Diablo 3 Combat Will Be Lag-Free; PayPal Supported

[f-14]

lag free only because it's beta and a few hundred people are playing it, not forty thousand in america or two hundred thousand all over the globe aren't playing it.

 

[dasper]

Seems weird that in the comments I am the minority that thinks these are a good thing for the game. I liked how D2 had closed battle.net for controlled legit characters but hated having to have different toons for that and a LAN or single player. The fact that they are taking measures to allow me to play the same toon in single player and still have it certified for "closed battle.net" is wonderful.

Of course I am not ignorant that this is also piracy control but as long as the service and features are good enough to make it worth my while, it does not phase me because I do buy my games... and am lucky enough to have Internet through Comcast, Clear, and Sprint... or stupid enough to pay for a contract for Clear and still grab an Evo 4g the day it came out.

Also the auction house idea seems great. I have two friends that every time they started a new toon they would immediately grab Godly Plate of the Whale or Ring of Jordan so now if they want to buy their gear they can but the price will be in comparison to supply and demand that blizzard can assuage. heh, that is giving me a grin just thinking about it. For once I can buy items without getting off my moral high horse and (hopefully/perhaps) they guys that buy insanely stated gear will pay a much larger premium.

 

[Jprobes]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Not only do I believe you are right that Blizzard will not combat them, I believe if the items sold by the botters sell for enough where Blizz is making money on the sale, they will encourage such botters and farmers.There is also the issue that Blizzard has already said if too many of an item appears on the AH, they will then nerf those items. I know they did this previously, but single player players didn't have to download the patches which nerfed items. For D3 they have no choice.And I also agree with Hellwig that this seems like a fix designed only for the single player campaigns as it just wouldn't work well with multiplayer for the reasons he/she stated. Of course as they said, Blizz themselves created this problem and put all this work on themselves.[/citation]

Here is the obligatory Wildkitten anti Blizzard/Activision post, claiming fallacies that have been debunked over numerous threads.

Blizzard has stated in the past that they will nerf items that they feel are overpowered for their respective ilvl class, not for AH reasons, precicly the the same policy they have in place whne

 

[maxinexus]

Stay tuned ...wait ...soon wait no ...stay tuned september wait no that was a joke ...october nop
november no way december maybe so stay tuned...seriously?!

 

[Jprobes]

[citation][nom]Jprobes[/nom]Blizzard has stated in the past that they will nerf items that they feel are overpowered for their respective ilvl class, not for AH reasons, precicly the the same policy they have in place whne[/citation]

Clarifying my original statement:

Blizzard has stated in the past that they will nerf items that they feel are overpowered for their respective ilvl class, not for AH reasons, precisely the the same policy they have in place when they release new content in WoW.

Certain items get adjusted after being in the game and are used by people. Take Thunderfury for example. The proc on that weapon was nerfed several times because it was overpowered, especially after being considered old content.

In doing so blizzard has stated, as you have misconstrued, that if an item they feel is overpowered and was never intended to be, they will nerf it. But they will not nerf items based on the availability in the auction house.

Now, with the addition of Inferno mode (true endgame), mid level item farming for AH items will not be as prevalent as people perceive. The notion that blizzard will regulate item drops based on AH availability is nothing more then low grade conspiracy theories and hogwash.

I raid at a pretty high level, Top 100 US 10man. From what I have gathered from people I know who play WoW at this level is that a lot of them will be moving straight to D3 upon launch and D3 endgame will be affected by the influx of organized and coordinated group play and if Blizzard has anticipated this as such, expect Inferno to be very very difficult to pug, and the items that drop from there be the real money makers in the AH.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]Harby[/nom]1. Let me quote him: "I have spent countless hours in both Diablo and Diablo II. I love both games and will always look back on them as great gaming experiences. However it saddens me to think that I may not even buy this one." So, D1 was hacked to death, D2 was hacked and bot'ed to death and also had a massive black market. Yet he loved both games and considers them great gaming experiences. And that's why he doesn't make sense.2. Diablo is not an mmo. Just because it requires an internet connection doesn't make it a mmog. The only competitive thing in the past was the ladder realm first lvl99 bragging rights. And that didn't require either skill nor gear, just pure dedication (aka no life). 3. see 2. Either way, I don't mind him not playing or any of you for that matter. Even if I was the only person on earth playing it I would enjoy it equally because its not an mmog but essentially a single player with online perks.[/citation]
Yes D1 and D2 were hacked. So what? because those two Diablo's were traditional games, someone hacking their own game had NO affect on anyone else, except in the case of D2's first online mode where a person could take their single player games into that online mode. However, a person knew that going in, and the easy way around it was using the second online option, the online character only mode, to bypass that. As for single player, while hacking seems pointless to me, since it was their local game, it had no affect on me.

