Blizzard Responds to Diablo 3 "Online" Complaints

[Guest]

what about those are in the militarty (like me) and deploy and dont have internet connections while they are gone? i wanna play diablo 3 on my off time while im fighting for their right to make this game have a constant internet connection making me unable to play it. thanks blizzard. and your welcome.

 

[Djanarak]

Dear Anonymous,
Blizzard are being a bunch of greedy and insensitive ba$tards. In addition to my decision to boycott their upcoming game, Diablo 3, could you please do something to educate them on the follies of their decision to require an online connection to play a single-player campaign?

 

[Guest]

No Offline, -1 D3 player.
There's more games, and maybe better.

 

[Guest]

The point is simple. Diablo 2 was always a game I played when i didnt have internet access available. I was recently over seas in the sand box and I didnt have any internet so I bought starcraft 2 so I could play it on my laptop overseas. Then i installed and found out it required internet, which I did not have which pissed me off. Thats the point.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Please watch the language.

But I agree, needing internet always is not a good way to pump up your fan base.

 

[new003]

Who the f**** uses a computer with no internet connection nowdays? I'm from a 3rd world country, but even here if someone has a PC, he has internet also.

I know this might sound crazy but there are people out there who don't have what you call a Fiber Optics or DSL where they live because the telephone companies don't want to hire a contractor to dig a trench and install the line to serve a measly number of ammount of people.

 

[fixxxer113]

[citation][nom]smuggl3r[/nom]Who the f**** uses a computer with no internet connection nowdays? I'm from a 3rd world country, but even here if someone has a PC, he has internet also.[/citation]

Me, on my frequent 3,5 hour train rides through the mountains... Seriously, it's sad that people don't appreciate the value of having choice anymore... I bought the freaking game, a game that includes a SINGLE PLAYER option. In my book, that means playing alone, offline, without having to aqcuire third-party paid services to do so.

In a few months they'll be wandering why so many people torrnet their game... I'm a huge fan of the series, I bought the whole Battlechest for Diablo II, but I'm not paying for this scam.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

He went on to add that piracy and DRM really weren't a topic of conversation when discussing how the team wanted the connection to operate. Instead, they focused on the feature-set and storing the player character in the cloud.

"You're guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes," he said. "All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that's not really entering into why we want to do it. 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.' But if there's a compelling reason for you to have that online connectivity that enhances the gameplay, that doesn't suck. That's awesome."

What probably happened is they looked at how Ubi's consistant-connection DRM was heavily criticized and wondered what kind of spin they could put on theirs.

OF COURSE they're not going to admit that DRM, and keeping content in their control would be icing on the cake. WHY would they NOT downplay it when they know practically almost every paying customer would have objections?

 

[shrapnel_indie]

You're like the people who don't believe in birth control, so obviously don't choose to use it. Problem with that is, you're like 1%, while the other 99% goes on with their everyday life and have no problem with it.


You're going to have to raise a lot more of people with your mindset.


Sure, they might have lost 1 person's business - but they picked up 5 more that would've otherwise been pirated. Plus they get to track you and your habits that also translate to more money for them.


As you can clearly see, the benefits outweigh the risks (of losing you).

WHAT does birth control have to do with this? NOTHING. Thanks for a red herring.

Besides I don't think you researched your numbers. Show us CREDIBLE resources to back up those numbers.

I guarantee there are MORE like him than you think.

 

[fuzznarf]

"that doesn't suck. That's awesome"... and these are not the droids you are looking for.

 

[bunch]

This makes me even more excited about the upcoming release of Torchlight 2 which will even have local LAN co-op. Remember that fun setup from Diablo 2 ?

 

[andywork78]

Even fail Starcraft 2 has offline play.
Diablo 3 does not even try to having a offline play.
We all fully understand 2012 ~ on and on will be internet every where even micro inch plance.
But still most of popular place using wifi are paid option.

Include offline play.
Freedom of end user choice right.
Online only? so diablo 3 are paid per month type of game???
Then i am pass... I already sick of World of Warcraft...

 

[f-14]

blah blah blah blah, d2 u just hosted your own multiplayer game and that character was available to use on battle.net.
i think everybody pretty much figured this out immediately after playing a multiplayer game with their friends in somebody's basement/attic/patio/3-4 season porch.
this is just activisions way of controlling the game to be pay to play when their WOW cash cow dies and titan gets stale after 6 months like most games typically do.
i hope every single one of these online only play companies gets the deathknell of being only worthy of console quality garbage games and touch tablets take over the entire industry in the next 10 years destroying any opporotunity for online only constant connection made games.

