Diablo 3 Sign-Up

[Nonek]

The above link TrueNeutral provided does seem rather frivolous, however i've often wondered whether multiplayer providers would have a duty of care to their customers, say upon the hacking of ones account (especially if the autenticator software has been taken advantage of). Seems to be a far more logical approach to challenging one of these behemoths judicially, however one suspects that the likes of Activision could tie up such a motion in numerous counter claims and appeals until hell freezes over.

 

I suppose one could argue that the sale of goods act has been breached with the various challenges to accessing single player content, but that seems a little too nebulous, the fault may lie with internet providers or the pc. Be interesting to see what develops when this real money auction house rears its head.

 

On a side note is there any mention of the Unseen in Diablo III? Currently creeping through the halls of the blind in Diablo I, and the core concept seems very effective; if poorly executed. Wondered if they'd brought them back for the third.

[Humodour]

Ive seen a few of you mention the online requirement as being a deal breaker. Is that due to you having a monthly bandwidth limit or are you just fighting "the man"?

 

When I buy games I want to be able to play them 6 years later, regardless of what happens to the company that made them.

 

When I buy games I want to be able to play them regardless of what happens to the Internet.

 

When I buy games I want to be able to play them when I don't even have access to the Internet.

 

Steam is the extreme limit of what is tolerable with all this (with an offline mode and most games being trivially easy separate from the Steam DRM from), and even then I've recently made the decision not to buy non-Valve games on Steam any more and use DRM-free stores like Desura, GoG, etc instead. Blizzard shoots right past that tolerable limit.

 

I think I know where you can take your false dichotomy and shove it, Gfted. The online requirement is a deal breaker because it's a really stupid technical requirement (as I'm sure was extensively established on these boards when Ubisoft first tried it), regardless of the existence, or not, of a desire not to be jerked around by a corporation dictating what I can (or rather can't) do with a product I've paid for.

 

Blizzard wants to shift games from being a purchased commodity to being a rented service. Screw that.

[Morgoth]

Ive seen a few of you mention the online requirement as being a deal breaker. Is that due to you having a monthly bandwidth limit or are you just fighting "the man"?

 

When I buy games I want to be able to play them 6 years later, regardless of what happens to the company that made them.

Blizzard's still going to be there in 6 years. People need to stop being hysterical.

 

And if you can't play Diablo 3 in 6 years any longer for some unlikely and unfathomable reason, well, oops. There are worse examples how to lose a bit money.

[Malcador]

I'd like to be able to play single player even if they lose power or their server dies unexpectedly, to be honest. Not really hysterical, as I guess this will become a trend in the industry.

[Hurlshort]

I understand being wary of the online requirement, I lived out in the country for awhile where my connection was spotty at best. I went a week without one time and was unable to play my recently purchased copy of Starcraft 2.

 

But at the end of the day this is a video game and I have a very small investment into it. You take a risk every time you purchase something. I can't really think of anything that I spend $60 on that I expect to last for 6 years. I also learn what products are best for me, for example after the Starcraft 2 debacle I avoided buying any online only games for awhile.

 

As for 'owning' games versus 'renting' them, I don't really care. As I said, it is a small investment. Leasing a car is a much worse deal, and people still do that.

[greylord]

But at the end of the day this is a video game and I have a very small investment into it. You take a risk every time you purchase something. I can't really think of anything that I spend $60 on that I expect to last for 6 years. I also learn what products are best for me, for example after the Starcraft 2 debacle I avoided buying any online only games for awhile.

 

The online isn't actually a deal breaker for me. However, what HAS given me pause has been all these reports of people's accounts being hacked. If/When blizzard starts using real money in it's electronic purchases of electronic equipment, that's a little TOO little security for what seems to be happening. Other companies have online purchasing without that many hacks. I actually was about to join all of you recently until I heard about that, then decided to hold off to see if Blizzard ups it's security any.

 

That said, the statement above may be how you do things, but if I get something that won't last a good length of time, it's trash, and I don't like buying trash.

 

I've bought books that literally are 50 years old now. I'm REALLY glad that when I got them in my youth I didn't simply decide to only get things which could be gone within 6 years.

 

I have the original Diablo from over a decade and a half ago (It hink that's about how old it is, mid to late 90s). It's still working. Same goes for other games I have such as Baldurs Gate, starcraft, some Civ games, glad I didn't simply go for the temporary junk instead.

 

That is perhaps the problem with today, many younger people see things as simply junk, or temporary items. Hence they'll spend their money over and over again on the same items or type of items...basically throwing away money like it's water. We've gotten to what I could term as the throw away disposable society or the wasteful society. Nothing is for keeps or permanent, it's all temporary, and when it breaks you throw it away and get a new one.

