Server Issues Mar Diablo III's Launch

[Marmooset]

this game is going to be the one that takes the shine off Blizzard for many mark my words.

there are already a lot of mutterings in the zeitgeist about the game never mind this messy launch.

Translation:
"This game is going to suck - because I want it to suck."

 

[Croaker42]

Good thing you can just play singl---oh... wait...

You made me sad laugh.

Could be worse. You could be paying a monthly fee.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Lazy. Sorry, money DOES solve issues like this, and they have obscene amounts of money.

If it still worked like Diablo II and we could simply connect through LAN or whatnot we wouldn't be having this issue.

 

[Rad Party God]

So... the game is out and nobody can play it at the moment... and they can't even play singleplayer... way to go Blizz.

 

[PingoBlack]

To Escapist:
Much more balanced writing, compared to some previous articles. I'm glad to see it, I saw some other media go straight for sensationalism.

It is now obvious Blizzard did underestimate the demand. Hopefully, they do exactly what they did when this happened to World of Warcraft ...
Quick, hard investment into more server capacity.

Can I add ... Term DRM should not be used in blanket fashion. Diablo 3 is server based game, it's quite unlike blocking your CD installer. Problems at this point seem to be the authentication servers, not the actual game servers. It's all rather complex and doesn't deserve blanket comparisons at all, without diminishing the issues a server based game causes. DRM is just a tiny part of it.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Yeah I figured this would happen, which is why I'm waiting till I am off work the next day(tomorrow when this was posted).

 

[PingoBlack]

Skidrow say they are currently working on an emulator of sorts which will take another few days to finish, with much of the credit going to a Blizzard employee. So yeah, they defeated piracy for about a week, at the cost of having half their legit player base locked out the game. Really fucking awesome.

Well, they need to pull off exactly the same thing as was required to make WoW private servers.

Since game logic is all remote, it's a very large task for a code analyzer. They would have to actually code the server itself, based only on client communication they can record.

 

[CoL0sS]

Expected, but still disappointing. Part of me hoped that Blizzard wouldn't have that many problems considering their experience with online games. I was contemplating buying Diablo 3 today but seeing all this I decided against it (at least for the time being).
BTW was review embargo lifted? I haven't seen any reviews yet

 

[Kmadden2004]

Hmmm, all of a sudden I'm kind of thankful that I'm not going to get the chance to play my just-delivered copy for another couple of weeks.

Damn work. Grumble, grumble.

 

[Adfest]

As much as I want to "na na na na na na... ha ha ha ha ha ha" here, I do feel a little bad for the people who are in the same situation I found myself in with Blizzard. Instead of laughing at their misfortune, I'll just hope that next time the opportunity to bend over Blizzard's "fuck me in the goat ass" counter comes, they will say "NAY!"

 

[antipunt]

So guys...I really hate to admit it, but Blizzard...defeated piracy. And I'm not exactly SUPER diddly about it because it involved such punishing DRM (ugh..), but it's... true right?

1. Massively hyped game that people will buy regardless of DRM
2. Always-online DRM (spawn enemies/items serverside). This way even the single player cannot be cracked (at least initially).
3. Even when single player is 'cracked' (which will take a hella long time because you have to figure out how to emulate the servers), it won't ever be even close to the real thing because of server size, patches/maintenance, stability/quality, etc.

This is almost entirely the reason why Blizz made SP online only. Devious. But damned effective.

And no one's gonna really complain cause (I'm talking majority rule)..you know. Unlike some Ubisoft game, it's...freaking Diablo 3.

*checkmate*

edit: And in addition, the server 'issues' are purported. They purposely choose a 'close but slightly under' server strength, so they can up it later as needed to save money.
D:

Skidrow say they are currently working on an emulator of sorts which will take another few days to finish, with much of the credit going to a Blizzard employee. So yeah, they defeated piracy for about a week, at the cost of having half their legit player base locked out the game. Really fucking awesome.

Then again, its Skidrow, so who fucking knows whats really going on.

Urgh... I know. Scumbag Blizzard.

But I dunno man..I'll believe it when I see it. One week seems -incredibly- optimistic with something of this scale.

 

[Skeleon]

Skidrow say they are currently working on an emulator of sorts which will take another few days to finish, with much of the credit going to a Blizzard employee. So yeah, they defeated piracy for about a week, at the cost of having half their legit player base locked out the game. Really fucking awesome.

Yeah, I was going to say. Starcraft 2 which already pulled the "singleplayer requires always online"-stuff was cracked within days, too, wasn't it? The people these DRM-measures really hurt are the legal customers.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Gee, what a surprise. I was TOTALLY not expecting shit like that to happen to an always-online single-player game.

Sarcasm.

 

[Amnestic]

Yeah, I was going to say. Starcraft 2 which already pulled the "singleplayer requires always online"-stuff was cracked within days, too, wasn't it? The people these DRM-measures really hurt are the legal customers.

'cept it didn't. You could play SC2 in offline mode.

 

[Skeleon]

'cept it didn't. You could play SC2 in offline mode.

You could? I thought Battlenet 2.0 made that impossible. Oh well.
As I said, I haven't played any of the Blizzard games after Frozen Throne, so my understanding is only second-hand.