My real thoughts on Diablo III's RMT and DRM

Blizzard has certainly stirred the pot with the announcements for Diablo 3. For those of you out of the loop, read this and this.

Real money trade (RMT) auction house

I have the same problem with Blizzard doing this as I had with SOE doing RMT auction houses: it brings in to question the developer’s motives. When the developer isn’t dipping their hand into the pot there is a barrier of plausible deniability. As soon as the developer takes a cut of the RMT-action, questions are raised like will they make changes based directly on activity in the RMT auction house? How liable are they if the value of an in game item changes due to a patch? There are a lot of questions unlikely to be answered by Blizzard on this topic.

One benefit to Blizzard sanctioning the RMT is that it brings the practice into a safe environment for those players willing to partake. The RMT is going to happen whether Blizzard allows it or not, just as it did in Diablo II, so it is better they manage it. It also allows the power-gamers (aka core gamers) to profit off their excess of play time which can be a motivating factor to keep playing the game. The only question is how effective Blizzard is at curtailing bots and other illegitimate farming methods that would undercut the market.

Blizzard has done a good job defending it’s decision to go the RMT route, but I do have a serious bone to pick with one of their quotes. Rob Pardo said:

"What’s the difference between a player that plays the game a lot and a gold farmer? They’re really doing the same activity. If you are doing an activity where all you’re trying to do is generate items for the auction house, you’re not making someone else's game experience poorer. If anything you’re making the game better, because you’re generating items for the auction house that people want to purchase.”

The first part is naive and I sincerely hope Blizzard realizes the sweatshop-like nature of most gold farming operations. Gold farmer is a term applied to those who are forced (by circumstances) to make a living by farming gold. Gold farmers are NOT players.

There is a little truth to the second part of the quote. Diablo III is not a traditional MMO. This is NOT World of Warcraft where certain zones are nigh-unplayable due to the infestation of gold farmers. Multi-player and single-player will be played in 100% instanced maps and only with those people the player chooses to play with, so the game-play effects of farming are eliminated.

To note: hardcore-mode characters will NOT be allowed to use RMT since it features permadeath.

Digital rights management (DRM) / NO offline play

Diablo III does require a "constant" Internet connection for Battle.net authentication to play the game. There is no offline play, even if a player previously authenticated.  Here is Blizzard’s justification:

“We thought about this quite a bit,” says executive producer Rob Pardo. “One of the things that we felt was really important was that if you did play offline, if we allowed for that experience, you’d start a character, you’d get him all the way to level 20 or level 30 or level 40 or what have you, and then at that point you might decide to want to venture onto Battle.net. But you’d have to start a character from scratch, because there’d be no way for us to guarantee no cheats were involved, if we let you play on the client and then take that character online.”

“Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t play a game by yourself – of course you can. You can go into and start any game that you want, you’ll just be connected to the Battle.net servers, and we can authenticate your character.”

This is a legitimate defense and with the RMT auction-house, a requirement. I support this and I’ll make the comparison to my experience with Borderlands (aka Diablo with guns). I stopped playing Borderlands (PC) online because of the rampant cheaters who hacked their characters offline. Borderlands co-op was, in my opinion, unplayable due to the cheaters.  I would have loved to see Borderlands online play secured in some fashion.

The leading part of the statement fits the Blizzard style as well.  Blizzard has always striven to remove confusing barriers to entry for their games.  While the average reader of this blog would not be confused about online vs. offline characters, I can see the viewpoint with the type of person that would be willing to quit over it.


Conclusion

The lack of offline play is a bit disheartening, but Blizzard’s justification does have merit. It will provide a better end-user experience for those looking to play multi-player, which Blizzard seems to be the most focused on.

For the RMT auction house it’s all a question of perspective. Characters fat on RMT purchases will be allowed online just like any other player and some gamers will view RMT as cheating. A few years ago, RMT was salt rubbed into the wounds of online gamer’s everywhere. However, in today’s world of the free to play revolution, the “paying to win” mentality is not as frowned upon. There are still those that are aggravated by RMT, but that crowd is dwindling as the market adjusts. 

I really think we need to go back to Tobold’s thoughts about EVE’s debacle where he supported CCP (EVE’s developer):

...when the CEO of CCP recently commented the uproar of the EVE community on a similar issue with "I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say", he was completely right...

There is a furor online about these announcements and due to this some gamers will NOT buy the game.  Blizzard is going to be watching what player’s do, not what they say, and I suspect most of the complainers will be buying the game anyways. Summed up best by:

If you disagree with the road Diablo III is taking, DO NOT BUY THE GAME. 

