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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 likeBLIZZARD GOT BOUGHT OUT BY SOME DUMBFUCK CORPORATION.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Problem solved.

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

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 John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, normal person + anonymity + audience = total fuckwad.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Different game, but possibly relevant.




-k

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

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.

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

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

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

Just 99% out.

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.

You stopped my characters from living in vehicles

How? I included rules for living in vehicles.

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.

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.

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

That remains to be seen...

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

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

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).

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

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.

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.

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.

Fun is the point. Politics, meh.

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???