Slashdot Mirror
Diablo III Released
Almost 12 years after the launch of its predecessor, Diablo III has now been released. The game went live last night with over 8,000 midnight launch parties across the world. 2,000,000 players showed up for the beta test prior to launch, including 300,000 concurrently during an open beta weekend, but even so, the login servers struggled for the first few hours after launch. Diablo III had been in the works for quite some time — another example of Blizzard's notoriously long development cycle — and game director Jay Wilson said it was in "polish mode" for the past two years. "One of our sayings internally is 'polish as you go.' We have a belief that when you put a feature in, you should prototype, but then after you prototype you should do the real thing, and you should polish it to shipping quality." For those of you who are familiar with this type of game, there's an official game guide in which you can browse class skills, items, and other game information. There are also YouTube videos showing how each of the classes work.
But should we really be celebrating one of the first major single-player games to *require* that you have an internet connection to even play in solo mode? You can still pop in your ancient copies of earlier Diablos and play. Will the same be true 10 or 15 years from now when the Diablo 3 servers no longer work, or if you should lose your internet connection for some reason (or if Blizzard ever goes belly-up)?
I know they want to fight piracy and all that. But once again, I think the people who will pay the price are the honest gamers who are going to be forced into piracy some day just to play the game they actually paid for. You try to do the right thing and end up having to make a choice between either not playing the game at all or becoming a criminal.
Now maybe they'll release a patch some day that will override this, or maybe they won't. But you can bet that the one group that will *definitely* have a patch are the pirates.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Now maybe they'll release a patch some day that will override this, or maybe they won't. But you can bet that the one group that will *definitely* have a patch are the pirates.
However, anyone that advocates for such patch will be demonized, the project sued into oblivion, and Blizzard steals any domain names associated with the project.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
NewEgg has failed me for the first time in a decade. I pre-ordered a copy ($10 off) but they didn't bother shipping it until today (UPS 3 day). Considering D3 has an interesting DRM that allows you to install it before the launch date and just prevents you from playing it until then, it would have made more sense to me if NewEgg shipped them late last week so they would arrive today or yesterday. One egg off for poor planning.
I can't believe it took over 14 (or 13,12,11 depending on time zone) hours from the launch of Diablo III for an article to get on /. I guess all the gamers were busy trying to log in?
sudo make me a sandwich
Requires an internet connection even for single player.
Not paying for that. I'll go find some indie developer to give my money to instead.
I'll be 1st in line for that one baby!!
so... much... virginity...
captcha: springer
"Diablo III had been in the works for quite some time — another example of Blizzard's notoriously long development cycle — and game director Jay Wilson said it was in "polish mode" for the past two years."
No fair that Poland got it two years early >_>
So they told us that having to connect to their servers to play in single player mode wouldn't be a problem, that we should trust them.
And now the EU login server is melting under the pounding of thousands of angry players trying to play solo.
And to add insult to injury they didn't even have the nice idea of implementing queues like most similar systems do..
Add this to the borked-beta weekend and I think they have more polishing to do.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Check out torchlight 2, It looks really good and will allow multi-player without all the hassle.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Excuse me for asking without more politeness, but i wonder what the fun in this game is.
I never gamed much, although i have enjoyed flying Battlefield2 helicopters, enjoyed C&C:Red Alert 1 strategy, and did some discover/viving in minecraft.
Isn't it just a lot of clicking while walking, attributing but nothing more but a score?
Or is there humor or honor/pride in the process?
Is there puzzles (i don't count "do ten times that" or "walk to southpole and be rerouted" as puzzles) or does another form of honor/pride come at play?
The real evil here, where players will suffer even if they don't mind jumping through the hoops, is the limit of 10 characters per game copy, even if they are only used for single player. That pisses me off. I've been told you don't "need" more than that many, because there are only five classes times two sexes, and apparently no exclusive character choices such that you would need alts for game-mechanics reasons. But you're SOL if you want to enjoy the game experience from level 1 forward and don't want to delete any of your old characters.
But... I went and picked up my collector's edition this morning anyway. I already play all-online games such as World of Warcraft with similar limitations. I can reluctantly live with with paying for Diablo III as long as I think of it that way: as a limited Internet service and not a game you can really, you know, have. It would be a better product if it were the latter, but oh well. Hopefully it will at least be fun.
