This just in...
- Thread starter Nightfish
- Start date
hubb
Active member
Re: This just in...
If you're correcting someone's typos, avoid spelling mistakes. :whistling:
Jason Maher
Active member
Re: This just in...
Slow internet access is not a factor for me. My current actual speeds are 7802 Kbps down/1023 Kbps up (ADSL 2+). I can't imagine even cattle.net 2.0 requiring any more than that.
Slow internet access is not a factor for me. My current actual speeds are 7802 Kbps down/1023 Kbps up (ADSL 2+). I can't imagine even cattle.net 2.0 requiring any more than that.
Re: This just in...
How? Why? Who gets mad if I cheat in SP? Who do I affect by cheating myself in single player?
If anything, that is an argument against open battle.net. But transfering from open to closed b.net has never been possible as far as I know, so I really, really, really do not see your point.
Just face it, the only reason they axed single player is because we cannot be trusted to buy the game if there is any way of pirating it. I'd only be half as pissed off as I am if they at least had the cojones to admit that. But no, they don't. They serve up some obviously fake PR blabla and expect me to be stupid enough not to see through the paper thin lies.
How? Why? Who gets mad if I cheat in SP? Who do I affect by cheating myself in single player?
If anything, that is an argument against open battle.net. But transfering from open to closed b.net has never been possible as far as I know, so I really, really, really do not see your point.
Just face it, the only reason they axed single player is because we cannot be trusted to buy the game if there is any way of pirating it. I'd only be half as pissed off as I am if they at least had the cojones to admit that. But no, they don't. They serve up some obviously fake PR blabla and expect me to be stupid enough not to see through the paper thin lies.
Re: This just in...
I agree with Nightfish (for once!) - that argument is weak since the only people really concerned with what goes on with SP appears to be Blizzard.
To me it's clear - Blizzard is forcing people onto their own server so that anybody that plays the game is locked into whatever Blizzard has in mind. It's long amazed me how Blizzard appears to take so personally how people play the game.
The game appears, from what I've read, to be designed to maximize Blizzard control over how people play the game and to take over the black market item economy. The second observation doesn't bother me so much, but the first part pretty much precludes me as a potential player because of the way I prefer to play the games I pay good money for.
I agree with Nightfish (for once!) - that argument is weak since the only people really concerned with what goes on with SP appears to be Blizzard.
To me it's clear - Blizzard is forcing people onto their own server so that anybody that plays the game is locked into whatever Blizzard has in mind. It's long amazed me how Blizzard appears to take so personally how people play the game.
The game appears, from what I've read, to be designed to maximize Blizzard control over how people play the game and to take over the black market item economy. The second observation doesn't bother me so much, but the first part pretty much precludes me as a potential player because of the way I prefer to play the games I pay good money for.
Re: This just in...
NF, you're not completely right. I mean, what you're saying is almost the entire truth but there's more to it.
As explained to me on the previous page, if we could test the game mechanics on our local computer, it'd be easier to reverse engineer the game mechanics. Since b.net is using the same mechanics, it would be easier to cheat on b.net, by learning about game mechanics in single player.
Since virtual items in D3 have real money value, in a system supported by Blizzard, they will go out of their way to prevent and minimize duping. To Blizzard, someone spending 5 Ber on a duped charm is OK, but spending $5 on a duped charm is much more problematic.
Thus no Single Player and game mechanics hidden on the server.
NF, you're not completely right. I mean, what you're saying is almost the entire truth but there's more to it.
As explained to me on the previous page, if we could test the game mechanics on our local computer, it'd be easier to reverse engineer the game mechanics. Since b.net is using the same mechanics, it would be easier to cheat on b.net, by learning about game mechanics in single player.
Since virtual items in D3 have real money value, in a system supported by Blizzard, they will go out of their way to prevent and minimize duping. To Blizzard, someone spending 5 Ber on a duped charm is OK, but spending $5 on a duped charm is much more problematic.
Thus no Single Player and game mechanics hidden on the server.
hubb
Active member
Re: This just in...
