3 days in Diablo Europe

[bobmd13]

Lets see,

Blizzards record on the european server in the last 3 days.

Wednesday: 2am 8 hour maintenance ok thats fine.
4pm on the same day error 37 until 11pm.
11pm until 6am fine.

Thursday: 4pm till 8 pm error 37
8pm until I left 9.15 pm fine

Friday : 12.15am till 1 am fine
1am until 3am unscheduled maintenace (hang on)
3am still down maintenace now till 5 am (there's more)
5am still down maintenace till 7am
7am servers are back online but work beckons now.
4.30pm error retrieving hero list
5.15pm gets online to fight diablo in single player mode
5.40pm in middle of said fight error creating your party
5.41pm error retrieving hero list.

That's just 3 days and some people wonder why there has been so many complaints,its 3 weeks since launch and this is the service that Europe is receiving. I am sorry to say this but this product is definately NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.

No company can say that their product is fit for purpose, when it has a greater period of downtime than uptime. As a byword during the time I was not attempting to be online or actually online, the forums were reporting the same errors as normal so its not just bad luck in my case.

While many companies, excuse this sort of thing on release days and the week after, this was only the last 3 days of Diablo Europe.

Come on Blizz fan boys defend this,cause no game has such a bad record of downtime.

BTW 19.30 hours full service was resumed and diablo still kicked my arse until 21.30 hours.

Here is hoping I can log in at 02.20.

Guess what, the servers are down again.

I rest my case.

I have learnt my lesson with MMO's do not try and set up accounts on day 1. This is nearly 3 weeks after launch and ready for this worse than WoW on launch day in 2004.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Yeah I swear the EU servers have been down at least 20% of the time from launch until present. I have no clue what they are playing at, sure if it's for balance patches, take the servers down for a half hour or so, but they actually took the servers down at one point because auction house transactions weren't working, JUST TURN OFF THE AUCTION HOUSE!

This is killing me a bit because I do have a soft spot for blizzard, and the launch of this game has been a catastrophe. Seems the days of "released when it's finished" are gone.

 

[WoW Killer]

Yeah I agree. Maybe US readers don't get this the same, but the EU servers have been absolutely shitty this last week. Like, "hey, when should we have our downtime?", "oh, how about primetime?", "yeah, that'd work wonders". Mostly it's been "oh, do you have an auction you're bidding on that's about to expire? Well, I suppose it's time to shut the servers off just for you...".

Seriously, the number of auctions I've lost just due to server downtime...

In advance I'd like the thank the escapist community for giving me the platform to say this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[bobmd13]

20% we have over 50% downtime in the last 3 days.

That is not acceptable, when Europe is now deemed the biggest gaming zone in the western world.

Unlike Lotro and other MMO's this does not suffer from multi-language patches as the accounts are global but linked to a specific aution house area and that also means that the surcharge levied on european players of over $12 dollars is not acceptable as well.

The problem is not the auction house but the fact that Activision/Blizzard skimped on the server farms in Europe and if this is proven then I want the head of Diablo (He's called Bobby Kotick).

I refer you to this:

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/21/activision-ceo-bobby-koticks-full-dice-speech-jack-thompson-sa/

Just listen to him, he is an arts major, with rich friends who set up hedge funds.

He does not give a crap about the customer period its all about the bottom line and guess what it is coming to bite him.

At 23.06 he makes a comment that is now defunct and bobby you are the team idiot it appears.

I also refer you to 24.06 which is a comment on performance of excellance which is soon followed by a statement about supplying shareholders a generous dividend.

Performance of excellance, mister kotick is not relaeasing a game with which is missing core selling points or the ability to access the game.

 

[bobmd13]

New update folks EU servers are about to go down again for GOD knows how long.

Thats right, down again so 5 hours is a long time for us and guess what this is not peak time, HELL NO this is the quiet period.

THE SERVERS ARE GOING DOWN AT THE START OF A PEAK PERIOD, SATURDAY MORNING 8AM GMT

In europe its 9-10 am when folks are up and looking to play after a long week in work.

NEED I SAY MORE

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Are the servers in the EU? Just curious.

 

[bobmd13]

Yes there are 3 different hubs,US,Europe and Asia.

US and Asia are nearly 24/7 europe is up 8 in 24 if we are lucky at the moment.

Now some can get in , no problems others have like me in a fight single player, problem forming a group DC.

Then you cant get back in.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

-SNIP-

You bought Diablo 3, I have no sympathy for you.

 

[Scabadus]

I have a theory abot Diablo 3: people arn't actually angry that the servers are down (bear with me here), what people are angry about is that they paid £40 for a game, and while the servers are down they can't play it, but Blizzard still has the £40.

So on the off-chance there are any supervillain-level insane judges reading this: simply pass a law that says every time the Diablo servers go down, Blizzard gives every player £40. Every time a person can't log in, Blizzard gives them £40. Every time a person is away from their internet connection, Blizzard either gives them £40 or pays for a wireless hotspot to follow that person around so they can access Diablo 3.

I'm only half-joking here, yes I'm veering towards the side of comedy (shush, let me dream) but people arn't getting a service - and Blizzard have made this a service - they paid for. Up to a point, scheduled maintenance is both nessecary and therefor fair, but imagine if there was a law passed that said that Blizzard had to compensate every player trying to play the single-player mode, every time the servers went down outside scheduled maintenance. They'd make that mode avalible to play offline damn quickly.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Now if only my mate had buy that game sooner (hardcore fan of the game franchise). Surely by the recent Error 37's he would of been no longer hold a blind loyality toward them.

 

[Gardenia]

The bigger question is why do you play at night. The game's fine in the morning and at noon, and only starts getting bad around evening time.

Cannot answer for OP but here is why I play at night: Because some of us hate people. Because it's starting to be sunny and warm outside in the daytime and I miss winter. Because all my friends play at night. Because I like the quiet at night. Because I find darkness to be much more cozy.

OT: yeah, the servers are bad, but I'm not going to complain, because the entire internet is filled with vitriolic rage about this already, and frankly, it's a bit over the top.

 

[Dogstile]

I played quite a bunch of diablo 3 in the last 3 days. Some downtime in the evening, but not that much. And yes I'm in EU.

The bigger question is why do you play at night. The game's fine in the morning and at noon, and only starts getting bad around evening time.

Works a day job? Has kids who only go to bed at night? Prior obligations more important to playing games? What does it matter? Saying "just play it during the day" isn't a solution.

 

[kingthrall]

Try playing a Hardcore Character like myself. If you disconnect even once, you logout and your character is dead permanently. I lost my Level 35 Barbarian this way because of the servers so I dont see the point of this game any-more.

 

[Dandark]

"Oh well I can play it so it must just be your fault for having a crappy internet connection and they said that they would have trouble anyway so it's all ok and your just a whiny entitled baby!" = How Blizz fanboys will defend this.

If it makes you feel better they are actully being investigated in South Korea by the FTC, they raided Blizzards offices even (Audible gasp)

With any luck Blizzard may actully have to try and make their product work soon.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

-SNIP-

You bought Diablo 3, I have no sympathy for you.

You're like, so edgy dude... Keep sticking it to the big gaming companies.

But seriously, the complaining here isn't about the DRM, we bought the game fully knowing the always online DRM was there, and that was fine with those of us that bought it wanting to focus on the multiplayer aspect. The (valid) complaint here is that the actual servers are constantly fucking up/being taken down.