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Q u o t e:
Realistically, I would not expect it the way it was wrote below, but you get the idea ;)

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Originally posted by Bashiok

"I'm happy to share some thoughts and announce a little feature some of you guys are waiting for :)

First, I'd like to say that we take feedback from our beloved community very seriously and we're not afraid to make changes from our previous decisions if there are a significant amount of customers who would beneficiate from then.

As of now, we're a PC-focused developer and we must look at business models that are efficient in the PC market. After a lot of thought and research, we believe the Asian model is a very interesting one - the vast majority of their games are Online Only and powered by Microtransactions. Since we're already very experienced with online architecture due to previous work with our giant IP named World of Warcraft, everything was already much more easier to build and made sense in a lot of ways from a business, production and management standpoint.

Blizzard always aims to offer the best gameplay experience to our customers/players. We still believe Battle.net online experience is the best way to play Diablo 3. Every aspect we could thought from Diablo 2 online was improved in the sequel: we added a smart matchmaking system, improved the loot drop system, added a dedicated place to your dueling needs - the Arena -, achievements and we even implemented a full blown gold and real money powered Auction House to better suit your trading needs. Even our server hardware is all brand new to offer a better technical support.

However, we heard your feedback and worries about such need to be always connected through the internet to play Diablo 3, and we realise not every country in the globe is afortunate enough to have such advanced internet infrastructure as South Korea. We discussed it internally once more, and finally the upper management green light the programming team to develop a "guest mode" similar to StarCraft 2, where you can create a offline profile separate from your battle.net account to play single-player, without the need to be connected to the internet. Be advised offline characters can't join battle.net servers to play with other people, since there's no way to guarantee they were not modified/hacked.

Now to the not so great news. Since we're in crunch mode to try to deliver Diablo 3 this year and Battlet.net still our focus and top priority, we're not sure offline mode will be finished by the time we release the game, due to the way the game engine was built. We can't simply deploy a cheap version of our server sofware on your PC due to security reasons, so we need some time to adjust and change things. But fear not, it's coming!

To all the players who are claiming for it, we hope this change made your purchase decision more attractive. In the end, what matters is that people keep buying and enjoying Blizzard games, no matter the way they play the game.

Sincerely, Diablo 3 Development Team"

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Yes, I'm not fluent in english, there are at least 98978787 grammar errors in there.

Blizzard, I hope you guys listen to this. I think the difference between this community and the others is that this one is still interested to come here, share their toughts on what they like and what they don't like to give you guys a chance to develop a better game, before they flew away to the competitor (whatever genre they are in).

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