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Waiting in queue to play my $60 single player game. The future is awesome (Diablo 3)
- Thread starter djfist
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Glass Rebel
Member
Your argument is that this system is implemented to protect the looting experience because hackers could fuck up the game for honest gamers, right? But since everybody is playing MP on Blizzards servers which are monitored 24/7 anyway, how could that become a problem?
Make offline characters playable offline only. Right? Am I missing something or is it just a really obvious solution?
Because the different point of view is 100 percent unadulterated bullshit.
When you have people completely changing the definition of what a "single-player game" is, in defiance of forty plus years of video game history, in order to defend a company for putting in always-on DRM that is keeping paying customers from playing their game on a massive scale for no legitimate reason, then yes, they are fucking apologists.
Lord Phol
Member
How about being able to create Offline-only characters?
The_Darkest_Red
Member
I think what he's saying is that there is a lot of valuable behind the scenes information kept hidden from the player because it's all stored server-side, but in order to play the game offline all of that information would have to be in a location local to the player which could make it easier for hackers to access.
Why is making singleplayer characters not able to play online not a solution? Honest question, never played diablo.
I suspect that Blizzard just wants to maintain full control over this and offering offline characters could potentially lead to people finding methods for inserting these offline characters into the online portion.
Once the initial few weeks have passed the online portion is going to become the primary focus for everyone and is what will give the game a long life. I'm sure, in their eyes, preserving this aspect is more important than convenience.
It definitely sucks, though. :\
I really think it IS related to the fear of people figuring out a method for bringing hacked offline characters into the multiplayer portion of the game. They don't want people directly messing with character data.
Preserving the online experience is one of their chief directives.
Palette Swap
Member
The good news is that whenever the game is cracked, and it will be, people will be able to play offline.
And for some reason, the loot, the auction house and the MP game will still be fine.
And for some reason, the loot, the auction house and the MP game will still be fine.
Minsc
Gold Member
No, maybe it's me, but the offline system people are suggesting is basically what Diablo 2 was... this seems to go one step further to protect against hacking, by making it so they have less of a starting ground to hack as there's no local data to learn from. But it's possible that not having any offline mode doesn't help in any way in reducing the online hacking, I just thought that was one of the benefits.
Is this some kind of code word that makes you feel superior to other people? Because the last guy who used it made the same sweeping assumptions that had nothing to do with this thread.
Palette Swap
Member
TBH, before the Beta I had no idea the always online requirement would be implemented in a way that allowed for single player lag.
Minsc
Gold Member
I'm curious how this pans out, since it's not just a DRM issue, bypassing battle.net doesn't give you an offline game comparable to Diablo 3. Cracking the game seems to involve accessing all the data stored on Blizzard servers to calculate loot rates, enemy rates, etc. Maybe crackers can emulate their own version of Diablo 3, but will it be close enough to what Blizzard made or not? Will be interesting to see how that goes.
It's been this way since day 1 World of Warcraft. You're dealing with one of the most experienced and sizable defense forces on the Internet.
I think if your explanation is 100% accurate and true, it is an absolutely, mindbogglingly absurd amount of length for Blizzard to go to curb hackers. I'm not personally willing to give Blizzard that much credit; I think that may be their public excuse, but internally their real motivator is to keep people involved in their RMT services.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
bububu Diablo 1 was offline and that games multiplayer was only totally ruined and overrun with hackers, and Diablo 2 was maphacked, botted, and duped to hell and back!, Diablo 3 should be the same way!
I see Diablo 3 as an online game, and while always on sucks for those wanting solo play, Blizzard has said what it was from the beginning, and anybody who has played any online game day 1, knows there is always problems, always. It doesn't make it right, but maybe just I've listened to Michael Pachter too much and just think "It's entertainment guys, jesus calm down." when people fly into blind rages about gaming.
Nostalgic Nightmare
Member
Yes I remember now and looking at the game box it even says right here
"Laggy funfest" and " 50/50 chance of getting logged in".
The_Darkest_Red
Member
Eh, I think 99% of people won't care about this at all a few weeks from now (let alone a few years).
Mihos
Gold Member
I understand the whole thing about preventing hackers from ruining the economy and all that... but I am about 4 hours in and already know I will probably not play through this more than once or twice, so this means nothing to me.
The 'always online' thing is nothing but an annoyance to me. I will probably just avoid this type of DRM in the future.
