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  1. #1

    Diablo III Online or Offline?

    There has been quite a lot of controversy on the internet, and different arguments regarding Diablo III's online-only play, has there not? I believe that my opinion is not important in this, but foremostly, I would like to state that I am absolutely fine with this. However, it is never good to present an argument, idea or opinion in one manner, because everything has a pros and cons. And that is indeed what I have thought of briefly doing.

    I would also like to know your thoughts. Should Diablo III be online-only or should there be a single-player offline mode?

    Pros:
    • There is a smaller chance of the use of players exploiting the use of cheats, and/or hacks.
    • It is evident that it is the only functional way the real-money Auction House would feasibly work.
    • It lowers piracy. But beware, it does not hinder it, for people will always find a way. However looking at Starcraft II and World of Warcraft -- Battle.net helps to solve some of the piracy issues. If you do not agree with this, please discuss.

    Cons:
    • Unfortunately, many people who do not have a stable internet connection, such as people with mobile broadband or students who are on a limited campus internet will not be able to play.
    • It is possible to get hacked, if one is not careful, as your account is virtually stored in the cloud and your experience and/or progress are not saved on your HDD.

    What do you think are the other positives and negatives to this?
    Last edited by Kynario; 2012-03-30 at 03:05 PM. Reason: Typo.
    "There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning." by Jiddu Krishnamurti, Philosopher and Educator

  2. #2
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bodraw View Post
    It lowers piracy. But beware, it does not hinder it, for people will always find a way.
    You can't have piracy when the client is free. Diablo 3 is the same in this regard as WoW; your "CD-key" or "serial number" is used to create the account you play on. The client is completely free, and not in any way or form tied to your account.

    Hence, piracy is eliminated completely.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bodraw View Post
    There is a smaller chance of the use of players exploiting the use of cheats, and/or hacks.
    Well, the only cheats and hacks that made any difference back in Diablo 2 were used in the closed battle.net anyway, so being forced to play online didn't really make much of a difference. Even if Diablo 3 did have an offline option, it would obviously be completely separated from the battle.net, and thus it wouldn't make any difference if you used some tool to edit your offline character.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bodraw View Post
    Unfortunately, many people who do not have a stable internet connection, or students who are on a limited campus internet will not be able to play.
    Well, those kinds of people are such a small minority that it doesn't drive the decisions back at Blizzard HQ. There are people in the world who have no computers, but game companies don't refrain from making games to those who do have computers, do they?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bodraw View Post
    It is possible to get hacked, if one is not careful, as your account is virtually stored in the cloud and your experience and/or progress are not saved on your HDD.
    I haven't heard of an instance yet, where Blizzard's servers would have been hacked or cracked. This "hacking" you're referring to, is malware on peoples' computers, or their own shortsightedness in sharing their account information to sites and people they're not supposed to share it. It's a part of being online.
    Last edited by mmoc3ff0cc8be0; 2012-03-30 at 10:14 AM.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Good thread.

    I don't agree with your first con, students who are on a limited campus internet have the option to get better, private internet if they are willing to pay for it like the rest of the world does. As for the other people who said they don't have good enough internet, we're in the 21st century, keep up, a proper connection doesn't cost that much.

    Aside from that I must say I'm really happy Blizzard is doing this. I would hate to see such a high quality game development company lose out on sales because of piracy like Activisoon/Infinity Ward does with Call of Duty. However they deserve to lose out on sales for their shitty support for online play and get-it-out-the-door mentality. When Activison/IF came out in an interview and said they were suffering from piracy (like Ubisoft did before) I was glad. Maybe now they'll put some more effort into making the games work beyond the simple part of the single player. However if Blizzard were ever to say they were suffering from the same issue I would really be troubled. I'd hate to see them have to cut back on any resources because of it. So my opinion: online play; yes, please yes.

    ---------- Post added 2012-03-30 at 10:10 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Sydänyö View Post
    You can't have piracy when the client is free. Diablo 3 is the same in this regard as WoW; your "CD-key" or "serial number" is used to create the account you play on. The client is completely free, and not in any way or form tied to your account.