Personally, it’s not on Steam, so I’m unlikely to buy it.  I really despise having to have more than one digital distribution platform.

Shut up about Diablo III and Blizzard

My initial thoughts on the whole Diablo III uproar are the same as my thoughts on the EA/Origin/Star Wars: The Old Republic madness:

I realize this is very shallow commentary, but I've found the simplest explanation is usually right. As gamers when we look back and we ask ourselves why Blizzard would introduce two of the most unfathomable things in PC gaming, always-on online DRM and real money trade (aka RMT), we can make a simple reply: because gamer's voted with their wallets and bought Diablo III. In fact, gamer's will probably scoop it up faster than my toddler scoops up TV remotes left on the living room table.

DOTA 2 Beta Update

Appears Valve let slip some beta patch notes for DOTA 2 on the Team Fortress 2 blog and as always, the Internet caught it before Valve was able to delete the misplaced notes.  Considering it's been since last November that any notes have appeared on the actual DOTA 2 blog, it is nice to know Valve is actively working on the game.  See below:

Google+, the "IT'S BETA!" argument

I suspect us MMOG players will understand Google+'s current fiasco better than most.  After all, GOOGLE PLUS IS STILL IN BETA and just like an MMOG in beta, not all features are going to be there on beta day one and not all promises are going to come to fruition.  This is why most MMOG betas have strict non-disclosure agreements and why MMO bloggers are always screaming "IT'S BETA!".  Google+ doesn't have the NDA luxury currently and the successful launch is quickly turning into a public relations mess.  However, I am willing to give Google+ the benefit of the doubt and I for one am willing to buy the "IT'S BETA!" argument. 

My own Heartless_ Gamer Google+ account was deleted in the name clean up.  In fact, I totally missed the whole "real name" requirement of Google+ and had assumed anonymous and pseudonym use was going to be allowed.  Unfortunately, that is not the case (yet!). 

Google has stated "brand" and "business" accounts are coming.  What they will feature is unknown, so I'm undetermined at this point whether Heartless_ Gamer will exist on Google+.  Hopefully, the brand/business accounts will allow me to operate on Google+ the same as a regular user would with a more of a “webpage” front end for “visitors” to my stream.

A Circular Examination

I really like the Google+ "Circles" which allow contacts to be divided into multiple groups which can be assigned to view content I post.  As a games blogger, with a lot of gamer contacts, I would love to slice and dice them up into different groups.  I could socially tag my content and share it with those I think it is most relevant to.  If I write up a post about Civilization 5, I could share it with my Civ circle and spare my Battlefield group the reading time.

There is a lot of potential in Circles and what we have now in the beta is not guaranteed to be what the final version of Circles will be in Google+.  There was a lot of potential in Hero classes for World of Warcraft, but the idea was nipped during beta.  There was a lot of potential for six capital cities in Warhammer Online, but that as well was trimmed down in beta.  Not everything survives beta.

Circles equate to any feature from any MMOG.  In Google+’s case, Circles are a selling point and are there on day one of the beta.  They may change or may even get pulled.  We don’t know, but through beta testing Google will determine their place and Google+ ends up better because of testing Circles, then we should all say “that’s what beta’s are for”.

And that IS what beta’s are for: improving the end result.  This doesn’t always happen and not every beta is the same (some are marketing stunts).   If we are going to say “that’s what beta’s are for” when they go right, then we need to buy the “IT’S BETA!” argument when the sailing isn’t smooth.  Right now, “IT’S BETA!” is a valid argument for Google+.  Google just better be done with the five year beta cycle.

Tobold's MMORPG Blog: The forum lies

Tobold's MMORPG Blog: The forum lies

Tobold offer's up an excellent analysis of Ben Cousin's (of EA) speech about Battlefield Hero's "pay to win" model.

Weapons for real money were introduced that were better than any weapons you could get by playing, and simultaneously it was made harder to play for free.

I wanted to nitpick something Tobold said:

Thus when the CEO of CCP recently commented the uproar of the EVE community on a similar issue with "I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say", he was completely right. The forum lies.

First, comparing EVE to Battlefield Heroes is an apples to oranges comparison. EVE is and will continue to be a subscription game and unlike most subscription games, EVE ties A LOT of a player's power into how LONG they've been a paying subscriber. BF:H started as and continues to be a free to play game which players can now spend money on to have an advantage.