But D3 is going to be entirely online. The drop rates of items will be handled by the server even in the case of a single player campaign. Blizzard, by legitimizing a real money AH, now has a financial interest in not letting too many of an item go out there so it's AH makes money. So let's say Blizzard limits the drop rate of a certain sword to only 20 per day. Because of the real money AH, instead of a normal 3 million players (just using numbers as an example) going after that 20, you may have twice as many because of all the botters and farmers, thus reducing drop chances significantly.

2. Blizzard has already said they consider it an online game. They said they intend it more for the WoW fan than the typical Diablo fan.

3. Your "see 2" comment makes no sense. You had said that someone buying their gear will not affect the other poster. Sorry, but it will. As I already pointed out in 1, the fact that the RMAH is there means you will have botting and farmers legitimized so there will be more of them hoping to make money. This will affect his drop rates in items. In PvP which was his orginal point 3, he will more than likely face people trying to "pay to win" which also affects his gameplay.

And as I pointed out, Blizzard themselves does not consider this a single player game. And what perks do you mean? Being tethered to an internet connection so you can't play where you want when you want for single player? Have your drop rates affected by others in seperate instances of the game? Sorry, none of that sounds like "perks" to me.

 

[dorkydude666]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Someone who is a true fan will want to experience it as it's intended. However, grouping with someone, or even worse facing someone in PvP, who has basically "paid to win" will not be a lot of fun. True fans are not all that interested in "shiny gear" as the end all be all of the game. ... The fact is the players who will take shortcuts with the game to purchase gear so they won't have to go through what they see as the boring aspects of "gearing up" are not the types of fans that keep a franchise alive and going.[/citation]

I'm not a D3 expert to any degree, but I have to wonder how feasible it would be to have different types of servers: one with real currency/gold AH and another with just the gold AH. I am one of those players who want to experience as much of the game as I'm offered. Playing against players who have bought their gear or earned it through seniority irritates me.

What I would give to play with/against players of my caliber!

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]Jprobes[/nom]Clarifying my original statement:Blizzard has stated in the past that they will nerf items that they feel are overpowered for their respective ilvl class, not for AH reasons, precisely the the same policy they have in place when they release new content in WoW.Certain items get adjusted after being in the game and are used by people. Take Thunderfury for example. The proc on that weapon was nerfed several times because it was overpowered, especially after being considered old content.In doing so blizzard has stated, as you have misconstrued, that if an item they feel is overpowered and was never intended to be, they will nerf it. But they will not nerf items based on the availability in the auction house.Now, with the addition of Inferno mode (true endgame), mid level item farming for AH items will not be as prevalent as people perceive. The notion that blizzard will regulate item drops based on AH availability is nothing more then low grade conspiracy theories and hogwash.I raid at a pretty high level, Top 100 US 10man. From what I have gathered from people I know who play WoW at this level is that a lot of them will be moving straight to D3 upon launch and D3 endgame will be affected by the influx of organized and coordinated group play and if Blizzard has anticipated this as such, expect Inferno to be very very difficult to pug, and the items that drop from there be the real money makers in the AH.[/citation]
Actually Blizzard has said that if too many of an item shows up on the AH they may very well nerf that item. That way an item that was intended to be powerful but rare won't have an affect that they do not want it.

And you call it a conspiracy theory that Blizzard will regulate drops because of the AH? Sorry, you must not be too familiar with business. The diamond industry obsessively regulates the release of diamonds into the marketplace in order to ensure that the value of diamonds does not drop. Blizzard never concerned themselves with the AH's for D2 because there was no profit motive for them and they tried to end those auctions. With D3 Blizzard will now be making money based on AH sales. Common sense, not conspiracy theories, suggest that they will not want game items to be so plentiful that they are worth little.

