User information for Andy Clitheroe

Real Name
Andy Clitheroe
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Peeling
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Concealed by request
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May 8, 2008
Total Posts
22 (Suspect)
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49557
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22 Comments. 2 pages. Viewing page 1.
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272.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 12, 2012, 05:20
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 12, 2012, 05:20
Jan 12, 2012, 05:20
 
lurkerator wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 20:02:
I usually lurk, but this is just too much.

Peeeling wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 18:00:
Prez wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 12:23:
The only strawmen in this discussion are the pitiful ones you are building to avoid addressing the obvious point: there is no defensible reason to require constant online connectivity.

...to a game designed and balanced to be played in connection with others? Hmm.

It's clearly not an MMO-game, and they've stated several times that the game can be played solo.

Yes. It's not the optimal way to play it, but you can choose to do that. You can play a FPS without using the shotgun, too, but that doesn't entitle you to a build of the game where the shotgun has been removed.

How does forcing connectivity help me if I can't play online, in a place with bad (or no) Internet connection?

It doesn't. If that's the case for you, I sympathise, as I would with anyone who didn't meet the hardware requirements for a game they want to play.

Before you explode, I understand that this particular requirement is tangential to your personal preferences. The same could be said for someone who wants to play Crysis and doesn't care how low he would have to set the graphics settings.

This all especially if I don't want to play with other people, but I still want to play the game solo, and without using any fancy auction houses or whatever. I want to beat the game alone, and where I do that should not matter.

Like I said, your personal preferences are tangential to one of the hardware requirements for the game as it was designed to be played. It happens.

Also, no "offline" LAN play? That's wrong as well. If someone wants to play in a LAN with friends and the above mentioned problems arise, they can't play. For no good reason.

We're clearly at an impasse You're picturing a world populated largely by cross people in log cabins and at failed LAN events, a scenario for which there's no imaginable justification. And if that's what happens, you'll be right and I'll be wrong. It didn't happen with SC2, but we'll see, I suppose.

Thanks for the discussion, all; sorry if I banged on a bit.

271.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 12, 2012, 04:59
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 12, 2012, 04:59
Jan 12, 2012, 04:59
 
Sepharo wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 19:22:
Peeeling wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 18:00:
I know your reasons, and those of others here, but I don't know why they are your reasons. I don't know why it's so desperately important that the (technologically mandated) 'tradition' of pure unconnected single-player be continued. I don't see how the game would be improved as a result.

You don't understand that a game that can be played both offline and online is an improvement over a game that forces you to always be online?

Not when that game isn't actually designed or balanced for full disconnection, and not when connectivity is almost a given, no.

Of course this is an improvement though, nobody plays games without an internet connection, and nobody would ever want to play a Diablo game by themselves.

As I just got through saying, I sympathise with those who can't play D3 because of their internet connection. I do not sympathise with those who have an internet connection but can't enjoy D3 solo play unless they know it isn't being used.
270.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 12, 2012, 04:36
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 12, 2012, 04:36
Jan 12, 2012, 04:36
 
Bhruic wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 18:31:
Now, Blizzard can just say "fuck you" to those people, which they've done, and that's fine, it's their business, and they are welcome to ignore whomever they wish. But apologists like you coming in here and acting as if we don't even have the right to be upset about it, on the other hand, is not kosher. You're like the idiot coming in to a thread to say that a game works fine for him, so anyone complaining about bugs is wrong.

Not at all - and I'm sorry if I've given that impression.

I have every sympathy with someone who says "My internet connection is too flaky to allow me to play this game. I really enjoyed D1 and D2 and was looking forward to D3. I am very disappointed and will not be buying a game I can't properly enjoy." It sucks to be left behind, even if getting left behind (generally temporarily) is an occupational hazard for gamers.

I don't, however, think Blizzard's decision demonstrates a lack of regard for their fans. D3 on consoles only? Absolutely, and I'd support people with 360s and PS3s boycotting D3 under those circumstances. But designing D3 around being connected? No. As I said, we're not yet at the saturation point we've reached with graphics cards, but we're close enough. We're certainly near or past the point with connectivity where companies were making games that required graphics cards.

