It's not an issue with Battle.net, it's an issue with individual games requiring an always-online connection even for a single player game. That is unacceptable to me. I want to be able to play my games whenever I want, whether I am connected to the Internet or not. Maybe I'm flying on a plane, or on a greyhound bus, or sitting on a picnic table in a park. There's no reason for any single player game to _require_ an online connection for anything at all except to inconvenience the customer as a form of DRM.

So the issue at stake ultimately here is - DRM, and it should be of no surprise to anyone in the GOG forums really that many if not most GOG customers despise DRM as it is the prime reason for the existence of GOG.com.

World of Warcraft is a special case because the game is an online persistent universe that could not even exist as the current game without centrally controlled servers by Blizzard, and it has no single-player element, so the service also acting as DRM is actually a side effect. My problem with that game though is the pricing model just does not fit into my personal gaming schedule dynamics nor my wallet dynamics.

I own and have played Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Starcraft, Diablo, and Diablo II endlessly and have no problem with playing any of those games through Battle.net for multiplayer, however I also run my own Battle.net compatible server so I can opt to use my private server instead of their central servers also. Not doable with the new always-online DRM battle.net games.

Agree on this one. Wanting to play single player, say like diablo 3, and you MUST be logged in and CONSTANTLY too, is a sick joke and the most consumer-hazardous means of DRM, at the same time.

However crap of a crap diablo 3 is, i was hoping to get it just for old man's and nostalgia's sake, only to beat the single player game once. When i learned about the always on, i never bought it and i never bothered to try the pirated emulated servers, either.

This is a crap game, especially compared against 1 and 2 and what's even worse, the form of DRM it has is even more crap. Honestly, i wouldn't get it even if it had been free.

The complete opposite of what gog and gog games stand for, is modern blizzard and blizzard games, alas...

I understand that perfectly. I'm not happy about it either, especially the lack of LAN play and, in the case of D3, the fact that it is online-only for PC players but not for console players. However, I was referring to the technical issue that some people have with it in that post, such as struggling to simply start the game through battlenet (which I read about from time to time).

Which is precisely what I meant by my "still waiting for Warcraft 4" joke.

If they're starting a single player game then yeah, I'd have issue with that if they can't connect to battle.net and it is required. The same thing happens with any always-online DRM systems assuming they have no way to shut it off, or they require it be activated once online before shutting it off or some other forced hand issue.

I own some games with GFWL that are a nightmare to play, as well as others that use other forms of always-online DRM. Batman Arkham City booted me out of my game one day because the connection to the online server went down for some unknown reason causing me to lose all progress since the last save or checkpoint or whatever.

That is why I don't like always-online DRM, it is consumer non-friendly and extremely inconvenient. It gives consumers no value, and it does not in any way prevent piracy. I wont knowingly support companies that do that. The only reason I have a few games with such DRM is because I'm human and bought some a few times on deep discount or in a bundle without doing my DRM homework first - a rare occurrence, but I definitely wont buy any games that I know for sure have draconian DRM.

I have no problem with optional online services/content/clients if they're done in what I perceive personally to be a reasonable consumer friendly way however.

Try starting one of those always-online games after the company goes out of business or decides the game sales are not enough to keep the servers online anymore too. Someone might suggest "Blizzard is too big to fail, they'll be around forever", but I've been gaming since around 1980 and I've seen dozens of game companies that were "too big to fail" go belly up over time so I don't think any company is too big to fail and I like my games to run for 100 years and without any Internet. :)

We're on the same page I think, or almost at least: there is no way that I would pass up on a Warcraft or Starcraft game because of online DRM, even if only to wait for a sale/bundle. I'm just too much of a fan of either series and too weak willed :) I don't imagine that online DRM will disappear anytime soon, at least not from Blizzard games, but I think they could've implemented it in an acceptable manner in SC2, if only they had restricted it to online play. I thought the whole ranking, achievement and avatar system was a nice touch for online play, but if you want such a system for your online community that can't be exploited, then you have to restrict the earning of those achievements to playtime while logged onto Battlenet. However, what annoyed me a lot was that they extended this to singleplayer, in which you can't earn the bonus objectives on each level unless you're actively logged on to Battlenet. And of course the inclusion of LAN play, which should've been a no-brainer from the start.

Truth be told, in the case of SC2 the online drm is actually a lesser concern for me. What troubled me a great deal more was the meh story. If we do eventually see a WC4 but with a lackluster story, I'll never forgive Blizzard.

Weird that you mention being kicked out of Batman:AC. I played that game almost exclusively offline, but I do remember having to select my GFWL profile or something whenever I ran the game, which didn't seem to do anything special. Perhaps the problem occurs if you start in an online mode, and the go offline while in the game.

That's like saying dinosaurs didn't go extinct becuase we have chickens.

True. It's actually two different genres. Ignore me! :P

Then it must have flown completely over me. Sorry.

It's "pay to win" not "pay to make quicker progress". PTW refers to competitive games where the paying party (or the party paying most) has a notable edge over the others. PTW is game-breaking, being able to pay for quicker progress is not.

I heard that Diablo 3 on the playstation is DRM free

It really sucks to buy the PC version. I should check for AODRM since Starcraft 2. Shame on me.

Carrying it? More like filling the grave with dirt. SC2 is one of the worst things to happen to the genre in ages. It's great if you're interested in competitive play, but for those of us that actually want to have fun, SC2 was pretty much the nail in the coffin in the same way that Halo pretty much destroyed the FPS genre.

When the genre makes a resurgence, you can be sure that Blizzard will be nowhere near it. On the whole, they haven't made any good games since they invested all their time in WoW. The games since then have been pale imitators of previous Blizzard releases.