i hope D3 and other action-mmo (Torchlight etc) will finaly allow mmorpg to be more sandboxy.
imho the mmorpg have been.plagued for years by players that only wanted fast combats, but don't care about "living breathing worlds" (what mmorpg should be) and that's why we seen more and more instanced pvp, lfd/lfr and less roleplay in thus games.
so yeah : all thus that want "fast leveling" and no "boring text quest" will go play D3 and maybe devs will stop dumbing down mmorpg...
If you're interested in quick games, loot, buying/selling... D3 all the way.
I will add that after playing PVP matches all weekend long in GW2 I would buy it day one if that was the only feature it had. D3 (at launch) will not have PVP and to be honest the Diablo franchise isn't know for its PVP.
Good point. The only thing I wonder about here is how I've heard even playing alone will require being online with battle.net? How is that going to work exactly? Sorry I don't know the details... I haven't played much of any prior Diablo or any other battle.net game outside of WoW.
Basically, from the moment you open up the game, you're online and can't do anything offline. Even when single player with no other players around, you're gonna be online. Just like when you first log into whatever MMO you play.
If you can't get online, you can't play the game.
Doesn't seem too bad, but I can definitely see it as a pain if I traveled a lot or owned a laptop.
One problem I ran into, and I'm not sure if this is going to be standard or was just a matter of beta stress test, was that during the standard Tuesday Maintenance window, I couldn't even login to play D3 in single-player mode. I get the reasons given for 'always-online' be it cheating-prevention, RMAH, or whatever, but still frustrating to not be able to play the game 'whenever, wherever'. As a laptop user who travels for work, at least I still have Old Faithful (Age of Empires 2 :P).
Still enjoy D3 mind you. Just my one little gripe about it.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Good point. The only thing I wonder about here is how I've heard even playing alone will require being online with battle.net? How is that going to work exactly? Sorry I don't know the details... I haven't played much of any prior Diablo or any other battle.net game outside of WoW.
Basically, from the moment you open up the game, you're online and can't do anything offline. Even when single player with no other players around, you're gonna be online. Just like when you first log into whatever MMO you play.
If you can't get online, you can't play the game.
Doesn't seem too bad, but I can definitely see it as a pain if I traveled a lot or owned a laptop.
One problem I ran into, and I'm not sure if this is going to be standard or was just a matter of beta stress test, was that during the standard Tuesday Maintenance window, I couldn't even login to play D3 in single-player mode. I get the reasons given for 'always-online' be it cheating-prevention, RMAH, or whatever, but still frustrating to not be able to play the game 'whenever, wherever'. As a laptop user who travels for work, at least I still have Old Faithful (Age of Empires 2 :P).
Still enjoy D3 mind you. Just my one little gripe about it.
Think of wow, when outside of scheduled maintainence are we not able to log in?, blizzard have a solid record the last few year, I don't think we need to worry about the servers not working in live.
One problem I ran into, and I'm not sure if this is going to be standard or was just a matter of beta stress test, was that during the standard Tuesday Maintenance window, I couldn't even login to play D3 in single-player mode. I get the reasons given for 'always-online' be it cheating-prevention, RMAH, or whatever, but still frustrating to not be able to play the game 'whenever, wherever'. As a laptop user who travels for work, at least I still have Old Faithful (Age of Empires 2 :P).
Still enjoy D3 mind you. Just my one little gripe about it.
Think of wow, when outside of scheduled maintainence are we not able to log in?, blizzard have a solid record the last few year, I don't think we need to worry about the servers not working in live.
Yes, I am aware of WoW, its maintenance schedule, and the fact it is an MMO which, by nature requires you to be online.
For the most part, this wont be an issue as maintenance is, more often then not, pretty quick. However, the fact it is an issue and I can't play even single-player during this time is a bit counter-intuitive for a game that has a 'single-player' mode. That's all. I'm probably just part of a dying breed that doesn't think 'always-online' games (which are not MMOs obviously), whether for anti-cheating, DRM, RealID, or some other reason, are that great for me as a consumer.
Like I said though, the game is fun and this is my only real beef with it.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
if you all are sick of mmo's why do you even come on this site?
To troll? MMOs are meh but MMORPG is cool
@OP, that's the reason I love action RPGs because they let you play whenever you want and don't require a gazillion people to play. And they are fun! But for some reason over the years action RPGs got replaced by MMOs which are very slow paced and require huge time commitment.
Beating Inferno on HC will be insane!
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
if you all are sick of mmo's why do you even come on this site?
