So, Pirates are Playing Diablo 3

[Grey Day for Elcia]

You know, I had planned for this huge reply to your post, dividing it and answering it part by part. But no, you're one of those I thoroughly despise, you're one of those that's helping ruining a business I've been a member of for 24 damn years!
Your entire post is pretty much. "Well, it's not that good...But hey, it's Blizzard and they're awesome!"
No company deserves that sort of devotion, especially not the lazy ass bastards at Blizzard. Lore you say? Yeah, good f****** luck with that considering it's been rewritten up the ***.
Graphics not shite? Well, no, but on par with a game six years it's senior. Reminds me of when I got WC3 back in the day, I could play hell of a lot newer and and have less issues with it over the badly made WC3. Blizzard just doesn't give a **** about anything beyond making their damn cut-scenes.
And you know what? They'll succeed, they'll keep on churning out decent games at 8 year intervals and the fans will gobble it up. No matter how much stupid **** they implement, Blizzard fanboys are the Nintendo fanboys of the PC industry.

Who exactly are you talking to there?

 

[bpm195]

When data is on a server and users are only supposed to access it through a client it's a lot less vulnerable than it is if it's installed on their machine. Because of the Real Money Auction house, Blizzard has substantial interest in protecting their software not only piracy, but any form of hacking or attack. Online only doesn't solve any of the problems, but they gain massive benefits.

If they were to go the route of having separate exe's for single player and online they'd create one of two serious problems. If the single player was behaving a as a client with a server on the same computer, Blizzard would lose all the benefits of keeping the server code out of the user's hand. If they were to create a single player mode that didn't depend on the server structure, they'd be maintaining two completely different games creating such a maintainability nightmare they'd definitely lose employees over it.

That said, as a customer whether you benefit at all from the online only comes down to whether you intend to use the Real Money Auction House. If you do, it couldn't exist without online only; if you don't, you got hosed.

 

[Aprilgold]

If they are worried about cheating and hacks, make an online mods and an offline mode, where a character made in the later cannot be used in the former and vice-versa.

This has nothing to do with hacks and cheats and everything to do with money.

It has to do with hacks as it does with money. As I replied to you in the other thread, it really doesn't help you or anyone to oversimplify reality or distort facts to fit your purpose.

Offline mode for example, is not what you imagine it to be. If they made offline mode, they would have provided your "pals", the pirates, a complete 100% functioning server emulator.

Now tell us, honestly, how smart would that be?

Emulation takes much more work than those "pals" of yours are willing to put in. They won't bother setting up a coherent working game rules, just like WoW private servers, every character will be an un-killable god in Inferno mode.

Disclaimer: Term "pals" is used due to OP obviously promoting these activities.

To put this simply, have you ever heard the phrase involving 1,000 monkeys all typing on 1,000 typewriters will eventually produce Shakespeare? Well, its the same thing here. You give about 1 million people who honestly give a fuck enough time to break your game, they will break it.

DRM only has existed this age to fight a un-winnable battle that DRM itself is causing. A consumer wants to buy a Blizzard game, lets pretend this is Diablo 3. After buying Diablo 3 and being literally locked out of their 60$ game purchase, later on in life they decide to only buy stuff from Blizzard in Bargain Bins or used game sales or just pirating it based off of bad service.

Once again, its about quality service and respecting your consumers, not treating your consumers like their criminals waiting to happen.

DRM sucks, no question there. But the game is awesome. Isn't that the only thing that should matter?

Yes, if Awesome wasn't subjective and if a game with a 6 year development phase was only a very simplified version of the previous game with less things to do, less enjoyable enemies and the only real selling point is cell shading is equal or above awesome, then yes, Diablo 3 is 'awesome.'

Soooo...any confirmed pirates playing the game yet?

Like someone already said, a cracked version of the game by Skidrow is out already.

I've not looked at what it is or what it does, maybe it requires setting up separate servers or your own personal server first, but it would appear even the most draconic DRM didn't last long.

Skidrow does some quality work, and by that I mean very FAST work. Holy balls.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

The RMAH could've been protected without forcing single player to be online.

