Diablo III Has Single Player Online

[samsonguy920]

Hi Samus, long time no see.
Of all the stuff I dislike about D3's online only functionality, what makes me nervous the most is more the auction house, where you can buy and sell ingame items for real money, with Blizzard taking a cut of the sale. This has so much potential for abuse by cashiered players and goldfarming companies that it will leave honest not-so-well off players in the cold. True the items should still be attainable through time and sweat, but this is also time and sweat that those players may not be able to afford to get the most out of their game.
There is potential here where the Auction House of Diablo 3 is going to end up held in control by mafia practices, and Blizzard won't care since they still get a cut.
If this doesn't catch the interest of the FTC within a year, then I have to figure that it is only a matter of time before games are only going to be for the wealthy and the rest of us can just go play jacks and streetball.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

This is actually the first I've heard about D3 requiring a constant internet connection.

Nevermind, there's plenty of other games for me to buy.

Thanks for the info Shamus.

 

[Epona]

Wow, even NES games have Pause.

It's as if they held a meeting and asked: "How can we fuck this game up?".

 

[AzraelSteel]

The thing that bothered me the most about all this is the lag in single player issue. It gets me the most because to have a "fair" loot system and lag-free single player are not incompatible with each other. I've played free-to-play games where the loot system was based on a server-client process where the gameplay is largely detached from that process (each instanced battle is run on a host computer which other players connect to directly, which has it's problems, but in a single-player only environment, is not an issue. You're maintaining a connection to a server (at least nominally), you are ensuring players get a fair enough experience, with no lag.

I may not be the most internet impoverished here (according to the recent study that was posted here, I'm right about average, with little to no dropped connections), but above passwords and pause issues (I've probably played more games without a pause than with) are nothing in comparison to the idea that my ability to succeed in the game is dependent on my ISP not deciding to throttle my speeds because I'm playing during "peak hours".

Always on internet for single player, though, as a whole is dumb. Mind, I only ever played D2 in Bnet, but that's because I never saw the benefit of playing a character that would never see others or join in with friends. But requiring everyone to be online really excludes a lot of situations outside of the "sitting at home" situation. Well, glad I got the laptop for not Diablo reasons, huh.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

The points about can't pause is kind of bullshit. Lots of games don't take place online don't let you pause (for various reasons from it being counter to gameplay to bad planning). If an emergency happens and you haven't got a physiological problem where you value bits more then real life then you leave the game and say "fuck this I've got an emergency." If its not an emergency, then open a town portal go go someplace that has no monsters. This is Diablo, there are safe spots.

I have not played a single RPG that did not feature some kind of pause function. Even games like Oblivion have the decency to pause when you open a menu or your inventory. You do realise that the entire point of having a pause function in the first place is so that you don't have to inconvenience yourself by running or TPing to a safe spot every time the phone rings? People have every right to complain about the loss of this functionality. Would you rock up to a crowd who were angry about a bus not coming and tell them, 'You still have legs, start walking'?

 

[dave1004]

Let's see...

First problem: Internet connection. Mine's a cheap ass satellite connection (It's this or dial-up!) that gives me 200 MB/24H. Over exceeding this limit causes the "FAP" (Fair Access Policy) to take control, reducing you download speed from 512 KB/s to 24 KB/s. FYI: Dial-up is roughly 56 KB/s.

Second problem: Internet Connection! My Internet's about as stable as a refrigerator balanced on a coke bottle on a 45 degree slope...made of Teflon. (Where the hell did I hear that from?), which means it tends to shut off...if a cloud passes over the satellite dish.

WELL BOYS, NO DIABLO THREE FOR HILLBILLIES LIKE ME, hurr hurr hur. I guess I'll just move away from my farm, abandoning my family, friends and work to go live somewhere with high-speed.

Oh! WAIT, one final kicker. You know my satellite internet connection? Yeah? 3 year contract, bi**h. At 79.99$ a month. Terminating the contract costs roughly 900$, plus any remaining months. Only two years to go! Whee!

Edit: My internet provider is Hughes.net, fyi.

Double Edit: 56 KB/s. Whoops.

 

[Zakarath]

Yeah, stuff like this is the reason I'm perfectly happy Valve got ahold of Dota 2 instead of blizzard. Seems Valve's fast on the road to becoming the last company with standards.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Single player has lag and you can't pause?
Not only are they hinging the game on feeble unreliabilities but taking away the very basic functionality.

Well truly this must be the way forward in game design innovation...

 

[Sean951]

Keep in mind people... This IS still in beta, and changes WILL be made as per the recommendations. If I remember, they don't even have a release date ready.

 

[Phishfood]

Lets add a point here.

Diablo 3 costs a finite ammount of money. Running online servers so that I can play my game for the rest of time costs an infinite amount of money. You don't need to be a math genius to see how that is going to work out.

 

[Sean951]

Lets add a point here.

Diablo 3 costs a finite ammount of money. Running online servers so that I can play my game for the rest of time costs an infinite amount of money. You don't need to be a math genius to see how that is going to work out.

