id Software Praises "Always On" in Diablo 3

[Lunar Templar]

id Software Praises "Always On" in Diablo 3


id Software Creative Director Tim Willits is a big fan of the "always on" DRM in Diablo 3 [http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Pc/dp/B00178630A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313005065&sr=8-1] and believes Blizzard has the muscle to force gamers to love it.

unless they're gonna beat down my door, and froce me to install the game an sign up at gun point, i'm a let my wallet do the talking and its say 'blizzard can fuck right off'

"Diablo 3 will make everyone else accept the fact you have to be connected," he told Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-10-id-software-on-always-on-internet-debate] at last week's QuakeCon. "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."
[/quote]

cept, forcing change like this, isn't how one should go about it, the people should want changes like this, not some worthless corporate ass clown that's out of touch with reality ramming it down their throats cause 'they're worried about piracy', news flash, they're gonna get around it regardless

 

[BabyRaptor]

"...and believes Blizzard has the muscle to force gamers to love it."

Fuck you. Fuck your couch. And Fuck a couple other things of yours for good measure.

I am not a sheep, nor will I be treated like one.

 

[Gitty101]

I was mad about this at first, but then I realised I ALWAYS have an Internet connection and am always online. MOST people have access to a stable Internet connection these days, so this really isn't a big issue. whilst I don't agree with the principle of it, I don't feel it's really going to inconvenience anyone.

 

[TheMadTypist]

I enjoyed Diablo II. Not getting Diablo III. This is why. So, id-man, you're welcome to your opinion, but if you follow Blizzard with your titles then I'll stop buying them too.

I may have to accept bullshit like this down the road, but for now, even steam has an offline mode.

Besides, there's no Necromancer. MOSTLY-USELESS SKELETON ARMY, ATTACK!

 

[Xannieros]

-10 Rep Points for id software from me.

My stance on it is... they have a extremely poor reason for it.

"'It?s the trend that we?ve been moving towards,' said Senior Producer Alex Mayberry. 'Obviously StarCraft 2 did it, WoW authenticates also. It?s kind of the way things are, these days. The world of gaming is not the same as it was when Diablo 2 came out.'"

So the "world changed"? Last time I checked not EVERYONE had an stable internet connection. I have not seen one interview where ANYTHING they've talked was about people without internet connections.

Another thing is that they can put up a message at the character creation screen that says single player characters may not be used online. Doesn't that solve a little confusion? If someone who has the internet sees that they might just pick online, and play solo anyways.

 

[duchaked]

"...believes Blizzard has the muscle to force gamers to love it."

LOL very well put...kinda says a lot about the industry, but truth hurts...

 

[ImprovizoR]

Force players to love it? Force paying customers to have a worse experience than pirates? What's the fuckin' point in buying a game if developers treat you like a criminal? It's way cheaper to be a criminal. Whatever happened to 'the customer is always right'

I will not bend. I will never buy a game that forces me to be connected online in order to play it's single player mode. And I will never buy any game on cloud systems. If that's the future of gaming, I guess I will have to find another hobby.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Publisher 1: We'll have you by the nuts, but we promise not to squeeze.

Publisher 2: We won't have you by the nuts at all.

Gee, I wonder where my money will be going?

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

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.

 

[Liquid Paradox]

I have an very excellent internet connection, hardly ever get any downtime.

But thia is just wrong.
I should not have to be connected to a server to play a single player game.

It's just no right, and I believe that it says a little something about what developers and publishers think of us lowly gamers.

Apparantly we are criminal scum that must be supervised 24/7 or else we would rob them blind.

I will not tolerate being treated this way and I will boicott any developer/publisher that implenments any solution like this.

I have been looking forward to Diablo 3 for years now, but won't be getting it.
Sorry Blizz, as much as I love you, that is a step too far.

Yes, Yes and yes! Down with Blizzard, Ubisoft, and apparently, Id entertainment, as well, for this bullshit. This cannot be tolerated! Developers have way to much control nowadays, and it's getting ridicules!

Like the poster I quoted, I have a steady internet connection, and very little downtime; this is not the point, however! The point is that Tim here has, in essence, told us what all developers really think of their customers: that we are sheeple, to be "Forced" into doing things their way.

I would call for an international boycott... but unfortunately, Tim is right. Blizzard will win this out, and undoubtedly, soon all gaming will follow this trend.

 

[Inkidu]

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.

 

[gring]

Bullshit.

I have a "solid internet connection" and it goes down ALL THE TIME.

What about if I want to install it on my laptop and take it with me somewhere on a long trip, where I have no internet connection? NOPE, CANT PLAY IT.

What about the millions of people that just straight up DONT have any connection what-so-ever, what about those people? "NOPE, FUCK EM" is what most of you people are saying.

It's not being implemented for accessibility for us, but for accessibility for THEM. They just want as much control as they can because that is the corporate way, to control anything and everything they can.

