Blizzard: Diablo 3 Internet Requirement Prevents Hacking

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[citation][nom]renz496[/nom]totally agreed. maybe he never did play the campaign?[/citation]
It's like people are not even reading posts, just want to make snarky comments.

Take Crus Russ for example. He talks about true fans wouldn't complain. Sorry, but the fact is this is showing true Blizzard fans that this has Bobby Kotick's influence written all over it. I think it's painfully obvious this has been done for one reason and one reason only, so that Blizzard can make more money off the real money auction house.

Crus Russ wants to say that only Zynga players object to this, but the fact is this is gonna attract more of that type of player because people who have no love of Diablo or Blizzard games will be flooding into the game to try to make money. This means that true Diablo fans will have less of a chance of getting good item drops to help their gameplay. And if we do get lucky and get a good item, it may end up being nerfed if Blizzard thinks too many of that item has been out up on the AH.
 
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]This still doesn't answer my question.For one thing, I disagree that it will take people long at all to hack the system. Hackers have been getting the best of Blizz for years on WoW. Duping was an issue on Guild Wars.My question is, why, when the discussion is on the SINGLE player portion of the game, do people bring up the "item's won't be able to be duped" argument (which I don't believe they won't be able to be duped. I think they will easily be duped within weeks of release)?Let me give an example. Let's say Blizzard did allow a normal single player experience and that, like in Diablo 2, items dropped in single player are not tradable, thus could not be placed on the auction house. If someone wanted to dupe items in their single player experience, so what? What does it matter to me or those that make that argument? While I have no interest in duping items, if someone else does it in their single player game, so what. All they are doing is cheating themselves out of the gameplay experience and are not affecting me or anyone else one bit.That is what I want to know, why people are so concerned with what others do when it has no bearing on anyone else.[/citation]

This is because you have misunderstood what has been stated n times. People dont give a toss about duping in single player, people give a toss about hackers LEARNING HOW TO DUPE through single player and applying this to online.

If it was only limited to single player no one would care, but as Jay Wilson has stated, hackers used the single player mode to understand the games internal architecture then applied these hacks online. By never storing anything locally, it makes it much harder for hackers to hack the game. There will still be hacks but much less so and much easier for them to fix/prevent.
 
[citation][nom]crus_russ[/nom]Regarding your points:1.) Regarding "competing" for drops with gold sellers. Unless you are a hardcore gamer you will NEVER get to the 4th difficulty and you will never see the true end game items. If you ARE hardcore enough, you will. This is a scalable game, to expect that you can play it "casually" and still come across the most rare/hardcore stuff is a stupid position to have. Blizzard have designed the game to take a very long time to acquire everything. Also, blizzard will be doing everything they can to stop bots, so in effect you are only "competing" with other hardcore gamers (i.e. real people), whats wrong with that? You want to breeze through easy mode and get the god gear? Get real kid.2.) The entire network being hacked and none of us being able to play? If this happens Blizzard will repair and be back online ASAP. I am willing to risk it.3.) To raise the issue of lag you really need to read up on scalable server clustering. Blizzard will be adding MASSIVE amounts of additional capacity to their network to cope with the new load of players. Blizzard will have hired very expensive architects like myself (Salaries up to $1500 USD/day) to analyse server load, expected growth %, scaling capacities and growth plans such that lag does not become an issue. If it does become an issue Blizzard will quickly add more capacity.[/citation]
1.) Makes no difference. Regardless of whatever difficulty I play in, the drop rate for items in my single player game will be affected by others playing the same level of difficulty. Not to mention Blizzard has said an item is open to be nerfed if they deem to much of that item out there. Why should a single player be affected by that?

2.)For someone who keeps bringing up how he is a network architect you seem to be woefully unaware of the recent Sony Playstion Network debacle. That network was down for nearly 2 months. So you can brush it off all you want, knowledgeable people know that that trully is a possibility and that Blizzard likely won't have it back "ASAP".

3.) I recently stopped playing World of Warcraft a couple of months ago after being on that game since launch back in November of 2004. Server issues still exist to this day. So please, don't try to brush this off either. I have a lot of friends who love the Starcraft multiplayer and they talk about players who throttle their connection in such a way as it affects a lot of people on the server which frustrates them to no end.
 
