Back when Diablo II launched, I played it half way through and then got bored. 6 months later, once we had internet that wasn't pay per minute (ahh the "good" old days!) I made a new character on Battle.net and it was a revelation. Nothing beat the thrill of joining up with friends and going online to take down the Prime Evils! Obviously the characters from offline couldn't be taken online, because it was so easy to train a character. However to play on battle.net the servers had to be up, just like Diablo III.

In the end, the old Battle.net gave in to bugs, ending up with 1,000s of Stone of Jordan rings flooding the game, until they made a secret "Uber Diablo" that in order to spawn you had to sell 75 or so SoJ's to vendors. But for a time, there was actually an economy.

Enter Diablo III, and they have taken out the offline mode, which in my mind, had no worth. What's the point of loot if you can't show it off? This is one of the reasons why Torchlight felt like a waste of time to me as well.

Anyway, I know there are arguements about server down time, what happens when blizzard decides to shut down the servers, (which hasn't happened happened to Diablo II yet, in fact they recently had a ladder reset - Awesome website ahoy http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/) and that one asshole who apparently wants to play it on a plane every five minutes (screw sitting next to that clicking bastard on a long haul flight!), but honestly, if Blizzard patched in an Offline mode right now, would anyone here actually play it?

I would, I dont care about multiplayer in my ARPG's.

I would, I play it Single player right now. Currently I am playing all 5 character classes side by side, that way I got the full breath of the experience and no loot gets wasted.

Sure the progress through the game is slow but I don't care about that.

Yes.

Yep. I like my Diabloin' solo.

I understand the reasoning for the always online connection for those who want to play multiplayer, but it would have been nice if we could opt-in or opt-out from the start. I'll never play this game online, I only enjoy soloing. I don't even like using the followers.

I would play it solo. 

I play solo sometimes, but i'd still play online. An offline only character is useless to me.

Yes, I would. It would be nice to remove the slight lag hitches and somewhat annoying disconnects. I'm very tolerant of the whole thing but it's still been a bit annoying.

I still think they should have handled it like this. Make any single player character COMPLETELY offline. It can't connect to the multiplayer servers and it can't access the auction houses. That would ensure that no one could mess with those characters and bring them online and lets people play the game in offline mode if they want. It would be annoying having different characters for offline and online but it would be better than the way it currently is.

I don't feel the need to justify my ridiculous time investment loot grinds by showing it off to other people, so yes. The only always online DRM game I've bought is Splinter Cell: Conviction. The collector's edition with the ridiculous statue. For 5€. Also I think they've patched it since.

The possible console version definitely won't require a constant internet connection, not this generation at least. Shudder.

I would. I'm tired of people joining my games during the middle of fighting elite mobs...

Absolutely.

Nope, playing with friends is exponentially more fun.

Totally, I have no desire to play that game with actual people.

I would. I'm tired of people joining my games during the middle of fighting elite mobs...

Yes and no. I pretty much play it alone most of the time, but I would also want the auction house and that probably wouldn't work if everyone could use trainers and stuff offline (a lot of people would just give themselves the best gear from the start anyway). Luckily I'm not having any latency issues or an unstable internet connection so it doesn't matter to me personally... I'm always online. 
 
@Quipido said:

@Skogen

I would. I'm tired of people joining my games during the middle of fighting elite mobs...

I thought you need to open the game to public manually. If you are talking about friends, you can set your status to busy in the social panel ("O"). On the topic: I see the value in offline mode, but I wouln't use it myself.

no not really.

I wouldn't because it's proprietary software but I also oppose DRM:

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/diablo3

An interesting array of opinions. I have limited time to play these days, and because I do want to play online at some point, leveling another character in single player is kinda pointless for me.

I guess ultimately offering a single player version has it's benefits, but I can totally see why, from a business perspective, always connected DRM is super attractive. Steams ease of use and sales over the past few years has certainly curtailed piracy on PC, but for a while a lot of devs didn't want to put out games on PC in the same way that the PSP became too much of a risk.

