News Diablo III 1.1 to bring player-versus-player combat

If you think that games, esp on the PC are going to be free of DRM you need to leave that little island and get some sun.

Steam and Battlenet are the perfect forms of DRM, non-obtrusive for us and always on for the companies.
Even single player games like Dragon Age, I played through steam. Get over it, or go play on the PS3 (Dust is what I recommend there)

Yours in Steamy Plasma,
Star*Dagger


-.

 

How is battlenet a perfect form of DRM, I spent 10 mins last night waiting for error 37 to go away, and this is 2 weeks after release!

I don't mind steam to be fair, but Battlenet is shocking...

 

took me 2 hours to loggin D3 yesterday

 

Recently, as the gaming industry has polarised into two camps - the major publishers hammering users with always-on DRM and those experimenting with DRM-free as an option, such as GOG, Humble Bundle and the odd publisher who tests the water with a physical release with no CD-key/SecuROM checks, I now always support the DRM-free option if it's of interest.

Thus, even though I already own thee of the five titles on the current Humble Bundle, I bought it anyway - and for a fair markup over the 'average' because I want to support DRM-free gaming... (I'm also, as I said in another thread, a sucker for a good OST) and hopefully, if others take the same attitude, a message can be sent that actually, DRM-free is a viable option. An option which is taken by honest individuals who wish to support the hard work of the developers but at the same time don't wish to be treated like criminals with how draconian some of the modern DRM can be.

I don't know all the reasons Blizzard used as justification for the route they took with Diablo 3 (although anti-piracy is obviously part of it). However, even though I don't play it, I'm surprised and disheartened that a developer that obviously understands the demands an always-online service has on server-side hardware (World of Warcraft has run for a long time and been very successful) could underestimate how popular Diablo 3 was going to be, and could be so underprepared for the sheer volume of people wanting to connect and play. Diablo has been a PC gaming legend for well over a decade, it's entered cult status. I suspect that they were too blinded by the potential dollar signs of ideas like the 'Real Money Auction House' to invest in sufficient initial server infrastructure, which is a shame as their experience from WoW should have prepared them better.

 

I believe it's fairly well understood that he's talking about a standard for most games, not a strict rule that every game will have DRM. I agree with him on that, there'll always be a DRM-free circle (almost a counter-culture, if you will) but the chances of that becoming the standard are depressingly low.

I agree that Steam is a better system for providing an offline option, but would like to point out that server issues are a problem with the implementation, not the system's design. In theory you should be able to play Diablo III at any time that you're connected to the internet.

I make a point of that because Steam also isn't flawless. The offline mode you mention always comes with a flood of reports from people who it doesn't work for. They both have implementation problems, but the system design of Steam is better assuming both Valve and Blizzard got everything working correctly, and I think that's what's important.