Revenge of the Metacritics: Diablo III Getting Review-Bombed

[Spearmaster]

I don't get always get reliable wireless in my bedroom - too many competing routers in the apartment building and mine has two angled walls to go through.

Therefore, I can't play Diablo 3 on my laptop in my bedroom so that other people can have the main rooms for whatever. Not because of server issues, not because the laptop can't handle the game, but because the wireless connection can get spotty due to circumstances beyond my control.

Were this a dedicated multiplayer or MMO game, that's completely on MY head, and I take that into consideration. If I join a multiplayer game under those conditions, I call a warning that my connection might drop, and I don't go into raids and such where this may affect other people's game.

But Blizzard's demarc (the point at which responsibility transfers) for the single-player mode of the game is not the online server, it's the operation of the game on the computer. Putting "oh and constant internet connection" in the system requirements *for reasons that benefit only themselves, and not me as the player* is not an excuse for single-player mode not working.

Other systems (Steam for one) support offline play for when you don't have an internet connection. For example, I can play Left 4 Dead 2 all day long using offline and local server modes, no problem. I just need to let Steam know I want it that way, and they're cool with it.

tl;dr there are valid reasons for blaming any failure of the game to operate because of the always-connected requirement on Blizzard, so giving a 0/10 is a fair-play response by people who paid for the game.

*minor edit for clarity*

If Blizzard tells you what its selling well in advance and you don't like it you have 1 option, don't buy it, if anyone knows the facts about the game and knows the always online would be a problem for them and bought it anyway they assume the risk of it not working, not Blizzard.

Diablo 3 is and always was an online game.

Like I said, if you can play it fantastic. But there are plenty of others, with perfectly stable internet connections who cant. That they paid 60 bucks for what is essentially a paper weight is inexcusable. It doesn't matter how long the problem lasts. They shipped with game-breaking issues.

The fact that this problem could have easily been solved, but they chose not to, is icing on the craptastic cake.

Lets just stick to the facts. Was/is it an easy fix? Can you prove they ignored the problem?
Is your copy still not working? Was it ever working? Do you even own the game? If its working since when? You say "plenty of others" who are they? Are they still having problems? Are you sure your internet is "perfectly stable"?

If its still not working and never worked I can understand the frustration but a review is a review of the game if someone has not played it they cant "review" it so a 0 is a unwarranted and childish tantrum by people with no patience or people that wanted to pirate the game and bombed it as revenge.

Taking points off the review for technical problems is more than understandable and I fully support it, just not a 0.

 

[Spearmaster]

I might go on metacritic and give every Xbox 360 game a 0 because I don't own a 360 and refuse to get one and thus cant play the games which means they are broken somehow...JK

Most modern proprietary systems offer little added value to the customer compared to where they can get elsewhere for free, unless the system essentially has a monopoly in practice (oh hai Adobe).

Which near the heart of the controversy for Diablo 3.
Bnet 2.0 offers ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can't get elsewhere, so there's no logical reason (beyond paranoia and greed) to force everyone onto their system to begin with.

There's no practical, objective reason (from the customer's perspective) to do that. None.
But that's what happened, and that's why this stupid topic even exists to begin with.

"Force everyone onto their system"...wow really? They are putting a gun to peoples heads and "Forcing" them to buy diablo 3? Seriously though if you cant live with it don't buy it, use your wallet to send a message and boycott the game if its that big of a deal.

Always online DRM is the future of gaming im afraid, at least Blizzard used it to also add features like a full server auction house and fast easy grouping with friends.

 

[Soopy]

1
"Force everyone onto their system"...wow really? They are putting a gun to peoples heads and "Forcing" them to buy diablo 3? Seriously though if you cant live with it don't buy it, use your wallet to send a message and boycott the game if its that big of a deal.

That has to be one of the more ridiculous interpretations of the post you quoted...

 

[Spearmaster]

1
"Force everyone onto their system"...wow really? They are putting a gun to peoples heads and "Forcing" them to buy diablo 3? Seriously though if you cant live with it don't buy it, use your wallet to send a message and boycott the game if its that big of a deal.

That has to be one of the more ridiculous interpretations of the post you quoted...

yes apparently they did not see the JK at the end of the post they initially quoted.

