[HN Gopher] Diablo 2, Diablo 4, and Single Player: An open lette... ___________________________________________________________________ Diablo 2, Diablo 4, and Single Player: An open letter to Blizzard Author : nixass Score : 37 points Date : 2022-09-13 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.purediablo.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.purediablo.com) | olliej wrote: | Seriously, I understand that minimal storyline is cheaper to | produce, and online only solves "piracy" and allows monetization | of basic gameplay through gambling, etc, but I am so sick of it. | D3 was wretched as the drops were always useless, and everything | was geared towards online play outside the storyline if you ever | wanted to have "good" equipment. This was offset by having an | absurdly out of balance normal character, especially by the | latter half of the story game. | | I hate online play - if I wanted be to treated to a bunch of | varyingly spelled curse words I'd just go create a twitter | account where I pretended to be a woman in tech. It would be | cheaper and just as unpleasant. | | [edit: or SC2, which I used to do PVP until the adoption of a | free to play PVP model resulting in a dramatic increase in the | amount of abuse and shitty behaviour of other people. Presumably | because getting your account banned simply means creating another | one. Honestly I wish they had a "play vs people who paid only" | mode.] | Jyaif wrote: | They aren't making online mode by pleasure: it's much harder to | make than offline single player. Piracy (no need to put it in | quotes) is 100% to blame. | hypertele-Xii wrote: | > Piracy (no need to put it in quotes) is 100% to blame. | | I think you mean corporate greed. It's true that pirates | fight against corporate greed, but let's not pretend these | companies are short on money to make good games. | olliej wrote: | So it's just happenstance than online gambling mode happens | to have a huge profit margin? | Groxx wrote: | Yeah, "online only" equals "hard no" for me for that and "can I | play this in 3 years" reasons. Online-only is just a shorter | way to say "unavailable soon". | BashiBazouk wrote: | It may also be that many players mostly play "single player" but | on the multiplayer closed servers. That is how I played back in | the day. Occasionally with friends or randoms but also quite a | bit alone. After the hack fest that Diablo 1 became, closed | servers seemed like a good idea... | nitrixion wrote: | This is what I see for a vast majority of Diablo3 players. We | are all forced to play online, but nearly everyone plays alone | most of the time from what I've seen. | madrox wrote: | I'm surprised and somewhat doubtful the process for online vs | offline is materially different. I wonder if some of the | reluctance/delay on single player is to keep the data miners at | bay. The moment loot and drop rates go into a local data pack, | that information will go out to all the min-maxers who will bring | that info back into ladder play. | | While single player is a big part of Diablo, the difference | between Diablo and the RPGs the author compares it to is that | those other RPGs _don 't_ have a thriving multiplayer scene (From | games being the exception, but doesn't materially change the | point). You can't treat them the same. | caiomassan wrote: | Path of Exile is free and a far superior game. don't give money | to Blizzard, please. | camdenlock wrote: | The company behind PoE is owned by a CCP-controlled company, | Tencent. Go play Torchlight or something. :) | caiomassan wrote: | Tencent is present in almost every game dev company, | including blizzard. they own almost half of epic too, so half | of unreal engine is owned by them too. you will be playin a | very narrow selection of games if u go down that road. | danaris wrote: | ...You mean "nearly every indie game"? | | There _are_ games outside the giant AAA studios. | vsareto wrote: | PoE is mostly theorycrafting, which turns into "can I 1-shot | this mob before it 1-shots me" | bcrosby95 wrote: | I'm not a fan of the skill forest. I actually really liked | Diablo 3's design. | gabereiser wrote: | I don't mind multiplayer for Diablo. My first experience with | Diablo was at a cybercafe in Virginia in 1996. Multiplayer was | only LAN. No TCP/IP. | | I've played every Diablo game since, including the latest Diablo | Immortal. Multiplayer is fine when it's optional. What I hate is | forced parties. Dungeons where I _have_ to have 2+ more players | to even participate despite my 9,000 combat rating. | | Forced multiplayer is bad. Developers shouldn't assume every | player has 7 friends who also play. "Always Online" is also bad. | What if I want to play during a flight or traveling where I have | a few days down time? What if I want to play when I don't have | access to the internet? Sucks to be you... | | The vast majority of my experience playing D2 was solo, single | player. The vast majority of my experience with D3 was solo, | single-player. Even in DI, I run around ignoring party requests | and playing how I want to play but there's tons of content I | can't enjoy because I don't have a party of 8 and refuse to party | up with random 14 year old kids. | | I like how some MMO's just threw you into a raid group if you | were in the area. GW2 (requires a little bit of effort) and old | Warhammer Online had this. When done right it was great. Run to | area event, get roped into the raid group, beat the big bad boss | creature, get rewards, leave raid group. | spywaregorilla wrote: | I feel it makes raid groups pointless. If they're not organized | then they're mostly just background noise. | braingenious wrote: | I just want a sequel to Nox :( | jadbox wrote: | Nox was fantastic, as a Diablo with a bit more tactical play. I | also really liked the original Icewind Dale 1 for the same | reason. | blibble wrote: | /dev/null will pay more attention to your feedback than Blizzard | p1necone wrote: | I feel like Diablo is the wrong game to be asking this about, and | OP is making some assumptions that don't really ring true to me. | I'd be kinda surprised if multiplayer _wasn 't_ what the vast | majority of the Diablo 2 playerbase was interested in - it's | basically an mmo-lite. | | It would be nice if Diablo 4 supported offline play but I | wouldn't hold my breath. | ribosometronome wrote: | Diablo 2's got a semi-vibrant modding community that has done a | fair amount with the game that would not have been possible | without single-player/open multiplayer. I agree with you that | the vast majority of players probably will only want closed, | online multiplayer but it's hard to imagine it having the same | legs as D2 without. | jonwinstanley wrote: | Yeah. I'm hoping GTA 6 has a huge 1 player story | olliej wrote: | I only get that from D3, which I''ll note wasn't mentioned - D3 | to me personally was hugely disappointing as to me it had a | marginal storyline and all real character skill progression or | good equipment was tied to online BS. | bee_rider wrote: | I'm not sure how they could act on the request to have a | better storyline, other than just hire better writers. | Blizzard always had... serviceable but not great plotlines | (and well-loved characters, but IMO more as a result of | character design and that kind of stuff, rather than plot). | olliej wrote: | I guess "better storyline" is the wrong request "more story | in the main game" | chowells wrote: | Blizzard's public figures said that the average number of | players in an online Diablo 2 game was... 1.1. | | Are you kinda surprised? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-13 23:00 UTC)