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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."
Sure, there are some situations where you cannot connect to internet, but it's really in minority.
You probably wouldn't say that if you loved in a remote location. For some people connecting to the internet means driving to a wifi-enabled cafe or buying a satellite connection, i.e. the majority of situations they can't connect.
In 80 years I'll still be able to play a lot of games, but no game with online drm will be playable then. So it's a time limited rental. And if that is the case, the price should reflect that.
Not really. Every heard of that concept of moving out of your basement?
Whenever you're on the move, you don't have a connection.
The pirate copy will likely not require Internet at all, so only legitimate users will hurt from this.
Perhaps those people are not the target market for this game, then?
Well - obviously not. But should they be denied the ability to play the game? How much further would you take it - if the next generation of Windows required to be on line would it be fair to remove their computers?
Perhaps those people are not the target market for this game, then?
Yeah fuck them! How dare they play games when they don't even have internet.
Phew. Guess I'm not either -- late 20s "core" gamer, having played previous games in the series, with disposable income. Can't play it when I am traveling for work? Whatever, Blizzard. I'll just get Torchlight 2.
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
it seems that most of what they are doing is related to trying to keep a truly secure, cheat-free economy in Diablo III
Could someone explain how a SINGLE player game would affect the economy of the ONLINE game?
The only possible reason for this is that they intend to let you buy items for your single player game from the Auction House.
As shown with Ubisoft games, it probably won't take long for the hackers to break the DRM and post the "clean" version on torrent sites. Which means that for those who have no interest playing online, once again the pirated version would be superior to the paid version as you could play anywhere.
Ironic.
When it comes to a single player game, who cares if I cheat? If the game gets hard in a place, I have nothing against cheating. I can't stand endless grinding in single player RPGs so I cheat. If anything, I would rather have games that make it so I do not need to cheat. Batman: Arkham Asylum was, for me, the perfect game. There was no grinding, no real difficulty spikes, and never did I feel that any boss or puzzle was impossible.
For multiplayer, fine. put cheat detection, require Battle.NET, whatever. If I am playing with other people I want to feel that the games are fair. But don't restrict what I can do on single player. If what I do in single player impacts multiplayer so much that it requires these kind of measures, then that is just plain bad game design. Also, until I have broadband internet access everywhere I take my laptop, constant internet requirements are going to guarantee I will not buy the game.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
This is not about the economy. If it was, they would do the same thing they did for diablo ii. Local games were not part of the economy. Battle.net games were. There's no reason they couldn't do the same thing for Diablo III. Unless their real purpose is preventing piracy.
I'm having a LAN party in September. Starcraft II is not on the game list. Starcraft: Brood War is. I own Starcraft II, but not everyone coming does. They would all buy it if it allowed LAN play. As it is, we will be content playing Starcraft, Unreal Tournament Classic, and Terraria.
Duh, obviously anyone that is not constantly connected to the Internet is a dirty pirate and deserves to have their house raided at 3am by SWAT for stealing bits.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
You probably wouldn't say that if you loved in a remote location...
I've loved in what I thought was a remote location, but apparently behind the sand bunker on the 17th isn't remote enough.
I'm before the judge on Tuesday :o(
Obviously not, but many of them were the target market for Diablo II. I played it a lot and I never played it online. I either played on a LAN, with friends, or in single player. Cheating was never a problem. For people who wanted the online experience, there was battle.net, which stored everything server-side to prevent cheating. I played it a lot on the train and so on, where there was no Internet (or, expensive Internet that vanishes as soon as you go through a tunnel). I won't be buying Diablo II.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The pirate copy will likely not require Internet at all, so only legitimate users will hurt from this.
exactly. some time ago I started to play Morrowind again (still fun, though the graphics are not competitive anymore) - and it sucks without the no-cd patch/crack; I don't want to plug in the external DVD drive.
the user experience with cracked software is often better than with the original shipment, so it is arguable a sane consumer choice to start with pirating.
Another point would be - I just don't want to be tracked by yet another company. All my time spent, all the clicks I make. The usage habits within a UI, that I'm not aware of, that [could / can / will ] be used with other data sets at some point in time to identity me from the next guy. 15 mouse moves makes it me is a worry to think about. Also, it's another username/password account to deal with, to be hacked, to be used in wonderful ways you can't think of.
