Diablo 3 "Always Online" Requirement Helps Fight Hackers, Says Blizzard

[JoshuaMadoc]

so yeah don't worry about South East Asia or any Asian countries for that matter, lest you get caught talking out of your butt again.

I'm not really talking out of my ass when Indonesia's got a spectacularly shitty reputation for internet stability, and THAT'S where I grew up in. Seriously, in the 9 years I lived there, they still haven't even bothered fixing the gutters and leaving it and the stench out in the open.

6. or Don't buy the game! shocker! that's right no one is forcing anyone to buy this game which is apparently the shittiest of the shit pile from planet shit.

Me buying Torchlight 2 instead of D3 and getting the full brunt of the ridicule from Blizzard fantards and always-on advocates because of that is a god-forsaken given. If anything, my rage is all about Blizzard's way of handling this bullshit and all the aforementioned goddamn fanshits.

P.S. of course ISPs give a shit, that's their job. They're in tough competition with half a dozen other guys.

Tell that to all of the major ISP companies here in Australia. They could care fucking less about keeping their service quality in check.

 

[PingoBlack]

Being snide is not a valid point.

Absolutely ... I overdid it to illustrate a bit, didn't I? Still, as you say yourself, offline not being included is against some people's expectations. It wasn't really announced, then pulled afterward.

Making the idea of hacking said system harder will attract more attention to it, and as such, more hackers will attempt to crack it (be it for bragging rights, the challenge; it doesn't matter).

There are probably 2 main reasons to try to break security. Yeas, one of them is bragging rights among the community. But there is a second, much much more important reason for hacking.

Criminal gain.

Yep, most people hack to get money. In a game that wants to offer its players a chance to operate with actual money, you must make sure you have best security possible. Not because you want to be an attractive target, but opposite. Hacking for monetary gain makes hackers focus on easiest targets, not the hardest.

 

[PingoBlack]

Me buying Torchlight 2 instead of D3 and getting the full brunt of the ridicule from Blizzard fantards and always-on advocates because of that is a god-forsaken given. If anything, my rage is all about Blizzard's way of handling this bullshit and all the aforementioned goddamn fanshits.

Yeah ... Torchlight 2.

I looked it up and found nothing. Yeah, nothing but some hype. No prices, no talk about payment models, nada. Just a lot of promises and an interview where the developer stated they don't care if their product gets stolen. But that was them talking about Torchlight 1.

I'm not saying it won't be a good game, no sir! But I do see people building up a pedestal of their expectations for it. You can easily end up in same situation as here.

The second Torchlight developers unveil a RMT shop for example.

 

[Jodah]

So, bets on how long it takes for someone to crack the game and for it to make it to the top of the "most pirated game ever" list?

Its just a way to make piracy difficult, but in reality, they've only bought a few more days before it gets cracked

Just like World of Warcraft was? Sure, if you enjoy private servers with no rules.

You do not see pirated players mixing with normal WoW population, because you cannot authenticate on Battle.net without proper account. If Diablo 3 uses same data model to store character and items, good luck waiting for your crack.

Guys ... stop this reverse logic. If you don't like it, don't buy it. But do not justify stealing stuff.

I was thinking more like Assassin's Creed 2 (which was cracked in one day btw). Diablo 3 is not an MMO. You can get 100% of the experience offline, no matter what Blizzard seems to think. Most of us who are not buying it WANT it single player.

 

[Alar]

Because of how Diablo 2's single-player mode interacted with the multi-player mode. You could take your character that was in single-player and USE IT online, taking those items with you, or bringing new items into the game.

Could they have just removed that sort of access completely? Sure, probably. I'm not sure how it would be done, in technical terms, but it probably could have been.

But, as the rep said, giving the hackers access to an 'offline server' would make it easier for them to hack the actual servers, and start duping and cheating all over again. It's a lose-lose situation for Blizzard.

How about just forcing you to create two different characters? Also, access to an "offline server"? That makes no fucking sense at all.

Did you not read what the Blizzard rep said?

"Essentially we would have to put our server architecture onto the client so that it can run its own personal server."

