a copy ($10 off) but they didn't bother shipping it until today (UPS 3 day). Considering D3 has an interesting DRM that allows you to install it before the launch date and just prevents you from playing it until then, it would have made more sense to me if NewEgg shipped them late last week so they would arrive today or yesterday. One egg off for poor planning.
Re:NewFail (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I take that back. I have friends who got it today and they can't even join a game the servers are so overloaded. Looks like I'm missing nothing by waiting another day or two.
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I play Diablo. I already have *all* of the porn on my hard drive.
Surprise (Score:2)
Don't care (Score:5, Informative)
Requires an internet connection even for single player.
Not paying for that. I'll go find some indie developer to give my money to instead.
Torchlight, better game less money. (Score:5, Informative)
Polish Mode (Score:5, Funny)
"Diablo III had been in the works for quite some time — another example of Blizzard's notoriously long development cycle — and game director Jay Wilson said it was in "polish mode" for the past two years."
No fair that Poland got it two years early >_>
Re:Polish Mode (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, don't blame Blizzard for putting in the hard work. It takes time and effort to reverse polish notation.
Release Failure (Score:5, Interesting)
And now the EU login server is melting under the pounding of thousands of angry players trying to play solo.
And to add insult to injury they didn't even have the nice idea of implementing queues like most similar systems do..
Re:Release Failure (Score:5, Insightful)
And to add insult to injury they didn't even have the nice idea of implementing queues like most similar systems do..
Why should anyone ever have to queue to play a single player game?
Re:Release Failure (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, that stupid online single player idea is a damn fuckup...
Re:Release Failure (Score:4, Insightful)
No, a queue is a fix for a manufactured problem.
Similar problem solving:
Because your friend keeps stabbing you in the leg with a sharp knife, we've hired a paramedic to follow you around.
Proper solution:
Because your friend keeps stabbing you, we arrested him. As a result you will not get stabbed by him again.
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Seriously, this has got to be one of the worst game launches of all time. #error37 is trending like CRAAAZY on twitter.
First the game wasn't actually out at midnight, even though there were midnight releases. Its out at midnight PDT, which is 4 am on the east coast. Yay!
Second, you get online, and the servers were so hit at midnight PDT that you c
Not quite ready yet (Score:5, Informative)
Add this [arstechnica.com] to the borked-beta weekend and I think they have more polishing to do.
Internet connection for single player mode? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh look, here's another game I'm not going to buy. I don't care how good your game is, if you pull bullshit DRM stunts like this, it's off my radar now and forever.
Maybe I'll download the pirated version and play that, just out of spite.
Diablo III servers down for maintenance... (Score:5, Informative)
Not even 12 hours after launch Blizzard is taking down US zone servers down for 3hr maintenance. Task: Calculate uptime so far.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5051765603?page=1
11:30 a.m. PDT- We are in the process of performing an emergency maintenance for Diablo III servers in the Americas to resolve several issues that are currently impacting the game. This maintenance may cause some interruption in communication, ability to log in, use of in-game features, and disconnections. We anticipate all servers will be available for play at approximately 1:30 p.m. PDT. We will provide further updates as necessary. Thank you for your patience.
10: 22 a.m. PDT- We are in the process of performing an emergency maintenance for all North American Diablo III servers to resolve several issues that are currently impacting the game. This maintenance may cause some interruption in communication, ability to log in, use of in-game features, and disconnections. We anticipate all servers will be available for play in approximately 1 hour.
Thank you for your patience.
Re:Diablo III servers down for maintenance... (Score:5, Funny)
They're shooting for "one nines" uptime. It's the Time Warner model.
So far... kind of dull. (Score:5, Interesting)
The important thing (Score:3)
The important thing about the D3 launch is this:
People who bought the game online and pre-downloaded it with the advertising from Blizzard that they should (paraphrased) "download it early so you can play the minute it goes live," still cannot play the game.
Playing single-player _because_ you're offline (Score:3)
I think something that has been missed by posters so far on the DRM issue is the fact that, if/when my internet connection fails, often the first thing I do is go looking for single player games I have installed on the computer.