Corporate gaming companies have been making some very bold moves lately, and really none of them (that I can think of) have actually been very good for us. One save game cartridges, the always on DRM and DRM in general (like limited installs), attacking used game sales in every way imaginable, and abused digital distribution like origin.

It's clear what they want, AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE while giving us all the middle finger all the way to the bank, just because profits aren't unrealistically high like they were 4 years ago.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

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?

 

[Rad Party God]

Did I got transported into a parallel universe where id Software, the guys that practically invented PC gaming, are no longer cool and are actually a bunch of dicks!??

 

[Mrmbe]

If i'm not able to play D3 i'll pirate it, if i can't pirate it i'll make my own

Its going to have 2 buttons [Pwn boss] and [Loot items], then its going to display a list of what you got, and you can repeat without all that annoying moving around the world running pointless errands for npcs who are so dim they survive on a cruel whim of evolution. Its going to come with an usb powered headband that shoots dopamine into your brain on looting. I'll make a killing selling refills

 

[devotedsniper]

I wonder if they realise it's only really the pc gamers which have a pc designed for gaming which will buy the game (yes i know a standard machine can run it, but come on the majority of pc gamers run higher spec hardware than your average person), and these PC gamers (like me) don't like being forced into things (we are alot pickier than a console gamer when you think about it, and rightly so since we have to deal with things like this DRM), so lets recap if the pc gamer aint happy they'll take there money elsewhere...

With things like this you can definatly see the benefits of a cracked .exe, i know i can. Personally i think Developers need to look at CD Project, they don't bother with DRM (ok they do on release but after it's been released it gets removed), in my eyes DRM is useless the crackers always find a way round it (and it's usually within a few hours), at least with a cracked .exe you don't have to deal with stupid DRM which inhibits gameplay even for the legit owner.

And for those going "it's to stop cloning of items on the AH!" well thats why single player should be seperate from multiplayer, the only time it works with merging the two is on consoles or in games where you don't have items (e.g. Test Drive Unlimited 1 & 2).

I foresee a rise in cracked .exe use if all games go down this route.

 

[Inkidu]

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?

You mean Starcraft 2.0 part 1 of 3 full-priced installments?

I'd call it about as important as Doom 3 was for id. It looks good, but it's still the same old same old.

It uses the always online thing too.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

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?

You mean Starcraft 2.0 part 1 of 3 full-priced installments?

I'd call it about as important as Doom 3 was for id. It looks good, but it's still the same old same old.

It uses the always online thing too.

Point taken. But it was pretty sweet, wouldn't you say?

 

[gring]

Is it really that big of a deal?
1. If you're playing multi-player, this won't affect you at all.
2. If you're playing single-player it likely won't affect you either, unless:
1. You're out in the forest, in which case case you shouldn't be playing games in the first place, and even if you NEED to play something, don't you have other games, or do you NEED to play Diablo3 every damn time you're out in the forest?
2. You don't have internet AT ALL, so why are you on the internet now complaining about it?
3. You have glitchy internet? Blizzard will likely implement safety measures to keep your game safe for you should you happen to have the worst possible internet connection ever.
4. Blizzard server downtime, probably won't happen. These guys have been running Battle.net for over 12 years and the most popular MMO for over 7 years. They probably know what they're doing by now.
5. Shit happens. If you for some reason can't play the game for 5 minutes, then go do something else, there's probably more interesting offline single-player games out there. Really.

These are pathetic and close minded arguments.

1. Obviously
2-1. You never go out on vacation for long periods of time without an internet connection? Well, that doesn't mean that other people don't either. Besides, there's more places without consistent high-quality internet connections besides just "the forest". Honestly, you couldn't figure this out?
2-2. Maybe some people here are defending the people who cant read this, maybe the people here are reading this at work, maybe the people here are reading this that may have a connection now but not one in 3 months when they move somewhere else? Who cares, the fact is life is never consistent and is completely ridiculous to think that it is.
2-3. Oh goodie for people with bad internet, I guess that solves everything right? And really are you saying that you only need "the worst connection ever" in order to drop connection? I have a fiber optic cable connection and my connection drops ALL THE TIME.
2-4. Blizzard shuts down their servers a lot actually, they even have this thing called "weekly maintenance". But I guess you knew that already when you said the exact opposite, right? Besides, you dont find anything contradictory about dealing with server maintenance to play a single player game?
2-5. What makes you so damn sure its just "for 5 minutes"? what about if its 5 minutes downtime every 5 minutes playtime, just hypothetically speaking? That doesn't sound very fun, does it?

The point of everything you are ignoring is that there is more hindrance then benefit to always being online for single player for several reasons, and the only people that say "so what?" are people like you with close minded ideals, which 99% of the time with this issue is "well it doesn't affect me so therefore there is no problems with it what-so-ever". Well this issue affects me and I have a high speed connection, as well as LOTS of other people, which gives them every right to voice their opinions. So yea, it is a "big deal", hence the obvious shit-storm.

 

[Rattler5150]

Blizzard just saved me $50-$60. I will not buy d3 period.