The community suggested long time ago D3 to become modding capable. While this can’t be done when the game is online only, things like the PoE’s private leagues could be implemented so that players could tune fundamental D3 mechanics to their liking aka a lite version of modding.
But in case such thing won’t ever be done, isn’t it better to release the game for offline use and have all the negative stuff associated with D2 happen again while giving the freedom to the modders to bring D3 to the proper level? I would say “yes”!
Well, Diablo 2 benefitted from the modding community because gaming wasn’t as evolved back then as it is now. Anyone and their grandmother can create their own game now.
And with so many games out there, Diablo as a whole is not the powerhouse it once might’ve been. So modding isn’t necessary at this stage.
Just give us the offline mode and call it a day. It’s been almost 8 years, time for the next kid on the block.
When you remember what being selfishly entitled did to this game, that’s where you refuse to be one. No amount of tapping your foot down will make Acti-Blizz open the money fountains to this old game, nor make them agree on losing potential interest.
Forget about an offline mode as it ain’t gonna happen soon. Which ever video game studio or company allowed it, got their game pirated and now swallowed by a bigger fish. In case you want modding however that issue can be resolved by other means.
I think I’ll stay sceptic, as I can not tell if that’s irony or not. If that’d be really easy anyone were to design and develop their own games. Also would have mad profits instead of complaining here, because why would everyone do that else?
It require many branches to master and people finish high education degrees to get a job at a studio, as a result hiring such highly qualified team members come costly.
There is a very important point here, and its highly debatable. We simply do not know if a pirated copy of a video game automatically means a lost sale. That has never been proven to the best of my knowledge, and likely never will.
Theres a lot to unpack here. Far more than I have time to cover. But having your games online only is really about control, especially when there’s a launcher with a suite of your games. You may only want to play D3, but you’re going to be constantly reminded of WoW, HS, OW and whatever else they’ve got going on.Bttle net tags, notifications that your friends are all playing that game you didnt buy yet, all play into the control of online only.
To me its not really about protecting the ip. Its about control. Blizzard said they had to shut down Nostalrius because they had to “protect their ip”. And yet the makers of Everquest have given a private server their blessing. I believe the same situation exists for Runescape? So how is WoWs ip threatened, and not Everquests? Whats the difference? Control. Blizzard wants you in their eco system.
Diablo 3 was never a powerhouse. Took them a looooooooooong time to get it to a decent playable state, long after RoS.
I highly doubt it would’ve sold that many copies if it didn’t have “Diablo” in its name.
And D2 was mod-friendly from the start. That is not the case here. Modding support should’ve been implemented around RoS release for it to have an impact and bring in more players. But it’s been way too long, 7.5 years after release, not many players are gonna care when there’s so many newer titles out there.
True. It never reached half the success of D2. Still the numbers of copies sold and hours played at D3’s release was mind blowing. 1/100th of these today would make for full servers.
There aren’t much aRPG titles. D3 with modding will easily surpass PoE and PoE is king nowadays.
Those are older games and each company chooses how they want to protect their IP. Blizz has chosen online only as the means to protect their IPs. What that does is that they don’t have to chase down emulation servers or any other pirated copies of games. IPs can be lost if they are not protected. Through dilution people might actually believe that the ones that made the pirated copies of the game along with hosting the servers are the ones that developed the game. They may not know that Blizz is the original developer. Then in time if Blizz does nothing about it they might lose their IPs.
Modding won’t make this game a powerhouse. It will more than likely have adverse affects to the online portion. I am sure that players will figure out ways of getting trainer programs to work on the online version. More so if Blizz does a poor job of separating the offline mode from the online version. You would probably need an entirely different code to truly have offline mode. That would cost a ton of money and if Blizz isn’t gonna get a ton back. Or will have to spend more protecting their IP they won’t do it.
I do not know how accurate this is but someone mentioned on reddit that some console players have hacks that allow stacked gems in a socket or multiple sockets? - and they have altered the code apparently.
TA - I see the logic, but there is also the consideration that the game that is in offline mode could not realistically be allowed to go online except on a hosted server that has nothing to do with Blizzard. Guarantee it, the game once in offline mode will have cheats nobody could imagine if there is an ounce of truth in what the consoles are doing is true.
Honestly modding could work even in online only current game, just put a cap on how high you can modify any affix, so you could not make a weapon with 100000% increased damage on it, but for example just 50% instead of normal max 10%.
To avoid “cheating” your way to the top of leaderboards, everytime you modded any affix on your item it would instantly get a “modded” label (above the account bound and below Required Level on your item).
