id Software Praises "Always On" in Diablo 3

[Baresark]

Given that he seems utterly incapable of stepping outside his shoes for even the briefest period of time, I have to agree with you Baresark: It is a lost cause.

It's kind of funny that you would say that, safely nailed into your own single player shoes.

LoL, and the debate continues.... I mean, calling it not single player just because it requires an online connection is just semantics at this point. But, requiring a game to always connected when it is in fact no different than any other single player experience is just bollocks. Also, these shoes we are nailed into are very fun and safe shoes. If they were to do this exact same thing to Skyrim, it would be a single player game with an optional online component, that unfairly wanted all of it's customers to be signed in just to play a game by themselves.

 

[Vault101]

I'm sure these guys don't all have perfect internet connections at home, and I'm sure a few of them even like gaming on laptops on journeys. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

"Imagine picking up a game and it's automatically updated."

Gee, I wonder if there'S anoThEr service thAt does this but still has an offline Mode and doesn't boot you out of a game if your connection drops.

I see what you did there

my BIG problem with this is the internet in the world just hasnt caught up yet...in 10 years or so mabye but right now no fucking way!

 

[Royas]

The people who describe this as "DRM" are starting to piss me off. It is NOT DRM. It is an online-only game. There is no separate single-player mode that requires some kind of online check-in server. You play ONLINE, you just play BY YOURSELF.

Personally, I think Blizzard has hugely underestimated the number of people who like to play Diablo alone or in small LAN groups, which makes this potentially a really dumb business decision. Diablo and Diablo 2 came out in a world with far less online competition, so, yeah, the online portion did get rather a lot of play even though it was pretty lousy from my experience. Now, they've decided to put Diablo 3 in competition with every MMO, including their own, while simultaneously eliminating most of its appeal to the single-player or lan-coop groups. In essence, they have marginalized the Diablo franchise, which is sure as hell not going to bring about some kind of gaming revolution.

But Blizzard has been proving how out-of-touch they are since they made the announcement.

We are calling it DRM because that's the only reason for a game like this to have an always on internet connection. It's not needed for single player gaming, so making it required for SP gaming isn't really indicated. What other reason could they possibly have? The reasons Blizzard have been giving thus far have been pretty clear bull**** with little bearing on actual reality.

Blizzard has shown some bad colors here. Lying, acting innocent when they are far from it, trying to hide DRM as a benefit... I'm deeply disappointed in what was once a favorite developer. They've changed a lot.

 

[EasySt17]

Awwww, isn't that cute, they think their opinion actually matters :3
When's the last time you released something important id? ... I tought so.

It was a little bit shorter than the last time Blizzard released anything important.

What about Starcraft 2?

Sucks... speaking even as a rabid Starcraft fan...

 

[Baresark]

I'm sure these guys don't all have perfect internet connections at home, and I'm sure a few of them even like gaming on laptops on journeys. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

"Imagine picking up a game and it's automatically updated."

Gee, I wonder if there'S anoThEr service thAt does this but still has an offline Mode and doesn't boot you out of a game if your connection drops.

I see what you did there

my BIG problem with this is the internet in the world just hasnt caught up yet...in 10 years or so mabye but right now no fucking way!

There will be no "catching up". As time goes on, the world is facing a broadband shortage. More people than the current setup can support. And then there is the institution of "broadband as a right" which will only make that day come sooner. Cloud gaming is not a possibility in the foreseeable future, and as time goes on and more people become connected, we actually get further away, not closer to that goal.

 

[Royas]

I was more or less trying to convey that it is a very common practice. Even Steam doesn't guarantee you access to your games. If the Steam server went down, and you can't play your games, then you really can't complain, since you said that was fine whenever you use Steam. It's a non-issue, since every time you play a game (not just ass creed) and agree to those TOSs and such, you are saying "yeah, that's fine," hence is why I said it is a non-issue. It's a very, VERY common practice. You really should read a TOS or EULA for a game sometime... some of the stuff in it might surprise you.

Just because it's in an EULA or a TOS doesn't make it right or even legal. Just because you agree to it doesn't make that agreement enforceable.

I guarantee that even though (for example) Valve has part of the Steam agreements saying "we can turn this off and not give you access to your games anytime we want" they'd get their pants sued off if they actually tried turning the whole service off.

Yes, you don't expect an online only game to be up 24/7, if only because servers need maintaining. The issue here isn't that the servers won't always be up, it's that the servers being up shouldn't be an issue for single player gaming. It's a arbitrarily added single point of failure, which in engineer speak translates into "really crappy design". Online access is a point of failure for MMO's, because that's a central feature of an MMO. It's part of the intrinsic design of the game, without which the game will not function as expected. Online access as a point of failure for D3, however, isn't an intrinsic part of the game play. It's an added issue, only needed if you want to play multiplayer.

This isn't World of Warcraft, and I'm disgusted that they are shoving this DRM crap down our throats in the guise of added service.

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

Oh yes... I like being "forced" to do something. I'll be passing on this title until it goes down, if at all.

 

[Coldie]

OT: I'm not a huge fan of Always-on DRM. I've yet to hear a good reason why Bliz is forcing this on the players.

