RPS:How Diablo III’s DRM Will Affect You

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defiant007

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http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/22/how-diablo-iiis-drm-will-affect-you/#more-75047

Diablo III‘s ‘always-on’ DRM is obviously a matter of much controversy, albeit a more nuanced one than that of Ubisoft. Where Ubisoft implemented the grotesque system purely as a claimed measure to fight piracy, Blizzard’s logic at least has some elements that offer benefits to the player. Battle.net, online ranking, drop-in-drop-out co-op, the auction house, and constant live monitoring of your progress, and monitoring to prevent cheating, can all be argued to be in the players’ favour, in a way that Settlers VII crashing its single player because the internet blipped does not. But it doesn’t make the problem go away, and I want to strongly argue that Blizzard reconsider their decision, in the face of its simply breaking their game. Because no matter how perfect your connection, it will affect you.

My intention with Diablo III is to solo the game. I realise that’s not the way many will play it, it’s not what the Diablo series is most famous for, and it’s arguably not the primary way Blizzard intends the game to be played. However, crucially, it’s a mode of the game that’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.

However, the always-on DRM makes this the most remarkably annoying process. During the beta, Blizzard’s servers have dropped a few times. Of course, that’s expected during a beta, but it’s also not unexpected once a game has gone live. 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. 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’t play.

Clearly that problem only arises when something goes wrong, or when there’s server maintenance, which obviously will only be a very small proportion of the time (still time when the game needlessly doesn’t work, of course.) But a more striking and regular problem has shown itself over the last couple of days of playing with the beta levels.

You can’t pause. In fact, in most ways, the game acts like an MMO. For instance, quit it, and you’re given the optional cooldown to have your player clear the server properly. But it’s not an MMO. It’s not even close to an MMO. So when I’m playing the single-player game, and I’m in the middle of a frenzied mob, and there’s a knock at the front door, there’s nothing I can do. As happened to me yesterday. Twice. On another occasion I was surprised by a phone call that led to my having to do some other things. I’d safely left my character in a cleared area, but long between checkpoints. When I came back to the PC, I’d been idle for too long and the game had logged me out.

I’d been logged out of a single-player game because I was away for an hour. And thus lost all my progress (although not my items and stats) since the last checkpoint, a long, long way back.

In fact, currently, losing your connection (either by idling or the server going down) resets huge chunks of what you’ve already played, such that the map is blank, and you need to battle through it again. Whether that’s an issue with the beta, or something that will also carry through to the finished game, we obviously don’t know. But it’s another clear example of how having your single-player, offline game require a constant connection is massively idiotic and counter-productive.

Games with occasional checkpoints are obviously a massive pain for anyone who might or need to stop playing at that moment – something that’s not exactly an uncommon occurrence. But a game where that’s the case, AND you can’t even leave it running in the background, is beyond acceptable.

And this is all never mind that you can’t play it on trains, planes, at your gran’s, on the day a workman cuts through your phone line, if you’re in the army, or simply cannot afford a broadband connection.

Blizzard must address this. Yes, their motivations don’t appear to be a misguided and ignorant attempt to prevent piracy. Although I doubt they’re too upset that this is a believed by-product. But no matter how much they have argued that their always-on system is of benefit to players, it absolutely isn’t proving to be the case. And maddeningly, the solution is incredibly simple:

Create the option to create an entirely offline character. A character that can’t then be imported into an online game, one that can’t invite others to join in. That way any of the concerns about those finding ways to artificially improve their characters and then dominate online (something that really doesn’t seem a massive issue in opt-in co-op, but there we are) are removed, and anyone who just wants to solo the game can do so.

Sure, you can’t use the auction house. And sure, that means Blizzard will make a fraction less money from you. But since they already made the money when you paid them for the game, it would seem not unreasonable to let you be able to play it. Right now, in the state it’s currently in, it’s an inherently broken product. A single-player game that won’t pause, and if you leave it running will boot you out and cancel your progress. That’s insane.

