Why are people freaking out over the "Always Online" aspect of Diablo 3?

[synobal]

Hurricane came through taking out most the power and internet services several years ago. I spent most of the week and a half playing diablo 2 single player. Now even if I buy Diablo 3, if the internet goes out I can't play single player in Diablo 3. That's mostly why I won't buy Diablo 3.

 

[Neonsilver]

Cloud gaming may take over sooner or later, but there is at the moment no reason to force the players to use it.

When is the right moment, and this isn't forcing it on us whole hog, this can really be looked at as a push in that direction.

It's coming soon whether we like it or not. I understand that some people live in areas where internet support is not provided, but in business, that's a small percentage. Such people, I've been there, will do one of two things. Move to a bigger city with more opportunities, jobs, etc. or stay where they are and ***** about this. Yea, it's shitty, but as far as the amount of profits lost to those, very small and not important to big companies.

Yeah, forcing us might be needed.

I added to my last post, that Diablo 3 will not realy be cloud gaming. Generaly cloud computing means that the application I want to use is somewhere online available.

Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. Parallels to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, wherein end-users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service.

In my opinion, the moment you have to install a game on your own system, it isn't cloud gaming and as long as I have to do that I would like to have the choice between offline and online gaming (as long as the game has a singleplayer mode).

 

[darkonnis]

The thing for me is, Its the whole big community thing. Forcing me to be a part of something that i actually dont want to be. Anything that requires me to always be online i do my best to stay a way from. If i wanted to always be online i would just buy an MMO or i'd buy a game with no single player like world of tanks or HoN. Seeing as i have to put up with the idiots that roam the internet in those 2 games, it would be nice to have a game i can play offline while i stream a movie or sit in bed with my laptop (wifi hates my house).
If i where given a choice and was told, you make a character offline, then it stays offline. I wouldnt mind, i'd gladly play 2 different classes, one with friends, one on my todd. Taking that choice a way from me tells me simply that the company is not interested in my interests, and they should be, not because i think im important but because my view is shared massively, hence all these long threads. If they aren't interested, then neither am I. Ill wait and see if they change it, or ill buy something else, really not that big a deal.

 

[Kragg]

Why don't they just have a single-player that's actually separate from the online store and won't let you cross your character over?

Because then people would be mad that they did it on accident without realizing it and Blizzard would have to tell them they couldn't do anything.

yeah cause making a popup warning box at char creation is hard right, i dont remember d2 having this though and thats probably where they got this arhument from in the first place

just seperating offline, no auction house and online with auction house is the obvious and easy choice

(offtopic, captch wtf: hooligans solickp, some hooligans might lick ... uhm)

 

[Shraggler]

Because sometimes people just want to play by themselves! Geez, is that so hard to grasp?! It's that simple.

This is pretty much dead on. The cloud gaming argument, while valid in its own right, doesn't permeate down far enough to really affect the end-user. It effectively acts behind the scenes. The big problem with it, and the part of its argument pertaining to this discussion, is the fact that servers go down. Internet connections go down. Should that happen while the end-user's computer remains standing, they don't get to use a product they paid for. On the flip side of that is the fact that most ISPs are up 85-95% of the time here in the States so it's really not that big of an issue on a real-world basis. However, try arguing that point to most people and you'll wind up with frustrated scowls.

I am personally annoyed at the 'no SP' aspect in a technical sense simply because my PC and laptop connect to my network wirelessly, and it's not the most reliable system. I could run a 75' cable to my PC and have a spare 25' cable hanging off the router for the laptop, I could run some APs all over the place, I could boost the signal strength by MacGyvering my own shit, etc. That all costs money that I don't have right now and the cost isn't worth the benefit.

Still, the above is an example of a specialized case. I would be surprised, nay shocked, if a company like Blizzard would re-design aspects of their game(s) that would take a situation like mine into account. Realistically, that doesn't make sense. That's putting a lot of money into changing design for very little gain.

Blizzard isn't going to fret over a few hundred to a few thousand people that don't buy Diablo III. I'd be surprised if they batted an eye at a million dissenters.

On the gamer side of things, I can understand the annoyance. We all remember BNet back in the D2/SC days, yeah? How it would randomly disconnect, it wouldn't be able to find people, games would spontaneously de-populate. You also don't want to have to wait to connect to Blizzard's servers just to play for a half hour, typing your login, remembering a password. You just want to launch a saved game and get into it. You don't want anyone else in your game "server" and you just want to get into the story and gameplay. I understand all of that. We'll just have to wait and see what they put together. Who knows, maybe we'll still be able to create our own game servers and set some crazy password with a popcap of 1 so we can essentially have a single-player game going while we're online.