I think he means that it opens up the system to cheats/hacks by giving hackers access to the code that would normally only be server side (like discussed on the previous page). How much that really matters is debatable.
Yes, their PR BS and the ignorance it usually shows is just as bad as the news it's attached to.
*edit: Ninjad by Greebo.
I think he means that it opens up the system to cheats/hacks by giving hackers access to the code that would normally only be server side (like discussed on the previous page). How much that really matters is debatable.
Yes, their PR BS and the ignorance it usually shows is just as bad as the news it's attached to.
*edit: Ninjad by Greebo.
herobomberman
New member
Re: This just in...
well well well. i never thought of it like that. that does make some sense, since when real cash is involved you dont want to selling fake stuff (even though its all virtual gear and therefore fake anyway.. mind.. breaking.. down)
OT: i have waiting too long not to buy this game.. and although i dislike some of the directions it has gone... i still want to play it. maybe im hoping it will be like my WoW experience. I dreaded getting addicted to WoW like i was to D2... when i finally took the plunge i lasted 3 months and got bored. Hopefully the same will happen with d3. a few months of playing a game pays for itself.. then i can go back to having a social life see: renovating my house haha
well well well. i never thought of it like that. that does make some sense, since when real cash is involved you dont want to selling fake stuff (even though its all virtual gear and therefore fake anyway.. mind.. breaking.. down)
OT: i have waiting too long not to buy this game.. and although i dislike some of the directions it has gone... i still want to play it. maybe im hoping it will be like my WoW experience. I dreaded getting addicted to WoW like i was to D2... when i finally took the plunge i lasted 3 months and got bored. Hopefully the same will happen with d3. a few months of playing a game pays for itself.. then i can go back to having a social life see: renovating my house haha
Re: This just in...
Be careful with that assumption. I've played online using dial-up with latency under 100 ms, and I've played on DSL with latency averaging above 400 ms. It doesn't depend so much on your Internet service speeds, it depends more on how many computers and systems there are between your computer and the server. You may only upload/download a few MB per hour playing online, but if it takes one second for each data packet, you're two seconds behind the action (your PC to the server = 1 second, server back to your PC = 1 second, so whatever you do, you see the results 2 seconds after doing it).
Your bandwidth is impressive, but it's overkill for online gaming--as you said, it's unimaginable that the game would require more than that. What you need to test is your latency to the servers. Try creating a game in D1 or D2 (or SC or SC2 or WoW) and see what the lag is, and try a few different servers/locations. I think you'll find response times much slower than what you expect.
Be careful with that assumption. I've played online using dial-up with latency under 100 ms, and I've played on DSL with latency averaging above 400 ms. It doesn't depend so much on your Internet service speeds, it depends more on how many computers and systems there are between your computer and the server. You may only upload/download a few MB per hour playing online, but if it takes one second for each data packet, you're two seconds behind the action (your PC to the server = 1 second, server back to your PC = 1 second, so whatever you do, you see the results 2 seconds after doing it).
Your bandwidth is impressive, but it's overkill for online gaming--as you said, it's unimaginable that the game would require more than that. What you need to test is your latency to the servers. Try creating a game in D1 or D2 (or SC or SC2 or WoW) and see what the lag is, and try a few different servers/locations. I think you'll find response times much slower than what you expect.
Re: This just in...
The thing is, last time I checked, duping on B.net worked COMPLETELY different from duping in single player. I'm sure if you think about it for a few seconds you'll notice why.
I'll not say how duping in SP goes because if we're being really strick this is banworthy. Although it's really, really obvious.
I'm not even sure you *could* dupe in SP the way dupes are currently made on the realms. Because last time I checked it relied on lag to some extent.
Plus, that is easily remedied: Give each items a GUID (globally unique identifier) as a fingerprint and you're dupe free. Have the server run checks for items with the same GUID and delete if you find a match. Nothing easier than that.
From the internets:
How unique is a GUID?
If every human on Earth generated 600,000,000 GUIDs there would only be a 50% probability of a duplicate.
That should do it, no? Especially if you check for, say, windforces with the same GUID.
