Slashdot Mirror
Blizzcon 2009 Wrap-Up
Last year's Blizzcon was tremendously popular. So much so that their servers were unable to handle the strain of fans competing for 15,000 available tickets. This year, Blizzard was more prepared; they made an additional 5,000 tickets available and set up a queue so that the transaction servers weren't overwhelmed. CEO Mike Morhaime said during the keynote address that if you weren't able to get into the queue within 30 seconds of its opening, the tickets were sold out before your turn came. Tens of thousands more chose to order the pay-per-view coverage, demonstrating the extraordinary enthusiasm felt for Blizzard's games. Their presentations didn't disappoint. Read on for details on the status of StarCraft II, Diablo III, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and the new Battle.net. It's divided into sections by game in case you're only interested in one or two of them.
StarCraft II / Battle.netThe big StarCraft II news this year wasn't so much about the first installment, Wings of Liberty, as it was about two of the major features shipping with the game: the editor and Battle.net. Both look to be extremely powerful, and they're being given the same level of care and polish you'd expect from the game proper. Still, the devs spoke a little bit about their philosophy and vision for the game. One of the major themes is making sure the player has options. When selecting missions in the single-player campaign, players can choose from several different paths to advance the main plot. There are also optional missions; you can choose to skip them if you want, or you can finish them to open up new units that you wouldn't have access to otherwise.
Even within missions themselves, Blizzard wants to give you different ways to get the job done. One example they gave was an escort mission where you're shown the path some escaping civilians will be taken, so you can plan out how you want to prepare for attacks and decide how many resources to commit at a particular time. Another mission features high terrain surrounded by low terrain. Zerg attack frequently, and every so often, lava rises out of nearby crevasses and floods the low terrain. The goal of the mission is to build up a certain amount of money, which puts a new spin on resource planning. Spending a lot of money to fight off the Zerg goes contrary to the mission objective, but spending too little has its own risks. You can also decide to be as aggressive or as cautious as you want when playing chicken with the lava. Harvesting those extra few minerals can make a huge difference if you time it well enough.
This leads into another major theme: keeping all the missions unique and interesting. Even with the brief look at the single-player campaign that we've already seen, there are several cool new mechanics that make the game more than "build up an army and smash the other army" thirty times in a row. It'll do great things for replayability, and I think it will make the single-player portion of the game stand on its own more than in the original StarCraft. Solo-play in RTS games is often referred to as "training" for multi-player, but Blizzard doesn't look at it this way; the missions are far too unlike PvP to be useful in that regard. Instead, they've added what they call "Challenges," which do train you for common PvP scenarios. There will be mini-missions for things like maximizing your economy, learning how to counter particular units, or using micro-management skills to take out a superior force. You'll be able to keep trying, improve your scores, and track your performance — thanks to the new Battle.net.
Battle.net is shaping up to be a really impressive addition. Match-making is at the heart of it, but calling it simply a match-making system doesn't really do it justice. Communication, stat-tracking, and mod-sharing are also central to the new platform. Players will be able to create friends lists that span the different games, allowing somebody in World of Warcraft to talk with somebody playing Wings of Liberty. They're rolling out what is essentially an integrated IM client with all the features you'd expect for keeping track of people and conversations — multiple frames, online/offline notices, setting an alias for somebody, etc. I think it'll be an incredible boon for multi-player when people are able to look for groups in one game while playing another. Blizzard also made sure to mention that they were aware of the privacy concerns involved in such a system, and they'll be implementing controls to let you limit the amount of information you share.
The new system also supports looking at your performance in myriad ways. When reviewing a game, you'll be able to see how the players' economies developed, what their build orders were, unit production, battle details, and more. What's more, you'll get a much more useful replay system, allowing you to fast-forward, rewind, jump to particular points in the game, view from different places, and look at stats as they're being accumulated. In addition to this is a full achievement system with a ton of things to unlock and show off. One of the coolest parts is the ability to unlock and choose artistic decals which will then be rendered on your units in-game.
But, of course, the matchmaking system itself can't be overshadowed. Their goal when designing it was to give a competitive experience to as many people as possible, and it looks like they've found a way. As you play against other people and start to accumulate wins and losses, you are put in a League with players of a similar skill level. There are seven Leagues: Pro, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper, Practice. The Leagues are broken down further into Divisions, which include opponents even closer to your skill level. Divisions are limited to 100 people. Players will be ranked against others in their Division, and there will be seasons of play. Tournaments held at the end of the season will determine Division winners, who can complete for the League championship. The idea is that everyone should be paired against people of their own skill level as much as possible, and everyone should have a reasonable chance of winning their division — even the most hopeless of casuals. Speaking of which — for the truly new (or truly terrible), there will be a few maps designed specifically to be "anti-rush" so that they can learn the basics without fear of being immediately crushed.
Another significant fact to keep in mind is that these ratings will be tied to Battle.net accounts, which will require the purchase of a Blizzard game to use. This allows for two great new controls: first, people will be much less likely to try cheating, since they can't just register a new account for free. Second, your game rating is tied to your account, so the problem of "smurfing" — when highly-skilled players make a new account for the sole purpose of being matched against (and then demolishing) newer players — is neatly eliminated. Providing meaningful, interesting matches to every player will go a long way toward a thriving, sustainable PvP community. Also, the rating system will apply to co-op match-making as well. Each team of players has its own rating, so you don't have to worry about dropping in the standings if you want to goof off with your friends in 3v3. Speaking of co-op, the match-making and game creation system has been streamlined in that regard as well. It's simple to, for example, join up with one friend and then drop into a 3v3 or 4v4 game as a group of two. You also don't have to jump through hoops to get your friends in a game and select settings before letting random people in to fill the extra slots.
The last major feature of the new Battle.net is the support for custom maps and mods. They're making it very easy to browse custom games and download maps without having to repeatedly get booted from a server or visit a third-party site. The Blizzard developers were extremely enthusiastic about what they called the StarCraft II Marketplace — essentially an App-Store-like interface for browsing and getting maps and mods. You could feel the wariness from the Blizzcon audience when this was announced; people were wondering if they would be required to pay for custom maps. But, for the most part, this won't be the case. The capacity for premium mods does exist, but the devs said that even a massively-popular mod like DotA would probably be too simple to expect people to pay for. The ability to charge was put into place so development teams that were interested could plan for a budget, in order to build extremely detailed or complex maps and mods. You can expect free access to all the great fan-made maps and mods that are typical of Blizzard games.
This naturally leads to questions about the editor that will be coming with StarCraft II. From what we've seen so far, the Blizzard devs are going out of their way to include a ridiculous amount of flexibility in the tools they are providing. They seem to have a tremendous respect for what fans have done with their previous games; fully one-third of their design staff has come out of the mod community, and they have every intention of contacting people who make incredible creations for StarCraft II. Put simply, everything in the single-player campaign can be done with their editor. Many things not in the single-player campaign can be done with the editor. They gave a few simple examples: nothing in StarCraft II makes use of an inventory, but the code is there to support it. One of the powerful Zerg units, an Ultralisk, was modified with spiny grafts on its back that rapidly shot back and forth to destroy smaller units. When the Ultralisk was surrounded, it gave off a huge circular flame wave, destroying what was, literally, a screen full of enemies.
Most impressive, though, were the two complicated examples. Using just the editor, they were able to transform the game into a third-person shooter. You took control of a unit (a Ghost, of course), and ran around the map (even underground) shooting Zerg, complete with a shooter UI, keyboard movement controls and mouse-look. They were also able to turn the game into a top-down scrolling space shooter. Take a look. And they're still adding features. They're looking for ways to create libraries that can be passed around — they want to give mod-makers the ability to work on different tasks at the same time. They're also very aware of the possibility that people might grab somebody else's custom map, make one minor change, and re-submit it as their own — Blizzard is making it very difficult to do this, and they're already working on a report and review system for objectionable content. The editor will be available during the beta, but probably not right away.
With all of this in development, it's easy to see why Blizzard is so focused on getting people to use Battle.net. The oft-repeated suggestion that it's just DRM to fight piracy isn't the case. Hearing them talk about it and finally seeing what Battle.net has to offer makes it plain that they really do think the gaming experience will be better for it. That said, the door to LAN play doesn't seem to be closed. Rob Pardo acknowledged that there are a number of fringe cases where access to the internet isn't available or networking concerns prevent decent gameplay, and they're still looking into ways to give people what they want. They're also continuing to look into ways to optimize for situations where people are playing with each other from the same location.
Diablo III
The big reveal for Diablo III this year was the new Monk class. It's the game's second melee character, after the Barbarian, but manages to have a completely distinct style and feel. The inspiration for the Monk came from rather disparate sources; pen-and-paper RPGs and arcade-style fighting games (think Street Fighter). Since a Monk is holy by nature, Blizzard felt he should have access to a bit of holy magic to enhance his martial-arts style of fighting. Interestingly, they drew on a more Eastern European background, rather than the archetypical Southeast Asian variety, and the departure works well; the character seems to have the discipline and focus expected of a devoted adherent while concealing a craziness that would make him try to kill a bear with his teeth. And win.
