So, Pirates are Playing Diablo 3

[StBishop]

I've heard of it being done, similar to how WoW private servers are being done. The guy who told me is a mega pirate. He's basically the captain of a pirate ship or something. I have no evidence, but I do believe it.

Also on topic. I didn't buy it, even though I love the Diablo franchise, I love(d) Blizzard, I liked the RMAH and have a uni break coming up, plus my mates are all trying to convince me to get it.
But I don't approve of the always online, so I'm not supporting them. I also won't pirate it for obvious reasons. So yeah, no Diablo 3 for me.

If your friends wants you to get it they obviously want to play with you, which means you'll be online. Your reason makes no sense.

Still, this thread is about pirates playing Diablo 3 in a better way than we are (were, I can play without any problems at all). They can't. There's no fully working server emulator for Diablo 3, only one that does very few things very badly.

If your friend says otherwise (about Diablo 3) he's either lying, heard it from someone who was lying or simply has no idea and making assumptions.

Any of those possibilities are perfectly reasonable, as I said, I only have his word to go on, but it seemed legit.

I am against the always online on principal. Why is it hard to understand?

I see it as a single player game with an additional online mode, I feel it should be treated as such, Blizzard disagree and didn't make the game I wanted, so I'm not going to buy it. Makes perfect sense.

 

[nu1mlock]

I see it as a single player game with an additional online mode, I feel it should be treated as such, Blizzard disagree and didn't make the game I wanted, so I'm not going to buy it. Makes perfect sense.

Diablo has never been as singleplayer game, ever. It's always been a multiplayer game which can be played solo. But fine, you have your principles, I just want a game which I can enjoy with a few friends and Diablo 3 sure let me do just that.

 

[Frostbyte666]

Really wouldn't surprise me if it has been cracked already and makes me glad I never bought it because I took a stand on the always online thing. Still this makes me think of all my legally bought dvd's that always have the piracy and copyright disclaimers that are unskippable and treat you like a thief who has just downloaded it.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Isn't it more so you can't play online with other people with hacked items?

I mean I agree with their choice to go always online if that's the case. Sure it sucks that the servers are down, but I'd rather have downed servers the first few days than thousands of level 30 million wizard-monks with barbarian swords.

I'm pretty confident the reason they went always online is to have total control over how players are using the game, kill third party mods and services, and make sure that nothing happens without Blizzard getting a cut. Above all else it's about making sure no one can use the game in a way Blizzard does not sanction and control. The systems in place for Diablo III and Starcraft II follow this theme pretty consistently, although there is invariably some excuse like hacks or piracy. Or worse, they PR spin a defect into a feature. If they happen to stop some hacks, and wring some Real Money Auction House dollars out of some suckers, and slow down the pirates as well, that's just gravy. Gosh, it's easy to see why they don't allow offline play. But it sucks for us.

As far as the trouble on launch day, I really can't judge them too harshly. If other companies were doing a better job, I would call Blizzard out for not supporting their product. But these launch day problems are so prevalent I hate to do that. I do blame them for disallowing the alternative of offline play, but I think I covered that. Again, sucks for us.

EDIT: I played Titan Quest for a while, which literally made no attempt to prevent players from cheating their ass off. To an astonishing degree, the community split itself between rooms for cheaters and rooms for non-cheaters. I know we can't exactly rely on that happening, but it was a funny thing.

Son of EDIT:

Diablo has never been as singleplayer game, ever. It's always been a multiplayer game which can be played solo. But fine, you have your principles, I just want a game which I can enjoy with a few friends and Diablo 3 sure let me do just that.

It has always been a single player game and a coop game. I always play this type of game through solo before going online, it is very clearly a well and thoroughly supported feature. The notion that Diablo and it's clones can't or shouldn't be enjoyed in single player is a very recent contrivance specifically for defending Diablo III's online requirements. And it's a poor one, because it leaves the lack of LAN support still to contend with.

 

[zidine100]

Isn't it legal to buy the game . Then download the cracked version? Not too keen on the legal stuff.

OT: big surprise , but the always online thing is forthe real money auction house , nothing more .

I think its illegal, but im not to sure myself (if your talking about download a crack that is) im not a lawyer what can i say, id be interested in hearing more if anyone is willing to pipe in.

the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is an amendment to United States copyright law, passed unanimously on May 14, 1998, which criminalizes the production and dissemination of technology that allows users to circumvent technical copy-restriction methods. Under the Act, circumvention of a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work is illegal if done with the primary intent of violating the rights of copyright holders.[verification needed] (For a more detailed analysis of the statute, see WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act.)

 

[Nerexor]

Can we get this thread renamed to: "As far as anyone who as actually checked can tell, pirates are not playing Diablo 3 yet." Ya know, so the thread title reflects reality? Kthx.

 

[The Pinray]

Pirates are going to pirate. There's no way of stopping those little goblins. Some morons will always want something for nothing. Blizzard shouldn't even be counting them among their projected sales.

All this always-online business does is hurt the honest paying customers. That sucks. It's a decent game, but I'm on hiatus from playing it for awhile.