Perhaps in the hope that a new MMO will come out that is what we are looking for to revitalize out interest. Currently there is no mmo that I want to play. Hopefully that will change, and this is the site that will most likely let me know about it.
I'm still looking forward to this game. Basically I'm only playing Skyrim and with no Co-op it's kind of bitter sweet. On the other hand this single player must be online bullshit is pissing me off. I thought all the statistical facts proved otherwise. I'd really like someone to try and hack my lan game.
Anyway, yep pretty much feel like the OP on this one. Not much else out there giving me glossy eyes.
Good point. The only thing I wonder about here is how I've heard even playing alone will require being online with battle.net? How is that going to work exactly? Sorry I don't know the details... I haven't played much of any prior Diablo or any other battle.net game outside of WoW.
Basically, from the moment you open up the game, you're online and can't do anything offline. Even when single player with no other players around, you're gonna be online. Just like when you first log into whatever MMO you play.
If you can't get online, you can't play the game.
Doesn't seem too bad, but I can definitely see it as a pain if I traveled a lot or owned a laptop.
One problem I ran into, and I'm not sure if this is going to be standard or was just a matter of beta stress test, was that during the standard Tuesday Maintenance window, I couldn't even login to play D3 in single-player mode. I get the reasons given for 'always-online' be it cheating-prevention, RMAH, or whatever, but still frustrating to not be able to play the game 'whenever, wherever'. As a laptop user who travels for work, at least I still have Old Faithful (Age of Empires 2 :P).
Still enjoy D3 mind you. Just my one little gripe about it.
I can understand the frustration but in my mind, the fact it is secure, it is worth it. All important data is on the server and nothing is cached like in D2 so you won't have to worry about ever getting hacked. Your IP is hidden from everyone. I think they are making it secure enough that you will never see duped items.
I think later they will expand this because it just seems that the chat system is to plain. I think we will eventually have a lobby similar to a MMO.
Wau! Uhaahuha! Nice and awesome post like always from same op. Battlefield 3 killed mmo's for me, i don't know what to do! I don't know how to live. Save me, save the planet, save the chickens
Good point. The only thing I wonder about here is how I've heard even playing alone will require being online with battle.net? How is that going to work exactly? Sorry I don't know the details... I haven't played much of any prior Diablo or any other battle.net game outside of WoW.
Basically, from the moment you open up the game, you're online and can't do anything offline. Even when single player with no other players around, you're gonna be online. Just like when you first log into whatever MMO you play.
If you can't get online, you can't play the game.
Doesn't seem too bad, but I can definitely see it as a pain if I traveled a lot or owned a laptop.
One problem I ran into, and I'm not sure if this is going to be standard or was just a matter of beta stress test, was that during the standard Tuesday Maintenance window, I couldn't even login to play D3 in single-player mode. I get the reasons given for 'always-online' be it cheating-prevention, RMAH, or whatever, but still frustrating to not be able to play the game 'whenever, wherever'. As a laptop user who travels for work, at least I still have Old Faithful (Age of Empires 2 :P).
Still enjoy D3 mind you. Just my one little gripe about it.
I can understand the frustration but in my mind, the fact it is secure, it is worth it. All important data is on the server and nothing is cached like in D2 so you won't have to worry about ever getting hacked. Your IP is hidden from everyone. I think they are making it secure enough that you will never see duped items.
I think later they will expand this because it just seems that the chat system is to plain. I think we will eventually have a lobby similar to a MMO.
Why would I worry about getting hacked in single-player mode? Unless I was constantly online of course (yes, sarcasm)....Again though, in a single-player world, why do I even care about duped items? Why do I care about any cheating in 'single-player'/offline mode? With PvP not implemented, I'm not fully convinced I care about it in Co-op mode (as I don't have intentions to use RMAH personally). Once PvP is implemented, I imagine it would be a bigger deal for sure.
But still, saying "it is worth it" is purely subjective. If the concern is about duped items and such, then an easy solution is to allow people to 'snap-shot' their character for offline play. This would essentially copy the character and gear and create a character that can only be used for offline play and cannot trade with online toons. This is just one thought that took little-to-no imagination, so if inclined, I'm sure Blizzard could come up with a more elegant solution. All that said, in the scenario IrishChai brought up, regarding laptop users who travel, I fit the description and "always online" is absolutely not worth the perceived gains to me personally. This is why I list it as my only real complaint against the game.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Why would I worry about getting hacked in single-player mode? Unless I was constantly online of course (yes, sarcasm)....Again though, in a single-player world, why do I even care about duped items? Why do I care about any cheating in 'single-player'/offline mode? With PvP not implemented, I'm not fully convinced I care about it in Co-op mode (as I don't have intentions to use RMAH personally). Once PvP is implemented, I imagine it would be a bigger deal for sure.
