Game News How Diablo III's DRM Will Affect You

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Blizzard Entertainment; Diablo III

<p><a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/22/how-diablo-iiis-drm-will-affect-you/" target="_blank">RPS ponders</a> how <strong>Diablo III's</strong> DRM will ruin your single player gaming experience.</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>My intention with Diablo III is to solo the game. I realise that&rsquo;s not the way many will play it, it&rsquo;s not what the Diablo series is most famous for, and it&rsquo;s arguably not the primary way Blizzard intends the game to be played. However, crucially, it&rsquo;s a mode of the game that&rsquo;s deliberately programmed to work, with NPC story-based characters to join your party and interact with you, and a single-player plot to hack through. It is, undeniably, designed to be played as a single-player game.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, the always-on DRM makes this the most remarkably annoying process. During the beta, Blizzard&rsquo;s servers have dropped a few times. Of course, that&rsquo;s expected during a beta, but it&rsquo;s also not unexpected once a game has gone live. And here, when the server goes down, you&rsquo;re left with a ghost of the game until it eventually stops you from playing at all. I found that suddenly when I fired my bow no arrows came out &ndash; I could wander around, enemies were still there, but clearly something was wrong. And then it froze, a message popped up saying there were connection troubles, and I was dumped back to the main menu with no way to play. For no discernible reason. I still had the game installed, had no desire to be online or use any online functions, and yet still couldn&rsquo;t play.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/104922-how-diablo-iiis-drm-will-affect-you.html">Gamebanshee</a></p>

 

[Shiny]

It's not that I give two shits about Diablo as I haven't played it, or any of the pretenders, since Diablo 1, but Blizzard like it or not tend to be trendsetters and this is a huge fucking of the gaming industry as a whole. What if you want to play a game and live wayyyy up in buttfuck no-where? How do you do it then?

DRM - 1
Legitimate paying customers - 0

 

[felipepepe]

After all a 24h stable internet connection is available in every country that matters, fuck third worldia. Just make it impossible for a paying cudstomer to play your game outside USA & Europe then complain about pirates.

 

[sea]

My guess is that if there's currently no pause feature, they're going to implement it by the final release. It's the kind of oversight you'd expect in a beta focused mostly on balance and stability testing, but not in a retail release, and Blizzard never disappoints when it comes to such basic functionality.

 

[DraQ]

How Diablo III's DRM Will Affect You

It won't. I don't play shitty games.

 

[Luzur]

just wait a week and TPB will have a DRM free version out for download.

problem solved.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

this mmo has no subscription fee and still people want to complain they can't play it offline sheesh you can't please everyone seriously

 

[Shannow]

How Diablo III's DRM Will Affect You

It won't. I don't play shitty games.

And you are 100% abso-fucking-lutely sure that awesome-play-as-a-dragon-Draq's-wet-dream-game in 3 years won't say: "Hey, Blizzard really knew what they were about with the always online anal probe. They say that they don't have any pirates playing their games online. And since we're so niche, pirates won't bother cracking our game's draconic (see what I did there?) DRM. Win win."

Gods, to be young and naive again...*sigh*

 

[Sordid Jester]

Give people a bag of money and they'll complain that it's too heavy. Haters gonna hate.

-- The Internet.

 

[Suchy]

How Diablo III's DRM Will Affect You

It won't. I don't play shitty games.

 

[Shannow]

Let people pay for a single player game and they'll complain that you have to be permanently online with all the disadvantages that brings. Haters gonna hate.

-- The Internet.

Damn haters

 

[villain of the story]

Love is all around you.

 

[Angthoron]

How Diablo III's DRM Will Affect You

It won't. I don't play shitty games.

And you are 100% abso-fucking-lutely sure that awesome-play-as-a-dragon-Draq's-wet-dream-game in 3 years won't say: "Hey, Blizzard really knew what they were about with the always online anal probe. They say that they don't have any pirates playing their games online. And since we're so niche, pirates won't bother cracking our game's draconic (see what I did there?) DRM. Win win."

Gods, to be young and naive again...*sigh*

What the two of them said.

 

[Gregz]

It's not that I give two shits about Diablo as I haven't played it, or any of the pretenders, since Diablo 1, but Blizzard like it or not tend to be trendsetters and this is a huge fucking of the gaming industry as a whole. What if you want to play a game and live wayyyy up in buttfuck no-where? How do you do it then?

