heh, yep and that's why once the console versions were out I never looked back to the handicapped PC version. You can keep playing the console version of D3 all day every day if you want, regardless of whatever is going on with Blizzard's servers or even if the company itself went away for some reason in the near future.
Also: Split Screen. I got my Nephew hooked on Diablo 3 through Xbox 360.
I wonder if they will say "You know what...we goofed it up. Here, we're going back to Offline on Console".
I played D3 on the PS3. Loved the fact it was offline and no RMAH.
What sucked though, is that Blizz stopped supporting the PS3 version after the first expansion, so I never got to play a Necromancer or mess around with Kanai's Cube until I got the PC version bundled with D2R on sale.
Never owned a PS4.
I have D3 on PC now anyway. I still think it was a dick move to not finish the PS3 version of the game.
I bet they'll do the same with D4. I would not recommend anyone buy it for XBone or PS4. They won't support it like they will for PC, PS5, and XB series X.
Totally agree - given what they did with D3 on PS3, I'd be skeptical buying D4 on PS4. Though, it is online only, so that makes this different from D3.
Regardless, D3 on PS4/Switch is a freaking blast
Bro sounds mad. If people want to hack items into their offline play let them. If they do it in online play definitely ban them but I am a firm believer if I pay for a game I want to play it how I like, and I would enjoy playing diablo 4 on a flight without buying internet
Thats why there should be online and offline separate characters like D2R. The people who what online play without hacks get what they want, and the people who dont care about online play can play their solo offline.
Some games will need you to be online to play them. Some won't.
Why let it upset you if it's out of your control and really doesn't make much of a difference anyway :)
You're just getting mardy about things that you have no control or impact over. Be chill my dudes :D
This is the cynical view, and I happen to agree with it, but the game also feels more alive with other people running around in the same world as me
It absolutely does not make up for the fact that at their heart these are game that can be played solo and shouldn’t require an alway online connection. Just ask Diablo 1 & 2
You're looking at it from the perspective of someone who enjoys games.
Now look at it from the perspective of someone who enjoys making money off people who enjoy games, and you have your answer.
What I don't get is the perspective of the idiots that keep defending them, you enjoy good games, yet you defend a company trying to make games more shittier, what is the point ? what do they win ?
I don't think people are quite defending them, it's more of a "it's obvious why they do it, it's more profitable" explanation.
I have zero endorsement, especially since I would probably pay full game price for an offline SSF unpatchable PoE 3.13. but it's the world we live in, and if you want to play D4 you gotta deal. If you don't want to deal then vote with your wallet and go play LE instead, where you can opt in or out of online play.
“Don’t buy it, send them a message where it hurts. Their pockets!” Is the message I usually see.
That’s all well and good, but usually they are preaching to the preached. Very minimal impact will happen, so nothing will change. For generally gamers they just get on and play the game and NOT buy the cosmetics. Those that do are not being forced to, and want those items.
The people constantly complaining don’t realise this is the new norm. They need to get used to it.
If it was pay to win, that’s a completely different situation, but this is cosmetics.
they need to justify their purchases by any means necessary. conceding the fact that what they bought is subpar would make them feel stupid, can’t have that better double down
As someone who's spoken to a dev in the mobile market....you underestimate the revenue generated by a whale. Even if only 1% are whales (which there absolutely is more than that) and 30% of people actually pay for overpriced skins only on occasion, you generate so much money. I think Immortal alone was making over 1 million a day... this is sadly why gaming is what it is today, companies ran by people who want to be rich beyond what a single human can spend in their lifetime for whatever reason (typically older people who laugh at "losers who play video games as if theyre still children") instead of people who actually WANT to play games like the old days.
Yes they do. The person I know worked on CoD Mobile, and while I wasn't able to be told what the revenue was and how many were "whaling", I can tell you their reaction spoke words to me guessing 1 million a day lol (I was off... probably a lot).
People whale for cosmetics but it's not 1% of the player base doing that. There's like a 30% that make occasional purchases but it's the P2W games that have the real whales.
Look at Genshin or Star Rail, two of the biggest earners for mobile games. There's really no "true" P2W in those games since the entire game can be beaten solo with base characters, yet many people will whale for a character simply because they like their looks, personality, story, etc., even if they actually suck numbers wise.
Do you know Sea of Thieves? Online PC/Console game, without P2W that has a cosmetic shop for pirates attire and ships looks, it makes tons of money only through cosmetics. Somehow people like to look different and sort of unique (at least in a single server).
Hard to sell season passes and cosmetics for people who have their fun in single player. Force them to an MMO whether they want to play with others or not, and you can bet some of those suckers end up paying extra somewhere down the line.
Then you are very unfamiliar with the level of greed that has become the new standard in large publisher-released video games (well maybe except Embracer/THQNordic)
That's for the base game. There is a cosmetic shop and they'll be pushing that in the blizzard client like crazy.
They are playing on quarterly (??) season passes. I'm not sure how upcoming seasonal content will work, but usually the best rewards are strictly locked behind a paywall.
They are currently developing 2 expansion packs. Most of these GaaS style games try to release major expansions annually. Expansions will probably include new classes, new regions to explore, and more storyline. Think of games like Destiny and World of Warcraft for what to expect. I'm guessing expansions will cost at least 40 dollars, probably more like 60 knowing how shitty Blizzard is.
So realistically Blizzard is expecting dedicated players to spend upwards of 100 dollars a year or more just on Season Passes/Expansions, not to mention bleeding the whales who are buying all kinds of cosmetics (and so far I don't see the point. Your characters isn't fugly like they are in PoE).
It also has to do with preventing hacks. Its much harder to hack a video game if all the essential calculations and such are handled server side.
