[D3] Blizzard do something nice

[SgtFury]

After all these problems though, you know what... the game is good. I've been going through it slowely due to time issues and have a level 24 monk and there is something really satisfying about it.

To me a good game is one you think about, after the fact, and remember things from it. The skill combos you can use and the visceral taking out of 60 mobs at once is fantastic..and i'm only on normal mode and 2/3rds through Act II.

The beta was definetly only a taster there is a lot more to it and the different skill combinations that work is great.

They are having problems yes, but it is still worth playing to me.

 

[Panda with issues...]

The "physical" authenticator that I own cost me £6 when I bought it (and likely its battery is going to run out soon, now I think about it...) I think it's a little more now, but it's really not that much. Less than the cost of a month's subscription to WoW, certainly.

In addition, there is a free app that you can get for pretty much any phone platform (including certain older "featurephones") that acts as an authenticator for your account.

Sorry but there really is very little excuse for not having one, and ANYONE can get hacked. My own WoW account was hacked 5 years ago - all my stuff was taken and as I had very privileged access to the guild's resources, most of the valuable stuff the guild had was taken too. It was all restored, but it took a week to do so - and the guild was set back somewhat in our progress.

There was a flash vulnerability that was being exploited by the hackers to obtain your password, I had updated flash on all of the machines I used, except my work one. Logged in to the WoW forums from my work PC during lunch and not long after that I was hacked. The hacker even had the cheek to send me an in-game mail telling me he "was leaving me a little". (32 Gold, and the gear I had on when i had logged out).

I have very little sympathy for people who get hacked if they do not have an authenticator.

The same goes for D3, and would also go for SC2, if there was any worth to actually hacking in to people's SC2 accounts.

This is like listening to a beaten wife talking. They're monetising a probelm in their game. If they were at all concerned with security, over pure profits this would be a free service. It's not like steam charge for steam guard.

 

[Xylak]

I got hacked the day I woke up thinking "I should get the authenticator app for my new smartphone". I'd had the phone for 2 days.
Did all the "help I've been hacked" stuff to Blizzard in the morning, went out and by the time I came back about 4/5 hours later everything was restored.

If you take every precaution you can (authenticator, anti-spyware, anti-keylogger etc) and you still get hacked, well maybe then you can bitch at your game publisher. Until then, account security is just as much your responsibility as it is theirs.

 

[Panda with issues...]

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If you take every precaution you can (authenticator, anti-spyware, anti-keylogger etc) and you still get hacked, well maybe then you can bitch at your game publisher. Until then, account security is just as much your responsibility as it is theirs.

True, so why are they holding back part of the security functions they offer in in order to monetise them? Especially if, as they keep claiming, they don't want hacking to spoil other people's games?

 

[Razaak]

There is a free solution - the mobile app.

If you need the physical hardware-based solution, then of course there's going to be a cost attached to that.

 

[Xylak]

True, so why are they holding back part of the security functions they offer in in order to monetise them? Especially if, as they keep claiming, they don't want hacking to spoil other people's games?

What part are they holding back? Smartphone apps are free. Physical products cost money to produce & ship so a small fee is entirely appropriate. Yes it would be nice if they supplied physical authenticators free when you buy the game but, hey ho, it's all about maximising profit and a free app is generally sufficient.

 

[Xarlaxas]

Welp, I guess it's time to re-add the authenticator, might as well sign up for their text messaging service too, they already have my passport after all. . . .

 

[Panda with issues...]

What part are they holding back? Smartphone apps are free. Physical products cost money to produce & ship so a small fee is entirely appropriate. Yes it would be nice if they supplied physical authenticators free when you buy the game but, hey ho, it's all about maximising profit and a free app is generally sufficient.

Because obviously banks have to charge for their online banking widgets, and everyone has a smartphone.

 

[bacon]

Because obviously banks have to charge for their online banking widgets, and everyone has a smartphone.

