Jimquisition: You Should Be Mad at Diablo III's Always Online DRM
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
I have some sympathy for the seventeen people who didn't realize what an MMO-style launch does to login servers when a game is extremely popular and what an online only experience they'd be getting. The rest of you are getting what you deserve.
Complaining isn't going to do jack compared to what you could have done by not purchasing or playing their product. There's a reason I'm not attaching a Diablo 3 guest pass to my b.net account, nor would I add the full game if it were given to me. Large companies do not pay heed to idle threats of 'I will never purchase your product again.' Fewer still that run an MMO; there is no more resounding a chorus of empty threats than that which accompanies every crash, restart, patch and maintenance period. Fifty seven billion people have resolved never to play Everquest again, I shudder to think how many have made the same claim about WoW. Conviction is a necessity if you care.
Complaining isn't going to do jack compared to what you could have done by not purchasing or playing their product. There's a reason I'm not attaching a Diablo 3 guest pass to my b.net account, nor would I add the full game if it were given to me. Large companies do not pay heed to idle threats of 'I will never purchase your product again.' Fewer still that run an MMO; there is no more resounding a chorus of empty threats than that which accompanies every crash, restart, patch and maintenance period. Fifty seven billion people have resolved never to play Everquest again, I shudder to think how many have made the same claim about WoW. Conviction is a necessity if you care.
I am happy I watched this. I was on the edge about buying Diablo III and now I have a great way of deciding whether I should or not. I will not buy Diablo III until the always online component is taken out by Blizzard. If that never happens, I will never buy the game, as soon as it does Blizzard can count on a purchase from me. I will also contact Blizzard saying this in hopes that many others will and Blizzard will listen.
Walter Byers said:
I think that's his point. He is saying that if you want a single player experience(I know I do) it HAS to be online. Which is the problem. If you only want to play by yourself, you shouldn't need the internet connection. And you HAVE to be online regardless of if you want to be or not, which is unlike Diablo II. There it was a choice to be online and be subject to lag and servers going down. You could just click and go, and totally ignore battlenet. Not so much in Diablo 3 which irks me to no end.
The problem is not multiplayer exists, so much as single player in a true sense, does not exist because you can't play without being logged into battlenet.
At least I can play skyrim or new vegas anytime i want even with some crahses that can be fixed thanks to the modding community. Diablo III had some of my hopes up and slaughtered them down with the messy release on the servers, hacking into people's accounts to loot others gold/weapons.Gekidami said:
There really isn't much to add to what Jim said. Gating single player behind a login screen is inexcusable, end of discussion. I don't give a toss that my computer spends 99% of its time connected to the internet, the act itself is utterly superfluous, and as we have seen, it can render the game completely unplayable. I don't mind additional bells and whistles that require a connection, but the core single player experience should be playable anywhere, anytime without the player having to ask themself "Shit, will I be able to log in?" That's not entitlement, that's how video games have worked for the majority of their fucking existence, and any move away from that is a step backwards. Jim summed it up beautifully - if you let developers/publishers shit in your mouth, they will keep shitting in your mouth. Businesses will always do what they think/know they can get away with, and they will continue to push the envelope in this regard. If you let publishers get away with bullshit like always-online single player, guess what they'll keep doing?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to unplug my router and play some Diablo 2, because I can.
EDIT: It has just occurred to me that if Battle.net were to suffer a PSN-style meltdown then maybe, just maybe some of the misguided Blizzard apologists will finally begin to understand what Jim is on about.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to unplug my router and play some Diablo 2, because I can.
EDIT: It has just occurred to me that if Battle.net were to suffer a PSN-style meltdown then maybe, just maybe some of the misguided Blizzard apologists will finally begin to understand what Jim is on about.
You know, the thought occurs to me.
You have to be a decently smart person to program a game. You have to be business saavy enough to get backing, coordinate the teams, put the product together and ship it. You have to understand your audience to know exactly what they want in order to give it to them.
To plan all of that out and not understand that there will be at least 80% of your audience who will hate your decision is nigh impossible. Especially since the same amount of people complain about the very subject a number of times.
So why do it? Maybe those odd comments on the rise about being a hacker or a cracking the game is the desired response.
Think about it. Game disturbers now have an iron grip on their product. How many sign ins do you have to play your games? And yes, PSN and Xbox live counts. Are there many games that you play that doesn't involve any type of sign in? They are collecting your data and this and that, all the stuff we heard before to better market to you.. and hey, sometimes to sell your info. But that was discovered and instead of fessing up that it's great business sense to have people limited to the amount of product you wish to give them... they redirected.
