Diablo III DRM Problems

Rock, Paper, Shotgun discusses the always-on DRM in the Diablo III beta in an article titled "How Diablo III’s DRM Will Affect You," posted under the heading "Why Blizzard Must Reconsider." This recaps Blizzard's reasoning for requiring a constant internet connection to play the upcoming action/RPG sequel, and in spite of there being a better reason for risking players losing their progress due to crashing than was the case in Settlers VII, says: "it doesn’t make the problem go away, and I want to strongly argue that Blizzard reconsider their decision, in the face of its simply breaking their game. Because no matter how perfect your connection, it will affect you." The author describes losing progress due to server glitches, and grants that this is still a beta, but notes that such glitches are still to be expected occasionally once the game launches for real. He also goes on to outline the following "more striking and regular problem" he has encountered:
You can’t pause. In fact, in most ways, the game acts like an MMO. For instance, quit it, and you’re given the optional cooldown to have your player clear the server properly. But it’s not an MMO. It’s not even close to an MMO. So when I’m playing the single-player game, and I’m in the middle of a frenzied mob, and there’s a knock at the front door, there’s nothing I can do. As happened to me yesterday. Twice. On another occasion I was surprised by a phone call that led to my having to do some other things. I’d safely left my character in a cleared area, but long between checkpoints. When I came back to the PC, I’d been idle for too long and the game had logged me out.

I’d been logged out of a single-player game because I was away for an hour. And thus lost all my progress (although not my items and stats) since the last checkpoint, a long, long way back.

In fact, currently, losing your connection (either by idling or the server going down) resets huge chunks of what you’ve already played, such that the map is blank, and you need to battle through it again. Whether that’s an issue with the beta, or something that will also carry through to the finished game, we obviously don’t know. But it’s another clear example of how having your single-player, offline game require a constant connection is massively idiotic and counter-productive.

Games with occasional checkpoints are obviously a massive pain for anyone who might or need to stop playing at that moment – something that’s not exactly an uncommon occurrence. But a game where that’s the case, AND you can’t even leave it running in the background, is beyond acceptable.
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Re: Diablo III DRM Problems
Sep 23, 2011, 11:32
92.
Re: Diablo III DRM Problems Sep 23, 2011, 11:32
Sep 23, 2011, 11:32
 
Julio wrote on Sep 23, 2011, 05:04:
Hope this works out as well for Blizzard as Dragon Age 2 changes worked out for Bioware.

The only thing I'm looking forward to now for Diablo 3 is the obligatory dev interview where they tell us:
-We made major changes and stand by them
-Gamers just didn't get it, otherwise they would have bought our game
-We didn't learn anything from screwing up, we'll do it again
Ouch. Sadly, I have to agree. Quite a few companies that have done well in the past, game studio or not, seem to forget how they became successful and are shocked when they design something not for the benefit of their customers or audience and it fails. Hard. The Netflix fiasco as an example of how quickly it can go wrong.

Bioware, with DA2, loves saying how it's been financially successful. I can't help but laugh to myself whenever I see it repeated, knowing they lost half of the people who bought the first game. It reminds me of the middle school I drive by on the way to work every morning. They have a banner over the front door that reads "Adequate yearly progress three years in a row!" Talk about celebrating mediocrity. Sheesh.

To the subject at hand, I played D2 online with a few friends but most of the time solo. Every feature they take away from the game or hassle they add to it in the name of preventing multiplayer cheating, makes the game less and less appealing. I've gone from drooling and giddy waiting for news about the game to meh, maybe if it's bargain bin. *sigh*
I wonder if he reads them, or if it's just for show.
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