Server Issues Mar Diablo III's Launch

[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.

 

[Alumatine]

Eh, blizzard is allowed to do what it wants to do with it's DRM. Personally I like having battle.net connected and having my friends list available in game, having my game always up to date automatically and having more hacking prevention that would be available otherwise. Good and bad always come together.

I played through to act 3 and now I'm sitting while the rest of my party plays because I got disconnected and the authentication servers are being upgraded.

Yes it sucks, yes I'm kinda angry but it's really not going to reverse one hell of a game (and yes it is fantastic) or the last 2 decades of awesome that came before it.

It's 1 night... yes you have a valid expectation of release day but seriously, don't think it's going to "Mar blizzard for life" or "take the shine off a (questionable? wtf?) game".

 

[Innegativeion]

Server shit-storms on a Blizzard launch day? Big effin' surprise, there.

And once again we have proven without a shadow of a doubt that mandatory web-access for single player gameplay was the

BEST IDEA ANY COMPANY HAS HAS HAD EVER.

Personally I like having battle.net connected and having my friends list available in game, having my game always up to date automatically and having more hacking prevention that would be available otherwise.

All of these things could be easily accomplished with a "connect to battlenet on startup" checkbox in the options menu, and are in no way a reflection of Blizzar'ds backwards DRM policy. With something like a RL cash auction house, good hackers will find a way regardless. Not that the tax Blizzard has on the transactions will give blizzard an incentive to stop them...

 

[_alter_ego]

Also, thank you Escapist for being one of the only name news website to have Diablo 3 issues on the front page; this is far more helpful than featuring non-news content like Diablo 3 Marathons.

 

[GiantRaven]

For those mentioning blizzard taking down the D3 servers eventually. They still have the Diablo 2 and StarCraft servers up and those games are ancient. I wouldn't expect them to pull the plug on these servers for another 10-20 years.

And what about in, say, 50-60 years time?

 

[Amnestic]

'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.

You could most definitely play it in offline mode and, contrary to what PercyBoleyn said, you could do so on your account and not need a guest account. I have done so when my internet was down.

 

[Parnage]

Seems to be working well for everyone I am talking to. I do admit that several folks ended up having to slam the keyboard on passwords and login screens to play at Hour Zero/Hour one of the game but considering a good section of the world was doing the same it's not unbelievable.


Also the Real money auction house has been discussed to death, we get it you don't want to buy the game you think it's evil. Why are you still telling us about it in the comments of an article talking about the game you don't have any interest in and won't be playing anyway who's topic is about day 1/2 server issues!?

For the record, yes everyone is playing(if they can) rather then complaining. It's kinda a big deal you know.

In a week this won't be a problem, as is true of all online releases they are often a tad rocky.

 

[theultimateend]

Breaking News: Popular game is popular.

And wow, we're about 9 posts in and already the stuck-up anti-DRM cretins have crawled out of the woodwork to whine.

disappointing isn't it, you'd think they'd have something better to do.

Was that supposed to be a joke?

Cause it was SUPER funny. I mean that unironically nor sarcastically.

 

[Jaeke]

Won't really matter since itll be fixed by 4:00-4:30 EST and most people are at work.

Besides I can't get past that damn Black King!!!

 

[Zer_]

'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.

You could most definitely play it in offline mode and, contrary to what PercyBoleyn said, you could do so on your account and not need a guest account. I have done so when my internet was down.

Yep. You didn't get achievements or anything of the like, but who cares. At least the functionality was there.