Jimquisition: You Should Be Mad at Diablo III's Always Online DRM

Artemis923

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Fuck Blizzard.

I've gone through two acts of D3 now, but Act 3 is just downright unplayable for me. I can't play for more than 2-3 minutes without being lagged to death at every turn. It's frustrating as hell, seeing as I play SINGLE PLAYER because dickholes like to click through all the dialog and I actually care about what's going on.

I knew about the always online requirement, and I shrugged it off. I've played WoW, I play D2, I use my nets for XBL, w/e. That's not a problem for me.

But the service is so atrocious that it makes the fucking game completely unplayable, which makes me needing to be online to play a problem. A BIG problem, since I spent 60 bucks that I could've bought the Game of Thrones game with instead.

So, as of right now, I'm out $60, and can't even enjoy my purchase. Noted, Blizzard.
 

Lunar Templar

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ljackstar said:
You should have just been smart like me and paid 40$ more for the collectors edition so you can look at the artwork, listen to the soundtrack and play diablo 2 while waiting!
T-T i would have, but they where out ....

not that i've had server issues past launch day (and i haven't) i have had a bit of noticeable 'rubber banding' while solo. it's rare though, and over all the only time i see any kinda log in error it when i type my pass word to fast.

that said .... yeah .... I'd like the single player to be off line now, what little lag i do get, gets on my nerves. and the AH, yeah -.- that's not even gonna be worth it now that i've had a good look at it
 

jehk

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Grunt_Man11 said:
If Diablo 3 isn't a single-player game, then why does it have a single-player option?
It doesn't have a single player option. There is never a time when you click "Start Single-player Mode". Every time you start a quest it is a multiplayer game. You can choose to open it up to the public or invite some friends.

Also, no one is claiming its an MMORPG. Just an MORPG. The word massively is the difference between the two types of games.
 

PingoBlack

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Aug 6, 2011
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Ickorus said:
I think the easy solution would be to allow players to have offline characters that cannot be used online and who can't place their items on the auction house.
That is very unlikely to happen, they would have to give you a server emulator. Think WoW private servers ... That's only solution for offline.

It is not only a business limitation, it is also quite a technical one.
 

fozzy360

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Walter Byers said:
Naeras said:
Yes it is, and if you're arguing otherwise, you're delusional.
Skyrim is a single player game because it can have at most one player. D3 is a multiplayer game because it can have more than one player. This is what it means to be single player and multiplayer.
I think what people are getting at is that with the first two games, people weren't forced into going online if they wanted to play a game solo. You're right in the sense that the game was designed so that more than one player can progress, but the game also makes it possible so that just one player can do so as well. Sure, a "single-player" game should have no more than one player at a time, but what people were expecting was an offline-mode in the event that such things happened.

I could see this becoming a battle of semantics, and that would go nowhere fast.
 

mistwarden

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I liked Diablo 3, I think that it's a good game with shit add ons, pay to win with the auction house, single player with server lag, and why would I want to group up, all the loot for me, which the game is about, getting good loot and becoming god mode so you can farm for the best loot to sell for money to pay for the op to fix your hand.
 

jehk

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fozzy360 said:
I could see this becoming a battle of semantics, and that would go no where fast.
I disagree. Complaining that an online game is online is not constructive.

Complaining that an online game's servers are not online is constructive.

The difference is that Blizzard can realistically do something to fix the second complaint.
 

Rad Party God

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Walter Byers said:
D3 doesn't have anymore DRM than WoW. Calling it DRM is either dishonest or ignorant on your part.
The problem and biggest difference between D3 and WoW, is that WoW is an MMO, D3 isn't and shouldn't be, therefore, it is DRM in every single sense of the word and absolutely on the same level of horrendousness that UbiSoft usually does.

The only difference?, it's fucking Blizzard, people will still buy every single thing they make, that's why they, unfortunately, can get away with it.

EDIT: Just as a side note... Why isn't anyone complaining about Blizzard making the same fucking game but with better graphics and everyone just seems to complain about Nintendo making quality games about old franchises that, in most cases, are certainly better than most games that come out on the bigger consoles and people still whine and complain about Nintendo making clones of their own games and calling fanboys those who even dare to say otherwise. And don't get me started about those yearly military shooters that seem to make a shitton of money every single year by copying and pasting. [/rant off]

I love the smell of irony in the morning.
 

Slanzinger

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Walter Byers said:
trollpwner said:
O.K., what it has is magic pixie fairy dust. That makes the game unplayable at times. The game you bought. For $60. In the single-player mode that should require no internet connection whatsoever.

Wait, I'm sorry, what was your point again?
Creating a new game in D3 is the same as zoning into a dungeon by yourself in WoW. That is not DRM.
It pretty much is... As far as I'm aware (but correct me if I'm wrong as I am not a WoW player) you can't zone into a dungeon without phoning home to Blizzard to tell them that *You have a legitimate copy of the game, *You have a WoW account & subscription. If there is any scope to do anything solo within WoW (which there, I would imagine, is), and you're required to connect anyway, then the only purpose of that connection is for Blizzard to make sure that you're still subscribed.
That, mate, is pretty much DRM. Certainly as close to pretty much anyone's definition of DRM as most games come.

If you think about it, any always-on connection requirement is a method of the publisher Managing your Rights with regards to a Digital product. Or, to rearrange that, Digital Rights Management. Which is DRM.

Almost needless to say, though, what it's called is immaterial. Call the system whatever the hell you like, it's still a rising problem in the PC gaming industry. I'm not a Diablo player either so I have no particular personal stock in this scenario, but it's worrying that this kind of rubbish seems to be a rising trend.