[citation][nom]crus_russ[/nom]This is because you have misunderstood what has been stated n times. People dont give a toss about duping in single player, people give a toss about hackers LEARNING HOW TO DUPE through single player and applying this to online.If it was only limited to single player no one would care, but as Jay Wilson has stated, hackers used the single player mode to understand the games internal architecture then applied these hacks online. By never storing anything locally, it makes it much harder for hackers to hack the game. There will still be hacks but much less so and much easier for them to fix/prevent.[/citation]
I'm sorry, but the more you post the clearer it is you don't seem to be as knowledgeable as you claim. Items in the single player portion would not have to done in the same manner as the server would handle it, thus would provide no more insight in how to dupe them.

Not to mention you keep saying because it's online it will be tougher to hack the game. If that's true, why haven't they been successful against the hackers in WoW after nearly SEVEN years? At this point they have seemingly given up trying to stop the hacks there.
 
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Yes, but they could have done something about the duping issue. The main problem is that it's the online server controlling the single player game, and that will affect drop rates. I mean theres a difference between requiring online mode as a DRM tool to avoid piracy and still letting your local computer control the single player drop rates.I really do not understand how people are not seeing this. It's like people are burying their head in the sand. Do you really think with the battle.net server controlling drop rates even for single player games that you will somehow be immune to all the bots that will be run by gold sellers and others in an attempt to get the best items to put on the real money AH? Blizzard will not allow a flood of good items because that would lower the price drastically thus reducing their profits to next to nothing on their AH cut.Yes, there are connectivity issues some people will have that also is legitimate argument and will shut some people out of the game. But don't kid yourself. This online required single player mode has NOTHING to do with game hacking/duping or piracy. It's all about Blizzard's cut on the AH.[/citation]
Where in hell did you see that blizzard would adjust droprates based upon the judgement on if there are too many of an item? Considering the fact that offline singleplayer and online singleplayer, even in D2, the droprates are the same between the two, why would it have been any different for D3 had they included offline play? It isnt like there is going to be some upper limit threshold for a particular item, it will always be a % droprate.

Also, the statement of not including offline singleplayer because of dupes is completely valid. There are many many hacks and dupes that are developed in singleplayer and are then able to be used on the live servers. The offline dupes that you saw on open bnet are not what he is talking about.

WoW has yet to have a dupe hack in like 8 years. That seems to be pretty solid proof that online play prevents duping.

Finally, in regards to pirated servers, it has taken until the last couple of weeks for a hacked SC2 server to come out... so about a year and a half to come up with one. Sure, it was eventually done, but it did take time.
 
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]And none of you who keep saying the line "If you have bad internet tough" line still do not adress the issues of the fact that...One - Players of the single player game will be competing with everyone else for drops because the server handles the game even for single players. Do not think for a moment that Blizzard will allow massive drop rates of good items because even drops in single player games will be able to be sold on the AH and Blizzard knows that a lot of an item means lowering of cost thus reducing their cut.Two - Has everyone already forgotten when Sony's Playstation Network was hacked? Players of games that required a connection could not play those games for nearly 2 months. Is this something those whose primary interest in the single player mode (and yes, there are more of us than you want to admit) will want to put up with when there is no real need.Three - Battle.net is currently very laggy for those who play the multiplayer for Starcraft 2. I have friends who play it, they have excellent internet connections, but this is an issue a lot of those players face. Do you think having EVERY player of D3 having to be on those servers will improve the situation?[/citation]
1) Drop rate is not influenced by the server asking, "are there too many of this item?" Drops are and always will be a % based chance, not a constantly adjusted rate that is determined by the amount that are out in the population. This means the difference between offline singleplayer and online singleplayer, in terms of droprates, is zero. They would be identical.

2) Sony's network was down, and hacked, because of horribly poor security with a lot of plain text information. In addition, it was only down for so long because Sony had to change a LOT of stuff (coding, server structure, and more) to make sure it was secure. If they wanted to keep the same or similar security vulnerabilities they couldve had it up a day later.

3) I play SC2, a lot actually. I have none of this lag unless I try to play against somebody in korea/taiwan. Stop making crap up to make it seem bad.
 
