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How Diablo III's DRM Will Affect You (emphasis RPS's) <insert obligatory "It won't affect me at all, actually, because while the DRM is there I simply won't be buying the game" comment here>
"Battle.net, online ranking, drop-in-drop-out co-op, the auction house, and constant live monitoring of your progress, and monitoring to prevent cheating, can all be argued to be in the players’ favour..."
All of those things are things about which I give not a single, solitary crap, by the way.
"My intention with Diablo III is to solo the game. ... However, the always-on DRM makes this the most remarkably annoying process. During the beta, Blizzard’s servers have dropped a few times. Of course, that’s expected during a beta, but it’s also not unexpected once a game has gone live. And here, when the server goes down, you’re left with a ghost of the game until it eventually stops you from playing at all."
This. Right here. This is why "always online" DRM is shit and always will be shit, and is why I still can't believe that Blizzard (and anyone else, of course, but especially Blizzard since until now I had expected better of them) is so retarded as to use it.
"But a more striking and regular problem has shown itself over the last couple of days of playing with the beta levels.
You can’t pause."
What.
"So when I’m playing the single-player game, and I’m in the middle of a frenzied mob, and there’s a knock at the front door, there’s nothing I can do. As happened to me yesterday. Twice. On another occasion I was surprised by a phone call that led to my having to do some other things. I’d safely left my character in a cleared area, but long between checkpoints. When I came back to the PC, I’d been idle for too long and the game had logged me out.
"I’d been logged out of a single-player game because I was away for an hour. And thus lost all my progress (although not my items and stats) since the last checkpoint, a long, long way back."
No seriously, I would ask if Blizzard has lost their freaking minds, but the simple inclusion of the "always online" DRM to begin with is a pretty good indicator that this is indeed already the case.
"And this is all never mind that you can’t play it on trains, planes, at your gran’s, on the day a workman cuts through your phone line, if you’re in the army, or simply cannot afford a broadband connection."
But, obviously, people with issues such as those don't actually exist, and so everyone should have no problem accepting this asinine crap, right? *eyeroll*
"And maddeningly, the solution is incredibly simple:
"Create the option to create an entirely offline character. A character that can’t then be imported into an online game, one that can’t invite others to join in. That way any of the concerns about those finding ways to artificially improve their characters and then dominate online (something that really doesn’t seem a massive issue in opt-in co-op, but there we are) are removed, and anyone who just wants to solo the game can do so."
You know, My goodness, this is not rocket science. If they would implement this one simple feature, a feature which I think it was utterly idiotic for them to have removed in the first place, then I would most likely be interested in buying the game again. I don't give a rat's ass about multiplayer. I will never be using the auction house. The no mods thing doesn't bother me in the slightest. All I would ever care about is playing the game through in single-player without having to worry about the issues mentioned above. Until and unless that becomes a possibility, no, I won't be buying the game, no matter how awesome it may be otherwise (as I've heard it is, based on people playing the beta).
My confidence in Blizzard, previously through the roof, has been seriously shaken by this, but if they concede that this "always online" requirement was indeed a bad, crappy idea, then that confidence might yet be restored. Everyone makes mistakes, after all. Not everyone owns up to their mistakes, however. It remains to be seen if Blizzard will own up to this one, or if they will just stubbornly dig in their heels over the whole thing.
"Battle.net, online ranking, drop-in-drop-out co-op, the auction house, and constant live monitoring of your progress, and monitoring to prevent cheating, can all be argued to be in the players’ favour..."
All of those things are things about which I give not a single, solitary crap, by the way.
"My intention with Diablo III is to solo the game. ... However, the always-on DRM makes this the most remarkably annoying process. During the beta, Blizzard’s servers have dropped a few times. Of course, that’s expected during a beta, but it’s also not unexpected once a game has gone live. And here, when the server goes down, you’re left with a ghost of the game until it eventually stops you from playing at all."
This. Right here. This is why "always online" DRM is shit and always will be shit, and is why I still can't believe that Blizzard (and anyone else, of course, but especially Blizzard since until now I had expected better of them) is so retarded as to use it.
"But a more striking and regular problem has shown itself over the last couple of days of playing with the beta levels.
You can’t pause."
What.
"So when I’m playing the single-player game, and I’m in the middle of a frenzied mob, and there’s a knock at the front door, there’s nothing I can do. As happened to me yesterday. Twice. On another occasion I was surprised by a phone call that led to my having to do some other things. I’d safely left my character in a cleared area, but long between checkpoints. When I came back to the PC, I’d been idle for too long and the game had logged me out.
"I’d been logged out of a single-player game because I was away for an hour. And thus lost all my progress (although not my items and stats) since the last checkpoint, a long, long way back."
No seriously, I would ask if Blizzard has lost their freaking minds, but the simple inclusion of the "always online" DRM to begin with is a pretty good indicator that this is indeed already the case.
"And this is all never mind that you can’t play it on trains, planes, at your gran’s, on the day a workman cuts through your phone line, if you’re in the army, or simply cannot afford a broadband connection."
But, obviously, people with issues such as those don't actually exist, and so everyone should have no problem accepting this asinine crap, right? *eyeroll*
"And maddeningly, the solution is incredibly simple:
"Create the option to create an entirely offline character. A character that can’t then be imported into an online game, one that can’t invite others to join in. That way any of the concerns about those finding ways to artificially improve their characters and then dominate online (something that really doesn’t seem a massive issue in opt-in co-op, but there we are) are removed, and anyone who just wants to solo the game can do so."
You know, My goodness, this is not rocket science. If they would implement this one simple feature, a feature which I think it was utterly idiotic for them to have removed in the first place, then I would most likely be interested in buying the game again. I don't give a rat's ass about multiplayer. I will never be using the auction house. The no mods thing doesn't bother me in the slightest. All I would ever care about is playing the game through in single-player without having to worry about the issues mentioned above. Until and unless that becomes a possibility, no, I won't be buying the game, no matter how awesome it may be otherwise (as I've heard it is, based on people playing the beta).
My confidence in Blizzard, previously through the roof, has been seriously shaken by this, but if they concede that this "always online" requirement was indeed a bad, crappy idea, then that confidence might yet be restored. Everyone makes mistakes, after all. Not everyone owns up to their mistakes, however. It remains to be seen if Blizzard will own up to this one, or if they will just stubbornly dig in their heels over the whole thing.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 06:14 am (UTC)From:This is of course, what has been said above and in other articles since it first made headlines.
Any playing with a character totally offline, or taking an online character offline, would just prevent that character from going back online with it. But then people such as yourself, the ones who are primarily concerned with the offline single player would have NO problem with that.
But then Blizzard out and said "oh we thought of that but didn't want to fragment our player base!" (much better to just alienate them into not buying your product to begin with. Great Job!)
But on the other note. No pausing. Awesome. How more retro can you ask for than for the days of Atari 2600 gaming.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 07:38 am (UTC)From:They went from the original Diablo, which allowed you to fucking lend the game to a friend (something which is tantamount to piracy these days depending upon who you ask) via a spawn copy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spawn_installation), to this stupid draconian DRM shit they're doing now. And I don't care how they blather on about how it's "good for the player" and whatnot, it's fucking DRM and it fucking breaks their fucking game.
What the hell happened to Blizzard between then and now to make them so shitty? Oh, wait, that's right, Activision happened.