But still, saying "it is worth it" is purely subjective. If the concern is about duped items and such, then an easy solution is to allow people to 'snap-shot' their character for offline play. This would essentially copy the character and gear and create a character that can only be used for offline play and cannot trade with online toons. This is just one thought that took little-to-no imagination, so if inclined, I'm sure Blizzard could come up with a more elegant solution. All that said, in the scenario IrishChai brought up, regarding laptop users who travel, I fit the description and "always online" is absolutely not worth the perceived gains to me personally. This is why I list it as my only real complaint against the game.
It is not that you would get hacked it is the fact the server code would have to reside on your computer in order to run off line including all database opperations which means hackers would have access to how the server functioned.
Why would I worry about getting hacked in single-player mode? Unless I was constantly online of course (yes, sarcasm)....Again though, in a single-player world, why do I even care about duped items? Why do I care about any cheating in 'single-player'/offline mode? With PvP not implemented, I'm not fully convinced I care about it in Co-op mode (as I don't have intentions to use RMAH personally). Once PvP is implemented, I imagine it would be a bigger deal for sure.
But still, saying "it is worth it" is purely subjective. If the concern is about duped items and such, then an easy solution is to allow people to 'snap-shot' their character for offline play. This would essentially copy the character and gear and create a character that can only be used for offline play and cannot trade with online toons. This is just one thought that took little-to-no imagination, so if inclined, I'm sure Blizzard could come up with a more elegant solution. All that said, in the scenario IrishChai brought up, regarding laptop users who travel, I fit the description and "always online" is absolutely not worth the perceived gains to me personally. This is why I list it as my only real complaint against the game.
It is not that you would get hacked it is the fact the server code would have to reside on your computer in order to run off line including all database opperations which means hackers would have access to how the server functioned.
So again, "server code" running on my machine that is not playing online increaes risk.....ok....
Aside from that , data, or a cache of data as would make sense in this scenario, does not equal server code and does not represent the same access methods or even a one-to-one mapping. Add Blizzard tools like Warden into the mix and you have a pretty decent method for enabling offline play while doing their best to eliminate dupes/cheating/boogiemen of various shapes and sizes.
Being always online would have more of a tendancy to expose how things work since the traffic is all sent over the wire. The bnet protocol has been reverse engineered in the past and, should any encryption of packets specific to D3 be broken, then 'hackers' have learned more then they would have from some guy, on a laptop, playing offline while sitting in an airport somewhere.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Why would I worry about getting hacked in single-player mode? Unless I was constantly online of course (yes, sarcasm)....Again though, in a single-player world, why do I even care about duped items? Why do I care about any cheating in 'single-player'/offline mode? With PvP not implemented, I'm not fully convinced I care about it in Co-op mode (as I don't have intentions to use RMAH personally). Once PvP is implemented, I imagine it would be a bigger deal for sure.
But still, saying "it is worth it" is purely subjective. If the concern is about duped items and such, then an easy solution is to allow people to 'snap-shot' their character for offline play. This would essentially copy the character and gear and create a character that can only be used for offline play and cannot trade with online toons. This is just one thought that took little-to-no imagination, so if inclined, I'm sure Blizzard could come up with a more elegant solution. All that said, in the scenario IrishChai brought up, regarding laptop users who travel, I fit the description and "always online" is absolutely not worth the perceived gains to me personally. This is why I list it as my only real complaint against the game.
It is not that you would get hacked it is the fact the server code would have to reside on your computer in order to run off line including all database opperations which means hackers would have access to how the server functioned.
So again, "server code" running on my machine that is not playing online increaes risk.....ok....
Aside from that , data, or a cache of data as would make sense in this scenario, does not equal server code and does not represent the same access methods or even a one-to-one mapping. Add Blizzard tools like Warden into the mix and you have a pretty decent method for enabling offline play while doing their best to eliminate dupes/cheating/boogiemen of various shapes and sizes.
Being always online would have more of a tendancy to expose how things work since the traffic is all sent over the wire. The bnet protocol has been reverse engineered in the past and, should any encryption of packets specific to D3 be broken, then 'hackers' have learned more then they would have from some guy, on a laptop, playing offline while sitting in an airport somewhere.
I see you don’t understand computer technology and how the game engine for D3 is totally new here so I will try to explain it in layman's terms.
The game is designed as a client/server combination.