If you can't do that, it rather defeats the point of single player mode, at least to me. If the Internet connection is up I'm generally doing more productive things than playing games nowadays.
Rant from a console player of D1 + Diablo-clones (Score:4, Interesting)
It's May 15th and I'm going to rant, and you know why: Diablo.
I have a love/hate relationship with Blizzard. I love Diablo, but I absolutely LOATHE Blizzard as a developer.
First: Go here and page down to the Diablo section: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/legacy/ [blizzard.com]
Do you see the PSone version listed? No. And you won't see the PSone version of Warcraft II listed either! It's not as if those games got bad ratings either, both got ABOVE average ratings at the time. It's like Blizzard doesn't want to admit one of their premier franchises had a console release at all.
And for those who don't know, this is the PSone version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv5dQwCFWoQ [youtube.com]
It actually plays better (and faster) with direct movement control. And it's the ONLY version to have French language support, not even the PC version has that. (also German and Swedish even in the US version)
Then they did Diablo II...which I've never played because it never got ported. This is D2 as it's called:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea8Ma7qqQaQ [youtube.com]
Like D1, it was isometric 2D and since it came out in 2000 the PS2 should have been able to handle a port easy. But Blizzard never did it, and I think the following is the reason why:
2001's, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srBRB18mHEs [youtube.com]
Notice how in the review, Diablo is mentioned? BGDA is a Diablo clone, and a very good one, with a true 3D engine with a rotatable camera. It was a VERY popular game. The company that made it, Snowblind, licensed the engine out and there were more similar games made a LOT more. Good times, good times. Blizzard simply couldn't release D2 on consoles with Snowblind having trumped them with their engine.
And as always Blizzard said, "Oh were not doing Diablo III yet, it''l be ready when it's ready"
And my thoughts were, "yeah, if you were still had theconsole developer get-up-and-go like in the old days D3 would have been out in 2002! Because the sequel comes out in 2 years or less or heads will roll. Lazy Bums."
It didn't come out in 2003, or 2004, or 2005, or 2006, etc etc. Really what were they doing? It's not like a developer can't develop an MMO AND single player games at the same time......Square-Enix did....twice.
So eventually D3 was announced in development, and eventually video was released in 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NR6XNYs8f4 [youtube.com]
When I was that video my first thought: "Did Blizzard buy Snowblind's engine, because it looks EXACTLY like a snowblind engine game on the PS2."
in 2010 they posted job listings for people with console experience for a Diablo-related concept. So I expected the game to be cross platform from the start But then Blizzard executives said things that implied that a console release wasn't certain, very very stupid things
One was reported to say that D3's gameplay "might" work on consoles. Might? It's rather funny that he said, "Might" Since
the original Diablo game was released for the PSone... in 1998. Doesn't he remember?
He also said that the controls might be an issue. Well now, considering D1 was released for the pre-dual shock PSone
I don't think that's a problem at all. Heck, the modern consoles have USB ports so a keyboard+ mouse control
option could be thrown in alongside a traditional controller one. In fact, having played both the PC and PSone versions of
Diablo, I can say that the control pad suits the game better because it's less stressful on the hands. I can play the PSone
version for far far longer without crippling hand fatigue/pain.
In an interview Alex Mayberry is quoted as saying: "We want to give console players the Diab
Re:Rant from a console player of D1 + Diablo-clone (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, the N64 version of StarCraft was fucking awful - and I've played it. Controls and horrible and hard to use, the interface was terrible, and the game was laggy as shit.
And health orbs? Really? You're claiming that that's from Marvel Ultimate Alliance when games from the bloody 80's had that (on PC no less, not console)?Sounds like the lazy elitist might be you.
Am I the only one.. (Score:3)
... who just didn't really like the game?
Maybe I'm just older and my tastes have changed, maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance, but for whatever reason I didn't really like Diablo 3.
I played in the Beta for a few weeks, on and off - it never really hooked me. It was prettier than Diablo 2, but it didn't seem graphically more impressive than WoW. The colors were wrong, too bright and bold - big departure from D1 and D2. The gameplay was... kinda boring and repetitive. I didn't really care why I was going to click these things to death, and even the act of clicking them to death got very tiresome very quickly.
