Diablo 3: We need a thread

[Alaris]

1) yeah, security is an issue, but I am not convinced that you can't have both secure online plus unsecure offline.

2) I'd play D3 offline or with family anyway. I'm pretty sure I am far from alone on this. I'd wageroffline/lan is far more frequent than online play was, on a per unit sold basis rather than per hour played (better replay value online)

3) I bought GW1 for multiplayer option, as in optional. I've done lots of PUGging and ally events when I felt like it, and I enjoy trading.

[RD]

1) yeah, security is an issue, but I am not convinced that you can't have both secure online plus unsecure offline.

Can you name one single player game that could not be hacked?

2) I'd play D3 offline or with family anyway. I'm pretty sure I am far from alone on this. I'd wageroffline/lan is far more frequent than online play was, on a per unit sold basis rather than per hour played (better replay value online)

Disagree here, too. I don't think offline/LAN is the standard these days. And even in cases of playing with real life friends, it's far less of a hassle to just tote your laptop, hop on your buddy's WiFi, and join a game together than to try to set up a LAN game. That's what I'm planning to do when I visit my friend in LA this summer :)

[sorudo]

offline has never failed, online fails 60% of the time.
guess what i trust more?

[satenia]

Alright, first of all, you can keep calling it a single player game if you want, but that won't make it true. The simple fact of the matter is the overwhelming majority of people who played Diablo 2 played it online. Now, there are some damn good reasons for requiring an always online connection, which apparently none of you bothered looking into, so now I have to come in here and *****. Hint: it has nothing to do with greed.

But first, let's reminisce. Remember those 8-person Baal runs in Hell mode? Remember when you'd get tppked? Remember when that happened in hardcore mode? Hacks. Hacks are why there is an always on connection. If Blizzard included all the information to create local servers (read: offline play), then hackers would have information readily available to ruin the experience for everyone else. No duped items, no items with negative attributes that can one shot absolutely everything in the game, no tppks, no town killing, no maphacks, and so on and so forth. This always on connection obviously works, as seen by other online games you may have heard of once or twice before, such as Guild Wars and World of Warcraft.

And while we're on that topic, I don't see anyone calling Guild Wars a single player game, and yet what do you do most of the time? Load up on 7 heroes and galavant around Kryta, I'd bet. To state that Diablo 3 is a single player game only concerned with greed, while ignoring the similarities and benefits it provides similar to every other online game, shows ignorance of the series, game design, and the integrity of the service as a whole.


also lol at the same recycled gameplay. Maybe you shouldn't have bought the game if you thought that.
Of course, you don't actually think that. You're just pissed because you can't play.

To learn what the game is actually like past the Skeleton King, I'll direct you all to Flux's post on the d3 incgamers site:
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...st-impressions

Grossly blown out of proportion. Some kids unable to pay for a MMO subscription being stuck with endlessly farming the same bosses surely doesn't put Diablo 2 on par with a MMO experience. Since the first Diablo game, the series has sold quite well for it's campaign and single player, there is a customer base that simply didn't care for the battle.net farming experience. This cannot even compare to GW which sold as CORPG from start, yet got more "solo-friendly" over the years.

The hacking in past Diablo games is unfortunate, yet it feels like Blizzard didn't care to search for alternatives regarding offline play (Starcraft 2 can be temporary used offline). If they do indeed force you to play online, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that they will scale their servers accordingly - even to meet the demands of the initial launch. If anything, customers have been left ignorant to how the initial launch will likely turn out. Keep in mind that people who formerly played solo will not have your beta/game/launch experience. None cared to enlighten them till they payed for the game anyway. And now you seriously wonder why they complain?

As far as recycled gameplay goes, yeah it does feel just like 10+ years ago. I have no doubts that there is more to it eventually, but I did in fact buy it for the reason that I liked the past games - for their campaign, solo, farming bosses never caught my interest and still doesn't.

I'm not following this for some reason. How does Blizzard make more money off online only than they would off combination Single/LAN/Online?

Auction house, plain and simple. Putting it right under everyones nose will give it a much bigger potential user-base.

[MixedVariety]

Auction house, plain and simple. Putting it right under everyones nose will give it a much bigger potential user-base.

They could still have an auction house if it were single/LAN/online, yes? My real question to Alaris is why online-only equates to greed, or more greed than otherwise?

