Well, Wow's are scheduled and also give advance notice that they are going down (in-game popup for example).

I think you can live with once a week maintainance. Organise your groups around it.

If I had to choose between weekly maintenance and unstable servers I know which way I would lean.. almost to the point of falling over.

They don't? Level 60 Archon Armour (chest piece) has 171-189 armour, a level 60 Dread Cloak (demon hunter cloak) has 168-185 armour. Similarly all the lower level stuff has approximately the same base armour (if you compare equal level requirements).

I'm crossing my fingers that they are just items that are currently 'known' to be in the game, and that there will be a much bigger list once the game is released and people start getting all the cool stuff.

Same thing happened in D2, you'd get to the end of Normal with a fully pimped looking set of plate or gothic armour or something, then start Nightmare and start using leather and quilted armour again. They recycle the item models on a per difficulty basis, so leather armour in Nightmare looks the same as leather from Normal, but has stats that are better than the plate armour etc...



Must say, I'm a bit disappointed that the release date is early 2012, although, being honest, xmas this year was only ever a pipe dream.

I reckon in the years that I've had greater than dialup access there'd be less than 1 day downtime unless while moving. Get over it.

Precisel.y

And the funny thing xenix, most of us (with lives) won't be playing D3 years from now and whinging.

And playing Diablo for singleplayer only? You shouldn't be playing it in the first place if that's what you play it for.

Now that you mention torchlight, i'm even happier d3 is being released later. :D

oh nevermind, cloaks are chest armor only for demon hunters :/

i meant just more than helms/pants etc. anyway.

chest armor and stuff has individual model sets all through the game, just like.. belts and all the weapons :/

Uh, yes, trends. I.e., more people have broadband connections now compared with 5 years ago. And more people had it 5 years ago than 10 years ago.

There's no question that the majority of people don't have broadband on a strictly population vs. connection type analysis. But that's not really the issue here - the issue is whether or not now, and 12 months from now, and 5 years from now, broadband connections are more likely for those wanting to play Diablo 3 than non-bradband connections. You can't make a product for this snapshot in time, you have to consider what the average player will have access to into the future, too.

I've managed to putter around in WoW for 8-9 months, on my own, just fine. Sure, I've had the occasional time when I can't play due to server maintenance, but, really, I'm not so addicted that I can't live without my fix for that day or couple of days.

So if Diablo 3 will be similar, that's just fine with me.

This is actually the interesting part of your argument: will future gamers look back and complain about always-on internet requirements due to those things you've mentioned, or will they be non-issues? Blizzard is relying on them being non-issues, but, really, only time will tell.

And this bit I don't understand. Assuming Diablo 3 is something like WoW and SC2 in terms of "single-player" gaming, my personal experience with both games says you can have hours and hours, and days and days, of happy gaming with a consumer-grade ADSL 2+ connection and whatever Blizzard's servers are doing at the time.

What you can't have is 100% of the game, any time you want it. And that, I accept, is not ideal for a lot of people. If your circumstances genuinely don't permit the kind of connection required for even the most simplistic of "single-player" gaming, then you have a legitimate gripe with Blizzard. Otherwise, I think the gripe is more about the principle of always-on than the reality ... keeping in mind that no-one really knows how stable things are going to be once the full game is released.

But why shouldn't we? Diablo 2 was a game that had years and years of re-playability, and we can only hope that Diablo 3 does too. And that means that, if players want the game to have a long lifespan, we have to hope Blizzard's infrastructure will support that.

Uh, why not? Why can't I enjoy a single-player RPG experience, involving hack-and-slash combat, item gathering, fun with runes and the like?

I will cry if that is the full list :upset:

And why not?

Personally, I enjoy playing games by myself. I also do a lot of travelling and would like to be able to boot up my laptop and play some D3 offline, but it appears that unless I pirate it, I wont have that choice.

The other big gripe I have is what if Blizzard goes under, or decides to shut down their D3 servers sometime after it has been released? Does that also mean we have to hack it to get to play the game we waited so long for?

Firstly, you will get it, like every other stupid embargo people have claimed, in the end they still bought the game.

Secondly; How about from real, non made up facts from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8153.0/:

So not only DO the majority have broadband, but 81% of them have access speeds that are more then capable for online gaming. Don't have broadband for a few weeks? Tough shit. You can't play MMO's either but I don't see people complaining about that either. The massive, overwhelming majority wouldn't have downtime for more then a few hours at most, any more then that is usually due to power issues.

Entitlement in this generation of kids is unbelievable.

Enjoy your always online DRM.

who cares? :o

As mentioned previously in this thread, I have and I will happily because it facilitates the gameplay experience. But then again, I'm one of a very few number in here who have actually played it.

Then again, I've never had nerdrage over DRM when it's not affected my play.

Yeah can I just say I think in the last 5 years I have had 1 night of no internet whilst not moving. And that was cause Telstra disconnected my line for some random reason.

So yeah I think I can live with my always online DRM given I am always online...