Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Shortstraw May 15 2012, 07:55 AM

So started trying to log on 53 minutes ago and haven't even managed to get to the character creation screen. Oh and the login server has crashed. Twice.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2012, 12:36 PM

So, it didn't work when you started trying to log in the instant one of the most-anticipated games in history went live across a major chunk of the planet? It's working this morning, anyway.

Posted by: Seriously Mike May 15 2012, 12:50 PM

Go ahead, equip that shield on the Templar.

Posted by: Shortstraw May 15 2012, 01:15 PM

What irked me was that they hadn't instituted queue's so it was a mad password spam session.

Posted by: Tanegar May 15 2012, 02:22 PM

Is there an option for offline single-player?

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2012, 02:29 PM

No.

Posted by: Tanegar May 15 2012, 03:29 PM

That sucks.

Posted by: Dr.Rockso May 15 2012, 05:05 PM

I think they're official response was "Can't log in? Play a different game"

Its sad, I remember when they treated their consumers with a little bit of respect

Posted by: CanRay May 15 2012, 05:24 PM

And that's why I went with the drug addicted, alcoholic ex-cop.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 15 2012, 06:58 PM

And that's why I won't play it.

Posted by: Tanegar May 15 2012, 07:47 PM

Wow, irony so thick you can cut it with a chainsaw. "You say you're unable to use our product, which you paid for? Why, go use one of our competitors' products, you silly ninny!" I would commend them for their honesty, but I don't think this message is quite what they intended.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2012, 07:52 PM

*shrug* I have internet access, so I can play it. I'm not about to cut off my nose to spite my face. You guys enjoy your principles.

Posted by: Tanegar May 15 2012, 09:09 PM

I don't care that it requires internet access; I have plenty of games already that do. My issues are 1)that Blizzard should have anticipated the massive load on the log-in servers and taken steps to ensure that their paying customers would be able to access the product they had paid for, yet somehow failed to do so; and 2) the arrogance and stupidity of Blizzard's response to entirely justified complaints from said paying customers.

Honestly, I think Blizzard have been on top too long. They need one of their products to fail, miserably and publicly, to make them humble again.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2012, 09:32 PM

Hehe. I understand the various concerns… but I'd rather have a good, fun game. I'm selfish like that. I also feel like launch day pains are pretty excusable, whoever you are. It's to be expected and handled like an adult.

Posted by: Halinn May 15 2012, 10:23 PM

It's a fairly established trend that game launches experience much more pressure than the game will later on. Allocating a ton of extra servers to handle the load of the first week will mean a lot of money spent on something that probably won't be needed later on (and if it is needed later, it will be at more controllable speeds, so they can gradually increase server space)

Posted by: Bigity May 15 2012, 10:24 PM

I'm glad that I didn't stay up after hearing about all the problems.

However, I called the witch doctor and this is what he said: oh eee oo ah ah bing bang walla walla bing bang

Posted by: crash2029 May 16 2012, 02:20 AM

I played Diablo 1 but not two. I was wondering if three is like the first one in terms of gameplay. You know an isolinear perspective mindless monster mash broken up by town bits?

Posted by: Shortstraw May 16 2012, 06:44 AM

Basically but 2 and 3 are basically the same game except 3 went from 8 player multi player to 4 player even though there are 5 classes.......

Posted by: Blade May 16 2012, 10:01 AM

Exactly. I guess what they could do would be to rent a few extra servers for the launch but I don't know how hard it would be to downsize the servers after the high.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy to have an immunity to all Blizzard's game (at best, they tend to bore me after 2 or 3 hours, at worst I'm not even remotely interested in them) and to be able to go on with my life.

Posted by: Seriously Mike May 16 2012, 11:58 AM

What do they need those servers for in the first place? The "online auction house" gimmick is not something absolutely necessary - they could have tweaked the drop rates ingame instead (I played the beta as a DH and finding decent one-handed crossbows was a pain). The only use of it is PR "added value" bullshit used to justify the retarded-ass DRM.
When will they understand that piracy is a service problem, and oppressive DRM only aggravates it? To say nothing of the insane price tag?

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 16 2012, 12:31 PM

My my, haters. $60 is pretty standard for any major game, and they need the servers because they chose to have multiplayer based on them; a choice, but unstoppably the one *they* made (and many years ago). It's an extremely fun game that millions of people have been eagerly awaiting for years.

The DRM is not ideal, but it's also nothing you can do anything about, with any developer. It's hardly the worst DRM we've seen. In what sense is video game piracy 'a service problem', and how does DRM aggravate it? That argument only makes sense for movies and music.

And there are 1h xbows everywhere.

Posted by: Seriously Mike May 16 2012, 02:04 PM

First: the normal price for games here is $40. $20 to $30 if they're localized, since then they can't be exported to countries where they cost $60 (not many people speak Absurdistanian). That and people earning $500 a month could barely afford a $60 game. That's one.

Second: the DRM is not "not ideal", it's oppressive and exactly like the widely criticized Ubisoft DRM. I don't want nor need playing online with some random fucktards. I want to play single-player, probably even somewhere with no Internet available. But I can't, due to the retarded-ass DRM! There's your service problem. When you add the fact that DRM may break the game or impact its performance (see: Witcher 2, available with or without DRM, the version without DRM ran 50% faster), that's another one. Oh, and one more thing: one-time activation keys that work like "you install a game once, the key is spent, you cannot use it to re-install the game" (I've seen things like this, examples are Brain Training and Spore). If that's not a service problem, and a serious one at that, then I have no idea what is.

Also: the game doesn't sell? There are three main reasons for that:
1. It's shit.
2. Your marketing guys pulled the predicted sales figures out of their asses.
3. Some idiot decided to "protect" it with useless DRM nobody wants (spyware, "always online" requirement, remote colonoscopy...) and then had the undoubtedly great idea to tout it publicly as the greatest thing since powdered milk. Or, worse yet, put some bullshit clause in small print in the EULA that, of course, was read by an user who proceeded to kick up a righteous shitstorm.

Of course some bigwigs from publishing companies may blabber about used copies, piracy and other bullshit like that, but when you make a game that has a linear single-player story and nothing else (Heavy Rain - Scott Shelby is the Origami Killer, there, saved you the money), is bugged beyond belief (Russian games are like that and the lazy sods aren't too keen on patching them), massively overhyped (too common - the most disastrous example was All Points Bulletin, the MMO GTA-styled shooter that tanked two months after release) or just plain shitty (Spark Unlimited did two of these, Turning Point and Legendary, and now some moron at Crapcom hired them to make Lost Planet 3), you have only yourself to blame.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 16 2012, 02:21 PM

$60 is the normal price here, which is the place that matters (by which I mean they're a US company). I'm sorry if it's not right for your local standards, but that's how it goes.

Who said the game doesn't sell? What are you even talking about? This is about D3, not Witcher, Heavy Rain, one-time keys, 50% performance hits, or any of the other random things you mentioned. I never said DRM was good in general, or even any specific. Now, you claimed that 'piracy is a service problem', which DRM *aggravates*. Yet your examples are only talking about DRM being the *source* of this 'service problem'. So… where did piracy come from in the first place, then?

It's valid for media: pirated movies and music files are more convenient and more functional than legit ones. This is not the case for Diablo 3. The easiest source for it is direct paid download, and there is no additional functionality from a pirated version (i.e., if they allowed offline play—like D1 and D2—, the pirate version of that would have no benefit). You can also buy physical copies from basically everywhere, and there's no question of 'format shifting', 'sharing', FBI-warnings, menu-locking, or any of the issues with DRM-as-service-issue WRT to *media*. It's simply not like pirated media. AFAIK, the copies aren't even 'region-locked' like DVDs (you can use the Europe servers from the Americas, supposedly).

As I said, no offline single player is not ideal. I agree. I can't call it 'oppressive' with a straight face, though. #fwp? Internet access is common enough that this basically never affects me. When I was playing D2, offline SP was a huge deal, because internet access wasn't as common. Times change.

So, if you read what I actually said: this is hardly the worst DRM we've seen. In fact, it is quite manageable. Obviously, no DRM is best, from the consumer POV. That seems at best an unreasonable expectation, and at worst, totally counter to the reality that we have.

Posted by: CanRay May 16 2012, 02:32 PM

True, the DRM isn't killing computers like Sony's Rootkit, I'll warrant that.

Still rocking Max Payne 3 instead of Diablo III.

Posted by: Seriously Mike May 16 2012, 04:56 PM

Yet another service problem: the producers don't give half a shit if someone in Absurdistan wants to play the game, because AMERICA FUCK YEAH. Somehow, other global publishers have deals with local ones, allowing for prices adjusted to people's earnings. Valve understood that (at least partially...), and they don't pull any dickery to "stop piracy". Blizzard on the other hand drew the ire of local gamers back when they released Starcraft 2 for $70 here. Now they're doing exactly the same with Diablo 3. And all that after a string of reasonably priced games (WOW Cataclysm costs around $25 here, so it's not impossible for them to do). So, some companies can lower their prices to a sensible level, and Blizzard can't. Service issue (ignoring the customer base) breeds pricing issue, pricing issue breeds piracy. Fats Newell claimed the same in an interview a few months ago.

Not when I'm in some end-of-the-world shithole of an Absurdistanian village where you need to climb a ladder to even have mobile coverage, water flows upwards, dogs bark with their dicks and drink water with their asses. My parents live in one of those, they're forced to use some shitty mobile modem connected to an old TV antenna on a long pole and they can't even open two websites at the same time. 150 feet from their house there's a fiber-optic landline belonging to the national telecom. No, it can't be extended to reach their house and allow a decent connection. Why? Because fuck you, that's why (traditional Absurdistanian excuse). And this is supposed to be an EU country! Host to European football games!

Posted by: X-Kalibur May 16 2012, 05:38 PM

ACTUALLY - $60 is standard for a new release PS3 or X360 game. Standard PC release is $50. I worked at a Gamestop for a while, I can assure you of this fact. Even more so for digital release which costs them less money and most companies pass that savings on by having slightly cheaper digital releases. I'm not sure if I should blame Blizzard or Activision for this nonsense.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 16 2012, 07:13 PM

Seriously Mike, that seriously sounds like a personal problem. Not having internet access isn't their issue, any more than system requirements are their issue (like, how dare they make me have a graphics card). Regional pricing is not a service problem, and the numbers you presented initially were claiming that the US prices were *higher*, not lower.

Close enough, X-Calibur. Piracy is not the result of them charging an extra $10 to come even with console prices. He cited '$20-40'.

I'm not crazy: I like paying less money as much as anyone does, and I like the idea of not needing to be online (… even though I literally wouldn't be, 99.99% of the time). It's just a little much to say that $60 is too much for Diablo III (or any AAA title, not Torchlight or something), and it's a little much to call their system 'oppressive'. People who don't like Diablo don't have to play it, and people who make an overwhelming principled stance on these issues don't either. We all have our choices.

Posted by: Thanee May 17 2012, 09:14 AM

Blame the Hype!

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Grinder May 17 2012, 03:12 PM

So... how is the game? Does anyone actually play it yet?

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 17 2012, 03:23 PM

It's pretty great. I've only had a few hours free, so I've got a level 20-some monk. I wish I had something stronger than my laptop to run it on, but it's pretty regardless. It's fast-paced and spectacular, and there's a steady flow of novel gear, skills, and monsters. The plot is hokey, but that's in keeping with D1/2. Replay is rewarded with funny little sidequests. Overall, everything is faster and simpler (inventory, gear, crafting, skills). The skill/rune system provides lots of variety and flexibility, without (for me) encouraging 'builds'.

… No Legendary items ('Uniques') yet.

Posted by: nezumi May 17 2012, 04:44 PM

I'm also in the 'can't/won't' category on this one I enjoyed Diablo II, but the DRM literally bricked Starcraft II for me (it got stuck in a weird forced update/fail loop). I actually had to download a pirated copy in order to pay the game I paid for. But by that time, I was so sick of waiting 5-10 minutes for it to download and install updates because I only played once a month (and only the single player campaign), so it was a good move.