The server contains all the mathematical calculations that are are done in a persistent instance and all character data transactions. The character database is some form of SQL, MySQL or a hybrid database.
The client (your machine) is looking into the persistence every so many mil-seconds. Usually it is transmit data to server, get update and then draw the scene. This means the client is a dumb terminal that contains no import data other than key input, transmission of keyboard data and visual information so it just looks into the server at what is happening inside the server.
This is the basis of a MMO design that allows you to remotely interact with another machine that is secure.
With D2 this was combined into one program and had very few checks of valid data so you could speed across the world if you knew the code. you could script the data code in a buffer and send the packets out to the server which was nothing more than a interface between you and someone else. It was possible to script the buffer to kill you before you could react (trigger hack). there was a possibility that more sinister people could script the buffer and get your IP at which point they could insert malicious code into your machine and steal your account identity. This was not ever proven but it was claimed possible.
The difference between D2 and D3 as how they operate is so far different that it would take them a year or more to make a single player experience.
Of course it takes quite a bunch of time to implement a working offline singleplayer in such a system. But, it's not like Blizzard got handed over Diablo III a year ago or a half. That's like when developers give a giant singleplayer campaign with multiiple NPCs in your party, and a dozen multiplayer modes, but coop is somehow to hard to do. It's not, it just wasn't something they wanted to have. And half a year later, the first coop mod is out.
Also, it's not like WoW or other MMOs that basically use the same principle never got hacked or had emulated servers etc. I am quite sure we will see some "proof of concept" builds of Diablo III offline (maybe even multiplayer, who knows. If people implement multiplayer in a singleplayer game, it shouldn't be to hard to get a always on game to communicate..). We most likely won't see a finished version because it takes a lot of time and knowledge to reengineer it (a lot more then to build it in the first place), and because obviously Blizzard won't like it.
But there is no way a multi-billion dollar company with more then 20 years of experience and a stuff of several thousan people (with several hundred on the actual game) is not capable of making a more or less secure (given that nothing is really secure, if a human made it, a human can break it. Actually, mankind is quite good at breaking stuff it didn't make, too, so yeah..) online part and a seperated singleplayer part.
The "dumb" cheating part, like playing in singleplayer and dupping items or whatever, and using that character online can be easily prevented if you have to use server side characters for online play. They could even allow all kinds of shenigangs, even own, modified servers, as long as you have to use a character that never left a official server to play there.
As the client wouldn't send data, except the keys the user pressed, there is not much to modify.
If you can play without an account on non-official servers, you could not even steal an account or whatever. Even if, your fault for playing on a insecure server.
Think of it like Steam with VAC. You just start the game, without ever launching Steam, and you can play on every non-vac server. If you want to play on a official server, log in. Otherwise the server can't know which characters you have anyways.
This is taking it very far, they could limit it to singleplayer or LAN play, or playing on the official, secured servers with an always on connection.
Really, it isn't that hard to come up with concepts, and it isn't that hard to realize it if you want, not for a company like that.
The only thing i can think of is that it might make "pirating" easier. But really, who here really thinks it is not going to be pirated? Often enough, pirated stuff actually works better, because all that stuff many people don't want anyways got removed. Like with movies, where the stuff a paying customer often is forced to watch, like ads, the copyright and stuff all got removed, jumping directly to the movie itself.
What Blizzard is doing will delay the first working cracked version by a day, a week, even if it's a month...is it really worth to remove so many features from games in exchange? Whats up next? Streaming games, like OnLive, but as DRM, where you do not even have something installed (well, the client for the streaming service, but no game), but send the input to the server, where everying gets processed, and you basically get an image back? And next, we have to rent a different controller for each game, and unlock it with our credit card each time we want to play, because it's more secure?
Right now that might sound exaggerating, but who would have dreamed of always on for singleplayer and that it's possible to stream games 5, 10 years ago?
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
I see you don’t understand computer technology and how the game engine for D3 is totally new here so I will try to explain it in layman's terms.
The game is designed as a client/server combination.
The server contains all the mathematical calculations that are are done in a persistent instance and all character data transactions. The character database is some form of SQL, MySQL or a hybrid database.
The client (your machine) is looking into the persistence every so many mil-seconds. Usually it is transmit data to server, get update and then draw the scene. This means the client is a dumb terminal that contains no import data other than key input, transmission of keyboard data and visual information so it just looks into the server at what is happening inside the server.
This is the basis of a MMO design that allows you to remotely interact with another machine that is secure.
