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

[I4AT]

Needs additional polls, at least one for I'm against the always online requirement and did/didn't buy the game. I'm willing to bet 90% of the people who are against it bought it anyways.

 

[sigurros81]

Needs additional polls, at least one for I'm against the always online requirement and did/didn't buy the game. I'm willing to bet 90% of the people who are against it bought it anyways.

Yeah, that'd be me, lol.

 

[gorcorps]

Needs additional polls, at least one for I'm against the always online requirement and did/didn't buy the game. I'm willing to bet 90% of the people who are against it bought it anyways.

I held off due to not liking the beta and not liking the jittery gameplay I was getting on single player due to being online. I was thinking it was going to be tough to stick to my guns and not give them my money, but with all of the outcry it's been quite easy to ignore the game entirely.

 

[Ausm]

I am perfectly OK with the always on connection.

What's the big deal.

My internet drops maybe twice a year.

If their servers go down, that's alright too, since I can go do something else for a whole day, OMG.. a whole day without diablo.. think of the possibilities, maybe one can even be productive.. LOL

^^

 

[crownjules]

I bought it and not a fuck was given about always on DRM. 45+ hours later and I think I've easily got my money's worth out of it and I'm still wanting more.

 

[DrunkenSano]

I bought it and not a fuck was given about always on DRM. 45+ hours later and I think I've easily got my money's worth out of it and I'm still wanting more.

Same here, I didn't care about it being always online. It was the same with WoW and I've bought other games just to play Multiplayer like MW3, BF3, etc. Game has almost always been on when I want to play, no complaints at all and when they have to go down for service and patches, easily understandable.

 

[Aikouka]

I don't really care either way. Yeah, it's caused a few problems, but the majority of them were during the first day or two. I've experienced very little jitter that most people talk about. The only reliable way to reproduce this effect that I've come across is to attempt to move immediately after resuming the game (i.e. leaving the system menu or the achievement window).

I think that people should care more about certain aspects of the game being so poorly fleshed out. The auction house is a pretty poor implementation, which is really surprising given the World of Warcraft auction house is fairly decent. I'm not even referring to any of the weird reaction times, but the lack of features.

I voted offline,bad enough with "server busy try later" when I want to play the game in single player mode.

We haven't seen such errors since the game came out?

 

[Stuka87]

I should have to connect only if I'm playing with others or for the Auction House. The fact I need to be connected the whole time I'm playing it is retarded.

There is no way they could do this. It would be way to easy to hack your single player char, and then go sell items on the AH. And playing offline and then going online also opens the door for hacking.

Even in D2 you were either offline, or online. Well, you could "play" an offline character online (non-ladder), but it nothing but pure hacking because it was all offline chars.

 

[thespyder]

So 100% against. But it is a blown question.

In the first place, no matter how many people come out against it, Blizzard isn't going to change. it would require re-architecting the game and they simply aren't going to put that much time, effort and money into it.

In the second place, those who are 'For' it would appear to have zero regard for those who are against it. If you are for it, that means you haven't been inconvenienced (enough to complain). If you are against it, chances are, you have encountered some of the down side. Therefore, If you are for it, (by default) you are insensitive to those who are against it because "It didn't bother me that much." And anyone who is against it is 'wrong' for the same reason.

Asking the question here probably isn't the best 'forum'. generally the people who have the most issue with it are the more technical minded of gamers. Specifically, those who might frequent forums like this. So you have a tainted sample.

And finally, I am very concerned with D3 being such a blockbuster. By and large, the big gaming companies are going to say 'D3 was a success' and 'Always online didn't bother anyone (at least not enough to impact our bottom line.' They picked the right game to 'Test' it on. The fan base is rabid enough that they were going to buy into it no matter what they did. So they can put it down as a win, even if it is a horrible idea. If it had been 'tested' against a smaller game, the approbation might have sunk it. As it stands, even if 'Most' players were against it, very few are going to 'Vote with their wallets (and I applaud you if you did)'. It will be seen as a success, which is just all kinds of wrong.

 

[I4AT]

There is no way they could do this. It would be way to easy to hack your single player char, and then go sell items on the AH. And playing offline and then going online also opens the door for hacking.

Even in D2 you were either offline, or online. Well, you could "play" an offline character online (non-ladder), but it nothing but pure hacking because it was all offline chars.

Who gives a shit if people are cheating in open realms? It doesn't affect the economy of the closed realms, and you don't have to join public games with cheaters. You can make private games to play with friends, and continue your progress alone offline. Why would anyone not want more options?

 

[AMDZen]

There is no way they could do this. It would be way to easy to hack your single player char, and then go sell items on the AH. And playing offline and then going online also opens the door for hacking.

