Online 24/7/365 #dealwithit

[arus2001]

They wouldn't be able to take their single player character online anyway though, which makes it silly imo. It wouldn't hurt, but I guess for D3 specifically I just don't care about single player enough for it to matter to me.

The benefits for travel should be pretty obvious. For those with shaky net, also a plus. The ability to import your bnet chars to SP also allows play for times when bnet is down (like weekly maint). Yes, we know the talking heads pretty much justify it to curb piracy or hacking, but part of what gave D2 so much life for me was the mod scene. I can't even fathom how much better D3 could be if you actually had people putting in good fixes ASAP on top of generating new content. Basically, not everyone who peeks under the hood wants to do so maliciously. It's been like 2-3 months since 1.07. Know the big feature of 1.08? A barely noticeable mob density increase in some areas of A1 and A2 with a dash of party EXP/MF bonuses. No desperately needed class revisions. Most of it's just fluff. Only reason I'm not angrier about this is there's no monthly fee involved. But make no mistake, Blizz is making bank off the RMAH.

[Qalbert]

when will people understand that just because you don't see the appeal doesn't mean that it should be denied/restricted, when there are plenty of people who do see the appeal. you're adam orthing pretty hard bro

[Kuishen]

I'm just wondering what people who are for always online think is going to happen 10-20 years down the line when companies decide it's not worth the money to keep the servers running for all those games that require authentication from a server. There's precedent for it already and the whole PSN purchases not carrying over to PS4 is foreshadowing this.

I mean yeah, when that time comes they could do a massive free update to make those games playable without authentication but the likelihood of that happening is not very high. On top of that (and this is kind of off topic), how would people end up even purchasing those games after that point? Taking XBLA as an example, I highly doubt that when they move to their next iteration of XBL that they are going to carry over the entire library of XBLA games to the new iteration, so the ones they don't carry over just cease to be available to people who don't already have them, except through third party means. (piracy, emulators etc.)

The only way to get around that is to legalize third party software/access to consoles and that is simply not going to happen.

[Kalmado]

I suspect that at least 1 out of those 3 votes for always online is a troll vote.

[arus2001]

I'm just wondering what people who are for always online think is going to happen 10-20 years down the line when companies decide it's not worth the money to keep the servers running for all those games that require authentication from a server. There's precedent for it already and the whole PSN purchases not carrying over to PS4 is foreshadowing this.

I mean yeah, when that time comes they could do a massive free update to make those games playable without authentication but the likelihood of that happening is not very high. On top of that (and this is kind of off topic), how would people end up even purchasing those games after that point? Taking XBLA as an example, I highly doubt that when they move to their next iteration of XBL that they are going to carry over the entire library of XBLA games to the new iteration, so the ones they don't carry over just cease to be available to people who don't already have them, except through third party means. (piracy, emulators etc.)

The only way to get around that is to legalize third party software/access to consoles and that is simply not going to happen.

Yeah, there's a big part of me that hates the thought of digital content just suddenly going poof because you missed a deadline. Conversely, they can pull the Nintendo VC approach and rerelease whatever later at bloated prices under the moniker of classic gaming. I guess one can only hope that once, say, the 720 is established and presumably stable, XBL of today goes freemium and supported only in the sense of being kept online. DLC will still probably be charged, but I wouldn't expect new dashboards or the like unless MS opened up to community development. PS3 is a bit more tricky since it's usually the specific game dev handling their own hosting. But who knows, maybe there's some convoluted deal there where the game dev agrees to ads when establishing connection or something to help cover costs, maybe eventually moved/maintained by Sony like the earlier XBL scenario.

[Lucavi]

I'm just wondering what people who are for always online think is going to happen 10-20 years down the line when companies decide it's not worth the money to keep the servers running for all those games that require authentication from a server. There's precedent for it already and the whole PSN purchases not carrying over to PS4 is foreshadowing this.

I mean yeah, when that time comes they could do a massive free update to make those games playable without authentication but the likelihood of that happening is not very high. On top of that (and this is kind of off topic), how would people end up even purchasing those games after that point? Taking XBLA as an example, I highly doubt that when they move to their next iteration of XBL that they are going to carry over the entire library of XBLA games to the new iteration, so the ones they don't carry over just cease to be available to people who don't already have them, except through third party means. (piracy, emulators etc.)

The only way to get around that is to legalize third party software/access to consoles and that is simply not going to happen.

The people that are clamoring for others to "deal with it" aren't thinking down the road; they're thinking right now, when games are fresh, to get their fix. They'll then move on to the next game to get their "right now" fix. I'd wager that you'd be hard-pressed to find any fans of always-online that actually make a habit of playing classic games from the past. Ask someone who loves to dip back into Super Metroid now and then if they relish the thought of not being able to play some current game 10 years from now because EA turned the servers off 5 years after the game launched.

Now ask someone who stops playing a game after the first year and forgets about it in order to chase the next big thing if they'll care if they can't play today's game 10 years from now, and of course they'll say no. EA and Microsoft are catering to the latter, not only because its easy to do so, as these people are essentially begging these companies to churn out new products as quickly as they can, but also because its cheaper, knowing that they won't have to waste money on keeping servers running for old games, and because they'll constantly have a flow of new sales for each new game because these people aren't sticking around with a game for more than a year anyway.

When these idiot gamers find just a single game that they wanted to play longer than EA or Microsoft was willing to keep the servers up for, you'll see a bit of this "whatever, dude" mindset change. Until then, though, us old-heads are up a creek with certain titles. Thankfully, there's always Super Metroid to go back to.

[Kalmado]

Since I only have a 4gb 360 I do not download games for it. When I (maybe) get a ps3 I'll download any game I must, but I'm a huge fan of having the physical copy of something. I'm the same with music. There are exceptions. Example would be Silent Hill 1, which I would buy. Used off of amazon it starts at $24. On psn it's $6 so I'd save the money. I just like having the option, especially when I'm spending money for an entertainment product. I shouldn't be forced.

[arus2001]

Yeah, I certainly prefer my physical copies for consoles, but my DS flash cart has spoiled me to having 60+ games on one cart. Hell of a lot easier than trying to lug around a carrying case and hoping you maybe didn't misplace one somewhere.

[GoggleHead]

I'm just wondering what people who are for always online think is going to happen 10-20 years down the line when companies decide it's not worth the money to keep the servers running for all those games that require authentication from a server. There's precedent for it already and the whole PSN purchases not carrying over to PS4 is foreshadowing this.

I mean yeah, when that time comes they could do a massive free update to make those games playable without authentication but the likelihood of that happening is not very high. On top of that (and this is kind of off topic), how would people end up even purchasing those games after that point? Taking XBLA as an example, I highly doubt that when they move to their next iteration of XBL that they are going to carry over the entire library of XBLA games to the new iteration, so the ones they don't carry over just cease to be available to people who don't already have them, except through third party means. (piracy, emulators etc.)

The only way to get around that is to legalize third party software/access to consoles and that is simply not going to happen.

This is probably my biggest problem with always online. It pretty much ensures that games cannot be preserved for the future, which is a huge problem in the industry already without designing platforms to specifically make the problem worse.