Thoughts on Diablo III?

[Benefactor]

Internet outages are rare, and the enviromental concern was mostly tongue in cheek (although I do switch it off sometimes because after several hours it does get worryingly hot.)

The point remains though, that these things do sometimes happen and it wont prevent piracy anyway, so why bother?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Spore.

 

[SuperJay]

Earlier, you also downplayed a lot of these issues to take a more 'lets wait and see upon release' attitude which, frankly, I agree with heavily.

I still believe what I said earlier - that I'll wait and see how the game looks in person before I reach any judgements about the gameplay itself. Contrary to your assumptions, I haven't made any of those judgements yet. I don't need to wait and see how the game looks to form opinions on the conduct of the company, its staff members' comments in interviews, or these design decisions that - as I've repeatedly said - dampened my enthusiasm about the game. I have no problem with D3 being successful - I'm sure it will be, regardless of whether I buy it or not. I'm not at war with Blizzard. I have no stake in their product suceeding or failing either way. I'd like to enjoy Diablo 3 and I hope these design decisions they've made won't detract from that enjoyment.

My problem is with the absurd rhetorical gymnastics that you employ to try and "win" a discussion about a video game. You argue just for the sake of arguing, simply because you enjoy arguging - you've said so yourself. So you prolong this argument with fake rebuttals, so you can continue arguing. You can't respond directly to the "problems" people have and instead try and shift the goalposts with ridiculous comments like "I don't get why people complain about 24/7 required connectivity, you always needed to be connected to play online with your friends" when the "problem" is with single-player games. You're perfectly aware of that, but you try to sidestep it - apparently so you can appear to "win" a thread.

 

[MobBoss]

Hey Mobboss, when everyone is telling you the same thing, maybe you should try a bit of self-questionning rather than keeping at it ?
Just an advice...

As gets pointed out to me every so often around in the OT - the majority isnt always right now is it?

I've made valid points that havent been refuted effectively. The only real rebuttal i've gotten is more presonal comment....like you just did here again.

I don't see everyone telling him the same thing, I see only 2-3 people involved in the same circular argument.

Ooops.

 

[MobBoss]

Internet outages are rare, and the enviromental concern was mostly tongue in cheek (although I do switch it off sometimes because after several hours it does get worryingly hot.)

The point remains though, that these things do sometimes happen and it wont prevent piracy anyway, so why bother?

And if they very rarely happen (which you admit) then their impact upon you as a gamer are indeed marginal, which is all I've been saying. Btw, I dont have such a defeatist attitude towards piracy and i'm sure game makers don't share in that sentiment. What if this CAN cut down on piracy? Isnt it at least worth trying? I think so.

Maybe you'd like to check to make sure you're talking to the right people about the right stuff? It's like you can't even be bothered to differentiate between 'haters'. They're all part of a monolithic bloc of enemies anyway, right?

Like I said, if all you have to offer is personal jabs, dont bother. If you want to talk about D3 however....

I still believe what I said earlier - that I'll wait and see how the game looks in person before I reach any judgements about the gameplay itself. Contrary to your assumptions, I haven't made any of those judgements yet.

And thats fair enough. I took the same stance on the recent Duke Nukem game and was glad I did.

I don't need to wait and see how the game looks to form opinions on the conduct of the company, its staff members' comments in interviews, or these design decisions that - as I've repeatedly said - dampened my enthusiasm about the game. I have no problem with D3 being successful - I'm sure it will be, regardless of whether I buy it or not. I'm not at war with Blizzard. I have no stake in their product suceeding or failing either way. I'd like to enjoy Diablo 3 and I hope these design decisions they've made won't detract from that enjoyment.

All fair enough.

My problem is with the absurd rhetorical gymnastics that you employ to try and "win" a discussion about a video game. You argue just for the sake of arguing, simply because you enjoy arguging - you've said so yourself.

I enjoy debate, sure. But come on SuperJay, i've asked some good counter points here to indicate the fears about this game so far are really much ado about nothing. I'm not here to 'win' anything - except to make my point that the vast majority of this stuff being complained about isnt even worth all the angst its generating.

So you prolong this argument with fake rebuttals, so you can continue arguing.

Sorry, but your're simply wrong. What prolongs this argument is lack of discussion with nothing but personal rhetoric instead. We both know that.

You can't respond directly to the "problems" people have and instead try and shift the goalposts with ridiculous comments like "I don't get why people complain about 24/7 required connectivity, you always needed to be connected to play online with your friends" when the "problem" is with single-player games. You're perfectly aware of that, but you try to sidestep it - apparently so you can appear to "win" a thread.

I have responded directly to the problems mentioned. I even rebutted your earlier comment where you complained about the semantics of 'friends' vs 'single player'. I told you I see no difference, and fwiw, the vast majority of gamers are indeed still connected to the net even when playing single player games, so whats the point of complaining about it? But here (again) all you do is offer personal comment without a single shred of actual debate on the issues themselves.

Its a cable/DSL/WIFI world Superjay and trying to deny that is a losing argument. Blizzard is just confirming thats the status of the majority of todays gamers.

