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This right here and things like it are what's wrong with the video game industry and its consumer base these days. A company does something completely and utterly boneheaded, and yet we have a bunch of people saying things like "oh, but it won't be so bad" or "come on guys, it's Blizzard, I'm sure they know what they're doing, give them a chance" (or, as I saw from one of the douchebags in the comments over on Desucktoid, "Inb4 Internet hipster drm rage and boycotts") and so on and so forth. Yeah, sure, I remember when people used to say the same sort of things about BioWare as well, and look at them now. Blizzard has been in the same boat for a while now, what with having been merged back in 2007 with Activision, a company which has been in direct competition with EA for the "crappiest publisher ever" championship for several years now. I guess this crap is among the first fruit being harvested from that merger. Well, there were also some elements of Starcraft II that were questionable as well (lack of LAN and such), but that didn't bother me so much.* Any way you look at it, I can't help but think that this is due to Activision sticking their piggy little fingers in and mucking up the pie through Executive Meddling.
You want to know why I didn't care about the supposed news (as though it's some sort of shocking revelation) that the game won't be out this year? Because, as I said in my last post, I won't be buying it at all, so it doesn't matter to me now whether they release it tomorrow or never. And no, you colossal asshat, I'm not just "blowing smoke" when I say that, because until and unless Blizzard reverses course on, at the very least, the requirement to be online constantly, I really won't be buying it. (However, I will freely grant that the prediction that most people are just "blowing smoke" isn't entirely without merit. Based on my own observations of previous similar calls to boycott various other games for whatever reasons, a lot of the people who are now saying that they won't buy Diablo III probably are just talking out of their asses and will indeed end up buying it Day 1 anyway, even if all of these asinine things remain unchanged. That, too, is another thing that is wrong with the video game industry and its consumer base these days. Note, however, that I am not calling for other people to boycott the game. I am just saying that I, personally, will not be buying it.) In any case, I don't play multiplayer and thus don't give the slightest crap about battle.net at all, no matter how "compelling" they might make it, so why should I be forced to be connected to that constantly just to play my single-player game? The other two things I really don't care about all that much since A) I don't use mods anyway, so wouldn't have missed the lack of them, and B) I wouldn't have been playing online ever so the auction house thing wouldn't have directly affected me, either, but even so I do still think it is an incredibly stupid idea. But required constant online connection to play what should be a single player component of the game == no purchase. It can't get any more simple than that.
Re: the online auction crap though: "The auctions are entirely optional and they're simply a better way for Blizzard to keep a handle on the inevitable sale of those items, rather than spending a fortune fruitlessly chasing traders as it has with World of Warcraft gold farms." Well, if that's the case, why the hell don't they just set up a real money auction house in WoW as well? Let players spend real world money for gold, or more likely, the things on which they would have spent that gold. That'd probably be one of the easiest ways to get rid of the illicit gold farms. Oh wait, it's because they probably don't want to rock the boat with their gigantic cash cow, so they're just "testing the waters" first with something much less significant, like Diablo III. And let's face it, as much as I like(d) Diablo and as much as I couldn't care less about WoW, even I recognize that when compared to WoW, Diablo is going to be pretty small potatoes to Blizzard.
* - Though, to be perfectly clear, I haven't bought Starcraft II yet either, but it's not because of the no-LAN issue. My reason is that I'm waiting until the "full" game is released (i.e. all three campaigns), and is combined into one package, and that package costs the same as a single full game should (or less). I'm not paying full game price per one-third of the game as each part dribbles out. I may have to wait years more before that is the case, but I can do that. Or I can do without, altogether. *shrug* In the long run, I won't lose any more sleep over not playing Starcraft II than I will over not playing Diablo III.
You want to know why I didn't care about the supposed news (as though it's some sort of shocking revelation) that the game won't be out this year? Because, as I said in my last post, I won't be buying it at all, so it doesn't matter to me now whether they release it tomorrow or never. And no, you colossal asshat, I'm not just "blowing smoke" when I say that, because until and unless Blizzard reverses course on, at the very least, the requirement to be online constantly, I really won't be buying it. (However, I will freely grant that the prediction that most people are just "blowing smoke" isn't entirely without merit. Based on my own observations of previous similar calls to boycott various other games for whatever reasons, a lot of the people who are now saying that they won't buy Diablo III probably are just talking out of their asses and will indeed end up buying it Day 1 anyway, even if all of these asinine things remain unchanged. That, too, is another thing that is wrong with the video game industry and its consumer base these days. Note, however, that I am not calling for other people to boycott the game. I am just saying that I, personally, will not be buying it.) In any case, I don't play multiplayer and thus don't give the slightest crap about battle.net at all, no matter how "compelling" they might make it, so why should I be forced to be connected to that constantly just to play my single-player game? The other two things I really don't care about all that much since A) I don't use mods anyway, so wouldn't have missed the lack of them, and B) I wouldn't have been playing online ever so the auction house thing wouldn't have directly affected me, either, but even so I do still think it is an incredibly stupid idea. But required constant online connection to play what should be a single player component of the game == no purchase. It can't get any more simple than that.
Re: the online auction crap though: "The auctions are entirely optional and they're simply a better way for Blizzard to keep a handle on the inevitable sale of those items, rather than spending a fortune fruitlessly chasing traders as it has with World of Warcraft gold farms." Well, if that's the case, why the hell don't they just set up a real money auction house in WoW as well? Let players spend real world money for gold, or more likely, the things on which they would have spent that gold. That'd probably be one of the easiest ways to get rid of the illicit gold farms. Oh wait, it's because they probably don't want to rock the boat with their gigantic cash cow, so they're just "testing the waters" first with something much less significant, like Diablo III. And let's face it, as much as I like(d) Diablo and as much as I couldn't care less about WoW, even I recognize that when compared to WoW, Diablo is going to be pretty small potatoes to Blizzard.
* - Though, to be perfectly clear, I haven't bought Starcraft II yet either, but it's not because of the no-LAN issue. My reason is that I'm waiting until the "full" game is released (i.e. all three campaigns), and is combined into one package, and that package costs the same as a single full game should (or less). I'm not paying full game price per one-third of the game as each part dribbles out. I may have to wait years more before that is the case, but I can do that. Or I can do without, altogether. *shrug* In the long run, I won't lose any more sleep over not playing Starcraft II than I will over not playing Diablo III.
