Diablo III to Require Constant Internet Connection

Shamikebab · 2 Aug 2011 at 21:42

kola said:
you wasn't going to play this online at all

Not constantly no.

I live in an area with really spotty connection, if this affects my single player experience I am going to be ****** off.

Taziir · 2 Aug 2011 at 21:45

Freeman said:
Very unreliable where we live. We have that on one of our laptops. We've tried everything to get decent reliable net but we live in a rural area and as I'm sure you know is well known for having shocking coverage.

^ This. I have family that live out in the sticks with literally no reliable connection. I know from 1st hand experience that even 56k modems won't cut it and mobile barely gets a signal.

Except on top of the silo. But I'm not THAT addicted to haul a laptop up there.

The problem with these kinds of ideas is that the people that this affects the most won't even know it's happening...

Plus I'll have a massive belly laugh at all the 'always on is good' peeps when their ISPs can't connect to bnet, the router or adsl filters stop working or it turns out the D3 heartbeat maxxes out dowload limits

.

Taziir · 2 Aug 2011 at 21:48

Tefal said:
4 players is an mmo now apparently.

So that makes l4d my favourite mmo!

All the modern kids play that new fangled LFD2 mmo. Get with the times old man

Jegethy · 2 Aug 2011 at 22:26

This honestly won't stop me from buying it. I don't see why this would stop anyone from buying it unless they have no internet access, which I find unlikely.

Huw · 2 Aug 2011 at 22:38

Ziddy1232 said:
I don't see why this would stop anyone from buying it unless they have no internet access, which I find unlikely.

You haven't been reading the thread then. Plenty of reasons have already been given.

orderoftheflame · 3 Aug 2011 at 07:37

Huw said:
You haven't been reading the thread then. Plenty of reasons have already been given.

Care to summaries the "plenty of reasons" then?

The only one's I've noticed significant quantities of are "Worried about connection issues" and "Holding my principles higher than possible game enjoyment".

I still suspect that if this is out this year, it could quite easily be my GoTY.

I'm certainly not going to miss it.

ChrisJSY · 3 Aug 2011 at 09:57

Same old "it won't bother me so it doesn't matter if other people have issues" in this thread

.

Point is, there are people who need or want the ability to play offline, or semi offline in my case (aka the internet isn't good enough to play, but there is a connection to verify I am online, but to play with other people in the same room isn't stable - jumpy, juddering lagfest.

Sure, won't happen that often but the thing is why should we even have to deal with it in the first place, so many games lacking lan support. Battlefield series is the other one. Small island, small lans, we cannot all jump on the connection we have at the location we have and play. We're not so lucky.

But this seems how developers want it now.

madindehead · 3 Aug 2011 at 10:17

Orcish-Horde said:
I don't share your faith, it will become clear when the game is released. Single player should not need a connection, single player didn't need to be magically fixed with a connection.

I suspect server lag will be an issue, you suspect it will not. I suspect at some point there will be routing issues to Blizzard's servers, you suspect there will not. I suspect my isp will have issue, you suspect not. I suspect I will like to play single player when all the later pop up from time to time or am out and about, you think I shouldn't? Put some thought into it?

You do know, that Blizzard know how to handle large server loads yes? I mean, they do run all the servers for WoW after all. I think that's some pretty good experience in knowing how to handle server loads and reduce lag.

As for internet being crap around the country, that's the ISPs fault really. I mean, we lag so far behind the rest of the world in terms of internet speed and accessibility. Most developers would *assume* that most people who will play Diablo 3 will have decent internet. Developers can't hold back on developing game features just because the UK has pretty shocking internet speeds.

I don't think lag etc will be such a massive issues. The servers will under go their usual maintenance on Wednesday nights, just like the WoW and SCII servers. There might be occasional issues, but it won't be anything serious.

Neil79 · 3 Aug 2011 at 10:21

I can be damn sure this would not have happened if Activision hadn't have had it's hands in it

madindehead · 3 Aug 2011 at 10:26

Neil79 said:
I can be damn sure this would not have happened if Activision hadn't have had it's hands in it

Well Neil79, with this new cash AH, they don't want people hacking to get all the best items offline, and then logging on to sell them. You can see the issue.

