Vhite said:
I dont think that experience of D3 singleplayer will suffer anyhow (of course except when your connections starts to fall asleep) and I dont think that it can make companies to forget about singleplayer even more. Those who don't wanna singleplayer just make it shitty. I would actually like to see games do it like Counter Strike or TF2 so you would at least know that that game is not worth buying if you dont want to play multiplayer and if it had singleplayer, it would be proper one (Half-life) however this would make exceptions like Portal 2 that have good both SP and MP even more rare (thanks Valve for being such a good example).
Of course it will be cracked so it will end up only as a annoying DRM but there is still time and chance for Blizzard to remove it and even if they don't, it won't ruin the game so much.
While D3 single player may not suffer in the common sense, its the uncomfortable thought of how games are becoming according to this release that is the major concern.
what we have here is an unnecessary block for people who've constantly played games without the net or having dodgy signals. but because of multiplayer functions tied to always-online such as an AH across the game, Blizzard is forcing your hand, because they expect you to buy that Sword of demon-slaying +2. if you don't, then someone will. Never underestimate human impatience. Its how O make my living in MMORPGs.
It feels grim to me because I know Blizzard is one of the better companies out there with a masters class in core game play, so in this case its not directly messing up DIABLO III. but we all know that some companies like to be a LOT more hamfisted about what they do. Thats why i'm concerned.
Blizzard sets the example of how to make a hack and slash a nearly only multiplayer experience by proxy of making you incapable of playing it offline, so the AH's are always present. Other companies will take suit, trying to pull a semi-microtransation ploy like the RMAH while forcing always online. thing is, blizzard at least has the experience to back up anything of the sort, while other companies can get marred in SERIOUS issues of patched-in-by-accident lag, screen freezes, and just plain old crap latency days off their servers. never mind the poor genre fans out there who lose more options for them, just because of where they live.
its probably as likely that someone'll go and just make more of their games without any single player of any sort to fully capitalize on multiplayer. depending on the genre of game your playing, its already hard enough finding a worthwhile single player. insert picture of "THERE'S A SINGLE PLAYER?!" here.
TF2 and counter strike did do it right, but their genre of game was a PC-related shooter demographic- and right after the MMO players, I think the most people use to always online games ARE the shooter groups.
I've already done the MMO patch Tuesday blues. I've done the MOBA patching issues, I've been subjected to the RTS kick at pivotal match moments. but you know, they come with the territory. THEY HAVE TO BE ONLINE for all or most of what they do, LAN aside.
This Diablo III always-on DRM represents a lot of things to me. it represents how sure blizzard is of themselves, by killing off thousands of unfortunate players hopes of playing the game because they didn't have broadband. they have enough of a rep to not need DRM- pretty much everyone loves the pre-WoW games if they like the genres. it shows blizzard is entirely willing to forgo the very things and modes that made the games so far reaching in the first place- first LAN, now this. It shows just how much an eye they have on micro transactions, and trying to siphon everything they possibly can out of a game monetarily to the detriment of spreading the games own merits as far as possible. Then ID shows off that other houses are probably waiting to see the same.
It also proves my loyalty was definitely in the wrong place, and that maybe I'm a relic of a bygone era. It angers me in that people are so fair weather about it. This medium is still mold-able to the customers demands.. but not if people don't care.
Cloud gaming and an always online world is a wonderful thing- IF the worlds technology is up to standards. But even most of the industrialized world has gaping holds in the broadband wall. they must know this. Blizzard must know this. But they consider it an acceptable loss, nay, they found it as an outright SURPRISE that anyone would be mad about it being always online. it confounds me to my core, and even more so to see that others are willing to hand wave it.
Companies like blizzard can create tides. what will this one do? will it crush the grounds of PC gaming further into always-online territory much to soon, or will it be frozen over for now? I don't find it hard to be alarmist about this.
At least ill have my beloved handheld games... For now, anyway.
Vhite said:
PS: Im not in my most brightest mood right now so I may have contradicted my old post or made out something so sorry if I wrote anything like that.
Don't worry about it one bit. I was camping this page on my browser waitin' for a reply from you, to be honest. Looks like i went over the moon again.
