id Software Praises "Always On" in Diablo 3

[Mariena]

And play the hell out of it for many years to come.

well until blizzard switch off the servers you have to connect too, you mean?

or you move house and your new isp/phone supplier is slow to move.

or you find yourself in tighter financial situation and suddenly, good fast internet starts looking like a luxury you maybe cant afford?

or a drunk friend/hyper child/angry spouse spills *something* on your router?

or your ISP just has one of those spastic nights where something dies between you and the gateway?

or heavy storms hit your area?

The D2 servers are still running, and that's from 2000. I'll start worrying when they shut those down. Actually, no, I won't be worrying at all as I'll move on to a different game.

Very interesting situations, especially something being spilled on my router (*snicker*). If I'm in a tight financial situation I'm not gonna spend my days playing Diablo 3.

I'm dependent on being connected to the internet 24/7, so one more thing to add to the mix isn't gonna change anything for me.

Doesn't bother me at all. I've got worse things to worry about than my internet connection interrupting my game..

 

[mirasiel]

And play the hell out of it for many years to come.

well until blizzard switch off the servers you have to connect too, you mean?

or you move house and your new isp/phone supplier is slow to move.

or you find yourself in tighter financial situation and suddenly, good fast internet starts looking like a luxury you maybe cant afford?

or a drunk friend/hyper child/angry spouse spills *something* on your router?

or your ISP just has one of those spastic nights where something dies between you and the gateway?

or heavy storms hit your area?

The D2 servers are still running, and that's from 2000. I'll start worrying when they shut those down. Actually, no, I won't be worrying at all as I'll move on to a different game.

Very interesting situations, especially something being spilled on my router (*snicker*).

I'm dependent on being connected to the internet 24/7, so one more thing to add to the mix isn't gonna change anything for me.

Doesn't bother me at all. I've got worse things to worry about than my internet connection interrupting my game..

well thats good for you, my examples stand though.

This. Is. A. Terrible. Idea.

 

[Mariena]

And play the hell out of it for many years to come.

well until blizzard switch off the servers you have to connect too, you mean?

or you move house and your new isp/phone supplier is slow to move.

or you find yourself in tighter financial situation and suddenly, good fast internet starts looking like a luxury you maybe cant afford?

or a drunk friend/hyper child/angry spouse spills *something* on your router?

or your ISP just has one of those spastic nights where something dies between you and the gateway?

or heavy storms hit your area?

The D2 servers are still running, and that's from 2000. I'll start worrying when they shut those down. Actually, no, I won't be worrying at all as I'll move on to a different game.

Very interesting situations, especially something being spilled on my router (*snicker*).

I'm dependent on being connected to the internet 24/7, so one more thing to add to the mix isn't gonna change anything for me.

Doesn't bother me at all. I've got worse things to worry about than my internet connection interrupting my game..

well thats good for you, my examples stand though.

This. Is. A. Terrible. Idea.

Oh I never denied that.

though I can understand where the opposition is coming from. Not everyone is blessed with a perfect internet connection.

Among other things I can think of.

 

[Sjakie]

As a fan of Diablo 2 it hurts me to say this:

To hell with Diablo 3.

I am never gonna support tactics that take away control over MY games.

And fuck Ubisoft and Assasins Creed while were at it for using those same tactics.

 

[JaredXE]

Wait....Tim Willits is a rapist? Because I think that's what he just said. That if somebody big enough forces you, you will learn to love it.

Nope. Sorry. Still not buying Diablo 3. I don't want to be a gold farmer for Blizzard and I don't want to be always on in order to prove that I legitimately bought the game.

 

[Xanthious]

Well this Tim fella can kindly go bugger himself with a flaming bat if you ask me. As can Blizzard for the decisions they've made with Diablo 3 over the past couple of weeks. The only thing you are going to force people to do by trying to force always on DRM on them is either drive a good chunk of them from your games or drive them to piracy. Sure some people might download a crack to be able to play it and still pay for it out of some sense of doing the right thing but most people I know will just save the money and pirate the damn thing if they are going to have to crack it anyway.

As for me, I will probably just avoid it. ActiBlizzard is quickly going down the same path as Bioware. They are a once great company that are compromising what made them great in the name of greed.

