Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Murgos]

I thought they dropped the whole RealID needs your real name stuff.

No, they dropped the RealID posts your real name to the forum.  It still uses your "Real Name" (it's actually whoever is on the billing info) to find people and when you friend/ follow them.

I don't get this.  Why don't they just assign everyone a unique ID number and then allow that to be the 'RealID' it would serve the exact same purpose (broad accountability) but hide the identity of the person on the other end.

[Morfiend]

Because Blizzard has always been known for scrapping bad ideas when they prove to not work.






 

[Maledict]

Um, I know that's snarky and all, and there are some really big stand outs (meeting stones etc.), but overall Blizzard as a company has scrapped more ideas than other games companies have total.

It's one of the things they are famous for - if something doesn't measure up, it gets scrapped no matter how far along or how much has been invested. Lord of the Clans, Ghost, a *ton* of stuff in WoW etc. Yes, they have left some reallyannoying stuff in the game, but to call them a company wedded to their ideas is ignoring the reality of everything they have done.

[Talpidae]

Who gives a fuck ?  They're now a company wedded to Activision.

It's by, Gents.

[Sjofn]

In WoW, I have a gaming buddy, whom I will refer to as Toon_Name going forward, so as to protect the innocent. Toon_Name is a girl irl, which is only pertinent in a way that will be illustrated shortly. I don't even know her RL name, I just think of her as Toon_Name.

When RealID came to WoW, I toyed with it for a brief time, before shutting it off on my account. During that brief time, I invited Toon_Name, among others, to be Real ID buddies. She agreed, and I got to learn what her boyfriend's RL name is, because that's the name on her WoW account. This is the flaw. Lots of people have a partner/spouse, or a relative, as the name on their account. So the "Real" in RealID is already out the window.

Yeah, I have a RealID friend whose account is under her husband's name. I would be really irritated by it if I were the husband, to be honest. Deciding I like someone enough to give my name out to them is one thing, deciding to give out my spouse's (because I gotta) is an extra level of bleh.

RealID is not implemented very well, basically.

[Merusk]

I thought they dropped the whole RealID needs your real name stuff.

No, they dropped the RealID posts your real name to the forum.  It still uses your "Real Name" (it's actually whoever is on the billing info) to find people and when you friend/ follow them.

I don't get this.  Why don't they just assign everyone a unique ID number and then allow that to be the 'RealID' it would serve the exact same purpose (broad accountability) but hide the identity of the person on the other end.

I'll speculate it's the same reason they think using your e-mail address as your main login is a brilliant idea.  It saves on database space in the marketing server by eliminating two whole fields!   

[LK]

So owners of the account (accounts which must be registered to a single individual for what I assume are very good and legal reasons) have other people use the account. These other people, be it friends, family, children, etc, do things on the account  the owner might be upset about or hold responsibility for or otherwise see repercussions that affect the owner, not the person playing. And that's why we should change the system.

OK.

[Stabs]

I'd been assuming that I'd never tell Blizzard the truth about my name ever again but I've realised something.

If my Blizzard account with real money in it is registered to Mr Ronald Reagan but my paypal accounts is registered to John Smith it might be hard to get my money out.

[Stabs]

I also don't understand what the advantage is of not letting people dick about with it offline on accounts that will never ever attach to the online community. Could someone explain what the technical reason for this is?

There isn't a technical reason just a business one.

Do you mean I don't understand the tech stuff but I think Kotick is Satan or do you mean I do understand the tech stuff and there's a valid reason why server side unique item IDs are not effective in combating item fraud (which I'd love to hear)?

[LK]

No, he means that Blizzard wants to insure that everyone who plays the game paid for it. Anti-piracy is a business reason. Allowing people to play the game, even if it's single player, without an online authentication creates the scenario for piracy to occur, and that's the direction the industry wants to go.

It's not about the technical obstacles or the effect "single player" has on the multiplayer economy.

[lamaros]

Um, I know that's snarky and all, and there are some really big stand outs (meeting stones etc.), but overall Blizzard as a company has scrapped more ideas than other games companies have total.

It's one of the things they are famous for - if something doesn't measure up, it gets scrapped no matter how far along or how much has been invested. Lord of the Clans, Ghost, a *ton* of stuff in WoW etc. Yes, they have left some reallyannoying stuff in the game, but to call them a company wedded to their ideas is ignoring the reality of everything they have done.

