@LinkX: Unfortunately for the guy who cannot play at all because they have no internet, they are out of luck. I'm not going to fight for offline mode when it would add time to the development of the game and the target audience for said game will not be affect. Yes, some people lose out. Hate to be cold, but its like saying someone should be able to play WoW offline. The focus of Diablo 3 is smashing through the story with other players. In addition, the RMAH will likely be the primary funding for regular additional content, staff to handle bots/hacks, etc. Oh yeah, on the point of additional content anyone without a connection to the internet would be unable to update their game regularly and as such miss out on that content as well.
Well then if they are going to miss out on the content, why not let them have the game in the first place and let them play in peace? I still stand by the idea that Activision-Blizzard is just using this as DRM and as a way to get even richer, and just use hacks and bots as an excuse.
I wish deeply that Diablo 3 was being made by Runic Games. Then the people that made Diablo 1 and 2 would make Diablo 3 as well.
Honestly, in this day and age, having internet is almost a must for gaming. I can look at someone and say sorry, but that is just a fact.
It may of just been the way NullerGnuen said it that pissed me off. It was cruel and insensitive.
And I also disagree. While Activision-Blizzard is going to an Online Only stance, there are many modern games that are both on and offline. Alienating a portion of gamers doesn't sit right with a large, large portion of the gaming company community. I don't know why it does with Activision-Blizzard.
Oh and on a note of alternatives for D2, I've never played Metin, but Dungeon Siege doesn't have as nice of a multiplayer community as D2 does. Torchlight doesn't have multiplayer at all. Silk Road Online is a MMO. And again, I've never even heard of Titan Quest.
Like I said, I just went to Alternativeto.net. (Sorry, I said Alternativet.com first, it's actually .net. My bad.) I am not a big ARPG fan. I played D2 and Torchlight, and will play Torchlight 2 when it comes out. That's about it really. I usually stick with RTS games like AoE, shooter games like Bulletstorm, console games like Assassins Creed and Legend of Zelda, and mmo games like Rift and WoW. Sorry. *Shrugs shoulders*
You mean it will remove hacking just like in SC2, where maphacks almost don't exist and it took a long time for hackers to develop one? Oh wait, there were maphacks and trainers back in the 1st week of the beta. And maphacks, drophacks and even ai bots that play for you are still out there in the open, and there's nothing Blizzard can do about it, cause their Warden system is so limited that it's easy to update a hack to be detectable-proof.
Get your facts straight before spilling stuff like this out in the open. Online-only mode is there for only 1 reason, and only blind fanboys don't see it. I for one will be able to play whether it's online or not, but lan parties will never be the same if server stability can be measured by SC2. Plus, I'm sure a couple of friends won't play it because they hate playing stuff with 200 ms ping due to bad servers.
The GSL has been delayed more than once because Blizz screwed up server maintenance, and that's a "certified" tournament, happening WITH Blizzard's support, with a sh*tload of money as the prize, and they still managed to screw up.
The entire point is that the 'large portion' of the playerbase you mentioned is actually not that large, or they wouldn't be doing it. Even if Blizzard was acting out of an infinitely hungry engine of pure greed, it's 100% entirely in their best interest to satisfy and entice as many players as possible to buy and play the game. They'd never alienate a 'large portion' of the playerbase because that would lose them money.
I got to this point and stopped. Sorry.
Look at WoW. Buying WoW is a small purchase vs the monthly payments. The same goes with Diablo 3 and the RMAH. Why spend the resources to ship D3 to the Philipines when they won't be able to use the RMAH. The money Activision-Blizzard can get out of America, England, Japan, etc, is huge compared to the money from places like the Philippines with their one time purhcase. It completely is a money oriented move. I'm not calling Activision-Blizzard greedy money hungry whores, just saying that they are putting money ahead of customer satisfaction.
And yes, I know, occasionally you can post something for free on the RMAH. The other two charges, I don't know if they will drop, but hey, you can post it for free at least.