When designing the Monk, they wanted a fragile fighting class with more depth than just running up and smashing something. They looked at World of Warcraft's Rogue and Diablo II's Assassin, but decided each was ultimately unsatisfying for a game like Diablo III. They wanted something with a limited amount of skills but many ways to have those skills work together. Thus was born the combo system. Many of the Monk's major attacks have three different stages. Clicking on an enemy once gives you the first stage, clicking again (within a short period of time) gives you the second stage, and another click for the third stage. For example: Exploding Palm. The first stage hits for 35% of your weapon damage. Second stage hits for 50%. Third stage puts a damage-over-time bleed effect on the enemy, exacerbated by movement. If the enemy dies from the bleed effect, it explodes, causing a huge amount of damage to nearby enemies. This happens quite often, and it's a very powerful area-of-effect attack. Another example: Way of the Hundred Fists. The first attack is a quick dash, striking one enemy. The second stage is a rapid series of low-damage attacks. The third stage is a powerful area-of-effect damage and knock-back effect around the player.
Now, the most interesting part about these combos is that you can mix and match. You can take the first stage from one ability, second stage from another, and the third stage from still another. This lets you tailor the way you attack to fit whatever situation you're in. These combine with more typical single-stage abilities, although some of the abilities themselves are anything but typical. An attack called Seven Sided Strike makes the Monk zip around part of the screen, teleporting between enemies to attack them. It's great fun to use, and very reminiscent of combo attacks in arcade fighting games. It's not something you'd expect in a Diablo game, but it fits perfectly. Everything feels like an impact.
There were hands-on gaming areas set up throughout the convention, so we got to sit down and play through a level using the brand-new Monks, and it was probably the most entertaining time I spent there. Figuring out interesting ways to weave the abilities together is fun. Plus, one of the coolest things I noticed was how well two players could complement each other, even playing the same class. As I got comfortable with the Monk's skills and began to watch what my partner (also a Monk) was doing, I found that if I planned my attacks to play into his, we could tackle much stronger groups of monsters than we could otherwise. I could use my knock-back to bump a few monsters in to his area-attack or to give him a little space when he was vulnerable. We could layer our disorient spell so that monsters had less time to hit us. It gave me great hope for group synergy.
Blizzard had some neat tidbits on display within the level itself, too. Several boss monsters, and even some regular ones, required strategic movement and ability use — not just blindly running in the opposite direction waiting for our heath bars to fill up, as was often the case in Diablo II. By playing smart, we could avoid a lot of the damage, which is how it should be. There was also an interesting side-dungeon; upon zoning in, we were warned that the place was collapsing, and a timer began ticking down. As we moved further inside, the ceiling would periodically drop rocks on us, forcing us to dodge quickly or take damage. But here's the rub: the further you go into the dungeon the more and better loot you get from chests. So it becomes a race — a challenge. How far can you go before you can't get back? When the timer expires, everything collapses, and you die.
Several quests were available in the demo level as well. They all operate in a very smooth and story-driven manner. Several lessons have obviously been taken from World of Warcraft in that regard, but not in a way that undermines the Diablo style. They succeeded in showing a very dark thematic tone in a visually bright level. The developers spent some time talking about their design process and philosophy, and showed some examples of what they had in the works. They're trying to do interesting things with the monsters without making an individual monster too complex. Difficulty and complexity is achieved through combining different types of monsters. They have a variety of archetypes, such as swarmers, ranged attackers, enemies that weaken you in some way, monsters that alter or constrict your movement through area-effect spells, and many others. Knowing how to prioritize your targets will be a valuable skill.
Diablo III is a game that's already impressive, but very much still in development. Blizzard isn't ready to talk about many things; major decisions for the PvP system haven't been made yet, Battle.net integration is something for the future (though they will have cross-game communication, like the others), and the much-anticipated rune system for customizing skills is on hold until they finalize the skills themselves. Even things like the Barbarian's resource system and graphical effects are still going through new iterations, and they're trying to smooth out the bumps in monster design. They mentioned a sand-shark which would become much more powerful in the open desert (think Tremors), making the sand feel less safe to stand on than nearby rocks. Unfortunately, in playtesting, they found that it was hard to balance and confusing for the players, so they're tinkering with the design. I wouldn't expect this game before 2011.
A few more random snippets: the stash will be "gigantic," and there will still be endgame loot runs, but they will most likely be "diversified" such that you'd actively want to kill multiple bosses rather than the same one over and over. There will be some method for transferring items between your characters, and they're working on ways to prevent item duping/hacking. They want Diablo III to have a more meaningful economy than Diablo II. They don't feel like modding or map-making provides any substantial benefit for the game, and they don't plan to support it. They like the idea of using the Horadric Cube to craft items, but wouldn't be satisfied duplicating the way it was implemented.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
The unveiling of World of Warcraft's third expansion was perhaps the biggest hit of the conference. It was clear since the launch of The Burning Crusade that Blizzard has gotten much better at quest and zone design since the original two continents were created. Wrath of the Lich King only emphasized that point; comparing the landscape of Howling Fjord to that of Desolace made you wonder that they were part of the same game. Players had been asking for a better leveling experience for years, and their demands did not go unnoticed. Cataclysm is easily the biggest expansion, and is sure to further solidify the game's place at the top of the MMO food chain.
So, what do we know about Cataclysm? Well, it'll affect every zone on Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, some to greater extent than others. Northrend will be affected too, though not as much. The Outland, being separate from the world of Azeroth, won't undergo significant physical change, but quests and dialogues will be updated to reflect such a major event. In addition to the remodeling of the two major continents, several entirely new areas will be available to players as well, including an underwater zone. The phasing technology introduced in Wrath is being upgraded to affect terrain, and players will be able to use their flying mounts in Azeroth.
That's a lot to digest, but the WoW developers just kept piling on more information throughout the convention. There are five new high-level zones for taking players from level 80 to 85. Two of them, Mount Hyjal and the Sunken City of Vashj'ir, are starter zones. Vashj'ir is the underwater zone. The devs promised to "make sure it won't be annoying." From what they described, most of the combat will be done on the bottom of the ocean, with characters able to move around and fight much like normal. They'll also be able to detach themselves from the bottom and swim through the water above them. Underwater mounts will be introduced that move as quickly as flying mounts, and there may even be some areas at the bottom of the sea that will be enclosed, containing air. They showed some concept art that was very bright and colorful, what you might expect from a documentary on a lively reef on the Discovery channel. Hyjal will be under siege by an old enemy — Ragnaros. He's not too happy about what happened to him the last time around, and he's trying to take out his anger on the World Tree.
Deepholm was termed the "hub" of the new 80-85 areas; it will facilitate quick transport to any of them. A temple in the center of the zone is where the expansion's villain, Deathwing, broke through and caused the cataclysm. It's designed to feel like an enclosed space, and the art we've seen makes it look like a giant cavern, which will definitely give it a different feel from any zone we've seen before. Uldum is a long-awaited addition to Azeroth. As it turns out, it was always "there," but Titan-created machines prevented anyone from seeing it. The cataclysm broke those machines, so it's open season on this Egypt-inspired zone. Twilight Highlands is home to the Twilight's Hammer cult, the ones who helped to free Deathwing. It'll have Grim Batol, one of the new raids, as well as new port towns for both the Horde and the Alliance.
The cataclysm will have political ramifications as well, resulting in two new playable races. The Goblins will be forced from their neutrality into partnership with the Horde, and a break in the Greymane Wall puts the Worgen squarely on the side of the Alliance. They each get their own starting zone (levels 1-15), and both will have fairly powerful racial abilities; Worgen get a sprint ability, slightly increased damage, and a bonus to skinning — which they don't require a knife to do. Goblins get price discounts regardless of reputation, engineering abilities (one launches them at their target, another fires rockets, but they share a cooldown), and a bonus to their alchemy skill, which includes increased effects from potions. You don't need to worry that these are more powerful than the old races — all of them will be updated to a similar level of usefulness when Cataclysm launches. Oh, and race changes will become available at some point as well.
More big news: rated battlegrounds will be arriving with Cataclysm. They will function differently from arenas in that you won't have particular teams, and your rating will never go down — only up. Every week a particular battleground can be used for rated matches. If you win, you gain rating determined by your current rating and the quality of your opponents. If you lose, your rating stays the same. Winning also awards you a number of arena points per game. Arenas will be shifting to this system as well. Your rating will determine the maximum number of points you can earn in a week. You won't have rated teams for battlegrounds, but you will need to queue as a group. A variety of new bonuses and awards are being introduced, including epic ground mounts and the return of honor titles, like Grand Marshal.
Also on the PvP front, a new world-PvP zone will be opening: an island called Tol Barad. The intent is to combine the battles in Wintergrasp with the daily quest hub of the Isle of Quel'Danas. When the battle isn't active, players from both factions can do daily quests and choose whether or not they want to rumble on their own terms. When the fight is underway, daily quests shut down until there is a victor. The winner gets access to an instance and a few more daily quests. The action will be spread out over a larger area in order to avoid some of the crippling lag that plagued Wintergrasp on some servers, and different areas will have different types of combat. There will be a new battleground too, the Battle of Gilneas, which will have players trying to capture districts of a city. There will probably be new arena maps as well.
Perhaps as significant as the physical changes to World of Warcraft are the changes to itemization that are in the works. Mana per 5 is being rolled into Spirit. Attack Power will be abandoned for Strength and Agility. Spell Power will be rolled into Intellect. Defense and Armor Penetration are going away (almost) entirely. Block value is gone too; blocks now absorb a flat percentage of the damage, making it a useful stat against bosses. The intent is to streamline gear so that players don't need giant spreadsheets to figure out whether something is an upgrade. Most of these stats will be replaced by a new stat called "Mastery," which "makes you better at what you do best." The talent trees are being revised to remove talents that give a passive bonus to your character, since that's kind of boring. Instead, simply spending points in a particular talent tree will give you appropriate passive bonuses. The further you go, the better the bonuses are. It will allow for more meaningful choices in how the characters is played. The system will be smart enough to know what weapon specialization you use, and if you go all the way down to the bottom of a tree, you'll see some really interesting bonuses. One they showed for Paladins granted a percentage reduction in cooldown duration.
