Why are people freaking out over the "Always Online" aspect of Diablo 3?

[Jandau]

*snip*

Oh boy, a troll! Wondered where those went! Let's see, intentionally missing the point of the post? Check! Insulting me? Check! Yeah, I think I'll be ignoring you.

 

[manythings]

Why don't they just have a single-player that's actually separate from the online store and won't let you cross your character over?

Because then people would be mad that they did it on accident without realizing it and Blizzard would have to tell them they couldn't do anything.

Pop-up box when you click single-player. Problem solved.

Dear consumer,

Fuck you for not obeying the directives set out by your lord. Penance will ensure you do not question us again.

Yours sincerely,
The guy who holds your credit card number.

 

[Stall]

It's because people like to *****, and anything that gives them the opportunity to do so is golden. The whole fiasco with D3 is a perfect opportunity, since not only does it betray the community's sense of entitlement, but it is also connected to Activations, a walking example of the maxim "love to hate". It's not logical or anything... it's just the gaming community being its typical, immature self, and loving to make mountains out of mole hills.

People like to *****. Don't read any more into it than that. 90% of the people doing all this bitching are still going to buy D3, and still going to play the shit out of it despite what they say. I would place money on it.

 

[Custard_Angel]

The problem as I see it is that not everyone has access to a stable internet connection.

Always online isn't a problem for a lot of gamers, but it alienates some of them.

 

[Mister Benoit]

I understand the auction house stuff online and such but it's not like you could bring your single player characters from D2 into a closed Realm online anyways so I think that reasoning is pretty BS.

Regardless, within a week someone will hack a single player version that CAN BE MODDED.

Seriously D2 has some super awesome mods.

http://modsbylaz.hugelaser.com/

 

[Griffolion]

I thought the Penny-Arcade summary was pretty on point about this topic.

^Pretty much the exact image I have in my mind.

Mine too. This will affect 0% of all clear thinking adults. The kids (and yes, they can be adults too, but the fact they are raging means they lose adult status) that are raging simply saw a sensitive topic involved, saw Blizzards name and engaged vitriol spurtation (that is now officially a word).

Always online, even for DRM purposes = utterly unaffected, I already use Steam...

Cash Auction House = don't like it, don't use it.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Can't say I'm surprised. Personally this won't affect me much, because I only played D2 online anyway. Even by myself, I'd start up a closed server because I like to keep any progress or loot I may gain on my online character.

But I know it sucks for people who did enjoy to play the game offline, hopefully Blizzard will include an offline option that in no-way can affect the online aspect at all.

The idea of it still sucks as a whole, I'll buy it anyway because it doesn't really tread on me much.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Why don't they just have a single-player that's actually separate from the online store and won't let you cross your character over?

Because then people would be mad that they did it on accident without realizing it and Blizzard would have to tell them they couldn't do anything.

But online and offline character progression is nothing new, game devs have been doing it for bloody ages, so why have Blizzard suddenly decided against it? Yeah, they need it to enable this Cash Auction bollocks, but doesn't that demonstrate perfectly that they're willing to f*ck over the normal player just for £££s? There are plenty of places in the world without broadband access you know, and Blizzard are excluding all of those potential customers just so that they can sell +3 Foam Domes and Flaming Longswords of Spiffyness to people with more money than sense.

 

[Zenn3k]

Personally, its not about the game being "always on", its about the game being "online only".

I want a single player experience, D3 isn't going to offer that, so I'm not going to buy it.

 

[Neonsilver]

DISCLAIMER: I'm sure there's been a bunch of similar threads, no need to tell me that. This one is mine. If it bothers you that someone made another one, just ignore it.

This has been bugging me for the past week - everywhere I turn, people are bitching about the Always Online announcement for D3. It's in the Forums I visit, it's in the Webcomics I follow, it's in the articles I read. Everyone is whining about it like it's this huge problem.

It isn't the problem.

It's the symptom of the actual problem.

In fact, there is no way for D3 to NOT be Always Online. And the reason for that it the actual problem - The Cash Auction House

I'm sure most of you can put the pieces together by now, but in case you're not getting it, I'll elaborate. Any form of offline play means the game data is relatively easy to tamper with. The only way to avoid this is to store character data on the server and keep in constant contact with the client. This becomes actually important when you consider the Cash Auction House (CAH from now on). This is a place where items will be bought and sold for real money. Real as in you'll be able to sell that Infinity+1 Sword you found and then get the money to your bank account (before someone quotes me the Escapist article where it says cashing out won't be possible - that article was wrong).

So imagine if you could go offline, use a cheat program to give yourself a bunch of such items and then put them up for sale. You could literally copy/paste money. Sure, it would crash the market and all that, but that would just end up screwing the game up even more. D2's history was riddled with item duping scandals and similar crap. The only way to prevent it is to keep a tight leash on the character data, and the only way to do that is to require Always Online.