That took me 1 minute to think up. How come blizzard has not yet hired me to fix their problems? :badteeth:
The thing is, last time I checked, duping on B.net worked COMPLETELY different from duping in single player. I'm sure if you think about it for a few seconds you'll notice why.
I'll not say how duping in SP goes because if we're being really strick this is banworthy. Although it's really, really obvious. I'm not even sure you *could* dupe in SP the way dupes are currently made on the realms. Because last time I checked it relied on lag to some extent.
Plus, that is easily remedied: Give each items a GUID (globally unique identifier) as a fingerprint and you're dupe free. Have the server run checks for items with the same GUID and delete if you find a match. Nothing easier than that.
From the internets:
How unique is a GUID?
If every human on Earth generated 600,000,000 GUIDs there would only be a 50% probability of a duplicate.
That should do it, no? Especially if you check for, say, windforces with the same GUID.
That took me 1 minute to think up. How come blizzard has not yet hired me to fix their problems? :badteeth:
Re: This just in...
I know next to nothing on how duping on b.net works, so no argument from me with that respect.
However when it comes to GUID: I imagine that people who dupe items would immediately sell them. There's only one thing worse than finding out your item is duped, and that is having it disappear.
I know next to nothing on how duping on b.net works, so no argument from me with that respect.
However when it comes to GUID: I imagine that people who dupe items would immediately sell them. There's only one thing worse than finding out your item is duped, and that is having it disappear.
Re: This just in...
Again, easily rectified. Check items when they go in the auction house and only make them buyable after 1 second which is about as long as this check takes. Srsly, even if you don't allow SP, this is what you need to do if you want to be sure your items are legit.
Again, easily rectified. Check items when they go in the auction house and only make them buyable after 1 second which is about as long as this check takes. Srsly, even if you don't allow SP, this is what you need to do if you want to be sure your items are legit.
Re: This just in...
A unique identifier doesn't fix duping. Or rather, it creates another problem--how to check?
Imagine how long it would take to compare a single item's unique ID to a database of acceptable/non-duped IDs. Consider how long it would take to do that for every item. How often would this occur? Every time an item is generated as a drop? Every time it's picked up or moved? Every time it goes to the AH? Every time it's traded? Depending on when and how the dupe is created, the time between creation and when it's caught could be considerable. And if the comparison is run too often, the game would slow to a crawl for everyone (you can look online for speed tests for searching a database, or for sorting the database to make those searches faster).
An algorithm for each item is also possible, such that an acceptable range of unique identifiers is possible for each item. The dupe would have to guess the algorithm (or guess a correct identifier) but once that is known, the dupe would be as real as a server-generated item. Probably not an acceptable risk when real money transactions are accepted.
Keeping everything server-side, including the code for all item objects, and never allowing the code for an object to transfer from the client to the server is a secure solution. A hacker would need to obtain access to the server and modify code on the server in order to dupe items. At that point, it's probably easier just to hack into the accounts on the server, or better yet, hack into a PC to get the account login/password information.
The truth is, the only secure solution for players is offline singleplayer. If I'm offline, no one can hack into my computer (unless they're physically in my home), and dupes are of zero concern to anyone else--since offline, I can only make dupes for myself.
Of course, offline singleplayer means no multiplayer--and Diablo 3 is a multiplayer game. I believe Blizzard is taking appropriate steps to make the multiplayer game as secure as possible, while still making it playable.
Unfortunately, those of us who don't have sufficient Internet access are not supported by this approach. Those of us who can only play offline were never involved with the hacking/duping problems on Battle.net, because that would require online play. Instead of acknowledging this, Blizzard specifically accuses offline players as the most likely cheaters. Nice.
I can understand keeping online multiplay as safe as possible--but Blizzard is taking an extreme approach, in my opinion, by completely alienating the offline players (who were potential customers). I also believe a security solution could have been implemented that separates offline and online play. For example, if all character/item code stays on the server, and the information about characters and items flows one way (server to client, never client to server), code modifications could never be uploaded to the server. The offline games could be hacked and modded, but it wouldn't affect online play at all. Also, whatever online security is used could be completely eliminated for the offline game, so hackers couldn't learn how the online server security works through out-of-the-box game manipulation.
