"DIABLO III"

[KingIsaacLinksr]

No, I'm not discounting ISP's from the equation, but if the problems are widespread as they are, then it suggests a problem with the server, not the connection. Unless you want to state that all ISPs are bad, then DRM is still a bad idea because no one's Internet connection can handle it and as such, we are not ready for services such as this.

And speaking from a personal perspective, if I didn't have such an anti-DRM stance based on my ethics, I still wouldn't buy always-online games just based off the ISP's and the experience I have with them. Which as you've said, is a poor experience.

What kills me about D3's DRM is that in a certain number of years, no one will be able to play it because the server will be shut down. True, we don't know when, but it will happen. It's invevitable if history is any indication. And that's the worst part about this, considering that D2 is still being played 10+ years after it was made and likely will continue to be played for decades to come. D3's lifespan will be considerably shorter compared to D2.

King

[Jobydrone]

You'd better find a new hobby Tim.  Always-online connectivity is the only way PC games are going to be able to avoid being pirated and I predict within five to ten years all PC games wil require it.  Piracy (private servers) in WoW and other MMOs is miniscule compared to most single player PC games and companies will turn to what works to prevent people from stealing their games.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

You'd better find a new hobby Tim.  Always-online connectivity is the only way PC games are going to be able to avoid being pirated and I predict within five to ten years all PC games wil require it.  Piracy (private servers) in WoW and other MMOs is miniscule compared to most single player PC games and companies will turn to what works to prevent people from stealing their games.

The AAA publishers may do this yes. If they all decide to just make MMOs, but as I understand it, MMOs are very expensive and not everyone wants to play an MMO. Thats why we have games like Call of Duty, Skyrim, Minecraft and Starcraft 2. The indie developers? Not a chance. Too expensive for the average indie developers to run DRM schemes like this. So no, I don't need to change my hobby. I'll just shift where my money goes.

King

[X]

Tim, I don't see a widespread problem. Fractions of a percentage of users does not equal a wide spread problem. Over a million copies were sold easily. If 10,000 people have a problem with the game, that's less than 1% and not at all widespead.

At this time, I haven't seen anywhere close to 10,000 people having issues with the game. And if the forecast proves true and they hit 11.5 million copies, you would need 115,000 people having problem to have just 1% of the total.

Something can't be wide spread if it's hardly a fraction of a percentage.

[Jobydrone]

Your buddies at Ubisoft have suffered no ill effects from their always-online DRM, despite your best attempts at bringing them down single-handedly ;)  Steam is the most popular gaming service on PC/Mac by far, and the vast majority of their games can't be played offline.  Indie games are a niche market...they appeal to basically nobody except games journalists and a very small percentage of enthusiasts.  The very few success stories in the indie games market are akin to someone winning $100,000,000 in the lottery...it's not going to happen very often, and they're simply not a statistically significant portion of the gaming pie to even warrant consideration in this discussion.  I'll stand by my statement that if you continue to refuse to play games with always-online DRM, at some point in the very near future you're going to have very little left to play.

[billybob476]

And server issues on a launch with the magnitude of D3 are to be expected, Blizzard or not. The game was designed to be played with friends. It's an online multiplayer game. Not all online games are MMOs.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Your buddies at Ubisoft have suffered no ill effects from their always-online DRM, despite your best attempts and bringing them down single-handedly ;)  Steam is the most popular gaming service on PC/Mac by far, and the vast majority of their games can't be played offline.  Indie games are a niche market...they appeal to basically nobody except games journalists and a very small percentage of enthusiasts.  The very few success stories in the indie games market are akin to someone winning $100,000,000 in the lottery...it's not going to happen very often, and they're simply not a statistically significant portion of the gaming pie to even warrant consideration in this discussion.  I'll stand by my statement that if you continue to refuse to play games with always-online DRM, at some point in the very near future you're going to have very little left to play.

Ubisoft backed down, there is only an online-check on start up in games and even that's being debated right now.