Come visit my house, 1 can access 3g from one network provider at very unreliable speeds.
No ADSL line possible due to cable theft and even if there was it would be about 6km's of copper that would have to be installed between me and the closest DSLAM (SNR and Attenuation will make this impossible simply due to distance).
Ahh well, guess this game was not meant for South Africa.
Well done on keeping the game in the rich countries but I guess loyal supporters will have to give up on Blizzard, Steam and the like unless it is cracked to work off-line. I give up, going to start growing bonsais or something, at least they don't need the impossible.
 
[citation][nom]therabiddeer[/nom]Where in hell did you see that blizzard would adjust droprates based upon the judgement on if there are too many of an item? Considering the fact that offline singleplayer and online singleplayer, even in D2, the droprates are the same between the two, why would it have been any different for D3 had they included offline play? It isnt like there is going to be some upper limit threshold for a particular item, it will always be a % droprate.Also, the statement of not including offline singleplayer because of dupes is completely valid. There are many many hacks and dupes that are developed in singleplayer and are then able to be used on the live servers. The offline dupes that you saw on open bnet are not what he is talking about.WoW has yet to have a dupe hack in like 8 years. That seems to be pretty solid proof that online play prevents duping.Finally, in regards to pirated servers, it has taken until the last couple of weeks for a hacked SC2 server to come out... so about a year and a half to come up with one. Sure, it was eventually done, but it did take time.[/citation]
Blizzard has already said they will change item stats (in other words nerf them) if too many of that item is on the AH. I can't find the article I read a few weeks ago about the AH, but this is from their forums about them changing the stats...

"Q: What happens if there is a patch and the item I purchased is altered?

A: It's important for us to ensure that Diablo III remains balanced and fun for years after launch. To that end, it may be necessary to change stats or alter abilities of items from time to time. It’s very important to note that Blizzard will not be providing refunds or making other accommodations if a purchased item is later altered in a patch. Given this, it's up to players to determine whether they're comfortable purchasing items in the currency-based auction house."

So players who wish to play single player will be affected by stat changes brought about because of thos playing that AH.

And no, they have not said that they will control the drop rate. However, let's use some common sense. They routinely tinker with the drop rate of items in WoW. Do you really think with Diablo 3, where Blizzard will be getting a cut off each item sold in the AH, that Bobby Kotick will risk a revenue stream by letting so many of an item be out there it sells for 50 cents or a dollar? Their cut would be miniscule, if they make anything at all on a sale that low. So yes, I think it is obvious with real money being involved with items that they have an interest in keeping items valuable thus meaning they will play with the drop rates.
 
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Blizzard has already said they will change item stats (in other words nerf them) if too many of that item is on the AH. I can't find the article I read a few weeks ago about the AH, but this is from their forums about them changing the stats..."Q: What happens if there is a patch and the item I purchased is altered?A: It's important for us to ensure that Diablo III remains balanced and fun for years after launch. To that end, it may be necessary to change stats or alter abilities of items from time to time. It’s very important to note that Blizzard will not be providing refunds or making other accommodations if a purchased item is later altered in a patch. Given this, it's up to players to determine whether they're comfortable purchasing items in the currency-based auction house."So players who wish to play single player will be affected by stat changes brought about because of thos playing that AH.And no, they have not said that they will control the drop rate. However, let's use some common sense. They routinely tinker with the drop rate of items in WoW. Do you really think with Diablo 3, where Blizzard will be getting a cut off each item sold in the AH, that Bobby Kotick will risk a revenue stream by letting so many of an item be out there it sells for 50 cents or a dollar? Their cut would be miniscule, if they make anything at all on a sale that low. So yes, I think it is obvious with real money being involved with items that they have an interest in keeping items valuable thus meaning they will play with the drop rates.[/citation]
Once again, look at Diablo 2. When items changed online, they changed offline. The only way they didnt change offline is if you didnt update to a newer version. Items changed a TON throughout the life of Diablo 2. Also, the item changes are not a result of people playing the AH, but because an item (or ability) is overpowered. They even specifically say that in the paragraph you are quoting. Are you so blinded by fury that you have lost the ability to read?

The only time they have tinkered with droprates of items in WoW is when they screw up and let raid trash drop epics too frequently (usually its a bug that causes this even). It is also painfully obvious when it is needed to be done as well. When after a single night of working on progression and clearing trash and you are already banking good trash drops because everybody in your guild has one... its dropping more than it was intended.

