I have played a lot of online games and have never once felt like my connection, or anyone else's, has been slowed down to accommodate the slowest player.
This is not to say that a game wont lag if a person with a really slow connection joins (IE you are playing Warcraft/Starcraft and the game pauses because a player is lagging). This type of lag is the game thinking it has lost the connection with the player so in an attempt to be fair for everyone it waits for said player.
The game isn't adding lag to the fastest players to bring them inline with the slowest player.
There really isn't a practical fix to lag issues when trying to play/access on servers that are physically far away from the player. If there was, do you honestly believe that we would still have different servers for different countries/continents (excluding the need for localized version for different languages)?
Lag is the delay in communication between a client and a server. A lot of this delay can come from the signal having to travel further/through more relays the further the client is from the server. This is why people experience more lag when trying to connect to a server that is physically further away from them, the signal just takes longer to travel.
You can't fix this problem buy building a bigger server. The only true way to fix it is build a direct connection between the server and the client (in other words directly from your computer to the B.NET server) and this is logistically impossible.
The only pseudo-fix to this would be to build a server in the middle of the ocean so that people from each continent would experience an equally high lag. This is also a logistically impossible scenario.
I want to see a "boss" fight that actually involves killing 3 "bosses" (not the prime or lesser evils necessarily) and a whole bunch of weaker adds. The key to making this fight would be the AI. The 3 bosses should have very different skill and abilities that compliment each other perfectly. Combine this with lots of movement, swarming minions that are designed to pretty much slow you down, and some decent positional mechanics and you have a real winner on your hands (in my opinion).
Just some ideas for the encounter/AI...
* If one of the bosses gets close to death have him try and "retreat" from the battle by having the other two move to block the character(s) and summon some extra swarm of monsters to slow down the character(s). If a boss does get far enough out of range he will start regening life.
* Various scripted events throughout the fight where the bosses try and get to certain positions (say runes on the floor) and if at least 2 get to their rune something bad happens (you certainly wouldn't want all 3 getting to their runes). To accomplish this the bosses spawn more swarms of enemies. There could be multiple (say 5) runes and each one would have a different effect. One, for example, could heal the bosses, another could spawn a swarm of tougher than normal minions, another could bring back a boss if one died, another deal large life/mana damage, and the last could spawn a super massive swarm of little monsters. The boss AI should be capable of determining the best rune combination to use given the state of the battle and possibly even how close they actually are to the runes (if they are already very close to a set there would be no point in going to another one that is further away, for example).
* To ensure this fight is soloable/not impossible the bosses should be able to be slowed or even stunned/knocked back/etc.
Basically the essence of this fight is taking down a set of enemies that uses a combination of some very smart AI with swarming mobs. Such a fight could be very challenging, although perhaps the most challenging aspect of the fight would be balancing it such that it is possible for a solo player, but still very challenging for a group. Perhaps the AI and abilities used could get smarter/stronger with more players instead of a standard increase in just life/damage.
Obviously such a fight holds many more possibilities than what I listed, just wanted to give a quick "off the top of my head" type response to thise thread.
Blizzard is releasing a Mac version of D3 at the same time as the PC version, I do not think Macs get DirectX (last I heard at least) so the game would have to be in OpenGL for the macs, which is the same API that is native to Linux. You may end up buying the Mac version of the game.
I guess you will have to wait until release is closer to get a more definitive answer.
Here are the 19 kinds of stupid that I talked about earlier:
1. MMO, they need a keyboard. A mouse is the easy way to navigate a menu
2. the more controllers, the more kinds of games can be made
3. Most old tried and true gametypes use the mouse and keyboard sollution
4. console owners would buy a mouse and keyboard priced at 50 bucks without thinking twice
5. the xbox-live would allow for finding friends to play with, by going to a chatroom. and typing for hundreds of people to see.
6. speed in choosing options for a game would increase.
7. user-made media, which has previously increased the sales and longevity of several games, would once again come to surface.
8. alot of gamers that simply cannot let go of their mouse, would find the transitions to consoles much easier, making their sales increase. Perhaps even giving them the lead.
9. a new move, instead of innovating the controllers, they would allow for an old one, rejuvinating it perhaps, developing it purley for games.
