http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/

Need I say more???

Damn you!

I thought you were talking about the game series actually called D, and you had me all excited!!
For NOTHING!

(>_<)

Yeah, I heard about this from my sister's boyfriend. I'm streering clear of this game... I lost two years two Diablo 2 my junior and senior years in high school, I don't feel like becoming a zombie again and having less of a life than I already have outside work.

Of course, this time I'm sure you'll have to pay a monthly fee to play it which is another reason I'm not going to other.

I altered the title of this thread a bit to avoid further confusion along the lines that Amazingu experienced

I sincerely doubt that...
Blizzard has never charged for online services outside of WoW. I don't think they plan on changing that.

cheers,

-avatar!

Was gonna post this too, but Avatar beat me too it. Damn you, avatar!!

In any event, I am so pumped for this. I looooooooooooved me some Diablo series back in the day.

I sincerely doubt your doubt

I'm not saying a monthly fee is a bad thing if it means things like better servers and (hopefully) better control over the in-game environment went it comes to dirty (cheating) players.

Yup, D3 (and yes, I am going to use D3 is going to rock! Despite what Ashley thinks, I'm certain Blizzard will NOT charge any money to go online (just like they haven't in any title except for WoW)! Graphics look great! Music will be great! Fun factor will likely be off the chart... now just gotta find some time and hope my comp has the specs for it

cheers,

-avatar!

Blizzard just (well, relatively recently at any rate) announced a new class to Diablo 3! So we have:

1)Kick-ass Barbarian
2)Kinda disturbing Witch-Doctor
3)Baldish + giant prayer beaded Monk with BIG stick
4)explosive Wizard with deadly cleavage
5)sexy tight-leather Demon Hunter

more on the way? probably... this game is gonna be great

http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/characters/

It's here... and I can't play it...
Blizzard really $*&%ed this up. Not the game, which apparently is super-fun, but the fact that you HAVE to be online to play. Yup, there is NO off-line mode. If you're like me, and have no internet at home, well a big middle finger from the friendly folks at Blizzard. I say forget this bullshit! Ugh...

Well, and I pre-ordered the Collector's Edition. It's going on ebay, unless someone wants to make me a fair offer for it. Seeing as I can't play it, there's no point in it being a large paperweight... stupid, evil, greedy, publishers that will do everything in their power to make sure legitimate players are penalized. I am certain this will backfire on them, and will only encourge piracy (since, I bet the pirated version CAN be played offline...

So in summary:

Dear Blizzard, you suck, and as long as you're going to jackasses, I won't purchase any of your games... so bite me!

How it's penalizing legitimate players when it has been known for ages that Diablo 3 will be online only? And I doubt pirated version allow you play offline, unless they will make you do somekind of server for your comp.

But then, could have been that you haven't been following Diablo 3 news at all, in which case your 'rage' would be understandable.

And I've been playing the game a bit, still on second act on normal, probably halfway tru it. So far so good, really loving how they've streamlined the game to make it more userfriendly. The skill system especially is slick as hell, and lets you really play with it without worrying if you've made wrong decisions or not.

Only problem so far I've had with the online drm has been when the servers have been down, which has happened only once, which made me play other games in my backlog, so I guess it's a plus.

Also, gotta love the lore in the game.

Well, even if it has been known for ages that the game would be online only (I admit, I did not know) it still penalizes people such as myself that do not use internet at home, or those that use it sparingly. Also, for people who have laptops and for whatever reason take their gaming elsewhere, chances are there are sporadic and perhaps long-term periods without internet. All such folk are hurt by this terrible and atrocious DRM. The game itself may be great, but it's been heavily, very heavily, criticized for the DRM, and I have to concur.

Or even just if one's internet is down -- what better time to game?

What really sucks is that they managed to create DRM that's actually successful. From what I'm reading, it hasn't been cracked yet. You might say this is 'good' but it just means they (and others) are justified in doing it again.

I certainly will never, ever, buy a game that forces one to be online just to play it at all.