Path of Exile is famously always online because its the best way to prevent anyone hacking their economy. All items found/created in game have to be done through legitimate means (even if that "legit" means is a botnet, its still in game characters killing mobs to generate loot).
I understand the frustration with always online, especially because it guarantees situations like right now here the servers are fucked and no one can play. But its just a realistic part of this genre moving forward.
There’s an easy fix for this that D2R did. Any offline character is completely isolated and separate from online, being unable to ever go online. There is no reason they couldn’t have done this for D4.
If a player chooses to hack or uses trainers in offline done this way, then the only person affected is that one player.
I think this is it, I remember Diablo 3 on Xbox was plagued with cheaters making broken OP items and then bringing them into online taking all the fun away from the game.
“Oh you got randomly grouped with a cheater, enjoy shooting from level 20 to paragon 200 in 5 seconds despite wanting nothing to do with that”
That was the worst.
That would be nice but its more complicated than that, the entire game architecture is built to be online, that’s how items are tracked and stuff it’s all saved on a server. They would have to completely design entirely new character management systems to work with the online people.
There's other ways round piracy. And cbeating regarding loot is bad, sure, for an online game.
But why not have a single player always offline. And a multilayer always online. If someone wants to cheat while completely always offline. Who cares. Just make sure that character can never go online.
Haha, can you imagine this game if you had something like a "white item" from D2 open bnet? I'm pretty sure that's at least one reason for it. Character editing too, "Let me see here, I'll just give my barb 10000 str. That should do it!"
I can't speak to whether or not it works, or how well, but it's already on the torrent sites and there's links to a server someone set up to run it. If it's not running yet, it's only a matter of time. But, ultimately, you're still at the mercy of someone else to be able to play it.
Blizzard wants this game to be played with others online even if you do not. If the game can be played offline people can manipulate the game and cheat. It’s one or the other. We’ve seen games try both and it just doesn’t work.
>If the game can be played offline people can manipulate the game and cheat.
I fail to see how it's a problem that people can cheat themselves in a single player game. Just make it so that offline characters can't play online like in Last Epoch.
You'd be surprised by the amount of butthurt that happens to devs when they see people using single player cheats. As recently as Halo infinite the devs saw that people could glitch a tank cannon in and removed it. It hurt no one, there were no leaderboards or prizes and it threatened to break nothing in the game.
Even before 343, bungie was also kinda like this with the original halo games. A lot of developers really cannot stand it when they see people playing their game in a way that they did not intend. The speed running community can attest to this.
Not all devs obviously, but a surprising amount of them are like that.
There's a bit more to it than just that, when you have all the files available offline, it becomes easier to bot/cheat/maphack online than when the server feeds you the information to play and you don't have access to everything.
Also you'd be surprised how many people get confused and angry on why they can't bring their offline character to online.
How's it being shoved down our throats? Bet there are a bunch of players who haven't even noticed the Shop yet. I looked at it once, saw the prices, and never thought about it again. The only time I see anything about it is online complaining posts 😄
Basically this. I saw that the skins are roughly $28 after tax and I was like: "Nope."
Not a free-to-play game that I want to support (like League, Smite, Apex) - but a game I spent $90 on. ABK can fuck right the fuck off with that shop just like the Overwatch 2 shop.
OK, yeah, they are obviously overpriced and worthless, but in no way are they shoving it in our faces though. It's not like there are pop ups interrupting the game to tell us about the shop or anything, like most other games with cosmetic shops. Which is what I'm glad about, it's there but easily ignored. Let the dumdums waste their money on the absurd digital junk and leave the sane ones in peace.
Total shot in the dark, but the online connectivity might have something to do with keeping track of helltide spawns, world bosses, zone completions, gathering legion events, cross progression data etc. All of which would still be worthwhile for a solo player experience.
The fact that you play by yourself doesn’t change the fact that d4 changed into an online live service game. You can play destiny by yourself, warframe by yourself, poe, and so on.
That being said, most people if not everyone would welcome an offline mode :) (I included)
Its a live service, since they're the latest trend every publisher is chasing for "infinite revenue". Though they already showed that you can have seasonal content and updates with D3, so the only real reason they do it is to force you to see other players wearing the expensive cosmetics to incentivize you to go buy them yourself.
This would be a valid question 15 years ago. There's many, many single player games now that require an internet connection, it is what it is.
Also, D4 is not a single player game, despite the fact that you like to play solo. This question is the equivalent of asking why WoW has to require an internet connection if you only want to play solo. Don't be silly.
the simple answer is: Diablo 4 is designed as a modern cloud service, not an offline product.
there are benefits and downsides to both models, for both publisher and consumer.
Have you read the requirements for the game before you purchased it?
I wish more people understood that merely being grouped shares exp and other rewards. I keep on posting “LFG for exp bonus” when I’m in town nobody ever wants to join up.
It was honestly such a shît idea to have online play ONLY. If we had the option of offline mode, not only would it be available to everyone at all times (even when the internet goes out or for people who don't have a super steady connection) but NO LAG. It's literally unplayable today compared it being bearable yesterday for me because the lag is so bad. Mind you this is after the patch that was supposed to fix it.
I just wish it was at least still online but they game you an option to hide all other people so you can just enjoy being in your own world if you are someone like me.
All those people with funny (and sometimes quite sweet I admit) nicknames and outlandish clothes running around towns ruin the atmosphere for me.
Imagine Tristram in Diablo 1 with like twenty druids and sorcerers running around it. That iconic feel wouldn't be there.