The moment it stops being profitable is the moment they release a patch allowing offline single player and start shutting down servers.

 

[That PC Guy]

once they decide to make this one into a real singleplayer game and excise all the bullshit aka "features" i'll cough up the cash. until then they can choke on my schlong. there's enough games out there to occupy what little free time i have.

 

[Centrophy]

Hmm, okay from all the responses here complaining that there is no pause I feel the need to explain things. In a nutshell, they turned Diablo into Guild Wars. That's it, they've decided to change genres and go the MO (as opposed to MMO) route of gaming. I don't agree with this decision but I was never a big fan of loot whoring-dungeon crawlers. Now, could the player pause in Guild Wars? No. Could the player pause in Phantasy Star Online? No. From what I recall the player could not pause in Monster Hunter Tri either even when playing offline.

Now as for their reasons for changing to this genre. I like to think it's a form of keeping control on "their" product. (I won't go into the whole software ownership, EULAs, and the rental for life policies that are rampant in gaming right now.) The other glaringly obvious reason is as a form of DRM. I think it will be quite difficult for crackers to make a server emulator if all the loot tables and possibly mob AI are stored online. Just look at AION's emulation servers right now. To this day there are still mobs and NPCs with only basic AI, broken quests, and loot is still missing. That game was released quite some time ago and it is still difficult to get a full featured, just like retail, experience.

All I know is that I won't be purchasing it and I want to see more people bringing up these complaints and emailing the company. Let them know why you won't be purchasing the game. I don't think it will help for Diablo 3, but if they get enough of a backlash perhaps in the next title they will include a proper single-player experience. Ah who am I kidding, they're going to make a mint off of this release anyway to our detriment.

Just to clarify; I won't be purchasing this title.

 

[plugav]

Whether "impossibly inconvenient" or "not really that bad," playing online by yourself is possibly the saddest form of gaming ever imagined.

 

[Twilight_guy]

The points about can't pause is kind of bullshit. Lots of games don't take place online don't let you pause (for various reasons from it being counter to gameplay to bad planning). If an emergency happens and you haven't got a physiological problem where you value bits more then real life then you leave the game and say "fuck this I've got an emergency." If its not an emergency, then open a town portal go go someplace that has no monsters. This is Diablo, there are safe spots.

The one about username and password is also kind of bullshit. Remembering your password and name is handy nut not necessary. Unless your superlazy then its an extra 30 seconds. That's not really a valid argument since there are other far more egregious issues that could be noted. Also, security and convenience are at odds with on another you sacrifice one to get the other. It's up for debate weather this is a worth sacrificing but I'm not going to complain for minimally invasive security feature add-on after the shitstorm that Sony and other went through not that long ago.

I wonder how many people actually play using mods and how many make them? It'd be interesting to see the numbers. I suspect most people don't have the gumption to make mods but I don't know about people using them.

I also want to know how many people in Blizzard's potential customers don't have a reliable connection to the internet. Lots of people throw around that there internet sucks but I want to see what the numbers are and also see what connection speeds are tolerable. I really want to know whether this is the vocal minority or some notable portion.

You sure are expecting others to provide numbers only a google search away. But I'll show you what I have to put up with on a light week of internet bullshit.

Spoiler: click for image

Somehow I doubt if there is a reliable source of news on percentage of gamers who use mods or the specific quality of their internet that can be found so easily. Aside, from that. I know some people's internet connections suck what with poor service and all. I don't care. one case does not a statistically significant group make. I want more then just some angry people saying that their individual connections are not good. Also, why the heck do you think logs form... 5 days of various interruptions mean anything to me. That gives me neither percentages nor the generally reliability of the connection. So it gets disconnected. Does that ell me general bandwidth does that tell em what kind of bandwidth Diablo 3 needs? I know you might get dropped but I have no idea what that means. Will you be dropped for a day? for a week? for 1 minute? The concept of "bad" here is as nebulous as the percentage of people who have "bad".

On top of that. Yes, yes I do expect numbers, sometimes. In an argument if someone claims X its there responsibility to show me evidence of X or to prove it. This article is not about those numbers per say so I don't expect it to have them but when I do hear such an argument I would like to see numbers. This was just an idle thought though and if I were inclined enough I'd go looking for them. When this argument is thrown around and there are no numbers I have no idea if people are talking out of their asses or not. Being the internet, I'm suspicious of every claim.

 

[JesterRaiin]

What to say... All i can think of is this.

 

[Low Key]

Also this is an interesting article about the deeper reasoning why they are doing this, albeit somewhat long: http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-one

Holy shit, I can't believe I just spent 2 hours reading that. "Somewhat long" isn't a very good description. Good read nonetheless though. Too bad my expectations of the future of gaming has dropped dramatically because of it.

