Always-online does not make for a stronger multi-player experience - one player in the game with a degraded connection causes problems for the other players in the group.
So, how would this player with a degraded connection benefit from having offline mode while playing in your group? I mean, he has to be online in order to play with you anyways. If the game would just use a direct IP connect for online play, you'd have the same problems. Online-only is not the problem here, the crappy connection/PC of your friend is.
I agree that there are some valid arguments against online-only, but this ain't one of them.
I also don't need the game saving my character to the server as often. The only real reason for the amount of "persistent server-side character saves" was for the players who used RAH and, especially, GMAH to buy gear for their characters.
Despite whatever has been said, the only reason for server-side character saves is cheat prevention. And it worked.
(As a related side-note, who on Earth does Blizzard think its fooling about cheat prevention? Cheating and duping and other shenanigans are still very prevalent in the game. Always-online has done little in protecting against cheating.)
Cheating and duping are prevalent? That's news. Any proof for that claim? The only dupes we have seen were those from rollbacks, and this isn't possible anymore since rollback items are BoA now. Considering that this game is out for 15 months I'm actually happy to see almost none of the BiS items being duped (except for a few top items a year ago due to the rollback service, but it's nowhere near "prevalent").
The most important thing to any game designer is the gamer's experience. Cheats, dupes, hacks and stuff like this in a game that is essentially just about loot kill this experience (ever played Torchlight? An amazing game but after ~15 hours you're done because it's easier to cheat than not to cheat).
I feel really sorry for people with bad Internet connection (and I'm not talking about those who are too lazy to pause their Bittorrent, but those who live in areas or countries with bad latency in general, like our Brazilian friends). But for those who want a dupe-/hack-/cheat-free environment, the online only mode is the best thing that ever happened. And to be honest, if that's the only remaining thing someone hates about Diablo 3, just buy D3 for console.
I really want to see the affix being removed completely. Not just on new items, also from all existing items. MF became a stupid requirement and created an extremely artificial gap. There was even no choice in whether or not to get MF.
So, how would this player with a degraded connection benefit from having offline mode while playing in your group? I mean, he has to be online in order to play with you anyways. If the game would just use a direct IP connect for online play, you'd have the same problems. Online-only is not the problem here, the crappy connection/PC of your friend is.
I agree that there are some valid arguments against online-only, but this ain't one of them.
Despite whatever has been said, the only reason for server-side character saves is cheat prevention. And it worked.
Cheating and duping are prevalent? That's news. Any proof for that claim? The only dupes we have seen were those from rollbacks, and this isn't possible anymore since rollback items are BoA now. Considering that this game is out for 15 months I'm actually happy to see almost none of the BiS items being duped (except for a few top items a year ago due to the rollback service, but it's nowhere near "prevalent").
The most important thing to any game designer is the gamer's experience. Cheats, dupes, hacks and stuff like this in a game that is essentially just about loot kill this experience (ever played Torchlight? An amazing game but after ~15 hours you're done because it's easier to cheat than not to cheat).
I feel really sorry for people with bad Internet connection (and I'm not talking about those who are too lazy to pause their Bittorrent, but those who live in areas or countries with bad latency in general, like our Brazilian friends). But for those who want a dupe-/hack-/cheat-free environment, the online only mode is the best thing that ever happened. And to be honest, if that's the only remaining thing someone hates about Diablo 3, just buy D3 for console.
I really want to see the affix being removed completely. Not just on new items, also from all existing items. MF became a stupid requirement and created an extremely artificial gap. There was even no choice in whether or not to get MF.