As for the comment about Indie, funny, Minecraft was Indie, now it's a runaway success (and no longer an indie company). That sure was a niche product that no one wants. Yes, not all indies are runaway successes, even AAA doesnt make a lot of successful games either, but I'd say there are plenty that are making enough to live off of, otherwise there wouldn't be so many developers working indie. People want this stuff. Maybe it's not in the billions that Call of Duty can bring in, but it's enough to create some really good and unique games that don't have DRM attached.

As far as Steam is concerned, I can't comment on all games, but for me, it's a one-time check for online connection and that's it. Which is only tolerable for me because Steam provides a lot of value for its light amount of DRM.

King

[X]

Your buddies at Ubisoft have suffered no ill effects from their always-online DRM, despite your best attempts and bringing them down single-handedly ;)  Steam is the most popular gaming service on PC/Mac by far, and the vast majority of their games can't be played offline.  Indie games are a niche market...they appeal to basically nobody except games journalists and a very small percentage of enthusiasts.  The very few success stories in the indie games market are akin to someone winning $100,000,000 in the lottery...it's not going to happen very often, and they're simply not a statistically significant portion of the gaming pie to even warrant consideration in this discussion.  I'll stand by my statement that if you continue to refuse to play games with always-online DRM, at some point in the very near future you're going to have very little left to play.

Ubisoft backed down, there is only an online-check on start up in games and even that's being debated right now.

As for the comment about Indie, funny, Minecraft was Indie, now it's a runaway success (and no longer an indie company). That sure was a niche product that no one wants. Yes, not all indies are runaway successes, even AAA doesnt make a lot of successful games either, but I'd say there are plenty that are making enough to live off of, otherwise there wouldn't be so many developers working indie. People want this stuff. Maybe it's not in the billions that Call of Duty can bring in, but it's enough to create some really good and unique games that don't have DRM attached.

As far as Steam is concerned, I can't comment on all games, but for me, it's a one-time check for online connection and that's it. Which is only tolerable for me because Steam provides a lot of value for its light amount of DRM.

King

You realize that you just confirmed what he said, sarcasm or not. Minecraft is one of the few indie success stories ... and what happened when they succeeded?

Also, let's be real. Indie games aren't DRM free because they are nice cool people. They are DRM free because DRM costs to code it into a game or to validate it. If there was a free DRM system, you can bet that they'd use it.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Your buddies at Ubisoft have suffered no ill effects from their always-online DRM, despite your best attempts and bringing them down single-handedly ;)  Steam is the most popular gaming service on PC/Mac by far, and the vast majority of their games can't be played offline.  Indie games are a niche market...they appeal to basically nobody except games journalists and a very small percentage of enthusiasts.  The very few success stories in the indie games market are akin to someone winning $100,000,000 in the lottery...it's not going to happen very often, and they're simply not a statistically significant portion of the gaming pie to even warrant consideration in this discussion.  I'll stand by my statement that if you continue to refuse to play games with always-online DRM, at some point in the very near future you're going to have very little left to play.

Ubisoft backed down, there is only an online-check on start up in games and even that's being debated right now.

As for the comment about Indie, funny, Minecraft was Indie, now it's a runaway success (and no longer an indie company). That sure was a niche product that no one wants. Yes, not all indies are runaway successes, even AAA doesnt make a lot of successful games either, but I'd say there are plenty that are making enough to live off of, otherwise there wouldn't be so many developers working indie. People want this stuff. Maybe it's not in the billions that Call of Duty can bring in, but it's enough to create some really good and unique games that don't have DRM attached.

As far as Steam is concerned, I can't comment on all games, but for me, it's a one-time check for online connection and that's it. Which is only tolerable for me because Steam provides a lot of value for its light amount of DRM.

King

You realize that you just confirmed what he said, sarcasm or not. Minecraft is one of the few indie success stories ... and what happened when they succeeded?

Also, let's be real. Indie games aren't DRM free because they are nice cool people. They are DRM free because DRM costs to code it into a game or to validate it. If there was a free DRM system, you can bet that they'd use it.

Minecraft went on to produce a bunch of ports to Minecraft, I'm not aware of any addition of DRM to their games. In fact, Notch is well known for saying that people can pirate his game and buy it later if they don't have the cash right now. Sure sounds like someone who wants to use DRM for his games. And what's his excuse for not adding DRM to his games? He has the money after all.