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
at least simcity 2013 will only need it to start the game.
Now why can't it be once a week?
Only the people with problems are here to post their complaints. Anyone who it's working fine for is too busy playing/enjoying it.
Except the bastards who have to work, like me, that is.
I was a huge Diablo junkie back in the day and I've been wondering how well the current version holds up? I've heard mixed reviews, ignoring the 'Horrible Game b/c of DRM, bla blah QQ' ones, since they're just whining and not based on the actual gameplay. I'm planning on buying this online tonight and hopefully playing tonight, but am still on the fence. I don't want to blow $60 on a game that is utterly disinteresting. Anyone here actually have it and had time to play? What are your thoughts?
up until they announced the DRM that they do not want to call DRM. I do not even consider torrenting it, but then I am old and I enjoy watching idiots getting their due.
In defense of some idiots however, it is not their fault that Blizzard did not deliver on the servers ( especially since they forced so many onto them ).
In a way, it is all a little sad. While in my household activision is a terrible curse word, I never would have thought that they would drag such an icon of a developer down.
Shame on you blizz
Huh, now it's over 9!!
Oh look, here's another game I'm not going to buy. I don't care how good your game is, if you pull bullshit DRM stunts like this, it's off my radar now and forever.
Maybe I'll download the pirated version and play that, just out of spite.
Not even 12 hours after launch Blizzard is taking down US zone servers down for 3hr maintenance. Task: Calculate uptime so far.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5051765603?page=1
11:30 a.m. PDT- We are in the process of performing an emergency maintenance for Diablo III servers in the Americas to resolve several issues that are currently impacting the game. This maintenance may cause some interruption in communication, ability to log in, use of in-game features, and disconnections. We anticipate all servers will be available for play at approximately 1:30 p.m. PDT. We will provide further updates as necessary. Thank you for your patience.
10: 22 a.m. PDT- We are in the process of performing an emergency maintenance for all North American Diablo III servers to resolve several issues that are currently impacting the game. This maintenance may cause some interruption in communication, ability to log in, use of in-game features, and disconnections. We anticipate all servers will be available for play in approximately 1 hour.
Thank you for your patience.
Error 37
Blizzard is one of the few companies to patch their older games years later to no longer require the CD's to play. It wouldn't surprise me if down the road they patched Diablo III to no longer require an internet connection.
Just to elaborate on this for those unfamiliar with Blizzard's older games. It is *not* that they simply put out a patch to remove the CD requirement.
The older starcraft and diablo games have been actively supported for over 10 years. Periodic updates for bug fixes, exploit fixes, new features, new support for communities and tournament organizations (thinking about some starcraft 1 updates), etc.
Blizzard has a team dedicated to actively maintaining and enhancing their "old" games. It is *not* an afterthought for the original dev team if and when they have time like at other companies.
Fuck you guys. No, piracy isn't an issue, not even close. People would have bought this. Just wait till you see the login servers emulated, yeah, then you can cry about piracy you actual fuck-ups.
I'd seriously rather actually go on Skype to verify that I bought the game, be placed on a page on their website to state that I bought it, than require a constant internet connection.
Any retard who thinks always-online verification is a good system needs to actually be shot.
They are slowly killing the industry and blaming piracy.
When people pull shit like this, do you blame ANYONE for pirating a game?
YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, go get his by a bus. In fact, no, that will likely get the drivers life ruined, go fall down a cliff instead.
Thanks for ruining another series.
Lack luster story and quests, progression is on rails, no character customization and the itemization is dull. Bit of a let down overall. The defense is that the game doesn't REALLY start till nightmare difficulty, but that feels like a cop out to me.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Going to be as much of a steaming turd as Duke Nukem Forever was? Honestly, a lot of these much delayed sequels are turning out to be a waste of time for players.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Fun little tidbit. Guild Wars 2 stress test was tonight and it overlapped with D3 launch (started a few hours before D3 launch and ended a few hours after it).
When D3 launch moment came, you could see many people basically vanished from the game. You suddenly didn't have full servers anymore, structured PvP had a whole lot less games available and so on.
Considering that D3 launch was done terribly, I heard several guildies complain loudly on the voice comm about not being able to get into the game at all, and the fact that GW2 was only available for a few hours, you can tell just how immensely popular D3 is.
