Dammit Blizzard

Diablo III looks like it is shaping up to be a good game but with annoying business decisions behind it. It should have really been expected when Activision came into the picture. Either way, now there's no single-player offline mode for the game.

Back in my Diablo days I would very often hit up a single-player game just to explore and learn. I would level, level, level on my own and then finally brought myself out of the woodwork when friends from school invited me to online multiplayer. The same held true for Diablo 2 when I finally got it. At the very least you can still set up a single player online match, but then, it still has to be online!

From what I've read it also appears that every online game is being verified through Blizzard's servers. That means the continuation of locational servers for people (US-West, US-East) which is common in online games. This has always bothered me though since I have many friends who are not local. Hopefully they didn't remove LAN play or else I'll be a lot more displeased.

Back to the servers though, it seems really annoying how Blizzard wants to have constant authentication that your game and characters are legitimate. They never seemed to care before! Back for the older games there was Open BattleNet which was basically a free-for-all alongside the more closed BattleNet servers. What is wrong with having a free reign mod Open version again alongside the structured one? People had tons of fun in Open and it's not like any true harm is coming from it.

Oh, I know why. It must be because hacking would screw up the auction house and people now that auctions go for REAL MONEY. Who thought that was a good idea? Because it will pay out REAL MONEY people are definitely going to work even harder to abuse the system.

Basically, I hate all the directions Diablo III is going. I already hated the Real ID stuff that Blizzard pulled on their other games but this just hits me harder since I actually want to play this game. Despite all the ways they are making me angry I still intend to put down my money day one. Now I understand why people rally against things online but are seen playing them days later. It's tough to stand up for what you believe in when you're the biggest fanboy in the world for the property.