People forget that consoles have DRM running constantly, but because the OS is locked down, this doesn't require an internet connection, where as a PC can have such things disabled so easily.

Hell no since those characters wouldn't be allowed online. In six years when they announce Diablo 4 than yeah I'd like to play the single player again for nostalgia purposes and would have no interest in playing online really.

Before game release I would have said YES in a second.

Now ... i dunno, there are too many benefits and as servers have become more stable i find myself liking the connectivity, the AH, playing with friends etc. Offline mode would have to be completely segregated.

Well I guess I would. Sometimes solo feels right; early playthroughs especially. Playing w/friends is another lvl of fun though too. Thing is, all you have to do is set joiners to invite only, or click 'busy', and it's pretty much no hassle solo time anyway. The always online occasional slowdown, and ,for me, rare server glitches are the only issues left. And they've become far less frequent lately too.

I'm a /players 8 Hell mode Diablo 2 solo lover who likes to die from his own mistakes.
 
Not from latency.

Yeah I would. I'm on my hell run and I don't much care to play with others. This DRM is annoying the shit out of me.

@Tennmuerti said:

Before game release I would have said YES in a second.

Now ... i dunno, there are too many benefits and as servers have become more stable i find myself liking the connectivity, the AH, playing with friends etc. Offline mode would have to be completely segregated.

This is it for me, too. During the first few hours of my early playthrough, I was all "grr, hate always online rabble rabble" and then the servers became more stable. Now, while I still solo, the ability to chat to any of my friends while I'm in-game is really nice, and I'm excited about the prospect of playing with my friends on a higher difficulty.

Yeah I would, and why should I have to choose between "playing with no one else ever" and "always being online, even in singleplayer in case I want to join up with my freinds?" I want to be able to play my character without connecting to a server and I want to be able to occasionally join up with my friend over the internet. I don't care about PvP or playing with strangers, if they're afraid of people duping items or whatever let me choose a mode that I can play either in offline singleplayer or just with friendlisted people.

That way people who do care about PvP or playing with strangers in a somewhat balanced game with a stable economy can have that, people who don't want to log in to servers but still play with their friends occasionally can have that, and people who want to mess about getting the best items through trainers can do so with their friends without messing it up for anyone else.

No, I always play online with friends.

Would be nice to play it single player w/o a connection so I can play on a laptop when I'm out and about.

No.

Though I appreciate most gamers have good internet connections I simply dont. I have limited time to access interent, a terribly low speed and higher latency than you would expect from home broadband. There are lots of people who dont have great internet connections so having the game limited to when you have good enough internet is a pretty solid way to stop me playing.

I will not buy Diablo 3 because of this requirment even though I had originally intended to because the game, which id be playing alone mostly, would be inaccesable to me a large amount of the time.

I haven't played it with anyone else, but I still like the always online because it feels like I'm connected to something larger than myself. I guess this is how religious people feel when they say they feel a connection with whatever god they believe exists.

Yes I would. I don't run in a large circle of friends who have been waiting for Diablo 3 for 11 years so if I play co-op it might be with 1 maybe 2 people I know at best. I played the trial edition of the game and the Torchlight 2 beta by myself so I know I would get loot lust regardless if anyone is gonna see the gear on my little ass character or not.

If it hadn't been for Inferno, I'd probably say yes. But at the moment playing on Inferno the game has turned much more into a trading game rather than a looting game. I just can't imagine playing past Hell without doing any trading at all. But then again, without this easily accesible AH (and upcoming RMAH) Blizzard might've put less emphasis on encouraging trading.

Absolutely. The online for Diablo 3 is irrelevant to me.

Fuck yes I would go play it in offline mode.

Oh yes I would play solo offline if I had a choice. Couldn't care less if I could not transfer it over to online personally.

Lack of standard single player is the only reason I didn't buy it.

