DiabloFans

I don't understand how Blizzard fails to understand why fan perception is mostly negative on this... yes D2 modding was not supported but it was still legal... Modding Diablo 3 will require an emulated player run server, which is against Blizzard ToS and illegal..

Is Blizzard that ignorant on it's own policies? "Not supported" is very different than prohibiting modding entirly.

I would certainly be interested

The route of my pissed-offery doesn't stem from offline play being removed alone. It's Blizzard's additude and mentality toward this game and it's community and their obssession with making money and preventing piracy while hiding under the guise of convenience. They are stripping away players rights and options for how we choose to play or enjoy a game we're paying for. They are applying the same strict control methods seen only in pay to play or cash shop mmorpgs; yet the game isn't. They are forcing everyone to play on the servers they strictly control... Preventing offline play, banning modding, preventing lan and a real cash auction house are disgusting.

As for mods. Hellfire for Diablo 1 was a fanbased mod; there are countless mods for Diablo 2... Blizzard stated early on mods would not be supported for Diablo 3 but if players wanted to make mods "power to them" it was still ok. Now this has had a dramatic reverse where mods are now against policy and terms of service.

The thing about offline mode, mods would have been limited to offline mode. You could still create singleplayer offline mods; with the removal of offline mode this will become impossible since battle.net is the only way you can play the game. Because anyone not playing on battle.net means potentially less revenue for Blizzard through the auction house.

And no I won't by this game. I'll stick with Torchlight 2 until private servers start popping up for Diablo 3; but I will no longer support or respect Blizzard as they have chosen not to support or respect their fan-base time and time again.

Square-Enix was a large video game company responsible for some of the most popular games ever created; but they became too complacent and arrogant while turning their backs on their fans and have gone into a spiraling downfall because of it.

And quit being another hostile dumb ass nerd defending these changes. It only empowers Blizzard to continue to screw over the community. It amuses me how some people defend Blizzard like it's a religion.

If this was going to alienate any notable portion of the player base Blizzard wouldn't be doing it

Removing SP and suddenly deeming modding of any kinda prohibited and against ToS after earlier saying mods would be ok but limited to single player and not official supported is alienating multiple fanbases.

LAN players,
Offline single players,
Modding Community
Players who want freedom of choice and and options on how they choose to play or enjoy the game they legally purchased.

So you're saying none of those communities within the fanbase; even if they are a minority are affected or alienated by Blizzard's strictly controlled; must play online, must use battle.net, mods are now illegal, players must bow before us, policy?

Naw of course not, how could anyone possibly feel alienated by such minor things. Blizzard doesn't care about alienation so long as they can make an extra few bucks off the mainstream audience.

Forgive me If I am wrong, but is that not what this whole post is about that, again, forgive me if i am sorely mistaken, YOU STARTED?

If you can't beat em, join em... In all honesty yes you are right. I am perfect example of the negative, bitter Diablo mentality because of these design decisions. I compare that to Torchlight 2 because I am actively involved in that community and it is NOTHING like this. 99% of their fanbase supports them, it's a very positive, enthusisatic mentality and the developers take a very active role communicating with the fanbase doing what they can to make a better game for everyone... They are even looking into potentially having official software to support player run servers; something only Bioware has ever done for Neverwinter Nights... Something Blizzard is 100% opposed to.

The menality here only proves my point when you even bring up how much potential Torchlight 2 has where ignorant people bust out a "Torchlight 2 sucks" Runic's vision for that game makes me far more excited about it than Blizzard's close minded, cash obssessed decisions with their paralyzing fear some people may pirate the game or not use our auction house if they allow us to play offline or not play on their server.. Oh yah and modding, they can't allow that either because it would impact their auction house. They are removing essential options and freedoms that are essentially mandatory for most PC games now adays "unless it's a suscription based mmorpg or a cash shop online rpg"

I am a person who supported and respect Blizzard, but that has all but change. They have lost their way and any sense of innovation... All they care about is making money, not about their community or their fanbase... Look how many minority groups within their fanbase they have crushed under the guise of stopping piracy and making cash. Diablo 3 is just another cash cow intended to milk it's players by any means nessecary; the auction house and removal of offline mode and banning mods entirely is evidence enough of that.

I'm not affected and I honestly don't care much. But if this direction means a better gaming experience on the servers, I care even less about mods (that weren't really supported before either).