With D2 this was combined into one program and had very few checks of valid data so you could speed across the world if you knew the code. you could script the data code in a buffer and send the packets out to the server which was nothing more than a interface between you and someone else. It was possible to script the buffer to kill you before you could react (trigger hack). there was a possibility that more sinister people could script the buffer and get your IP at which point they could insert malicious code into your machine and steal your account identity. This was not ever proven but it was claimed possible.
The difference between D2 and D3 as how they operate is so far different that it would take them a year or more to make a single player experience.
Thanks for taking the time, but I'm not new to any of these concepts and you seem to be more in favor of finding reasons something can't work rather then believing that there is a reasonable way that it can. Maybe it is the coder in me, but I see a problem and can't help but think how it could be made better and any conversation to that end, even if just academic is certainly a fun excercise.
Now, the Anireth was fairly articulate in stating my point of view.
Believe it or not, there was a time when evey single player could be played off line and the thought of "downtime" for a single-player game was laughable. Now, we have a bunch of thoughts as to why Diablo 3 needs to be online, but then we look at Warden which is intended to minimize cheats, so if that is in place, then that becomes less of a justification for being online. Now, as I said, for the social tools like Real ID and RMAH, it makes sense to have an online presense, but again, if my scenario does not have the possibility of being online, then those features are useless anyhow. Better a few features be useless then the whole product.
As for giving out IP addresses and such, another crazy thing from the past, we used to give out our IP addresses when we hosted games. This is not speaking specificly of the Diable Franchise, but running servers for FPS games like Unreal, Return to CasteWolfenstein, even back to NWN if i recall properly. Having an IP address doesn't give someone an inbox to "insert malicious code into your machine". Windows does that as an added feature . Kidding aside, over the past decade or so, we've given up the ability to host games, ability to mod games (with a few notable exceptions), and now, ability to play games without being connected to the internet. Keeping telling yourself it's neccessary, but I prefer the way things used to be...now git off ma lawn!
As for the year or more claim; certainly speculation based on the product made today whereas, a design decision like this would have been made mush earlier on and likely not significantly adjusted the development cycle. But really, what's another year to Blizzard anyhow? They've never seemed like a company concerned with deadlines
edit: as a side note, this post made me think why we've even got off on this tangent and I think I figured it out. You seem to be trying to explain why this would not be doable given the way the game is currently designed whereas I am stating I don't like the way this part was designed. One is arguing the game in its current state whereas the other is about the game in the design phase. Not that I think that would lead to us agreeing on online/offline/whatever, but these are fundamentally different places in the development cycle and therefore result in very differnt approaches to the conversation. I muddied the waters a bit by getting caught up in discussing how the game could retrofit the feature in. To be clear, I hold no illusion, and make no demands, that this 'feature' be changed, but as I've said, I don't like the design choice. plain and simple.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
When I first got Skyrim I had an internet connection and I installed the game. I knew I was moving in a couple weeks to my new home and would be without internet for a period of time while I got settled so I was counting on playing Skyrim (You know Skyrim is a single player game with NO internet what so ever?)
Anyway, I got moved and got my computer set up. Launched the game and a big box comes up. ‘NO INTERNET CONNECTION.’ ‘WTF!!!! /RAGE /RAGE
Selected play offline mode. You have to reinstall the game for offline.
Reinstall the game.
YOU NEED AN INTERNET CONNECTION TO INSTALL THE GAME!! /DOUBLE RAGE!!!!! /BROKEN DISKS /BROKEN KEYBOARD
Did I mention I was PISSED?
I fully understand your position but Blizzard decided to make this on line game and online only. BUT at least THEY TELL YOU SO.
Diablo 3 is a joke to me... Blizzard trying to squeeze every little dollar out of their base and people are dropping their wallets left and right. I'd much rather play Path of Exile which is FAR superior in every way and FREE. I don't get the fan boy-ism and hype for Diablo 3 at all. I fail to see anything innovative done here.
Diablo 3 is a joke to me... Blizzard trying to squeeze every little dollar out of their base and people are dropping their wallets left and right. I'd much rather play Path of Exile which is FAR superior in every way and FREE. I don't get the fan boy-ism and hype for Diablo 3 at all. I fail to see anything innovative done here.
I agree 100% please go PoE they will have PvP and all the great balance with the same innovative things you are use to but please allow those that know what D3 is about the passion to play it their way.
Good to see there are people as hyped for D3 as I am! From most of the threads I was under the impression the hate train was at full steam for this one.
When I first got Skyrim I had an internet connection and I installed the game. I knew I was moving in a couple weeks to my new home and would be without internet for a period of time while I got settled so I was counting on playing Skyrim (You know Skyrim is a single player game with NO internet what so ever?)