I don't know how the Diablo 3 software was written, and maybe it would simply take too much time and effort to have both an offline version and an online version.
------
EDIT: I took a look online (www.tpc.org), which shows speeds up to 500,000 database transactions per second back in 2010. Imagine this speed, but transactions for every item manipulated on an entire server. Now, the size of the database and amount of processing power dedicated to the task will significantly affect the speed of the search...but no matter what they do it's not going to be instantaneous. Also, the number of items will always be growing (unless they have a cap on the number of items that can ever be generated for the life of the game). Something like an advanced version of the Warden that runs constantly and near-instantly eliminates dupes as soon as they occur is just not feasible given current database technology. As always, this is just my opinion (and my limited knowledge on the subject).
A unique identifier doesn't fix duping. Or rather, it creates another problem--how to check?
Imagine how long it would take to compare a single item's unique ID to a database of acceptable/non-duped IDs. Consider how long it would take to do that for every item. How often would this occur? Every time an item is generated as a drop? Every time it's picked up or moved? Every time it goes to the AH? Every time it's traded? Depending on when and how the dupe is created, the time between creation and when it's caught could be considerable. And if the comparison is run too often, the game would slow to a crawl for everyone (you can look online for speed tests for searching a database, or for sorting the database to make those searches faster).
An algorithm for each item is also possible, such that an acceptable range of unique identifiers is possible for each item. The dupe would have to guess the algorithm (or guess a correct identifier) but once that is known, the dupe would be as real as a server-generated item. Probably not an acceptable risk when real money transactions are accepted.
Keeping everything server-side, including the code for all item objects, and never allowing the code for an object to transfer from the client to the server is a secure solution. A hacker would need to obtain access to the server and modify code on the server in order to dupe items. At that point, it's probably easier just to hack into the accounts on the server, or better yet, hack into a PC to get the account login/password information.
The truth is, the only secure solution for players is offline singleplayer. If I'm offline, no one can hack into my computer (unless they're physically in my home), and dupes are of zero concern to anyone else--since offline, I can only make dupes for myself.
Of course, offline singleplayer means no multiplayer--and Diablo 3 is a multiplayer game. I believe Blizzard is taking appropriate steps to make the multiplayer game as secure as possible, while still making it playable.
Unfortunately, those of us who don't have sufficient Internet access are not supported by this approach. Those of us who can only play offline were never involved with the hacking/duping problems on Battle.net, because that would require online play. Instead of acknowledging this, Blizzard specifically accuses offline players as the most likely cheaters. Nice.
I can understand keeping online multiplay as safe as possible--but Blizzard is taking an extreme approach, in my opinion, by completely alienating the offline players (who were potential customers). I also believe a security solution could have been implemented that separates offline and online play. For example, if all character/item code stays on the server, and the information about characters and items flows one way (server to client, never client to server), code modifications could never be uploaded to the server. The offline games could be hacked and modded, but it wouldn't affect online play at all. Also, whatever online security is used could be completely eliminated for the offline game, so hackers couldn't learn how the online server security works through out-of-the-box game manipulation.
I don't know how the Diablo 3 software was written, and maybe it would simply take too much time and effort to have both an offline version and an online version.
------
EDIT: I took a look online (www.tpc.org), which shows speeds up to 500,000 database transactions per second back in 2010. Imagine this speed, but transactions for every item manipulated on an entire server. Now, the size of the database and amount of processing power dedicated to the task will significantly affect the speed of the search...but no matter what they do it's not going to be instantaneous. Also, the number of items will always be growing (unless they have a cap on the number of items that can ever be generated for the life of the game). Something like an advanced version of the Warden that runs constantly and near-instantly eliminates dupes as soon as they occur is just not feasible given current database technology. As always, this is just my opinion (and my limited knowledge on the subject).
Last edited:
purplelocust
New member
Re: This just in...