Some big class changes are underway too; Hunters will no longer use mana, but instead adopt the Focus system used by their pets. This lets them ignore Intellect gear and reduces the need for cooldowns on their abilities, since that can be handled by their resource system. Warlocks are seeing a substantial change in the way Soul Shards work. No longer will they have to carry around a few dozen in their bags; instead, they'll acquire a max of three, held in a UI system similar to Death Knight Runes. They won't be easily recharged during combat, but grant substantial boosts to spell effects. For example, one might be used to make a long summoning spell or their biggest, slowest damage spell instant-cast instead.
It wouldn't be an expansion without a new profession, and once again Blizzard is doing it in a way they haven't done before; Archaeology is a new secondary profession, so everyone can get it without taking up one of their primary profession slots. It's also the key to a new max-level character progression system called "Paths of the Titans." This will be a way to gradually improve your character once you've hit the level cap. Progress will be limited; they don't want people to feel obligated to grind it out, so it'll become available slowly. There are 10 ranks to each Path, and you get bonuses to your character at every rank. The bonuses are not class specific, so it's feasible for a warrior and a priest to pick the same one; it just depends on what abilities you'd like. The examples they gave included a passive damage reduction to your character and an activated ability that reduced damage to nearby allies. It uses the glyph system, but the glyphs come from Archaeology rather than Inscription. Another way to customize will be an ability called Reforging. It will let you exchange part of one stat on an item for another. For example, a ring with 10 Intellect could be changed to a ring with 5 Intellect and 5 Spirit.
That's not all with regard to customization, however. Cataclysm will be introducing a Guild leveling system. Almost everything you do — boss kills, level-ups, skill-ups, PvP, etc. — contributes toward your guild gaining levels, to a maximum of 20. Guilds will have their own talent trees, which only apply to its members. Blizzard showed a few of the possible talents; one reduced repair costs, and another granted a mass resurrection spell. They also talked about talents for removing reagent costs and having extra gold drop from monsters. There will also be Guild Achievements and Guild Heirlooms. Heirloom recipes can be purchased, allowing anyone of that profession within the guild to craft the item. If a person with one of those items leaves the guild, the item is put back in the guild bank.
It was an eventful two days for the WoW team. They mentioned a variety of other news, too. They're doing away with spell ranks; they all just scale with level now. Incidentally, this opens the door to a mentoring system, which they may decide to implement at some point. They're making "big changes" to fishing so it will be "more fun." Players with two gathering professions will be able to track both simultaneously. The terrain phasing system will let you see entire coastlines change as the cataclysm progresses. There will be a guild news feed, not to mention cross-faction, cross-realm, and cross-game communication through Battle.net. Cross-server instance groups (aimed at PUGs) are planned for the next major patch. The revamped leveling zones will lead to each other in a more contiguous manner, so expect some high level zones to become low-level zones, and vice versa.
All in all, it looks like the WoW devs have been busy cramming every cool feature they could manage into this expansion, while simultaneously addressing some of the game's biggest weaknesses. It's getting hard to see how new MMOs will ever be able to compete against something like this. Blizzard wants new players to have this experience, so it's likely they'll integrate Cataclysm into the base game. It'll be interesting to see whether the development cycle takes longer than the previous expansions, since it seems like Cataclysm will require a lot more work. I'm sure we'll have a better idea after the next Blizzcon!
The Ozzy concert and that 9-year-old guitarist????
Looks like this means I won't be able to make more than one SC2 account, without re-buying the game. Everything that happens to me will be tied to my CD key. There will be no way to change to a new user name, in case I get labeled as a backstabber or hacker.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"That said, the door to LAN play doesn't seem to be closed. Rob Pardo acknowledged that there are a number of fringe cases where access to the internet isn't available or networking concerns prevent decent gameplay, and they're still looking into ways to give people what they want"
meh
No, they haven't. You can't have 2 of the same keys online at the same time, but you can log into your own "account" from someone elses computer, with someone elses key.
This is wholly different. One account, one key.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Perhaps I'm being silly, but I'm actually excited that they've finally updated the terrible water texture with WoW: Cataclysm. It wasn't announced, but check out the screenshots. The crappy old texture has pretty much been the weakest part of the game, visually speaking.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
not quite. Your bnet account would follow you from home to an internet/gaming cafe for lan play for d2 and sc. I could log in with my account on any system with a valid install (different key from my home system) and pick up where i left off (within reason). This is more like a steam account. In fact, this whole thing is blizzard's attempt to ape steam. Built in IM client? Steam's had it. Built in cross-game Friend's list? Steam's had it. Your account stores your keys? Steam... Really blizzard? Can you STOP COPYING IDEAS? I mean it worked great for WoW (not a single original idea at release, just spit polish), but honestly, you don't need to copy steam. I have steam, i don't need another. Work with valve and use their steam, it works great and will work even better because i know people who play Steam games AND blizzard games, and that would consolidate like 95% of casual pc gamers out there under one IM client/friends list.
Wow. Just... wow.
Just what every SC player has been waiting for.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
PS, the other ideas copied? Milking a franchise for all it's worth by making arbitrary breaks? EA/Microsoft/Activision. Alienating their customers to prevent piracy? EA/RIAA... and the list goes on, but it's too easy.
Cash Cow II, Sure Thing IV, and Same Game Again III are all exciting and innovative and you should buy them.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Bnet accounts have been tied to CD Key since 1998.
It's a bit different this time around from what I understood. Each battle.net account will need a unique license, like World of Warcraft, so it's entirely possible that you'll only have one identity per CD key. Maybe they'd let you create multiple profiles to have multiple names, but if one of their goals is to stop lowbie stomping in rated matches, then that makes the inclusion of such a feature unlikely.
Frankly, I'm completely burned out on WoW. Since October '06 I've paid a total of 13 months, so I probably played about 12, and I got one character to 80, no raiding. Ever. And since I was a Warlock, my entire existance in PvP basically boiled down to blowing up a whole bunch of Ally as destro until someone noticed I was tearing huge holes in the group, at which point I became a sitting duck for whichever OP melee class decided it was time for me to die. Booooring.
However, I do enjoy the events Blizzard adds to the game now and then, so I'm kind of interested in going back for one more month before Cataclysm actually is released. I'll take part in the pre-release event, then just cancel when the game launches.
And, I'm sorry... but D3 and SC2? Same game as the ones I already own from the series, it looks to me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Diablo III is still a really long way from being released. Dammit.
Have there been even any ballpark estimates on the release date? Next year? 2011? 5 years after the heat death of the Universe?
I must agree. This kind of company-obsessive crap is on the level of Apple fanboyism. There's a real world out there, people! You won't find the meaning of life at level 80.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Of course, you do know that Steam didn't invent any of the things you claim Blizzard, copied, right?
Most of those things? Were in AOL and Compuserver and Sierra's gaming system.
It's not new, so why get bitchy over Blizzard having their own implementation? Plus why do you assume Valve was offering a deal that was acceptable to Blizzard? Or even a deal at all? Maybe Valve said no in the first place.
Which absolutely sucks if you have more than one person in your household that plays the game, now you'll need to have a separate copy of the game for each person.
Sounds amazing. Its like they've taken the good parts about X-box live matchmaking (specifically trying to line up people with similar skill levels) - with the Overlay UI that Steam uses in its PC platform games (which is also awesome) while also having the grouping mechanisms of any regular online chat system (MSN messenger).
My question is - will it be a seperate component similar to the Steam overlay. The great thing about the Steam overlay is that it'll essentially run in any game, because its a seperate component and is exactly what it says it is, "An overlay".
Basically what I'm getting down to is - will the new Battle.net work with original Starcraft and Diablo 2? Will those games be patched to work seamlessly with the people who have the newer games?
That would be even more awesome.
Also - as a side note, pretty stoked for SC2 editor.
And yet...I think that allowed some extensive fan base in Asia, which really brought Star Craft to whole new ball game. Not saying 'cheating' is good or what not but I think it would be great to indicate the person cheated, but not kick them off.
With a label added, they might think twice. (of course, the label should disappear after a while if the person stops cheating)
There's a real world out there, people! You won't find the meaning of life at level 80.
Well duh, you have to wait until you reach level 85.
I feel bad for the new players. Goldshire will need a sign that says "Warning: Death from above."
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
Yeah I played D2 for a LOOOONG time. People had a variety of cheats. It wasn't that they didn't ban on the first offense. It's the poorness of their hack detection. I ran TPPK, maphack, flash hack, etc for years without being detected.
Welcome to 5 years ago when they started this with WoW.
Don't worry, some one will hack in the LAN feature hours after it is released and it will be out on torrents everywhere. People who would have bought a copy will get the full LAN feature pirate version instead. Blizzard has just screwed themselves out of these potential sales, but that was their decision to not listen to their Customers.
They looked at World of Warcraft's Rogue and Diablo II's Assassin, but decided each was ultimately unsatisfying for a game like Diablo III.
Is that so? Because everything else listed sounds exactly like what the Assassin was in Diablo II (By the way, I really liked the Assassin).
