D3: No LAN play.

How should Blizzard handle Multiplaying?

  • Bnet only

    Votes: 2 1.6%
  • Bnet and SP offline only no TCP/LAN (proposed by Blizzard)

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • All the options D2 has

    Votes: 43 33.6%
  • All the options D2 has except Open Bnet (allow SP over LAN or TCP)

    Votes: 82 64.1%

  • Total voters
    128

Thyiad1

Moderator Single Player, D2 Assassin, Barbarian
D3: No LAN play.

So the SPF will be D2 only.

http://www.purediablo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=687933
http://www.purediablo.com/n/687810/

Can we say stupid, can we? If anyone want's to translate that paragraph of German into readable English that would be a great idea.

Poll in suggestions thread to include LAN.
http://www.purediablo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=687843

EDIT:
I would support removing the ability to take SP chars onto Bnet; we don't accept Open chars in the MP/trade pool here. But SP offline characters should be aable to MP over LAN with other SP offline chars. Any other decision is a bad one.

EDIT2:
Fees isn't the issue. The issue is that why on earth would I want to use Bnet to play with someone in the same house or room as me. Why would I want to put up with lag, disconnects etc when I can shove a cable approximately 10 feet across the room? :banghead:

EDIT:
Blizzards thread.
http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d3-general&t=350801&s=new&#new

Do us a favour, please people. Poke those polls and post in those threads. It might not work but it can't hurt.
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

Taking away LAN just isn't logical... How're you meant to have fun with your friends if you don't want to play on their servers? That kinda sucks.
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

Unfortunate, I agree. At least there will be a Single Player mode, and from the last question in the 2nd link Thyiad posted above:
So no monthly fees for Battle.net?

Wilson: I can't say 100% that there will be no charges, but our goal is to sell a boxed product. The problem is we're multinational, so each individual market is different. The boxed model works in Asia for example, but not everywhere. If we publish a financial model then we have to do it simultaneously for each region [in Asia], and it's hard to say what each will look like. What I can say that a boxed game is our goal, not a subcription game, though I can't say for absolute certain that there will never be any fees. Just that it's not our goal.

At least it sounds like they're trying to keep bnet free.
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

It sounds like they are making SP harder in order to encourage BNet play as well. I don't want to play online BNet, and allowing characters to switch between SP and BNet is stupid, it's the Open Bnet fiasco all over again

This sucks bigtime, you've ruined my day Thyiad (I will take that eBotD as compensation :p )

@moo-cow: the news story has a good translation as it's first comment
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

Well .... maybe it WILL work. We dont know yet. Its like 2-3 years to the release. Fact is, that blizz usually does what it says, on the other hand, its usually working.

Maybe it will not work. Then some smart skilled people will write a standalone server app which mimics b.net but runs on our own machines, thus hackplements LAN play anyway. Im not smart nor skilled, but still able to imagine such modification is perfectly doable.

Relax, wait .. time will show the real (and final) D3 ;)

EDIT:moocow: code simple FTP transfer and "synchronize" button into the fake server is fun compared to other much nastier problems .. I didnt write its easy or perfect solution, just that solution exists. Let us hope it will not be necessary ...
 
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Re: D3: No LAN play.

I believe previous attempts at this for diablo2 (not sure) and for WoW were frowned upon by blizzard and were later forcibly removed. Also a problem with faking a bnet server is that the chars would be saved on the host's computer. Would make gaming sessions a bit harder if you had to e-mail your char to the host before hand and get it emailed back afterward.
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

Maybe it will not work. Then some smart skilled people will write a standalone server app which mimics b.net but runs on our own machines, thus hackplements LAN play anyway. Im not smart nor skilled, but still able to imagine such modification is perfectly doable.

That will be against the ToS/EuLA and as such will not be accepted by this forum. Therefore you might be able to MP but you won't have a community here. Either way we lose.

LAN or TCP/IP tends to be used interchangeably. Frankly reading Jay's previous comments, I question how much he knows about the workings of D2. The entire panel seemed confused about questions regarding the cow level. I'm reading this as Bnet only rather than offline can MP with offline and cutting out Open. Which I would support.



 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

edit: Seems like someone already translated it. :)

Whoa, crap, some of this some of this sounds really unpleasant. Like "we want everyone to know that playing battle.net is better than playing offline"... the way the tell it, the character you create for single player, will never be able to join MP games, so, no muling at all, it would seem.
 
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Re: D3: No LAN play.

This is utter crap from blizzard. Taking away Lan play is a bad go, considering people like to play SP and to occasionally MPing in mostly a risk free environment with a community such as this.

I played WoW for 4.5 years (regrettably of course), and tbh, although playing with others is fun, it is down right annoying when a game is centered around group play like WoW is, especially when your friends/guild arnt on and you can't do anything.
This has made me disappointed, with the way blizzard are doing this game :(. Lets hope runic games can come up with a decent subsitute for D3, otherwise I'll only play D3 maybe once through the SP after that, theres no point.
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

What's the logic behind this?

