Blizzard 'surprised' by reaction to Diablo 3 online announcement

Diablo 3's always-on internet requirement has gotten some criticism from fans, but Blizzard's Robert Bridenbecker says he's "surprised" at the reaction given the clear direction of the industry.

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Blizzard's recent announcement that Diablo 3 would require a constant connection to the Internet has been met with some consternation from fans. The company has been caught off-guard by the reaction, at least according to online technologies VP Robert Bridenbecker. He says that Blizzard's history and the direction of online strategies in general shows the always-on requirement as a reasonable standard, given the benefits of it in this case.

"I'm actually kind of surprised in terms of there even being a question in today's age around online play and the requirement around that," Bridenbecker told MTV Multiplayer. "We've been doing online gameplay for 15 years now... 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 the persistent connection on the servers, you cannot ignore the power and the draw of that."

Bridenbecker claims that DRM wasn't the impetus for the decision, but rather the "feature set, the sanctity of the game systems like your characters. You're guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. ... I look at [DRM solutions] and say, 'Wow, those kind of suck.' But if there's a compelling reason for you to have that online connectivity that enhances gameplay, that doesn't suck. That's awesome."

He also suggests that offering a separate offline mode would create a "separate path" for players, and not many would use it anyway. He calls this solution more "clean." He also clarified that always-on doesn't mean you have to play with other people. "You'll still be able to have a private game. You'll still be able to go off and play the game solo and adventure solo. You an opt to bring other people to your world if you want, but that's up to you."

The rationale echoes comments from Blizzard game design VP Rob Pardo, who commented that increased security outweighs the benefit of offline play. "I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that."

The always-on requirement has been largely interpreted as a method of keeping hacks from impacting the game, especially ones like item-duplicating that would decimate the newly-announced real money auction house. We'll have to see if Bridenbecker's comments do anything to soothe the savage rage-beast that is the Internet.

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  • reply
    August 5, 2011 9:15 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Blizzard 'surprised' by reaction to Diablo 3 online announcement.

    Diablo 3's always-on internet requirement has gotten some criticism from fans, but Blizzard's Robert Bridenbecker says he's "surprised" at the reaction given the clear direction of the industry.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:24 AM

      they better not cave. i dont want separate characters for online and off

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        August 5, 2011 9:25 AM

        Then don't create offline characters. Private server with a password.

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          August 5, 2011 9:42 AM

          yeah maybe they wont delete your characters after 10 days now. still would be crap because you'll always have a friend or 3 that made SP characters and cant bring them online to play with you

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 11:32 AM

            Well, maybe they should be learning to read rather than playing Diablo 3.

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            August 5, 2011 11:57 AM

            yea I hated that so I sat all my buddies down and said, "look you pussies online is where it's at." and from that day forth fun was had.

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        August 5, 2011 10:14 AM

        [deleted]

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        August 5, 2011 10:20 AM

        [deleted]

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        August 5, 2011 11:01 AM

        It's not that hard to design an interface to minimize the discrepancy. When you create a character, there's a checkbox for it being online. If you are logged in online when you make a character, the checkbox defaults to being checked.

        Your character list shows all your characters and whether they're an online or offline character. Online characters are greyed out when you're starting a game offline.

        You only earn achievements and similar things when playing with online characters.

        The back end may or may not be harder to do, but the interface isn't that difficult or complicated.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 11:14 AM

          im not arguing that there shouldn't be a happy medium. i just dont want them to cave and end up with the same deal as what diablo 2 has now

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 11:24 AM

            Diablo 2's problems are essentially unrelated to whether the game supports an offline mode.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:12 AM

        [deleted]

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:25 AM

      Assuming customers like something based on "direction of the industry" seems like a bad way to do business.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:27 AM

        Good point. There aren't a lot of good directions this industry is taking, at least when it comes to the major publishers. It seems like they basically said:

        1. We're SO surprised people are upset, even though we were also really surprised when people complained about no LAN play in SC2. And online-only play went really smooth with Ubisoft, right?

        2. Sure you might want to play offline, but there are other games for that. Hypocritical and facile given the earlier "direction of the industry" comment.

        3. But look at all of the services we'll bring you with your always-on connection while you play singleplayer! Like? Why can't I just play my singleplayer game without wondering if my internet service will stay up? That sounds like a cool "service".

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:26 AM

      To be honest, the backlash or e-outrage hasn't been THAT bad. Other companies got more crap then Blizzard did with this announcement.

      That said, if this security measure actually assists in the security of the game from factors that don't affect me like piracy to factors that do affect me (item duping, hacks, etc.) then I support this action. I believe the industry will move in this direction anyway just like the world is moving towards more and easier connectivity.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 9:56 AM

        They're probably looking at what people are posting on their own forums. Every slightest deviation from Diablo 2 causes their rabid fanbase to get all up in arms. Personally, I don't think it's a big deal.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:27 AM

      I'm just curious to know what happens when your connection craps out / hiccups. If it's like ASSCREED2's initial DRM implementation, no :(

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 9:58 AM

        I'm sure they have given more thought into this than what it sounded like the first DRM for AC2 was about.
        Btw, isn't it possible to play SC2 offline?
        People would like to play this game when on the move (non Internet connection) - so surely with enough criticism they'll implement that for D3. Let it scan through things when online again and done?

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:17 AM

        Probably the same thing that happens when you play Diablo 2 online and your connection craps out/hiccups.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:27 AM

      This guy's either full of shit or stupid. I'd prefer to think he's not that thick.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 9:28 AM

        He sounds perfectly logical to me. Please elaborate.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 9:46 AM

          People get pissed every time a company announces connection requires. It's happened dozens of times in the past. There is no surprise. Also, no one believes them when they say that DRM wasn't the main consideration. Their "gameplay" reasons for the connection requirement don't preclude an offline mode.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:28 AM

      it wouldn't be a 2011 game announcement without a bunch of shackers, or gamers for that rather bitching about something they don't like. get over it.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 9:45 AM

        Our top story today, gamers have opinions on the games they play. But first, let's go to Kenneth Turan for his review of the upcoming film ....

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:28 AM

      That's a surprising source of surprise. Even if it is a "clear direction of the industry", that doesn't make it desirable.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 9:33 AM

        it's desirable to me

        • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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          August 5, 2011 9:46 AM

          In what possible way could removing options be good, nevermind desirable to you?

          If you don't want to play offline, THEN FUCKING DON'T.

          Some of us may, even occasionally, want or need to be offline when we also happen to want or have a chance to play. How is removing that option from me in any way beneficial to you? Ignoring Schadenfreude.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 9:49 AM

            because instead of raging the moment something is taken away I actually think about why it was done and weigh what is lost vs what is gained. I look at how completely broken Diablo 2's online economy was due to dupes and hacks and wish that hadn't been the case. Then I look at WoW and how an always online system has none of those problems. Then I think about how rarely I will be in a position where I'm offline and just must must must play Diablo 3 right now because I have no other videogames to play and literally no other way to entertain myself. Then I think that sounds like a great trade off.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 9:53 AM

              Diablo 2's closed realms had an always-online requirement and WoW had an always-online requirement. One is full of dupes and hacks and the other isn't. The conclusion should be that an always-online requirement doesn't prevent dupes and hacks. The strength of the game's code prevents those things.

            • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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              August 5, 2011 9:53 AM

              You keep using that argument, "Must must must play Diablo 3" as if it is valid.

              Of course there is virtually no instance where a person, "Must must must play Diablo 3," but that doesn't mean it can't and shouldn't weigh into their purchasing decision. There are many cases where a person may be without internet for days or weeks at a time through travel. And of course ISPs aren't exactly 100% uptime. Someone works 6 days a week, gets one day off to relax, internet happens to go out that day, guess who's fucked? Guess who can't play a single player game because some talking head decided that he doesn't matter?

              Fuck that mindset, and fuck Blizzard. I'd expect this shit from Ubi, but I expected better of them.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 10:07 AM

                [deleted]

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 10:14 AM

                Someone works 6 days a week, gets one day off to relax, internet happens to go out that day, guess who's fucked? Guess who can't play a single player game because some talking head decided that he doesn't matter?

                I would make the same decision. Sorry you didn't get to play my game for a day. If that feature means you won't buy it, so be it. I will not compromise the health of the online component where my most hardcore fans play for years to cater to the 1 day a year your internet is down and you just can't deal with not playing D3 that day.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 10:55 AM

                  ^^This.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 12:42 PM

                  Yeah seriously. I wish blizzard would just come out and tell you to not buy d3, buy torchlight or whatever, and stop bothering them and everyone else. Jesus.

                  • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                    August 5, 2011 12:45 PM

                    They effectively already have.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 11:02 AM

                remember that blizzard is owned by activision now. so there really shouldn't be much of a surprise

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 10:02 AM

              [deleted]

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 10:07 AM

                [deleted]

                • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                  August 5, 2011 10:09 AM

                  Where? We must have read different posts.

