Diablo 3 - System Requirements

There are quite a few fake WoW servers that usually end up about one patch behind the real WoW. In Diablo 3, such content patching will not be needed, especially for single player gamers, so I have no doubt it'll be cracked. This is not an MMO that keeps evolving through monthly subs and frequent content patches.

I don't think we can really know what Diablo 3 will be in terms of content updates and server structure. I'm only going by what they're telling us - and how I imagine it would be.

I'm sure it will be cracked in some form or another, but I think relying on that as a means to get access to a "meaningful" version of the game is somewhat optimistic.

I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard have learned from their WoW experience, and have made the online structure even more integral to Diablo 3 - regardless of whether or not it's an MMO in the traditional way.

Also, I honestly don't think piracy is their primary concern. D3 will sell millions of copies no matter what, I have no doubt. I DO think "hacking/cheating" is a major concern, though, and I think that alone is a very good reason for attempting to protect their game from offline access. Even if they fail miserably, I can certainly understand the desire and the effort to at least TRY to combat these game-ruining aspects of what's clearly a multiplayer-focused experience.

I do appreciate the viewpoint of "strictly offline" singleplayer gamers, but I don't understand why Blizzard should be required to ignore their own interests for their sake. That just doesn't make sense to me.
 
Also, I honestly don't think piracy is their primary concern. D3 will sell millions of copies no matter what, I have no doubt. I DO think "hacking/cheating" is a major concern, though, and I think that alone is a very good reason for attempting to protect their game from offline access. Even if they fail miserably, I can certainly understand the desire and the effort to at least TRY to combat these game-ruining aspects of what's clearly a multiplayer-focused experience.

I do appreciate the viewpoint of "strictly offline" singleplayer gamers, but I don't understand why Blizzard should be required to ignore their own interests for their sake. That just doesn't make sense to me.

Simply having the ability to play the game offline won't affect hacking/cheating though, as long as offline mode cannot affect online play in any way. It would be easy to have a Battle.net portion of the game where everything is done online in addition to an offline mode.

Anyway, my internet connection is solid enough to allow me to ingore all this, so I don't really care, but I don't buy their arguments. A seperated offline mode simply has no way of affecting what happens online.
 
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I think they said that if they going to have separate offline mode then they have to make their server software available to the buyer and hence hackers.

I still don't like the whole thing but If the game is good i will properly come around :)
 
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Simply having the ability to play the game offline won't affect hacking/cheating though, as long as offline mode cannot affect online play in any way. It would be easy to have a Battle.net portion of the game where everything is done online in addition to an offline mode.

What I mean is that if hackers/pirates manage to fully emulate the server structure (which is integral to the design, it seems to me), they'll probably have more knowledge about the online environment than Blizzard would want. They might, potentially, learn how to cheat or hack the online version of the game with less obstacles than the alternative as it is now. Much like Diablo 2 was plagued horrendously by hackers and cheaters.

I know they could have designed the game, from the ground up, to include an entirely separate and "closed off" offline portion of the game, but my point is: Why go through the effort of having two such separate versions available? The answer: to satisfy the "offline singleplayer only" crowd - and I can certainly see why they wouldn't want to do that. I don't think it's a trivial thing to design one game that's meant to be played alone and another which is fully dependent on an online server environment. That would take quite some effort and would be a confusing process unless you have two separate teams working on what's otherwise the same game.

When you include the rather huge investment they've made into their Battle.net environment, I think going 100% online is the logical next step.

I don't know why people think Diablo 3 is simply a "new version" of Diablo 2. I certainly get a very different vibe from Blizzard regarding the online integration. It seems to me they've had this online structure in mind for a long time.

It COULD be Diablo 2 with new visuals and new content, but why assume it's just that? To me, they CLEARLY want something much more involved in terms of multiplayer and online facilities - and they probably want a much easier path to releasing content regularly and not worrying about separate versions. Hellgate tried the D2 model and faced a lot of difficulties providing patches for both versions.

Anyway, my internet connection is solid enough to allow me to ingore all this, so I don't really care, but I don't buy their arguments. A seperated offline mode simply has no way of affecting what happens online.

It very much depends on the game.

If you reverse the challenge, I don't think games like WoW or Lord of the Rings Online can be "converted" to singleplayer only games as a trivial process either. It's a matter of wanting to design the game that way, and wanting to invest resources in two rather separate code structures.