Not really. The only examples you raise are things that never made it public (which makes it much easier to scrap) or stuff in WoW that was dictated by their players raising the issues constantly - players that pay the a heap of money. And only then after a long long time, even with the most patently stupid ideas.

[Stabs]

No, he means that Blizzard wants to insure that everyone who plays the game paid for it. Anti-piracy is a business reason. Allowing people to play the game, even if it's single player, without an online authentication creates the scenario for piracy to occur, and that's the direction the industry wants to go.

It's not about the technical obstacles or the effect "single player" has on the multiplayer economy.

I understand that it makes piracy harder. That does not mean it does not also have other effects. All I'm looking for is a clear technical answer on if the server side ID thing helps combat duping and similar behaviours or not.

[Lakov_Sanite]

There is no such thing as duping because D3 for all intents and purposes in an mmo.  Look will be handled server side, characters will be stored server side, even mobs will most likely be generated server side.

[Rendakor]

And there are never, EVER been duping exploits in MMOs. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

And there are never, EVER been duping exploits in MMOs. 

Recently?

[Lantyssa]

No, he means that Blizzard wants to insure that everyone who plays the game paid for it. Anti-piracy is a business reason. Allowing people to play the game, even if it's single player, without an online authentication creates the scenario for piracy to occur, and that's the direction the industry wants to go.

The game will be cracked before it's even on shelves.  A server emulator will be developed within a month.  A fully functional, possibly better than Blizzard's, server emulator will be out within six.

I even suspect they know this, and while it may prevent some casual piracy, the economics of gold farmers making them rich is still the primary motivation.

[Rendakor]

And there are never, EVER been duping exploits in MMOs. 

Recently?

As recently as EQ2 and WoW at least.

[Stabs]

My understanding regarding WoW was that there was some duping until they registered unique server side item IDs then that more or less stopped it.

[Amaron]

And there are never, EVER been duping exploits in MMOs. 

Duping is by and large a solved problem though.   It's something banks have been spending a great deal of money on for decades.   Earlier MMO's had duping mostly because they didn't put any serious effort into using safe coding practices.  For Blizzard that's going to be old hat by now.

[Kirth]

And there are never, EVER been duping exploits in MMOs. 

Duping is by and large a solved problem though.   It's something banks have been spending a great deal of money on for decades.   Earlier MMO's had duping mostly because they didn't put any serious effort into using safe coding practices.  For Blizzard that's going to be old hat by now.

Last big duping I remember from wow was right before TBC came out. Not sure of the details but someone figured a way to create gold and started buying up the entire AH, others figured out this and started posting stacks of cloth for insane buyouts. Took blizz a day or so to bring the server down and roll back what they could, It was so widespread that they didn't catch it all however.

[KallDrexx]

The game will be cracked before it's even on shelves.  A server emulator will be developed within a month.  A fully functional, possibly better than Blizzard's, server emulator will be out within six.

I even suspect they know this, and while it may prevent some casual piracy, the economics of gold farmers making them rich is still the primary motivation.

I think you under-estimate the requirements to make a server emulator.  It's not exactly easy, and much more than a month's work.

[Murgos]

Anyway, once in a while duping hacks that are [relatively] quickly found and removed aren't actually an issue.  Even in the real world counterfeiting doesn't do much to impact the economy.
 
The often mentioned massive PC piracy rates are actually an issue and 'always on' accounts pretty much solve that problem.  It's one of the major reasons that the only real money spent in the PC gaming area is for MMO's.

[Tebonas]

Only if the game data is on the servers. Otherwise the always on part will just be cracked out faster than you can say "Assassins Creed 2".

[Lantyssa]

And a good deal of the raw data has to be on the clients' computers.  The servers will provide sanity checking, but that's a lot of data to be sending back and forth if nothing is built into the client.

If not, then someone just has to intercept the data stream.

[KallDrexx]

And a good deal of the raw data has to be on the clients' computers.  The servers will provide sanity checking, but that's a lot of data to be sending back and forth if nothing is built into the client.

If not, then someone just has to intercept the data stream.

It's not a lot of data to be sending back, every MMO sends this amount of data back and forth (including Hellgate and Guild Wars). 

Creating an emulation server is a lot harder than just intercepting the data stream (which is most likely encrypted anyways for user/password purposes).  Just because I see my client say "I'm here I want to loot this chest" and the server responds with "Ok here's your loot" doesn't mean you can automatically understand how to code the server to know how to determine if you can interact with the chest, if there are any special properties or triggers set on the chest, how to determine what loot is in there, etc...  It's extremely complicated to code the server code, and that's where all of Blizzard's gameplay code is going to be.  People creating server emulators have to come up with an architecture that can allow them to process gameplay actions.

