Sigh. I’ll be you a dollar that the “pirate” community will come up with an offline patch before long that solves this phony problem that Blizzard invented for all the suckers people who bought this.

Side note: I was browsing PC games at the local big box department store and was surprised to see that all of the single player games I looked at required an internet connection, and sometimes a “persistent” internet connection. Blew my mind. So while Blizzard is certainly guilty here, they aren’t the only ones doing this.

I suppose it means that eventually the box you buy will be empty, except for a card that contains a username/password pair that you will use to log into a company server to download a shim that will then download pieces of the game to your PC. And the shim will delete those pieces when you’re no longer in that part of the game world. We’ve all got to be herded into the Cloud somehow, after all.

The game doesn’t really have a singleplayer mode. All it has is a multiplayer mode that runs on a private instance with a single player. Sounds the same- but isn’t! This comes down to a decision that Blizzard made early in, and which I believe is strongly inspired by WoW (far more than the graphics): the exclusive focus on items as a method of character customization, and the auction house to officially integrate item trading into the game.

(Why do I say this is inspired by WoW? It provides Blizzard with a regular, long-term income stream.)

This means that duplication exploits aren’t just a nuisance – they’re highly, extremely, poisonous to the economy that Blizzard is trying very, very hard to build. That’s why drops are handled completely serverside, and that’s why you have to be always-on. It has (AFAIK) nothing to do with piracy.

I’m sure it’s not that simple, and that the server is somehow integral to the proper functioning of D3. On the other hand, if the logged-in-and-connected requirement is gratuitous, then Blizzard is doing its customers a gross misservice.

Secondarily, Blizzard should have planned for a load of this magnitude, and tested the crap out of it.

Meh, off to read a good book.

This happens w/ all their games and since people keep buyin’ ‘em up at launch in hellish numbers, they’re going to keep putting their thumb in your eye. In other words: live by the free market, die by the free market.

(Note: I love the free market, but sometimes it’s not your best friend–especially if you’re impatient.)

I’m going to guess it’s possible to have a RAM-based auth server (and so forth) that is difficult to “make busy” assuming you can get enough network bandwidth to the thing.

Your post has motivated me to clear my calendar and go for a ride this weekend.