How can you possibly laud anybody from Blizzard right now for their apparent skill in dealing with idiocy? Are you insane? The so called idiocy on the forums was brought about by Blizzard's inflexibility. They get an idea in their heads, they do it, then when the shit hits the fan they cower behind half truths and silence.
I *will not* be able to play this game if an internet connection is required. I am irate. I had to move to an area with no internet access, and because of that Diablo 3, the game I've been waiting for a decade to have, is out of my reach? That is unacceptable. What about our friends and family in the military, with shoddy internet overseas, will they have to miss out on Diablo 3? You bet your ass they will. Is that fair?
And don't tell me it's my fault I live with no internet, or that I should move to a new area, because that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that Diablo isn't an MMO, and should not require a constant connection. That's lunacy.
How can you possibly laud anybody from Blizzard right now for their apparent skill in dealing with idiocy? Are you insane? The so called idiocy on the forums was brought about by Blizzard's inflexibility. They get an idea in their heads, they do it, then when the shit hits the fan they cower behind half truths and silence.
I *will not* be able to play this game if an internet connection is required. I am irate. I had to move to an area with no internet access, and because of that Diablo 3, the game I've been waiting for a decade to have, is out of my reach? That is unacceptable. What about our friends and family in the military, with shoddy internet overseas, will they have to miss out on Diablo 3? You bet your ass they will. Is that fair?
And don't tell me it's my fault I live with no internet, or that I should move to a new area, because that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that Diablo isn't an MMO, and should not require a constant connection. That's lunacy.
A proof of what I was saying before. People complain for a reason, and everyone nowadays are considered trolls if they disagree impolitely. The developers measure community reaction, and the more passionate it is, the higher the chance of things actually changing (like they partially did with SC2 chat channels).
I'm not going to miss the game due to its "online requirement" but I feel really bad about this decision, just like I do regarding no Lan functionality, not a lot of PvP features as it could have (without ruining PvE tbh), and some other things.
Then again, the alternative for guys like Seniri will be getting a hacked copy of the game. And rest assured, the game will be hacked, whether it requires a connection or not. The SC2 beta was hacked in less than a day after the release of the closed beta, so the only ppl Blizzard are hurting is the people who have nothing to do with it.
A proof of what I was saying before. People complain for a reason, and everyone nowadays are considered trolls if they disagree impolitely. The developers measure community reaction, and the more passionate it is, the higher the chance of things actually changing (like they partially did with SC2 chat channels).
I'm not going to miss the game due to its "online requirement" but I feel really bad about this decision, just like I do regarding no Lan functionality, not a lot of PvP features as it could have (without ruining PvE tbh), and some other things.
Then again, the alternative for guys like Seniri will be hacking the game. And rest assured, the game will be hacked, whether it requires a connection or not. The SC2 beta was hacked in less than a day after the release of the closed beta, so the only ppl Blizzard are hurting is the people who have nothing to do with it.
Rest assured, I will play this game once that happens, but the difference is Blizzard won't get a damn penny out of me until they implement legit offline play. I love playing D2 online and I will (eventually) love the same in D3 (I hope >.>) but that can't happen until I go back to school, which will not be for a little while at least.
Bashiok is a fairly nice and reasonable guy with a sense of humour. I think bashing him personally is generally either very short-sighted (not realizing he doesn't get to choose what info to give out, and is just a mouthpiece), or just childish rage striking the nearest available target.
Blizzard, though, as a whole are a valid target for criticism. Trying to suggest that they aren't is simply a matter of trying to stifle debate and discussion.
Mindless stuff like "BLIZZ U SUX!" is pathetic and pointless, sure.
However things like "I don't think Blizzard have our best interests at heart" or "I believe Blizzard's judgement has been clouded by their profit motive" are perfectly reasonable.
Similarly, the OP claims Blizzard have played games like Sacred, Risen, Divine Divinity, Torchlight and so on, and I do not believe that that is true in any meaningful way, unless a senior designer or official PR guy (like Bashiok) has specifically asserted it. Blizzard don't seem to play every other game on the market, and I've seen senior Blizzard designers publicly express extreme surprise at features that have been in competing products for a long time.