DRM - 1
Legitimate paying customers - 0

Don't worry, soon it will be:

Hackers - 1
Blizzard - 0

As pissed as you are, so is everyone else, and this is a call to arms if ever there was one. The best and brightest will hammer away at this until it's solved...even if it means breaking into Blizzard, stealing the server code, merging it with the client, and doing a local host 127.0.0.1 loopback. It's just a matter of time.

 

[Volourn]

There is no excuse for scunmbag theivery., Don't like Blizzard's DRM crap don't PLAY THEIR FUKKIN' GAME.

 

[Murk]

Well... yeah, that's kinda what most people are saying.

 

[Cassidy]

There is no excuse for scunmbag theivery.

I agree. A pity a certain historical figure didn't finish the job otherwise there wouldn't be so much scumbag thievery nowadays, and lying and thieving Jew scum like the reason for this DRM to have been made would no longer exist.

卍 BROS I'M SO EDGY 卍

 

[youhomofo]

There is no excuse for scunmbag theivery., Don't like Blizzard's DRM crap don't PLAY THEIR FUKKIN' GAME.

Fuck that noise. If people are going to be punished for the crime (draconic DRM, forced online, unable to return shitty unfinished products) they may as well enjoy the crime.

It's all moot anyway. The internet is populated with nothing but pussies. People will scream bloody hell but when it comes right down to it Diablo 3 is going to sell like hotcakes.

 

[St. Toxic]

It really does look like shit though, drm or not.

 

[shihonage]

It looks like World of Warcraft.
It sounds like World of Warcraft (conneciton down, no arrows fly out).

It is clearly based on World of Warcraft's network and rendering engines, and single-player will likely have rubberbanding enemies due to "server lag".

Likely, client will store only short-term movement prediction logic, but server will store enemy decision-making logic. This will make pirating/cracking the game an extremely difficult affair.

At best, after years and years there will be "pirate servers" that will never _fully_ work, and will always lag behind in version numbers (see WoW). A crippled experience at best.

While this is a sound plan for thwarting piracy, it played its role in shifting my interest toward Torchlight 2.

P.S. Though really, I find it absolutely hilarious that pre-rendered sprites of characters and monsters in Diablo/Diablo2/Fallout games had more detail and presence than what we have with 3D models in 2011.

Neither T2 nor D3 look like a proper sequel to Diablo series. I can only see one company - Crytek - as being capable of cranking out a no-nonsense renderer that produces a game that actually fulfills the promise made by low-res sprites of Diablo prequels. You know, metallic armor that actually looks metallic. Gritty, pseudo-realistic, with a haunting feeling of "perpetual autumn", color-coordinated, gory and crisp.

 

[Baron]

I'm genuinely marvelling at the fact that someone playing the mindlessly repetitive mouse clicking "RPG" cottoned on to the fact that their game had gone offline. That center screen message may have helped.



Shapes move and I clicks on them. Then I clicks on a barrel and it give me sustenance. Mass Effect and Witcher are NOT RPGs, popamole shit. They're not strategic like Diablo. I play a Barbarian.

 

[JarlFrank]

How Diablo III's DRM Will Affect You

It won't. I don't pay for games with DRM.

Fixed.

 

[Excidium]

just wait a week and TPB will have a DRM free version out for download.

problem solved.

Yeah, then you'll only need to wait for an emulator and somebody to host the server.

 

[Micmu]

IT IS NOT JUST "DRM"

It is MMO. The end. Your precious Diablow III is a mmo with added single player mode (played online, of course).

Enjoy your micro-transaction driven MMO with single player mode and fuck off.

It really does look like shit though, drm or not.

Which is a good thing, actually. No dilemma or regrets completely avoiding this shit (and leaving it to the peasants).

...And here, when the server goes down, you’re left with a ghost of the game until it eventually stops you from playing at all. I found that suddenly when I fired my bow no arrows came out – I could wander around, enemies were still there, but clearly something was wrong...

Typical Diablo 2-style lag and especially getting lag-killed in (now also) a single player mode sounds exceedingly fun.

 

[Taliseian]

Unfortunately, I agree that D3 is turning into a F2P MMO.

And also unfortunately while this is not what I wanted, with Blizzard being Blizzard and all it was what I expected.

Earlier in development when they said that it would be tied directly into the new BattleNet and that there would be no modding allowed, I all but figured it would end up like this.

TBH, Torchlight 2 and Grim Dawn are looking better and better. Shame, because I really liked D2 and still play it every now and then...along with the Eastern Sun mod.

T