[shawn]

1) yeah, security is an issue, but I am not convinced that you can't have both secure online plus unsecure offline.

I can't think of a single game with offline and online play where hacking wasn't a major issue. Basically every first person shooter ever has had problems with wallhacks and aimbots, RPGs have had ridiculous issues with item dupes and impossible items, racing games have had uncrashable cars that stick to the track at 300 mph, and on and on. Even console games have hacks, ffs. By keeping the majority of the game's code on Blizzard's servers, it's hiding it away from the eyes and intentions of the common script kiddie.

2) I'd play D3 offline or with family anyway. I'm pretty sure I am far from alone on this. I'd wageroffline/lan is far more frequent than online play was, on a per unit sold basis rather than per hour played (better replay value online)

Well your ancedotal evidence goes against the sales numbers and hours played on b.net per cd key which Blizzard has access to, and made their decision with. Plus, since the internet is always on anyway, I don't see a difference between going to someone's house and logging on there rather than connecting your computers to each other.

3) I bought GW1 for multiplayer option, as in optional. I've done lots of PUGging and ally events when I felt like it, and I enjoy trading.

And you'll buy D3 for the multiplayer option, as in optional. You can do lots of pugging and guild events when you feel like it, and enjoy trading.

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The real money auction house is greedy?

Wow, you really didn't play D2 online. Getting items in D2 via real money on third party sites was literally your only option. D3 is expanding your options by also including a gold-based auction house.

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offline has never failed, online fails 60% of the time.
guess what i trust more?

GW has been down something like two days in seven years.
WoW has only gone down outside of scheduled maintenance for maybe a week total across its 8 years and three (soon to be four) expansions.

Your opinion does not match up with facts and reality.

[satenia]

They could still have an auction house if it were single/LAN/online, yes? My real question to Alaris is why-online only equates to greed, or more greed than otherwise?

The solo population would automatically get excluded. But now that it's there for everyone, well, as I said, much higher potential user-base. You do realize that Blizzard gets their share for every RL money transaction?

Plus, since the internet is always on anyway, I don't see a difference between going to someone's house and logging on there rather than connecting your computers to each other.

Difference is that you are depending on outside services being available... like login servers... oh wait

The real money auction house is greedy?

Wow, you really didn't play D2 online. Getting items in D2 via real money on third party sites was literally your only option. D3 is expanding your options by also including a gold-based auction house.

The transaction fee is.

Third party sites selling gold is really nothing unique to D2...

[Alaris]

I think they removed offline mainly as DRM. That is my best guess.

I don't care about security, trading, etc in D3 because I'd play it offline single and not even farming or till the very end. I'd stop at grind, start a new profession. Thus there is no value online for me.

[MixedVariety]

The solo population would automatically get excluded. But now that it's there for everyone, well, as I said, much higher potential user-base. You do realize that Blizzard gets their share for every RL money transaction?

I do, yes. Frankly, it's a smart business move for several reasons. But this is what I'm thinking: In D2, honestly, most people played online. The reason for that (and yes, this was intentionally engineered so by Blizzard, of course) was because, unless you were using mods for single or LAN gaming (I did a lot of that, and boy was it fun), you got much more out of ladder play than single player. More runewords, more uniques, what have you. No Enigma for you on single player, nope.

Anyway. I'm not advocating the online-only bit; I would rather get my feet wet with different characters on single-player like I did with D2, and then try online play. But online-only won't keep me from eventually playing D3.

[shawn]

Difference is that you are depending on outside services being available... like login servers... oh wait

Right. Just like gw. And gw2. And WoW. And Steam. And LoL. And Dota. And CS. And Tribes. And L4D. And TF2. And SC2. And probably 20 other triple-A titles.

The transaction fee is.

So use the gold auction house if the concept of them making money rustles your jimmies so badly.

I think they removed offline mainly as DRM. That is my best guess.

Oh my god. Just like with sorudo, your opinion does not line up with the facts which I have already stated multiple times in this thread. Time and again, interviews with Jay Wilson have stated that it was made online only so that they could have a Sanctuary free from cheats online, and that the majority of people played D2 online anyway, so it made sense to build the game ground up as a co-op multiplayer game. That's it and that's all. Diablo 3 was not made as a single-player game. Period.