I’m currently playing Diablo IV (and having a blast with it) but finding one small gripe which I only think is going to get worse and probably stop me playing it completely in the long run.
My girlfriend is currently pregnant. This means in 6 months time we’ll have a newborn. With this in mind I’m expecting to only be able to grab a few minutes at a time to game and even when I think I’ll have longer I may end up jumping off at short notice. This means I’ll almost certainly come to rely on games which I can pause. Unfortunately this isn’t possible with Diablo IV since it requires an always online connection even though I’m essentially playing it as a single player game.
What are other people’s thoughts?
If the game actually does something useful with that connection, I don´t have a problem with it. Examples:
- MSFS does the processing of the terrain and it´s details off site. Also things like live weather and traffic obviously need a connection.
- Souls games allow you to leave messages and read messages from other players. Also you can help or attack other players in their game, which is super useful and fun.
However, sometimes the always on is just a way for the devs to battle piracy. In which case its hurting the actual gaming experience.
I´m not familiar with Diablo 4 to be honest. So, in my understanding, the fact that it need an internet connection alone can´t be the reason for not being able to pause the game, right? There must be some real time interaction going on between your “world” and the worlds of others.
EDIT: Hm, I read up on it for a second and it seems like there is a portal that you can use to teleport to a safe place? A town? Supposedly you can even do that from within a dungeon AND even teleport back to the same place?
Doesn’t matter to me one way or another, and it doesn’t affect my purchasing decisions.
Last month, construction workers did something in our street. I didn’t have Landline Internet for a whole week. Always Online is pretty horrible for single player games.
Always-online singleplayer is bullshit, and we all know it.
This means I’ll almost certainly come to rely on games which I can pause. Unfortunately this isn’t possible with Diablo IV since it requires an always online connection even though I’m essentially playing it as a single player game.
There’s a difference between always-online SP and essentially one-person MP games though.
It sucks that they did it that way, but at least it makes slightly more sense there.
I try to avoid games with always online as much as possible but sometimes you don’t have choice. If you want to play Diablo IV there’s not much else you could do. But at least Diablo has some form of multiplayer. If you have a solely single player experience with always online, it’s just bullshit. The DRM is only punishing players that pay for the game. If you insist to implement this kind of DRM then please go ahead but then you also have to run the servers forever. If you don’t then why should I buy your game?