I've viewed this "controversy" with curiosity and it somewhat mimics progress vs tradition arguments. I'm not trolling but honestly looking for insight:
- Day after day we have people happy to play single player games in online systems without complaint from consoles to phones to even Facebook. Why is this game different? The explanations so far lacking because the most compelling one is that "Diablo 2" used to do it. That doesn't mean I don't think an offline mode would have been impossible but that it isn't required.
- Do we operate under the illusion that all PC games are portable? I remember trying to play "Diablo 2" which has an offline mode, on vacation and on airplanes and other places and it was a miserable experience. "Diablo 3" is not meant to be portable or played in an environment with spotty power or spotty connectivity. Why do people insist on this mode when it seems more like an environment and usability issue instead of a missing feature? I suspect people believe that if "Diablo 3" had an offline mode they could play it anywhere but experience has showed me with "Diablo 2" that never happens nor is worth it.
- Are we denying the advantages this tech brings just to enhance the argument of what it takes away? I like the idea of storing characters "on their systems" instead of my computer since I've lost "Diablo 2" saves when machines and hard drives die. I like validation of characters, items, hosted environments because I've also lost a ton of characters to just joining the wrong games. It is not impossible to support both a completely validated system and offline but I would always lean in supporting the validated system when it comes to active support.
Basically I'm unconvinced that an offline mode is valuable let alone an effective workaround. Even if "Diablo 3" had an offline mode, we'd still have an article on /. complaining about how Blizzard/Activision/Blizzard-Activition/Satan is evil and can't handle it. Blizzard needs to address connectivity issues and delivery on the features they said they were supporting.
Go fuck yourself raw with a giant DRM'd dildo.
Stop whining about needing an internet connection. And it's already been posted. Not happy? Don't play it. Or go pay for internet
Actually, I am...Level 18. Took 43 minutes to login, has run pretty well since then for my party of 4. We all did D1 & 2 together, so this is old and new with better graphics.
Won't comment on DRM, etc. Buy or not buy, choose you must.
For me, it's fun with friends playing a game.
I am my own gestalt.
http://aqfl.net/node/9811 for my brief review.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
So I had signed up for the wow annual pass. Then I asked to be removed from it a month later after I realized I could not stand the game any longer. Blizzard support complied and stopped my sub. So I come back months later to restart my sub when I found out some old friends were playing, and they restarted my annual pass. So I asked them to fix it. They refused. So I canceled my bank card. My wow account is frozen, but interestingly enough, my Diablo 3 is active. Muwahahaaaaa! I am currently level 10, even if they catch it, I win.
So far, i have bought a game that i cannot seem to play. It did take hours last night to get logged in, i played for a bit but it was bed time. Got some time today, but now the servers are down for patching....
So i paid 60.00 for a game i cant even play single player without the OK from blizzard.
So here is the thing, diablo 2 was a great game, the animations where awesome, the story was compelling and the game play was fun. I am not so sure you get any of these from 3.The animations are more drawings then anything else, the skills are all locked so you cant switch them easy; also, once again, here we are starting in tristan....its like imagination went out the window.
Its not to say its fun, the hour i got to play was fun...not diablo 2 fun, but fun; I could be very wrong about this game, act 2 might bring in some cool stuff....but with all the log in problems and having big brother blizzard controlling when i play a 60.00 game, i honestly suggest people dont buy it, Simply to stand up for what they are doing. If i would of realized that single player was going to make me log in, i wouldn't of ever bought this game.
Should of done my research, o well...hope nobody else falls in this trap.
"DRM Sucks!!11! Not going to buy"
:
+5 Insightful
Really mods? Not seeing anything terribly insightful here...
I don't care too much to the DRM myself, but if it's part of the requirements - then meh, i'll install it. And so will the other 2 million people that ordered this game. Some other possibly relevant details
- non invasive DRM / tied to the client. You're logged in but it doesn't seem like an additional program is running. Integrated better than steam, or origin (which stay active when you exit the game, somewhat annoying)
- Almost always works. I'm not sure how many "9s" I can say that it's constantly up or working, but from experience with SC2, Diablo 2 and other other games, battle.net is almost always up. Not working on launch day? Well I'll cut them some slack on the release day of the product, with 2 million or so people trying to play. The track record at Blizzard is pretty good, and i'm sure that after another 24 hours or so, all issues there will be resolved (if they aren't already). Compare that with Assassin's Creed 2 - didn't they have like 3 consecutive weeks of login / drm issues?
