Does Diablo 3 require an internet connection to play solo?

Question

I've heard that Diablo III requires a persistent internet connection even in solo play. Does anyone have any sources to this effect? If so this is disappointing.

Asked by oscilatingcretin

Answer

Yes. This is a necessary consequence of Diablo 3's online cash auction system. All your stuff has to be stored on the server to prevent 'fraud'.

As you can see, the official system requirements include a broadband connection.

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-system-requirements

On further investigation, there appears to have been a rumour at some point that Diablo II will feature an "offline" mode, but this information is a year old, and Blizzard's system requirements seem to contradict it.

Q: Is there going to be an open/closed battle.net like on Diablo 2?

A: Very little is known right now on how Battle.net is going to work with Diablo III, mainly because they haven't done much work with it yet. It is unknown right now whether or not Diablo III will have an open/close Battle.net option. There will be an off-line mode but it is unknown whether or not you will be able to use those characters to play on-ine (sic).

(from http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27800569797&sid=3000)

A more recent and presumably up to date FAQ on the Diablo III wiki appears to agree that there will be no offline play.

Answered by Christi

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Tropico 3 on Steam - need a activation code?

Question

I just bought and downloaded Tropico 3 on Steam. It's now asking me for an activation code. Is this a bug? If not where can I find my code?

Asked by C. Ross

Answer

Yes, you need a CD Key to validate the game. You can find the CD Key on the right menu in the Steam Details view of the game.

Answered by cowgod

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What sort of DRM does Kingdoms of Amalur have on the PS3?

Question

I've just given the Kingdoms of Amalur demo a spin on my PS3 and I have to say I found it most enjoyable (with the horrible facial animations, or lack thereof, serving only as a mild distraction).

However, I couldn't help noticing that once I fired up the demo, it performed all sorts of suspicious things like authenticating with EA servers. I also had to agree to two massive end user license agreements, and was heartily encouraged to create an Origin account.

This is a new and daunting experience for me on the PS3, as I thought this sort of nonsense only happened on the PC. And that got me wondering what sort of DRM restrictions does the game impose on me when played on the PS3. Of specific concern are the two following points:

• Does the game require an active online connection to function? What happens if it can't get in touch with its mysterious EA servers?
• What is it that I am agreeing to in those massive agreements? Anything related to Origin is notoriously devious. Am I allowing some sort of information to be collected?

Any other information on the matter would also be greatly appreciated.

Answer

As with most EA games, Amalur does contain some online component through an EA account. As far as I know, it isn't some sort of DRM but rather a way for EA to unlock content for you between games without the need of save files, in the case of Amalur, it unlocks objects for you in the full game and in the upcoming Mass Effect 3.

A similar thing was with Dragon Age 2, where playing the demo, compelting some actions on Dragon Age's website and the Facebook game, Dragon Age Legends, unlocked stuff on your EA account which was available in the full game.

EA/38 studios did confirm there will be day one DLC (which I believe isn't included on disk) and will be free for purchasers of new copies of the game. I'm not sure if the DLC will be tied to your EA account or will be like in most cases a code redeem in the PSN store/XBLM/Origin.

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How does offline mode impact Anno 2070?

Question

Anno 2070 apparently has online and offline modes, and I'm wondering how those modes are different. I found some discussion of what you can't do in offline mode, but having not yet played the game those specifics weren't very helpful for me.

Basically I'm wondering about whether the online mode adds legitimate multiplayer-like content/gameplay, and whether offline mode is artificially restricted as a form of DRM. (Ie. am I punished for playing offline, or am I just playing by myself?)

Answer

The biggest thing I discovered is you can't use your Ark upgrades. Which is rather sad. Just when I think Ubisoft is doing better I discover they just secretly sabotage the game in a less obvious way.

I mean yes the game can be played without the Ark upgrades but they are significant. Even if you research them within the game your playing it wont let you equip it. So you miss out on powerful global buff's to your buildings/units. I could understand disabling the persistent Ark inventory but not the ability to equip the items entirely.

So to answer your question : Yes, you do get "punished"

In my opinion, you shouldn't, but that's how the game is put together.

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buy multiple copies of a game on one steam account?