But basically your telling me that many indie devs are a bunch of liars when they say things like this:

We want to make it easy on our customers, and we've never really felt like DRM works, anyway. If you like our games, please buy them so that we can make more, but we're not about to start treating our real customers like thieves just to thwart the inevitable pirates.

Quote from CEO of Arcen Games, indie PC developers

This is the general opinion when you ask Indie Devs about the lack of DRM in their games. Idk about you, but I guess I appreciate the fact that they aren't willing to treat their customers like a bunch of thieves. I also don't understand why any of you are defending DRM when it only hurts yourself. DRM is not a necessary evil. Piracy is a straw man argument used so that companies can gain further and further control over their products. You know what this always-online DRM also hurts?  The modding community, they can't touch games with this DRM. The modding community that is known for extending the life of games and increasing their value over the long run. The community that also created entire new genres of gaming.

But no, EWBIL piwates will steal the game so that means we have to lock everything down to the point that we are entirely dependent on a single server that can fail/go offline at anytime. You know all those old games that Billybob reviews on his new podcast? He would be completely unable to play them now if they were still attached to DRM. Man I fear for our future. 

Indie devs and games are increasing by the day. This is an undeniable fact so clearly, there are enough people interested in what they are crafting. Sure, they don't get to the level of popularity Minecraft or Call of Duty, but so many games never reach that level, even for AAA devs. And thank goodness they are growing because it means I'll have plenty of non-DRM content I can enjoy that I purchased.

King

[X]

How is DRM treating you like a thief? Do locks on doors also make you feel like a thief? DRM is just another lock on a door. Sure someone that wants to break in will, but it will keep Joe Normal from crossing the line. Locks are pretty good at doing one thing very well. Locks keep honest people honest.

[Jobydrone]

Indie games have been and will continue to parallel exactly what indie filmmakers have shown us in the past ten or fifteen years. Once in a great while a brilliant creation will rise to the top of a vast and huge pile of garbage. The creator(s) will make their bank and then coast on their successes or go to work for one of the huge conglomerates. Perhaps there may be one or two Johnathan Blows or Phil Fish's every once in a while who maintain their integrity and stay independent in the face of massive successes, but that will be rare.  To think that a tide of independent game creators is sometime somehow going to overwhelm the Actiblizzards and EAs of the future is just naive. Don't get me wrong, I love that there's a vast market for all kinds of games right now, though, and hope it continues that way.  But people are people, and just like in Hollywood, the kinds of experiences that a 200,000,000 dollar budget can produce are going to continue to appeal to the majority of consumers

I agree with you that DRM is not a "necessary evil" because I don't see anything evil about it at all. At its best it accomplishes exactly what it is supposed to do, which is to make games harder to steal.  At worst it might mean if I want to play Diablo 3 in 30 years I might have to buy it again from GOG or something...not that big of a deal.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

How is DRM treating you like a thief? Do locks on doors also make you feel like a thief? DRM is just another lock on a door. Sure someone that wants to break in will, but it will keep Joe Normal from crossing the line. Locks are pretty good at doing one thing very well. Locks keep honest people honest.

Your analogy doesn't work in this case. A ball-and-chain on your leg is a more apt description for DRM. While legitimate paying customers get a lesser experience because they wear that ball-and-chain, the true thieves have already unlocked the shackles of DRM and are enjoying the game/product fully. Hence why DRM feels like your being treated like a thief. Which, so far, that is all DRM is really good at, punishing the customer for buying your product.

For example:
Consumers: Buy Assassin's Creed 2? Have fun with the server crashing and lag and all sorts of problems.
Pirates: Cracked AC2 and don't have to deal with any server problem whatsoever and enjoy the game to its fullest.
(This no longer applies to the latest patch of AC2 I should add, but it did once).

Hence the ball-and-chain. The honest people will buy the game honestly. The people who won't buy the game, won't buy the game. Even if you completely removed Piracy from the world, they still won't buy it. So why should we, the legitimate paying customers, pay for the pirates' crimes? We shouldn't, and that is why DRM will never work for what it is intended for.