On the other hand I have no time for arguments that pure unconnected single player is a 'tradition', with inherent merit that should shape the design of this particular game. It's not. It was a technical requirement of the age.
252.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 11, 2012, 12:28
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 11, 2012, 12:28
Jan 11, 2012, 12:28
 
RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 12:15:
Shared what? So any single player game that has a walk through on a forum thread or faq for example is not truly a single player game? Is that actually what you just tried to say? Are you fucking kidding me?

No, I'm not 'fucking kidding you'. Believe it or not, companies often design their single-player experiences in the knowledge that a minority of players will 'discover' a majority of the content, and disseminate it via the internet. That's why even games like Prof.Layton have to tread carefully to prevent pushing people towards spoiler sites.

I was also careful to say "I'm not by any stretch trying to call it 'multiplayer'", but that must have got missed.

As I said, Skyrim is right, right down at the single player end of the spectrum. D3 is, by design, not.
250.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 11, 2012, 12:19
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 11, 2012, 12:19
Jan 11, 2012, 12:19
 
Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 12:08:
Peeling wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 04:58:
1. D3 is balanced around being connected. Specifically, loot drops are balanced around being able to trade on the AH. It is part of the design of the game in a way that was not true of D1 and 2. You can play through it entirely solo if you want, in the same way many games allow you to deliberately handicap yourself, but explicit support for that option would give a misleading impression.
So, my play is handicapped if I don't spend money buying items from other players? Great balancing! *ugh*

You don't have to spend money. There's a fake-money AH, where you can sell the items you don't need to finance the ones you do, thus shortening the time needed to obtain something you want. The drop rates are balanced around this.

2. Pure offline support is extra work - extra work that creates a clunkier user experience. Offline progress that can't go online. Online characters that have to be duplicated and made permanently offline if played offline once. Locally saved progress. Confirmation boxes saying "Yes, I'm sure I want to sit here, connected to the internet, leveling a character that can't trade or play with anyone else because I find the enforced option of being able to trade or play with others unaccountably offensive." It all adds up.
So much work that they already did it years ago. Even if it was a lot of work, which it isn't, Blizzard has the money.

Like I said, it's extra work that's counter-productive in the context of the game's design. What's the point?

4. It's useful, as someone already pointed out, for Blizzard to be able to track their players' activities in order to refine future products. In general, I'm not a fan of being tracked. In this case, I don't have a problem with it because better games from Blizzard are something I'm already interested in.
Ah, finally some truth. Not anything any customer wants, but a truth.

Right... because if there's one thing customers hate, it's a company that pays attention in order to serve them better in future.
245.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 11, 2012, 12:07
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 11, 2012, 12:07
Jan 11, 2012, 12:07
 
Prez wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 11:53:
Pure offline support is extra work - extra work that creates a clunkier user experience. Offline progress that can't go online. Online characters that have to be duplicated and made permanently offline if played offline once. Locally saved progress. Confirmation boxes saying "Yes, I'm sure I want to sit here, connected to the internet, leveling a character that can'ttrade or play with anyone else because I findthe enforced option ofbeingable totrade or play with others unaccountablyoffensive."It all adds up.


I'm almost insulted at how stupid developers must think gamers must be to believe a load of crap like that quoted above. So we are actually supposed to believe that the Blizzard of 15 years ago, with fewer resources, fewer developers, less available technology, and WAY less money could pull off something that modern day Blizzard can't? It absolutely boggles the mind.

They did it because they had to - in the same way that, 15 years ago, with fewer resources, fewer developers, less available technology and less money they 'could pull off' a software renderer.

Supporting a pure offline mode is extra work that is counter-productive in that it tacitly encourages people away from the sweet spot of the game's design, namely making use of the AH and playing with friends.

A: Hello, Blizzard? Yes: I'm cross because you're not including a software renderer in D3.
B: Don't you have a graphics card?
A: I prefer the look of the software renderer.
B: Oh, that's OK: it's still possible to configure the game so it looks just like the software renderer.
A: But it still requires a graphics card!
B: And you don't have one?
A: Of course I have one! I just don't want to use it! How hard is this to understand? How can you justify the removal of such an important legacy feature?
242.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 11, 2012, 12:00
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 11, 2012, 12:00
Jan 11, 2012, 12:00
 
Prez wrote on Jan 11, 2012, 08:27:
I said that pure single player experiences are no longer the core of big budget gaming.

