are there people in this thread that actually think they had the diablo 3 dev team even staffed 12 years ago?

comon now. 

they didnt staff up to even begin development until like 4 years ago.

it was a 12 year gap between sequels.  not a 12 year development.

duke nukem forever taught us about what its REALLY like to take too long.

theyd had to have started over 3-4 times to change engines over and over as new 3d technology became mainstream.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Lots of game use the always online for DRM purposes.   If you are having a fit over such a feature I believe you are going to be missing out on most of the good games currently offered and what is coming in the future.

Personally I have not had one problem witht the game and am having fun.

I don't mind the base concept in theory, but if they are going to make what was previously an offline game that way, I expect a certain amount of value added back into the actual gameplay some other way, and nothing here suggests that has been done. Everything about the gameplay itself suggests that it's basically  a refined D2, which is nice, but not nearly enough to justify the need to always be online. I get they are trying to create a community feeling by adding a bunch of other stuff around the gameplay, like the auction house, but to me, that's not enough to justify the lost value because I would never use those "features" enough to make it worth it. I am glad others do, and for Blizzard to use such a model isn't that big of a deal, but there are too many who try to copy Blizzard in every single business decison they make, and while this isn't Blizzard's fault, it is an important consideration. I would like to be able to still be buying the occasional computer game 10 years from now, and if this is the trend that starts, I can guarantee I won't be bothering with them. When the price comes down, and the value of the game matches the price they are asking for it, I will buy the game. Until then, I have other things I can spend my entertainment dollars on.

Originally posted by Nirrtix

I used to play EQ2 and I have seen the hackers first hand. When they do it it spazzes out jsut about everything within the vicinity of them.

Aye, happened a lot in PvP with speed hacks. WoW also had speed hackers in battlegrounds, capping the flag 3 times in a few minutes. Obvious ones would get banned, but some got away with using short bursts repeatedly.

SWTOR was the worst. They had speed hackers that were there from Day 1 and were not removed for 2 months dispite constant reporting. People would just leave any match where certain players were in, just because it was pointless when they were speed hacking.

like some others here i "hate" the DRM. These are my 2 cents as a primarily single player erhm......player.

I really don't see why you would WANT to force something so moot up a single players throat. I've been playing the game ever since it's been out (48 barbarian) on the EU (from the NL myself) and i've had not one game that went completely smooth.

I've had lag spikes killing me just because i couldn't do anything because of them, i've had a couple of times where i couldn't even play AT ALL just because their crappy servers are so busy, i've had acts changing randomly and loading screens popping up and loading them when i didn't even click start/resume yet and a few other problems.

This just proves to me that these types of DRM suck hard. Sure these problems might be fixed in a way but what if i'm on another computer or a laptop at a place i have no internet at? just because i got no net there i'm not entitled to play the game there?

It wasn't  fine with assasins creed or any other game and it sure isn't any better now (for me at least).

After dealing with Blizzard Games and the attitude of their players across many forums and communities. Not to mention that now when applying for different Jobs, employers attempt to read your facebook account (I don't have one, nor do I need one) and educators constantly try to bring their lectures to facebook and blackboard, it has been proven that playing Blizzard Games hurts your chances at acquiring a good job. 

I am surprised no one has sued or made a case yet out of it. As soon as you tell an employer that you play WoW, Diablo or Starcraft, you are almost guaranteed to not get a Job. I rather stay away from anything that endangers my chances to succeed in the real world, regardless of its performance. 

I will make the statement that any game that has internet problems at launch deserves to be dumped outright. 

Originally posted by Shinami

After dealing with Blizzard Games and the attitude of their players across many forums and communities. Not to mention that now when applying for different Jobs, employers attempt to read your facebook account (I don't have one, nor do I need one) and educators constantly try to bring their lectures to facebook and blackboard, it has been proven that playing Blizzard Games hurts your chances at acquiring a good job. 