Comparing the prevalence of hacking in Diablo 2 to Starcraft 2 is like saying yeah, that guy that cut you off in traffic this morning during rush hour was as much an asshole as Pol Pot.
Comparing the prevalence of hacking in Diablo 2 to Starcraft 2 is like saying yeah, that guy that cut you off in traffic this morning during rush hour was as much an asshole as Pol Pot.
Mark this conversation. We'll talk again in about 4-5 months when the game is released and people develop maphacks in 1 week. Then I'll gladly come back here and write something as simple as a smile =
I'm not comparing the prevalence of hacking in D2 and SC2, I'm saying they "stated SC2 would be HACK FREE because it's online ALL the time and EVERYTHING's server handled" and still hacks were developed as soon as beta began.
I urge you to think a little before what people write before posting. When you can't even understand something as simple and as concise as my first post, there's something wrong with your "mindset".
Comparing the prevalence of hacking in Diablo 2 to Starcraft 2 is like saying yeah, that guy that cut you off in traffic this morning during rush hour was as much an asshole as Pol Pot.
Mark this conversation. We'll talk again in about 4-5 months when the game is released and people develop maphacks in 1 week. Then I'll gladly come back here and write something as simple as a smile =
I'm not comparing the prevalence of hacking in D2 and SC2, I'm saying they "stated SC2 would be HACK FREE because it's online ALL the time and EVERYTHING's server handled" and still hacks were developed as soon as beta began.
I urge you to think a little before what people write before posting. When you can't even understand something as simple and as concise as my first post, there's something wrong with your "mindset".
Since you're confident in your own 'mindset', why don't you politely and promptly show me the exact post / interview / etc. where Blizzard ever stated SC2 would be completely hack free. Let me offer you the civility of saving you the googling time -- they never did, not once, not ever. They've not said it about D3, either. What they've said is that the client/server structure will help to severely limit any hacking/duping attempts, and there's no reason not to believe that. There are hacks making the SC2 rounds but they've been very minimal, and stating otherwise is a self-serving fabrication.
Mark the thread all you want; if ever hacks of any variety strike D3, they'll never, ever be on the scale we've seen in D2--nothing even remotely close, and the online-only component will be a large part of that, and a welcome addition for that very reason.
Saying that Blizzard is just toting fighting hacks as a way to make money is absolutely ridiculous. By having online only you are able to monitor the behavior of your players and watch for things that show that said person is hacking. Does it mean you will get rid of all hacks, hell no. Does it mean people won't figure out how to hack a few weeks to a month after release (or hell during beta), no. What it does mean is that people who consistently use hacks, bots, etc will be more consistently banned.
As for letting people play offline, its not only about DRM. Blizzard's focus right now is essentially building a instance-based MMO architecture that will allow for more security for their players. If there were to spend time to offer an offline mode, they would have to redevelop their architecture a second time so that it could be incorporated into the client and run effectively. This would take time and money (it wouldn't be a trivial task at this juncture). In addition, every content update, patch, etc would have to be reconfigured for the single player. Instead, its more cost effective and beneficial to the majority of their players if they drop offline support, focus their money and time on online, and be able to offer more at a better pace.
Now that isn't the only way the game could have been developed. They could have built the engine in such a way that creating a single player would be trivial. However, from the impression I've gotten from the interviews it isn't the case. The entire system is tied into Battle.Net. Par from having single player run a copy of Battle.Net (which would be a huge security issue), it wouldn't be cost effective to do single player.
So, in the end you'll have to accept that offline is likely non-existent. If it were to be made, I'll be rather surprised and actually a bit disappointed that they wasted the development time for a feature that most of their player base will not use frequently. Yeah, that is a little cold, but I would rather see more and more content for the majority over the time used to replicate the existing features for offline.
Saying that Blizzard is just toting fighting hacks as a way to make money is absolutely ridiculous.
True. Now, saying Activision-Blizzard is saying it's to fight hacks but could probably care less and is only worried about the money is far more plausable. (Remember, Activision-Blizzard is a company, and what's the number one rule for a company? That's right kiddo, it's to make money.)
