Blizzard think that Diablo 2 should have been online-only - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE={TFS} Rock Su;42883584]And i was just thinking about buying the D3 once i get some cash for it. :([/QUOTE] It's a good game as long as you have a reliable internet connection. It's been patched a ton and loot 2.0 will make the gear grind far less painful.

The ONLY time I played Diablo 2 online was when my friends wanted to play it together, I would always make a SP character in both Diablo 1 and 2. And no amount of patching can fix the lack of atmosphere or the storytelling in D3 anyway, which is what I like the series for (and no I'm not saying it has a great story but god damn at least the first games plots were told in a way that held my interest)

I wouldn't have been able to play Diablo 2 if it was Online Only. [QUOTE=Bloodshot12;42884006](and no I'm not saying it has a great story but god damn at least the first games plots were told in a way that held my interest)[/QUOTE] Diablo literally was made by the Art Style, it was unique and awesomely gory. But.. The Art Style never left, it just went to Path of the Exiles.

Wow, Blizzard will try to say anything to justify a poor decision wont they?

"Guys if we hated money as much as we do now when we made Diablo II, we would of just send your money back through the mail." [editline]16th November 2013[/editline] Nobody would like it if someone using the phone meant you couldn't play Diablo.

If Diablo III was the first diablo game, they wouldn't have sold 10% of what they did.

Blizzard is a reference to the rampant drug use that goes on at the office when they think of this shit.

Most people I know that played Diablo 2 back in the days didnt even have internet at that time!

13 years ago the general PC gaming population had standards; this shit would have collected dust on store shelves for 3 months then disappeared forever. You'd only hear about it in some random thread called [I]"Obscure games from your childhood"[/I]. Blizzard is full of shit and they [I]know[/I] they're full of shit, which makes it all the worse because they're trying to willing sucker people with greedy and backwards garbage.

So this idiot doesnt remember closed and open bnet? That was the very point of the system and it was brilliant.

I bet at some point they manage to get their other foot in their mouths with something like "The Lost Vikings should have required an X-Band Modem". Or some other stupid comment about how they should have been online only from the get go when it would have been highly inconvenient to the consumer.

[QUOTE=Axznma;42891271]13 years ago the general PC gaming population had standards[/QUOTE] This is actually an interesting topic, I'd love to see a good discussion about whether the standards of PC gaming have changed.

I think that Blizzard should have go fuck itself.

[QUOTE=proch;42891787]This is actually an interesting topic, I'd love to see a good discussion about whether the standards of PC gaming have changed.[/QUOTE] Nah people bought loads of shitty games back then.

[QUOTE=proch;42891787]This is actually an interesting topic, I'd love to see a good discussion about whether the standards of PC gaming have changed.[/QUOTE] There will never be any definite numbers to gauge this and it was never to say people had [I]good[/I] standards back then. However, I do believe that the average PC gamer back then was older than they would be today and thus were grown from an older culture that ingrains better market strategy. The simplest way to explain this is DLC and patching. The rise of post-launch and on-the-disc DLC has been a clear slack of standards by the gaming community to be sure. In every other market, even today, you buy the product and expect the full functionality from that purchase. If it fails then you refund it. No one would ever buy a vehicle at full price that lacked backseats, to be bought a week later for an additional price. Neither would anyone buy a car that had the stereo "locked" until they paid additional money to unlock it. No, they paid the full price for a complete vehicle and they expect that. It doesn't matter the market or the comparison; people don't buy incomplete shit (it's a poor financial decision in anycase), except for video gamers. They will still buy the game and support the process of DLC that should have been in the game at launch. There's no other reason for this than a lack of standards and being frivolous with money. At best they will think not buying the DLC will [I]"protest with their wallet"[/I] but that is sadly misguided. Giving them money of any kind has already defeated the protest. As for patching, that's probably worse than the DLC at this point. We've gone from expecting a complete and polished game to expecting games to be buggy and broken. [I]"They'll patch it"[/I] is the awful mentality held today (the X: Rebirth thread fills me with sadness right now). Developers are only too happy to shovel out unfinished messes because they know the population will just accept it as the norm. This would never fly in any other market, and it doesn't for a reason. It's an extremely bad practice. I won't even go into another car analogy about [I]willingly buying broken shit[/I], this should speak for itself. People think it's about quality of the gameplay and contents that decide the standards of old but it's not so simply black and white. When I say PC gamers had higher standards back in ye olden days people immediately think I'm saying [I]"Games were better back then"[/I] when I'm not. I'm saying the [I]practices[/I] and [I]expectations[/I] involving the medium were better. Anyways those are my opinions on the fall of (PC) gaming standards. I've debated this to death over the years and have become pretty tired of treading old revolving ground, so forgive me for being brief on it all.