I am surprised no one has sued or made a case yet out of it. As soon as you tell an employer that you play WoW, Diablo or Starcraft, you are almost guaranteed to not get a Job. I rather stay away from anything that endangers my chances to succeed in the real world, regardless of its performance. 

I will make the statement that any game that has internet problems at launch deserves to be dumped outright. 

How would this affect your job prospect? I don't get it.

Blizzard made a mistake and they obviously did not learn from tjhe launch of WoW. It was also 7 yrs ago. The game seems to be fine now - I have no lag issues, etc. I did buy the game 3 days after release because of that.

They did a stress test but I guess it wasn't large enough.

I'm having fun playin with a friend.  Launch day was ballsy.  It's challenging and the story was great, added lots of depth to the diablo world.  The skills aren't really dumbed down either.  Sure, you don't get to place the skill points but you still get to choose how u mix and match skills and runes.  I'm actually finding it a challenge to find good combination with a wizard which is fun to me.  It's fun not being uber.  I even have to change them sometimes for different battles and such.  Good times so far.

Constant disconnect "hiccups" cause me to restart at the beginning of any given stage I am trying to complete.  It's not the ones preceeding a server outage (like it was all last week); now it's just a little disconnect every now and then.  I don't even have to log back in when it happens, so it's just their server dropping me.  

I do enjoy playing the game quite a bit, really.  But I've all but lost interest in the frustration of having to constantly start over, all because I have to be connected to their buggy and overloaded servers.

Even those of us players who are actually trying to tolerate the game are being pushed away from it.  I think I can sum up all of us players by this:  Haters gonna hate.  And lovers gonna leave.

What a shame.  I'd really love to be able to continue enjoying my $60 game :(

Originally posted by Uhwop

Originally posted by sunshadow21

Originally posted by Uhwop

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

 

I don't expect you to belive me. But the FACT is I pay 70$ per month to be able to download up to 27gb at a blazing speed of up to 3Mbs (very rare to hit that though).

 

I guess you don't understand that not everyone lives in a town. I live on a farm. I could see the entirety of your state in the time it would take me to drive to the closest metro area.

 

BTW, I'm at work, on break. I rarely visit this forum at home because, like I said, bandwidth is a precious commoditiy for me.

 But you're still here, on an internet forum, dedicated to online games, refusing to play an online game, because it requires you to get online to play it.

If it's a technical problem, OK.  Just like any other online game, you're going to have to work around it, and sometimes that work around is just not playing it.  If you have an online game or two that you're not willing to put on hold for a bit to play D3, OK.  That's your problem to deal with, not blizzards. 

I think it's pretty sensible of me to say, given the location of our posting, that complaining about playing an online game online, makes no sense.

D3 is an online game.  Like it or not, it is what it is.  Just like every other game on the games list here is an online game.  D3 is very like like guild wars; it's only missing a pesistant virtual loby.  I don't expect people who refuse to play it because it's an online game to get that though.

How many of those games do you complain about because you'd like to play them, if only they were offline.  Let's face facts here, most MMO on that list are just single player affairs with a multiplayer component thrown in; very few are truelly social games deserving of a dedicated internet connection or even a persistant world, that you can play from start to finish without interacting with other people, or group at the press of a button, just like D3.

 

I love how you are trying to equate the time and bandwidth requried to access a forum to that required to access a full fledged game. The first takes very little of either; the second takes considerably more of both. To say that just because you use one, you shouldn't have any problem using the other is silly.

My biggest gripe is that by being online only they took away a lot of value that I could have gotten from having an offline component, and replaced it with... an auction house system I would probably never use (I've always played with a "use what you find and if it's not good enough to move on to the next difficulty, oh well, no skin off my back" style), communty chat that I would also likely never use, and achievements that are nice but are hardly important to why and how I play such games. All while doing nothing to change the core gameplay and how games are setup. I understand that Blizzard had their reasons, and that I am simply not their target audience, but I believe that in doing so, they have limited the success of what could have been an even bigger hit because they assumed everyone lived in a city and had access to high speed internet 24/7. Guess those who don't want to live their lives completely wired to the internet just aren't important enough to worry about anymore.