                  Or are you implying that removing a person's ability to "cheat" in offline, single-player mode is a valid reason for removing offline, single-player mode?

                  • reply
                    August 5, 2011 10:12 AM

                    It's pretty obvious that the security model of D2 which allowed offline, online open bnet, and closed online bnet was insufficient for a number of reasons. Further, in addition to not being able to properly deal with 3rd party apps, hacks and dupes and exploits, then they did not have a system of tracking transactions to detect dupes after the fact because you weren't always online. Where as WoW does not have these problems because it is always online with Warden running, D2 with Warden running still suffered from numerous problems.

                  • reply
                    August 5, 2011 10:16 AM

                    [deleted]

                    • reply
                      August 5, 2011 10:22 AM

                      [deleted]

                      • reply
                        August 5, 2011 10:23 AM

                        [deleted]

                      • reply
                        August 5, 2011 10:24 AM

                        IT SECURITY PRO, BLIZZARD HIRE THIS GUY ^^^

                      • reply
                        August 5, 2011 10:24 AM

                        [deleted]

                      • reply
                        August 5, 2011 12:25 PM

                        You know, if you're going to call someone out as being a "pretty goddamn bad developer" for something, the least you could to is provide viable alternatives. Everyone is able to come up with ideas to fix something when one of the requirements is the fix doesn't have to actually work.

                        The only viable solution is a hard separation between online and offline characters, including completely different code-paths for item management and generation. Depending on their requirement/use cases, this might be more effort than it's really work.

                        One basic rule of security is any data that is stored on a unsecured machine is compromised. You cannot get around it. Allowing any mechanism for the client to influence item generation in the game world can and will be exploited. Your first two ideas would be broken within a few hours. In the first case, the client has to decrypt the data to use, and encrypt to transmit -- it's not hard to change those values before being encrypted/transmitted.

                        Your third idea is overly complicated. One character, with an online and offline set of items? Simply allowing you to play a cached version of the character that cannot be synced with the server will be less cumbersome, but even then you'll wind up with a number of users bitching about not having access to their character online.

                      • reply
                        August 5, 2011 12:47 PM

                        But why go through that trouble, what is the benefit? What is in it for Blizzard to mess around supporting offline?

                        • reply
                          August 5, 2011 1:31 PM

                          [deleted]

                        • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
                          reply
                          August 5, 2011 2:16 PM

                          What's in it for Blizzard? My game purchase.

                          They are in a service industry. It's in their interest to care about my interest.

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                            August 5, 2011 4:09 PM

                            There are not enough people like you to matter. The features of an online only game will probably help them gain a new audience that will make up for the small percentage of people who refuse to buy the game because of the lack of offline mode. In fact I bet the net gain in new people will far exceed the number of lost sales because of no offline mode.

                            Speaking of service industry, games as a service works much much better as an online only game. The constant revenue of either a monthly fee or taking a cut of item sales will help fund new content and customer support to help the game and the players.

                            • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                              August 5, 2011 4:23 PM

                              Oh I'm sure that my "statement" will be lost in the flood of money they get. But don't delude yourself: that flood will happen regardless of any online requirement, not because of it.

                    • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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                      August 5, 2011 2:15 PM

                      OFFLINE is not ONline.

                      What happens in a purely offline, single-player game does not affect the online, multi-player portion of the game one iota. Make offline characters offline only. There, problem solved.

                    • reply
                      August 5, 2011 5:31 PM

                      Uh first of all as a developer if you are allowing offline characters to magically go online and then sell shit you deserve all the bad things that happen because you are an idiot. Having an offline and online mode is totally fine and Blizzard could do it. Diablo 2 had hacks because the code was not that hot and Blizzard has only recently got better about hacking. Hell WoW had teleport hacks and other issues for years. Yes you read that right years before they got fixed.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 10:15 AM

                  [deleted]

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 10:39 AM

              [deleted]

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 11:03 AM

              This all seems to be under the opinion we would still be able to take the offline character online. I see no reason they couldn't add an offline mode only option for those of us who may want to play while offline with a character with no intentions to ever go online with it. How would this harm the online portion of the game in any way?

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 11:45 AM

                I would guess that all the loot-rolling and distributing code will take place on blizzard's servers(probably a legal reason for this, with the cash AH). So the reason a single-player offline mode cannot be easily implemented is that the code necessary for it to function would not actually exist on your computer.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 8:43 PM

              So? you have gold farmers that inflate prices in wow.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:30 AM

      Sounds like a weak excuse to include DRM to me.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 9:35 AM

        actually sounds like a good way to not include DRM.

        I'd much rather have to log into their server than run a bunch of sneaky root level software and keep a dvd in the drive.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 9:38 AM

          Completely agree. It's giving you more features than restrictions.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 10:59 AM

            Well except for that whole part where you're totally restricted from playing your game without an internet connection. Oh wait!

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 12:47 PM

              Except the whole part where the internet is so scarce and expensive. Oh wait! ;)

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 12:49 PM

                Have you ever been to rural areas?

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 1:14 PM

                  Yeah. Ever heard of mobile internet keys? :)

              • reply
                August 6, 2011 1:28 AM

                Except ...oh forget it..it would be silly to take this wording much further. :)

                I think the issue is that plenty of people enjoy games away from their electronic master tether, from time to time. That is all.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 8:50 PM

            What features?

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 9:39 AM

          Right, but how sensitive is it? Instant disconnect from singleplayer the second your connection is lost? Or can you restart the modem/router during some sort of grace period?

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 9:46 AM

          Yes, but if I get deployed to Iraq for 6 months and take a laptop with me, I won't be able to play.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 10:03 AM

            guess you shouldn't have become a mercenary!

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 11:17 AM

            If i was deployed to Iraq, the last thing I'd be worried about is playing fucking diablo 3 in a warzone

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 12:20 PM

              From everything I've read about deployed people, playing video games is one of the few "tastes of home" that keep them fucking sane. I've read all-too-many stories of gameboys, xboxes, and laptops that are taken to places like Iraq or even on subs.

              And none of these people get to play Diablo 3.

              • reply
                August 9, 2011 8:32 AM

                If they're happy to leave their husbands, wives, families, and all of the liberties of home behind in order to defend our freedoms, I'm sure they can fucking live without Diablo 3. I get sick to my stomach every time someone co-opts this argument to make a case.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 9:57 AM

          Forced Log in is basically DRM. I'm not sure there is another way to view it.

          • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 11:25 AM

            Being logged in actually comes with a large amount of functionality though, not the least of which being the ability to play multiplayer with that character. It's not like other publishers are doing where pretty much all the login does is restrict you.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:58 AM

        THIS___^^^

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:36 AM

      i am glad that they are acknowledging this at least. it gives some hope that maybe they will do something about it, rather than the silent, dont-acknowledge-it-and-it-will-go away mindset of most developers.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:39 AM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:41 AM

      I could understand players being upset over this if it was 5 years ago, but it isn't. Getting online internet is, for the most part, dirt cheap for everyone now compared to 5 years ago. For example, Comcast offers cable internet for $29.99 a month at its lowest tier.

      I personally would rather have Blizzard's system than any other form of "DRM" because it is the least intrusive. I didn't say it was completely void of intrusiveness, but it has the least hassles.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 9:45 AM

        It probably won't matter for your permanently non-wireless connected apartment/condo/house desktop setup of awesomeness, but what about the summer place? Small trips, vacation etc.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 9:53 AM

          If you're playing Diablo 3 on a summer vacation, then, well, you're doing it wrong.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:21 PM

            No, it's called vacation, as in "have fun time". I'm pretty sure Diablo 3 could fit into "have fun time" somewhere, eh?

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:03 AM

        It may be surprising but internet in rural areas can still be pretty shit.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:05 AM

          so shit that you can't even maintain a basic connection for a couple of hours of gaming? you don't have to play multiplayer; you just need some sort of connection to the authorization servers

          i understand the annoyance but at the same time don't think it's that big of a deal for anyone with any kind of internet connection

          if you're dealing with a restrictive bandwidth cap point the ire at your service provider, not blizzard

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:28 PM

            Yes, that shit. Just a couple of years ago my house couldn't even get high speed. It's not technically supposed to now, but we have a friend in the business who helped us a little.

            However, before that there was dialup. And it would drop connection anywhere from once a day to once every 10 fucking minutes. Our DSL is a little more stable, but drops of every hour, or it not even working for an hour or two at a time are still fairly common. Being booted out of MY game because the internet hiccups and I have to reconnect would suck.