 

[Soopy]

1
"Force everyone onto their system"...wow really? They are putting a gun to peoples heads and "Forcing" them to buy diablo 3? Seriously though if you cant live with it don't buy it, use your wallet to send a message and boycott the game if its that big of a deal.

That has to be one of the more ridiculous interpretations of the post you quoted...

Yet he is right. I have seen people saying Blizzard has a monopoly and then forcing people to use their Battle.net. The whole "force" is so utterly ridicules. There is no force involved. To say it is hyperbole. I would be like me saying "and then they forced me to pay for it just because I wanted to play it". They have a product/service combination here. Walk away if you dont like it. Simple as that.

Yes, but in the same sense people who purchase the game are being forced to use a service that doesn't actually benefit them in anyway.

We've had a long time to grow accustomed to games as they were (Single player being accessible offline and the like.), Now suddenly they're not.

It's understandable that people aren't going to like it.

I agree though, I haven't purchased Diablo 3 for this reason (well that and it sucks IMO), instead I supported an indie developer in Runic by pre-ordering Torchlight 2, which IMO is a better game. It does everything I want from a game of this genre.

 

[lordmardok]

That awkward moment when game pirates hawking cracked versions of the game offer a better and more stable service than a multi-billion dollar company.

I'm honestly not surprised at the score though, this is quite literally one of Blizzards most disastrous launches yet. Most of their WoW title releases have had issues, some of them pretty major like the BC fiasco, but never to this degree, a zero score for a game people paid full price for with the expectation that they would be able to play it on release day, which is a perfectly valid expectation I would think, is the best that a developer could hope for.

Blizzard new exactly what they were getting into and they should've done more thorough stress testing on their servers to find any problems. This is definitely going to bite them in the gibblies for the next few weeks at least.

 

[Vrach]

Question: does this finally prove that gaming culture has a certain measure of entitlement issues, or is it merely the righteous indignation of customers and fans scorned?

Don't have the game, but a hypothetical. Say you rent a car and the company puts a device connected to the engine to cut you off if you should try to steal it. Then you drive the car for 30 minutes and the device malfunctions and shuts off your engine for no reason. Question - how do you feel about this car company's service now? If there was a place for you to review this car company (who is one of the few using this ridiculous measure that is known to malfunction), would you give them a positive review for defending their cars?

Now add the fact that you're not renting a game, you're buying it. You're paying the full price for it, it's yours and you don't need any online services to play it (this is a singleplayer, all the multiplayer components of it are about as essential as store pets to WoW). So this device that's there doesn't serve any actual purpose, no one's gonna steal a game that's been bought, it's an oxymoron, and the mild protection increase it gives doesn't deter those who would steal it in the slightest (I've seen scene groups withhold cracks out of respect for a company for longer than it took them to crack the hardest protections, let alone one that's been cracked before already).

Oh and just for kicks, lets add in the facts that previous DRMs have had this exact same problem time and again and Blizzard, who is capable of maintaining their MMO servers even during periods like expansion launches, was incompetent enough to let a very foreseeable problem that they know how to handle happen.

Personally, I wouldn't blame anyone for shitting all over a user review for the game that does that. That's what a user review is after all, a place for a user to say how they feel about the game, if they're pissed about something (and they've got good reason to be in this case), a user review's the place to talk about it. After all, if a game had issues like that, I'd be as curious about that as any amount of "it's super cinematic" by your neighbourhood IGN.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

-snip-

Ok I am going to address your concerns about the RMAH mainly. There is a lot of different subject going on here, but I am mainly focusing on this.

The RMAH will not change your exp unless you use it.

You argue that you still have to deal with the people who use it, but there is a flaw in that. The RMAH doesn't add items to the game only exchanges them between players.

It should have the same effect on your game as the regular AH or me giving items to my friends. It is still the same items in rotation.
That guy B bought all his stuff doesn't change that you might as well have dealt with guy A who sold it to him. You are no more at a disadvantage than you were before.

The real money auction house will change everyone's experience regardless of whether they personally buy things from it. I have explained why several times now. It has to do with things like a sense of fair play, the satisfaction of and motivation for challenges and achievements, and the concept of an in-game economy. In a multiplayer game, your interaction with other players shapes your experience. Almost everything they are doing affects you in some way, especially when it comes to something as world-changing as dealing in real money.