Amazingly enough though, if they reduce droprates of an item because there are too many, that would negatively impact their profits from the AH.
 
[citation][nom]therabiddeer[/nom]1) Drop rate is not influenced by the server asking, "are there too many of this item?" Drops are and always will be a % based chance, not a constantly adjusted rate that is determined by the amount that are out in the population. This means the difference between offline singleplayer and online singleplayer, in terms of droprates, is zero. They would be identical.2) Sony's network was down, and hacked, because of horribly poor security with a lot of plain text information. In addition, it was only down for so long because Sony had to change a LOT of stuff (coding, server structure, and more) to make sure it was secure. If they wanted to keep the same or similar security vulnerabilities they couldve had it up a day later.3) I play SC2, a lot actually. I have none of this lag unless I try to play against somebody in korea/taiwan. Stop making crap up to make it seem bad.[/citation]
1.) Show me where Blizzard has said that each player will have the same drop rate as any other player and that they will not tinker with drops? they have already said they will nerf items if there are too many of them out there, and we know they tinker and adjust drop rates in WoW. With actual real life money involved, it's a safe bet they will not allow what they think is to much of an item to be "out there".

2.) And Blizzard's own site isn't the most secure in the world. Their own web page, which is unsecured, shows information a person puts in on their account informtation which means that the unsecured page is pulling information from a player's account info. And with Blizzard's partnership with Facebook, that makes them a very attractive target for hacker groups. And we are talking about a company that even after close to seven years still can't get a patch released properly for their top of the charts MMO. So no, I have little confidence they will be able to handle an attack better than Sony, and not much they could handle it as well as Sony (and no, I am not saying Sony handled it well, I am saying I believe based on Blizz's recent history they would handle it even worse).

3.) I am not making stuff up about SC2. A lot of friends of mine from WoW play SC2 and they all constantly talk about it. Do a Google search on Starcraft battle.net lag and you will get a lot of results on the subject.
 
[citation][nom]Sequences[/nom]As bad as dupes were, it was the driving factor in the Diablo 2 economy due to the absurdly low drop rates of high runes. Duped items often become a sort of currency. Unless Blizzard has developed some kind of in-game currency, this is the kind of stuff that could kill a game economy.[/citation]

Its quite interesting how blizzard is talking about hacking, dupes, etc and then every action they took in diablo 2 was basicly a "honest player killer". First they implemented patches to eliminate dupes and maphacks. Ok thats good but i agree with the statement above, the rune drops were stupidly low. I played this game for over 5 years. In that time i got drops from high runes only becouse they increased the runes drop rate. Even this way i dont belive 3 High runes in 2 months makes up for the 0 i got in over 4 years time. And i did magic find runs for over a year!

Ok that in itself is simply stupid, but then, we get more patches, and we get a HELLFIRE torch that crashes the game with some of the most common skills (zeal,fury,multishot). Do they not test something before they put it out there? Some months after that, they change the hellfire torch by changin the % from 25 to 5. Why not fix the problem instead? Perhaps becouse diablo2 no longer brings profit, but keeping the servers online looses money? And waht about the 90+% of bots that are on diablo2 right now? If you make a game with no password it will be filled with spambots that will literally flood your screen, basicly not allowing you to see anything. Then we got the bot runners, who flood the server taking every single usefull drop, to then sell online the items. Cant blizzard shut down those sites to avoid the problem? Or at least eliminate the bots from the server?

Now, if diablo 3 is in fact an amazing game, ill probably buy it, but after Starcraft 2 beeing such a dissapointment for me (dont get me wrong, its a god game, but compared to broodwar its simply boring), im definitly going with the "wait and see" policy.
 