    Hence, piracy is eliminated completely.
    The only form of piracy that would be possible with D3 is someone setting up a private server, which I'm sure someone will do eventually but it will take alot of work and the players that will be using it is a minimum amount.
    Last edited by mmoc8fc641f927; 2012-03-30 at 10:12 AM.

  4. #4
    Very good points. I do agree with you Sydänyö, it is true that it does come to personal security, and not Blizzard themselves.

    I also first thought that they would implement a similar system to the one present in Starcraft II. Meaning that the client would require authentication every 30 or so days. But this does not make much sense, because if you have a case where a player logged in on launch day, and thirty days later he is at maximum level, with some legendary items which he later sells on the auction house for real money -- there is no way of knowing if that player acquired these things legitimately or not. :-/
    "There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning." by Jiddu Krishnamurti, Philosopher and Educator

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bodraw View Post
    I also first thought that they would implement a similar system to the one present in Starcraft II. Meaning that the client would require authentication every 30 or so days. But this does not make much sense, because if you have a case where a player logged in on launch day, and thirty days later he is at maximum level, with some legendary items which he later sells on the auction house for real money -- there is no way of knowing if that player acquired these things legitimately or not. :-/
    I'm not exactly sure what you mean by Starcraft II having a system where it "requires authentication every 30 days". Does the game lock up if you can't get online after a month has passed or what?

    In any case, Diablo 3 was never ever going to allow offline players to play on battle.net. Diablo 2 didn't allow this - in fact, there was a separate "open battle.net" option, where you could connect to another player's computer for co-op play with your offline character. However, offline characters were never allowed in closed battle.net. Offline characters can be manipulated in any and every way. You can give them everything the game has. This was obvious before Dialo 2 was released, and thus the "real" characters in closed battle.net were obviously saved on the battle.net servers. As they should be. There really was no reason to expect Diablo 3 to be any different.

  6. #6
    15 may maybe 16 will have a crack for offline singel player.

    and blizzard won't really care if you use a cracked version on a laptop to play offline.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by loki504 View Post
    15 may maybe 16 will have a crack for offline singel player.

    and blizzard won't really care if you use a cracked version on a laptop to play offline.
    As far as I'm aware, monsters are streamed from the server. As in, it's the server that tells your client that you have a monster in front of you, then tells your client what it does.

    This is something you can't just "crack". You would have to run a server in the background for it to work. Although, I guess you can "crack" the game to let you into the world, but since there won't be anything there, you won't be playing a lot.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Sydänyö View Post
    You can't have piracy when the client is free. Diablo 3 is the same in this regard as WoW; your "CD-key" or "serial number" is used to create the account you play on. The client is completely free, and not in any way or form tied to your account.

    Hence, piracy is eliminated completely.
    This is simply not true. Technically the sole fact that it requires an online key to register an account, does not mean that the game can not be pirated, nor does it mean that pirating it makes no sense. The only reason that this statement becomes partially true, is because all interactions are handled on the server. Mob spawns, item spawns, player gear and characters. It's all on the server. Which still means that the client can be pirated, but it will make it so much harder to simulate a working single player, that pirating it won't be useful for the first few months, at least. Until they find a way to simulate the server locally. After that, it's free game.

    Well, the only cheats and hacks that made any difference back in Diablo 2 were used in the closed battle.net anyway, so being forced to play online didn't really make much of a difference. Even if Diablo 3 did have an offline option, it would obviously be completely separated from the battle.net, and thus it wouldn't make any difference if you used some tool to edit your offline character.
    Blizzard is convinced that most exploits could be used, because there was a single player and LAN function in the game, which allowed players to find out how the game interacts, due to the fact that during LAN play, games are hosted on the hosts machine, hence getting insight in the processes, services and code that's being run in the background.

    Well, those kinds of people are such a small minority that it doesn't drive the decisions back at Blizzard HQ. There are people in the world who have no computers, but game companies don't refrain from making games to those who do have computers, do they?
    Agreed, it's tough luck, but that's reality. Most people should have a proper internet connection these days and if they don't. Well. Sucks for them I guess.