If someone says online is irrelevant they are not experiencing the full breadth of the game. I would play offline for my first play-through to experience the story but after that no. Soloing might be okay but its much more fun to play online, if I had known I could just play solo on Bnet in D2 and then join up with people once I was done that would have been my go to option. Loot seems pointless if your not advancing relatively to your piers, I don't give a shit about beating the same monsters i've already beaten with the only difference being that there are just higher numbers popping up. What matters is the utility of your skills juxtaposed to your allies. AKA in my games, if someone's loot is weak, I have him go a disabling build, like a wizard with frost nova, ice blizzard, etc.

Yes, I would. But seeing as how there's a 4 player limit and some real limitations on character customization.. Then you tag on the DRM. With all that I can't support this game with my money.

I'd hack the shit out of my character with something like Jamella's and probably enjoy the game quite a bit, so yeah. It might actually make me interested in Diablo 3.

I wouldn't play a offline mode in Diablo 3 any more than I would play Dungeon Defenders offline. It would be an odd way to play as well as serving no point where I could salvage something if even playing a throw away character online.

I wouldn't, personally. Doesn't mean that I don't fully understand people who do though. Not everyone plays the game for the same reasons I play it for, and they shouldn't have to conform to arbitrary rules that prevent them from playing the way they want to play.

I'd probably only play single player offline for a hardcore mode character only. Since I know that char's gonna die sooner or later, I'm not as invested in it.

I most certainly would.
I like to play co-op with friends (and only friends), but truth be told, I spend most of my gaming time playing only the single player modes-- believe it or not, I spent dozens of hours playing Diablo 2 back in the day and never even touched the multiplayer.

Well, so far I had no problems while playing, so I suppose being actually offline wouldn't make much of a difference to me. I play alone anyway.

Yes, because Diablo 3 in on my laptop and 4 out of 7 days of the week I'm on the train. Due to a lack of wifi on the train, an offline mode would be fantastic.

The only multiplayer Diablo I really enjoyed were D2 LAN parties with all the players communicating and chilling out in the same room. And those events were often as much about an actual party as they were about gaming for us. Other than that I'm only interested in laid back, secluded play to check out all the cool abilities with added loot drops as a filler game. The few games I really do play online every once in a while have to be in-depth and quite competitive and I'm likely to put in hundreds of hours over months or years because I want to compete on as high a level as I possibly can and not be some sort of cannon-fodder content tourist.

From what I've seen of D3 (I have not and will not buy it as long as it requires to be played as a borderline MMO) it seems like an atrocious multiplayer game for my tastes. Way too much disposable story, lore, forced storyline companions and such nonsense. To me it doesn't seem particularly interesting to begin with and in the long run shit like that is extremely likely to drive me utterly insane when I have to listen to some amount of that dribble over and over again. Just not what I play older Diablo, Titan Quest or Torchlight for. Neither is showing off loot. Visually it is rather boring - what's enjoyable to me is the power fantasy of the badass character going on an unstoppable killing spree with the help of powerful artifacts and skills. And in a well made game that should come from the gameplay in my opinion.

It's not that D3 seems particularly bad but it really is more a streamlined WoW. So yes, I only see myself playing D3 if it were more in the vain of the older games with the ability to play offline characters and that is extremely unlikely to be happening in a patch or expansion so it's time to move on for me.

yes i hate reliying on other people in games where you customize your characters that's why i stop playing every mmo once i need a party to get past a quest

I would not disconnect my computer from the internet to play Diablo 3. If my PC is on, it's online, so a specifically "offline" single player is irrelevant to my situation. The occasional lag can be very annoying and I'm sure it will get me killed sooner rather than later, but right now it's not a problem. If I had to make separate offline/online characters then I extra wouldn't play offline.

Nope, I never played offline. Always online, so this "DRM" stuff doesn't bother me at all. I like playing with friends and random people, it's a blast. Solo bores me to tears.