As for you talking about raiding, you can armory me, Lilkitten on Black Dragonflight. You will notice I have realm firsts for raiding. One of the reasons I left WoW a few months ago after being a player since release was the fact that Blizzard was catering to the lowest common denominator and pushing away the franchise Warcraft fan of which I was one. Considering Blizzard has radically changed raiding so it doesn't require much coordination and can be done successfully by pugging, your last paragraph makes little sense.

 

[ghastmaster]

The question is, will I be able to trade item for item, within or without the auction house, as I did in D2? I would hate for the only trading allowed in the game to be for gold/cash. That would be awful, giving room for much abuse by blizzard, especially if they ban items from the AH. Consider this. You find an awesome item. You don't have a char for it. Would you be forced to sell it on the AH, drop it for nothing, or trade via D2 style trade screen? If you can only sell it via AH blizzard would have major incentive to patch it so that you only find items that your class/clvl cannot use. I have yet to see a report that clarifies my original question.

 

[dark_lord69]

For those people that are doubting that lag free is possible:
Here is how it works...

Instead of
1. You swing your weapon from your computer or whatever action you attempt.
2. Your computer waits to see if the server allows a hit or a miss
3. You recieve a hit or miss and the amount of damage done to display on your computer
The same is true while a monster attacks you. It waits for a response from the server while the monster is attacking or even when you are doing something as simple as moving. 100% of everything is confirmed server side before it is allowed to happen.

Instead, this what happens now:
1. You take whatever action at your computer.
2. Your computer calculates the damage or movement or whatever.
3. While you are playing the game is just sending updates as to what you've been doing to the servers (without any ugency and without you needing to wait for a response first). The blizzard servers just look for anything that doesn't seem right/possible.

Example: If you are a level 5 character and you are at a boss for which you take zero damage while wearing no armor and no weapon but kill the boss with 1 punch blizzard will see that can't be possible and ban you.

So instead of every single action being approved server side the servers just look for what is not possible.

The reason other games don't do this is because it would be less likely that you could cheat doing it the old way but Blizzard claims to be able to do it the new way without worrying about cheaters but I'm sure some people will try to exploit this anyway.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]dark_lord69[/nom]For those people that are doubting that lag free is possible:Here is how it works...Instead of 1. You swing your weapon from your computer or whatever action you attempt.2. Your computer waits to see if the server allows a hit or a miss3. You recieve a hit or miss and the amount of damage done to display on your computerThe same is true while a monster attacks you. It waits for a response from the server while the monster is attacking or even when you are doing something as simple as moving. 100% of everything is confirmed server side before it is allowed to happen.Instead, this what happens now:1. You take whatever action at your computer.2. Your computer calculates the damage or movement or whatever.3. While you are playing the game is just sending updates as to what you've been doing to the servers (without any ugency and without you needing to wait for a response first). The blizzard servers just look for anything that doesn't seem right/possible. Example: If you are a level 5 character and you are at a boss for which you take zero damage while wearing no armor and no weapon but kill the boss with 1 punch blizzard will see that can't be possible and ban you.So instead of every single action being approved server side the servers just look for what is not possible.The reason other games don't do this is because it would be less likely that you could cheat doing it the old way but Blizzard claims to be able to do it the new way without worrying about cheaters but I'm sure some people will try to exploit this anyway.[/citation]
This only will work with SINGLE player games, not multiplayer. Since you have seemed to ignore why that's not's possible, I will explain it again and hopefully hellwig will explain it in better detail later.

If the local client is calculating damage and movement, that means you will have 2-8 different clients calculating different things. Let's say you are in a group of four players. Your client has you killing the mob, but 2 other's clients see the mob killing you, and a fourth sees that player killing the mob. The server must take these different calculations and actions and throw something back to each client. So the data sent to the server is this... Dark Lord's client says Dark Lord killed Mob A, Players 2 and 3 see Mob A killing Dark Lord, and player 4 (John Doe) sees John Doe killing Mob A. Once these calculations get to the server, what does the server do? Does it throw everyone out of the game (crash)? Does it choose one scenario randomly, thus throwing back nonsensical results back to the other 3 players? As you can see, it makes no sense.

