Cutter wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:11:
Why does it show me on my Steam friends list that Bats is playing "a non-Steam game Diablo 3"?

If you loved D1 and D2 as much as you say - I really wish you would jump on D3 brother. It is such a blast, I have played through ACT1 2-3 times and we are just now starting ACT2.

Having a blast with the Demon Hunter. The game just keeps getting better and better, stayed up till 4am this morning and got to the second act boss. Then in the middle of the fight the servers went down for maintainance....figures....

Cant say Im liking the story so much as before though, Its spotty and a bit of a recycle. The atmosphere is better and at times feels perfect, at others it feels like candy coloured land of magical unicorns.

Still the gameplay is unparalleled and feels just right.

The only point I was trying to make was that it's not really just DRM, even if it does serve that purpose as well, since the always-on design in the game is based around actual features and server-side game hosting as opposed to just making sure you aren't pirating the game like UBI's setup does.

Fair enough, but that's the direction most publishers are going these days. Ubisoft screwed it up by jumping into the "always on" DRM before they were really ready for it. EA (and Activision/Blizzard) are definitely going the "we're going to bundle online features with the game, and use that as an excuse to force you to always be online". EA is doing that with the next Sim City, for example. There are reports they'll be trying to do that with the majority of their upcoming games.

The problem is that all of these features are optional. Sure, it's nice to have the ability to have an integrated friends list, etc, etc, but that's where I point back to Steam. It does a very similar thing, but it still has an "offline" mode. Because all of those features, while nice, shouldn't be mandatory to play a game.

I guess the only surprise is that so many people were saying just that long before the game's release that it's hard to believe Activision Blizzard would not have been more prepared for the launch in an attempt to prove the skeptics wrong. Well, whatever they did failed. Score one for the skeptics. Here's hoping they straighten this mess up soon.

That's what really surprised me as well. Knowing that many people were shitting all over the idea of an always-on connection for singleplayer (myself included), you'd think that a company with the massive coffers like Blizzard has would have spared no expense in making sure the launch would at least be smooth as a proof of concept-type thing. I still would be 100% against it, but it may have silenced some of the naysayers who were on the fence. They totally screwed the pooch though, and I can't say I'm unhappy about that. The more people who are against the 'always-online singleplayer' concept, the better in my book. Here's hoping they continue to fuck it up.

Sepharo wrote on May 16, 2012, 21:18:

HorrorScope wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:54:

Sepharo wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:33:

HorrorScope wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:29:
Simple note:
If a game has a real money auction house, it is a mmo in technical design. It will always require to be online. Otherwise people would be hacking in items to sell for cash. IMO you can't have it any other way.

How does this brand of comment still come up? Just take both the AH and RMAH out of SP and don't allow characters to cross over *gasp* problem solved.

Well if my aunt had a unit...

Sure if they did that, but they didn't.

But the point wasn't really even about SP, but the choice when deciding on a RMAH, it changes security on the whole game.

I'm not sure how to respond to this because I've seem to have lost the point you're trying to make. I originally thought your point was that the game needed to be online because of fears over hacked items appearing on the RMAH.

Is your point now that it needs to be online because it's online?

Point is with RMAH it had to be always online. Could they have made a totally independent SP game? Sure. But since they didn't, the other rule is greater then all other features combined. We have $$$ bouncing around, we can't have people dup'ing them. So when I see a game in the future touting a RMAH, I'll assume always online connection needed.

I wouldn't be surprised if many games start to offer it now, this gets the producers what they want "Always online DRM" and now yet another new revenue stream selling virtual crap. We are simply seeing the future. I chimed in a long time ago now about other companies trying the always online game where it didn't really have to be, how they would fail because they don't have the clout to pioneer it. I said it would take someone like Blizzard to make it work because enough will buy into it, it will then become the standard, enough will buy into it being the new way.

I also believe is D3 was PoE and PoE was D3. PoE would sell 2 million plus out of the gate, be all that and D3 would be a small after thought and ok'ish. Hype is powerful. The game to me didn't raise the bar enough.

Bhruic wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:54:
That sounds like what Microsoft said about Internet Explorer in Windows. But that's just a backwards way of looking at it. Are the features "inseparable"? Possibly. But they are that way because Blizzard designed them to be that way. It's not an inherent trait of the features. They could easily have included the exact same feature set for people playing online, and had them not enabled when not.

