Diablo 3 representing the future of Anti- piracy?

It's the future of the big-box MBA-ran publishers. Ubi-soft started this kind of persistent Internet connection single player games with Silent Hunter 5...
Until there is major backlash and the masses voting with their wallets you'll see more and more big-box titles becoming "online only" with "purchasable additional content".


Is it the future of the market as a whole? Doubtful! There is always a niche market for everything, including a niche for drm free (or drm minimal) games.

It's just like consoles will never truly kill PC gaming. Sure EA might jump out of the PC market, but that doesn't mean someone else isn't willing to fill the niche no matter how small it is.

Inspite of the annoying server problems of diablo 3, It has been turning out to be a good news as diablo 3 is going to be the future of Anti - piracy and it makes everyone buy the game.

I read this article last night
http://www.cracked.c...ying-future_p2/
And everyone believe that they are going to be following blizzard's routine of solving problems with piracy,

This is good, for us programmers as we give our hearts in making games and people crack it easily, I wonder much and just hope this is future of gaming

I honestly can't tell if your post is sarcasm or not

I like RPGs and might have been interested, but I wouldn't touch a game with this system with a barge pole. Aside from the server problems, and the principle, as covered in the article, there are other issues: what if I want to play in years to come when the servers are no longer running, or they pull the plug for other reasons? What if I want to play where there isn't Internet access? (PCs are no longer these things that sit on a desk all the time, and mobile Internet isn't always available.)

This kind of "anti-piracy" is harmful to the community. If people are going to use D3 as the guide for the future of PC gaming, then in my opinion PC gaming is dead except for indies. In fact, if that's the future, then I honest to God hope that PC gaming does die. I'd rather that, than see it turned into this lag-riddled, money-grubbing monstrosity. I will not support that kind of thing with my money ever again. I've learned my lesson. D3 is the only game that I've ever regretted buying.

It was only partially about being anti-piracy anyway. It's more about nurturing their precious real money auction house, so that they can get a cut from every auction.

I like RPGs and might have been interested, but I wouldn't touch a game with this system with a barge pole. Aside from the server problems, and the principle, as covered in the article, there are other issues: what if I want to play in years to come when the servers are no longer running, or they pull the plug for other reasons? What if I want to play where there isn't Internet access? (PCs are no longer these things that sit on a desk all the time, and mobile Internet isn't always available.)
[/quote]

That's what this whole post is about.
Single player mode requiring online connection? Seriously? I dont see this going anywhere but the fact is it definitely stops piracy as most of the dungeons, monsters, loots are stored in server side and not client side.

This kind of "anti-piracy" is harmful to the community. If people are going to use D3 as the guide for the future of PC gaming, then in my opinion PC gaming is dead except for indies. In fact, if that's the future, then I honest to God hope that PC gaming does die. I'd rather that, than see it turned into this lag-riddled, money-grubbing monstrosity. I will not support that kind of thing with my money ever again. I've learned my lesson. D3 is the only game that I've ever regretted buying.

It was only partially about being anti-piracy anyway. It's more about nurturing their precious real money auction house, so that they can get a cut from every auction.

Feels like there's a lot of noise being generated around this, but not much actual "not purchasing the game". Either that or their record breaking sales would have been even better without the drm.

Personally, I don't really care about always online DRM. I care about my experience. My gaming pc is always connected to the internet anyway. If I go out or go away, then I can just not play pc games. No big deal. I have a smartphone to keep me amused and playing a triple A game on a poky laptop screen defeats the purpose anyway.

As for the auction house, why is that a bad thing? Given the astronomical costs of developing a triple A title, why is anyone surprised that developers are looking for a way to get extra revenue from it? Again, I really don't care as long as it doesn't negatively effect the experience.

Clearly it has negatively effected the experience here and quite severely too. But then, Steam sucked when it started too.

That's what this whole post is about.
Single player mode requiring online connection? Seriously? I dont see this going anywhere but the fact is it definitely stops piracy as most of the dungeons, monsters, loots are stored in server side and not client side.

