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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99.
 
Re: Diablo III DRM Problems
Sep 23, 2011, 23:27
Prez
 
99.
Re: Diablo III DRM Problems Sep 23, 2011, 23:27
Sep 23, 2011, 23:27
 Prez
 
merloid wrote on Sep 23, 2011, 22:03:
Prez wrote on Sep 22, 2011, 20:50:
This straw man argument is getting a bit old. At the very least it's an apples to oranges comparison...

... I played Diablo 2 on a computer not connected to the internet, and I played it over a LAN not connected to the internet. These were features that would still be features had they not been subsequently removed to accommodate Blizzard's new asinine DRM scheme, and for no other reason. Conversely, no one ever complained about Guild Wars' lack of LAN play because it was never designed for it.

Just a personal observation here - It seems like some of the Blizzard faithful are going out of their way to rationalize this nonsense to themselves so that they feel less like tools for buying into Blizzard's bullshit here...

Says the person who resorts to ad hominem. Well, to use your reasoning, Diablo III, clearly, was never designed for LAN play so then why are you complaining? I hadn't considered my argument to be a straw man in any respect and this is very much an apples to apples comparison. Guild Wars 2 is being designed as an online only game.. as is Diablo III.

Deal with it.

If they add an offline mode during their beta, then they add it. Make no mistake, I'll be happy. But the point is that this is no more a DRM scheme than anything Guild Wars 2 is giving you.. or any other game that requires you to play on a server. There's nothing to rationalize here.. it is merely a fact.

And none of this negates the lack of features Diablo III seems to be shipping without. Such _as_ a seemingly lackluster waypoint system and no method for pausing the game, both features than can and have been added to other online-only games. Perhaps reasons why it's not going to ship until 2012..?

Dear Mr. Sensitive:

Diablo 3 may been designed as an online only game, but the franchise being turned into an online only game is a drastic shift from the norm. Notice how Blizzard didn't call WoW "Warcraft 4"? By your reasoning, they could have and no one has the right to be miffed at it. I don't care what apologists like you might think; Diablo's online only requirement is DRM. If it makes you feel better, Guild War's online only component serves as DRM so it could technically be called as such. At any rate, it's a stupid comparison that doesn't work regardless of how you spin it. Diablo 3 has a singleplayer component; Guild Wars does not. It can be played solo but you still share the towns with others players. And I won't "deal with it", just as I don't deal with Ubisoft's bullshit DRM. At least they have the grace not to lie about it and tell me it's to prevent cheating.

If Blizzard had made an isolated offline component for SP, separate from the online SP, as they did with SC2, no one would be complaining. But despite there being no good reason not to, they refuse, then turn around and insultingly try to spin this as being to our benefit.

This comment was edited on Sep 23, 2011, 23:39.
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