The class system was stagnant and unfeatured, linear progression unlocks are dull - I did hear about using runes to change talents/skills, maybe that's where the spice is but I saw none of that. The enemies were very standard fare with zero challenge and no real hooks to keep me playing. Again, maybe that changed with the full release, but I just don't feel the need to pay $60 to find out.
Maybe I've been MMOing too much but I've come to expect a little more thought required and challenge from my games. Or maybe I'm just getting old. Either way I Loved Diablo 1 and 2, but this one just didn't have the magic juice in it for me.
Re: (Score:3)
Diablo II had an interesting storyline, although the expansion was more of the last chapter of a book rather than an extension to the story. After you know the story, it's still fun to play as different characters and enjoy the challenge. Can you make a Barbarian that only throws? What about a melee Sorceress? It's not for everyone, but if you can master a unique style rather than grinding out the same old "winning" combinations as anyone else, it's quite fun.
Re:Whats the fun? (Score:5, Interesting)
The fun of the action-RPG genre comes from a number of sources. First is crafting a character through a selection of choices. This is analogous to having a backpack that can only hold so many items and a large selection of tools to bring along. In a backpacking situation this would be something like: Perhaps you want a very sturdy shovel so that you can dig a very good fire pit and latrine, but then you don't have room for a comfortable chair.
The trade-offs involved make it entertaining to find a character loadout that fits your play style and preferences while also being "viable".
Beyond character selection there is skill in the "clicking and walking" where you're trying to keep track of what spells and abilities are activated at any given time and in what manner you approach enemies to ensure you efficiently dispatch them. Or, if you prefer, just running into combat and wading through it all with reckless abandon.
Thirdly, there's usually an aspect of item collection where you find new items that have different abilities attached and you try to find the synergy between different items and your character's strengths and weaknesses.
Finally there is usually a story associated with the game and, in the really good games, your actions modify the story and show some effect upon the game world.
Personally, I'm much more a fan of character creation and item discovery than the actual hack-and-slash or story parts, but it's all pretty fun for me.
Re:Whats the fun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I'm much more a fan of character creation and item discovery than the actual hack-and-slash or story parts, but it's all pretty fun for me.
Then I've got a game for you, and it's 100% less expensive than Diablo III.
Behold: http://www.nethack.org/ [nethack.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Except the bastards who have to work, like me, that is.
Don't forget the bastards who are married and haven't gotten it approved by the wife yet. :(
Re:Stop whining (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop whining about needing an internet connection.
I'd say it's a valid criticism.
You see, different people value different things. Some people value being free from DRM, and others do not. The fact that you don't agree with their criticism doesn't make them wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
Then move, or start complaining to the people that actually matter.
It's not like any of us can fix it for you.
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plenty of people were bitching about the drm because it prevented them completely from playing.... wtf do you do with a steady internet connection except bitch on forums if the login servers aren't working?
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I'm not saying the DRM isn't annoying for single player, but a 10-second check from my s
Re:Summary of comments on DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
"I'm not sure why slashdot hates the DRM here so much."
Because it's people like you who allow corporations to strip us of our rights to own the products we buy by blinding buying their bullshit. Most older slashdotters remember when you owned the games you bought and could play them without the hassle of the nanny corporation to look over your shouldre 'authenticating' your copy every time you want to play a game YOU PAID FOR. If you're paying you deserve to own it, this idea that when you pay for a product it is 'never yours' and you should just bow down for a bunch of greedy corporations who don't give a fuck about you is just fucking DISTURBING.
Most intelligent people on slashdot don't like the way gaming is going. We all grew up during era's where we owned the games we bought (effectively) both console and PC. Even console games have been getting worse with 'already on disc dlc' and 'online passes' and other nonsense. The game industry is corrupt and out of control and it's people like you that tick us off.
As time as gone on DRM has gotten more intrusive and restrictive. Do you think it's just going to stop?
Re: (Score:3)