However, I have been enjoying both Tropico 3 and Stronghold lately. I love just putting the disc in and playing in ten minutes. I just don't have the stress tolerance for Blizzard any more.

Posted by: KarmaInferno May 18 2012, 05:26 AM

I for one remember the massive hack problems from Diablo 1 and 2.

If nothing else, maintaining all essential data on the Blizzard servers will certainly cut down on that.

"Never put anything on the client. The client is in the hands of the enemy. Never ever ever forget this."



-k

Posted by: Tanegar May 18 2012, 08:30 AM

That's the attitude that leads to invasive DRM. I never understood why hacking was a problem that Blizzard needed to solve. If you don't want to play with hackers, then don't. Create a community of non-hackers; if you play with someone who hacks the game, publish their name so others in your group know to not play with that person. Game hacking is only a developer issue in MMOs.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 18 2012, 12:04 PM

Whatever the reason, it *was* an issue in those games that players cared about. They said, 'Blizzard, solve this problem for us'… so Blizzard did. They tried Realms and Ladder, and now they're trying secure (hosted) games.

Personally, I only ever played Open characters (and with LAN/IP-hosting coop). I don't care about PvP or anything, and I enjoyed (after dozens of characters and hundreds of play-throughs) goofing around with simple char-file-duping.

Posted by: nezumi May 18 2012, 01:20 PM

Half of why I enjoyed Diablo II was so I could hack it! I got frustrated finishing the game and only exploring a third of the tree for one character type. Hacking is how I as a player get longevity out of my game (or find a way to care whatsoever about the longevity built in). It's why I love Civilization as hard as I do. I can understand hacking being an issue for multi-player games, but there are other ways around that (for example, storing MULTIPLAYER CHARACTERS on the server, and leaving my single-player experience alone!)

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 18 2012, 02:56 PM

Yes, that was the Realms/Ladder solution; apparently it was inadequate? I really don't know. I never cared about 'hacking', but I did use more polished mods (shared stash, skill respec, etc.), so I know what you mean.

However, D3 has a shared stash and instant respec…

Posted by: Thanee May 18 2012, 10:47 PM

I vastly prefer, if I can just play with random folks and chances are good, that they don't hack. In D1 and D2, that was completely impossible.



It takes a lot of effort to do that. Much better, if Blizzard prevents the problem at the source.

If this means DRM (in the way that I have to be online to play), I can live with that. And I surely am no friend of DRM.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 19 2012, 12:38 AM

I just gave up on multiplayer years ago. The worst part about hackers, immature players, etc. was just how SAD they were. Here were people who invested so much of their self-worth into an online game. It made me feel sad and sick to watch them go on the way they did.

Posted by: Halinn May 19 2012, 02:14 AM

That's what they did in D2. It didn't work. I do not know the details of how the hacks and methods of duping items worked, but I know that they kept popping up.

Posted by: Bigity May 19 2012, 02:12 PM

I can't believe D3 runs as well as it does on my crappy work laptop with NVS 3100M. Everything is on low, but it seems to not chug with 20ish baddies on the screen.

Posted by: KarmaInferno May 20 2012, 12:03 PM

Well, Blizzard is pretty good about supporting low-spec computers. World of Warcraft still runs very well on my crap 6 year old laptop with the gimpy Intel integrated graphics.




-k

Posted by: Lindt May 20 2012, 02:24 PM

It just hangs while trying to update the installer. None too happy.

Posted by: nezumi May 21 2012, 03:07 PM

... as long as you can maintain a high-bandwidth Internet connection for 30 minutes or more at a time. Like I said, my gaming computer hiccups with the Internet regularly, and it completed broke Starcraft II just before the last mission.

IF I ever decide to play Diablo III, I'll be pirating it, because it's the only way I'll be able to get it to work.

Posted by: CanRay May 21 2012, 04:10 PM

Yarr! Software off the starboard bow!!!

We of the Crimson Binome will be plundering yer files!!!

Posted by: onlyghostdanceswhiledrunk May 21 2012, 07:20 PM

@Canray: Arent you one of the dinosaurs? You know how to work the magical box of light with the super light weight typewriter correct? Here I was assuming you were a great dragon that had finally had trodes created that were draco-sapient compatible.

Posted by: CanRay May 21 2012, 07:33 PM

I'm a certified (And possibly certifiable) computer tech by training, amongst other things.

Posted by: TheFr0g May 22 2012, 03:48 PM

I'm having a lot of disconnection issues, particularly while using he Enchantress companion for some reason. However when I'm not DCed it is an incredibly fun game. And since I bought the WoW annual pass it didn't cost me a dime, so I feel OK excusing some launch day and connectivity issues. The game is freakin fun.

Posted by: Dr.Rockso May 22 2012, 04:16 PM

I love that I get this reference.

Posted by: Tanegar May 23 2012, 08:45 PM

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5743-You-Should-Be-Mad-at-Diablo-IIIs-Always-Online-DRM
In a nutshell:

• You paid good money for a game.
• You are entitled to be able to play that game.
• Hackers, dupers, et al. are Blizzard's problem, not yours.

And you know what? He's absolutely, one hundred percent, dead-bang-on-the-money correct on every single point.

Posted by: CanRay May 23 2012, 09:44 PM

With you on that one. Even Steam has an Offline mode. There's outages when you want to play something because you don't have an Internet Connection. There's people who don't live in High-Speed Internet areas. There's lots of reasons this is a BAD IDEA™.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 24 2012, 04:35 AM

Um. Surely hackers/etc. are everyone's problem? That's kind of the point. If it didn't affect the players, by definition no one would care.

You're giving them $60 for exactly what you get: you can play the game when you're online. Yes, it would be nice if it were otherwise, but that's what you're exchanging your money for. If you think you're buying something different, you're just confused.

Posted by: phlapjack77 May 24 2012, 05:55 AM

I don't think this is the right attitude - the usual "if you don't like it, don't buy it" trope. Sure, maybe people can't actually sue Blizzard for breach of contract or something, but to say a person can't complain about a much-loved, long-awaited game, just because YOU don't have a problem with it? I don't agree

First, hackers aren't everyone's problem. As the video said, they're Blizzard's problem. Possibly the problem of people who want to play with random people online or PvP, but that's hardly "everyone". Many players don't care about hackers. I sure don't.

Second, as the video says (I thought it was a very good video, ok? ), if I give Blizzard $60 for a game where I always have to be online, Blizzard had damn well better make sure that Blizzard servers are also always online and able to accept the connection. That seems to not be the case.

Posted by: CanRay May 24 2012, 07:46 AM

Still trying to figure out how single-player requires online play...

Posted by: phlapjack77 May 24 2012, 08:21 AM

Yeah, I don't understand why the model from DII doesn't work anymore. It seemed the perfect compromise. Single-player and multi-player characters couldn't interact, so what was the problem where they had to change it to where everyone is multi-player? Blizzard's new online marketplace or whatever it is could still be restricted to multiplayer-only characters and all that.

But Blizzard isn't crazy, I guess. There MUST be some reason

Posted by: Shortstraw May 24 2012, 11:47 AM

All my multiplayer DII was at LANs anyway or living at college (permanent lan of 3000 people ) so same character could be used.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 24 2012, 01:07 PM

As I've repeatedly said, phlapjack, I *don't* happen to like it. Obviously, it's a bad requirement. However, it's not a *trick*: you know exactly what you're trading your $60 for. That's my point. You did not buy Diablo II+; you bought what you bought.

*shrug* Apparently the D2 system didn't work as well overall as we might have thought? This is why I said that clearly hackers are everyone's problem; if they weren't, no one would care. Personally, I only played Open chars, and never with any strangers. Presumably, that's not a tradeoff they wanted? It could be that they place a high priority on more 'social' social play.

CanRay, because there *is* no single player. It's solo multiplayer: that character can fully interact with the online community at all times. It's like soloing Guild Wars or something. Sure, I might *wish* there were single player, but there simply isn't. Again presumably, they did not want to allow people to say 'I never want to play online or interact with the auction house, thanks'. Maybe that's a feature, nudging me to stop playing alone.

Posted by: TheFr0g May 24 2012, 01:07 PM

The "if you don't like it, don't buy it" trope works perfectly here. It isn't like Blizzard hid what the game was. It seems incredibly arrogant to me that people think their $60 entitles them to getting their every wish fulfilled. Blizzard is offering a product at a given price. Evaluate the product, determine if it's right for you, and purchase if you so desire. That's how the market works. There were first-day hiccups, those problems are largely solved now.

As for why they are doing it, they appear to be attempting to build their own social network. If you're playing D3 you can communicate with your friend playing Starcraft 2 or World of Warcraft. As their empire grows, so will the synergy between their games. Plus they want to make as much money as possible on the back end with various micro transactions and that's just easier if every game is online all the time. One can complain about blizz's money-grubbing ways, but one can't really complain about the quality of their games. They put out good product, and that money allows them to do so.

Posted by: phlapjack77 May 24 2012, 02:10 PM

My apologies, I HAD read that you didn't like it, I just got carried away .

Although it isn't a "trick", it is a large deviation from DI and DII. It is a large deviation from how people played previous installments of this game. Yes, yes, people knew about this. I don't think there's room to say we should sue Blizzard or anything. But to say people aren't allowed to complain about something they paid money for, to let Blizzard and others know they're unhappy? Especially in light of the fact that Blizzard had lots of problems in the opening week of the game? It's all a matter of degree.


I still say that hacker's aren't everyone's problem. Unless you're making the leap that Blizzard is making them everyone's problem. Not the same thing, to me.


Now you're just spewing hyperbole. People aren't asking to get their every wish fulfilled. People are asking to be able to play a game they paid $60 for the way they want to play it, offline. This isn't such a strange request. The Diablo franchise has a long history of offline-mode-ness.

AND the requirement to be online doesn't make much sense. The RAM requirement, the HD space requirement, the graphics card requirement, those are pretty visible in terms of why, in terms of how they help the game. They're within reason. But how does Diablo suffer at all if it is played offline? Previous versions worked great for offline mode. What good is online-only mode bringing this game?


That....seems like what a lot of people are complaining about, so it seems that everybody is in agreement

Posted by: almost normal May 24 2012, 02:14 PM

Can : Money.

The Auction House is a very cool feature. The AH for actual cash is going to make Blizz millions. The only way Blizz can make sure the AH doesnt fill up with duped/hacked items is to allow nothing artificially valuable into the hands of the user.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 24 2012, 02:35 PM

Yes, it's not like there's no clear *reason* for the online-always decision. The question is whether we agree with that decision. Their reasoning is: integrity of the real-money (and gold-only) AH, anti-piracy, encourage Battle.net social system. 'Ours is': playing offline/LAN is convenient.

Posted by: almost normal May 24 2012, 02:50 PM

And expected, is the industry standard, and is consumer friendly.

Remember when Blizzard games would have spawn copies, so your friends could play for free with you?

Man, It's almost likehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 24 2012, 03:13 PM

Consumer-friendly = convenient.

The 'expectation' and 'industry standard' are hardly so easy to just proclaim, but again, that's not the point. Obviously, we'd prefer a certain thing, but that's not what Blizzard did, for other reasons.

Posted by: phlapjack77 May 24 2012, 03:45 PM

The only thing that has made me more angry than this was when Microsoft acquired Bungie....

Man, I wish I hadn't just thought of that. It still gets me angry, even now...

Posted by: nezumi May 24 2012, 03:48 PM

I would have with Diablo, but I did not with Starcraft. Of course, it required an Internet connection. It includes online play! But no where on the box did it say "will require uninterrupted Internet connection in order to download 50MB of updates before you can play". If it had said that, I wouldn't have bought it. Nor did it say "single-player experience may be interrupted by Internet connectivity errors". Again, I would not have bought it. And the fact that, ultimately, I had to download a pirated copy in order to play because my legitimate version got trapped in an infinite update/fail-out loop is certainly evidence that I did not get what I paid $60 for.