A good example is Alex Afrasiabi, one of WoW's senior designers (possibly THE senior designer right now?), aka Furor, who whilst generally a smart guy, expressed extreme surprise after WAR came out about a number of features that WAR possessed - but they were features that many non-WoW MMORPGs possessed, and not unique to WAR, so it was clear that this senior designer had no only not really played most of the competitors to WoW in the preceding years, but none of his staff or the people under him had introduced him to these ideas.
Another example would be Blizzard's lead PvP designer for WoW, whose name escapes me. He expressed disbelief re: the PvP features of a couple of other MMOs (despite the fact that they were out and he could just have gone and played them!), and made a statement suggesting that it wasn't ever worth looking at competitors, because they didn't have millions of customers, did they? - Not something all Blizzard designers think, I'm sure.
Your predicament, however much it might suck, is akin to me not being able to play the game because I don't have a computer.
I'm sorry, but I don't agree with that statement at all. Of course the game requires a computer, it's a computer game. Requiring internet for a game that's been prominently offline for fifteen years is preposterous, Do you need a knife AND a fork when you eat your dinner? You could get by with just the fork, but the knife is an added feature. Just like internet access in Diablo should be.
And I don't disagree with you, the internet is for sure here to stay, however Diablo 3 still shouldn't be restricted to online only. It just makes no sense.
And I know a few people who don't I'm just outside of town, maybe a three minutes drive. The DSL lines cut off a block away from us. It's the same the entire perimeter of the town. We might have to get satellite internet. It's gonna blow.
My parents have lived here for five years, I've been gone for a lot of it. But we call Bell/Rogers every month and push for the lines to be extended that single kilometer needed, and it never happens. It's not like I live in Alaska or something >.>
It's good to finally see some people who feel roughly the same way as I do. I was thinking of starting my own thread like this but figured it would just get qq'ed to death.
I honestly think some people are scared of the new active/passive skill and ruin system because there wont be as much "hey this is the best build step for step so you can run through the game, spam one button and make leet deeps". It seems like the ruin system will drive the way we pick our passive skills, but that's just me thinking, only time will tell.
+1 to bashiok for being hilarious, and I do feel for the guy he has a hard job. If I was in customer service I would probably just call everyone tards.
But can we please agree that it does make some sense to keep it online? Both due to availability and to prevent cheating. Saying it makes no sense makes no sense!!!11
I actually can't you can prevent cheating another way (or take action against it), not bar loyal fans from the game by removing a feature necessary for them to play. Also, I don't expect to be able to take my character from the offline world to the online world - that's what drives me insane. They could have an offline single player only mode, but they won't.
You ever write something and second guess yourself? Well Id like to clarify a little bit if I may.
I should have made it clear that I think there is a clear distinction between trolling and complaining. Blizzard needs to be questioned and prodded for how things work. The problem is, people prodding Blizzard are using pitchforks and torches. For example, two posters who replied to my original post demonstrated exactly what I meant to get across.
Zero(pS) People trusted Blizzard on SC2 and they delivered a mainstream half-baked online experience. That's what everyone fear. To mention just a few problems SC2 has that weren't addressed are chat channels, massive problems with custom games (who have been "fixed" after 6-8 months, and only partially, you still can't "name" your game to describe game modes, etc.), absolutely no clan functionality, absolutely no weekly/monthly tournaments - and before you even think of saying "they don't have to deliver all those features" well, Warcraft 3 had all these, all they had to do was polish them and it would be fine, and they were all awesome features, and yet they managed to screw up.
I'm not saying SC2 isn't good (like many SC1 fanboys claim). It is in fact imho the best true real time strategy games released until today, but to think that "battle.net features" screwed an otherwise near perfect gameplay experience is saddening.
D3 is walking the same path in some aspects. Instead of going a more "we have better stuff online" approach to incentive people to play online, and still offer lan and offline functionality for those who "need" it (it's not always about wanting this), they're just going the easy way to prevent piracy, and won't even admit that's the real reason for it - they claim it's "to enhance and incentive coop play" - everyone knows that's bullsh*t.