If they already have the game designed for bnet, is it really that hard to make a TCP/IP or LAN option? What do they have to lose by not going TCP/IP or LAN?
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

Looks like my chances of buying D3 just went down to about 60% from 99%. If they charge for access to battle.net then it'll probably be about 20%. Oh well, their loss, it's not like I don't have better things to do with my life now.
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

That will be against the ToS/EuLA and as such will not be accepted by this forum. Therefore you might be able to MP but you won't have a community here. Either way we lose.

Well, there are many things which a licensor can include to EULA, such as:

QUOTE1
" (iv) host or provide matchmaking services for the Program or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by the Licensor in the network feature of the Program, through protocol emulation, tunnelling, modifying or adding components to the Program, use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilising commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks without the Licensor prior written consent."

or

QUOTE2
" (vii) during the play be under influence of alcohol, nicotine or other similar drug, drug with similar effects, or any other drugs not listed now known or hereafter synthetized, or allow person in such condition to use computer on which copy of the Product is installed."

The QUOTE 2 is obviously bullpoo, but you would be surprised how close it is to some real world examples. In many countries (in Europe, I dont have any exp with US/SAm/Afr/Asia/Aus) so called Elevnth Commandment EULA means simply nothing. If some of its part is against the local law, even your "I Agree" at the end of the installation means nothing. Big software producers are just trying to frighten the users to beat more money from them by telling them how this and that is illegal, and we can see it everywhere. The very opposite is true - it is illegal to misinform users in such way and it is certainly very uncool. So as QUOTE1 (from D2 EULA) is clearly on the very edge of fairness (and legality) because I can se no legal way how Blizzard or anyone else but lawmakers of my country can dictate me what programs can I have running on my own computer connected to my own LAN.

btw: ok, vote - do you people use instant messengers? Like, yahoo, msn, icq? Hm, did you know that their protocols are closed and if you do not use their native IM applications (who DOES?), you are violating their EULA and can be sued for it (and some serious money)? Or .. can you ... Like there was 1000 lawsuits every day ... it is not, and thats because EULA != LEGAL.


 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

Money! Like I said a long time ago....it's going to be a subscription service to play with others.

They do say they will probably not have fees. I venture it's merely to get people on b.net as a form of anti-piracy. And to make me lag. Actually that's it. This whole thing is a consipiracy against me, to make me lag and die and not finish my 5*5*5 sept within 2 months... :badteeth:

As for money... Well, I have yet to see one game made for charitable reasons... Actually almost everything I own was produced by someone to make money. The number of people that make stuff and just donate it to me is frightfully low...



 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

lol nightfish :) its all a big conspiracy against.... (is shot dead by SPF Agents)

Anyways, I have to agree with fishy there, that it is an early form of anti-piracy however.., Taking lan play away is not the solution in my honest opinion, all they are doing is taking away a decent part of the game from the decent players, just to hit back at the people who pirate the game. They have done the same in WoW, constantly hitting out at the honest players, to get back at the gold farmers/botters and I dont think it is right. Blizzard have been about the money since they started with WoW, so I cant see them resorting back to the F2P side of things...

However, its only early on in D3's life, so we may see a change... and on another note.. I am not liking this orb system...
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

But should you decide to play offline, then we want the player to know that he is absolutely not required to play online. We have no intent to support LAN games, because we focus on Battle.net, where we have the ability to keep everyone in contact with the Blizzard community.

This could mean that they won't support Open BNet. TCP/IP games don't require a Blizzard server, but Open BNet does I think (I don't know much about Open Bnet)
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

Hang on, I'm losing it. What's the difference between LAN and TCP/IP, and which one (if not both) is being omitted in D3?

I do like some of the other ideas from that interview, though.
 
Re: D3: No LAN play.

This could mean that they won't support Open BNet. TCP/IP games don't require a Blizzard server, but Open BNet does I think (I don't know much about Open Bnet)

Straight from the Arreat Summit FAQ (already been posted though):

Code:
[b]What is an Open Character?[/b]
Open Characters are stored locally on your own computer and, 
while you can set up games and chat over Battle.net, you cannot 
play these characters on a Diablo II Realm. In an Open Game, one
player's computer is the game server, while the other players 
connect to it. Since Blizzard cannot be responsible for the locally 
stored characters, or the servers upon which the games are played, 
Open Games are more vulnerable than Realm Games to certain forms
of manipulation and abuses by other players. The big advantage of
Open Games, however, is that you can bring your Single-Player
Characters onto Battle.net. You can play with your friends over 
Battle.net and then continue playing that character in Single Player as
often as you want.

Edit: Code-box went screwy.

Edit 14: Misunderstood first quote. Tired.

Thirty-Thirty said:
Hang on, I'm losing it. What's the difference between LAN and TCP/IP, and which one (if not both) is being omitted in D3?

LAN is your basic home network, while TCP/IP is a protocol allowing a client or more to communicate with a server. You connect to diii.net using the HTTP protocol.


 
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