 

Now, skip the rest cause it's about to get slightly political...

 

I think in some ways it's ironic. Everyone talks about going green, but then we have this disposable society we live in which probably generates so much trash with sub par items it's incredible. Earlier societies may have burned more gas, but in fact may have been more environmental friendly simply because we didn't get things as temporary, we got them for keeps. Plastic bags sometimes were washed and re-used. Plasticware had the same thing. Why? Because nothing was a throwaway, if you could re-use, you did.

[Humodour]

Things these days are built with planned obsolescence, either physically or functionally (e.g. mobile phones). It's disgusting bad in terms of the resource cost (and hence environmental cost).

[Calax]

I'm fairly sure that Diablo is going to have a much longer period of existence. Be hard to guess if it'll be quite as vibrant as Diablo 2, the paradigm just feels to different overall. But that's me

[Tigranes]

Back after a 6 day trip, so can get back to it for a bit. Gifted seems to be in the 50's, I'm eager to get into Hell and start seeing some serious drops.

[trulez]

I'm eager to get into Hell and start seeing some serious drops.

Prepare to be disappointed. Even after you reach Inferno the drops still suck.

[Gfted1]

Back after a 6 day trip, so can get back to it for a bit. Gifted seems to be in the 50's, I'm eager to get into Hell and start seeing some serious drops.

 

Benched my Monk for a bit (Hell is a mofo!) and have a Wizard in the high 20's. Just got my first Legendary and I could actually use it.

[LadyCrimson]

Prepare to be disappointed. Even after you reach Inferno the drops still suck.

Yeah...they seem to have designed the game to actually "force" one to use the AH. eg, the drops you get are always a bit behind what you actually need, hence people go to the AH. So only people who are/have become strong enough (alone or in groups) get drops that are decent for those who may not be strong enough to do that yet....it's a bit of a catch22, where you're too weak to get items you need, and by the time you can get them, you don't need them.

 

Benched my Monk for a bit (Hell is a mofo!) and have a Wizard in the high 20's. Just got my first Legendary and I could actually use it.

My lvl 53 Monk is still doing ok in Hell but I'm very tired of Molten fire trail Elites. In Act1/Act2 you can still often outrun/avoid them (not always, but sometimes) to get to the next level or something, but in Act3/Act4 that would be iffy at best.

 

P.S. Arcane/Frozen dudes also suck big time in Hell. My resists are up at 70 now, and "Plagued" I can often deal with, but firewalk/arcane lasers are still awful, even with almost 24K life.

Edited May 28, 2012 by LadyCrimson

[zero_or_more]

Blizzard wants to shift games from being a purchased commodity to being a rented service. Screw that.

I think the only real reason they've pushed so hard for the perma-online is their perceived ability to generate money with their 'global random generator', when real money transfers kick in... Koreans were right when they said it's gambling. It is.

 

Btw, making money by creating content is no longer viable? Or economical? Or enough?

[mkreku]

It's called greed. Breaking revenue records year in and year out is not enough for the games industry.

[Hurlshort]

It's called greed. Breaking revenue records year in and year out is not enough for the games industry.

 

That's always a weird attitude to me. It's a business, their entire purpose is to turn a profit.

[Morgoth]

It's called greed. Breaking revenue records year in and year out is not enough for the games industry.

their entire purpose is to turn a profit.

If that's the only goal of a business then I think humanity is already screwed.

[Bos_hybrid]

If that's the only goal of a business then I think humanity is already screwed.

 

In that case it's been screwed for a long time.

 

There has not and will never be a business company that's in it for the betterment of mankind. Sure some companies have done and will do just that, but it's just a byproduct of greed.

[zero_or_more]

That's always a weird attitude to me. It's a business, their entire purpose is to turn a profit.

That's ok... for me what's weird is when people want to defend these businesses on moral grounds.

[Lorfean]

Prepare to be disappointed. Even after you reach Inferno the drops still suck.

Yeah...they seem to have designed the game to actually "force" one to use the AH. eg, the drops you get are always a bit behind what you actually need, hence people go to the AH. So only people who are/have become strong enough (alone or in groups) get drops that are decent for those who may not be strong enough to do that yet....it's a bit of a catch22, where you're too weak to get items you need, and by the time you can get them, you don't need them.

 

One of the Blizzard guys posted the following regarding the AH's "influence" on Legendary and Set item drops after a disgruntled player accused them of tweaking in-game drop chances depending on what items were available in the AH:

 

i have ZERO chance to find a legendary, because the server has now adjusted the rates on the fly, because others have already found it.