Thus was born the combo system. Many of the Monk's major attacks have three different stages. Clicking on an enemy once gives you the first stage, clicking again (within a short period of time) gives you the second stage, and another click for the third stage. For example: Exploding Palm. The first stage hits for 35% of your weapon damage. Second stage hits for 50%.
Three charges? "Exploding palm".. I guess that's more original than exploding kick, right? :-)
Now, the most interesting part about these combos is that you can mix and match.
Remind anyone of the combo system for the Assassin?
An attack called Seven Sided Strike makes the Monk zip around part of the screen, teleporting between enemies to attack them.
An interesting twist on Dragon Flight, I suppose?
Blizzard seems to be borrowing a WHOLE LOT from themselves on Diablo II.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
I wonder if they should change it's name then, instead of Bnet maybe they can call it "Condensation". (And before anyone claims otherwise, remember Steam was orginially exactly what the summary described Bnet as becoming.)
Well, while I don't see myself getting any of the games discussed (at least not till they've been out for a good bit) it'll be interesting to see if Blizzard has the chops to go toe to toe with Valve with a Steam-a-like.
It's just too bad that Blizzard's misteps with DMCA trials have left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I'm not interested in cheering them on this time.
Yeah, Blizzard will be crying all the way to the bank off the millions of sales they will get. The 10 people who won't buy this due to the lack of lan play aren't going to make them lose a wink of sleep.
If each person doesn't need their own copy of the game, why do they need their own account?
In fact, this whole thing is blizzard's attempt to ape steam.
So? The whole Linux thing is Linus Torvalds' attempt to ape UNIX, and the whole Diablo series is Blizzard's attempt to ape roguelikes.
Exactly, bottom line for me is, no LAN, no money from me.
Seriously...I find it funny that when a company performs well and puts out solid product(s) they get so much hate. So much jealously with geeks. I'm not a SC player - the game just looks so-so to me. DIII was a lot of the same, mindless clicking and lots of killing - for some reason it never loses it's appeal. The WoW changes are very cool - guild levels and all. There's no competition between Valve and Blizz- two different markets entirely. Bnet changes are something that should have happened long ago.
I remember when entertainment media was effectively licensed for use within a person's house and/or on their person.
Now it appears that this media is now being limited to individual people (at least individual people online at the same time).
This is what happens when you don't have consumer protection agencies, or if they turn a blind eye to consumer rights for things they don't understand.
First they tried to stop resale, now they're stopping fair use within your own house. Making EULAs even more complex, stripping away user rights. Instead of simplicity, they go for penny-grabbing complexity and confusion. Consumers are not businesses, their common purchases should not require license agreements. I buy games more often than I buy furniture, but I don't get furniture usage agreements to agree to apart from 'you damage it, you pay for replacement'. Simple, short, to the point, understandable.
Someone needs to step in and sort this problem out, otherwise scummy companies like Blizzard will continue to rape the consumer.
(Of course we've accepted this for a long time for 'major' software like operating systems, where Windows is valid for one install. Arguably I would say that it is a different situation from entertainment media where you have traditionally had some rights before.)
From the summary: "When designing the Monk, they wanted a fragile fighting class with more depth than just running up and smashing something. They looked at World of Warcraft's Rogue and Diablo II's Assassin, but decided each was ultimately unsatisfying for a game like Diablo III. They wanted something with a limited amount of skills but many ways to have those skills work together. Thus was born the combo system. Many of the Monk's major attacks have three different stages. Clicking on an enemy once gives you the first stage, clicking again (within a short period of time) gives you the second stage, and another click for the third stage. For example: Exploding Palm. The first stage hits for 35% of your weapon damage. Second stage hits for 50%. Third stage puts a damage-over-time bleed effect on the enemy, exacerbated by movement. If the enemy dies from the bleed effect, it explodes, causing a huge amount of damage to nearby enemies. This happens quite often, and it's a very powerful area-of-effect attack. Another example: Way of the Hundred Fists. The first attack is a quick dash, striking one enemy. The second stage is a rapid series of low-damage attacks. The third stage is a powerful area-of-effect damage and knock-back effect around the player.
Now, the most interesting part about these combos is that you can mix and match. You can take the first stage from one ability, second stage from another, and the third stage from still another. This lets you tailor the way you attack to fit whatever situation you're in."
Sounds EXACTLY like most of the Diablo II Assassin's Martial Arts skills... maybe someone writing articles about Diablo 3 should actually have PLAYED the predecessor(s)?
I have steam, i don't need another. Work with valve and use their steam, it works great...
...On a Mac?
I feel like crying. The company that I loved since my childhood (omg memories of Warcraft) has died and gone to hell.
We are seeing the fruits of being bought out by Activision and Vivendi. They are milking their franchises by recycling everything.
This situation is even worse though, this would be like requiring a separate purchase of Windows for each login account on the computer.
No one cares about macs
Blizzard will be losing sales. People who would have bought it will still have it, but will chose to get the version that enables LAN play, which will only be available as a pirate version.
Yes some people may be like this but not everyone. I for one play WoW a lot. I have two level 80's. I did NOT go to BlizzCon or even pay to watch it over the TV/Net. Other the other side I also work 40 hours a week. I pay all my bills. I don't get government help at all and never have. I have no debt other then my car which will be paid off in 3 months. Own my condo with no payments. The place is clean and in fact I spent the weekend shampooing carpets.
Some people can multitask and others can't.
No, but farming eternal life is a lot easier in Wintergrasp at level 80...
... or just play on the same account (unless you both want to play in tournaments).
But really, "one copy per household" never was a goal of game companies.
Not the same. With this stat tracking, one copy of the game tracks your data/persona. You (probably) will not be able to "clear" your stats (unless they charge $20 for it). So, while in most games, you can create a savegame, and play through the game while someone else in your house plays through on a different savegame, this will not be possible. If i've been playing for 200+ hours online, and my friend tries to play, he'll be stuck at level of a 200+ hour level trying to figure out what is going on, all while damaging my hard earned spot.
At least with Pokemon you can clear you gamesave and start over. If Blizz.Net allowed this, it would break all the anti-cheating/noob-killing they've implemented into the system.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
People who would have bought a copy will get the full LAN feature pirate version instead.
The people who do that will almost certainly get the banhammer on battle.net. The way they described their planned ratings system along with rated leagues sounds rather cool.
If each person doesn't need their own copy of the game, why do they need their own account?
You log into the game with your account. Only one login at a time per account is allowed.
Blizzard will be losing sales.
An insignificant amount.
People who would have bought it will still have it, but will chose to get the version that enables LAN play, which will only be available as a pirate version.
So you claim, but the real life stats show that most people aren't going to care because they will play multiplayer on Battle.net.
If you play on a LAN you don't care about battle.net
I remember when entertainment media was effectively licensed for use within a person's house and/or on their person.
The key word you're using is "effectively".
effectively != actually
Just because you could doesn't mean you were licensed to.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This is exactly the problem I'm having with Electronic Arts right now.
Old account with old email/password and some games
Newer account with newer email/password and some other games
There is NO way to transfer a game from one account to another, and also no apparent way to change the email address/account the game itself is locked to. Not only does this make it a huge PITA to remember the accounts/emails used, but it also means that you cannot consolidate if you have two accounts, a lost email-address and/or password means a boned account (and lost licenses) and you CANNOT transfer a game you have legally purchased because the account is tied to the CD-Key, which cannot be untied.
Key tied to account, account un-transferable = game cannot be resold. Lame.
I'm guessing you'll want to play the Barbarian.
"Battle.net is shaping up to be a really impressive addition. ... They're [also] rolling out what is essentially an integrated IM client..."
What the heck for? In-game chat makes sense. Man, there are already too many communication paths - why do we need yet another one? Imagine: you are trying to concentrate on a game, chatting in-game, you have your normal IM client, you probably get e-mail notifications - heck, you also have your telephone and maybe Skype - and now you are supposed to chat on Battle.net as well?
Sounds to me like a solution in need of a problem...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I remember when entertainment media was effectively licensed for use within a person's house and/or on their person.
Since when was that ever the case? This seems to be something you dreamed up.
Hmm I play SC since it was released and it has been years since I last got a chance to play LAN. I wonder where you got a chance to play LAN at all, let alone why you want to do it. The year is 2009 for Google's sake!
They know you're out there. You've been taken into account and factored into their bottom line. The sales they lose on you are made up by the revenue gained by forcing everyone else to see banner ads on battle.net.
*sigh* I was referring to PC game companies.
You won't find the meaning of life at level 80.
Neither will most people find the meaning of life down at the local bar. WoW players are doing what everyone else is doing on this ride: trying to fill in the time before they die with something they enjoy doing. Unfortunately for them their choice simply isn't "socially acceptable" and hence they are subjected to ridicule based on how they want to spend their free time.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
See? If you hired someone to shampoo your carpets you could've spent that time to go to Blizzcon instead.
>There's a real world out there, people!
Today's selection from Google's 'quote of the day' gadget answers you.
"Joel: That's the movies, Ed. Try reality./ Ed: No thanks."
- Ellen Herman
s/movies/games/
...yes, except for the people *do* care (you may have noticed that more people are commenting negatively in slashdot comments about the omission of LAN play than those who approve of the idea).
What real-life stats are you talking about? From what I've seen from the folks around here so far, only about 10% of people with an opinion on LAN play are planning on buying a copy of SCII that doesn't include it.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Well I'm not sure is Uldum going to be an 85 instance one would assume so.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...Windows is valid for one install...