The 'always online' thing is nothing but an annoyance to me. I will probably just avoid this type of DRM in the future.
No I won't, I am a tool
Palette Swap
Member
I had missed the fact that not all the data is available offline. I thought a connection was necessary to maintain some kind of perpetual integrity check and frequent cloud saves, not to actually stream assets. This would make cracking the game impossible without somehow ripping (and emulating) the data streamed from the servers.
MrBelmontvedere
Member
I question if even the draconian DRM will make a difference WRT piracy. it will cause a delay in piracy while a crack is developed, but it's not unusual for pirates to have to wait for a working crack.
so the end result is the pirates have to wait awhile for a crack, while legit customers have to wait awhile also for the bugs in Blizzards servers to be worked out. and we've all heard the rational that pirates wouldn't have bought the game anyway unless they can get it for free; the end result is only legit customers have to suffer.
it's too bad. I was ready to buy the game legitimately until I heard about all the problems (re: this thread) legit customers were having.
the only thing I as a potential customer can do is forsake the game entirely. oh, and fuck you Blizzard.
And AI, pathing, quest scripts, other scripts..
They'd have to reverse engineer almost the whole D3 server to make it even remotely playable.
Don't forget
"do you like queues? you struck gold here then, hoss"
"rubber banding and lag when playing alone"
"collect error messages and share with friends offline"
I'm not here trying to defend Blizzard excluding an offline option nor that they should've been better prepared. However I'm rather perplexed by the amount of complaints even though you knew exactly what you were getting yourself into. It was announced long ago that Diablo 3 would be online only. Starcraft 2, which launched almost 2 years ago, already is. It's a multiplayer game, you know that. Going through the game on your own does not change that. World of Warcraft isn't suddenly a singleplayer game because you chose to play on your own. Almost every new Blizzard release, even patches, are coupled with huge server strains due to the immense popularity. The free beta weekend a couple of weeks ago even showed this. Like I said, not here to defend the exclusion of offline option, but why the hell would you pay 60 bloody dollars on goddamn release day if you're not fine with this?
I know a guy who has played regularly on hacked WoW servers for years, and they are still on Burning Crusade. Blizzard did something with Lich King (and presumably forward) that nobody has figured out how to "clone" yet.
So, yeah. I wouldn't hold my breath for that Diablo 3 "crack", because there is nothing to crack. It's set up as an MMO. It's not "DRM", as people keep suggesting.
Personally, I like the fact that the game will have an intact and fair economy as a result of this, giving it a very long life for guys like me who don't get off on trading duped items and all that kind of crap that ruined Diablo 2.
I understand the frustration with Blizzard not being prepared, really I do (although my opinion will be shaded somewhat as my copy doesn't show up until tonight, LOL). Is it really worth popping a blood vessel over this? We've waited for this game for what seems like a millenia, and a week from now it will all be forgotten. The PSN was down for an entire month, and I didn't see people screaming in righteous indignation about it continuously in threads that talk about PSN games not long after it went back up.
Also, this. Although, I don't recall SC2 having quite the same degree of issue.
We knew about it but we as a consumer have every right to expect a service we paid for to be up and functioning
cracking Diablo will require the same effort as cracking an MMO since alot of the data is server-side.
even if it does get cracked/emulation servers pirating it will be a lot more complicated than your average game.
I remember reading: if the server is down, you're fucked if you plan on playing.
You've paid premium price for a product that cuts your rights as a player, now enjoy yourself and don't disturb us, please. If you can't, think twice before accepting crappy restrictions imposed by your regular pub next time you buy a product.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
as already said in the old D3 DRM thread back when it was first discovered, the only way to do D3 offline mode safely is:
-separate the online and offline characters
-calculating drops on the local machine
thus
-creating a completely different/separate method of calculating drops so that hackers cannot reverse engineer anything or see how it's all done behind the scenes on the servers
which will mean
-losing the benefit of any special stuff blizzard can do for players on the server, like special one day only loot, double xp weekends, etc.
that's all 100% fine with me. i don't even care if they released it as "baby poo pants whiner edition". but blizzard won't spend the time and money creating the offline mode because blizzard doesn't give the slightest fuck about SP players. period.