Thankfully, the landscape has greatly changed since the release of Diablo 2 and there are a slew of alternate choices out there besides Diablo 3. Torchlight 2 is looking to be a damn fine alternative as is Bastion and I'm sure with a bit of digging there are plenty of other equally amazing games that are made by people who love gaming and not large companies who stopped loving gaming a long time ago after being blinded by greed.

In short, fuck this Tim guy and fuck Blizzard it will be a cold day in Hell before I pay 60 dollars to rent a game. There are plenty of other devs out there who are more than happy to sell me a quality game and NOT screw me over.

 

[The_Emperor]

Why buy a game that you don't technically own?
Isn't this Illegal under some technicality?

It's like like centIpad episode of south park, If you agree to the terms of conditions they probably have the ability to sew your face to a DRM machine if you want to play the game.

 

[EvilScoop]

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.

Indeed, that would be a travesty and certainly would be cause for grievous rebuttal. But I'm sure the old and vastly expansive Oblivion multiplayer community wouldn't mind.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Meh, whatever. I don't see the point though. Is it against piracy? Because it doesn't work against piracy. Nothing will stop piracy, period.
But it doesn't really bother me. Blizzard's probably got servers that won't just die and not let you play when you want, and anyone who plays a Diablo game is pretty much guaranteed to have internets accesses.

badgercuntdick

 

[Omnific One]

Bweh. I find the biggest advocates against "online only" that shout they won't ever play the game for that reason, will be the players picking the game up on release date.

Kinda reminds me of that "boycot MW2 because there are no dedicated servers! steam group" screenshot with everyone in it playing MW2..

The sad thing is you are completely right. Just watch.

 

[raankh]

Given that I haven't enjoyed an id game since Quake 2, I couldn't care less what this dude says I will do or what I'll accept. He obviously has no clue.

I can't play these [edit: online-only] games whenever I want, it's not that I won't. Despite living in about as connected an area as you get (urban Sweden), there will be times (evidenced by experience with muliplayer games) that the network will be down, having critically failed at some impasse along the dizzying routes from my network card to Blizzards servers. That is the fucking nature of the Internets, and nothing id or Blizzard can do will change that.

I won't cash out full-price for the game, that is what I will not do-- since I can't reasonably use the product whenever I want, I shan't be paying full price for it.

Which means I wait until the price drops (and the bugs are ironed out). I've been waiting for about ten years, so a couple of more won't hurt me one bit. Meanwhile, there's Torchlight 2.

If they drop the always-on-drm (as a professional software developer I call bullshit on all the other purported benefits or reasons), I will re-pre-order a Collectors Edition.

 

[SonofSeth]

This changes absolutely nothing for me, well, back to checking the inbox for a beta invite.

Oh, if you want to complain, go complain to your shoddy internet provider.

ISPs only listen to the head of state. They never listen to consumers.

Well, you could always vote with your wallet, oh wait, you couldn't get online then, aaawwww!

 

[Inkidu]

You know this forum heckled me when I said that Blizzard was the worst possible thing in video games today. I just think I might be a wee bit right on this one. I knew they would pull something like this once I saw that Starcraft II was going to be three full priced installments for a single player campaign.

I said nothing good would come of it, and nothing has. They started the always online crap with SC 2's singleplayer and just wanted to keep going. And people think I'm crazy. They'll probably use force to get everyone who can have internet to get it, and people like me who basically are on a monthly allowance because I have to use Verizon mobile broadband (which is not broadbandy at all) or something slower, dodgier, and worse are stuck out in the rain It's too much to hope that it puts the Diablo project in the red and teaches them something.

Thankfully I'm just beyond Blizzard now. D2 was fun, but it's not that great.

 

[cymonsgames]

Throwing in my 2 cents, I don't care that it requires an always on internet connection. I care that they're disabling mods and legitimizing a real money auction house so they can skim from every sale. That's just evil.

 

[-Axle-]

Wait....Tim Willits is a rapist? Because I think that's what he just said. That if somebody big enough forces you, you will learn to love it.
...

LOL

In all seriousness though, I do find it sad how the whole industry continues to move towards treating all of their customers as potential criminals.

We can't return anything we buy (once opened) and soon enough you won't be able to enjoy your entertainment without being tethered constantly to the content creator.