In what sort of crazy FUD-land can you only install Windows once? I've reinstalled Windows with the same license multiple times on several occasions. For XP, that's included many computers with entirely different specs over several years.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The guild leveling stuff, lack of ranked spells, sidekicking... Not straight out of City of Heroes but definitely related. Not that it is a bad thing at all -- sidekicking is the best feature of CoH bar none. Interestingly enough, CoH is making sidekicking better too, so I wonder if we'll see WoW duplicate that or the old sidekick system.
Simplified stats is probably good, too much gear was utter junk due to wrong stats landing on it.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
StarCraft I opening menu: Single-player game -> choose your name or add new one...
That seems an awful lot like they expected multiple people to be playing the same copy of the game.
I was initially just irritated about the lack of LAN play...I absolutely won't buy a copy if my son has to log on as me in order to play on the one machine I own that's capable of actually running the game. He's good, for an 8-year-old, but not *that* good...and if they correct *that* situation, I'm not buying a second copy if we have to do multiplayer over my current internet connection via battle.net
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
only about 10% of people with an opinion on LAN play are planning on buying a copy of SCII that doesn't include it.
The other 90% plan on pirating it?
What is stopping you from creating your own organization to stop these abusive practices? Nothing. Instead you expect someone else to do it for you. Elected officials aren't supposed to protect you from every small thing people may encounter in their lives. Do you really expect elected officials who get money from corporations to protect you from the very same corporations? People are expecting the government to protect them from things they could easily do themselves. People are certainly reaping what they sow.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Maybe 20% of that 90...the rest will probably shake their heads and move on, or continue to play SC I.
Pirating a copy isn't the *only* option aside from buying the game.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
You're quite right - there are plenty of ways to kill time before you die, drinking and WoWing and slashdot commenting amongst them. These are all good things in moderation. However, I suspect most people would agree that there is too much of a good thing. It's the obsessive qualities of WoW players and alcoholics that is self-defeating, not the activity itself.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I play Warcraft 3 and Starcraft on a very infrequent (maybe once every month or two) basis, and I *only* play on LANs; I have a few friends who play in a similar manner, and we get together and have a blast. Last time we had 10 people together; normally we average about 6 or so. We are all horrible compared to even the lowest n00bs on b.net, and besides, it is much more fun playing where you actually know the others.
I don't have enough time to become a serious player, and don't have the desire to do so; LAN play suits me just fine.
Cheers
The problem with the no-strikes cheating policy is what is counted as cheating? Obviously bots fall into this category, but what about keyboard macros? What about running under Wine (which I do for Warcraft 3 / SC)? There is a huge grey area which makes this quite difficult.
I can tell you that I would be quite angry if I were banned because their server could tell I wasn't running under a 'normal' Windows install, especially if my legally purchased copy suddenly became useless to me.
Cheers
"Second, your game rating is tied to your account, so the problem of "smurfing" â" when highly-skilled players make a new account for the sole purpose of being matched against (and then demolishing) newer players â" is neatly eliminated."
And if you've never played the game before, are around at a friends place and after a few drinks decide to take turns at playing it online, good damn luck. You're gonna get smoked, pal, and there's no way around it.
You won't find the meaning of life at level 80.
Neither will most people find the meaning of life down at the local bar. WoW players are doing what everyone else is doing on this ride: trying to fill in the time before they die with something they enjoy doing. Unfortunately for them their choice simply isn't "socially acceptable" and hence they are subjected to ridicule based on how they want to spend their free time.
Yes, people get very attached to their hobbies. I personally find it shocking the number of people who spend half the year watching other people chase a black rubber disk around.
I don't understand the thrill, but that doesn't matter. Similarly it doesn't matter that anyone thinks I wasted my evening yesterday melting people's faces in AV. Nobody really got hurt and I enjoyed it and that's all that matters.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
So your argument is essentially that you and your friend shouldn't both have to buy the game to enjoy it at the same time?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
You won't find the meaning of life at level 80.
Neither will most people find the meaning of life down at the local bar. WoW players are doing what everyone else is doing on this ride
Most people don't spent 40+ hours a week at the local bar.
Highly unlikely. Some of the most fun I have had has been with mods of D1 and D2. Blizzard makes a cool engine and then throws in content that eventually becomes stale, so to prolong the enjoyment I play all the cool mods the community can come up with. Some are fantastic, some are meh, but all are new experiences so they are at least fun for a while.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Thank god. The best part about your unreasonable boycott is that those of us who don't spazz out about the .01% of time we lack internet access will be able to play on Battle.net without running into the freaks who nearly go into a full blown seizure when they think about actually needing to buy a game to play it (which probably still won't be necessary; I doubt they're actively going to prune the Spawn Copy feature).
You won't find the meaning of life at level 80.
Neither will most people find the meaning of life down at the local bar. WoW players are doing what everyone else is doing on this ride: trying to fill in the time before they die with something they enjoy doing. Unfortunately for them their choice simply isn't "socially acceptable" and hence they are subjected to ridicule based on how they want to spend their free time.
So was Hitler.
HAH! I bet no one thought we could bring Hitler into this discussion.
Rights by their nature must be free.
Your rights as a consumer are completely protected. You can not buy the game that Blizzard makes. However, you do not have the right to force Blizzard to make the game that you want.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
And all this is still entirely possible. You just wont be able to pay for one game copy and have multiple people playing.
If you suggest that you all have legit copies, then your argument goes out the window. Unless you're suggesting that you only have a 1-port router so only 1 computer can be on the internet at 1 time...
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Maybe that's because online you can pretend to be anyone or anything you're not...in real life...you can only do that for so long.
Look...in a bar you maybe hiding from your wife at worst...online...usually you're hiding from your entire life. You might as well be going down the street to play He-man with your best imaginary bud in the world.
This is a fairly big deal. It really changes how the economy handles equipment through the auction house, etc.
I wonder how much changing is possible can you go from +30 spirit to +15 agility +15 Stamina for instance.
How often can I do this reforging, can I reforge my PVP gear into raiding gear and back again?
Enchanters DEing gear that doesn't have much in the way of usefulness changes because all gear will be much more useful
and if its not what you'd like you can just reforge it into more of your liking.
It'll be interesting to see how all this plays out.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
I despised the level x9 twinks in WoW until I read a long thread on the forums that contained many thoughtful comments regarding why people did it and cared about it (and also a ton of the usual whining crap that I had to skip past). I totally sympathize with the ones who wish to maximize their gear and then play against similarly geared people where the only difference is player skill.
Blizzard is one of the rare companies who really care about their customers. The massive amount of work they signed up for (after explaining for years how much effort would be involved adding flying to the old world) for Cataclysm is another proof.
I've played in exactly 0 LAN parties, so educate me brother /.er. Can you guide me to somewhere I can read about the LAN subculture in SC with your point of view? Do you ONLY play on a LAN and NEVER want to compete against different people who may be geographically challenged with respect to your coordinates?
One concurrent install per license.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Blizzard is not only good at borrowing from themselves, but also revamping the look and feel of whatever they are borrowing, and presenting it as something entirely new.
Now in Blizzard's defense, borrowing exactly from yourself and creating something wholy new are at opposite ends of a spectrum. To paraphrase an older well known quote, there are really only 7 original plots in computer games, and the rest are just copies. Same goes for the most part with skills, interfaces, graphics etc.
The Monk is similar in many ways as the assassin, but the Amazon in D2 was very similar to the rogue in D1, so why would this be a big deal? In Eastern history, monks and assassins weren't necessarily completely separate groups in all cases, so why the big deal here?
From a gaming standpoint, copying from old ideas is not a bad thing if those old ideas are successful. The best example is WC2 to StarCraft. Many people called it "orcs in space." It basically is. The interface is similar, the game play is similar, the mission structure is the same, the biggest difference are the graphics. However, the success of SC are it's subtle differences and it's changes in balance. The only major nongraphical change isn't even that major and that is the "three distinct races" which has been copied by every RTS since, including themselves (hello Warcraft 3). Despite this, SC is still being played to this day and is considered one of the greatest and most playable games of all time.
This concept of "completely different" is quite simply a messaging and marketing construct keep us interested. Of course Blizzard can't say "oh this is exactly like what we did before we only made some minor tweaks." That's not generating buzz for the game. On one has an interest in a boring demo. If you want to analyze it, yes there will be plenty of similarities. What's most important is that, when it's released, is there enough new and exciting content to make the overall game enjoyable and will it be balanced enough to make it an interesting challenge? The answer will most likely be yes, given blizzard's track record so far.
PS: what's funny is that the original demo said "7 sided strike" was more like chain lighting, not dragon strike, so they admit they copy stuff.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
You mean if you have 2 people that want to use the same software product at the same time you have to actually pay for it?
AAAaaaGHhH!!!
Avert your eyes! Take the children from the room!
Oh, the brutality!
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Which absolutely sucks if you have more than one person in your household that plays the game, now you'll need to have a separate copy of the game for each person.
Last I checked, you had to have a separate computer for each person too. I guess the hardware companies are just being greedy too?
several people from my office flew to blizzcon just to play a demo of a game.
somebody please get these people real lives.
So your argument is that the honest people who would've bought a legit copy of the game, who could use that legit copy to do -EVERYTHING- they desire to do with it, will now go and pirate the software so that they can... go do all the same shit.
Dude, run for Congress. You're a shoe-in.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
YEAH! I mean it was only yesterday that I was playing Diablo 2 and thought to myself, "This game is PERFECT. Anyone who tries to make a newer, better version of it is a fool. I bet the heathens would even try to bring its resolution above 800x600!"
