Diablo III's Auction House And Always-Online Aren't Going Anywhere

[Phishfood]

Well...Actually...That's a pretty legitimate reason to keep Always-On, because if they allowed offline mode, then the game would be hacked easier so people can produce their own in game items, sell them, and basically make money for no work what-so-ever. It's what happened in Diablo II's economy, only now real money is involved. I'm not going to argue for or against the auction house, but it is still a very legit reason to keep Always-On.

Simple - ban offline characters from the AH, don't have a way to import offline characters to online ones, but have a way to export online characters for offline play. Hack proof and no need for always on.

 

[klaynexas3]

Well...Actually...That's a pretty legitimate reason to keep Always-On, because if they allowed offline mode, then the game would be hacked easier so people can produce their own in game items, sell them, and basically make money for no work what-so-ever. It's what happened in Diablo II's economy, only now real money is involved. I'm not going to argue for or against the auction house, but it is still a very legit reason to keep Always-On.

Simple - ban offline characters from the AH, don't have a way to import offline characters to online ones, but have a way to export online characters for offline play. Hack proof and no need for always on.

That's not hack proof. Simply by having the game totally on a computer does it allow for the hackers to create the in game items, and then it's just a matter of getting it into the online section of the game. By holding most of the game server side, it's able to more so prevent them from being able to even create the in game items because they lack the assets necessary to make it. Not impossible to cheat, but much harder. And again, I defend neither practices of the auction house or the always online DRM, I'm simply stating there are reasons for keeping an always on policy with a real money auction house also being used.

 

[Eri]

Are they giving console players the new "features" as well? If so, fuck off. If they don't have to connect, they shouldn't get them. After all, they are supposed to be rewarding PC players for the hassle right?

 

[Phishfood]

That's not hack proof. Simply by having the game totally on a computer does it allow for the hackers to create the in game items, and then it's just a matter of getting it into the online section of the game. By holding most of the game server side, it's able to more so prevent them from being able to even create the in game items because they lack the assets necessary to make it. Not impossible to cheat, but much harder. And again, I defend neither practices of the auction house or the always online DRM, I'm simply stating there are reasons for keeping an always on policy with a real money auction house also being used.

You are missing my point - maybe online only is the only way to secure the auction house, but there is no reason we couldn't also have "offline" characters with zero access to the auction house. These could be played offline at will, we could hack away and do whatever we wanted with them. There still would be no realistic way to get things from offline to online mode, since blizzard control their own servers. Unless you were to hack into their servers, a possibility that exists now anyway, your offline assets would be stuck offline;

 

[klaynexas3]

That's not hack proof. Simply by having the game totally on a computer does it allow for the hackers to create the in game items, and then it's just a matter of getting it into the online section of the game. By holding most of the game server side, it's able to more so prevent them from being able to even create the in game items because they lack the assets necessary to make it. Not impossible to cheat, but much harder. And again, I defend neither practices of the auction house or the always online DRM, I'm simply stating there are reasons for keeping an always on policy with a real money auction house also being used.

You are missing my point - maybe online only is the only way to secure the auction house, but there is no reason we couldn't also have "offline" characters with zero access to the auction house. These could be played offline at will, we could hack away and do whatever we wanted with them. There still would be no realistic way to get things from offline to online mode, since blizzard control their own servers. Unless you were to hack into their servers, a possibility that exists now anyway, your offline assets would be stuck offline;

And you are missing my point. Those offline items they were able to reproduce from having hacked the offline portion of the game could then be used through a hack to be transferred into the online portion of the game. Without an offline version though, the hackers lack the direct means of duplicating in game gear, requiring them, if they want to hack, to have to find the code of the gear they are trying to duplicate on the servers themselves. In other words, instead of Blizzard giving them the code they could use to make these items, they are hiding even that, requiring much more work in the process of hacking.

 

[Phishfood]

And you are missing my point. Those offline items they were able to reproduce from having hacked the offline portion of the game could then be used through a hack to be transferred into the online portion of the game.

How? offline characters are stored on the local PC, online characters are stored on the server. If Blizzard don't put any way for offline characters to be imported to the online servers, there is no way to do it, without hacking the blizzard servers. If you are going to hack the blizzard servers anyway, you would just create the items directly without any need to use the offline feature.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Huh... and then this happened

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/10974978/?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=launcher&utm_campaign=d3&utm_content=left-banner

Kinda reminds me when EA said they wouldn't do steam sales on origin and then only a few weeks later did a steam sale on origin.