I still have no steam account. I have a cupboard full of games and as of recently a gog account.

I guess I wont be renting... I mean buying this game :(

I wonder if they've bought shares in internet service providers?

I actually had to throw Diablo in the bin because it was just too addictive and it killed at least one CD player... the CD never stopped spinning whilst the game was running, probably because it was streaming its music. It was an easy game to play, didn't have any bugs (that I noticed), and I lost track of the number of times I completed it... that chain lightning was my favourite.

I'll just keep playing Diablo 2, when I want, how I want, and wherever I want.

I don't know what would please people in this case. An "offline mode" similar to that in SC2 ? With your character locked out of achievements, auction houses, etc while also denied for eternity from entering battle.net ? That would be a totally separate "branch" of this game that would have so many limitations with only a single advantage - you'd be able to play while offline... or if Blizzard goes under.
Yeah, I understand the reasoning behind hating it. I know that as soon as the media calls it "Blizzard's always-on DRM scheme for Diablo 3" people will be outraged, call Blizzard names, mention Activision for some reason, use words like "greed", propose a boycott and lament over the world we live in. To do so they'll have to be online ;)...

What I'm trying to say is - not everything's black and white. If you present the facts in a certain light, for example - say it's AODRM and post Blizzard rep's surprise as his response, people will be easily swayed to say "He couldn't figure out that we hate DRM ? What kind of a moron is he ?". When you look from Blizzard's perspective, however... you have to ask yourself "How can Diablo 3 be awesome ? What's fun about playing it ? How can we implement our ideas using the tools we have ?". It's simple to realize that Diablo 2 isn't still played just because people love the single-player experience and replay the campaign OVER and OVER for... how long - a decade ? No - they play it to find loot, have fun with friends and trade, among other things. So that's what Blizz focuses on - the big picture. The goddamn temporal perspective - they want to make a game that people will want to play for years to come.
Me ? I enjoy my lonesome adventures quite a bit in most games. For the month I've played WoW I treated it like any other single-player RPG. That doesn't mean that I feel entitled to having a portion of the game cut out just for people like me to enjoy. I'm WEIRD, that doesn't mean other people are as well.
I won't mind Diablo 3 being an online game just like I accept that I have to be online to play Team Fortress 2. That's just THAT kind of game. It's not morally dubious, it's not DRM, it's not some insanity Blizzard put there to make people angry - it's a feature that is crucial for the way this game is meant to be played.

Some broad strokes: there are four types of people:
1) People who wouldn't want to play D3 no matter what.
2) People who only care about the single-player part.
3) People who only care about multi-player
4) People who care about both
Blizzard caters to group 3 and those from 4 who don't mind the online design. People from group 1 might be a lost cause anyway... so only group 2 is truly inconvenienced by all of this. This might not exactly be the type of game they'd want to play anyway.

If they released, say, Lost Vikings 3 - I'd be annoyed if I had to log in every time I wanted to play it. I wouldn't even buy arguments that it's there for the co-op part.
But that's an entirely different kind of game.

It IS hard to draw the line but I think it's wrong to cry foul every time something requires Internet access. In my eyes - some things SHOULDN'T (like adventure games), some CAN (like Diablo 3), some have to (like MMOs). What people should encourage are more games designed with offline play in mind... and better, faster, more reliable Internet access (said Vestin after five failed YouTube uploads in a row) ;].

Yes that is exactly what I want. Diablo 2 did it, I don't see why I should accept Diablo 3 having less value.

No one is denying this. Adding all these online features will make the game better for multiplayer gamers. The problem is they are also cutting out the offline mode and characters. There is absolutely nothing about the online stuff that makes it impossible for them to have offline support as well, just like Diablo 2 did. The reason they don't is because they want to force customers to be online, to play by their rules and be exposed to their post-sale money making content and to hopefully stop some piracy. That's it, there is no other reason.

I do not like to be inconvenienced as a consumer by corporations forcing control on me when it does not benefit me at all, or is not needed.

Except TF2 is really online only while Diablo and Diablo 2 had rich singleplayer gameplay.

The problem is that this game selling a ton of copies means other publishers will say "people don't mind always online requirements." They won't make the distinction of Diablo 3 being more multiplayer focused than other action RPGs, they won't say "well it's Blizzard they can do what they want and we can't." None of that is true, what they will say is "consumers accept this!" This is exactly what Willits is saying, the success of Diablo 3 will further this as a common thing.

Purchasing Diablo 3 therefore becomes a vote for persistent online DRM in all games. It becomes a statement that says clearly "I do not mind this." I cannot make that statement, I cannot vote for it. I honestly think it would be more moral to pirate the game then buy it under those circumstances, not that I will be doing that either in all likelihood.

That they concentrate on the multi-player part because that's something that's going to keeps peoples playing, fine, that they want to lock down multi-player because they want to makes money with micro-transactions, fine too, that they want to prevent peoples from cheating fine again.