Really? How so then?

people keep saying this, and yet have no idea what they are talking about. There is no way to do it. Having an offline mode, means all the data, (Including items) has to be stored on the customer computer. If the data is already on your computer, it is trivial to take the data, decrypt it, and duplicate it. This is exactly what happened in D2, and this is exactly what they aim to prevent in D3.

If you have a solution to somehow solve this dilemma, please, by all means, reveal it.

Separate characters from single player and lan from multiplayer.
There.
Have the same system you have now, for multiplayer, but have an offline single player, with different characters for each, so if you want you can play with your duped items and hax, and you can do it with your friends, provided you're all on LAN, but if you join a random multiplayer server, you won't have this issue.

 

[PingoBlack]

To put this simply, have you ever heard the phrase involving 1,000 monkeys all typing on 1,000 typewriters will eventually produce Shakespeare? Well, its the same thing here. You give about 1 million people who honestly give a fuck enough time to break your game, they will break it.

I don't get your point, why do you quote me and then ignore completely my point about technology, choosing to go philosophical on the argument? Let's try it again with less hyperbole so perhaps your point rings clearer.

The server based technology Blizzard built over many years, that is used in WoW before and now in Diablo 3 has DRM, it always had it. Only, in technical terms, it is called authentication. It not only checks DRM, but also validity of your connection, to prevent a billion robots from messing with your game. You do not run a server based game without it.

With Diablo 3 this fact was well known a long time ago. You should have started your crusade by educating people before they bought the game. The 8 million or so of them already. Hope they don't see your analogy as calling them all monkeys, eh?

 

[Aprilgold]

To put this simply, have you ever heard the phrase involving 1,000 monkeys all typing on 1,000 typewriters will eventually produce Shakespeare? Well, its the same thing here. You give about 1 million people who honestly give a fuck enough time to break your game, they will break it.

I don't get your point, why do you quote me and then ignore completely my point about technology, choosing to go philosophical on the argument?

HO HO, LOOK AT HOW I ERASE 2/3rds OF YOUR POST THEREFORE I'M RIGHT! GREAT AMERICAN FREEDOM, HO HO!

I'll go back and rephrase myself.

And I'll quote one part of you once more.

How smart would that be?

This question can be answered by a question.
How smart is DRM?

Lets think on this for a second. You, and ten other people are put on the job at a random game's DRM. Your job is to make the least intrusive, but most effective DRM. Now how much thinking would you have to do to effectively calculate how a numberless amount of hackers could possibly approach your DRM, now and in the future? Now you have to split that thinking up between 11 people. DRM is made by a smaller team to prevent a literally endless amount of hackers from getting a hold of their game. There is such a thing as a lone wolf fighting a army is truly just a foolish man.

Diablos team's answer to Pirates was a always-on-connection to their servers. Why would this be smart against a literally endless amount of hackers? How would regular consumers react when they can not play their game while traveling, or when the servers are down? How long would it take a countless number of people to hack said files, or server to get the necessary algorithms and just play the game offline? As Skidrow has shown, in about 9 days.

You say in the same post that a offline version of the game would instantly give them the necessary keys to create a post, and thus we come to another point. Why would this matter in the slightest? Pirated copies do not equate to a lost sale because there was no guarantee that they were going to purchase said game. It also doesn't affect anything but your bottom line. Piracy has existed in other medias for the longest time and it will always exist because someone will always want something free.

Your point was less about anything. It was about how creating a offline system would give them the necessary components to get into the game, while a online system wouldn't. Yet my post was essentially telling you that a million or so people trying their hands at breaking into a game and playing it for free wouldn't matter if they made a offline version or not because it would happen.

While here, your last post, which I will actually quote for a second.

With Diablo 3 this fact was well known a long time ago. You should have started your crusade by educating people before they bought the game. The 8 million or so of them already. Hope they don't see your analogy as calling them all monkeys, eh?