            I get needing internet for Multiplayer, that makes absolute sense (duh), but what the fuck is with people against some kind of closed offline singleplayer that wouldn't affect online in the least? Seriously? Some of you people actually mean it when you say "fuck you" to those with crap internet or other problems out of their control.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:06 AM

          people who live in rural areas don't deserve Diablo 3.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:13 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 8:53 PM

        Right, right. That way if someone hacks your wow account, you're locked out of D3 also and anything else that deals with bnet. Or, I guess, you could have 1 bnet account for every game they put out that requires bnet login.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:42 AM

      I'm glad they are acknowledging the issue anyways. I personally hate Ubiscum and their wretched DRM scheme but we have take Blizzards DRM with a different mind set. Yeah it makes sense that they want you to be online because Diablo is a franchise that thrives from online play but there should be no question about having an offline mode for the single player portion of the game. Possibly just have it sync with your battle.net account when you do decide to log in instead of ramming it down our throats like Ubiscum.

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 5, 2011 10:00 AM

        Stopped reading at, "We have to take Blizzard's DRM with a different mindset."

        We certainly do not.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:15 AM

          Obviously if you kept reading and not jumped to conclusions you would have read this "there should be no question about having an offline mode for the single player portion of the game" meathead

          • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 10:18 AM

            Ok, I liked, I actually did keep reading.

            But I still disagree. If I'm being shat upon, I don't care what ass it's coming from.

    • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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      August 5, 2011 9:48 AM

      So, wait, I thought it had been confirmed that you could play offline.

      What the fuck, Blizzard? Really, what. the. fuck.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:54 AM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:55 AM

      I can't wait to be playing this game online while laughing at the small minority of people who haven't gotten over the fact that they can't play without a connection.

      That day will be glorious on many levels.

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 5, 2011 10:00 AM

        And we'll be shaking our heads at you completely missing the point.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:03 AM

          and none of us will give a shit.

          • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 10:04 AM

            Entirely possible, but we're not acting out of concern for your shits.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 10:24 AM

              Sure you are. You want us all to sign some stupid online petition or "vote with our dollars" for some shitty cause that is irrelevant. Blizzard has very valid reasons for doing what they're doing and I have faith they will handle it gracefully.

              • reply
                August 6, 2011 10:36 AM

                Aye, in all fairness I game at home, on my desktop, with a persistent connection. So do 90% of other games I imagine. So this affects me not at all, and it's probs a good thing given how refined BNet2.0 is.

                For all the whiners, buy a book or get a cracking offline game, there's plenty about.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:04 AM

          I'm not missing any point. I'm stating what I will be doing while a small number of people actually follow through and don't play. I'm not making a judgement call on the validity of any argument that is being made.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 10:11 AM

            It is pretty dumb tho, and you should probably get over it.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 10:27 AM

            Please no one is going to actually not buy the game because of this. These are just internet nerds entertaining themselves by causing a rukus in order to get through their work days.

            • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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              August 5, 2011 10:33 AM

              Assuming that is just as broken as derelict assuming that any complainer "must must must play Diablo 3"

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 10:39 AM

                Everyone must Must MUst MUSt MUST play blizzard games.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 2:43 PM

              wrong. i still haven't bought starcraft 2 because of this same BS. won't be buying diablo either. there are other games to play.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:16 AM

          YOU WILL SURE SHOW US!!!

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:03 AM

        I can't wait to be playing some game while laughing at you.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:05 AM

          But my life is better than yours so I imagine you will be crying. :(

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:17 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 3:53 PM

        I live in the UK and have ADSL yet spent most of last year with an intermittent net connection. I could download stuff and browse the web most of the time but I couldn't play games online or use streaming video. I had to download any video beforehand.

        I have a high resistance fault on my line that's still not completely fixed. The worst of it was alleviated by convincing the fifth Openreach engineer I'd had out to install a new NTE5. The situation has also improved since my exchange has been upgraded for 21CN.

        Unfortunately the root of the problem is the wiring in my town between the green boxes and the exchanges. That situation won't be resolved until FTTB arrives in a few years time.

        As things are right now I have long periods of stability. I still have periods of unstable access though, mainly due to climatic conditions.

        So, why are you laughing at me? My situation isn't unique. Until FTT{C,B} becomes widespread, flaky DSL will be a problem for these online single player schemes.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 9:59 AM

      It wouldn't bother me if internet uptime was as guaranteed as power uptime. Most times I'm playing single player games it's because the internet's out.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:00 AM

      This is definitely a no purchase for me at the time being. I travel quite a bit for school and work requirements to countries with dodgy internet at best. I'm not gonna throw down $50 or $60 for something I don't know if and when I can use.

    • spl legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      August 5, 2011 10:01 AM

      I'm fine with it personally but I think it's a totally dumb move. When I had Time Warner I would drop all the time. I didn't like playing Starcraft 2 online because of it.

      On FIOS now, so my connection is solid, but there's many thousands of players who will have disconnect issues all the time. I really hope Blizzard rethinks this and gives an offline option for those people.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:03 AM

      I honestly cannot wait to make real money selling items. It's going to be awesome.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:05 AM

      When hackers take the internet down for a few days/weeks/months I want to be able to play Diablo 3 during that time.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:06 AM

        haha I dont see that happening (or maybe...)

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 12:33 PM

          You're right. It never happened to Eve, Minecraft, or PS3.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:43 PM

            "when hackers take down THE INTERNET for a few months...."

            come on

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 12:45 PM

              Dude, lulzsec is going to DDOS EVERYTHING

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 4:34 PM

              It a platonic sense, taking out a server would remove the internet as we know it--because it would be replaced by an internet without said server.

              Either way, my comment was more directed to the fact that hackers don't have to take down the internet, just a specific portion--which is entirely possible, and has already been done.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:05 AM

      gettin' right to it. I applaud them for not being floaty.

      The rationale echoes comments from Blizzard game design VP Rob Pardo, who commented that increased security outweighs the benefit of offline play. "I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that."

      there you have it.

      the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few! for PC gaming to evolve, people need to accept and promote persistent online authentication.

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 5, 2011 10:08 AM

        I read that as, "Fuck you, play someone else's game."

        Ok, Blizzard, I will.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:19 AM

          wow holy shit. we are finally moving beyond crappy offline intrusive unstable DRM, and people are... mad?

          • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 10:31 AM

            Correct, now we're moving to crappy online intrusive unstable DRM
            (scheduled maintenance, auth servers getting DDOSed, tripping over the power cord, auth servers getting overloaded)

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 11:22 AM

            [deleted]

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 11:18 AM

          At this point Blizzard is prob the only game designer that can actually make a statement like this (the original quote.. not your paraphrased version) and get away with it.

          They have a license to print money with WoW. Do you think they REALLY care about the small percentage of people that will decide not to buy D3 because of this decision?

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:08 AM

        Umm, that's backwards?

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:09 AM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:09 AM

        [deleted]

        • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
          reply
          August 5, 2011 10:13 AM

          Do you really care?

          No, you don't.

          Because you've already decided that only your use case matters, and your petty attempt to call me out is just trying to drag me further into a pissing match.

          It's happened.
          It's happened fairly recently.
          It could, importantly, happen at any time, with or without notice.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:13 AM

        I've had maybe a half dozen multi-hour disconnected due to line cuts and was offline most of a weekend when my modem died in the last few years. That weekend was when I played through and beat Fallout for the first time.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:14 AM

        Car repair place just last week. While they claimed free wifi, I couldn't connect. Civ IV while I waited.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:17 AM

        World of Goo about 2 weeks ago, but generally I've got the internet available, it won't effect me very much but that doesn't mean it's not a feature that's been around so long it seems asinine to take out, just make sure that playing it offline pops up a warning that you can't play with people online with that character.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:18 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:18 AM

        Last Quakecon. This year started off strong but it's questionable when the BTOC is full.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:18 AM

        Last week, router was acting up and was offline for three hours during primetime. It was really compounded by the fact that the guy who had all the login stuff for our router is in Germany and he doesn't want to give anyone in our house the login credentials.

        I mean the guy asked if he could remote desktop through my PC to configure the router. Um, no.

        I ended up finishing Nimbus and EFLC when Steam went into offline mode

      • Ziz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 5, 2011 10:18 AM

        When was the last time ya lost internet connection?

      • gmd legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury mega
        reply
        August 5, 2011 10:20 AM

        1985

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:21 AM

        Fuck if I know. Usually I just go outside or masturbate or something.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 10:49 AM

          I read that to "go outside to masturbate" and was like O_o

          • kek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 10:58 AM

            makes clean up easier

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:23 AM

        I played Fallout3 on my laptop (steam in offline mode) while traveling.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:24 AM

        Whenever I first move in somewhere (which has been way too often), when my internet was flaky at my old house.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:24 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:26 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:27 AM

        8 or 9 years ago

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:30 AM

        Here's a better way of gauging the impact.

        1. When was the last time you were playing a multiplayer game and you or one of your friends had connection issues and couldn't play? (Frequent occurrence. Random things happen, only now you get exposed to that even when you're playing SP.)