I can't speak for Diablo though. Did the box say "uninterrupted internet connectivity required for single-player play"?




Hackers are not 'everyone's problem'. I played Diablo II and not once was I inconvenienced by a hacker. Ditto for my wife. Ditto for my brother. I have in fact, not met, in person, an individual who complained about Diablo II hackers.

Blizzard is my problem.

I cannot fathom a corporation which actually antagonizes its customers more than the problem they are seeking to eliminate. However, I assume that I represent a minority segment of Blizzard's customer base. So with that, I know in advance when I see "Blizzard" printed on a box, that it is not a game I will enjoy.

Posted by: Adarael May 24 2012, 06:46 PM

Mostly, it's because the people in this thread who are upset by this are in the vast minority. Diablo 3 sold more copies on launch day than say, Splinter Cell Conviction has ever sold, and D3 is PC only.

Obviously, they want EVERYONE to buy it. But equally obviously, a sufficient number of people ARE willing to buy it.

Posted by: almost normal May 24 2012, 07:31 PM

You realize your initial statement and later reasoning have nothing to do with each other? In fact, I'd say they contradict each other. You can only really be disappointed by a game that you've purchased.

Numbers? I know it had plenty of pre-sales, but I was unaware that it had many day-of-release sales. I'd be willing to put money on EA selling 2-3 times more Madden games between D2 : LoD and D3's release then D3 made.

Posted by: KarmaInferno May 24 2012, 07:36 PM

I posted the old adage about the client being in the hands of the enemy.

I'll ask this: You have a system where you have characters and resources that can be moved from private games to public games. How do you prevent people from altering their private game files and moving the resulting altered or added content into public games?

You can put various encryption or watchdog techniques into the code to try and "authenticate" offline-gained resources, but ultimately because they are on the client these systems are accessible to anyone with the skills, and any sort of encryption or authentication can and will eventually be cracked. This is not merely a possibility. This is an inevitability. And likely it will be cracked and out in the wild before the game is a week old.

Or you can do what blizzard did in D3. Remove all such resources from the client. If they are not on the client, someone would have to hack Blizzard's servers to alter them.

If someone can come up with a way to have completely offline mode, and keep someone from hacking that offline client, I'm all ears.




-k

Posted by: almost normal May 24 2012, 08:25 PM

Shift the problem : Keep the online mode as it is, introduce an AH-free open mode. offline singleplayer and multiplayer (LAN)

Problem solved.

Posted by: KarmaInferno May 24 2012, 08:36 PM

That's kinda what they did in D2. They had ladder games and open games. Ladder games were heavily tracked, open games were not.

There were an awful lot of folks that did not feel "competitive" enough to play ladder games, though, so they never tried them. So those folks were faced with pretty much being at the mercy of any hacker if they wanted to jump into open games.

Those are the folks Blizzard are trying to protect with the D3 system.

Now, could it be done differently? I dunno. It's possible.

But I do think the reasons behind D3's system are more to address the hacking problem they had in the last two games, than to protect against piracy. Though that is probably something they considered as well.




-k

Posted by: almost normal May 24 2012, 08:41 PM

Ironic. Those are the same people who have been hacked in D3, those joining open games with strangers. Either 7 something years of planning and coding hadn't accounted for a seemingly obviously flaw in their system (I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the method used to spoof seems very obvious), or their main focus was on keeping the monetary AH hack-proof, with a nice side benefit of obtrusive anti-piracy measures.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 24 2012, 09:27 PM

nezumi, you clearly have a strong, emotional position based on your experience (esp. SC2). However, it does sound like a pretty rare experience (and I don't understand why you can't just reinstall?). Automatic updates are a pretty common feature, though. It doesn't seem at all sinister.

Posted by: Tanegar May 24 2012, 09:30 PM

Have a completely offline mode. It doesn't matter if someone (or everyone, for that matter) hacks the offline client, because it only affects that person's game.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 24 2012, 09:48 PM

Again, they have various reasons motivating not having that option, though. Certain players (us) don't agree with those reasons, but they have them, and they're not 'be jerks' or 'be arrogant', whatever. They want people to participate in the their social platform, and they want to avoid having 2 totally separate populations (again).

Posted by: Tanegar May 24 2012, 10:01 PM

I don't even particularly dislike the social platform idea in principle. Social contact is a fabulous idea, in theory. It's the people that I can't stand. As set forth in http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19, normal person + anonymity + audience = total fuckwad.

Posted by: Adarael May 24 2012, 10:08 PM

Are you referring to my initial statement and later reasoning? Because I don't understand your objection if you are referring to me and not someone else. In case you are referring to me, here is what I mean:
In a perfect world a company's game will be bought by everyone. But in the real world, they'll weigh the amount of sales they'll lose over inconvenience vs the advantages to having more control. In Diablo 3's case, it is abundantly apparent that plenty of people are willing to play it anyway.




Opening day Diablo 3 sales are tracked at 3.5 million sales, which does not include any presales or free copies from WoW subscriptions. Splinter Cell Conviction had sold about 2.5 million after a year's worth of sales - statistically speaking sales after 1 year are negligable.

Madden 2012 sold 1.4 million in the first week, and "over 3 million" in the first month. So Diablo 3 is tracking higher in terms of sales per period, but Diablo 3 doesn't come along as a million seller every year; Madden is assuredly more profitable over the life of the franchise.

Posted by: almost normal May 24 2012, 11:04 PM

I just don't agree with your conclusion. I don't think many people expected the internet requirement to be so intrusive and, for lack of a better word, bad. I've died 3 or 4 times due to server lag. My general latency hovers in the 250+ range, but I get around 60-80 playing shooters with 63 other people.

In other words, the downsides weren't clear and obvious before purchase. To Blizzard's credit, they've been pretty good with refunds.

Posted by: nezumi May 25 2012, 01:36 PM

I'm sure I could have. But at that point, I'd sunk a ridiculous amount of time into the install (because I can't just point and click, like with normal games. I had to go through installing Battle.net, setting up a Battle.net account, checking my Internet connectivity as patches download, waiting for it to prompt me about some stupid thing, download Starcraft, install, configure, download patches, wait for stupid prompts). Then, once I got it installed, every time I wanted to play (which was, admitedly, around once a month) I had to wait for my cruddy wireless modem to boot up and connect, then to spend 5-15 minutes downloading and installing patches.

And that's what it came down to. I'll play a game at most once a month, for as little as thirty minutes. That's all the time I've got. If I've got 30 minutes to play, and I'm spending 20% of that time just doing program maintenance, it's not fun any more. I'll go play another game.

Funny enough, after sinking $60 for a game I thought would be fun, but was a mess of frustration, the hacked version worked just as expected -- first try it installed with no fuss. When I wanted to play, I clicked the icon, and within five seconds I was in. It was ... nice

(And again, I actually enjoy the hacking part. Being able to hack a game is a bonus, because it gives it replayability beyond what the designers intended. I LOVED playing Fallout2 with a Strength 20 character or with a million goofy mods. So for me, Blizzard broke their game in order to remove features.)

And no, I don't think Blizzard did it to be mean or because their idiots. I'm not personally upset with the corporation any more than I'm upset with Toyota because a prius isn't competitive on a race track. Like I said, Blizzard is clearly catering to an audience that does not include me. So going forward I won't buy Blizzard products, and if someone asks for game recommendations, current Blizzard games will not be on that list.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 25 2012, 03:00 PM

Oh, I see that you were making a different point then. It's true, they failed to design the game with non-constant, non-fast internet in mind. There is indeed something to be said for games that update rarely, run quietly offline, etc.

Posted by: Adarael May 25 2012, 06:30 PM

That's fine, but that's orthothonal to what I'm saying. I'm saying that if 3.5 million people bought it on launch day, and people are continuing to buy it (they are) and that the problems at launch were embarassing but not crippling to the game's sales (they weren't), then it doesn't matter if you've died 3 or 4 times, or your latency is 250, or the downsides weren't clear. Because Blizzard correctly weighed the drawbacks of their decision, and said, "Hey, you know what? We will still make crazy dollars off of this."

Did they make as much as they could have? I don't know. But the ire of Dumpshockers aside, they have made crazy money *already*, so mission accomplished.

Posted by: KarmaInferno May 26 2012, 01:17 AM

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=312




-k

Posted by: CanRay May 26 2012, 01:50 AM

Yeah, after they got your money, all out of f***s.

Posted by: Tanegar May 26 2012, 02:53 AM

See, this is why I'm rooting for the Horrors. Yes, they're evil planet-devouring monstrosities from beyond time and space, but at least they're fucking honest about it.

Posted by: CanRay May 26 2012, 03:16 AM

Insect Spirits. During the Cold War, I was rooting for the Cockroaches.

Posted by: Adarael May 26 2012, 03:17 AM

I just wanna say, as a game designer...

You buy my game? I'm not all out of fucks.

Just 99% out.

Posted by: CanRay May 26 2012, 06:08 AM

I'm going to say as a author, you buy my book, I want to know what you think and give a whole lot of fucks about it.

And want people to punch holes and think about what I wrote. That's the purpose of art after all.

It's all a matter of perception.

Posted by: Shortstraw May 26 2012, 06:48 AM

You stopped my characters from living in vehicles

Posted by: CanRay May 26 2012, 07:19 AM

How? I included rules for living in vehicles.

Posted by: Shortstraw May 26 2012, 09:10 AM

If I pay 10k for a nice bed and such in my motorhome/zepplin/yacht plus the cost of the vehicle itself and then I'm stuck with 12 lifestyle points? Originally when you invested money into buying lifestyle your costs went down.

Posted by: CanRay May 26 2012, 03:09 PM

It's called "Maintenance", you don't do upkeep, things start to go to hell.

And a nice bed does not a Squat make. Food is also important.

Posted by: nezumi May 26 2012, 06:12 PM

Indeed, but there's a difference between 'art for art' (which, not coincidentally, encompasses most fields of art you couldn't buy a house off of, most RPG-writing included) and 'art for cash'.

Keep on being an artist, you make the world a better place

Posted by: CanRay May 26 2012, 07:43 PM

That remains to be seen...

Posted by: Seriously Mike May 29 2012, 07:44 AM

Now, after everything that's been said here, I can add only one more thing:
TOLD YA.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 29 2012, 12:58 PM

Told what? This thread started when the game was released, there were no predictions.

Posted by: Seriously Mike May 29 2012, 01:01 PM

That this always-online DRM is the dumbest thing ever conceived in the video game industry - it's intrusive, useless and nobody wanted it anyway. And not only this, because Ubisoft did exactly the same thing and only the customers' complaints made them pretend they're rethinking it (note: looking at M&M: Heroes 6 they actually don't).

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 29 2012, 01:13 PM

Ah. Just checking, because it sounded like you had warned us ahead of time about something that later happened.

Posted by: almost normal May 29 2012, 01:47 PM

Finally beat the game on normal last week. Spent some weekend hours playing it on nightmare, and *man*. The skills they give you on the harder difficulties are head and shoulders more fun then the regular skills.

Fun.

Don't get me wrong, the online only thing blows, and I'm afraid to start a hardcore character, because I know ill die from a blizz lag spike (that officially, can't ever happen from their end. right...) but yeah. Its fun.

Posted by: CanRay May 29 2012, 04:04 PM

Fun ain't going to sell me on stupid DRM that should die in a fire. With some second-degree burns to the guy who thought it would be a good idea.

Posted by: almost normal May 29 2012, 05:27 PM

Okay?

I hate the DRM too. I'm not so savvy on burning the guy who thought it'd be a good idea, but I'm for some public humiliation. Tar and feathering, stocks, that sort of thing.