[citation][nom]therabiddeer[/nom]Once again, look at Diablo 2. When items changed online, they changed offline. The only way they didnt change offline is if you didnt update to a newer version. Items changed a TON throughout the life of Diablo 2. Also, the item changes are not a result of people playing the AH, but because an item (or ability) is overpowered. They even specifically say that in the paragraph you are quoting. Are you so blinded by fury that you have lost the ability to read?The only time they have tinkered with droprates of items in WoW is when they screw up and let raid trash drop epics too frequently (usually its a bug that causes this even). It is also painfully obvious when it is needed to be done as well. When after a single night of working on progression and clearing trash and you are already banking good trash drops because everybody in your guild has one... its dropping more than it was intended.Amazingly enough though, if they reduce droprates of an item because there are too many, that would negatively impact their profits from the AH.[/citation]
Sorry, I played WoW for well over 6 years. I know for a fact they often tinkered with drop rates. Back in vanilla when they had a good size in game GM staff, a GM actually made Onyxia's loot table be identical to the previous weeks because our one mage disconnected due to an internet outage before she could recieve the Netherwind Crown. And we hadn't even put in a ticket. The GM had just been watching our previous weeks raid and watched the comments made in chat about it and felt sorry. There was also a lot of tinkering during BC with drop rates in both Kara and BT.

And I think you really need to take a look at the law of supply and demand. Let's say a huge amount of an item drops thus meaning it could only be sold on the AH for 50 cents each. Blizzard may not even make a single penny on that depending on if there will be a minimum needed to be reached before Blizz's cut kicks in. However, if an item is scarce enough that it demands say $50-$100, then Blizzard is going to make a lot on that sale. So no, it is not in Blizzard's interest for there to be a glut in the market of a lot of a particular item.
 
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]1.) Show me where Blizzard has said that each player will have the same drop rate as any other player and that they will not tinker with drops? they have already said they will nerf items if there are too many of them out there, and we know they tinker and adjust drop rates in WoW. With actual real life money involved, it's a safe bet they will not allow what they think is to much of an item to be "out there".2.) And Blizzard's own site isn't the most secure in the world. Their own web page, which is unsecured, shows information a person puts in on their account informtation which means that the unsecured page is pulling information from a player's account info. And with Blizzard's partnership with Facebook, that makes them a very attractive target for hacker groups. And we are talking about a company that even after close to seven years still can't get a patch released properly for their top of the charts MMO. So no, I have little confidence they will be able to handle an attack better than Sony, and not much they could handle it as well as Sony (and no, I am not saying Sony handled it well, I am saying I believe based on Blizz's recent history they would handle it even worse).3.) I am not making stuff up about SC2. A lot of friends of mine from WoW play SC2 and they all constantly talk about it. Do a Google search on Starcraft battle.net lag and you will get a lot of results on the subject.[/citation]
1) They havent said it, its kind of assumed because of the way drops are done in any given game that has drops of any kind at all. A game doesnt favor a particular person, the game assigns a variable to an item that is known as a drop rate (among other variables, like item level) which determines how frequently an item CAN drop (not how frequently it WILL drop). They also said they will nerf stats in terms of BALANCE, not in terms of QUANTITY. If an item is overpowered, it will have stats reduced, not because everybody happens to get one.

2) Blizzards site IS secure. The initial domain is not secure, but everything involving your account and login is done securely. Also, I am pretty sure that patches have been released quite smoothly since like... TBC. If you want to try patching a thousand servers with a complex patch, go ahead... but I think they are doing damned good. The last part of this paragraph just further emphasizes that you are not using logic in any form, but bitter hate towards blizzard for all of these posts.

3) SC2 battle.net lag is not lag on bnet's end. In 98% of cases it is on the users end. Yes, there is the rare 2% where it occurs for battle.net, but it is exceedingly rare. Nobody that I play SC2 with talks about lag, and we mostly play at a decently high level. The ONLY time lag comes into play is when you are playing on the korean servers from america (or the other way around) and thats mostly unavoidable.
 
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Sorry, I played WoW for well over 6 years. I know for a fact they often tinkered with drop rates. Back in vanilla when they had a good size in game GM staff, a GM actually made Onyxia's loot table be identical to the previous weeks because our one mage disconnected due to an internet outage before she could recieve the Netherwind Crown. And we hadn't even put in a ticket. The GM had just been watching our previous weeks raid and watched the comments made in chat about it and felt sorry. There was also a lot of tinkering during BC with drop rates in both Kara and BT.And I think you really need to take a look at the law of supply and demand. Let's say a huge amount of an item drops thus meaning it could only be sold on the AH for 50 cents each. Blizzard may not even make a single penny on that depending on if there will be a minimum needed to be reached before Blizz's cut kicks in. However, if an item is scarce enough that it demands say $50-$100, then Blizzard is going to make a lot on that sale. So no, it is not in Blizzard's interest for there to be a glut in the market of a lot of a particular item.[/citation]
I am sorry, but I have actually been playing WoW since a couple of days after release, and what you are saying is ACTUALLY retarded. The fact that you got the same drops the next week has nothing to do with a GM, it is random chance. I didnt get my T6 shoulders on my druid for 4 months... do you think a GM just hated me and thus prevented them from dropping? The fact that you didnt put in a ticket further shows that you are just clueless and paranoid about nothing. In regards to Kara and BT drop rates, care to reference some specific changes in droprates?

