Q&A: Does Diablo III Really Need Online-Only?

May 17th, 2012
By MogKnight

There are some good reasons why Diablo III having that online requirement is needed. Diablo II was plagued with hackers, exploits, and illegal methods of item duplication. With the foundation placed by Blizzard, it gives Blizzard a way to stomp these great evils that can ruin an online game.

Of course, there are many bad reasons. The Error 37 bit has become a bit of a meme and was a trending topic on Twitter on May 15th, D3′s release date. The issues that Blizzard would solve with stomping hacks and exploits would not apply at all to those that prefer to play the game single player. And yes, not being able to play the game completely offline is a huge bother for those that cannot connect to the internet.

There were possibily other ways to go about this while still maintaining what Blizzard aims to do with the real money auction house and being able to build a huge online infrastructure under the Battle.net name.

So my question to you: Does Diablo III really need to be online-only? Considering the issues with D2′s online play, blending both offline and online characters, and still maintaining that real money auction house that is void of exploiters and illegal activity, what do you think would work better. Do you think that the cure is worse than the poison?

Sound out in the comments, shoot me an email at mogknight@themogblog.com, talk to me on Twitter @MogKnight, let me know! I’d like to hear what you guys think of this.

Author: MogKnight

Hanh "MogKnight" Nguyen does Editor-in-Chiefish things for The Mog Blog. Forever on a mission to find a Game Boy Micro for less than $60 dollars, Mog spends the rest of his time stuck in Bullet Hell. You can contact Mog via email, Twitter, or Google

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Calaera

I would rather have greater restrictions placed upon an online character, if I can have a chance at having an offline character that will never go online or that can never have the same access to my online character’s items. I would honestly like the chance to just play by myself without having people jump into my game uninvited or without having to worry about my faulty internet connection. I would like to just sit and grind worry free at times, just as I do with other non-MMO games. Having this option taken away from me is a little more stressful than it really needs to be. :T
http://twitter.com/Jacktherip Jacktherip

I don’t really think there is anything wrong with online only but I’m in the camp of players that will only play Diablo online whether there was single player or not. I played Diablo 2 single player and got bored after beating the game on normal and playing nightmare, once I went online the game was much more enjoyable. Once D2:LoD was released I went online right away and it also had server problems on launch as well.

So this isn’t anything new, I can deal with a day or two of downtime. Players have always had this sense of entitlement and Blizzard does have to take some blame for not being prepared but I don’t understand why players can’t just wait a few days. So many players complain about their backlog of games, so go play something else while the servers are being fixed.

The only bad thing that will come from this is if Blizzard isn’t able to stop duping or exploitation of the Auction House. If that happens then I would be disappointed in Blizzard. Sure it’s bad for people who don’t have an internet connection but I think that is really rare today, especially for gamers.
http://twitter.com/YeltaSumasu Yelta Sumasu

Honestly I think it is crap to require a persistent internet connection and the game should not error out if you have a hiccup in your connection and it also should support an 100% offline mode.

That said, I do like the online features so far.

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