I'm just saying that the game, when it works, is fun.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 29 2012, 05:59 PM

Fun is the point. Politics, meh.

Posted by: CanRay May 29 2012, 08:08 PM

Second Degree Burns are like a really bad sunburn. Blistering at worst. I've gotten that from working in the kitchen for Ontario Minimum Wage. Any more than that, and yeah, I'm with you.

Stocks is a better idea, all right.

...

Now, where are those rotten tomatoes???

Posted by: almost normal May 29 2012, 08:42 PM

The memories you give me...

Last summer. Maybe the summer before. Worked at UPS. Girlfriend and I went to the beach. Sat out all day. Got insane sunburn. The blisters were so bad that if I rubbed my bicep, the blister-water would drip down my fingers like I was under the shower. To keep my mind off the intense pain I'd pop the little packs of water as I worked. By the time the skin started peeling, it was bad. She tore off full sheets of paper sized skin off my back.

I wouldn't wish that on a jerk. And thats what Blizzard is here. Greedy jerks. Not much we can do about it.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin May 30 2012, 03:55 AM

I've not had the chance to play D3 because I don't own a system that will run it (my desktop just goes click when you try to turn it on, and yes I've troubleshot it, so don't ask).

I have however watched someone else play it.

And I have to say, it's not Diablo. Not *my* Diablo anyway. It just doesn't look right. It's too smooth. Historically, Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo all looked very different. Warcraft was cartoonish and exaggerated on proportions and everything. Starcraft was spacy and semi-real with some exaggeration, and Diablo went for the gritty, grimy, bloody gorefest type of realism. I *loved* that about it. Now it's the generic cell-shaded smoothness that Blizzard has settled on with some details added here and there. The interface is stupid-bright, compared to what I'd expect.

And that alone will keep me from playing it. It's sad, because I was looking forward to it. But after watching gameplay videos, I was worried. But I waited until I could see it in person before rendering judgement. It sucks that I'll miss out on what is likely a good game because I can't stomach how they decided to make it look this time around. It's one thing to change voices or other things. But if I'm going to sit playing something for hours, I'd best be able to enjoy what I'm looking at.

I do honestly hope those who chose to play it have fun. I've truly always enjoyed Blizzard games. It sucks that I'm choosing to bow out because of the art choice. Oh well.

Wow. How many times did I repeat my point in there? Jeez. Enjoy the game, guys.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 30 2012, 01:36 PM

Realism?
It's true that they finally added a little bit of color beyond red, black, white, and brown. Having playing hundreds of hours of D1 and D2, I don't find the slightest incompatibility, but clearly it's a personal thing. I do like that the skills are all spectacular now (instead of only for spellcasters).

Posted by: Jhaiisiin May 30 2012, 08:40 PM

I'm hearing a lot of issue with D3 characters feeling more... one dimensional? than the D2 skill trees offered. As if there are far fewer choices available. The person speaking of it said it felt like you played the character how Blizzard says you play it, instead of having a few different options for advancement and development. How are your thoughts on that?

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 30 2012, 09:16 PM

Hm. If anything, there are too many skills to choose from, and 'free respec' means you *can* choose them. In D2, you were stuck. In fact, you had to actually plan ahead for your perfect cookie-cutter build. I'd say D3 is significantly less constrained than D2.

I'm not sure it's possible to play the Demon Hunter as anything but an archer, though; AFAIK, there's no equivalent of a spear amazon option. Certain classes have certain weapons unavailable, but this seems minor (e.g., monk can have 2h staves, but not 2h swords). Not that it really happened in D2, but you can't really play non-DH classes as archers, either. You can equip bows, but your skills do what they do regardless.

One thing they could do better is be more explicit about 'Elective Mode' (like, that it exists!). By default, you have 4 skills per button (1-4, click, right-click); if you check Elective Mode, you can assign any skill to any button. This totally changes the game, even though the non-Elective Mode is a good tutorial.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 1 2012, 05:23 AM

http://imgur.com/xltQe

Posted by: CanRay Jun 1 2012, 05:41 AM

BURN!!!

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 1 2012, 05:46 AM

It's funny because we've all been there, amiright?
...
Right guys?
...
Anyone?

Posted by: almost normal Jun 1 2012, 02:47 PM

If you wanted to be a dick, you could use nothing but traps, knives, pets and grenades. I mean, everything is going to be a projectile, but theoretically, you could avoid using an arrow or a bolt. It's also theoretically possible to never equip a skill, and therefore use the default melee option that you get at level 1.

I love my DH though. I've never had as much fun with another Diablo class, and that's saying alot, I <3 my d2 druid.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 12 2012, 06:48 PM

Seriously Mike? How much did you know about D2? It sounds like not very much. If you think the online auction house is a gimmick than you really don't understand the amount of trading that went on in D2. You wanted Azurewrath? Sit in a chat channel spamming WTB Azurewrath or wait for something to spam WTS Azurewrath. Then you join a game with the guy and hope he didn't skip out with whatever you were trading without dropping the Legendary. The online auction house provides a significant quality of life improvement over D2 by removing the active element of the seller and adding protections for both parties in the transaction. Granted, the trade function was implemented inside a game, however that has less protections than the AH such as that someone could quickly change the value of currency offered right before you hit accept in order to get away with paying significantly less or nothing at all.

--



Competitive gaming. If you can't keep the environment reasonably hack free then it undermines the credibility of the competition.

--



They've made significant quality of life improvements over D2 and a lot of them are aided by having the battle.net online play.

--



Alright, so you won't mind when some chinese gold seller keylogs your account information, logs in, pilfers everything from all your characters and leaves it naked? You're right! Hackers are Blizzards problem, that's why this question....



...makes much more sense. Since it's Blizzard's problem, they store your account information on their servers. Information which they make backups of at intervals and are capable of restoring what you lost to you. That is their solution to hackers. That and providing authenticators to aid in preventing YOUR characters from being exploited and hacked.

--



One can look at this multiple ways.

Your guild leader can see you're online playing SC2 or D3 instead of raiding in WoW. Or your friends in the other games can harass you to come help them in the other game.

--



It helps push towards a healthy economy.

D2 economy.

Get Rare. Rare is shitty. Sell Rare. Gamble. Sell most of what you just gambled for because they're shitty rares. Gamble some more.

In D3 there's an actual item economy with multiple paths. You get a shitty rare? Well, is it decent enough for another class? And you are benefited by that economy if you choose to use it. Otherwise, you can sit on your arse and farm crap all day long just like in D2 and end up with a bunch of worthless junk.

--



It may. The real money AH will make Blizzard exactly $0 from Hardcore players.

--



Most people's battle.net account username is exactly identical to the display name they have for Diablo 3. This causes issues and enables a dictionary style attack against the account.

I'm also not inclined to believe that just "being in a game" with one of these hackers is sufficient to get hacked. I have an open mind so if you have some credible evidence showing how this supposed hack works and that it is not most likely a matter of a keylogger I would be interested in reading it.

--



One dimensional? The D2 skill trees were one dimensional. D2 was idiotically one dimensional for character. The trees were fluffy. Stat allocation was fluffy. What did D2 boil down to? Figure out which ability you use to try to roflstomp everything, put 20 points in that, put 20 points in every skill that synergized it, put points enough to meet those requirements. That ate up about 86 of your 105 (?) skill points. Attribute points? Even simpler. Enough strength, dex, and int to meet equipment requirements and then you stack vitality.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 12 2012, 07:47 PM

There are a few little changes I think would be more fun. I'm avoiding the big issues here (difficulty balance, item drops/item composition, AH issues), but it would be nice if health potions had a purpose (for example, #1). The main thing is the insane 30sec cooldown on using them. I don't understand. Not only are they not enough to fill (even half-fill) your life, but you literally find them faster than you can drink them (1 per 30sec). So, once per 2 fights, you can partially refill your life. :/ They even sell the potions in the the shops, as if you weren't finding more than you could ever use. So… why not make this cooldown much shorter? It used to be 0, and I don't see a big problem with that (you're tearing through your resources quite quickly in that case). But let's say we do want a cooldown: what's wrong with 5 or 10 sec? That's letting you use this partial heal a few times per fight (random packs, not bosses), and you're using up your resources (potentially gold, if you had to buy them).

#2: So, after going through the game on Normal, NM, and Hell, times 5 characters, I've found a grand total of 1 Legendary, 0 Set, 0 Plans, etc. This also seems like a huge problem with the game. Surely you should be able to find a few Legendary, Set, and so on, in *at least* one full run through the plot? It's not like the Legendaries are even any good (at all), so why not let us find a *couple*? This is a huge departure from D2.

#3: While D2 used to have stat requirements to use your armor and weapons, D3 is just level. Which means you have exactly 2 stats to dump everything on: (primary) and Vitality. Strength gives a minor bonus to armor, Int gives a minor bonus to Resists, and Dex gives a minor bonus to dodge, but these are all much to small to bother with while you try to maintain armor, resists, DPS, and HP in a balance that keeps you alive. It seems like a simple tweak could make these other stats more useful when they're 'non-primary': increase that minor bonus a small amount. Make it 1.5% instead of 1%, I dunno (that's why playtesting exists), and only do this for non-primary stats of a given character. I'm sick of finding Monk-only items that have big Strength bonuses, or DH-onlies with tons if Int, etc. It feels like a giant waste.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 12 2012, 08:05 PM

I agree, the potions bit is quite dumb. I see most people in Inferno running around 20-30k hp though I have seen a ridiculous resist barbarian with 14k hp. The best potions are pretty much useless in Hell if you're doing some Inferno. There's also the ridiculous difficulty gap between Act I and Act II of Inferno. The potions are one thing and there is at least a justifiable reason for the fact that they restore a fixed amount. D2 had Rejuevenation potions that were, IIRC, 30% or 100% of your HP healed. No, the ridiculousness of healing is best represented by monk. They have a fixed value heal that only rises with level. In a world where basically every skill's potency is based off weapon damage you have a skill that quickly falls behind in effectiveness.



Legendaries are getting buffed, so be glad you haven't found any. All the ones that have already spawned are staying as they are. Blizzard has admitted that their too weak. There are lower than level 60 legendaries (I have three) and those are really the ones you're most likely to find on Normal-Hell. I'm not sure if there's any set pieces that require a level lower than 60. That means you need to get iLvl 60-63 drops to get set pieces and the latter three are only available in Inferno. I think iLvl 60 items can be gotten in Act IV Hell.

It's also not a huge departure from D2. The frequency, perhaps can be considered a departure, but that's about it. Overall, rares can be a lot better than most set or unique items. The problem, of course, was getting one that was better. Top end rares should be better than legendaries only because they're much hard to obtain than to get a legendary that generally has the same stats, but with ranges.



I just want to make sure you're on the same level. Attributes in D2 had one purpose. Meet equipment requirements. Once those were met, for all intents and purposes there was really just one attribute. Vitality.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 12 2012, 08:16 PM

Not, 'just frequency' really is a gigantic departure from D2 if I haven't found any Unique or Set items in something like 15 first-run plays through the entire game. In D2, you'd find a few per Act, on every difficulty rating. If the game is only meant to be played on Inferno/Level 60, that's bad. I'm not talking about 'legendaries should be better than rares', I'm talking about 'legendaries should *exist*'. That goes double for Set items… are they seriously Level 60 only? That's just shocking.

Right, but they don't have that purpose in D3, and it was a *huge* deal in D2. Meeting reqs was half the reason to do anything.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 13 2012, 02:50 AM

2 things. One, no I won't mind, because I don't have anything in my online account with Blizzard, the same as other people here. We don't care about online, that's the point. The hackers aren't our problem. Two, oh noes, the horror, a Chinese haxx0rrzed my account with "keylogs". Seriously?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 13 2012, 03:19 AM

… You have to have things on your account; he specifically said 'pilfers everything from your characters'. Diablo characters have things.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 13 2012, 03:43 AM

This seems circular. "You must have an online character. But what if scary Chinese!!1! hackers steal your stuff? Then you want things secure, right? Hackers are your problem!"

