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(You know what? Screw it. I'm not putting this behind a cut.)
So, because I don't want to play multiplayer or be forced to have the game always connected, that makes me a "solitary cave [person]" apparently. No, I don't want you "pushing" me into an "online connected environment." I would rather simply NOT BUY YOUR DAMN GAME. I could play Diablo I and Diablo II perfectly fine single-player, and I didn't have to connect to the Internet at all (or be forced to be connected constantly), unless I wanted to patch the game, and that was great. I never went online (well, that's not true, I did try it exactly once in each of those games, and never again), and I have never once missed it. Apparently, that makes me an atypical consumer of your products about whom you now obviously no longer give the slightest crap, because with Diablo III, that's not going to be an option at all. Therefore, as I've already said numerous times and will likely continue to say as long as you remain on this course (and as long as the whole fiasco remains in the news), I will act accordingly and spend my money elsewhere to buy games that are more suited to my tastes. Again, it's a very simple, but incredibly disappointing decision to have to make, because until now I will freely admit that I was indeed very much looking forward to Diablo III.
Seriously, Blizzard, why can't you just allow a purely offline single-player mode for people like me who don't care and will almost assuredly never care about playing online with anyone else? And if by some freak off-chance I did lose my senses and decide to try online at some point, I would be perfectly fine with starting a new character from scratch just for that purpose. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest that my single-player character used in offline mode wouldn't be playable there. If you would just put this feature from the first two games back in, Diablo III would most likely resume its status as a Day 1 purchase for me. But until and unless that happens, you have lost a customer, as has any and every other game dev/pub who insists on this asinine "always connected" crap (outside of games like dedicated MMOs and such where it actually makes sense to have it). Well, I don't think it will ever be a Day 1 purchase again, even if you do put the offline single-player back in, because I'd have to at least wait on reviews and word-of-mouth to make sure you haven't screwed the pooch in other similarly awful ways, but I would still likely get it within a reasonably tiny timeframe, all the same.
I'm not even going to touch on the real money auction stuff (also covered in that interview linked above) because, as I said before, that wouldn't have directly affected me at all had I been allowed to play the game offline as I was able to do with the previous games. And now, it's still not going to affect me at all because I'm not buying the game. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but that's just how it is.
But really, reading that interview in its entirety, that was some of the lamest, most holier-than-thou, "we know better than the player what the player wants" bullshit I've read in quite a while. It was more or less on par with some of the worst stuff to come out of EA or Ubisoft or Square-Enix (or, hell, even Valve of all companies, how did I miss that until now?) lately. Wow, has that "must be connected, at least in some way" shit really already become this prevalent? The game industry, or least my interest in where it is heading at this point, is starting to spiral down the toilet. How did it come to this? *rips out chunks of hair in frustration, figuratively speaking* Oh well, at least Bethesda still has some sanity left.
Honestly, what happened to you, Blizzard? *cough*Activision*cough* You used to be pretty cool, but not so much anymore. *defeated sigh*
tl;dr version: Nope, still not buying Diablo III.
So, because I don't want to play multiplayer or be forced to have the game always connected, that makes me a "solitary cave [person]" apparently. No, I don't want you "pushing" me into an "online connected environment." I would rather simply NOT BUY YOUR DAMN GAME. I could play Diablo I and Diablo II perfectly fine single-player, and I didn't have to connect to the Internet at all (or be forced to be connected constantly), unless I wanted to patch the game, and that was great. I never went online (well, that's not true, I did try it exactly once in each of those games, and never again), and I have never once missed it. Apparently, that makes me an atypical consumer of your products about whom you now obviously no longer give the slightest crap, because with Diablo III, that's not going to be an option at all. Therefore, as I've already said numerous times and will likely continue to say as long as you remain on this course (and as long as the whole fiasco remains in the news), I will act accordingly and spend my money elsewhere to buy games that are more suited to my tastes. Again, it's a very simple, but incredibly disappointing decision to have to make, because until now I will freely admit that I was indeed very much looking forward to Diablo III.
Seriously, Blizzard, why can't you just allow a purely offline single-player mode for people like me who don't care and will almost assuredly never care about playing online with anyone else? And if by some freak off-chance I did lose my senses and decide to try online at some point, I would be perfectly fine with starting a new character from scratch just for that purpose. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest that my single-player character used in offline mode wouldn't be playable there. If you would just put this feature from the first two games back in, Diablo III would most likely resume its status as a Day 1 purchase for me. But until and unless that happens, you have lost a customer, as has any and every other game dev/pub who insists on this asinine "always connected" crap (outside of games like dedicated MMOs and such where it actually makes sense to have it). Well, I don't think it will ever be a Day 1 purchase again, even if you do put the offline single-player back in, because I'd have to at least wait on reviews and word-of-mouth to make sure you haven't screwed the pooch in other similarly awful ways, but I would still likely get it within a reasonably tiny timeframe, all the same.
I'm not even going to touch on the real money auction stuff (also covered in that interview linked above) because, as I said before, that wouldn't have directly affected me at all had I been allowed to play the game offline as I was able to do with the previous games. And now, it's still not going to affect me at all because I'm not buying the game. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but that's just how it is.
But really, reading that interview in its entirety, that was some of the lamest, most holier-than-thou, "we know better than the player what the player wants" bullshit I've read in quite a while. It was more or less on par with some of the worst stuff to come out of EA or Ubisoft or Square-Enix (or, hell, even Valve of all companies, how did I miss that until now?) lately. Wow, has that "must be connected, at least in some way" shit really already become this prevalent? The game industry, or least my interest in where it is heading at this point, is starting to spiral down the toilet. How did it come to this? *rips out chunks of hair in frustration, figuratively speaking* Oh well, at least Bethesda still has some sanity left.