It's not DRM! It's there to ensure the game's market stays "honest". And since real money is being thrown around, real money that could come out of Blizz's own pockets, they REALLY want to keep it honest. People keep talking about the Always Online being DRM and how it's restrictive and whatnot, but for once I don't think it's about Piracy, it's about the CAH.

The only way Blizz could give you an offline mode is if they let your make a separate offline character which could never go online and not letting your online characters ever be played offline. I belive I heard something to that extent was being implemented.

So in short, stop whining about Always Online. It's pointless. If you want to ***** about something, ***** about the CAH, since it's the reason for the Always Online crap.

P.S. And this is before we even get started on the crap I belive the CAH will do to the game's economy, especially as far as "normal" players are concerned.

Even if it isn't intended to be DRM, it does exactly the same as any other always on DRM.

The argument with the auction house is flawed, Diablo 2 had the closed Battle.net, open Battle.net, LAN-mode and singleplayer offline mode. The closed Battle.net is the same as what is planned for D3.

Personaly I just hate it that features that would work perfectly fine for Diablo 3 and were already used 11 years ago, are just cut out.

 

[The Last Nomad]

I'm not going to buy the game, and I wouldn't for any reason. It has nothing to do with the always online aspect (Which would be a major problem for me though).

So imagine if you could go offline, use a cheat program to give yourself a bunch of such items and then put them up for sale. You could literally copy/paste money.

But this seems like a legitimate reason. I don't see why they couldn't just make an offline mode that doesn't involve the CAH thing. Or just get rid of the whole thing altogether, I don't play game to make money, I play them to have fun. But maybe those who play Diablo are very different to me.

 

[ascorbius]

I posted this reply on another thread.. it's relevant though so here it is.

There is an issue of freedom which has appeared (which many people may not have noticed or perhaps haven't considered the impact of) due to the online-ification of games.

In older disk based games on PC or Console, as long as you had the means to play the game, you could play the game. Many years from the day the game was initially purchased. That freedom could not be revoked (accidentally or deliberately) while the player had the tools needed to play. As long as you have a working console or PC of that generation and the disk, you're good to go.

Now there is a change in how games are played. By requiring on-line authentication, you need permission to access the licensed content.

The difference here is that this permission can be revoked and the game may not be playable in the future due to conditions not of your own making.
This can be a deliberate act on the company's part or an accidental outage.

An outage can be from a number of factors:
The state of the economy,
The health of the company,
The health of the authentication system,
Changes to the company's business model,
The company's willingness to support the authentication of a game long past it's usefulness.
Any of these factors can affect your ability to play.

No matter how benevolent the company seems, in 10 years you won't be playing any game you're playing today which need on-line authentication to play and your DLC will no longer be supported unless there is a solid business reason for the company to do so.

The 100% offline disk based freedoms are now gone.

 

[Ba22crow]

Why don't they just have a single-player that's actually separate from the online store and won't let you cross your character over?

Because then blizzard doesn't make money from the online store with you.

They wouldn't be making money anyway if your the type to only play offline. Instead they lose themself a game sale.

 

[Moriarty]

I thought the Penny-Arcade summary was pretty on point about this topic.

^Pretty much the exact image I have in my mind.

Mine too. This will affect 0% of all clear thinking adults. The kids (and yes, they can be adults too, but the fact they are raging means they lose adult status) that are raging simply saw a sensitive topic involved, saw Blizzards name and engaged vitriol spurtation (that is now officially a word).

Always online, even for DRM purposes = utterly unaffected, I already use Steam...

Cash Auction House = don't like it, don't use it.

yeah sure, because everyone who cares about customer rights is a trolling fanboy.

Don't you care a bit that publishers take away features from the games, making the gameplay experience undeniably flawed on purpose (there will always be lag and internet timeouts happen sometimes) and then don't even admit the actual reason they're doing it because they think they can make it sound like they did you a favor?

If they'd at least be honest about it and admit it's their plan to combat piracy, but no, they're trying to tell you it only exists to improve your gameplay experience because you don't have to create two different characters.

also, how the hell does always online drm compare to steam? Steam is, if correctly configured, a one time online activation drm, nothing more.

 

[n00beffect]

Because sometimes people just want to play by themselves! Geez, is that so hard to grasp?! It's that simple.

 

[SecondSince]

I don't mind. As Penny Arcade pointed out most if not all of us are perma-online anyway. Now, i get that it sucks you can't play it on a plane or whatever, but then just take a nap watch a movie or read a book for once.
This will become frequent if not the standard in the years to come, so stop whining!

 

[Ziggy the wolf]

easy when you sit and think about it it doesn't make any sense. i would love to play the game but i'm not going to play a game that forces me to be online at all times. i would rather play alone first, you don't need online for that and well that makes me not want to buy it. all these years i have heard the glory of the Diablo series, games i never got a chance to play and this doesnt make me want to play. lastly for anyone claiming that money is tight for Blizzard, i have 3 letters for you W-O-W