Although I loved the no-stats solution, right now I think the "no skill points" approach is really lazy too. Instead of finding a decent balance for respecs (like 1 skill per act, and a whole respec per difficulty, or something along those lines) they just went the "you can choose whatever, any time you want, maybe even during a dungeon in-between encounters". Skill points being saved or even transfered later to different skills is something you can easily fix by limiting respec, Jay talked about it as if you could just freely respec every skill whenever you wanted, and that "saving skill points" was actually possible. If people can blast through the game without spending skill points, it's probably because something is a little bit too easy don't you think?
People bash them because they want the game to be good, because they love it. While I don't personally like that approach, sometimes mass mob rage is the only way to make the developers see that we're right (just like it worked with SC2 chat channels), while "soft talking" won't take you anywhere, except polite and premade responses, like most ones Bashiok give. And then he'll answer but hardly talk about it or respond to reasonable posts, he will usually just bash a very stupid post with bad arguments (in the post he's bashing, not his post).
And Seniri How can you possibly laud anybody from Blizzard right now for their apparent skill in dealing with idiocy? Are you insane? The so called idiocy on the forums was brought about by Blizzard's inflexibility. They get an idea in their heads, they do it, then when the shit hits the fan they cower behind half truths and silence.
I *will not* be able to play this game if an internet connection is required. I am irate. I had to move to an area with no internet access, and because of that Diablo 3, the game I've been waiting for a decade to have, is out of my reach? That is unacceptable. What about our friends and family in the military, with shoddy internet overseas, will they have to miss out on Diablo 3? You bet your ass they will. Is that fair?
And don't tell me it's my fault I live with no internet, or that I should move to a new area, because that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that Diablo isn't an MMO, and should not require a constant connection. That's lunacy.
Did they flame me? Were they aggressive? Did they call me insane? Well, Seniri asked if I was insane, which I am. Mwahahahahaha!!! But these 'type' of responses are the correct ones. Opposition/disagreement comes in two flavors. Respectable and Pitiful. These guys are an example of the former, which is awesome. They have some great reasons for their thoughts and they can communicate them well. And they make perfect, reasonable sense of why they feel the way they do. We need more people like that in the gaming community.
Did they flame me? Were they aggressive? Did they call me insane? Well, Seniri asked if I was insane, which I am. Mwahahahahaha!!! But these 'type' of responses are the correct ones. Opposition/disagreement comes in two flavors. Respectable and Pitiful. These guys are an example of the former, which is awesome. They have some great reasons for their thoughts and they can communicate them well. And they make perfect, reasonable sense of why they feel the way they do. We need more people like that in the gaming community.
Anyways, I appreciate the feedback!
DKR
Also, while you may indeed be a nutcase, that was more directed at .. well, everybody who could even consider praising Blizzard right now. I feel almost as strongly about this as I did about the whole RealID bullshit.
They bar loyal fans who can't get online and are a minority so they can make the gaming experience so much better for the majority who are also loyal fans who had to put up with the joke of an online game called diablo 2.
We may be a minority but there are more of us than you think.
And you're saying that because we're a minority, we don't matter? That's the vibe I'm getting from Blizzard, and if they start down this road who knows which minority will be the next left behind.
I bought Starcraft 2 when it came out because even though it required you to be online for achievements and such, you had the option of playing through the campaign offline if you validated your install by logging in. Give me one good reason why Diablo 3 can't do that.
You're only looking at it from your perspective. No one is saying you don't matter, it's just a choice blizzard must make - please 100,000 fans or please a 1,000.
That doesn't make a shred of sense - how does adding offline support displease the other 100,000 fans?
Starcraft 2 offline was completely seperate from the online. Picture Diablo 3 the same way. There's no reason why Blizzard can't implement this. It may be because they're afraid of piracy, but let's be honest there's nothing they can do to stop it from happening.