In essence, let me break it down this way. In application, this requirement isnt any different than game makers 'requiring' consumers to improve their computers via processor upgrades, video card upgrades, new monitors, the progression from dial-up modem gamers to todays cable modems; not to mention operating system upgrades. Trying to argue that its unfair for them to require an online connection to play the game (in any mode) carries less weight than say, arguing its unfair that new games soon wont run on XP any longer, and i'll be forced to buy Windows 7 in order to play them (or replace my aging video card or CPU for example).

Its a losing argument especially since the widespread availability and reliability of cable/DSL/WIFI connections has only increased and gotten far more stable as time progresses and will reasonably continue to be so. Any time I go into a business that offers WiFi I see people playing games all the time on thier laptop. And if you are simply unwilling to play a (hopefully) quality game over the very small issue of being online while playing, well, I see that as even less a reason as not being able to play it because you cant afford a video card upgrade.

 

[Benefactor]

People always beat the DRM eventually MobBoss (at least, they always have so far.) Gamers are generally a rather entitled bunch, and I dare say that this always-on DRM stuff will actually increase piracy, as people simply don't want it for whatever reasons and will pirate the game to avoid it.

 

[MobBoss]

People always beat the DRM eventually MobBoss (at least, they always have so far.) Gamers are generally a rather entitled bunch, and I dare say that this always-on DRM stuff will actually increase piracy, as people simply don't want it for whatever reasons and will pirate the game to avoid it.

My dad always use to say that locks only keep honest people honest, meaning that if a criminal wanted in bad enough the lock wasnt going to stop them. However, that never meant you didnt live without a lock on your door.

Again, just because some people may indeed beat anti-piracy method X doesnt mean that software developers shouldnt try to mitigate piracy as much as possible. Fwiw, I am all for anything that makes such software piracy harder, and from all indications this will indeed make it harder, not easier.

I dont get the 'always-on' equals an actual increase in piracy argument. Doesnt sound logical to me.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I dont get the 'always-on' equals an actual increase in piracy argument. Doesnt sound logical to me.

It's not a significant factor, but it DOES happen. I've known people who planned to buy a game, heard about it's draconian DRM scheme, and decided to pirate it instead in order to not have to deal with the DRM. DRM is a tightrope walk for that reason, too light and it might as well not exist, too heavy and downloading the game illegally becomes easier to deal with.

 

[SuperJay]

It's not a significant factor, but it DOES happen. I've known people who planned to buy a game, heard about it's draconian DRM scheme, and decided to pirate it instead in order to not have to deal with the DRM. DRM is a tightrope walk for that reason, too light and it might as well not exist, too heavy and downloading the game illegally becomes easier to deal with.

Exactly. DRM is a flawed idea at its core, all it really does just punish your legit customers for the actions of people who pirate your products - and who will continue to pirate your products regardless of the severity of your DRM.

 

[MobBoss]

It's not a significant factor, but it DOES happen. I've known people who planned to buy a game, heard about it's draconian DRM scheme, and decided to pirate it instead in order to not have to deal with the DRM. DRM is a tightrope walk for that reason, too light and it might as well not exist, too heavy and downloading the game illegally becomes easier to deal with.

But thats not your 'average' gamer either. But I see the 'always on' situation simply just going to be a given in the years to come and predict more and more developers will move towards it. Just like in how you can buy and download almost all your software via the net these days, being expected to be always online is going to be a given in the future. But I do agree with you in that it is NOT a significant factor and as such isnt that big of a deal.

@Superjay: I've asked this before and you been unable to answer it. How exactly is your legit customer 'pushished' by DRM? As i've already explained, simply because people will pirate your games isnt a valid reason to not have DRM. The deciding factor is will the DRM have enough of an effect on priates/hacking in order to give the legit customer a better playing experience? I see no reason why game developers shouldnt still pursue that as an ideal.

 

[Benefactor]

My dad always use to say that locks only keep honest people honest, meaning that if a criminal wanted in bad enough the lock wasn't going to stop them. However, that never meant you didn't live without a lock on your door.

Haha, yeah, the locks have broke on my car. I decided its not a big deal pretty much for that reason. No car lock has ever stopped a serious car thief .

No DRM has ever stopped a serious pirate though either .

 

[Benefactor]

@Superjay: I've asked this before and you been unable to answer it. How exactly is your legit customer 'punished' by DRM? As I've already explained, simply because people will pirate your games isn't a valid reason to not have DRM. The deciding factor is will the DRM have enough of an effect on pirates/hacking in order to give the legit customer a better playing experience? I see no reason why game developers shouldn't still pursue that as an ideal.

My main issue with most DRM, and admittedly I don't know enough Diablo 3's specific DRM, is that it is locked to a certain account. This generally means that I cannot resell or gift the game to someone else at a later date, I can't even lend it to someone, the game basically isn't mine.

If I pirate the game, when I am done with it I can give the disc to someone else, it's mine to do what I want with.

 

[MobBoss]

No DRM has ever stopped a serious pirate though either .