I actually almost choked on my bagel (onion...mmmm!) when I read this. Do I really need to point out that Deus Ex and Skyrim had no MP and were critical and commercial successes by any metric?

No. Do I need to point out that most modern commercial successes include and even emphasise multiplayer?

If you want to make MP-only games, that's your business. But let's not distort the facts to make you and your company's decision seem more valid. And if you are making said decisions based on such laughably erroneous assumptions, that's not a good thing.

You know, I wouldn't have to type half as much if you didn't keep flinging up strawmen and forcing me to repeat myself.

Single/multiplayer is not a black/white issue, and individual games can span a range of shades.

Skyrim is almost purely single player, and can certainly be played that way. I say 'almost' because there's a lot of shared information about playing on the internet. I'm not by any stretch trying to call it 'multiplayer', I'm just pointing out that individual Skyrim players do not exist in a complete vaccuum.

WoW spans far more of the spectrum. It has content geared for raiding but also supports a lot of solo play (although you would be missing out if you deliberately avoided even the auction house).

D3 also occupies a broad band of the single/multiplayer spectrum. Yes, you can still play it entirely solo, but that's not (by design) the game's 'sweet spot'. The sweet spot is around the 'using the AH / playing with friends' region.
232.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 11, 2012, 04:58
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 11, 2012, 04:58
Jan 11, 2012, 04:58
 
RollinThundr wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 18:14:
Diablo 2 had options for 3DFX Glide FYI.

Sorry, didn't know that. Thanks for the correction. The point about supporting software rendering stands though, yes?

Incidentally not every game needs MP to be successful, look at Skyrim, the recent fallout games, Dragon Age: Origins, Deus Ex HR just to name a few. You've rambled on paragraph after paragraph but have still managed to not name one good reason D3 should require a forced always on connection to play solo.

As I've said a few times now, the problem lies in our differing definition of 'good'. If we were having this conversation ten or fifteen years ago, then a reason for needing an internet connection would have to be extremely compelling in order to be a 'good' one. Nowadays, not so much. If you are determined to treat a 2012 requirement as if it were still the 90's then no, I cannot give you a reason you will think is 'good'.

Here are (again) the reasons I think the requirement is reasonable today:

1. D3 is balanced around being connected. Specifically, loot drops are balanced around being able to trade on the AH. It is part of the design of the game in a way that was not true of D1 and 2. You can play through it entirely solo if you want, in the same way many games allow you to deliberately handicap yourself, but explicit support for that option would give a misleading impression.

2. Pure offline support is extra work - extra work that creates a clunkier user experience. Offline progress that can't go online. Online characters that have to be duplicated and made permanently offline if played offline once. Locally saved progress. Confirmation boxes saying "Yes, I'm sure I want to sit here, connected to the internet, leveling a character that can't trade or play with anyone else because I find the enforced option of being able to trade or play with others unaccountably offensive." It all adds up.

3. It makes business sense to Blizzard for them to make (and keep) it as easy as possible for you to play with friends, because it helps drive sales.

4. It's useful, as someone already pointed out, for Blizzard to be able to track their players' activities in order to refine future products. In general, I'm not a fan of being tracked. In this case, I don't have a problem with it because better games from Blizzard are something I'm already interested in.

So is that the new mantra? PC Gaming is dying will be replace by PC Single player games are dying? Sorry, still not convinced.

I didn't say that. I said that pure single player experiences are no longer the core of big budget gaming. The ratio varies from platform to platform, but overall that's the picture.

This comment was edited on Jan 11, 2012, 05:55.
231.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 11, 2012, 04:01
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 11, 2012, 04:01
Jan 11, 2012, 04:01
 
Prez wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 17:56:
No disrespect Peeling, but in light of that... unflatterring name (or is it not supposed to sound like an amalgam of "peon" and "underling "?) , your walls of text defending (badly) an unpopular and controversial move, and your developer status as indicated by your name highlighted in green, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you're a low-level employee at Blizzard who has been given the unenviable task of defending this garbage by your benevalent overlords. The "clubbing all detractors over the head with novel-length banal posts that say nothing" seems to be your tactic of choice.

You don't have to asnwer; just nod your head if I'm right.