 

[Breywood]

This has been bugging me for the past week - everywhere I turn, people are bitching about the Always Online announcement for D3. It's in the Forums I visit, it's in the Webcomics I follow, it's in the articles I read. Everyone is whining about it like it's this huge problem.

It isn't the problem.

It's the symptom of the actual problem.

It is a problem. Not everyone has a good internet connection and that game will be useless to them. Of course, Blizz looked at that and said, "Well, that's just a few $million. We can soak that compared to all the fans who will buy this at midnight."

In fact, there is no way for D3 to NOT be Always Online. And the reason for that it the actual problem - The Cash Auction House

That doesn't bother me, actually, because I'm fond of learning the game mechanics and using what most consider trash to be successful. Those who don't use the Auction House will just need to take a bit longer, the PvP community is just as dumb as the rest because most people don't bother looking for cheaper equivalents, they just assume that you have to use enigmashakomaradungoes.

That won't be the case for me. I've made my decision since it was announced and has only been further edified with every announcement they've made concerning this game that I will avoid this game.

I'm sure most of you can put the pieces together by now, but in case you're not getting it, I'll elaborate. Any form of offline play means the game data is relatively easy to tamper with.

I really think that they could have made a solution for that which didn't involve having to store your characters on their servers. I also suspect there will be *ahem* mods developed so that people can play offline and that it will only be a matter of time before they have the same problem with hacking and cheating as they are with Diablo 2.

EDIT: Misread last statement and made facetious comment.

 

[Neonsilver]

I understand that some people live in areas where internet support is not provided, but in business, that's a small percentage. Such people, I've been there, will do one of two things. Move to a bigger city with more opportunities, jobs, etc. or stay where they are and ***** about this. Yea, it's shitty, but as far as the amount of profits lost to those, very small and not important to big companies.

As I said, a friend couldn't get a connection, but he didn't live in some remote area, far away from civilization. He lived in a town about 7km away from the next city (not a big city, but not small either) and I live in the exact same town and I could get a connection.

 

[Jerubbaal]

Why don't they just have a single-player that's actually separate from the online store and won't let you cross your character over?

Because then people would be mad that they did it on accident without realizing it and Blizzard would have to tell them they couldn't do anything.

Nonsense. There was never an issue with "open" and "closed" Battle.net for D2, why would a similar setup be so tough for D3? You could also keep open Battle.net users from using the auction house.

 

[Griffolion]

I thought the Penny-Arcade summary was pretty on point about this topic.

^Pretty much the exact image I have in my mind.

Mine too. This will affect 0% of all clear thinking adults. The kids (and yes, they can be adults too, but the fact they are raging means they lose adult status) that are raging simply saw a sensitive topic involved, saw Blizzards name and engaged vitriol spurtation (that is now officially a word).

Always online, even for DRM purposes = utterly unaffected, I already use Steam...

Cash Auction House = don't like it, don't use it.

yeah sure, because everyone who cares about customer rights is a trolling fanboy.

Don't you care a bit that publishers take away features from the games, making the gameplay experience undeniably flawed on purpose (there will always be lag and internet timeouts happen sometimes) and then don't even admit the actual reason they're doing it because they think they can make it sound like they did you a favor?

If they'd at least be honest about it and admit it's their plan to combat piracy, but no, they're trying to tell you it only exists to improve your gameplay experience because you don't have to create two different characters.

also, how the hell does always online drm compare to steam? Steam is, if correctly configured, a one time online activation drm, nothing more.

Either way, it doesn't affect me, neither will it really affect anyone else, that's the main jist of my point. Even if this was a legitimate problem outside the realm of people who like to hear the sound of their own online voice, don't buy the game.

I never once said they were trying to do me a favour neither do I care if they ever did or didn't; like I said, my main point is that this issue isn't half as bad as people are making it out to be. I couldn't care less whether they are or aren't trying to combat piracy, and I don't care about character unification. Let me re-iterate, my main point was directed at those who raged about something which is, to adults, a non-issue. Also, based on the trailer's I've seen so far, the game looks quite good. I tend to judge how good a game is based off the merit of it's gameplay, graphics, story (should it be important) and aesthetic; not off what the developer has decided to do with the way in which online play or DRM happens.

Could you define correctly configured? It was always my understanding that, save for offline mode, Steam requires a connection to their servers in order for a game to validate itself with Steam's servers before play commences. I could be wrong.