I bet you cry every spring when the new flowers don't look like last year's, huh?
Unreadable? Are you really that stupid that you can't understand a couple words? I know the grammar might be off, but the message still gets across. Also, who says I only want LAN capability because I'm worried about net outages. You should stop making things up. It might help you troll later on.
He said "unreasonable", not "unreadable".
Are you really that stupid that you can't understand a couple words?
Haha
The point is the amount of people who don't have an opinion about LAN play (especially outside of /.) >> the amount of people who do have an opinion about LAN play and won't buy because of it.
Calm your rage a wee bit. Blizzard knows better than to ignore the tantrums of their fanbase, and so they are supposedly working on a pseudo-LAN solution. LAN connectivity with Battle.net authentication.
Happy?
Please explain how this will be a boon. Unless my friend in WoW can bring his barbarian into SC2 to help me smash zerg, I don't see how it'll be helpful.
Cory Doctorow talking about cloud computing makes as much sense as George W Bush talking about electrical engineering.
Hahahah he must feel like a giant asshole. I wanted to flame the guy, but this...
I feel sorry for him now :(
If you like RPGS or RTS's, then you like Blizzard because they don't make bad games. It's like having a favorite author.
Has the old saint in his forest not yet heard of it? That God is dead?
I love StarCraft, and I only ever play against my friends and family on a LAN. I don't care if I have to be connected to the 'net to do it. Will I be able to play against my friends on a LAN, even if it means the packets round-trip to the Internet on their way to the computer 3 feet away from me?
I don't care at all about BattleNet or teams leagues ladders whatever everyone is talking about.
If so, I'll buy it. If not, I won't.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Unless you mean to suggest that improving on an existing idea is a bad thing, your argument falls flat. And that assumes what you say is even accurate.
First of all, WoW had a bunch of original ideas at release (flight paths, instancing, battlegrounds, meeting stones, etc.). Second, they've evolved a host of new ideas since (phasing, bind-on-account, flying mounts, etc). Third, they've taken many existing ideas and actually made them work well, as opposed to the duct tape and bailing twine crap many other companies produce.
Steam is a clunky POS. If Bliz wants to produce something better, I'm all for it.
Look, I'm not going to stick with the people that had the original idea for a product just because they came first. I'm going to go with the people that dont screw up the design. A great idea doesn't mean shit without a great follow-up, and Bliz is the company proven to shine on the follow-up.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
I care for a few reasons, and they're significant enough that I have no intention of buying SC2 any more. The biggest reason is a little philosophical, though: Blizzard is stripping out a reliable, simple, desirable feature, in order to replace it with a more cumbersome, more limiting, feature that will make them more money and give them more marketing potential. This is the sign of a company that has past its peak, and is starting to make mistakes. The sign of a company that is being run by Marketing and Finance... for God's sake, they split the game into three so they could sell more copies. That's got Marketing Weasel written all over it.
I think it should be called 'pulling a Sony.' I will bet that this is the beginning of several years of 'pinch the consumer' from Blizzard, in grand EA fashion.
exactly like a wii game
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, people get very attached to their hobbies. I personally find it shocking the number of people who spend half the year watching other people chase a black rubber disk around.
I don't understand the thrill, but that doesn't matter. Similarly it doesn't matter that anyone thinks I wasted my evening yesterday melting people's faces in AV. Nobody really got hurt and I enjoyed it and that's all that matters.
I find it shocking the number of people that spend half their work-life on slashdot...
To enjoy life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. -- Lazarus Long
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
what is wrong about this ?
Whens the last time you had a lan setup without every computer with access to the intertubes?
You'll be able to play private games with everyone in the room so I don't understand what the big problem is here, except everyone would need a legit copy...
So the decision may be angering some fans, but I don't see how it affects customers.
Oh, the irony... XD
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
And no one is begrudging that. They arent preventing it either. The knee-jerk reaction here is insane.
When you and your friends get together to play you all tap into a router/hub. Likely you have that hub on a home network that has internet access. You're done. No one is requiring you to play random people. No one is requiring that you run the tourney ladder. No one is requiring you to join a clan, or anything else.
The only change here is that you log into the BNET service to authenticate, and from there you use your existing friends list (that you can use anytime from home as well...) to start up matches between only those people you want to play with.
This breaks in only 3 cases:
1) You're incapable of hooking machines into a home network and granting internet access to them. 2) You and/or your friends are too cheap to buy multiple copies of the game. 3) You're having your LAN parties in a barn in Nebraska with no internet connection.
In case 1), you arent qualified to host a LAN party. In case 2), cheap or pirate. Take your pick. No soup for you. In case 3), shouldnt you be drinking heavily and chasing livestock with a tractor?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Can you STOP COPYING IDEAS?
It worked for Shakespeare...
Improvement in any field depends fundamentally on copying ideas. If everything must be original, nothing can ever be improved.
The sign of a bad designer/inventor/author/creator is a stubborn unwillingness to embrace and extend other people's idea. "Not Invented Here Syndrome" is just one of the many manifestations of that...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I guess that's when you realize you had the best time playing at level 42.
As a WoW player and a Sharks season ticket holder I feel like I should be insulted, but the your bottom line is right on the money. Do what makes you happy, and be glad we live someplace where we can. I feel the same about my GF's obsession with collecting dolls, but it keeps her HAPPY and BUSY so I will learn to love them myself.
PS MELT AWAY, and I hope you have a Fsck'n good time at it... :D
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
All LAN play does is allow you to play without internet connection. Honestly, how much does this come up? If you cant get an extra machine on your home network to play LAN every once in a while, you're not qualified to invite people over to play LAN. I know everyone is screaming about all the cases where it could come up(airports, lunch hour at work, blahblahblah). But the reality is that it wont impact many people at all, and if it does it wont impact them very freakin often.
On your other points:
Do you and your friend have to buy two computers? How about to copies of Windows? Two copies of MS Office? Or WoW? or pretty much any software that requires a license? How often do you and your friend get into a theater to see a movie with one ticket between you? How often do you impact the outcome of said movie?
I actually agree that the spawn copy idea is potentially a great way for Blizzard to bring in more customers. But if those people only ever play the spawn Blizzard never benefits. In today's market, with the massive piracy and fraud that exist, I fully support a company doing what they have to do to protect their product. If they just pushed crap products out the door and raked us for the price I'd feel differently, but no matter what you're opinion you have to admit that Bliz is at the top of the integrity charts as far as product quality goes.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
How does one key one account stop that? or resale for that matter? This change simply changes the way you perceive value, because the processes to transfer become more intimate/complex. The value hasn't actually changed. Do you really think that going to a screen to create an abstract name (SC1) was a way to transfer value? (hint: you can do that now using notepad and sitting someone else down in front of the game)
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Oh? I think they are more than interested in the sales they will lose. The petition is up over one hundred thousand now, http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?LANSC2
Before I heard about lan play being removed, I had planned on buying at least three copies, who knows how many others felt the same way? If everyone on the petition opts for the pirated version instead, then Blizzard will lose a lot of sales. They are really shooting themselves in the foot here.
If you play on a LAN you don't care about battle.net
Anectdotal evidence: I own every iteration of Diablo and Starcraft and have never so much as seen battle.net. I've heard of it, I know that people play these games "on" it, but it could be an energy drink for all I know or care.
No, not at all like a WII game.
A game designed for two people to play on a single piece of hardware is not a 1to1 comparison with a piece of software running on two different machines by two different users.
Unless you'd like to convince me that if you play a WII game over the internet you and the person you play against should only have 1 copy of the game between you.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Hi, serious question here: how do you get it to run under Wine?
I tried around ... a year or two ago (the Linux server just keeps ticking, I rarely log into it these days, especially after the following), and I could get it to appear in a window, but never full-screen.
If I reduced the screen dimensions, then it looked better, but then that screwed up the other windows after I changed it back (back then, I was using it on a more daily basis).
My prior goal was to completely replace my Windows boxes, but the lack of SC playability on Ubuntu (8.04 I think?) ended that quest. If it now works, or you have a better workaround, I'm all ears!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
If Blizzard cared about their customers, we would have LAN play and we would not hear the stupidities Pardo has been spewing.
I play in a LAN monthly, and I play a lot in internet, both Steam, Company of Heroes and the old StarCraft. NOTHING beats a LAN party with your friends.
We play with our friends. Reasons may include:
-Don't enjoy playing with anonymous strangers as much as friends.
-Friends don't cheat, or friends who are watching them cheat can smack them.
-If friends DO cheat (or packet flood each other at critical moments), it's probably all in good fun.
-Trash talk is interpreted as friendly ribbing, not anonymous fuckwadery
-You can drink, break for movies, meals, etc with your friends if they are in the same place
-Bizzare custom rule sets that greatly enhance the fun of the game for you and your mates are not so easily enforced on line.
Etc etc.
Depends on where you are. In South Africa, online play is often either on a local server, or *Latency Hell*. LAN play is much more important in places where online play is already not a serious option. they will likely lose the majority of the ZA market. I imagine this is the case for other countries where good internet access is expensive to come by.
Do you ONLY play on a LAN and NEVER want to compete against different people who may be geographically challenged with respect to your coordinates?
Yes.
I'm not good at any RTS game, so I don't play multiplayer to compete. I play it for fun, and I have a lot more fun playing with my friends while swearing obscenities across the room, then getting ripped apart by some kid in Korea.
Are you mostly talking about SC, WCIII, or both?