It's 2012, if you done have Internet at your home you are in the minority -- be it by choice or not.

That being said, Blizzard has stated this would be online only from the very beginning. The reason for online only is NOT DRM, it's to prevent the widespread cheating and hacking that went on with Diablo and Diablo II, as well as preventing people from just copying their character back after it died in the new Hardcore mode (to making ratings and ladders meaningful again). It has NOTHING to do with DRM at ALL. Subsequently, it's also a PROVEN and more reliable content delivery method (see: Steam).

Agreed. I'll link the ever-affable Jim Sterling here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ … Online-DRM

"DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that are not desired or intended by the content provider."

Sounds like a text-book definition of DRM to me. I'm not sure if I'm willing to boycott games like this, but I am very disappointed with Blizzard's actions. There's no reason they couldn't have included an offline mode. Almost every modern game I own can be downloaded and updated from the internet while still being played offline, so content delivery isn't an issue. That only leaves ranking, cheating and character death. Those issues could have been addressed separately in an "online" mode. "Offline" gameplay would be un-ranked and for "recreation" only while "online" gameplay could have all the additional DRM to ensure "fair" interaction.

Instead of being clever they decided to be lazy. It doesn't ruin the experience for me, but it is very disappointing and people have a right to be pissed off.

That doesn't resolve the issue of, say, wanting to play on a laptop while on a trip.

So, no MMO's for you then?

Also, Jim Sterling is a major asshole douchebag with his act his putting on, so his opinions don't much weight in my end. Especially in this subject when D III is online only and people have known it for ages. Sure it sucks when you can't play because the servers are coming down, which happened to me yesterday, thankfully I had just killed the act II boss and gotten checkpointed so I didn't lose anything. And I used the time to play some other games and watching some stuff.

"If you can't play the game (because the servers are down, etc), just go do something else" just doesn't cut it as a retort. If I sit down to play specific title, and I can't, doing something else doesn't solve my problem. If I need to go to the grocery store to buy some milk and eggs and the store is closed, doing the laundry instead doesn't satisfy my needs.

Anti-piracy measures are often described as punishing honest users by subjecting them to the same deterrents as their intended targets. If you take "DRM" as a rationale out of the equation, we're still left with a similar dynamic; people like me, who don't cheat or don't care about who does, are punished by being barred from play just in case somebody else wants to. And really, in single player mode, who cares if the player cheats? I can see that being a problem in multi-player mode, but if you just treated single-player and multi-player as "offline" and "online," it wouldn't be an issue (and isn't that how Diablo 2 functioned?). Potentially losing progress or suffering other losses due to lag, server crashes, etc, in a game that doesn't actually need an online connection to function just baffles me.

I've tried a number of them, and nothing outside of PangYa of all things ever really reeled me in.

But of course, MMOs (and stuff like online multiplayer) by their very design forces one to be online, and thus wasn't included in that statement.

I completely agree with avatar and Boco on this one. What Blizzard has done is reprehensible. There absolutely should be an offline-only mode separate from the leaderboards so people can play without having to be logged in at all times. It's a ridiculous requirement, and I guarantee you that the pirates will eventually find a way around it, they always do. As usual, paying customers are punished with an inferior product. Sad.

The game has sold extremely well. Apparently over 6 million copies in the first week. This is unfortunate, since it only shows the publishers that they can push anything they want on players and they will still purchase the game. I at least, will not purchase a game that requires me to be online all the time. I'm not into renting games that I purchase. That's how I see it anyway. I think PC gaming is really hitting the crapper big time, thanks the folks at EA, Ubisoft, and now Blizzard.

Or the 6 million buyers did realize that this is an online game, and didn't have problem with it. And thus Blizzard isn't pushing anything, they did tell in 'early' stages that D3 is online only and people had time to think if they want that or not.

And PC gaming is still so good, even if time to time companies like Ubi tend to be assholes, but then they've removed the online drm, which makes sense in SP games. And if you want to blame Blizzard, I suggest throwing the blame onto Activision which owns Blizzard. Or co owns, I don't know how their relationship is actually.

