Diablo 3 - How the DRM Will Affect You
 

Rock, Paper, Shotgun's John Walker writes about playing Diablo III as a solo player, based on his beta experience, and his frustration with the always-on DRM. John acknowledges lots of players will enjoy the online elemens but believes the current setup is a mistake:
Thanks, screeg!
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Power goes out in my area of the state during storms All the time. So no D3 for me on rainy days or big snow storms. And we all love to game during the big snow days with nothing else to do.

God dang it! Right when I decided to get it despite it having this ludicrous online nonsense they tell me the save system is totally different. Checkpoints in a Diablo game?

The no pause I could live with…..maybe. The always online thing annoyed the heck out of me, but I also could live with that for what sounds to be a fun game. Checkpoints though.This is a freaking Diablo game not some console game.

The minuses are outweighing the pluses really quickly now.

The save system piss me off, I can live this on-line connection and the like and even the occasional server downtime but this save system? fuck them!

This isn't a singleplayer game where savegames matter. It's about the character progress, which gets saved with every single change you make.

This is exactly how it worked in Diablo 2 Battle.net as well - and it should have been obvious that it'd work like this.

lost interest in D3 quite a while back but this always online thing almost makes me hope it gets a day 1 offline mode crack so i can pirate it out of spite but never play it lol

Uuh… yes. Diablo 2 actually had checkpoints so where is the (feigned) surprise coming from?

Maybe I'm not getting it then because how it worked in D2 was you save wherever you want and that was that. You saved your character. The monsters respawn, but your character has the experience, loot, completed quest, teleporters or whatever was saved. You started off at the last teleporter with everything respawned, but that was it. Everything else was the same.

I assumed from reading it the first time that the only point you could save at were at those checkpoints (just like in a normal console game), but rereading it I don't think that's how it works. He was mostly P.O.ed about the connection getting dropped and losing all that game progress. I do see his point, but glad you said something or I would assume it would be your usual checkpoint saving.

Still not sure about this game. I really don't like the fact that I have to be online to play it in singleplayer which is the way I prefer unless I'm playing it with family.

I'm just going to play Deus Ex and the other games on my backlog. I'll let you guys test this thing out. If it is the next best thing since sliced bread then I'll buy it and deal with this freaking MMO nonsense they have going on. If not then something else is always around the corner.

EDIT: feigned? WTF are you talking about? I misread the page long rant. Why the hell would I feign surprise over Diablo 3?

It's a cunning ploy.

Most of the world+dog pre-ordered this game when it cost relative peanuts (£20). Now Blizzard want to charge premium rates (£35+) so need people to cancel their pre-orders ;)

Oh come now, Skaven bro. You arent fooling anyone, you'll be there w/ the rest of us ='.'=

I haven't played previous Diablo games…

Fooling? What? Seriously haven't a clue as to what you're talking about. Am I working for Runic Games trying to discredit Blizzard? :P Nah, seriously I just misread the stupid thing. Read more into the rant and less into how the game worked.

I was about ready to buy this silly game because of that last "first impression" thread and I even said so. Sounded pretty good even with the online crap, but changed my mind and will probably change my mind again because it's freaking Diablo. Why the hell did they have to force it online?

Don't know. You tell me :p . You wrote "Checkpoints in a Diablo game?" and made it sound as if this was some kind of act of blasphemy. Given the history of the Diablo save systems it didn't seem like the most genuine reaction so I suggested that there might have been feigning involved. That's all.

I was thinking checkpoints like Tomb Raider checkpoints. The author made it sound that way to me, but realized he was only talking about when he got dropped he lost all that progress. Gotta stop cherry picking info when reading about something I WANT to hate. It makes me miss what it really is about.

I really do want to hate this game too. I don't want this trend of keeping some of the game on a server to continue, but if the game is good then dang it I'll have to get it too.

I think he reads way too much into his connection going down during the beta. It's a stress test, the whole point is to stress the servers. If it never went down it wouldn't be a very good test. If Starcraft 2 is any indication, I wouldn't expect to see things go down very often.

Obviously the check point thing was in every diablo, but I can understand his complaint about the lack of ability to say pause the game to use the bathroom. Seems like it would be easy enough for blizzard to allow you to pause the game as long as your the only one playing. But it's not like the game is complete yet, who knows how the final version will look.

I just assume every major release game is designed like a console game these days, even ones that don't get released on consoles. Saves me a lot of frustration that way. :p

The point remains, though, that none of this should be necessary when playing a single player offline game. But it is. You cannot guarantee connectivity, more so in some parts of the world. I still can't believe people have bought in to this kind of DRM, first with Ubisoft and now Blizzard. The counter argument seems to be "well, I live in country/region X, where I always have a connection, so I'm fine" or "I can do something else while the network is down" etc The issues around the reasonable expectation that you shoudl always be able to use a product which you have purchased (at no reduced cost) seems to be irrelevant. They're pushing, and if people don't push back you'll find your rights as a consumer being eroded even further as times goes by.

Once or twice a year my comcast internet might go down for a few hrs…won't effect me if it does.

I'm a big boy and can simply start-up one of my many true SP/offline games "if" I absolutely "have" to play a computer game at that time ;)

Hell might even take a walk outside, crazy idea that!!! lol

The simple point is (imo) D3 has & is designed as a always online game…it's not D2, yet people keep exerting their opinion and wish that it was. Well it's not and it's time to deal with that and start considering the game as what it is…an Online ARPG ;)

No one is "pushing" anyone, they're a company, they make a product the way they choose and think is best. If you as a consumer don't like or care for the product you have the right to simply not purchase said product. But I think it's silly to rail against a company and say "hey you didn't make the exact product I wanted!"

lol Don't buy it if you don't like it, send your message with your most powerful asset as a consumer…your cash ;)

Where were they ?

And besides all of this - checkpoints aren't even the article's point.

There are a few rather funny comments in there, for example this one :

Or this :