You're not right

As for my posts being long, well, I'll try to tighten them up in future, but I've never preferred snappy, wrong arguments over lengthy, sensible ones
202.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 10, 2012, 12:06
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 10, 2012, 12:06
Jan 10, 2012, 12:06
 
Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 11:50:
It's not unreasonable to envision people wanting a lot of things.

Yes, it's mind-boggling that loyal fans of the Diablo franchise would expect a feature such as SP offline mode when it was included in both Diablo and Diablo 2. Oh, the humanity!

I wasn't being sarcastic. It IS easy to envision people wanting that feature. I'm one of them. We're just in different subgroups: you're willing to put up with one compromise, me another.

For every person you make happy, you'll make another miserable because they chose the wrong option on creation and find they can't drop their established character into a friend's game, or sell that fantastic Barbarian loot their Monk picked up on the AH.

Right, because this was a huge issue with Diablo and Diablo 2?

It's yet to be demonstrated that THIS is a huge issue for D3.

At the time, requiring an always on connection to D1 and D2 would have been absurd. No issue would have been huge enough to mandate it. Now it's not such a big deal, so smaller issues like maintaining the connected experience weigh more heavily.

Sorry "Peeling", still waiting for a legit reason for this legacy feature to be dropped.

Because it's no longer as important as it used to be. Like supplying a software renderer for people without graphics cards.
201.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 10, 2012, 12:00
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 10, 2012, 12:00
Jan 10, 2012, 12:00
 
Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 11:30:
This is not a new phenomenon. If I want to play a game on the XBox, I have to use a controller, even though playing a FPS with one feels like driving a forklift after a bottle of tequila. I'm not allowed to use a mouse and keyboard.

Thanks for this, it actually proves our point. Consoles have ALWAYS used a controller regardless of the type of game being played on that console. They haven't made console folks move to the keyboard and mouse layout because controllers are an INHERENT part of consoles.

And mouse/keyboard controls were until then an INHERENT part of FPS games. I can't see how evolving hardware trumping the traditions of a game or genre supports your point at all.

LIKEWISE, the Diablo franchise has always provided a true offline SP mode.

Because people have been playing SP mode games now for decades they generally understand that the character can't be transferred to the online experience. You know what, THEY DON'T CARE, that's WHY they went the SP route to begin with! For some reason D2 thrived with this idealogy, amazing.

So... we should keep doing things the way they've always been done because it was popular at the time - a time at which the 'new' way of doing things wouldn't have been remotely practical. I see.

Neither is requiring a connection

Still waiting for a VALID reason for requiring this connection for a game that has always provided a pure offline SP mode.

I can't give you one, because you apparently perceive the connectivity requirement as incredibly onerous and claim to be happy with the archaic separation of online and offline progress. You are the perfect storm, as it were.
199.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 10, 2012, 11:33
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 10, 2012, 11:33
Jan 10, 2012, 11:33
 
Verno wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 10:23:
Peeling wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 10:13:
But it's not single player, any more than wandering off into a deserted part of WoW makes it 'single player'.

I'd call that a bit disingenuous. Most people think of story advancement as single player content and historically the series has offered that functionality. The expectation isn't without reasonable foundation.

Oh, I understand the expectation - but the foundation is IMO an outdated mental model of black-and-white 'single' and 'multi' player.

Ok, let's add such a token. Now all your progress while that token is set has to be lost when you go back online, because Blizzard can't possibly trust it. You end up with some ugly online/offline separation where you end up having to play the game twice if you make the wrong choice to begin with.

I think there's a reasonable solution in the middle other than dropping you to the lobby and losing progress.

Like what? How is Blizzard supposed to know whether what happened offline is legitimate or not?

If I'm going to have all of the potential pitfalls of an MMO title then I'd expect a more advanced feature set. To use your example, I don't lose progress in most MMOs when the connection is dropped. It might interrupt my gameplay but at least I can pick up where I left off.

With a corpse to recover

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for such things, this take it or leave it approach isn't really conducive to discussion.

The reality is take it or leave it. What we're discussing are the justifications given for 'leaving it' and whether they hold water.

Laptops now outnumber desktops and mobile computer usage is on a vast upswing. I don't think it's totally unreasonable to envision someone wanting to play Diablo 3 without an internet connection.

No, nor do I. It's not unreasonable to envision people wanting a lot of things. But we need to be absolutely precise about what it is they want, whether that is something they can actually have, and whether what they're getting is a good approximation.

