Blizzard Surprised by Reaction to Online-Only Diablo 3

[Nesco Nomen]

Sorry, I thought he was asking about and you were responding to about latency in Single Player D3 associated with online aspect of it.

And no... Every single player game in the history has been cracked, so will D3.
We can only guess about missing content/features.

Of course there will be virtually zero chances of any multi crack.

 

[Nesco Nomen]

Maybe I didn't read enough on D3, but I am guessing that SP will be identical to SC2 SP (Online one). You won't be served from a host - everything is executed locally.

 

[Tony2077]

the shit storm and the whining fuck i may have to quit gaming i won't but you guys are making it harder and harder to stay

Quit. Do it. If you have no wish for this industry to climb out of the sea of shit it keeps sinking deeper and deeper into, bend over and wait to be violated harder and harder by game companies. But don't hold this opinion on the forums and try to belittle people that don't.

the only sea of shit is what comes out of the mouths of people like you that ***** and complain about how this industry is going to hell but are still buying games or have you decide to be one of the ones that actually left. well your on here so maybe not.

 

[Epona]

There seems to be some confusion. The hacks and dupes in online Diablo 2 (closed b-net) have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the fact that Diablo 2 allows single player. If Diablo 2 had the same online model as Diablo 3 is planning on having, Diablo 2 still would have had hacks and dupes.

Duping in Diablo 2 single player can be accomplished by copying and pasting your save file in C:/Program Files/Diablo II/Save. Diablo 3 easily could have had the same model as Diablo 2, where single player characters are stored on your computer, and multiplayer characters are stored on bliz's server.

Worrying about Diablo 2 (or Diablo 3) single player items/characters ending up on battle.net is like worrying about characters/items from a private WoW server ending up on on of bliz's WoW servers.

If we can imagine that Blizzard did create an offline mode for D3, there would still need to be some sort of online validation. Whether you like it or not, you can't Blizzard to at LEAST require this much as far as validation goes based on how they're implementing battle.net. And this isn't unreasonable, as most games nowadays require at least some form of a one time validation in order to play. This alone shoots down the "Well what if I'm on a plane" or "What if I have zero access to internet" arguments right there. Wanna play anything on steam? Well you're in the same boat. And you didn't hear anyone complaining about Modern Warfare 2 for that specific reason.

It's circular logic to say online activation is reasonable since most games use it. Using that logic adding one more game to that list makes the list stronger (which just leads us in circles) but that kind of logic is flawed.

Online activation in and of itself isn't so much a problem but it also follows the rule: "internet connection required to play", which I think is BS.

I should be more specific in my logic then because you're right, just saying the other guy did it so its ok isn't quite sound. I can start off by saying that it shouldn't be deemed unreasonable that a company would want to attempt to protect their software. There are many different strategies that companies use to accomplish this goal. The most effective strategies for a company are to require some sort of online validation. This is the middle ground between not being intrusive and also putting up a layer of protection for the company. Thats why I think its reasonable, you may disagree.

DRM hurts paying customers, pirates just pirate it without all the extra hassles. So who exactly are they protecting their software from?

Maybe they just don't want anyone playing offline because they want to expose as many people as possible to the auction house. I am just guessing here but I can tell you that I am not interested in being monitored or told how to play the game I bought.

I think all this online activation/always online stuff is designed to kill/keep dead the the used market as well as prevent you from letting your family members play on a single copy.

 

[El_Chubba_Chubba]

This is just an excuse really, they probably did expect negative feedback from this choice.

But they just couldn't say "yes, we knew that you guys were not going to like this, and yet we did it".

This was there only really okay choice.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Within a week, there will be a cracked version that will allow people to play the whole game, for free, without constant connectivity. It is always the case. Don't they see that they are making the legitimate version of the game less appealing than the pirated version with this?

I'd actually be willing to take you up on that. If Diablo 3 will work the way I think it will work, you either won't see a cracked version at all, or see a vastly inferior version full of bugs and such.

Remember, there is no single-player for the pirates to crack. This is going to be the same as trying to crack SC2's multi-player.

Assassins Creed: Brotherhood had the same sort of constant connectivity and it was cracked within a month. The only difference now is that the hackers have experience with cracking games like this because of their work with AC:B.

 

[Atmos Duality]

If the EULA were legally binding, they couldn't unilaterally change the terms. That they can and have unilaterally changed the terms without fear of consequence shows just how legally binding the EULA is, it's not.

Having a clause in the original EULA to allow them to break the EULA is just ridiculous but they can get away with it because the EULA is no more legally binding than this post.

One particular court case that Blizzard won in the last decade 5 years actually disprove this.
That being Blizzard vs Michael Donnelly; who made the Glider Botting program for World of Warcraft.
Via the precedent re-established there (and in a few other cases over the years; notably a case involving Autodesk), the legal definition of "mods" can be extended towards "Any and all changes to the game code." whether it be on your hard drive, shot over the tubes (read; the Internet cloud) or loaded into your computer's RAM.

