Blizzard responds to complaints over Diablo 3 connection requirement

by Alexander Sliwinski on Aug 5th 2011 9:15AM

Diablo 3 requires a constant internet connection -- a decision that has caused some strong reactions from folks looking to play the game solo, or those pushing against overly demanding DRM schemes. MTV spoke with Robert Bridenbecker, the Vice President of Online Technologies at Blizzard to get the developer's side of the story.

"Internally I don't think [always-on DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate. Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters," said Bridenbecker. "You're guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that's not really entering into why we want to do it."

Bridenbecker goes on to mention that Diablo 2 offline characters couldn't be used online, which got messy for players and the developer, so this time they decided to "just keep everything clean." As for those looking to play alone, they don't have to interact with any other online players if they don't want to -- but they'll still need that internet connection.

Source: MTV

Tags: Activision-Blizzard, always-on, always-on-drm, Blizzard, Diablo-3, drm, pc

Reader Comments (190)

Wow. I would have bought this game. Not now. I will still play the hell out of it, but Bliz won't get one damn penny from me after this BS.

Oh no a game that people will mainly play online that has to be always onlineeee

OHNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

@(Unverified) - I read your post & all I think of is Penny Arcade...

http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/791728635_VJ8Qa-L.jpg

@LEGIONSINGULARGETHUNIT

I'm glad that you're so for things being taken away. 'Ah who cares? I don't use it, so no one else must!'

@Mcmax3000
So true. the best way to fight this is to boycott this type of practice. send a message to the developers that this type of DRM is not wanted. by pirating it instead of buying, the only message you are sending is "we need more stringent DRM".

@(Unverified)

I understand the annoyance. I frequently have to travel and Diablo 2 is my mainstay on my laptop for when I get stuck in airports (it happens way, WAY more than I'd wish) or an bored to death in hotels. So I understand the anger over it, it certainly is something that I really, really dislike.

However, stealing isn't the answer. Buy the game if you want to play it, I am sure there will be a crack out that lets you play offline.

Also, yes, I know it's complete BS that you have to use a crack to play a game legitimately but guess what, the world doesn't revolve around us.

@Sh1fty

Probably one of the best posts I have seen written on these boards. I concur with your opinion. Also to the people who say boycott the game, using this game as a way to fight the man is meaningless. This game is going to sell millions and millions of copies, even if every hardcore gamer that visits Joystiq boycotts the game. I been waiting for this game for a long time, no way am I going to not buy it. Just being honest.

@LEGIONSINGULARGETHUNIT

Actually, with the bullshit real money auction house system, its probably a fair bet to say more than a few people won't want to play online, or at the very least will play in private games.

I personally don't have any Diablo-playing friends and I have no interest in putting up with people buying their characters, so I would very much prefer on offline mode.

@Sh1fty

and you're probably the 2-3% of the possible customers with a legitimate reason to gripe about the situation. I do some traveling for the job as well, but typically just utilize a paperback and/or a kindle. Most anyone else in the civilized world (it's not like we're expecting kids w/ spotty internet connections in third world countries to make a proper purchase, no one's that naive at this point) should have constant internet connections at this point one form or another.

Also do hope more people take to the approach of not buying/not playing instead of not buying/pirating to play; there's a huge difference in my book between a possible customer (those that are interested but stay away for some reason or another) and a destructive one.

@Muu

I know that I am the minority. It still doesn't mean I have to like it. That said, while it is a drawback for me, it's not enough of one to not purchase the game over.

I routinely have to travel for work, sometimes for a week or more, part of my travel kit includes my Nook. But sometimes slaying some Nightkin just needs to happen :)

Aside from that, I think the having to be connected is really just a bit of a nuisance, that seems silly. I also think their stance on the "we didn't even think of it as DRM!" is completely bogus. Just call a spade a spade.

@Sh1fty

Also, wanted to add.

There ARE a lot of people out there like me who don't like when Applications are doing things they don't need to be.

It's bothersome when Applications are doing crap that I don't want or need them too. Just a really silly thing that only annoys people who legitimately buy the game. Completely ridiculous.

@Sh1fty

My problem with it is that I usually play in LAN with my friends who come over and we do a 4 or 5 person party. My internet absolutely cannot handle 5 people playing multiplayer at once (it barely manages to support just me sometimes).