The monkey analogy was used only at the begging of my post and it is heavily implied that the Monkeys with Typewriters are actually Pirates with Computers. Nowhere in there do I equate a normal consumers intelligence to that of a primate. You show that you didn't bother to read my post in full or try to understand, which while not the clearest of posts still could easily be read. Secondly, who the fuck cares? Yes, I, one person, am supposed to go out and inform 8 million people about how always-on-DRM is bad. Or how am I supposed to do it with a site that is not even half of the people that bought the game.

I hope you understand how stupid you are at parts such as when you tell me that its suddenly my job to go inform 8 million people that there are better things out there. Hopefully, you understand now that, YOU said that creating a Offline mode would do nothing but give pirates all the necessities to create a crack therefore online would prevent this while my post directly after tells you that enough bored people or nerds who know how to hack and are whimsical with their computers could figure out HOW to play Diablo 3 without connecting online.

 

[PingoBlack]

I hope you understand how stupid you are at parts such as when you tell me that its suddenly my job to go inform 8 million people that there are better things out there. Hopefully, you understand now that, YOU said that creating a Offline mode would do nothing but give pirates all the necessities to create a crack therefore online would prevent this while my post directly after tells you that enough bored people or nerds who know how to hack and are whimsical with their computers could figure out HOW to play Diablo 3 without connecting online.

All I said, to be clear, is that you have to be informed before purchase to make an informed decision. And you can only be informed if you know the facts.

What I really said is that so called "offline mode" is actually a server emulator, as much as you are willing to ignore it. And that it is a big risk for Blizzard to give server software to the public through this process, as that is their livelihood.

Yet you choose to ignore all this. And call me stupid instead. Cool.

You might eventually see pirate private servers for Diablo 3, just look up WoW private servers for comparison. But this is not some DRM added on top of single player code to prevent copy. Your pirates will have to write all the items, mobs, game mechanics and logic. Good luck waiting for that.

 

[Hawkeye21]

Yah, sure, pirates who bought the game are playing it. I guess it was inevitable.

 

[nu1mlock]

Skidrow does some quality work, and by that I mean very FAST work. Holy balls.

They do some quality work (most of the time) and usually pretty fast too. Just not this time, there's no cracked or properly emulated copy of Diablo 3 out there.

Again, just wanted to point that out so there will be no misunderstanding.

 

[likalaruku]

Punish the innocent, reward the guilty.

 

[shintakie10]

-snip-

I feel the need to, once again, point out that there is not a workin pirated version of Diablo 3 out right now. I will eat go out and buy a hat just to eat if there is one within a month that will be equal to a legitimate copy of Diablo 3.

 

[chstens]

I believe the real issue here is that this thing is a customer-hostile piece of shit, and the only thing it has done is push all of Blizzards server and real money auction house issues on to the paying customers. If only they had implemented the option to make an offline character, I don't think the server issues would be that much of a problem.

-snip-

I feel the need to, once again, point out that there is not a workin pirated version of Diablo 3 out right now. I will eat go out and buy a hat just to eat if there is one within a month that will be equal to a legitimate copy of Diablo 3.

Some communities are allegedly pretty close to completing a fully fledged server emulator.

 

[PingoBlack]

Some communities are allegedly pretty close to completing a fully fledged server emulator.

It will most likely end up as WoW private servers.
Everybody is God mode since there is no rules in place what flies as fair within game world.

Do you honestly expect the communities that are in it for short term glory to invest time and effort to support and run a server including items, item generation, mob generation and such?

I'm sure you will notice from WoW emulated server stories that are out there, that it might be fun to one-shot Diablo on Inferno once or twice, but soon it gets rather stale.

 

[chstens]

Some communities are allegedly pretty close to completing a fully fledged server emulator.

It will most likely end up as WoW private servers.
Everybody is God mode since there is no rules in place what flies as fair within game world.

Do you honestly expect the communities that are in it for short term glory to invest time and effort to support and run a server including items, item generation, mob generation and such?

I'm sure you will notice from WoW emulated server stories that are out there, that it might be fun to one-shot Diablo on Inferno once or twice, but soon it gets rather stale.

