Gaming
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
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@Parellius I prefer games that I can play offline if I need to, but I have been a Diablo fan for over 20 years. Of course I purchased Diablo 4.
I like No Man's Sky take on this, that seamlessly shifts from offline to online. I can stop/resume it without an hitch on my Steam Deck, even in multiplayer zones.
With Diablo IV, I get disconnected when there's a light breeze.
No Man's Sky also trickled the content to different platforms so they had a constant revenue stream and didn't have to worry about micro-transactions. Everything about that game ended up having so much thought put into it. It baffles me that more games didn't take the hint.
I didn't mind it until I lost my internet connection, but I think I prefer it over bad Denuvo implementation that makes the game a stuttery mess.
An always online requirement is just another form of DRM. If a game has DRM, I simply don't buy it.
I started playing D4 two days ago and constantly try to pause the game when I need to give something else attention. It should also be easy to do when you’re alone in a dungeon. There are games that are online but let you pause when you’re alone (though I can’t remember which game I am thinking of right now)
Same experience as you with D4. Fun game but the always-on requirement is a tad annoying. Not deal-breaking for me, but I have had my fair share of rubber-banding on my SteamDeck, especially with Bluetooth headphones connected. D2R worked well offline, why not have an offline mode here?
In the case of Diablo IV, I really think it needs to do more to earn its always online status. I’m hoping that future updates and things will bring more MMO-like features as I think it would be a perfect fit
My firewall is configured to block all programs by default. If a game refuses to open or function without internet and I can't find any workarounds it gets angry looks from me and I let it through. I get anxious when playing anything multiplayer so doing so saves me from having to interact with people if I accidentally trigger a multiplayer event or something. Also generally makes games launch faster.
I don’t love it, but I’ve found that it’s been less intrusive than I thought. Generally only feel it when the internet goes out. That said, I’ve got fairly good fiber internet, so I’m a bit privileged in this regard. We used to have absolutely horrendous rural internet and it sucked.
Concerning gaming with a newborn, you should also look for games that you can play with one hand, so you can hold the baby with the other. Europa Universalis 4 is a great game if you've got a kid who will only fall sleep while being held.
I think when it makes sense it's fine, but I would only really say that for multiplayer games, if it's a single player game there is a really unfortunate reality, which is that pirating it will result in a better gameplay experience.
I don't buy always online games. Period.
In case of Diablo IV in my opinion Blizzard has a good track record of keeping game servers online for years and years.
That being said, the game does have some weird server hopping mechanic that you can't turn off, meaning it seems to switch servers while you're playing, which isn't always as seamless as you'd hope it would be. Also, at least for me, it sometimes selects servers with >100ms latency, which is quite noticeable of course.
Agreed. If I'm honest in this case my concern isn't necessarily that my access will be restricted at some point (or even the very rare dips when it switches servers on entering or leaving an area). It's more around the fact I'm playing the game effectively in single player and unfortunately that's likely to have shelf life due to personal circumstances.
With Starlink and an obstructed view of the sky, I really hate online only games because they get interrupted whenever a satellite goes behind a tree. I’ve basically had to use my phone’s hotspot to play games like hitman or multiplayer games like deep rock. It doesn’t use a ton of data once you’ve downloaded the games assets and have everything up to date. I tend to avoid online only games unless they are heavily discounted.
On another note, I have a 5 month old and the Steam Deck has been a godsend. The ability to pause a game and suspend the deck has saved my ass quite a few times and allowed me to get in some quick game sessions. I’m able to play maybe 20-30 minutes sessions during naps or when I’m in the toilet. I mostly stick with single player offline games these days. I have such a large backlog of steam games that have been a blast going back and completing. Also, emudeck has kept me flush with some nostalgic retro games. Even though I have a ps5 and a gaming PC, I almost exclusively use the deck these days. Good luck and congratulations!
I like it. I like to know that people likely haven’t hacked their chars. I’ve never had my crashing or rubber banding. It’s been seamless and while an offline version would be fine for me, that would never be the real game and you should never be allowed online.
Never was a fan of the change. I grew up before internet was common place in many households. Only thing you had to worry about was if the game cartridge had too much dust lol.
Gotta love the OG multiplayer split screen. Or even better 2 players on the same screen... I'm looking at you TMNT!
Doesn't matter to me one way or another, and it doesn't affect my purchasing decisions.
I almost exclusively play single-player games. I'm not sure I own one that is always online, since I pretty much always have WiFi on and wouldn't notice the difference, but I don't see why any of my games would have to be always online.
Is there an offline crack yet? I would have assumed piratws would have for sure gotten that done
D3 still doesn't have an offline crack to my knowledge because the crack isn't going to be simple. In most games, a DRM crack is typically as simple as editing a single instruction to jump over whatever code is trying to call the DRM feature.
But D3 and D4 are different. Essentially, a lot of game logic just isn't available to the client and stored on the server, so any hack will need to replace that. Console versions of D3 actually do have that code available, but now it's a non-trivial matter of porting that code back to the PC...
This will probably never happen unless the source code gets leaked.
I just can't justify purchasing a game where one day someone is going to flip a switch and permanently remove my ability to play it. I'm still playing catch up with games from the 1980s.
I would hope that in case of D3 they would patch offline mode to it and after that shut down the servers.
If they do that then I'll consider getting the game. But I wouldn't hold by breath. If they're wanting to shut down the server then they're probably not going to want to keep hosting a server for the patch either.
That and FOMO mechanics are a dealbreaker for me. I love playing video games, even spending a lot of time on them, but they are priority number 3 at best.
I quit War Thunder after grinding some battle pass and realizing I would need to keep up while having the time of my life on an Icelandic vacation. I just stopped, and that feeling of withdrawal is what I associate it with now.
I let it lie on my hard disk for a while, but after trying to play a few times and always feeling that it's the game that's going to play me so I won't enjoy even one match I just gave up and uninstalled.
This was not because of the recent and ongoing crap with the economy btw.