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.
View : : :
257.
 
Re: Diablo III Will Require Persistent Connection, Feature Cash Auctions, and More
Aug 1, 2011, 19:32
Re: Diablo III Will Require Persistent Connection, Feature Cash Auctions, and More Aug 1, 2011, 19:32
Aug 1, 2011, 19:32
 
Dev wrote on Aug 1, 2011, 18:30:
Fibrocyte wrote on Aug 1, 2011, 17:58:
Dev wrote on Aug 1, 2011, 16:43:
Fibrocyte wrote on Aug 1, 2011, 15:27:
I could care less if it requires a permanent internet connection just to access your character. Really, when do you people NOT have an internet connection? And before you bitch, maybe you need to find a guide on how to tether the internet from your phone.
Tell you what, you pay the $30 a month for the smart phone data plan (which is limited to 5gb only, yeah I'm sure I'd NEVER hit that doing stuff online with a laptop, such as playing D3) and the extra $20 a month for tethering for me, and I'd get that setup right away.

Yeah also I'm sure that kinda thing would NEVER EVER have any dropouts while traveling cause its 100% reliable.

Hi, Dev,

It's unlike you to miss the point but I guess you did.

1) Most people have internet access most of the time.
2) If not, you can tether through your smart phone as most people have that (note: most smart phones require data plans).
3) I seriously doubt you'll hurt your monthly data consumption numbers if you just want to play a single player game and all blizzard needs to do is retrieve your char from the server and periodically update information.
4) Cell phone tethering should be reliable 'enough' for point #3.
No I got your point. Your point was that "you personally don't care, so surely your personal experience applies to everyone else and they shouldn't care either" and that people without internet should just go spend $50 a month to get tethering (that's $600 a year to play single player!).

You missed my point in that specific reply which was that not everyone has tethering (in fact I doubt most even have a smart phone as you claim. I know many that don't, simply because of the cost, and they don't need it either. Most have a cell phone, but cell phones aren't all smart phones).

As for reliability, how often have you gone traveling? I've driven frequently around in places such as california and there are many areas where you lose connection or it gets so crappy one has to hang up. Even near LA this can be the case, such as going up the grapevine and mountains on the interstate 5 to get from the central valley to LA.

Its true that all blizzard NEEDS to do for single player is retrieve character and do updates for a SP game, but I doubt thats what they are ACTUALLY going to do. Read what this very news story says. It says you have to be on bnet the whole time you are playing. They are keeping SP and MP same characters. If its anything like ubi stuff, even a momentary loss of connection will prevent you from playing the game. Heck that happens to me occasionally on my home connection with uverse, and it bugs the heck out of me with settlers 7. Pretty sure given the info they've given out that Blizzard is going to be constantly communicating with the game, making sure every item of loot from every kill is properly authenticated with proper odds of dropping. Oh also, the spyware thing that people mentioned that some have ridiculed, just look at WoW. They DO spy on what programs you are running when you run WoW to make sure you aren't trying to cheat, and they ban people based on that info. They will have to do the same on d3 to prevent cheating, which is after all supposedly the point of the persistent internet connection requirement.

And this is all going to be dealing with real cash money to buy/sell items. Blizzard will HAVE to be anal about this stuff and constantly watching what people do and having stuff continually transmitted (not just periodic updates), or else it will get the heck exploited out of it for REAL cash. Real cash always attracts a heck of a lot of that type of people, after all we wouldn't have spam or most of the adware/spyware such as fake antivirus, if there wasn't money in it from people falling for it. That fake antivirus stuff is EVERYWHERE, I'm constantly coming across stories of people I know getting it and falling for it by paying real money to try and fix it.

Anyway, pretty sure blizzard isn't going to let themselves go bankrupt from people exploiting real money out of the game.

Nope - that wasn't my point exactly. In so many words, I'm implying that SOME people can say "Well, I am away from internet access so much that Blizzard is really putting the screws to me with this requirement!". However, that is the ultra small minority and it probably doesn't apply to anyone who is actually bitching in this thread. Tethering just closes that gap a little more - that's the only reason I brought it up.

Instead, having internet access is a meager requirement nowadays as most people (especially those who actually game) have internet access most of the time.

So yea - just a whole lot of unnecessary bitching here. People struggle to build their arguments but it's just senseless whining.
Date
Subject
Author
2.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
258.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
304.
Aug 2, 2011Aug 2 2011
305.
Aug 2, 2011Aug 2 2011
 257.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
     Re: Diablo III Will Require Persistent Connection, Feature Cash Auctions, and More
91.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
96.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
97.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
153.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
      removed
180.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
         removed
203.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
288.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
289.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
290.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
    Re: removed
291.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
292.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
    Re: removed
294.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
     Re: removed
225.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
240.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
243.
Aug 1, 2011Aug 1 2011
  Re:
325.
Aug 2, 2011Aug 2 2011
329.
Aug 2, 2011Aug 2 2011
386.
Aug 5, 2011Aug 5 2011