Yeah. I said 'offline server' to sum that up. It was in the article, however.

 

[PingoBlack]

I was thinking more like Assassin's Creed 2 (which was cracked in one day btw). Diablo 3 is not an MMO. You can get 100% of the experience offline, no matter what Blizzard seems to think. Most of us who are not buying it WANT it single player.

It may not be a MMO, but compare it's features to Guild Wars for example.

The point I'm making is this though: Unlike AssCreed2, full server-client model, like WoW uses, is very hard to crack.

It's fine to not buy what you don't like, but as I mentioned before, I do not see Diablo 3 as an offline game. Really. CORPG, cooperative online RPG, the same description Arena net used for GW, is actually much much more accurate.

 

[OMGIllithan]

The actual good reason is simple. Blizzard have decided they do not want to support that mode of game play. Whatever their reasoning be ... It is the reason, it's that simple.

That's...fair, to an extent. The problem is, this was a game play mode they were very adamant about including, and they turned around and changed their story. While that's their decision to make, it's still going to create backlash.
To be honest, I expected the same thing as they did with StarCraft II, at the very least. I may be a little disappointed in the choice, but I'm not really all that shocked.

Show me the news post that said Blizzard was excited and adamant about including offline single player with Diablo 3. I keep seeing people complain about how "well Blizzard promised!!" and I want to know where its all stemming from.

 

[rmb1983]

Double post. Please ignore my sudden inability to adequately operate my mouse.

 

[rmb1983]

The actual good reason is simple. Blizzard have decided they do not want to support that mode of game play. Whatever their reasoning be ... It is the reason, it's that simple.

That's...fair, to an extent. The problem is, this was a game play mode they were very adamant about including, and they turned around and changed their story. While that's their decision to make, it's still going to create backlash.
To be honest, I expected the same thing as they did with StarCraft II, at the very least. I may be a little disappointed in the choice, but I'm not really all that shocked.

Show me the news post that said Blizzard was excited and adamant about including offline single player with Diablo 3. I keep seeing people complain about how "well Blizzard promised!!" and I want to know where its all stemming from.

Right here. [http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27387874231&pageNo=1&sid=3000#16]
As I'd mentioned earlier, it was some time ago, and Blizzard is thoroughly well within their rights to change the game plan. It is still disappointing, though, when it was made clear the option would be there, and now they've gone back on that.

I'm personally not put out by the change; my internet connection is stable enough that I won't really have to worry about it. I'll still be playing on my own for the most part, anyway, and I have plenty of other things to do to keep me occupied if my ISP should decide to have issues. It's not as if this is Diablo II, which I played quite frequently...I really don't have that much time on a regular basis, and it'll be for enjoyment once in a while. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that their decision really seems like a poor effort, when there's a couple of viable options I or anyone else could think of off the top of my head, and countless others the dev team could concoct.

EDIT: I didn't mention anything about excitement on the matter. They've always been pretty vocal about their "If you're not playing online, you're not doing it right" spiel.
That, in itself, I find asinine, but I digress.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Could you link to me where Blizzard will be allowing players to buy gold with money? I don't recall reading that part on the FAQ, but I could have missed it.

I withdraw my point; I re-read the FAQ, and there is no indication that BLIZZARD will be selling Gold; just that they are allowing PLAYERS to sell Gold.

Details are nasty things.

Still, I'm dubious of any game that includes Grind as a primary selling point. Diablo 2 turned into this because people love collecting items. The fact that Blizzard can directly benefit from this post-sales has me concerned about intentions.

 

[OMGIllithan]

The actual good reason is simple. Blizzard have decided they do not want to support that mode of game play. Whatever their reasoning be ... It is the reason, it's that simple.

That's...fair, to an extent. The problem is, this was a game play mode they were very adamant about including, and they turned around and changed their story. While that's their decision to make, it's still going to create backlash.
To be honest, I expected the same thing as they did with StarCraft II, at the very least. I may be a little disappointed in the choice, but I'm not really all that shocked.

Show me the news post that said Blizzard was excited and adamant about including offline single player with Diablo 3. I keep seeing people complain about how "well Blizzard promised!!" and I want to know where its all stemming from.

