The Warring States of NPF - View Single Post - Diablo 3 to have always online DRM, cash shop, no mods at all, and kills puppies.

Azisien · 08-01-2011, 09:32 AM

Quick, Internet, lose your minds about this rather predictable and not as horrifying as you think news!

Since Diablo 3 will probably be an important game in my life, I might as well weigh in on this news in detail though:

1) Always-On DRM is terrible and I struggled for a long time with loving StarCraft 2 but despising how they modelled Battle.net. However, that's just the thing. There's already a precedent set for this policy on Blizzard's online gaming service. How is anyone actually surprised by this? Really, how? The only reason could be that you were paying no attention beforehand.

However, I'll take the stance that I support with Always-On DRM: feel free to pirate the shit out of it to have an offline mode. I happen to know a very small handful of people trapped in the mid-20th century with no Internet access, and I support those people's privilege to play Diablo 3. For me, I intend to spend 95%+ of my time playing multiplayer, so I'll be needing that stable internet connection anwyay.

2) Uh, of course Blizzard isn't supporting bots or mods. First is obvious, second is semantics. Most cooperative/competitive online game developers don't support rampant cheating. Bots have completely, utterly, without possibility of repair ruined Diablo 2. My stance for my sequel would be militant too. As for mods, they're taking about player-side mods I think, not a modding community. You know, map hacks, illegal macros, whatever else people can come up with to make them innately better at the game without a measure of skill. I mean, they probably aren't supporting a game editor like they do for StarCraft 2, and that is a shame, but hardly horrifying news.

Dudes, check out this sweet new "aiming" mod I installed for Call of Duty. My KD ratio is SOOOOOO great now!

3) This is an interesting experiment, if anything. First of all, pretty sure it's been twisted by the media from "may buy with real currency" to "must buy with real currency." The Blizzard explanation sounds like people that WANT to pay real money to twink their characters CAN, but you could always just earn your gear like most people will. For me, I could see myself buying that last piece of Tal Rasha set, instead of running Baal 200 more times and PRAYING that 0.01% item drops.

Really, this is Blizzard accepting the inevitable. They are not really "letting us" buy gear with real money. The Diablo 3 community would set that up with or without Blizzard's consent. This seems similar to legalizing marijuana, instead of trying to combat its sale. It's gonna happen, the question is, how hard are the people in charge going to try and senselessly fight it? I'm curious to see how this pans out.

08-01-2011, 09:32 AM	#5
Azisien wat Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,177	Quick, Internet, lose your minds about this rather predictable and not as horrifying as you think news! Since Diablo 3 will probably be an important game in my life, I might as well weigh in on this news in detail though: 1) Always-On DRM is terrible and I struggled for a long time with loving StarCraft 2 but despising how they modelled Battle.net. However, that's just the thing. There's already a precedent set for this policy on Blizzard's online gaming service. How is anyone actually surprised by this? Really, how? The only reason could be that you were paying no attention beforehand. However, I'll take the stance that I support with Always-On DRM: feel free to pirate the shit out of it to have an offline mode. I happen to know a very small handful of people trapped in the mid-20th century with no Internet access, and I support those people's privilege to play Diablo 3. For me, I intend to spend 95%+ of my time playing multiplayer, so I'll be needing that stable internet connection anwyay. 2) Uh, of course Blizzard isn't supporting bots or mods. First is obvious, second is semantics. Most cooperative/competitive online game developers don't support rampant cheating. Bots have completely, utterly, without possibility of repair ruined Diablo 2. My stance for my sequel would be militant too. As for mods, they're taking about player-side mods I think, not a modding community. You know, map hacks, illegal macros, whatever else people can come up with to make them innately better at the game without a measure of skill. I mean, they probably aren't supporting a game editor like they do for StarCraft 2, and that is a shame, but hardly horrifying news. Dudes, check out this sweet new "aiming" mod I installed for Call of Duty. My KD ratio is SOOOOOO great now! 3) This is an interesting experiment, if anything. First of all, pretty sure it's been twisted by the media from "may buy with real currency" to "must buy with real currency." The Blizzard explanation sounds like people that WANT to pay real money to twink their characters CAN, but you could always just earn your gear like most people will. For me, I could see myself buying that last piece of Tal Rasha set, instead of running Baal 200 more times and PRAYING that 0.01% item drops. Really, this is Blizzard accepting the inevitable. They are not really "letting us" buy gear with real money. The Diablo 3 community would set that up with or without Blizzard's consent. This seems similar to legalizing marijuana, instead of trying to combat its sale. It's gonna happen, the question is, how hard are the people in charge going to try and senselessly fight it? I'm curious to see how this pans out.