Honestly, what happened to you, Blizzard? *cough*Activision*cough* You used to be pretty cool, but not so much anymore. *defeated sigh*
tl;dr version: Nope, still not buying Diablo III.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 11:39 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-04 03:55 pm (UTC)From:I know people in other parts of the world, or even just other parts of the USA, don't have cable broadband at all let alone having it stable enough for crap like this.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-04 04:17 am (UTC)From:Here's the thing...I really can't fault Blizzard for taking D3 in this direction. As a designer (although not a game designer) we're how to look at our issues and figure out ways to solve them. Blizzard wanted to address two main issues:
1) stifle/kill the market for selling in game characters/items
2) make it difficult for players to used hacks to get items on their characters which in turn people could sell and make money off of in the real money auction house.
Because Blizzard is essentially letting people make REAL MONEY from selling virtual goods (either for use within Blizzard's store or cashing out for real money) I can't blame them for wanting to eliminate as many variables for abuse. It actually seems like a very forward thinking system, and as a designer, it certainly solves a lot of their issues. Whether those are issues that effect you and me (I know I probably won't make use of the real money auction house) is a different story of course, but, seeing as the majority of Blizzard gamers these days have no issues being online, again, I can't blame them for wanting to provide the best experience for them.
What actually has me worried about D3 is that there's no stat points or skill trees. Level progression is now supposedly linear, with greater emphasis on loot (which further explains the goal of having an auction house). There will be some skill customization by way of a rune system which applies modifiers to skills or something, as well has being able to choose up to 6 active skills and 3 passives skills which can be swapped and changed whenever you want. The other, although not as major issue for me, is that because of the real money auction house, the game will be region locked, so players can only play with players in their region.
It's unfortunate for those who have issue with these changes, but in all honesty, there's a lot of alternatives (Torchlight 2 and Grim Dawn come to mind) which is something we simply didn't have when D2.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-04 05:05 pm (UTC)From:To me, it kinda is, yeah. ^^; But then, you seem to tend to play a lot more multiplayer stuff than I do. And maybe I'm just an old dinosaur about these things. A lot of people seem to not have a problem with it at all... which just seems very strange to me, but oh well.
Anyway, as for the real money auction house, as I said above, that wouldn't have affected me even if I were still planning to buy the game, since I simply wouldn't have used it at all. As such, it wouldn't have been a deal-breaker for me any more than the "no mods" thing would have been a deal-breaker. I can easily see why they're doing it. They're just trying to get a cut of all the player-to-player buying/selling that would have been happening under the table anyway. Fair enough and more power to 'em. (But, still, just the entire overall concept of people paying real world cash money to get ahead in a video game, rather than, you know, actually playing the fucking game, is a concept that will always be forever alien to me, but maybe that's just my Jurassic-era mindset kicking in again.)
However, I still don't see why that totally precludes the ability for them to include an offline single-player option like they did in D1 and D2, though.
They claim they are doing it because it's "what's in the best interest of players." Well, it's certainly not in my best interests. They say they're doing it "because the players want it." No, no this is not at all what I want. Not even a little bit. They say they're worried that I might want to take my offline single-player character online but would then be mad because I'm not allowed to do so. No, seriously, that won't be a problem for me, or at least wouldn't have been, because as I've been repeating ad infinitum, I just don't care about multiplayer all that much. Hell, I honestly wouldn't mind if they released a stripped down version of the game that eschewed the online stuff altogether. Call it "Diablo III: Single-Player Edition" or "Diablo III: Lite" or "Diablo III: For Solitary Cave People" or whatever they want, I don't care. I'd still buy that way before I'd buy the useless crap they're offering me now. I totally understand the need to prevent cheaters from getting into the online stuff.* So yeah, I'd agree with that even if the auction houses weren't around. Still, I would much rather be prevented from taking my offline single-player character online than to be prevented from playing offline single-player at all, which is the way it is now.
And, yeah, you're right. There are alternatives to Diablo now that didn't exist before. I'll definitely be looking into them, given that I won't be getting D3. Hell, I still have Sacred and Sacred 2 to finish (or start in Sacred 2's case) as well as pretty much the entire Dungeon Siege series, including the just released DS3. I've even heard that Borderlands, which I haven't played yet myself, is more or less "Diablo with guns." I might have to give that another look as well.
And, for what it's worth, I can always go back and play Diablo 1 and 2 again if I want, too. You know, given that I don't have to be constantly connected to the Internet to play those and all.
But yeah, all I'm saying here is that I really want to give Blizzard my money so that I can play Diablo 3, but their current policies are preventing me from doing so. If they don't care to have my money, then I'm pretty much okay with not giving it to them. It's quite disappointing, but eh, I'll get over it.
* - In fact, my one and only experience with trying to play Diablo 1 multiplayer over a decade and a half ago lasted for about two minutes and consisted of me going online and getting instantly obliterated by some level 1 dickweed using hacked level ∞ chain-lightning spells on me the instant I set foot in the first level under the church. I simply exited out, never tried it again, and just stuck to single-player from then on.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-04 08:38 pm (UTC)From:You mention Borderlands, and while it's a very fun game, I found that it was best played with at least one other player. The game plays fine by itself though, so don't let that discourage you. I'm actually looking forward to the recently announced sequel. Which reminds me, I have one of the DLC packs to complete still. Perhaps I can round up a couple buddies to plow through that. If you do pick up the game, be sure to skip over the Mad Moxxie DLC, as that was a useless multiplayer focused area pack.