Simple: it worked for World of Warcraft and they liked it. Both the players and Blizzard liked it.

A secure and completely level field for all players, live statistical data flow, immediate hotfixes and 100% patch coverage. The only problem is keeping servers running without a subscription, so they had to add the real money AH.

Since it's not actually DRM they don't see what the big deal is. You can't pirate a game's server, so they don't need any DRM anyway (beside the Warden, of course).

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

OT: I'm not a huge fan of Always-on DRM. I've yet to hear a good reason why Bliz is forcing this on the players.

Simple: it worked for World of Warcraft and they liked it. Both the players and Blizzard liked it.

A secure and completely level field for all players, live statistical data flow, immediate hotfixes and 100% patch coverage. The only problem is keeping servers running without a subscription, so they had to add the real money AH.

Since it's not actually DRM they don't see what the big deal is. You can't pirate a game's server, so they don't need any DRM anyway (beside the Warden, of course).

WoW was a MMO. Are they trying to turn Diablo into a MMO?

Also, bliz doesn't have a... stellar track record when dealing with getting servers back online. At least from what I've seen.

 

[Aprilgold]

If your paying $60 for a game, you should have the choice to play it however the fuck you want.

If this is the future, then I may have to stop playing games. Not because I want to stop, but because the publishers/developers will not let me play the games I buy.

And the reason for it is just fucking stupid. They doing it just because it lets them update automatically? What's wrong with simply having the launchers have a "check for updates" button? Why can't I decide what the game does on my system? The last thing I want are programs updating themselves without my knowledge.

But Blizzard will get away with it. Diablo 3 will sell like hot-cakes, just like all of Blizzard's other games. Sure people will complain, but chances are they'll just buy it anyway.

Don't worry, you can route the 60$ you WOULD have spent on this for Saints Row the Third, where its all about player choice.

 

[AsurasFinest]

*snip*

Ah, Penny Arcade. Always missing the point (yet again someone forgets that the servers you have to connect to can go down) and always not funny. Why do people read these things?

Not only is that comic entirely on point (No one practical cares about the occasional server outage) but Penny Arcade is hilarious.

Oh yeah noone cares.
I can only hope that something akin to the PSN outage happens to the servers D3 runs on.
How do you like having your game online at all times after something like that can happen and has been shown to happen to companies of Blizzards size

 

[Coldie]

WoW was a MMO. Are they trying to turn Diablo into a MMO?

Also, bliz doesn't have a... stellar track record when dealing with getting servers back online. At least from what I've seen.

So it would seem, yes. Diablo 3 does everything a MMO would do, except the "Massive" bit. Combat, loot, random map generation is all handled by the server, while all the client has to do is sit there and look pretty.

As for the servers, hopefully it won't be as bad with maintenance and availability. I mean, the game does not have to worry about a huge persistent world with high player concurrency, as all it has is tons and tons of tiny 4 player instances. There's no need for a 4-5 server cluster for each "realm", so it should be easily scalable and completely homogenous. Restarts would be done transparently and a server failure would mean another server could pick up the slack, instead of having half the game world crash somewhere.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

WoW was a MMO. Are they trying to turn Diablo into a MMO?

Also, bliz doesn't have a... stellar track record when dealing with getting servers back online. At least from what I've seen.

So it would seem, yes. Diablo 3 does everything a MMO would do, except the "Massive" bit. Combat, loot, random map generation is all handled by the server, while all the client has to do is sit there and look pretty.

As for the servers, hopefully it won't be as bad with maintenance and availability. I mean, the game does not have to worry about a huge persistent world with high player concurrency, as all it has is tons and tons of tiny 4 player instances. There's no need for a 4-5 server cluster for each "realm", so it should be easily scalable and completely homogenous. Restarts would be done transparently and a server failure would mean another server could pick up the slack, instead of having half the game world crash somewhere.

My point is this: They had offline for the last game, didn't they? Why not allow it here?

Again, some people have dodgy internet connection, and this prevents them from enjoying the game in the same way.

EDIT: I'm more shocked people aren't more upset about he whole "no mods" thing. Isn't that the lifeblood of PC gaming?

 

[Grey_Focks]

If Blizzard can make people stop worrying and learn to love the bomb

I love you a little for that.

OT: Well, I personally don't care about the always online bit, as I tend to play all my games connected to the interwebs anyway, but it's still an inconvenience.

Now the removal of skill trees and stat points still pisses me off to no end though.

 

[Coldie]

My point is this: They had offline for the last game, didn't they? Why not allow it here?

Again, some people have dodgy internet connection, and this prevents them from enjoying the game in the same way.

The sales pitch is that your singleplayer character can now be freely and transparently used in multiplayer. I don't know the full reasoning, but I'd guess it's "because it is cheaper (in the long run)":

They have to use the server for multiplayer, to prevent D2's rampant duping and cheating. If they also do offline singleplayer, it would have to reimplement the server code in the client, exposing the server's logic. Also, since the client now has the server code, any serverside fixes also have to be rolled out for the clients, and client patches are expensive.