10. some of the biggest game-developers franchises use the mouse to such extent that they cannot be transported to a console without one.
11. tournaments using a console wold actually be taken seriously as a skill-test, and not luck test. I have not seen the amount of tactic we needed in CS in any online fps game for the 360
12. typing would stop those random games they irritates simply because someone is singing while playing. Cant shoot and type at the same time ya know.
13. game names and 24/7 games can be found by searching. Thus giving us the chance to search for a game where we know there are actuall gamers playing, instead of having to jump in and out of penis-joke-filled games.
14. The xbox could then become so much more than just a gaming platform. They could become the home-computer for ernest. Giving people the chance to go online like the internet was ment to be viewed. also kicking ps3s figmented grasp on internet-supremacy.
15. I really want a mouse when I play games
16. my opinion is the bomb
17. my opinion is your law
18. my opinion makes me spend more money
19. I wanna play diablo 3, but I lack a computer with the specs to do so.
Basically, you want to turn consoles into home PC's. You know, you could just turn a home PC into a home PC.
The only way a console will take supremacy from a PC is if the console basically turns into a PC (they are well on the way to doing that), and at that point the purpose of the console has been destroyed. You would be left with not much more than a low end PC that can't be upgraded.
By the way, to the best of my knowledge the Xbox 360 uses DirectX 9, it is basically an underpowered PC.
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This is not to say that a game wont lag if a person with a really slow connection joins (IE you are playing Warcraft/Starcraft and the game pauses because a player is lagging). This type of lag is the game thinking it has lost the connection with the player so in an attempt to be fair for everyone it waits for said player.
The game isn't adding lag to the fastest players to bring them inline with the slowest player.
There really isn't a practical fix to lag issues when trying to play/access on servers that are physically far away from the player. If there was, do you honestly believe that we would still have different servers for different countries/continents (excluding the need for localized version for different languages)?
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You can't fix this problem buy building a bigger server. The only true way to fix it is build a direct connection between the server and the client (in other words directly from your computer to the B.NET server) and this is logistically impossible.
The only pseudo-fix to this would be to build a server in the middle of the ocean so that people from each continent would experience an equally high lag. This is also a logistically impossible scenario.
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Just some ideas for the encounter/AI...
* If one of the bosses gets close to death have him try and "retreat" from the battle by having the other two move to block the character(s) and summon some extra swarm of monsters to slow down the character(s). If a boss does get far enough out of range he will start regening life.
* Various scripted events throughout the fight where the bosses try and get to certain positions (say runes on the floor) and if at least 2 get to their rune something bad happens (you certainly wouldn't want all 3 getting to their runes). To accomplish this the bosses spawn more swarms of enemies. There could be multiple (say 5) runes and each one would have a different effect. One, for example, could heal the bosses, another could spawn a swarm of tougher than normal minions, another could bring back a boss if one died, another deal large life/mana damage, and the last could spawn a super massive swarm of little monsters. The boss AI should be capable of determining the best rune combination to use given the state of the battle and possibly even how close they actually are to the runes (if they are already very close to a set there would be no point in going to another one that is further away, for example).
* To ensure this fight is soloable/not impossible the bosses should be able to be slowed or even stunned/knocked back/etc.
Basically the essence of this fight is taking down a set of enemies that uses a combination of some very smart AI with swarming mobs. Such a fight could be very challenging, although perhaps the most challenging aspect of the fight would be balancing it such that it is possible for a solo player, but still very challenging for a group. Perhaps the AI and abilities used could get smarter/stronger with more players instead of a standard increase in just life/damage.
Obviously such a fight holds many more possibilities than what I listed, just wanted to give a quick "off the top of my head" type response to thise thread.
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I guess you will have to wait until release is closer to get a more definitive answer.
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Basically, you want to turn consoles into home PC's. You know, you could just turn a home PC into a home PC.
The only way a console will take supremacy from a PC is if the console basically turns into a PC (they are well on the way to doing that), and at that point the purpose of the console has been destroyed. You would be left with not much more than a low end PC that can't be upgraded.
By the way, to the best of my knowledge the Xbox 360 uses DirectX 9, it is basically an underpowered PC.