I never said it would be used to properly emulate D3 as it's supposed to be played, but I also take it you've never heard of SWGEmu, a community attempting to (very succesfully, so far) make a proper Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies server emulator.

 

[PingoBlack]

I never said it would be used to properly emulate D3 as it's supposed to be played, but I also take it you've never heard of SWGEmu, a community attempting to (very succesfully, so far) make a proper Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies server emulator.

I would not have the same doubts if we were talking open source community project, I truly wouldn't. Open source is something intrinsically different.

It is also something pirates wouldn't do. The competitive nature of those comunities pretty much excludes any notion of open sharing.

Just wanted to post that as many probably never even heard about the gameplay issues of pirate servers for WoW, it's really not general knowledge outside people using the servers and more obscure gaming places. Mainstream gaming media does't carry any stories about that.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

DRM sucks, no question there. But the game is awesome. Isn't that the only thing that should matter?

Sure, if 'awesome' weren't an entirely subjective opinion. Hell, for many people the DRM is the main thing preventing the game from being awesome, and I'm not referring to the whiny anti-DRM people, but rather where the always online aspect is literally hindering gameplay. Whether it be continuously getting killed directly as a result of lag, or getting disconnected outright. Both issues are rather common.

Well I can't deny that I've been disconnected quite a few times, but I forget all that when I jump in the action. Maybe I just love Diablo too much to realize the magnitude of the issue here.

 

[nu1mlock]

I would not have the same doubts if we were talking open source community project, I truly wouldn't. Open source is something intrinsically different.

Actually, the server emulator that emulated the Diablo 3 beta, and is still being developed for the retail version of Diablo 3 as we speak, is open source. That being said, it has a long way to go just to be fun to use, or even work properly. And I'm not talking a week or even a month.

They're trying, that's for sure, but it doesn't change the fact that there's no proper working emulator.

 

[PingoBlack]

Actually, the server emulator that emulated the Diablo 3 beta, and is still being developed for the retail version of Diablo 3 as we speak, is open source. That being said, it has a long way to go just to be fun to use, or even work properly. And I'm not talking a week or even a month.

Open Source means you can post links with no qualms and source code is available. Until I see those I will remain doubtful.

Pirate groups don't do it as a rule rather than exception, source code for a programmer is pretty much like a movie star walking around with no make up. It takes a huge amount of balls.

 

[Deviluk]

I don't know why everyone hates DRM, what do you live in a cave with no internet connection? You really only play games that are offline? Or are you just pining for the old days when games weren't so popular and therefore no-one wanted to steal them? Its because we have awesome games like D3 that pirates are in business, its just a fact of life. Best thing to do is to not let them destroy good companies because a) you take the pirated version instead or b) you don't buy it because it has DRM, to stop the majority of would-be pirates.

And to those people who want to boycott games with DRM, just shut up and enjoy your games, its what they're there for.

 

[nu1mlock]

Actually, the server emulator that emulated the Diablo 3 beta, and is still being developed for the retail version of Diablo 3 as we speak, is open source. That being said, it has a long way to go just to be fun to use, or even work properly. And I'm not talking a week or even a month.

Open Source means you can post links with no qualms and source code is available. Until I see those I will remain doubtful.

Pirate groups don't do it as a rule rather than exception, source code for a programmer is pretty much like a movie star walking around with no make up. It takes a huge amount of balls.

I'm not posting the link since use of it might be illegal in various countries and I don't want a warning or even a ban from here.

It's also worth noting that it's not the "regular" pirate groups (as Reloaded or Skidrow for example) who's working on the emulator, it's regular folks with enough skills to help out.

I'm not supporting it in any way, I'm happily playing my retail copy of Diablo 3, I'm just saying it's in the works and it is open source.

If I am to post a link to, say, their wiki (no way to download anything from the wiki itself), I'd like it confirmed by a moderator first. Just in case.

But I assure you, it is open source, the source is available through GitHub. I know you won't take my word on it, but since I might not be allowed to link to their wiki, I'll just say it's fairly easy to do a google search and find it pretty quick.