Even in D2 you were either offline, or online. Well, you could "play" an offline character online (non-ladder), but it nothing but pure hacking because it was all offline chars.

And that means what to me? I couldn't possibly care less about all that. I get it with the RMAH but that was also a terrible idea and I couldn't possibly care less about that either, or with Blizz making more millions off of it.

Why do I care if other players hack? Its a single player game for me, and its not PvP so what does it matter? They hack every game and will figure out how to do it in this one too. Bots are already prevalent. Do you care that all those people have that unfair advantage and thus far I have yet to see a "warden ban" from them using it? Because if you do you better get used to it.

Oh wait, they do hack this game - they go in and steal all the equipment from people and sell it all for themselves, selling it at the AH or on the black market for real money - and in the future at the RMAH. Leaving that player to "backup" through Blizzard where apparently you only get 2 lifetime resets. And even then it could be a week or more old leaving your character where it was at that time.

Huge success this whole online only thing has been from stopping hackers

 

[gothamhunter]

You buy it ... you own the right to use it. You shouldn't need to be online to use it. Also, the lack of a single player capability pretty much guarantees that I will never purchase it.

Except you didn't buy it, you're licensing it, and you own nothing.

 

[Arsinek]

there needs to be a 3rd option for "dont care either way"

 

[waggy]

I hate always on DRM. but i didn't pay for D3 so i don't have cause to bitch.

 

[gothamhunter]

I guess I just don't get it. Guild Wars could essentially have been a single player game but no one bitched about that.

PC Gamers are becoming such whiners, no wonder everyone hates us.

 

[railven]

PC Gamers are becoming such whiners, no wonder everyone hates us.

That made me LOL, and I'd apply that to society as a whole, but back to the topic:

I'm all for this always on requirement - the more things I have to log in, the better! /sarcasm

As a gamer of course I don't like to have to validate my copy or whatever other DRM hoops I have to jump in only because that rare moment where I lose internet connection I can't play my game.

However, in some situations (such as this one) I can understand their need to do it. I remember my little time playing Diablo 2 my friend who played the crap out of it was showing me how easy it was to dupe stuff and geared me out before I even really started to play.

I also saw duping ruin PSO (which had an offline and online mode) and basically made anything worth earning (ie completing hard requirements or boss fights) pointless since you could farm money easier and thus buy a duped copy.

The server down time I got no issues with if it is forecasted (which it is) but the random server down times annoy me - and just that, annoy me. Just like I get annoyed when Comcast decides to reset my block for an hour because some bird got tangled up in the wires or some drunk hit a post.

So I don't know if I should be bitching at Comcast or the bird/drunk or the publishers at that point.

EDIT: I just want to point out that I ran into a bug on Steam that required me to Go Online to switch to Offline mode which essentially made ALL my games on Steam inaccessible (again Comcast flipped the switch on me). That bugged me more than any thing else and yet I still support Steam and their services.

 

[Martimus]

I didn't buy the game because of it.

 

[Aikouka]

In the second place, those who are 'For' it would appear to have zero regard for those who are against it. If you are for it, that means you haven't been inconvenienced (enough to complain). If you are against it, chances are, you have encountered some of the down side. Therefore, If you are for it, (by default) you are insensitive to those who are against it because "It didn't bother me that much." And anyone who is against it is 'wrong' for the same reason.

So, you try and pull the "victim card" for all of the people that dislike it? That somehow they have been dolled a great injustice, and that us "pro-online" people have remained unscathed?

You take this to new and even more ludicrous heights by attempting to state that the "pro-online" are also now insensitive toward the "anti-online". Seriously!?

 

[DAGTA]

There is already cheating in Diablo 3 so that's no longer a valid reason for having an online-always closed system.

 

[railven]

So, you try and pull the "victim card" for all of the people that dislike it? That somehow they have been dolled a great injustice, and that us "pro-online" people have remained unscathed?

You take this to new and even more ludicrous heights by attempting to state that the "pro-online" are also now insensitive toward the "anti-online". Seriously!?

We're a breed of super users bro! I've had little issues with the always online portion probably because I'm not trying to play the game 24/7, but the times I did want to play the game I logged right in, played, and then left. Even on launch day.

I'm just that awesome, those anti - what a bunch of losers! /sarcasm

Basically where the post you quoted is taking this.

 

[biostud]

I would have no problem with it if the rule applied to Blizzard's servers as well :/

(The European servers seems to been far worse than the US servers)

 

[AMDZen]

However, in some situations (such as this one) I can understand their need to do it. I remember my little time playing Diablo 2 my friend who played the crap out of it was showing me how easy it was to dupe stuff and geared me out before I even really started to play.