- Single player tied into the multiplayer. I haven't played this game yet, but I'm pretty sure that when you're playing single player, your character information and leveling and whatnot is tied into multiplayer. If that's the case, it's not truly "single player" in the sense that you're constantly progressing more like an MMO, where your data isn't kept on client side.
- Hacks / cheats. Remember the old diablo, when everyone had their "whale armor of the gods +99" and hacks ran rampant? Same for starcraft, and most multiplayer games. If DRM helps reducing hacking (or eliminate it altogether, then bring it on.
I'm not sure why slashdot hates the DRM here so much. There's a very absolutist position stance taken by many... that *all* DRM is inherently evil and they'll never buy any game with DRM. I can perhaps sympathize with those that don't have steady or constant internet connections - maybe if you're living in the country or with 3rd world infrastructure you can't play this game as a result. But if you have a steady internet connection, then quit whining about *all* DRM. Some is bad (Ubisoft), and some is barely noticable (Blizzard), it's not so black & white.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
The important thing about the D3 launch is this:
People who bought the game online and pre-downloaded it with the advertising from Blizzard that they should (paraphrased) "download it early so you can play the minute it goes live," still cannot play the game.
Thought I would pop onto D3 during lunch now that the servers are back up. I just want to play solo. Blizzard: Diablo 3 servers are full, please wait in a QUEUE... Unbelievable. I'm filled with so much shame for buying into all of this.
well.. they need it to control the amount of pokemons- er, I mean "unique" loot - in the game. gotta have 'em all!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The downtime for the login servers (again, to play a single-player campaign) has been extended to 3:30PM EDT.
At one point I was able to get into a queue (for my single-player campaign) but was randomly disconnected.
I could give a damn about duping and an exploited environment, I never played D2 online and I don't plan on playing D3 online, that's what I have WoW for.
I knew this going in, I was disappointed (I travel extensively, and it's rather difficult to find access points in the Southern US) since I wouldn't be able to play on-the-go, but I said 'well at least it'll be hella fun' when I'm home or at MOST of my destinations.
This is the first time I've broken down and actually purchased a DRM game of this type, and even though I realize that it's launch day, I'm still regretting it.
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
FU! You don't want my money you wont get them. Ryzom looks like it will be my gameof choice. evne though it's sucky ATM, at least they do effort for multi platform. FU Blizzard. FU again. You support Mac, but Mac doesnt have even 50% of hardcore geeks whod appreciate your games. FU sideways.
Sorry. Didn't notice this being released over the sound of all my friends playing Dungeon Crawl.
(No, really, I haven't seen my wife in the past week. All I hear is rumblings from the basement about a naga grappler. And every time I see these two other guys it's just a constant stream of how much permadeath sucks and how they need to get back to their wizard or KoBe)
I think something that has been missed by posters so far on the DRM issue is the fact that, if/when my internet connection fails, often the first thing I do is go looking for single player games I have installed on the computer.
If you can't do that, it rather defeats the point of single player mode, at least to me. If the Internet connection is up I'm generally doing more productive things than playing games nowadays.
Shut up the game will be good
RATE THIS 5
means I for one won't be buying it.
I for one am glad Diablo 3 is online only. If that's what Blizzard needs to help prevent hackers and botters, so be it. Don't forget there is a real money auction house in game, and people who put REAL DOLLARS into their character (beyond the cost of the game) will feel more invested in it than regular players.
Diablo 2 on Battle.net was basically botters farming gear and spammers advertising the sites that sold it. I find it less of a problem to be online constantly than to deal with the hordes of illegitimates that plagued D2.
What a bunch of arrogant pricks - they can't even say sorry... they assume you are giving them patience when you are probably cursing them to the seventh level of hell...
It's May 15th and I'm going to rant, and you know why: Diablo.
I have a love/hate relationship with Blizzard. I love Diablo, but I absolutely LOATHE Blizzard as a developer.
First: Go here and page down to the Diablo section: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/legacy/
Do you see the PSone version listed? No. And you won't see the PSone version of Warcraft II listed either! It's not as if those games got bad ratings either, both got ABOVE average ratings at the time. It's like Blizzard doesn't want to admit one of their premier franchises had a console release at all.