 

[f-14]

also have you ever tried sharing an internet connection with two streaming tv's and a radio running pandora?
have you ever watch the online play die in a matter of days as 1,000 bots mining or leveling; take over a server and kill the latency to 10 second periods of lag every 30 seconds where if you do ANYTHING you disconnect.
it is completely unplayable and destroys a game and it takes CID programmers only a day-week to over come any patch blizzard will throw up to try and stop this.
that is the current problems out there RIGHT NOW with online play

 

[Guest]

LOL so many clueless people posting here. Blizzard made the game online only for security of the game files. The client that runs on your PC only has half the information, the server side is secure and this stops dupes/hacks/exploits because the client cannot generate drops etc.

In D2 offline mode, effectively your PC was a "server" and a "client", allowing hackers to decompile and understand the server code, thus allowing them to hack it easier.

I am glad they are making it online only, it will be a more secure and robust game. For all those saying they will boycott it... your loss HAHAHAHA

 

[SaucyRMD]

What about people that like to 'test' builds and other sorts of things before hitting battle.net. I remember friends of mine who would delete 30+ level characters because they put wrong points in certain talents, etc. Unlike WoW of today, you actually used to have to level up a brand new character if you wanted a new build or stat choices. It was PERMANENT. I realize Diablo III is going to 100% easymode the game by allowing respecs, etc., however I loved that every stat point and talent choice that you chose was permanent. When you finally polished a character you had a lot more pride cause you had to work for it.

A lot of this stuff was done offline. Now no builds will be 'surprising' and we are going to have plain ol' cookie cutter builds just like in WoW.

 

[ubercake]

As a player, it is a pain and a minor inconvenience to have to be connected to play.

As a software developer, I can see the need to do what is necessary to curb piracy. Checking and monitoring one licensed copy running at a time per user is really not an unreasonable way to handle this. The days of disk and file copies seem to be behind us.

Knowing that I have a reliable connection to the internet and don't pirate my software, this is not a problem for me.

On the other hand, I would be pissed about it if I lived in an area where the connection is regularly going down. In this case, I would probably have to weigh this into my decision regarding whether to buy a product using this form of copy protection or not.

 

[Guest]

The game will be hacked to play offline, and the reason is, that it needs to be done. The original Diablo had a large following, and those waiting for the game, have been doing so for too long to cripple the functions that made the games so enjoyable in the first place. They killed the time when we all had LAN parties, playing the dungeon characters we built up at home.... Now they want to have the connection to the server to collect your character!!!! There are some true talents out there that will MOD the player interface, to allow untethered play, and that person will most likely be a long time fan of the game. AND that person/s will go down in the games fame, as true masters of the craft.

 

[aidynphoenix]

i could care less if i have to connect to play, im always on the internet anyways. the positives, players wont be cheating, such as creating items to try and sell for real money with a program. you will not loose your characters if you delete your diablo3 files. its safer and should give a better experience that every player should be able to enjoy.. however if you cant afford internet, you probably don't need to spend time sitting around playing games to begin with. other games already have this kind of system and go without complaints, and more appear every day. starcraft2 requires internet connection once every 3 months to play campaign offline. skyrim is now useing steam, and nobody complains about those games. runescape, every flash facebook game, even if you pay for those, you must play online only.. counterstrike, kiling floor, this is becoming "normal"

 

[jabliese]

I guess putting a checkmark for offline play, with a huge warning about your character being stuck in the offline world forever, was too hard.

 

[wildworms]

is this the best blizzard can do to avoid piracy well, i think that blizzard can do better.......
i played diablo 1 & 2 with a pirated CD. and i admire the game a lot it makes me want to work with blizzard for free just give me transpo allowance and ill be working for you FOREVER . OK going back ,avoid piracy in the expense of those gamer who legally bought there copy, WOW that's somewhat WRONG. why not make the customer decide whether they want to go online or not,this options should be ask at the beginning of the game, or for us(customer who cant afford to pay original copy) well go RAZOR and other piracy and cracker GOD make this game playable .. best things in life are free.
even though blizzard wont earn a penny on us we admire your work very much i salute all those programmers who make a game like this maybe we cant give revenue back rest assured that we will pray for u guys .

 

[Guest]

Greedy bastards

 

[aidynphoenix]

did people bitch about other popular games that are online only??
you people just want something to complain about.

i haven't had hackers mess my shit up in starcraft2 like what happened with starcraft1,, so blizzard fixed the loose ends, im glad.

 

[Daemonic Unicorn]

I remember the days when Blizzard was talented, but their success has gone to their heads.

They know just as well as everyone else does that if they stick a diablo label on the cover, it will sell like crazy.

 

[kartu]

"I'm actually kind of surprised in terms of there even being a question in today's age around online play and the requirement around that," said Blizzard's vice president of online technologies Robert Bridenbecker. "We've been doing online gameplay for 15 years now…

Liar. D1, D2, D2LOD didnät require zou to be online, or to have bind a key to a battle.net account (so that you can't re-sell game later, nice eh?)

In case of Starcraft 1, you could OFFICIALLY play with 3 FRIENDS using SINGLE copy of the game ("starcraft spawn") over LAN.