Diablo III

[felix]

It used to be that DIII was so bad I wouldn't play it even for free. Now with the changes, I would play it, if only I could.

How bad is the beta for you for reference?

I feel the same for the "always online" issue since it prevents one from playing when they can't really be online. But, can't play it ever seems just...

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by felix

How bad is the beta for you for reference?

I feel the same for the "always online" issue since it prevents one from playing when they can't really be online. But, can't play it ever seems just...

It's just that I am not prepared to shell out full price for an online game. Never have. But I might change my mind in the future.

Ideally I could just wait ten years until Blizzard release an offline version of DIII. Fate would decide if I am willing to wait that long, or if the game is good enough to force my hand as its price drops.

You have to remember that I am a Single-player gamer. Any and every flaw related to internet connection issues is unacceptable to me. I simply did not, and will never want, a permanent connection in order to play on my own. And since I don't intent to touch multiplayer ever, I get no benefits from it either.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Do you think it's an attempt to stop piracy?

I mean generally speaking Blizzard makes good games and tons of money so it shouldn't be that bad.

Hell AVATAR made tons of money (even in places like China where it was even restricted in some areas) yet it was one of the most pirated movies of all time.

[felix]

Of course it is because of piracy. When you look at how many games go to any sort of convention with PC version for people to play with, but ship only for consoles, is there even any doubt how seriously the industry takes piracy these days. And rightfully so. Making the game hard to pirate or annoying for pirates, helps the industry and helps keep the honest consumer honest.

Meta-marketing like offering part of the game for free to try forever, or micro transaction based systems, help a lot too.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by felix

Of course it is because of piracy. When you look at how many games go to any sort of convention with PC version for people to play with, but ship only for consoles, is there even any doubt how seriously the industry takes piracy these days. And rightfully so. Making the game hard to pirate or annoying for pirates, helps the industry and helps keep the honest consumer honest.

Meta-marketing like offering part of the game for free to try forever, or micro transaction based systems, help a lot too.

Help keep the honest consumer honest?

What kind of goal is that? Why would you need to keep honest consumers honest?

That's a funny way to say "treating honest customers like they are thieves".

[Flying Dagger]

Because in reality there ARE a lot of thieves out there. That is why we lock our windows and doors, and install an alarm system to our cars.

Why must honest customers at a supermarket spend 5 minutes to line up at the cashier when they can just have a single person by the exit to collect the money as you walk past him?

Why should we still "follow" traffic regulations when there is no other cars on the street 3am in the morning?

Why waste so much money in police and military when various other civil projects need funding?

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

Because in reality there ARE a lot of thieves out there. That is why we lock our windows and doors, and install an alarm system to our cars.

Why must honest customers at a supermarket spend 5 minutes to line up at the cashier when they can just have a single person by the exit to collect the money as you walk past him?

Why should we still "follow" traffic regulations when there is no other cars on the street 3am in the morning?

Why waste so much money in police and military when various other civil projects need funding?

When the "honesty" feature stops me from using the product, a line has been crossed.

If a honest customer at a supermarket needs to submit to a full cavity search at checkout, a line has been crossed.
If every car can't move faster than walking speed, a line has been crossed.

At some point the producer has to stop feeling like they are entitled to being paid by making their customers suffer. They making money by selling products I want to buy, that's the end of the line. And yet here you are saying it is fine to make the product worse and yet assume that it would lead to more sales.

Happy customers = sales. But somehow that has been forgotten. Now, producers assume their product will sell no matter what they do to it, and that they can make it worse and actually make more money. I am not simply a tree that grow gold coins. I expect a product. And I will not buy an inferior product.

[Flying Dagger]

Yet that line is different for every person. Someone within Blizzard figured out that the loss of 5%* of their total customers (including loss to bad publicity + strict DRM) is better than the loss of 15%* of their customers.

Reality is no fairy tale. Can't blame them.

*figures are made up ofc.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

Yet that line is different for every person. Someone within Blizzard figured out that the loss of 5%* of their total customers (including loss to bad publicity + strict DRM) is better than the loss of 15%* of their customers.

Reality is no fairy tale. Can't blame them.

*figures are made up ofc.

If you make things up, then it is hardly reality.

There is no proof that DRM lets them gain customers. Never had. You can argue about the possibility, but the fact is there is no proof.
However, it IS proven that aggressive DRM hurt sales of customers who originally wanted to buy them. I KNOW Blizzard has lost my sale. That is factual. Which is more solid than your mythical 15% increase in sales, which isn't backed with anything as you say.

Who is the one living with reality, and who is the one living in a fairy tale?

[TheForsaken]

There is no reality or fact here, because the game hasn't been sold yet.

Flying Dagger just said "Someone within Blizzard figured out that ...".
That's it.
Blizzard thinks that it's more profitable for them this way. Otherwise, why did they make the decision?
Whether it's a right decision, we can't know until Diablo 3 is out.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by TheForsaken

There is no reality or fact here, because the game hasn't been sold yet.