Question

I do a lot of LAN gaming with my friends. Generally games allow you to play LAN without online authentication (ie, Unreal) so I can use the same copy on all of my computers (this isn't really piracy since they are all my computers). However, this has the drawback that if I start a server, people on the internet can't connect. To be able to connect to it, I would have to set up an online (not just a LAN) server. This requires a full copy of the game on each computer. Does steam allow me to buy slots for each game? Like I buy one copy of Battlefield 3, then pay for additional licenses to play off the same account at the same time, but on a different computer? I don't want to maintain 5 different accounts for 5 different computers.

Answer

You cannot log onto the same Steam account in multiple places or it will kick other computers off. Additionally, I think you are unable to 'double buy' a game (though if you got the same game different ways—in a pack and a la carte, for example—you might) on the same account unless it's a gift.

However, you may be able to launch Battlefield outside of Steam (look in the steamapps folder for the executable) however, and work from there. As you suggest, playing online with the same copy may not work, but a LAN game may. Using one copy on multiple computers simultaneously is a little grey though.

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Battlefield 3 PC boxed, DRM constraints and Origin?

Question

Is the boxed version of Battlefield 3 free from crapware? I have in mind intrusive "3 installs"/"always online" DRMs, Origin and such.

I will not use yet another download service, I removed all but steam from my Windows partition and I'm happy that way.

Despite being an ex-hardcore BF (1942, vietnam and 2) fan and player I'm ready to pass on BF3 if it's bloated with this type of crap.

Answer

No. Origin is required for any PC copy (boxed and digital) of Battlefield 3.

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Can I trust Steam-powered games? Is there any unwanted behavior installed with Steam?

Question

(Migrating my superuser.com question to here, as it was off-topic & closed at SU. I've left off the "What is Steam?" part, though, because it's already been asked here. This question is now just about trust.)

---

So – I just bought the new game Supreme Commander 2. This question is not about the game, but about the online software installation platform that it seems to require. I haven't bought a game in a long time, and I'm puzzled: Apparently, SC2 is a "Steam"-powered game.

When I went to install the game, it asked me to either create a new Steam account, or log in with an existing account. I clicked "Cancel" because I don't plan to play online and I don't want anything unnecessary installed on my computer, since I only plan to play single player!

However, after clicking "Cancel", the installer asked for my confirmation that I indeed wanted to cancel installation of the game! I thought I was just canceling the "online" portions!

I understand now that Steam is required by many games, as a form of DRM. But, any software claiming to be DRM and requiring connectivity makes me worried. So I really want to know:

• Can I trust this "Steam" DRM (Digital Rights Management) software platform?

• Has anybody done any independent verification on how this platform works? (I'm very leery of any DRM after the Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal. Thank goodness for Mark Russinovich.)

• Does the "Steam" platform install anything particularly nasty or unwanted on my computer?

Answer

Yes, you can trust it. It is non-intrusive and all it does (at minimum) is manage your games and patches for you. Anything else is optional.

Steam has an offline mode, where you can play your games without a connection to Steam, granting you total freedom from Valve's servers.

It doesn't install anything but the software you need (like DirectX and drivers for example) and the games and patches. Nothing you don't want, unless you don't want the game you're installing. The only downside is that these patches are kind of forced on you, even for single-player games. If the developer decides to 'downgrade' the game or make a change you don't like, there's not much you can do about it.

I'm not aware of any 'independent verification', but the DRM Steam is itself is very harmless, you can choose to run Steam in offline mode and there would be absolutely no way for them to pull access to your game, except for the fact you wouldn't get patches. Any other DRM can be chosen to be used by the game itself of course, but that has nothing to do with Steam.

Anyway, the choice to use Steam has already been made by Square Enix. If you don't trust them, why are you installing the game itself?

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What is Steam? DRM?

Question

What exactly is Steam? Isn't it DRM?

What can I do with it?

Answer

Steam is DRM. Steam is also DRM done right.

When you "own" a game through the service, you (normally) get to install it on all of your computers for no additional fee. No questions asked. No licenses. No CD keys. Zero click installs.

Steam does many offers and offers a number of free demos. Steam also brings an actually useful in-game overlay (which, e.g., even lets you open youtube or this site without tabbing out!). Steam finally has important social features like notifying that your friend has joined a game (and for supported games, you get a link to one-click join him). etc.