    I haven't heard of an instance yet, where Blizzard's servers would have been hacked or cracked. This "hacking" you're referring to, is malware on peoples' computers, or their own shortsightedness in sharing their account information to sites and people they're not supposed to share it. It's a part of being online.
    I'd like to point you here:
    http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post16055291
    To clarify. You have "hacks" and hacks. Most hacks are indeed related to the intelligence and awareness of the person behind the computer, but some things can and have been hacked.
    Last edited by Vespian; 2012-03-30 at 12:17 PM.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by loki504 View Post
    15 may maybe 16 will have a crack for offline singel player.

    and blizzard won't really care if you use a cracked version on a laptop to play offline.
    I'm currently playing the most recent version of the Mooege private servers for the D3 client and trust me it's no fun at all. You cannot do a single quest because events like the first quest where you deal with a few waves of zombies are server-based. You'll get buggy zombies that are underground all the time that'll just kill you, you can't get past the first cathedral level and more often than not the server will just crash and spazz out because you used some ability that required the server to do an unknown command.

  10. #10
    Considering I'm in the Navy and going to be deployed the day Diablo 3 is released (literally the exact day), it's going to be a little disheartening knowing I can't at least play it in single player during the little free time I have unless I'm in port. There's no excuse for requiring the internet connection except to prevent pirating.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by mtawney1313 View Post
    Considering I'm in the Navy and going to be deployed the day Diablo 3 is released (literally the exact day), it's going to be a little disheartening knowing I can't at least play it in single player during the little free time I have unless I'm in port. There's no excuse for requiring the internet connection except to prevent pirating.
    The excuse is that they didn't need to add an entire local client system. Which might seem like copy pasting to you, but actually still involves development time And not just a little bit.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Vespian View Post
    This is simply not true. Technically the sole fact that it requires an online key to register an account, does not mean that the game can not be pirated, nor does it mean that pirating it makes no sense. The only reason that this statement becomes partially true, is because all interactions are handled on the server. Mob spawns, item spawns, player gear and characters. It's all on the server. Which still means that the client can be pirated, but it will make it so much harder to simulate a working single player, that pirating it won't be useful for the first few months, at least. Until they find a way to simulate the server locally. After that, it's free game.
    Going a bit off-topic here...

    Piracy is when you take a copyrighted work, which you're not allowed to make copies of, and then proceed to make copies of said work and sell them for profit. Filesharing is the same, except you simply share the copies for free.

    Now, I could be mistaken on this part, but as far as I know the Diablo 3 client will be exactly the same as the WoW client; you can install the WoW client wherever you like, be it your own computer, your friend's computer, or what have you. Similarly then you can basically share the installation files of the client however you like. As I said, as far as I'm aware, the same goes for Diablo 3. Both clients can be installed wherever you like, whenever you like, as many times as you like, and neither client requires any kind of serial keys or activation upon installation or use.

    The part that you really pay for is the key to create an account. You don't ever need to install the client, or even have the client, to create an account. The accounts are created 100% separate from the client using your web browser, on battle.net.

    If what you're calling piracy is some shady people taking the completely free-to-share client, burning it on a DVD, slapping on a fake case and cover, and even a fake serial number, then I suppose you have a point, albeit I'm not completely certain it's technically piracy, since the software is basically free. Fraud definitely, piracy I'm not so sure.

    If you're referring to people sharing the client on Pirate Bay, then that's not piracy. You can share the client, unless I'm completely mistaken.

    But that's neither here nor there as far as this thread goes.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Sydänyö View Post
    Going a bit off-topic here...

    Piracy is when you take a copyrighted work, which you're not allowed to make copies of, and then proceed to make copies of said work and sell them for profit. Filesharing is the same, except you simply share the cop[..................................................]n a DVD, slapping on a fake case and cover, and even a fake serial number, then I suppose you have a point, albeit I'm not completely certain it's technically piracy, since the software is basically free. Fraud definitely, piracy I'm not so sure.

    If you're referring to people sharing the client on Pirate Bay, then that's not piracy. You can share the client, unless I'm completely mistaken.

