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Comment by benologist | Hacker News Reader

Oh fuck them. There is no worse form of DRM than a permanently-required connection. The 99.9% figure is total bullshit too, I "have" internet, except when there's a problem with internet or elec (every week, multiple days), or I shut my laptop (every day), or I move from wifi network to another (every day). C&C4 was ruined by that crap.

What a ridiculous excuse too - "people finished Diablo 2 on normal and couldn't find their friends online".

Call it what it is assholes.

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I agree. I was a huge C&C fan, (bought each game multiple times including the collection packs) but have not even looked at C&C4. I did check how easy it would be to pirate and frankly that's less effort then walking to the shops to buy it. Heck I even looked at it in bargain bins and refuse to touch it based on that DRM. It also locked out my Dad who enjoys C&C from playing as he does not have an always on internet connection nor will he.

I am not going to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt in this, as there is no reason they couldn't allow offline mode. The player confusion thing they cite could be easily fixed with some UI prompts.

You're right. The player confusion thing was already fixed in Diablo 2. You had offline and online characters. Their public understood the concept back then, so why wouldn't they understand it now?

Nobody uses these complaints when the game is called an MMO. Perhaps that's their new take on Diablo? I was a huge fan of Diablo and played it entirely online. I'm not too angry about this, personally.

There's a big difference between an MMO though ... the online play is the only play, it's not in any sense single player nor would you buy it to play alone or when you're disconnected.

With C&C4 it had the single player stuff and the multiplayer stuff just like them all - online play was there and it added lots of value to the game just like it has historically, except they crippled the non-online play by needlessly forcing a constant online connection (if you dropped out you could complete the current game, not save it, not start another), moving your saved games and everything else to their servers etc.

Diablo has always had a strong online component. While the series has never been an MMO in a strict sense, online play has always been more engaging (except for rampant spamming... which Blizzard seriously needs to address). Sites like d2jsp.org will attest to the added depth of online play. An economy developed out of the items you could find and there was also high end game play that was only available online. The experience was clearly superior.

Lots of people are going to jump all over Blizzard for it, but this move was entirely predictable and makes sense. What do you gain by playing offline: less restrictions and less gameplay. While some people will disagree with me, it is akin to asking for an offline component to WoW or EVE: there's technically a game left, but without other people there's much less fun and enjoyment.

D2 had an awesome single player campaign, dozens of hours of fun!

Forcing online connectivity for single player which is what they're doing, is DRM. And it's the worst kind - they're forever, needlessly tying the game to an online service instead of making it a big, optional value add.

Wait, you played C+C on your laptop while walking between wifi access points, and also somehow with your laptop closed? I'd blame your shitty C+C experience on that.

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