You cut out the part of my post where I more or less said that, and I disagree strongly that it could have been done easily. They could have designed the game to have two separate components, and I'd agree that I wouldn't have minded at all if they had, but it would have required a completely independent peer to peer client to be designed to keep it separate from the online game and its auction houses. It's easy to see why they didn't go that route, if unfortunate.

The only point I was trying to make was that it's not really just DRM, even if it does serve that purpose as well, since the always-on design in the game is based around actual features and server-side game hosting as opposed to just making sure you aren't pirating the game like UBI's setup does.

Sepharo wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:33:

HorrorScope wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:29:
Simple note:
If a game has a real money auction house, it is a mmo in technical design. It will always require to be online. Otherwise people would be hacking in items to sell for cash. IMO you can't have it any other way.

How does this brand of comment still come up? Just take both the AH and RMAH out of SP and don't allow characters to cross over *gasp* problem solved.

Well, duh, Seph. OBVIOUSLY there just wasn't time to create the non-connected off line single player game. They barely had time to finish the on line part in the, uh, thirteen years since Diablo 2.

HorrorScope wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:54:

Sepharo wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:33:

HorrorScope wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:29:
Simple note:
If a game has a real money auction house, it is a mmo in technical design. It will always require to be online. Otherwise people would be hacking in items to sell for cash. IMO you can't have it any other way.

How does this brand of comment still come up? Just take both the AH and RMAH out of SP and don't allow characters to cross over *gasp* problem solved.

Well if my aunt had a unit...

Sure if they did that, but they didn't.

But the point wasn't really even about SP, but the choice when deciding on a RMAH, it changes security on the whole game.

I'm not sure how to respond to this because I've seem to have lost the point you're trying to make. I originally thought your point was that the game needed to be online because of fears over hacked items appearing on the RMAH.

Is your point now that it needs to be online because it's online?

Sepharo wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:33:

HorrorScope wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:29:
Simple note:
If a game has a real money auction house, it is a mmo in technical design. It will always require to be online. Otherwise people would be hacking in items to sell for cash. IMO you can't have it any other way.

How does this brand of comment still come up? Just take both the AH and RMAH out of SP and don't allow characters to cross over *gasp* problem solved.

Well if my aunt had a unit...

Sure if they did that, but they didn't.

But the point wasn't really even about SP, but the choice when deciding on a RMAH, it changes security on the whole game.

The online features they're requiring the connection for are pervasive; they're literally built into every part of the game to the point where they're inseparable.

That sounds like what Microsoft said about Internet Explorer in Windows. But that's just a backwards way of looking at it. Are the features "inseparable"? Possibly. But they are that way because Blizzard designed them to be that way. It's not an inherent trait of the features. They could easily have included the exact same feature set for people playing online, and had them not enabled when not.

HorrorScope wrote on May 16, 2012, 20:29:
Simple note:
If a game has a real money auction house, it is a mmo in technical design. It will always require to be online. Otherwise people would be hacking in items to sell for cash. IMO you can't have it any other way.

How does this brand of comment still come up? Just take both the AH and RMAH out of SP and don't allow characters to cross over *gasp* problem solved.

Simple note:

If a game has a real money auction house, it is a mmo in technical design. It will always require to be online. Otherwise people would be hacking in items to sell for cash. IMO you can't have it any other way.

As for the game, if this were called something else bye someone else, it simply would be another game released with no replies.

Verno wrote on May 16, 2012, 15:25:
People are starting to spoil the story stuff on forums now so I'd be careful. What class are you going to play? Monk is pretty damned good

Witch Doctor all the way! Goin' as freaky-deaky as possibly my first playthrough ^_^

sauron wrote on May 16, 2012, 15:31:

Verno wrote on May 16, 2012, 15:25:

You started off by saying you disagree and then reiterated my point.

I did not say that Blizzard is free of criticism. I simply stated that in this day and age it is proven that there is more disdain for EA than Blizzard.

I was kind of amalgamating both yours and Creston's comments in my reply. I don't doubt that there is more "disdain" for EA than Blizzard but in this case I feel like Blizzard isn't getting any big concessions from most people about the outages so I'm not sure why the distinction matters. They're even getting the same internet meme treatment

Difficult to be objective here, mainly because it's hard to measure disdain. Let's see. Sneers per Minute? Wrinkled Noses per m2?

However, using the most objective measurement possible under these circumstances, I did find there were significantly more Farts in the General Direction of EA than Blizzard (*P<0.05).

Even accounting for the Heinz (beans) correction.

Maybe factor in the recent naming of EA as the most evil company on earth lol, it was only voted on mainly by gamers.