Mind you, Steam does have some points where it doesn't shine. My main pet peeve is offline gaming does not work if the Steam client thinks there is an update it should download and install; typically you only find out when it's too late. A second point where Steam is less than great is that you need to own a non-free game to enable most of the social featuers, and they are a large part of the appeal.

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Transferring all DLC to new Xbox 360 — "download all"?

Question

I just had to replace a RROD'ed Xbox 360.

This means

• I have no access to any of the content on the other machine since it won't boot!
• I would just pop the old hard drive into the new console, but the new Xbox 360 slim is not compatible with the old Xbox 360 style hard drives.

I used the once per year DRM transfer tool to successfully associate my 593 DRM licenses with the Console ID of the new console. But, I still need to get the actual content on the box. There is an option to "download all" at the end of the online content license transfer tool, but it just produced an error for me, nothing happened when I clicked it.

(yes, I buy a LOT of Rock Band songs...)

Other than a painstaking, manual process of going through my download history and re-downloading 593 entries one by one -- is there any way to issue a "download all" command, either from xbox.com or from the console itself?

Answer

Answering my own question, as it combines a few elements from Omar's answer and James Sutherland's comment and a few others. Thanks for everyone's help!

As I said in the question, I already transferred all DRM rights to the new console in advance using the online content license transfer tool.

I concluded that re-downloading over the internet 593 items in full (over 60gb) takes absurdly long. I'm cheap, but I ain't that cheap. I went ahead and picked up the $20 Xbox Data Transfer cable from a local EBGames (they stock them).

• This pulled across ALL data on the older Xbox hard drive to the new Xbox hard drive in about an hour, though I was getting some intermittent read errors and had to retry a bit
• it also pulled across my old savegames and settings, which I wouldn't get from a straight download, so that is a nice perk

Once you've done that, as James Sutherland correctly pointed out, you STILL won't be able to play this content unless you are logged in to your Xbox Live account. To get the content playable for anyone on that Xbox -- regardless of whether they are logged into Xbox Live as you or not -- you must re-download each and every bit of your DLC.

There is something magical about this re-downlad where it "tags" the DLC that was copied from your Old Xbox as belonging to the New Xbox. Once you do this, you can play the DLC without being logged into Xbox Live. I personally confirmed this!

Now, to re-download everything is a pain in the butt, but there is some good news --

• since the content is already there, copied across via the Xbox Data Transfer Cable earlier, the downloads are very fast, basically just verification of the downloaded file and writing the "magic DLC bits" to the disk
• your Xbox Live Download History makes it fairly fast to do this; just go down the list and click the entries, but don't go too fast, as there is a maximum of 25 entries in your download queue.

The Xbox picks this queue up dynamically, and it is MUCH MUCH faster to do it through the web UI than it is with the controller. Watch near the top of the page as it will update dynamically after you click to confirm that the item was added to the queue. This takes a few seconds, so don't go too fast.

Anyway, once I've walked the list of 30 pages, everything will be "as it was" on my old Xbox. Finally. :P

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Does Assassins Creed Brotherhood have the same DRM as Assassins Creed 2?

Question

AC2 had DRM that originally required a constant internet connection, and later required an internet connection at every launch instead. This is a dealbreaker for me as I often game without internet access. Assassins Creed Brotherhood is currently on sale. Does it contain the same DRM?

Answer

From a review of the german GameStar

Wie Assassin’s Creed 2 verwendet auch Brotherhood den Game-Launcher-Kopierschutz, den Ubisoft allerdings leicht entschärft hat. So müssen Sie beim Klettern und Meucheln nicht mehr online bleiben, nach der ersten Internet-Aktivierung läuft das Spiel auch im Offline-Modus.

And from Gamespot

There are a number of key differences between Assassin's Creed II and its follow-up, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, but if there's one that some PC enthusiasts will appreciate the most, it's that Ubisoft's stringent copy-protection scheme has been jettisoned.

And from StrategyInformer

Fortunately, Ubisoft has seen sense this time around, and although certain security elements are present, it's barely noticeable anymore and definitely doesn't feel as intrusive. The game requires a one-time activation to begin with, but after that you can play the single player offline whenever you desire. The multiplayer requires you have a connection (duuh) and some of the DLC does too, but that's it.

This seems to indicate that there is still an online activation needed, but that afterwards no online connection is needed anymore. So you don't seem to need a permanent internet connection to be able to play the game.

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