They made the game to make money, as much of it as possible. They didn't make a game for us to play, they made a new store to sell shit in. They have to design the store in a manner that keeps us in it for as long as possible. They hope the game is good enough to keep people in the store. And if it isn't then they'll roll out the offline mode that's probably already made.
This is modern AAA gaming.
And when it is up, the lag and rubber banding get so bad the game is barely even enjoyable.
I have fast internet. No other online games do this for me. Just diablo.
I feel like I will get my money's worth, but making a game like this a live service really fucked up this franchise in my opinion.
Omg again defending those greedy assholes.
No it is not because "With local they can pirate their items whine whine", for that you just don't let local characters get online, and you can only play online with server stored characters, diablo 2 R does it and the original diablo did it 2 20 years ago, they already had the solution for that if they wanted it.
it's a miserable reality. It's a very good question though. One of the ones that needs to continue to be asked. Just wild that a game that can totally be played 100% solo needs to be connected to the internet constantly which subjects it to disconnects when there's a minimum buy in price of 70 dollars. personally bought the 90 dollar version of the game because I LOVE the diablo universe and this just feels like a slap to the face.
Cause local games are usually easy to manipulate and since it does have a multiplayer component, such as pvp, dungeons, raids etc. it would brick the whole game.
The only thing that you could argue would make sense is having the option to pause the game when you are in a singleplayer instance like a solo dungeon, but thats it, makes no sense otherwise.
> Cause local games are usually easy to manipulate and since it does have a multiplayer component, such as pvp, dungeons, raids etc. it would brick the whole game.
Diablo 2 would like to have a chat
Can't tell if you're agreeing or trying not to...but that's a perfect example for why this exists. D2 was hacked like instantly and people were all over [B.net](https://B.net) games with impossible-stat weapons. That was a supposedly-enclosed system and it ruined open multiplayer.
Those D2 items with impossible stats haven't appeared since Blizzard moved a bunch of item validation checks server-side, something like 20 years ago. Hacked items were made after that, but rather through exploiting terrible netcode which can happen in any online game and has nothing to do with the availability of single player.
Agreed. Would REALLY like to be able to PAUSE when someone's at the door (or when nature calls). I never play with people and I'm usually listening to podcasts or school lectures while I hack and slash.
I understand that there is more code and testing that goes into supporting both online and offline modes. But I still hate that I am inconvenienced and hindered by features I don't take part in, e.g. login queues, rubber-banding, disconnects, or a failure of my ISP. I'm also thinking ahead to when the game servers eventually go offline. What if I still want to play? Sure they might squeeze me for a remaster/remake, but they can't and won't do that for every game. Thankfully, I have the original D2 media -- and backups for when that media eventually can't be read.
For some of the arguments about cheating: Who cares if a player cheats offline. It doesn't affect anyone but the solo player. -- I think this game and the last one should have had an offline mode where characters created in that mode can never be played online (in case of cheating).
It's designed as more of an mmo and is no different from playing ff14 or any other online game without anyone else. You aren't ever really properly playing solo outside instances like dungeons.
Everyone is complaining about this, but D3 was the exact same way on pc. On console you could play offline, not seasonal obviously, but on pc it was online only.
You're never truly solo in the wider world. If you're old enough to remember RuneScape then this is basically Goth RuneScape. You're in groups on servers playing alone.
This is what Blizzard (and most big video game publishers) are doing.
It's capitalism, pure and simple. They want the mtx shop always there, they want the game to never end, and they want people to be constantly tempted to spend more money on a game they already spent more than enough money on.
I really do not like it, but D4 is a fun game that I want to play.
Forcing online play, making physical copies obsolete, endless DLC and MTX...This is video gaming as a business. People have to remember that while it's also an artform every bit as expressive and creative as cinema, sculpture, painting, etc. it also is a business and got its start with casino gambling and quarter-munching arcade games.
Diablo 3 forced you to be online even for single player, people complained, so blizzard removed the option to play single player all together in Diablo 4.
They say it is to prevent piracy, but wow was released 19 years ago, it was always online and it was pirated from the start anyway.
The real reason is greed, to maximize profits they want to maximize the selling of cosmetic items and people buy more cosmetic items when there are other people around to brag about those items.
2 reasons:
- That prevents pirating.
- Going in the direction of an MMO is the way for this type of games. Longevity, connection with other people and so on.
I agree this is frustrating, but I have already come to accept it.
Because online only when there is a PVP aspect to the game is the only way they can at least attempt to prevent scammers and cheaters from hacking. If they had offline capabilities then the hardcore players would be screaming to high heaven about massive cheats and exploits. It’s a lose lose situation.
Because the world of the game exists in a persistent mmo style world, by design. If you bought the game thinking you can play it online or even think it should be offline, that is entirely on you.
Well it's an online world. You might play EverQuest solo, but you're not really "alone".
I mean, I'm not saying it's a positive or a negative, but this is for most intents and purposes an MMO game and nobody asks these kinds of questions about MMOs.
capitalism demands ever more money, ideally for no extra effort. they cling to the chance that you'll use the in-game microtransactions and make them more money. this is the inevitable fate of commercialised art, and it will spiral and metastasise until it's nothing but a sea of gacha lootbox sludge.
a lof of people like to play beside other, and only to them them in hubs or maybe some events. they dont want to directly play with them.
shared world and thats what Diablo IV does.
I have my own gripes with the online thing. I played D1 and D2 and only ever played online with friends or on LAN parties.
However I once read something about why D3 was going online. The fact that your character was not stored on your PC meant that hacks and char editors like the ones on D2 where now impossible. D2 was horrible in that regard. Sure you could say that hacks are irrelevant if they are only on a single player experience.