@Joby, if DRM actually made games harder to steal, but they don't. Pirates crack the code in less than a day. And will the game be on GOG.com in the future...well, that's hard to say but I'm not feeling very confident about that considering how much of this game is tied into the server.

I am not saying that the Indie market is going to overwhelm the AAA market. I am saying that the indie-market is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Although I have to say that there is a pretty big difference between Indie Filmmakers and Indie Videogame developers. Indie developers can get access to AAA engines such as Epic and Source a lot easier and cheaper than Filmmakers can make a huge budget film.

King

[Rico]

Back to some actual discussion of the game itself, looks like Blizzard will be making some tweaks and changes for some class balancing and other issues.

Blizzard has updated the list of Diablo 3 hotfixes to address various gameplay and service issues affecting the game.
Unlike a new patch, hotfixes are updates made on Blizzard's end without requiring players to download a new patch.  As a result, some of the hotfixes will go live the moment they are implemented, while others may require the realm to be restarted before going into effect.  Check out the list of changes coming to Diablo 3 below, but beware of spoilers if you ahve not yet completed the game on Normal.
General
Players will now receive an error message when attempting to remove a gem from an item with no sockets
Players will now properly have their casting interrupted when attacked while performing resurrect on a fallen group member
Resolved over 30 game and service crashes affecting players
Classes
Demon Hunter
Active Skills
Smoke Screen
Duration reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second (tooltip will still show 2 seconds)
Skill Rune - Lingering Fog
Now increases the duration of Smoke Screen to 1.5 (tooltip will still show 3 seconds)
Monk
Active Skills
Fists of Thunder
Skill Rune - Quickening
Fixed an issue that was causing spirit regeneration to incorrectly trigger off critical hits from other sources, such as Sweeping Wind
Mantra of Healing
Mantra of Healing will now correctly provide only two times the base healing effect for the first 3 seconds after activation, down from four times the base healing effect (tooltip will still show the old value)
Skill Rune - Boon of Protection
A maximum absorption amount has been set to 1000 Life. This skill will be redesigned in an upcoming patch
Wizard
Active Skills
Arcane Torrent
Skill Rune - Cascade
Fixed an issue that was causing Arcane Torrent to fire 3 new missiles per kill instead of only 1 new missile per kill
Number of new missiles generated from this rune will now cap at 10 missiles
Energy Armor
Skill Rune - Force Armor
Amount of damage absorbed from a single attack will now cap at 100% of a player's maximum Life
Items
The rare chest in the Town Cellar in Alcarnus will now only spawn 50% of the time, down from 100%
Players can no longer dual-wield two-handed weapons
Speaking on the Diablo 3 blog, community manager Micah Whipple (aka Bashiok) went into a little more depth about the incoming changes to the Monk class. Whipple explained why Blizzard is in the process of removing the on-use benefits of the Mantra of Healing rune, Boon of Protection.
"We recommend discontinuing its use until the rune is replaced with a new rune and mechanic in a future patch," Whipple suggested.
"The Boon of Protection rune was approximately ten times over its budget on the benefits it provided, and it was quite simply a mistake on our part to let the rune ship as it was," he further explained. "We don't intend to take these quick and drastic measures often, but considering the severity of the issue, we felt it important to correct it swiftly."

Currently, I play a level 53 Demon Hunter so the changes to Monk don't really effect me, but for you Monks out there, is the nerf warranted?

http://www.gamezone.com/products/diablo-iii/news/blizzard-details-diablo-3-hotfixes-incoming-nerf-to-monks

Blizzards direct update listing:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5825330/Diablo_III_Hotfixes_-_May_Updated_52312-5_23_2012#blog

[billybob476]

I picked up the game yesterday. Haven't had a chance to log in yet but I'm itching to do it! Anyone have any class recommendations?

[Rico]

Depends of course on what you like to play and your preferred play style.  I tend to go for casters and I'm liking the Mage.  One of my sons and others I know are really enjoying the Witch Doctor.