        2. How long was PSN down because Sony was under barrage from hackers? Did Sony really fix the problem or did the hackers just stop? What if every PS3 game required a PSN connection to be played?

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:31 AM

        [deleted]

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 5, 2011 10:37 AM

        Just found out that the ISP here cuts off your internet if you hit your bandwidth cap.

        So, yea. There's that.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:42 AM

        Aside from the occasional day where the net is out, last year when I was on vacation in California. My uncle has yet to upgrade to a wireless network.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:51 AM

        Last week when my ISP took a giant shit.

        Thankfully Steams offline mode worked.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:54 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:58 AM

        Whenever my ISP decides to shit the bed. I have Brighthouse so it's fairly often. Probably about 2 months ago.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:04 AM

        Is playing a game on the computer while you are traveling that much of a stretch for you to imagine? There are a lot of people who travel for a living.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:10 AM

        Two days ago, I had to turn off AirPort so that the Sims would run instead of returning an error when I tried to play because we had no internet access that day. Also the day before when our power was out.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:15 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:19 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:22 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:22 AM

        Last week. Thunderstorm fried my cable modem, router, AND one of the ports on my switch.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:24 AM

        Last Wednesday. -- Until last week I only had a laptop for about 2 years. For 18 of those 24 months, I didn't have a real internet connection where I lived (Clearwire, was spotty at best), so being able to play offline without a crack, is still seen as a very nice feature.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:25 AM

        A year ago, I went about 11 months without cable/internet because I couldn't afford it. So during my off time (between looking for work and such) I played a lot of old single-player games that I hadn't touched in years. The Torchlight demo and Diablo 2 got the most use during that period. It was pretty much the only thing to keep me sane.

        Things are okay for me now, but if I bought Diablo 3 and a few months or even a year later I lost my job again, the first thing I'd have to cut would be my cable/internet. At that point, I couldn't even play single-player portion of the game I paid $60 for.

        Granted, what I described is a bit of an uncommon occasion, but even two months ago my cable crapped out and had to wait 3 days for Comcast to come out and fix it or even acknowledge that there was a problem.

        Blizzard's argument is that they want to have a way to validate single-player characters so that they if they decide to play online, they are able to. I certainly don't see anything wrong with having the option to, but I'm completely certain that I don't want to play online. So why not allow users like me to opt out entirely so that I can play without an internet connection at all if needed?

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:36 AM

        Past few days, shut off internet 3 days ago since we're moving next week.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:58 AM

        yesterday. I played Gal Civ II on my laptop, there is no wifi in the park where I eat lunch

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:58 AM

        1995 prolly.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:09 PM

        Dungeons of Dredmor on the plane.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:22 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:58 PM

        I can't even remember honestly. I can't even answer that question.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 2:20 PM

        This morning, when, *gasp*, my internet went down for about 45 minutes.

        I kicked up HoMM3 and ran through a few quick scenarios.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 2:23 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 3:00 PM

        A few months ago while on vacation. I basically had a day to kill and no WiFi where I was at the time, plus while I was on the plane. Played a bunch of Terraria.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 3:49 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 3:59 PM

        Yesterday, whilst my DSL was flaking out for about 15m.

        Thankfully Steam seems OK with that, it just takes a bit longer for games to load.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 4:29 PM

        I dunno, a week or two ago last time my Internet went down? If anything, I play games more went the Internet at home is down, as I'm not distracted by you people

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 5:11 PM

        Last month sometime when I didn't have internet for a day.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 5:40 PM

        About a month ago when my DSL modem died, I played several games with no connection. Now fast forward to when Diablo III is out and imagine I can't play it. How nice.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 7:36 PM

        Just last weekend actually, had a new landlord move in and I guess they fucked with some cabling on the side of the house installing a satellite dish, so I had to wait 5 days with out internet till a tech could come to the house. Thankfully I had just bought a smart phone, so I was able to tether my data just long enough to get into steam, and switch it too offline mode so I could play my games. P.S. Steam offline mode is retarded.

      • reply
        August 6, 2011 1:42 AM

        When I was deployed for 4 months.

        We had internet but it was spotty at best.

      • reply
        August 6, 2011 8:13 AM

        All the time. My ISP is constantly going down from anything from 5 minutes to entire weeks at a time. I play more old Single Player games now then I ever have done. The option to switch to another provider won't help me and my connection speed is 0.5MB a second. Downloading 8-10GB games on Steam can take up to a month.

      • reply
        August 10, 2011 11:24 PM

        Fibre outage for 2 days, played HOMM IV and Homeworld.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:30 AM

      While I completely understand that the AH feature they are doing requires this to happen, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I'll still buy and play D3, because it's Diablo 3.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:36 AM

      He's surprised that people are pissed at the "always online" thing? People are ALWAYS pissed about this. It's a stupid trend anyway.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:45 AM

      1. Make logical and reasonable design choice.
      2. Ignore inevitable but irrelevant population of overdramatic forum whiners.
      3. ???
      4. profit

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 10:49 AM

        We actually know what 3 is.

        3. Release one of the most hyped and likely well designed games of the past decade.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:48 AM

      After Starcraft:Broodwar I haven't been enamored with Blizzard games at all. WC3 was a let down, I don't like MMOs so WoW was a non-factor, and SC2 was just plain anti-climactic. So this news is just further solidifies Blizzard's death to me.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:48 AM

      Are they really that fucking clueless? Of all companies, I would expect Blizzard to understand their customers.

      Ubisoft seems to understand their customers, they just don't care. I always thought Blizzard was a bit more savvy.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:52 AM

      Perhaps people are more upset about the ridiculous cash-transaction Auction House than the online-only requirement..

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:02 AM

        You don't have to use it if you don't want to, and it in NO WAY changes your online experience.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 12:58 PM

          You don't think so? Trading in D2 was the primary way to get a hold of the best weapons and items. Now think of the effect this will have on the game. Professional gold farmers will flood the market with items and gold, driving down the price. Soon everyone will be able to buy top-tier items for just a dollar or two.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 6:12 PM

            Then play hardcore. Two benefits:
            1) No cash auction house
            2) It's about 1000 times as fun

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:56 AM

      Yeah, right.
      Are they supposedly living under a rock?

      Oh, my!
      We didnt know this was such a controversial subject!

      My arse.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:58 AM

      I think the fact that they claim to be "surprised" says more and more about their growing disconnect from their fan-base (or at least a decent portion of it).

      I'm confused as to what benefits to always-on are so awesome compared to losing the ability to play off the grid? Sounds like marketing-speak to me.

      I'm disappointed but they're probably at least partially right, no one should be surprised at some of this lame stuff they've been doing in recent years - after all, they're now under the reign of Kotick. :(

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 10:59 AM

      Can I reality check some entitled gamers around here? I'm a prime example of someone that will be fucked over if all games required you to be online when playing. I travel for work, and spend most weeks on the road, in hotels. Not every hotel has an internet connection, and the mobile connections I have available to me are certainly not being used to download 700mb patches and updating background files. Something like this means I can only play a game whilst at home, which is basically the weekends.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:04 AM

        So preload patches on the weekends. Problem solved.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 11:16 AM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 11:18 AM

          How does this help me get online in order to start a game? In a lot of cases the mobile connection is equivalent to dial-up. I'd also have to deal with a bunch of other issues with going online with limited bandwidth.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 3:50 PM

          [deleted]

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 8:18 PM

            Chaos god too busy trying asshat on. Shock, surprise.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:52 AM

        I haven't been to a hotel without internet in years. The shitty $50 a night motel in my college town w/ 7k population has free wifi. My phone does tethering out of the box.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 11:58 AM

          Ever heard the story about anecdotal evidence?

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:27 PM

            All my friends keep telling me anecdotal evidence is totally legit though!

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 12:30 PM

              Anecdotal evidence is totally fine if it supports your position!

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 2:27 PM

          Why don't you go to...say...Athens, Tx and see if you can find a hotel with decent wireless, or see if your phone can handle any sort of tethering out there. If he's traveling, odds are he's going to new business markets which may or may not have a lot of amenities that college towns will prioritize, and cell phone coverage is spotty at best if your town has less than 50k people or is not off of a major highway. And good luck finding a hotel with an internet connection that's even remotely capable of constant activity. I've stayed at some of the best in both Europe and the states and it's very rare to find one that's capable of more than 100k/s.

          In any event, not having a single player offline mode is just retarded. There's no valid reason for it. If you're going for DRM purposes, that's easily cracked. If you're doing it to control the auction market, separate offline and online characters completely with online characters stored server side.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:17 PM

        Just dont stay at shitty hotels without internet.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:24 PM

        i hear you - on the bright side, if you get decent mobile coverage [which seems more prevalent even in dumpy areas these days] you can always tether to your phone!

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:46 PM

        who the fuck is entitled here??