;-)
I was playing SC successfully on Wine about 5 years ago, there was nothing special about getting it to work that I remember. I haven't played it for some time on Linux, but if I get a chance tonight I will try installing it again on my new machine (Debian Squeeze) and see what happens.
As for Warcraft III, I know for sure that works, almost perfectly. The 'almost' caveat is that I was not able to get the movies to play (it seemed to hang the wine process, so I deleted the Movies folder in the War3 install), but other than that it works beautifully. Since I really don't care about the movies after I finished the campaign the first time, this doesn't affect me at all (especially, as mentioned above, since I really only play LAN multiplayer these days anyway). I launch it using the --opengl flag on the War3.exe binary, but no other special settings.
On a slightly offtopic note, I find that Ubuntu tries to rush things a bit too much; while the things that *do* work, work very well, they tend to break things in the process. This is why I am now running Debian on all my Linux machines, Stable on the servers and Testing on the desktop / laptops. Perhaps the problem you were experiencing was a result of Ubuntu funkiness, rather than Wine itself? (Not that Debian Testing is perfect either, but I prefer a slow evolution of things breaking, rather than a bunch of things breaking every 6 months
Cheers
Oh please... Hitler took over pink as the new black a few years ago. All the cool kids have been bringing up Hitler in conversations for a while now. Where have you been?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Seriously, as the GM of Care Bear on Mok'Nathal, I love the idea of guild talent trees and guild heirloom items and guild achievements, so long as they realize that Care Bears are not into Honor, just hugging our enemies to death.
I'm hoping there's a Big Love talent so we can spread the love and Make Love, Not Warcraft more often.
Not sure what my counterpart in Squirrelly Wrath would have to say about that though, they're nuts.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Of course, Blizzard was not the first to introduce any of those game ideas. That sort of innovation has never been Blizzard's strong point. They're less about "first to market" than "to market before the Sun goes cold, maybe". Blizzard recognizes everyone else's good ideas and brings them all together in the same game, giving them really top-notch entries when they do go to market.
Steam is actually pretty darn good these days. I hope the Blizzard games are available on Steam. But, as you say, it wouldn't surprise me if they do something better - that's sort of what Blizzard does, create a better iteration of an old, proven concept.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
REALLY?. When I saw the monk video, I kept thinking that Quake 2 had better graphics and animations than that.
I don't really care, until Blizzard backtracks the No LAN matter, SC2 and D3 are dead to me.
I know everyone is screaming about all the cases where it could come up(airports, lunch hour at work, blahblahblah).
Should I assume that by "blahblahblah" you mean LAN parties? Or were they not a good example of how LAN play might be useful?
Well, since you mentioned it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
I'm sorry, but do you really think someone will "hack in" LAN a couple hours after release? The game does not include any internet play except through Battle.net.
It's certainly possible someone might hack in LAN play, but it will be a large effort to do so. This isn't just flipping some bit in the code to skip a key check, you're talking about programming in a brand new feature.
Also: they're including offline play for single player, and we have no idea what sort of demo or "spawn" installs they might include.
Regardless, the vast majority of their player base is going to be buying a copy of the game and primarily playing over the internet.
The big risk is that they're losing the people who find out about the game through LAN parties at work or at a friend's house. That was brilliant advertising in the past, and hopefully they'll do some kind of (likely limited) spawn install to keep it around.
It would probably still require an internet connection and go through Battle.net, regardless.
"Which absolutely sucks if you have more than one person in your household that plays the game, now you'll need to have a separate copy of the game for each person."
Well you only pay to use one copy, so they are enforcing that.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You won't find the meaning of life at level 80.
True; it's found at level 42.
Relax, its just a game. And more so, it isn't even your game, Blizzard has the right to make whatever game however they want, and you have the right not to buy it. I don't see how insulting random people on /. forces Blizzard to develop their property the way you want them to.
Don't buy the game, thats that.
I personally don't see a problem, I haven't played a LAN game for years, since probably when StarCraft was still hip. Most games today don't even offer LAN multiplayer anymore, and no one gets pissy about it (that I've noticed), at least on this scale. I'm sure some people have a problem with it, and enough of them do, Blizzard will have to do something, or they won't make money (if they want to, it still is their property, and they can do whatever the hell they like with it).
I will not buy a broken product, and what is more I will avoid buying a product that can be broken on the creator's whim.
This is a problem, I agree. I've been complaining about Steam being the future of gaming for some time, even while most people continue to claim that its the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm leary of this still, but less so than I was a couple years back, and even then my greatest complaint was I had to be online to enjoy the game AT ALL (not just multiplayer). Blizzard gets a little bit of my trust though, since they haven't done much to prove otherwise. You can still find DiabloII and SC supported, a huge amount of time after release (eons in computer time, really). I don't like it, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Blizzard will see my money (God knows they have seen enough of it over the years).
Before you insult me, and call me the part of some mythic problem, this is my right, as it is your right to NOT give them money. Sure, you'll miss a probably enjoyable game, but that shouldn't matter. I don't shop at Wallmart, nor do I feel I can bitch about all the cheap Chinese crap I'm missing out on at the same time. Its one or the other.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Yes, Slashdot is REALLY representative of Blizzards audience. Or not.
Actually with Battle.net, the people who get the pirated LAN version probably won't be able to play online matches, and thus will ONLY get LAN play. As much as people want it, I'm sure even your mythic 90% will, in the end, decide Battle.net is more important the the limited utility of LAN-only play. Best case scenario (your best case, not Blizzards) is that this mythic 90% will pirate a copy for LAN play, and buy a copy for the 90% of the functionality they would be losing out of their nostalgia for the mid 90's.
Yes, I'm going to miss LAN play (spawn copies, moreso), but I will buy the game. I'd rather be able to connect to people online, than in my living room. Most of my old friends who I used to play against in the 90's live rather too far way now to haul their rig into my living room.
Another comment; polls don't represent what people will actually do. I'm sure if there was a poll right now on whether the lack of LAN and spawn copies would be a deal breaker for me, I'd say "yes", just to send a point, but once I see that shiny box of SCII goodness on the shelves, I'd buy it in a heart beat. SCII will be a best seller, and will remain so for years, just like SCI. I'm sure some "hard core" nerds will refuse to buy it (which is what percentage of the whole population?), but will break down when they realize that there hasn't been a decent RTS out for years, and all their freinds are perfectly happy with their unethical zerg-rushes.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, they haven't. You can't have 2 of the same keys online at the same time, but you can log into your own "account" from someone elses computer, with someone elses key.
This is wholly different. One account, one key.
Me and all my friends use the same CD key and we could always get a maximum of 2 people on the same B.net server at the same time. Anyone more and the third person wouldn't be allowed on, but yeah, two people worked fine.
I remember when entertainment media was effectively licensed for use within a person's house and/or on their person.
Now it appears that this media is now being limited to individual people (at least individual people online at the same time).
This is what happens when you don't have consumer protection agencies, or if they turn a blind eye to consumer rights for things they don't understand.
Because that's a business model that's way too easy to pirate.
Look, all my mates are avid gamers. But in the last 6 years, they've probably purchased 3-4 games and pirated like 30. The only games they haven't pirated are games that are associated to an *account* and have online play as a focus. Steam games (Source, CS, Half Life, etc), MMO's, etc etc. It has nothing to do with them trying to fuck over the consumer so much as a viable model to stop piracy. Oh sure, you can download pirated versions of all these games which work on LAN, or on other servers, but to get the full experience, you need to pay...and there's no way around that.
~Jarik
Playing the barbarian in Starcraft 2? That would be a short-lived character!
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Most WoW players don't spend 40+ hours a week in the game.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Just kidding. But all I understood was "No LAN play in StarCraft II." Everything after that was drowned out by the rage.
Yes, but OTOH, you can WAN play, which makes up for that.
Well I am legally blind you insensitive clod. :P
please? please. these games are absolutely alike.
Diablo is where you mash buttons to kill monsters who drop loots that let you kill monsters better by mashing said buttons.
*craft is a real time strategy game.
congratulations for being so excited about more of the same.
gremlins 3 would be a great movie. it's been almost 20 years since the second film after all..
it's obvious who is using their modpoints here, wtg blizzboy
Touche! I'm generally not one to bandy the term "rights" about for pretty much the same reasons you caught me on (that and I won't take anyone seriously using it until someone can actually define them, or tell me WHERE the came from). I did use the term in a vague and "hand wavy" way, and I stand mildly chastised.
Is it mythic, then, or isn't it?
I was referring to two problems. The dependence on purely online play is a real problem to me, since I like to collect games, and not merely play them once and forget about them. The mythic bit is the fact that a substantial percentage of Blizzards potential customers will turn to piracy at this.
The conversation is not, and has never been, about whether Blizzard (or whoever) "can" do something, but whether Blizzard ought.
Ought is somewhat tricky here, though I do understand what your getting at. Blizzard ought to do whatever they see fit to make a game that is both enjoyable and profitable, this of course is my (and probably their) opinion. I'm guessing they are going to succeed in that. It would be nice if they included what is now pretty much a "niche feature" to make a small, but apparently rapid percentage of their fan base happy; but I'm not sure that this constitutes an "ought". For a vast majority of people the lack of LAN play will not be noticed or missed, so how is including it an ethical imperative?
As stated, the reliance on Battle.net for multiplayer annoys me, but I can also see some of their reasoning. I might not agree, but that doesn't matter.
Furthermore, I find it disturbing whenever people talk about corporations as having "rights," but since the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist I may be thinking anachronistically.