Maybe I'm misunderstanding his point...in D2, you could totally have an offline experience.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 13 2012, 04:04 AM

Oops, I didn't realize we were talking about counterfactuals. The fact is that you do have online characters in Diablo 3, so they have to be secured. The argument for having online characters is for the integrity of the whole game (which apparently many D2 players wanted), not the individual characters. So, it's everyone's problem, because everyone's online. You might wish for a non-online D3, but you might also wish for unicorns.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 13 2012, 04:14 AM

I think the original idea was that it was said "Hackers are everyone's problem". But they weren't everyone's problem in D2. Yes, I guess hackers ARE everyone's problem now in D3, but only because Blizzard chose to make them everyone's problem.

That's a little silly, to equate wishing for what we already had in D2, to wishing for unicorns. There's a latin expression for that kind of argument...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 13 2012, 04:26 AM

Presumably, there's a Latin phrase for literally everything.

It goes like this: apparently D2 players asked for a secure system with no hacked/duped items, which included an in-game auction house that you could actually use safely. To do that, you can't have offline play. Done. You can argue that you don't agree with the premise, but it's hardly a fallacy.

Again, I didn't realize anyone argued that hackers were everyone's problem in D2; I thought we were talking about how things actually are in D3. If I'm misreading everything, sorry for the trouble. The fact is that D3 is online, period. A non-online D3 is a unicorn, regardless of what D2 was. Someday, they might release an offline mode (like they eventually released NOCD patches), but given that all monsters and everything are processed server-side… it seems unlikely.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 13 2012, 05:17 AM

Yeah, there's probably a latin phrase for almost everything. Probably not for ideas like computers and current day tech? I thought it was interesting, in a language like Sinhala, they just take the English word ("television") and add an ending sound ("televisionecka"). Anywho...

Well, I thought the idea was "Hackers are everyone's problem, that's why D3 needs to be always online". Implying that hackers were a problem for everyone before D3, and that D3 solves this problem. If not, then I'll apologize for the trouble

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 13 2012, 05:32 AM

Ha! Well I'm glad we got that straight: one or both of us was confused. Oh well.

Another interesting thing about D3 is that they seem to have invested all of their plot-and-dialogue effort into the hirelings (leaving none for *anyone* else). Those 3 actually have personalities and backstories, and their voice acting is actually *acting*. I can't imagine why they made all the bosses, Cain, Adria, etc. say such wooden, boring, and stupid things. Surely it wasn't their intention to make the Lords of Hell sound like whiny children? :/

Posted by: nezumi Jun 13 2012, 03:37 PM

You could fix it. Just separate online and offline characters. Online characters are 'hack-proof', but require you be online constantly to use them. Offline characters ... don't.

Diablo 3 sounds fun, but I'm going to wait until the hacked version that permits offline play. I really don't have a choice.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 13 2012, 03:55 PM

But you can't do that. First, the *premise* is that you want a secure system including an AH. That's the premise; again, you can disagree with it, but you can't say it's not there. They already did the half-and-half method with Ladder/Realms, and (apparently) it wasn't acceptable. (I played 100% Open chars, so I'm not talking about myself here.)

Second, you'd have to not only remove the AH and all the online features (which, like it or not, are core components of the game), but apparently also basically run a D3 server at home. It seems a huge part of the game is run server-side, as I said. At best, this notional hacked version will be more like a private server than D2-style offline.

I'm not saying 'it's impossible for a game like D3 to be offline'. I'm saying that D3, as designed, is fundamentally online. Today in reality, they can't just flip a switch and give you Open characters. The new VW Beetle comes with different color paint and interiors, and you cannot get the blue paint with the beige interior; *that* is an arbitrary limitation (and I think it'd look good, hehe).

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 14 2012, 02:54 AM

I'm not doubting you, but do you have any references to the gamers that were asking for a secure online-only game? I'm seeing the move by Blizzard as purely aimed at maximizing profit through the AH, and not really in any response to player requests.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 03:44 AM

No, I'm just taking it as given for the discussion. Like I said, I only played Open (and 95% offline) myself. Their motivation really doesn't matter, though. Whoever wanted it, the system is fundamentally designed around a secure system w/ AH, which includes major server-side processing and requires online play. Given that fact, a) you can't just 'enable' offline-only play, and b) hackers are everyone's problem. I'm saying you can argue that these are *bad* motivations and bad decisions, and/or that it's all Blizzard's *fault*, but A and B are still true.

Regarding D3, what's the deal with Thorns? Why do they keep including this wholly worthless power? Even in D2, it was still wholly worthless, and there were a lot more ways to leverage the effect (auras and things). I can only assume there's one dev who just loves it and they're afraid to sadden him.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 14 2012, 04:11 AM

I think, in all this "discussion", that most people (including me), realize we're not going to change anything - D3 is what it is.

Having said that, to me, their motivation does matter. This change doesn't appear to be a "responding to customer demand" change. This change appears to be a "Spaceballs 2: The search for more money^*, our customers wishes be damned."

^*Yes yes, I know companies exist to make money.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 14 2012, 11:58 AM

Thorns may be annoyingly weak but it at least has AN effect at lv60. Seeing as how Lv55+ gear can be decent for inferno, nothing is more frustrating than getting +xp gear on what you're using in Inferno.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 01:15 PM

Ha, true. There are actually several effects that do 'nothing', but that one is at least literal.

Thorns, though, is not useful at any level. At the very lowest levels, things have little enough HP that it could hurt them (probably not kill them), but you don't need it then. You're already killing them easily, because all of Normal is 'No Fail Tutorial' difficulty.

Moving forward, suffix balance is probably the issue that bothers me the most. Life leech, which was basically mandatory in D2, is all but useless in D3 (maybe that's a good thing, but still). % chance to Stun/Chill/etc. is not bad, but tends to be a very low percentage. And so on. It's not a huge problem, but it pokes me every time I find an item.

Posted by: Bigity Jun 14 2012, 01:36 PM

Real Money Auction House is up. Wonder if I can make enough to pay for my WoW subscribtion and basically play both games for free.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 01:41 PM

I've only sold like 4 things in the gold one so far. There really is nothing in the AH below level 50. I'm not wild about the fact that the game *starts* at level 60/Inferno. I preferred D2's 'unattainable' 99.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 14 2012, 02:00 PM

On the other hand, IAS, as expected is ridiculous. It's bad that Magic rings with IAS are better than any possible rare ring that does not have IAS. I have a legendary bracer that is okay but not great, but since it has 8% IAS it provides a huge boost to my DPS compared to anything else I could put in the slot.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 02:59 PM

They're fixing IAS in the next patch, though. Yes, it's crazy good now.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 14 2012, 03:50 PM

Which is annoying.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 04:14 PM

Annoying that it's crazy good? Yes, the ideal is definitely balance in all things. Annoying that they're patching? *shrug* Constant balance tweaks are now the norm for games, be they MMO, FPS, whatever. I'm pretty fine with it (within reason, obviously). Given that we can't go back in time, I'd rather they keep making progress… than no progress.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 14 2012, 05:00 PM

It's annoying in the sense the this "balance" is probably going to end up with the opposite effect of what they're intending to do with inferno, which is to lower the difficulty gap between Act I and Act II.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 05:06 PM

Presumably they're doing multiple things. You'd think it wouldn't be *that* hard to make everything stop one-shotting everyone. It wouldn't have kill them to make Normal, NM, and Hell challenging either. At the very least, they could just give things more HP; everything I meet in the game is either dead in 1 hit, 3 hits, or … oh-god-TPK-x5.

Posted by: Tanegar Jun 14 2012, 06:01 PM

For those of us who A) don't have D3 yet and B) don't obsess over statistical minutiae, what's IAS?

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 14 2012, 06:13 PM

Increased Attack Speed.

The primary reason Blizzard doesn't like is the resources that have generation based on making hits and specifically Hatred generation for Demon Hunters. It's pretty bad when a Monk can spam Mantra of Healing to keep up the elevated HP regen without running out of spirit because of attack speed except for the fact that this is the sort of junk you have to pull to survive on Inferno.

What they should do, rather than nerfing IAS, is to change how resource generation works and make it a X/second cap on generation that way IAS helps resource generation, to a point, before no longer helping it or do some sort of diminishing returns. IAS would still be very valuable as a damage increase, it just wouldn't be as broken for Demon Hunters as current.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 07:22 PM

Of course, IAS was a huge deal in D2 as well. It's even more so in D3 currently, though.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 14 2012, 07:58 PM

I find it a necessary part to survive inferno as a monk but meh. I went the resistance stacking route and I didn't have enough gold to support buying equipment for every slot that had +All Resistances and +X Resistance where X is the same on each piece. Best I got was 52% resists overall with 50k HP and I was getting murdered in Act I.

I switched to IAS and instead of getting murdered by trash I was able to go toe to toe. Elite and Champion packs still kicked my butt though...

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 14 2012, 08:29 PM

Unless you play a wizard in D3, where IAS is not only more or less worthless (unless you use signature spells) but it causes you to eat up AP faster with ray spells. Of course, all most wizards do is run around spamming blizzard and hydra anyway, neither of which benefit at all from IAS... unless you want to cast them that fraction of a second faster.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 14 2012, 09:34 PM

Interesting, they chose not to use IAS in any of those spells? That's kind of odd. You'd think the blizzard would just snow faster, the ray would 'ping' more often, and the hydra would spit faster.

Either way: IAS is currently even more important in D3 than it already was D2… if you're the 4 other classes. I wasn't saying it's not (for monks), and I didn't know about those exceptions for wizards.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 15 2012, 01:43 AM

The rays MIGHT tick faster, but on inferno I generally have just enough time to drop hydra (not affected), Blizzard (also not affected) and maybe a single tick from ice ray. The spectrazards, before they nerfed force armor, made good use of IAS, however.

Posted by: nezumi Jun 15 2012, 01:53 AM

Like I said, it won't be long before someone figures out how to hack it, even if it's only for an 'offline' mode. This game is too popular for it not to happen, and setting up a server is sufficiently trivial that I don't think it'll be a real road block.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 15 2012, 11:16 AM

I doubt it. WoW is a perfect demonstration of why it will be a long time and nowhere near what the real game offers. In fact, most private WoW servers are quite imperfect and the first ones had tons of things missing.

People want to play Diablo 3 now, not in a year, and certainly not a crappy version of it.

Posted by: nezumi Jun 15 2012, 02:15 PM

Diablo 3 is not WoW. A lot of people are still playing D3 in single-player only. I don't think you CAN play WoW single-player. What I'm waiting for isn't a 'play online with your friends' D3. What I'm expecting is I set up some virtual server that just saves my character to dark corner of my hard disc, and when I boot up the game it runs. Just like my (functional) version of Starcraft 2, and my (functional) version of GTA IV, which are both hacked because the legitimate version crapped out when my Internet hiccuped.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 15 2012, 02:21 PM

Sounds pretty suspect, but whatever.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 15 2012, 03:12 PM

No one is playing Diablo 3 single player. There exists no such thing. They are playing Diablo 3 and set up barriers so that it appears like they are playing it single player.

Diablo 3 is WoW for the purpose of this argument. Diablo 3, unlike Starcraft 2, has server side code that is required to play the game. Starcraft 2, as it was released, had a single player game embedded in it that just required you to authenticate once to Blizzard and stay up to date to play it. All the data, code, and necessary files to run Starcraft 2 are already on your computer. Starcraft 2 only required that the mandatory one time login to battle.net (to prove authenticity) and updates are disabled in order to create the hacked version that you use. That is a far cry from what is required to make a single player version of Diablo 3.