This translates into an EULA whose terms actually *are* absolute and fully enforceable by law in the United States.

If Blizzard can wield that kind of power with just its EULA (which it can change on a whim; presented "As-is" in classic "Contract of Adhesion"-style), then you *should* be afraid.
Very, very afraid.

The only legal stipulations Blizzard has to follow are:
1) New terms cannot violate any existing laws (like everything else) and
2) Must be presented when the terms, and service, are updated. They can't change the terms immedias-res. The user must be made aware of any changes to the contract. (stand contract law stuff, really)
However, the laws are currently quite flexible in what terms they can enforce; including banning your ass on the mere suspicion that you're violating the Terms of Use/EULA.

Before, this threat only extended to access on their official online multiplayer. But now Blizzard can fuck you over no matter what because EVERYTHING in Diablo 3 require Bnet 2.

Add to that the virtual suspension of First-Sale-Doctrine rights for video games/software (a change made in the last 2 years), and now Blizzard can ban your ass just for SHARING AN ACCOUNT or trying to sell your account.

This is a position of absolute legal power. The end user has ZERO. Repeat, ZERO rights or checks to prevent abuse here. You are literally playing in Blizzard's Personal Kingdom when you agree to the EULA and log on, and you can fully expect abuse of this power to follow shortly.

Perhaps what's most absurd of all: All of this legal bogeyman-ing is happening over a fucking VIDEO GAME.

 

[Epona]

This is just an excuse really, they probably did expect negative feedback from this choice.

But they just couldn't say "yes, we knew that you guys were not going to like this, and yet we did it".

This was there only really okay choice.

Why couldn't they say that?

 

[Char-Nobyl]

He also claimed that the always-on requirement has absolutely nothing to do with DRM. "I don't think [DRM] ever came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate," he said. So why not just make an offline mode for people who want to play that way? "You're introducing a separate user flow, a separate path that players are going to go down," he explained. "And, at the end of the day, how many people are going to want to do that?"

How about we just look at that.

Hypothetically, let's say a car company sees that their cars get lots of mileage on highways through some undetermined tracking system. So when they're releasing their latest, long-awaited successor to their previous and astoundingly popular car, they announce that it can only be driven on highways. If your driveway doesn't lead directly onto a freeway, well, suck a dick, consumer. Lots of people like to drive fast on the freeway, lots of their other cars get good highway MPG, and having the ability to drive more slowly in an urban area is an entirely separate path for drivers to follow.

Non-highway driving? At the end of the day, how many people are going to want to do that?

 

[Epona]

If the EULA were legally binding, they couldn't unilaterally change the terms. That they can and have unilaterally changed the terms without fear of consequence shows just how legally binding the EULA is, it's not.

Having a clause in the original EULA to allow them to break the EULA is just ridiculous but they can get away with it because the EULA is no more legally binding than this post.

One particular court case that Blizzard won in the last decade 5 years actually disprove this.
That being Blizzard vs Michael Donnelly; who made the Glider Botting program for World of Warcraft.
Via the precedent re-established there (and in a few other cases over the years; notably a case involving Autodesk), the legal definition of "mods" can be extended towards "Any and all changes to the game code." whether it be on your hard drive, shot over the tubes (read; the Internet cloud) or loaded into your computer's RAM.

This translates into an EULA whose terms actually *are* absolute and fully enforceable by law in the United States.

If Blizzard can wield that kind of power with just its EULA (which it can change on a whim; presented "As-is" in classic "Contract of Adhesion"-style), then you *should* be afraid.
Very, very afraid.

The only legal stipulations Blizzard has to follow are:
1) New terms cannot violate any existing laws (like everything else) and
2) Must be presented when the terms, and service, are updated. They can't change the terms immedias-res. The user must be made aware of any changes to the contract. (stand contract law stuff, really)
However, the laws are currently quite flexible in what terms they can enforce; including banning your ass on the mere suspicion that you're violating the Terms of Use/EULA.

Before, this threat only extended to access on their official online multiplayer. But now Blizzard can fuck you over no matter what because EVERYTHING in Diablo 3 require Bnet 2.

Add to that the virtual suspension of First-Sale-Doctrine rights for video games/software (a change made in the last 2 years), and now Blizzard can ban your ass just for SHARING AN ACCOUNT or trying to sell your account.

This is a position of absolute legal power. The end user has ZERO. Repeat, ZERO rights or checks to prevent abuse here. You are literally playing in Blizzard's Personal Kingdom when you agree to the EULA and log on, and you can fully expect abuse of this power to follow shortly.

Perhaps what's most absurd of all: All of this legal bogeyman-ing is happening over a fucking VIDEO GAME.

Scary stuff indeed!

 

[SixWingedAsura]

The saddest thing about all this is that I agree with a lot of people on this site. Sure, we'll complain and ***** and rage all we want. Hell, some of us more civic minded people will try to even come up with petitions.

It won't do us ANY good. Blizzard is god now. Thanks to the billions made from WoW, they're a giant force to be reckoned with and enough idiots WILL buy this game. Sure, they might lose a few hundred, or thousand, or even hundred thousand fans, but the amount of new morons will be more than enough to make up for the loss.

