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."

Comments

It seems good

[zget]

I think it's good. Sure, there are some situations where you cannot connect to internet, but it's really in minority. For the small trade-off you get cheat-free economy and you can play both single-player and multiplayer with the same characters. It's not like Blizzard will be closing down the servers anytime soon, battle.net is still running perfectly for Diablo 2. Besides, this can be mostly blamed on pirates. The 90% piracy rate on PC really means that game companies are starting increasingly to look into implementing as much of the game online as possible. While you can't play the game in an airplane, the overall return for that trade-off is much better.

Re:It seems good

[crow_t_robot]

How about servicemen in afgahnistan?

How about them? They also don't having access to Six Flags Cedar Pointe while they are there either. Should we shit ourselves with rage that Six Flags isn't relocating one of their amusement parks so that the troops can exercise their god-given rights to being able to attend an amusement park while deployed? I mean, they have this god-given RIGHT to play so stupid fucking video game made by Blizzard, right??? Oh wait.. Bottom line: bad/no internet connection? this game is not for you.