"Solitary cave people"? Seriously? You just don't get it, Blizzard. You're out of touch. @Diablo
(You know what? Screw it. I'm not putting this behind a cut.)
So, because I don't want to play multiplayer or be forced to have the game always connected, that makes me a "solitary cave [person]" apparently. No, I don't want you "pushing" me into an "online connected environment." I would rather simply NOT BUY YOUR DAMN GAME. I could play Diablo I and Diablo II perfectly fine single-player, and I didn't have to connect to the Internet at all (or be forced to be connected constantly), unless I wanted to patch the game, and that was great. I never went online (well, that's not true, I did try it exactly once in each of those games, and never again), and I have never once missed it. Apparently, that makes me an atypical consumer of your products about whom you now obviously no longer give the slightest crap, because with Diablo III, that's not going to be an option at all. Therefore, as I've already said numerous times and will likely continue to say as long as you remain on this course (and as long as the whole fiasco remains in the news), I will act accordingly and spend my money elsewhere to buy games that are more suited to my tastes. Again, it's a very simple, but incredibly disappointing decision to have to make, because until now I will freely admit that I was indeed very much looking forward to Diablo III.
Seriously, Blizzard, why can't you just allow a purely offline single-player mode for people like me who don't care and will almost assuredly never care about playing online with anyone else? And if by some freak off-chance I did lose my senses and decide to try online at some point, I would be perfectly fine with starting a new character from scratch just for that purpose. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest that my single-player character used in offline mode wouldn't be playable there. If you would just put this feature from the first two games back in, Diablo III would most likely resume its status as a Day 1 purchase for me. But until and unless that happens, you have lost a customer, as has any and every other game dev/pub who insists on this asinine "always connected" crap (outside of games like dedicated MMOs and such where it actually makes sense to have it). Well, I don't think it will ever be a Day 1 purchase again, even if you do put the offline single-player back in, because I'd have to at least wait on reviews and word-of-mouth to make sure you haven't screwed the pooch in other similarly awful ways, but I would still likely get it within a reasonably tiny timeframe, all the same.
I'm not even going to touch on the real money auction stuff (also covered in that interview linked above) because, as I said before, that wouldn't have directly affected me at all had I been allowed to play the game offline as I was able to do with the previous games. And now, it's still not going to affect me at all because I'm not buying the game. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but that's just how it is.
But really, reading that interview in its entirety, that was some of the lamest, most holier-than-thou, "we know better than the player what the player wants" bullshit I've read in quite a while. It was more or less on par with some of the worst stuff to come out of EA or Ubisoft or Square-Enix (or, hell, even Valve of all companies, how did I miss that until now?) lately. Wow, has that "must be connected, at least in some way" shit really already become this prevalent? The game industry, or least my interest in where it is heading at this point, is starting to spiral down the toilet. How did it come to this? *rips out chunks of hair in frustration, figuratively speaking* Oh well, at least Bethesda still has some sanity left.
Honestly, what happened to you, Blizzard? *cough*Activision*cough* You used to be pretty cool, but not so much anymore. *defeated sigh*
tl;dr version: Nope, still not buying Diablo III.
So, because I don't want to play multiplayer or be forced to have the game always connected, that makes me a "solitary cave [person]" apparently. No, I don't want you "pushing" me into an "online connected environment." I would rather simply NOT BUY YOUR DAMN GAME. I could play Diablo I and Diablo II perfectly fine single-player, and I didn't have to connect to the Internet at all (or be forced to be connected constantly), unless I wanted to patch the game, and that was great. I never went online (well, that's not true, I did try it exactly once in each of those games, and never again), and I have never once missed it. Apparently, that makes me an atypical consumer of your products about whom you now obviously no longer give the slightest crap, because with Diablo III, that's not going to be an option at all. Therefore, as I've already said numerous times and will likely continue to say as long as you remain on this course (and as long as the whole fiasco remains in the news), I will act accordingly and spend my money elsewhere to buy games that are more suited to my tastes. Again, it's a very simple, but incredibly disappointing decision to have to make, because until now I will freely admit that I was indeed very much looking forward to Diablo III.
Seriously, Blizzard, why can't you just allow a purely offline single-player mode for people like me who don't care and will almost assuredly never care about playing online with anyone else? And if by some freak off-chance I did lose my senses and decide to try online at some point, I would be perfectly fine with starting a new character from scratch just for that purpose. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest that my single-player character used in offline mode wouldn't be playable there. If you would just put this feature from the first two games back in, Diablo III would most likely resume its status as a Day 1 purchase for me. But until and unless that happens, you have lost a customer, as has any and every other game dev/pub who insists on this asinine "always connected" crap (outside of games like dedicated MMOs and such where it actually makes sense to have it). Well, I don't think it will ever be a Day 1 purchase again, even if you do put the offline single-player back in, because I'd have to at least wait on reviews and word-of-mouth to make sure you haven't screwed the pooch in other similarly awful ways, but I would still likely get it within a reasonably tiny timeframe, all the same.
I'm not even going to touch on the real money auction stuff (also covered in that interview linked above) because, as I said before, that wouldn't have directly affected me at all had I been allowed to play the game offline as I was able to do with the previous games. And now, it's still not going to affect me at all because I'm not buying the game. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but that's just how it is.
But really, reading that interview in its entirety, that was some of the lamest, most holier-than-thou, "we know better than the player what the player wants" bullshit I've read in quite a while. It was more or less on par with some of the worst stuff to come out of EA or Ubisoft or Square-Enix (or, hell, even Valve of all companies, how did I miss that until now?) lately. Wow, has that "must be connected, at least in some way" shit really already become this prevalent? The game industry, or least my interest in where it is heading at this point, is starting to spiral down the toilet. How did it come to this? *rips out chunks of hair in frustration, figuratively speaking* Oh well, at least Bethesda still has some sanity left.
Honestly, what happened to you, Blizzard? *cough*Activision*cough* You used to be pretty cool, but not so much anymore. *defeated sigh*
tl;dr version: Nope, still not buying Diablo III.