Anyway, I got moved and got my computer set up. Launched the game and a big box comes up. ‘NO INTERNET CONNECTION.’ ‘WTF!!!! /RAGE /RAGE
Selected play offline mode. You have to reinstall the game for offline.
Reinstall the game.
YOU NEED AN INTERNET CONNECTION TO INSTALL THE GAME!! /DOUBLE RAGE!!!!! /BROKEN DISKS /BROKEN KEYBOARD
Did I mention I was PISSED?
I fully understand your position but Blizzard decided to make this on line game and online only. BUT at least THEY TELL YOU SO.
Yep. Don't mistake my posts for "rage". As I tried to clarify in the last edit, this is a design decision I disaagree with for a game I've repeatedly said I have no other issues with. I find the increasing move toward online DRM (as in the Skyrim example you describe) to be more of a punishment to legitimate customers then a deterant of any sort and I am constantly amazed that we were seemingly able to do more with the things we got 10+ years ago then we can today (not to mention the free pair of rose-colored glasses we all got). This is not the future I expected for gaming and it seems a real shame things are going this route. But that ventures more into a larger debate then one feature of one game.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Comments
There is NOTHING "MMO" about D3.
If you're interested in quick games, loot, buying/selling... D3 all the way.
I will add that after playing PVP matches all weekend long in GW2 I would buy it day one if that was the only feature it had. D3 (at launch) will not have PVP and to be honest the Diablo franchise isn't know for its PVP.
One problem I ran into, and I'm not sure if this is going to be standard or was just a matter of beta stress test, was that during the standard Tuesday Maintenance window, I couldn't even login to play D3 in single-player mode. I get the reasons given for 'always-online' be it cheating-prevention, RMAH, or whatever, but still frustrating to not be able to play the game 'whenever, wherever'. As a laptop user who travels for work, at least I still have Old Faithful (Age of Empires 2 :P).
Still enjoy D3 mind you. Just my one little gripe about it.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
woah! This speaks to the lack of MMOs out there. Or that you need to expand your gaming and try something other than a WOW like game.
Think of wow, when outside of scheduled maintainence are we not able to log in?, blizzard have a solid record the last few year, I don't think we need to worry about the servers not working in live.
Yes, I am aware of WoW, its maintenance schedule, and the fact it is an MMO which, by nature requires you to be online.
For the most part, this wont be an issue as maintenance is, more often then not, pretty quick. However, the fact it is an issue and I can't play even single-player during this time is a bit counter-intuitive for a game that has a 'single-player' mode. That's all. I'm probably just part of a dying breed that doesn't think 'always-online' games (which are not MMOs obviously), whether for anti-cheating, DRM, RealID, or some other reason, are that great for me as a consumer.
Like I said though, the game is fun and this is my only real beef with it.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
To troll? MMOs are meh but MMORPG is cool
@OP, that's the reason I love action RPGs because they let you play whenever you want and don't require a gazillion people to play. And they are fun! But for some reason over the years action RPGs got replaced by MMOs which are very slow paced and require huge time commitment.
Beating Inferno on HC will be insane!
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Perhaps in the hope that a new MMO will come out that is what we are looking for to revitalize out interest. Currently there is no mmo that I want to play. Hopefully that will change, and this is the site that will most likely let me know about it.
Currently bored with MMO's.
I'm still looking forward to this game. Basically I'm only playing Skyrim and with no Co-op it's kind of bitter sweet. On the other hand this single player must be online bullshit is pissing me off. I thought all the statistical facts proved otherwise. I'd really like someone to try and hack my lan game.
Anyway, yep pretty much feel like the OP on this one. Not much else out there giving me glossy eyes.
I can understand the frustration but in my mind, the fact it is secure, it is worth it. All important data is on the server and nothing is cached like in D2 so you won't have to worry about ever getting hacked. Your IP is hidden from everyone. I think they are making it secure enough that you will never see duped items.
I think later they will expand this because it just seems that the chat system is to plain. I think we will eventually have a lobby similar to a MMO.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Why would I worry about getting hacked in single-player mode? Unless I was constantly online of course (yes, sarcasm)....Again though, in a single-player world, why do I even care about duped items? Why do I care about any cheating in 'single-player'/offline mode? With PvP not implemented, I'm not fully convinced I care about it in Co-op mode (as I don't have intentions to use RMAH personally). Once PvP is implemented, I imagine it would be a bigger deal for sure.