Right here. [http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27387874231&pageNo=1&sid=3000#16]
As I'd mentioned earlier, it was some time ago, and Blizzard is thoroughly well within their rights to change the game plan. It is still disappointing, though, when it was made clear the option would be there, and now they've gone back on that.

I'm personally not put out by the change; my internet connection is stable enough that I won't really have to worry about it. I'll still be playing on my own for the most part, anyway, and I have plenty of other things to do to keep me occupied if my ISP should decide to have issues. It's not as if this is Diablo II, which I played quite frequently...I really don't have that much time on a regular basis, and it'll be for enjoyment once in a while. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that their decision really seems like a poor effort, when there's a couple of viable options I or anyone else could think of off the top of my head, and countless others the dev team could concoct.

EDIT: I didn't mention anything about excitement on the matter. They've always been pretty vocal about their "If you're not playing online, you're not doing it right" spiel.
That, in itself, I find asinine, but I digress.

From that post it sounds like they already had intentions to have one account instead of separate accounts for both online and offline, which supports what was stated in this news post. They claimed that they wanted to do offline single player with this model but they decided not to because of issues with running the server on the client's machine. It was "well we wanted to give you an offline mode but we can't and heres why." instead of a "Haha just kidding no offline mode for you!" They did use the word "will" however I think its clear based on their explanation.

Also about the playing online to play it right spiel, its no secret that Blizzard games have entertainment value that lasts far longer than other games because of their respective communities. It shouldn't be a surprise that they want to make it easier for people to get more involved in said communities (and in turn have fun playing for much longer than if otherwise). And they're also not forcing you to interact with other people.

 

[OMGIllithan]

Could you link to me where Blizzard will be allowing players to buy gold with money? I don't recall reading that part on the FAQ, but I could have missed it.

I withdraw my point; I re-read the FAQ, and there is no indication that BLIZZARD will be selling Gold; just that they are allowing PLAYERS to sell Gold.

Details are nasty things.

Still, I'm dubious of any game that includes Grind as a primary selling point. Diablo 2 turned into this because people love collecting items. The fact that Blizzard can directly benefit from this post-sales has me concerned about intentions.

Would you rather there be a subscription model to help fund the game's servers? People were going to buy and sell items regardless of what Blizzard tried to do about it (same as in D2). I'm just glad that some of that money is going back to support the game I love rather than all to the Chinese farmers.

 

[rmb1983]

The actual good reason is simple. Blizzard have decided they do not want to support that mode of game play. Whatever their reasoning be ... It is the reason, it's that simple.

That's...fair, to an extent. The problem is, this was a game play mode they were very adamant about including, and they turned around and changed their story. While that's their decision to make, it's still going to create backlash.
To be honest, I expected the same thing as they did with StarCraft II, at the very least. I may be a little disappointed in the choice, but I'm not really all that shocked.

Show me the news post that said Blizzard was excited and adamant about including offline single player with Diablo 3. I keep seeing people complain about how "well Blizzard promised!!" and I want to know where its all stemming from.

Right here. [http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27387874231&pageNo=1&sid=3000#16]
As I'd mentioned earlier, it was some time ago, and Blizzard is thoroughly well within their rights to change the game plan. It is still disappointing, though, when it was made clear the option would be there, and now they've gone back on that.

I'm personally not put out by the change; my internet connection is stable enough that I won't really have to worry about it. I'll still be playing on my own for the most part, anyway, and I have plenty of other things to do to keep me occupied if my ISP should decide to have issues. It's not as if this is Diablo II, which I played quite frequently...I really don't have that much time on a regular basis, and it'll be for enjoyment once in a while. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that their decision really seems like a poor effort, when there's a couple of viable options I or anyone else could think of off the top of my head, and countless others the dev team could concoct.

EDIT: I didn't mention anything about excitement on the matter. They've always been pretty vocal about their "If you're not playing online, you're not doing it right" spiel.
That, in itself, I find asinine, but I digress.