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 2:41 PM

          We're all entitled. Entitled to our opinions! :D

    • kek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      August 5, 2011 11:01 AM

      So is someone going to write a dummy auth server you can install on your laptop and a hack for D3 that points it to that server? :/

      Hmm, probably not given that all characters aren't stored locally huh. :(

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:02 AM

        This will not happen unless the whole server platform is reverse engineered. Characters are stored on battle.net.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 11:07 AM

      I suppose they don't realize that by having a "constant connection" and no offline mode means you will never actually own Diablo 3.

      Yeah that could piss of a few people, not to say anything would happen to Blizz or the internet but I would like to go back in a few decades and play Diablo 3 and not care if Blizz is around or if there is no internet etc. Yes the chances of both are really low but still its the thought of not really owning the game, personally that I hate and I am dependent on two entities in order to play.

      For instance I can play Diablo 2 for the rest of my life with out any issues, I own that game 100%.

      Basically they are doing a DarkSpore to Diablo 3 where you will never own it or like MMOs and other "constant connection" games.

      I really wish every game always had a permanent SP mode that allows you to always go back and re play your beloved game.

      Say NO to "constant connection" and YES to both. Its a bullshit excuse they are only doing it for lost sales and piracy. I hate this --> "He also suggests that offering a separate offline mode would create a "separate path" for players, and not many would use it anyway. He calls this solution more "clean."" what ever man.

      Ask you selves this, would you like it if eventually all your games where not on your hard drives/disks and you never actually own your games and it be like TV shows they come and go? Blahhh that fucking depressing if it ever happens :(

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:53 AM

        this is one of my bigger problems with the changes, it precludes cool shit like mods

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 11:44 AM

      Seriously WHO CARES? We all have 24/7 network connectivity these days. LAN is not an excuse as any LAN can be wired in as well. If your connection goes down, GO OUTSIDE. Jebus save us from the stupidity.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:46 AM

        The problem is your use of "we all". No, "we all" don't have 24/7 network connectivity these days.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:47 AM

        Sure, its true, but does it not bother you, you will never actually own Diablo 3?

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 11:50 AM

          Doesn't bother me, I don't own a lot of other games I play.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 11:56 AM

          Doesn't bother me either. I'll play D3 for a year or so, and move on to the next game. Blizzard is known for supporting their games, hence they still put out patches for D2 10 years later. I'm not too worried that D3 servers will be disappearing anytime soon.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 12:19 PM

          No, because if something was to ever happen to Blizzard they sure as hell would release a patch that removed online authentication.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:55 PM

            I would hope so and it would probably be true I am sure of it.

            I guess I am looking more at the big picture if such a scheme is adapted it seems to encourages cloud gaming which I am hard core against. Maybe I am too paranoid, the modding argument however is true for sure you can kiss that good by not that it was something I was looking forward to. Who knows.

            Please just tell them not to take valcan_s's games away :'(

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:57 PM

            If something that big was to happen, releasing patches would be the last thing they would be thinking about.

          • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 12:59 PM

            You are assuming that they even have it set up such that removing the online auth is possible without reworking major portions of the game. If they have no intention of allowing online play, the suckers who bought it will most likely just be screwed. (Not that I expect Blizzard to just fold up shop randomly)

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 4:55 PM

              People have developed shards for EQ1 and WoW, I guess a non-mmo would be even easier to create a server for.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 11:49 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:46 PM

        [deleted]

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 11:54 AM

      WHO THE HELL CARES.. seriously you play wow online constantly.. big deal... look at steam!
      Blizzard is doing a great thing with this and I feel its best that they do it themselves rather then letting some other online source deal with it. These people complaining are nothing but a bunch of cry babies.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 12:05 PM

      i took d3 off my "buy" list when i heard about this requirement... ive logged thousands of hours in d2, its the first thing i install on any new pc, and i doubt theres been more than a month go by since it came out that i havent played it for at least a few hours, no matter what ive got going on... my anticipation for d2 was so high i actually took a full two weeks off when it released, the only time in my life ive taken that much time off at one time.

      and out of all those thousands of hours of play, you know how many were online? two. maybe 3, if you add up the 5 minutes here and there over the last decade where i would log into battlenet, pop into a game, think "yep. still sucks." and log back out.

      im not interested in playing "solo online" either. unfortunately, i have a shit internet connection that craps out every time it rains, or groundwater gets into the conduits. i dont need the lag and disconnects and rage that comes from "always online" requirements...

      so, as much as it disappoints me, im just going to have to give it a pass... at least until someone comes up with a "fake" bnet server i can run locally to fool the game with.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:22 PM

        Ah man it sucks that your internet is bad. Diablo2 is so much more fun online :(

        • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
          reply
          August 5, 2011 12:35 PM

          It really isn't. People keep saying that like it's an absolute, but it's not.

          I've played D2 for 200 hours at least. Maybe a dozen online. Maaayyyybe. I just don't enjoy BNet.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:46 PM

            Is it the performance you don't like? Playing the game with others was worth the lag hit, and the lag wasn't that bad most of the time.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 2:43 PM

              no, its the people i hate. d2 is one of the worst online experiences i have ever had, and is every time i try it again.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:47 PM

            can you even move gear between dudes in singleplayer?

            I've spent hundreds of hours in D2, and probably only 3 of them not online.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 2:56 PM

              yeah you just fire it up twice and connect to yourself...

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 8:25 PM

              There used to be a tool called ATMA that let you move gear & cash between characters. Most of the sites discussing it seem to be dead links now. Hurray for dead game forums...

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 12:51 PM

            Its a shame youre broken, because the game is better online

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 12:53 PM

              Why does this even matter? Who cares if it's better online, if they want to play it offline let them.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 12:58 PM

                I'm not saying there shouldn't be an offline component, but if you're comparing the two, MP more fun.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 2:44 PM

                  for YOU. why is it so difficult for people to grasp that not everyone is like they are?

                  • reply
                    August 5, 2011 6:19 PM

                    Your internet connection is affecting the quality of MP play. I don't think you can comment on the quality of D2's MP mode.

                    • reply
                      August 5, 2011 7:57 PM

                      i had fine internet for years until i moved. d2 still sucked online. mostly because of online douchbags. *cough*

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 1:05 PM

              maulla, why is this, i've only played maybe three hours of D2 ever

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 7:13 PM

              I disagree I only played online probably a total of 5 hours,maybe. I probably have 400+hours in D2 99% of it offline.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:30 PM

        That sucks, but someone will come up with a "fix" for the online mode requirement - they always do.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 12:11 PM

      To hell with the Troops overseas who can't get a constant online connection. They can play Diablo 3 when they get home like everyone else. I guess they can't see the little people from that high up in the Blizzard Castle.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:48 PM

        wont someone think of the childrentroops!

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:00 PM

        ROFL Blizzard doesn't care about black people

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 2:53 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 3:58 PM

          I never had internet in my tent, or can when I deployed. I don't know who you deployed with, but my Rec Center limited internet time to 30min, and sure as hell wouldn't let connect my laptop to their lines. Yeah you can play your XBox/PS3, but the article was about having to be online to play Diablo 3. I guess if you work Comm you could get away with it. I ran convoys, and after my 3-7 day missions I did have some downtime to relax and play games.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 12:24 PM

      I hope they don't cave. if you played D2 offline because you're afraid of other people or whatever, you were getting an inferior experience. Sorry.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 12:25 PM

      Related: I assume D3 will have region/realm distribution similar to SC2? I hated the east/west thing in D2 so much.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 12:49 PM

      This makes perfect sense to me and after reading everyones reply I came to 2 conclusions.

      1.) the people who aren't going to cheat don't care
      2.) the people who were going to cheat are mad

      The fact that high end items are going to be sold to players for money in microtransactions means you need to ALWAYS be connected in order to protect the PRODUCT. No one gives a shit if you're over your bandwidth limit and can't play the game on a sunday afternoon, you are not who this game is for. No one cares that now you can't load up a useless toon with hacked items and play an offline because you hate doing anything hard. This is a game that caters to 95% of the market and could give two shits about the other 5%.

      Sure i think the direction that Blizzard is going with the microtransactions is a dangerous one, especially if it turns out to be successful, but they're going to make a killing doing it. You know they are.

      Think about how up in arms people would be if they started doing this shit in WoW. Thats where the real shitstorm would be.

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 5, 2011 12:56 PM

        HERE I CAME TO AN INFLAMMATORY AND TROLLISH CONCLUSION. I DEFY YOU TO DISAGREE CAUSE IT MEANS YOU'RE A CHEATER!

        1) I have no intention to cheat. Cheating a loot game removes the game. I care.
        2) It's not about cheating, it's about requiring online for a game that fundamentally does not need it.

        • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
          reply
          August 5, 2011 12:58 PM

          Additionally, the offline component would have no access to the microtransactions (being offline and all), and so should not be a factor.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 1:27 PM

          who are you to say it fundamentally does not need it? they evolve the game to add some features. to ensure validity of those features, online securing is the way to go.

          kill two birds with one stone.

          we're going into 2012. ubi called your bluff, and now blizzard is calling your bluff. enough bitching for nothing.

          • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 1:37 PM

            What bluff?

            I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 1:47 PM

              are you sure? your faux complaining about offline is a bluff, and now more than one developer is calling it.

              do you have anything substantive yet?

              • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
                reply
                August 5, 2011 1:55 PM

                What do you mean "bluff?"

                Are you implying that I won't not buy Diablo 3 out of protest? I assure you, it won't be the first time I've abstained from purchasing a high-profile game. I don't need D3 any more than Blizzard needs my $60.

                But it's a horrible requirement and a terrible direction. One that I firmly (and obviously) disagree with.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 2:33 PM

            Did they? I didn't buy AC2 or Brotherhood because of the always online stuff. I won't buy D3 if it's always online. It's that simple.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 2:09 PM

          actually it does need it.

          • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            August 5, 2011 2:11 PM

            An artificial limitation is not a "need."

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 2:33 PM

              Its not artificial. you want it to be, you want the game you expected in your head but thats not the game they are making. play torchlight 2 instead and stop whining about it. you don't always get what you want, its a hard lesson blizzard is teaching you. you can teach them a lesson too by not giving them your money (but you will anyway).

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 2:41 PM

          Blizzard believes it does fundamentally need it.... so it's there :)

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 5:43 PM

            There is a lot of things Blizzard believes that aren't always true. Having played 6+ years of WoW let me tell you they get plenty of things wrong. Oh don't get me wrong they are right a lot but plenty of times not.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 12:59 PM

        I'm not going to cheat, and I don't like that I can't play on my laptop when I don't have an internet connection (not really mad, it's just obnoxious). I have many layovers when I travel during which I'd quite happily play offline. Except I can't. I'll find something else to do, but again, it's obnoxious. I don't really understand why you can't agree that it's obnoxious, so that we can hold hands and become best friends.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 1:01 PM

          It's not obnoxious.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 1:09 PM

            But it is. I can't play the game when I'm not online. I have been able to play all sorts of single player games while not being online. I just can't play this game that way. And to me, that's obnoxious.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:01 PM

        This is a dumbass post

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:04 PM

        Really makes you think.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:14 PM

        lol

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:23 PM

        Wow. I make pretty retarded posts and even I think this is a dumb one. It's not about cheating at all. Also, what Blizzard-provided microtransactions are you talking about?

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 2:35 PM

          for most of the people complaining, it is about cheating. i am not talking about shackers, and i am not even necessarily talking about pirates. there was a huge community of cheaters, dupers, hackers, etc in Diablo 2 and that will be harder if not impossible to do with the closed B.net system.

          I'd rather be protected from players like that and have a closed system, but then again I played almost all of the time on B.net when I played D2 and LoD.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:43 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:45 PM

        Front pagers.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 2:04 PM

        I rarely EVER played Diablo and Diablo 2 online with other people. I prefer the SP experience and not because I cheat so a big fuck you on that.

        However with that being said I do understand Blizzards point, but it is a bit ridiculous to have this as a "requirement' to have a SP experience.

        I also don't see Blizzard providing the entire world with an always on wireless internet connection to play their game, obviously thats retarded.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 12:51 PM

      There are two primary things that this is used for. Anti-piracy and anti-cheating.

      For the former, a lease that expires and needs to be renewed allows for offline play in 99% of the cases. I think this is what he refers to as "direction of the industry". Think Zune pass.

      For the latter, it's an implementation choice that they will have to decide if was the right one or not.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 1:20 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:42 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 1:56 PM

        ya ill buy it either way. Id rather there not be a jacked up hack infested game.. im not seeing how having on always on connection has anything to do with this though. ..but whatever..

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 1:53 PM

      i read through the first portion of this thread and have not seen one person mention the reason D2 was so fucked with hacks was because of the way everything was saved locally to your system leaving you the option of doing as you pleased.

      WoW is saved on servers.. (its not because its an always on connection n00bs) SC2 is saved on Servers, D3 im assuming.. will ALSO be saved on BNet 2 servers..

      What does that have to do with offline / online?? just asking..

      I would think playing single player i would have the option to "hack" all want whenever i want, you cant exactly "load" that onto a Bnet2 server.. so whats the problem here? Sounds like DRM to me..

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 2:10 PM

      I loved having a mule account back when I played, that was awesome. I also loved being able to choose between open/close battle.net, even though open battle.net usually meant a lot of dupers and broken items. Having multiple accounts was a plus too, and the fact that accounts expire after 6 months of inactivity always meant that I came back to play every few months because I didn't want to lose my things.

      Finding loot was awesome, especially because some of the items had really low chances of dropping. Then, in the later patches when they introduced synergy to the game, it really changed the game around. No longer could you only put one point into prerequisites (unless you wanted a weaker spell), but now you could choose to put more points into them making your primarily spell that much more powerful.

      Unfortunately, given the new direction Blizzard is taking with its games (leaning more towards the casual crowd and trying to streamline all their games to make it accessible for everyone), I'm not so sure I'll actually buy diablo 3 when it comes out. Theres nothing wrong with casual games, but it just doesn't fit into my game style. With their new rule of having one account tied to the purchase of the game, that also means that holding a stash of awesome treasures is going to be limited.

      Being unable to choose skills and also being limited to one account means that I can't have multiple characters of the same class where they do different things. I know that runes are the response to this, but the increased inventory size doesn't seem large enough to hold all the items required for different builds. From the looks of the august 2010 inventory, it looks like the inventory is large enough to hold another set of gear before your inventory size is reduced by half. So what happens if you want a character to be able to mf, pvp, pve?

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 2:13 PM

        I didn't catch it - where'd you see that there's a limit on the number of characters on an account?

        • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
          reply
          August 5, 2011 2:17 PM

          It's all over the forums. 10 per account.

      • reply
        August 7, 2011 4:34 PM

        You basically only need 5 character slots, as you can swap skills around without a penalty (unless I misunderstood when I read about it). There's no need for several of the same type of character with different builds. Just switch to another build and swap out some of your gear with something you have in your stash.

        And your account's stash will be huge, so you'll still have room to hoard lots and lots of items.

        Personally, I'm on the fence about the whole easy skill-swapping thing. It might work out fine, but I'm worried it'll make things too convenient...

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 2:13 PM

      So it's like a MMO without the monthly price, would you feel better about being always connecting and paying $10 a month?

      • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 5, 2011 2:18 PM

        Tacking on a monthly fee would be another superfluous nail in the coffin containing my purchase of this game. It would be another bootprint on the horse's corpse.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 2:19 PM

          Did you rage this hard about Guild Wars?

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 2:24 PM

            To be fair, that was always made with a different expectation. We had Diablo 2 offline, we expected Diablo 3 offline.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 2:38 PM

              Maybe you should modify your expectations? Anyone who was surprised by this hasn't been paying attention to the past five or more years of development in PC gaming. Anyone who expected stuff that worked 10+ years ago hasn't been paying attention to reality.

              The industry has changed, substantially, since then.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 2:53 PM

                But why would I want to lower my expectations from what was previously available? The industry is still producing games with single player components that can be played offline.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 2:30 PM

            Did Guild Wars launch with a 15 year history of providing an offline single player mode?

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 2:34 PM

              I'm sorry, but I'm laughing at "15 year history." This is the third game in the series, and the first in over 10 years. Don't act like it's anything more than that.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 2:36 PM

                I mean, the series also has a "15 year history" of being in 2D and only using 256 colors.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 2:41 PM

                  i demand palette effects in diablo 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 2:46 PM

                  Show me how online-only is actually an improvement and maybe you'll have a point.

                  • reply
                    August 5, 2011 2:57 PM

                    It will dramatically reduce the cheating, increase the amount of coop, and decrease piracy.

                    • reply
                      August 5, 2011 3:09 PM

                      The first could be accomplished whether or not there's an offline component.

                      The second...I think people that want to play coop are going to play coop, the people that don't will play in their own private game and won't factor in to a greater coop pool.

                      So that leaves you with the ability to decrease piracy, which only benefits me in that Blizzard potentially gets more money. Okay...I get that, but it doesn't make me any happier that they're going that route. I don't think they'll be hurting in sales figures.

                    • reply
                      August 5, 2011 3:18 PM

                      Piracy.. you mean the DRM thing that Blizzard claims wasn't even part of their thought process? Interesting that that's the strongest of your three points.

                      And given the very clear attitude the PC community has for this sort of DRM.. that leaves you at maybe 0.5 for 3.

                      Cheating isn't a problem when you're playing offline single player.
                      Cheating isn't as big a problem if single player and multi-player/Battlenet characters are kept separate.