And it’s all the more maddening in what’s, so far, an exceptionally good game.
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I never intended to buy diablo 3, but I agree with everything that RPS has to say on the subject.
 
I was thinking of getting it mainly for LAN play at our LAN partys, but otherwise mainly singleplayer stuff maybe the occasional coop online.

I'm not fond of always on DRM for singleplayer, I don't think it's any of their business what is going on with my char in singeplayer, needing to be connected is an unreasonable requirement.

I probably won't be buying D3, but it's not a game I have a massive amount of interest in to begin with, so It doesn't take much to dissuade me.
 
Well now I'm even less interested in the game. Blizzard has completely bastardized the single-player of the game removing any reason to play it and removing any reason at all for me to buy it. It sounds like it is now far too inconvenient to bother playing single-player and I have no interest at all in any of the multiplayer components. I will be making sure to to try to turn away everyone I know that wants the game as well. Blizzard doesn't deserve any money for this shit system. If servers are anything like WoW Blizzard will make you wait hours beyond the time they promised for server maintenance and not even offer a halfhearted apology for it.
 
Diablo I and II I played either single player or via lan (or modem) with my friends. I didnt agree with Blizzard deleting my characters if I didnt log on in 30 or 45 days so I didnt play online.

I have multiple characters I got into the 50's, 60's, and 70's. I was, of course, much younger then.

You could make off-line only characters in D2. I'd like to see the same functionality in D3 -- point of fact I was (and am) expecting it.

Wont stop me from buying the game. When (if) I do have problems of non-scheduled outages I will likely spew forth some very vitriolic and biting nastiness on the Blizz-forums. All proper and seemingly polite to keep the censors at bay.

So, um, ah, yes, /Agree
 
I won't be buying the game. Period.

Like the author said, I'm buying this game for its single player aspects. I have no intention of using the auction house or co-op play, therefore there should be no reason why I need a constant internet connection to play it. This isn't me bitching about my horrible internet, I do have a dependable connection and a fast one at that. This is me not supporting this stupid decision on Blizzards part.
 
The DRM is a non issue for me....I am still uncertain why anyone would play this game single player only. Diablo is all about the multiplayer.
 
XvMMvX said:
The DRM is a non issue for me....I am still uncertain why anyone would play this game single player only. Diablo is all about the multiplayer.
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If Diablo was all about multiplayer there wouldn't be any fucking single player. :rolleyes:
 
Non-issue for me, and frankly this is a HUGE PLUS for me. I absolutely would not have bought this game if they let an offline single player mode in, because it would just devolve into ridiculous hacking and botting bullshit on battle.net, which is the reason I stopped playing D2.

I'd venture to guess there are more people like me than there are people like RPS, and that's why Blizzard made the decision they did.
 
Katalysis said:
Non-issue for me, and frankly this is a HUGE PLUS for me. I absolutely would not have bought this game if they let an offline single player mode in, because it would just devolve into ridiculous hacking and botting bullshit on battle.net, which is the reason I stopped playing D2.

I'd venture to guess there are more people like me than there are people like RPS, and that's why Blizzard made the decision they did.
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There is a VERY simple solution to that problem. Create an offline mode that has no access at all to battle.net. Let's people that want to play single player play single player and prevents the hacking issues of D2.
 
non-issue for me as well, loved the originals, and will love this game. However I can see the logic in adding a just offline singleplayer option. At the end of the day theres always going to be people who are unhappy, what can you do.
 
Parmenides said:
"Realm Down"

Oh, you just want to play by yourself?

"Realm Down"
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"Server will be up by 8am" "Hey Blizzard it's 1pm. Why is the server still down?" "We have some problems. It will be up soon." "Okay hey it's now 5pm what is your definition of soon exactly?"
 
XvMMvX said:
The DRM is a non issue for me....I am still uncertain why anyone would play this game single player only. Diablo is all about the multiplayer.
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You have no idea why anyone played Torchlight? Really? It's Diablo-esque with no multiplayer, tons of sales.