I honestly dont know enough about pirating to know if that is factual or not. But an extremely small subset intent on breaking the law doesnt disprove that DRM also probably does keep some from pirating the software, or at the very least, keep hackers from duping items (or other things) that have inherit value to those playing the game.

You cant just make the claim that DRM is useless because some very small minority may defeat it. Thats logically false.

My main issue with most DRM, and admittedly I don't know enough Diablo 3's specific DRM, is that it is locked to a certain account. This generally means that I cannot resell or gift the game to someone else at a later date, I can't even lend it to someone, the game basically isn't mine.

Well, first of all, if you sold the game or gifted it, couldnt you also give them your account information if you were getting rid of the game in that manner? Then the person in question you are giving/selling the game to could change the account information as needed and play the game as they wish?

Secondly, as far as lending the game to someone; arent most Terms of Use/Service for games prohibitive of giving someone else your game, and then allowing them to play with your account?

If I pirate the game, when I am done with it I can give the disc to someone else, it's mine to do what I want with.

No, if you pirate the game, you have broken the terms of use. Its no longer your property to do what you want because you have broken the law. I mean what the hell. When did stealing become something thats ok with people? In that respect, once you do that, you become part of the problem, not the solution.

 

[Thrawn]

Well, first of all, if you sold the game or gifted it, couldnt you also give them your account information if you were getting rid of the game in that manner?

While against Blizzards EULA or whatever, people do this all the time.

Battle.net is also pretty stable and isn't going to prevent people who legitimately buy the game from logging in, like what happened with ubisofts crap. I've been using b.net 2.0 since it released, both for WoW and SC2, and I can say it is extremely stable, I think there might've been something teething problems when they first launched it (but teething problems are kind of expected really with something as large as this tbh), but they were fixed within a day or two. Since then I've had zero problems.

 

[MobBoss]

While against Blizzards EULA or whatever, people do this all the time.

Battle.net is also pretty stable and isn't going to prevent people who legitimately buy the game from logging in, like what happened with ubisofts crap. I've been using b.net 2.0 since it released, both for WoW and SC2, and I can say it is extremely stable, I think there might've been something teething problems when they first launched it (but teething problems are kind of expected really with something as large as this tbh), but they were fixed within a day or two. Since then I've had zero problems.

I guess part of my point is if it is against Blizzards EULA, then they obviously dont want to encourage it; but rather discourage the practice.

But I agree with you on the stability issue. I've never had a problem with any of Blizzards games/servers.

 

[Sadan01]

I guess part of my point is if it is against Blizzards EULA, then they obviously dont want to encourage it; but rather discourage the practice.

Yes, much like how they want to discourage gold-farming and item-farming. As long as Blizzard is getting a cut, they don't care. In fact, if Blizzard could somehow get a cut from piracy of their games without the retailer, I'm sure they'd be all for that too.

<snip>

 

[Chieftess]

Moderator Action: I just deleted a group of posts that was a simmering flame war going on. Let's debate the topic, not each other.

 

[MobBoss]

Yes, much like how they want to discourage gold-farming and item-farming. As long as Blizzard is getting a cut, they don't care. In fact, if Blizzard could somehow get a cut from piracy of their games without the retailer, I'm sure they'd be all for that too.

Actually, I think they do care. Because you see, if a hack like duping is not defeated, it would essentially devalue items to the point of worthlessness....which in turn would mean no revenue for Blizzard.

So in some cases, it behooves them greatly to mitigate hacking as much as possible in order to keep their revenue stream going.

 

[Akka]

I honestly dont know enough about pirating to know if that is factual or not.

You can find ANY crack for ANY game under five minutes. Several hacking team have their own official website with the cracked version available for download. It's often easier to get a hassle-free copy than to buy one that will annoy you or reward someone who think it's his right to determine how and when you can use the license you bought.

You cant just make the claim that DRM is useless because some very small minority may defeat it. Thats logically false.

"very small minority" ?
Company grossly inflate the piracy problem to look justified in how they trampe user's rights (which tends to make people even more eager to pirate, BTW), but even if we don't buy their propaganda, saying only a "very small minority" pirate is completely out of touch with reality...

 

[Benefactor]

Well, first of all, if you sold the game or gifted it, couldnt you also give them your account information if you were getting rid of the game in that manner? Then the person in question you are giving/selling the game to could change the account information as needed and play the game as they wish?

Secondly, as far as lending the game to someone; arent most Terms of Use/Service for games prohibitive of giving someone else your game, and then allowing them to play with your account?

Everything else I own can be resold, gifted or lent to whoever I want, it just irks me that games are different. I don't know or care about the legality really, it's not something I've really tried to circumvent...

No, if you pirate the game, you have broken the terms of use. Its no longer your property to do what you want because you have broken the law. I mean what the hell. When did stealing become something thats ok with people? In that respect, once you do that, you become part of the problem, not the solution.

I was speaking about the reality of the situation rather than from a moral or legal standpoint, if I put a pirated copy on a disc then I have the game in my hand to do what I want with.

If I could make a perfect copy of someone elses porsche it may be illegal but you wouldn't deny I had it if I drove it straight past you .