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Diablo III has been on many a gamer's horizon, a potentially quality sequel from a trusted and favourite developer. Today brings a twist in the story. Some fan reactions include 'I'm defecting to Guild Wars 2', 'I'll never trust Blizzard again', and 'boycott Diablo III!'. It might seem like someone at Blizzard personally ran over a family pet, but that's actually not what happened. So what's the news?

Three things have been revealed. The game cannot be played offline, there will be no modding available, and arguably most controversial of all it will be possible to buy and sell items for real money in the auction houses.

Blizzard seem to be modernising their game to fit into the current generation of piracy and cheating. No doubt for some RPG players it's a little galling to see another classic single-player series (although admittedly co-op as well) succumb to online exclusivity. Blizzard's reputation as a supporter of fan-made content in their other series, most recently in StarCraft II, makes the modding ban surprising. However it's the new auction features that have caused the biggest stir. Players will have kitty where they can buy and sell between themselves with real money. When players cash out at the end of a hard day's grinding and farming Blizzard will take a small cut. Click here for more information and screenshots. Blizzard emphasise that they intent to cover their costs, not make a profit from these microtransactions. Assuming that boycott doesn't get off the ground, and knowing Blizzard's track record of success, it might just well pay off. Due to the imbalances of a player-based auction house it might be worth tacking on another 6 months of playtesting to any estimated release date just to be safe.

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Is Blizzard in financial trouble? If so that might justify that last thing. If not, then why are they doing this, and will this be a required part of the gameplay?

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I don't know about their financial state to be honest GMH. The sources I gave have more detail.

I should probably add, the revelation is a little more controversial because of possible gold farmers, slave labour etc having a clearer legitimate financial incentive. I honestly don't know how seriously to take it so I left it out. If you want to read more then try this: Income Disposed.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 1st August 2011 17:14

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

I have been planning to get this game. Just got a new computer to be able to handle it. With that being said, Im kind of sad about the online only portion. I had mostly planned to play online with a buddy of mine ... but there will be times I would like to just mess around by myself. Thats kind of saddening.

As far as the modding part, Im not even sure what that would entail. The only "online"game I have ever played was Everquest and I dont recall any sort of modding of anything on there. Selling of items for cash was the normal there now so that doesnt bother me ... unless its required to get some of the stuff.

Starcraft 2 is online only and doesn't have LAN even though it's a big tourny game, so the fact that Diablo 3 won't be able to be played offline isn't surprising. You can still play alone anyways.

And honestly the Auction House thing doesn't even really surprise me. Blizzard obviously loves their money,(Not an issue, obviously) you can see it through World of Warcraft. Have to pay to group with friends cross server, you have to pay for transactions such as server transfers which is a service games like Rift offer for free, multiple apps that they come out with, etc.

There's also the fact with Starcraft 2 that you need to buy multiple copies to play on different servers.

About Blizzard being in financial trouble, that's highly doubtful. They're working on a new MMO, and the one they have now is still going strong after six years. However, they recently released that they lost a decent chunk of subscribers.

This post has been edited by BoysBoysBoys on 2nd August 2011 04:00

A lot of gamers are going to bitch and whine about this, but in the end Diablo III will sell millions of copies anyway and the complaints will die down. You won't be able to hear them anymore over the din of everyone and his mother playing Diablo III.

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Quote (laszlow)

A lot of gamers are going to bitch and whine about this, but in the end Diablo III will sell millions of copies anyway and the complaints will die down. You won't be able to hear them anymore over the din of everyone and his mother playing Diablo III.

I was planning on getting into this series because I liked Record of Lodoss War on Dreamcast so much which it's a knockoff of Diablo's gameplay for those who haven't ever heard of it.

But I hate online games with a passion so screw Blizzard.

How's that for bitching and whining.

But I'm serious I'm not going to a store buy a $50-$80 maybe even more game then pay $5-$15 to play it per month.

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Although I haven't researched it, I am inclined to believe this move may have more to do with Activision (Blizzard's parent company) than Blizzard itself. And several months ago Activision did release a statement that likely may have something to do with it:

Quote

During today's Activision Blizzard earnings call, World of Warcraft and its expansion Cataclysm were two very hot topics. Listeners asked a number of questions related to the game, more than any other title or franchise in the publisher's stable.

Of note, World of Warcraft's subscriber base has reached pre-Cataclysm levels, according to Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. He then later stated an actual number, with subscriptions at the end of March clocking in at right around 11.4 million.

That's down by about 5% from the announced 12 million mark late last year. Interestingly enough, that was right before Cataclysm released. In fact, it's actually lower than the milestone reached in 2008 with the release of Wrath of the Lich King.

So for what is likely one of the first times since its launch, World of WarCraft is starting to have a slump in sales likely due to the age of the product, the speed its users consume the content, and the growing competitive market.

Sure, D3 isn't WOW, but this has been a trend I've seen coming, especially with the launch of Starcraft 2. As early as SC2 launched, Blizzard has tried to implement a custom map marketplace where players can purchase maps made by other users. This was to be an incentive to implement a quality system backed by reputable designers, and I could only assume it will be implemented once Blizzard can figure out the best way to make money from it while ensuring its success. I see the same attempt being made to ensure a continuing profit margin from another non-MMO game. I find it unlikely this endeavor will truly take off, as StarCraft has been out a year and there hasn't been any sure sign of its release, but it does give an insight into what they want to "make right" for Diablo 3: find a way to make money after release, and not just through expansion content.

I do have a few worries about how this might give farmers/botters huge incentives by legalizing what they do. Botting, as well as "gold farming", has been so prevalent in each of Blizzard's RPG games, including WoW, that it has ultimately had a very deep impact on each game Blizzard has released.

If you'll indulge me for a moment, lets go back to Diablo 2. If you log in now and play an online game, things are in very bad shape. Creating public games leads to gold farming bots jumping in the game, spamming the living crap out of your screen with cheap deals on items and which site to get them at, and leaving all within a few seconds, only to be repeated a couple moments later. Yes, the game is 11 years old, the player base is a far cry from what it used to be, and you can simply create a private game, but the 3rd party websites and bots have truly taken over the game. Things were even worse in the "Hardcore" mode which I played to enormous extent in its heyday, with people abusing programs that allowed you to perform commands in such a rapid succession that they would end up unfairly killing players who never stood a chance. While Hardcore mode is largely a bygone era of truly frustrating proportions, it was very prevalent when the game was popular and has been largely snuffed out in large part due to botters and gold farmers. And it is not a far stretch to connect gold farmers and botters with the idea of "eliminating the competition" and killing players to keep demand high and items flowing in a mode where gear can be very hard to come by.

This may not seem very surprising, unless like me you remember Blizzard's statements about game security when they released the game. They touted their latest security developments, ensuring customers that their game experience would be far removed from the rampant abuse taking place during the Diablo 1 days. They made all the assurances in the world they would do what it takes to stop the abuse and botting (anybody remember Blizzard occasionally making announcements whenever they would ban hundreds of thousands of accounts? lol) and they never succeeded.

Why were gold farming and 3rd party websites so successful? Obviously, because customers demanded their product and they did make money. It's not the "gold farmers", the people who are paid to play the game at unbelievably long intervals to re-sell items to other players for a profit, that I'm worried about. It's the bots these companies create, the player-less programs created that consume the games (Any World of WarCraft player has seen gold spammers spamming the trade channel), and take away from the experience. And even with their 24/7 online customer support staff supervising WoW, they have never kept the bots at bay. So this gesture of creating a marketplace to formally legalize their way of making money is a dangerous incentive that could have serious consequences from the onset.

Ultimately though, I have a wait and see attitude. I do not mind Blizzard's business approach and finding new ways to make money, so long as they do not make these after-purchase services a necessary purchase to keep fully enjoying the game. I thought what they did with the Pet Store in World of WarCraft was just fine; players who wanted to "stand out" could easily do so by purchasing vanity pets and mounts, which have absolutely no bearing on the game as a whole.

And, like everyone has stated, I will buy the game regardless. I have always been Blizzard's slave when it comes to games, and I am sure I will enjoy it regardless. But I will seriously try to fight the inevitable addiction of the game if I am presented with a financial barrier required to continue enjoying the game at my optimal playing level.

Well, here's my question, as someone who has genuinely never had any interest in Blizzard games (I say this because maybe this is made clear elsewhere, but my interest doesn't go so far as to seek it out for myself):

Is the "must play online" feature truly that it's all online multiplayer, or can a player still play a single-player campaign but still must be put online in order to verify the gameplay?

If it's the former, yeah, I can see why that would be awful. If it's the latter, it's still a bit obnoxious, but it certainly isn't the first game to require this, and at least Blizzard should be prepared to keep their login servers up and running with exceptionally high uptime and adequate redundancy, given their years of experience in keeping WoW going.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (seraphimdreamer777 @ 1st August 2011 18:19)

I was planning on getting into this series because I liked Record of Lodoss War on Dreamcast so much which it's a knockoff of Diablo's gameplay for those who haven't ever heard of it.

But I hate online games with a passion so screw Blizzard.

How's that for bitching and whining.

Well, . You aren't part of the built-in fanbase that's doing all the bitching and whining. You're a new fan that isn't even part of Blizzard's core audience: PC gamers that devote significant amounts of playing time to online multiplayer. Blizzard has a legion of those that will drink the Blizzard Kool-Aid until they drown. It's this core that is bitching and whining, and will buy Diablo III anyway.

Quote (Rangers51)

Is the "must play online" feature truly that it's all online multiplayer, or can a player still play a single-player campaign but still must be put online in order to verify the gameplay?

It's the former. You'll still be able to log on and set the player maximum to 1. It's definitely obnoxious like you said. I think it's implemented mostly as non-intrusive DRM and also to expose players to the Battle.net 2.0's other online features, including social network integration.

This post has been edited by laszlow on 2nd August 2011 13:42

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I thought This webpage explanation might be helpful in understanding all of the forces involved in this situation. It is a good read for those who wish to know more and how this may all play out.

This post has been edited by TheEvilEye on 2nd August 2011 19:48

I think, with the exception of the auction house, this whole affair is being blown up to silly proportions. With regards to needing to be online in order to log in and play, well, granted that's a bit of an annoying step to take but it was the case with Starcraft 2 and it hasn't bothered me to date. Honestly, 100% of the Diablo III that I will be playing will be online multiplayer anyways. That's always been the core of Diablo for me, from the very first. Get some friends and go fight monsters. Run into the Butcher and wet yourself.

As for the auction house, I come from a similar place as EE, and he put it nicely so I'll just leave it at that.

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Okay, but there was a goat!

While the topic of gold farming is here, there was a short article about a prisoner that was released a couple months ago.

http://www.1up.com/news/tortured-chinese-p...d-farm-mmo-gold

I'm not 100% sure if it's authentic, but it's still an interesting little read none the less.

My thoughts exactly, Penny Arcade:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/8/8/

I'm the type of person who likes to see the business-motives for things, so I really liked to hear about this!

I actually like the auction house idea. Many of the MMOs that are free-to-play have it where if you want x mount or to play x character, you can pay 10 bucks. Which gamers can justify because the game is free. Although DIII isn't free, the fact is that gold spammers are everywhere and illegal, and Blizzard has found a way to profit on the fact that there IS a market for people wanting to pay to have better things in a video game. The bottom line is that you spend money on things you like, or to improve your experience on the things you like. I don't mind paying an extra 20 bucks for a concert ticket that'll give me a better seat so I can better enjoy the experience, so I can see the logic.

The auction house can work based on gold or actual dollars, so it's not going to turn it into a "rich people only can win" game like other games. It'll just help people with money use it for the game. Other people can still get those items, they just have to work a little harder.

I like it because in D2, you could get one of the rarest items or equipment, but if you were the wrong class, it meant literally nothing but inventory space to you. Why not make a buck off of that? Plus, D2's gold became so worthless that you could almost never trade items for gold to other players, just other items. So the economy was difficult to regulate, and Stones of Jordans [these really good rings a lot of classes could equip] became more like the currency than the actual GP. "I'll trade you 6 Stones of Jordan rings for that Sorceress only shield."

I mean, how frustrating is it in a game where you fight the last boss, feel all victorious, and the equipment he drops is literally useless to you? Six defeats in a row?

I mean, I don't intend on spending money on the game, I should clarify! It's just nice to have an option. Maybe five bucks, if I have it, and I want the item, once. Maybe. But I guess I just don't see a problem with having there be two payment options for an item in an auction house. I'd much rather sell neat finds for a dollar! That person wins a cool item, I get a buck, Blizzard can't ban me for clearing inventory space, and even profits. Hurray!