Because he added D3 to his Steam shortcuts and that's what it does.

I've got about 10 friends on my list right now that say similar. The rest are just mysteriously "Online" seemingly doing nothing

Why does it show me on my Steam friends list that Bats is playing "a non-Steam game Diablo 3"?

Creston wrote on May 16, 2012, 18:41:

Cutter wrote on May 16, 2012, 17:33:
Anything else is just trying to rationalize away people's feelings of hypocritcal guilt for lambasting Ubisoft all these years but caving on buying Diablo 3.

Anyway, to be fair, I regret that Blizzard chose to do this, because I would have been happily playing Diablo 3 right now if not for that fucked up online requirement.

Same here

Though it was interesting at work yesterday and today... It used to be when I told people I wasn't getting D3 because of the online SP requirement they'd just gape at me dumbfounded or even become angry, now it's more of a knowing nod.

The online features they're requiring the connection for are pervasive; they're literally built into every part of the game to the point where they're inseparable.

DRM at its finest? It's like a face hugger; you can't remove parasite from host without killing both.

PropheT wrote on May 16, 2012, 18:53:
On the same note, though have you played the game yet? I'm not rationalizing away anything, it's just plain and simple not the same thing and it's obvious when you get into the game. The online features they're requiring the connection for are pervasive; they're literally built into every part of the game to the point where they're inseparable.

No, I haven't played it yet. Couldn't even get the friggin beta installed on my PC - and many people still can't even though Blizzard knows what the problem is and still haven't fixed it, which says volumes about how far they've fallen as a company. And even spite of how much they've cut from this game already, which I have a sneaking suspicion is going to be introduced as paid content DLC at some point along with premium service subs - mark my words well on this. Yes, in spite of it all I still really want the game.

I effing loved Diablo I & 2. I still have my original discs and all that. I love the flavour, I love the style of the game. I love the cracklike addiction of finding newer and better gear. I recall when they finally announced D3 how I was as happy as a pig in poo. Then they announced the online DRM and I wasn't angry, I was just a very sad panda. We all know what Blizzard is doing and why they're doing it. It sucks for all us old-timers, but our little niche hobby is now the biggest type of entertainment in the world.

Things don't have to go this way though. Ubisoft learned that. However, now, with this...not only will they probably go back to it, but everyone else will be doing it too - except for the indie KS crowd. What offends me is the apathy and hypocrisy of the consumers. It's like people who bitch about government but never lift a finger to get involved or take a stand. All of this stuff can work for us but you have to take a stand at some point. And you simply can't cave the moment it becomes a slight inconvenience. Bob Salvatore said it best, "Principles and values are of no use if the idealist cannot live up to his own standards."

I'm not saying I'm not a hypocrite or above anything, but I always do my damndest to ensure that my hypocrisy only goes so far. I simply can't and won't tell Blizzard what they're doing is ok by giving them my money. If they come to their senses and provide an offline mode then I'm in.

Cutter wrote on May 16, 2012, 17:33:
And what or why are any of those things necessary for the SP portion of the game? The only thing it impacts is the AH. For those interested in only - or mostly - SP there is zero reason not to have an offline mode. No one is complaining about about being online to access those things or multiplayer. So if you're main thing is SP and you can't play because that portion of the game is entirely dependent on a company to play it - never mind what happens when they feel they want to pull the plug on it or start charging you subscription fees for a "premium" service that determines if you have to queue or not to play - then it's not only entirely fair to comapre the two, it's entirely apt. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever, none, to not having an offline SP mode. Anything else is just trying to rationalize away people's feelings of hypocritcal guilt for lambasting Ubisoft all these years but caving on buying Diablo 3.

I'm definitely not going to argue about the desire for a single-player offline version of the game, because I'd sure go for that. That's how I played Diablo 1 and 2; I barely touched battle.net for either of those games and I could live without the online features in D3, as well.

On the same note, though have you played the game yet? I'm not rationalizing away anything, it's just plain and simple not the same thing and it's obvious when you get into the game. The online features they're requiring the connection for are pervasive; they're literally built into every part of the game to the point where they're inseparable.

If you were arguing that it was a bad decision to do that, I'd probably be on board at this point. There's a difference between designing the game around those online features, though, and just sticking the online component there to force you to go through them to play it. Unlike UBI's solution, in D3 that online component is a full fledged part of the game and not just authorization or registration. D3's implementation of it goes well beyond what even Starcraft 2 did as far as the online features.