Not only are battle.net forums a vast, writhing lake of sewage, the D3 forums only contain people who have active classic battle.net accounts. He's stuck with this audience that does not statistically represent the upcoming Diablo 3 fan-base accurately, at all. But, sadly, the forums will never represent that audience well.
Always-Online kinda sucks, IMO. I have internet. But it goes out sometimes. Just like sometimes your car breaks down randomly.
I can't say I 'like it', all I can say is games will eventually all be 'online' per say, so I'm just not surprised.
I can only speak for myself here. I'm only buying Diablo 3 and Battlefield 3 to play online. So it ofcourse it doesn't bother ME if they require internet connection. And the majority of people DO have internet these days. But not EVERYONE. How many thousands are there that can't access the net? Wouldn't this, on an economic standpoint, translate into millions of dollars of revenue from box sales if these people could ALSO enjoy the game?
I guess all I'm saying is, I see their reasoning behind 'always online', but it sucks some people are left out because of it!!
EDIT: yea, wait, to second what others have suggested, they actually can't make it so Offline and Online are completely separate? That ACTUALLY CANNOT do this? I'll do some digging, because I'm having a tough time believing that. Maybe I'll discover I'm wrong!
Starcraft 2 offline was completely seperate from the online. Picture Diablo 3 the same way. There's no reason why Blizzard can't implement this. It may be because they're afraid of piracy, but let's be honest there's nothing they can do to stop it from happening.
You are correct that there's no reason why Blizzard can't implement offline-only Diablo 3.
However, I'll let you in on a little secret: they cut it to ship the game faster. Helping prevent piracy is just a perk.
Let's imagine the meeting Blizzard had over this, in brief:
"We really want to ship this year. What are the big chunks of functionality we can cut to ship faster and still hit the core of what Diablo franchise is? Offline only? Cut it. That'll save a several hundred man-hours better spent on Battle.net 2.0 functionality. There's sufficient market research to suggest that 99.8% of our intended audience has broadband internet. We can add it in later if there's enough demand, but it will probably go the way of Starcraft 2 offline LAN play.
Okay, what else? PvP functionality? Well we can't just cut it wholesale. Let's do a light, simple version and use it to gauge interest. If there's sufficient demand, we'll grow it in future expansions."
I *will not* be able to play this game if an internet connection is required. I am irate. I had to move to an area with no internet access, and because of that Diablo 3, the game I've been waiting for a decade to have, is out of my reach? That is unacceptable. What about our friends and family in the military, with shoddy internet overseas, will they have to miss out on Diablo 3? You bet your ass they will. Is that fair?
And don't tell me it's my fault I live with no internet, or that I should move to a new area, because that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that Diablo isn't an MMO, and should not require a constant connection. That's lunacy.
I'm not going to miss the game due to its "online requirement" but I feel really bad about this decision, just like I do regarding no Lan functionality, not a lot of PvP features as it could have (without ruining PvE tbh), and some other things.
Then again, the alternative for guys like Seniri will be getting a hacked copy of the game. And rest assured, the game will be hacked, whether it requires a connection or not. The SC2 beta was hacked in less than a day after the release of the closed beta, so the only ppl Blizzard are hurting is the people who have nothing to do with it.
Rest assured, I will play this game once that happens, but the difference is Blizzard won't get a damn penny out of me until they implement legit offline play. I love playing D2 online and I will (eventually) love the same in D3 (I hope >.>) but that can't happen until I go back to school, which will not be for a little while at least.
Blizzard, though, as a whole are a valid target for criticism. Trying to suggest that they aren't is simply a matter of trying to stifle debate and discussion.
Mindless stuff like "BLIZZ U SUX!" is pathetic and pointless, sure.
However things like "I don't think Blizzard have our best interests at heart" or "I believe Blizzard's judgement has been clouded by their profit motive" are perfectly reasonable.
Similarly, the OP claims Blizzard have played games like Sacred, Risen, Divine Divinity, Torchlight and so on, and I do not believe that that is true in any meaningful way, unless a senior designer or official PR guy (like Bashiok) has specifically asserted it. Blizzard don't seem to play every other game on the market, and I've seen senior Blizzard designers publicly express extreme surprise at features that have been in competing products for a long time.
