Sadly, the live service approach is already showing how bad it is not to be able to play the game offline without any server connection…

Even the PC port of Diablo III, unfortunately, suffered from this inability to play without a server. Still, Diablo IV works like that on all platforms (and game preservation seems out of the question because of it). On the plus side, Activision Blizzard will continue to expand the content, discussed by franchise director Rod Fergusson in an interview with IGN. Updates to previous Diablo installments have focused mainly on tuning the gameplay and mechanics. Still, with its large open world and the more critical role of lore and narrative, Diablo IV has a different approach to updates.

Each season will feature new quest lines linked to the narrative. They’ll be mainly side missions, but there will be plenty of them, and you should also be prepared for add-ons that will carry the main narrative forward. “As [support] Diablo IV as a live service, we want the story to be a part of that. The way you’ll see that play out in seasons is more questline-based — it’ll have a narrative questline. […] Diablo IV will have a richer context around each season and also have a narrative theme that you’re working toward and that all the things will relate to: the cosmetics relate to it, and the mechanics will relate to it. There will be a narrative questline that won’t extend the campaign but will be a story in the open world. […] But as we look to the future of expansions, those are the opportunities where we can continue to extend the game from a story perspective, from a mechanics perspective, from a world perspective,” says Fergusson.

If live service, a game of this caliber is prone to failure. Suffice it to cite Halo Infinite and Battlefield 2042 as examples: players expected a lot of content after launch but got little. According to Fergusson, the content for the first season is mostly ready, and they have multiple development lanes to work on numerous seasons and updates at once. Yes, but while World of Warcraft has expanded nicely, Overwatch has struggled…

Meanwhile, the race is on to be the first to reach level 100 in Hardcore mode. Max “Maximum” Smith, co-owner of the Team Liquid eSports team, spent 18 hours on his sorceress character in the game when his character was stuck in one place and could only use potions. Alt-F4, he restarted the game but saw the character creator in front of him, so his previous level 52 character was lost in the restart through no fault of his own. Both of his unstoppable abilities were off. These would have made his character invulnerable, and he believed that when he used his ultimate, his animation froze him and rendered the other skills ineffective. Imexile, a Path of Exile speedrunner who also plays World of Warcraft, ran into another glitch: his sorceress character also received a poison attack that didn’t cancel, and his flame shield didn’t make him immune, even though it should have. After quitting the game, he had to say goodbye to his character.

So much for the benefits of live service…

Source: WCCFTech, PCGamer

Dying to a bug after 18 hours of play is brutal. Pretty sure can relevel and still get top 1000 but dont really wanna put the time in just for something like this to happen again like what happened to me or exile. pic.twitter.com/oil2tiihRR

— Liquid | Maximum (@maximum) June 2, 2023