And that is the problem with the Diablo community "I am not affected by it so I don't care; if other people in the community get screwed over by it, who cares?" The apathy of the community never ceases to sadden me. In addition how does removing an offline mode, forcing you to play online, on battle.net even for single player and prohibit modding entirly make for a "better gaming experience" on the servers. This was not done to make for a better gaming experience; it was done as a misguided way to combat piracy and expose more players to the 'glory' of the auction house thus potentially increasing revenue to Blizzard.

Screw the modders.
Screw offline players.
Screw LAN players.
Screw people who want to have fun with the game in their own specific niche.
Screw people who want choices and options.

But hey why I am telling you this? You don't care as it doesn't affect you... As for Torchlight 2, you seem to forget the developers are the original creators of Diablo and they have shown that they care about their fanbase and community... they have always taken an active role in the community; they listen and work hard to offer a better experience; they even support player run servers. Not to mention the community as a whole is much more positive and enthusiastic compared to Diablo where "You're idea sucks, you suck, Blizzard sucks, I don't care" Is a common response to half the debates being discussed.

Quote from FingolfinGR

A company that doesn't aim to make money is a company about to go bankrupt.
As long as they continue to make awesome games and keep those features optional, they're not at fault.

Modding now bannable, prohibited and against Terms of Service?
They welcome mods, its just with some terms.

Guessing you didn't read the latest announcement that mods of any kind are prohibited, bannable and against the ToS now... They were fine before, just not supported. Developers even said they wouldn't support it, but if we wanted to mod; go right ahead... Since the announcement of the Auction House and removal of Offline Single Player their stance on modding has shifted completely.

Further more this is not evolving; if anything this is de-evolution. Stripping and limiting features, stepping on minority fanbases within your community, alienating people and turning them against one another, offering a strictly controlled server as the only way to play the game legally be it single player or multiplayer... All this for the sole purpose of making an extra buck through their Auction House.

If this is evolution I'd rather go extinct. Maybe TL2 wont be as big, or as epic or as amazing as D3, but it will still be a great game and it's developers actually care about their fan-base and are putting it's community ahead of profit... Plus the community is far friendlier and positive compared to the amount of fighting, negativity and bitterness that is rampant in the Diablo community... Something Blizzard has provoked time and time again.

Quote from soulzek

Blizzard making stupid choices doesn't make Torchlight any less shitty of a game.

Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize you had played Torchlight 2 before it's even been released. Try researching a topic before throwing out ignorance. Torchlight 1 was a novelty game. Torchlight 2 is an entirely different beast. And at least Runic cares about their fan-base and community and doesn't find new ways to step on them for the sole purpose of making an extra buck. You supporting and defending them only feeds them and lets them get away with these kind of insults time and time again. As well peoples attitude of "it doesn't effect me so I don't care, screw everyone else that it does effect" is a wonderful mentality to have.

Furthermore you can sense the mentality and friendliness of Runic's positive fanbase. As opposed to the negative, bitterness and constant arguing that's rampant throughout the Diablo 3 community, since Blizzard is working wonders at tearing it's own community apart.

ALSO, D3 isn't a MMORPG, and if you think it is, you clearly don't understand the definition thereof

The line between what isn't and is an MMORPG is getting blurrier. No offline mode, one official server to rule them all, mods being illegal... That's mmo enough as is... Furthermore, adapting and evolving. That's a load of BS. This has nothing to do with games "evolving" This has to do with greedy companies looking for a way to make extra money.

Offline mode was removed and mods were made prohibited for the sole reason because it will interfere with the Auction House and reduce revenue. This is about money, not some evolving process where all games have to be online and strictly controlled under the guise of trying to combat piracy and preventing people from being confused by too many options.

I am wondering at what phase in it's development did Diablo 3 turn into another WoW engine? It seemed to happen so gradually and subtly that no one noticed it... Blizzard should have just called this Diablo Online from the beginning or World of Diablo...

No offline mode at all anymore?
Modding now bannable, prohibited and against Terms of Service?
A real cash auction house?

Torchlight 2 keeps looking better and better. My support and respect for Blizzard seems to diminish with every announcement. Arrogance and complacency while stepping on and alienating minority fan-bases within your community never has a good end result... Just look at where Square-Enix is today; how the mighty have fallen.

Or they could simply take a page from Bioware and Runic Games and support player run servers for modding rather then declaring them an abomination to Blizzard's strictly controlled MMORPG style battle.net

some people will play the mod instead of their actual game that they worked so hard for

Modding and user created content is more of a longevity value... I spent years modding Diablo II, but this was well after I had played the official version... I have every intention to play through Diablo 3 from start to finish with a few different characters. I will play through expansions and official DLC as well, but after a certain point it just becomes old and done... This is when the value of modding becomes much higher. Many games such Oblivion are only still being played because of mods. The bulk of players who play my Hell Unleashed mod are those who quit Diablo 2 long ago because they were simply bored of the game and the endless tedious item grinding that Diablo 2 amounted to in the end.