Does it mean you will get rid of all hacks, hell no. Does it mean people won't figure out how to hack a few weeks to a month after release (or hell during beta), no. Does that mean that people who consistently use hacks, bots, etc will be more consistently banned? No.
I fixed that for you. Expect to see the same evolution in Diablo 3 as you saw in Diablo 2 as far as bots and hacks are concerned, though faster now that people are more savvy with computers nowadays.
As for letting people play offline, its not only about DRM. Blizzard's focus right now is essentially building a instance-based MMO architecture that will allow for more security for their players. If there were to spend time to offer an offline mode, they would have to redevelop their architecture a second time so that it could be incorporated into the client and run effectively. This would take time and money (it wouldn't be a trivial task at this juncture). In addition, every content update, patch, etc would have to be reconfigured for the single player. Instead, its more cost effective and beneficial to the majority of their players if they drop offline support, focus their money and time on online, and be able to offer more at a better pace.
Why would they have to "redevelop the architecture"? You put the data on the disk and you tweek a few lines so that in Offline mode, it access the data from the disk instead of from the server. I don't understand the idea that it's going to be soooo difficult.
So, in the end you'll have to accept that offline is likely non-existent. If it were to be made, I'll be rather surprised and actually a bit disappointed that they wasted the development time for a feature that most of their player base will not use frequently. Yeah, that is a little cold, but I would rather see more and more content for the majority over the time used to replicate the existing features for offline.
Disappointed that they wasted 10 to 20 minutes of the development time of an intern at best? Yea, that is a little cold that you are disappointed that they put 10-20 minutes of time of an intern over the value of a paying customer.
And if Activision-Blizzard is reading this, I'll personally volunteer 20 minutes of my time to do that for you. Free.
@LinkX: No offense but do you actually understand about server/client architecture? There is quite a bit of difference in developing a server system that runs as a process in a server cluster and writing a single player gameplay engine. It isn't as simple as giving the client the data and it magically works. From the sound of it, their engine is tied into Battle.Net and unlike SC2, the client is mostly a dummy terminal for passing input and displaying graphics. Similar to say how WoW works in a sense.
So, no...they cannot just slap the assets there and BLAMO, offline mode. It would require a sizable amount of time at this point to develop and maintain a secondary development chain for offline mode. The amount of money they would make from those that NEED an offline only mode would most likely NOT cover the costs either. So as you said, they are a company. As its not likely in their best interest to develop a offline mode financially, it won't likely happen.
As for watching the online component of Diablo 2 and getting rid of cheaters that way...You do realize the fundamental difference in banning a Battle.Net account now and banning one back in D2 right? Now days, all of your Blizzard games are tied to your account. If you were to use hacks and get caught it could mean losing WoW, SC2, WC3, D3, etc.. That can be a rather large deterrent to the average player. In addition, now if you get banned you are forced to buy a new copy of the game and get a new account. If Blizzard does even a decent job, it will drastically reduce the number of hacks used regularly. Back in D2 you could just use a new account and walla hack away. Now there is a decent loss for doing so. Sure, if ya manage to make a ton of money via botting or something you may not feel that the loss is that great. However, since Blizzard is working with the third-party that'll be handling getting money out of D3, I am relatively sure you could actually have your account there revoked as well.
@LinkX: This is the last reply to your posts I'm going to give on this thread. You keep twisting my posts trying to divine a meaning that suites your objective. I would appreciate you no longer replying to my posts as well.
Now, the reality is this...the client/server design used by Blizzard is likely that of a advanced dummy terminal taking orders from a server. With this design, there would only be two ways that Blizzard would be able to offer offline support.
1) Redevelop the system for AI, drops, events, etc within a architecture for offline mode specifically. This route requires a rather large amount of additional development time. It would also require additional development time every time a patch was made. The additional costs in time and money for implementing it this way would out weigh the amount of additional games sold to those that require offline only.
2) Install a striped down Battle.Net on the client's computer that acts as a server for local host only. This route would be the fastest to implement and could likely be done with the least amount of additional development time/money. However there is a very inherent risk to Blizzard security if they were to do this as it would give hackers access to the security measures used as part of Battle.Net directly. As such this is the LEAST likely option to actually be implemented.
