Poll:How many of you are with the "always online" policy for D3 and how many against?

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Yea, Blizzard has such a terrible track record supporting their legacy products after all. I wish I could still play Diablo and Diablo 2 and Starcraft and Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft online.

They're also just greedy profiteers. I mean they churn out a new Diablo game every, what, decade? What a bunch of assholes, clearly all they care about is money, just capitalizing on the Diablo name once every ten years.

Hint : those titles (with the exception of WoW) don't require you to be always online to play

 

[thespyder]

I think the point of his post was that you don't have to worry about Blizzard abandoning anyone, especially since they still keep the bnet servers running for d1 and d2 multiplayer after so many years. They even put out patches for D2 still.

A meteorite would have to hit a number of server farms around the world for it to cease.

I do understand what you are saying though, D3 is the first one to have a server only requirement, and if Blizz ever decided to pull the plug, it would essentially stop anyone from playing the game again. I wonder if it would be possible to allow a patch that would make it single player. I doubt it since most of the npc ai is done on the server side.

My point was that Diablo 3 is a game changer as far as this topic is concerned. Blizzard now has control on a level that they never have had before in the longevity of a product, and considering that there is a monetary outlay component to the game (maintaining servers), which exceeds anything except WoW (which has a pay for time fee structure), it wouldn't surprise me if they run the servers as a business. If no more money is coming in, why continue to shell out to maintain them?

And the meteorite would only have to hit corporate headquarters. without a company, the server farms are not going to continue to run.

As far as a patch, I think that would be awesome. But highly improbable. Unless they anticipated such a thing during the design phase with the intent to roll it out at some point down the line, they are unlikely to invest yet more capital when profits are dwindling due to lack of sales and in the face of continuing outlay of capital to maintain server farms.

Plus, Activision is now in charge and they are much more likely to realize that if they pull the plug on D3 long about the time D4 comes out that they can increase their sales.

But it is only speculation. And hopefully I am wrong. Or maybe by that time I won't care. Just saying that the Always online is the wave of the future for companies like EA and Activision. And they are more about running it like a business even to the detriment of the consumers.

 

[Aikouka]

A company that shows it has no problem being cutthroat with it's own employees just to make a buck.

What employees are you talking about... Blizzard North?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_North

However on June 30, 2003, several key employees left Blizzard North to form the new companies Flagship Studios (8 moved here including Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, David Brevik and Bill Roper) and Castaway Entertainment (9 moved here).[citation needed] The Blizzard North exodus continued on with around 30 employees leaving the company in total.
The resignations were partly due to a conflict with Blizzard Entertainment's owner, Vivendi, and partly due to employees wishing to start something new. Back at Blizzard North, however, they would have a common effect; of the two unannounced games that were in production at the time, one was now forced to be canceled. Blizzard Entertainment has since said the canceled game was a "Blizzard North kind of game."

 

[thespyder]

there was another article which detailed the specifics behind the "Conflict with Blizzard Entertainment's Owner". Basically what it boiled down to was Vivendi wanted Diablo 3 to go in a certain direction which was contrary to what Blizzard North wanted. Several key members left, followed by a whole slew of the rest of the staff. The writing on the wall is Vivendi wanted something that the development staff felt was contrary to the spirit of the game and didn't take no for an answer. "My way or the highway" type thing.

 

[Aikouka]

there was another article which detailed the specifics behind the "Conflict with Blizzard Entertainment's Owner". Basically what it boiled down to was Vivendi wanted Diablo 3 to go in a certain direction which was contrary to what Blizzard North wanted. Several key members left, followed by a whole slew of the rest of the staff. The writing on the wall is Vivendi wanted something that the development staff felt was contrary to the spirit of the game and didn't take no for an answer. "My way or the highway" type thing.

Vivendi may have had control over Blizzard (after purchasing Sierra), but Vivendi != Blizzard. Although, it is odd since Blizzard typically has a lot of autonomy for a dependent game company. Blizzard North must have had the name but not the privileges as its "owner."

 

[thespyder]

Vivendi may have had control over Blizzard (after purchasing Sierra), but Vivendi != Blizzard. Although, it is odd since Blizzard typically has a lot of autonomy for a dependent game company. Blizzard North must have had the name but not the privileges as its "owner."

So either way, Blizzard is a company and is manifestly not above being cutthroat where profit is concerned, even to it's employees. And now with Activision involved in the scheme of things, even more so. The other poster's assertion that Blizzard has always been a fuzzy bunny towards it's consumers is not an accurate portrayal even as far back as 2003. And definitely not today.

