Well, that also, but more specifically a future in which none of the thousands of dollars per year I currently spend on videogaming will be forthcoming for their products.
None of those have always on DRM. They have check once at start up DRM, some of them with leniency if there’s no connection.
Huge difference.
Project Zomboid and Desktop Dungeons (beta) are web based, so I consider authenticating to their servers to be DRM. Not sure if that means they are also technically always-on. I guess it depends on their implementation - ie does the code ping their servers to verify the connection is alive.
Isn’t always-on functionality available as part of the Steam DRM wrapper if desired by the Publisher? Aren’t there some games that stop working if my connection stops working?
Are you arguing theory or the reality? If you’re trying to suggest that the industry will inevitably move towards always-on DRM, well they’ve had that opportunity for many years now and the handful of singleplayer games that have done it have met with drastic criticism. If you’re trying to suggest that the industry will move there in the future when everybody has a reliable (non-cable) broadband connection for cheap, then your point becomes moot.
I’ll say…theory, since I’m beginning to lose ground in this discussion! :)
I thought some delivery platforms (ie Steam) could already do always-on if they wanted, but I’m not 100% sure.
There is the assumption that always on DRM requires some kind of client/server infrastructure in place. I don’t think most Publishers have for years had the opportunity to really implement that. Technically it has been possible, sure, but the saturation of always on internet connections is more recent. Not to mention the affordability of building the required infrastructure. Compute/storage/bandwidth/hosting/security technology is way, way cheaper than it was even five years ago.
If it’s easy (3rd party does it for them) or cheap (they can justify building it themselves), they will look to do it for the reasons I mention above, among others.
Of course, you are correct, once everyone everywhere has reliable broadband for next to nothing and these systems have evolved to the point they are transparent and unobtrusive, no legit user will give a crap.
Except if each Publisher makes me register my personal details on each of their frigging websites just to play their game…but I count that as obtrusive.
Woah, woah, woah! Tell me this isn’t so! The whole thing that made Hardcore Diablo 2 so compelling for us is that even though we lost all our progress when our characters died, we at least were able to have our friends loot our corpse and hand down our items to our next character. If we can no longer inherit our dead characters equipment, then the new Hardcore mode sounds unreasonably harsh and a radical departure from Diablo 2.
DeepT
1587
I was hoping they were going to have modding support. Imagine D3 3 or 4 years after release. It would be real nice if D3 was mod friendly so that other people could create new content to extend the life of D3 just like they did for D2. I hope at some point they reverse the decision to not allow mods.
I suspect that’s lazy FAQ-writing.
It will never happen as long as they want to keep the data tables secured for the Auction House. With real money transactions invloved, they can never allow mods unless they split off the SP and MP play, but that won’t happen either.
If each player gets personalized drops that others can’t see, then I guess it is possible that either A) Each of your friends would see parts of your stuff drop, or B) They wouldn’t see your stuff drop at all (since “your” stuff is not part of “their” world).
I will still give a crap even if everyone on the entire planet has a fast, reliable permanent internet connection. Excluding some potential customers is bad, sure, but something that is ultimately the concern of the company trying to sell the game, not mine. If that were the only negative of always-online DRM, I would probably be perfectly happy to buy games with it. After all, my own internet is fast, largely reliable, and continuous.
But it has serious implications for the ability of these games to survive in playable form into the indefinite future; significant, perhaps catastrophic impact on our rights as purchasers of these games; and could quite easily destroy modding. None of these things are remotely acceptable to me.
That doesn’t sound harsh to me; it sounds like playing a Hardcore character. Hardcore is hardcore, baby! It’s another incentive against being dead.
I’m sure they’ll offer a shared stash of some sort for hardcore characters. Or the D2 style co-op game handoff will be possible, at the very least.
I’m not sure what to think about the cash based auction house, but I am in any case glad I won’t have to deal with it in my preferred mode. I’m glad hardcore will be kept “pure” for obsessives like myself.
Is the WAR over? I expected it to last at least a decade or more.
…are you sure?
Kael
1597
I wonder how this impacts game design?
Will Blizzard be more likely to include crazy rare sets and items that a single player has no reasonable chance of ever finding just to make sure that the auction house has some super elite + $100 items sitting on the shelves? Or will the rarity be common enough that you can expect plenty of even the most rare item so that nothing grows beyond a dollar or so?
Will Blizzard introduce more and more rare items in patches to keep the auction house full of new items that are just a little better than the last generation?
I do like that Blizzard isn’t taking a percentage of the sale value, so at least they aren’t incented to create amzingly expensive items. They make the same on a $2 sale as they do a $200 sale (at least as I understand it).
There’s a mandatory fixed listing fee and an additional fixed sellthrough fee if a buyer is found. Then there’s also the cash-out fee, which is specifically not mentioned as being “fixed” - which leads me to believe that they will be taking a percentage.
You can choose to deposit the profits from each sale either into your Battle.net account or to a third-party such as PayPal. Battle.net funds will become non-transferable (so you can’t hold onto vast amounts of money to cash out later).
This is how I understand the FAQ, anyway.
Mordrak
1599
I was just about to post that. I was reading the FAQ and it appears the back end is where Blizzard will take a percentage. Hearing the fixed price, I was at least a little more optimistic. So much for that not playing a role in how they roll out, design, and distribute gear.
Though, on Blizzard’s end, not letting people pile up a specific amount of money and cash out seems counter intuitive. Doesn’t it cost them more to do a bunch of smaller transactions? Maybe they are planning on taking a big cut and think it will be less noticeable in individual transactions or maybe there’s some regulatory issue with it they are trying to avoid.
Gendal
1600
I was all on the ‘what are you guys bitching about, real money sounds great’ bandwagon but separate auction houses, two fixed fees for each successful auction, and then a percentage to transfer it out is absurd.
What they need is one auction house. Everything is listed in gold and people can buy and sell gold with real money, giving you a variable player run gold to dollar exchange rate.