No it doesn't. Eventually the content needs to be sent to your PC, and once on your PC you can save it to keep it there, then upload a "DRM-free" pirated version online.
Hey, I'm not versed up in cracking games and am opposed to piracy, but even I could defeat this system given enough time... and I'm not some reverse-engineering assembly-loving hex editor guru. It'd take me (someone with general programming experience but no DRM-circumventing experience) about a month to crack it, maybe two - and most of that time will be spent learning assembly, memory scanning, and network packets. People who are experienced with this can probably do it in 48 hours. I'm sure right now there are Diablo 3 cracks available.

Did you know there are World of Warcraft pirate servers? Servers reversed engineered and up and running? They don't even have the code for the WoW servers and they can still get at least something running! When the entire code for Diablo 3 is sitting on your computer, do you really think people can't reverse engineer it, capture the downloaded content, save the content, remove the download requirements and substitute loading from disks instead? Once one person does, they just upload their one DRM-free version, and whallah! Everyone has it.

It offers no protection long-term from pirates. The _best_ they can hope for is 72 hour protection. They dream of week-long protection, hoping would-be pirates get bored of waiting and purchase a legit copy.

No, if you want real protection, complete online content+code is the only real way, just streamming video downstream and user input upstream (OnLive / Gaikai). And if that is the future (it is), I don't want it. More and more control to companies, less to consumers, and less government intervention, and when they do intervene, they intervene on behalf of those with money (i.e. the companies). Horrible. No thank you.

And everyone believe that they are going to be following blizzard's routine of solving problems with piracy,

It was only partially about being anti-piracy anyway. It's more about nurturing their precious real money auction house, so that they can get a cut from every auction.

I don't think they have ever stated that the online connection requirement was intended for anti-piracy. They did give a statement on this, and it was because they didn't want the confusing separation of single-player and multi-player characters. In Diablo and Diablo 2 you could create a single player character, not knowing that you couldn't go online with it for obvious reasons. Going from multi-player to single player wasn't possible either. I, for one levelled my character in single-player and later found out that I couldn't use it in multi-player games, which was very disappointing.
They also gave a second reason, which is that they didn't want to supply the clients with server code. This would make it harder for hackers to cheat.

This kind of "anti-piracy" is harmful to the community. If people are going to use D3 as the guide for the future of PC gaming, then in my opinion PC gaming is dead except for indies.

As long as anti-piracy is not the main goal, I don't think it'll be harmful to the community.

I pretty much agree with Servent of the Lords response about the future of this anti-piracy and where gaming is going. I honestly don't think it's limited to PC's though. As for cheaters, there are already people with 100 million+ gold. Do you honestly think they got that through legitmate game play, or even just stealing other peoples comprimised accounts?

Now, as far as the auction house goes, I'm torn.

On one hand, I like the idea of a real money auction house. It gives dedicated players (who seem to treat certain games as a second/third job), a way to increase revenue, even if for a little bit. Done correctly, yes, it should hurt the game economy to a certain extent. That itself though, should not punish players who choose not to use the AH (such as hardcore players). And it would provide a bit of revenue to Blizzard, while impairing the illicit gold/item farming sites (often which then infect the PC's with who knows what, given the amount of people complaining about having their accounts comprimised).

On the other hand, the way Blizzard has implemented it, or will implement it, is far worse imho than the always on DRM. And sadly, this is a direction I see video games going, and not just Diablo 3. It's not just about the game anymore, or even an expansion pack or two. And it's not just enough to nickel and dime players with DLC, all of which is still limited in the revenue. Now, the game is made significantly harder, that progression is less about playing the game, and more about your real life bank account. As a person on the Blizzard forums posted, it's a Zynga like strategy of progression through purchases. Make a game rely significantly more on grinding than the predecessor, and nickel and dime them continuously if they want to be able to progress through the game. After all, the auction house is an unending supply of newer and better items, and all Blizzard has to do is introduce more content, and at the same time, require some new quests to require specific, but different, skill sets, which will mean the AH has to be used even more. Sure, it's a gold now, but when the RMAH comes out, who's going to want to sell stuff for fake gold when they can earn real dollars?