I think that keeping the game mechanics on their side is the central issue and very deliberate decision. For 95%+ of the customers, it is immaterial to their experience and gameplay whether the mechanics are hosted on their machine or on central protected servers. For the rest, those fall into a couple of categories:
1) people who have connection difficulty
2) people who have philosophical objections to connecting to play
3) people who are interested in the specific mechanics to enjoy the game more
4) people who are interested in the mechanics to exploit the game and potentially profit.
Most of the SPF lies in category 3, of course. My guess is that Blizzard realized that alienating groups #1 -#3 isn't a very large cost to them and that hindering group #4, perhaps slowing down the prevalence of duping and so on, is more likely to improve the experience for most users.
Think about how many things we wouldn't know about with D2 if we could only learn about it from the manual (hah!) and the Arreat Summit (hah!) webpages. Were it not for several important methods, used by many dedicated players:
1) experimenting on local machines via trial and error
2) analyzing the txt files
3) disassembling and analyzing the object code
we wouldn't know nearly so much about optimizing many aspects of the game. For us, it is about understanding the D2 universe and mechanics (with all of its inconsistencies) often to obsessive, detailed computational analyses.
The success this analysis has been useful both for SPF players but also for b.net players. But for many people, that level of analysis and understanding isn't important and that seems to be where Blizzard is aiming D3.
I think that keeping the game mechanics on their side is the central issue and very deliberate decision. For 95%+ of the customers, it is immaterial to their experience and gameplay whether the mechanics are hosted on their machine or on central protected servers. For the rest, those fall into a couple of categories:
1) people who have connection difficulty
2) people who have philosophical objections to connecting to play
3) people who are interested in the specific mechanics to enjoy the game more
4) people who are interested in the mechanics to exploit the game and potentially profit.
Most of the SPF lies in category 3, of course. My guess is that Blizzard realized that alienating groups #1 -#3 isn't a very large cost to them and that hindering group #4, perhaps slowing down the prevalence of duping and so on, is more likely to improve the experience for most users.
Think about how many things we wouldn't know about with D2 if we could only learn about it from the manual (hah!) and the Arreat Summit (hah!) webpages. Were it not for several important methods, used by many dedicated players:
1) experimenting on local machines via trial and error
2) analyzing the txt files
3) disassembling and analyzing the object code
we wouldn't know nearly so much about optimizing many aspects of the game. For us, it is about understanding the D2 universe and mechanics (with all of its inconsistencies) often to obsessive, detailed computational analyses.
The success this analysis has been useful both for SPF players but also for b.net players. But for many people, that level of analysis and understanding isn't important and that seems to be where Blizzard is aiming D3.
Re: This just in...
No, I don't think you're looking at this quite the right way. For one, checking for dupes is necessary regardless of whether you allow SP or not.
Assuming people will not find a way to duplicate items online is like opening 14 cans of dog food for your puppy before going on vacation for 2 weeks, leaving him with a stern reminder that he is to eat one can per day and poop outside. It's a nice idea, but I can already see the **** hitting the fan.
Next, you seem to assume that writing your item to the database would hold up gameplay. Now that's not necessarily true. You don't even need to think further than any MMO you ever played, or even D2. Did you ever notice the game freezing because it was saving your progress? No, didn't think so.
You don't need even to wait for your database to get back to you for this, all you need to do is send a message to your database and tell it to save the item and it's fingerprint. There is no need to instantly react to it. Now, when someone puts an item into the auction house, don't show it until the item is confirmed as legit. If it's a dupe, delete it. And of course you can do system-wide wipes whenever you take the servers offline for "maintenance".
Also, limit this whole stuff to items anyone would actually dupe and I doubt you'll even need 500.000 transactions per hour, let alone per second. Maybe not even 500.00 per day per server, depending on how many people are there.
Again, the thing is, none of this has any bearing on allowing SP or not. This is stuff you'd need to do anyway if you cared about your items being legit.
Also a good point. Although I'd venture that even people not directly interested in the inner workings of D2 actually benefit from the guides written by those who do want to know what makes stuff tick.