Flying Dagger just said "Someone within Blizzard figured out that ...".
That's it.
Blizzard thinks that it's more profitable for them this way. Otherwise, why did they make the decision?
Whether it's a right decision, we can't know until Diablo 3 is out.

If it is the right decision we would know it by now. This isn't the first game to demand draconian DRM, and the fact is there STILL is no proof that it helps sales. If the sales are good, it wouldn't be proof for anything other than there are people willing to buy the game, because you don't know how DRM change sales then you can't interpret the data.

We simply can't know. And here you are pretending we can. What is the magical number that proves anything? If everyone on the planet buy it does that prove anything? If no one buys it does it prove anything?

Please, do tell me; what is proof that DRM improves sales, and how you intent to do that with Diablo III once it comes out? Because you sound pretty sure you have the magical formula that no one in the gaming industry has. I would love to know what it is.

[Ithekro]

I believe the theory is that it improves sales because it prevents easy piracy (the kind were a friend makes you a copy so you can both play together) thus those people who would have scored an easy copy now have to go out and buy it instead.

The DRM, I assume, is a calculated risk based on the majority of Blizzards larger sales volume regions. Most of these places generally have access to stable cable, dsl, or other from of permanent Internet accesss that is not dialup. Even dialup, while slow, tends to be reliable, if expensive.

Six of so years ago I might have said the same thing about Diablo III's DRM, but now it isn't an issue since the Internet is (almost) always on (baring power failures or faulty equipment). At which point such a DRM doesn't effect me anymore. Back when I was playing Earth and Beyond on dialup it was a problem.

The only DRMs I have trouble with now are those that want you to log in every few days to keep everything stable (Spore did that I think, but I stopped playing Spore early on....I was dissapointed by that game).

[Flying Dagger]

Businesses aren't dumb: there IS proof that effective DRM gains customers. Why would they spend money on DRM (either licensing the technology or including it in their design models - in blizzard's case: they rather pay for bandwidth and blades of VERY expensive servers around the world than to allow pirates to go wild). How do you know it is a fact there is no proof?

Read: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html. Not exactly a research you can quote on in a research paper, but its still a good read.
If you are low on time then jump straight to the conclusion.

A lot of these "DRMs don't work" conclusions comes from "old" non-net based DRM - things like secuROM, safeDISC: methods that can easily be cracked in possibly less than a day (and easily emulated to boot).

Other researches/statistics on DRM "not working" may also include other media, such as DVDs/BD/music, where there is no effective way to combat piracy beside attempting to change the business model (take anime for example: they can shift focus onto selling figures and other tangible goods). Software developers do not have such luxury beside falling onto microtransactions (this is not new: ever played crappy chinese/korean MMOs where those who paid have access to all these cool and fancy stuff?).

Remember the boycott against MW2 for dedicated servers? Tons of people signed the petition, and this happened:


There is actually very little public data on effects of DRM since such researches are often confidential as it involves data on regional licenses, etc (unless you work there and have clearance/just know people with access to such data).

Companies, esp Activision Blizzard, realize that a web-based system works (else they wouldn't be doing it, and wouldn't be so reluctant to implement LAN into sc2 knowing it is the #1 demand of the esports community).

Software developers, at the end of the day, is a business that has to pay its employees and answer to the shareholders. They are not charities that say, "ok, we have made enough money with this game, everyone can now play the game for free! Rejoice!" (although some publishers, such as CDPKT for TW2 does that to a certain degree).

If you want proof: I guess WoW can be a proof. Almost impossible to pirate (due to it being an MMO - there are private servers which are all very buggy, unstable, and outdated), and Blizzard has made billions off the game. D3 is simply WoW on a smaller scale in my eyes.

Another read:
Qiong Liu, Reihaneh Safavi-Naini and Nicholas Paul Sheppard (2003), Digital Rights Management for Content Distribution. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Uh I don't think that's a good comparison.

Mainly because it's in regards to MP.

We are talking specifically SP. If people like Valient who have an unstable connection are unable to play it they simply wouldn't fork the money over. We tend to take the internet for granted.

I mean UBIsoft did a PC version where you had to be connected to the server at all times. After several gong shows they finally stated you just have to be connected to the internet when the game starts up which at least helps the situation a little bit.

[Flying Dagger]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Uh I don't think that's a good comparison.

Mainly because it's in regards to MP.

We are talking specifically SP. If people like Valient who have an unstable connection are unable to play it they simply wouldn't fork the money over. We tend to take the internet for granted.

I mean UBIsoft did a PC version where you had to be connected to the server at all times. After several gong shows they finally stated you just have to be connected to the internet when the game starts up which at least helps the situation a little bit.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, Blizzard should just label D3 as "an online dark fantasy RPG game with single player elements". Just as no one would expect to play Runescape, WoW or SWTOR (old republic) in "offline" mode.

