Now that Diablo 3 has been delayed until sometime in early 2012, people have refocused their attention on perceived problems with the game. In this era of widespread broadband connections, Blizzard has opted for the “always online” form of piracy prevention. Basically, if you want to play Diablo 3, you need an active Internet connection to do so.
Why did they do this? What could the reasons be? First, if you are familiar with Diablo 2, you will know of how rampant hacking, cheating, and duping were. It caused major problems with the game, and Blizzard has never been able to keep up with the various new methods people use.
How The System Works
Their hard-line stance on these issues comes through in this online requirement. Much of the game’s data is not installed onto your hard drive when you load Diablo 3 onto your system. Certain aspects are, like art, animations, and that sort of thing. But others, like AI and loot, are not. This is to prevent people who would cheat from doing so by removing their access to this information.
They need this information to cheat or otherwise exploit the game, because Diablo is all about getting new loot. If you can figure out the loot tables (what monsters drop what loot and when) then you can make a program to easily farm those monsters, make bots, perhaps even hack the game itself.
Why Is This So Important Now?
The reason behind all this is the Real Money Auction House (RMAH). Players can trade items they find as well as characters on this auction house for actual money. It gets deposited into either their Blizzard wallet or their PayPal account. Now that Blizzard has opted to handle real money transactions themselves, they have to be very careful.
If hackers or cheaters found a way to game the system, they could potentially make a lot of money. This could be by defrauding people with duped items, or simply by flooding the auction house with too many items, thus unbalancing the economy. People don’t want to get ripped off. Blizzard is trying to make sure that they don’t.
Conclusions
To prevent people from exploiting the system for their own gain at the expense of other players, Blizzard chose this online model. Once you come to realize it’s about the money, and that they are trying to protect you, it should be clear that this is a good thing. With the Diablo 3 release date still up in the air through this delay, the developers can use this time to fine tune the system and make sure it works as intended.
Because of this real money issue, Diablo 3 will always be a multiplayer only game.
