I’m finding this absolutely hysterical at this point. Granted I found it funny back in 2001 when the thought of Waiting Ques for a game purchased in full (Not subscriptions) was considered out-land-ish. But, we see it every time anymore with games that it really shouldn’t be seen. And the Publishers are completely inept at understanding how they piss off game users 5 years later when they plan to discontinue their product.
Our games that we pay for are still locked because publishers (one of the monkeys) decided to host the server and require clients to log in. This opened a whole new wave of exploits, hacking, banning, maintenance, patching, fixing, modifying. Hell, I can see why the cost of a game has increased, you have to simply to pay for everything that is honestly and truly unnecessary.
Local based hosts = no need for such a high overhead. And it’s really funny, PC games were initially designed for the local user because interwebs wasn’t effective back in the 90s. Players had more freedom to enjoy their games the techno nerds learned a great deal of game modifying skills. Now we are at the mercy of wait ques and dependency on a company that subjectively regulates their platform.
I’m glad I haven’t invested any more money into blizzard. Players want freedoms to their game. Not limitations. Offline game mode was a step back to normal, but still. These companies have made us targets to hackers and exploiters, scammers and bots. elements that ruin a game, instead of continuing the path that separated us from the BBS. Local game play, not dependent on a server. Derp… that is a no brainer…
Never mind, Boomer problems. Just keep on going with your high overhead and your quickly out dating games. GG Indie games may live for ever.