In this case you don't even have to look at it as a corporation, just a group of people making a product. They pretty much can make that product in whatever way they see fit, as long as it doesn't physically hurt someone, and is produced within certain ethical constraints. If they want to put restrictions on their product, I see no problem with this.
I do, tangentially, agree that corporate rights is a silly statement, and probably should be abolished. But in this case I don't see this coming into play. If you, as a private individual, created a game that required online functionality, and didn't support LAN play do you should be able to block your decision? Probably not. I have some problems with this, where I do think that people should be allowed to hack LAN play into your product, even if you retaliate by not allowing hacked copies into your online backyard, this, here I doubt is the case, nor would Blizzard's legal department agree.
But when I referred to Feyshtey as part of the problem, I was referring to Feyshtey's attitude of full support for "defective by design" or any other way a manufacturer seeks to "protect their product."
In a sense, though, I agree with him. As a creator you can make things in any way you really desire, and this is includes making flawed (but not physically harmful) products. I find it a shame that so many producers DO this, though, since they are harming a hobby I enjoy. The whole state of PC gaming (and software in general) is in pretty bad shape right now, with rampant (and often justifiable since there is no returns for bad products) piracy, flagrantly awful DRM, silly and exploitative licensing, bad mannered customers, etc...
Often, perhaps most of the time if you live in a first-world country, you will make a stronger argument if you do not resort to "rights." The realm of "what you are allowed to do" does not overlap the realm of "wise behavior," or even "rationally justifiable behavior."
Agreed. I generally get pissed when people don't mention "responsibility" in the same sentence as they utter "rights", and often the utterance of "rights" is translated by my brain as "me me me!". This, though, I don't see as being strongly applicable here. Tying accounts into Battle.net do
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I don't know what the big deal is about this.
We will definately be playing LAN games once the game comes out, and all my friends will buy it.
I just hope that the traffic is not sent through the internet over a central server, but just peer to peer over LAN if you are playing against someone over LAN through Battle.Net, so you can play with very low latency.
If this is the case, I don't see any problem with this. You would have all the benefits of a LAN party, *and* of the new Battle.Net.
Personally, I'm looking forward to it, and I think it will be super awesome :)
I'm sorry, but do you really think someone will "hack in" LAN a couple hours after release?
Couple hours may be pushing it, but a couple days, perhaps, they'd likely do it by adding support for it to PvPGN bnetd's spiritual successor.
I played multiplayer games with my 8-year-old son around 40 times this year. In our living room. With zero lag. While the cable (and thus internet) was out.
I'm not a hard-core nerd...I'm just somebody who knows why I won't want a version with no LAN play. I understand why some people don't care, or think it's not a big deal, but without LAN as an option, it's a waste of money for me to buy more than one copy.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
There is absolutely nothing that will prevent you from playing Starcraft 2 in a LAN in the way you discuss. The only requirements are:
1. Your LAN has to have an internet connection (pretty standard anyway, I had NAT boxes hooked up for LANs 12+ years ago with dial-up)
2. Everyone who is playing must own the game.
#1 is a non-issue, really. #2 though is key. LANs in the past were a great way for people to be exposed to new video games, and get intrigued and excited enough to buy them.
Now when you have a LAN, instead of saying "we'll be playing games X, Y, Z, we'll pass the install CD around when you get here", it's going to be "Oh, you didn't buy Starcraft 2? Sorry, you can't play at our LAN".
This is what the lack of LAN play loses for us, the ability to play with friends who haven't bought the game, often convincing them to buy the game in the process.
I'm hoping they put in some kind of spawn/demo play to support playing with friends, perhaps both at LANs and over the internet. Maybe limit it to 1 or 2 maps, or limit the character progression. But something to help get new people into the game.
This is, unequivocally, why they removed LAN play.
I would certainly agree it's -a- reason. I would not concede that its -the- reason.
Will a single cd key tied to a single account go a long long long way to preventing piracy? Damn right. There's really no arguing it. Unless you'd like to convince me that there are numerous players in WoW playing on pirated accounts? How do you pirate something that precludes the possibilty of a game cd, tied to a game account, being used at more than one time by anyone in the world? The only real method would be to create spoofed authentication servers and hack the client code. Is that possible? Yes. Is it going to happen anywhere -nearly- as often as piracy that involves a cd copy? Not even in the most conspiracy theory-riddled paranoid mind.
You claim that they could just 'turn off servers' to force you to buy a sequel? Seriously? You're going to go there?
Blizzard has hosted the Bnet servers FOR FREE for OVER A DECADE.
They have spent untold millions of dollars to continue BNet support for a game that is over a decade old, that they are under absolutely no obligation to support. And they know that there are tons of pirated copies playing on those free servers. What do they get out of it? Warm fuzzies?
And you make it sound like this is an absolutely irreversible path to take. You yourself make the case that this wont prevent piracy, which inherently means you understand a patch would eliminate the need for the BNet authentication. So the sky-is-falling approach fails. And of all the companies out there that would rightly deserve claims of abusive marketing techniques Blizzard is quite low on the list. Their history has been pretty damn clean in that regard, and even if you dont like their games or their methods you have to concede that they are not historically deceptive or corrupt.
I will not buy a broken product, and what is more I will avoid buying a product that can be broken on the creator's whim. I know that nothing lasts forever... but some things do last a lifetime, and digital products CAN be one of those things, if you don't let these companies convince you that they are somehow in danger if they don't have total control of when and how you play the game YOU purchased.
I hate to tell you this, but you're going to start seeing this kind of paradigm more and more. And you are perfectly free to stick to you guns, and just refuse to buy products on this paradigm. But the fact is that in today's market building a game that does not have protections against piracy such as single account/key, the companies simply cant make the money back and unless they have a breakaway smash hit. There's not actually all that much money in game dev unless you're at the top of the curve. But the industry requires all the little companies that are right on the cusp to infuse new ideas, train new people, and to challenge the norm. Those little companies cant exist and certainly cant thrive if they can't firmly control their goods.
If you think you're opressed today, you havent any idea what's coming down the pipe. Just wait until more cloud computing comes into play. Just wait until browser-based gameplay becomes more and more mainstream, and you quite often dont have the game client bits on your pc at all. Wait till the most common methodology is to purchase access to remote code rather than purcahse an installable product. And we're not even limited to games in these discussions. They are driven much more by the most common applications like anti-virus, word-processing and email applications. Hell, OS licensing are not far removed from being a yearly renewal rather than a one-time purchase. Dont agree? Hold on to your rainbows and bunnies while you can.
You don't have to like it. But if you think you're going to cripple a game company like Bliz by not buying their mildly intrusive product you're very very wrong. And if you think you're going to make some statement by refusing to support anyone that works that way, fine. You can continue running WindowsXP on a P4 with 2gb ram for the next century while the rest of the world actually keeps up with technology and enjoys it's benefits.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
So, your argument is that you and your friends and family should have to buy a Monopoly set each to play it together? One deck of cards each to play Crazy Eights with your kid? One DVD for each person who watches a movie? One copy of an album for each person who listens to it?
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Apparently a laundry list of real-world correlations and areas of development focus currently being pursued is being "utterly unglued". Where I've voiced specifics, rebutted your opinions with realities, and applied some historical relavencies, you've supplied the audience with "THEY'LL JUST TURN OFF THE SERVERS AND WE'RE ALL SCREWED!"....
I actually despise the subscription model. I hate it. I dont like having to log into a server to play a single player game -at all-. I like even less having to repay for something I feel that I've already paid for (McAfee). But I'm also a creator of intellectual property, and I hate theives even more. I also understand that with ongoing service to a customer there's ongoing cost.
After going on the same tyrade so many people right here are going on, I've chosen to try a couple of models out there for games. EADownloader (BF2 and BF2142) and Steam (HL2). I have to admit that I find it very handy to just click and download a game I had already purchased, install it, and supply my login. I still dont really like it, but even with EA (who I can barely stomach) I have no evidence that they cannot be trusted. There's nothing suggesting that they will just take my money and arbitrarily end their service and sever my ability to play entirely. Could it happen? Of course. Will it? I doubt it. Not anytime soon. And Certainly not if they hope for anyone to ever buy their products again. THAT is the thing that does get under my skin. It's the knee-jerk, "they're going to screw you the first chance they get" hysteria that is predominant here.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
Actually, because they are changing the old world landscape anyway, adding support for flying (basically filling every part of the map) shouldn't be a huge amount of extra work.
I'm not good at any RTS game, so I don't play multiplayer to compete. I play it for fun, and I have a lot more fun playing with my friends while swearing obscenities across the room, then getting ripped apart by some kid in Korea.
Thanks for the response and that's an excellent reason. I'm not sure why I got modded flame bait when all I was looking for was something like this. Sigh.
Actually, because they are changing the old world landscape anyway, adding support for flying (basically filling every part of the map) shouldn't be a huge amount of extra work.
I'm only citing blue posts from their own forum.
I think you're right and I also think that they've done a ton of work on their own internal editing tools that help them design landscape which will incidentally allow them to design a whole lot more in-game spaces quicker.
According to what I read on the forum earlier today, the stuff they demoed at Blizzcon last weekend was in better shape than when they demoed WotLK at the previous Blizzcon, which likely means that Cataclysm is going to come sooner than most of us expect.
Well, I got SC installed, and it worked just fine, without any workarounds needed, including videos. Running wine version 1.0.1 FWIW.
Hope this helps!
Cheers