While I agree it’s not going to happen, I also don’t see the harm in continuing to request it and even feel this perpetual push of online-only across the gaming industry is bad for the consumer at large.
The first flawed defense has always been the security argument. We’re not in 1999 anymore. Any fearmongering that hacks and the like would ruin the online mode displays a fundamental lack of understanding of things like packet verifications, integrity checks, and encryption. “But consoles!” some may lament, to which I counter that state is a direct result of Blizzard not actually trying to do things properly, which can easily be traced back to cost cutting. Even if shifting topic to pirated copies, they’ll still be unable to access official servers without a verified account. The number of people who take this route has pretty much been grossly exaggerated throughout the entertainment industry since forever, regardless of media type. The usual fatal flaw here is the assumption that a pirated game would have been a purchased copy, where there is the simple reality that some use piracy as a means to see if a game is worth buying before they drop the cash to do so. Ergo, it could be argued it actually helps the industry.
The second major point is more a matter of consumer rights. What happens to everyone’s copy of D4, or D3 for that matter, if the servers go offline for good? The short answer is you don’t have a game to play anymore. Period. None of us know what the future will bring, so we have no guarantee the servers will be up forever or that Blizzard, or a company that consumes them, will feel it worth the upkeep. Some of us simply won’t accept the whole, “Too bad, so sad…” rationale when it is a problem that could easily be prevented by not mandating online play from the get-go. Make no mistake, the multiplayer option is good to have, but forcing it in an otherwise solo experience is bad. Some of us have also seen favored online games die to time and it’s not a history we wish to see repeated.
The third point is more of a practical benefit that’s often overlooked or even downplayed by the industry, and that’s modding. I’m not talking the malicious sort meant to cheat to win in the online sphere, either. I mean taking the base game and tweaking it to a desired end. There’s no getting around the fact that D3 is controversial, but let’s take a moment to imagine if players had the freedom to mold the game more to their liking in the private sphere? Everyone who wants something more like D2 could get their wish. People who hate bloated set values could revise itemization and other aspects entirely. Those wanting more new legendaries and sets to bolster forgotten skills could have their chance to make the game more engaging for them. Wholly collaborative efforts could be built around this simple premise and give the game life far beyond its original iteration, but the why in why we don’t see it happen is a mix of fear and pride. What happens to Blizzard’s rep if it turns out a bunch of random players make their game way better than they managed? It’s not the best look for professionals, but also risks calling to attention the severe disconnect between developers and those bankrolling a project when the latter want what brings them the most money over what translates to the best game for players.
In short, Keep. Asking. Even if Blizzard doesn’t yield, it’s a message to competition that there is still a demand.
I think what you’d want to set up is a system that takes a snapshot of your character at intervals equal to the time it takes the server to disconnect you.
So if 10 seconds of inactivity on your connection disconnects you, then the server takes a snapshot of your character every 10 seconds. Upon disconnect, it rolls back to the last 10 second window that you were connected for.
In addition to this every trade would need to be tracked, and if a trade occurred after the last snapshot time then that trade needs to be reversed to prevent duping.
It’d be a lot more resilient than a simple rollback system, though it’d probably be a question of server efficiency to be taking snapshots of potentially millions of characters every 10 seconds and logging every trade for at least 10 seconds rather than just logging the final disconnect state like D3 would do.
It cant just save your character. It has to save the whole instance. The enemies around you, the current attacks etc.
So if you fake a DC a second before dying, in the middle of 20 arcane lasers of doom, you get back into them when logging in the next day.
I can see the point of the snapshot, and it might be more technically viable than only saving after the DC. But yeah, it has to be unexploitable.
As for trades. If this only works in singleplayer then you couldnt trade.
In multiplayer, the game should simply pause, like in Starcraft 2. And a vote for the remaining players if they want to unpause (thus, no rollback ever in multiplayer).
Yeah something that might work better on second thought is that upon a disconnect happening the instance puts itself into a sort of save state until you reconnect.