-separate the online and offline characters
-calculating drops on the local machine
thus
-creating a completely different/separate method of calculating drops so that hackers cannot reverse engineer anything or see how it's all done behind the scenes on the servers
which will mean
-losing the benefit of any special stuff blizzard can do for players on the server, like special one day only loot, double xp weekends, etc.
that's all 100% fine with me. i don't even care if they released it as "baby poo pants whiner edition". but blizzard won't spend the time and money creating the offline mode because blizzard doesn't give the slightest fuck about SP players. period.
I said it in the OT. Why do Guest pass work? Disabling them for a few weeks seems to be the best idea to cut out a lot of stress on the servers.
2nd, if the data is all offline. There will be hacks. Similar to D2. What they want to protect is their AH scheme. What ever troubles they have no will be forgotten, excuse, or not close worth to the amount of free money they'll make through it.
2nd, if the data is all offline. There will be hacks. Similar to D2. What they want to protect is their AH scheme. What ever troubles they have no will be forgotten, excuse, or not close worth to the amount of free money they'll make through it.
freenudemacusers
Member
don't see the issue, I got a very nice pair of Gucci pants in the mail the other day, and I had to call Gucci HQ to authenticate my pair before wearing them as they had a lock on the fly. Of course, since it's a relatively small company, there were some hold times, but that's to be expected. Who can blame them though, there are a lot of fake Gucci products out there.
Haunted
Member
Already bought it, it's Diablo fucking III.
But that never prevented me from pointing out obvious flaws.
SirButterstick
Banned
It's Activision / Blizzard. What do you expect?
Blizzard were bragging about how their beta weekend was a 'proper beta', designed to gather pertinent data to avoid situations like this. They went on to rubbish other beta events saying they were just free demos. Bashiok was the one who said this but I can't find the quote. I remember it though, and I remember being quite impressed with how confident they were. Impressed enough to drop the money on this game day 1 and expect a few occasional hiccups, but not this trainwreck.
In future, don't crow about how good your beta is, when its clear now it was just a PR exercise to promote the game, and wasn't intended to be of any use when the shit hits the fan.
In a day or so everything will be fine. But for now, fuck em, they earned this.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
No, it's not. People who haven't played Diablo 2 for a long time shouldn't be commenting on this stuff. Minsc's explanation is 100% right. Other people have explained it in this thread as well and yet it still goes on and on and on with the same arguments in circles. I'll say it one more time:
Diablo 2's online play, which the majority of its users took advantage of, was riddled with third-party hacks, exploits, bots, and duping. So much so that it completely destroyed the economy. It might sound silly to you someone talking about an "economy" but for most of us trading is a HUGE part of the game. Not only that but it ruined PvP and it made most of our items worthless since everything was duped. Tons of people just ran automated bots instead of actually playing the game. It was a plague. Blizzard would stop some hacks and dupe exploits but then others would pop up the next day. It was a losing battle. The fact that the game was still played for a decade by so many players, including myself, is a testament to how incredible it was. And it would have been even better if it wasn't littered with hacks and exploits.
One of the biggest reasons these hacks and exploits became so abundant is because much of the game was client-side (a result of it having offline play). It made it much easier for hackers to create these hacks and, most importantly, much harder for Blizzard to combat them.
Are RMAH and piracy factors in the online-only decision? Of course, but trust me... coming from someone who played D2 for ages and put thousands of hours into it, the security of the game was equally as big a factor, believe it or not I don't care but it's the truth.
sigh... bottom of the page, this will get ignored.
How many customers did WoW have at its peak? 15 million?
I think your assumption is fair. There will always be people living in the boonies with horrid or nonexistent internet connections. Given just how shockingly overwhelmed Blizzard's servers have been, however, I would say they can write those people off. Their money is a fly speck on the giant wagon of cash they're driving to the bank.
Which is fine by me, as callous as that sounds. I want the unpolluted economy this type of setup provides, and I'm not talking about the RMAH, which I will never use.
It is embarrassing. Their previous two launches (SC2 and WoW:Cata) were pretty smooth. Cata had some issues but it cleared within hours after the login servers got sorted out.
New system and new kinks I suppose, but it is still embarrassing.
While I can sympathize, you still gave them $60, which signals your approval to Blizzard. Maybe consider doing more research before throwing a full $60 at something? I mean, if you haven't purchased a PC game in 8 years, I'd say you missed a few things--like all technology, the landscape is constantly changing, so maybe do some reading before jumping in head first.
