In-game market is not a bad thing. But gamers will not earn much on this. Huge shops, auctionbots etc will storm the market, and all of the items there will be instantly 0.01 cheaper than in any other person's stock. Companies will earn money, not gamers, but as long as Blizzard gets its cut, it's fine for blizzard.

Also, the worst things in D3 are permanent internet connection restriction (when Ubisoft does it it's bad, but when holy blizzard does the same it's good? how is that?)

also, region blockade sucks ass, disabling modability sucks balls, and only 4 player coop sucks monkey ass and balls.

Sorry for explicit language, but I suddenly lost all my interest in this game.

Ok, now I get what you're saying. Though I would argue that we don't know enough about how the social part of the game will work yet to know if it will be something that is largely unavoidable or not.

From the screenshots in the press kit they handed out it seems that your Friends list will only include "Real ID" Friends, ie. people who you've exchanged e-mail addresses with and who you have accepted as your battle.net buddy. I don't see any reason why (especially if you simply choose not to use the Real ID Friends system) you wouldn't be able to just log on, create a new game, put a password on it, and play without being bothered by anyone.

All in all (and this is not directed at you) I think people are overreacting something fierce -- they hear "constant internet connection required", "no mods allowed" and "an auction house that will use real money", and just start freaking out. It's classic internet behavior. More than half the people who are now screaming "OMG another game I will NEVER buy!! Blizzard/Activision is pure evi!!" will go out and buy it anyway, and play the shit out of it. People should just calm down, keep their whiny nerd raging selves in check, and wait for the BETA or (even better) the game's release, so they can make a more informed decision about whether it's for them or not. There's a lot more to this game than just those three facts.

7 more days and we'll know the deep details for everything Diablo 3... one week of patience before you cancel your preorders, at least. :)

I don't think it's an overreaction. If anything I tire of the insistence some people have that we act like this is no big deal. Acting like stuff like this is no big deal is what allows companies to fuck us over. The louder the noise opposed to this the better for ALL gaming, in my opinion.

And no, I will not buy it anyway. Not with a forced always online requirement.

Hehe, I think the reaction has been sorta "ho-hum". Diablo 3 is probably the last game you will hear me complain about though as it is the last dinosaur from my yesteryear gaming (along with SC2). It is obvious that SP gamers are no longer consider a target market. The "always on-line", "stores" etc etc render the game an instant no-buy for folks like me. I just play for fun and don't need stores, in-game social networks and such . . . so . . .

The good news is that D3, like SC2, will received tons of orgasmic hyping, be front page for a few weeks and then disappear as everyone prepares for the next AAA release.

I remember following the D2 release intensely, my biggest disappointment being the addition way-point saves. My Lady got off work early to pick the game up on release day and we played into the wee hours of the night. She was unaware (it's been what . . 10 yrs??) that D3 was actually going to be released. I let her read the game specs without making a comment either way as she REALLY liked Diablo. Her first comment was "Surely you aren't going to buy this?" I assured her that I was not. Times sure have changed . . . =)

Edit: IIRC, the way-point saves thing in D2 was added for the on-ling game, forced into the SP game so to speak. I might be wrong on that as it's been a while.

Diablo 2 used a more 'online' system for saving, yes.. which honestly, I feel in a game like Diablo is a good thing.

In action RPGs, you're going to die unless you're playing super careful, even more so when you're new tot he game. Waypoints were the logical progression from the 'town level' entrances to the various tiers in Diablo 1.

Never too far of a run if you die, at most through 2 zones usually, and if you're not speeding through your zones are clear anyways. Plus us smart folk would drop a TP when we thought there'd be a nasty fight, just in case.

I think they did it that way to allow your 'single player' characters to be used in Open Battle.Net and LAN games which makes sense, as many players of the original Diablo played their multiplayer characters single player due to it beign more forgiving and allowing them to trade with friends, and control what difficulty they started on.

That rambling..
I understand that they want to move further towards the MP market, I fully understand the Battle.Net Auction House (as has been brought up: It's gonna happen anyways, may as well let it happen in a controlled safe environment). I have absolutely 0 issues with the sounds of how Battle.Net is being set up for Diablo 3.

I just don't want to be forced to use it.

OK, so you don't want to give us Open Battle.Net, fine. Let us play single player or LAN.

I rarely died in Diablo. What made it a pain was at 1 am on a work night and you had to play to the next way-point to save or lose your progress. After the first play through it was not a problem as you knew where the way points were. Some were easy to miss . . even knowing where they were . . so you played on, blurry eyed, to the next way point after the one you missed.

I just prefer the save anytime method . . . =)
I agree, seems we are offically "old school" . . . =)

well stuff , i had alot of those nights
and when you've reached the waypoint you were thinking like : "hmm , i wonder whats inside that region/dungeon and you kept playing for another hour.
obviously 5hours later the only way you got out of bed was with the help of a crowbar :)

LOL, that is exactly what would happen . . . =)

Given the choice, I'd take both.
Choosing between 'save any time, but game over if you die' or 'progress check points, game save on exit, respawn if you die', in a game like Diablo 2, I'll take option 2. Though my playstyle is basically "If there's no risk of dying, you're doing it wrong." which is why I played all the way through Nightmare on Players 8, even the bosses.

I played a Hardcore barbarian to Hell Act 2 on players 8, then one day I casually formatted that computer without remembering to back up the character (for the transfer, not to cheat the hardcore thingy).

You have a good point here. There are obviously two camps when it comes to this, but I don't think fanboyism plays much of a role in it. I think it simply comes down to their playing habits in previous Diablo games.

To people who played D1 and 2 only as singleplayer games, the lack of "true", offline singleplayer must come as a slap in the face. I completely understand that. However, to people who played the previous games, but especially D2, as multiplayer, this is simply the natural and logical evolution of the series... Looking at the D2 communities over the last 10 years, it seems to me there was an almost unanimous agreement that the only "legitimate" way to play D2 was on battle.net. Which, you guessed it, required a constant connection to the internet, stored your characters on Blizzard's servers instead of locally, and prohibited the use of any and all mods to prevent cheating and unfair play.

So to those multiplayer players, this is absolutely nothing new whatsoever, and that's why they just shrug their shoulders and say "Diablo is a multiplayer game." Me? I finished D1 singleplayer multiple times and loved it. Never played it multiplayer. But I played D2 mostly multiplayer because 1) it was boring as hell playing it singleplayer, and 2) cable internet was getting pretty common around that time, so me and my friends had a constant internet connection anyway, and it was no problem staying connected for hours on end.

The interesting question is -- of all the people who bought D2 -- did the majority actually play it on b-net or not? Blizzard seems to think so. And I think that most people playing it in the past five years or so definitely did. Also, I don't think that casual players, who might not be as versed in DRM agreements etc, mind creating an account and playing a game fully "online". Heck, some of them might not even notice it.

I've originally bought the game on day 1, I never had any desire to play on B-Net, Back in those days (if i remember correctly) most of us had dial-up internet access.

I just term them differently than you. I call them...

"internet connection required" = Strike 1
"no mods" = Strike 2
"real money AH" = Strike 3

"Freaking out" = I'm out.

(although technically, for me, the internet connection requirement was strikeout, checkmate, gin, and Yahtzee all by itself ;)