We can take our unknown but presumably large number of people who would like to be able to play the game offline and subdivide them. Most of them will be people who also want to enjoy the connected aspects of the game with the same character they play offline. They cannot have what they want, thanks to the efforts of another subset who want to hack the game and sell fraudulent items. The remainder are people who only want the single-player aspect of the game, don't want to use the AH, don't want to play with friends. They can in principle have what they want without spoiling anyone else's fun. So the question is whether Blizzard should expend effort supporting them, not the much larger superset.

Personally, I don't think it makes sense for them to do so. For every person you make happy, you'll make another miserable because they chose the wrong option on creation and find they can't drop their established character into a friend's game, or sell that fantastic Barbarian loot their Monk picked up on the AH.

No, I think that under the circumstances Blizzard are giving people the best available approximation of what they want: the ability to play the game solo (no explicitly multiplayer story content) but in such a way as to preserve the integrity of the connected experience.
195.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 10, 2012, 10:13
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 10, 2012, 10:13
Jan 10, 2012, 10:13
 
Verno wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 09:58:
I think some people are getting hung up on the generic 'single player therefore should be offline' angle. Diablo 3 isn't a 'single player game'. It's a game you can play single player, AND take the character you build and jump into games with your friends AND trade the items you find, and to have THAT kind of game you need to be continuously connected.

I don't understand how your example applies, the mouse and keyboard are not standard input peripherals for that platform. That's also hardware functionality and a whole different ballgame IMO. The consumer does have an expectation of separated functionality based on both history of this series and others. You present bringing a character online as some sort of new feature but that sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

As for "single player should be offline", I don't think most people are necessarily hung up on that as they are that going offline should not harm the singleplayer experience. Even if they are, maybe they're hung up on "single player should have the option of going offline" which isn't exactly an unreasonable expectation.

But it's not single player, any more than wandering off into a deserted part of WoW makes it 'single player'.

Why not offer functionality that would let people set an offline token in case they need to travel or get temporarily disconnected? That's certainly more helpful than "you can bring your toon online and talk to friends". There are other considerations like security but again these are issues Blizzard has previously dealt with already. I see what they're getting from a design perspective but it seems to me that consumers potentially eat a lot of crap with this and don't get much in return.

Ok, let's add such a token. Now all your progress while that token is set has to be lost when you go back online, because Blizzard can't possibly trust it. You end up with some ugly online/offline separation where you end up having to play the game twice if you make the wrong choice to begin with.

Of course, you'll still be able to make that wrong choice. There'll be an offline hack for it sooner or later, so you'll get to juggle online and offline characters. But why on earth should Blizzard sanction that choice and spend time developing in that direction?
193.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 10, 2012, 10:06
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 10, 2012, 10:06
Jan 10, 2012, 10:06
 
nin wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 09:45:
I think some people are getting hung up on the generic 'single player therefore should be offline' angle.

Wow, imagine that.


^ case in point.

Taken as a whole, Diablo 3 is not a single player game. You can if you wish play it on your own, never visit the AH, never group with friends. You can do the same in WoW if you like.

Is D3 the same as WoW? No. Is it as inherently multiplayer? No. But it is, as a whole, a connected experience. There is no dedicated single-player content. Most players will play with friends at least some of the time. Most players will use the auction houses. And for that to work, everyone needs to have continuous connection.
190.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 10, 2012, 09:43
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 10, 2012, 09:43
Jan 10, 2012, 09:43
 
Verno wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 09:22:
Peeling wrote on Jan 10, 2012, 09:10:
Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 9, 2012, 22:01:
It is a pretty sad day in PC gaming when people need to defend their right to play a singleplayer game offline.

This.

No, this.

Yeah no, snobbyinsidejoke.jpg, sorry.

Every industry member thinks of the consumer as PA sees them and every consumer thinks of the industry as Yahtzee sees them. Neither is right. Starcraft 2 sold well but it wasn't exactly a Call of Duty success story. It's an industry filled to the brim with other games to purchase, no one is special anymore.

Neither is requiring a connection.

This is not a new phenomenon. If I want to play a game on the XBox, I have to use a controller, even though playing a FPS with one feels like driving a forklift after a bottle of tequila. I'm not allowed to use a mouse and keyboard. The only reason is so that I won't have an 'unfair' advantage when playing online - even if I never plan to.