It took a good year+ for DAOC server emulators to become usable, and the Wow server emulators took a long time as well.  Also remember, Blizzard has successfully litigated against the creators of that Battle.Net emulator that people used to play D2 outside of Blizzard's servers.

[luckton]

Blizzard scoffs at your misfortune that you must be online to play offline.  States that DRM isn't why...they're trying to do the community a solid by not having you 'start over' when you go from off-line to online play a la D1 and D2.

[Tannhauser]

How can they offer a more "stable, connected, safer" experience online instead of offline?

[Malakili]

Blizzard scoffs at your misfortune that you must be online to play offline.  States that DRM isn't why...they're trying to do the community a solid by not having you 'start over' when you go from off-line to online play a la D1 and D2.

Yeah, clearly bullshit.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYjljdje-g&feature=relmfu

[luckton]

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDYjljdje-g&feature=relmfu

OMG...to the useless video threat with you!   

[Malakili]

Something actually useful to talk about:

Bashiok explains skill point removal -

To support combat depth, skills need to have different roles. Here is a very simple example:
Magic Missile deals 15 damage to a single enemy
Arcane Orb deals area of effect damage for 10 damage each
With these two skills we’re beginning to develop some combat depth for the player. Use Magic Missile when you’re facing one enemy, use Arcane Orb when you’re facing multiple enemies. But you may also want to use Magic Missile if one enemy is a “high priority target” in a group, and you want it to die quickly. In this simplified example players can still defeat a horde of enemies by casting Magic Missile multiple times, or they could defeat a single large enemy by casting Arcane Orb multiple times, but that wouldn’t be as efficient as a player who uses the right skill for the right situation.

Ok so that basic layout of combat depth out of the way!

With skill point spending your skills get better as you invest points into them. The problem is that this destroys combat depth. If after pumping a bunch of points into Magic Missile it now deals 70 damage to a single enemy, assuming my enemies have any reasonable health, then Magic Missile becomes a better choice than Arcane Orb even in group situations. If after pumping a bunch of points into Arcane Orb it now deals 45 damage, then it deals more damage than Magic Missile to single targets. Now rather than using the right skill for the right situation, I’m using the skill I’ve put all my points into. Skill point spending has eroded away combat depth.

I agree with the principle but damn it I *liked* playing my Nova sorc.

Oops, meant to include the link to the full thing: http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/blizzard-explains-skill-point-removal

[Nevermore]

I thought they dropped the whole RealID needs your real name stuff.

No, they dropped the RealID posts your real name to the forum.  It still uses your "Real Name" (it's actually whoever is on the billing info) to find people and when you friend/ follow them.

I don't get this.  Why don't they just assign everyone a unique ID number and then allow that to be the 'RealID' it would serve the exact same purpose (broad accountability) but hide the identity of the person on the other end.

Because someone at Blizzard/Activision has a hard-on for Facebook.

[Paelos]

Blizzard scoffs at your misfortune that you must be online to play offline.  States that DRM isn't why...they're trying to do the community a solid by not having you 'start over' when you go from off-line to online play a la D1 and D2.

The dude said this:

"Internally I don't think [DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate."

The fact he can say that out loud and not have his pants burst into flames is remarkable. I mean, at least say something remotely true.

Then this:

"Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters. You're guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes."

I believe they believe that. And it's important for them to believe that when the whole basis of their system is real money trading.

[LK]

I wonder how many "offline players" are left. This may be a whole lot over maybe 1% of the gaming population.

I understand the desire to be able to play a product anywhere, but I think they fail to consider the repercussions of allowing that. I also understand the argument of simplifying the user path by isolating it.

[Azuredream]

I hate it when companies introduce policies that hurt the consumer and then try to convince them they're doing them a favor. Just say "it's always online to prevent piracy and make sure we've consolidated the RMT trade to official channels" and I'd be like "aight, cool."

[Ratman_tf]

And Runic put a netbook setting in Torchlight. 

In the end, it's no skin off my teeth if D3 is going to be some hybrid like Guild Wars, with Facebook integration and a real money auction house. More power to 'em. I may even play it. But I'm no longer looking forward to it like I was before these announcements.