Diablo 2 fans? (Myself included)

You lose. Game over. Blizzard doesn't give two shits about you, what you want or anything like that. They've become too successful. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm done. I lost about 90% of my respect for Blizzard around WoW and the last 10% was only supported by my dreams of a massive, fun and awesome Diablo 3, a dream that's now been shattered by Blizzard's money-grubbing greedy paws grasping for every spare penny that they can grasp from their consumers.

I don't care if "always online" is the future or not. I don't want another "community." I don't want to always connected to the world. I never play online if I can avoid it anyways because I almost never run into any civil, like minded players who are tolerable. And Blizzard? Your Auction House can go F**K itself. We all know that this is a misguided attempt at trying to tie us to the Auction House. Here's an idea. Why don't you stop pretending like this is all for the player and make the Auction House manditory? Let's just go full tilt and force players who want to play to put things on your Auction House oh...once a month?

Or are you not quite that brazen yet?

Give it time. They will be.

As for me, I'm outta here.

P.S. Why are people complaining about Single Player Mods? It doesn't ruin anyone's game but my own. Me enjoying my game doesn't take away from you unless you have the mentality of a child.

 

[Ruedyn]

The modding community was also surprised about somthing in diablo 3.

 

[Nesco Nomen]

You are literally playing in Blizzard's Personal Kingdom when you agree to the EULA and log on,

Essentially this is correct, but I really don't think it's much of a secret. Of course that WORLD of warcraft is Blizzards. I think your toon too, right?


Rest that goes on in a tone like this

and you can fully expect abuse of this power to follow shortly.

is a whim of imagination. Blizzard would be very very soon out of the business if they were into business of abusing their user base.

But then again some people consider developers choices of soon to be published Diablo III to be abuse of their rights.

 

[MyNameIsNowNotMyName]

That could be it.... I mean I guess no matter how you say it your screwed. If your honest with everyone you get flamed, and if you don't, guess what? You get FLAMED!!!! D:< I guess it sucks to be a scapegoat...?

 

[Rack]

I'm not so sure, I mean it will happen, I don't doubt that...

Also, while GW wasn't really hacked(well, it was, but not many people actually bothered to pirate it, what with it being dirt cheap), I'll give you an example that WAS.
WoW.
Nuff said?
I've actually set me up a decent private server at home, just for kicks.

More than enough, as I said it will happen, if WoW was hacked this definitely will be, it's only a matter of time but that time may take a while. It's not just spoofing a save system into a game that had one ripped out last minute ala Creed2, at the very least they'll have to crack Blizzard's item generation system which will likely be done server side. Then they'll need to sppof game hosting and the like. There'll be a lot of will behind cracking this but I wouldn't be surprised if it took a month or even longer and the process is probably more complicated than people will like.

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

Happy to report that I'm not frothing at the mouth like some people, and can adequately see both sides.

Sure, part of it is an obvious ploy to enforce DRM, and anyone with an unstable internet connection might be at a disadvantage. And it's quite obvious that Mr. Bridenbecker isn't exactly king of PR... but I'm actually gonna give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. Maybe he really didn't expect the backlash. Their big seller (WoW) has been 100% online only for YEARS. The last diablo game was released a freaking decade ago, and even that featured a heavy online presence. It's only natural to assume that things might have "upgraded" over the course of the last 10 years.


Also, I'm sure everyone here to played D2 remembers the absurd amounts of cheating, hacking, duping etc that went on. It's was a freaking mess. Now, look at Blizzard always-online game: WoW. Not much duping or hacking going on there. Sure, it probably happens from time to time, but it's not nearly the epidemic that was D2.


Finally, has anyone here played the finished version? No? Didn't think so. So before you go off your rails about "If I lose my connection, I'll be wtf pnwed and all my items will break and I'll cry" how about we wait and see how it's actually handled. It's quite possible that Blizzard will have a system in place that can detect when you're offline, and will phase you out until you return, or just port you to town. I don't know, and neither do you.

At this point, most of the bitching and complaining sounds like people are just upset that they won't be able to cheat. "How am I supposed to get the complete runeword if I can't just spawn all the pieces at once?"

 

[Atmos Duality]

You are literally playing in Blizzard's Personal Kingdom when you agree to the EULA and log on,

Essentially this is correct, but I really don't think it's much of a secret. Of course that WORLD of warcraft is Blizzards. I think your toon too, right?

Yup. Everything you do in WoW is owned by Blizzard. It's a service; not a product.
Diablo didn't used to be WoW, but now it's becoming WoW-lite.

is a whim of imagination.

Believe what you want.
I'm under no illusions that Blizzard has the customer first and foremost in mind; that belongs to profits now (and no, it wasn't always like that). They have a great deal of leverage over their customers now, why wouldn't they exploit it? That was the whole point of attaining that leverage to begin with after all.

It goes without further saying that I don't trust Blizzard anymore, and I have no reason to trust them.