Got shitty internet? Too bad - you can just try to play a little safer and pray you do not DC at the wrong place at the wrong time. I have had my own suffering of internet downtime - and getting stuck in a 14hr flight with a 5 hour wait at the airport - I know how it feels. Maybe the programming wizards at Blizzard would implement something smart enough that immediately freezes the state of the game as soon as your connection drops.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Got shitty internet? Too bad - you can just try to play a little safer and pray you do not DC at the wrong place at the wrong time. I have had my own suffering of internet downtime - and getting stuck in a 14hr flight with a 5 hour wait at the airport - I know how it feels. Maybe the programming wizards at Blizzard would implement something smart enough that immediately freezes the state of the game as soon as your connection drops.

My internet is fine but there are times when my provider screws up or some idiot cuts the cord and internet is down for awhile.

I mean one time an electrical company working downtown accidently cut a cable line and shut down internet for that entire area. Needless to say people were not happy and it happens more often than you think.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, Blizzard should just label D3 as "an online dark fantasy RPG game with single player elements". Just as no one would expect to play Runescape, WoW or SWTOR (old republic) in "offline" mode.

They might as well.

Just hope they don't start charging monthly fees to play the game.

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

My internet is fine but there are times when my provider screws up or some idiot cuts the cord and internet is down for awhile.

Lolz. Are you living in Asia area? It sounds just like what happened to me last month .

[felix]

Well that's normal, what's abnormal is for you to get blackouts like every hour effectively making it unplayable ever.

Anyway, Money Auction house. Press interview.

Highlights:

1. The rates that goes to blizzard to cover transaction fees will be as much as humanly possible flat or as low as possible. The idea being only to give you enough reason not to go to 3rd party sites for this stuff.
   
   
2. aparently a large reason for having this system is to prevent account theft
   
   
3. no region lock (you also have no specific version you have to buy, there's just one Dialob 3), but the money auction house will be region locked to your nationality more specific your region (EU, US, still discussing how it works in Asia). Essentially say you're from Germany, you can play anywhere, use the gold auction house (global), but only use the EU money auction house.
   
   
4. your country registry dictates the currency and a number of other things (ie. it's not $'s everywhere :P)
   
   
5. you can use other currencies and list in other currencies but it may too complicated so they are not too worried about the system there, because it's extremely complicated for the typical user
   
   
6. there won't be language packs (initially), you will be able to use whatever language pack you want however: play german localized in US etc. (None of the SC2 bs go diablo team!). Also you can SAY you are from wherever you want to, and they will treat you as such no matter where you actually are in the world. This does mean that you won't be able to change just like in SC2 but it's otherwise global access; you are just treated as a person from belonging to the region you said you belong to initially.
   
   
7. Cornering the market (ie. buying and selling at higher price), or going for some sort of stock marketing with the system. They understand it's possible and don't care. Because the risk is there just like it is in the real world market when you do that, and at the same time since you are buying you are helping out the market in a way.

Regarding 2, I can really see where he's coming from, a lot of hacking actually is very "meta" per se, not really necessarily related to a technical flaw. For example if people go to some 3rd part site to buy gold they would potentially have to register. Since those people are gold sellers you're looking at a 90% chance they will not respect your privacy and if you're stupid enough to use a common password bam you've just given them the ability to hack your WoW account, your email account or some other inbetween. This can be even more subtle then this, if you give them your name and some credit card details they can now track your personal information and apply check if you weren't stupid enough to have used a one of the 1001 stupidly obvious patterns such as "my mother's birthday" or some other silly thing like that.

Hunting down these sites is potentially not viable strategy, and in that regard depending on where they are you might not even have the legal backing to do anything about them even when you know who's exactly running them.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by felix

Well that's normal, what's abnormal is for you to get blackouts like every hour effectively making it unplayable ever.

You seem to be missing the point; I should not need to care if the internet is down or not when I play a single player game.

I literally get no benefits from the arrangement. Blizzard made the decision to tell me to log on to play or else, and I get nothing in exchange.

You got to remember that DIII isn't vital to my daily life; there are plenty of actual single player games that I CAN play offline. And DIII is competing with these genuine articles.

I know what you are going to say; "who cares if you don't buy."
Wait, I thought the whole point of forcing me online was to get more sales?

The need to be online is unacceptable. The issues should not exist at all. But since it does exist intentionally, maliciously and insultingly, it is a deal breaker.


Let me give you an example: Let's assume you own a car. What if the car company decided that the car would only run, if it has functional internet that calls back to the car factory every minute?
I mean, who cares, if you only very rarely lose internet connection?
Same problem; you shouldn't NEED the internet connection. It exists purely to piss you off and to let the car company control what you do with what you bought.

[felix]

No actually what I want to say is: why do you care for the situations when you DO have internet uptime 99%

I share your sentiments on having an internet connection for a game that doesn't need it, or rather that should have a opt-out option where you forefeit all the auction house and mutliplayer. However, I don't see how "it's bad for playing it on the go" translates into "OMG I can't play it on my home computer with 99% uptime on the internet connection". Because of the auction house feature it's not like it's totally useless like some other games; it's just annoying you can't have it off.

Also a better analogy would be bank car and GPS. Yes totally useless for the bank car, but the bank has to have that security.