I think initial modding support may distract from their vision and getting everyone to play Diablo 3 as they had intended first and foremost. But after the initial excitement has worn off and players have blazed through all the content it becomes far more nessecary to keep players interested while waiting for the next expansion or whatever. Players who cannot find their niche or have grown bored of the game will either quit or move onto mods.

I loved playing SC2 on the official ladder for competetive ranking. But I haven't in many months simply because I got bored of playing the exact same maps over and over again, so now I find a lot more entertainment in custom maps and never play the official ladder anymore and probably won't again until an expansion or map pack.

I think it is as simple as this: Blizzard is not supporting mods because they don't believe that the mods created would be better than what they will create themselves.

That's a matter of opinion. Blizzard develops their games to appeal to the widest possible audience. fun, simplistic, polished, casual... That's not a bad thing at all but their are other niche's of gameplay that are excluded in this vision... Say for those who prefer brutal open world pvp, or an enhanced PvE mode, improved monster AI, or those who enjoy more complex/expanded character customization and features... Blizzard has done a lot to simplify and dumb the game down to make sure there is no room for confusion, such as removing manual stat points and simplifying attributes.

It is their game, and their vision may be the best f6or the largest player base as you see in WoW, but in this a lot of minority groups with more specific/focused play styles will be left with more to be desired for. Not really finding their place amongst the majority. In which case players often quit and move on to new games or play mods.

I personally really enjoy developing custom content, but half of my enjoyment comes from people who can enjoy it and play together online. Torchlight 2 may not be as significant and epic as Diablo 3, but a world editor, flexible multiplayer and potential supported software for player run servers certainly makes it far more appealing in terms of modding and user created content. More so than purely having to manual fumble through and modify XML tables that can only be legally available for single player...

Also it's not selfish that I think so because dividing the community may not always generate bad influence on the game itself but there are games that have had this kind of problem.

I think those fears are unwarranted honestly. Seriously you could make the same arguement about MMORGP's and that having multiple servers "divides the community"

Certain mods cater to paticular audiences depending on the theme of that mod. say "an open world pvp mod" or an "extreme difficulty mod" for example... This allows specific players to play in their favored niche when they become bored of the official content. Obviously Diablo 3 isn't going to have any issues with how many people are playing online. Any custom content/modded servers that you could connect to through battle.net would obviously have seperate character ladders that would be specific to that satelite "server or mod" to prevent any cross contamination or compatability issues between the official game and other mods.

If they made it so you have to authenticate your key and login to battle.net but then have something of a "custom game" feature that allows you to connect and play different mods like you can for SC2 that would be very cool ... Or just change their stone age private server policy's and allow modders to run their own b.net servers separate from the official battle.net and include some key authentication feature... The only reason I still play SC2 online is because of the custom game feature...

Either way, anything is better then "single player only" for any mods and user created content. They have hyped battle.net 2.0 as their "be all, end all" solution for all your multiplayer needs; yet at this point they have failed to provide any service for user created content.

We have action rpgs such as Torchlight 2, Grim Dawn and Neverwinter 3 on the horizon. all of which will include world editors as well as flexible multiplayer options. I'm pretty sure Blizzard could show some innovation or ambition on this issue.

You're going to Mod for TL2? Did you do anything for TL1?

I played around with the map editor somewhat; I didn't work on any public mods due to the single player limitations of the game. But given that TL2 will have a improved wold editor with endless modding capability + multiplayer and even official support for private servers; I'm pretty excited about it and it holds a lot of appeal for me... You can read about my tentative project here... http://forum.arimyth.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2881

As much as I would be interested in modding Diablo 3 and develop a Hell Unleashed II in essence; that's really up to Blizzard... the lack of any kind of official modding support, no change in their private server policy, no multiplayer outside of battle.net, and no way of incorporating user created content into battle.net really makes the idea and interest in a project of that magnitude far less appealing. I'd rather look to a more flexible game then continue to be at odds with Blizzard's policy and face the same obstacles I had to deal with while modding D2; if not more so.

I updated the links on the main site; a recent client updated had them temporarily invalidated... Other then the official forums, the official site and the moddb.com page I can't vouch for any links as they would be unofficial sources.

The official website overall is currently under construction and most of the other sections are offline. I was planning on putting up an entirely new official site when Torchlight 2 is released.