I can safely say my guides would only be half as good without people like RTB and Thrugg actually giving me the rules by which the game works.
No, I don't think you're looking at this quite the right way. For one, checking for dupes is necessary regardless of whether you allow SP or not.
Assuming people will not find a way to duplicate items online is like opening 14 cans of dog food for your puppy before going on vacation for 2 weeks, leaving him with a stern reminder that he is to eat one can per day and poop outside. It's a nice idea, but I can already see the **** hitting the fan.
Next, you seem to assume that writing your item to the database would hold up gameplay. Now that's not necessarily true. You don't even need to think further than any MMO you ever played, or even D2. Did you ever notice the game freezing because it was saving your progress? No, didn't think so.
You don't need even to wait for your database to get back to you for this, all you need to do is send a message to your database and tell it to save the item and it's fingerprint. There is no need to instantly react to it. Now, when someone puts an item into the auction house, don't show it until the item is confirmed as legit. If it's a dupe, delete it. And of course you can do system-wide wipes whenever you take the servers offline for "maintenance".
Also, limit this whole stuff to items anyone would actually dupe and I doubt you'll even need 500.000 transactions per hour, let alone per second. Maybe not even 500.00 per day per server, depending on how many people are there.
Again, the thing is, none of this has any bearing on allowing SP or not. This is stuff you'd need to do anyway if you cared about your items being legit.
Also a good point. Although I'd venture that even people not directly interested in the inner workings of D2 actually benefit from the guides written by those who do want to know what makes stuff tick.
I can safely say my guides would only be half as good without people like RTB and Thrugg actually giving me the rules by which the game works.
Re: This just in...
My own experience with database search/sort technology is outdated now, but I do know this isn't a trivial problem. If every time an item is created by the server a unique ID is generated for that item, where does the unique ID appear in the database? When is the list of IDs sorted? If left unsorted, how many records are grouped together and how are they categorized? Perhaps each item has a timestamp, and a table of all items created within a certain time period are grouped together--how long does it take to access the table and search the records for a match? How often does this occur, and how does it affect gameplay?
Maybe current hardware and good programming does make this trivial, and I'm just a dinosaur when it comes to technology. Regardless, I can believe Blizzard's argument that says that Diablo 3 is more secure using a client-server model and eliminating offline play, assuming the server-side code would be duplicated in the offline game. It might not be true, but I can believe it.
I also believe that Blizzard could have designed and programmed the game to handle both offline play and online play without sacrificing security. But perhaps it's too late to do that, and dropping offline play was predicted to be a lesser financial loss than delaying the game release?
Blizzard's statements that online-only play will improve the gaming experience for everyone, that everyone who's anyone has no latency problems, that offline players are only interested in cheating, and that the reason to have hardcore characters is to brag about it online...these statements are insulting and poor PR in my opinion. Drop the offline play and I won't buy the game. Accusing me of being an ostentatious luddite cheater is unnecessary hate-mongering. I may not be in Blizzard's desired customer base demographic, but they should be looking at how to draw more people into that demographic, not raise barriers with untrue statements.
I'd love to see a PR piece from Blizzard donating money to support the development of broadband access in various areas, or a statement about their plans to put servers in additional countries and regions with latency issues (it makes no sense to me why they don't have servers in Australia given the success of their games there).
Good points, definitely. Again, I don't know the scope and scale of the problem, but it does seem like preventing the ability to upload dupes (without hacking into the server) would be more secure than searching for dupes after they've been uploaded and deleting them (and banning the uploader) afterward.
My own experience with database search/sort technology is outdated now, but I do know this isn't a trivial problem. If every time an item is created by the server a unique ID is generated for that item, where does the unique ID appear in the database? When is the list of IDs sorted? If left unsorted, how many records are grouped together and how are they categorized? Perhaps each item has a timestamp, and a table of all items created within a certain time period are grouped together--how long does it take to access the table and search the records for a match? How often does this occur, and how does it affect gameplay?