 I love that I can very clearly explain my point of view, and someone can quote me and still not understand what I wrote.

Were are you posting? 

And your biggest gripe makes no sense what-so-ever.  They haven't take anything away, but your need to set up a LAN with other people.  They made everything easier to do, and provide some things that you couldn't do before.

You don't see chat unless you choose to.

You don't need to pay attention to achievments.

You never need to use the AH.

The exact way you want to play the game is more then possible.  If you only want to play with the things you find, ok, do so.  They did not remove that.  They didn't change anything.  Everything you could do with D2 is there and doable, right down to selling items to other people!

And yeah, most peoples lives are wired to the internet.  Internet capable TV's are becoming the standard in new TV's.  Even cars are being made to be internet ready. 

Sinse when was being connnected a bad thing.  You're connected right now!  If you're going to enter the realm of rediculous as your excuse, just skip all the nonsense and in your next responce you can quote me and say you don't like online games.

You're posting on the MMORPG.com forums.  Take and second and think about that.  No, D3 isn't an MMO, but every MMO is an online game. 

Dude, you've got to stop trying to push your preferences onto everybody. There are PLENTY of people who play online games SOME of the time.....who want to have the OPTION of having games to play that DON'T DEPEND upon connectivity at other times. Why is that concept so hard for you to grasp? Most people are NOT one trick ponies.....they like having the flexability to do different things at different times.

I am one of those people..... I have pretty decent internet access at home and I play MMO's from time to time.... but I also want something that I can play while I am completely disconnected. Whether that's because my ISP is having a crappy day and dropping connections, whether that's because the Dev's servers have blown up or are down for maintenance. Whether thats because my cable-modem/router has taken a nose dive....or because I'm traveling and don't want to have to worry about connectivity on the road.

If a game has an offline play mode....then I have the OPTION to play it under those circumstances. If not, then it removes that OPTION for me, thus limiting the games appeal.

I have no interest in playing a game like D3 online...... there are plenty of other games that I would prefer to play when I'm online.  On the other hand, I DO want some games available to play when I happen, for whatever reason, to find myself offline.  By making thier game require ONLINE access all the time, Blizzard has removed D3 from my purchase consideration of games to fill that niche..... and understand I would ONLY be interested in it as a game to fill that niche. It's certainly Blizzard's right to do so..... but as a customer a decision like that moves the game from a "maybe" to a solid "no buy" for me.   While a game like Torchlight2, that doesn't require online access to play remains a potential purchase option for me....because it DOES allow me to play it under the conditions I want. Whats so hard to understand about that?

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Originally posted by GrumpyMel2
Dude, you've got to stop trying to push your preferences onto everybody. There are PLENTY of people who play online games SOME of the time.....who want to have the OPTION of having games to play that DON'T DEPEND upon connectivity at other times. Why is that concept so hard for you to grasp? Most people are NOT one trick ponies.....they like having the flexability to do different things at different times.

I am one of those people..... I have pretty decent internet access at home and I play MMO's from time to time.... but I also want something that I can play while I am completely disconnected. Whether that's because my ISP is having a crappy day and dropping connections, whether that's because the Dev's servers have blown up or are down for maintenance. Whether thats because my cable-modem/router has taken a nose dive....or because I'm traveling and don't want to have to worry about connectivity on the road.

If a game has an offline play mode....then I have the OPTION to play it under those circumstances. If not, then it removes that OPTION for me, thus limiting the games appeal.

