Diablo III

I liked the diablo 1/2 games. They were enjoyable, but I guess I'm weird in that the whole lootfest aspect never appealed to me. Its not a game I ever grinded-gear runs because that would be incredibly dull. The mindless monster slaying and cool spectacle skills along with going through the randomly generated levels where what I liked.

I do really wish there was some sort of an option to not play online (disallow that character from going onto battle net at all). My internet is extremely slow and has limited bandwidth allowances, so diablo 3 would lag to even play solo over battle.net and would eat up my limited bandwidth, in otherwords I can't play it because of its DRM.

 

I agree with that. More than just once I had to download a pirated version of a game that I owned because the DRM made the game literally unplayable for some reason (verification becoming impossible because of the CD wear, verification in "older" games going to Albuquerque after I got a new OS, etc.), and it's one of the reasons I stopped buying non-indie games (the one exception being SC, but it's unpacked on the shelf, bought out of sentiment for TA; generally, if I buy a non-indie game nowadays, it's because it's a sequel to something I liked).
I do understand the fact that the creators want to protect their income, but the whole "to pirate or not to pirate, and is digital piracy the ultimate evil" thing isn't something that has just one correct answer, and they discourage many players by including such features in their games.

Now getting back to the point, because the discussion was about Diablo 3. I planned on at least getting the demo for it, or borrowing it from a friend to check it and decide if it's worth buying (in case there would happen to be no demo version). I did stomach the news that modding Diablo 3 will not be possible (which, for me, is like learning that my strawberry cake will not have strawberries). I don't mind changes in the skill system and the all-new character classes (none of which appeals to me much, but I could learn to enjoy them). But being unable to play off-line means I won't even try to play this game. And it's not because I want to cheat (I like challenging games) or because I have an unstable connection (I think I would have to blow my room up for anything like that to happen), but because I just don't want to be forced to connect; there are far better ways of achieving the same thing they want to, without punishing those who don't have a high-end internet connection.

 

Unless they've improved battle.net low bandwidth performance drastically since Starcraft II, it is in all likeliness going to be terrible, even playing single player. I was on "smallband" for a time with way limited download, and I couldn't even get through the game menues in a timely fashion, that's not even getting in to any games in single player. When I did get it going eventually I found that campaign progress, battle.net achievements and stat tracking was disabled as well, wouldn't load on my slow net connection. I even called b.net tech support about it and they basically said there's nothing to be done, battle.net doesn't work properly on anything less than decent broadband connections.

To compare, on the connection I was using at the time I had no problems playing online matches in Street Fighter IV usually with very little lag, and had pings in the 50-100 region (not great, I know, but playable) on Team Fortress 2 to servers in my region.

(Also, don't worry about topic derailment, guys. Topic kind of lost relevance after the weekend of the D3 open beta. )

 

If I enjoy a game but it "features" DRM then I will probably never buy it. Period. Does this make me a bad person? No. I just know what I like and do not like. If I have to jump through hoops one single time I may as well jump through the hoop of finding a way around the hoop for next time. And when I do, the odds I will pay money for the original game plummet.

To put it another way, I play games *BEFORE* I buy them. If the game is good then I purchase it. If the game is riddled with digital parasites known as DRM, then I will have to think about it. That thought has led to abandoning the purchase more times than I can count.

If on the other hand the game I find precracked and my trial is of the cracked full version then the only question is "Is this game worth the price?" Not "Is this game worth not only the price in money, but also in circumventing the annoying and useless DRM?".

I am not unique in this. I am rather the norm. Make a good product free of hassles and I will probably buy it.

*Edit* Ninja posts galore...

 

We can still make it at least "The Diablo 3 general thread" or something like that.

 

*scratches head* Is there any way to change the topic name ? Actually come to think of it, it would probably just confuse new people looking at the topic even more. What klaymen_sk said, then!

 

not really a "DRM" but more like a MMORPG (like the other game they make - World of Warcraft) which requires you to be contantly connected. Diablo 3 is in essence, almost an MMO

As for the gameplay, for those who did not participate in the open beta, there is a walkthrough here:
Diablo 3 Walkthrough

sounds like a pretty fun RPG and dungeon crawling game, whether you play it solo or co-op

 

How exactly is DRM not DRM just because you say so? And why with that choice of words should I and others not discount your words to be fanboy game worship?

We were discussing single player still requiring all the steps of multiplayer. That is DRM. And that is obnoxious. If you play online that is a whole other subject, but the way you worded your reply implies there is no single-player at all.