... It's EVIL! [needs more sincere]
If I could sound sincere, I think I may almost have a decent point with this one. - Think of the planet [i don't]. How many extra tons of CO2 does this extra level of DRM cost our world? Every cpu in use and telephony item between here the there - needlessly used. Scale that up to millions of people worldwide
I just won't get it or play it. I recently got a refund on a Ubisoft game because of their "always on" DRM. I haven't bought StarCraft either, since I heard it has a similar requirement. I really don't care if Diablo III has a multiplayer component at all, since I'd never play it online in the first place. Developers are free to design their games as they wish, and consumers are free to vote with their wallets. I played all the previous Diablo games and expansion packs, and was really looking forward to Diablo III, but no game is so important that I'd put up with those restrictions. That's $120 that blizzard won't ever see from me.
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.
Good economy only applies to multi-player. If you don't care about multi-player and just want to play single-player, then there shouldn't be the restriction for being online. It wouldn't be difficult to make it so multi-player is always online while single-player can be offline.
less fun? what separate offline single player has to do with fun people have on bnet? oh, that's right - nothing.
Instead of pirating it, and thereby giving them your mind-share and potential future purchases, you could just not play it at all. Which hurts them even more and gives you something to do with that other game you bought for its receipt.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
This is nothing to do with preventing cheating (online multiplayer always requires an internet connection - how's that worked out for preventing cheating so far? I'd say hit and miss at best) and everything to do with protecting their in game economy. They don't want people modding their own uber weapons and bypassing the market (or flooding the market with cheap uber weapons and destroying the value). This measure is everything to do with the Blizzard making money without ever having to sell more copies and virtually zero to do with cheating, piracy or whatever other fud they'll come out with next.
I enjoyed Diablo I, bought 2 LoD to play in the LAN, played it last year again from beginning, but I decided not to buy D3. First of all because they didn't created a Linux client (piece of cake for a OpenGL game wit already existing Mac client, but I suppose it will be playable under Wine) and now especially because of this always online crap. I never play MMO, I don't have time for it, and I don't want to be bullied by people actually living in BattleNet. I just want to play Single player sometimes and local LAN with friends.
Sorry Blizzard, but you will not get money from me this time.
In love, war and slashdot discussions, everything is allowed.
Whoa there. Now you've made the jump to always online DRM making the game a more fun gaming experience? I have played Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 and I can't think of a single reason that turning it into yet another shitty MMO is going to make it a "more fun gaming experience". We have a long history showing that whenever a major change is made to a game just so that a more-restrictive DRM scheme could be implemented it has never, ever made the game better. Do you really believe that the online and "MMO-like" elements of Diablo 3 were added first or do you think they added them strictly because they're looking for a way to add DRM? What are the odds that an element added for that reason is going to actually make a game better?
No BS, friend, who do you work for?
You are welcome on my lawn.
No singleplayer offline?
no money from me, then...
I don't really have a lack of connection options, I work for an ISP, I have broadband, I have 3G dongle I can use in my laptop, I even have a 'Droid phone i can get data through, should i have forgotten my 3G dongle...
Heck, in about a 1/3 of the commuter trains there's free wifi!
Don't change a thing.
Blizzard's bad gamedesign/need to snoop on my gaming sessions/me finding myself in an area without coverage is going to ensure that i will 'vote with my dollar' so to speak, and my vote goes to the company that makes a game playable for me, where ever I am.
If I choose to do a 'Kaczynski' and do my singleplayer gaming from a remote cabin in Wisconsin, it's my choice, not Blizzards.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
The thinking is that pirates have a very short attention span. Most pirates are (theoretically) uninterested in playing games that are months old; if you can keep the game secure for a month or two, then the DRM has justified itself. The people who were sitting on the fence will purchase the game, rather than pirating it, and the people who would have been freeloading are kept off your servers, reducing your operating costs.
Does it really work out that way, in real life? Who knows. But the MBAs really aren't as stupid as you're making them out to be. They know that the DRM will be broken. They're not under some illusion that their DRM is unbreakable and that every pirate will be completely stymied forever, give up, and go buy their game. What they're trying to accomplish is to maximize the amount of sales that they get in the initial rush of interest, when the game is first released. Some companies will even release a patch that disables the DRM (partially or completely), once the game has been out for a while. Granted, in some cases, it takes years for this to happen, but maybe this will become more common and happen sooner, in the future, as it becomes adopted by more companies.
They do this because PEOPLE STEAM THEIR GAMES, plain and simple.
When they outlaw steaming of games, only outlaws will steam games. I for one enjoy placing my game discs in my Veggie steamer. It gives my broccoli a nice tangy flavor. A copy of StarCraft is the only way to make good Sushi rice.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
You don't complain about lack of single player in MMO games either, do you?
