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[hemmingjay]

Just got a set piece drop and was immediately offered 5.25 mill for it. I am back in action  and shopping for some barb armor with high resist.

[pilgrimboy]

I was just fighting the skeleton king in hell for the first time. Almost had him beat. And then I was disconnected. Argh!

[Sordid]

While the use of cheating may just be "cheating," the back end of how it works is closer to hacking than the use of keyloggers to compromise accounts. While it is possible, I haven't seen anything to indicate that, at least for the last several years, all compromised accounts in WoW (and now D3) haven't simply been the result of customers practicing poor computer security.

I'm not a hacker or security expert, but from what I've heard the main problem is session ID hijacking. Which you can't do a damn thing about, it doesn't matter if you have a clean PC and an authenticator, you're still vulnerable to it.

[Nadaka]

Well no, it's the others things, the godmode, the custom items, that aren't technically hacking. They're just cheating, and the major difference there is that people do it for their own benefit. And if someone wants to make his game boring by turning on godmode, why should you care? It doesn't affect your game unless you like to play with random strangers you don't know. And even then it just means having some immortal buddies. It's not like they can kill you in D3, given that there's no PVP. Play with your friends whom you trust to not cheat and there is no problem at all. But getting your account hacked and your characters stripped bare, that's a big damn problem for you.

While the use of cheating may just be "cheating," the back end of how it works is closer to hacking than the use of keyloggers to compromise accounts. While it is possible, I haven't seen anything to indicate that, at least for the last several years, all compromised accounts in WoW (and now D3) haven't simply been the result of customers practicing poor computer security.

Although, if they compromise online accounts that way, why they don't also target personal financial information is a big question. Maybe they do but it's less obvious, because financial businesses don't have online forums where their customers publicly complain. Maybe they don't because it is harder to target - there are a lot more financial institutions than MMOs, and certainly many more avenues to 'focus' infection through compromising ads via online gaming sites, or the sites' users database (and then trying those user names and passwords on the games the site covers).

If the black market for accounts and items have compromised the network security of Blizzard and any number of other online games, but admins won't admit it, then that's an interesting quandary. Actually, I think RIFT actually had that problem and admitted it, after fixing it, though I don't know how much the trading still continues. I don't have a stake in these sort of games any longer, but personally I still believe the weakest point of security is still a PEBKAC error.

Session hijacking is much much harder with a session run over an SSL connection, like banks do. I highly doubt that blizzard uses SSL for their game connections.

[gogis]

I dont get why people complain about always online. Pro's overweith cons.

Name a single positive thing that has come from always online. I'd really love to know, because I can't think of a single one.

Oh yay, I actually think thats was a mistake on my part to start this discussion, especially since I dont own than language. But.
1. You always play same game as everyone. Like you know, offline game allows you to exploit some bugs and never update.
And here I stay put.

When I was young I was semi pro in counter strike. I am not talking about being some obscure lan pro, I talk serious one, I was playing at country-wide championships and we were landing 4-6 place.  For me competitivness(sp?) is a major advantage. And in game like a Diablo it's matters. And I actually play solo now and have no intention to play multiplayer ever. But, aknowledgment of the fact, that it's same for everyone makes me warm and happy. I never had that feeling in Titans Quest, even if it's was a better game than Diablo. Blizzard makes games, where you feel yourself competetive. Thats means alot to me. You cant do that without everyone to be online ab\nd having same installment of the game.

[Rex_Nex]

I dont get why people complain about always online. Pro's overweith cons.

Name a single positive thing that has come from always online. I'd really love to know, because I can't think of a single one.

Oh yay, I actually think thats was a mistake on my part to start this discussion, especially since I dont own than language. But.
1. You always play same game as everyone. Like you know, offline game allows you to exploit some bugs and never update.
And here I stay put.

When I was young I was semi pro in counter strike. I am not talking about being some obscure lan pro, I talk serious one, I was playing at country-wide championships and we were landing 4-6 place.  For me competitivness(sp?) is a major advantage. And in game like a Diablo it's matters. And I actually play solo now and have no intention to play multiplayer ever. But, aknowledgment of the fact, that it's same for everyone makes me warm and happy. I never had that feeling in Titans Quest, even if it's was a better game than Diablo. Blizzard makes games, where you feel yourself competetive. Thats means alot to me. You cant do that without everyone to be online ab\nd having same installment of the game.

Lets see, why do I complain about always online.

Oh yeah, because it means I wont get to play the game for years.

[sambojin]

Gogis has a good point. We will all be playing the same game, so at least it's a balanced playing field. Even if that field is being re-balanced as we speak. How good is smoke screen for a DH now compared to two weeks ago? Well, too bad. Everyone got that nerf, re-skill as you please. How good is IAS now? Very good, but possibly about to be nerfed. Some gear won't be as good, some will be comparatively better.

But it does kind of sort itself out in the end. D3 has been out for less than a month and it is being swiftly re-balanced. As soon as PvP starts up, your new ultra-l33t-killer-combo will probably be brought to heel soon enough. D2 gets bought up as a comparison regularly, so I'll use it as one. How good was a skele-mancer early on in D2? D2-1.02 or so? No respecs, just cop it. How good were they by 1.12? Great. The safest, the best at CC and some of the better damage against basic mobs. How good were they in 1.13? They actually got slightly better, after more than a years play experience with them, they made Corpse Explosion EVEN BETTER.