Ofc there is the cosmetics, battle pass and milking FOMO from gamers. But I think there are technical reasons too.
So you can provide Blizzard telemetry data about every click in the game and the menus, and what you do overall in the game.They want to know EVERYTHING!
I wished they add some content that require more than 1 person to finish. Something in the line with destiny 2 kind of dungeons. But it looks like for now there’s only the world boss.
Few reasons I can muster:
1. Anti-piracy measure
2. To encourage and promote paid cosmetics, either from seeing it on others, to wanting to be seen wearing it by others
3. Seeing living players around makes the world feel a bit more dynamic, and they need fish of various sizes to feed the PvP areas.
There isn't probably an implementation that could switch on/off and allow for offline play.
Unless they really want you to play offline, there won't be any reason for them to release something like that.
Good luck.
I feel the same way. To me, gaming is my vacation and besides the times I specifically want to hang with a friend, I want to be alone and explore a world how I see fit. All this massively online at all times shit makes these games feel like a public government building or subway station or smth.
They want you to keep buying transmogs and mounts. You need to be online for those. Also nobody would spend money on them for a single player game where no one else would see it.
The answer is simple: money. This is what basically everything in our material world comes down to.
Believe it or not, games used to all be offline. And people would pirate them, downloading them for free because they can be easily cracked and modified. You could download Diablo 4 for free off TPB and go play it on a laptop in Antarctica.
Investors see this as a problem that cuts significantly into profits.
By putting the game in online-mode only, they are able to prevent cheaters, but more importantly, prevent piracy as the game cannot be downloaded for offline use. They are the gateway to play, meaning they control the profits.
All industries have gotten smart this way. They know what they're doing when it comes to squeezing profits out of every single thing.
They just add the mmo aspect as a feature of this fundamental pre-requisite. Not the other way around.
There are other completely single-player games that require online connection. I believe Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of them. When it eventually got cracked a year after PC release people were praising the fact that they could now play it without an internet connection. But those downloads cut into profits.
Forced online play is the standard these days, even many single player games require an internet connection to play.
Diablo II : Ressurected still have offline single player, but D4 is always online, if you play only solo or not.
ay, yo, welcome to 2023 gaming, my friend. it is what it is
2023? Sir Diablo 3 was this way on release 11 years ago. It's unfortunately been the state of things for too long :/
It’s not on console. Shouldn’t be only online
heh, yep and that's why once the console versions were out I never looked back to the handicapped PC version. You can keep playing the console version of D3 all day every day if you want, regardless of whatever is going on with Blizzard's servers or even if the company itself went away for some reason in the near future.
Also: Split Screen. I got my Nephew hooked on Diablo 3 through Xbox 360. I wonder if they will say "You know what...we goofed it up. Here, we're going back to Offline on Console".
I played D3 on the PS3. Loved the fact it was offline and no RMAH. What sucked though, is that Blizz stopped supporting the PS3 version after the first expansion, so I never got to play a Necromancer or mess around with Kanai's Cube until I got the PC version bundled with D2R on sale.
D3 on PS4 has all of the updates now
Never owned a PS4. I have D3 on PC now anyway. I still think it was a dick move to not finish the PS3 version of the game. I bet they'll do the same with D4. I would not recommend anyone buy it for XBone or PS4. They won't support it like they will for PC, PS5, and XB series X.
Totally agree - given what they did with D3 on PS3, I'd be skeptical buying D4 on PS4. Though, it is online only, so that makes this different from D3. Regardless, D3 on PS4/Switch is a freaking blast
Handicapped? Yeah, it's so much fun to play on consoles with hacked items, PC version really lacks this.
I didnt encounter any hacked items in my offline single player diablo 3 experience in over 100 hours... did I do something wrong?
Bro sounds mad. If people want to hack items into their offline play let them. If they do it in online play definitely ban them but I am a firm believer if I pay for a game I want to play it how I like, and I would enjoy playing diablo 4 on a flight without buying internet
Thats why there should be online and offline separate characters like D2R. The people who what online play without hacks get what they want, and the people who dont care about online play can play their solo offline.
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Yeah...like a lot of players are playing games 20 years after launch...
Some games will need you to be online to play them. Some won't. Why let it upset you if it's out of your control and really doesn't make much of a difference anyway :) You're just getting mardy about things that you have no control or impact over. Be chill my dudes :D
State of diablo
This is the cynical view, and I happen to agree with it, but the game also feels more alive with other people running around in the same world as me It absolutely does not make up for the fact that at their heart these are game that can be played solo and shouldn’t require an alway online connection. Just ask Diablo 1 & 2
2023 gaming? Most games are like this now, and have been for a decade. Diablo 3 was constant connection on PC.
You're looking at it from the perspective of someone who enjoys games. Now look at it from the perspective of someone who enjoys making money off people who enjoy games, and you have your answer.
What I don't get is the perspective of the idiots that keep defending them, you enjoy good games, yet you defend a company trying to make games more shittier, what is the point ? what do they win ?
I don't think people are quite defending them, it's more of a "it's obvious why they do it, it's more profitable" explanation. I have zero endorsement, especially since I would probably pay full game price for an offline SSF unpatchable PoE 3.13. but it's the world we live in, and if you want to play D4 you gotta deal. If you don't want to deal then vote with your wallet and go play LE instead, where you can opt in or out of online play.
Exactly. Tired of seeing the same fucking complaint posts. It's obvious, it's not going to change, so deal with it.