A good example is Alex Afrasiabi, one of WoW's senior designers (possibly THE senior designer right now?), aka Furor, who whilst generally a smart guy, expressed extreme surprise after WAR came out about a number of features that WAR possessed - but they were features that many non-WoW MMORPGs possessed, and not unique to WAR, so it was clear that this senior designer had no only not really played most of the competitors to WoW in the preceding years, but none of his staff or the people under him had introduced him to these ideas.
Another example would be Blizzard's lead PvP designer for WoW, whose name escapes me. He expressed disbelief re: the PvP features of a couple of other MMOs (despite the fact that they were out and he could just have gone and played them!), and made a statement suggesting that it wasn't ever worth looking at competitors, because they didn't have millions of customers, did they? - Not something all Blizzard designers think, I'm sure.
I'm sorry, but I don't agree with that statement at all. Of course the game requires a computer, it's a computer game. Requiring internet for a game that's been prominently offline for fifteen years is preposterous, Do you need a knife AND a fork when you eat your dinner? You could get by with just the fork, but the knife is an added feature. Just like internet access in Diablo should be.
But still not everybody has internet, that for sure hasn't changed. Blizz is shooting itself in the foot here, there's no question of that.
And I know a few people who don't I'm just outside of town, maybe a three minutes drive. The DSL lines cut off a block away from us. It's the same the entire perimeter of the town. We might have to get satellite internet. It's gonna blow.
My parents have lived here for five years, I've been gone for a lot of it. But we call Bell/Rogers every month and push for the lines to be extended that single kilometer needed, and it never happens. It's not like I live in Alaska or something >.>
I honestly think some people are scared of the new active/passive skill and ruin system because there wont be as much "hey this is the best build step for step so you can run through the game, spam one button and make leet deeps". It seems like the ruin system will drive the way we pick our passive skills, but that's just me thinking, only time will tell.
+1 to bashiok for being hilarious, and I do feel for the guy he has a hard job. If I was in customer service I would probably just call everyone tards.
I actually can't you can prevent cheating another way (or take action against it), not bar loyal fans from the game by removing a feature necessary for them to play. Also, I don't expect to be able to take my character from the offline world to the online world - that's what drives me insane. They could have an offline single player only mode, but they won't.
I should have made it clear that I think there is a clear distinction between trolling and complaining. Blizzard needs to be questioned and prodded for how things work. The problem is, people prodding Blizzard are using pitchforks and torches. For example, two posters who replied to my original post demonstrated exactly what I meant to get across.
Zero(pS)
People trusted Blizzard on SC2 and they delivered a mainstream half-baked online experience. That's what everyone fear. To mention just a few problems SC2 has that weren't addressed are chat channels, massive problems with custom games (who have been "fixed" after 6-8 months, and only partially, you still can't "name" your game to describe game modes, etc.), absolutely no clan functionality, absolutely no weekly/monthly tournaments - and before you even think of saying "they don't have to deliver all those features" well, Warcraft 3 had all these, all they had to do was polish them and it would be fine, and they were all awesome features, and yet they managed to screw up.
I'm not saying SC2 isn't good (like many SC1 fanboys claim). It is in fact imho the best true real time strategy games released until today, but to think that "battle.net features" screwed an otherwise near perfect gameplay experience is saddening.
D3 is walking the same path in some aspects. Instead of going a more "we have better stuff online" approach to incentive people to play online, and still offer lan and offline functionality for those who "need" it (it's not always about wanting this), they're just going the easy way to prevent piracy, and won't even admit that's the real reason for it - they claim it's "to enhance and incentive coop play" - everyone knows that's bullsh*t.
Although I loved the no-stats solution, right now I think the "no skill points" approach is really lazy too. Instead of finding a decent balance for respecs (like 1 skill per act, and a whole respec per difficulty, or something along those lines) they just went the "you can choose whatever, any time you want, maybe even during a dungeon in-between encounters". Skill points being saved or even transfered later to different skills is something you can easily fix by limiting respec, Jay talked about it as if you could just freely respec every skill whenever you wanted, and that "saving skill points" was actually possible. If people can blast through the game without spending skill points, it's probably because something is a little bit too easy don't you think?
