Diablo 3: Online only, no mods, real cash purchases.

[JackSlack]

The goods have been dished.

Hoo boy.

[Preacher]

Having never played a Diablo game before I'm probably not the best authority here, but this seems like a terrible idea, okay I understand the DRM bit, that's a natural reaction to piracy. But the rest just seems bad.

Also I have to quote this "if I’m leet in the game", I have never heard of a game executive/PR guy use this phrase

[Geoff_B]

aahhh i just posted this in the latest checkpoint thread!

it makes no sense though. it's primarily a single player game, in which you can buy and sell, for real world money, items which you can find in the game with a bit of effort. not only that it's permanently online with no offline mode and no modding allowed whatsoever. okay that last point didn't bother me as much but there will be some who will kick up an almighty stink!

[Fugiman]

It actually makes a lot of sense. They are trying to ensure a consistent experience for all players, to keep an even playing field. And as the article says, an auction house based off of in-game currency will be offered. The real money auction house is just to avoid RMT, which is an unsecure, dangerous route.

Sure, requiring an internet connection and limiting player creativity is terrible, and they are probably being too harsh, but I wouldn't demonize them yet.

[Geoff_B]

I direct you to this quote from the interview found at http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/01/diabl ... eal-money/

"What’s the difference between a player that plays the game a lot and a gold farmer? They’re really doing the same activity"

and this response in the comment thread of the same article:

"How about the fact that a player isn't forced to play the game 18 hours a day in a sweat shop for pennies an hour in miserable working conditions."

how about demonizing them now? i wouldn't go that far but it's certainly something i wouldn't be too happy about and would not make me predisposed to buying the game myself.

[Valliac]

Somehow it'll be cracked and i'll probably pirate it for a test run like the other two.

Honestly, I never played D2 all the way, so im not up on the "leet" of the diablo universe like some people.

[Geoff_B]

To be honest the permanent-online play and no modding don't worry me all that much. the real-world money for in-game items does. it's almost like i'm saying i can't be bothered to play the game and earn the items, instead i'll just throw more and more money at the game until i'm the best without doing any work.

so just like world of warcraft then.

and yes i realise that can be seen as hypocritical as i do use cheats when i feel the game gets in the way of me enjoying the story, but i certainly wouldn't pay for them.

[Smeghead]

Here are my thoughts on this matter.

1) I can understand why they want one to constantly be connected, they got a good reason. However in my opinion they are trying to hard to find a solution. See the system worked in D2, sure it wasn't perfect but it wasn't a pain in the ass.

2) I'm not a big user of mods, so this would probably not bother me much personally. But I know a lot of people do use mods, I mean heck I know of many mods that made games better or even playable. Leaving out all the modders in the cold is really not a good idea.

3) Using actuall money in-game? That is stupid. The develloper who thought it up is stupid and should be deported to a siberian workcamp along with his family as an example that too much stupidity and dickery comes at a high price. I can tollerate DLC, I can tollerate monthly fees, but paying for in-game equipment in a game like Diablo where you will find something new and better around the next corner? Come on!

When I saw the gameplay fotage from the trailers realeased some time ago, I started having doubts about the game. It really didn't look like it was up to the task of being a sucessor to a gaming milestone like Diablo 2, and now I'm starting to get seriusly horrified at how badly Blizzard are handeling it and -lets face it- misstreating their fans.

This also brings up another issue that will really come to be a desisive factor when it comes to this game. Will I be able to play cross-continent with my frinds? Smart money is on the answer being 'No'. And if the brainy coins are right, then this game will definatly not be worth any of my money. (Serisuly I was so annoyed at SC2 not letting me play cross-continent that I haven't played it in a year)

[nicholasmc1]

Somehow it'll be cracked

I Don't know man theres still no starcraft 2 LAN crack...., I'm sad for this though, not gonna stop me from buying it but I it just makes it harder for me to enjoy it.

[Smeghead]

I'm sad for this though, not gonna stop me from buying it but I it just makes it harder for me to enjoy it.

Now I feel sad for you.

[the_lone_bard]

Yeah.
See i live in australia. And the reason that sc2 is doing so badly over here, is because we're so small as far as gaming goes.
It used to be that you could jump on sc and go "Hmmm. i feel like playing some poker td, let me just jump in any game that doesn't have full red bar ping." Now it's "I feel like X td, let me just jump in a.... oh, it's empty, i'll just wait for 5-6 hours for 3 more people."

If d3 uses the same system, i won't even bother buying it, with SC2 i just downloaded it (Seriously, it was cracked in 4 days.) and then bought it when i had some cash, but after paying $90 for a game that i played for... maybe 2-3 hours of multiplayer, i don't think i'll make that same mistake again.

[Smeghead]

See that is the thing I don't understand. Back in diablo 2 you could play cross-continent just fine and it worked just fine as well.
So why? Just WHY in all that is holy, unholy and in between did they stop you from being able to do that!?

Wow I could understand up to a point (and only to a point since Africa played on European servers and that worked), but even then it was really bad that you couldn't play cross continent, but with SC2 well there is just no excuse for it, and if D3 continues the trend then there is something seriusly wrong

[the_lone_bard]

Yup. My opinion can be summed up as: If Blizzard wants to fuck their game up, i'm gunna let them. Am i gunna miss out on it? No, i'm gunna download it. But this is a game i would normally pay for (Quite rare considering it takes me 2+ months to save up $90 for a game.) and am now not going to.