 

But there is no real singleplayer per se. You start a multiplayer game on Battle.net servers and play it by yourself, that is the whole singleplayer in the game.

Whether it qualifies as a singleplayer or not, that is in the eye of the beholder.

 

It is supposed to, but it really doesn't. And thus we have a non-MMO game that works like an MMO one. Like a bicycle that requires gasoline...

 

When you run an OS via a network, with no local drives installed on the system, are you therefore not responsible for whatever is on the network? If you fired a weapon that used energy provided by a utility at someone and killed them, would this not be murder? If you walk out of your home naked as a jay-bird and get a citation for streaking, would you object since you were born naked and therefore are not responsible?

You are asking a question you chose to make the situation look different than it is. You can play solo in multiplayer games too. So are those games infact single player only when you do this? Or are they a multiplayer game being played solo? I played Shards of Dalya solo. (SoD is a modified Everquest server and client.) Does this make the other player cease to exist? If so then I need to complain loudly about all the NPCs that acted just like asinine kiddies that would steal kills and get in my way while I played this singleplayer game.

When you start the game intending to play single player, does it ask you if you want to play multiplayer or not? That directly answers your questions about weather or not it is singleplayer. It may use many different terms to ask you, but I bet it asks in some way. Can you limit the number of players on your "Multiplayer" game to only yourself? If so then they slapped a new set of paint on single player and are pretending it is multiplayer.

If you absolutely cannot kick everyone out of your game and play solo without interruption then I would have to agree it is multiplayer. Otherwise it is a gimmick.

 

OmniNegro, I think you are trying to look too much into it. I merely wanted to say that this way of playing *may be enough for someone* to call it a singleplayer. I was not making excuses on behalf of Blizzard the Almighty - I've said that there is no singleplayer per se, don't you remember?

As Kazeto said, it is a wannabe MMO. Blizzard knows that it can get away with many things (usually I say it in more vulgar way, but I don't want to provoke our mods ).

 

Actually, his question was the opposite of that. Or rather, he didn't really "ask" a question, it's just that I replied to his post as if there was a question (the answer to said "question" being really just a comment that was meant to indicate that I agree with him).

I do agree with your post in general, though. It's more like a multi-player game that you can play with a 1-person party than a single-player game.

 

My apologies. (For what little that is worth.)

As DavidB1111 has said, I tend to tear into an opinion with a chainsaw rather than simply ask in the right tone for the remark.

I still think that their implementation is gimmicky. And I doubt anyone will argue with that.

 

I don't know if it is done as a form of DRM, or simply because it was the simplest way to go. But I lean towards the latter, with the DRM being simply a bonus side-effect.

In an MMO, most resources reside on the client, but by necessity, events, AI, and so on, are handled on the server side. It may be overly complex to do it both ways -- have one mode when playing Multi-player, and another mode for single-player. It's just a lot simpler to do it one way.

 

It does make sense that Blizzard would want to have all the Diablo III characters stored and used on one service, as opposed to Diablo II where you saved single player characters locally but closed and open battle.net characters on their servers. I just hope this doesn't mean your single player characters run the risk of being wiped from battle.net if they go inactive for a certain amount of months, like the battle.net stored characters did in Diablo II. It's still a hefty price to pay of course for the many gamers who shun "always online" solutions for any number of reasons including unstable internet connections.

Hm... I think I have my copy of Diablo II linked to my battle.net account for easy install. It's half tempting to reinstall it to fool around a bit with. Don't suppose anyone here have a copy and would be interested in some private game action ? (I hate Diablo II public games)

 

Actually Hybelkanin, you could use locally saved characters on open battlenet, as that was fairly much the point. Not sure how much it was used because I either played single player or only via LAN.

The LAN aspect is what I will miss, but unfortunatly thats not limited to Diablo 3 these days and many games require internet connections for any kind of multiplayer, be it LAN or Internet based.

The Auction house I can understand (cant say I approve of it), given the amount of sellers there are for multi-player games (diablo II has its share as well) it should be a way for Blizzard to actually make some cash from the pirated items/gold. I just hope the game isnt balanced with the intent that you must buy gear off the auction house to advance, or that the seller spam doesnt filter into the game proper.

 

Not to be a total bitch, but can anyone name a single game that is multiplayer and sells advantages to players for money that is not absolutely rotten to the core? Greed overwhelms balance and negates fun.