Maybe current hardware and good programming does make this trivial, and I'm just a dinosaur when it comes to technology. Regardless, I can believe Blizzard's argument that says that Diablo 3 is more secure using a client-server model and eliminating offline play, assuming the server-side code would be duplicated in the offline game. It might not be true, but I can believe it.
I also believe that Blizzard could have designed and programmed the game to handle both offline play and online play without sacrificing security. But perhaps it's too late to do that, and dropping offline play was predicted to be a lesser financial loss than delaying the game release?
Blizzard's statements that online-only play will improve the gaming experience for everyone, that everyone who's anyone has no latency problems, that offline players are only interested in cheating, and that the reason to have hardcore characters is to brag about it online...these statements are insulting and poor PR in my opinion. Drop the offline play and I won't buy the game. Accusing me of being an ostentatious luddite cheater is unnecessary hate-mongering. I may not be in Blizzard's desired customer base demographic, but they should be looking at how to draw more people into that demographic, not raise barriers with untrue statements.
I'd love to see a PR piece from Blizzard donating money to support the development of broadband access in various areas, or a statement about their plans to put servers in additional countries and regions with latency issues (it makes no sense to me why they don't have servers in Australia given the success of their games there).
Re: This just in...
You mean they are aiming the game at those too dumb to work out how builds work, or use strategy. Their new target audience is a bunch of 13 year olds who can point and click sort of like a hack and slash circa 1985.
Annoying those players who can think, analyze and come up with off beat builds/play styles (and are likely to buy multiple copies) doesn't bother them.
Blizzard have been pretty moronic about SP from the get go. D3 and their pronoucements about "SP = cheats" just is just the diarrhea icing on the **** cake.
You mean they are aiming the game at those too dumb to work out how builds work, or use strategy. Their new target audience is a bunch of 13 year olds who can point and click sort of like a hack and slash circa 1985.
Annoying those players who can think, analyze and come up with off beat builds/play styles (and are likely to buy multiple copies) doesn't bother them.
Blizzard have been pretty moronic about SP from the get go. D3 and their pronoucements about "SP = cheats" just is just the diarrhea icing on the **** cake.
Re: This just in...
Just saw the scathing replies to my earlier post: I was being flippant, I guess, and in fairness I was just talking about the class of persons I belong to, that is, people living in the US who have ready and reliable connections to the internet.
If your country/military commitment/university restricts your ability to play online, then I understand your frustration and plight. I'm not sure why my innocuous post was a lightning rod for obnoxiousness, but I don't much care either. You could have just written "it's not like that here," or "read earlier posts where we say why that's silly," is also a favorite. But you didn't and that's your choice and it is what it is.
Just saw the scathing replies to my earlier post: I was being flippant, I guess, and in fairness I was just talking about the class of persons I belong to, that is, people living in the US who have ready and reliable connections to the internet.
If your country/military commitment/university restricts your ability to play online, then I understand your frustration and plight. I'm not sure why my innocuous post was a lightning rod for obnoxiousness, but I don't much care either. You could have just written "it's not like that here," or "read earlier posts where we say why that's silly," is also a favorite. But you didn't and that's your choice and it is what it is.
Re: This just in...
Sorry if we hurt your feelings, but come on now--you must understand on a forum that being "flippant" doesn't come across very well (kind of like sarcasm). I don't think anyone had a problem with your statement that online-only is okay for you. It was your further statements that implied it should be okay for everyone that caused the ridicule. I think our scathing replies were pretty mild, actually--but I guess that's in the eyes of the reader.
I'd love to address your latest post here regarding "the class of persons" you belong to...but you know, you can just read earlier posts for my opinions about that statement. :whistling:
Sorry if we hurt your feelings, but come on now--you must understand on a forum that being "flippant" doesn't come across very well (kind of like sarcasm). I don't think anyone had a problem with your statement that online-only is okay for you. It was your further statements that implied it should be okay for everyone that caused the ridicule. I think our scathing replies were pretty mild, actually--but I guess that's in the eyes of the reader.
I'd love to address your latest post here regarding "the class of persons" you belong to...but you know, you can just read earlier posts for my opinions about that statement. :whistling:
