Diablo III: If it was offline

[SnickerSnack]

I've had a character sitting in-game for hours at a time; one was at least 3 hours.

[Sid]

I've gone to bed, woke up the next day, and still been logged on.

If you have the game paused however, you will be kicked after about 20 minutes.

[Rhone]

I definitely feel like a lot of what I don't like about the game has to do with it being online-only, especially if we presume that the existence of the AH is the primary justification for just how ridiculously difficult it is to find useable high-end items on your own.

Right now, I'm basically at a point in D3 (level 60 Monk in A4 Hell) that feels roughly equivalent to my early D2 days when I first started running Meph with my first Sorceress. Let's compare the two experiences:

Diablo 2: The sorc could do, say, 1k Meph runs, hoard all the loot in GoMule, and have a large percentage of the game's unique and set items. The runs, despite being repetitive, were rewarding, because I could look at any set of 100 runs and see that I found something I hadn't found before, and at the end I could basically gear up any character class to beat Hell, even though there were more goodies for me to continue MFing for in level 85 areas, Pindle, etc., not to mention runewords.

Diablo 3: In the time it took my D2 sorc to do 1k Meph runs, it is quite possible that my Monk will find not one single item that will be useful to him in Inferno (let alone be able to gear up other characters), any decent lower level twinking items will be not worth saving due to limited stash space, and I might be able to save up, say, a few million in gold. That gold could then be used to either buy one single item that would be useful for all of Inferno (while leaving me still needing to farm up gold for more items), or perhaps a set of "budget" items that might barely get me through Act 1 of Inferno before I need to start farming all over again. The experience is rather UNrewarding.

When I first hit level 60, I was excited that I could start stacking NV and getting guaranteed rare drops. After collecting dozens of rares and not finding any that could sell decently on the AH, let alone anything that would be worth having my Monk wear, the excitement is pretty much gone. Blizzard hit upon a pretty addictive formula in D2, and in D3 it seems like they are desperately trying to fix something that wasn't broken; honestly, I think a lot of that has to do with the game being online only and built around the Auction Houses.

In fairness, though, I can't give old-Blizzard complete credit for D2's longevity; how much of an SPF community would we have if there were no Atma/GoMule? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have played it longer than a month or two without being able to keep the stuff I MFed for.

Edit: Regarding staying logged in: I think the game will leave you logged in at the title screen for an extended period of time, but you can't leave a character idle for long without being disconnected. I know I've paused the game, attended to my baby (who I'm pretty much always taking care of when home), and come back to find my character disconnected in what I'm pretty sure was under 30 minutes or so. That pretty much limits the time I can spend with 5 NV stacks.

[Grisu]

I've gone to bed, woke up the next day, and still been logged on.

If you have the game paused however, you will be kicked after about 20 minutes.

Ahhh...then that's the problem! I did pause the game when I got kicked. So back to town and no pausing for longer breaks seems to be the solution Great! Thanks for the info all of you!

[Camie]

My problem with D3 SP is not so much the internet connection as the impossible elites for X class with a full stuff from the given act.
There has been numerous post about this issue and Blizzard doesn't seem to care at all which goes to show they are clearly focused on MP only.

[SnickerSnack]

I've gone to bed, woke up the next day, and still been logged on.

If you have the game paused however, you will be kicked after about 20 minutes.

Now that you mention it, I think I was unpaused......

Edit: Regarding staying logged in: I think the game will leave you logged in at the title screen for an extended period of time, but you can't leave a character idle for long without being disconnected. I know I've paused the game....

It may be pausing that did it.

Ahhh...then that's the problem! I did pause the game when I got kicked. So back to town and no pausing for longer breaks seems to be the solution Great! Thanks for the info all of you!

I concur, I think I had left it unpaused.

Edit: @Sid below, that makes sense. I was actually a bit annoyed since it tacked several hours on that character, but I can see how it can be very helpful to some.

[Sid]

My guess is they don't want people to build up a 5-stack then be able to go AFK for a long time while paused (like over-night) and still have the buff.