Some players might not have access to a stable internet connection. What should a player do if, say, the internet wiring in his house is flawed?
?Erm? upgrade the wiring in his house?? suggests Wilson. ?I mean, in this day and age the notion that there?s this a whole vast majority of players out there that don?t have online connectivity ? this doesn?t really fly any more."
Wow, way to show consolation for your fans.
?I mean, at our hotel, there?s nine wi-fi networks that I can access. Just from the hotel! And they?re all public ? they?re all paid ? but they?re pretty cheap, and they?re all publicly available. So the notion that there?s just tons and tons of people out there that aren?t connected ? isn?t? I don?t think is really accurate.?
What kind of hotels do they go to? Most hotels are capped at like 10kbps. Plus, who would go to a hotel to play a video game anyway?
Wilson also told us some of the philosophical and practical reasons behind the decision not to include any sort of offline mode.
?There?s two basic problems with us doing that,? said Wilson. ?One is players default immediately to that. So, they basically unintentionally opt out of all the cooperative experience, all the trading experience, and the core of Diablo is a circle-trading game. So for us we?ve always viewed it as an online game ? 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??
Seriously? Telling people how to play your game? That's ridiculous. I don't care if Blizzard thinks playing online is a better experience. I should be able to play offline if I want.
?You?ve got to make choices about what you want to do, and sometimes those choices are going to make some people unhappy, but if you feel like it?s what is the right thing to do to making a better product then you have to do it,? he says.
?An online experience is what we want to provide for this game. Every choice you make is going to omit some part of the audience. Some people don?t like fantasy games, so should we have not made Diablo a fantasy game, because some people don?t like that? Some people don?t like barbarians. Should we not have put a barbarian in the game because some people don?t like it??
"Some people don?t like fantasy games, so should we have not made Diablo a fantasy game, because some people don?t like that?" What great logic.
?If we allow an Offline mode, it changes the structure of the data that we have to put on the user?s system. Essentially we would have to put our server architecture onto the client so that it can run its own personal server. Doing that essentially is one of the reasons why Diablo 2 was a much easier game to hack than obviously any other game you?d mention and so it?s what led to extensive cheating and item dupes and things like that.?
Something from the first link: "Create the option to create an entirely offline character. A character that can?t then be imported into an online game, one that can?t invite others to join in. That way any of the concerns about those finding ways to artificially improve their characters and then dominate online (something that really doesn?t seem a massive issue in opt-in co-op, but there we are) are removed, and anyone who just wants to solo the game can do so."
