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

[Nurb]

Blizzard is doing what they think is best for their game, plain and simple. They could be lying through their teeth, or everything they've said is the truth. Sometimes I wonder why game companies try to defend their decisions every time a new group of people complain about a design decision. If you as a consumer don't like a design decision, don't purchase the game.

Snip

I'm not pissed at you personally, so don't think I'm attacking you, but the sentiment of "don't like it? Don't buy it" is infuriating when customers give a legitimate complaint....

The ultimate question here - which the PC game industry avoids like the plague - is "Look, do you want me to buy your fuckin' game or what?". The usual response is to inform the consumer that games are non-essential, and then subsequently complain about the dwindling sales in the PC game market when people who already know that games are non-essential decide to stop buying them because of all this bullshit. For all the hot air about piracy, people in the industry are remarkably prone to telling people to "FUCK OFF" off if they don't like it, as though the industry doesn't mind losing a customer anywhere near as much as they mind not being able to force people to give them money.

...

We're supposed to have sympathy for them too, even though by their own arguments they deserve to die off. Piracy is killing the PC market, but the response to any legitimate complaint is to stop buying PC games if we don't like it. If we act rationally and refuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater and download a game, we're killing them. What would they rather have us do? "Talk with our wallets" and not play the games at all, and certainly noy buy them. Which would also kill the industry, but that?s somehow the more moral solution. Either way the industry is basically daring us to kill it.

Most people ARE talking with their wallets, which is why the market is shrinking. And what message does the industry take from that? That they should do something different? Nope. The message is that they should simply move to consoles due to a shrinking market they surely can?t be responsible for. So even when we do follow the "moral" way, nothing changes. So the decision they're giving us is between "No Games, Dead Industry" and "Pirate Games, Dead Industry".

In other words, if the industry isn't going to get the message no matter what we do and is going to die either way, why should we deny ourselves the few good games that get released? Should I feel sorry for Ken Levine not getting paid for a good game? Nope. The industry doesn't care about fucking us over in the name of unproven piracy damages, so I don't see why anyone should care if a few decent developers get crushed in the name of taking down an industry that could not possibly care less about doing proper business with us.

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/pc_game_piracy/

 

[OMGIllithan]

This is not about genre choice or game mechanics, it's about the downright awful combination of denial of access tagged with forcing gamers to play a certain (more costly) way. I have yet to hear one concrete reason as to why this DRM decision is good for the gamer.

It helps protect a developers games so that they can make them more balanced and fair. Also, it will reduce piracy so that developers can me more confident on taking in enough income to produce more great games for all gamers.

Well, that was easy.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough on that last bit; it's the crude, to the point of draconian, format of their DRM decision here that irritates me. I don't mind being charged extra on the purchase at point of sale to facilitate anti-piracy software or to cover projected losses due to piracy (though I would be surprised if sales prices did not already include contingencies -that strikes me as 'Budgeting 101' point) but forcing the player to maintain an Internet connection throughout play acts as a hidden, nonnegotiable 'anti-piracy subscription fee' that the player pays every time he plays the game.

This seems too much to the point were I would not purchase the game. If the only way I was permitted to read a book at home during the daytime was to have every light in the house switched on then I'd read somewhere else or do something different. If Blizzard insists on seeing its customers continue to pay long after their initial purchase only to keep its own sales safe (as it does not solve earlier online Diablo player-experience problems: see later) then this will drive people away from purchasing in the first place thereby creating less revenue than if they had adopted less demanding constraints.

As to the 'balanced and fair' argument, well as you point out in your own excellent (I mean that genuinely) post [//www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.304833-Blizzard-Surprised-by-Reaction-to-Online-Only-Diablo-3?page=17#12245070] over on the 'Blizzard Surprised by Reaction...' thread, the frustration felt by many Diablo players (and that Blizzard sought to, in part, rectify through this DRM policy) was caused by the hacking and cheating that went on. 'Hacks and cheats' are not piracy [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_of_software], they are hacks and cheats; activities that can be performed through a legitimately purchased game or a pirated copy. Whilst this DRM approach might prevent those who would use pirated copies simply to play the game from doing so, it will not stop those intent on cheating their way to success, hence falling short on its intended improvements to player experience.