But banks already have all of your money :|

 

[Zhar]

Am I the only one seeing how fucking rediculous this is? You're paying money so you don't have to worry about your singleplayer game's characters and his items being stolen? Or even how insane it is to have to worry about this.

Blizzartivision is dead to me.

 

[thatbloke]

oh yea - the original point about it shouldn't even be a problem for the single player side of things anyway is still just as valid a point.

 

[Panda with issues...]

After all these problems though, you know what... the game is good.

I actually think that, very quietly, this is a big part of the problem.

Whilst many of us may have grown out of loot and scoot and click a lot, I can still totally understand why a lot of people would still love it. I think we all knew that always online was unnecessary and going to cause massive issues, same as we all new the gameplay parts were going to be very polished.

The end of the line seemed to be this:

Do you make a stand and tell blizzard 'fuck off, we're not buying your brand of turd coating on this product' and denying ourselves a decent game (to great, dependent on how much you exercising your right index finger).

or do you think: 'Well, I know all this extra stuff is bollocks, and I feel like I'm being bent roughly over a desk, but I know I'm going to enjoy the game, and I can look past the corporate crap'

This one has really split the PC community, and I don't think the vitriol and pistols at dawn mentality would have emerged quite so violently if the game was a throw away piece of shit.

 

[Xylak]

Game publishers are trying to combat game piracy which you know would be rife with something like Diablo 3. You can't blame them for trying to protect their investment, really. I'm not sure they've gone the right way about it or not but I can't really blame them for trying. It is an annoyance that for D3, an essentially offline game, that you have to be online to play but I can see this becoming more commonplace.

Slightly changing topic...
And so it is that Blizzard have started to annoy me a bit now. I signed up for the annual pass for WoW, got my free gay winged-pony and beta pass for MoP but now it comes to my free D3 it seems I have parental controls on my account (which I never set up) and so they assume I'm under 18 and have "cancelled" my AP and so no D3. I have spent the last week or so trying to get this sorted and they have asked for photo ID to prove I'm over 18. The thing is, I don't have any - even my driving licence is still the old paper one. My point to them was why did you let me sign up for an AP when you thought I was "under 18" if it's not allowed? They also wanted my security question and answer (no idea what they are!) which also raises the question "how does that prove I'm 18?".
This, on top of me recently subbing for another 6 months to a game I've hardly played in the last 2 (I justified it by saying that I'd get D3, at least) and that it takes at least 2 days for them to respond to my ticket responses has annoyed the hell out of me.


The trouble with all this "Blizzard-bashing" though is that, really, it's not just them. I can see many more publishers (E.A. springs to mind) that will try similar things in future.

 

[thatbloke]

The trouble with all this "Blizzard-bashing" though is that, really, it's not just them. I can see many more publishers (E.A. springs to mind) that will try similar things in future.

A number of Ubisoft games have always-on DRM. I believe that one of the Assassin's Creed games was one of the first. Since then, most, if not all of their games have had the always online requirement.

EA have also tried it at least once, as far as I'm aware, with C&C4, and, now that I think about it, the single player portion of BF3 also requires that you be online.

 

[Panda with issues...]

The trouble with all this "Blizzard-bashing" though is that, really, it's not just them. I can see many more publishers (E.A. springs to mind) that will try similar things in future.

A number of Ubisoft games have always-on DRM. I believe that one of the Assassin's Creed games was one of the first. Since then, most, if not all of their games have had the always online requirement.

EA have also tried it at least once, as far as I'm aware, with C&C4, and, now that I think about it, the single player portion of BF3 also requires that you be online.

Sure, and these guys also need to be told where to shove it. I can't remember the last time I bought an Ubisoft game (for a bunch of reasons, partly because of poor DRM choices, partly because their games all seem to be gash). I don't own the new battlefield game either for another bunch of reasons.

The reason a lot of people are so vehement about D3 is it has the opportunity to be a trailblaser, and show that the game buying public is willing to take this shit service.