Okay, so Blizzard makes kickass games. But in that wikipedia article, it also points out that they a) are owned by a giant conglomerate and b) actively snoop through your computer contents looking for signs of hacking software. They only look for that, they’re not transmitting anything from your computer but whether you have game hacking software loaded, but still… I wonder if ffxi does anything equally obnoxious.
Of course, it’s an arms race. I’m sure the hackers realize that all they have to do is figure out what the process is sending when no bad juju is going on, and replicate that, while shutting down the snooper process.
I wonder if there’s an open-source diablo clone to go with the open source Warcraft-esque game. It’s not as good graphically, or I suspect in terms of game design, but it’d probably run better on my preferred operating systems anyway. I’d really like a gpl’ed mmorpg. They are out there. Graphics are, of course, an issue. But I’m also not all that impressed with the game structures
I don’t understand why you shouldn’t be able to play a game you purchased in whatever way you want. That seems like Sony requiring its studio’s DVDs only be played on Sony hardware.
Sure there’s an open source Diablo Clone. There’s a whole genre of them.
Nethack, and the various Angband clones.
They’re much more involing than Diablo.
There’s even a multiplayer angband, if that’s your thing. and a isometric view UI for some varieties.
ADOM was a much more sophisticated game than Diablo, and it even had plot-like bits, with branching plots, multiple endings, etc. But despite it’s colorful nature, it still wasn’t as visual ensnaring (and it had no audio) as diablo 2. =)