[HN Gopher] Diablo 2, Diablo 4, and Single Player: An open lette...
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Diablo 2, Diablo 4, and Single Player: An open letter to Blizzard
Author : nixass
Score : 37 points
Date : 2022-09-13 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.purediablo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.purediablo.com)
| olliej wrote:
| Seriously, I understand that minimal storyline is cheaper to
| produce, and online only solves "piracy" and allows monetization
| of basic gameplay through gambling, etc, but I am so sick of it.
| D3 was wretched as the drops were always useless, and everything
| was geared towards online play outside the storyline if you ever
| wanted to have "good" equipment. This was offset by having an
| absurdly out of balance normal character, especially by the
| latter half of the story game.
|
| I hate online play - if I wanted be to treated to a bunch of
| varyingly spelled curse words I'd just go create a twitter
| account where I pretended to be a woman in tech. It would be
| cheaper and just as unpleasant.
|
| [edit: or SC2, which I used to do PVP until the adoption of a
| free to play PVP model resulting in a dramatic increase in the
| amount of abuse and shitty behaviour of other people. Presumably
| because getting your account banned simply means creating another
| one. Honestly I wish they had a "play vs people who paid only"
| mode.]
| Jyaif wrote:
| They aren't making online mode by pleasure: it's much harder to
| make than offline single player. Piracy (no need to put it in
| quotes) is 100% to blame.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| > Piracy (no need to put it in quotes) is 100% to blame.
|
| I think you mean corporate greed. It's true that pirates
| fight against corporate greed, but let's not pretend these
| companies are short on money to make good games.
| olliej wrote:
| So it's just happenstance than online gambling mode happens
| to have a huge profit margin?
| Groxx wrote:
| Yeah, "online only" equals "hard no" for me for that and "can I
| play this in 3 years" reasons. Online-only is just a shorter
| way to say "unavailable soon".
| BashiBazouk wrote:
| It may also be that many players mostly play "single player" but
| on the multiplayer closed servers. That is how I played back in
| the day. Occasionally with friends or randoms but also quite a
| bit alone. After the hack fest that Diablo 1 became, closed
| servers seemed like a good idea...
| nitrixion wrote:
| This is what I see for a vast majority of Diablo3 players. We
| are all forced to play online, but nearly everyone plays alone
| most of the time from what I've seen.
| madrox wrote:
| I'm surprised and somewhat doubtful the process for online vs
| offline is materially different. I wonder if some of the
| reluctance/delay on single player is to keep the data miners at
| bay. The moment loot and drop rates go into a local data pack,
| that information will go out to all the min-maxers who will bring
| that info back into ladder play.
|
| While single player is a big part of Diablo, the difference
| between Diablo and the RPGs the author compares it to is that
| those other RPGs _don 't_ have a thriving multiplayer scene (From
| games being the exception, but doesn't materially change the
| point). You can't treat them the same.
| caiomassan wrote:
| Path of Exile is free and a far superior game. don't give money
| to Blizzard, please.
| camdenlock wrote:
| The company behind PoE is owned by a CCP-controlled company,
| Tencent. Go play Torchlight or something. :)
| caiomassan wrote:
| Tencent is present in almost every game dev company,
| including blizzard. they own almost half of epic too, so half
| of unreal engine is owned by them too. you will be playin a
| very narrow selection of games if u go down that road.
| danaris wrote:
| ...You mean "nearly every indie game"?
|
| There _are_ games outside the giant AAA studios.
| vsareto wrote:
| PoE is mostly theorycrafting, which turns into "can I 1-shot
| this mob before it 1-shots me"
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I'm not a fan of the skill forest. I actually really liked
| Diablo 3's design.
| gabereiser wrote:
| I don't mind multiplayer for Diablo. My first experience with
| Diablo was at a cybercafe in Virginia in 1996. Multiplayer was
| only LAN. No TCP/IP.
|
| I've played every Diablo game since, including the latest Diablo
| Immortal. Multiplayer is fine when it's optional. What I hate is
| forced parties. Dungeons where I _have_ to have 2+ more players
| to even participate despite my 9,000 combat rating.
|
| Forced multiplayer is bad. Developers shouldn't assume every
| player has 7 friends who also play. "Always Online" is also bad.
| What if I want to play during a flight or traveling where I have
| a few days down time? What if I want to play when I don't have
| access to the internet? Sucks to be you...
|
| The vast majority of my experience playing D2 was solo, single
| player. The vast majority of my experience with D3 was solo,
| single-player. Even in DI, I run around ignoring party requests
| and playing how I want to play but there's tons of content I
| can't enjoy because I don't have a party of 8 and refuse to party
| up with random 14 year old kids.
|
| I like how some MMO's just threw you into a raid group if you
| were in the area. GW2 (requires a little bit of effort) and old
| Warhammer Online had this. When done right it was great. Run to
| area event, get roped into the raid group, beat the big bad boss
| creature, get rewards, leave raid group.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I feel it makes raid groups pointless. If they're not organized
| then they're mostly just background noise.
| braingenious wrote:
| I just want a sequel to Nox :(
| jadbox wrote:
| Nox was fantastic, as a Diablo with a bit more tactical play. I
| also really liked the original Icewind Dale 1 for the same
| reason.
| blibble wrote:
| /dev/null will pay more attention to your feedback than Blizzard
| p1necone wrote:
| I feel like Diablo is the wrong game to be asking this about, and
| OP is making some assumptions that don't really ring true to me.
| I'd be kinda surprised if multiplayer _wasn 't_ what the vast
| majority of the Diablo 2 playerbase was interested in - it's
| basically an mmo-lite.
|
| It would be nice if Diablo 4 supported offline play but I
| wouldn't hold my breath.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Diablo 2's got a semi-vibrant modding community that has done a
| fair amount with the game that would not have been possible
| without single-player/open multiplayer. I agree with you that
| the vast majority of players probably will only want closed,
| online multiplayer but it's hard to imagine it having the same
| legs as D2 without.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Yeah. I'm hoping GTA 6 has a huge 1 player story
| olliej wrote:
| I only get that from D3, which I''ll note wasn't mentioned - D3
| to me personally was hugely disappointing as to me it had a
| marginal storyline and all real character skill progression or
| good equipment was tied to online BS.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I'm not sure how they could act on the request to have a
| better storyline, other than just hire better writers.
| Blizzard always had... serviceable but not great plotlines
| (and well-loved characters, but IMO more as a result of
| character design and that kind of stuff, rather than plot).
| olliej wrote:
| I guess "better storyline" is the wrong request "more story
| in the main game"
| chowells wrote:
| Blizzard's public figures said that the average number of
| players in an online Diablo 2 game was... 1.1.
|
| Are you kinda surprised?
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(page generated 2022-09-13 23:00 UTC)