The biggest thing would be the tuning of when that save state happens. If it were as small as 0.5-1 second after the server not getting any data packets from you, people with higher latencies could run into problems during normal gameplay.
Part of the reason why that 10 second period exists is so that the slightest interruption in connection doesn’t immediately DC you.
Of course, longer time spans creates a longer periods of being disconnected while the instance is still going and you might die so it’s something of a balancing act.
Plus if Blizzard even wants to spend the server resources and man hours to develop this sort of system. Which my guess is that we shouldn’t hold our breaths for this kind of thing =P
The closest you are going to get to what you are longing for is… Linux. I have an old Core2duo E-7500 PC. It runs the latest Linux Mint and Manjaro. It performs better under heavy load with Linux and 8GB of RAM than a Core i5-4670K or higher, or Ryzen system with 16GB RAM with Windows 10. I fully agree with you about Windows 10.
Even though you might prefer a resurrected Win XP, more then 80% of the Windows users preferred a clean, stable, Windows 7. It is the reason why 8/8.1 failed and half the reason why Windows 10 was given away at launch. The other half of the reason why Windows 10 was given away is because of Linux.
Remember kids, its spelled Windows 10 but its pronounced “Forfeit”.
Yeah I’m not getting what I want with Windows anymore.
To be honest I’d take Windows 7 if they weren’t dropping support for it. I’d wonder if the 80% thing is primarily only because Windows XP support was ended half a decade ago and most people have most on by now.
but there still was an immense amount of pushback to dropping support for XP, even when 7 was available.
Pretty much anything is better than Windows 8 or 10.
There was little reason for Microsoft to kill XP from a usability stand point. Windows 7 had a few niceties and I like the smoked glass look of Win 7. Win XP had so many high quality themes though. I still call Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 mega blocks because its a crappy, flat, blocky return of Win 3.11. All of the dumbing down of the OS just to get it to run on them crap-A55 tablets and phones. According to Microsoft, its ok to butcher performance cuz users are dumb and will just buy a new PC and it will come with “forfeit 10”.
Yes lets keep running XP with its completely rubbish security and have our systems constantly attacked… No more needs to be said.
Back on TOPIC However.
Lets STOP discussing OFFLINE MODE
Its NEVER HAPPENING
I do want to chime In and say that I’m an old fart constantly deployed and i really don’t mind if i can only launch a solo game not saved on Blizz servers as an offline mode alternative. I love the game but sucks with mini withdrawls when we can’t play in areas where internet is monitored or metered. I do feel like the majority is right for sure, it’s never gonna happen; but if I’m fighting to defend your right to free speech - I’m definitely gonna keep asking when I can.
If I want to whine about not having an offline mode then I will, don’t really need your permission or not do I care if you’re tired of seeing it. I for one am tired of blizzard butchering games, but that isn’t going to stop either.
Are you a bot or something? You’re always saying the same stuff over and over, and posting that clip of Blizzcon. I’m gonna need you to solve a captcha
Simply providing evidence OFFLINE MODE question has been OFFICIALLY answer. Apparently the OFFLINERS are choosing to ignore that key piece of information
Take a snapshot immediately after trade commits but before control is returned to user.
I agree that if you dc’ in a middle of a pool of arcane +molten, you should revive there. My biggest concern for this snapshot idea is how it handles Multiplayers.
Are you really ignoring the fact that we, the players, have been asking for off-line mode with D3 since vanilla launch. Hasn’t happened. However, we also asked for a SSF (no trade mode) and it didn’t happen either. What we did get is limited trade and bye-bye auction houses. The response to the auction house removal was overwhelmingly positive. So, now one of the big-wigs at Blizz says “We hear you.” So we are saying it loud and clear:
There was no hey give us feedback about OFFLINE/ONLINE. For trade there was but not this MODE. And given the OFFICIAL NO responce has already been given. I would say i am ahead in this pointless race as well as the other people who live in reality and see ONLINE ONLY is coming