That's the thing. Why don't the players have a problem with it? As has been stated previously, for online play, sure it should be 100% online. However for single player, we should be able to play offline. I just can't help but feel that Blizzard/Activision is hurting some of the legitimate customers (such as myself). The thing is, with 6 million people purchasing the game on the first week, they probably don't care if they lose 1 million or so other customers. I have to admit that I have not purchased a PC game in a long time. I was tempted by Heroes VI, but I read such atrocious reviews online (of the DRM) that I gave up my consideration. That said, I do prefer PC gaming over console for the most part. Well, I still have Heroes III to play

Well, can't speak behalf of other players, but I really don't have any problems with it. It's actually fun to see friends play it online and be able to jump right into their game no matter if they're higher level or lower level or even way ahead you on the game. Works so much better than what I can remember from game making on D 2 (for the small amounts I played mp).

And pretty sure BlizzVizion does know that their choice did hurt gamers like you. But then, in this day and age, it's more and more rare to see people without internet on their home, unless they've made that decision themselves and not get fucked by ISP's or just living on odd spots.

I have no problems with it either.  Blizzard stated very very early on it would be online only.  I'm not sure why people think they're entitled to offline modes or they're required in games.  It's not broken because it doesn't include one and it doesn't make the game any worse off for it.  Blizzard has every right to make the game online only, and as noted by sales records, 6 million people clearly don't have that much of an issue with it.  Drop the self-entitled consumer act, if you don't like it, don't buy it.  ;/

That's all well and good, but don't you think people are entitled to complain when the game doesn't work properly, BECAUSE of this unnecessary online BS?

Haven't heard single case of game not working properly. Server side issues are different story, even mmo servers have been down on launch. And time to time for mandatory hotfixes/updates.

The game works properly.  Not including an offline mode does not indicate the game is broken.

I admit, I did not follow the news and did not know it was online only. Also, you are correct that Blizzard can do whatever they want. They have the right to make the game online only. They have the right to make the game 100% shades of pink, yes they can do what they want. However, that does not mean that 1)their choices have merit and it certainly does not mean 2)that people do not have the right to complain about them. I really fail to see how people complaining about the online only is "self-entitled consumer act"? Blizzard/Activision has given a number of reasons why they made the game online only, but if you think it has ANYTHING to do other than $$, well, I have a really nice bridge to sell you...
Yes, the online only bit has nothing to do with Blizzard wanting to keep everything "fair", nor any other such excuse. They think this will help battle piracy. I think in the long run this will back-fire on them. It really would have been very easy for Blizzard to implement an offline mode, because frankly there are people who simply do not like online games. (By the way, it's the same thing for those who played Demon's Souls. The game had a continual online mode, but it was easily disabled for 100% offline fun. Blizzard could easily have done the same thing here). That's my take on it. I really think had Blizzard provided for their offline fans, they would have sold a few million more copies on launch.

But then, it's already fastest selling PC game so I think they're fine

But I also do think that in the future Diablo III might get offline update, but first I rather have the expansion pack, even if that will take years probably.

Sorry, my choice of words was incorrect.

I should have said "don't you think people are entitled to complain when the game they bought can't be plaid properly?"

Well, this is a surprise.

http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Playst … 00BGA9V2Q/

I wonder if it will have offline play for the PS3? and... PS4??

PS3 version has gotten very favorable reviews! Far more than the PC version received. I will get it, although no time to play right now! Has anyone played this?

I didn't realize this was coming out until I saw it at GameStop over the weekend.  I picked it up, and my girlfriend and I have been playing it the last couple days.  I know it's good when we've been postponing sleep to play it; this hasn't happened since Skyrim.

I never played the first two Diablo games, and when I started playing this one, my initial reaction was, "It's like someone took Record of Lodoss War from the Dreamcast and super-sized it."  Given how much I loved playing RoLW, I think this is going to be in the rotation for quite some time.