From that post it sounds like they already had intentions to have one account instead of separate accounts for both online and offline, which supports what was stated in this news post. They claimed that they wanted to do offline single player with this model but they decided not to because of issues with running the server on the client's machine. It was "well we wanted to give you an offline mode but we can't and heres why." instead of a "Haha just kidding no offline mode for you!" They did use the word "will" however I think its clear based on their explanation.

Also about the playing online to play it right spiel, its no secret that Blizzard games have entertainment value that lasts far longer than other games because of their respective communities. It shouldn't be a surprise that they want to make it easier for people to get more involved in said communities (and in turn have fun playing for much longer than if otherwise). And they're also not forcing you to interact with other people.

That is certainly true, and while it doesn't affect me, I can definitely see the reason some are rather distraught by it. It nixes out a gameplay mode that a good handful would make use of (whether it's because of inability or exorbitant costs for internet access in "dead areas", traveling, etc.), and regardless of the outcome, it's still going to affect their bottom line. Not having the option means that those it'd be lucrative for will likely not play the game as long, since they'll be stuck only getting to play during sparse times where they have access, and will result in frustration and lack of desire to keep playing. That, in turn, will have an effect on the rest of the community, since there'll be that many more people that aren't part of it that much sooner.

It's a good idea, in theory, because it'll help further progress in the industry and it just may help significantly in the whole Company vs. Pirates/Cheaters "War", but at this point in time, given how much of a luxury consistent access still is in a lot of parts of the world, it's going to cause a fair hit to the game's lifespan and immediate lure.

 

[Asehujiko]

This will certainly prevent the game from being cracked within the first couple of months. Takes a while to build a battle.net clone.

It won't. Look at Ubidrm. It took 3 weeks for an emulator to appear and a little over a month for a self contained crack. The next game took a week for both, now we're back to day 0(if you're european) or day 1(if you're american) cracks. The "don't give legal customers the actual game so you can shut it down and force the sequel on them" has been soundly defeated.

The only people affected by this will be internet illiterate legal customers who don't have the know how to crack the game.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Would you rather there be a subscription model to help fund the game's servers?

1) I imagine the 60 bucks I paid wasn't just for show.
2) By *forcing everyone* onto their servers, they increase the cost of maintaining the game. If I had an Offline Mode, I wouldn't be loading their system in the first place.

The only way is to have a completely *different* software design how you do it
in single player, hence: the complete new game.

This begs the question: How does having the local code on hand help you fool the server? Because that's the heart of the issue here.

A hacker having a local item generator means nothing (ABSOLUTELY NOTHING) if Blizzard's SERVER is generating all the online content. The client can try to lie to the server about what item you picked up, but since all of the relevant data is kept on their servers (and checked against a set of values; something Blizzard must implement under their CURRENT PROPOSED SYSTEM regardless) your client can't fool anyone.

But if you can see it in your *local* code, you know how to attack it *on the server*.

If a system is weak enough to allow LOCAL EXPLOITS AND HACKS to function on what is supposed to be a *remote* secured system (not network hacks; LOCAL), then that system has far more serious problems at hand.

Having the local game data available to make creating hacks easier or not becomes completely irrelevant if the hackers are able to gain the required Write-access authentication to deploy those hacks in the first place. The reason being that having such access would let them do unspeakable things WITHOUT your game code (including stealing the server code; which puts us right back to Square One); Much worse things than simply modifying items or hacking themselves a ton of gold/money.

Rotating/Mutating the security on the *server* is far more important than rotating what goes on the client. The client can send the same information at all times, but how that information is used on the server can change transparently.

Nevermind that unless the *entire game* is going to be Cloud-processed (which isn't economically feasible on this scale; not even for Blizzard) you're going to have to provide clientside-data anyway.
Even WoW has a MASSIVE load of client-side data and that game is still running strong.

And this is why Blizzard's statement is a Strawman Argument.
By claiming that local data leads to more hacks ONLINE, they must also assume that the hackers CAN IMPLEMENT those hacks which requires higher access on their server.
But having access to the local data cannot IN ANY WAY grant higher access to those servers BECAUSE THAT IS A NETWORK HACK, NOT A LOCAL HACK. THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT. Yet Blizzard is arguing that it does.

