Diablo 3 announcements upset gamers

Whenever Blizzard has something to say about Diablo 3, fans of the game usually greet the news with arms wide open. But according to reports online, Blizzard’s latest Diablo 3 announcements haven’t exactly been causing its fans to cheer about the game. Here’s a rundown of what Blizzard announced about Diablo 3 today.

It will require a constant internet connection and cannot be played offline. Say goodbye to offline single-player Diablo. Here’s what Blizzard had to say: “One of the things that we felt was really important was that if you did play offline, if we allowed for that experience, you’d start a character, you’d get him all the way to level 20 or level 30 or level 40 or what have you, and then at that point you might decide to want to venture onto Battle.net. But you’d have to start a character from scratch, because there’d be no way for us to guarantee no cheats were involved, if we let you play on the client and then take that character online.”

Mods are “expressly prohibited”. According to Blizzard, “For a variety of gameplay and security reasons, we will not be supporting bots or mods in Diablo III, and they’ll be expressly prohibited by our terms of use for the game.” Say goodbye to game mods like Median XL, trainers and bots (if you choose to not break their rules).

Items in the auction house can be bought and sold for real-life money. Blizzard says, “We think it’s really going to add a lot of depth to the game. If I have more money than time I can purchase items, or if I’m leet in the game I can get benefits out of it. The players really want it. This is something that we know people are going to do either way. We can provide them a really safe, awesome, fun experience, or they’ll find ways of doing it elsewhere.” I guess this is a better way to prevent people from getting ripped off or scammed. Since people are going to end up selling and buying items with real money anyway, it’s better to have an official channel for doing it. There will also be an additional auction house that uses in-game gold so nobody has to spend any cash if they don’t want to.

The game still has awhile to go before it’s released, so Blizzard could possibly change their minds about the game’s new (controversial) “features”. What do you think of the new Diablo 3 announcements?

George Wong
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Activision, Blizzard, diablo, Diablo 3, diablo iii