Diablo 3 will be requiring to always be online in order to play. Even if I don't want to play multiplayer.
There is no "offline" mode for it. I don't like playing online with others. When I was playing WoW, I did it solo. Sure, I can understand an online game requiring online play, but there's no reason not to play offline solo. What happens if the server is getting "updated"? That means I won't be able to play. Tough cookies for me.
My laptop doesn't go online, so there's no way for me to even play it. Shame, really. At least I have Torchlight 2 to look forward to.
If you're playing it on a computer without internet service, or when you're internet is down for some reason, it is a big deal.
Yep. That was a dealbreaker for me with DDI.
appearently the VP was surprised by the reaction lol
I liked the occasional multiplayer game in Diablo 2, but I was very happy I could play singleplayer offline all of the time. Multiplayer characters got thrown away by Bliz if you didn't play for X amount of time. They died due to lag when bosses spawned with fancy effects (Try hardcore). Add to that, "servers are down/under maintenance" or "your internet is down".
I can also where Blizzard is coming from. This'll prevent a lot of illegal copies of the game. Like it or not, piracy basically forces them to do this kind of thing and I'm glad they're taking the sensible approach.
Like it or not, piracy basically forces them to do this kind of thing and I'm glad they're taking the sensible approach.
I beg to differ, Plu. I have an rticle that I copied to link, but it has naughty language so I can't. Instead, I'll tell you to go to Cracked.com and read the article "6 Hilarious Ways Game Designers Are Screwing with Pirates".
Really, it's too bad the pirates don't put their abilities toward creating awesome opensource games rather than doing bad things with other people's property.
edit:Robert Bridenbecker, Blizzard’s Vice President of Online Technologies, said
Internally I don’t think [DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate.
...
I’m a huge purveyor of online sites and from my standpoint, I don’t look at DRM solutions and go, ‘Wow, those are awesome.’ I look at those and say, ‘Wow, those kind of suck.’
Starcraft II has the same thing. It's sometimes annoying. Thing is, there are no games that come even close to how incredibly awesome that game is, so I tolerate it. I'm guessing Diablo III will be the same.
I can also where Blizzard is coming from. This'll prevent a lot of illegal copies of the game. Like it or not, piracy basically forces them to do this kind of thing and I'm glad they're taking the sensible approach.
Actually, Starcraft 2 does have an offline mode. Two of them, actually, which gets deeply confusing at times... if you attempt to log in while you don't have an internet connection it'll ask if you want to load your profile from the last time you were online, at which point you cna play single player campaign, challenge maps, or local vs. bots, but that's all, and none of your progress on any of those counts towards achievements. The other way was to log in as "guest" from the main screen, it's a small button in the bottom right.
Honestly, I do think they're going to fold on this one. I understand their logic, they did a very good job at explaining to use why they wanted it this way during the press conference, but I still think that there's a number of circumstances where people would be willing to start a new character in an isolated single-player-only mode that's kinda tucked out of the way just because they'd rather play than not play.
The other side of it is that I won't be surprised if it takes less than 24 hours for someone to figure out how to set up a private server, or even just spoof the game into thinking you're connected to a server.
Really all they need to do is put all the log-in stuff right front and center in the screen, then have a small button in the bottom right that says "offline mode." When you click that button it comes up with a big warning "characters created in offline mode cannot play multiplayer, use the auction system, or earn achievements DO YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?"
This will probably cause kwazy levels of lag.
Given that Starcraft 2 was the same way, I would anticipate all Blizzard games from here forward being the same way. I don't mind, personally.
Cheating, maybe, I guess. Probably not.
I mean you can get a pirated version of Starcraft... but it's boring as crap because there's no multiplayer. If you want the Starcraft experience, you gotta buy it.
And I'm guessing Diablo III is going to be the same way, with a lot of the experience being focused on the "being online" part and much less on the playing on your own. How they're going to do it, I don't know (and I don't really follow the dev for the game either), but I'd be really dissapointed in Bliz if they're not using this to really boost the gameplay to the next level.
DA:O sometimes has trouble loging onto the servers during gameplay. It doesn't effect gameplay other than ocasionally having to close a text box saying that it can't find the server. I have never had a issue of not being able to load my PC version.
On the Xbox, if you can't connect to the servers (either because you have no Xbox Live, internet, or whatever) you can't load the game. It sucks.
I think it's less about preventing piracy and more about preventing cheating. Since there will be a real-money auction house, it's important to prevent people from cheating to acquire valuable items to sell. Keeping all gameplay online allows Blizzard to better control this.
This. A problem with diablo 2 is that bots people set up on independent sites were running a lot of the diablo 2 economy. With diablo 3 involving a lot of real money in the auction house they need to prevent that kind of cheating. As well as people disconnecting from the net to hack the game to place in top notch expensive items they could sell at the auction house for essentially real money.
Given that Starcraft 2 was the same way, I would anticipate all Blizzard games from here forward being the same way. I don't mind, personally.
SC2 has an offline mode but nothing you do there is saved or effects your actual (online) profile. diablo 3 will likely have something similar, but your offline characters will not be playable online in any fashion and wont be able to trade items via auction house and whatnot. I'm just saying this is likely because from what I remember what was said about SC2 is that it has no offline mode, but it does. ;)
SC2 has an offline mode but nothing you do there is saved or effects your actual (online) profile. diablo 3 will likely have something similar, but your offline characters will not be playable online in any fashion and wont be able to trade items via auction house and whatnot. I'm just saying this is likely because from what I remember what was said about SC2 is that it has no offline mode, but it does. ;)
At the press conference they told us that there would be no offline mode at all, even in the same capacity as SC2.
Personally I feel that they'll fold and end up including it, but at present it is not in the game.
I'll press the issue harder at Blizzcon if I get anything resembling a decent interview slot.
What do you mean that can't happen canonically? Screw the canon I have money.
Wrong cannon.
lol. I kind of think what that last panel says when I hear people comlaining about this manditory online thing for games. why? because the people that aren't only much, if at all, wouldn't give a darn about the game in the first place.
I'll probably not end up buying the game, or at least not anytime soon. Reason being that I don't think I'll have the time to do it.
I don't mind online games. I play a few myself. What I don't like is not having the option to play single player by myself offline. It would get annoying to get hom at 1 am, log on to kill things only to get a pop up message that the game will shut down in 5 minutes. If I wanted to play it as an online game, okay, fine. Stinks for me.
But, think about all your offline games for a moment and imagine you would have to be online all the time to play it.
How would you feel if they didn't make any more online games? Or multiplayer games? Or allow multiplayer but only for offline mode?
Not having that option for me isn't so much an end of the world scenerio. It's more akin to "Gee, aweseome looking game I want to play, but I don't meet the system requirements."