I feel like the best way to debate this is to share my thoughts on how DRM should function. I believe that a developer has a right to attempt to protect people from illegally downloading their games. I do, however, believe that a developer has an obligation to make whatever form of DRM they choose to be as unintrusive as possible.

Now with that said, I don't believe battle.net is an attempt to slap DRM onto games. It was created with the purpose of linking all blizzard games together. It also comes with the benefit of being able to download your games anywhere at any time from a browser. You can also communicate with friends across games. In short, it makes the playing experience better for everything that has been released from Blizzard since its release so far. Now the reason why they require an always on connection is because they decided not to have a separate single and multi player account, which I think is the heart of this issue, but they did give reasons why they made this decision. My point is that battle.net was not created with the purpose of being DRM, but that happened to be a secondary side effect. And I'm ok with that because its presented with so many positives along with it. This part, I'm sure some people will disagree with.

As far as you feeling like you're being charged an 'anti-piracy subscription fee', I'm not quite sure I understand that viewpoint. You're not being charged any extra to play the game at all, unless for some reason you were neglecting purchasing an internet connection until this game comes out.

Last, as far as balance and cheating goes, you're right that there will always be people trying to hack and cheat. However if we use wow for comparison, cheating is handled rather efficiently in wow (and even SC2), and I'm sure Blizzard has learned at this point techniques on how to track the people who are cheating so they are banned quickly. I am not a fan of the "Don't stop them because they'll do it anyways" argument. It only holds any weight because of the anonymity of the internet because people are afraid to stand up to those who want to watch the world burn.

P.S. Thanks for reading that post I made, I put a lot of time and effort into it hoping to persuade people to think more positively.

 

[Odlus]

You mean Jay Wilson, the guy that's being quoted in this very article?

And lol at people acting like Blizzard is suddenly the "most anti-consumer developer" when Blizzard has already been discussing free content patches they'll be putting out after the game's release. I also like people acting like they understand the tech behind Blizzard's unreleased game better than Blizzard does.

Alex Mayberry, the senior producer, says that piracy is one of the reasons for doing this.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/01/diablo-3-cannot-be-played-offline/

But y'know, that was said before the PR-muzzles were clamped on their mouths and they were all told to march out and lie about why they're doing things and what's possible. So hey, if believing the BS comforts you about purchasing an intentionally inferior version of the game, whatever makes you happy.

From the second paragraph of the interview you linked:

Senior producer Alex Mayberry says there were many reasons for the decision, including the prevention of cheating. Since players can buy and sell items for real money, any way of cheating to make or acquire better ones would be very lucrative ? and unfair.

What was that again about contradictions and PR-muzzles?



Lots of commentators on this site seem to have difficulty reading, though, so don't take it too hard. Also, in your defense, Logan's opening of "Apparently, it's not pirates that Blizzard is targeting by requiring Diablo 3 to be hooked up to the internet all the time," is also wrong because the interview he used as his source said this:

From a practical angle, piracy was also a concern for Blizzard when they made the decision to make Diablo 3 require an internet connection.

Then again, that sort of misleading journalism isn't new here either.


Either way, no contradictions.

 

[Jumwa]

What was that again about contradictions and PR-muzzles?



Lots of commentators on this site seem to have difficulty reading, though, so don't take it too hard.

I said they contradicted themselves by saying it's not about piracy, which was absolutely true.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112091-Blizzard-Surprised-by-Reaction-to-Online-Only-Diablo-3

See there

I said they're now lying and claiming it's not about piracy. Sure, they always had their BS about it being for reasons that any layman can see through, but in the beginning they at least admitted it was about piracy. And let's not forget: forcing everyone to play online so the real-money AH will get more traffic and flow more cash to them.

 

[Jumwa]

What was that again about contradictions and PR-muzzles?



Lots of commentators on this site seem to have difficulty reading, though, so don't take it too hard.

I said they contradicted themselves by saying it's not about piracy, which was absolutely true.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112091-Blizzard-Surprised-by-Reaction-to-Online-Only-Diablo-3

See there

I said they're now lying and claiming it's not about piracy. Sure, they always had their BS about it being for reasons that any layman can see through, but in the beginning they at least admitted it was about piracy. And let's not forget: forcing everyone to play online so the real-money AH will get more traffic and flow more cash to them.