I have no interest in playing a game like D3 online...... there are plenty of other games that I would prefer to play when I'm online.  On the other hand, I DO want some games available to play when I happen, for whatever reason, to find myself offline.  By making thier game require ONLINE access all the time, Blizzard has removed D3 from my purchase consideration of games to fill that niche..... and understand I would ONLY be interested in it as a game to fill that niche. It's certainly Blizzard's right to do so..... but as a customer a decision like that moves the game from a "maybe" to a solid "no buy" for me.   While a game like Torchlight2, that doesn't require online access to play remains a potential purchase option for me....because it DOES allow me to play it under the conditions I want. Whats so hard to understand about that?

 

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Originally posted by lizardbones

 

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Originally posted by GrumpyMel2
Dude, you've got to stop trying to push your preferences onto everybody. There are PLENTY of people who play online games SOME of the time.....who want to have the OPTION of having games to play that DON'T DEPEND upon connectivity at other times. Why is that concept so hard for you to grasp? Most people are NOT one trick ponies.....they like having the flexability to do different things at different times.

 

I am one of those people..... I have pretty decent internet access at home and I play MMO's from time to time.... but I also want something that I can play while I am completely disconnected. Whether that's because my ISP is having a crappy day and dropping connections, whether that's because the Dev's servers have blown up or are down for maintenance. Whether thats because my cable-modem/router has taken a nose dive....or because I'm traveling and don't want to have to worry about connectivity on the road.

If a game has an offline play mode....then I have the OPTION to play it under those circumstances. If not, then it removes that OPTION for me, thus limiting the games appeal.

I have no interest in playing a game like D3 online...... there are plenty of other games that I would prefer to play when I'm online.  On the other hand, I DO want some games available to play when I happen, for whatever reason, to find myself offline.  By making thier game require ONLINE access all the time, Blizzard has removed D3 from my purchase consideration of games to fill that niche..... and understand I would ONLY be interested in it as a game to fill that niche. It's certainly Blizzard's right to do so..... but as a customer a decision like that moves the game from a "maybe" to a solid "no buy" for me.   While a game like Torchlight2, that doesn't require online access to play remains a potential purchase option for me....because it DOES allow me to play it under the conditions I want. Whats so hard to understand about that?

 

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This whole thread is nonsense.

If a person doesn't want to have a game that requires an always on connection, then they shouldn't buy Diablo 3. If they do buy Diablo 3, then they've really only got themselves to blame for the experience. Hopefully they live and learn.

It doesn't require pages of posts to come to this conclusion. Just don't buy the game. Then it's no longer an issue.

 

What do you think people here have been saying?  I KNEW that D3 required an ONLINE connection to play because I took a little bit of time to research the requirements. Therefore I NEVER entertained any thought of buying it.

A portion of us here are just expressing our preferences as consumers that we are not interesting in purchasing Single Player Games if they don't support the option of offline play? What exactly is the problem with that or the difficulty in understanding that.

Are not hobby sites appropriate venues for hobbiests to discuss thier preferences?

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Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

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Originally posted by lizardbones  

---

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2 Dude, you've got to stop trying to push your preferences onto everybody. There are PLENTY of people who play online games SOME of the time.....who want to have the OPTION of having games to play that DON'T DEPEND upon connectivity at other times. Why is that concept so hard for you to grasp? Most people are NOT one trick ponies.....they like having the flexability to do different things at different times.   I am one of those people..... I have pretty decent internet access at home and I play MMO's from time to time.... but I also want something that I can play while I am completely disconnected. Whether that's because my ISP is having a crappy day and dropping connections, whether that's because the Dev's servers have blown up or are down for maintenance. Whether thats because my cable-modem/router has taken a nose dive....or because I'm traveling and don't want to have to worry about connectivity on the road. If a game has an offline play mode....then I have the OPTION to play it under those circumstances. If not, then it removes that OPTION for me, thus limiting the games appeal. I have no interest in playing a game like D3 online...... there are plenty of other games that I would prefer to play when I'm online.  On the other hand, I DO want some games available to play when I happen, for whatever reason, to find myself offline.  By making thier game require ONLINE access all the time, Blizzard has removed D3 from my purchase consideration of games to fill that niche..... and understand I would ONLY be interested in it as a game to fill that niche. It's certainly Blizzard's right to do so..... but as a customer a decision like that moves the game from a "maybe" to a solid "no buy" for me.   While a game like Torchlight2, that doesn't require online access to play remains a potential purchase option for me....because it DOES allow me to play it under the conditions I want. Whats so hard to understand about that?  

