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PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good

Posted Sep 23, 2011 at 12:30PM EST by Ryan F.

Listed in: PC Gaming Tags: Blizzard, diablo iii, DRM

It looks like its not only the always-on DRM scheme that will be giving you headache once Diablo III arrives.

diablo-3

Many gamers were upset when Blizzard revealed that Diablo III would require a permanent online connection to Battle.net. But Blizzard argued, stating that there are valid reasons for the requirement.

Now that the beta is available, some lucky participants was able to test out the early build of the game, including its always on DRM requirement. John Walker from Rock, Paper, Shotgun described the experience in his play through of the beta, and by the look of things, its not looking good.

According to Walker, since Diablo III was slapped with an always on DRM, there is no way to pause the game in the single-player. "In fact, in most ways, the game acts like an MMO. For instance, quit it, and you’re given the optional cooldown to have your player clear the server properly. But it’s not an MMO. It’s not even close to an MMO. So when I’m playing the single-player game, and I’m in the middle of a frenzied mob, and there’s a knock at the front door, there’s nothing I can do. As happened to me yesterday. Twice. On another occasion I was surprised by a phone call that led to my having to do some other things. I’d safely left my character in a cleared area, but long between checkpoints. When I came back to the PC, I’d been idle for too long and the game had logged me out.

He continued: "I’d been logged out of a single-player game because I was away for an hour. And thus lost all my progress (although not my items and stats) since the last checkpoint, a long, long way back.'

But that's not all, he also experienced server glitches. "During the beta, Blizzard’s servers have dropped a few times. Of course, that’s expected during a beta, but it’s also not unexpected once a game has gone live. And here, when the server goes down, you’re left with a ghost of the game until it eventually stops you from playing at all. I found that suddenly when I fired my bow no arrows came out – I could wander around, enemies were still there, but clearly something was wrong. And then it froze, a message popped up saying there were connection troubles, and I was dumped back to the main menu with no way to play. For no discernible reason. I still had the game installed, had no desire to be online or use any online functions, and yet still couldn’t play."

Walker ended his post by asking Blizzard to reconsider its decision and add an offline mode for single-player. Diablo III was once on my top list of highly anticipated games. But as soon as I heard about its always-on DRM requirement, this got me thinking twice. And now hearing all of this issues, though you can argue that this is just beta, this can happen even if you have a reliable connection. So in the end, I think I will spare myself to the headache and hold off in buying the game 'til Blizzard will remedy the situation. How about you folks? Share your thoughts below or continue the discussion at the forums.

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I've waited too long for this game, will still be buying Day 1... No one but blizzard knows exactly what they are going to do after release. Consider this for a second why has blizzard waited so long to release this game?... and why when asked the release date the response is "when its finished" Blizzard does not want to put out a shitty 1-2 year dev'ed game... Irrelevant of small problems a couple people have blizzard is going to make a fantastic game, If it needs to modified in the future blizzard designed the game to be able to do so... Stop complaining about a beta release of a game that isn't out yet... Complain about the finished product and then your argument may or may not be valid...

# HA — Anubis7Horus 2011-09-24 03:12

Pushed the release date because they felt it wasn't enough time to release a polished product... Case and Point...

# RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — Rowaa 2011-09-23 15:49

You know, Guild Wars can be played alone too. Go preach for offline mode for it.

# RE: RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — Region 2011-09-23 22:42

Guild wars has always been advertise as MMO..
While diablo franchise as we know, are single player rpg.

# RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — Jonas 2011-09-23 18:52

There's a pretty heavy debate about this

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/08/05/blizzard-surprised-by-diablo-3-drm-reaction/1

After reading all the posts, I've concluded that 'always on' DRM is not for Diablo 3 and will not be buying D3 until I see improvement in favor of the consumer.

It's the principle of the matter. Not to mention I dislike the way they redid the skills system. Blizzard, I am disappoint.

# RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — Aramisathei 2011-09-23 22:50

All the more reason to wait for pirates to crack it.
I don't advocate piracy, but people keep wondering why...
Quit screwing over loyal gamers.

# RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — Dictator 2011-09-24 21:07

This is a beta release.
That is why they have this 'glitches' and DRM experimentation to get 'feedback' from 'selected' players. Even if the final product has issues with DRM, Blizzard is a company well-known that will make both consumers and their company happy through patches.

# RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — John Handcock 2011-09-26 19:47

I have stopped buying all single player games that require an internet connection. It makes absolutely no sense, no matter how they try to explain it. We'll have to see if they wisen up in the final release.

# RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — tosh.0 2011-09-27 17:48

And DRM bites us all in the butt once again.

Not surprised. But don't worry folks there's a fix for it!!!! Even if you BOUGHT the game, crack it anyway. Poof, no more DRM.

-1 # RE: PoV: Diablo III early impressions is not looking good — dd 2011-09-27 22:10

lol, you are going to not buy a game.. that is bound to impress.. because you cant pause it? Seriously? You going to hold off on getting your broken arm fixed because you dont like the smell of the doctors office? how about not buy any more milk until they tell you the name of the cow it came from? Any more trivial bullcrap you need before you will pay for a game? lol. How about writing about the game play, which would be what people want to read.. instead of complaining about something that won't change.. simply because you couldnt stop fireballing cave spiders to grab your deep dish at the door.

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