You Know It's Bad When

[YSM]

Part of the Diablo community asks Blizzard to charge them money every month to play Diablo III. There used to be a time where it was the complete opposite; people would go nuts if you tried charging them every month to play a videogame that they had already purchased. Especially a game that's part of a franchise that was previously free-to-play online. That's how sheep-like you people have become.

You have been conditioned into thinking that great service can only come if you pay a subscription fee.

In reality, Blizzard should be protecting their games from hackers regardless, so you'll continue to buy their games. That's how the game is supposed to be played. The only way I'd support a monthly $14.99 subscription fee is if Blizzard released a content patch every month that was more or less 1/3 the size of the original game, and if they allowed me to access old content that I had previously purchased, despite whether or not I cancelled my subscription recently.

[ExtraStrongFireEnchanted]

Your arguments fail. There is no such thing as free. Big part of the internet is free because of advertisement, in which case people pay indirectly. If battle.net stays free I guarantee there will be duping, hacking, botting, because no sane company would put their money to hire a team of professionals to at least make a serious attempt to take care of those matters. Afterall, they already got your money for the box. I mean we know cheating is rampart in D2 and has ruined the game. Still fans will buy D3. So please cut the 'they should care for their reputation" crap, cause things don't work this way from what we've seen.

[Swiffer]

Your arguments fail. There is no such thing as free. Big part of the internet is free because of advertisement, in which case people pay indirectly. If battle.net stays free I guarantee there will be duping, hacking, botting, because no sane company would put their money to hire a team of professionals to at least make a serious attempt to take care of those matters. Afterall, they already got your money for the box. I mean we know cheating is rampart in D2 and has ruined the game. Still fans will buy D3. So please cut the 'they should care for their reputation" crap, cause things don't work this way from what we've seen.

Blizzard did put in alot of time and effort with Diablo 2 trying to keep the closed realms cheat and hack free and for a decent period of time were successful. Obviously as the game got older and other games took precedence, less and less effort was put in.

I think Battle.net 2.0 is a big key to how safe from hacking/cheating Diablo 3 will be. You have to remember, Diablo 2 was still using the same Battle.net that Diablo 1 did, just using servers actually run by Blizzard so they could keep tighter control (remember logging into Battle.net and your first message being "This battle.net server is run by <company>? I always landed on an AT&T run server for some reason). It was never written with security in mind, it was written to just let people play.

Battle.net 2.0 is a ground up rewrite of the system, which should include much more security. Like all Blizzard games now, Warden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_(software)) will be the frontline tool to cut down on hacking and cheating.

To counter your argument, WoW has used Warden since release, and the game has still periodically been affected by speed and teleport hacks. Duping has been extremely minimal (ive heard of it happening maybe twice?). Nothing as prevalent as D2, but still happens and still annoying.

[YSM]

Your arguments fail.

OK Mr. World of Warcraft General Forum.

There is no such thing as free. Big part of the internet is free because of advertisement

Battle.net has advertisements.

If battle.net stays free I guarantee there will be duping, hacking, botting

Like I wrote before, you have been conditioned to think that way. Blizzard should be maintaining their games regardless, so people will buy their games. If players pressured Blizzard more with their wallets, then Blizzard would of course fight botting, hacking, et cetera, subscription fee or not. But we have players like you claiming the ridiculous by stating "BLIZZARD CAN'T FIGHT HACKS WITHOUT TAKING MONEY OUT OF OUR WALLETS MONTHLY!" So, thanks a lot.

because no sane company would put their money to hire a team of professionals to at least make a serious attempt to take care of those matters.

They would if players didn't take their crap.

I mean we know cheating is rampart in D2 and has ruined the game.

Yes, but they put up a fight. I don't know how much you know about the history of Diablo II, but Blizzard fought pretty hard to ward of hackers, bugged items and dupes, without us paying a monthly fee.

[ExtraStrongFireEnchanted]

Look at the facts. D2 lost battle against cheaters. WoW won battle against cheaters. Go figure the difference between the two.