It doesn't matter if items are being spawned into the game or found and then marketed by players. This distinction is completely arbitrary. It was contrived specifically to bend the definition of pay-to-win to somehow exclude the RMAH, but it's totally empty. No one ever defended Chinese gold farmers and their customers on this basis because it's a meaningless detail. Pay-to-win is paying money for a significant in-game advantage or to bypass content. Not everyone likes pay-to-win and the day before Diablo III's RMAH house was revealed I would not even have had to explain why. It's self evident.

Finally, whether or not I will be personally disadvantaged is beside the point. Maybe I'm so rich I can spend all the money I want and I still just don't like it. Trading items in the context of the game is fun and adds to the overall experience. Person 'B' in your example is not trading with in-game currency but with money. No one earned that in the context of the game. It is not consistent with an economy based on items and currency found within the game.

Pay-to-win is no fun. It affects the overall experience of the game in major ways. I don't like and I don't want to support it. I hope many others share my opinion because I do not want to see crap like this become standard. Games are fun when they have a sense of fair play- when the rules are the same for everyone. They are lame when people are buying accomplishments with money.

Saying the RMAH won't affect me is the equivalent of saying that putting your finger in my face and yelling "nana-nana boo-boo, I'm not touching you" won't affect me. It may true in some meaningless sense but it's small consolation.

 

[Atmos Duality]

"Force everyone onto their system"...wow really? They are putting a gun to peoples heads and "Forcing" them to buy diablo 3? Seriously though if you cant live with it don't buy it, use your wallet to send a message and boycott the game if its that big of a deal.

*sigh*
Could you really not make a counter-argument without trying to change the context of what I said?

If you honestly need clarity, I'm saying that if you do play Diablo 3, you have no choice but to play the game on their servers. Compare to Diablo 2, where you could play on their servers, or offline or via LAN.

Always online DRM is the future of gaming im afraid

I'm not so sure about that. For blockbuster games that are sure to sell, yes, that could work. Blizzard has the quality and the credibility to pull it off.

But everyone else? Probably not.

It's cost-prohibitively expensive to do that for every game that goes to market, and the potential for loss is staggering just due to the required investment in servers and bandwidth alone.

If a game bombs, you just wasted a large amount of capital installing servers that are being used for nothing.

...at least Blizzard used it to also add features like a full server auction house and fast easy grouping with friends.

Honey to help swallow a bitter pill.

yes apparently they did not see the JK at the end of the post they initially quoted.

I did. I disregarded it because I had a point to make; perhaps not just directly to you either.

 

[Spygon]

If your car doesnt work and you cant drive it.It is not a car it is just a pile of metal and plastic you have a right to complain that you do not have a car.

If a game is unplayable and you cant not play it then it is just a metal disc and a plastic box.So like the car you have the right to complain that you do not have a game.

The zeros are for once reasonable as if the game is unplayable it is a terrible game.What is the world coming too if i have to spell this out to some people

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

You are still extending your sphere of play over others.
It goes against what you think is fair, but here is the kicker. it is still not a competition with anyone else than yourself. Your sphere of play goes no further than what you play with.

It is the argumentation of a person who wants his set of values applied universally.

No it wont affect your game. And you are going to have to live with that. Just like my vegetarian cousin will have to live with me eating meat. It doesn't affect her. Not her sphere of influence.

And btw I never blamed the Chinese gold farmers or their customers. I never understood them, but they didn't influence the game in a way I couldn't myself.

Any opinion I have about what any game should be like is extending some value onto others. Wanting the game to be a certain way doesn't make me a tyrant.

You are trying to twist Diablo III's multiplayer component into a singleplayer experience to explain why things other people do have no impact on me. It's not a competition (except in PvP, of course) but it is a cooperative multiplayer game. What other people do will effect my game and yours and you are going to have to live with that. Using your cousin as an example begs the question. Your vegetarian cousin has nothing to do with Diablo III and it is only relevant if I assume you are correct. Somebody beat me up once but I don't present that as evidence that the RMAH will effect my experience.

You say you never understood Chinese gold farmers. But now you're defending Blizzard's RMAH. What is the difference from the players' perspective?

 

[Spearmaster]

"Force everyone onto their system"...wow really? They are putting a gun to peoples heads and "Forcing" them to buy diablo 3? Seriously though if you cant live with it don't buy it, use your wallet to send a message and boycott the game if its that big of a deal.