If you consider both options seriously, neither would be worth implementing when you consider that the majority of their player base can just play online. In fact, all they would really be doing is giving people a means to play the game for free (via cracking offline) or decreasing their security by sharing their server engine.
Why spend the time and effort to implement either when it could instead be used to add additional content for the majority of their players? I mean, heck.. all of you posting in this thread seem to have access to the internet in some form. Not having offline mode should not impact your ability to play much at all (in before limited net time, etc).
Actually you can. You simply remove the bots
Well then if they are going to miss out on the content, why not let them have the game in the first place and let them play in peace? I still stand by the idea that Activision-Blizzard is just using this as DRM and as a way to get even richer, and just use hacks and bots as an excuse.
I wish deeply that Diablo 3 was being made by Runic Games. Then the people that made Diablo 1 and 2 would make Diablo 3 as well.
It may of just been the way NullerGnuen said it that pissed me off. It was cruel and insensitive.
And I also disagree. While Activision-Blizzard is going to an Online Only stance, there are many modern games that are both on and offline. Alienating a portion of gamers doesn't sit right with a large, large portion of the gaming company community. I don't know why it does with Activision-Blizzard.
Like I said, I just went to Alternativeto.net. (Sorry, I said Alternativet.com first, it's actually .net. My bad.) I am not a big ARPG fan. I played D2 and Torchlight, and will play Torchlight 2 when it comes out. That's about it really. I usually stick with RTS games like AoE, shooter games like Bulletstorm, console games like Assassins Creed and Legend of Zelda, and mmo games like Rift and WoW. Sorry. *Shrugs shoulders*
Quoted
For
Truth
I got to this point and stopped. Sorry.
Look at WoW. Buying WoW is a small purchase vs the monthly payments. The same goes with Diablo 3 and the RMAH. Why spend the resources to ship D3 to the Philipines when they won't be able to use the RMAH. The money Activision-Blizzard can get out of America, England, Japan, etc, is huge compared to the money from places like the Philippines with their one time purhcase. It completely is a money oriented move. I'm not calling Activision-Blizzard greedy money hungry whores, just saying that they are putting money ahead of customer satisfaction.
And yes, I know, occasionally you can post something for free on the RMAH. The other two charges, I don't know if they will drop, but hey, you can post it for free at least.
I'm not comparing the prevalence of hacking in D2 and SC2, I'm saying they "stated SC2 would be HACK FREE because it's online ALL the time and EVERYTHING's server handled" and still hacks were developed as soon as beta began.
I urge you to think a little before what people write before posting. When you can't even understand something as simple and as concise as my first post, there's something wrong with your "mindset".
Since you're confident in your own 'mindset', why don't you politely and promptly show me the exact post / interview / etc. where Blizzard ever stated SC2 would be completely hack free. Let me offer you the civility of saving you the googling time -- they never did, not once, not ever. They've not said it about D3, either. What they've said is that the client/server structure will help to severely limit any hacking/duping attempts, and there's no reason not to believe that. There are hacks making the SC2 rounds but they've been very minimal, and stating otherwise is a self-serving fabrication.
Mark the thread all you want; if ever hacks of any variety strike D3, they'll never, ever be on the scale we've seen in D2--nothing even remotely close, and the online-only component will be a large part of that, and a welcome addition for that very reason.
As for letting people play offline, its not only about DRM. Blizzard's focus right now is essentially building a instance-based MMO architecture that will allow for more security for their players. If there were to spend time to offer an offline mode, they would have to redevelop their architecture a second time so that it could be incorporated into the client and run effectively. This would take time and money (it wouldn't be a trivial task at this juncture). In addition, every content update, patch, etc would have to be reconfigured for the single player. Instead, its more cost effective and beneficial to the majority of their players if they drop offline support, focus their money and time on online, and be able to offer more at a better pace.
