[RPS] Opinion: Why The Problem With Diablo Isn’t Diablo

Diablo news overload ;_;

I've read so much D3 news in the past two days

Indeed. Like I said in a post in a previous thread, the game itself is great... but the inability to be able to play Single Player offline is really just quite depressing.

Always online drm is terrible

I've been trying to say the exact same thing as the article.

Once people accept that designing a game around a monetization/micro transaction scheme that validates the publishers/devs:

a) Obliterating offline solo experiences altogether

and

b) keeping assets needed for you to play the game in any kind of way OFF your computer and streaming them to you (therefore requiring always on connections),

They will have no right to complain when everyone else starts doing it.

That's why I cant wait for someone else to do it and watch the internet explode.

All the "shut up and stop complaining" posts will be referenced fully
Edited by GrizzleBoy - 5/17/12 at 11:55pm

I have already disagreed with Blizzard's stance when I first heard about the always online DRM. Blizzard fans are ruining gaming much like how people get upset with CoD fans buying the same game every year.

Ironically, both games are made by the same company, Activision-Blizzard.

Different companies, just owned by the same company.

The consumer always ends up with the short of the stick

Always online DRM can die in a fire. If this was EA/Activision and not Blizzard, I'd almost definitely be unable to play this in 10 years because they decided to shut the servers down. That's not even thinking about the fact that you're not always connected to the internet..

If the internet is down (As mine has been going down every now and again for a few weeks due to the whole she-bang being replaced with fibre due to the NBN in Australia) then I tend to play games as a means of passing the time, always-online DRM means I simply exclude those games from my wishlist. There are benefits in some cases (For example, the online features here) but name one that actually requires me to be online. When I say require, I mean it isn't caused by an artificial limitation (eg. An Auction House. I'm not always in there, so why would it need to have a connection to me whenever I'm playing a game with it? I'm happy for it to connect if I'm online, but I don't want to get booted if I'm not).

Seriously, offline modes are required still. You simply can't get internet everywhere you may be gaming and the internet simply isn't reliable enough for everyone yet, Steam's offline mode has a lot of faults (And before the inevitable Steam fanboy comments pop up, I actually am quite annoyed with Steam right now. I have to disable Windows Firewall to update one of my games and when I posted a support ticket, I got an automated response that told me to do..well, what I've already done, and even gave Mac instructions despite the fact I said I'm running both AMD and Windows..) but it works.