Their reasons for not doing this are obviously not the ones they stated. You cannot take offline chars into ladder games on their 10 year old predecessor, why does this need to change for the sequel?

@Muu Believe it or not, not everyone has a stable and decent internet connection. The world is not compromised of the U.S. only, there's a world out there that buys videogames and not everyone has a decent ISP in their country. It's unnecesary DRM, however you look at it.

For me, Blizzard is as good as dead. I may give SC2's expansions a shot just to see how it ends. Maybe, because the story was horrible in WoL, but I'm not buying Diablo anymore. I doubt it will put a dent in their sales, but they can go screw themselves.

@(Unverified)

I think in the 1,000+ hours I put into Diablo 3 I played maybe 5-10 offline. I never really saw this as a single player game, so it doesn't really bother me. I am slightly worried about the real money auction house, but I trust Blizzard will do it right. If they don't then their future games are no longer auto-buys. :)

@Apakal

a majority of pc games these day's require you to have an active internet connection in order to play the game. it's called a measure against people pirating the game. something that was widespread in D2.

@WeRequireMOARMinerals : I live in the USA, got the proverbial interstate runnin' through my back yard and my internet options consist of the sick joke that is satellite, or a cell link which bandwidth test sites identify as "2G or possibly 3G". Online gaming? I can barely stream medium-quality music. A good 30% of the continental US is in the same exact boat.

@LexStewther

I'm glad you have to have an internet connection to play. People will not be able to cheat and dupe weapons and items. Anyone crying about having to play connected to the internet needs to get over it. Wah Wah Wah. Your connected to the internet all the time anyways. Some people just want to complain.

What happened to dungeon crawlers being the greatest gaming adventure you could have alone? I'm really looking forward to Torchlight 2 now...

@Jetleo1

Yup, its a must buy now :)

@SmilinGoat

It was a must buy anyways.

seriously? screw all of these people. I guess thats one more game im not buying, and therefor not waiting for.

@SmilinGoat

"for those looking to play alone, they don't have to interact with any other online players if they don't want to -- but they'll still need that internet connection."

So, it´s not a DRM but in a one player game you must be connected even though you don´t want any of the online stuff??? but it´s not a DRM........ well, they really think we are idiots right?????

@Hunter141072

Glad you can read.

It's not what they're saying. They're saying it wasn't their main focus to create a sort "DRM" it just happened to come across that way by saving all profiles and settings online instead of on your computer. And not by having an offline single player.

@Hunter141072

Right, and they took out LAN because it was a better game for it... I'm not trying to pick on you, but taking up the point that there's no way this wasn't considered a DRM. I never knew anyone who was like "Aww, my single player guy can't play online." You accepted it. It was an easy thing to relevel with friends and decide to blow off steam and play an epic adventure by yourself. This is pure DRM, and he's trying to spin it. Fail

@SmilinGoat

Agreed. There's too much competition in the gamespace right now to tolerate such stupidity. I'm not a big fan of the "real" money auctions either, there's no need to bring Facebook-style "buy to win" strategies into real games. If Blizzard wants to do this kind of crap, then screw them, I'll just get Torchlight 2. I tend to have more fun with smaller scale games anyway.

@Quayle

And still you CAN¨T PLAY IF YOU ARE OFFLINE......so i hope you are the one who can read, unless you love DRM if that´s so then you are going to be very happy..... a brand new DRM in your computer.

Tap dance around the issue much? But even as all these haters hate, they still will be shelling out Sixty bux come launch... and that includes me

@Friv0lous

There are more than enough other games on the market to play, while i did want to play diablo 3, i'm not paying for a game that i can only play when the publisher determines it alright.

@Friv0lous

Between Torchlight and Reckoning (and all of the non-dungeon crawl RPGs on the horizon) the only selling point for D3 is the Blizzard/Diablo pedigree. I already have Diablo that requires a constant internet connection, only it's called "World of Warcraft," and it's unplayable once a week during maintenance.

I rarely played D2 online, as I hated having to log in consistently to prevent my characters from being auto-deleted. I suspect they'll be more permanent in D3, but it's a major downer to hear that permanence will come at the cost of convenience.

