Legal Opinion: How Cloud Gaming Turned Piracy Into Espionage

[Marius]

If I played Diablo 1 and 2 multiplayer 90% of the time, how does Diablo 3 change the very nature of the game? (For me, anyway... just pointing out that what is the nature of the games is personal.)

Diablo 1 and 2 did a few different things. Blizzard is just focusing their efforts behind one thing to strengthen the game.

[Otto-matic]

Otto, I'd support an alternative to always-on for hacking, but don't think any such alternative exists. I also see always-on as providing other advantages, like bigger multiplayer population, more investment money into the game, better economy etc.

There are alternatives, but this way makes the company more money with the likelihood of even more in the future even if it harms some customers, so they chose this model. The other advantages presume that the other players want to take advantage of those features. If they wanted to do that, they could click a 'Join Battle.Net' button or similar.

Certainly it's your choice to play what you want, but would you want to give up playing forever presumably because all other companies have gone out of business? There are games I want to play, but have declined due to their business practices. Principles and all that jazz. I may buy Diablo 3 eventually (and play it online single player for a while just to spite you ), but I would prefer if the online only component wasn't there.

For the Diablo 1 & 2 bits, I'm pretty sure the majority of people played single player, especially due to low Internet penetration. Thus they were, in the most part, single player games with a multiplayer option.

[TRB]

The game relies heavily on item trading between players.

"relies"? really?

In what way does it 'rely' on item trading?
I never needed to trade anything during the beta.

having item trading and 'relying' on item trading are not the same thing.

[exe3]

If I played Diablo 1 and 2 multiplayer 90% of the time, how does Diablo 3 change the very nature of the game? (For me, anyway... just pointing out that what is the nature of the games is personal.)

Diablo 1 and 2 did a few different things. Blizzard is just focusing their efforts behind one thing to strengthen the game.

Ok that's you. What about those that played the singleplayer 90% of the time? Though really i'm speaking in theoretics. For all I know 99.9999999999999999% of Diablo 2 players were online exclusive but I very much doubt that especially given the comments on confusion between offline and online characters.

Blizzard could strengthen that experience without outright removing the ability to play offline. It was done for DRM reasons, not hacking reasons. There's nothing stopping Blizzard from making the essential code for sp incompatible or different with the code they use for mp to stop hacking so they could then have cloud for online and keep sp as offline.

[Marius]

Actually I didn't really play D2 online much.

I did play it with my best friend at uni in a LAN all the time.

These days though I don't really want to do LAN stuff, since I can just use the net, and my computer is used for work so don't want to move it from the office.

[TRB]

If only you knew how much 'spyware' you actually had on your computer right now...

None that is able to or even trying to initiate any outgoing connection currently.

Hardware and software firewalls and IP blacklists ftw.

[Marius]

The game relies heavily on item trading between players.

"relies"? really?

In what way does it 'rely' on item trading?
I never needed to trade anything during the beta.

having item trading and 'relying' on item trading are not the same thing.

That was beta, when you weren't getting frustrated with farming Hell for hours and not getting what you wanted to do inferno...

I really expect D3's loot scripts to take trading into account. Trading will likely be far more efficient than playing item drop pokies.

[Cas Bitton]

If only you knew how much 'spyware' you actually had on your computer right now...

None that is able to or even trying to initiate any outgoing connection currently.

Hardware and software firewalls and IP blacklists ftw.

I'd love to hear more about the extremes people go to for preventing unwanted internet behavior, in addition to the Internode firewall service.

Care to document it in the tech chat forum?

If people can avoid unwanted spyware, it is worth sharing this information.

[TRB]

Yeah screw those overseas military personnel protecting people or some such nonsense!

yep, because i want them to be doing what they are paid for, Protecting my rights and freedoms, Not playing video games

You're an idiot.
Military personnel are not overseas to protect your rights and freedoms, they're overseas as political tools.
Secondly, when on base they have off duty periods like everyone else.
As for being paid, they are being paid **** all for what they do.

They deserve to be able to take part in whatever past time they like to use to relax and unwind from what is generally a very stressful environment.

[Shuth]

They deserve to be able to take part in whatever past time they like to use to relax and unwind from what is generally a very stressful environment.

The argument isn't about being able to play video games in downtime - it's that they should be able to play online video games in their downtime. There are plenty of other games that do not require always-online connections - D3 isn't one of them.

[Otto-matic]

The argument isn't about being able to play video games in downtime - it's that they should be able to play online video games in their downtime. There are plenty of other games that do not require always-online connections - D3 isn't one of them.

So why shouldn't they be allowed to play a single player portion of a game that they probably purchased before deployment? Having other games possibly available isn't a reason and you know it.

[Marius]

Because someone's circumstances, regardless of what they are, don't have any sway over the business decisions of another company. It's a 'think of the children' argument, where the positive impression of a particular line of work is used to influence completely unrelated things.

E.g. if you disagree you're somehow anti-military or immoral or whatever.

[poida]

people still arguing over semantics = fail.

D3 is not a single player game. Blizzard have made it a community based multiplayer game whether you like it or not. To play the game you need access to the community, which requires a network connection, regardless of your wish to play solo or with others. get it through your skulls and things will make much more sense.

If you dont like the fact that Blizzard have developed the game this way in an effort to consolidate and secure the community and its economy then dont buy it, but stop whinging about it because its not going to change, your just pissing into the wind.

[TRB]

but stop whinging about it because its not going to change, your just pissing into the wind.

Why? because you say so? what if those people just want to make their opinion heard?

[poida]

but stop whinging about it because its not going to change, your just pissing into the wind.

Why? because you say so? what if those people just want to make their opinion heard?

ok fine piss all you like, its still not going to change anything.