It's nice to know we're all playing the same game, all on the same page. But as the pages turn, we'll look back and have some nostalgic wonder at the characters that were. An accomplishment today may not be one tomorrow, but at the time, at least we were all playing the same game.........

At least Blizzard is appearing to move quick. They're trying. They're Blizzard. Don't expect too much that you'll entirely agree upon.

[Astral]

Lets see, why do I complain about always online.

Oh yeah, because it means I wont get to play the game for years.

That does raise a good point. How many games that require always online, even for single player functionality, lost it all due to the company deeming servers no longer being profitable (or the company going under entirely) and not releasing either a workaround (if single player) or an emulator (for MMOs and similar) for the devoted fans of the game?

Diablo 2, for example, would still run fine, due to a large number of private servers and the fact that you can mod in content.

Something like Chromehounds, on the other hand, would lose a large portion of the game that you paid for due to someone just flipping a switch on the server.

If Blizzard just decides to turn off Diablo 3 tomorrow, and give nobody a refund, there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it, since they likely state somewhere in the EULA that they're not responsible for server outages and do not have to provide any compensation for it. It would be a crippling PR move, sure, but they probably wouldn't shed a tear.

It's just a matter of building a paid game around something that can easily be taken away.

[sambojin]

I guess there's nothing stopping them legally shutting down that portion of B.net. There are commercial reasons though.

There's also the fact that Blizzard is still (and will be for some time) swimming in cash from WoW. This is a good thing. In some repects, even if the RMAH fails, the game cops some bad publicity and the re-balancing of the game causes furor with players, it will still work for Blizzard. As a marketing tool, D3 is great. It can show that they listen to players and that they care. That they'll support a game loved by fans.

Is there still any B.net support for D2. For Starcraft 1? For Warcraft 3? Do they earn half as much as a couple of million subscriptions for WoW a month these days from these games, even if the figures are abitary?

Not really. But Blizzard knows how to market itself. They make some strange decisions on play balance, DRM and many other things. But they know that in the long term, as long as they don't fuck it all up horribly, we'll remember playing their games for years and years and buy the next one. Because we'll expect to do the same with their new game, all over again

[BuriBuriZaemon]

But Blizzard knows how to market itself. They make some strange decisions on play balance, DRM and many other things. But they know that in the long term, as long as they don't fuck it all up horribly, we'll remember playing their games for years and years and buy the next one. Because we'll expect to do the same with their new game, all over again

And this is made possible because the market complies to Blizzard's decisions. Similar to supporting bad politicians to be re-elected again and again, we are as guilty as Blizzard's in this context, by reinforcing behaviours that are, in the long run, hurting the market.

Anyway, just saying.

[sambojin]

Meh. I'm buying it tomorrow. The gaming market has always been pretty weird, especially with the internet as it is these days. ("game name" torrent) searches on google has given me a reason to understand their always-on DRM, regardless of the RMAH shennanigans. There's money to be made and lost with regulating DRM, depending on consumer sentiment. Music changed quickly with DRM, so will games, or options for AAA games anyway. Other titles have already done it better. I do understand that it may become a common feature, but I also understand why.

I live in Australia. In a standard store, for a boxed version, Diablo 3 costs $89 dollars. Why? Our dollar is at parity (or more) with the US dollar, and shipping is so cheap. Sometimes games are disc and manual printed at this end, and boxed, then distibuted at a huge mark-up, Why is this price the normal RRP, considering our nearest server is classed as "Asia"?

People have the shits with the DRM, the possibility of the EULA screwing them (even for a transitory, digital-download copy), but for me - I have other issues with D3. Where can I buy a decent boxed copy in Australia for less than $85 US?

Blizzard......Ahhhhh......... FU

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Australian here too, mate and yeah I feel your pain and I think EB Games offers ripoff prices.

If the game's running smoothly (no lag/disconnection/account hack issues) I would care less about the always-online DRM and consider buying it 'cos some of my friends are playing it. I bought Guild Wars II, even with the knowledge that it is an MMORPG and may have its server shut down one day. However, so far the Diablo III's DRM seems to be more of a problem than something I could ignore.

Also, the cheapest I could find:

http://dicksmith.com.au/product/YG1075/pc-diablo-iii

[Levi]

Hehe.  I'm having fun in Inferno Act 1 seeing how far I can get with only 9000 health on my monk.  So far it isn't so bad.  Skeleton king can one-shot me with his big attack, but I noticed he laughs before using it so its pretty easy to avoid.

[Nadaka]

Hehe.  I'm having fun in Inferno Act 1 seeing how far I can get with only 9000 health on my monk.  So far it isn't so bad.  Skeleton king can one-shot me with his big attack, but I noticed he laughs before using it so its pretty easy to avoid.

That attack could 2 shot my wizard with 32k life and enough armor/physical resist to take about 30% damage from equal level mobs.

[nenjin]

I was getting one shot in Hell with over 10k hps.