I also saw duping ruin PSO (which had an offline and online mode) and basically made anything worth earning (ie completing hard requirements or boss fights) pointless since you could farm money easier and thus buy a duped copy.

So because you and countless others CHOSE to cheat and just use the dupe items in D2, thats reason that everyone should be forced into all this nonsense? You could have just as easily played D2 through and earned all of that equipment. That was a choice you made.

Maybe it did "ruin" the game for you but thats your own damn fault.

This is a stupid, retarded argument. Thats part of what makes PC gaming fun, you can cheat or hack or mod the shit out of everything, if you want. You play through it one time legitimately, and then you have fun with it. Mods in Oblivion will forever make that a much better game because you can do that. You can cheat too, but most people don't the first time through so it isn't ruined for them, but then they mess around with it after they've completed it.

It will become null and void one day any way when someone figures out how to emulate D3 servers, thus allowing people to connect to a hacked server, get some hacked items or something and then go back to the real servers to play.

This whole argument that it stops people from making their own decisions to dupe items is about as stupid an argument as one can make, so I can't wait to find out what they say when people figure out how to dupe items. Then they'll complain that only the hackers can dupe items?

LOL, so hilarious

 

[thespyder]

So, you try and pull the "victim card" for all of the people that dislike it? That somehow they have been dolled a great injustice, and that us "pro-online" people have remained unscathed?

You take this to new and even more ludicrous heights by attempting to state that the "pro-online" are also now insensitive toward the "anti-online". Seriously!?

The simple matter is, the stance about being against always online DRM doesn't impact "Pro online" users. AT ALL. What is being proposed has no impact on your ability to enjoy the game.

On the other hand, the stance that Always online is "Ok" does impact people, and has to come with a lack of regard for those people who are impacted. And to vote for a stance that impacts people when the opposite position does not impact people is a bit petty and selfish in my book.

 

[gothamhunter]

So because you and countless others CHOSE to cheat and just use the dupe items in D2, thats reason that everyone should be forced into all this nonsense? You could have just as easily played D2 through and earned all of that equipment. That was a choice you made.

Maybe it did "ruin" the game for you but thats your own damn fault.

This is a stupid, retarded argument. Thats part of what makes PC gaming fun, you can cheat or hack or mod the shit out of everything, if you want. You play through it one time legitimately, and then you have fun with it. Mods in Oblivion will forever make that a much better game because you can do that. You can cheat too, but most people don't the first time through so it isn't ruined for them, but then they mess around with it after they've completed it.

It will become null and void one day any way when someone figures out how to emulate D3 servers, thus allowing people to connect to a hacked server, get some hacked items or something and then go back to the real servers to play.

This whole argument that it stops people from making their own decisions to dupe items is about as stupid an argument as one can make, so I can't wait to find out what they say when people figure out how to dupe items. Then they'll complain that only the hackers can dupe items?

LOL, so hilarious

If your question is if they chose to make it always online to combat hacking items because countless people did it, then yes, that is a big reason why. The economy of the game needs to have ensured stability, and this is a way to achieve this.

Considering it's always online, the ability to hack the game has an increased difficulty, and what you're suggesting with emulating a server and hacking items and then going back to the real game is most likely impossible - if it were not, then WOW would have a similar issue, which it does not.

Yes, a big thing with PC gaming is the ability to alter your game as you see fit to mess around with it; however in doing so it should not affect the experience of other players - hence why it's allowed in games such as TES games and not in WOW/LOTRO/GW/etc...

 

[AMDZen]

If your question is if they chose to make it always online to combat hacking items because countless people did it, then yes, that is a big reason why. The economy of the game needs to have ensured stability, and this is a way to achieve this.

Considering it's always online, the ability to hack the game has an increased difficulty, and what you're suggesting with emulating a server and hacking items and then going back to the real game is most likely impossible - if it were not, then WOW would have a similar issue, which it does not.

Yes, a big thing with PC gaming is the ability to alter your game as you see fit to mess around with it; however in doing so it should not affect the experience of other players - hence why it's allowed in games such as TES games and not in WOW/LOTRO/GW/etc...

First off. I wasn't asking any questions, the argument that you guys are making as to why Blizz needed to put everything online is false and doesn't mean anything accept in regards to the RMAH. Thats why they chose to put everything online.

Comparing Diablo3 with WoW is your second problem. WoW is an MMORPG, Diablo is not - and D3 shouldn't be compared to other MMORPG's. I never, at any time have to pair up with anyone to get the most out of Diablo 3. I'm not paying a monthly fee. If either of those things were true, I wouldn't own D3 and I would never think twice about it.

Second, you have no idea what your talking about as WoW has had and will continue to have several hacks on things that people were able to exploit through out its life-cycle and Diablo 3 will as well.