Blizzard Defends Always-Online For Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

So amusing. Any time I read reactions to Blizzard posts, I immediately envision this:

Spoiler

Seriously, folks. The world is becoming always online, all the time. If I'm playing Diablo, it's on my main rig ... which is online all of the time. I don't see any kind of problem with this. If I'm on an offline machine I'm playing.. something else, or doing something else.

People are making a mountain out of a molehill, and beating a dead horse on top of it.

"Ooh, I don't know what the problem is with this world. Why are children in the Africa suffering from famine? I have so much food in my house. Those people must have no idea how to eat food."

Just because you have the good internet connection doesn't mean everyone else does.
I would gladly accept DRM if it gives me some kind of benefit-say, like certain online game distribution system that starts with S.
Selling games dirt cheap or something like that.

And now on the topic.

Hmm, Kevin, I would congratulate you on acknowledging that you are not competent enough to make the offline options like that game that came out 13 fricking years ago, But I would really appreciate it if you just be honest.

Just say "I WANT EVERY ONE ON BATTLE.NET ON A LEASH LIKE A DOG"

I am pretty sure this Kevin guy doesn't know what the LAN is, so I won't bother to explain how it was used to play Diablo 2 with offline characters. Besides, I heard Blizzard thinks LAN is evil.(*Cough*HotS*cough*)

Now, I am sure that Some people thinks that I am accusing Blizzard on groundless hatred, if so, explain this.

Spoiler

Because this game totally needed DRM right? BECAUSE IN THIS GAME YOUR CHARACTERS WERE TOTALLY IMPORTANT when playing with your friends.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

People being mad at them for including an off-line mode for Diablo 2, FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!

Actually this is true, at least indirectly. While people weren't really that mad about an offline mode outside of what you mentioned, people were mad about the prevalence of hacking, even on closed bnet. The thing is, having an offline mode puts all of the game's code on your pc. This means that hackers don't have to do any guess work, they can see how they game handles everything and because of that can more easily make a variety of hacks.

You could just make a system that checks if the character has been tempered with, that then allows for transfers between the two modes.

And I suppose you have some sort of solution for this? Afaik, this isn't possible without any form of network connection. For the game to be able to detect tampering there would need to be either a backup somewhere for a comparison or an event log to make sure it all adds up. Problem with that though is that you can just go and edit those as well.

Simple solution, have a off line mode and a online mode. Make it so YOU CAN NOT TAKE YOUR OFF LINE PLAYER ONLINE, that way there is a barrier preventing the two to mix will not tainiting the online.

 

[WildFire15]

ah, the wonders of twisted context. I don't recall anyone being angry they could play offline, just they were unhappy they couldn't bring an offline character online. Quite a significant difference. Also, lets not forget that not everyone wants to play together, sometimes we want to forge a path at our own pace without being disturbed.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Simple solution, have a off line mode and a online mode. Make it so YOU CAN NOT TAKE YOUR OFF LINE PLAYER ONLINE, that way there is a barrier preventing the two to mix will not tainiting the online.

Sounds awfully slimier to the game I played about 10 years ago.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

Simple solution, have a off line mode and a online mode. Make it so YOU CAN NOT TAKE YOUR OFF LINE PLAYER ONLINE, that way there is a barrier preventing the two to mix will not tainiting the online.

Sounds awfully slimier to the game I played about 10 years ago.

Kinda interesting that things done 10 years ago can't be used now a-days. Just tells you there is another reason for this implementation of this system.

 

[Makabriel]

"Ooh, I don't know what the problem is with this world. Why are children in the Africa suffering from famine? I have so much food in my house. Those people must have no idea how to eat food."

Just because you have the good internet connection doesn't mean everyone else does.
I would gladly accept DRM if it gives me some kind of benefit-say, like certain online game distribution system that starts with S.
Selling games dirt cheap or something like that.

You know what.. I've seen the light. And why stop there?

Come on Everyone!! The Next Gen Consoles require an HDMI Connection!!! Think of all the poor people with CRT televisions. None of them will be able to play the next gen games!!! Let's Make sure Sony and MS hear our voice!!!

Really. Blizzard hating is so passe these days. I support their position. I like the idea of a secure environment to play Diablo in. If I want to play with my friends, we all get online and play. And millions of other people feel the same. There is -nothing- wrong with what they are doing. It may not be popular, but there is no legitimate tangible reason for taking it offline. Player hate just doesn't cut it.