I think some people are getting hung up on the generic 'single player therefore should be offline' angle. Diablo 3 isn't a 'single player game'. It's a game you can play single player, AND take the character you build and jump into games with your friends AND trade the items you find, and to have THAT kind of game you need to be continuously connected.
187.
 
Re: Diablo III in February?
Jan 10, 2012, 09:10
Re: Diablo III in February? Jan 10, 2012, 09:10
Jan 10, 2012, 09:10
 
Undocumented Alien wrote on Jan 9, 2012, 22:01:
It is a pretty sad day in PC gaming when people need to defend their right to play a singleplayer game offline.

This.

No, this.
64.
 
Re: Diablo 15 Year Anniversary Website - Diablo III
Jan 10, 2012, 09:02
64.
Re: Diablo 15 Year Anniversary Website - Diablo III Jan 10, 2012, 09:02
Jan 10, 2012, 09:02
 
RollinThundr wrote on Jan 6, 2012, 00:10:
nin wrote on Jan 5, 2012, 23:04:

If that were the case nin their high settings wouldn't look like ass as well.

That would be your opinion, and not based in fact.


It's fact imo, SC2 looked like a shiny SC1 with obviously better textures. D3 looks to be about the same. I'm sorry but graphically Blizzard titles just aren't impressive and never have been.

Personally I find SC2's graphics to be extremely impressive. Point me towards a game with as many individually animating, skinned, particle-spewing entities on screen at once - if you can
63.
 
Re: Diablo 15 Year Anniversary Website - Diablo III
Jan 10, 2012, 08:55
63.
Re: Diablo 15 Year Anniversary Website - Diablo III Jan 10, 2012, 08:55
Jan 10, 2012, 08:55
 
GrenadesNHam wrote on Jan 9, 2012, 19:34:
The current design involves minimal client side calculations. From my knowledge, Blizzard servers control much of what happens to prevent exploiting and cheats and protection of the economy (which I hope this time is meaningful and intact, (less of the rune/soj market bs.)

Things like monster spawn and movement, loot drops, toon position checking, and more are communicated to you from the serv, not done by your machine.

This is false.

The Blizzard servers duplicate what your machine does. Your machine then sends what it thinks has happened to the server, and if they agree, you're allowed to keep playing. If they disagree it's because you've hacked the game somehow, so they disconnect you. Trading between players is always done using the server's version of events, so even if you hack the game to play offline, you cannot sell anything you collect because the server won't agree that you have it.

Blizzard implemented it this way because it's completely lag-free. Your computer isn't waiting for anything from the server.
2.
 
Re: Evening Consolidation
Oct 18, 2011, 06:38
2.
Re: Evening Consolidation Oct 18, 2011, 06:38
Oct 18, 2011, 06:38
 
I don't think this is hacking. I think it's a bug that's charging the wrong people's accounts for purchases.

I mean, really: if people really could hack accounts and use them to buy stuff, why would they all - quite independently - choose to buy only FIFA merch? Why not buy and play a Live game? Why has nobody come forward to say they've played a friend online who wasn't who their rich presence claimed they were?
53.
 
Re: Diablo III Speed Hack?
Oct 4, 2011, 04:59
53.
Re: Diablo III Speed Hack? Oct 4, 2011, 04:59
Oct 4, 2011, 04:59
 
Blizzard isn't enforcing an always-on connection to prevent people hacking the game and playing it for free. They're doing it to ensure that the auction house isn't ruined as a game feature for those who want to join in and play properly.

Think of it this way: the FA can't stop you setting up goalposts in your garden and leathering a ball through it over and over, then running around with your shirt over your head pretending you've won the world cup. If that's how you choose to amuse yourself, so be it. But they can stop morons dicking about on the pitch in the middle of a real game.

Similarly, Blizzard knows perfectly well plenty of people will perform the necessary mental gymnastics to convince themselves they're entitled to something for nothing. They can't do anything about that. Nor can they prevent some people ruining the game for themselves by starting out in all the best gear.

But what they can do is prevent said asshats from parading around in front of people who've chosen to play the game as it was intended. They can keep the Auction House meaningful for those who recognise the value of buying into and abiding by an arbitrary set of rules - otherwise known as a 'game'.
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