*sigh*
Could you really not make a counter-argument without trying to change the context of what I said?

If you honestly need clarity, I'm saying that if you do play Diablo 3, you have no choice but to play the game on their servers. Compare to Diablo 2, where you could play on their servers, or offline or via LAN.

Always online DRM is the future of gaming im afraid

I'm not so sure about that. For blockbuster games that are sure to sell, yes, that could work. Blizzard has the quality and the credibility to pull it off.

But everyone else? Probably not.

It's cost-prohibitively expensive to do that for every game that goes to market, and the potential for loss is staggering just due to the required investment in servers and bandwidth alone.

If a game bombs, you just wasted a large amount of capital installing servers that are being used for nothing.

...at least Blizzard used it to also add features like a full server auction house and fast easy grouping with friends.

Honey to help swallow a bitter pill.

yes apparently they did not see the JK at the end of the post they initially quoted.

I did. I disregarded it because I had a point to make; perhaps not just directly to you either.

Fair enough but the only 2 points I'm trying to make are

"if you do play Diablo 3, you have no choice but to play the game on their servers"

I'm just focusing on that that first "if", buying the game means that you accepted what it was and like it or not, its an always online game. If you don't accept that don't buy it.

Second thing is that just because it can be a bad move doesn't mean game entities aren't gonna keep trying to implement similar methods of DRM, piracy is a problem in the PC games market. These are steps against pirates, hackers and the like. At least they aren't charging a monthly sub and calling it a MORPG, then it would be greedy.

IMO giving a game full time online servers with multiple beneficial features and asking no extra fee in return other than the option to maybe use the RMAH doesn't sound like a greedy practice to me, it sounds like an evolution of online and single player gaming combined.

 

[Squickster]

D3 is a ton of fun, i absolutely LOVE IT! They took D2, improved it and continued on with the storyline. I remember the pain of not having a net connection 24 - 7 (i.e. dial-up) and now to have to consider that i have to wait till late night to play a game would ruin even this game. Yes there are server issues, but there have been server issues with a lot of other games as well ESPECIALLY when a game first launches. Wanting to be the first person to spout-off about a game's problem is just childish. I'm not saying that the server issue isn't an issue, but it should have been expected by both player and publisher. Blizzard is fixing the issue, players have the right to be mad, but it's not something that could have been completely avoided. The obvious answer would have been have more servers than necessary then cut back on servers till you found the "right" amount. BUT that costs money and the more of it a publisher can save they will. I'm certainly not happy that the game had a lot of lag when i was playing yesterday, but knowing that Blizzard was working on the problem had me accept it because it is that good of a game. It will get better and, for me, that's enough. Not having an offline option sucks, but if Blizzard had warned people before they could pre-order it and those people didn't look into it, then its not a problem that should be screamed about.

As for needing to be online simply to play the game alone is stupid, but unfortunately is the answer Blizzard came up with to, hopefully, protect their 1s and 0s. Another case where a other people's actions have spoiled something we took for granted.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

As for needing to be online simply to play the game alone is stupid, but unfortunately is the answer Blizzard came up with to, hopefully, protect their 1s and 0s. Another case where a other people's actions have spoiled something we took for granted.

The primary reason for this form of DRM is to ensure that no one with Diablo III installed can cough on their keyboard without Blizzard's express written permission. The point is debatable but it seems obvious to me this is the common drive behind their DRM, auction house, modding policies and so forth in Starcraft II and Diablo III. The ability to control how people are using their game always takes precedence over the user experience. Protecting their product from piracy is only one part of that.

 

[Frankster]

Another case where a other people's actions have spoiled something we took for granted.

QFT. I assume we are talking about blizz/activision/whoevers in charge decision to implement a paid item exchange system and the subsequent need to make it online?

Cos let's be honest folks, not many gave a f*** about cheaters in previous diablos last I heard
Or was this really the main thing people asked for in a diablo 3? Must have missed that meeting.
So let's not pretend that's the number #1 reason they did it this way and the decision was motivated purely by goodwill and love for their playerbase.

 

[Carrots_macduff]

why does no one complain about the "critic" reviews and how only one out of thirty really gives fair mention to the network issues, which are pretty fuckin huge, that page absolutely reeks of bias, i can't shake the feeling that the large majority of those reviews were paid for