Earlier this week, details about the upcoming "Diablo 3" beta were released to the public. One of revelations that got the most attention was the fact that both the beta and the final version of "Diablo 3" would require a constant internet connection to play.
During an interview at last week's press event, Alex Mayberry, senior producer on "Diablo 3," discussed the required connection. "You can play by yourself but your character is going to be saved on our servers. You have to authenticate through our servers to be able to play the game. I think it's not just 'Diablo 3' but with our games as a whole we're tying everything into Battle.net these days...We can provide a much a much more stable, connected, safer experience than we could if we let people play off-line."
This was before the internet went berserk over the news that they'd need an internet connection. This posting on Reddit, for example, has more than 2,700 comments, most of them pretty sour on the idea of being forced to play online.
Given the reaction, it seemed only fair to go back to Blizzard and have them go a bit deeper with regards to why they made the decision to keep "Diablo 3" online only. Yesterday I spoke with Robert Bridenbecker, the Vice President of Online Technologies at Blizzard to get their side of the story.
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Tags blizzard, diablo, diablo 3