Bonus: Piracy is impossible. Pirates will have to either buy the game or create a server emulator. And those are terrible.

 

[loc978]

"Diablo 3 will make everyone else accept the fact you have to be connected,"
"If you have a juggernaut, you can make change. I'm all for that. If we could force people to always be connected when you play the game, and then have that be acceptable, awesome."

Translation: "I as an employee of a game publisher want to see people stop complaining about DRM. I want to require my paying customers to jump through hoops to prove they aren't pirating my games."

"In the end, it's better for everybody. Imagine picking up a game and it's automatically updated. Or there's something new you didn't know about, and you didn't have to click away. It's all automatically there,"
"But it does take juggernauts like Diablo 3 to make change."

Translation: "I want to deliver official updates to my players and use them as a test bed for reliability issues. Also, I don't want my less experienced players to have to learn how to use their computer in order to patch my game.
If some of my customers like the game the way it is this update, and the new one changes that, I don't care. If my new update breaks one of their player-made mods, I don't care about that either.
I'm also glad that a current industry giant is testing this delivery system for me... my company might just make a mess of it."

"There will be a few people who will resent the fact you have to be online to play a single-player game,"
"But it'll change."

Translation: "This is the future of gaming, if you don't like it, learn to or fuck off."

^He is right about that last part, though.^
Blizzard is hugely popular and they have a very skilled group of designers. Soon enough, people with monthly limited connections will be paying by the byte for DRM just to play single-player games. People with unreliable connections will have that unreliability transferred directly into their single-player games... and that's a damn shame.
Personally, I'll be watching from a distance, playing my older games and cursing people like Tim Willits. Diablo 3 doesn't interest me (D2 was a step backward in design philosophy as far as I'm concerned... D3 looks like another), but this controversy certainly does... even though I know I'm on the losing side.

 

[mordar]

Bonus: Piracy is impossible. Pirates will have to either buy the game or create a server emulator. And those are terrible.

it didn't worked for WoW since it was a huge, big (more than 20 and still counting gigs) sized world with so much scripted events and npcs that actually doing the whole reverse engineering it's the task of at least several trained people

Diablo 3?, if it is to be believed, has chapters, an ending and a limited world, with a limited set of scripted events and npc's, it's not massive by any extension of the world and the loot is randomly generated from a pool of possible items, did you play MU online? it's exactly the same and MU has been proven not difficult to emulate (by the sheer size of "private" servers and how well developed and updated they are in comparison to the real deal)

Diablo 3 and by proxy all the games that preceded it, love or hate it it's a glorified Grindfest (albeit extremely fun) game with ramdonly generated loot and plettora of critters to destroy, they aren't smart, they don't sudenly have scripted events, they don't suddenly have huge inmense raids with bosses that have more than 10 scripted tactics, they are just there to kill you, period

so I doubt pirates will find it difficult to emulate and pirate Diablo 3 as opposed to WoW, one is massive by the scope of the items, the later is massive by the scope of....well....each and Every single thing

 

[thahat]

As a european with about a second of "downtime" every minute or so(which still kicks me from ubidrm infected games every time), I have this to say:

Fuck that bullshit.

luckally we all know, there wil ALLWAYS be an alternative. always on my bum. drm like this is still like shooting yourself in the foot, even for blizzard.

 

[Warachia]

I was more or less trying to convey that it is a very common practice. Even Steam doesn't guarantee you access to your games. If the Steam server went down, and you can't play your games, then you really can't complain, since you said that was fine whenever you use Steam. It's a non-issue, since every time you play a game (not just ass creed) and agree to those TOSs and such, you are saying "yeah, that's fine," hence is why I said it is a non-issue. It's a very, VERY common practice. You really should read a TOS or EULA for a game sometime... some of the stuff in it might surprise you.

THAT'S WHY STEAM HAS AN OFFLINE MODE. Even if they didn't, it's really easy to open the games without steam as they games you install are on your computer, just create a second shortcut linking directly to them, and of course you could complain if the steam servers went down, why wouldn't you?

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's depressing that this "Always On" DRM will inevitably become popular. I can see it being forced down our throats.

Of course Mr. Willits has every right to love it; it's a system that benefits him exclusively. He doesn't ever have to worry about getting fucked over by the corporate black hole that is "tech support", or being excluded from a special club that can't play the game for no reason other than total corporate supremacy.

And I find it hilarious that he thinks people will one day embrace that as a GOOD thing.
Perhaps with a lengthy campaign of nonsense, but such endeavors are already shockingly effective in other fields (most notably politics and advertisement)

When people accept that, then gaming will die only to be reborn as something worse: An eternity-service riddled with overpriced in-game DLC and grind designed to monopolize their time to keep them in the marketplace longer (because once these assclowns establish the standard of video gaming as a service, they must compete each other as services; exclusivity is the surest path to massive profits).

*sigh*
Why can't games just be games again? Oh right, money.
Even when you're the biggest, most financially successful company in the history of gaming, it's never enough. Cripes, I feel like fucking Ortega y Gasset here, and instead of a self-serving bloated government, it's self-serving bloated publishers.