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[Darkmere]

So you constantly need to be in order online to play? How does that make people not want to pirate it? (Assuming pirates will eventually fix the online issue).

Honestly the anti-piracy thing is a cop-out argument Blizzard put out to simplify the issue. I'm guessing the real reason is to keep character data entirely server-side to cut down on item duping options and protect the integrity of the real-money auction house. Instead of directly admitting the issues with Diablo 2, piracy was used as a marketing misdirection and to avoid explaining much of the data storage issues to people who, frankly, mostly don't care (this means the new audience they hope to get, not bitter old-timers).

Now that I think of it, if there's no hard-coded local character information storage, that would make piracy impossible until/unless someone figures out how to spoof the entire login server and data management/character storage system. It happened with WoW, though without knowing the coding and authentication changes between the two games it might take a while. I also remember the pirate WoW servers having issues of their own but I never really looked into it. This might be a more complicated task than simply dummying out the account authentication on a fake server cluster.

[Aklyon]

You have a point there Darkmere, but piracy is almost never impossible after what they did to workaround the Assassin's Creed always-connected crap. they'll probably just adapt that in someway.

[Darkmere]

Oh I didn't mean to say it was literally impossible, but I'd guess this might be more than just a quick fix. How did the AC always-online stuff work? Those games are on the list of stuff I should play but haven't yet, so I'm not familiar with the DRM.

[Aklyon]

No idea how it worked, I'm not very interested in the AS games. I know they did it in under a week or something, though.

[Nadaka]

this LAN arguing should stop. the game is mostly Singleplayer focused, and co-op is just the cherry on top of the cake. while it makes the cake look better, and taste slightly different, it really does not change the cake that much. so, yes, LAN is a sacrifice, i'll give you that, but you can still play and enjoy the game without it, so it really should not be a valid reason to "boycott" the game. the always-online on the other hand.... no, you can crack it within 2 days of release, even with the game bought. just like i did with settlers 7.

The focus of diablo has always been multiplayer not single player

[Frumple]

... source? That's pretty patently untrue for D1 (unless the devs failed at it miserably), and if there's any content in D2 that's mutliplayer only, I never noticed it. D2 certainly wasn't balanced for MP, from what I recall, but I didn't play D2 online enough to really know.

Multiplayer always stuck me as kinda' tacked on to the main game, though, for both the Diablos. Certainly not the focus of the game.

[Darkmere]

I'd argue that the existence of battle.net for free all these years, as well as the D2 ladders, suggests multiplayer is at least a consideration. Multiplayer-only D2 content: Pandemonium event. It was possible to solo with a smiter pally, so I've heard, but I've never done that or Uber Diablo. I moved on to Eastern Sun mod and never looked back, really. Synergies and boosted hell resists were an attempt at forcing people to party up online, as well.

With the piracy thing, I looked up Assassin's Creed details, and the system is fundamentally different (and much easier in theory) to work around than D3, as the information to run the game is by necessity stored locally. Cracking those types of games just means somehow making the game believe you're online. Pirating in D3 with no local information means you MUST be getting that playable data from somewhere, and that means reverse-engineering the entire server storage structure, as said before. Again, it could be done eventually, but it's not a simple problem to solve. I could guess more details if anyone is interested, but it's only guesses from a guy that hasn't coded in a decade.

[Niveras]

About the only thing in D2 that was MP only was, AFAIK, the Pandemonium 'uber' quests which were only accessible on battle.net. One could also make the argument that the sheer rarity of the rarest gear somewhat forces trading, but given the history of the game and the general state of gaming at the time (that is, the gaming industry is far -far- more interested in multiplayer these days than they were back then: it requires far less content development), it's more likely trading arose as a result of rarity, rather than the rarity being set on the assumption that players would trade.

To be honest, even as someone who has no emotional investment in the Diablo series (haven't even played them) nor any relation, good or bad, with Blizzard, I can't understand how anybody could ever go along and buy this game with the restrictions Blizzard is putting on it. It's just gone too far. I don't understand how gamers anywhere can accept it. I mean, I was almost making a slippery slope argument here, but really, we're already halfway down that slope by now.

I have made this argument before myself, possibly in this very thread. Basically, it boils down that I don't like where Blizzard is going with its decisions lately. They do make good games, but all the business decisions attached to those games leaves a sour taste. Blizzard is in the perfect position to roll these things out piecemeal, because they are big enough to have a crowd of gamers who "don't care, don't see the issue" and the few people who've had enough won't affect the bottom line. They're get to the point of the Asian grindfest eventually, and they'll profit all the while because they have goodwill to cash in on that'll keep people saying "it won't be that bad."

Everything that Blizzard has done in the past four years was preceded by comments saying 'Blizzard won't go that far, it won't be that bad, they deserve the benefit of the doubt.' Maybe that's true for some in this thread, but not for me any longer.

[ChairmanPoo]

Same here. As I said before, the problem is that I doubt I'll bother in pirating it, let alone buying it. I don't find the game appealing enough even for that

[kerlc]

this LAN arguing should stop. the game is mostly Singleplayer focused, and co-op is just the cherry on top of the cake. while it makes the cake look better, and taste slightly different, it really does not change the cake that much. so, yes, LAN is a sacrifice, i'll give you that, but you can still play and enjoy the game without it, so it really should not be a valid reason to "boycott" the game. the always-online on the other hand.... no, you can crack it within 2 days of release, even with the game bought. just like i did with settlers 7.

The focus of diablo has always been multiplayer not single player

Ummm... Did you actually play D1 and D2? I havent, but what i gather from reviews, and   Mexperience from people who actually played it, it is a pretty straightforward SP game, with mp added just as a cherry on the top, instead of it being the main focus of the game.

[Toady One]

I think a friendlier tone between forum members should be adopted in this thread.  I've removed a few rants that had caps and bolding and so on.

[kcwong]

So you constantly need to be in order online to play? How does that make people not want to pirate it? (Assuming pirates will eventually fix the online issue).

So many people don't understand this: the server code is not released - it's not in your computer. There is nothing to crack.

You can play D3 offline only if one of the following happened:

1. Someone buys a D3 and connect to BattleNet to play. All data transmitted between client and server are recorded, and reverse engineered. Then a new server that emulates the official one is created from scratch.

It's pretty much like trying to replicate a car, when all the data you've got is tire tracks on the road. It can be done, but would take years and will never be the same as the official one.

2. Someone steal the server code from Blizzard.

[Aklyon]

he server code is not released - it's not in your computer. There is nothing to crack.

There being nothing to crack would require there being nothing on your computer except the art, music, animations, code to use all of the above, and the mouse cursors if there are any. Unless Blizz have somehow made a computer that can guess perfectly and are selling it with D3 builtin or something, the online-only will always fail if it doesn't know where to look. So they'll just find that bit, redirect where its looking, and possibly have to build some keygens of some sort into it; though I'm probably far oversimplifying that.

[Tres_Huevos]

I believe his point is that part of the game code is actually running on the Blizzard servers, such as happens in MMOs, and not even on one's computer in the first place, which is the impression I'm getting as well, from what I've heard. As such, the game that's actually running on one's computer needs a lot more than a simple, "Yeah, it's okay to run, buddy!", from the server, or the emulated server. A bunch of the game functions and code is on the server, and not on your computer at all (which is why, I suspect, there is no offline singleplayer: This would mean people actually had all the code they needed to run the game).

So, in other words, "there being nothing on your computer except the art, music, animations, code to use all the above..." is kind of correct. I don't really know how much they're keeping server side, or how feasible it would be to reverse engineer it.

[Aklyon]

Well you might as well call it an MSO then, if thats the case.