Seriously. If this thread was about a Ubisoft game, no one would be defending them.
Because Diablo 3 was rushed out the door, unlike other Blizz games. These past few months they have shelved features, cut player counts, barely scraped together chat channels, etc. I don't care if they think 4 players is optimal, it said 4 was recommended before. What else is necessary?
I'm peeved cause I couldn't freaking login for 2 hours last night because it kept claiming I have no battle tag, which I do.
I think I won't do that. I think I'm going to go ahead and voice my displeasure instead. Look at the title of this thread. If you somehow thought the people in this thread would be slobbering all over Blizzard, you're in the wrong place. I suggest the OT as a nice happy place for you to think nice thoughts.
Hows that?
meh.. this is just like WoW launch... everyone whining and getting pissed for a few days.. then things even out, problems are fixed, and people then spend the next 8 years mis-remembering how it all went.
as for the always-on aspect... like it or not, this is the day it truly started. Internet service in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia is already ubiquitous. I think it's safe to say most would consider Internet a utility, and certainly more important than pay tv, etc.. like it, hate it, complain that your single player game requires an internet connection.. but truly this is the future folks. And if you go into it kicking and screaming that's definitely your choice, but the sooner you accept it the happier you will be. Whether it's to stave off piracy, cheating, hacking, reselling, whatever.. it's coming and D3 is merely the first to step foot on shore (well, not really even.. just the biggest). So if you don't like it, don't buy the game. And don't buy the next one. or the next one.. but eventually there will be that one game that you absolutely have to buy and you will cave.
rushed out the door? really? the game Blizzard/Activision told INVESTORS that would be out holidays of 2011. I mean you cannot lie to/mislead investors.. it was significant when blizz missed holiday 2011. Significant enough that it caused EA/Bioware to pushup SWTOR's launch. Shipping 5 MONTHS after they told investors it would ship and it was "rushed out the door"? The second two things you mention are just fringe stuff that isn't significant. and the shelving features is just common in this type of game right up to the very end. nothing you've stated is indicative of "rushing out the door", yet missing the holiday window and shipping in May says quite the opposite.
as for the always-on aspect... like it or not, this is the day it truly started. Internet service in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia is already ubiquitous. I think it's safe to say most would consider Internet a utility, and certainly more important than pay tv, etc.. like it, hate it, complain that your single player game requires an internet connection.. but truly this is the future folks. And if you go into it kicking and screaming that's definitely your choice, but the sooner you accept it the happier you will be. Whether it's to stave off piracy, cheating, hacking, reselling, whatever.. it's coming and D3 is merely the first to step foot on shore (well, not really even.. just the biggest). So if you don't like it, don't buy the game. And don't buy the next one. or the next one.. but eventually there will be that one game that you absolutely have to buy and you will cave.
rushed out the door? really? the game Blizzard/Activision told INVESTORS that would be out holidays of 2011. I mean you cannot lie to/mislead investors.. it was significant when blizz missed holiday 2011. Significant enough that it caused EA/Bioware to pushup SWTOR's launch. Shipping 5 MONTHS after they told investors it would ship and it was "rushed out the door"? The second two things you mention are just fringe stuff that isn't significant. and the shelving features is just common in this type of game right up to the very end. nothing you've stated is indicative of "rushing out the door", yet missing the holiday window and shipping in May says quite the opposite.
WoW isn't a single player game because you CAN'T play on your own. There will always be other people in the world. In Diablo 3, a single player game, you can play through the whole thing without ever seeing another player.
Nostalgic Nightmare
Member
Bottom line, the OP never asked you too feel sorry for him, he's venting and he has a right. The game does not go out of its way to announce the possible loss of play due to its drm system nor is it advertised as such. They set it up this way, they had years to prepare, they launched it. If you're cool with downtime that's great, but don't expect it to be commonplace. People call to complain about all sorts of things that aren't working as advertised such as utilities etc. If your isp shit the bed I'm almost positive you'd be calling them demanding a refund or at the very least an eta. Blizzard can't have it both ways here, and to discredit peoples unhappiness with a product they bought, and the unhappiness of this as a future for games isn't going to
go over well in this particular thread. Someone who reads all the fine print as yourself should realize this. Having said all that I do understand your position as well, but the anger is warranted in this launch window.
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