[Morannon]

What bugged me with the way Blizz handled hackers in D2 is that they held back ones they detected hackers. From time to time they would delete accounts that had been using hacks when they should have deactivated the CD key permanently, possibly even ban the IP. It made me angry. I fear they will do the same with D3. At some point hackers will probably breach battle.net 2.0 defences and spread their filth and when they do, Blizzard should show no mercy.

[Swiffer]

Look at the facts. D2 lost battle against cheaters. WoW won battle against cheaters. Go figure the difference between the two.

The difference between the 2 is a) Warden was there from the start (Warden didnt appear until 1.11 for Diablo 2, well after the horse had already bolted) and b) Blizzard took a much harder line against cheating in WoW. Simply suggesting there will be a fee purely to stop cheating is nonsense without any fact or reason to back it up.

[Hideo]

It's very unlikely that D3 will require a monthly fee. Diablo is a solitary game. From what have been annouced so far, there will be between 4 to 8 players per world instance max. There is even single player mode! Monthly fee would decrease sales a lot. People would dl from p2p and use private servers. It's hard and expensive to make a good WOW server, but for Diablo it's much cheaper and easier.

Blizzard will take care of security in D3, since many players are attracted to Battle.net by QoS. For ex. I will buy SC2, bc I wan't to have fast and reliable AMM system, so that I don't have to hunt for decent players.

I'm 100% sure they will make some paid expansions and that's it. ONLY MMOs have a monthly fee and D3 is not an MMO, so your point is mute.

[stillman]

I think the conditioned thinking is actaully more like reality.
Look at driving: to drive you have to pay for the car, AND you must pay monthly insurance. When you buy a house, most people have to make payments for almost the rest of their young lives. With student loans, you get your education but you have to pay high interest on your loans.
It's just the way of the world. Is it right? No. But that's the way things work now.
I'm with Morranon; the hackers need to get crucified. They should have to buy a new cd AND change their internet service. If they don't change their internet service, then Blizzard should keep a list of past cheaters and charge the old cheaters who have bought new cd's $300 to have access to bnet again. But no one is going to pay $300 to get abck on bnet after cheating right? Well good. We don't want them on bnet anyway.

[YSM]

I think the conditioned thinking is actaully more like reality.
Look at driving: to drive you have to pay for the car, AND you must pay monthly insurance. When you buy a house, most people have to make payments for almost the rest of their young lives. With student loans, you get your education but you have to pay high interest on your loans.
It's just the way of the world. Is it right? No. But that's the way things work now.

I think your analogies are poor.

My main point is that Diablo III is being advertised as a cooperative-based multiplayer game that costs 50 or so dollars, and people who buy Diablo III should expect Blizzard to protect that multiplayer experience from hackers without a subscription fee. Blizzard doesn't need an added $15 a month to do that, and they shouldn't ask for it; players shouldn't ask for it. Now, if Blizzard wants to charge $14.99 a month for monthly sizable content updates, then more power to them. I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with that, granted they don't go about things in a typical fashion by taking away all new content from players who stop paying the subscription fee, and boot them from the online community. They should just disallow those players access to content they didn't pay for.

Or better yet, they should just release monthly mini-expansion packs you can buy at the store, or online; and fight hackers for free. If they can't maintain Diablo III's cooperative multiplayer experience that they've promised us without a monthly fee, then the game can be overrun with hackers for all I care. Hopefully the playerbase will smarten up, talk with their wallets by giving Blizzard an ultimatum: maintain your game's experience, which you asked 50 dollars for -- without an added subscription fee -- or we'll spend our money elsewhere.

[kirborg]

People here are only saying that because they are willing to invest money to make sure Diablo 3 is the best it can be. No-one is saying that D3 will suck without subscription fee.

[YSM]

People here are only saying that because they are willing to invest money to make sure Diablo 3 is the best it can be. No-one is saying that D3 will suck without subscription fee.

I know, and that's the problem. Diablo III can be as hack-free as WOW (which isn't hack free, by the way) without a subscription fee. Players should expect Blizzard to maintain Diablo III's online experience (i.e. fight hackers); after all, isn't multiplayer the biggest feature Diablo III possesses and consequently it's selling point?

Blizzard expanding the game past what it was out-of-box is a different animal though, and I have no problem with them charging extra for that.