They have reasons to do this because they were stolen from. Pirates. They needed more control because of Pirates. Pirates will destroy the gaming world, even if Steam puts up revenue in the billions. That's not enough. Could be more. Pirates... All PC users are pirates, remember? They make us jump through hoops, and now I'm starting to feel the hope is that they do create more pirates so they can say things like this:
'Hey, you. Consumer who paid for our product. do you know other people didn't? We know you paid for our product because of x, y, and z... but you might not in the future. Sounds weird? Well, I need to be sure that you never do what you haven't done before. I need you to sign oaths promising me you won't do this. You'll also have to let us search your computer to make sure you never do it. And you'll have to sign in to us every time to make sure you're not these guys... Even though if you bought it once, you probably wouldn't delete it to install a free one. And even if you did, it wouldn't really effect us because hey, you already gave us money.'
We've seen it before. Bush government was found to wire tap. All of a sudden, we were burdened with plots and threats and terror alert fluctuations... people started to get mad at others questioning what the government was doing to keep us safe. So what if your and my rights are being tampered with. There were attacks. There are people who hate us. Let them into your life so I know you're not a terrorist and I don't have to worry about the attacks.
That's what I equate people who excuse and fight for the game publishers. These are the people who screamed down those who were rightfully appalled that the government has been keeping tabs on you for reasons that were never clear. they willingly give up their civil rights because they were afraid, or have 'nothing to hide'. Yeah, that's right. there's nothing to hide. They were never near any of these acts or events...
Ok, so why are they turning the light to you in the first place? Did Government just see a great oppurtunity to gather info and then have a get out of jail free card? Possibly. Are pirate the Game publishers get out of jail free card? Absolutely.
You have to be a decently smart person to program a game. You have to be business saavy enough to get backing, coordinate the teams, put the product together and ship it. You have to understand your audience to know exactly what they want in order to give it to them.
To plan all of that out and not understand that there will be at least 80% of your audience who will hate your decision is nigh impossible. Especially since the same amount of people complain about the very subject a number of times.
So why do it? Maybe those odd comments on the rise about being a hacker or a cracking the game is the desired response.
Think about it. Game disturbers now have an iron grip on their product. How many sign ins do you have to play your games? And yes, PSN and Xbox live counts. Are there many games that you play that doesn't involve any type of sign in? They are collecting your data and this and that, all the stuff we heard before to better market to you.. and hey, sometimes to sell your info. But that was discovered and instead of fessing up that it's great business sense to have people limited to the amount of product you wish to give them... they redirected.
They have reasons to do this because they were stolen from. Pirates. They needed more control because of Pirates. Pirates will destroy the gaming world, even if Steam puts up revenue in the billions. That's not enough. Could be more. Pirates... All PC users are pirates, remember? They make us jump through hoops, and now I'm starting to feel the hope is that they do create more pirates so they can say things like this:
'Hey, you. Consumer who paid for our product. do you know other people didn't? We know you paid for our product because of x, y, and z... but you might not in the future. Sounds weird? Well, I need to be sure that you never do what you haven't done before. I need you to sign oaths promising me you won't do this. You'll also have to let us search your computer to make sure you never do it. And you'll have to sign in to us every time to make sure you're not these guys... Even though if you bought it once, you probably wouldn't delete it to install a free one. And even if you did, it wouldn't really effect us because hey, you already gave us money.'
We've seen it before. Bush government was found to wire tap. All of a sudden, we were burdened with plots and threats and terror alert fluctuations... people started to get mad at others questioning what the government was doing to keep us safe. So what if your and my rights are being tampered with. There were attacks. There are people who hate us. Let them into your life so I know you're not a terrorist and I don't have to worry about the attacks.
That's what I equate people who excuse and fight for the game publishers. These are the people who screamed down those who were rightfully appalled that the government has been keeping tabs on you for reasons that were never clear. they willingly give up their civil rights because they were afraid, or have 'nothing to hide'. Yeah, that's right. there's nothing to hide. They were never near any of these acts or events...
Ok, so why are they turning the light to you in the first place? Did Government just see a great oppurtunity to gather info and then have a get out of jail free card? Possibly. Are pirate the Game publishers get out of jail free card? Absolutely.
But why do honest players have to suffer through shitty DRM for pirates? Should I go punch every pirate in the face so companies don't put shitty DRM?Sober Thal said:
Companies are the ones putting up the service if the service only inconveniences honest players and lets pirates run rampant, what's the point of the service? (I just read that some Diablo 3 players have had their money stolen)
Why can't the game have an offline mode or offline characters at least? A big part of the community wants to play alone offline in case the servers don't work. If indie companies can have offline modes or characters why can't AAA developer Blizzard do it.