Having said that, I don't like this new cash AH. It's good that you can still buy items with in game gold, and then sell said items, and make cash. It's kinda nice. But it feels wrong.

Evilsod · 3 Aug 2011 at 10:36

madindehead said:
Well Neil79, with this new cash AH, they don't want people hacking to get all the best items offline, and then logging on to sell them. You can see the issue.

Having said that, I don't like this new cash AH. It's good that you can still buy items with in game gold, and then sell said items, and make cash. It's kinda nice. But it feels wrong.

No not really I'm afraid. Without hacking playing singleplayer was tedious because you had no shared stash and that wasn't anywhere near big enough to store items. And because of this they had a seperate ladder for purely online characters.

Wouldn't be remotely difficult to do the same. 1 for characters who play offline or online as non-ladder and 1 for characters who play always connected or online so you can still play the ladder characters as SP but always connected to make sure nothing goes wrong. Hell you could just use a tickbox similar to hardcore and set a character to offline mode which prevents it from ever being used online and removes the need to be always connected.

Hacking is an excuse not a reason.

orderoftheflame · 3 Aug 2011 at 10:37

Neil79 said:
I can be damn sure this would not have happened if Activision hadn't have had it's hands in it

Sorry Neil, but rubbish.

It's a design decision that they've made in order to add certain aspects to the game.

Good or bad, Stealth DRM or no. It has zero to do with "lol Activision".

Regardless of Activisions "churn out a rushed game every year", Blizzard are one of the few developers that still hold the proper "when it's done" attitude that so few still do. Despite having the same owner they're still worlds apart and operated individually.

Evilsod said:
No not really I'm afraid. Without hacking playing singleplayer was tedious because you had no shared stash and that wasn't anywhere near big enough to store items. And because of this they had a seperate ladder for purely online characters.

Not being to play offline characters on B.net was one of the worst things in D2 for me. The problem with no shared stash is addressed in D3.

madindehead · 3 Aug 2011 at 10:53

Evilsod said:
No not really I'm afraid. Without hacking playing singleplayer was tedious because you had no shared stash and that wasn't anywhere near big enough to store items. And because of this they had a seperate ladder for purely online characters.

Wouldn't be remotely difficult to do the same. 1 for characters who play offline or online as non-ladder and 1 for characters who play always connected or online so you can still play the ladder characters as SP but always connected to make sure nothing goes wrong. Hell you could just use a tickbox similar to hardcore and set a character to offline mode which prevents it from ever being used online and removes the need to be always connected.

Hacking is an excuse not a reason.

Well, that is a good point Evilsod.

But, what happens if you decide you eventually want to take your SP character online, even if you haven't hacked it?

That becomes an issue. How many people will want to level the exact same character to play online? It would start to get tedious. This way, at least you get 10 characters, and you can choose to only play SP, or take it online and play some multiplayer with friends if and when the mood takes you. No need to keep a second character leveled. That takes it from being a fun game, to being a job, simply maintaining two characters that are almost identical.

Evilsod · 3 Aug 2011 at 11:02

madindehead said:
Well, that is a good point Evilsod.

But, what happens if you decide you eventually want to take your SP character online, even if you haven't hacked it?

That becomes an issue. How many people will want to level the exact same character to play online? It would start to get tedious. This way, at least you get 10 characters, and you can choose to only play SP, or take it online and play some multiplayer with friends if and when the mood takes you. No need to keep a second character leveled. That takes it from being a fun game, to being a job, simply maintaining two characters that are almost identical.

Erm, isn't that the point of making the choice when you create the character? Either you can make it perma offline so you can play it without a net connection or you can have to use the 'always online' method so you can take it online.