This would mean that even if you soloed GR 150 you would not be shown or even be allowed on the leaderboards, cause you used modded items…
If you changed your item back to default affixes the modded label would be gone and you could reach leaderboards.
Here’s an example of an idea I had what modding could look like in D3 RoS I made when RoS was released years ago:
As you can see I had hopes for jewels and charms, but done in a different way than in D2 LoD. Charms wouldn’t even had to be in our stash or inventory to work…
This was done waaay before all the “changes” to set items…
Modding wouldn’t truly make D3 a powerhouse because it would never change the D3 that Blizz made for everyone on Blizz’s online servers. Also for that modded version to be a powerhouse it would have to have a lot of support by the community or communities that support it.
Assuming that Blizzard would be willing to hand the keys over to the players, and allow for modding or offline mode, this probably would not happen until well after D4 was released.
It would not be in their interest to give players an easy out, instead of buying D4. If D3 were open to mods, then some amount of players would just play the mods and ignore D4, especially after D4 is released and the community reverse-engineers the popular elements into D3.
As much as I’d like an offline mode and mods, allowing for better inventory control, camera controls, skill-to-key assignments, etc. I’m not going to hold my breath.
I’ll be happy if each season offers some reason to come back to the game. If not, well, there are plenty of other options.
Then one benefit that I can see, it might keep Diablo in the minds of players. Keep them talking about Diablo, thinking about Diablo, playing Diablo. Otherwise, if they close down D3 and there is a gap until D4 comes out, they may lose a portion of the playerbase that just won’t come back.
Everquest is only 5 years older than WoW (and I don’t think age has much to do with it anyway). Everquest is online only too, just like WoW. Everything you said is applicable to Everquest, yet they didn’t feel the need to “protect the IP”. So I don’t really accept this excuse.
They did tell the people who run EQ’s unofficial server that they must not make money from it. That was the only caveat.
Each company decides how they wan to protect their IP. If they choose to abandon all restraint by not protecting it at all then that is their choice. Might not be a wise one, because depending on whether it is trademark or copyright they can lose that IP. If you don’t defend your trademarks you will lose them that much I am 100% certain on due to learning it during a lawsuit many years ago between Marvel and Cryptic Studios/NCsoft when they were both together and made City of Heroes. Failing to protect trademarks means that the government sees it as you have abandoned the trademark. So you lose the trademark protection because you failed to protect it.
How would you feel if you were a famous singer and had a lot of number one hits. Then someone pirates your music and calls it his own. Would you do nothing about it or fight to keep what is rightfully yours? If you take the second option then you are protecting your songs which is your IP.
This is exactly what I think that a lot of players just do not grasp. You would have to understand it from the company’s way they view their IP.
Once again to repeat for emphasis, each company will choose how to protect their IPs or decide not to do it at all. The choice is theirs at the end of the day. Online only without the ability to mod or any offline version is Blizz’s way of protecting their game. Making things even harder they have decided to only allow our computers to hold only a very small portion of the game. That is why any pirate server only allows a player to walk through an empty world devoid of skills, gear, monsters, etc…
I have to agree with those that feel the same way I do. There is a highly unlikely chance that D3 on PC would be converted or setup to run offline at this point. I just don’t see it happening.
And instead of making D4 have an option of the same, I would like to see instead of offline, have an option to create custom in-game rules.
In other words, a modular game that players can customize and create interesting play mechanics, tweak monsters, health, etc.
Could literally have your own “version” of D4, have people participate in it, but characters would be tied to that version as well. Almost like a custom realm option
The problem with that though is resources. That could be tempered somewhat if some custom realms were simply setup with different options that people could join if they wished, or have a custom realm for each Season/Ladder event in D4.
Something like that could be different and unique and would go a long way to encouraging online play rather than hating it. Just a thought. totally random idea though.
Because it’s the doorway to more cheating.
Play offline hack the characters then upload to play on the online servers, just like people did with D2
Even bigger question is why go out and buy an online only game then complain of no offline mode
What the hell are you smoking? You could not play Close bnet in D2 LoD with modded gear. Only LAN Open Bnet… Close Bnet ladders was pretty much the same what seasons in D3 RoS are…
If you tried playing with mods you got instant BAN…
You could however bot or use maphacks just like NOW in D3 RoS…
Having on offline mode would not affect ANYONES gameplay AT ALL. Even if someone could solo GR 150 in less than 3 minutes with modded gear and hit 10k paragon in a day or 2…
Offline mode would be a completely SEPERATE mode from the online version of the game…
The only one who would be affected by any changes in offline mode would be ONLY you. There would be NO multiplayer, so NO leaderboards as well.