But that's still not an excuse at all for locking down the single players part, for forbidding all mods, for forcing players of being always online even if they have no intention at all of ever using their characters online, and, maybe even worse, for playing dumb when peoples complains about it.

Not to mention that IS'S BLIZZARD we are talking about, not some small Indy company who can't afford having both a different multi-player section and a single player one.

One of the big flaw in this argument is that you assume that just because somebody is interested in the multiplayer they automatically won't care if the single player part uses an always online DRM.

I... sincerely hope you're wrong :|. I don't want to be a part of the problem but... but it's Diablo 3 ! Am I supposed to forsake all the potential fun I might have just because some people can understand this the wrong way ?
Besides - you said it yourself (IIRC) that it's probably more important to support development than to boycott DRM. Well - in this case, as we've read, Blizzard doesn't really see the system as DRM. Neither do I. They also make excellent games, take their sweet time and patch them for years... You know.
Do you really think this is where people have to draw the line ?

Of course they can "afford" it. All I'm saying is that it's pretty pointless. They've built their entire game around all this online stuff and they'd have to make a gutted sub-version for... well - for whom and for what reasons ?

I didn't mean that people who care about MP don't mind what you call "DRM". I said that out of those who care for both, D3 cater to those who don't mind. Which is, I believe, a sizable group.

I think Willits' comments show how this will be received by the publishing community. I don't think people will be as eager to accept it for a totally offline game like Skyrim for example, but I do think this will be a big jump forward toward persistent online requirements for any game, justified by social/connection features.

And yes I have always said supporting PC gaming is more important than boycotting DRM. You are 100% correct, that has been my justification when I buy Steamworks games or SecuROM games. They can't stop me from playing because I can crack them and I want to support the games. That said I think the real core problem is gaming moving online only to the extent of sacrificing singleplayer itself. I said that way back in this thread, to me this is more a signal of true singleplayer being ignored by Blizzard rather than DRM being favored by them.

I don't want to support the idea of games all being completely online services. Steam nudges that idea and Gabe talks about it constantly, but Steam has always allowed you to have a completely offline and unconnected experience if you want to. Blizzard is taking the next step and saying "hey let's force a multiplayer environment on everyone." That is too far, for me personally.

i dont see any reason to play diablo 3, i can just play diablo 2, also its really a bad idea to make an ingame market to buy and sell items for real money when cheating is something they never got under control, there will be lots of duped items, people will buy them, and then the items will disappear all of a sudden
also as in diablo 2 you will never be able to really enjoy an online game thats not password protected, blizzard never even tried to get bots under control either, your screen is always filled with messages of bots

so to sum it up: they force you to play online in a game series that has lots of problems they never got under control when you dont play in privacy

its not just that, its one step after another, customers of games get raped more and more, first its absusing of dlc, then its attacking the second hand market, then its some other drm, and the gamers as a whole basically show the publishers that its totally ok to be a second class customer

i mean ok, maybe its ok for you that the game forces you to be always online, but step by step the publsiher do more things to absue whatever there is possible to fuck with customers, one day they do something you dont like, but i can tell you for sure whatever it is, it will be there, and later it will be in every game since gamers are not just treated like second class customers, they simply are and dont care, gamers as a whole have already proven that publishers are basically scott free to do everythign they want

No, an "offline" mode similar to D2, where I can play with my friends on LAN if I want. You act like that's some sort of unattainable ideal, clearly it's not, games have been doing it for well over a decade.
I don't know how much free time you have, but I have literally 300 or more unplayed games. Skipping Diablo 3 isn't really denying me fun, I'll just replace it with a different fun. I assume this situation is true for a lot of folks, there's more fun than you have life left to play video games out right now, let alone as time goes on.

exactly, and thats not even counting multiple playthroughs or games you play over and over in general like civ or multiplayer stuff or sportsgames or whatever

Exactly, it's the quality of their development that is important.
I do see this as DRM, and it saddens me, but if the game is up to the same standard of quality as their previous releases, then it's a company I'd be happy to support.
Ubisoft recently announced the removal of DRM from Heroes VI, will I be buying it? not unless the game itself is up to scratch. DRM is something that I take umbrage with, but the quality of the game itself is more umbrage-worthy, IMHO.

Though I can sympathise with, and respect, those who choose to give this game a miss. Everyone needs to take their own stand, on what is important to them.

Also worth mentioning are all the games which are released for free legally, be they open source games like NetHack, or free releases of classics, or just games that are made available at no charge for one reason or another.

The key here, which I'm sure has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, is that Blizzard has effectively made Diablo an MMOCRPG with Diablo III with the microtransaction model they've enabled and the persistent-online requirement. Practically all of the changes they've made are geared towards their online multiplayer users. In fact, I remember someone saying that Blizzard actually expected D3 to take away some of their business from WoW.

So yeah, it's not so much "Diablo, Part III" as it is more "World of Diablo". Welcome to the future.