I am not expecting the game to give me a BJ, (haven't bought the game) but I expect it to have the least amount of problems possible when I am playing it. So when the publisher is the one creating the problems and their services doesn't work at stopping pirates or hackers I just have to facepalm.
Well... your problem is the real money auction house. Rather than tweaking drop rates so people don't HAVE to spend three months grinding for a slightly better hammer, they decided to perpetuate people spending real money on it, and then force the always online model to protect that.
In fact, it is Blizzard trying to take the place of all the gold sellers that 'are ruining the game experience'.
I don't understand the need for a Real Money Auction House. I don't understand how a game developer, who is supposed to be passionate about creating a game experience, actively makes a single player game require extra money to play.
But then again, I don't understand why people would willingly hand over real cash for a game you can complete with normal drops... which you play on your own... or co-operatively...
Seriously, why is the auction house a good feature?
In fact, it is Blizzard trying to take the place of all the gold sellers that 'are ruining the game experience'.
I don't understand the need for a Real Money Auction House. I don't understand how a game developer, who is supposed to be passionate about creating a game experience, actively makes a single player game require extra money to play.
But then again, I don't understand why people would willingly hand over real cash for a game you can complete with normal drops... which you play on your own... or co-operatively...
Seriously, why is the auction house a good feature?
Shh... don't let them onto it.loa said:
We may get a single player game yet. If they start this online shit trend on consoles I will have to teach Blizzard how hot hell can get.
I have no interest in playing Diablo III right off the bat, so there's that.
This is one of those times where I'm not even going to get the pirated version of it. I want nothing to do with playing the game.
The always online thing is to protect their online economy, something I do not give two shits about.
This is one of those times where I'm not even going to get the pirated version of it. I want nothing to do with playing the game.
The always online thing is to protect their online economy, something I do not give two shits about.
Honestly I don't care about the always online DRM. If you have a shitty internet connection you shouldn't have bought the game. It was announced way beforehand, so it's kind of your own fault for blowing your money on something you can't play. I'm not saying that you shouldn't complain. I'm just saying the "I paid good money for it!" argument doesn't really hold water because frankly you shouldn't have. You could have complained without paying for it or simply boycotted the game. The launch day problem is sort of valid, but I have limited pity for people with the free time to be staring at an error screen all day and crying about it.
Finally, I only ever play with friends so I would have to be online to begin with. Again, I'm not telling you not to complain. I'm merely asking that you don't tell me that I should be complaining, because frankly I don't give a crap and have perfectly valid reasons for not doing so.
Finally, I only ever play with friends so I would have to be online to begin with. Again, I'm not telling you not to complain. I'm merely asking that you don't tell me that I should be complaining, because frankly I don't give a crap and have perfectly valid reasons for not doing so.
Sorry Jim, but you're mostly wrong.
First and foremost, Online DRM and Server Management are not the same issue, and cannot be used interchangeably. The servers should have been handled better, but once they knew the issues were going to occur they warned EVERYONE and well. Could have and should have been done better, but you are massively overreacting. Not the game community in general (they might be, but I'm only concerned with you in this post) ? you specifically Jim
Second, if a game makes clear that it will have Online DRM, how is it wrong for them to sell it. Could they design around it, and not include it? Sure. But they could do the same with games that require DX11 ? if someone buys something that their gaming rig is not capable of supporting, after the requirements have been announced, that is their own goddamn fault.
First and foremost, Online DRM and Server Management are not the same issue, and cannot be used interchangeably. The servers should have been handled better, but once they knew the issues were going to occur they warned EVERYONE and well. Could have and should have been done better, but you are massively overreacting. Not the game community in general (they might be, but I'm only concerned with you in this post) ? you specifically Jim
Second, if a game makes clear that it will have Online DRM, how is it wrong for them to sell it. Could they design around it, and not include it? Sure. But they could do the same with games that require DX11 ? if someone buys something that their gaming rig is not capable of supporting, after the requirements have been announced, that is their own goddamn fault.
While he had a lot on his plate, I'm surprised Jim didn't bring up that even with good online support, players don't really own the game they paid over $60 for. Since online support won't last forever, they're effectively just paying for the privilege of renting it. I can play my old PS 1 copy of Diablo whenever I want but the current copies of Diablo 3 won't be much more than glorified coasters or bits of data when Blizzard comes out with Diablo 4.