Diablo 3 no offline reasoning summarized by Penny Arcade

[Jaime_Wolf]

-snip-

Except that the game already had a single-player mode (being primarily a single-player game and all), and the announcement that they were going with an "always-on" system was made quite recently. So they had to, at some point, decide to add the always-on system....and I rather doubt that it was planned to be added from the beginning, as they would have been upfront with the decision back then, instead of popping it out now, both because it's years after development was first announced, and also because, judging from the unwillingness to give a release date, it's very likely that it'll be a year or so before the game's release. It's rather obvious, given that timeline, that the decision to use "always-on" DRM was made AFTER development had already begun. As such, we shall have to assume that they chose to pursue this route after development had already started on the game, seeing as how the timeline suggests it to be true and no evidence exists to the contrary, and the conversation should be based upon that assumption.

It's obviously not coincidence that the announcement of "always-on" DRM came just before the discussion of how the auction house would function. Indeed, they had to explain how they intended to make a working auction house in which they received partial kickbacks if the game was going to contain features that its predecessors had, such as an offline single-player, LAN play, and closed Battle.net play.

So while you're essentially what you're suggesting is that it would be harder for them to create an offline single-player than simply "ticking a box", what you SHOULD be considering is the inverse: it is FAR more difficult to create this system that they recently decided to pursue, and it runs contrary to the primary function of the game itself. Yet they did it anyways. Why? Money. There is no other reason to invest far more resources into a system that far fewer of their customers would appreciate. This is a very clear and conscious decision to go against the consumer in favor of adding to their own wallets.

It's the same with SC2's lack of LAN functionality: they have had working LAN functionality for years. The previous game had it, and they have a working LAN model specifically for private tournament play. They simply chose not to add it to the game. Why? They wanted to push online play.

I would explain in further detail, but I think Dexter111 has done it far more eloquently than I could have.

Ugh. I deserved this response. After rereading my last post before I put it up I was just about sure someone would bring this up.

My post was badly organised, the chain of logic I meant to suggest goes something like this:
(1) Farming and selling items on external sites is widespread and relatively common and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent that.
(2) So give them a legitimate way to do it and make it safer, easier, and more reasonable. Since buying and selling these things already involved a cut going to the auction site, take that cut for the company that's providing the game instead.
(3) But making a legitimate way to buy and sell these items means that you have to prevent the sale of illegitimate items (since you can't guarantee quality or persistence of these items).
(4) A client-server architecture is a relatively robust solution to this problem. A well-designed system with this architecture is much harder to cheat and makes it much easier to reverse any such cheating.
(5) Once you have a client-server architecture, it's very hard to add in any sort of offline single-player option (and doing something relatively straightfoward and easy like emulating the server's calculations on the user's computer would make it easier to see its internal workings, making it easier to discover exploits online).

Also, my other point could probably be better put as: "Why are we complaining that this game requires that you be constantly online when we're fine with MMOs requiring a constant connection? Or even other games that run on separate instances online.". The answer is expectations - people expected it to be more similar to previous installments and design has changed from what they had initially been lead to expect. They're not doing anything new or weird or especially unethical, they're just doing things that are new or weird for the Diablo series.

They've never been particularly unclear that they want to make a multiplayer game and everyone is whining "but what about my single player?!". It's like the people complaining that TES doesn't have multiplayer. Sure, that would be fun, but they're under no obligation to provide you with multiplayer. Clearly, single player is just not a focus for this game. They aren't failing to make a good game, they're just failing to make the particular game that a certain segment of people want (which is where the sense of entitlement in all of this comes through).

 

[Vhite]

D3 no, Torchlight 2 yes

Or... OR... D3: probably, Torchlight 2: No, Sacred 3: Most definitely

Sacred 3?! You just made my day.

I guess it is being made by a different company, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_3
http://www.sacred3.org/

But... yessssss. Sacred 3.

That might actually be a good thing. Sacred 2 wasn't even playable without patches and with them it was almost impossible to install. However when I did, it was awesome.

Well, I only played it on 360, but the amount of bugs were noticeable, but not game ending. A few side quests that couldn't be completed, and some minor annoyances.

I have played it for a while without patches on PC and it crashed every 10 minutes, so I couldn't even notice if some quests couldn't be completed. But it was awesome game if you could get it running well.

 

[rockingnic]

I love how people complain about no offline when they post stuff like this all over the internet, seems ironic to me. I think people are slightly over reacting to these things. If it upsets you that much, just don't put out the cash for it. If it doesn't upset you enough your probably going to buy it. Sure it's inconvenient that there's no lan but is it that hard to get internet these days?

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

- Always-Online DRM

We commonly accept this for MMOs and even other instanced online games.

- Real Money Auction House / Pay2Win system

This was already happening. You could already buy tremendous amounts of gold/absolutely ridiculous characters/the best items online if you wanted. And given the ease with which you could dupe and hack items, it's unlikely that the auction house will come close to the low prices in Diablo 2 for instance.

- no LAN

A tremendous number of games have no LAN. And LAN is largely superfluous for the majority of the userbase. Not only are they unlikely to be in a position to use it very often, when they are they're typically in a position to just all connect to the internet anyway.

- no Mods

Not every game is required to support mods. I'm not really sure of any MMOs or online instanced games that allow mods for somewhat obvious reasons.

- no Offline Mode at all

If the primary goal is to make a multiplayer game, I don't see how this is really a problem. An online multiplayer game not having an offline mode does not seem odd to me at all. Should they have put an offline mode into WoW?

- general contempt in regards to their customers for the past several years

I have seen no contempt beyond not listening to the entitled whining of people who are frustrated that Blizzard isn't making the particular game that they wanted. People are conflating making a game badly and just making a different game.

- to a lesser degree some of the design decisions like missing stat/skillpoints
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-one
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=127066
All of that and more...

Again, making a game badly versus making a different game.

They're not mitigating but hoping to exponentiate it, and they hope to profit off of it big time.

I said they were mitigating the damage, which the system demonstrably does (you can't be scammed for instance). They might be trying to exponentiate the system's use (which doesn't strike me as a terrible problem since many users clearly desire such a system), but they're obviously not trying to exponentiate the problems associated with item selling.

And regarding it being harder to exploit MMO-style client-server architectures than single-machine or user-run servers...that is absolutely ludicrous. If you actually think exploits are easier and more common in MMOs than in single-machine or user-run-server games, I'm honestly not sure how to help you.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

I've no problem with trying to legitimize the auction house, it's more the monetary focus that annoys me. Regardless, this part is more important:

Also, my other point could probably be better put as: "Why are we complaining that this game requires that you be constantly online when we're fine with MMOs requiring a constant connection? Or even other games that run on separate instances online.". The answer is expectations - people expected it to be more similar to previous installments and design has changed from what they had initially been lead to expect. They're not doing anything new or weird or especially unethical, they're just doing things that are new or weird for the Diablo series.

They've never been particularly unclear that they want to make a multiplayer game and everyone is whining "but what about my single player?!". It's like the people complaining that TES doesn't have multiplayer. Sure, that would be fun, but they're under no obligation to provide you with multiplayer. Clearly, single player is just not a focus for this game. They aren't failing to make a good game, they're just failing to make the particular game that a certain segment of people want (which is where the sense of entitlement in all of this comes through).

You answered your own question: because it's NOT an MMO. It's a single-player game that happens to have multiplayer. Multiplayer may be the main reason many have played it for so long, but the franchise has never been built up as an MMO or multiplayer-focused game. The fact that multiplayer is essentially single-player with instancing makes that much obvious. That's what Diablo is and always has been, and more importantly, it's the game they originally announced to us. So naturally when they change their minds now, people are going to get angry and say "but that's not what you said before". It's broken promises, and Blizzard deserves every bit of flak it gets for this.

Diablo 3 was announced as a game with offline single-player, and the devs stated that it would focus heavily on single-player, simply providing more benefits to multiplayer modes. That's not the game they're advertising now. THAT is why there's all this backlash. THAT is why there's people like me who no longer want to buy it. Because they've completely changed the nature of the game from what they originally told us it was going to be. Essentially it's like they advertised a Zelda game to us, and then years down the road, they're showing us a Final Fantasy-esque game instead. You should expect backlash when you say you're developing one thing, and then change your mind and pretend that's what you were always doing, especially when (as Dexter111 points out) you can still find evidence of the fact that the game had offline single-player in its original iterations, which means for it to not have that function now means that they removed it.

This is a much more reasonable stance. I can understand being unhappy that they're not making the game that they said they were. My problem is more with the people who continue to insist that they're making the game wrong. There is a difference between broken promises (I thought you were making game X, I liked the sound of game X, but it turns out you're making game Y) and bad design decisions (I thought you were making game X, I liked the sound of game X, WHY ARE YOU RUINING GAME X?). The first is obviously completely fine and rational, the second is the sort of entitlement common among gamers complaining about things on forums. Most of the posts I've seen have seemed to come from the second camp.

Regarding removing single-player, if they have in fact moved to an MMO-style client-server architecture, they removed it to change the architecture, not just to get rid of it. So it's still not like they just said "They want single player? Well fuck THOSE guys, we can make more money if we just delete it." and removed it out of spite and greed - they removed it because it was technologically incompatible with the way they wanted to do things.

 

[TheKmanofAwesometon]

I don't see the whole Torchlight 2 vs. Diablo 3 arguement, I understand that Torchlight 2 will have mods and offline, but Torchlight just wasn't a very good game.... am I the only one who didn't like it? It'll take a really big let down by Blizzard in order for me to view the Torchlight series over Diablo.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

By their own admission, Diablo isn?t not really focused around a PVP experience; if you?re playing with someone who has duped items or whatever, all it means is that you will be more likely to defeat Satan. Without a means to gain advantage over another, ?cheating? as a concept becomes substantially more opaque. Who is the cheated party, precisely? Satan the Devil? Fuck him, who cares.

Who is being cheated? This is the part of the movie where, in a series of retrospective realizations cut with you looking at your own face in the rearview mirror, you come bit by bit to the heart of it. The person you are cheating is Blizzard, Blizzard in the aggregate, with your attempts to interfere with their digital marketplace. You mustn?t play offline or goof around with your files or any other naughty business because they are endeavoring to transform your putative ownership into a revenue stream.

There, now don?t you feel better?

And there it is. Blizzard didn't include offline mode because they can't sell you shit if you do that.

D3 no, Torchlight 2 yes

What the strangest thing about this game is that Blizzard not only has broken all common PC gaming wisdom, but is going against what has brought them money and success, and what other parts of Bizzard are working towards. The Starcraft 2 is trying to get money fot and off it's moding community. The user generated store that is coming with Heart of the Swarm (combined with the existing Galaxy editing tool) will mean that both moders and Blizzard will make money off of high quality mods, making more and more incentive to make high quality mods. With this, they hope to make the next DOTA (I.E. mod so good it sells lots of copies just for the mod). That is both a smart way to make money off OF OTHER PEOPLES WORK while making a more happy community that puts more and more time into your game.

Diablo 3: I just don't get it.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

This is a much more reasonable stance. I can understand being unhappy that they're not making the game that they said they were. My problem is more with the people who continue to insist that they're making the game wrong. There is a difference between broken promises (I thought you were making game X, I liked the sound of game X, but it turns out you're making game Y) and bad design decisions (I thought you were making game X, I liked the sound of game X, WHY ARE YOU RUINING GAME X?). The first is obviously completely fine and rational, the second is the sort of entitlement common among gamers complaining about things on forums. Most of the posts I've seen have seemed to come from the second camp.

Regarding removing single-player, if they have in fact moved to an MMO-style client-server architecture, they removed it to change the architecture, not just to get rid of it. So it's still not like they just said "They want single player? Well fuck THOSE guys, we can make more money if we just delete it." and removed it out of spite and greed - they removed it because it was technologically incompatible with the way they wanted to do things.

I certainly wouldn't argue that they're making a bad game. I don't think Blizzard is capable of that.

I would say, however, that they're making the "wrong game" in the sense that it's not the game they originally said it was. It's natural for those of us who were excited about what they originally presented are now extremely disappointed that they not only changed their stance, but are also pretending that they were always planning on doing this, despite clear evidence to the contrary. It smacks of dishonesty and a touch of betrayal (though perhaps not enough to evoke the Spoony video).

Is it possible that somewhere along the line, they changed the architecture and that made it impossible to do offline single-player? Sure, it's possible, and that's fair. But you know what a development company that cares about its players would do in that case? TELL THE PLAYERS ABOUT IT RIGHT THEN AND THERE. Be upfront. Don't wait until you can't hide it any longer (which is what they did, since the announcement came right before they were planning to describe the auction house....they likely expected to neutralize the backlash of the first announcement with the second one) and then act surprised when people flip out on you. Hell, throw up a poll. "Hey, we really want to add but can't, and in order to add it, we'd have to remove offline single-player. Does that sound okay to you?" Or, perhaps the best idea of all, don't advertise features in your game unless you can guarantee they will appear in that game. I guarantee that any of these things would have gone over much more smoothly than what they did. People should be upset about this. Not because it's "ruining Diablo", but because they are now trying to sell a much different game than they were originally.

I don't believe it was done with the intent to be malicious, but the dishonesty surrounding the entire situation (the sudden announcement, pretending that this was always the plan, and acting "surprised" that people didn't know and didn't receive it well) is not endearing me to Blizzard's case in the slightest. While I'm sure they have their reasons, I would have preferred if they just presented those reasons rather than lying. As it stands, they're no longer selling me the game I wanted and they're lying to me about why they did it. As such, they lost my purchase. The game will likely still be great and it'll still sell like mad, so losing me is meaningless to them....but if it were me in their shoes, I'd probably feel more than a little guilty, honestly.

This sounds pretty reasonable. Probably the most reasonable post I've seen in this thread. That said, I think it's an unfortunate result of how games are marketed that most companies make promises very early in the development cycle, meaning that they either can't change their minds when they think it's appropriate or they have to break earlier promises.

And I agree that it would be nice if they were a bit more straightforward and upfront about these things. I'm not as sure about how great an idea it is to hand design decisions to players via poll, especially when the motivations for changes are as complex as these seem to be, but they could at least have said something earlier.

I think this is one of the biggest reasons that developers who make good games and remain extremely tight-lipped about them are generally viewed more favourably than developers who make good games and start churning out hype as soon as they have the first piece of concept art. All of this ignoring the fact that, against my better judgement, I always hunger for more information about upcoming games just like everyone else

 

[Rack]

This was already happening. You could already buy tremendous amounts of gold/absolutely ridiculous characters/the best items online if you wanted. And given the ease with which you could dupe and hack items, it's unlikely that the auction house will come close to the low prices in Diablo 2 for instance.

Do you really think this won't massively increase the amount of players who take part in this kind of thing? There were aimbots in COD 6, does that mean Activision should sell them in CoD7?

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

This was already happening. You could already buy tremendous amounts of gold/absolutely ridiculous characters/the best items online if you wanted. And given the ease with which you could dupe and hack items, it's unlikely that the auction house will come close to the low prices in Diablo 2 for instance.

Do you really think this won't massively increase the amount of players who take part in this kind of thing? There were aimbots in COD 6, does that mean Activision should sell them in CoD7?

One of those things breaks the game. The other one involves what has become a very standard time/money tradeoff in online RPGs. And no human can outperform an aimbot, but every item in the planned auction house can necessarily be found in the game (since that's how they end up in the auction house). Further, the game is intended to be mostly cooperative, with what is stated as a much more minor focus on PvP, whereas CoD barely even has a cooperative component.