But still, saying "it is worth it" is purely subjective. If the concern is about duped items and such, then an easy solution is to allow people to 'snap-shot' their character for offline play. This would essentially copy the character and gear and create a character that can only be used for offline play and cannot trade with online toons. This is just one thought that took little-to-no imagination, so if inclined, I'm sure Blizzard could come up with a more elegant solution. All that said, in the scenario IrishChai brought up, regarding laptop users who travel, I fit the description and "always online" is absolutely not worth the perceived gains to me personally. This is why I list it as my only real complaint against the game.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
It is not that you would get hacked it is the fact the server code would have to reside on your computer in order to run off line including all database opperations which means hackers would have access to how the server functioned.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
So again, "server code" running on my machine that is not playing online increaes risk.....ok....
Aside from that , data, or a cache of data as would make sense in this scenario, does not equal server code and does not represent the same access methods or even a one-to-one mapping. Add Blizzard tools like Warden into the mix and you have a pretty decent method for enabling offline play while doing their best to eliminate dupes/cheating/boogiemen of various shapes and sizes.
Being always online would have more of a tendancy to expose how things work since the traffic is all sent over the wire. The bnet protocol has been reverse engineered in the past and, should any encryption of packets specific to D3 be broken, then 'hackers' have learned more then they would have from some guy, on a laptop, playing offline while sitting in an airport somewhere.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
I see you don’t understand computer technology and how the game engine for D3 is totally new here so I will try to explain it in layman's terms.
The game is designed as a client/server combination.
The server contains all the mathematical calculations that are are done in a persistent instance and all character data transactions. The character database is some form of SQL, MySQL or a hybrid database.
The client (your machine) is looking into the persistence every so many mil-seconds. Usually it is transmit data to server, get update and then draw the scene. This means the client is a dumb terminal that contains no import data other than key input, transmission of keyboard data and visual information so it just looks into the server at what is happening inside the server.
This is the basis of a MMO design that allows you to remotely interact with another machine that is secure.
With D2 this was combined into one program and had very few checks of valid data so you could speed across the world if you knew the code. you could script the data code in a buffer and send the packets out to the server which was nothing more than a interface between you and someone else. It was possible to script the buffer to kill you before you could react (trigger hack). there was a possibility that more sinister people could script the buffer and get your IP at which point they could insert malicious code into your machine and steal your account identity. This was not ever proven but it was claimed possible.
The difference between D2 and D3 as how they operate is so far different that it would take them a year or more to make a single player experience.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Of course it takes quite a bunch of time to implement a working offline singleplayer in such a system. But, it's not like Blizzard got handed over Diablo III a year ago or a half. That's like when developers give a giant singleplayer campaign with multiiple NPCs in your party, and a dozen multiplayer modes, but coop is somehow to hard to do. It's not, it just wasn't something they wanted to have. And half a year later, the first coop mod is out.
Also, it's not like WoW or other MMOs that basically use the same principle never got hacked or had emulated servers etc. I am quite sure we will see some "proof of concept" builds of Diablo III offline (maybe even multiplayer, who knows. If people implement multiplayer in a singleplayer game, it shouldn't be to hard to get a always on game to communicate..). We most likely won't see a finished version because it takes a lot of time and knowledge to reengineer it (a lot more then to build it in the first place), and because obviously Blizzard won't like it.
But there is no way a multi-billion dollar company with more then 20 years of experience and a stuff of several thousan people (with several hundred on the actual game) is not capable of making a more or less secure (given that nothing is really secure, if a human made it, a human can break it. Actually, mankind is quite good at breaking stuff it didn't make, too, so yeah..) online part and a seperated singleplayer part.
The "dumb" cheating part, like playing in singleplayer and dupping items or whatever, and using that character online can be easily prevented if you have to use server side characters for online play. They could even allow all kinds of shenigangs, even own, modified servers, as long as you have to use a character that never left a official server to play there.
As the client wouldn't send data, except the keys the user pressed, there is not much to modify.
If you can play without an account on non-official servers, you could not even steal an account or whatever. Even if, your fault for playing on a insecure server.
Think of it like Steam with VAC. You just start the game, without ever launching Steam, and you can play on every non-vac server. If you want to play on a official server, log in. Otherwise the server can't know which characters you have anyways.
This is taking it very far, they could limit it to singleplayer or LAN play, or playing on the official, secured servers with an always on connection.
Really, it isn't that hard to come up with concepts, and it isn't that hard to realize it if you want, not for a company like that.
The only thing i can think of is that it might make "pirating" easier. But really, who here really thinks it is not going to be pirated? Often enough, pirated stuff actually works better, because all that stuff many people don't want anyways got removed. Like with movies, where the stuff a paying customer often is forced to watch, like ads, the copyright and stuff all got removed, jumping directly to the movie itself.
