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Reaction To Diablo 3's Always-Online Requirement
Last week we discussed news that Diablo 3 will include a real-money auction house for items and require a permanent connection to the internet even for single-player games. Fan reaction has been loud and varied, with many decrying the restrictive DRM. Blizzard exec Robert Bridenbecker said he was surprised by the outrage at the online requirement, saying, "it really is just the nature of how things are going, the nature of the industry. When you look at everything you get by having that persistent connection on the servers, you cannot ignore the power and the draw of that." Some other developers came out in support of the scheme; id Software's Tim Willits said always-on would be "better for everybody" in the end. Max Schaefer, one of the makers of Diablo 3 competitor Torchlight 2, said he understands why they did it, even though Torchlight 2 is not doing the same: "... it seems that most of what they are doing is related to trying to keep a truly secure, cheat-free economy in Diablo III. Whatever you do, you have to make sacrifices. We sacrifice a cheat-free environment to give players the most options, they are sacrificing options and flexibility for security of the economy like you would in an MMO. I understand their approach and sympathize with the technical difficulties of what they are trying to do."
Sometimes, cheating in multiplayer is fine too. We had one LAN game of Diablo II where most of us had characters that had completed the game once so could play on the second difficulty level. One player had never played the game before. Someone found a character editor online and we put together a character for him that was at approximately the same level as the rest of us. With something like battle.net, that would have been impossible.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
My PC isn't always connected to the net - its a little hard to get a decent connection when you're out at sea. So I don't buy "always connected" games. Which is a shame, because there are some great single player games out there which have been crippled by needing a permanent net connection.
It was on my list of games to get - as I loved the previous Diablo games, but if they're going to cripple single player with online DRM then I'm out.