Another example of this is the Tales series on the consoles. Purchase gold and experience for real money. Sure, it's one time only, but I can see MS & Sony and Namco coming to an arrangement on the next gen to give recurring DLC. JRPG's are just a magnet for this type of scheme. Make the game just a little more grindy (monsters give just that much less xp and gold, even later on), and give what seems to be cheap deals in terms of money vs time to get ahead without devoting 30+ hours. Psychologically, micro-transactions are hard to pass up, and can make what seems to be a cheap game just that much more expensive in the end.

Feels like there's a lot of noise being generated around this, but not much actual "not purchasing the game". Either that or their record breaking sales would have been even better without the drm.

Personally, I don't really care about always online DRM. I care about my experience. My gaming pc is always connected to the internet anyway. If I go out or go away, then I can just not play pc games. No big deal. I have a smartphone to keep me amused and playing a triple A game on a poky laptop screen defeats the purpose anyway.

As for the auction house, why is that a bad thing? Given the astronomical costs of developing a triple A title, why is anyone surprised that developers are looking for a way to get extra revenue from it? Again, I really don't care as long as it doesn't negatively effect the experience.

Clearly it has negatively effected the experience here and quite severely too. But then, Steam sucked when it started too.

In my opinion, the "record breaking sales" were the result of a bait-and-switch. Had I known two weeks ago what I know now, I would not have been a part of that "record breaking sales"; and I personally know several other people who feel the same. So no, I don't count the "record breaking sales" as any kind of valid measure of the worth of this game. I count it as a big scam; a flim-flam, if you will. A swindle. Had someone told me, "Hey, Blizzard is going to make you pay $60 for what you think is a complete game, only here's the rub: you'll have to nickel and dime yourself on the auction house if you want to complete it, because they are going to deliberately nerf your in-game drops based on the Auction House to force you to pony up additional cash," I would have given them a great big "Screw you, punchy" and walked away to spend that $60 elsewhere. Until yesterday, I had no inkling that they would do that; I was under the impression (as were many others) that the game I bought would be "complete", and the Auction House purely optional. To find otherwise honestly leaves me feeling like I've been punched in the stomach. It leaves me feeling ripped off. It makes me feel like I've been played for a fool.

Blizzard rode a gigantic wave of ten years' worth of goodwill, capped with an enormous white-cap of nostalgia on this thing. They rode that wave straight to my wallet and straight up my ass, with Bobby Kotick wringing his hands in glee the entire trip. As far as I'm concerned, they have used up every single ounce of goodwill I had left. I will never, ever, spend so much as a single dollar on a Blizzard or Activision product again; that is how angry I am about this. They have honestly lost a customer for life.

You are wrong Servant of the Lord, Diablo 3 client doesn't contain the server-side code, it's pointless. The game logic runs on Blizzard owned server (just like WoW), so you cannot easily / quickly crack it. You have to recode a whole server, which is definitly possible, but takes much more time. I know it happened with WoW and it will happen with D3, we just don't know how long (definitly more than 1 week).


JTippetts: Just a quick question, why do you think you need to pay real money to play the game ? Personally I'm not very far, so I don't know, but my friend is playing inferno currently and while difficult, it's doable without cash (obvisouly since the cash AH is not up yet)

D3 in particular will probably be a nightmare for pirates to crack due to the amount of random encounters and items there is. I don't like always-online as an anti-piracy measure, but I don't really mind it for a game like Diablo which I consider to be a multiplayer game anyway, even though it can be played in singleplayer.

D3 in particular will probably be a nightmare for pirates to crack due to the amount of random encounters and items there is
[/quote]
Yes, it will be a nightmare and some people will lose hope about the crack if it doesnt appear in 2 weeks and they will eventually buy the game.

Plus i wanted to share this link with you guys.
http://me.ign.com/en/news/1057/Man-Dies-After-Playing-Diablo-III-for-72-Hours

A man died playing diablo 3 for 72 hours, I am a diablo fan too, Just warning you.

JTippetts is angry.


Anyway, any game with enough client side code can be cracked, given enough time.
It's called server emulation.
This kind of always-online cracks take usually between one to two months, compared to the usual 48-hour lapse of regular DRM. The record is at 1 year, by the way.
So, give it time. Diablo III hasn't been out there for two weeks yet.

Whether this is healthy for the industry, or whether this practice helps making games profitable, that's a different story.
But technically? come again in one month, then in another month. And then back in a year. But crack-proof? Laughable.