I know I'll make no sense to some people who will quote all sorts of reasons why these measures are necessary but I can't help but envy book worms. Their industry can EASILY be copied and be taken advantage of yet you can still buy a book, open it (lol), and return it if you don't like it. You can also take it with you, lend it to a friend, sell it, buy used, etc. and there's no guilt or propaganda associated with it. Sigh.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

*facepalm*

What the fucking what? Why is stuff like "learn to love" and "forced to accept" being used in a non-sarcastic way? I can only compare this to some sort of twisted rape logic.

Okay, let's break it down slowly: say a man wants to rape a woman. However, he's not strong enough to do so reliably and get away with it. But then he sees a much bigger, stronger man who also wants to rape that same woman, and thinks that if that bigger, stronger guy can do it enough and force the woman to believe that she likes it, then the first guy can go ahead and rape her, too.

Now, the actual scenario: the head of id Software says that, if he had the power to, he would force gamers to be always online if they want to play single player games. He's not strong enough to do that, so he doesn't. But then he sees Blizzard about to try and force gamers to be online at all times, and senses that if Blizzard can force gamers to accept it, then id Software can do it, too.

Here's the problem with Willits' scheme: it thinks that there are too many similarities between the hypothetical rape and this 'always online' thing. If Blizzard forces players to always be online, and Diablo 3 still sells really well, players will still resent this policy whenever it causes problems. It won't make it any easier for id Software to implement. In fact, he's come outright and said what he hopes will happen. He's saying outright that he thinks gamers will eventually love a hated feature from a big developer that they'll accept that same feature from a smaller developer.

To continue my previous metaphor, that's the equivalent of a little guy outright telling you, "Hey, this big guy is planning to rape you. I hope he does it so well that you won't resist when I try and rape you."

Jesus Christ. And I thought the 3D Realms advertiser threatening to blacklist game reviewers was boneheaded.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

Wait....Tim Willits is a rapist? Because I think that's what he just said. That if somebody big enough forces you, you will learn to love it.

It ain't just that: he's saying that if someone big enough forces you, you'll learn to love it when a smaller someone tries to force you. I just posted my thoughts on this, but...Jesus. This whole thing just reeks of a budding PR disaster.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

This changes absolutely nothing for me, well, back to checking the inbox for a beta invite.

Oh, if you want to complain, go complain to your shoddy internet provider.

ISPs only listen to the head of state. They never listen to consumers.

Well, you could always vote with your wallet, oh wait, you couldn't get online then, aaawwww!

Then I guess it's unfortunate that around 300,000 Americans can't even get low-end broadband internet [http://www.omaha.com/article/20110519/NEWS01/705199853/1034] Turns out even if you have money, there are some otherwise perfectly normal places where you can't get reliable internet.

 

[Raddra]

Besides, this is pc gaming's fault. Pirating, hacking. Consoles are guilty, but not as bad. Us gamers made this bed, now we have to sleep in. I think I even saw piracy mentioned in this thread, and you wonder why gaming is headed this way, like the criminal asking why convenience stores have cameras.

As a developer in said industry: No, it is not your fault. It is the publishers and developers' fault for starting it and it is their fault for continuously escalating it to the point of ridiculousness. I have over $200 in games that I cannot legally play because I have lost the manuals and boxes for them; that's just *one* inconvenience DRM has cost me. Every *single one* of those games have cracks available. If I would just 'give up' and crack the game *that I paid for* I could play them. Why should I have to put up with that? Why should *you*?

Some of us in the industry recognize that fact. A lot of the developers I've spoken to don't even want DRM in their game; their publisher forces them to because they have a board to answer to. A board that they lied and spread misinformation and unsubstantiated fact to. A board that is now practically frightened of its own shadow, which doesn't understand piracy, thinks it's defeatable, and ignores all evidence to the contrary.

We have no leg to stand on when we anal probe you at the front door while thieves keep sneaking in the back window. And keep sneaking in the back window. And *have sneaked in the back window for many years running*. You make that window impassible and they make a new one. You keep pointing it out to us and we keep shrugging our shoulders and suggest that maybe we should just build a better anal probe. Why are we anally probing you? It only does *you* harm.

I can't be the only developer willing to speak out about this. I would like others to stand up and speak their minds but I'm understanding that can cost jobs. At least I have the luxury of saying so.

*awards Firgof one e-medal* Thanks for sharing that little insight. If only the industry would just grow up and accept that some things in life are inevitable. There are ways to encourage purchase.

 

[Hexley]

As far as piracy goes, stuff like this will *not* put a stop to it. It will only serve to bother players who pay for the game.