green.pixel
Veteran
Anti-piracy measures do jack shit against piracy, something that Ubisoft learned the hard way.
Diablo III - It's official
- Thread starter N00b
- Start date
Anti-piracy measures do jack shit against piracy, something that Ubisoft learned the hard way.
The typical antipiracy stuff doesn't do crap, relying on online connection & data on server for most of the stuff does
Sigfried1977
Legend
Assassin's Creed and Civ 5. Besides, isn't one crippling DRM enough? Should I be thankful now that Blizzard didn't use Starforce to go alongside the always-online bs?
green.pixel
Veteran
The typical antipiracy stuff doesn't do crap, relying on online connection & data on server for most of the stuff does
Oh really?
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Deleted member 13524
Guest
No, Blizzard knows they'll suck more money from gamers if they stuff the RMAH in their faces.
OTOH, they will definitely tell the world+dog that most gamers will prefer online as means to justify the above.
What's wrong with me having a non-onlinable character/campaign with plenty of cheats and lots of item dumping?
Why couldn't I have the choice wether I want to start with an offline character or an online one? AFAIK, there are plenty of games allowing that nowadays, right?
I think that point of view is way too narrow to be set as representative of the gaming community.
You see, not everyone has a steady and available group of gamer friends, with the synchronized time to play games together.
For me and my friends, ever since we finished college, sometimes it's really hard to find some time to get together at all, and we tend to use that time to actually be with each other, and not being alone, staring at a PC monitor inside a small room.
Furthermore, some of my friends only play console games, others decided to purchase a macbook and can't play games because of hardware limitations, others don't like that genre, others won't buy anything outside Steam, etc etc.
I'm not saying my social status is more or less representative than yours. However, I'm damn sure that by preferring to play a single-player, even when there's a multiplayer option available, doesn't make me an alien in the active gaming community.
So when you say "most people won't play offline characters" is way too much of a long-shot, and unless you prove me otherwise, I'll also say you're probably wrong with the "most" part.
As a side note, a professional game reviewer is obviously not representative of the gaming community. The guy's job is to play games, of course he'll have tons of colleagues join him in online matches.
When someone from Kotaku, 1-UP, IGN, GameSpy, etc says "the game is spectacular to play with friends, but going solo isn't a good experience".. for me, that's quite a huge "but" in there.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/ubisoft-drm-games-to-be-temporarily-unplayable-6349732
Needless to say, all comments in this story point to "damn DRM sucks".
Obviously, no comment says "Oh this is so good for us because Ubisoft are protecting themselves from piracy and this is a great feature for us customers, because I feel better if Ubisoft feels better. I like turtles!"
You mean, something not available at launch? And even delayed?
The problem is, Diablo 3 is basically a treasure finding game. Cheating in a treasure finding game is, well, like cheating in MTG. I just don't see the point of that (and neither do Blizzard, apparently).
Then maybe Diablo 3 is not the game for you?
I'm not saying all games should be online only. This is about Diablo 3, not all games in general.
Sigfried1977
Legend
Oh please, like Blizzard or anyone else gives a shit what someone does or doesn't do with a single player-only character. Besides, if they were really that interested in you slowly grinding out your own stuff, why is there an auction house in the first place? As it is, the auction house renders grinding and especially crafting pointless, probably until you reach the level cap.
And Diablo 3 is not an MMO. It functions perfectly fine as a single player game. It even gives you A.I. controlled characters.
Blizzard is not doing any of this stuff for you.
There is a difference between grinding enough gold to buy an item on the AH and cheating so that it magically appears in your inventory. One fits with the game they designed, the other doesn't.
So many of the games features are geared towards a community that they decided not to bother putting in the extra time/effort/money to develop an offline version. I suspect a lot of people are playing as part of groups; it would be interesting to see what proportion of people had which cooperative achievements; I suspect it would be quite high.
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Deleted member 13524
Guest
Don't worry: it'll be there and it'll make them lots of money. I can assure you.
Because you (or Blizzard) don't see the point in that, does that entitle the publisher to prevent people from cheating if it didn't harm other people's game experience? (i.e. offline mode).
Wouldn't you be mad if you bought a book that doesn't let you change the page until you read every word? Or a DVD/Blu-Ray movie that won't let you rewind or fast-forward?
Sometimes after I finish a game, I'll turn on the cheats to become super-strong and be able to destroy everything in 1Km radius through a fart.
Yes, it's stupid. Doing these kinds of things are just the way I find to get some small extra playability from a game I finished, since I'm not really fond of replaying games.
It's stupid. But why should I be stopped from doing that?
I payed for and played Fallout 3 all through the end. I saved the game. Now I want to download a custom nuke launcher that decimates everything but me (because I'm inside an invincible armor) just to watch dozens of people being blasted away. It's fun to watch, I'm not really hurting anyone, so why not?
Why would the developers go out of their way just to stop me from doing that?
Of course Diablo 3 isn't a game for me. It's a genre that I'm fond of, but the publisher (not the developer) made it into a game I don't want to play.