No, but Diablo III isn't an MMO. If they wanted to make it an MMO, they should have just done that. Instead it seems like they want to make a half-assed Single-Player/MMO-ish hybrid.
I can't wait until the Chinese gold farmers descend upon Diablo 3, though. That's definitely gonna make for an awesome online experience for the rest of us
But... but... if they gave you the ability to play offline, they wouldn't be able to profit from people selling you better equipment through the in-game market! On that note, I expect this now means awesome drops will be one in a million, otherwise the market will be flooded with cheap junk nobody wants. Wow, if I hadn't already canceled my pre-order I'd be really psyched about the prospect of grinding hundreds of hours for no reward...
I live in a mid sized city in new york state. My time warner cable connection drops randomly, several times a week, forcing me to reload and reenter things like forms(slashdot posts). It is saturatedand Time warner is cheap. I dont have an always on connection so now i cant play diablo III except for early in the morning.
Cable connectioms across the country arent stable enough leaving 100 million potentioal users in the dirt.
How about servicemen in afgahnistan? Or on deployment on ships? They cant play it either. They cant even play Starcraft againist each other in their down time.
Assuming an always on connection is always wrong.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
"In a Bizarro universe way, I wish they WOULD forego DRM, get hugely pirated, lose tons of money, and fold up shop, just to prove once and for all that it's not THEIR fault, it's the PIRATE'S fault."
And here you have the damning evidence that piracy is nothing to do with it. I have absolutely no doubt that they "lose" money through piracy. But I equally have absolutely no doubt that the proportion they lose is vastly less than the amount they spend on "DRM measures".
Just how much do you think it costs to keep an always-on suite of servers in a datacentre up to respond to potentially millions of copies of this game having to check in every five minutes (or more often), even if the game is sitting on a menu, not to mention programming and securing the thing in the first place?
Combating piracy is about increasing revenue - not recouping lost revenue - by taking out the second-hand market. They want to steal the second-hand market's revenue for themselves - game shops go out of existence and publishers suck up the slack because there are NO second-hand copies of recent games which people can purchase instead - they HAVE to give their money to the publisher, or pirate the game.
It doesn't matter which path the user chooses because it works in the publisher's favour whichever way - the pirates "prove" their need for DRM (and you wouldn't have bought the game anyway) and the direct sales they'd never normally get give them income they would never have had before.
They wouldn't do the hardware dongle - unless it was restricted to X amount of computers too. There's no way it would be profitable because it wouldn't stop piracy (the software has to check for the dongle) but you COULD sell the dongle + game on to someone else and cut the publisher out of the deal again.
Why do you think they have those schemes now where you can "activate" a second-hand game for a additional fee? Because they want the second-hand market to die, and to take the income that industry previously enjoyed for themselves.
The damning fact is that most games publishers are actually doing extremely well considering the fiscal climate of the last few years. I can't name a big software house that's gone out of business whereas in the 80's they were up and down like yo-yo's. PopCap make cheap, simple, casual games that sells millions with no DRM and were just snapped up by EA for a cool $1.3 BILLION. Obviously, EA's games must be a complete loss for them to have that sort of money laying about, and PopCap must have been really struggling with a company valued at that sort of price.
These measures aren't about piracy because there has NEVER been an effective copy-protection measure and the best ones only work to protect the first few weeks of sales. Some software houses actually remove their DRM after the first year from existing games because it stops doing what it was designed to do - protect the initial production run from mass casual copying.
Don't be fooled - this is about destroying the second-hand market and making money from it. Valve do it with Steam, OnLive's business model is reliant on it, and now ordinary games publishers want in on the act. The only difference is that Valve, etc. are *honest* about their intentions. Blaming such measures on piracy is just a weak argument that's only partially true and can't be directly verified (or disproved) by anyone and it sounds a lot better than "We want more of your money".
Slightly offtopic, but at the end of TFA: "Last month Ubisoft said its strategy had resulted in "a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection, and from that point of view the requirement is a success".".
Did Ubisoft also increase profit, or did it only reduce piracy?