 

[RikuoAmero]

Okay, Blizzard, I've been playing World of Warcraft and there are several things that annoy me.
1) Disconnections. If my internet drops for about a minute, I'm booted back to the log in screen. Although, to be fair, this is more the fault of my ISP.
2) Lag. There have been times when my internet is behaving itself but I still get atrocious ping times. Enemies ten meters away get a free attack against me, and once the lag dies down, sometimes I'm hit about six or seven times simultaneously, sometimes resulting in instant death.
3) Lack of true mods. I have heard about UI mods but there are no total conversions or anything of the like.

I am willing to put up with that, because its an MMO. By nature, an online multiplayer game has these problems.

Now you want to throw these disadvantages into a single player game? What am I getting in return to counter these negative points? For example, if I buy a game on Steam, I can't re-sell it, but in exchange, Valve allow me to play it on any computer and re-download it as many times as I want.

What you're doing here Blizzard is giving us single-players all of the disadvantages of a MMO but without anything positive to balance it.

 

[Twilight_guy]

The points about can't pause is kind of bullshit. Lots of games don't take place online don't let you pause (for various reasons from it being counter to gameplay to bad planning). If an emergency happens and you haven't got a physiological problem where you value bits more then real life then you leave the game and say "fuck this I've got an emergency." If its not an emergency, then open a town portal go go someplace that has no monsters. This is Diablo, there are safe spots.

The one about username and password is also kind of bullshit. Remembering your password and name is handy nut not necessary. Unless your superlazy then its an extra 30 seconds. That's not really a valid argument since there are other far more egregious issues that could be noted. Also, security and convenience are at odds with on another you sacrifice one to get the other. It's up for debate weather this is a worth sacrificing but I'm not going to complain for minimally invasive security feature add-on after the shitstorm that Sony and other went through not that long ago.

I wonder how many people actually play using mods and how many make them? It'd be interesting to see the numbers. I suspect most people don't have the gumption to make mods but I don't know about people using them.

I also want to know how many people in Blizzard's potential customers don't have a reliable connection to the internet. Lots of people throw around that there internet sucks but I want to see what the numbers are and also see what connection speeds are tolerable. I really want to know whether this is the vocal minority or some notable portion.

As for pause. I is annoying to have your character die every time you need to handle something. And it trains people to play "marathon sessions" to get anything done.

On to the password. Great that you know buzzwords like "egregious," "At odds," and "shitstorm." But it doesn't matter. This is a single player component of a game we are talking about right? Why do you need a password on a save game file that could be stored on your hard disk. In fact asking for a password to play offline is asking for more trouble from key loggers then there needs to be. No hacker is going to hack into your computer to steal you level 35 wizard single player file, they want your online password and you juicy online niblets.

Honestly 30 seconds? Its established you might get logged off a lot. so lets say you need to log back in on average 6 times a day. that's 180 seconds or 3 minutes each day. Lets say they sell only 5 million copies. That is 15000000 million minutes of life bleed from the earth each day. Each day they would be wasting over 10 thousand days of paying customers time. And that is a low estimate I have spent a long time looking for lost passwords.

If someone wants to play single player there is already a good chance they are not playing online because they cant. Why punish them by forcing them to be online anyway?

Personally I never had a problem with Diablo 2 where you couldn't pause either and I think pauses are kind of unnecessary because Diablo has towns. Also, Marathon sessions in a blizzard game... haha, WoW. It's certainly annoying to not have pauses and something they could have improved on but it's far below the kind of thing an article like this should comment on. He's using this as fodder for an argument that should focus on major issues. "They don't have pause" is going to chop down a tree and wading trough the forest to find the smallest one possible then complaining there are no good trees.

I also know words like "ad hominem." The issue of whether or not online requirement for single player is stupid (it is) is not the topic the issue of this article using the fact that the program lacking a minor convenience feature as a major talking point is at issue. Like the above I see it as a huge nit-pick and using a minor feature to try and say and say that the game sucks.

I'm sorry but you're really stretching yourself with that last part their. First of all, your conflating the argument that the reliability sucks and sneakily replacing an argument with a strawman. Even as such, the minor amount of trouble caused to end user is measures in minutes or seconds, something that barley registers on most people's minds. It's up for debate but if people are playing the game then there likely going to spend the vast majority of their time actually playing. Aside from that, stop trying to circumvent my argument by distributing it over a set of numbers you just came up with. Stop trying to make my argument about total lost time and not individual inconvenience. Stop trying to have to both ways by arguing that you need to enter your password a lot and looking for lost passwords is hard (if you type it in 6 times a day its going to stick in your mind).

Also stop trying to make my argument about something that its not, mainly that online single player is bad or not. I pointed out two parts of the article I took issue with because I see them as nit-picks. I have an opinion, go deal with it.

 

[RikuoAmero]

Lets add a point here.

Diablo 3 costs a finite ammount of money. Running online servers so that I can play my game for the rest of time costs an infinite amount of money. You don't need to be a math genius to see how that is going to work out.

The moment it stops being profitable is the moment they release a patch allowing offline single player and start shutting down servers.

Why would they release the offline patch? Once its not profitable anymore, there would be no money coming to pay for development of a patch. They don't need to release it, after all, the games would already have been sold, so there's no gain for them.