Again, I hope I am wrong. But "IF" it were a company like EA, I feel sure that they would act as I predict and cut the cord as soon as they weren't turning a solid profit. and if there was the merest hint that someone else might be making money off of their "Intellectual property" they would be twice as quick.

Now Blizzard isn't EA, but Activision is just about as bad. So I think my predictions are at least worth considering as a possibility.

 

[zinfamous]

Always-online would have been better if they had done it Guild Wars style.
32 hours of downtime in 8 years. D3 achieved this number.... in a week?

it is nice. you can always keep playing when a patch becomes available. You get a notice to log out and reload, if you want the patch, ...or not. The first time I remember any downtime, at all in GW, was about 2 or 3 months ago. Some bizarre thing happened with their servers for about 2 hour some morning.

 

[shortylickens]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-know-nintendo-has-lost-its-mind/

This guy is a little behind. Or maybe he took his sweet time writing the article.

 

[gothamhunter]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-know-nintendo-has-lost-its-mind/

This guy is a little behind. Or maybe he took his sweet time writing the article.

And...what does this have to do with the thread?

 

[shortylickens]

And...what does this have to do with the thread?

Its been going on in the PC gaming community for a LONG time and in the console community for a little while.

 

[gothamhunter]

Its been going on in the PC gaming community for a LONG time and in the console community for a little while.

What...you mean the Nintendo consoles sucking?

 

[darkewaffle]

Hint : those titles (with the exception of WoW) don't require you to be always online to play

And? If anything that would only give further reason to pull the plug on their legacy titles, after all you can just play them without battle.net right? But they haven't. They've kept all of them available, most of them up for over a decade now, not generating a dime with the sole exception of WoW.

Speculating about meteorites and Blizzard shutting down the fastest selling game in PC history not even a month after a release is nothing more than stupid.

If the game is offline and local only, you don't actually worry about a meteorite hitting your house, do you?

 

[thespyder]

And? If anything that would only give further reason to pull the plug on their legacy titles, after all you can just play them without battle.net right? But they haven't. They've kept all of them available, most of them up for over a decade now, not generating a dime with the sole exception of WoW.

Speculating about meteorites and Blizzard shutting down the fastest selling game in PC history not even a month after a release is nothing more than stupid.

If the game is offline and local only, you don't actually worry about a meteorite hitting your house, do you?

And how exactly do you expect Blizzard to pull the plug on games that do not require signing into their server? Would they send someone around door to door? "Do you currently own a copy of any of these games? Please cease and desist playing them at once. Thank you for your time." If you read my original post, I said that "Now blizzard has unprecedented control" (or words to that effect) meaning that they actually have the ability to put a hard stop on anyone playing Diablo 3 without lifting more than a single finger. Doing that for any of the previous games would be next to impossible, or at least hideously expensive and far beyond it's worth (except WoW). Not to mention the fact that it has no value. These games are not a "Required" drain on the resources of the company. They can stop supporting at any time with no impact to the consumers. so it doesn't cost them any money. why piss off the consumer base for no profit gain or financial mitigation?

In short, if battlenet stopped hosting diablo 1/2 games tonight, people would and could continue to play both single player and multi player for the next decade.

And for those of us who aren't at least average intelligence, the 'Meteorite' is a metaphor for some catastrophic unforeseen event happening to the company. Even a company with a hit like Diablo is still subject to events beyond the normal predictive scope. So, someone buys out the company. The board decides to get out of the gaming industry. The code of Diablo actually has a hidden worm in it that eats hard drives. A zombie apocalypse. Paris Hilton decides to endorse Blizzard entertainment games. That type of thing.

If a meteorite were to strike my house, i think that I would have much bigger worries than if I could still play Diablo 2. Like did my laptop (where Diablo 3 is installed) survive. And is my Wifi network still up and running. And if it struck your house, I think we would all cry because we would no longer be entertained by your "Unique" perspectives on life.

 

[railven]

Finally got a good session last night with my best friend (who loved Diablo 3) since we've both been busy with personal junk.

He seems to love it. I'm still enjoying the game deeply (never knew clicking could be so much fun) and then tossing him into the fray and he's filling me in on the lore (guess they kept most of it?) it's making the game more enjoyable.

Hopefully Blizzard can think of a solution to satisfy the online requirement complaints, because this is another wise great game.

I might install D2 on my laptop since it doesn't require an online connection and back play some of the story.