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That's asinine. System requirements exist to give people an idea of what hardware is necessary to play the game. You can still try to play the game on lower hardware requirements, but it might not run very well. It's a physical barrier and they're giving you an idea of what the lowest configuration is. Always-online is just nonsense by Blizzard; it has nothing to do with physical barriers. There's nothing about single player that requires an internet connection EVER. LAN is arguable, I think it's extremely important but obviously Blizzard would rather shaft the customer as usual. Always-on is not a physical barrier, it is a virtual barrier. There could easily be an option on the main screen that says "offline mode" (hell, even Steam and Starcraft II have offline modes, though the former needs to be started in the absence of an internet connection to get to it). The game could easily run without an internet connection if Blizzard just flipped a bit somewhere. But no, they want to give people like me who are often on the move the shaft because they think it will make them a few more dollars. Fuck that. I've already canceled my pre-order. I'll be doing exactly what you said: taking my business elsewhere.
DNRTFA
Now the developer for Torchlight 2 has given a clear and measured response that I can literally buy in to. Blizzard simply believes they are protecting the customer. For most customers this may work just fine, but I apparently am not like "most customers." Regularly I make trips to the in-laws up in the most remote part of Idaho. My father-in-law still uses dialup for his infrequent E-bay purchases and cattle futures report. When I travel to my in-laws, this is precisely the environment where I need a long single-player campaign that does not need a constant on-line connection. The original Torchlight kept me sane and entertained for hours while I avoided conflict with "the other side" of the family. It seems this will also be true for Torchlight 2, thus I will very likely buy the game - simply to preserve what's left of my sanity.
Diablo 3, not so much. I'm not one to spend money on a second game when the first still needs to be thoroughly played.
Now, I'm pretty certain Blizzard does not care about my lonely little circumstance. That's fine by me, I don't care much about their game if it appears to be unusable to me. I just hope developers like Torchlight continue to provide an awesome alternative, otherwise my money will go unspent - at least until I am committed to the asylum. Then it will be spent for white coats and medication. O_o
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Why does Blizzard hate our troops?
The significant difference is that it is a system requirement that does not need to be there. Having a particular video card is essential for computer to actually run the game whereas an internet connection active on a single player campaign is not (especially if its only purpose is increased DRM). Now if Blizzard decided to stream content to the game and have unique quests (or other elements) popping up in-game during different days, THEN such a connection would be justified as you would otherwise lose access to that extra content. Hopefully Blizzard does something else with this "always online" requirement outside of keeping tabs on who actually paid money for the game. It would certainly be a good motivator to buy because you would get more out of the game than someone whom pirated and was left with a fixed amount of content. Re-playability would be much higher too because there would always be more to do.
I know graphics cards can be a bit pricey, however, a new graphics card rarely requires that you change jobs and move to a part of the country with better Internet access.
I wouldn't be affected by the problem of an Inadequate Internet connection, mine was good enough to play WoW (and go on 40 man raids), but I won't be buying Diablo 3 (I own a copy of both Diablo and Diablo 2). Frankly, I probably wouldn't have bought it anyway, but this always on restriction validates my decision. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned the Blizzard that produced the games that I used to love is dead. It died shortly after it sold out to Vivendi.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Did you not read my post? I have an always on connection from a major ISP. It isnt always on. At work all of our branches across upstate NY use Time Warner business class and guess what once a week one of the branches loses their connection for 2-4 hours shutting down that branch. We use VOIP phones, VPN to corporate, lose TW shuts down the branch from working. If businesses dont have a reliable always on connection then why are you ignorant that home users do?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Whoa there. Now you've made the jump to always online DRM making the game a more fun gaming experience? I have played Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 and I can't think of a single reason that turning it into yet another shitty MMO is going to make it a "more fun gaming experience". We have a long history showing that whenever a major change is made to a game just so that a more-restrictive DRM scheme could be implemented it has never, ever made the game better. Do you really believe that the online and "MMO-like" elements of Diablo 3 were added first or do you think they added them strictly because they're looking for a way to add DRM? What are the odds that an element added for that reason is going to actually make a game better?
No BS, friend, who do you work for?
I'm on the verge of thinking that you're falling the other way in the argument, in automatically assuming a malicious motive for adding this stuff.
It can entirely be that there is a synergy. They want to enhance the game (which I will grant, always-online can add some really cool enhancements to the regular gameplace) but that's the point, these are enhancements and should thusly not be mandatory. Sure, my X-Box 360 does some really cool things when it's online... but when it's offline, at least I can still play my games.
The problem is that they want to add this always-on draconian DRM, and using "enhancements as mandatory" to justify it. YES, provide cool online enhancements, and sure, require always-on DRM to use those online enhancements, but there is not a single enhancement in that group that justifies making it mandatory for playing it single player.
