Diablo III Will Require Persistent Connection, Feature Cash Auctions, and More

There's a burst of new Diablo III information available today, as Blizzard brought some folks in to get a look at how their upcoming action/RPG is shaping up. IGN has a preview of the beta, as well as word that the game will require a persistent internet connection. "In both Diablo and especially in Diablo II, I think the intuition for a lot of people when they're playing the game is 'I want to make my character offline away from that scary battle net environment. And then once I have this powerful character, I'll jump online.' But the problem with that concept is we can't really detect if they're cheating. They might have the capability to hack their character, things like that, so at that point we can't really allow that character to be in the battle net environment. Then they're going to have to restart their character, which is exactly what happened in Diablo II, which was really unfortunate," explains Blizzard's Rob Pardo. "Your character will be online on battle net the moment you start playing. You can play a solo experience like you would in Diablo II, it's just your character is on Blizzard's servers and authenticated."

There's a post on DiabloFans.com with a big rundown on their experiences along with a FAQ, photos, video, screenshots, and interviews with the developers, taking extra effort to let you avoid major spoilers. There are many revelations, perhaps the most significant of which being the ability to buy and sell in-game items in the auction house for real money. Here's a bit from the FAQ on how this will work:
Don’t Need It? Put It Up For Auction!
Nearly everything found in the game, including gold, can be exchanged with other players directly or through the auction house system. So say you’re a witch doctor and you’ve just found an incredibly rare, incredibly powerful axe that only barbarians can use. In the previous Diablo games your best option might have been to sell the axe to an in-game vendor, but in Diablo III, you now have the ability to list that axe in the auction house for your fellow barbarian players to bid on. And you know another player will probably appreciate the true value of that axe more than some heartless vendor who’ll likely just melt it down for scrap….

Amazing Search Functionality
The auction house’s "smart search" functionality can automatically sort items in the auction house based on which upgrades would be most beneficial to your character. Also, searching for the best gear for multiple characters on the same Battle.net account can be done all from the same interface without having to log out.

The Choice Is Yours
Use of either the real-money or gold-based auction house is completely optional -- that decision can be made on a per-item basis, and both versions of the auction house are functionally the same. In addition, players have the option to simply sell the items they obtain to in-game vendors for gold. They can also trade items to other players through a direct character-to-character trading system in the game in exchange for gold, other items, or just an overwhelming sense of goodwill.

Players Only
Blizzard does not plan to post items for sale in the auction house. The driving purpose of the auction house is to provide players with a fun additional in-game option for what they do with the items they obtain in the game. Items sold in the auction house will be posted by players and purchased by players.

Safe and Sanctified
The real-money auction house provides players with an easy-to-use, Blizzard-sanctioned way to collect money for items they obtain while playing Diablo III. It also helps protect players from the scams and theft often associated with questionable third-party sites by providing a secure, completely in-game method for purchasing and obtaining the items they want for their characters.
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Re: Diablo III Will Require Persistent Connection, Feature Cash Auctions, and More
Aug 1, 2011, 13:00
55.
Re: Diablo III Will Require Persistent Connection, Feature Cash Auctions, and More Aug 1, 2011, 13:00
Aug 1, 2011, 13:00
 
I don't condone a lot of the actions they've taken with World of Warcraft such as adding micro-transactions on top of a monthly fee for vanity items and so forth but getting all up in arms about requiring a permanent internet connection is a little bit of a knee jerk reactions brought on by the Ubisoft Effect.

The campaign offered little to no payoff compared to the multiplayer aspect and was very stale single player component to play through more then once. Encounters didn't scale based on players in the room, no one to talk with, no community, and no PvP is what drove most to play online. Unfortunately, those who took their offline character to open battle net would often fall victim to hacked items which then drove them to closed battle net or they took part in using and creating hacked items.

So, in the end, most of the players outside from all the kiddies found their way to closed battle net, especially once they introduced the seasonal ladders which all required an internet connection to play because, at this point, there was little to no reason to play single player aspect of the game.

I feel that those who are miffed by this are likely from the US where the infrastructure is a little wonky when compared to other areas and their connection is not always a surefire deal. Otherwise, if you intend to play this game like most did in Diablo 2 for the multiplayer, the argument is moot and you're just over reacting for no good reason other then to bring up Ubisoft DRM skirmishes.

For this to be a deal breaker is really a typical knee jerk reaction when you refuse to remember how most of the population enjoyed playing Diablo 2 and only draw comparisons which simply aren't there.

Most of the closed battle net hacks were derived on open battle net so this will curb a huge amount of potential hacked items which benefits the whole online community. No more 40 sojs for Pstar economy which is fine by me.
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