    But that's neither here nor there as far as this thread goes.
    Alright, fair enough. I'm more or less speaking about piracy in general and pirating the functionality that the online portion of DIII offers. The client itself is not an issue, but it needs to be altered to refer to a local, virtually, running server, which means that a special "package" needs to be assembled by crackers that offers both the functionality to make an offline account and have the client connect to that local server. All interactions will then take place with that local server. That's basically the only way to "pirate" Diablo III. You are right when you consider that the client itself, doesn't have to be pirated, but that specific client, will never allow local gameplay on a local, hacked, server without severe modifications.

    - Edit - All of this, of course, concerns single player DIII, which is basically the purpose and target audience of piracy.
    Last edited by Vespian; 2012-03-30 at 01:22 PM.

  14. #14
    I played Diablo 2 single player for more than 9 years, only venturing online once or twice to try it out. However, seeing how they are tweaking the game for co-op I would love to try it out with some friends.

    As for the pros and cons, well, people play WoW and never complain about having constant internet connection Though a single-player offline mode wouldn't change anything in my book since people will have to realize for themselves the benefits of playing Diablo 3 online with friends and all the other pros like Arena, trading stuff and the lowered chance of getting your ass hacked.

  15. #15
    Well they do this for SC2. If you play offline then there is no way for Blizzard to authenticate that you have paid for SC2. However when you play offline there is no way for you track achievements and other feats as you play. So you can play offline, but nothing you do is permanent, at least that I know of. It's better to play online anyway, so you can socialize while playing.

    I agree with all the Pros however your cons are both wrong. If you don't have a decent connection then shame on you. Since all you info is stored on Blizzard's servers, then no matter what happens to your PC, your data is safe. I'm sure there servers are 99.99% safe, and they have the technology and staff to correct anything that occurs moments after an attack could be made. If you can't secure your account, that is another thing entirely and your fault.
    Last edited by Linkedblade; 2012-03-30 at 01:15 PM.

  16. #16
    Single player should have an offline option.
    This online requirement is a pure activision money grab, most likely designed to promote real $ action house.
    If you read the opinions on most unofficial (and even official) game reviews sites they came to the same conclusion.
    The rest is just activision excuse.
    Last edited by nycnyc88; 2012-03-30 at 01:21 PM.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by nycnyc88 View Post
    Single player should have an offline option.
    This online requirement is a pure activision money grab, most likely designed to promote real $ action house.
    I'd love to hear your reasoning why having players play online makes them more money aside from countering losing out on sales due to hacked games.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by mtawney1313 View Post
    Considering I'm in the Navy and going to be deployed the day Diablo 3 is released (literally the exact day), it's going to be a little disheartening knowing I can't at least play it in single player during the little free time I have unless I'm in port. There's no excuse for requiring the internet connection except to prevent pirating.
    Actually, I think the biggest "excuse" for requiring the internet connection is to stop people from duping items and/or modifying their characters. Only time will tell if it actually works or not because as soon as someone finds a way to do it (which I've heard they already have in the beta client) it will be disastrous for them when you take the real money auction house into account.

    I think this is the way gaming is going to be in the future honestly. There are already talks about the Playstation 4 attaching all games to your PSN account so that you need to login to play them and won't be able to sell them at places like Game Stop anymore (since they're permanently linked to your account). Services like Steam and Origin started the boulder rolling downhill and companies are far more focused on getting the $60 out of our pockets initially than whether or not it's convenient for us long term.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Rawrgrablle View Post
    I'd love to hear your reasoning why having players play online makes them more money aside from countering losing out on sales due to hacked games.
    Google the topic and see that most gaming sites and independent op-eds came to the same conclusion. To anyone who knows basic economics and marketing its obvious.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Rawrgrablle View Post
    I'd love to hear your reasoning why having players play online makes them more money aside from countering losing out on sales due to hacked games.
    Ummm, they make a commission off of every sale. If even 50% of the people choose to play offline... that's 50% of the players who aren't getting item drops that they'll be able to sell in the AH. Micro-transactions are serious cash.

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