People bash them because they want the game to be good, because they love it. While I don't personally like that approach, sometimes mass mob rage is the only way to make the developers see that we're right (just like it worked with SC2 chat channels), while "soft talking" won't take you anywhere, except polite and premade responses, like most ones Bashiok give. And then he'll answer but hardly talk about it or respond to reasonable posts, he will usually just bash a very stupid post with bad arguments (in the post he's bashing, not his post).
And Seniri
How can you possibly laud anybody from Blizzard right now for their apparent skill in dealing with idiocy? Are you insane? The so called idiocy on the forums was brought about by Blizzard's inflexibility. They get an idea in their heads, they do it, then when the shit hits the fan they cower behind half truths and silence.
I *will not* be able to play this game if an internet connection is required. I am irate. I had to move to an area with no internet access, and because of that Diablo 3, the game I've been waiting for a decade to have, is out of my reach? That is unacceptable. What about our friends and family in the military, with shoddy internet overseas, will they have to miss out on Diablo 3? You bet your ass they will. Is that fair?
And don't tell me it's my fault I live with no internet, or that I should move to a new area, because that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that Diablo isn't an MMO, and should not require a constant connection. That's lunacy.
Did they flame me? Were they aggressive? Did they call me insane? Well, Seniri asked if I was insane, which I am. Mwahahahahaha!!! But these 'type' of responses are the correct ones. Opposition/disagreement comes in two flavors. Respectable and Pitiful. These guys are an example of the former, which is awesome. They have some great reasons for their thoughts and they can communicate them well. And they make perfect, reasonable sense of why they feel the way they do. We need more people like that in the gaming community.
Anyways, I appreciate the feedback!
DKR
Also, while you may indeed be a nutcase, that was more directed at .. well, everybody who could even consider praising Blizzard right now. I feel almost as strongly about this as I did about the whole RealID bullshit.
We may be a minority but there are more of us than you think.
And you're saying that because we're a minority, we don't matter? That's the vibe I'm getting from Blizzard, and if they start down this road who knows which minority will be the next left behind.
I bought Starcraft 2 when it came out because even though it required you to be online for achievements and such, you had the option of playing through the campaign offline if you validated your install by logging in. Give me one good reason why Diablo 3 can't do that.
That doesn't make a shred of sense - how does adding offline support displease the other 100,000 fans?
Not only are battle.net forums a vast, writhing lake of sewage, the D3 forums only contain people who have active classic battle.net accounts. He's stuck with this audience that does not statistically represent the upcoming Diablo 3 fan-base accurately, at all. But, sadly, the forums will never represent that audience well.
I can't say I 'like it', all I can say is games will eventually all be 'online' per say, so I'm just not surprised.
I can only speak for myself here. I'm only buying Diablo 3 and Battlefield 3 to play online. So it ofcourse it doesn't bother ME if they require internet connection. And the majority of people DO have internet these days. But not EVERYONE. How many thousands are there that can't access the net? Wouldn't this, on an economic standpoint, translate into millions of dollars of revenue from box sales if these people could ALSO enjoy the game?
I guess all I'm saying is, I see their reasoning behind 'always online', but it sucks some people are left out because of it!!
EDIT: yea, wait, to second what others have suggested, they actually can't make it so Offline and Online are completely separate? That ACTUALLY CANNOT do this? I'll do some digging, because I'm having a tough time believing that. Maybe I'll discover I'm wrong!
DKR
You are correct that there's no reason why Blizzard can't implement offline-only Diablo 3.
However, I'll let you in on a little secret: they cut it to ship the game faster. Helping prevent piracy is just a perk.
Let's imagine the meeting Blizzard had over this, in brief:
/end shackyAak's opinion
... bashing Bashiok!
(edit: com'on guys, we needed that pun to lighten up a bit.. as bad as it was lol..)