And for those who don't know, this is the PSone version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv5dQwCFWoQ
It actually plays better (and faster) with direct movement control. And it's the ONLY version to have French language support, not even the PC version has that. (also German and Swedish even in the US version)
Then they did Diablo II...which I've never played because it never got ported. This is D2 as it's called:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea8Ma7qqQaQ
Like D1, it was isometric 2D and since it came out in 2000 the PS2 should have been able to handle a port easy. But Blizzard never did it, and I think the following is the reason why:
2001's, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srBRB18mHEs
Notice how in the review, Diablo is mentioned? BGDA is a Diablo clone, and a very good one, with a true 3D engine with a rotatable camera. It was a VERY popular game. The company that made it, Snowblind, licensed the engine out and there were more similar games made a LOT more. Good times, good times. Blizzard simply couldn't release D2 on consoles with Snowblind having trumped them with their engine.
And as always Blizzard said, "Oh were not doing Diablo III yet, it''l be ready when it's ready"
And my thoughts were, "yeah, if you were still had theconsole developer get-up-and-go like in the old days D3 would have been out in 2002! Because the sequel comes out in 2 years or less or heads will roll. Lazy Bums."
It didn't come out in 2003, or 2004, or 2005, or 2006, etc etc. Really what were they doing? It's not like a developer can't develop an MMO AND single player games at the same time......Square-Enix did....twice.
So eventually D3 was announced in development, and eventually video was released in 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NR6XNYs8f4
When I was that video my first thought: "Did Blizzard buy Snowblind's engine, because it looks EXACTLY like a snowblind engine game on the PS2."
in 2010 they posted job listings for people with console experience for a Diablo-related concept. So I expected the game to be cross platform from the start But then Blizzard executives said things that implied that a console release wasn't certain, very very stupid things
One was reported to say that D3's gameplay "might" work on consoles. Might? It's rather funny that he said, "Might" Since
the original Diablo game was released for the PSone... in 1998. Doesn't he remember?
He also said that the controls might be an issue. Well now, considering D1 was released for the pre-dual shock PSone
I don't think that's a problem at all. Heck, the modern consoles have USB ports so a keyboard+ mouse control
option could be thrown in alongside a traditional controller one. In fact, having played both the PC and PSone versions of
Diablo, I can say that the control pad suits the game better because it's less stressful on the hands. I can play the PSone
version for far far longer without crippling hand fatigue/pain.
In an interview Alex Mayberry is quoted as saying: "We want to give console players the Diab
... who just didn't really like the game?
Maybe I'm just older and my tastes have changed, maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance, but for whatever reason I didn't really like Diablo 3.
I played in the Beta for a few weeks, on and off - it never really hooked me. It was prettier than Diablo 2, but it didn't seem graphically more impressive than WoW. The colors were wrong, too bright and bold - big departure from D1 and D2. The gameplay was... kinda boring and repetitive. I didn't really care why I was going to click these things to death, and even the act of clicking them to death got very tiresome very quickly.
The class system was stagnant and unfeatured, linear progression unlocks are dull - I did hear about using runes to change talents/skills, maybe that's where the spice is but I saw none of that. The enemies were very standard fare with zero challenge and no real hooks to keep me playing. Again, maybe that changed with the full release, but I just don't feel the need to pay $60 to find out.
Maybe I've been MMOing too much but I've come to expect a little more thought required and challenge from my games. Or maybe I'm just getting old. Either way I Loved Diablo 1 and 2, but this one just didn't have the magic juice in it for me.
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
Dude, the N64 version of StarCraft was fucking awful - and I've played it. Controls and horrible and hard to use, the interface was terrible, and the game was laggy as shit.
And health orbs? Really? You're claiming that that's from Marvel Ultimate Alliance when games from the bloody 80's had that (on PC no less, not console)?Sounds like the lazy elitist might be you.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
A console player complaining that hey dont get a game to play while so many of the games are either not available for pc or badly ported from consoles.
I have no sympathy.
Ps i simply cant be bothered to login to coment
Unfortunately as I learned last week when I bought a copy of Diablo II from the Blizzard store, that's not always the case; D2 isn't supported under OSX 10.7 and above. That's not Blizzard's fault, as it was Apple who removed support for PowerPC applications, but it's an exception to your argument.