Not even "preventing cheating" is a good enough reason to remove all ability at single player offline play. I'm not playing with anyone else after all.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
No, it died when those shitheaded SOB's at Activision bought Vivendi and created "Activision/Blizzard."
The "Always-On Requirement" is the kind of shit that comes out of the heads of the PHB-style suits who've been running franchise after franchise into the ground over at Activision.
As for "Who would want to play single player"? ME. I don't really care too much about the "multiplayer experience." I'll play the game on my own and that's fine.
Moving on up, you have people with ridiculously throttled connections. You have people who are living in remote locations who don't have consistent connections (a friend of mine is an oilfield services engineer, trust me, you don't get shit for a connection when you are out on a rig). You have people who are traveling on a laptop and don't have a free wi-fi connection nearby. You have servicemen and women in the armed forces. You have people who may have an "always-on" service but are in one of those fringe areas where TW, Cox, Comcast, etc don't give a crap about service and take weeks to repair any problems.
There are too many reasons NOT to do what Blizzard did and I hope they get a rude awakening at the sales counter. Every copy of Diablo 3 should have a 5-inch fucking sticker added to the front labeled with "NO SINGLE PLAYER. FUCK YOU. SIGNED BLIZZARD."
Diablo isnt a resource intensive game like WOW isnt any laptop made in the last 5 years should run it just fine.
Assuming a stable always on connection that will put users over their bandwidth caps is assinine. It isnt needed to play the game.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The always-on thing is just a DRM scheme. It brings noting to the table so the requirement is not really required for the game but for the company. Yes, there is an online mode and that obviously means that you need an internet connection, but there is also a single player mode and that should not require my computer to be calling home. Why is it that when Ubisoft did this it was wrong but when Blizzard does it, it's okay? It's not okay and it's not okay to require such silly things from games. I won't be buying. They seem to not want my money.
It motivates people to get online and play within the economy and the world. You don't play MMO's as single player either, Blizzard has obviously designed the game more like an MMO than a traditional game. You don't complain about lack of single player in MMO games either, do you?
And my answer is: fuck you. I don't WANT to "get online and play within the economy."
I don't want to be online and have a bunch of 6-year-olds shouting "gay" and "fag" in my game. If I wanted to do that, I'd get on Xbox Live. Hell, even when I played City of Heroes I played mostly with the sound turned off and my stereo on in the background, and I only opened a chat channel long enough to look for a group. There was always some asshole on there, usually connected to a griefer guild set up by some weirdo named "Doheny", who was spewing nonstop profanity over their global chat channels anyways.
Diablo 3 is supposed to be a single-player game, according to the specs they put forth. A "single-player game" that requires me to be online for "the economy" is not a single-player game and they should be hit with false advertising charges.
They're not really surprised. They fake surprise because the alternative is worse. They just don't fucking care.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's really about the greed. the DRM is really *NOT* for piracy. honestly i dont think blizzard gives a flip about piracy, a major component of the game is online multiplayer. games like that have been hard to pirate back in the D2 days if your key wasn't legit bnet would kick you out. sure you could use a keygen for single player but online wouldn't accept the key.
this really stems from the micro trans shop. blizzard knows a lot of people like to start with single player to get a feel for a game before jumping in. they want you to be able to transition your SP character to a MP character and buy crap from their store to support that character.
personally i knew it was going to be like this last year when i didn't buy starcraft 2 because of their DRM bullshit. now i won't be buying D3. the saddest part is how completely unnecessary it is. they could easily secure a healthy online economy with old school cd keys and leave the single player alone and even offer lan or open bnet.
and offline SP isn't just about gaming in the middle of nowhere, i like to cheat in SP sometimes. i downloaded hacked lvl99 D2 characters just for shits in giggles an had a few hours fun obliterating the game and testing various builds to see which one i wanted to shoot for online.
Actually all the big game publishers can blow me. I'm moving toward supporting smaller developers with much lower priced titles and games that enable collaborative creation of content in game. As highly polished as the offerings of the big game publishers are, there is really nothing all that creative that you can do in the worlds they create. It's all there to keep you clicking for meaningless rewards so they can keep milking you as a cash cow. Everything these days is just a front end to a downloadable content store where you pay real money for things that will disappear the moment you let your subscription lapse.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Fun is relative. I had more fun not playing on battle.net. I didn't have to worry about getting slashed when I stepped out of the town by a duper.
Follow the money. How will they capture a recurring income stream without forcing always online play? DRM is possibly just an added bonus.
