Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 211 posts

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#111

Post by anthonypasq »

salamandersauce wrote: post #99
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #94

I know folks on this site don't like it, but in the wider gaming community, there is essentially no demand among legitimate buyers for an always offline gaming option. We have access to the internet almost no matter where we are, or can easily get it. Why should we care if a game needs to check in periodically? What harm is it likely to do to any given legitimate buyer? It's almost certainly worth it to Blizzard to l…

What happens when Activision decides its no longer worth keeping the server up? Or some other problem occurs keeping it from checking in, e.g. death of Nintendo Switch Online. I can still play Gameboy games I bought 20+ years ago with no problems besides maybe replacing the save battery and the occasional contact clean. Will I be able to do the same with Switch games I bought? For some titles that already seems to be…

well the Diablo 2 servers have been online continuously for over 20 years already, so I'm not exactly sure this is a valid concern for the vast majority of people.

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#112

Post by tyre »

fifticon wrote: post #63
shitloadofbooks wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just got bought by Microsoft for almost 70 Billion dollars.

Their IP and player base just got bought for 70b. They will make new 'blizzard' games, the way Disney makes StarWars movies. But I actually welcome it. Kotick has run blizzard into the ground, on the formula 'maximize profits instead of player satisfaction', which is the opposite of the formula that made the blizzard name. At least MS will, presumably, milk the IP long-term-responsibly.

Disney’s Star Wars series have been excellent. They bungled the sequel trilogy for sure, but I’m not convinced that they are worse for Star Wars.

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#113

Post by teddyh »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #24
3pt14159 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It benefits the user AND the developer Notably it benefits good faith developers. I.e., the developers we actually want making games. The developers that lose under this model are the ones that make poor quality games. Though I admit it does not solve every dark pattern.

Kinda, but it also incentivizes bad-faith gamers, which in turn disincentivises good-faith developers. There are a lot of games out there with a Perhaps such a system could work if it were based on a percentage of time-to-complete, but I have no idea how one would objectively determine that, especially before sale.

> a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them.

Is that really a big problem? Do you have actual numbers to that, and not just a hunch? I would actually guess that most people who can actually afford a game would pay for it. In my experience, most people who cheat in this way would not have bought the game anyway, so it’s not a lost sale.

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#114

Post by tehbeard »

teddyh wrote: post #113
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda, but it also incentivizes bad-faith gamers, which in turn disincentivises good-faith developers. There are a lot of games out there with a Perhaps such a system could work if it were based on a percentage of time-to-complete, but I have no idea how one would objectively determine that, especially before sale.

> a 2hr no-questions-asked policy is unfortunately often abused to return the games after completing them. Is that really a big problem? Do you have actual numbers to that, and not just a hunch? I would actually guess that most people who can actually afford a game would pay for it. In my experience, most people who cheat in this way would not have bought the game anyway, so it’s not a lost sale.

I don't have numbers or links to hand, but i've seen this issue brought up by a number of indie devs.

> so it’s not a lost sale

Refunds probably count negatively to your rep. with a store.

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#115

Post by jonny_eh »

shitloadofbooks wrote: post #58
girvo wrote: post #10

Blizzard is long dead. Such a shame. I’ll never pay for another of their games until… actually I’m not sure when, or what they could do to bring me back. They’ve poisoned their brand so completely, and their latest releases have been either somewhat mediocre or mismanaged into the ground over time.

They just got bought by Microsoft for almost 70 Billion dollars.

Apparently the execs at Microsoft don't read Hacker News.

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#116

Post by exdsq »

robrtsql wrote: post #97
daneel_w wrote: post #90

What is the actual effect? Are your characters deleted? Is your legally purchased copy (license) of the game forfeited?

I assume it's sensationalized, and that the truth is that "You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline (until you go online again to re-affirm your ownership of the game)". I still very much do not like this, given that someday the server which affirms your ownership of the game will be taken offline.

Doesn’t the Xbox require this for all games?

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#118

Post by mschuster91 »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #96
mschuster91 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with multi-player is that there is an immense amount of cheaters and trolls. It already was a problem fifteen years ago, nowadays game providers don't have another (realistic) choice. Cheating morons ruined the fun for everyone else.

This is patently false since plenty of games (including (modded, "classic") Diablo 2) still have real online multiplayer, with multiple anti-cheater/troll solutions : passwords, (unofficial) game admins, (potentially official DRM-backed) player whitelists & blacklists (potentially shared across hosts), not advertising your game-hosting IP on popular matchmaker servers... Please don't buy the "invasive DRM is good for…

For what it's worth I agree with you that there should be a legal mandate for game companies to make their online servers available for public download once the official servers get shut down.

For the time in-between though... self-hosted servers are a niche market, and that is why companies don't care any more. Not enough players care to justify the expense, and ever since Hot Coffee and school shooters game companies have gotten pretty paranoid about moderation and fighting modders or bad press from raging cheaters. Again, there is no hope for the industry to fix that on their own, this is something that must be done by law.

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#119

Post by everyone »

Fnoord wrote: post #80
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on what the purpose of the refunds are. For example, many online clothing retailers will encourage you to buy more clothing than you need so you can try it on at home, and return whatever you don't like. A lot of people definitely treat Steam's refund system this way, and Steam's automated refund process seems built to encourage it. You could also make a strong case that this is better for everyo…

When Rocket League, a game I never played, ditched support for macOS I asked for a refund. I described how I disliked that they removed support for macOS. I wouldn't play Rocket League on my MBP, mind you, but I do have Steam installed on it. I got a refund, no questions asked (though I did buy it on sale, judging by the amount I got refunded). Steam doesn't need DRM to figure out how long a game is being played, btw…

"Steam tracks that without DRM"

Steam is DRM

Re: You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline

#120

Post by kevingadd »

exdsq wrote: post #116
robrtsql wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it's sensationalized, and that the truth is that "You cannot play Diablo 2 resurrected after 30 days of being offline (until you go online again to re-affirm your ownership of the game)". I still very much do not like this, given that someday the server which affirms your ownership of the game will be taken offline.

Doesn’t the Xbox require this for all games?

No. https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/hardware-network/connect...
Post reply on HN