 

[Raziel]

I never played diablo 2 online and I had no interest in playing diablo 3 online. And I was one of the people who preordered it, waited at a midnight launch to get it, and then couldn't play it until the next night because the servers weren't working.

And then to top it all off even though I never played multiplayer, never used the auction house, and had a totally separate computer just for games I had my account hacked. So screw you blizzard I'm out. Torchlight for me for now on.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Seriously, folks. The world is becoming always online, all the time.

I can't even come up with words to describe how meaningless that statement was.

If I'm playing Diablo, it's on my main rig ... which is online all of the time.

Except when it's not.

I don't see any kind of problem with this. If I'm on an offline machine I'm playing.. something else, or doing something else.

Ok good for you. You don't have a problem with it, others do.

People are making a mountain out of a molehill, and beating a dead horse on top of it.

Is any form of criticism "being butthurt" or blowing things out of proportion?

Don't be such a corporate apologist.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

There is -nothing- wrong with what they are doing. It may not be popular, but there is no legitimate tangible reason for taking it offline. Player hate just doesn't cut it.

Sure, but do connection problems, lag, item loss, account theft, server downtime and lack of features that properly take advantage of the multiplayer (good PvP, raid-style events etc) cut it?

 

[quad341]

Digital signatures work via asymmetric encryption. That basically means that the game executable would have to contain a private key to be able to provide that signature, which means you are relying on that executible's private key to NOT be hacked, which is basically impossible to prevent. You would want to encrypt the key, but it can't be used by your system to create the signature without being decrypted during that process, at which point it is vulnerable. This is why any game can be cracked after release but steam pre-downloads cannot, they become vulnerable only after the game is able to be run to start with.

do calcualtion online. servers can handle mahematics now. and it wont matter of the files are hacked or not, the gameplay is still dictated by server-side calcualtion. yes, it may look way different on the hacked guys screen, but the gameplay wont be ruined for others by it.

I believe you're missing the idea of how offline manipulating of characters works. Either you can create impossible situations (characters/items that could not have the stats they claim to) or improbable situations (you have all of the best gear and every slot in your inventory is also the best gear).

Impossible just requires validation. Improbable is the task we are trying to solve.

Digital signatures by themselves would not be good enough for the stated reason: you just need to find the private key in the game which has to be on ones computer to actually sign the file.

There is a way around that though: we will never keep the private key in memory. This might seem like blasphemy, but that is the idea behind Trusted Platform Modules [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module] (or TPM chips). Though technically not impossible to be able to fake your own signature even with a TPM chip, I'm not aware of it ever happening (and it would probably be popular as TPM chips are used to prevent root kits, amongst other things).

The remaining problem is the availability of TPM chips. They are rather rare to nonexistent in non-high end professional systems. They would probably want to target more than just those systems meaning the feature would essentially never be available.

 

[WeepingAngels]

There is -nothing- wrong with what they are doing. It may not be popular, but there is no legitimate tangible reason for taking it offline. Player hate just doesn't cut it.

Indeed, there is no need for a company to care about what their customers think. Maybe Blizzard will keep your advice in mind, all the way to bankruptcy.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

there is no legitimate tangible reason for taking it offline. Player hate just doesn't cut it.

Hmm. You may have a point, But then Riddle me this.

Is there a legitimate tangible reason for taking it always online?
If offline characters cannot access online, server's security should be tight, while people can enjoy offline!(GENIUS.)

I could make millions!

Oh wait.

Spoiler

WHAT IS THIS SORCERY

 

[vun]

I was hoping they'd remove the always-on crap when the auction house went, but so much for that...

Heck, I was even slightly excited for Reaper of Souls, but nope.
Not that internet connection is much of an issue to me, as I have good and stable connection, but I don't want to have to rely on having a stable connection just to play a singleplayer game on my own, that's BS.

So yeah, I might get it on console, but I'm done with D3 on PC until they do a 180 and remove this junk. Until then I'll stick to D2.

Or better yet get Torchlight 2, its pretty much and updated and more modern version of Diablo 2 made by the people who did Diablo 2 and its pretty cheap.

I've played quite a lot of Torchlight as well as a bit of Torchlight 2, but while they're good they don't really do it for me. Hard to put my finger on why that is though.

its worsth checking out titan quest.. i had the same issue with torchlight it never quite grabbed me in the same way as diablo 2 did. also out early next year i hope is grim dawn which looks good

I did try Titan Quest as well, but that just felt like a beta at best. Ironically; Path of Exile did work for me even though that was an actual beta, but by then I'd sorta lost interest in the hack-and-slash games, so I didn't play much of it.