---

This whole thread is nonsense. If a person doesn't want to have a game that requires an always on connection, then they shouldn't buy Diablo 3. If they do buy Diablo 3, then they've really only got themselves to blame for the experience. Hopefully they live and learn. It doesn't require pages of posts to come to this conclusion. Just don't buy the game. Then it's no longer an issue.  

---

What do you think people here have been saying?  I KNEW that D3 required an ONLINE connection to play because I took a little bit of time to research the requirements. Therefore I NEVER entertained any thought of buying it.

A portion of us here are just expressing our preferences as consumers that we are not interesting in purchasing Single Player Games if they don't support the option of offline play? What exactly is the problem with that or the difficulty in understanding that.

Are not hobby sites appropriate venues for hobbiests to discuss thier preferences?

---

All that matters to me is I am having fun with the new game, the first couple of days I did not play.  I wish they have WASD controls and I really miss that and you cannot zoom in.  I may be missing on how to do this.  Overall this is a fun game for me and a break from MMORPG's for a while.

The game is nice and polished so far found one bug with the second act final.  You can stick the boss and I reported this.  I would recommend this game to others myself.

6.3 million in sales already.  So much for Doom and Gloom.  Guess people will have to pin their hopes on the D3 expansion not selling.

I'm more interested in seeing what the numbers will be several months from now. I'm not at all surprised at the high initial sales and playing; it's the long term health that interests me more. There are a lot of other games, both arpg and mmmos, that have been getting a lot of attention and as fickle as players are these days, we'll find out the difference between "really good" and "good enough to tide me between big releases," and how many players fall into each category really quick. The game may have grabbed a lot of people because of the past history of the franchise and company, but it still has to be able to hold players based on it's own merits.

A full week after release and I still can't install the game due the error:  "Blizzard Launcher: Failed to resolve install data URL from http://enUS.patch.battle.net:1119/patch. Please check your internet connection."  The Blizzard Support ticket I've had open since 2 days before launch has done nothing but reveal that 7 different Blizzard Support staff are likely to give almost as many useless answers to a problem.  I was particularly amused by the old 'stop running malware protection' answer in light of all the hacking that happens to Blizzard customers.  My opinion of Blizzard had fallen a lot in the past week.

In this thread, we've got one guy basically convinced that all isps are available in every part of the US, and they all offer the same level of service. He's completely wrong, but he'll believe what he believes.

Then we have blizzard fanboys that believe the people who didn't buy D3 should just suck it up because we're living in a brave new world. As much as I'm a Blizzard fanboy, these idiots make me sick.

And then we have the people who are saying that a game that can be played with single player should have been playable offline. A perfectly reasonable position that constantly gets attacked. The attackers toss about the names of other games, which are multiplayer only, in the hopes of muddying the waters. Yet, it doesn't change facts.

D3 is a primarily single player game.

Let me explain my position. Yes, there's an RMAH incoming, yes, you can complete the story with your friends online. Yes, there's pvp planned, etc. It doesn't change the fact that D3 is single player at its core. The entire story is written as if the player is the sole savior of the world. You can play, even though you are required to log into Battle.net, completely solo, with no strangers or friends joining the game. Every single difficulty is completely playable solo. There is no enrichment of the story if you play with more people. The only thing that makes it truly stand out from previous games in the series is that it's a bit easier to join up with friends.

There is nothing else about D3 that makes it stand out in the genre that it helped create, except that it forces an online connection just to play through it solo.