I hope they change it, but we all know they won't.

 

[Richardplex]

Isn't it legal to buy the game . Then download the cracked version? Not too keen on the legal stuff.

OT: big surprise , but the always online thing is forthe real money auction house , nothing more .

I think its illegal, but im not to sure myself (if your talking about download a crack that is) im not a lawyer what can i say, id be interested in hearing more if anyone is willing to pipe in.

the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is an amendment to United States copyright law, passed unanimously on May 14, 1998, which criminalizes the production and dissemination of technology that allows users to circumvent technical copy-restriction methods. Under the Act, circumvention of a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work is illegal if done with the primary intent of violating the rights of copyright holders.[verification needed] (For a more detailed analysis of the statute, see WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act.)

In the UK, it is perfectly legal to emulate a game you own. I'm not however if a cracked version would count as emulation, not knowing too much about what counts as emulation.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Well Diablo II's battle net was flooded with max level necrobarians with magic kite shields and swords.

I certainlt don't want that again.

Oh, I know it. I wouldn't want that again either. And I do think the online requirement will slow down the hacks. It's just not worth giving up offline play to me, both in practice and in terms of what it represents.

 

[evilneko]

My *ahem* sources show no evidence that any scene group has yet cracked Diablo 3.

 

[jehk]

DRM has never stopped pirates, it only screws the poor saps who pay for these games.
It is WAY too easy to bypass, and costs WAY too much for the companies to try and implement.

D3's infrastructure is stopping pirates right now. It hasn't been cracked. As others have said they need to write a server application that emulates the functionality of the D3 servers. No small task. Even for pirates. It's not like other games where everything the pirates need is installed on the client's machine and all they need to do is hex edit (over simplification I know) some things.

I'm sure pirates will have a stable server some time in the not too distant future but who cares? D3 would have made the vast majority of its sales by that time.

I think people should suck it up. This kind of thing could become regular.

There's already a half working crack that's been released.
And that last comment made me very sad.

It takes more then just a crack to play D3 offline. So much of the game is server side. Pirates will have to pretty much rewrite the entire thing.

You can never 100% prevent piracy. You can only slow them down. Having to reverse engineer a D3 server will take long enough that piracy is pretty much eliminated.

Also, this reduces hacks. If the game could be played offline all of the code would be on the client's machine. Having a good portion of that code on the server, a blackbox for hackers, makes it harder for them to find exploits.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

Impossible. Blizzard's plan was bulletproof and flawlessly executed.

 

[Lunar Templar]

hey look, so can i and i paid for the game.

not only that, i've been able to play it. yes, even on launch day.

 

[Inkidu]

Me neither. It doesn't look like something that's been in the works for 12 years. More like 2 years.

Did they say that it was in development for 12 years? I am pretty sure it were just ~4y or so.

Nope it's 12 really. They had the game done in five, but they didn't like it *cough*milkingWoW*cough* so they made another version in another six, so basically 12. Blizzard just loves that it'll be done when it's done approach, but that's no guarantee they've still got what it takes to make decent games.

 

[Tanakh]

My *ahem* sources show no evidence that any scene group has yet cracked Diablo 3.

Depends on what you define by "cracked". After some better digging i found out that someone in the community managed to fool the beta client to be able to log to a totally empty world for some seconds, which is probably what the OP is babbling about; so if you think logging 10 seconds to a barren level of diablo III is "playing it", well, he would be correct.

From my PoV however, it isn't, and seeing how WoW for example is still not working halfway decently on pirate servers, i mean private servers, after 9 years of them trying... i dunno, really surprised people saying it will/has been done. Then again, there are people that belive in yetis, so to each it's own.

Yea it probably won't work, but it's worth trying.

I am betting it will actually work, because:

- Item hacking is not an issue in WoW
- Blizzard has moneyz to be made from keeping hacks off, and we all know how much blizz loves green

There might be one or two big exploits at some point done by pro hackers (not your usual punks) because thre is serious money to be made from hacking it, but won't affect the game long therm.

If anything i would be more worried about pro chineese farmers (as a generic therm, not refering to the nationality).

Now, that opens the discussion to 2 more points:

- Was it really needed to kill the single player offline mode for that?
- If it was needed, was it worth it?

Now, i don't think it was actually needed, but it made things easier for blizz while simultaneusly promoting player interaction and an online community, which makes online transactions grow and their cut of the transactions bloom.

nway, i am late for some stuff, c ya later guys.

Blizzard just loves that it'll be done when it's done approach, but that's no guarantee they've still got what it takes to make decent games.

Well, SC II is awesome and it's only getting better in 2012-2013. Diablo has been fun this days, not sure how it will age.

That said, both require you to go multiplayer and in the SC II case it requires a lot of work to get good enough to be able to play it. The single player is forgettable.

 

[Tony2077]

i wonder how many "pirates" would still have not gotten the game even if the online stuff wasn't there

 

[BloatedGuppy]

i wonder how many "pirates" would still have not gotten the game even if the online stuff wasn't there

Rough ballpark/best guess?

Around 95-98% of them.