34 replies to this topic

[Wumpus]

Janichsan, on 31 May 2012 - 02:29 AM, said:

I pretty much doubt that. There are about 7 billion people in the world, more than 1 billion PC users and the estimations for the number of  PC gamers range between 60 and 300 millions. So, no matter how you put it, Diablo 3 players are not the majority.

Allow me to rephrase. "In the realm of Diablo 3 discussion, the amount of people voicing concern over the online requirement or saying 'I am not going to buy this/vote with my wallet' are the minority versus the amount of people playing/enjoying the game."

I didn't mean gaming as a whole, (and certainly not the entire population of earth) though I know the way I said it first could be taken that way.

[Matt Diamond]

Janichsan, on 31 May 2012 - 02:29 AM, said:

I pretty much doubt that. There are about 7 billion people in the world, more than 1 billion PC users and the estimations for the number of  PC gamers range between 60 and 300 millions. So, no matter how you put it, Diablo 3 players are not the majority.

Wumpus wasn't claiming they are the majority of all PC gamers. He was saying that the number people who are not buying Diablo 3 because of the online requirement is small.

And no, I'm not marginalizing anyone when I defend my decision to buy it, or point out that Blizzard's online requirement isn't solely for DRM reasons. (If it was, then Starcraft II would have it too.)

As an olive branch to you boycotters, I'll just mention that it took me 45 minutes to get into my Blizzard account last night. (Nothing to do with D3, which wasn't installed.) They had flagged my account for suspicious activity, and no matter how many times I unlocked it and changed the password, when I logged in again (with authenticator!) it instantly locked again (or never properly unlocked.) Resetting the password from the automated phone system rather than online did the trick. Or maybe the whole thing was a passing server glitch- resetting my password always worked (so my email address was correct) but their system never sent me any emails about getting locked in the first place.

There! Your Blizzard contempt has been validated. Everyone happy now? Good. Lets do this again when Heart of the Swarm comes out.

[the Battle Cat]

Am I still boycotting Diablo III if I haven't played a Blizzard game since the Warcraft 1 and Diablo 1 demo days?

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Only if you wanted the game, but didnt buy it yet.

[the Battle Cat]

I was never interested in Diablo III in the first place.  Just expressing dismay that Blizzard would put all their solo playing customers at risk from theft and abuse with this horrible always-online scheme simply because they don't trust them to buy the game.  It's understandable that all those people who railed against the CD-in-the-drive schemes would popsnizzle a brick over this one.  I didn't mind the CD-in requirement but I think this is completely over the top and I pray it doesn't catch on.

[Eric5h5]

the Battle Cat, on 31 May 2012 - 12:30 PM, said:

I didn't mind the CD-in requirement but I think this is completely over the top and I pray it doesn't catch on.

For my next game, if you want to play it will be a requirement that I am physically sitting there behind you, looking over your shoulder.  (And if you don't do well enough, I'm allowed to slap your hand away from the mouse and take the game away from you.)

--Eric

[Janichsan]

Eric5h5, on 31 May 2012 - 02:33 PM, said:

For my next game, if you want to play it will be a requirement that I am physically sitting there behind you, looking over your shoulder.  (And if you don't do well enough, I'm allowed to slap your hand away from the mouse and take the game away from you.)

You still have a lot to learn about effective DRM...

[UniversalWolf]

If you bought Dibalo III, you did something dumb -- a dumb little something that will negatively affect everyone else who games.  It doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person, but I don't want to hear any whining when the next big game requires a constant throbbing anal probe.

[Matt Diamond]

UniversalWolf, on 01 June 2012 - 04:40 PM, said:

If you bought Dibalo III, you did something dumb -- a dumb little something that will negatively affect everyone else who games.

The effect will be minimal.

[Wumpus]

UniversalWolf, on 01 June 2012 - 04:40 PM, said:

If you bought Dibalo III, you did something dumb -- a dumb little something that will negatively affect everyone else who games.  It doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person, but I don't want to hear any whining when the next big game requires a constant throbbing anal probe.