Place your bets on how long it will take to break the system.

Systems like Gaikai or OnLive are at better position of being crack-proof. The whole thing is streamed through the net. Only input and a basic network communication sits on the client side; at the expense of compression artifacts and lag (depending on where you live and time of day).

Well while I agree with JTippets, the reason I asked for and got my money back was the fact it runs on a server system. I had no idea about this before I bought the game, I just assumed the usual bnet / solo separation. I physically cannont play the game, so no, any company that does this wont be getting my money. I can play WoW fine though, but I'm not going back there.

A single player game requiring permanent internet connection is a reason that makes me wish this world fucking ended.
I'm getting used to the fact that I'm the kind customer that nobody cares of in almost all cases, but I can't stomach too much of this shit.

living in a country where the net is not stable? - Go fuck yourself
Cannot afford stable net? - Go fuck yourself
64 dollars is your weekly salary and no chance to take it back when you are rightly fed up with the product? - Go fuck yourself
Interested in single player campaigns? - Go fuck yourself
Interested in music the masses aren't interested about? - Go fuck yourself

rant over, back to happy mode.
It is luck that I don't actually play games. I'm okay with playing DotA Ai map or Open Transport Tycoon over and over again. Luckily there are people in the world you don't want to make money of every minute of programming, and luckily they are willing to produce awesome things free or easily/cheaply available. Hopefully the "big guys" don't want to do something about it...

64 dollars is your weekly salary and no chance to take it back when you are rightly fed up with the product? - Go fuck yourself

You are fucking yourself by buying a $60 game on a $64/week salary to begin with.

blahhh forget it.
just one thing: for long, I had about 100 dollars weekly salary which is not bad in my country. now I can hope about 250 per week. And I would still buy things I want to enjoy. If that alone means that I am fucking myself, then fuck yourself

I think most people misunderstand what Diablo 3 and Batle.net 2.0 are. Chindril seems to have an important part of it down, but didn't really elaborate to the topic at hand, so I will. I'm not going to try to change anyone's opinion on the matter, but hopefully more people can see things how they really are rather than what they are perceiving them to be.

To start out, I'll list some points of interest that my explanation is based upon. I'm not going to fully elaborate each point, but just give enough for readers to hopefully see where I am going with it.

1. DRM simply does not work for the masses. Short term or long term, it's been shown time and time again. In the end, the paying customers suffer the most, while the illegitimate users benefit the most. Some companies are finally getting the picture, while some are not.

2. Writing the functionality for a single player version, a multiplayer version, and a lan version of a game, in addition to the multiplayer server, is impractical when all you have to do is write a multiplayer client and a multiplayer server (more on this later).

3. In this digital age, selling digital products has been increasingly more difficult due to piracy. The business model of selling digital goods is going down the drain. The foreseeable viable alternative is to sell access to a service instead.

4. We, as a society, are experiencing a digitally driven social revolution. Facebook, twitter, reddit, and many other services are now a part of everyday life in ways that social media never was imagined a decade ago.

Now, how are all these points relevant to the discussion at hand? Consider if you were Blizzard:

"If we write a single player game, it will get pirated and we will lose money. If we add DRM, we will be vilified and cause even more people to pirate the game."

"If we write a SP/SP-LAN/MP version of the game, we are doing a lot more work and have a lot more security concerns as we did with D2, which also will cause us to lose a lot of money"

"if we don't legitimize official item selling via RMAH, someone else will capitalize on the market, like in Diablo 2, and that money will not be going to us."

"We need a way to add social elements to the game to stay relevant and allow people to enjoy the game with friends easily."

The only solution is a client-server model for the game. Let's eliminate single player altogether so people have nothing to crack/pirate. Cut down on all the extra security and maintenance required for SP/SP-Lan/MP versions of the game so we only have to deal with a non-authoritative client and an authoritative server. Let's add a GAH/RMAH so people can safely do what they always wanted to while allowing us to capitalize on our own IP. Sure, people will go outside our system, but our system will be of the most safe and convenient for users. Finally, let's add some more social features to the game via Battle.net 2.0. Friends should be able to easily join each others games at the click of a button. Match making should be seemless and require no effort for people to join new games and complete quests with strangers.