 

[Neonit]

hey, guess why torchlight 2 is getting more popular with each passing day.....

fighting the hackers is pointless. there is no system without flaws. i mean, for some time mmo's were meant to be the ultimate protection measure. you cant play without access to server. what happened? private servers..... if its possible to do with wow, then you would have to be an idiot to believe that this wont be possible with diablo.

people will make their own servers, with mods and there is nothing they can do about it.

the only question is "when?".

 

[Odlus]

What was that again about contradictions and PR-muzzles?



Lots of commentators on this site seem to have difficulty reading, though, so don't take it too hard.

I said they contradicted themselves by saying it's not about piracy, which was absolutely true.

Check my most recent edit to my post. Logan (this article's author) was wrong in opening his story with "Apparently, it's not pirates that Blizzard is targeting by requiring Diablo 3 to be hooked up to the internet all the time" because the interview he sited as his source specifically mentioned piracy as a reason:

From a practical angle, piracy was also a concern for Blizzard when they made the decision to make Diablo 3 require an internet connection.

So Blizzard isn't even denying that piracy was/is part of it.

 

[Jumwa]

Well, shoddy work by another Escapist writer. I swear...

However, my point still stands, because as I linked in my post a Blizzard representative has come out and claimed this movie was never even discussed in relation to piracy or DRM.

 

[Nurb]

From the second paragraph of the interview you linked:

Senior producer Alex Mayberry says there were many reasons for the decision, including the prevention of cheating. Since players can buy and sell items for real money, any way of cheating to make or acquire better ones would be very lucrative ? and unfair.

What was that again about contradictions and PR-muzzles?



Lots of commentators on this site seem to have difficulty reading, though, so don't take it too hard. Also, in your defense, Logan's opening of "Apparently, it's not pirates that Blizzard is targeting by requiring Diablo 3 to be hooked up to the internet all the time," is also wrong because the interview he used as his source said this:

Either way, no contradictions.

If they didn't force people into a damn auction house for artificially increased rarity to drive up prices, they wouldn't have to resort to something so drastic to stop cheating. IT's about money, it's always about money, and they don't want people enjoying the single player game they paid SIXTY DOLLARS for to be able to mod the game and avoid the auction house because a lot of customers don't want to pay up to 10 or 15 dollars for digital items that are already in the full priced game

The auction house isn't even a gameplay mechanic, it's a DLC money making tool for Blizzard. The auction house doesn't need to be a part of the game. If they just made the game single player like it's supposed to be without an auction house, they wouldn't be having to try to stop cheaters and modders in the first place.

NO full priced game is worth all the trouble and extra money for unlocking items in the game. If they charged $20 bucks for a game that forces online play and auction house services, then it'd be easier to deal with.

 

[Odlus]

Well, shoddy work by another Escapist writer. I swear...

However, my point still stands, because as I linked in my post a Blizzard representative has come out and claimed this movie was never even discussed in relation to piracy or DRM.

Fair enough. I missed that particular article.

 

[Odlus]

[
If they didn't force people into a damn auction house for artificially increased rarity to drive up prices, they wouldn't have to resort to something so drastic to stop cheating. IT's about money, it's always about money, and they don't want people enjoying the single player game they paid SIXTY DOLLARS for to be able to mod the game and avoid the auction house because a lot of customers don't want to pay up to 10 or 15 dollars for digital items that are already in the full priced game

The auction house isn't even a gameplay mechanic, it's a DLC money making tool for Blizzard. The auction house doesn't need to be a part of the game. If they just made the game single player like it's supposed to be without an auction house, they wouldn't be having to try to stop cheaters and modders in the first place.

NO full priced game is worth all the trouble and extra money for unlocking items in the game. If they charged $20 bucks for a game that forces online play and auction house services, then it'd be easier to deal with.

I've explained perfectly clear in the past why the "the real money AH is just a scheme for Blizzard to get money" is wrong, and I don't feel like going through it again. Look through my past comments if you're curious, shouldn't be too long ago.