In regards to your supply and demand argument... that actually doesnt matter to blizzard. The rate that they charge is a FIXED amount, not a percentage of what you sell for (they do not get a cut, they charge a fee). So they would benefit more from letting kickass items drop more frequently as they could get more AH listings. Thanks once again for showing your ignorance.
 
Make all the ridiculous excuses you want for Blizzard. Removing single player wouldn't have changed a thing if they actually knew how to code properly and not leave items the server thinks is real in memory for anyone to grab.

Duping was one of those MANY bugs they never fixed in D2.
 
I dont understand the guy who claims to be working in the IT department. Everyone who has some education will know that, while its true the hacking is harder on an server based game, making an online-only game is basicly a money interest. Most of the population with the means of buying games live in areas where internet is a posibility. Online only limits the ammount of cracked games to a bare minimum (but does not vanish it at all).
Blizzard has lost a lot of respect from the players due to their change in policy towards gamers, and the same way they won that respect in the first place, they earned that loss. Its the same way that everything goes in this world, when companies start to make profit becouse the screw up people, people get mad, and eventually react.
So far the Starcraft 2 sales did not suffer due to this, we will see with D3.
 
According to this article, which deals with US Braodband ussage http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/National+Telecommunications+and+Information+Administration

"65.9% of urban households subscribed to broadband in 2009, compared with 51% of rural households"

So in other words Blizzard is telling 34.1% of all urban people and 49% of all rural people to go fuck them selves. The article doesn't mention if the analysis took into account satellite as being broadband or not, and if they did, then it wouldn't work very well for the game considering there would be lag. Then on top of this information there are instances of poor service, overpriced service and the basic fact you have to pay an additional monthly fee to play the game, ie, your internet bill. That bastard is making radical assumptions based on nothing but elitist ideas of how the world is rather than how it actually exists. Either tell it straight and stop lying or go home. If they allow you to play single player without the internet, they would get more money because people without internet would have the option of buying it.

 
[citation][nom]therabiddeer[/nom]I am sorry, but I have actually been playing WoW since a couple of days after release, and what you are saying is ACTUALLY retarded. The fact that you got the same drops the next week has nothing to do with a GM, it is random chance. I didnt get my T6 shoulders on my druid for 4 months... do you think a GM just hated me and thus prevented them from dropping? The fact that you didnt put in a ticket further shows that you are just clueless and paranoid about nothing. In regards to Kara and BT drop rates, care to reference some specific changes in droprates?In regards to your supply and demand argument... that actually doesnt matter to blizzard. The rate that they charge is a FIXED amount, not a percentage of what you sell for (they do not get a cut, they charge a fee). So they would benefit more from letting kickass items drop more frequently as they could get more AH listings. Thanks once again for showing your ignorance.[/citation]

Actually he is right, just in the wrong way. If you drop kick ass items all time, soon everyone ahs the same kickass character, and then a few months later, everyone uses the same skills the same way.
If you are as smart as you think you are already getting to my point. Just in case: If you get the best soon, you stop gaming, becouse there is nothing more for you in the game. Yes, you might own some noobs for a bit, but that gets boring as well ( i know since i found a bugg in d2 that made my character virtually invincible in pvp ).
If you have to pay a monthly fee for a game, making it as long as possible is the idea, that includes looting.
 