                      "The amount of coop" is subjective. By definition the people that want an offline single player mode are probably not going to be playing in public games on Battlenet. Furthermore - someone who doesn't buy D3 because they want the option of offline single player has 0% chance of actually becoming someone that does play on public Bnet servers.

                      Or are you saying that if an offline single player mode is included you *won't* buy the game? I'd be pretty interested in hearing from *that* contingent - assuming it actually exists. So far all I see are comments from people that fall into the category of "bitchers-about-bitchers".

                    • reply
                      August 10, 2011 11:18 PM

                      Cheating is only relevant in multiplayer, Amount of coop is part of multiplayer, Piracy will be happen anyway. Always online mode is the only way to remain in full control of their game at any time.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 2:45 PM

                Anything more than what? It's called a precedent. Just because it has been 11 years since the last installment doesn't change that fact. (an installment that is still sold, and quite often revisited by any number of people, I might add).

                You also ignored the point of my statement. Nobody raged at Guild Wars because it was never conceived as offline or single-player. The fact that you can (now) play through GW alone doesn't change that.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 2:51 PM

                  The phrase "15 year history" implies significantly more involvement than two games over 10 years ago. Using that phrase in this situation is laughable.

                  You could play through Guild Wars alone back when it was released, too.

                  • reply
                    August 5, 2011 3:42 PM

                    And yet there was a patch for D2 released last year. Even after such a large gap of time there were enough D2 players to warrant another update. What I find laughable is how easily you dismiss D2's longevity. Is it as big as it was in 2002? Of course not - but very few other games can be so lucky.

                    Ironically (for you) this large gap of time between D2 and D3 is part of Blizzard's problem. If we were waiting on D4/5 right now it probably would be easier to accept a gradual shift to online-only.

                    You could *try* to play though Guild Wars alone at launch.. but some of those missions were a real bastard prior to the merc improvements/addition of heroes. Maybe not impossible - but frustrating to the point that most people probably partied up to make their life easier.


      • reply
        August 5, 2011 2:51 PM

        fwiw, i dont play MMOs either, for the same reasons i wont buy D3. 1) the biggest thing wrong with the internet is all the people and 2) my internet connection craps out when it rains (seriously) so im not going to buy a game thats like crack then get the DTs every time the ground gets wet.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 3:33 PM

          I am in the same boat with crappy internet, it will be interesting to see how they handle disconnects

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 2:58 PM

      While I do appreciate the convenience of Offline play I think that in this case if the "increased security" can truly prevent item duping and other hacks, then Online only is a good thing.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 3:03 PM

        You don't need online-only play for the increased security. You need two independent item generation, character behavior, and character storage code paths: One that is local, and one that is online.

        If you're playing an offline-only character, the item generation and character data is all on the local machine. If you're playing an online-only character, all the item generation and character data is on the server. Hybrid characters that work in both places don't exist. You could probably create a local clone of an online character, but you couldn't go the other direction.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 4:54 PM

          Ha I just posted something about this is what Blizzards needs to do to preserve security.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 5:21 PM

          They had that for Diablo 2 and let me tell you about the dupes in the online portion. The only way Blizzard could combat it was to make new ladder seasons where the entire game and all characters were basically wiped. That would keep the economy clean for up to a month.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 5:25 PM

            No, they didn't. Significant aspects of the "online" portion were being handled locally.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 6:17 PM

              All the game files were available locally, however, making it fairly trivial to figure out weaknesses in the code. D2 might be the most exploited game of all time -- about a dozen dupe methods over the years, ith items, white rings, occy soj, town kill, chicken, auto pk, bots, auto lock / auto aim, and I'm sure quite a few more I'm forgetting.

              Compare that to any game that is online only / keeps core components out of the reach of the gamer. What's the most hacked game in this category? How many exploits does it have compared to Diablo 2?

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 6:27 PM

                My understanding is that's not how most, if any, worked. They worked by looking at and editing what was loaded into memory or editing local files that the game depended on.

                If the server doesn't trust anything the client says, none of that matters.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 3:17 PM

      Wow, just wow.... This really goes to show you that there really no longer is anyone working at Blizzard that is still in touch with gamers. It's like trying to get a 'rich' person to understand what and why a 'poor' person does what they do.

      Not that gamers are poor, but it shows that the social and cultural gap is so huge they can't even begin to understand why something happens when it does, even when it is explained properly. Their brains simply cannot grasp the HOW and the WHY. Quite literally a case of the Ivory Tower.

      They simply explain away how awesome their system is and how everyone should use it regardless of what people actually think. It's not just the constant internet connection thing... Blizzard has been doing it for years and it's even more clear with the real money AH.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 3:39 PM

        Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft II all had spawn installs so that you could play co-op with one disk. How cool was that.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 4:03 PM

          Yes sir. That was cool and I remember the spawn install on SC.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 3:50 PM

      They pulled this fucking surprised shit with the region locking too, bullshit! They seriously can't put themselves in the gamers shoes? Really? No imagination at all... "I wonder, if I was a regular person withoput money hats, would X Y or Z bother me? hmmmm"

      Cockslap.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 3:54 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 4:08 PM

      The amount of "GET OFF MY LAWN!!!" is amusing. Expecting a company to never change how their products work is unreasonable. You all have a right to complain, but it ain't changing shit!

      It's kinda silly how Blizzard downplays the DRM aspect, but that's to be expected from a market perspective.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 4:52 PM

      After reading all the information on the subject that is available I have determined in my opinion that Blizzard doesn't want the user to have control of saves to avoid back hacking. They most likely believe that users would back hack the solo character files and find a way to screw with the online community. The only solution that I could think of is a totally different save system for single vs multi but I don't think Blizzard wants to put the time and effort into designing that.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 4:53 PM

      Blizzard's position is understandable. Duping and botting were huge, huge problems in D2. From what I've read, some engine stuff will be run entirely on the server to make it more difficult to create hacks. If you put the entire game on the disc, it makes it much easier to develop exploits.

      I'd much rather have a dupe free economy than the ability to play single player.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 5:15 PM

        Amen to logic

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 5:23 PM

        ^^^ this. It won't be perfect but it will make things a ton easier to control. Client side items give the end user too much flexibility to decode files.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 5:29 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 5:32 PM

          Then you'd still need to connect to the servers to use them?

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 5:33 PM

            [deleted]

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 5:37 PM

              I don't think you understand. Having an offline single player means EVERY SINGLE GAME FILE is on your PC and can be decoded and exploits discovered. By keeping a good chunk of files locked on a remote server, it makes hacker's lives a lot more difficult.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 5:37 PM

                Good points!

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 5:41 PM

                [deleted]

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 5:51 PM

                  Yes, it did work for WoW.

                  I think the exploits in WoW were far less egregios than what went on in Diablo 2. Things like infinite gold, item duping, instakilling other players were never issues in WoW. Most of the exploits centered around being able to automate tasks through the client, or content bugs that were blizzards fault.

                  • reply
                    August 6, 2011 12:42 AM

                    Currently there are still tons of bots fliying and teleporting through the world or under the world. Especially in PVP its become really bad with botting.

                    • reply
                      August 6, 2011 12:49 AM

                      True but in D2, people would directly break core game rules by declaring hostility while standing next to someone anywhere (i.e. outside of town) and instagib them on HC mode.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 5:51 PM

                  It worked for WoW, the only real exploits were map exploits like getting to inaccessible areas, and mistakes that Bliz made, such as exploits for boss encounters using map dynamics that were corrected in patches.

                  I'm talking about hard decoding so that things like duping items and map hacks to expose entire map layouts can occur.

                  I dont think ppl can hack their servers and come up with those things in 2 days.

                • reply
                  August 5, 2011 5:55 PM

                  There is (if you're talking about Blizzard detecting hacks) but there's always another new hack that isn't detected yet, just like we have anti-virus programs but they don't really work against a brand new virus that they don't have signatures for.

                  Making it several orders of magnitude more difficult to even create hacks is the most effective way of reducing / elminating them, not having a policy of enforcement after the fact.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 5:37 PM

              Nah, I'm sure there isn't. They just want it streamlined and simple this and not force people to have separate offline and online characters this time around I guess.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 5:47 PM

              There is, from a security standpoint. Games that play online and offline both usually are architected to have a client and a server. When offline your computer boots up its own server and your client connects to it. That way when you go online, all you have to do is connect to a server over the internet instead. Same protocols, same data exchange, clean and relatively bug free switch (hoepfully)

              Here is what a hacker might know about the game if they allowed offline play:

              * Character storage format
              * How items, stats and gold are stored in memory
              * World config files (monster stats, drop rates, loot tables)
              * Bot development/testing offline without detection since they have a local game server running on their computer

              By not giving you the compiled version of the game server code, it makes it much much harder for a hacker to reverse engineer and exploit. Even though they wouldn't ship the source code they still tip a a good deal of their hand to the world by allowing offline play.