What Blizzard is doing will delay the first working cracked version by a day, a week, even if it's a month...is it really worth to remove so many features from games in exchange? Whats up next? Streaming games, like OnLive, but as DRM, where you do not even have something installed (well, the client for the streaming service, but no game), but send the input to the server, where everying gets processed, and you basically get an image back? And next, we have to rent a different controller for each game, and unlock it with our credit card each time we want to play, because it's more secure?
Right now that might sound exaggerating, but who would have dreamed of always on for singleplayer and that it's possible to stream games 5, 10 years ago?
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
Thanks for taking the time, but I'm not new to any of these concepts and you seem to be more in favor of finding reasons something can't work rather then believing that there is a reasonable way that it can. Maybe it is the coder in me, but I see a problem and can't help but think how it could be made better and any conversation to that end, even if just academic is certainly a fun excercise.
Now, the Anireth was fairly articulate in stating my point of view.
Believe it or not, there was a time when evey single player could be played off line and the thought of "downtime" for a single-player game was laughable. Now, we have a bunch of thoughts as to why Diablo 3 needs to be online, but then we look at Warden which is intended to minimize cheats, so if that is in place, then that becomes less of a justification for being online. Now, as I said, for the social tools like Real ID and RMAH, it makes sense to have an online presense, but again, if my scenario does not have the possibility of being online, then those features are useless anyhow. Better a few features be useless then the whole product.
As for giving out IP addresses and such, another crazy thing from the past, we used to give out our IP addresses when we hosted games. This is not speaking specificly of the Diable Franchise, but running servers for FPS games like Unreal, Return to CasteWolfenstein, even back to NWN if i recall properly. Having an IP address doesn't give someone an inbox to "insert malicious code into your machine". Windows does that as an added feature
. Kidding aside, over the past decade or so, we've given up the ability to host games, ability to mod games (with a few notable exceptions), and now, ability to play games without being connected to the internet. Keeping telling yourself it's neccessary, but I prefer the way things used to be...now git off ma lawn! 
As for the year or more claim; certainly speculation based on the product made today whereas, a design decision like this would have been made mush earlier on and likely not significantly adjusted the development cycle. But really, what's another year to Blizzard anyhow? They've never seemed like a company concerned with deadlines
edit: as a side note, this post made me think why we've even got off on this tangent and I think I figured it out. You seem to be trying to explain why this would not be doable given the way the game is currently designed whereas I am stating I don't like the way this part was designed. One is arguing the game in its current state whereas the other is about the game in the design phase. Not that I think that would lead to us agreeing on online/offline/whatever, but these are fundamentally different places in the development cycle and therefore result in very differnt approaches to the conversation. I muddied the waters a bit by getting caught up in discussing how the game could retrofit the feature in. To be clear, I hold no illusion, and make no demands, that this 'feature' be changed, but as I've said, I don't like the design choice. plain and simple.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
When I first got Skyrim I had an internet connection and I installed the game. I knew I was moving in a couple weeks to my new home and would be without internet for a period of time while I got settled so I was counting on playing Skyrim (You know Skyrim is a single player game with NO internet what so ever?)
Anyway, I got moved and got my computer set up. Launched the game and a big box comes up. ‘NO INTERNET CONNECTION.’ ‘WTF!!!! /RAGE /RAGE
Selected play offline mode. You have to reinstall the game for offline.
Reinstall the game.
YOU NEED AN INTERNET CONNECTION TO INSTALL THE GAME!! /DOUBLE RAGE!!!!! /BROKEN DISKS /BROKEN KEYBOARD
Did I mention I was PISSED?
I fully understand your position but Blizzard decided to make this on line game and online only. BUT at least THEY TELL YOU SO.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
I agree 100% please go PoE they will have PvP and all the great balance with the same innovative things you are use to but please allow those that know what D3 is about the passion to play it their way.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Safehouse Gaming up and running at: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnKd0Hk85CQ_N04Ae7v5zZg
Yep. Don't mistake my posts for "rage". As I tried to clarify in the last edit, this is a design decision I disaagree with for a game I've repeatedly said I have no other issues with. I find the increasing move toward online DRM (as in the Skyrim example you describe) to be more of a punishment to legitimate customers then a deterant of any sort and I am constantly amazed that we were seemingly able to do more with the things we got 10+ years ago then we can today (not to mention the free pair of rose-colored glasses we all got). This is not the future I expected for gaming and it seems a real shame things are going this route. But that ventures more into a larger debate then one feature of one game.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence