Jimquisition: You Should Be Mad at Diablo III's Always Online DRM

[zefiris]

I know it sucks if you cannot play a game because you do not have the requirements. But these days, asking you to have a stable internet connection is no longer a huge ask.

Oh my god, the ignorance. How can you manage to get dressed in the morning without help?
Newsflash: The world isn't your american city.



Seriously, people. How come that the guild wars 2 BETA had a better launch than Diablo 3? It was far more playable. It allowed me to easily play with friends all over the world. It's server issues were quickly solved.

And it's a BETA. How come one company manages to provide a service for a beta that Blizzard, a much richer company, can't manage for a full game? That's pathetic! Ridiculously pathetic.

Always-online for a game like this is a hassle for consumers. It's trying to ship cost from the company (people moderating and finding hackers) to us (unable to log in and play). Worst, it doesn't even work. Hacking and cheating is already happening. The entire system FAILS.

It would work far better to let us play offline, connect to people at our leisure, just like D2 did.

Oh. Real money auction house. So THATS why we all have to suffer. This just proves that the RMAH is a terrible idea.

Firstly, an opinion (Which is subjective) cannot simply be "Wrong".

Wrong. If your opinion is that the moon is made out of cheese, then your opinion is wrong. The moment your opinion contradicts verifyable facts, you're simply wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Furthermore, calling you ignorant isn't a bad move. It's accurate. You are ignorant about the issue of online connections. Simple fact. You can hide behind "opinion" all you want, you keep being ignorant, and therefore wrong.

 

[Strazdas]

I agree completely, but diablo 3 doesnt really have a singleplayer option. sure you can shut down the other guys, but its not singlepalyer if the game calculates online.
The same problem happened to Ubisoft and EA when they launched their always on DRM. Now Blizzard has fallen to this trap too. is there no sensible gamemakers left?

Not every country has a perfectly stable internet connection. Even large parts of america have horrible internet service. Many people use their laptops too, and wifi networks aren't always 100% reliable.

America is one of the worst internet connections out there. They stopped in 90s and dont seem to be updating while the rest of the world has went past them. sure there wont be stable internet in africa, but i think they have more important issues. As for the first and second world countries, it should not be a problem unless you live in a farm somewhere in middle of nowhere.
As fr Wifi, well its YOUR PROBLEM that you are using a wifi. You were told (if you ever met anyone that knows about it) that wifis are unreliable and still got it, then you made a mistake that you are responsible for.

 

[Urh]

Wrong. If your opinion is that the moon is made out of cheese, then your opinion is wrong. The moment your opinion contradicts verifyable facts, you're simply wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Furthermore, calling you ignorant isn't a bad move. It's accurate. You are ignorant about the issue of online connections. Simple fact. You can hide behind "opinion" all you want, you keep being ignorant, and therefore wrong.

I want to have your babies. I am so damn sick of misinformed fuckwits thinking that none of the opinions they have can be 'wrong'. The adage "everybody's entitled to their opinion" is increasingly becoming the cloak of people who either lack the intellectual capacity to defend their opinions, or the integrity to admit that they may have gotten things wrong.

 

[The Lugz]

as Sun Tzu put it:
the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

i simply deny blizzard or any company my money when they pull a stunt like this
i will not be abused and will-not perpetuate exploitative systems
if everyone would act this way no company would be able to exploit you
except by blatantly changing terms after launch

 

[Nergy]

My neck hurts from nodding in agreement. Thanks, you twat.

I can't help but think Runic Games (Torchlight and Torchlight II) is doing a merry jig. All this hooplah about Always Online basically means more potential sales for them.

Oh and to those people saying that the customers knew about the Always Online DRM before purchasing, you're right. But that was because people expected Blizzard to do their fucking job and make sure the servers could withstand the number of players logging on.

 

[likalaruku]

I'm not crazy about Minecraft's plans to move it's singleplayer to remotely hosted servers either, because I can see the same thing happening.

 

[surg3n]

Fair enough, gamers have a right to be pissed - but surely people should be pissed at the right people, surely we don't have to hear about it! Blizzard have a complaints department no?

When these things happen, it leaks into everything, this site, youtube, facebook - butthurt gamers whine about not being able to play a game, and people who don't care have to hear about it. It's pointless to whine at us, go whine at Blizzard, because I can guarantee that Blizzard aren't scouring the interweb, looking for complaints to deal with. Target the right people, Blizzard themselves, and concentrate that annoyance on them, let them have it, and maybe try and get on with your life in the meantime.

Everything will get sorted out, just takes time, it's not like Atari and their Test Drive 2 fuckery - game was unplayable for about 2 weeks, then they promise some free DLC to make up for that, nice of them, so you'd think - until you realise that they still haven't released the DLC after well over a year. It could be worse, at least with Blizzard you kinda know that things will be resolved, there's no need to ***** and whine to anyone who'll listen.

There hasn't really been much whining about Diablo3, and that's a good thing Jimbo - because I don't want to hear it, the only people who will benefit from hearing it, as I said, are Blizzards complaint department. Channel that rage and get results, and don't annoy the rest of the gaming community, it's all win.

 

[TitanAura]

This episode gave me WAY to much information as to the type of porn Jim looks at. *scrubs self with steel wool*

 

[justnotcricket]

OK, so, as kind of an outsider to this whole thing (never played a Diablo game, was interested in D3, saw that it had the 'online only' thing, kept my wallet firmly closed), things seem to boil down to:

1) People complaining about the terrible connection problems: justified - if you'e going to have a game that can only be played online, Blizzard, you should probably, you know, make it actually accessible online?

2) People complaining that the game does not have an offline single player mode (or much of a single player mode at all): only semi-justified. As far as I'm concerned, you can be disappointed that what Blizzard has made is essentially Diablo Online, but you can't complain about it in the sense that you were ripped off. They were pretty open, as far as I saw, about the fact that you're not going to get much out of single player D3. Hey, this disappointed me too, but it contributed to me *not buying the game*

3) The world would be a better place without the RMAH? I don't actually fully understand what the whole auction house thing is, but it seems to be at the root of all the problems, one way or another. I did find the bit in Jim's video about Blizzard making their problems 'ours' to be an interesting point, and a way I hadn't loooked at it before.

I'm not trying to pick any fights, just calling it as I see it. I welcome any (civil) correction ofhow I've summed things up - it just seems to be getting very confused as to what people are *actually* complaining about, vs what other people claim everyone is complaining about, vs what is actually a problem that Blizzard should be censured for, vs what is just people whinging about finding out after the fact that the game they bought was not, in fact, a clone of Diablo 2, but something different.

 

[Jeralt2100]

Somehow I'm reminded of the 'Apple can do no wrong' fanboys and fangirls when thinking about this argument. Most people no longer think of Itunes as oppressive DRM, despite the fact that it is, it's just wrapped in an attractive store/service backed by a company with an excellent PR department.

At any rate, I won't be buying Diablo III unless they release a version that allows offline only play. I rarely agree with Jim, but on this issue I just can't see it any other way.

I'll leave everyone with this. Food for thought anyway

http://videogames.memebase.com/2012/05/13/video-game-memes-cant-wait-for-diablo-iii/

 

[Naeras]

Anything that has a single player mode is a single player game.

D3 doesn't have a single player mode. Every time you start a new game it's in multiplayer mode as in multiple players can be part of that game.

That's like calling a dungeon in WoW a single player dungeon because you zoned in by yourself.

Yes, please ignore the important part of my post and quote the detail that you disagree with. People bought this game for single player, and the guys who are complaining are the ones who can't play single player. That's a simple fact, and no arguing from your part is going to change that. It's a single player game. End of story.

Another reason why the comparison is faulty is that a sizable portion of WoW instances cannot be completed without an entire group, several of them can't even be entered without a group. That's not the case in D3.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong Jim.

You are wrong because no one forced games to go out and buy this game. You are wrong because this was long announced before the game released, people knew this was the way it was going to be. So they knew this, dropped 60 bucks, and now whine because they bought a product without doing the research, without remembering what's been said about the game since it was announced... that is ONLINE ONLY. if you don't want ONLINE ONLY don't buy it. The entitled pricks are the ones who buy it and expect something they were told that they WERE NOT going to get.


Edit: I've had it since beta, I installed it before it went live, i was in and playing within an hour of release and you know what. i was happy that I could log in and play with other people who weren't hackers, dupers, assholes, farmers etc. I was happy that I can play in a random group with random people and know that they got their gear legitimately. I'm happy with my purchase, i'm happy with the game and I like always on DRM. I like support from one of the greatest developers of all time.

It's the old catch-22: if you don't like it, don't buy it (and implicitly, don't talk about it). If you do buy it, you have no right to complain. Of course you should be able to complain and criticize regardless of whether you bought it or not. Whether or not I bought something isn't a very good measure of it's quality, is it? This is just a round-about ad hominim. You don't say their argument is bad, but rather they are bad for making it.

So you say if I bought Diablo III and also criticize it I am an entitled prick. I think that miiiiiiiiiight be unfair, and an ad hominim to stop me from criticizing a videogame. Also I don't think "entitled" means what you think it means. What it doesn't mean is "doesn't like what I like".

It doesn't matter if they announced they were shitting all over us before they did it. It still stinks. And I very much doubt that most people criticizing Blizzard were blind-sided by this as you seem to imply. I don't know why you think that, except maybe it helps you look down on us as idiots scratching our thick monkey craniums wondering what happened. Expecting a product to work at least up to industry norms is not unreasonable. Besides, not everyone reads websites about games. When I buy a sandwich, I don't do any research whatsoever to find out if it will be edible. I just assume that a sandwich can be eaten. I don't blame anyone who didn't know about this for not doing the kind of exhaustive research many of us do. I think we tend to forget we are in the tiny minority on that count.

As for security, their track record so far isn't very good. So you already have to deal with hackers and farmers. Dupers I assume are on the way, but it hardly matters. Pretty soon people are going to be buying gear with real money that hackers stole from your account. I fail to see how this is better than any similar title.

And you like DRM? That almost doesn't make sense. DRM is not designed to enhance the user experience in any way. Do you mean you're glad it's stopping pirates? I mean, I understand the necessity of airport security but who the hell likes it? No one says to themselves "I really am enjoying that this person with the scanner is seeing me without my clothes on right now. Oh goody, now they want my shoes!" Is it possible you just like anything that Blizzard does regardless?

 

[Frostbite3789]

Snip

You're comparing a game that came out three years ago on a pretty short development time with no budget to one that's been in development for what? Eight years and had All the Money?

Lets wait to see Torchlight 2 before we talk about levels of polish between games. You know, the one that measures up far better to D3.

 

[Chadling]

It goes like this:

1) You bought a game. An expensive game, thanks to the fact that EA/Activision somehow managed to con us all into thinking that $60 is the new acceptable baseline.

2) You cannot play it.

3) The developer's bad decisions are responsible for the second item.

4) Your experience would not be affected in any meaningful way if the third item had not taken place.

5) Why is this an issue? Activision/Blizzard screwed up, and you're the one that's suffering for it.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

...and this is another reason why, no matter how popular or even how GOOD Diablo III is, I do not give even 5% of a fuck about it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong Jim.

You are wrong because no one forced games to go out and buy this game. You are wrong because this was long announced before the game released, people knew this was the way it was going to be. So they knew this, dropped 60 bucks, and now whine because they bought a product without doing the research, without remembering what's been said about the game since it was announced... that is ONLINE ONLY. if you don't want ONLINE ONLY don't buy it. The entitled pricks are the ones who buy it and expect something they were told that they WERE NOT going to get.

Yes, I guess it WAS pretty dumb of people to buy a game when they knew they would only be able to play it when the servers are online AND that the servers would regularly go down and Blizzard would be COMPLETELY able to keep up with demand. I mean, they must have been some kind of IDIOTS to expect that they'd actually be able to PLAY the game they paid for. They really should have known better. So obviously it's all their fault and Blizzard are completely blameless.

You see that? That's how moronic you sound.

 

[cidbahamut]

This video did a pretty good job of summarizing exactly why I have absolutely zero interest in acquiring Diablo III.

This nonsense is completely unacceptable and I refuse to reward that with my time and money.

 

[Skratt]

I like the trigger finger joke at the end. I've had something similar with Serious Sam. (A game in which the name "Jim Sterling" incidentally shows up in the credits.)

OT: Looking forward to the arguments used to justify why you can't use a game you paid for when you bought it. Should be good.

EDIT: is this relevant?

I'm not saying they didn't plan properly, but having first hand knowledge of large scale deployments of servers, the answers aren't always "throw more money at the problem to make it go away". If the problem is code related or configuration related, adding a billion login and play servers would not change anything.

I sincerely doubt there were anything less than all hands on deck trying to get everything working. Why do you think publishers and developers have a policy of launching at the beginning of a week? They expect shit to go wrong. It's no different in a non-video game corporate environment - shit can go wrong. Sometimes its piss poor planning, sometimes its just an alligator you didn't see.

I can't honestly remember ANY multi-player game launches going off with zero downtime. In fact most of them end up with thousands of pissed off "can't play on day one" players. But it's good to see the Oracles of Information spewing forth their discontent in the form of sage advice from the cheap seats about this or that could have fixed the problem. Hey, I have an idea!

http://jobs.blizzard.com/

Feel free to amaze the world when the Starcraft MMO comes out and the planet doesn't grind to a halt because you were there to make sure they were ready at launch. While you are at it, can you fix global warming and world hunger? k thx bye!

I'm not saying Blizzard couldn't have done better, but why do we as players go through this every goddamn game launch? There are always problems at game launch. ALWAYS. This is not news. And yet, time and again people take the day off of work and don't get to play because *gasp* the company failed to properly get everything working on launch day.

If this game launch was your first, congratulations! Consider your virginity taken. It's pretty much like this from here on out.

 

[Twinmill5000]

I just checked. There's a Diablo III server emulator in the works.

Pirates FTW.

@ some commenters
The issue isn't that the game had launch issues. Every MMO has launch issues, I can't think of a single one that didn't. The issue is that this was a SINGLE PLAYER game with launch issues.

What's worse is that Activision did this knowing they could get away with it. While I'm not against being connected to the internet while playing a game, if I spend money on it, and it's not built, from the ground up, as a Massively Multiplayer Experience, then fuck all if it doesn't have single player.

It's a shame, too, I heard D3 had some very good design that went into it, and loads and loads of content.