 

That's not what was said or implied at all, sorry if it was confusing. The AH doesn't have any affect on the literal drop rates of items depending on what's available.

 

What I said, and what is true, is that with far more players and an increased proliferation of item trade, we have to factor in how many items are being found by players and how quickly a player can gear up by 'sourcing' items from others through trade and the convenience of the gold auction house.

 

If we say "a player should have X power in Y amount of time through drops" and completely ignore that the time factor can be reduced by simply having access to more drops through trading and the auction house, players would be gearing up far quicker than we've determined they should. It has nothing to do with the auction house per se, but the general ease at which players have access to more items than they would without it and us needing to keep that in mind while balancing drops. It would be rather poorly thought out if we balanced drops completely ignoring all of the ways players can gear up, and trading is certainly one of them.

 

Obviously everyone wants the best gear possible as quickly as possible, and us attempting to mediate that through design that takes all factors into account is not always going to be a popular notion.

Link

 

So, basically, even if a player has no interest in using the AH's whatsoever, their chances of finding Legendary and/or Set items is still directly affected by the mere presence and availability of the AH's. This is where their level of near-paranoid control over the game is starting to bother me -- I don't mind having to be online to play this game and I don't mind the heavy focus on multiplayer, but there is no way a game like this needs such a obsessively planned out and manipulated economy or an item/drop system that disadvantages players who prever to play the game without using the AH's.

[Blarghagh]

Some people get all the way to Inferno without finding any Legendaries, I found one on Normal. (I've barely been able to put more than a few hours in, too busy, still have to beat it on normal.)

[Gfted1]

I never found a Legendary on my Monk who is in Hell but then rolled a Wizard and found one very quickly in Normal. RNG is RNG.

[entrerix]

they definitely need to add more uniques to the game, and make them more unique too.

 

i think the appropriate drop rate should be approximately 1.2 uniques per act, this is about what it was in D2, and it felt right. they also should be really good, but kinda weird, like in D2, where some uniques were really good, but often only for very specific builds

[Monte Carlo]

I'll be online in a bit!!!

US Server

[LadyCrimson]

Link

 

So, basically, even if a player has no interest in using the AH's whatsoever, their chances of finding Legendary and/or Set items is still directly affected by the mere presence and availability of the AH's. This is where their level of near-paranoid control over the game is starting to bother me -- I don't mind having to be online to play this game and I don't mind the heavy focus on multiplayer, but there is no way a game like this needs such a obsessively planned out and manipulated economy or an item/drop system that disadvantages players who prever to play the game without using the AH's.

Yes, that's what I meant. Someone posted a link to a Blizzard person saying pretty much the same thing a few days ago, too. Essentially, to me, this says "We knew the AH would screw up the "item economy" and thus we programed/nerfed the drop rate ratio with that in mind."

 

You can still do it solo without the AH, mind you. But it will/would take eons of time to farm gold for the blacksmith (to level up and then to craft and craft and craft) and then (if you can) farm the Elites etc. for their drops. And farming most Elites in Hell/Inferno becomes really difficult if you have subpar gear. D2 was far better at letting the solo player still find plenty of decent gear (set pieces, Uniques, rares) that kept you in line with the solo game, even if it wasn't the "best" or most coveted gear for MP. You might have to do some farming in D2, but not days and days just to scrounge enough dps/life/stats to survive/get through it. Basically, imo, Blizzard has turned D3 into a gold-farming game. Either to use the AH or to dump into crafting.

 

Edit: I spent hours scouring Act1 Hell for gems and salvaging, got my blacksmith to lvl 8 and the jeweler to the apparent upgrade cap...and all I could manage was about 1600dps. The amount of gold you have to sink into the blacksmith (gambling, remember) to get an item with stats you want is insane. I finally gave up and bought a few cheapish pieces on the AH to at least give me over 2200dps. Moving on to Act2 Hell now...

 

2nd Edit: I should say that once lvl 60 and all geared up with awesome stuff and MF, assuming you can kill all those Elite mobs by yourself, you'll probably start finding a lot more good rares and such. It's up until that point, however, that the "Diablo is about finding good loot!" has been rather lost. imo.

Edited May 30, 2012 by LadyCrimson

[LadyCrimson]

Double post, but unrelated to my above post:

 

The Escapist review of D3. Made me

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5777-Diablo-3

 

 

 

...corrected: Gah, of D3, not D2. Seriously, I have holes in my brain.

Edited May 30, 2012 by LadyCrimson