Because of the things blizzard is doing this move is needed to help stave of some serious issue that can arise with RMT. I think they are bold for doing this and it makes sense why they would. In this iteration of the series SP has taken a backseat, especially given the popularity of MP in D2.
No, it doesn't make sense. I can respect the desire to avoid cheating and to emphasize solid MP gameplay. But from a technical perspective, how hard would it be to give you a choice of local or server storage for your character at the beginning of a single player game? If you choose server storage, you need an Internet connection and you can use that character in online games. If you choose local storage, no connection required but that character can only be used for single-player games.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. It is not aimed at those who have trouble with the internet. Your troubles with the internet does not supersede the design and direction of the game.
Of course I have the option of not buying it. I also have the option of bitching about a stupid requirement to play a game. My bitching is not aimed at players who see no problem with the requirement. It's aimed at Blizzard, to let them know why I won't be a customer for this game. Your irritation with my bitching doesn't supersede my right to bitch or to let Blizzard know that they have potential customers who are not actual customers because of this decision. If you don't like my bitching, don't read/listen to it.
For what it's worth, my perspective is influenced by serving twenty years in the US Navy. When you're stuck for six months on a ship at sea with no personal Internet connection possible, games become a great way to pass the time. As more and more games make an Internet connection a requirement for playing even single player games, it'll soon get to the point where you aren't choosing to not purchase a particular game but are being forced to give up gaming entirely.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
A core gamer: Starcraft 1, off-line single player, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, HL2:Ep1-2, off-line single player (yes, I know you have to register with Steam, but that's a one time connection to then say "Start offline"), The Elder Scroll Series (single-player only), NeverWinter Nights (more fun with friends, but Internet connection not needed), Need for Speed series has an online component, but not needed, name your sports franchise here, name your sim franchise here (sims ranging the gamut from The Sims 1 to Sim City to Roller-Coaster Typhoon, etc).
Oh, and guess what, they did beg for a single player edition of Counter-Strike... and we got it. Okay, beg is a strong word. When Valve acquired the CS mod team, then released the game for actual cash, they included a fairly extensive single player game to train the player so they wouldn't get wiped when they got online. The player could learn some tactics and the weapons of the game. Even still, CS (and TF2) can be played on a LAN without an Internet connection.
You are right, no one begged for WoW offline, but Diablo 3 isn't an MMO, now is it?
Blizzard exec Robert Bridenbecker said he was surprised by the outrage at the online requirement
Then he's lying or he's had his head shoved up his ass for the last 5-10 years. The response to "always on" DRM has been almost universally negative. It indicates just how out of touch these guys are with the market and their potential customers.
"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."
Yup. You get a game who's very playability depends on a fragile authentication system that may not always be there. If either side has any connectivity or stability problems *POOF* no game! You have a customer that is completely unable to play the game they paid for. Bravo! Bravo! Monetizing downtime!
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.
HOW? Because it kills the secondary market? How is being absolutely dependent on an auth server EVEN FOR SINGLE PLAYER MODE good for the consumer? How is being unable to resell old games good for the consumer? What Timmy is saying here is it's "better for everybody who's a game publisher".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I really don't understand all the hoo-ha - maybe the people who don't have a reliable net connection should buy one of the MYRIAD of competing products which don't have that requirement?
There is no competing product for sale. Blizzard has a monopoly on Diablo 3. Other games in the same genre are not going to be nearly as good.
Fortunately, the pirate option remains.
purchase the game, install it, patch up to the latest crack, install the crack, play worry free
I did it this way. and stopped buying games - too much hassle. I'm too lazy to fix broken proprietary software, why should I invest time after I just paid 40EUR?
I was never one of the hardcore gamers so probably the software industry don't needs me as customer; but they lose selling opportunities. if I need some hours of senseless gaming I use my 8+ year old purchased games or opensource software (like UFO:AI or Widelands) - those are enough.
I'm surprised that more people aren't complaining about the limit on purely-offline, single-player characters. (I.e., you can't have any, and can have only ten online characters at a time, even if they never see any multiplayer.) It's enough to keep me from buying the game. I'm a chronic altitis sufferer and I won't be able to relax and enjoy the game if I know I'm tapping a finite resource when I click the "New Game" button. Even if the game is good—especially if it's good—I'd rather avoid the temptation to get invested and be all the more be frustrated when I eventually hit the ten-character limit. Better to just play Diablo II and Torchlight instead.
And by the way, the game will still be cracked.
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
single player was available right off the bat in warezed sc2, you are talking about bnet emulation that allows for lan play.