[Fugiman]

"How about the fact that a player isn't forced to play the game 18 hours a day in a sweat shop for pennies an hour in miserable working conditions."

how about demonizing them now? i wouldn't go that far but it's certainly something i wouldn't be too happy about and would not make me predisposed to buying the game myself.

Yes, gold farming is a terrible practice, but in the context of the game it is the same result - lots of high level items. Offering a real money auction house just provides a safe method for players to buy these items from gold farmers. It is going to happen anyway, why not protect the consumer from scamming or using insecure third party sites?

And the key point is that you don't have to use it! It is completely optional. There is a perfectly usable auction house that uses in-game currency.

Honestly, from what I hear Diablo 3 seems like an MMO where you can only have 4 people in a world at one time, which explains the constant online connection and lack of mods. The real money auction house is just an acceptance of the inevitability of RMT, and a desire to at least protect people who use RMT from scamming (and obviously to profit off it).

That said, I'm not going to buy the game. I didn't enjoy Diablo 2.

[Master Gunner]

As I said in the checkpoint thread:

:(

Blizzard, I am disappointed in you.

[vazhkatsi]

first off, sweat shops aren't that bad, and often they are hugely better both in pay and hours than what is otherwise available to workers.

secondly, the cash AH will be separate from the gold ah, and completely optional. the only downside is that people will be able to buy things without working for them, which is an issue, but is an issue in wow as well, where they just do it on the black market. I think blizz will be able to moderate and control the market(though i imagine in the first few months the ah will be rather chaotic.) through their use of the blizz wallet, which you have to use to buy or sell on the ah. since blizz also takes a cut on any sale, i'd think there would really be no difference between a gold farmer and a player. both make money off their sales, and blizz takes a cut from both. hell, i'd love it, i could use the tiny amount of money i might make on that ah to resub to wow.

after rereading that post something else comes to mind- mods. I wouldn't be certain thatt they're banning all modding of the UI, or all modding. wow addons aren't exactly mods, at least most of them aren't, however I imagine that this is more to stop things like that carbonite scandal, to the botting and hacking that was so rampant and annoying in D2, and to stop modifying the game in ways that would unfairly boost you above other players. similarly the online requirement. I didn't play D2 a lot, mainly because i kept running into obvious bots and stuff. but I did know people who played a lot and apparently made level 99 characters with some of the best items available and then putting that guy online. but again, i didn't play it much so he might have been trying to brag about something thats impossible.

[the_lone_bard]

Yeah, I personally, do not mind the decision to make a real world AH.
Anyone who goes to d2 nowdays will see, you make a game, and it is flooded by 10-15 sell-bots within the first 2 minutes, they spam so hard and fast that there is no screen space left.
This is what kills that community, not the fact that the game is ancient.

And i can also respect why their are people who do that... This isnt designed like WoW where certain things only have the option of dropping this this or that peice of epic gear. Instead you can down Hell difficulty Baal and not get a single gold item, let alone a unique item or high end set piece.

[empath]

To be honest the permanent-online play and no modding don't worry me all that much. the real-world money for in-game items does. it's almost like i'm saying i can't be bothered to play the game and earn the items, instead i'll just throw more and more money at the game until i'm the best without doing any work.

so just like world of warcraft then.

{snip}

{snipola}

Honestly, from what I hear Diablo 3 seems like an MMO where you can only have 4 people in a world at one time, which explains the constant online connection and lack of mods. The real money auction house is just an acceptance of the inevitability of RMT, and a desire to at least protect people who use RMT from scamming (and obviously to profit off it).

That said, I'm not going to buy the game. I didn't enjoy Diablo 2.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to say that Bliz has apparently spent all their development man-hours on WoW and so just rushed this "MMO where you can only have 4 people in a world at one time" out because D3 had been languishing for so long in development.

Sad to see an interesting dev house devolve into a one-trick (well okay, TWO-trick) pony.


Either that, or they got jealous of EA and decided to try to beat them in a field the latter company usually has an edge in: 'shoot myself in the foot'-grade stupidity...



tl:dr?

[Darkobra]

Someone on The Escapist quoted that the money doesn't actually go to your pockets but to a Blizzard wallet to be spent only on their DLC and their games.

Sneaky bastards.

[Master Gunner]

From what I've read, you can withdraw money from the system, but it's all handled by a third party, and there will be a fee for doing so.

[War Monkey782]

I'll let the gameplay speak for itself and not care about the other crap if I have a fun time.

[RobertMc123]

This backlash is what happens all the time, Blizzard announce something and people flip their shit: "NO BLIZZARD THIS IS NOT WHAT WE WANT! WE WANT DIABLO 2 AGAIN!"
Blizzard calmly raise a middle finger to these people and say "tough bitches, you're getting Diablo 3 and if you don't like it, we don't care because we will be sleeping on big piles of money!"

This is just them trying to curb piracy and make the game more consistent and persistent, having it online only so you can instantly join up with others and see leaderboards and also stop someone using a pirated copy, mods being banned stops giving people an unfair advantage, especially with the PvP elements in it, like the Battlegrounds where if you lose, you lose your character you have created.

I think people need to calm down and wait and see what happens, who knows when we will actually see the full game.

[Geoff_B]

real world money to buy in-game items that can also be acquired through the traditional method of actually playing the game.

that is all i have to say.

[Vigafre]

And your point? You still need skill to actually win and it's not like this is the first game do it.

[Geoff_B]

so i win by paying more and more money? no thanks.