Something that makes more even more ridiculous of a statement is that no one (or a very small amount of people) who worked at Blizzard at the time Diablo II came out works at Blizzard today. Blizzard North straight up doesn't exist anymore. David Brevik and Max/Erich Schafer don't work with Blizzard anymore. Bill Roper is gone too and have talked extensively about his dissatisfaction with Diablo III. It's insane to think that these statements are coming from the same people who made Diablo II.

That would be like taking a huge dumb on my childhood. I am so glad that I never gave a fuck about the game.

[QUOTE=Kljunas;42875560]But why? Why is that a problem if people play online with cheated characters? It's not like it's a competitive game. In Torchlight II you can play offline, use the console, hack your save file and still play online and I see nothing wrong with that.[/QUOTE] You could in Diablo II anyway, there was a mode called open-battle net where you could use your offline characters. People had hacked characters but I never got into PVP so it was the better choice for me and my friends anyway.

[QUOTE=Axznma;42897260]There will never be any definite numbers to gauge this and it was never to say people had [I]good[/I] standards back then. However, I do believe that the average PC gamer back then was older than they would be today and thus were grown from an older culture that ingrains better market strategy. The simplest way to explain this is DLC and patching.[/QUOTE] What is a "better" market strategy? Games were marketed a lot different than today, they were sold in a traditional way like normal products and marketed in an old-fashioned way. The gaming industry wasn't really that huge back in the day and it wasn't as monaterized like now, which is fairly normal. DLC and patches are just new ways to deliver more content, even though like you say. There are some really insolent practices on the market. Also if the dlc wouldn't be successful, there wouldn't be any. People actually want dlc and new content, if the concept was bad, it would already have died. I agree that dlc isn't always amazing, but there are some good dlcs and expansions out there. Also dlcs allow developpers to release content more often over a period of time, increase a constant cashflow instead of one single game and a big expansion pack. [QUOTE=Axznma;42897260]The rise of post-launch and on-the-disc DLC has been a clear slack of standards by the gaming community to be sure. In every other market, even today, you buy the product and expect the full functionality from that purchase. If it fails then you refund it. No one would ever buy a vehicle at full price that lacked backseats, to be bought a week later for an additional price. Neither would anyone buy a car that had the stereo "locked" until they paid additional money to unlock it. No, they paid the full price for a complete vehicle and they expect that. It doesn't matter the market or the comparison; people don't buy incomplete shit (it's a poor financial decision in anycase), except for video gamers. They will still buy the game and support the process of DLC that should have been in the game at launch. There's no other reason for this than a lack of standards and being frivolous with money. At best they will think not buying the DLC will [I]"protest with their wallet"[/I] but that is sadly misguided. Giving them money of any kind has already defeated the protest.[/QUOTE] Like I said, Marketing has changed a lot. People used to buy "good" things that lasted a very long while. Like washing machines, watches, phones, furniture or tvs. Nowadays consumers just consume it and it's pretty much a standard to just buy the new product after a short while because the older product isn't worth repairing or upgrading. Especially with TVs, nobody really bothers with old tvs anymore. Consumers rather a buy a new one. Just look at the Apple products. People always buy "incomplete" shit at some point although it isn't really always obvious. [QUOTE=Axznma;42897260]As for patching, that's probably worse than the DLC at this point. We've gone from expecting a complete and polished game to expecting games to be buggy and broken. [I]"They'll patch it"[/I] is the awful mentality held today (the X: Rebirth thread fills me with sadness right now). Developers are only too happy to shovel out unfinished messes because they know the population will just accept it as the norm. This would never fly in any other market, and it doesn't for a reason. It's an extremely bad practice. I won't even go into another car analogy about [I]willingly buying broken shit[/I], this should speak for itself.[/QUOTE] I agree that patching has become a much more important aspect of game developement, but only because getting out patches in games back in the day was expensive and hard to distribute. Patches are a good thing, but I agree with you. Patches shouldn't be applied after release fixing major aspects of a game like Rome 2 or BF4. There are tons of good examples though that show that patches add new content and further polishes the game, people tend to see the negative aspect first. I have tons of games that got great patches adding new stuff and fixing issues. It's just that a few AAA distributors fucked up royally on release. [QUOTE=Axznma;42897260]Anyways those are my opinions on the fall of (PC) gaming standards. I've debated this to death over the years and have become pretty tired of treading old revolving ground, so forgive me for being brief on it all.[/QUOTE] You're cool.