They don't have to play the single player only, but it would be great to have that option and SP-only characters only for: dodgy connections, military, saving/pausing, laptops, no worries about the immersion-killing auction house (my devout monk is great at farming wizard gear and making profits!).

In the end it's running around, hacking satyrs and zombies. That MUST be online?

Some people pay their WoW sub to heavily fish, grand master anglers, etc. Is that so bad?

Plus the real-money transactions might make it online gambling in the UK.
 
XvMMvX said:
The DRM is a non issue for me....I am still uncertain why anyone would play this game single player only. Diablo is all about the multiplayer.
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Other than a couple of LAN games, I have never played Diablo online, nor will I - I have no interest in that. I've always played for the SP, never the MP, and this will very likely keep me from buying the game.

That's fine - I've got a shit load of other things to play these days :p
 
Derangel said:
There is a VERY simple solution to that problem. Create an offline mode that has no access at all to battle.net. Let's people that want to play single player play single player and prevents the hacking issues of D2.
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Shh, somehow that would be bad, cost tons of money, delay the release, or allow people to enjoy the game the way they want to.
 
singe_101 said:
You have no idea why anyone played Torchlight? Really? It's Diablo-esque with no multiplayer, tons of sales..
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Yeah I played it for an hour or so, and then realized how boring it is playing by yourself.

Obviously I'm in the crowd of being fine with the always on DRM. Think about how often battle.net has been down for SC2. Not often (and by not often I mean I've never tried to log in and had it be down, but I'm sure someone has).
 
]|[ Mar']['in ]|[;1037788003 said:
Yeah I played it for an hour or so, and then realized how boring it is playing by yourself.

Obviously I'm in the crowd of being fine with the always on DRM. Think about how often battle.net has been down for SC2. Not often (and by not often I mean I've never tried to log in and had it be down, but I'm sure someone has).
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SC2 actually allows people to play the single player offline. This actually solves a big issue is the servers go down. That said, my experiences with Blizzard's servers have been less than positive from my time with WoW.
 
Derangel said:
SC2 actually allows people to play the single player offline. This actually solves a big issue is the servers go down. That said, my experiences with Blizzard's servers have been less than positive from my time with WoW.
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you know what did they 1 time an SC2 server was down for me? did i play single player? no i said to myself oh well and i checked back in an hour. i had no reason to play single player.
 
Procyon12 said:
you know what did they 1 time an SC2 server was down for me? did i play single player? no i said to myself oh well and i checked back in an hour. i had no reason to play single player.
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You know what I did when I finished the SC2 single player? Said fuck multiplayer and played a different game.
 
The difference between SC2 and D3 in regards to single playing off Bnet is that there's no items to dupe in SC2, hence the lock down and online requirement for D3. Pretty much the same way the current WoW resident memory babysitter that name has slipped my memory works, just making sure the checksums match up constantly so no funny business happens.
 
Numan said:
The difference between SC2 and D3 in regards to single playing off Bnet is that there's no items to dupe in SC2, hence the lock down and online requirement for D3. Pretty much the same way the current WoW resident memory babysitter that name has slipped my memory works, just making sure the checksums match up constantly so no funny business happens.
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And yet it's easily solved by making a single player mode with no access to battle.net at all. People that want to play online can play online. People that want to play offline they can play offline. It would make it impossible for SP hacks to work on MP because there would be no way at all for SP characters to access to multiplayer.
 
the thing is having a single player will always effect multiplayer, unless they make a completely different way of doing everything (generating items etc). Having a single player makes it that much easier for hackers to reverse engineer everything, and figure out how item generation works, or find bugs they can manipulate. Then they apply that knowledge tot he online experience.
 
]|[ Mar']['in ]|[;1037788099 said:
the thing is having a single player will always effect multiplayer, unless they make a completely different way of doing everything (generating items etc). Having a single player makes it that much easier for hackers to reverse engineer everything, and figure out how item generation works, or find bugs they can manipulate. Then they apply that knowledge tot he online experience.
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Do you really think what Blizzard is doing will in any way stop or even reduce hacks? Spoilers: It won't have an affect at all.
 