Diablo 3, like WoW, has significant amounts of code that is server side. Essentially everything important is server side with the Diablo 3 client acting as nothing more than an install that contains all the pretties for running game. All of this code must be reverse engineered, which is no small feat. That is while I say it can take a year or more before there's a hacked single player version of Diablo 3 and why I say it will suck when it is released. It is because of this server side code that Blizzard is able to significantly cut down on hacking. It permits them to check and see if the client side cache has been altered (neon sign indication of a hack). To "hack" a single player of Diablo 3 will require significant amounts of playtime datamining data that comes from the server to try to reverse engineer that code. Guess what. That whole process needs to be repeated for each and every content patch or expansion pack.

Posted by: nezumi Jun 15 2012, 06:18 PM

What is your source for this? Because my understanding is that, after the authentication (and update process), the content stored online is your social media account and your character. Are you suggesting that things like the game levels are run *solely* on the server, and so functions like monster-generation, etc. are handled server-side and all I am running on the client is image and sound rendering? Because that sounds crazy resource intensive, especially if you want things like say, cool graphics and smooth action (for your single-player experience).

Posted by: almost normal Jun 15 2012, 09:39 PM

Like most broad sweeping statements, That's completely false.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 15 2012, 10:18 PM

If you read the full statement, it's clearly true. He's saying that everyone is playing D3 online (because that's the only way it exists); 'single player' means offline in this context. Not the best wording, but his meaning is obvious.

You can play D3 *solo*, but you're still online and interacting intensely with the server the whole time. No offline option exists, because the game (apparently) requires the server for, yes, things like monster generation, loot generation, even (I heard) monster AI. There's probably a source out there, but I don't know it.

Glancing around at some google hits for server emulators, it sounds like two things are true: 1) the server is doing a ton (as you say, perhaps everything but image and sound); 2) none of the emulators are close to full-featured or stable so far.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 18 2012, 12:20 PM

Single player means you have no means of playing with other players. Avoiding public games or setting up your game so your friends need to be invited to join your game hardly equates to single player. The terminology for that is solo play.



Undoubtedly the AI is ran server side. The game is too fluid with players joining and leaving for it to be any other way (read swapping AI controller) and if you run it client side for everyone then you run the risk of fragmentation between players of what monsters are doing let alone any sort of cache hacking that might work. If just a single player ran the AI then it would be a complex system to offload the AI to a new player each time the "host" left. No, the simpler answer is that monster AI is ran server side and it just sends commands to the client to run X AI action.



Unsurprising.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 18 2012, 02:42 PM

Which has nothing to do with the false statement that no one is playing the game singleplayer. You can interpret that to mean something else, but as stated, it's completely, and obviously false.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 18 2012, 02:58 PM

Or not false at all unless you completely screw up the definitions of single player modes and games.

A single player game is a game that contains no multiplayer or cooperative elements. It is strictly a single player.

A single player mode is a mode within the game that cannot interact with other players.

Solo play is a method by which someone plays a multiplayer mode while electing not to interact with other players.

Diablo III has a solo play option since you can bar friends from joining you game, never take part in a public game, and completely avoid the AH. However the ability to willfully avoid that which is permissive does not a single player mode make.

Posted by: Tanegar Jun 18 2012, 07:00 PM

You wanna split that hair a little finer, SS? I think it's still measurable by electron microscope.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 18 2012, 07:08 PM

Let me guess, you often utter the phrase "It's just semantics".

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 18 2012, 07:13 PM

Whatever phrase he chose, it was clear what he meant: offline play doesn't exist, solo play does, because there is major server-side processing. To get around this, you'll need a significant local server-thing, which is difficult and currently doesn't exist.

Posted by: nezumi Jun 18 2012, 10:33 PM

Wow, that's ... a little crazy. Impressive, but crazy. I guess I'm not playing then.

Posted by: Shortstraw Jun 19 2012, 09:04 AM

I've already stopped.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 19 2012, 01:27 PM

Patch 1.0.3 is today, I think.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 19 2012, 01:51 PM

I've been waiting on that to come out before getting back into my monk too much. Having Hell Act2 drop iLvl 61/62/63 is going to reduce some of the pain farming gear to successfully run Inferno. Also, it will be nice to upgrade all the gems I've been sitting on to tier 8.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 19 2012, 02:00 PM

Yeah, I started saving gems a little while back; the cost change to them is just huge. It's appropriate, though, because gems are much more effective for the lower levels. What I'd like is lower crafting costs (in gold). As it stands, the level of investment coupled with the total gamble of crafting makes it just not worth it (even to try and sell, which can be a pain).

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 19 2012, 03:09 PM

Flawed: 3 Chipped + 500g -> 2 Chipped + 10g
Normal: 3 Flawed + 750g -> 2 Flawed + 25g
Flawless: 3 Normal + 1250g -> 2 Normal + 40g
Perfect: 3 Flawless + 2000g + 1 page -> 2 Flawless + 55g + 1 page
Radiant: 3 Perfect + 3500g + 2 pages -> 2 Perfect + 70g + 2 pages
Square: 3 Radiant + 7500g + 1 tome -> 2 Radiant + 85g + 1 tome
Flawless Square: 3 Square + 20000g + 2 tomes -> 2 Square + 100g + 2 tomes

I have over 30 square of each type right now and that's not including the Tier 6 and lower gems. So dumping another 15 or so Flawless square gems is going to make it much nicer for my leveling characters.

Yeah. I agree, crafting needs to be balanced a bit. I think a bit of the problem comes from material games beyond gold cost. You average return on materials is somewhere around 30:1, I think. So you need to craft 30 bad items to get enough material back to craft another item.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 19 2012, 03:39 PM

The main thing is the new gold prices, which are just hugely lower. Really, though, gems drop so fast that you *could* just throw away the bad ones entirely… it just feels wasteful. And like I said, the power curve of gems levels off so fast that they barely matter at higher levels. It seems like they'll just have to add other gems/socketing things back into the game. I know they removed a lot of stuff for the release. :/

See, I'm fine with the material costs. It's the gold cost that matters. It's not like selling those items instead of grinding them into powder is making you very much gold.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 19 2012, 03:46 PM

It's both that's the problem. My 30:1 ratio was just assuming that I grinded for dust. That figure probably jumps to around 60:1 or higher to craft an item if you sell magic items to supplement the gold cost.

I need to get about 800k together so I can craft the Hell version of the Staff of Herding. I'm not sure whether that or Act IV of hell will be better for items for Inferno.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 19 2012, 03:52 PM

No, I'm saying I'm fine with the dust-grinding (30:1 or otherwise). I'm saying the alternative (selling) isn't worth doing, so you might as well be collecting materials. All I care about it is the huge gold cost of crafting, which leads you to just AH things instead of bothering to craft. If they were very cheap (but still limited by materials, and not *unreasonably* cheap), you'd have a reason to gamble instead of just AH-ing.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 19 2012, 04:21 PM

I do hope that 1.0.3 is a huge change, as it was even act 1 inferno was about as much fun as playing the 7th Saga... actually I take that back, the 7th Saga was more fun.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 19 2012, 05:01 PM

Ultimately, that meant that cashing in your blues and crappy rares was better than salvaging them. Even more so now that they're raising repair costs. It feels like the blacksmith is a bit better for hardcore, but only a bit.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 19 2012, 07:00 PM

That's true. I did start selling them after I got 'enough' dust.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 19 2012, 07:18 PM

And unfortunately, without some changes to blacksmithing, it's always going to be better to sell magic items and rares instead of dusting them to craft. You get to select what you buy via the AH, even if the gold cost is significantly larger.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 20 2012, 01:06 AM

So I checked the release notes, and these were the highlights for me:
• Monks get 2h axes, maces, and swords
• The gold and material crafting costs for all items level 1-59 have been reduced by 50% to 75%
• Herald of Pestilence tentacle attack damage has been reduced
• Soul Ripper and Soul Lasher damage has been reduced and both monsters will now run away less often
• Wasps in Act II, Mage Constructs in Act II, and Winged Mollocks in Acts III and IV will now run away less
• Succubus monsters will now run away less and for a shorter distance

So that's good: monsters less annoying, some crafting is cheaper, and some minor love for monks.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 20 2012, 11:38 AM

Everything in there is love for monks.

Also, reducing the training cost for Blacksmith to 1 Tome of Secrets per upgrade rather than 5.

Remember, monks are melee rather than ranged so not having to deal with running away type enemies as often is a huge gain.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 20 2012, 12:01 PM

Believe me, my monk knows that. I hate chasing the bastards *so* much.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 22 2012, 03:30 PM

More stupidity. Blizzard is now stopping advancement past the skeleton king in act 1, and any level gain past 13 for people who bought the game.

Because Pirates.

Anonymous really needs to hack the hell out of these greedy dumbfucks.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 22 2012, 03:48 PM

That's a very selective description of what's going. Not that I care either way, cuz I have no Blizzard stock and my account is already established.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 22 2012, 03:52 PM

Actually, it is, I apologize. I left a detail out completely unintentionally. They're stopping all new accounts at the skeleton king and/or level 13, for three days from the time of game purchase.

So. Buy the game. 5 seconds later, they take the money out of your account. 72 hours later, (or 259,200 seconds to keep in the same unit) they allow you to play the game.

Please. Put a positive spin on how this is a benefit to the consumer, yahoo.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 22 2012, 04:47 PM

It's a benefit to me because now I don't want to buy the game at all. So there's some money that could go to other things.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 22 2012, 04:49 PM

Speaking of which, the kickstarter for those tron cards you linked goes off today.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 22 2012, 04:56 PM

Just looked at my account. It's angry at me. And crying. And begging me to get therapy.

I promised that I'd never do such things to it again, then pimp slapped it and told it to make me a sandwich and get me a beer.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 22 2012, 05:00 PM

How much did you end up dropping on it?

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 22 2012, 05:14 PM

It would help if you, you know, presented the facts rather than spinning FUD. What you're describing is not an intended let alone permanent feature. It is a bug introduced by the 1.0.3 patch which causes digital downloads to have the level cap and progression limitation and Blizzard is working to fix it so they do not.

Or we can look at the reasoning why Blizzard is putting a 72 hour limitation on the digital download version that makes it behave (in some manner) like the starter edition. To make sure credit card information is valid rather than fraudulent. This was a huge problem in WoW where people would buy digital download keys for WoW using fraudulent CC numbers. Those players would use these accounts to perform some activity, perhaps help launder ill acquired gold before the CC transaction came back void and the account had a block on it for lack of payment. One of the things done was to sell the account, or the online keys to other players in return for gold. Leaving the buyer with a bad account and them with the gold. By putting the same interaction limitations on the digital download version as the starter edition, it makes it impossible for gold sellers and other undesirables to flip these accounts to aid in their nefarious purposes. 72 hours is the period of time that CC info takes to be validated. If it hasn't been validated in 72 hours, it's probably a fraudulent account. The reality is the 72 hours will significantly shorter when done with a good and valid credit card and once the purchase has been validated you get access to the game.

Or to put it another way. You haven't actually bought the game until the credit card transaction clears.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 22 2012, 05:21 PM

Considering GenCon in a few months... Too much.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 22 2012, 05:35 PM

So on one hand, I'm spinning 'FUD', on another it's a bug that blizzard is fixing, and yet another, there's a good reason for it and we should be thankful, and yet ANOTHER, it's because you haven't actually bought the game until the 'transaction clears', which to me implies you've never actually handled credit card transactions from the business end, nor have you had any experience with other online retailers, like Steam, Origin, or that wierd one from the guys who made GalCiv and Sins of a Solar Empire.

Jesus dude, what do you need me for? You're collapsing your own argument before I say a word.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 22 2012, 06:00 PM

Yes FUD. Because you're failed to mention that it was a bug that only affected digital download versions and did not afflict retail versions.

It appears you are the one lacking knowledge of credit cards and are basing your experience off of what appears to the end user rather than what is happening behind the scenes.