Also, I never mentioned anything to do with trolling or fanboys. But if "trolling fanboy" is what comes to your mind when you think of the people that are raging about this, then fine. Also, I'm not sure where 'customer rights' comes into this. Could you please give me your definition of it?

 

[Arina Love]

i don't like when they tell me how to play my single player. i will buy d3 and i also crack it to remove always online feature (i'm sure smart people will find fix)i don't care about multiplayer and i don't care about auction house. all i want is offline single player game.

 

[ffs-dontcare]

While I fully sympathize with those of you who have crappy internet connections (I was in your shoes once and I remember all too well the amount of rage I had at the games I could not play due to a bad internet connection), I saw this coming. After WoW being merged with Battle.net and SC2 being run through the same, I did not think for one second that Blizzard would not do the same with D3.

I'm not stressing out about it because frankly, if I'm playing single-player (and that is my primary interest in it) then I won't have to worry about it stuttering every so often. You don't see such stuttering in SC2's single-player campaign after all.

And if SC2's multi-player doesn't have that sort of stuttering, I doubt D3's multi-player will either. Besides, why would you play multi-player if you knew your connection sucked?

I consider it a form of DRM, but I'm okay with it at this stage because (if SC2 is of any indication) it's not like my single-player game will be interrupted at all if my connection temporarily goes bust. As far as I'm aware anyway.

You do understand you can play SC2 in offline mode with only singleplayer right?

I am well aware, yes.

 

[Windexglow]

Having to be always online has no excuse when you also have 'single player' mode. It's a small freedom to have, but there is a point where you have to make a point and not buy a game because of it.

 

[megs1120]

The biggest issue for me is that there are people like my brother, a merchant sailor, who are unable to access the internet for long stretches of time. If he can't play a game to relax on his down time, he's not going to buy games.

 

[poppabaggins]

Blizzard has explicitly stated that they are not making an offline portion of the game. Hence the ALWAYS ONLINE part. Hence, NO MODS. Because of the Auction House, gamers are unable to play the game offline or use mods. Just think of all of the awesome custom maps people would be able to make, and now think that you'll never get to play
them.

"We thought about this quite a bit," says executive producer Rob Pardo. "One of the things that we felt was really import was that if you did play offline, if we allowed for that experience, you'd start a character, you'd get him all the way to level 20 or level 30 or level 40 or what have you, and then at that point you might decide to want to venture onto Battle.net. But you'd have to start a character from scratch, because there'd be no way for us to guarantee no cheats were involved, if we let you play on the client and then take that character online."

source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/01/diablo-3-cannot-be-played-offline/

Torchlight 2 will have all the features that Blizzard is not including, so Diablo 3 is kind of pointless now. The only reason I will buy Diablo 3 will be if I complete Torchlight 2 and exhaust the best mod content and still want an isometric ARPG to play.

Basically, I don't like being treated shittily by the companies from which I buy my games. Runic isn't being a dick, Blizzard is. It's pretty simple. Now if Torchlight 2 weren't coming out, I would just suck it up and by D3, but an alternative exists.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Why are people freaking out over the "Always Online" aspect of Diablo 3?

Some of us don't have "Always Online" connections and don't want to lose our hard earned stuff?

 

[aescuder]

I thought the Penny-Arcade summary was pretty on point about this topic.

^Pretty much the exact image I have in my mind.

Honestly what PC gamer still have a crappy internet service these days. If my wi-fi craps out which it rarely does, then there's your neighbors wi-fi, or a school, or a starbucks/cafe, or any-f***ing-where (free wifi is literally everywhere). And who would want to be playing D3 on a plane?

If you don't have good internet access then the problem isn't Blizzard excluding you from their target demographic (or whatever similar nonsense), the problem is that you yourself is excluded from the entire world, and you live under a rock...that has no internet access....

 

[Jaxtor]

Well I'm going sailing for my second sea practice for nine months around the time D3 comes out, and with the internet going via satellites it'll be spotty if available at all. So there's my reason.

Not really upset as much as I think it sucks that I'll be mostly if not entirely unable to play the game till I come home again.

EDIT: spellings derp

 

[Suicideking]

The biggest issue for me is that there are people like my brother, a merchant sailor, who are unable to access the internet for long stretches of time. If he can't play a game to relax on his down time, he's not going to buy games.

This touches on my issue with always online requirement.

For me personally, the always online requirement doesn't matter, I can handle it. However, I have friends in the military, including one that works on a submarine. He bought a gaming laptop so he could game in his down time. When I heard about the always online requirement, I thought about him. I knew he was interested in the game. He was disappointed about the restriction, though I do still think he will end up buying the game, for those couple months out of the year he will be able to play it.