So the entire point is if this does as Blizzard claims, then it's ONLY for single player. This also means that the single player campaign must work different than the multiplayer as far as gameplay works so the possibility of someone bringing in a hacked character into multiplayer/PvP may have just increased greatly.

 

[Jprobes]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Actually Blizzard has said that if too many of an item shows up on the AH they may very well nerf that item. That way an item that was intended to be powerful but rare won't have an affect that they do not want it.And you call it a conspiracy theory that Blizzard will regulate drops because of the AH? Sorry, you must not be too familiar with business. The diamond industry obsessively regulates the release of diamonds into the marketplace in order to ensure that the value of diamonds does not drop. Blizzard never concerned themselves with the AH's for D2 because there was no profit motive for them and they tried to end those auctions. With D3 Blizzard will now be making money based on AH sales. Common sense, not conspiracy theories, suggest that they will not want game items to be so plentiful that they are worth little.As for you talking about raiding, you can armory me, Lilkitten on Black Dragonflight. You will notice I have realm firsts for raiding. One of the reasons I left WoW a few months ago after being a player since release was the fact that Blizzard was catering to the lowest common denominator and pushing away the franchise Warcraft fan of which I was one. Considering Blizzard has radically changed raiding so it doesn't require much coordination and can be done successfully by pugging, your last paragraph makes little sense.[/citation]

Ugh, Black Dragonflight, I should of know. A once proud server relegated to 3rd tier status. If it wasn't for Fires of Heaven, BDF would of been a back water server like Undermine or Gilneas.

As for my last statement, with the separation between Normal and HC modes that are now prevalent within WoW, it has become the norm to see most normal raids pugged, which is what I would equate to most level recommended content, (Normal, NM, Hell). I doubt you will see much random successful groups on Inferno level, you cannot be carried through these places because the mobs will always be a higher level then you.

The majority of items that will be of high value on the AH will be from Inferno.

What is apparent is that nothing Blizzard has done since releasing wow has pleased you and it obviously shows within your post. Every news thread about anything Blizzard has posts about you railing against Bobby Kotick and Blizzard/Act.

You may forget that they are a company, and ultimately it is in their best interest to cater to the "lowest common denominator." Diminishing your branding an elite player by enabling others to do the same content as you without having to put in all the hours required farming or nurfing 6-9month old content into the ground so everyone can see it, enabling them to get the same gear you had without working for it.

As for the diamond comparrison, it is not valid.

Diamonds are a monopoly. The ammount of diamonds that are released for general sales in the world is based off an algoritm that takes into account Market GDP and statistical average of engadgements within certian markets. In doing so they can artifically raise the price the stone to whatever they deem acceptible for the market.

Blizzard is not selling items to people. They offer a service for people to sell other people things. They are not the ones who sets prices or drive market demand.

It is in their best interest to let as many transactions happen as possible and limited item drops to drive prices up is backwards to the profit model that they have in place for the AH.

And honestly, D2 was release, 99/00. Its hard to envision and even implement a system to sale in game items to people prior to the game coming out, or adjusting when you see that service been demanded. Their reasons for stifling Ebay auctions was because it became a liability for the, especially with all the hacks that were prevalent.

Diablo 3 will be what Blizzard wants Diablo 3 to be, fucking deal with it.

 

[Travis Beane]

I'm not a big fan of the auction house, but I guess some players will be. I enjoyed D2 a lot, and it is my favorite game.
If they just kept updating Diablo 2, I'd still probably play it (I still do, but very lightly).