While BF:H simply changed to make it a bit harder to play the game for free, the proposed changes for EVE threatened to undermine the entire structure upon which the game was built.  To emphasis this point, the EVE changes threatened to undue years of commitment from loyal customers who were PAYING TO PLAY THE GAME. EVE was not in threat of closing.  CCP appeared to be trying to squeeze more money of of their paying players simply because they thought they could.  EVE was not in danger of closing down as BF:H was.

It was not just the forums that were ablaze over the EVE debacle.  It was the entire EVE community, from fan sites to the elected player representatives.  There was a consistent message on all fronts "DON'T FUCKING DO IT CCP".  

Secondly, I would caution that while forums may "lie" in general, there is still valuable feedback to be found amongst the noise.  While only 2% of players may post on the forums, I guarantee there is another 10% that have the same exact complaints and/or feedback as the forum posters.  The danger is that 10% is silent when they leave the game. 

Shut up about EA/Origin

EDIT: Fixed picture as to not break my entire blog layout.

Dancing with Dragons

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Just Cause 2 Just Needs More Ammo

I picked up Just Cause 2 on the Summer Steam sale for a grand total of $4.99 (plus $0.66 for a DLC weapon).  The game is an extremely fun mix of Grand Theft Auto and Batman.  The game is set in an open world sandbox where the player can do pretty much anything they want.  On top of this, the player is equipped with a Batman-like grappling hook that expands the game play past the traditional Grand Theft Auto car jacking and hooker killing. Also the games narrative pits the protagonist, Rico, against the local island government giving him plenty of opportunities to cause CHAOS (as the game calls it).

Also, it's a beautiful game when it wants to be:

I've enjoyed my stint so far with the game and I've definitely gotten my five dollars worth.  However, there is a glaring  hole in the game play that kills the game: the lack of ammunition.  To make this even more infuriating, the DLC weapon packs (which you pay real money for) require the player to then buy the weapon from the in-game black market, but the game does not provide any ammunition from within the game world with which to refill these weapons.  So the player is stuck always having to waste all their in-game money on restocking weapons from the black market meaning they miss out on all the other neat toys that could be purchased.

The DLC weapons are clearly the worst offenders and a black-eye for DLC everywhere, but the regular weapons are always short on ammo as well.  The only way to get ammo is to kill enemies and rarely is there an enemy around with the weapon type the player is needing ammo for, resulting in the player constantly having to juggle weapon swaps.  Its an obvious game design blunder that should have been fixed by adding ammo drops from the black market.  If the black market helicopter can air drop me everything from a fucking motorcycle to a private jet, it sure as hell could drop me an ammo crate.

But this is why cheats exist and I can continue happily along my way now with unlimited ammo.

Global Agenda: Free 2 Play works

Global Agenda launched as a subscription game, but has since gone Free 2 Play (F2P).  I jumped on board when the game came to Steam and while I haven't spent any money myself, I have played with several players that are enjoying the money they have spent with the new F2P model introduced with Free Agent.  Most of those players joined at the same time I did and bought into the Elite Agent one-time $20 ($15 with coupon) micro-transaction.  From what I can tell, this is the path most players are taking once they determine they want to stick around for a while.  After that they start picking up the occasional Boost for an extended play session which puts more money in Global Agenda's pockets.

The studio behind Global Agenda, Hi-Rez Studios, are quite pleased with Free Agent's success as well. In this interview with PC Gamer they had this to say:

“We have many many more people creating accounts every day, many more people playing concurrently, our revenues are higher than they ever have been before which means we can develop content and put it into the game faster than ever before.”

This is just more evidence that the F2P model is the way for new MMOGs to go, even when they are MMO-lite such as Global Agenda.

Fixed: Just Cause 2 crashes on Steam

Like many gamers, I bought a copy of Just Cause 2 during the Steam Summer Sale and if the forums are any indications, I was not alone with Just Cause 2 crashing repeatedly.  Specifically it would crash on fullscreen settings.

The immediate fix was to open Steam's game library and right click on Just Cause 2 and then select Set Launch Options and enter /failsafe.  This forces the game to launch in windowed mode.  The game ran just fine for me in windowed mode.

However, I was not satisfied that I couldn't play this game in fullscreen so I did the normal checks to see what may be causing the issue.  First I verified the game files on Steam and the check completed without error. Next, I made sure it wasn't Steam community causing the issue and with the community overlay disabled, it still crashed.

The final step I took was to upgrade my nVidia drivers.  I opted to not only upgrade my drivers, but also to do a clean install of the driver in the process (which is available with the nVidia installer now).  This cleared out all old profiles and other settings.

After the upgrade and a couple PC reboots, Just Cause 2 started and ran just fine in fullscreen.  I hope this post helps anyone else having this issue.