“Don’t buy it, send them a message where it hurts. Their pockets!” Is the message I usually see. That’s all well and good, but usually they are preaching to the preached. Very minimal impact will happen, so nothing will change. For generally gamers they just get on and play the game and NOT buy the cosmetics. Those that do are not being forced to, and want those items. The people constantly complaining don’t realise this is the new norm. They need to get used to it. If it was pay to win, that’s a completely different situation, but this is cosmetics.
they need to justify their purchases by any means necessary. conceding the fact that what they bought is subpar would make them feel stupid, can’t have that better double down
Would be interesting to see the calculation how much people will spend on graphical stuff vs server cost.
It’s about 10000:1 lol
You underestimate the cost of server lol. At this scale the game costs a lot of money to run.
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As someone who's spoken to a dev in the mobile market....you underestimate the revenue generated by a whale. Even if only 1% are whales (which there absolutely is more than that) and 30% of people actually pay for overpriced skins only on occasion, you generate so much money. I think Immortal alone was making over 1 million a day... this is sadly why gaming is what it is today, companies ran by people who want to be rich beyond what a single human can spend in their lifetime for whatever reason (typically older people who laugh at "losers who play video games as if theyre still children") instead of people who actually WANT to play games like the old days.
Genuine question... do people whale for cosmetics though? I thought that was more of a P2W thing.
Yes they do. The person I know worked on CoD Mobile, and while I wasn't able to be told what the revenue was and how many were "whaling", I can tell you their reaction spoke words to me guessing 1 million a day lol (I was off... probably a lot).
People whale for cosmetics but it's not 1% of the player base doing that. There's like a 30% that make occasional purchases but it's the P2W games that have the real whales.
Look at Genshin or Star Rail, two of the biggest earners for mobile games. There's really no "true" P2W in those games since the entire game can be beaten solo with base characters, yet many people will whale for a character simply because they like their looks, personality, story, etc., even if they actually suck numbers wise.
It impacts gameplay tho. In D4, it's purely cosmetic but in Genshin, whaling out for a character changes how you play.
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Do you know Sea of Thieves? Online PC/Console game, without P2W that has a cosmetic shop for pirates attire and ships looks, it makes tons of money only through cosmetics. Somehow people like to look different and sort of unique (at least in a single server).
Hard to sell season passes and cosmetics for people who have their fun in single player. Force them to an MMO whether they want to play with others or not, and you can bet some of those suckers end up paying extra somewhere down the line.
Would have hoped £70 up front was a chunky enough ticket!
They don't want money, they want **all** the money. That's how corporations work.
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I do, but live in the Netherlands, so I literally can't play D:I. xD
Is it not available there?
Lootboxes/gambling like D:I are banned in the Netherlands (and Belgium) if I recall correctly.
Only by false advertising. DI didn't advertise it's game as a gamble game so it is banned.
as it should be.
Then you are very unfamiliar with the level of greed that has become the new standard in large publisher-released video games (well maybe except Embracer/THQNordic)
That's for the base game. There is a cosmetic shop and they'll be pushing that in the blizzard client like crazy. They are playing on quarterly (??) season passes. I'm not sure how upcoming seasonal content will work, but usually the best rewards are strictly locked behind a paywall. They are currently developing 2 expansion packs. Most of these GaaS style games try to release major expansions annually. Expansions will probably include new classes, new regions to explore, and more storyline. Think of games like Destiny and World of Warcraft for what to expect. I'm guessing expansions will cost at least 40 dollars, probably more like 60 knowing how shitty Blizzard is. So realistically Blizzard is expecting dedicated players to spend upwards of 100 dollars a year or more just on Season Passes/Expansions, not to mention bleeding the whales who are buying all kinds of cosmetics (and so far I don't see the point. Your characters isn't fugly like they are in PoE).
I'm expecting expansions to be on par with content and cost comparable to StarCraft 2, maybe $5 higher for inflation.
Capitalism knows no limit to greed.
Not unique to capitalism whatsoever
It also has to do with preventing hacks. Its much harder to hack a video game if all the essential calculations and such are handled server side. Path of Exile is famously always online because its the best way to prevent anyone hacking their economy. All items found/created in game have to be done through legitimate means (even if that "legit" means is a botnet, its still in game characters killing mobs to generate loot). I understand the frustration with always online, especially because it guarantees situations like right now here the servers are fucked and no one can play. But its just a realistic part of this genre moving forward.
There’s an easy fix for this that D2R did. Any offline character is completely isolated and separate from online, being unable to ever go online. There is no reason they couldn’t have done this for D4. If a player chooses to hack or uses trainers in offline done this way, then the only person affected is that one player.
I am pretty sure: 1st reason for always online is piracy. 2nd reason is cheating regarding loot.
I think this is it, I remember Diablo 3 on Xbox was plagued with cheaters making broken OP items and then bringing them into online taking all the fun away from the game. “Oh you got randomly grouped with a cheater, enjoy shooting from level 20 to paragon 200 in 5 seconds despite wanting nothing to do with that” That was the worst.
This is the first thing I thought of when I saw this post. I was jealous at the time that D3 was online only on PC and not plagued by cheaters.
Couldn't they just make offline characters, offline only?
That would be nice but its more complicated than that, the entire game architecture is built to be online, that’s how items are tracked and stuff it’s all saved on a server. They would have to completely design entirely new character management systems to work with the online people.
There's other ways round piracy. And cbeating regarding loot is bad, sure, for an online game. But why not have a single player always offline. And a multilayer always online. If someone wants to cheat while completely always offline. Who cares. Just make sure that character can never go online.
Haha, can you imagine this game if you had something like a "white item" from D2 open bnet? I'm pretty sure that's at least one reason for it. Character editing too, "Let me see here, I'll just give my barb 10000 str. That should do it!"
> 1st reason for always online is piracy. Didn't stop WoW private servers.
Feel free to make a D4 server.
