Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Trapped in the Hells

So. Like (almost) every other gamer on the planet right now, I purchased and have begun playing the long-anticipated Blizzard game, Diablo III - the sequel 12 years in the making after the ridiculously successful Diablo II.

I, for one, absolutely adore the universe and the gameplay in these games. The world is filled with interesting characters, the missions are intriguing and the monsters are grotesque and evil. You, as hero, stand as the lone light of salvation in the doomed world.

Set 20 years after the events of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, wherein the last of the three Prime Evils, Baal, is killed last after his brothers - Mephisto and the eponymous Diablo - were killed, the heroes must rise again to fend off the encroaching hell hordes. The last of the Lesser Evils have surfaced after a mysterious fireball smashes into the Earth and causes the dead to rise.

If you were one of the many who received their game on its May 15 release date, odds are, you were met with the various Error messages, informing you that you couldn't log on. The servers had crashed with the traffic.

"What?" you may ask. "How can the servers of a single player game crash?"
Good question. Let me tell you.

In a move that has royally pissed off more than a fair share of people, something which is concisely summed up in this article. The main problem being that, in an attempt to curtail piracy - which has run rampant in the gaming community for, well, ever - Activision/Blizzard have decided that you have to log in to the server to be able to play your game.

"Hell," you say, "that's not so bad! You have to do that for Starcraft II and it works just fine!"

Oh, but you see, for Starcraft II, you have the option to play offline. Not so with Diablo III. You must be online at all times with Diablo III. It's no longer a "single player game with an online/multiplayer option", it's an online single player game that has the option of being played alone. But never offline.

And god help you if you have anyone on your friends list, because they can just pop into your game whenever they please. Without asking. Just PING! and they're in. But, that's neither here nor there.

My main gripe is the fact that, as happened to me on Tuesday night, if their servers are down or if my internet just plain isn't working that day, I have paid $69 for a game that I can't play. I know this is the case with World of Warcraft or any other number of MMORPGs, but those are designed for online play. You play them, you accept that servers need maintenance and sometimes they're going to go offline. But, when I purchase a single player game, I expect to be able to play it whenever I damn well feel like.

This means that unless my train has wireless, I can't play on the train. I can't play at someone else's house who's internet I can't get into. I can't play anywhere where there is no internet. And that just shits me.

That said, it's a pretty damn great game.

Mahalo.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Return!

I once read a post someone put up on Facebook that said that a blogger apologizing for their absence was arrogant, self-aggrandizing and made the foolish assumption that people actually read their blog.

I am here to say fuck that person and to apologize for my unreasonably lengthy absence from posting lately.

Due to being buried under just a voluminous mountain of work - creative and otherwise - I have been unable to post. But don't despair! I've been gathering ideas and reviews to throw at you once more!

Mostly I've been preoccupied with the TV show that I may or may not be making with a director/producer who may or may not be interested - all leaning towards the positives.

Also, the comic book I'm writing with a friend has recently been in discussions with artists after an absolute deluge of submissions, so that has been taking up an unsurprisingly large amount of time.

On top of that, add house-hunting and alarmingly large life decisions, and you come up with a indiscriminately small amount of time for yourself, which I generally didn't feel like filling with blogging. So, sorry. You are important and I love you, but I've just been too damn tired.

I've been reading some awesome comics and books lately, and seen some pretty swell flicks, so expect some reviews and rants soon enough. But not about The Avengers. I think everything's already been said.

Mahalo.