[citation][nom]klavis[/nom]According to this article, which deals with US Braodband ussage http://content.usatoday.com/topics [...] nistration"65.9% of urban households subscribed to broadband in 2009, compared with 51% of rural households"So in other words Blizzard is telling 34.1% of all urban people and 49% of all rural people to go fuck them selves. The article doesn't mention if the analysis took into account satellite as being broadband or not, and if they did, then it wouldn't work very well for the game considering there would be lag. Then on top of this information there are instances of poor service, overpriced service and the basic fact you have to pay an additional monthly fee to play the game, ie, your internet bill. That bastard is making radical assumptions based on nothing but elitist ideas of how the world is rather than how it actually exists. Either tell it straight and stop lying or go home. If they allow you to play single player without the internet, they would get more money because people without internet would have the option of buying it.[/citation]

That's also only taking the US into consideration. While there may be Blizzard servers in Korea, and Western Europe, the rest of the world will be largely excluded due to lag and even pricier and poorer broadband services. It almost seems like Blizzard WANTS me to become a pirate, because I don't have the luxury of a low ping, speedy broadband connection.
 
i can understand diable having a single player only component that could be played in offline mode, but it does make sense to have the multiplayer mode online only.

besides fending off pirates and hackers, which im glad to see go, im excited to see the game be hosted in the cloud rather than locally. i will never lose a saved character again.

i dont really see the argument against this move in this day and age; i was able to maintain a decent connection to a game for hours when camping in the middle of no where using a tethered 3G connection. if my connection did fail, which it didnt, having the game hosted in the cloud means i can just reconnect and continue playing without loss.

with NAT firewalls (routers) and all that mess anyways, hosting a game server is hard to do for most people also, so cloud-based makes it easier to create a game. there is nothing stopping people from still LANing it up -- you just gotta connect to the internet as well.

bah. whatever
 
Blizzard can choke on their "always online" DRM scheme.
Who needs Diablo3 anyway, when Torchlight2 is almost here?
Torchlight2 will even have LAN play and that how this genre should be played.
 
[citation][nom]TheCapulet[/nom]Not true. Get out of the urban inner city where you can reliably walk down the street without getting mugged or inhaling 2 lungs full of cancer inducing smog with every breath, and you'll see that most communities are run by a single cable or DSL provider in a monopoly type situation. For instance, my parents house pays $70 for a max 1mb connection, in an area where there are absolutely no other providers. Their connection is extremely inconsistent, has a greater than 50 percent down time, and a telco company who literally told them that if they didn't like it, they could get another provider. (get it?) This is absolutely the norm in most rural areas in the United States. You, and more importantly, game developers need to realize that not everyone lives in Sunny Kommiefornia suburbia.[/citation]

just want to point this out, we pay 80$ for charter internet, and according to internet speed test, its in the top 10% for both speed (40mbit+) and for download (3mbit+) but the connection cuts out for hours at a time at least once a week, and every day, it cuts out long enough to knock you out of an mmo, its either them, a REALLY bad dsl plan, a REALLY REALLY bad satolite plan, or a horrific dial up plan (granted dialup cut out less often than cable)
[citation][nom]crus_russ[/nom]And secondly while I am on this topic - a true Diablo fan would not carry on like such a baby. A true Diablo fan would sell their cat or dog to upgrade their internet connection, or move house/area.The people on this forum saying, "well that blows it for me, cya Blizzard I won't be buying" are no better than Zygna iFarm gamers who think of Diablo 3 as "another title".For those of us whom are true fans we have been waiting for this game for 10 years, and we find it insulting, disgusting and frustrating and, frankly, down right irritating that a bunch of Zynga iFarm "jump on the band wagon and complain about a big corporation being successful" trolls even have a voice on this topic.[/citation]

o yay, the only way we can tell them they are doing it wrong is by not buying it, and we are told that we are worse than zinga farmvill zombies.

 
Cry more and get out of my Diablo 3 imo. All this whining and complaining about always on to play. I heard the same junk about Starcraft 2 before it came out and guess what...it crushed the original in sales. Obviously Blizzard's new online to play model is a good business decision as evidence by sales figures. You can complain about Blizzard losing customers and bad business but the numbers don't lie. The majority of customers approve of the model and are more than happy to use their internet connection to play. If you refuse to play Diablo 3 then obviously you're the minority and if you want to hack/cheat then you can do so on a hacked up server.
 
"I mean, in this day and age the notion that there’s this a whole vast majority of players out there that don’t have online connectivity – this doesn’t really fly any more."

Really? I'm a soldier, and maybe I want to play this in Afghanistan. Not all of us have the luxury of having a high-speed internet connection everywhere we go...
 
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