It seems people think "Diablo 2" when they think of how Diablo 3 will work. I don't get that. Ok, so it's not a traditional MMO - but don't you think it's possible that Blizzard have changed the server integration since then, and made the game depend on the server-side in similar ways?
 
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Call me cynical but the reasons for a required internet are beyond clear.

With local (non-internet) single player, you have storage of character info on your hard drive; data that can be backed up or modified. With a server structure, that is out of the question and it paves the way for micro-transactions.

Did you want to circumvent the character limit in single player and back up/delete a character from the main directory to make room? Not possible - you have to <drum roll> go through a micro-transaction and buy extra slots. Did you want to respec your character? Single player mods are out of the question, just buy a respec item from the Diablo Store. I'm not saying respec won't be implemented in the base game itself - I haven't cared enough about D3 to be following its technical details, but this abuse of micro-transactions could just as easily translate to other typical mechanics of gameplay.

So, yes, the game will be more secure, but what's not to say that it wouldn't have been so with the same OPEN/CLOSED setup that was had in D2? I think it's all a smokescreen to create a consumer need for what mods would have solved previously (or not even been missing from the game in the first place $$$).
 
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I'm one of the very few who does not have an internet connection to the house. Instead I use my phone as a hotspot which works decently but by no means is it broadband. Slower speed and much higher ping. Its perfectly fine for normal browsing tho.

It doesn't bother me (much) that I will miss D3. I liked the other 2 but never understood how everyone thought they were super awesome.
 
Ah yeah I can tell you haven't been following D3. The concept of a "respec" is alien to it. There are no permanent decisions you make about your character, instead you customize your character based on what abilities you choose to assign the runestones that you find to. Kind of hard to explain if you aren't familiar with the game, but it makes the idea of a respec unnecesary, and it also means your unlikely to really need more then 10 character slots.

I kind of doubt that microtransactions are the reasons for it being online only. They made the same decision for Starcraft 2 and never added any microtransactions to that (or at least I don't think they did).



Call me cynical but the reasons for a required internet are beyond clear.

With local (non-internet) single player, you have storage of character info on your hard drive; data that can be backed up or modified. With a server structure, that is out of the question and it paves the way for micro-transactions.

Did you want to circumvent the character limit in single player and back up/delete a character from the main directory to make room? Not possible - you have to <drum roll> go through a micro-transaction and buy extra slots. Did you want to respec your character? Single player mods are out of the question, just buy a respec item from the Diablo Store. I'm not saying respec won't be implemented in the base game itself - I haven't cared enough about D3 to be following its technical details, but this abuse of micro-transactions could just as easily translate to other typical mechanics of gameplay.

So, yes, the game will be more secure, but what's not to say that it wouldn't have been so with the same OPEN/CLOSED setup that was had in D2? I think it's all a smokescreen to create a consumer need for what mods would have solved previously (or not even been missing from the game in the first place $$$).
 
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I kind of doubt that microtransactions are the reasons for it being online only. They made the same decision for Starcraft 2 and never added any microtransactions to that (or at least I don't think they did).

The difference is that SCII gains its staying power via competition between players. If you even attempt to introduce micro transactions into that, the PR fallout would be of epic proportions. D3, on the other hand, is primarily PvE... Micro-transactions in that environment are much more plausible.
 
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The difference is that SCII gains its staying power via competition between players. If you even attempt to introduce micro transactions into that, the PR fallout would be of epic proportions. D3, on the other hand, is primarily PvE… Micro-transactions in that environment are much more plausible.

The point is that you were suggesting that if Blizzard is making a game online only then that must mean they want to add microtransactions to it. This is disproven by the fact that their last game was also online only and had no microtransactions. Clearly Blizzard just prefers to make online games, microtransactions or not.

As for the PVP vs. PVE thing, that only matters if Blizzard is selling things that directly increase the power of the buyer (something that Blizzard has said that they would never do). If they were selling convenience things like extra slots then they could do it just as easily in SC2.
 
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I think it's safe to say the internet connection topic has already been beaten to death at this point.

I'm not a fan of the idea, but I have to wonder when people are going to realize that constantly bitching about it isn't going to change anything.

Mmmh, we should probably lock this thread. Or the forum. Why not closing down the site anyway? A place where decent folks discuss topics regarding CRPGs, pfffffft.
 
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