Funny, the only whining I'm hearing is from the folks who keep saying its stupid, dumb, or something else to buy Diablo 3. I expect the same people are the one's who will keep up this practice when any other game requires an internet connection and other gamers buy the game and enjoy it regardless.

The overreacting to this is starting to get tiresome.

[the Battle Cat]

I'm sorry the peasants suffering is annoying to you Your Majesty.  Shall I have them catapulted over the castle walls so that you may enjoy your cake in peace?

[Wumpus]

the Battle Cat, on 03 June 2012 - 07:26 PM, said:

I'm sorry the peasants suffering is annoying to you Your Majesty.  Shall I have them catapulted over the castle walls so that you may enjoy your cake in peace?

Over the wall would be perfect

But in all seriousness I don't object to people complaining about the online requirement, I still say there should be an offline mode.

What is getting silly is the "buying Diablo 3 is dooming the rest of gaming and gamers forever" tune that's just patently absurd.

[Tesseract]

The real issue is that there is no way to send granular feedback in the language that corporations understand, which is to say money. It's a binary proposition; each person either bought their game or didn't. They can't tell the difference between a good element, and a bad element that happens to be combined with enough good elements for the sale to be made despite it. As Ed Catmull put it, "Success hides problems."

[DaveyJJ]

And we now know that EA's and Maxis have adopted the exact same tactic with the upcoming SimCity, revealed at E3. Same always on requirement.

"This is a mutiplayer game,” producer Kip Katserelis at EA development studio Maxis said, explaining the requirement. Yes, they even consider single-player to be multiplayer. “we’re constantly tracking what you do… and then feeding that back to players.” They’re tracking who is polluting the most or who is playing better. They’re spawning challenges for players. They’re keeping everyone connected.

They’re basically, like Blizzard, saying their latest game in a series that used to not require an online connection now will, and they, like Blizzard, are saying that it’s fundamental to the way they want this new game played. If a gamer plays offline they would become out of synch with the game’s perpetual tracking of the cities that, combined, comprise the sense of this new Sim City as one grand inter-connected world.

Sorry if you were hoping to play this on an airplane without Internet.

Just posting for those who think this won't become the norm with AAA titles within the next 12-24 months   . Torchlight 2 can't come fast enough, even if the editor is again a no-show for OSX users.

[I swear if Apple ever made a Linux version of iTunes I'd be off the platform in a heartbeat, especially if the rumour of much Facebook integration into iOS6 holds true. Shudder.]

[Matt Diamond]

SimCity is a good example of how NOT to do it, IMHO. I think the market will punish them for it, though I could be wrong.

With Diablo 3, the goodies that you find are persistent. So it makes sense that its designed as a persistent online game. Solo players may disagree with that decision, but it allows any character to jump into anyone else's game, and it allows anything you find even while playing solo to be sold online to other players (eventually for real money.) Basically it attempts to fix D2's multiplayer, which itself was quite popular but was easily exploited.

As a solo player I'm not convinced it was a worthwhile tradeoff, but at least it's a valid design decision. (Interestingly, Blizzard is undertaking to track hundreds of millions of these persistent objects on their own servers, even though there's no MMO subscription fee. But that's another topic.)

What little I've seen of the new SimCity doesn't justify the online requirement. So they can gather stats? Big whoop. If there's no payoff for players then it's bogus.

In addition, while SimCity is a time-honored title, I don't think it has Diablo-level anticipation for the next title, and (unlike D2) nothing that demonstrates demand for online multiplayer.

I could be wrong- they could be doing a design from scratch that makes multiplayer a fundamental part of the SimCity experience. For example, instead of advisors, real people co-governing a city. Maybe requiring bargaining between the parties over limited resources, as well as disasters that require multiple hands to effectively address. It would have to be pretty deeply embedded in the game to mean anything, though.

Quote

Just posting for those who think this won't become the norm with AAA titles within the next 12-24 months

The sky is not falling. I believe that companies that think that D3's model can be slapped on for Instant Profits™ are in for a rude awakening by the market. Not to mention the added expense of running large parts of the game on servers instead of the clients.. I think many companies are smart enough not to blindly follow suit in the first place. Even Blizzard is unlikely to adopt this model for all their games.