Don't act there is somehow something wrong with the system and also don't act like you wouldn't be a bit annoyed if you had net issues and had absolutely no way of playing the game.

madindehead · 3 Aug 2011 at 11:21

Evilsod said:
Erm, isn't that the point of making the choice when you create the character? Either you can make it perma offline so you can play it without a net connection or you can have to use the 'always online' method so you can take it online.

Don't act there is somehow something wrong with the system and also don't act like you wouldn't be a bit annoyed if you had net issues and had absolutely no way of playing the game.

I'm just saying, what if someone thinks they don't want play to online, and then they decide they do want to play with that character online. Or a friend suggests some online play. You don't have an online character then. I'm just stating, that it is an issue that some people *might* face. Not saying I would, but others might. Also, yes, I would be annoyed if Battle.net went down. I'm not acting like I wouldn't be annoyed. Where exactly did you get that from? But overall, it's a very stable system. If you've played WoW especially, look at how many days of downtime there actually are compared to playing days. Very few.

titreano · 3 Aug 2011 at 12:33

madindehead said:
I'm just saying, what if someone thinks they don't want play to online, and then they decide they do want to play with that character online. Or a friend suggests some online play. You don't have an online character then. I'm just stating, that it is an issue that some people *might* face. Not saying I would, but others might. Also, yes, I would be annoyed if Battle.net went down. I'm not acting like I wouldn't be annoyed. Where exactly did you get that from? But overall, it's a very stable system. If you've played WoW especially, look at how many days of downtime there actually are compared to playing days. Very few.

But you could create a new online character, if there was a warning on creating an offline char that said it wouldn't be available online no one could even do so without knowing that was the case.

The same could be argued for hardcore characters, say your mate has a hard core character and suggests some play together you won't be able to use your normal character to do so (assuming similar system to DII). the argument makes no sense for this really why should it for online/offline.

ChrisJSY · 3 Aug 2011 at 13:06

madindehead said:
I'm just saying, what if someone thinks they don't want play to online, and then they decide they do want to play with that character online.

Stupid scenario, obvious answer, if there's only two modes, online and offline, don't be a pedant and deal with it.

I'd happily have an offline/lan character to play with my friends at lans if the connection is bad and also have an online char. I'd know BEFORE that I can't alternate the two.

Just is, keep.it.simple.

madindehead · 3 Aug 2011 at 20:10

ChrisJSY said:
Stupid scenario, obvious answer, if there's only two modes, online and offline, don't be a pedant and deal with it.

I'd happily have an offline/lan character to play with my friends at lans if the connection is bad and also have an online char. I'd know BEFORE that I can't alternate the two.

Just is, keep.it.simple.

Well, since this isn't the case, it doesn't really need a huge amount of discussion. While it would be nice to be able to play offline, it would probably happen to *some* people. I'm not saying everyone. But some people might not know anyone who plays it, roll an offline character, level it nicely, and then discover they know people who own the game and want to play online.

But hey, that's not the issue here. It's going to be online all the time, so we have to live with it and be happy.

Evilsod · 3 Aug 2011 at 20:16

madindehead said:
Well, since this isn't the case, it doesn't really need a huge amount of discussion. While it would be nice to be able to play offline, it would probably happen to *some* people. I'm not saying everyone. But some people might not know anyone who plays it, roll an offline character, level it nicely, and then discover they know people who own the game and want to play online.

But hey, that's not the issue here. It's going to be online all the time, so we have to live with it and be happy.

If some people are too stupid to read instructions that is there own problem. Do you click 'hardcore mode' without bothering to find out what it does? No, you read the popup that appears telling you that if you die, you are dead, then maybe think twice. Same applies to creating a permanent offline character.

By refusing to include pure SP in a game people may want to play offline without a reliable net connection they are basically saying 'pirate me' when the inevitable offline cracked copy is out.

And for the record, my net dropped out earlier a few times so I don't think I'd be too pleased if my SP game was interrupted by that.

RDM · 3 Aug 2011 at 20:16

Comes down to personal choice in the end. If you feel, for whatever reason, this is unacceptable, vote with your wallet. If enough people do the same then it will be changed. If they don't then at least you have the satisfaction of not giving them your money.