Unless someone can give me a definitive argument as to why this design decision should ever have been made, I am always going to argue on the side of the people who want offline single player. The arguments that people make now are simply ridiculous. WoW has been hacked with duping, speedhacks, etc, since its inception. There are sites that cater to making new hacks just for WoW when old ones get discovered and users banned. So if D3 is using a similar architecture, that does not make for a sound argument that D3 is inherently harder to hack.

Then there's the argument that because of the RMAH, everything must be online. Again, with previous security issues, that makes it very unlikely. Also, if the single player game is completely disconnected, character and all, then there is no need for any of the auction houses to interact with characters that are created for offline play. So hacked gold and items become a complete non issue.

At the root of the issue, we've just got people saying that having the game be entirely online makes it more secure. Why? Because it's more secure. Why is it more secure? Because it's online. This kind of circular logic is infuriating, because the people that are actively arguing it (and if you've argued for less hacking/rmah then you've argued for circular logic) will NEVER let that chain be broken.

D1 and D2 had their share of problems. But the current path chosen wasn't the right way to deal with those problems. It angered a small contingent that will simply refuse to buy anything Blizzard from here on out, and soured many more, which will probably affect future purchases.

^ brilliant.

It will never have the staying power and legs D2 did.

Originally posted by Bruwin

In this thread, we've got one guy basically convinced that all isps are available in every part of the US, and they all offer the same level of service. He's completely wrong, but he'll believe what he believes.

Then we have blizzard fanboys that believe the people who didn't buy D3 should just suck it up because we're living in a brave new world. As much as I'm a Blizzard fanboy, these idiots make me sick.

And then we have the people who are saying that a game that can be played with single player should have been playable offline. A perfectly reasonable position that constantly gets attacked. The attackers toss about the names of other games, which are multiplayer only, in the hopes of muddying the waters. Yet, it doesn't change facts.

D3 is a primarily single player game.

Let me explain my position. Yes, there's an RMAH incoming, yes, you can complete the story with your friends online. Yes, there's pvp planned, etc. It doesn't change the fact that D3 is single player at its core. The entire story is written as if the player is the sole savior of the world. You can play, even though you are required to log into Battle.net, completely solo, with no strangers or friends joining the game. Every single difficulty is completely playable solo. There is no enrichment of the story if you play with more people. The only thing that makes it truly stand out from previous games in the series is that it's a bit easier to join up with friends.

There is nothing else about D3 that makes it stand out in the genre that it helped create, except that it forces an online connection just to play through it solo.

Unless someone can give me a definitive argument as to why this design decision should ever have been made, I am always going to argue on the side of the people who want offline single player. The arguments that people make now are simply ridiculous. WoW has been hacked with duping, speedhacks, etc, since its inception. There are sites that cater to making new hacks just for WoW when old ones get discovered and users banned. So if D3 is using a similar architecture, that does not make for a sound argument that D3 is inherently harder to hack.

Then there's the argument that because of the RMAH, everything must be online. Again, with previous security issues, that makes it very unlikely. Also, if the single player game is completely disconnected, character and all, then there is no need for any of the auction houses to interact with characters that are created for offline play. So hacked gold and items become a complete non issue.

At the root of the issue, we've just got people saying that having the game be entirely online makes it more secure. Why? Because it's more secure. Why is it more secure? Because it's online. This kind of circular logic is infuriating, because the people that are actively arguing it (and if you've argued for less hacking/rmah then you've argued for circular logic) will NEVER let that chain be broken.

D1 and D2 had their share of problems. But the current path chosen wasn't the right way to deal with those problems. It angered a small contingent that will simply refuse to buy anything Blizzard from here on out, and soured many more, which will probably affect future purchases.

Easy, real money aution house security which you already know so why you are creating a huge post about it is beyond me.

Easy fix for all the people that are mad at the online all the time needed to play it, Don't play it.