EDIT: Have any of you guys ever heard of a successful subscription-free, online multiplayer hack-free game called, Guildwars? I rest my case.

[Omar]

Well one could argue that nobody cares about cracking Guild Wars.
In any case, I've used most of the main Diablo II hacks and exploits. I'm also a programmer with a very good understanding of how they worked. Blizzard did make a sloppy job and I assume they just placed their money on the hackers playing on open battle net.
Basically the issue was that things like Imbuing items and Gabling were handled partly Client Side. They did make some tries to protect the game but the fact that it was a single player game with a multiplayer side to it didn't help. Then there were problems like "what if someone trades a duped item, how is that to be handled?". In any case I have full faith that the design will be much better even simply because the game will be released about 10 years after the previous one.

[YSM]

Well one could argue that nobody cares about cracking Guild Wars.

I don't see where someone would be coming from with that argument. Guildwars is popular and highly competitive. Could you explain that one for me?

Part of the reason why Guildwars isn't overrun with hacks may be because of the game's architecture; mostly everything is streamed, barely anything is client-side, but that's just my theory. I'm no elite super haxor like yourself.

[Archanos]

Blizzard expanding the game past what it was out-of-box is a different animal though, and I have no problem with them charging extra for that.
I think this is somewhat unlikely to happen due to Blizzard's relationship with the retail channels. Blizzard appears unlikely to sell "mini-expansions" or content updates that cost money, because that bypasses retail.

If you look at what's happening with WoW expansions, you'll see the company is not planning to offer downloadable expansions before the product in question has spent a good chunk of time in retail, because they want to support the retail market. So, by extension, it seems most likely that they'll again produce LoD-esque boxed expansions for D3.

[Swiffer]

If you look at what's happening with WoW expansions, you'll see the company is not planning to offer downloadable expansions before the product in question has spent a good chunk of time in retail, because they want to support the retail market. So, by extension, it seems most likely that they'll again produce LoD-esque boxed expansions for D3.

That is a bad example though, considering Blizzard added alot of content between WoW and TBC, and have added alot of content between TBC and the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. They could easily do this if they feel so inclined.

[stillman]

Omar!!! How could you?! You admit to using hacks? You are the enemy. Thanks for destroying d2. I'll bet you used a pally too. A rightous, do-gooder, holy, man of honor total cheater.

[CYBERPUNK]

@YSM

I love you man, you're like the freaking Diablo Messiah, come to save us all from the insanity that is the modern day gamer

you're a man after my own heart

god-bless ya

(and this is coming from an agnostic)

[yukisho]

In reality, Blizzard should be protecting their games from hackers regardless

Look at America's Army. May not be an MMORPG, but they do not charge a monthly fee and it's practically hack proof. But that's punkbuster for you.

[BattleWhack]

I'm 100% sure they will make some paid expansions and that's it. ONLY MMOs have a monthly fee and D3 is not an MMO, so your point is mute.

QFT

Seconded

[Omar]

Where are all you people coming from? It's Blizzard. They'll release the game, release an expansion pack and move on.
In any case, you'll probably see botters out there. (or you won't cause of passworded games)

[Werzoth]

If you're thinking Diablo 3 will have a monthly fee, you're delusional.

[Jaquiezz]

I love the comparisons between diablo 2 and WoW, it's a good laugh.

WoW is still a relatively new game, and it has had two expansions released for it in just a few years. Diablo is quite a bit older, and only had one expansion released in a much larger span of time. Comparing the current state of the games is ridiculous, WoW is still selling and growing, Diablo has pretty much come to a standstill, and the gaming population is going way down. When Diablo and LOD were first released the game was pretty much hack free. The game died down, so the support died down. I really can't make it any easier to understand.

Diablo 3 will be free to play. Why? It's on Bnet. 6 games and 3 expansions have been played on Bnet, and not a single one has been pay to play. The only game that is pay to play is also the only online game blizzard has released that has not been on Bnet. Surprise, D3 isn't pay to play!

[Rcuhljr]

I'm 100% sure they will make some paid expansions and that's it. ONLY MMOs have a monthly fee and D3 is not an MMO, so your point is moot.

Thirded and spelling nazi'd :P