As a Mac user I understand your point but I don't quite consider that an exception. Its not that Blizzard failed to support an existing product, its that Blizzard failed to port Diablo II from Mac OS / PowerPC to Mac OS X / Intel. The product did list PowerPC and Mac OS as requirements. The complication is not PowerPC to Intel, it is Mac OS to Mac OS X. Specifically moving from Mac OS's Carbon API to Mac OS X's Cocoa API. It really is porting to a new operating system despite both having "Mac OS" in their names.
he N64 version of StarCraft was fucking awful - and I've played it. Controls and horrible and hard to use, the interface was terrible, and the game was laggy as shit.
Did you have the N64 RAM expansion pack installed, I have heard that helps. What surprises me is that the game wasn't released for the PSone, the N64 has no other RTS, and the PSone has several. The PSone also has the PSone mouse, for more traditional control, and EVERY RTS on the PSone supports it.
And health orbs? Really? You're claiming that that's from Marvel Ultimate Alliance when games from the bloody 80's had that (on PC no less, not console)?Sounds like the lazy elitist might be you.
I should have said "health orbs in Diablo clones", yes other games in other genres have had them. But it is rather suspicious that Blizzard puts them in D3, AFTER they've been proven to work well in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which is Diablo with superheroes.
But after not being able to play a single player game for the last two hour because the servers are not working, that is pretty terrible for a launch day.
No matter how unbalanced things might be at the start, you have to be able to PLAY the game!
you mean, like how they're down right now and I can't play the game that I paid $60 bucks for. I buy about one game/year. So far this gaming year sucks. I can understand a release day rush, but if this happens again after this week I'm for sure never ever buying a single player game that depends on remote servers.
I'm old enough to know better. I feel stupid. I feel ashamed. I need to see my therapist...
damaged by dogma
Got home at 3 am yesterday to begin playing, waiting till about 4:15 before finally able to login and game. I wasn't too upset about the down time as it pretty much expected it. Once in game had absolutely no issues, no lagging, my 3 friends were able to join me, played for 10 hours straight,
Im not a fan of DRM but any means and have weighed out the positives/negatives of D3 having its own. As a pretty hardcore d2 player I think pro's outweigh the cons. No spammers/hackers, the drm is definitely nessecary for the AH to work properly.
I really dont get how blown out of proportion this is. For its implementation it makes sense. Blizzard games have made many breakthroughs and standards when it comes to multiplayer (see any WC,SC,Diablo game) so I really don't understand the arguement that these are single player games. Removing offline single player as an option obviously won't be well received by everybody, had this had happened with D2 or SC1 I could understand the outrage. This is 2012, I really don't see this as a huge inconvenience, nor did it sway my decision to purchase by any means.
Fixed all my diablo 3 errors thanks to this site
diablo3eguide.com
Since that's illegal, why bother buying in the first place?
goodbye life, will see you next year
However, I do expect if they demand rights, they hold up their responsibilities.
If they still, 10 years later, want to retain sole right to modify and distribute modifications of the game, whilst STILL keeping the money I paid for the license, they should patch and update the game 10 years later.
They want to be the only one who CAN.
Either give me a refund if you no longer wish to uphold your end of the bargain, or cede control of the process.
After all, you've had 10 years of using my money and I've had 10 years of using your game. Either the money was sufficient for your game or your business model failed, and that's not my problem.
Then they should make you proceed through Normal much, much quicker by upping the levelling speed there.
Moral quandaries aside, I am having a ton of fun in the game. The departure from a set skill tree has really paid off for me, I'm really enjoying tinkering with all the combinations. I got really disappointed with Diablo II due to the lack of viable builds you could make and getting burned for early bad choices. For me, this feels like a much better entry in the series.
We now know that Diablo III was in development back on '04... but development stopped when the entire dev team quit to form Flagship Studios (which is now also shuttered). They didn't restart development until '08 because they were busy with WoW and Starcraft II. As for console releases... this is an odd complaint. In the last decade, PC gamers have gotten the shaft a lot more than console gamers. We have Blizzard, but you have almost every other game developer in existence. And you may get Diablo III in a couple years anyway. Stop whining.
My wife pre-ordered Diablo III. SC2 was annoying with the log-in requirements, but given everything I had read about the Zero Day issues, I asked her to send it back, unopened.