As I imagine is pretty clear, I don't really have a huge problem with the time/money tradeoff. It allows people to buy power yes, but that lets people who work more enjoy the game at the same level as people who don't. I don't have a problem with the fact that they haven't "earned" the right to have the same fun in the game as others who didn't buy things. Admittedly, the concept used to bother me immensely, but further thinking has changed my mind over the years (edit: I don't mean this to sound incredibly self-righteous like I think you will change your mind in time). And since the items in the auction house have to be earned in-game by someone, the overall number of powerful items and characters doesn't really change, so it's not like it has a huge effect on people who don't participate - they're just having to deal with the same items and characters owned by different people. That's a key difference between this and the typical microtransaction store which does often lead to more of the problems that I'm guessing you mean to point to.

 

[Rack]

This was already happening. You could already buy tremendous amounts of gold/absolutely ridiculous characters/the best items online if you wanted. And given the ease with which you could dupe and hack items, it's unlikely that the auction house will come close to the low prices in Diablo 2 for instance.

Do you really think this won't massively increase the amount of players who take part in this kind of thing? There were aimbots in COD 6, does that mean Activision should sell them in CoD7?

One of those things breaks the game. The other one involves what has become a very standard time/money tradeoff in online RPGs. And no human can outperform an aimbot, but every item in the planned auction house can necessarily be found in the game (since that's how they end up in the auction house). Further, the game is intended to be mostly cooperative, with what is stated as a much more minor focus on PvP, whereas CoD barely even has a cooperative component.

As I imagine is pretty clear, I don't really have a huge problem with the time/money tradeoff. It allows people to buy power yes, but that lets people who work more enjoy the game at the same level as people who don't. I don't have a problem with the fact that they haven't "earned" the right to have the same fun in the game as others who didn't buy things. Admittedly, the concept used to bother me immensely, but further thinking has changed my mind over the years (edit: I don't mean this to sound incredibly self-righteous like I think you will change your mind in time). And since the items in the auction house have to be earned in-game by someone, the overall number of powerful items and characters doesn't really change, so it's not like it has a huge effect on people who don't participate - they're just having to deal with the same items and characters owned by different people. That's a key difference between this and the typical microtransaction store which does often lead to more of the problems that I'm guessing you mean to point to.

Two things will change here, and they are things that in my opinion break the game.

1) The number of god items in the game. I'm aware that farmers will be in the game anyway, but by radically increasing the numner of potential buyers Blizzard will radically increase the number of farmers. More farmers = more items, a lot more, rare and powerful items will be orders of magnitude more common.

2) The distribution of these items. Eventually a handful of players will spend the hundreds of thousands of hours needed to fully kit out in the best, that's going to happen. Even without a legitimate auction house others will buy these characters too. But with a legitimised auction system there will be thousands and thousands of these players before the end of the first month. Rather than seeing the odd person with a devastating item that increases his power 30% over everyone else every game will include players that have item sets that elevate them to 10 times as powerful as even the most dedicated player could be at that stage.

These players will break a co-op game as much as they would break competitive play. If you've ever played Diablo II as a character with regular items next to someone with a complete duped set you'll know it's not even worth attacking, you are simply incapable of making the slightest impact on the game.

There's no real difference between this system and Blizzard directly selling items in store except that the majority of money in these cases goes to farmers as opposed to Blizzard. The effect is the same, an unlimited quantity of overpowered items available to anyone who wants to pay for them. That is aside from the social impact of items having real world value is.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

did people actually not realise this? if its all online of course its much harder to hack...

Still. I wont be surprised if within a week of the games release there are a bajillion copys of the best weapons and armor in the game selling for a few cents because of hackers.

 

[00slash00]

having to play the game online didnt bother me because thats how i was going to play it anyway. what bothers me is the auction house. being able to buy power is bound to create balance issues and kill the whole experience of hunting for loot. this is blizzard we're talking about, it was pretty obvious it was about money, right from the start. they make great games but are a little bit evil. however, the important part to me is that they make great games. im less excited than i was before, but diablo 3 is still a must buy for me