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]Jprobes[/nom]Ugh, Black Dragonflight, I should of know. A once proud server relegated to 3rd tier status. If it wasn't for Fires of Heaven, BDF would of been a back water server like Undermine or Gilneas.As for my last statement, with the separation between Normal and HC modes that are now prevalent within WoW, it has become the norm to see most normal raids pugged, which is what I would equate to most level recommended content, (Normal, NM, Hell). I doubt you will see much random successful groups on Inferno level, you cannot be carried through these places because the mobs will always be a higher level then you. The majority of items that will be of high value on the AH will be from Inferno.What is apparent is that nothing Blizzard has done since releasing wow has pleased you and it obviously shows within your post. Every news thread about anything Blizzard has posts about you railing against Bobby Kotick and Blizzard/Act.You may forget that they are a company, and ultimately it is in their best interest to cater to the "lowest common denominator." Diminishing your branding an elite player by enabling others to do the same content as you without having to put in all the hours required farming or nurfing 6-9month old content into the ground so everyone can see it, enabling them to get the same gear you had without working for it.As for the diamond comparrison, it is not valid.Diamonds are a monopoly. The ammount of diamonds that are released for general sales in the world is based off an algoritm that takes into account Market GDP and statistical average of engadgements within certian markets. In doing so they can artifically raise the price the stone to whatever they deem acceptible for the market.Blizzard is not selling items to people. They offer a service for people to sell other people things. They are not the ones who sets prices or drive market demand.It is in their best interest to let as many transactions happen as possible and limited item drops to drive prices up is backwards to the profit model that they have in place for the AH.And honestly, D2 was release, 99/00. Its hard to envision and even implement a system to sale in game items to people prior to the game coming out, or adjusting when you see that service been demanded. Their reasons for stifling Ebay auctions was because it became a liability for the, especially with all the hacks that were prevalent.Diablo 3 will be what Blizzard wants Diablo 3 to be, fucking deal with it.[/citation]
Ok, your denegration of BDF shows you know little of WoW. Fires of Heaven? Sorry, but you seem to not realize one of the best guilds in North America, FH (aka Forgotten Heros) is on BDF. Not only are they one of the best guilds in North America, but they even have world firsts to their credit. So much for a 3rd tier status. You just want to insult something to make yourself sound better.

And wrong, a lot of things Blizzard did please me. However, if you think there has not been a difference in how Blizzard has been post merger, you are sadly mistaken. And yes, I do not like Bobby Kotick. What true gamer does? He has all but ruined Activision's reputation. Mike Morhaime, Rob Pardo, Metzen, etc. who all pre merger sounded so enthused and excited about their products now sound in interviews as if they are straddling a fence, trying to put the best face on things to the customer without ending up like the Infinity Ward people.

And if it is in their best interest to cater to the lowest common denominator, why has that catering LOST WoW subscribers? Since they began with Wrath, subs have been stagnant and then declined sharply. WoW started Wrath with 11.5 million subs. More than a year later, they still had 11.5 million. It wasn't until just before Cataclysm came out that they announced 12 million subs, all due to increased play in China due to Wrath's release there. The first 2 quarters since Cataclysm was released, WoW has lost nearly a million subs. Now one can spin the loss of that many subs in the last 6 months of an expansion, but nearly impossible to in the FIRST 6 months of one. And Wrath was so poorly recieved in China they rushed Cataclysm there after just 8 months.

They also have driven off the franchise fan. They started catering to the player base who didn't care about the story. This is very telling in the fact that the comics were cancelled due to very poor sales, and The Shattering, the first of what is suppose to be three pre Cataclysm novels, also sold poorly. The second one was just recently announced for release, but considering that the final patch for Cataclysm is about to be released, and that will wrap up the expansions storyline, that novel's release is pointless now.

Now we have Diablo 3 where even single player will require being tethered to an internet connection. We were told it was because it was to fight piracy so the servers would handle the gameplay a la how an MMO does. Now we find out with this article that no, in fact the client will be handling all the calculations and AI and the server will just be a check against cheating. Of course this methos won't work for multiplayer as it has been explained more than once, so since D3 can in fact handle the gameplay locally, it really doesn't seem like the hackers will have much trouble at all hacking the game.

As for the RMAH, sorry, but it is in Blizzard's best interest not to allow unlimited amounts of items and control their drop rates. It is not in Blizz's best interest to have things so plentiful they sell for pennies, or not at all if people think there is a good chance it will drop for them. All one has to do is look at Bobby Kotick's history and his comments to know that they want to have the RMAH be a money maker for them. Now I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to, but what I am saying is it puts them at cross purpose with the players. This type of activity has already driven Activision into the ground. Guitar Hero would be a perfect example. I really do not like how Blizzard's reputation is being tinkered with by the man.

 

[Guest]

Is anyone seriously trying to compliment Blizzard for making a SINGLE PLAYER GAME lag free? you've got to be kidding me.