I'm not really a fan of game piracy. I keep all my PC games; dating from the mid-90s, I've got 500-700 PC titles tucked away into binders upon binders upon binders. Once upon a time I had the brilliant idea of putting all the activation codes into an excel file so that I could get rid of the boxes and manuals, but I lost that a decade ago - from time to time I've had to visit Megagames or other sites for a crack over the years, but I never felt bad about it because I always owned the game.
I think this is where I finally draw the line on piracy. When a game is unplayable in single player mode because of DRM, regardless of reason, temporary nature....I think that crosses a line. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...but one day soon there will be a pirated, DRM free version of Diablo III. If people will build Everquest or WoW servers....if random would-be customers will donate money to an indie developer to recreate Asheron's Call 2 from the ground up years after the game shut down with no hope of Turbine releasing the code for it...then I imagine someone or a team of someones will muster up the energy to give us a version of Diablo III that we can play offline in single player mode.
Blizzard lost a $60 sale from me. The game is being returned, un-opened today. In the not too distant future, Usenet is going to get $20 from me.
Anything interesting written yet on this?
I did find:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/05/15/an-introduction-to-the-diablo-3-economy-for-wow-players/
and was surprised to see the 1 week lockout from launch for the sales.
I'm still surprised that they haven't run afoul of anti-gambling legislation and am curious as to what is in place to prevent money-laundering, &c.
That said, I'd still love to see an instance like to that of the short story ``Catacomb'' from _Dragon Magazine_ May 1985. For those who haven't read the story it begins here:
http://henrysstories.blogspot.com/2011/03/catacomb-part-1-of-5.html
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
...My daily Slashdot digest mail said "Diablo III unleashed". Funny.
I am not devoid of humor.
Hoping for the same regarding depth. After playing D2 for years (Hell, I'm building a summoner right now), I'm a bit afraid of a Godfather 3 scenario. The beta seemed nice, but I'll lay off the game until someone gives me a thumbs up about replayability and all.
Strangely, I never got into Torchlight at all. I don't think it's a bad game and there's nothing that really bugged me, as was the case a few times with Titan Quest (which I liked and finished a couple times, though), I just can't get myself interested.
Because there's no offline mode, Blizzard is preventing me from playing on a plane, on a train, on a bus, in a car, when I am visiting family, when my internet is down for maintenance or because of outages, I wouldn't be able to play at school if they block gaming ports (in breaks/before/after school), I wouldn't be able to play in general places that doesn't allow online gaming, I wouldn't be able to play where connections are weak or unstable, etc. etc. Thanks alot Blizzard, ontop of the 60 Euro price for Europeans this sucks badly.
"Do you expect a painter, or author, to keep up with small modifications (that you elect are required) 10 years after the sale?"
Since they don't write buggy books that need updating, since they don't paint pictures that will fall apart or break without updates, and since the actual content is available there in front of your eyes to look at (you know you can read books and learn something called "felicity of style" from how they evoked the intended feelings, right?), I don't.
But there's nothing there to do either, so is moot.
"it does not allow them the sole right to modifications."
That's right. That's why I say that these games MUST be continued to be supported at the game producers expense as long as they insist they hold the sole right to modifications.
You're no longer even saying it's unreasonable, you're explaining why it's needed!
Seriously, nethack wasn't any use to me to play because I'd not get enough food. My character eats every fifteen minutes and food is scarce and you usually have no option but to learn by yourself what dead things you can eat and what dead things you can't, because you have to eat them and the game won't tell you.
Seriously, I've worked out that eating needs to be tens or even a hundred times less frequent. Otherwise all I find is "You starved to death" or "You died from eating a poisoned jackal". At level 2.
When is the REAL release date? I've been trying to log in for days, and still have not conected... must have been moved back... right?
The End User License Agreement clearly states that we have not purchased a copy of the game, but a rather license to use it. While I disagree with their choice of legalese, I'm still having a ton of fun hacking & slashing with my buddies.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Blizzard servers and networks suck so bad that the game can take several minutes to 'swing a sword' or 'pick up a gold coin'. Add me to the lawsuits to get my money back!. This after more than a week of being online is unbelievable.
Thanks for making this hard for us single player users, Blizzard. Pirates will still crack this. I'm not buying this shit, until it is available offline.