When a credit card is processed the business places a hold for funds on the credit card holder's limit. This hold reduces the card bearer's credit limit by the value of the hold, however no credit has been issued in the holder's name. That hold stays on your credit card until the business submits their transactions and the money has been transferred to the merchant. Once the company submits their batch of transactions (for many companies this is done at the end of the day though someone of Blizzard's size and scope probably runs multiple batches throughout the day) it can take up to 3 days for the funds to be sent to the merchant's account assuming the processor or bank doesn't have any issue. For example, I've had my CC frozen a couple of times by the bank because I made transactions with international companies. Only then is the transaction considered complete and only then have you officially purchased the products. Guess who's left hanging on the line of the transaction can't clear? The merchant. The merchant has to go about recovering what is still their property. Now, for digital distributors like Blizzard or Steam or Origin or Stardock it's fairly easy. Since it is digital content and access is account driven they simply remove the content in question from your account since payment was not received. For merchants with physical goods its a bit hard and usually requires legal action to get payment or the property back if the buyer doesn't want to play nice.

It's a bit childish to suggest that a merchant who has not been paid for a product to have actually sold it nor would any court likely permit you to keep something that was never paid for.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 22 2012, 06:16 PM

In the words of Marco Ramius; 'Your assumptions [are] all wrong.'

I've run the front end of a retail store for 8 years, the back end for 5. I'm currently running the back end of 4 internet stores. Companies pay a credit processing service to validate the funds on a card. After funds are validated and the charge goes through, the service acts as an insurance, in case the cardholder pulls something screwy, it's the processing service that foots the bill, not the retailer. Credit cards aren't like bouncing checks man.

Defending this particular argument still doesn't get you off the hook for the shotgun approach of 4 different excuses for Blizzard.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 22 2012, 06:47 PM

Whether your method is correct or mine it really doesn't matter one way or another to how Blizzard can act to it. The end results are all the same. Regardless of if the merchant or the processor is on the hook the matter is simply resolved by revoking the "purchased" good. Blizzard hasn't been paid and since they haven't been paid, they're not under any compulsion to continue providing the full product. Likewise, since it was the processor who is holding the bag for the funds, until you have paid them it is technically not your property it is theirs. And if you failed to pay them for it, they would repossess it had it been a physical good. Instead they would get to repossess some other quantity of material from your that's worth $50-60 if you failed to pay up. The fraudsters got by on the fact that they could get the digital good and use it until the fraud was detected and Blizzard banned the account.

Now, I shall reiterate.

You are spinning FUD because you failed to point out that this is only affecting digital download copies and not retail copies. You're also spinning FUD by neglecting to point out that it is a bug that that is causing the level and progress restrictions on digital download copies. Since it is a bug and Blizzard has admitted that it is a bug and Blizzard has stated that they are working on fixing it there is no reason to believe that this is malicious or that it is something that will continue for any appreciable length of time.

The change that they've made requiring the payment to clear whatever checkpoint they've set before fully enabling interactive features has very good reasons for doing so which, not the least of which, significantly raise the cost and overhead of undesirable activity, as well as making it so that such undesirable activity is less encountered by players thus increasing their quality of life. I, for one, am quite glad I've stopped receiving spam in the form of friend invites since 1.0.3 went live.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 23 2012, 12:30 AM

almost normal, you'll notice I specifically said I didn't care. It's not my job to spin in any direction. I just noted that your summary was selective. Your clarification was more so: the verification process is *up to* 72 hours, not 'equal to'. Again, I don't care either way.

That's interesting, I hadn't even heard it was a bug. Makes more sense, then.

Posted by: almost normal Jun 23 2012, 01:25 AM

The bug is that it's hitting customers who paid at retail.

I'm really not sure of the point of telling me you don't care, then posting about your care for the game. I might as well post to tell you I'm not going to respond.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 23 2012, 02:03 AM

You were confused before, and you're having trouble keeping things straight now. That's okay, I'll help you. I don't care about account verification, bug or not, and I don't care about praising or supporting Blizzard, nor about their financial success. I do care about the patches, because I'm playing the game. The only reason I mentioned it was to (fruitlessly) try and help you not make the silly argument that anyone who disagrees with you is a 'Blizzard fanboy'. You should know just from experience that people disagree with you because you're you, so you post things to disagree with.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jun 24 2012, 02:45 PM

Jesus, just reading this thread has convinced me to not buy any new release games ever again. It sounds like a godamned nightmare.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 24 2012, 04:02 PM

The future is pretty bleak on all consumer fronts: cell phones, laptops, game consoles, cars, music and video, everything. Big companies have no incentive to do anything good for the consumer, and the voters have become convinced that the government shouldn't protect consumers either.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 24 2012, 04:36 PM

There's a good reason that Kickstarter-Based Games are pulling in the money they have been.

And not just because people wanted more stuff from Tim Schafer, or Wasteland 2 at long last, either!Let's um, try to keep this from getting political, please.

Posted by: Grinder Jun 24 2012, 04:47 PM

Better do:

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 24 2012, 04:58 PM

Sorry, I thought it pertained directly to another game. It's not like those are politics, but instead simple facts.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 24 2012, 10:20 PM

It's close enough.

Anyhow, the system is not a good one for Single Player. I'll stick with games that let me play my Single Player Mode offline, thank-you-very-much. Especially if there's going to be server issues.

And no guarantee that the server will always be there. I mean, what happens if I pull out the disk, say, ten years from now and want to play again?

"Server Not Found?"

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 24 2012, 11:18 PM

Yes, that's exactly what will happen. There will be new games, of course, but there *is* a tiny fraction of people who do rarely play old games. I usually give up after trying to get Master of Magic to run properly, and it's 100% offline with no DRM. So it's a real concern, but also a small concern.

It's true the server death has indeed been happening faster with cruddier games. Because of that, for example, Mercenaries 2 just crashes your PS3 if you try to load it up without disconnecting the internet access first, a very impressive failure for them because it *does* theoretically work offline. And there are other examples. This is obviously bad. *shrug* But… there's basically nothing we can say about this state of affairs without venturing too close to politics.

Well, we *can* say (repeat, really) that this real-but-small concern is too small for anyone to care about. They make tons of money off the vast majority of people who *do* have stable broadband and who *won't* be playing this game after a couple years. There's no point worrying about the 'cranky' minority.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 25 2012, 01:27 AM

I would say this is in large part to consumers knowingly buying products that have restrictive technology on them...taking the attitude that "I don't care, I just want to play/use/have X". Then when others voice concern about said restrictive technology, the response is just a shrug and a "that's how it is, deal with it".

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 25 2012, 02:12 AM

What choice is there? That's how people are. Besides, as I said, it's not (relevantly) restrictive for the majority of them, so not much business would be lost anyway.

Posted by: CanRay Jun 25 2012, 03:59 AM

Damned sheeple.There's choices, but they get into politics, so I won't comment on them.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 25 2012, 06:37 AM

I don't mean to sound like a neckbeard (?) and start ranting about "sheeple"...maybe it's just the logical progression that as tech gets more and more advanced, people are able to have less and less of an understanding of it (or less time to understand and care about it), so nuanced stuff like DRM doesn't seem worth most people's time...

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 25 2012, 07:46 AM

Except for the fact that DRM actually hurts their sales more in the long run. Pirates are going to pirate a game regardless of DRM. But people who would normally pay full price for a game are more likely to turn to pirating it simply to get a version without restrictive DRM. Starforce (wasn't that the name?) was known to be as bad and worse than many viruses as just one example. Or the games that only allow so many installs off of a CD Key before going inactive. Hell, don't you all remember the annoying passphrases and code wheels of the 80s and early 90s? Those were pretty unanimously hated.

I could also point out how badly Nintendo fell behind in the console wars due to their reluctance to switch to a CD format for fear of piracy. Hence why the N64 was still cartridge based (which really screwed them, teams hated developing for it because compared to a CD, you had a much more limited space) and then switched to those silly little discs for the Gamecube. Shot themselves in the foot just to "prevent piracy".

Yet I'm sure we could all find evidence that "piracy" actually improves sales most of the time anyway. I'll use music as a prime example. Mostly because the people who still bother to pirate the music - weren't going to buy it in the first place. But say my friend burns me a copy of a CD and I like it? I'm more inclined to go and buy myself a copy rather than listen to the burn. Lots of people are like that. Remember how they swore cassette tapes would ruin the recording industry because people could record music off the radio? Yeah, I don't seem to recall that happening the way they predicted it either.

In pretty much any case, DRM is only hurting the paying customer and not stopping the piracy and in fact, quite the opposite, encourages it.

For next week's rant I'll talk about how places like Gamestop are a huge cause of day 1 [console] DLC (aka "on disc DLC") as a compensation of game companies not making any money off of used titles.

Posted by: Halinn Jun 25 2012, 10:04 AM

People swore that radio would kill live music, because there would be one version recorded for all time, and nobody would have to play it again.

Mass accessibility to books would also kill new authors, because people would just buy cheaper books by old authors.

Basically, the claim that new technology would kill X industry has generally failed to come true.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Jun 25 2012, 10:30 AM

Not sure if you're responding to my post on accident, or you misunderstand that I totally agree with you </Fry-meme>

I'm just thinking that the majority of people are not so technically inclined / technically "cared" about stuff like this, and so this is how DRM will keep getting more and more invasive. Ah, the 80's were so innocent with their codewords hidden in the game manual...


Videocassettes were another one - the famous Jack Valenti quote that I can't remember verbatim, but paraphrased, something about the Boston Strangler blarga blarga

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 25 2012, 01:13 PM

My point is that, even though it's invasive, most people still don't care. That is, it literally doesn't affect their use cases, and *is* the best of the alternatives *available* to them. So their (limited) choice is easy, and it supports the state of affairs, no matter if it's 'wrong' in the long run or in idealized terms. They're making a rational decision based on their own situation. Dynamic systems, economics, game theory are just full of these 'locally good, globally bad' phenomena. The way to 'fix' them is often to exert some top-down influence (like regulation, or mass cultural shift, maybe).

I don't see much evidence that anti-piracy measures are destroying game and media companies, though. They might be better off in the alternate-future with no DRM, but they're doing pretty well right now. Because they're doing pretty well, they don't care; because it all works pretty well, the majority of consumers don't care, either. So if your choice is to ineffectually whine about it, or just play the game, you might as well play. I fear this may indeed be the choice.

Posted by: X-Kalibur Jun 25 2012, 04:18 PM

With a few weird exceptions (such as being able to purchase Assassin's Creed 2 on steam yet still having to go through Ubisofts AWFUL online only DRM, and obviously online only titles) any title you can purchase through them can also be played offline. If you have to have DRM, one time authentication online is the most anyone should accept. The days of requiring a disc be in the drive and be checked, in some cases as often as every 5 seconds, are over. This is why I buy so much from GOG, no muss, no fuss. Also why I donated more than I should have to kickstaters. I want my Wasteland 2 DRM free, and I shall have it and it will be glorious.

I can only hope that the overreaching grasp of EA and Activision will cause them to lose their sustainability as developers, because I'm tired of both the trash they put out and the trash they oversee for production that in most cases is ruining an otherwise good dev team. RIP Bioware and Blizzard. (Also, I'd sell my left nut to get a new Rock N' Roll Racing from Blizzard).

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 26 2012, 11:35 AM

So. I knew the real money AH was an idiotic concept. I also knew there would be suckers who would blow money on it so there's no reason to not take advantage of them.

I made $211 yesterday off a weapon I got while farming Act I Inferno....

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 26 2012, 12:08 PM

… Doesn't that make it a good idea, then? I don't understand: you got what you wanted, they got what they wanted.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 26 2012, 02:08 PM

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 26 2012, 02:29 PM

The basis of economics is that both sides think they're getting the better deal… and they are, because they have different desires. I would never, ever pay money for game items, but it seems silly to call anyone who has different values 'suckers', 'idiotic'.

You must've found something pretty nice for $200, though!