Bridenbecker goes on to mention that Diablo 2 offline characters couldn't be used online, which got messy for players and the developer, so this time they decided to "just keep everything clean."

So in the many, MANY years of development they couldn't figure out how to take a character you played while offline into the online scene? What a stupid excuse. Doe's he think we're all idiots?

@Slomoshun

well back in D2 you could bring ur single player char into online, but you were incredibly liable to hacks.

I think once the player is able to bring something from his own pc to the online server, there's always a chance for leet hax.

@Slomoshun

You could take your offline characters online with Open Battle.net and anyone who has ever been in there would know how horrible it was. Offline should never meet online.

@Slomoshun

Edit the character file, log into Battle.net, run around with a 1000000 damage, unkillable character.

That's one of the things that they meant by "messy".

Diablo 2 had characters separated into "open" and "closed", "Open" were ones stored on your computer, and could be played in both single and multiplayer. "Closed" were characters stored on the Battle.net servers, and could only be played multiplayer. This severely slowed down (but not stopped) the hacking of online games.

@Slomoshun

Agreed. I'm in the navy and travel a ton, often away from any useable form of the internet . I'm pumped for this game. Well guess what blizzard: the day it's available I'm logging onto pirate bay, downloading your game for free, maybe waiting 24 hours for a crack, then joining free servers for multi when I can. Why? Because I'm not giving you $60 for something my work life won't let me use.

On a side note, with the constant talk from ISPs about creating use restrictions on the net drm like this puts us one step closer to Comcast offering a $5 Blizzard package: you can't access the game if you do not pay the ISP surcharge. With the unprecedented level of corruption and greed in our current govt/congress I wouldn't be surprised if some type of restricted net legislation was passed in the name of lulzsec, anon, china, etc.

Blizzard: I work hard and pay for what I use, but you've crossed a line, and luckily it takes virtually 0 effort for me to return the favor. I'll invest that $60 in some steam title, thx.

Since I can actually use my online player with single player, I think this is a step up. Honestly I don't care. My computer is always on, but I do see a problem if I would play this on a laptop and wanted to have Diablo 3 on the go. Other than that, this game will primarily be used by me with an internet connection.

People still turn on their computer without being on the internet?

@runsoverfrogs

Very much so.

@runsoverfrogs
Exactly! I mean every time i have a problem with my internet i can't stand in front of a computer i can't do nothing it's so freaking boring.

@berna

Imagine now not being able to play Diablo III while in addition of not being able to do anything else when your internet dies. Fun, huh?

@ironneko

exactly... no one sees how thats crap?

@ironneko

Plus, if you have a laptop and that laptop has a game on it, it's probably Diablo 2. It's practically my go-to for times when I'm without a net connection.

It's completely crazy that there's no way to play D3 offline, even if it had to be something as clumsy as the "open/closed Battle.net" stuff from D2.

Grim Dawn all the way!!

I don't mind it if it will actually keep all hackers out of the game. We will see how that works out.

I dunno, whats the big deal? if you wanna play offline, im sure a crack will pop up eventually. I already play an RPG type game that always requires an internet connection anyway its called....WoW *gasp

@blingximus

thats completely different.

@SmilinGoat

Not for me, you might say Diablo was orginally a solo experience, but with new features comes more requirements, jus manage ur Diablo 3 time the same way u manage ur MMO time

@SmilinGoat

The time I played Diablo 2 offline was expressly limited to the amount of time that it took me to find Battle.net, not long. After that, I never touched offline again and I don't see that changing with Diablo 3. So if the only way I'll be playing the game is if I'm online, how does this hurt me or anyone else who does the same?

@SmilinGoat

How is it completely different? I think for the most part they're actually the same. The only limitation is instead of being in a completely open world with a million other players is your basically in a "raid/dungeon" when you play with other players in Diablo 3.

@blingximus

If you think Diablo 3 is the same thing as World of Warcraft, you're an idiot. Go see a doctor.

@FakeKevinButler
If he thinks WoW is the same as Diablo 3, he might have a job at Blizzard.

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Diablo 3

Blizzard responds to complaints over Diablo 3 connection requirement

Reader Comments (190)

Posted: Aug 5th 2011 9:23AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 5th 2011 9:28AM LEGIONSINGULARGETHUNIT said

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