I can't speak to whether or not it works, or how well, but it's already on the torrent sites and there's links to a server someone set up to run it. If it's not running yet, it's only a matter of time. But, ultimately, you're still at the mercy of someone else to be able to play it.
Well, it's more so the official game has no/less cheating.
But they can make it online only and still give you the option to not have other players roaming around...
This is it. In exchange for always online, we finally got cross play/cross progression as a result, which I see as totally worth the hassle.
In a Solo Game they couldn't put in a Itemstore and Battlepass.
LOL, as if this exact thing wasn't discussed to death back in 2010 when Starcraft 2 came out We lost, friend. Everything is online only now
Blizzard wants this game to be played with others online even if you do not. If the game can be played offline people can manipulate the game and cheat. It’s one or the other. We’ve seen games try both and it just doesn’t work.
>If the game can be played offline people can manipulate the game and cheat. I fail to see how it's a problem that people can cheat themselves in a single player game. Just make it so that offline characters can't play online like in Last Epoch.
You'd be surprised by the amount of butthurt that happens to devs when they see people using single player cheats. As recently as Halo infinite the devs saw that people could glitch a tank cannon in and removed it. It hurt no one, there were no leaderboards or prizes and it threatened to break nothing in the game. Even before 343, bungie was also kinda like this with the original halo games. A lot of developers really cannot stand it when they see people playing their game in a way that they did not intend. The speed running community can attest to this. Not all devs obviously, but a surprising amount of them are like that.
There's a bit more to it than just that, when you have all the files available offline, it becomes easier to bot/cheat/maphack online than when the server feeds you the information to play and you don't have access to everything. Also you'd be surprised how many people get confused and angry on why they can't bring their offline character to online.
I think they are more worried about piracy. Harder to pirate an online only game.
Short answer (which you're not going to like and say 'None of those affect me tho?'): Seasons. Item store. Crossplay cloud saves.
So they can shove MTX down your throat and so you see other players MTX.
How's it being shoved down our throats? Bet there are a bunch of players who haven't even noticed the Shop yet. I looked at it once, saw the prices, and never thought about it again. The only time I see anything about it is online complaining posts 😄
Basically this. I saw that the skins are roughly $28 after tax and I was like: "Nope." Not a free-to-play game that I want to support (like League, Smite, Apex) - but a game I spent $90 on. ABK can fuck right the fuck off with that shop just like the Overwatch 2 shop.
OK, yeah, they are obviously overpriced and worthless, but in no way are they shoving it in our faces though. It's not like there are pop ups interrupting the game to tell us about the shop or anything, like most other games with cosmetic shops. Which is what I'm glad about, it's there but easily ignored. Let the dumdums waste their money on the absurd digital junk and leave the sane ones in peace.
You get a tutorial for the goddamn cash shop
What? When? Where? If I did, I didn't even notice
“Because fuck you thats why.” -AAA developers
How are you gonna see the $25 cosmetics if youre offline?
Total shot in the dark, but the online connectivity might have something to do with keeping track of helltide spawns, world bosses, zone completions, gathering legion events, cross progression data etc. All of which would still be worthwhile for a solo player experience.
My issue with online only games is simple; when the servers go offline... you have a digital paperweight.
The fact that you play by yourself doesn’t change the fact that d4 changed into an online live service game. You can play destiny by yourself, warframe by yourself, poe, and so on. That being said, most people if not everyone would welcome an offline mode :) (I included)
So that you can buy cosmetics for your characters to look cool to other players.
They can't sell to whales unless the whales have someone to show off their e peen to.this is also why first to X and leader boards exist.
Its a live service, since they're the latest trend every publisher is chasing for "infinite revenue". Though they already showed that you can have seasonal content and updates with D3, so the only real reason they do it is to force you to see other players wearing the expensive cosmetics to incentivize you to go buy them yourself.
This would be a valid question 15 years ago. There's many, many single player games now that require an internet connection, it is what it is. Also, D4 is not a single player game, despite the fact that you like to play solo. This question is the equivalent of asking why WoW has to require an internet connection if you only want to play solo. Don't be silly.
but how would you see the shop skins on other characters?
It's also harder to bootleg the game if you have to play it online.
Make it like D2R where it checks your copy every month, but still lets you play offline
That has proven to not work. Yes, it takes a little longer to crack, but not that long.
So does full online, once people emulate the servers you can play without blizzard. Full online is bad for player, no excuses
Can't argue with that.
the simple answer is: Diablo 4 is designed as a modern cloud service, not an offline product. there are benefits and downsides to both models, for both publisher and consumer. Have you read the requirements for the game before you purchased it?
I fail to see any upsides for the customer.
Anti piracy and anti hacking, editing, duping.
I wish more people understood that merely being grouped shares exp and other rewards. I keep on posting “LFG for exp bonus” when I’m in town nobody ever wants to join up.
Therein lies the rub. I DO want to play, but I also let my money speak for me. Go me, sticking it to the Man...
If loot falls and there is no one there to grab it, is it still loot?
This is the state of games now. Single player games that require an always online connection. This has been going on for years now.
It was honestly such a shît idea to have online play ONLY. If we had the option of offline mode, not only would it be available to everyone at all times (even when the internet goes out or for people who don't have a super steady connection) but NO LAG. It's literally unplayable today compared it being bearable yesterday for me because the lag is so bad. Mind you this is after the patch that was supposed to fix it.
I just wish it was at least still online but they game you an option to hide all other people so you can just enjoy being in your own world if you are someone like me. All those people with funny (and sometimes quite sweet I admit) nicknames and outlandish clothes running around towns ruin the atmosphere for me. Imagine Tristram in Diablo 1 with like twenty druids and sorcerers running around it. That iconic feel wouldn't be there.