Let's see how the "grinding" part is designed, I will give
them the benefit of the doubt.

Then have at it. Frankly, I'm done giving companies the benefit of the doubt when they lie to their customers.

 

[Atmos Duality]

EDIT: I thought I merged the two posts. Doh'.

 

[OMGIllithan]

Would you rather there be a subscription model to help fund the game's servers?

1) I imagine the 60 bucks I paid wasn't just for show.

Yeah, but in the long term when people stop buying the game, the auction house will provide more income that can be dedicated to supporting the game so its servers will last.

2) By *forcing everyone* onto their servers, they increase the cost of maintaining the game. If I had an Offline Mode, I wouldn't be loading their system in the first place.

See below

And this is why Blizzard's statement is a Strawman Argument.
By claiming that local data leads to more hacks ONLINE, they must also assume that the hackers CAN IMPLEMENT those hacks which requires higher access on their server.
But having access to the local data cannot IN ANY WAY grant higher access to those servers BECAUSE THAT IS A NETWORK HACK, NOT A LOCAL HACK. THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT. Yet Blizzard is arguing that it does.

You're operating under the assumption that Blizzard had plans to make separate single player and multiplayer accounts, which was never the case. One of the biggest reasons was that people would sink 20-30 hours or more into single player, then decide to go online only to find out that the couldn't take those characters with them. To some people that was 20-30 wasted hours and they didn't want to play anymore. From the perspective of having only one pool of characters, everything that was posted in the news article is true.

This is a minor inconvenience to the (I'll be generous) 30% of D2 players who only wanted to ever play offline in order to save any new players looking to pick up the game from having to deal with a potentially buzz killing situation. If you still want to play alone, thats fine, no one is stopping you. But if you want to ***** and complain because you don't get your way with specific stipulations despite the fact that its benefiting the majority of players, thats your own problem.

 

[Atmos Duality]

You're operating under the assumption that Blizzard had plans to make separate single player and multiplayer accounts, which was never the case.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27387874231&pageNo=1&sid=3000#16

1) The first and last lines of that post contradicts your claim directly and yes, it's from Blizzard. I won't claim that Blizzard was happy about it (it means less control over their customers and they can't have that!), but they WERE planning to create a single player mode at some point (it's from last year, so I'd guess that this decision to nix single player entirely is recent).

So I'd say my assumption was valid.

2) Your reply has nothing to do with the actual argument at hand. Blizzard claims that they eliminated Single Player to make Multiplayer more secure. It's the title of the freaking topic!

Yeah, but in the long term when people stop buying the game, the auction house will provide more income that can be dedicated to supporting the game so its servers will last.

That's fine, except I wouldn't use the Auction House anyway; not to be a leech (even thought that's the result here), but because I preferred to keep real money away from my online gaming.
With offline mode I wouldn't be a leech, but that doesn't matter to Blizzard.

 

[Stainlesssteele4]

So, bets on how long it takes for someone to crack the game and for it to make it to the top of the "most pirated game ever" list?

Its just a way to make piracy difficult, but in reality, they've only bought a few more days before it gets cracked

Just like World of Warcraft was? Sure, if you enjoy private servers with no rules.

You do not see pirated players mixing with normal WoW population, because you cannot authenticate on Battle.net without proper account. If Diablo 3 uses same data model to store character and items, good luck waiting for your crack.

Guys ... stop this reverse logic. If you don't like it, don't buy it. But do not justify stealing stuff.

There's a difference between an MMO and always on DRM, Blizzard tried this before with Star Craft 2, hoping that always on DRM would keep SC2 from ever being pirated. It was cracked in abut 3 days. I'm just saying that the always on DRM isn't some way to protect players, its a way to protect sales.

 

[Elijin]

- the game's not really being played right if it's not online, so when we have that specific question of why are we allowing it? Because that's the best experience, why would you want it any other way?

We're not playing it right? Why would we want to play it any other way? Holy crap, seriously?


Well sorrrrry for not being super fond of being told exactly how to have my fun.