Either way, you're not "forced" into it. There's still an ingame gold AH and I'd imagine everything except the absolute best of the best gear will be sold through there simply because everyone will have the same thoughts; "why pay money for this when I could just earn it ingame or use ingame gold?"

 

[AmosMoses]

For me, this level of DRM doesn't really qualify an infringement of my concept of "gamers civil liberties".

If it does stop duping and hacking then that's fine my me. It it fails to stop it or at least limit it then Blizzard have some explaining to do.

If it's there to stop pirating then... well more power to them.

 

[OMGIllithan]

From the second paragraph of the interview you linked:

Senior producer Alex Mayberry says there were many reasons for the decision, including the prevention of cheating. Since players can buy and sell items for real money, any way of cheating to make or acquire better ones would be very lucrative ? and unfair.

What was that again about contradictions and PR-muzzles?



Lots of commentators on this site seem to have difficulty reading, though, so don't take it too hard. Also, in your defense, Logan's opening of "Apparently, it's not pirates that Blizzard is targeting by requiring Diablo 3 to be hooked up to the internet all the time," is also wrong because the interview he used as his source said this:

Either way, no contradictions.

If they didn't force people into a damn auction house for artificially increased rarity to drive up prices, they wouldn't have to resort to something so drastic to stop cheating. IT's about money, it's always about money, and they don't want people enjoying the single player game they paid SIXTY DOLLARS for to be able to mod the game and avoid the auction house because a lot of customers don't want to pay up to 10 or 15 dollars for digital items that are already in the full priced game

The auction house isn't even a gameplay mechanic, it's a DLC money making tool for Blizzard. The auction house doesn't need to be a part of the game. If they just made the game single player like it's supposed to be without an auction house, they wouldn't be having to try to stop cheaters and modders in the first place.

NO full priced game is worth all the trouble and extra money for unlocking items in the game. If they charged $20 bucks for a game that forces online play and auction house services, then it'd be easier to deal with.

1. Diablo 2 was the same way, people would pay for items regardless of your stake on the matter. The AH is just a way for people to do it in a safe environment instead of getting scammed.

2. On forced rarity: would you rather Blizzard just give everyone the same items so that there is no dispute over money? That probably wouldn't make for a very good game.

3. If you don't like the AH then you don't have to use it, simple as that! No extra cost to you. Personally, I'd rather Blizzard come up with a method to help fund their servers that doesn't affect me at all or require me to pay a subscription.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Yes, it helps fight hackers.. not encourage them. Of course.

Just like advertising a new game has hacker proof DRM.

In the words of Extra Credits: Don't mess with people who install linux on their PS3/Xbox/computer/lunchbox...

In anycase I will restate what I said when this first came up in the News Room: I may not have even really heard much about the Diablo games before this but learning of this always online necessity has automatically disqualified that series from joining my small library.

So thanks for scaring away potential customers Blizzard! ^.^

 

[Skeleon]

Really, Blizzard, fuck you. I can understand wanting to keep your online game safe, but I do not accept that you'd want to force me to go along with that, even if all I want to do is play singleplayer and slaughter monsters. I'm not big on multiplayer apart from playing with friends in LAN and I at least want the option to play offline and on my own. Ever since "Battle.net 2.0", I simply don't care for this company anymore. I guess they've been doing WoW for too long and can't think like they did back in the days of Diablo 2, Warcraft 2 and 3 and Frozen Throne. No thanks!

 

[Nurb]

[
If they didn't force people into a damn auction house for artificially increased rarity to drive up prices, they wouldn't have to resort to something so drastic to stop cheating. IT's about money, it's always about money, and they don't want people enjoying the single player game they paid SIXTY DOLLARS for to be able to mod the game and avoid the auction house because a lot of customers don't want to pay up to 10 or 15 dollars for digital items that are already in the full priced game

The auction house isn't even a gameplay mechanic, it's a DLC money making tool for Blizzard. The auction house doesn't need to be a part of the game. If they just made the game single player like it's supposed to be without an auction house, they wouldn't be having to try to stop cheaters and modders in the first place.

NO full priced game is worth all the trouble and extra money for unlocking items in the game. If they charged $20 bucks for a game that forces online play and auction house services, then it'd be easier to deal with.