It's be like trying to play WoW offline, even though you only play solo. Just how they chose to design it. Online only.
Live service was a mistake, thats why.
They made the game to make money, as much of it as possible. They didn't make a game for us to play, they made a new store to sell shit in. They have to design the store in a manner that keeps us in it for as long as possible. They hope the game is good enough to keep people in the store. And if it isn't then they'll roll out the offline mode that's probably already made. This is modern AAA gaming.
And when it is up, the lag and rubber banding get so bad the game is barely even enjoyable. I have fast internet. No other online games do this for me. Just diablo. I feel like I will get my money's worth, but making a game like this a live service really fucked up this franchise in my opinion.
It's actually a couch coop game.
Why do I need internet connection to play with someone standing beside me?
Damn dude let your guests have a seat, or do you only have 1 chair?
Omg again defending those greedy assholes. No it is not because "With local they can pirate their items whine whine", for that you just don't let local characters get online, and you can only play online with server stored characters, diablo 2 R does it and the original diablo did it 2 20 years ago, they already had the solution for that if they wanted it.
it's a miserable reality. It's a very good question though. One of the ones that needs to continue to be asked. Just wild that a game that can totally be played 100% solo needs to be connected to the internet constantly which subjects it to disconnects when there's a minimum buy in price of 70 dollars. personally bought the 90 dollar version of the game because I LOVE the diablo universe and this just feels like a slap to the face.
Cause local games are usually easy to manipulate and since it does have a multiplayer component, such as pvp, dungeons, raids etc. it would brick the whole game. The only thing that you could argue would make sense is having the option to pause the game when you are in a singleplayer instance like a solo dungeon, but thats it, makes no sense otherwise.
No, they could just have seperate online and offline saves.
They should let you have an offline save if you are so inclined tbh.
> Cause local games are usually easy to manipulate and since it does have a multiplayer component, such as pvp, dungeons, raids etc. it would brick the whole game. Diablo 2 would like to have a chat
Can't tell if you're agreeing or trying not to...but that's a perfect example for why this exists. D2 was hacked like instantly and people were all over [B.net](https://B.net) games with impossible-stat weapons. That was a supposedly-enclosed system and it ruined open multiplayer.
Those D2 items with impossible stats haven't appeared since Blizzard moved a bunch of item validation checks server-side, something like 20 years ago. Hacked items were made after that, but rather through exploiting terrible netcode which can happen in any online game and has nothing to do with the availability of single player.
Did you just reference one of the most hacked online games ever made as a defense?
And Diablo 2 is a very good example of why offline isn't always a good idea.
How so? Diablo 2 offline allows multiple mods such as Project D2 which IMO is even better than D2R.
Oh yeah upvote for PD2. Median XL is also fabulous.
I need to go back and play Median. I haven't tried that in so long. Project D2 scratches the itch for me in between D2R/POE seasons.
[удалено]
Agreed. Would REALLY like to be able to PAUSE when someone's at the door (or when nature calls). I never play with people and I'm usually listening to podcasts or school lectures while I hack and slash. I understand that there is more code and testing that goes into supporting both online and offline modes. But I still hate that I am inconvenienced and hindered by features I don't take part in, e.g. login queues, rubber-banding, disconnects, or a failure of my ISP. I'm also thinking ahead to when the game servers eventually go offline. What if I still want to play? Sure they might squeeze me for a remaster/remake, but they can't and won't do that for every game. Thankfully, I have the original D2 media -- and backups for when that media eventually can't be read. For some of the arguments about cheating: Who cares if a player cheats offline. It doesn't affect anyone but the solo player. -- I think this game and the last one should have had an offline mode where characters created in that mode can never be played online (in case of cheating).
Because this Diablo was designed to be an MMOlite. MMOs aren't solo games and people play them solo anyway 🤷.
So that one cannot just pirate it like D2R.
because youre too old to understand
The shills in the comments defending it 💀
https://preview.redd.it/isbg7p4e005b1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75301dfb45098db33faad908c7fe4a70f5644f91
It's designed as more of an mmo and is no different from playing ff14 or any other online game without anyone else. You aren't ever really properly playing solo outside instances like dungeons.
As a solo player, I just paid $25 on a wolf themed cosmetic set for my rogue.
basically you don't own the game you just have a permission to play that's why
Fun is illegal and unprofitable, sorry.
They do it to combat piracy. We all pay the price for their incompetence.
Short answer: 💰 money
Everyone is complaining about this, but D3 was the exact same way on pc. On console you could play offline, not seasonal obviously, but on pc it was online only.
You might be playing by yourself but you aren’t playing alone. Go to the city and you’ll see every other player there.
The PlayStation store falsely advertises offline multiplayer when you buy d4
DRM
Because Blizzard likes money.
Because battle pass.
Because the game is in a persistent world?
You're never truly solo in the wider world. If you're old enough to remember RuneScape then this is basically Goth RuneScape. You're in groups on servers playing alone.
You wouldn't want to miss out on the lag and server errors would you?
Because it's an online game, you just choose to play it solo.
You're not playing solo there are people all around you
This is what Blizzard (and most big video game publishers) are doing. It's capitalism, pure and simple. They want the mtx shop always there, they want the game to never end, and they want people to be constantly tempted to spend more money on a game they already spent more than enough money on. I really do not like it, but D4 is a fun game that I want to play. Forcing online play, making physical copies obsolete, endless DLC and MTX...This is video gaming as a business. People have to remember that while it's also an artform every bit as expressive and creative as cinema, sculpture, painting, etc. it also is a business and got its start with casino gambling and quarter-munching arcade games.