 

[Makabriel]

There is -nothing- wrong with what they are doing. It may not be popular, but there is no legitimate tangible reason for taking it offline. Player hate just doesn't cut it.

Sure, but do connection problems, lag, item loss, account theft, server downtime and lack of features that properly take advantage of the multiplayer (good PvP, raid-style events etc) cut it?

If a large enough section of the playerbase was affected by these technical problems, I'd agree with you. It's not. And there are plenty of new features in the expansion that will add more to do.

And for the record, I will side with you on PVP. I don't do it personally, but they did drop the ball pretty hard on that one.

Indeed, there is no need for a company to care about what their customers think. Maybe Blizzard will keep your advice in mind, all the way to bankruptcy.

They've been making unpopular decisions for dozens of years. Don't see it hurting their bank account very much, and don't think it ever will. That's actually one thing I "admire" about blizzard. They don't cater. They build the game the way they want it to be, not according to player opinion.

Hmm. You may have a point, But then Riddle me this.

Is there a legitimate tangible reason for taking it always online?
If offline characters cannot access online, server's security should be tight, while people can enjoy offline!(GENIUS.)

I could make millions!

Oh wait.

Spoiler

WHAT IS THIS SORCERY

Yup.. it's called Diablo 2, which they have said plenty of times, they did not want to remake. I'm fine with that and so are millions of other players.

 

[thisbymaster]

Fuck you Blizzard, your game sucks and you refuse to fix it because it isn't your vision for the game. You are scared to come to light and understand that your vision of the game is something no one wants to play. You get nothing, you lose, good day sir!

 

[WeepingAngels]

They've been making unpopular decisions for dozens of years. Don't see it hurting their bank account very much, and don't think it ever will. That's actually one thing I "admire" about blizzard. They don't cater. They build the game the way they want it to be, not according to player opinion.

Their luck won't hold out forever. Remember how everyone used to love Bioware?

I'll tell you what I have learned from this mess. I have learned to wait for the superior console port for the next Blizzard game that isn't an RTS.

 

[Something Amyss]

"If someone has no Internet access, then yeah, Diablo III is not the game for them,"

I always hate that argument. It really isn't an all-or-nothing sort of thing, guys. Some people have bad, spotty, or slow internet. I mean, this is ALWAYS Online. The Xbone had a daily check-in. I can see them using the "all or nothing" approach, because you don't need to connect all the time.

But this?

Yeah.

"We didn't make that game. That's the straight-up answer. We did not make that game, and we're not going to turn this game into that game."

And yet, the console versions exist...

That's different. Because...Ummm...Reasons.

 

[00slash00]

Oh, okay. So, it's not a matter that people were promised things that didn't happen, it's just that they BOUGHT THE WRONG GAME. Sorry, folks! Should have just gotten something else. Maybe Path of Exile? Torchlight?

Mystery solved! Everybody go home now.

Don't both those games also require internet? They may not be the best examples

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

There is -nothing- wrong with what they are doing. It may not be popular, but there is no legitimate tangible reason for taking it offline. Player hate just doesn't cut it.

Sure, but do connection problems, lag, item loss, account theft, server downtime and lack of features that properly take advantage of the multiplayer (good PvP, raid-style events etc) cut it?

If a large enough section of the playerbase was affected by these technical problems, I'd agree with you. It's not. And there are plenty of new features in the expansion that will add more to do.

And for the record, I will side with you on PVP. I don't do it personally, but they did drop the ball pretty hard on that one.

During the launch, account hacks, error messages locking you out, extra server downtime, random lag that caused unfair deaths and occasional item loss were all rife. The game might be smoothed out now but I really don't care. I lost interest in the game after my character was hacked and I read the forums for advice, only to discover that I was considered an 'idiot' for not buying an authenticator to go along with my account.

Did I ever have any of these problems playing singleplayer Diablo? No. What has online Diablo III offered me that I wasn't able to get out of Diablo II? Umm...

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Yup.. it's called Diablo 2, which they have said plenty of times, they did not want to remake. I'm fine with that and so are millions of other players.

Stop evading my questions.

Quoted just in case of confusion.

Is there a legitimate tangible reason for taking it always online?
If offline characters cannot access online, server's security should be tight, while people can enjoy offline!(GENIUS.)