When Blizzard launched Diablo 3, people raged about always-on DRM. There was no single player, because of the auction house and they wanted a more ‘social’ experience, allowing your friends to jump in at any time. Now I’m playing Hearthstone in beta, and I noticed that this is also always-on. I don’t like it. Not at all.
I noticed the always-on when I played the tutorial. When you start the game for the first time, you have to play a few rounds to get used to the mechanics. During the last tutorial, one card away from winning, my internet disconnected (yay, wifi) and I had to redo the whole match. This also happened later when I was playing in practice mode. These modes can be offline, and I would really like that. My wifi wavers a lot and I notice these lags during a play against AI. I don’t see what my card does, I’ve to wait two to three seconds before I can play another card. It annoys the hell out of me, mostly because I lose my flow. This is even more annoying in PvP, but that can’t be helped.
I would like to know what you think. Should AI battles in Hearthstone be offline? Is Always-on essential to Hearthstone?
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