Side-note: A thought. Surely if the auction house had anything to do with it at all, they could have just made it so that items earned whilst not connected to the server were unable to be sold. As in, it'd have to be verified on the server on drop for it to be available to sell, but give the option such that people who didn't have any interest in the auction house didn't have to be connected...
 

Epona

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Ukomba said:
Crono1973 said:
It's not my job to solve Blizzards security problems nor should it be my burden to shoulder them. You are missing the point here, there was no need for a real money auction house in the first place.
The giant dollar signs in Blizzards eyes disagree. They absolutely need a real money auction house, and they absolutely need to take a percentage of each transaction.
I think that it's the perfect marriage for Blizzard. I think they needed a reason to impose MMO-type DRM (they are spoiled from WOW) and the Real Money Auction House gave them that reason and alot of extra money to boot.
 

jehk

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Slanzinger said:
If you think about it, any always-on connection requirement is a method of the publisher Managing your Rights
The difference is the always-on connection in D3/WoW is not about managing your digital rights. It's here to do things like calculate the damage of frost nova or determine what item is dropped from BBEG. Maybe the friend you're playing with moved to start gathering an iron ore node.

Just because some DRMs have an online component doesn't mean all online games are inherently DRM. You're conflating the two.

EDIT: Trying to make my quotes work. Hopefully it will.
 

Darknacht

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sinn3r said:
And for all people who throw up a hissy fit for server generated and stored loot tables: Remeber how much fun D2 was?
Yep, it was lots of fun, still is.
With all that boted and cheated junk on the ladders? And the skrippted looters who ninja'd all of the group's stuff?
Nope, you see I have friends so I play D2 with my friends, and that is how I would play D3, so for me always on DRM has no benefit. D3 would have been much better if it had an online only mode and an offline/TCP/IP only mode, this would have been a win-win.
 

Catrixa

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You know, I agree with everything that was said here. Which, to be honest, I didn't think I was going to do, but I think I know why:

Complaining about a feature of a game on the internet means you're either glad you didn't buy it or regret the fact you did. Even if that's not what you're going for, that's what people read. Did you buy Mass Effect 3, then complain about the ending? Did you also like the game, but didn't mention that? Then, for all intents and purposes, you hated Mass Effect 3 and, if you could go back in time and redact your decision to purchase it, you would.

See, I bought Diablo III and I've liked what I could play so far. I just don't like that this was limited. I have no regrets having purchased this game, and would recommend it to anyone who likes the genre or lore. I just hate the fact that I can't recommend it to anyone with spotty internet (I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hates playing with other people, because I usually recommend these kinds of games to people I want to play with at some point) and the fact that I had to wait to play because they were implementing a feature that could have been actually tested before it was implemented.

So, yes, if you liked the fact that you weren't able to play Diablo III when it came out, there is probably something wrong with you. But I do think it's a good game worth playing. I just wish complaining about a problem to the developers actually mattered.
 

theultimateend

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Yes, thank you Jim. I hate people saying that entitlement is a problem in these cases. When you buy a game, you are entitled to play it.
Anytime people say "entitlement" to shit on a person's arguments I write them off.

Entitlement is silly in a capitalist society, Businesses are insanely entitled, most lawsuits and demands are reeking of entitlement.

Yet it only counts when its a person.

But yeah they could have just had an unranked offline mode, not rocket science, dungeon defenders does it.
 

krellen

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Jan 23, 2009
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Walter Byers said:
D3 doesn't have anymore DRM than WoW. Calling it DRM is either dishonest or ignorant on your part.
So, everyone else is trying to tell you that you're wrong because "Diablo isn't an MMO". However, they are wrong. You are right. Diablo and WoW have the same amount of DRM.

Which doesn't mean they don't have DRM. It means BOTH have DRM - always online, forced server login DRM.

The primary difference is how they are sold. WoW is sold as a service - subscribe to our service, get our servers. Diablo, however, is being sold as a product - buy our game, then you can play it.

Using service-based models to drive the product-based game of Diablo is a bad business practice, even if you accept Blizzard's right to have logins for their service-based business.

Just because Diablo and WoW have the same DRM scheme (which is not a non-existent DRM scheme: WoW absolutely has DRM) does not mean that the scheme is equally valid to both games.

(This doesn't even touch the argument on whether WoW should necessarily be a service only, nor on how Blizzard disingenuously sells it as both product and service with the large up-front purchase cost, which is not how software-as-a-service should (nor how it does in most actual professional implementations) work.)
 

mike1921

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Dungeon Defenders is an indie game, it has a ranked mode (where you get achievements and I recall there being other shit) and an unranked mode (Where you can mod and do whatever the fuck you want). If Trendy Entertainment could get that kind of system going than I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that Blizzard can't.
 

Sovereignty

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templar1138a said:
-snip-
A bigger message would have been sent if the people who are complaining now hadn't bought the game in the first place. That's really the root of the "Just eat the shit" argument. They paid for it knowingly. They made their bed, so they have to lie in it.
-snip-

This is just wrong. By this logic no one should ever eat sushi, or a steak that isn't cooked well.
You can't tell me that people who bought this on release ALL expected the login servers to be overloaded for pretty much the whole day. You can't expect me to believe that they knew first hand because of the persistent connection that they'd lag.

Truth be told you have no idea how many consumers 'knew' that diablo 3 would have always online requirements. Sure they could have seen said requirements, but technically that requirement was fulfilled by the same people complaining. Their internet didn't go down. Blizzard simply couldn't handle the volume.


The more excuses we make for these large corporations when they drop the ball, the more often they'll drop it.