Some 6 years ago I purchased the first GRAW game. I put the disc in, I installed the game.
And then I couldn't play it.
SecuROM had some problem with my system, and it didn't let me play the game.
After hours trying online solutions with no success, I finally headed to a crackz site, cracked the game and started playing 5 minutes after I googled for the crack, 5 seconds after the crack was applied.
Who did SecuROM bother? Me, who payed for the game. Who did SecuROM not bother? Everyone who just downloaded from the webz and applied the same crack as I did.
From then on, I vowed to only purchase either DRM-free games or games from Steam or D2D where I make damn sure I'll be able to play the effin' game if it's single-player.
And the fact that you can send Blizzard a PayPal payment to get high-end items while you're on level 2? Where exactly does that fit in the "game they designed"?
It's not cheating if you're giving money to Blizzard, after you payed full price for the game?
Yeah right...
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Sigfried1977
Legend
Again, like Blizzard would give a rat's ass if you cheated with an offline character. What they care about is the loss of their 15% cut from the RMAH. Besides, assuming that every offline player is cheating is about as baseless an assumption as every DIII buyer being only interested in playing multi-player.
So you think RMAH is going to make more money than game sales alone? Personally I doubt that (see the size of the illegal gold farming business in World of Warcraft, for example).
Of course, if Blizzard has infinite resources and time, maybe they should do that. Unfortunately, no one has infinite resources and time. If they believe that, by discarding offline mode, the loss of potential customers is less than the amount of resources they need to invest, then it's a good decision for them.
For example, you can also say that Diablo 3 requiring a 3D GPU is unfair to those with bad computers. Blizzard should do a 2D mode for Diablo 3, as it's basically a 2.5D game! Of course, that's not going anywhere.
This is a meaningless analogy. Why don't you use other analogies, such as the lack of offline mode in Youtube? Or TV stations deciding which program they play for you? People seem to be fine with that.
Of course, it's fine, no doubt about that. It's just Blizzard don't care about this, and I think it's unfair to say that Blizzard must cater to everyone's needs.
You seem to be under the impression that they implemented and advertised an offline mode, which they then removed after release as a response to cheating. They didn't. They didn't go out of their way to stop you doing it, they didn't go out of their way to implement a feature they didn't want to.
Yeah, I'm going to be running about with level 60 gear on my level 1 character. Apart from the level limits on items, which makes it impossible. You also don't get to cherry pick items, it is still dependant on people placing the item with the stats you want on the AH.
I never said that all offline players are cheaters. It is a potential problem with games with an offline mode, and a lot of people are interested in playing a multiplayer game.
Sigfried1977
Legend
^There are no problems with cheating in offline games. You already paid for your game and you aren't ruining anyone else's fun. Make the trophies online-only and have separate online characters. They did it with SCII already, so why not here. It isn't even a question of resources either, since the game was balanced for solo play already (it's easier in fact). Nothing in D3 requires a party, and there isn't even PvP in it yet. They already did the work necessary for a sp mode in case something with B.net goes awry.
They simply didn't due to a business decision. A decision which inconveniences a significant chunk of gamers. If Blizzard ever decides to shut the game servers down you are left with nothing but a worthless receipt that say "thanks for corporate brown nosing, suckers!"
They simply didn't due to a business decision. A decision which inconveniences a significant chunk of gamers. If Blizzard ever decides to shut the game servers down you are left with nothing but a worthless receipt that say "thanks for corporate brown nosing, suckers!"
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How do you know it's a "significant" chunk of gamers? Do you have any statistics? I mean, if anyone has that, it's must be Blizzard, no? They know how many copies of Diablo 2 sold, and how many people play Diablo 2 on Battle.net (hint: it's a lot).
And you are suggesting that, a company that keep making patch for a game released 11 years ago, are going to shut down game servers to left everyone with nothing but a worthless receipt?
Sigfried1977
Legend
Do you really believe D3 will have the same longevity as D2? Times have changed. Besides, there's also the Activision factor, not to mention even big companies can go belly-up. Blizzard isn't untouchable.
I also find it fascinating how people value the business interests of a billion dollar corporation higher than their rights and needs as consumers. Seriously, why do you care whether Blizzard cares if someone cheats offline?
I also find it fascinating how people value the business interests of a billion dollar corporation higher than their rights and needs as consumers. Seriously, why do you care whether Blizzard cares if someone cheats offline?
Yes, I have been inconvenienced. However, there are things on the scale between "100% happy" and "running around the internet shouting 'OH WOE IS ME' to anyone unfortunate enough to be close enough"
aaronspink
Veteran
Which bandwidth wise is a joke compared to what many many online services use.
I would suggest that you actually need some proof for this claim. If true, it simply reflects how badly programmed the network stack is, but I find this a highly dubious claim.
There are many services that support this level of transactions and higher on a daily basis. CBS alone streamed live video to this number of users during march madness.
aaronspink
Veteran
