Diablo had an online mode as an afterthought. It wasn't especially well conceived, but it was perfectly functional. It was also loaded with dupers and cheaters, so there was never any real reason to actually try as you could always someone willing to mass produce amazing armor for you if you weren't someone who had a trainer on your PC.

Diablo 2 put a strong focus on it's online mode. Blizzard attempted to address some of the cheating issues by storing your characters online, but we all know that dupers and hackers found their way in and basically ruined that game's economy. Having rare items in Diablo 2 meant nothing, because they weren't actually all that rare.

Diablo was an offline single player game that offered an online component. Diablo 2 was an online Multiplayer game that offered a single player component. Diablo 3 is an online multiplayer game. It does not matter that you can play through the whole game solo. I can go through 90% of the content in WoW without ever talking to another living soul, but that doesn't make it a single-player game.

What I think is funny is I see detractors throwing Path of Exile out as a better alternative to Diablo 3, but that is an online game, too. No one gripes about the restrictive DRM in Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. The fact you have no interest in the things Blizzard has done to make the online mode in Diablo 3 far more rewarding than it was in Diablo 2 has no bearing on the fact that they're there. This is a game that is built from the ground up with the intention of being a fun multiplayer experience. Yes, the always online requirement cuts down on piracy some, but mostly what it does is keep cheater off the servers so those of us that like playing D3 online can actually have fun doing so.

@eloj said:

@Example1013 said:

I'm sure paying customers who use the real-money auction house would love to know that 90% of the shit on there is duped and they're paying for an essentially worthless item. Oh wait, Diablo 3 doesn't have offline, so that won't happen.

Even if it did have offline it wouldn't happen (unless it was designed by incompetents), because it's trivial to have separate online and offline characters (and even transfer from online to offline only). The reason there's no offline is because of DRM, not cheating or AH concerns. If you want to argue against offline, do so on the real issues, don't invent shit.

It is far more than DRM. You are being short sighted and ignorant.

I've been playing straight all weekend since my wife's on vacation and it's pretty awesome.

@emergency said:

@eroticfishcake said:

Wait, what? Servers in Europe are down? For how long? I've been gone over the weekend so I'm not in the loop right now.

They are back up.

No they're not. I'm in France and all I get is a message from Blizzard telling me that they are taking care of some major issues

@Yanngc33: I'm in game right now and everything seems fine. There's a message on the login screen that even mentions that the servers are back up though problems may arise due to the heavy load of people connecting.

@eroticfishcake said:

@Yanngc33: I'm in game right now and everything seems fine. There's a message on the login screen that even mentions that the servers are back up though problems may arise due to the heavy load of people connecting.

That message just appeared for me. Still can't get in game but that must be because of the server load

Well the EU servers are up but the lag is atrocious, i'm sitting on 300-400ms on the EU realm, I had under 200 latency connectin to US servers ffs, im in europe.

Sorry but almost half a second lag is fucking unacceptable when playing on Hell with a monk that does 3 strikes in a second, my entire playstyle is so slugginsh now it feel fucked.

So disgusted right now.

@Venatio said:

I haven't finished Torchlight yet so I started that up again. I really enjoy that game, and now I really want Torchlight 2

These loot based games are really the thing I wanna play these days

Thats a sentiment i can get behind, for years i had no PC and it sucked but Torchlight really helped lessen that sting

@Tennmuerti said:

Well the EU servers are up but the lag is atrocious, i'm sitting on 300-400ms on the EU realm, I had under 200 latency connectin to US servers ffs, im in europe.

Sorry but almost half a second lag is fucking unacceptable when playing on Hell with a monk that does 3 strikes in a second, my entire playstyle is so slugginsh now it feel fucked.

So disgusted right now.

Should probably not play it then until it gets better.

Really not acceptable. I don't get much downtime i don't like having to wait around with bugger all feedback waiting to play my single player game. Is this something we can expect weekly? When i finally get on I get lag for the first time ever in a freaking single player game.

All this for what? So some twerp can't cheat. Who cares! Let him cheat. Boohoo the marketplace gets messed up. Fair trade. Better yet just remove the market place and add in an offline mode. Diablo 2 seems to have done ok for itself even with cheaters. I'm getting a crap experience so blizz can sell items for real world money not cool.

Diablo 2 multiplayer was shit because of all the cheating and bots.

@TentPole: So shit that people continued to play it 5+ years after release? Can't be that bad.

This issue is that D3 isn't really a single player game anymore. With the constant connection to the Auction house and the competitive nature of the game you need to make sure player aren't cheating. Now does it suck that you can't just play by yourself without an internet connect? Hell yeah, but I understand the need for it. I also wouldn't expect this change in patches or an expansion, this battle was already lost with Starcraft 2.

@BionicRadd: This is an excellent, mature post.

@Irvandus said:

This issue is that D3 isn't really a single player game anymore. With the constant connection to the Auction house and the competitive nature of the game you need to make sure player aren't cheating. Now does it suck that you can't just play by yourself without an internet connect? Hell yeah, but I understand the need for it. I also wouldn't expect this change in patches or an expansion, this battle was already lost with Starcraft 2.

While I completely agree with your post, I wouldn't say Diablo III has a "competitive nature" since, to begin with, there's no PvP at the moment.

@JoeyRavn: Gotta get the better loot. Hell of a competition.

@JoeyRavn said:

@Irvandus said:

This issue is that D3 isn't really a single player game anymore. With the constant connection to the Auction house and the competitive nature of the game you need to make sure player aren't cheating. Now does it suck that you can't just play by yourself without an internet connect? Hell yeah, but I understand the need for it. I also wouldn't expect this change in patches or an expansion, this battle was already lost with Starcraft 2.

While I completely agree with your post, I wouldn't say Diablo III has a "competitive nature" since, to begin with, there's no PvP at the moment.

One word - Ladders. They were a big deal in Diablo 2. They'll be a big deal in Diablo 3. PVP will hopefully be a diversion. I dread the idea of them constantly rebalancing for PVP, but so far, they've said that won't happen.

@Nekrokreuz: Thank you, sir.

Hello all right? I'm from Brazil and am looking for a starter edition of Diablo III, have you? would be very grateful thank you friend.