              • reply
                August 5, 2011 6:33 PM

                If the server assumes the client is inherently untrustworthy (i.e., when it says "I have foo", the server says "bullshit, my record says you don't"), only the last of those matters. You can hack your memory all you want; it's the server that has the only record that matters.

                If the server actually trusts the client, you're fucked anyway. Figuring out how to hack the client memory isn't all that hard, with or without the compiled files. Once that's done, if the server trusts the client, it's all over.

                • reply
                  August 6, 2011 12:49 AM

                  It's pretty nice for clients to never even have the server code. It makes it just that much harder for clients to cheat. (or pirate the game for that matter)

                  It's also pretty nice to only have one code path which mandates a connection to battle.net. Supporting both single player and multiplayer isn't as simple as flipping a bit. As someone who would never play single player to begin with I am happy that those resources are being dedicated to things more useful to me, but I certainly understand the other side.

                  Frankly I'm surprised people are still raging over this. I figured the real money auction house would be a far bigger issue that b.net only. Who woulda guessed that?

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 5:32 PM

          I don't understand how single player = dupe economy
          It doesn't.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 5:31 PM

        Whoah back the mother fuck uppppppp - are you saying I can't play Diablo 3 on my own? - because having to be online is a little bit shitty but surely one could play the game in 'single player mode' right?

        (Also semi-on topic, if we're going online - BLIZZARD ADD THE FUCKING INVISIBLE OPTION TO THE FUCKING FRIENDS LIST YOU DUMB CUNTSSSSSSSSSSSS
        CUNTTTTTTTTTTTTTS THINK YOU CUNTS THINK)

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 5:33 PM

          You'll be able to solo. Pretty sure he meant offline SP.

          • reply
            August 5, 2011 5:57 PM

            Yes, this. You can play solo online just by creating a passworded game. Sorry for the unclear wording.

            • reply
              August 5, 2011 8:34 PM

              but there's no offline mode, not in any capacity.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 5:35 PM

          Wow. You tell them man!

        • reply
          August 6, 2011 12:53 AM

          abrasion has come online.

          Creepy and unwanted lone sperger "friend" (because you helped him once): Sup? :P

        • reply
          August 6, 2011 12:54 AM

          I wish steam would add invisible mode too. FUCCKKS

          • reply
            August 6, 2011 1:40 AM

            It has an invisible mode. Open your friends list and click on the little arrow next to your name and select 'offline'.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 5:56 PM

        This is exactly right. Anyone who was ever into D2 would remember hacked SoJ's were used for currency on battle.net

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 5:26 PM

      I... dont have a problem with D3 being online only, it makes perfect sense for this game, and besides, trading items and character management in D2 was a nightmare - so if anything fixes that I'm all for it.

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 7:55 PM

      "not many people would use it anyway" How does he know? I never heard that crap from come out of blizzards mouth before. I know blizzard as a company that tries to make there game as accessible as possible to every pc gamer. Plus just now being in the military and being a PC gamer is getting increasingly harder due to lack of internet and internet required games -_-...

    • reply
      August 5, 2011 8:10 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 8:36 PM

        no, youre absolutely correct. they dont owe me a product i want, and i dont owe them a purchase for a game i dont want. im sure it will sell a billion, i just wont be one of them. id rather give my money to developers like crate and runic, as a thank you for not ignoring their customers.

        seriously, everyone who hates the way this is shaking out, head over to http://www.grimdawn.com/ and put your money where your mouth is...

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 8:48 PM

          We are going to have so much fun playing D3 without you y(radio_babylon)y :(

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 8:48 PM

        I hope you understand how utterly ridiculous and pointless this is to say. If Blizzard's customer base demands single player enough, then Blizzard essentially "owes" them the feature, or else they can choose to not buy Diablo III. Basic economics. You offer what consumers desire for maximum revenue.

      • reply
        August 5, 2011 8:55 PM

        What's up with people acting like others are somehow obligated to buy Blizzard's games?

        A lot of people deny there will be any lost sales over it. Yes, the money waterfall wont end this time for Blizzard. But a noticable minority isn't impressed with their choices, and are looking for alternatives. Thankfully the indie CRPG market has grown big enough to start generating more MP games, may get some with less awful netcode.

        By failing to meet all the market's needs, they are thoughtfully providing comfortable large niches for competitors to leverage into turning into a real threat to them.

        • reply
          August 5, 2011 9:01 PM

          I don't think anyone is making the arguments you just claimed.

          • reply
            August 7, 2011 2:30 AM

            Then why all the "what's the problem with them not offering what you want" comments?

            I don't see why people have a problem that others are expressing frustration that a game they'd otherwise love is doing things that make it useless for them.

    • reply
      August 6, 2011 12:38 AM

      The beef most people have is that they connect online with multiplayer and expect singleplayer to be offline / unconnected to a network. Why isn't a sync opiton possible? Before you sell something on the RMT auctionhouse, your data which is in a encrypted locker, gets synced up.

    • reply
      August 6, 2011 1:38 AM

      "caught off guard"??

      are they fucking retarded?

      no one's bitching that you have to be online to play online.

      EVERYONE'S bitching that you can't play offline and solo without having to be online for no other goddamn fucking reason except to DRM check you.

      the fact that they refuse to acknowledge that they understand that is a testament to how far they've got their head up their asses.

      dumb shit hubris.

      se la vie.

    • reply
      August 6, 2011 5:55 AM

      Get Skyrim for when you're offline. Problem solved.

    • reply
      August 6, 2011 10:48 PM

      Um ya wtf? Thats pretty shyte, I hope they change that

    • reply
      August 7, 2011 4:59 AM

      I'm okay with always-online, especially given the huge impact duping/hacking had on D1 and D2.

    • reply
      August 7, 2011 1:58 PM

      Blizzard cut offline D3 to ship faster. NOT for DRM. They'll never say that, but that is why.

      Wake the fuck up people! Blizzard's approach to DRM has always been: "make online play so compelling that most people buy it anyway." Diablo 3 with offline mode isn't going to cost them enough sales in piracy to be a major motivation in this, but it might cost them the 2011 holiday ship window. It is just a secondary benefit as they say.

      Look at it from another perspective:

      - They can add it in post-launch if there's sufficient financial motivation.

      - Hundreds of man-hours (AT LEAST) to code, test, and ship a client-side portion that imitates Battle.nets server-side logic required for session data and character data persistance to play the game with a reduced feature-set. (Instead of investing those man-hours of related expertise in b.net 2.0 features which more customers care about.)

      - Plenty of market research to indicate widespread availability of broadband internet.

      - Over 11 million existing customers with reliable broadband internet. (Yes, that's WoW.)

      - Players can choose to play alone even if online and it reduces player segmentation/segregation. (You can group up with friends later even if you started out alone.)



      • reply
        August 7, 2011 4:30 PM

        good points

      • reply
        August 9, 2011 8:36 AM

        Let me understand you here. The game was announced, what, in 2008? And had been in development probably (reaches into ass) three or four years before that? And you're saying that only *now* does a holiday ship date suddenly compromise the development? Wake up chief.

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          August 9, 2011 11:13 AM

          You think they just made the decision to exclude it, now? o_O They probably said "lets cut offline mode and see if we can't release by the end of 2011" back in 2010.

          Do you have even the slightest idea how much work it would take to translate a client/server game (with the server-side logic equivalent to that of an MMO) to a standalone client without dumping the keys to hacking b.net in our laps? Cutting offline-mode impacts the ship-date by entire months.

          I assure you, they worked on multiplayer architecture first, and put offline mode into the "do that later" bin ever since development re-re-started back in 2005 when they closed Blizzard North.

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          August 9, 2011 11:30 AM

          Sorry, i'm posting like a jerk. Internet arguments getting me riled up, go me! lol.

          Anyway, my original post implies the decision was recent, not you, and that's an oversight on my part.

          Also, I don't expect most gamers sit down and think about the scheduling impact of a particular feature, nor should they have to!

          I wanted to bring my thoughts to the table but I'm not doing it in a very productive way and nor will it have much impact as a handful of posts amid the community of rage going on over Diablo 3's latest revelations.

          Please don't take my posts personally! I'm just another jerk on the internet. =\

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      August 7, 2011 6:12 PM

      "I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that."

      This is exactly why people have a problem with it.

      Of all the types of 'actual' games that gamers would play, as well on a mobile laptop as a stationary PC, the Diablo-style dungeon crawler is definitely one of the leaders.

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      August 8, 2011 1:07 AM

      as long as you can play the game SP and you wont lose out when your connections down then im all for enhancing games with an always on.... as long as its not a roadblock for SP as i say

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      August 8, 2011 3:08 PM

      "Always on" is all well and good if you live in an area which doesn't suffer from poor connections, can't say ADSL is great where I live.. :( "not everyone has constant on service" :(
      Having said that, I do see the merit in it as far as cheating goes.. :)

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