This is what I truly think Blizzard's logic was for the design of Diablo 3. To maximize profits, minimize costs, and be in as much control as possible over their game. Isn't that the ultimate goal of any business? I can't say I blame them for trying to financially survive in these times.

With all that being said, the designs of Diablo 3 and Battle.net 2.0 are not so much about anti-piracy as much as just being the one stone that kills many birds, so to speak. It's not a silver bullet, obviously, but it addresses the main concerns with making a new blockbuster game and I think it is the future of major games.

However, where Blizzard has failed is the actual implementation of everything I just said.

I was a part of the beta since late last year. Each major test had the same connectivity issues experienced on login. Quite literally, they had the same problem for at least 6 months and were unable to fix it by the time of launch. The launch day problems did not surprise me, but given the amount of time Blizzard had to address the problem, obviously they failed pretty hard. Likewise with random disconnects, another issue that was going on since beta.

Next, the state of their GAH is just a mess. I find it totally unacceptable, after all this time and testing that they have to take 1/2 of it down and rework it while the other 1/2 is unstable the majority of the time. To think that the RMAH was going to work in the same way, I see now why it has been delayed for a while, which is totally disappointing, all things considered. I don't expect anything to be flawless, but I do expect a certain level of quality in a game like this, and that level has not been met.

Their "social" aspects of the game are just quite pitiful. Their match making is akin to blind or speed dating. You get no choices on who you might get grouped with, group sizes were low for a while, and trying to play the game with randoms who had really bad gear is no fun at all. I can't tell you how many times I joined people who had 6k hp in Hell with hardly any resists, and had to carry them through everything. Have you ever been in a group with all of the same class? It can be quite annoying. When I play my Witch Doctor, I prefer to be in a group with a Monk or Barb at least. If I play my wizard, I'd like to be with a Barb or Witch Doctor. So on and so forth.

Their biggest mistake though, is failing to establish a real identity for the game. The name "Diablo" is what carried the game. So much changed in the beta from the time I started trying it until May when it shut down from launch. PvP was shelved and who knows when that will be added. The AH, as mentioned before, is a mess. The state of Inferno and the itemization of items in game show clear design flaws that make you ask, "what were they thinking?" Honestly, it feels like they ran out of time and had to put out something for the money, and will be spending the foreseeable future, "finishing the game".

I myself hated the beta with a passion. I thought I'd never play the game based on what I saw. However, the idea of the RMAH intrigued me and I'm a sucker for the "Diablo" title, so I decided to give it a go. I figured I could play a little and when the RMAH comes out, see if I wanted to stick around or not. With the way things have worked out now though, I've stopped playing and will be awaiting the 1.0.3 patch. I've gotten 3 different classes to 60 (which is pretty easy with how the game is setup), but with the way items work and how Inferno is designed (don't get me started on all the flaws and exploits), the game is not only unplayable, but simply unejoyable now. I don't regret the $60 purchase, but after all this time and knowing what types of resources Blizzard has, I find Diablo 3 to be quite disappointing, which is a shame because there's a lot of really nice things about the game that gets overlooked and not talked about either.

Feels like there's a lot of noise being generated around this, but not much actual "not purchasing the game". Either that or their record breaking sales would have been even better without the drm.

Perhaps because it's possible to both like a game, and hate the way it's been crippled with DRM? (Plus the first buyers are not going to know until after they've bought the game.)

It seems perfectly consistent that more criticism is generated for the most popular games - of course you won't get much noise over a game that no one cares about.

Would not buying really help? Or would they just blame the lower sales on piracy, like they always do? What about games that get lots of sales without this system?

Personally, I don't really care about always online DRM. I care about my experience. My gaming pc is always connected to the internet anyway. If I go out or go away, then I can just not play pc games. No big deal. I have a smartphone to keep me amused and playing a triple A game on a poky laptop screen defeats the purpose anyway.[/quote]Sure, though not everyone has the same views, or circumstances, as you do. And the examples given in the article show problems even when at home.

@[color="#284b72"]JTippetts: Take the game back for a refund, saying you don't agree to the "EULA"? (I'm curious as to whether this actually ever works.)