[NGTM-1R]

Also the part I meant to quote on my OP was the part of "what if XYZ went down?"  Steam going down would have a similar concern as battle.net going down.

No, not really. In fact, not at all. Steam can go down after you've logged in and your library will run, battle.net going down means your game craps out.

[mxlm]

Yeah, Steam going down isn't an immediate issue. D3's servers crying means you can't play. Not exactly the same

I have completely different expectations for a Diablo game and I'm not going to change them just because people don't want to have to pick their own skills and attributes as they level up.

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2012/5/3/diablo-3s-ability-system.html

[Dark RevenantX]

Also the part I meant to quote on my OP was the part of "what if XYZ went down?"  Steam going down would have a similar concern as battle.net going down.

No, not really. In fact, not at all. Steam can go down after you've logged in and your library will run, battle.net going down means your game craps out.

The main difference is the immediacy.  Without Steam, a lot of games would eventually cease to be useful or attainable legally, while bnet going down would have an immediate effect.  Both are online systems that act as DRM for games, whose absence would cause major problems.

[Flipside]

The point is that Steam itself does not store or generate game-related data on its own server. If Steam itself failed then it would actually be a simple procedure to allow authorised games to skip the DRM. The risk I see with Diablo 3 is that it appears some of the data is generated externally. In other words, even if the DRM were removed, the game would still be reliant on the functionality and availability of those servers.

That, to me, is introducing an Achilles Heel into the system, where the player is connected by a digital umbilical cord to the company, always relying on their continued existence. Whilst I freely accept there's little danger of Blizzard going under any time soon, I don't feel comfortable with that kind of knife being held to my throat.

[NGTM-1R]

The main difference is the immediacy.

As Flipside has continuously pointed out, this is again not true. If b.net is down, there is no way to play D3 at all. Period. End of discussion. You can't even crack it.

[MatthTheGeek]

You can't even crack it.

You're new to the internet, aren't you ?

[General Battuta]

Hey someone tell me if this game puts a huge amount of effort into its story but completely wastes all the interesting tonal and plot hooks from the end of the last game, then concludes on a ridiculous 'happy ending' with choral music and zero catharsis or satisfaction, tia

[Liberator]

Well, I don't spoil much, but given that it's been at least 2 decades since the worldstone was shattered, the plot hooks from that time have probably died off or retired to old(er) age.  Cain has a 20 something neice of sorts to give you an idea of how long it's been.  I will be frank however and say that the "mysteries" are not that mysterious and it's probably because I've been reading a lot of blizzard stuff.  A lot of it is unbelievably obvious with events that I haven't even seen yet having been telegraphed much earlier.

[General Battuta]

There was some interesting intimation towards the end of LoD that Tyrael had destroyed the Worldstone for his own purposes, possibly demonic corruption/whatever (Blizzard loves corrupting ****). Does that go anywhere?

[Dragon]

You can't even crack it.

You're new to the internet, aren't you ?

See:

The risk I see with Diablo 3 is that it appears some of the data is generated externally. In other words, even if the DRM were removed, the game would still be reliant on the functionality and availability of those servers.

It'd be like trying to crack an MMO to run offline in a singleplayer mode. Sure, you can circumvent the DRM, but you'd also need to establish a server with stolen/reverse engineered program that would generate this missing data.
Steam does no such thing and is, at it's core, a glorified shortcut that additionally checks if the game is legit. I bought Red Faction on Steam and had to download a patched .exe to get it to run properly on Vista. This, on the other hand, prevented me from using Steam to run it. The game worked perfectly (well, as perfectly as a 15 years old game can run on Vista anyway) though.

[General Battuta]

At least one UbiSoft game (AC2 I believe) used similar DRM, and iirc it was still cracked pretty rapidly.

[The E]

Ubisofts' implementation depended on getting regular pings from the ubi servers, this implementation basically removes part of the game data from the client.

Writing a dummy server that responded to pings was probably easy, writing a server that can do what the battle.net server apparently does will probably be more difficult.

[General Battuta]

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure there were actually elements of game content that had to be downloaded when you reached them. That's how the technique was discussed at the time on RPS.

[Flipside]

I have Anno 2070 which is one of the Ubisoft games that uses the new system. If it cannot find the servers then you cannot access your previous saved-data and the software is coded to disable certain functions in the menu. Also, whilst the original campaign (a very short 6-mission thing) is available with the game, you cannot play any other missions (called World Missions iirc) without being logged into the Ubisoft servers, and if you lose connection whilst playing the game, then a load of things get disabled mid-game, such as being able to store goods in your main 'base' because that info is stored online.

Edit : As I understand it, losing connection in Diablo 3 is even more catastrophic because of the procedural generation, it means that, whilst the achievements your player has may be preserved, the game you were playing will have actually changed by the time you get back in.

[Turambar]

Wow.  I no longer have any desire to pick up Anno 2070.

[Flipside]

To be honest, had I known, I wouldn't have bought it, I love the Anno series, but this really was pushing things a bit too far. It's why I don't go near Ubisoft games any more.

[mxlm]

At least one UbiSoft game (AC2 I believe) used similar DRM, and iirc it was still cracked pretty rapidly.

D3's client:server relationship is essentially the same as WoW's, and that's very much not the system UbiDRM uses. There are private WoW servers but A: they're not actually the same as playing on Blizzard's servers because the operators had to guess at some of the things going on server-side and B: Blizzard has successfully sued the pants off one outfit, and more will likely follow.

[General Battuta]

I've heard vague talk that DRM issues aside this game is sort of shallow and unengaging, please abuse/disabuse me of this notion

[Flipside]

I've heard similar reports, from what I understand this one wasn't developed by Blizzard North, who were the people who created Diablo 1 & 2, I've heard a few people say that it feels more like a 'generic Blizzard game' rather than a natural progression to the series, and that some of the enemies are too 'Warcrafty' to sit comfortably in the Diablo universe.

That said, I haven't actually played the game yet, so that is based entirely on hearsay.

[Polpolion]

I've heard vague talk that DRM issues aside this game is sort of shallow and unengaging, please abuse/disabuse me of this notion

This is pretty much true. The combat is mildly enjoyable but, unsurprisingly, the story isn't all that impressive. And without character creation it's really impossible to **** up in this game. The weapons really aren't all that interesting either, but that can probably be fixed in patches/expansion packs like D2. Pretty much since I've actually played the game I've felt that it was a fun little game. A good diversion for a couple weekends, but not worth the $60 and hardly a worthy Diablo title. But take my opinion with a grain of salt, some people seem to enjoy the new skill system.