Now that isn't the only way the game could have been developed. They could have built the engine in such a way that creating a single player would be trivial. However, from the impression I've gotten from the interviews it isn't the case. The entire system is tied into Battle.Net. Par from having single player run a copy of Battle.Net (which would be a huge security issue), it wouldn't be cost effective to do single player.
So, in the end you'll have to accept that offline is likely non-existent. If it were to be made, I'll be rather surprised and actually a bit disappointed that they wasted the development time for a feature that most of their player base will not use frequently. Yeah, that is a little cold, but I would rather see more and more content for the majority over the time used to replicate the existing features for offline.
True. Now, saying Activision-Blizzard is saying it's to fight hacks but could probably care less and is only worried about the money is far more plausable. (Remember, Activision-Blizzard is a company, and what's the number one rule for a company? That's right kiddo, it's to make money.)
And by watching the online component of Diablo 2, they could get 90% of the bots out of Diablo 2 as well. So what's the point?
I fixed that for you. Expect to see the same evolution in Diablo 3 as you saw in Diablo 2 as far as bots and hacks are concerned, though faster now that people are more savvy with computers nowadays.
Why would they have to "redevelop the architecture"? You put the data on the disk and you tweek a few lines so that in Offline mode, it access the data from the disk instead of from the server. I don't understand the idea that it's going to be soooo difficult.
Disappointed that they wasted 10 to 20 minutes of the development time of an intern at best? Yea, that is a little cold that you are disappointed that they put 10-20 minutes of time of an intern over the value of a paying customer.
And if Activision-Blizzard is reading this, I'll personally volunteer 20 minutes of my time to do that for you. Free.
There, no more excuse.
So, no...they cannot just slap the assets there and BLAMO, offline mode. It would require a sizable amount of time at this point to develop and maintain a secondary development chain for offline mode. The amount of money they would make from those that NEED an offline only mode would most likely NOT cover the costs either. So as you said, they are a company. As its not likely in their best interest to develop a offline mode financially, it won't likely happen.
As for watching the online component of Diablo 2 and getting rid of cheaters that way...You do realize the fundamental difference in banning a Battle.Net account now and banning one back in D2 right? Now days, all of your Blizzard games are tied to your account. If you were to use hacks and get caught it could mean losing WoW, SC2, WC3, D3, etc.. That can be a rather large deterrent to the average player. In addition, now if you get banned you are forced to buy a new copy of the game and get a new account. If Blizzard does even a decent job, it will drastically reduce the number of hacks used regularly. Back in D2 you could just use a new account and walla hack away. Now there is a decent loss for doing so. Sure, if ya manage to make a ton of money via botting or something you may not feel that the loss is that great. However, since Blizzard is working with the third-party that'll be handling getting money out of D3, I am relatively sure you could actually have your account there revoked as well.
But hey, if people are going to do it anyway, might as well make it official. That IS Blizzard's new credo, right?
Now, the reality is this...the client/server design used by Blizzard is likely that of a advanced dummy terminal taking orders from a server. With this design, there would only be two ways that Blizzard would be able to offer offline support.
1) Redevelop the system for AI, drops, events, etc within a architecture for offline mode specifically. This route requires a rather large amount of additional development time. It would also require additional development time every time a patch was made. The additional costs in time and money for implementing it this way would out weigh the amount of additional games sold to those that require offline only.
2) Install a striped down Battle.Net on the client's computer that acts as a server for local host only. This route would be the fastest to implement and could likely be done with the least amount of additional development time/money. However there is a very inherent risk to Blizzard security if they were to do this as it would give hackers access to the security measures used as part of Battle.Net directly. As such this is the LEAST likely option to actually be implemented.
If you consider both options seriously, neither would be worth implementing when you consider that the majority of their player base can just play online. In fact, all they would really be doing is giving people a means to play the game for free (via cracking offline) or decreasing their security by sharing their server engine.
Why spend the time and effort to implement either when it could instead be used to add additional content for the majority of their players? I mean, heck.. all of you posting in this thread seem to have access to the internet in some form. Not having offline mode should not impact your ability to play much at all (in before limited net time, etc).