I've explained perfectly clear in the past why the "the real money AH is just a scheme for Blizzard to get money" is wrong, and I don't feel like going through it again. Look through my past comments if you're curious, shouldn't be too long ago.

Either way, you're not "forced" into it. There's still an ingame gold AH and I'd imagine everything except the absolute best of the best gear will be sold through there simply because everyone will have the same thoughts; "why pay money for this when I could just earn it ingame or use ingame gold?"

It's a single player game, not an MMO, I should be able to play a single player game any way I want without paying more money after purchase to get access to all of it, and forcing online-only to prevent cheating on an optional service that isn't part of the game itself IS forcing customers to put up with it.

And of course it's a scheme to make money, they wouldn't go through all this trouble if nickle and diming customers if it wasn't going to make them a lot more money.

 

[OMGIllithan]

Oops double post.

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

Trading offline play for fewer cheaters is fair, right?

Wrong for several reasons:
1) People will find a way to cheat through.
2) I don't care if someone wants to cheat, as he's only ruining it for himself.
3) My internet connection sometimes dies on me without me noticing - which could mean losing hours of gameplay. I know there are many other gamers who have this problem.

The only online DRM That I can tolerate is steamworks.

I played Private Servers for 5 years in World of Warcraft and it made me want to play the REAL World of Warcraft in order to experience the world in a smoother, generally less broken manner.

I used to use cheats in the original Half-Life to make it playable at my derpy level and now I can complete HL2 and both Episodes on the highest difficulty in under 24 hours...something being a cheaty mccheaterson in or to play games just makes you want to play them the right way all the more.

 

[Snotnarok]

So they couldn't just have these items listed and function as single player only items and be 100% incompatible with online ones? Because I assume a programmer can do it all with their own game.

 

[00slash00]

i never had a problem with the always online thing. i agree that you dont get the full experience unless you play online and diablo 2 hackers were annoying as hell. that being said, blizzard just needs to stop talking about diablo 3 for a while because right now there are two groups of people. there are people who have made up their mind about hating diablo 3 and nothing blizzard says will change that and only cement their opinion. then there are people like me who have been excited for diablo 3 for so long that they will buy diablo 3 no matter what blizzard does to it

there's at least one more group of people: those who bought and played diablo 1 when it first came out, then diablo 2 and played it for 10 years, single and multiplayer. these people are long time hardcore fans. but now these people live without an internet connection at home. maybe they cant afford it, but probably they are in a rural area where none is available. they really WANT to play this game and have been thinking about it for years and years and discussing its potential with their friends, playing every titans quest and torchlight that comes out, modding d2 with crazy new shit, just because they love it, and now they are being told they CANNOT play it because the company wants to make more money. i am in this category.

the whole "upgrade your wires" argument is such fucking bullshit. ISPs dont run lines in some rural areas because its not profitable. simple as that. it has nothing to do with what the consumer wants. so basically, this guy is telling me to move if i wanna play his game. a game which ive been waiting for for literally 10 years. all this is bad enough, but the arrogance this douche spews is something else.

btw, d2 single player was infinitely more fun to me than mp. i dont enjoy having all the loot taken and being rushed around, trading is not fun to me. i play games to progress in the story and level a guy up to get powerful. anything social in a game like that is practically a drawback to me, as it cheats me out of the experience of getting it myself. i only ever did LAN or private bnet games with friends, but obviously yr friends arent always available. all in all, i would just rather play single player about 90% of the time. why is this such a hard thing for some to understand? to say that d2 was a multiplayer focused game is just wrong.

i have always considered it a multiplayer game because multiplayer is how me and everyone i knew played diablo 2. diablo 2 was a really short rpg and the multiplayer is what had me coming back long after i finished the single player game. when i played diablo 2 i was playing off a 56k modem and never had online issues. i just always found the game way more fun when i was killing demons with a group of people, rather than just me and my merc. true, sometimes i would get kicked off the internet and i couldnt play for hours and hours at a time, but it didnt hurt my gaming experience. i do agree with the loot thing though. i love what torchlight 2 is doing to prevent people from fighting over loot. it was rarely an issue for me in diablo 2 though because if i was trying to farm loot i would just put a password on my game, which prevented other people from joining