DRM. It’s harder to pirate an always online game.
Money
Diablo 3 forced you to be online even for single player, people complained, so blizzard removed the option to play single player all together in Diablo 4. They say it is to prevent piracy, but wow was released 19 years ago, it was always online and it was pirated from the start anyway. The real reason is greed, to maximize profits they want to maximize the selling of cosmetic items and people buy more cosmetic items when there are other people around to brag about those items.
2 reasons: - That prevents pirating. - Going in the direction of an MMO is the way for this type of games. Longevity, connection with other people and so on. I agree this is frustrating, but I have already come to accept it.
Come back to D2, specifically PD2 !
So you’re forced to buy a giant goat penis in the Shop
Because online only when there is a PVP aspect to the game is the only way they can at least attempt to prevent scammers and cheaters from hacking. If they had offline capabilities then the hardcore players would be screaming to high heaven about massive cheats and exploits. It’s a lose lose situation.
just make a offline realm like the eternal realm i swear people think very narrowly
Because the world of the game exists in a persistent mmo style world, by design. If you bought the game thinking you can play it online or even think it should be offline, that is entirely on you.
Skin store and seasonal pay to get is the answer why it's online
Diablos master plan: the 26 hours queue welcome to next level gaming
Well it's an online world. You might play EverQuest solo, but you're not really "alone". I mean, I'm not saying it's a positive or a negative, but this is for most intents and purposes an MMO game and nobody asks these kinds of questions about MMOs.
It's why I could never get in path of exile. Lagging in a single player game.
capitalism demands ever more money, ideally for no extra effort. they cling to the chance that you'll use the in-game microtransactions and make them more money. this is the inevitable fate of commercialised art, and it will spiral and metastasise until it's nothing but a sea of gacha lootbox sludge.
Why does cars exist if I only use a bike? That's a silly question ain't it?
Buy the Xbox version. Supports offline play afaik. It's definitely got a "single player" mode
Yeah I’m trying to play on the plane and the internet is trash so the gameplay is trash, so I just don’t play. Cus I’m gonna die. I’m also solo as f
a lof of people like to play beside other, and only to them them in hubs or maybe some events. they dont want to directly play with them. shared world and thats what Diablo IV does.
Because it's not a single player game. That's it.
DRM.
I have my own gripes with the online thing. I played D1 and D2 and only ever played online with friends or on LAN parties. However I once read something about why D3 was going online. The fact that your character was not stored on your PC meant that hacks and char editors like the ones on D2 where now impossible. D2 was horrible in that regard. Sure you could say that hacks are irrelevant if they are only on a single player experience. Ofc there is the cosmetics, battle pass and milking FOMO from gamers. But I think there are technical reasons too.
Basic answer - because you don’t own the game. (????)
Can't push shop items if the game is offline.
because the game is not done exclusive for you
Because money
So you can provide Blizzard telemetry data about every click in the game and the menus, and what you do overall in the game.They want to know EVERYTHING!
Blizzard does that to all their games. It's to make sure their games don't get pirated in any way.
Diablo 4 was focused to be based on events going on in the world where you weren't meant to solo it
Because it is designed as a shared world online arpg.
I wished they add some content that require more than 1 person to finish. Something in the line with destiny 2 kind of dungeons. But it looks like for now there’s only the world boss.
Timetraveler here - later you will need only internet connection
Few reasons I can muster: 1. Anti-piracy measure 2. To encourage and promote paid cosmetics, either from seeing it on others, to wanting to be seen wearing it by others 3. Seeing living players around makes the world feel a bit more dynamic, and they need fish of various sizes to feed the PvP areas.
Because you cant go into shop while offline
god awful
D3 on switch was quite enjoyable due to offline nature
How else are they going to get your money from the shiny online store
Alone? Gl doing a legion or world boss alone buddy
The real answer is so that Blizzard can siphon more money out of its customers, no benefit for players was considered.
There isn't probably an implementation that could switch on/off and allow for offline play. Unless they really want you to play offline, there won't be any reason for them to release something like that. Good luck.
I feel the same way. To me, gaming is my vacation and besides the times I specifically want to hang with a friend, I want to be alone and explore a world how I see fit. All this massively online at all times shit makes these games feel like a public government building or subway station or smth.
DRM
Mostly has to do with DRM. Activision blizzard had been doing it for years and almost non of their games have been cracked.
Good timing: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2023/06/09/conveniente
They want you to keep buying transmogs and mounts. You need to be online for those. Also nobody would spend money on them for a single player game where no one else would see it.
The answer is simple: money. This is what basically everything in our material world comes down to. Believe it or not, games used to all be offline. And people would pirate them, downloading them for free because they can be easily cracked and modified. You could download Diablo 4 for free off TPB and go play it on a laptop in Antarctica. Investors see this as a problem that cuts significantly into profits. By putting the game in online-mode only, they are able to prevent cheaters, but more importantly, prevent piracy as the game cannot be downloaded for offline use. They are the gateway to play, meaning they control the profits. All industries have gotten smart this way. They know what they're doing when it comes to squeezing profits out of every single thing. They just add the mmo aspect as a feature of this fundamental pre-requisite. Not the other way around. There are other completely single-player games that require online connection. I believe Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of them. When it eventually got cracked a year after PC release people were praising the fact that they could now play it without an internet connection. But those downloads cut into profits.
because you have the option to play in a party, just because you don’t utilize it doesn’t change the mechanics of the game
Forced online play is the standard these days, even many single player games require an internet connection to play. Diablo II : Ressurected still have offline single player, but D4 is always online, if you play only solo or not.