The Diablo 3 Debacle

With all of the crap flying around regarding Diablo 3, I thought I would weigh in on this one. Normally I would voice my opinion in a means such as Twitter, but for this issue I’m going to go ahead and actually write up a post given that there is no way I can explain everything on Twitter without ending up writing an essay anyway.

I’m falling on the side of Blizzard here, but fear not, I shall explain to you why I’m doing so in a logical manner that you will understand and hopefully enable you to look at both sides of the coin with a bit more ease.

Now all of the 3 main issues sites are yelling about all tie back in to one thing. Money, the fact that you can use your bankroll in this game as a source of gold and items is what fuels the 3 points to some extent, remember that as I just touch (in an appropriate way, honestly) on them one by one.

1) Real Money Trading is in the game and can be used to purchase items (and gold) from the auction house.

Ok, the gold aspect of this one first. How many of you played Diablo 2? And how many of you ended up with a character that looked something like this:

90ft means you’re a casual player.

Diablo 2 had you crapping gold, some gained theirs through illegitimate means, others just ground it out, the main reason was that it was an inconsequential item in the game, sure it was needed and it had its uses, but for the most part, trades were done item for item and also the gold you could acquire far outweighed the gold you would ever need to spend. Buying gold for cash was done outside of Diablo 2, it was there, and if you think it wasn’t then you were foolish. Yes it’s a bit annoying that Diablo 3 now has pulled it from the seedy underbelly that it was in Diablo 2 and thrust it in to the light of day but this increases player safety and tries to prevent 3rd parties from taking advantage of players. This is also true for the Item for Cash aspect of the game. Now, I’m going to be honest with you and let you in on something, if you go to google and type in Diablo 2 items you’ll be in for a shock, go on, I’ll stay here and wait, you go do it….

Back? Horrifying isn’t it, Real Money trading going on for items in Diablo 2, shocking! But, this is what Blizzard is trying to cut down on. Diablo 2 was big for its time, huge one could even say its been out for 11 years and this stuff is still going on as well, remember that. Diablo 3 will be bigger thanks to their success with WoW plus the sheer amount of people that have played Diablo 2, and so they need to try and keep as much of their player-base safe as they can, if they house the real money auctions on their servers and it’s looked after by them, it saves countless hours of support tickets regarding stolen accounts and scams, it puts a huge dent in item selling websites that operate on scams and it keeps their players enjoying the game.

But I hear you cry out that it’s going to influence your game and ruin your enjoyment of it. Did it do so on Diablo 2? Would you rather it happened anyway but Blizzard just didn’t let you know it did? Whether or not Blizzard do it themselves, it will happen, this way it’s controlled by them and it keeps all players safer. This is an aspect of Diablo, it always has been and whether you want to admit it or not, it has always been there. Blizzard has chosen to adapt Diablo 3 to incorporate it, because if they don’t, it will happen anyway and who would you rather trust? Blizzard or a seedy Diablo item store?

I think this guy might be more legit than Kotick.

2)No mods in Diablo 3.

I had a quick scurry round my messenger clients while writing this up to get some feedback from Diablo 2 players, and when I asked them what mods they used, all of them said Visual Mods because the game looks like pants these days and some claimed to using mods of a less savory nature. Diablo 3 by no means is going to look like pants. Sure mod support would be nice and all, what with the game having an arena feature, but the amount of unsavory mods for D2 was more than a few and they don’t exactly want a repeat of that, add in that Diablo 3 is going to have RMTs and the idea of an auctioneer mod is something they want even less, but why you cry, it assists the player and helps them out with all those auctions.Yes, it does and I love my mods as much as the next guy and it does suck that we aren’t going to have them in Diablo 3, I get that. But look at what it enables them to do from their end, everyone will have the same playing field and with the addition of the RMT auction house, some Diablo 2 item sellers will be heading to the ingame auction house, and they will keep using mods, because they don’t care, remember these guys want your money and they don’t give a fudge.

Blizzard can easily spot those guys compared to you if they’re listing all those auctions super quick, or farming those mobs, it will show up, they can more effectively police the bots and farmers. Don’t get me wrong, I think it blows we can’t have mods, but I can see the logic in it, it ties in to the RMT aspect and its there to keep everyone on a fair and level playing field and make those who aren’t on that playing field easier to spot, because even if Blizzard say no mods, you can guarantee that someone or some company will keep using them.

No one will ever suspect a thing… Until they realize you’re facing the wrong way

3) Diablo 3 will have online only, no offline single player.

This one to me is an interesting one, I personally, am always connected to the internet, I understand some people aren’t and there are those who would like the ability to play Diablo 3 on the train while they’re going to visit their grandma, but they’ve managed to survive this long without being able to play WoW on the train and if they can play WoW on the train via wireless internet then they can play Diablo the same way, plus those sandwiches are really overpriced.

Anyway getting off topic. I don’t fully support this decision, but I can see why they have. Diablo 2 was rife with single player cheats and glitches. This removes the potential for alny finding of them in single player. It pulls it in to the spotlight and any actions taken will be able to be seen by Blizzard and patched. Some people might complain that they want to play the game alone, you can still do that, just because its online doesn’t mean you have to play with others. You complain about needing to always be connected to the internet, but honestly who isn’t these days? I know some people are going to say “But that isn’t an excuse! What if I want to play outside?” Really? You want to play Diablo 3 outside? And you don’t have Wi-fi? It’s an excuse whichever side you fall on, I want to play Diablo 3 on the moon but I can’t, so should I be complaining about that? Games these days are requiring internet connections not just because of piracy, but also because of the social connections that it can tie in to the game. Just because you have to be logged in doesn’t mean you have to play on a multiplayer server.

It’s not Blizzard that’s evil in this one, it’s society trying to pull us in to an always online mentality that we have to be connected to our friends 100% of the time or we will DIE! If Blizzard allowed single player, people would complain about those guys cheating and hacking and blizzard not having a way to find out, they would dupe items and characters, farm what they need and flood the AH with it. There are multiple reasons for why online is smarter, yes it does suck if your ISP suddenly goes down and you’re unable to play your game, but that’s not Blizzards fault.

Online keeps people where they are able to be seen, which is important when money is involved, it puts everyone on a level field as discussed earlier, and it helps Blizzard pin down any bugs. If you try the argument of “But I want to play to relax away from people” Then you can just play alone online and set your status to offline. If you try the argument of “But I want to play outside” Then use Wi-fi, or a really long cable, hell they aren’t stopping you.

That’s the spirit!

Lots of people seem to be forgetting that a lot of problems existed within Diablo 2, Blizzard are trying to make Diablo 3 safer for the community as a whole, and to bring those aspects that will happen no matter what, in to a safe and controlled environment, if you don’t like them, they don’t have to be part of your experience, you can play solo or use only the gold AH. It’s up to you to shape your experience going in to Diablo 3 however you like, Blizzard is just simply trying to protect as many people as possible, because it means a better experience for a broader range of people.