Numan said:
The difference between SC2 and D3 in regards to single playing off Bnet is that there's no items to dupe in SC2, hence the lock down and online requirement for D3. Pretty much the same way the current WoW resident memory babysitter that name has slipped my memory works, just making sure the checksums match up constantly so no funny business happens.
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Steps taken to prevent cheating that have not worked to date:

(1) removing dedicated servers with P2P only;

(2) not releasing mod tools;

(3) removing offline LAN play;

(4) no SP whatsoever.

Why would this be any different with Diablo 3? Also, didn't Blizzard ban anyone who used cheats or trainers in the single player campaign of SC2?
 
Derangel said:
Do you really think what Blizzard is doing will in any way stop or even reduce hacks? Spoilers: It won't have an affect at all.
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are you kidding me? It will absolutely have an effect on the blatant dupes and hacks. Obviously there will still be bots eventually, but that's something that really can't be helped.
 
]|[ Mar']['in ]|[;1037788139 said:
are you kidding me? It will absolutely have an effect on the blatant dupes and hacks. Obviously there will still be bots eventually, but that's something that really can't be helped.
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In the grand scheme of things it won't matter at all. There will still be hacks and dupes. It might MIGHT make it take a little longer, but it still will do nothing at all to prevent it.
 
I don't care if a Blizzard employee physically comes to my house and starts the game for me. Its Diablo III.
 
Derangel said:
If Diablo was all about multiplayer there wouldn't be any fucking single player. :rolleyes:
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lol QFT

Anyways, after reading I'm not sure I'll be getting this. It sounds like a broken system. Not being able to pause the game and having to deal with checkpoints to save your progress and dealing with server maintenance on a regular basis doesn't sound too exciting. Especially since I care nothing for the mulitplayer aspects of the game besides the occasional LAN play with a friend and I can't even have that.

Too many drastic changes, this game sounds more and more like a cash cow and departure from its original counterparts with each passing day.
 
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Derangel said:
And yet it's easily solved by making a single player mode with no access to battle.net at all. People that want to play online can play online. People that want to play offline they can play offline. It would make it impossible for SP hacks to work on MP because there would be no way at all for SP characters to access to multiplayer.
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No, because they can't babysit you in an offline single player as there is no way to compare checksums or however they do it. This is a very enterprise/business way to approach it but it's for the same result; reduce tampering & manipulation from client side if it has to constantly play marco polo with the server.

As much as people want to point at bots in WoW (less of them lately, a lot less of them) how many item dupe hacks do you hear about? Sure there is always potential for new hacks but this is the same game as antivirus/defense.
 
Derangel said:
Do you really think what Blizzard is doing will in any way stop or even reduce hacks? Spoilers: It won't have an affect at all.
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Totally disagree. With WOW there is no duping issue and botting is at a minimum. You won't ever get to 100%, but I think Blizzard has gotten it to be about as good as it can.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Totally disagree. With WOW there is no duping issue and botting is at a minimum. You won't ever get to 100%, but I think Blizzard has gotten it to be about as good as it can.
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It took Blizzard years to get WoW as secure as it is now and considering they're making several hundred thousand dollars a month on WoW subs so they really should be working their butts off. I don't think D3 will be as secure as some people seem to think it will. With the RM auction system in place people are going to try harder to break the system since there is a monetary reason to do so.
 
Derangel said:
It took Blizzard years to get WoW as secure as it is now and considering they're making several hundred thousand dollars a month on WoW subs so they really should be working their butts off. I don't think D3 will be as secure as some people seem to think it will. With the RM auction system in place people are going to try harder to break the system since there is a monetary reason to do so.
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Right, and they can apply that accumulated knowledge to D3. They don't have to start over from scratch. WOW has a thriving RM system, just not in game, so the monetary incentive is just as strong there.
 
It'll be secure... they see it as a potential for continual profit, it will be secure.

Diablo II is dead profit wise, is why its so full of crap.
 
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