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 26 2012, 02:59 PM

Yes different desires but often no appreciation of value or circumstances. We live in a world where people would choose not to pay a car loan bill to keep their phone activated. Depreciation is a horrible issue with the RMAH, in my opinion. Let's say the guy who bought the weapon gets a better one. He can sell it at $250 like I sold it, however the nature of random drops indicates that there should be MORE and the price he could get should come down. Regardless, if he sold it at $250 like I did, he would get the $210 back and end up with what was essentially a $40 rental fee. Chances are he could flip it after using it for closer to $200-$225 which means the cost for using it will have gone up.

There's also some pretty bad risk out there. Let's say your account gets hacked the day after you bought the item. Blizzard hasn't yet done their weekly backup of characters. You're SoL $250 of stuff.

Now, there is something to be said if you're investing money into buying gear strictly to farm stuff that you can sell for RM but I doubt that most people are using the RMAH for that purpose.



A 700dps one hander with about 150 strength, 150 vitality, 850 life on hit, a socket, and some other things. I'm pretty sure it was mostly the life on hit and not bad attribute spread. Based on how quickly it sold (<6 hours). I'm thinking I might have been able to get $300 for it and end up with around $240-250. Regardless, I'm probably not going to cash out. I'll use it to buy some crap on there at some point.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 26 2012, 03:04 PM

Oh, yeah, people love that LoH even after the IAS nerf.

I'm just saying that there are alternative concerns. If he derives $200 of pleasure from having that item, that's all that matters. It's not necessarily an investment or anything. He might be rich and have all his loans and bills paid, or not. I happen to agree with your position, but not everyone has to. People buy expensive cars, foods, clothes, and they're not necessarily getting that investment back in resale or use-quality, right?

Posted by: StealthSigma Jun 26 2012, 03:18 PM

In which case it's fairly frivolous spending and I'm still right.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jun 26 2012, 03:44 PM

No, it's frivolous *to you*. That's the whole point. You're right… under your own rules!

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Jul 21 2012, 04:13 AM

I played this game thorgh with the witch doctor. told my self I'd play the other professiosn as well, but i just can't motivate myself.

I've come to realise that I think I go for the more linear games sans the achievements and such. It was awefully short and for some odd reasons I expected it to be as fun and interesting as warcraft 3...

skyrim was good, but the open world of that just had me meh....bleh

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 21 2012, 04:21 AM

Heh. It's hard to get more linear than D3, though. The Witch Doctor is still so weird. I don't understand the primary skill options: normal boring arrow attack, crazy spiders, weird frogs, and rubber fire skulls. Even if they weren't kooky, they're just mechanically odd.

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Jul 21 2012, 04:50 AM

maybe i should played to monk like i originally wanted to?

i played the witch doctor cause his voice reponses to people are more aligned to what i think a hero would say.

Posted by: taeksosin Jul 21 2012, 06:26 AM

The way I've always looked at people dumping real money into digital items (gold/credits/foozles in whatever MMO, RMAH) is that a person has a certain value that they assign to their time, and if they feel they can get more value from spending a few dollars than utilizing said time for playing boring parts of the game (farming items to sell for gold, etc) then more power to them. If, back in Wow 1.0 days, it took you a month to farm 10k gold and you could purchase said 10k for $100, at $7.25/hr (current federal minimum wage) two day's worth of work == 1 month of boring gameplay. I can see the appeal there, especially for folks that only have maybe an hour a night to play the game.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 21 2012, 01:52 PM

I really like the monk, yeah, but you can have 10 characters after all. I don't dislike the WD, I just think his powers are odd, mechanically.

Posted by: Mnemon Sep 13 2012, 10:53 PM

Necro, but...to answer why the two Lords of Hell (Diablo aside, don't know what to say about him) were so whiny:

Belial and Azmodan (especially Azmodan) knew the score. The intro for Act 3 where he talks to Leah? He wasn't talking to Leah, or the PC. He was talking to Diablo, whom he knew was up to something via Leah. It wasn't directly stated that he knew what was up, but there were hints in his dialogue. Remember his specific words in the dream:

"You thought you were so clever, that you had outwitted us all. One by one, our brethren fell into your trap. But not me...I defy you."

He'd never say that to a mortal girl (just look at his personality), but he saw it as 'Azmodan and his minions vs Diablo and his minions - which includes the nephalem'. All his blustering as you destroyed his plans was because he was basically getting shown up in front of a superior he was trying to outsmart - he never really had anything more than contempt for the PC.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 13 2012, 11:04 PM

Yes, but honestly those weren't the parts I meant.

Sad.

Posted by: Mnemon Sep 13 2012, 11:14 PM

They do get pretty annoying. I began just walking away from it after awhile and ignoring them.

Posted by: Tanegar Sep 27 2012, 05:32 PM

I am currently downloading the 15.1GB of the Diablo III "Starter Edition." Weird name for a demo, but whatever.

Posted by: Tanegar Oct 5 2012, 09:45 PM

So, I've played all the way through the demo (up to killing the Skeleton King) with a wizard, and restarted with a witch doctor. It's definitely Diablo. The graphics are very pretty, but it's still the same clickfest. I'll probably end up buying it at some point, but it won't be soon.

Posted by: Lionhearted Mar 4 2013, 06:25 PM

*Sigh* I'm having one of those days.
I'm going to stand by this game and it depressing how much bile Blizzard had to endure for this game.
It has/had some genuine issues and ... let's call it "questionable" management.
But! In no way has it deserved the complete and utter onslaught it suffered, something highlighted by the reveal of D3 for PS3/4.
I'll explain my mindset and where I think people went wrong.

First, Diablo to me has always been a game between games for me, something I play when I need 30 minutes of mindless fun, people approached it as their next main game (which is not odd in a climate of monogamers) and then cried foul when it couldn't support their full week gaming schedule...
Why? It's not an competitive game, it's not an MMO why did you expect that kind of longevity?
Now, people point to Diablo 2 and it's 10 year lifespan.
There's two false assumptions there though, first the vast majority didn't keep playing after their first playthrough and Diablo 2 had years of patching and an expansion before it was any good!

Incidently that leads to my next point. Blizzard releases good games, they tune them and nurture them until they become great.
Pick any Blizzard game look at it at patch 1.0 and see how good it is, most of the time you will find the answer to be "Good but not the most amazing thing I've seen". That's the thing about Blizzard though, they don't stop there, they give years upon years of support until it is the most amazing thing you ever seen.
Take a look at the updates (free of charge mind you) Diablo 3 received during the last year, you'd be amazed how much have changed and this isn't just a desperate cry for attention and loving. Brood war had a patching cycle of 12 years! Diablo 2 had it's last patch in March of last year, Starcraft 2 have had ton of content added since it's launch.
This is what Blizzard do and while Diablo 3 took some missteps on the way, it was still a good game when it launched and is on it's way to become a great game.

Going back to my earlier point, most people quit on Diablo 2 after their first playthrough.
Say this with me not every game is for everyone, here's something for you... I never played Skyrim, I love the lore and the aesthetic but how it plays is not for me. It's a bloody great game, but it's not for me.
I talked about monogaming culture couple that with absolute ludicrous sales and you're bound to have tons of people that find out it's not their cup of tea. Unfortunately it seems like there's no grey in todays market you're either for or against something... Which lead to lots and lots of bile.

Genuine issues and perceived ones.
To this day! there's only one thing with Diablo 3 I call genuine bullshit on and that's going back to the drawing board with PvP, I mean come on!
Let's start with the elephant in the room the auction house, while the intention was good I think todays gamers have been drilled by MMOs into a gear thinking that simply isn't feasible in a RNG loot system, some people argue the difficulty curve was deliberately skewed to push people to the auction house. Bollocks people asked for soul destroyingly crushingly hard and Blizz set it to "Where we couldn't beat it in house then we doubled it", their expectation was for Inferno to last ages!
Again not feasible to the expectation of progression people have today.
I do approve of the changes they've done to offer variety in difficulty and given up on the notion of unbeatable, but from the start it wasn't greed as much as naivety.
The mechanics changes, I don't know I think the old school hardcore Diablo fans were just gluttons for punishment, personally I hated having to reroll to try a new build, skillpoints that only affected your numbers and stats that gave the illusion of choice.
Main attributes could have seen better implementation with how important they were but I far prefer that to only looking for 1 stat (+ all skill, I played necro and sorc go figure)
Mechanically Diablo 3 was the game I had been waiting for, it's a matter of taste really and I always prefer trying cool shit to grinding 40 levels before I can be awesome.

*sigh* the story, the twist was bullshit. The Tyrael thing I don't mind, the Act 2 cutscene is powerful!
Now despite what people say, Blizz ain't that great story tellers. They build amazing involving worlds, they make cool as shit characters. But they can't tell an original story to save their life. I would hate the plot of Diablo 3, but just like with MoP or SC2 just all the developments they hint at, I can't help but to feel that they're building something up.
I want to see more of Sanctuary! I want to know more about Inarius and Lilith, about Malthael, I want to...

I want to know more about Rathma, Trangoul and the twin dragons.
I want to know more about the horadrim, especially Kulle...
That if anything is indicative of how intriguing the world is.

Posted by: Lionhearted Mar 4 2013, 06:32 PM

As for the game, once you got past the initial rush of overpopulation. It runs like grease lightning never even stuttering when you got the screen full of enemies, It's pure visceral fun where every move actually feel like it got impact and I giggle like a little girl being able to destroy absolutely all the doodads.
The classes are distinctly different from eachother and feel powerful, the attention to detail is peerless.
The variety (and cheapness) of enemies is solid and as with any good hack'n'slash you feel like you always got a fighting chance.
Diablo 3 was the game I had been waiting for and I can't wait to see what the expansion(s) will bring, especially if they stop being afraid of screwing up

Posted by: _Pax._ Mar 4 2013, 06:37 PM

Yes and no.

I'll admit, the other day, I saw how cheap Gold was on the RMAH. I dropped ten bucks into my Blizzard balance, and grabbed myself about 39M gold. I'd spent twenty-five of it gearing my Wizard (currently level 58) and my g/f's Barbarian (level 57) with some really sweet legendaries.

Pre-RMAHing, her DPS was about 2K, and mine was just shy of 4K. We struggled against Elite packs, especially if there was a gold/yellow "miniboss" mob in the spawn. Multiple deaths, especially on my (glass cannon-y) part, were common.

Post-RMAH, her DPS is 12K, and mine has skyrocketed to thirty-eight thousand; she had a 500% improvement, whereas I enjoyed a 900% boost (and I've already got a L60 Changodo's set, waiting for me to ding twice, and jack that DPS up even higher!). And now ... we cut through ALL spawns so fast we sometimes have to stop and look at the bodies to even know what we just killed. This is on Hell difficulty, mind you. This morning we burned through Belial so fast, we both got "Good Eye" simply because he didn't LIVE long enough to drop any meteors at all!

That degree of difference is just ... holy CRAP, man.

So yes, I think the game was and is balanced toward where either you farm the ever-loving shit out of the game, and/or, you go to the AH and even RMAH.



I tried Hardcore in D3, actually. It was fun ... right up until the day before yesterday, when my L32 Hardcore Wizard got raped by a surprise, from-behind ambush by a pack of Champion demons, Act IV Normal. Onc ehte butthurt from that fades, I'm liable to try again. I just won't take my hardcore character very seriously, is all.

Posted by: Lionhearted Mar 4 2013, 06:49 PM

I was refering to the Diablo 2 purists that fought tooth and nail for the old skill system where you put points in where you either needed to reroll or beat the game to respecc, that means to the extent that if you missclicked the point was locked (meaning you had three total before reroll) the skill system also forced you to put 20 ranks in skills and their synergy skills to be any good, even then resistances could make your build useless in Hell.
Also you put out attribute points which had very much right and wrong ways of doing it.
Hardcore as a mode takes a certain kind of crazy, my wizard was killed at lvl 56 in act 3 hell. My heart sank and I started again, because it's just the way of hardcore.