Server Issues Mar Diablo III's Launch

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I pre-ordered torchlight 2 today and I never do that.

Screw always on DRM. Its nobody's business but my own when I play, how long I play and who I play with.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

What baffles me is the "everyone should have seen this coming" excuse. Okay... so if we, as consumers, knew that this was going to happen, why do they, as developers, do nothing about it?

I'm not saying that Battle.net's Diablo III team wasn't hard at work crunching numbers all night, whilst trying to make things work for the loyal fans that purchased their game at midnight, but how were they not more prepared? Blizzard has been beating their chest over the massive number of pre-orders for a long time now. Now not only are log in errors running rampant, several people are reporting their characters missing from their Heroes list for no reason.

I have no idea how any of this ACTUALLY works. I mean, I'm sure companies don't just look at launch days of their games and not give a shit because the consumer should EXPECT to have problems on launch day, but has everything that could have possibly been done to prepare really been done? This is not a smart-ass question; I don't pretend to be one of those gamers that understand how these things work, despite knowing nothing. It just confuses me how every single online game has this issue, and every single time the consumer is expected to just accept that.

Again, not trying to be an asshole or anything, but isn't it just a little strange? Companies track pre-orders and don't seem to prepare servers accordingly. I'm sure it's not that easy, but I'd like to find out sometime.

 

[ProtonGuy]

"Mar"? There is no "Mar" here, Hell there wasn't even a launch. Myself and 9 friends bought this thing 24 hours ago and we haven't even seen the opening cinematic! It's not like this is their first rodeo either, they set the bar for massive online play, and the launches there of.

I'm sorry Blizzard but I'm done with decade long development cycles, and launches so horrific H.P. Lovecraft could write about them if he were alive today. God forbid I may even subscribe to Tera, and renew my Star Wars time.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Good thing I didn't bother wasting any money on Diablo 3. Path of Exile was working just fine.

 

[Aeshi]

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.

Being "for" pro-consumerism doesn't make you stuck-up or indie. It has a singleplayer component that requires you to not only log in to play, but to maintain a connection because AI and attack algorithms are handled by the server as well. Honestly, if you're not even SLIGHTLY angry that Blizzard thinks that's a good thing to have, as apposed to an appalling waste of resources and bandwidth, you have to rethink your affiliations.

No but, swarming any thread with the words "Diablo III" to post "OMG ERROR 37 LOL!!!!!" "GOOD THING I BOUGHT [INSERT INDIE VERSION HERE] AND WASN'T A MINDLESS SHEEP!!!" and overall harass/annoy anyone who actually did buy the game to enjoy because it's easier than complaining to Blizzard or actually doing anything about the DRM makes you stuck-up.

If these are the sort of people always-on DRM keeps from playing the game then I'm bloody glad Diablo III has it.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Blizzard's requirement that players always be connected to the internet [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112528-Diablo-3-Always-Online-Requirement-Helps-Fight-Hackers-Says-Blizzard], even for single player, has more than likely exacerbated the problem.

All they needed to do was use a system that actually made sense and nowhere near as many people would be annoyed.

Come on Blizzard, you're better than this.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Server issues? At launch?!

But seriously, as Fappy brought up, thank god for LAN-play and single player.

You can't play without logging into the servers--there is no "reaL' singe player.

Or did you know that and I missed the sarcasm? In that case... I'll just be over there >_>

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

No but, swarming any thread with the words "Diablo III" to post "OMG ERROR 37 LOL!!!!!" "GOOD THING I BOUGHT [INSERT INDIE VERSION HERE] AND WASN'T A MINDLESS SHEEP!!!" and overall harass/annoy anyone who actually did buy the game to enjoy because it's easier than complaining to Blizzard or actually doing anything about the DRM makes you stuck-up.

If these are the sort of people always-on DRM keeps from playing the game then I'm bloody glad Diablo III has it.

I haven't seen any of that. I know Torchlight 2 is getting a lot of press but it's hardly "indie," and it's apt in the Diablo III conversation because it's being developed by the team who made Diablo II. I haven't seen it reaching obnoxious levels yet, though really... who wouldn't be happy to see they backed the horse that doesn't lock them out of their game for arbitrary dev-side issues?

The conversation should be about the game and its system, not the people. That's like saying "oh well I can't support x because y supports it and I hate y!" People are voicing their concerns. No matter who those people are, the argument remains the same - so focus on the argument itself. Otherwise you'll end up constructing strawmen and that isn't a good way to debate anything.

 

[Warachia]

Oh man yea, imagine if I wanted to boot up an original copy of Spacewar!
Err no wait, things have changed so much there's exactly one computer in the world able to run it

Let's try Vette! instead, that's only 20 or so yeas old after all. I'm sure it'll require a whole bunch of fuckery well beyond the average computer user for it to run, but that's fine. I'll just pop this floppy dis.... oh wait no.

Well what about Dungeon Keeper 2? That's about 10 years old so it comes on a CD. Installs happily, boots up but all sorts of colour issues... and oh look it just crashed to desktop for no reason at all.



But no, you're so right net connection is going to be the biggest problem with playing Diablo 3 50 years from now.

Actually Dungeon Keeper 2 is pretty easy to get running perfectly, aside from that, if only there was some sort of game distribution that we could do digitally, so that we wouldn't have to worry about older game installation problems, if only there was some way to check once to make sure the game wasn't pirated, I agree that the time-frame given is absurd, but you can't just write off the always online crap by assuming that means it will work better than the games you mentioned.

 

[Warachia]

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.

Being "for" pro-consumerism doesn't make you stuck-up or indie. It has a singleplayer component that requires you to not only log in to play, but to maintain a connection because AI and attack algorithms are handled by the server as well. Honestly, if you're not even SLIGHTLY angry that Blizzard thinks that's a good thing to have, as apposed to an appalling waste of resources and bandwidth, you have to rethink your affiliations.

No but, swarming any thread with the words "Diablo III" to post "OMG ERROR 37 LOL!!!!!" "GOOD THING I BOUGHT [INSERT INDIE VERSION HERE] AND WASN'T A MINDLESS SHEEP!!!" and overall harass/annoy anyone who actually did buy the game to enjoy because it's easier than complaining to Blizzard or actually doing anything about the DRM makes you stuck-up.

If these are the sort of people always-on DRM keeps from playing the game then I'm bloody glad Diablo III has it.

Bullshit. I've gone through every page of this thread, nobody here who dislikes this ever went after somebody who did not directly antagonize them, and of course people have complained to blizzard, here's a thread of 200+ pages (4000+ posts) long of customers who can't play the game: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4077738283?page=1
and what do you expect us to do about the DRM? There's only two options, 1. don't buy it, 2. Pirate/crack it, which goes against the point of having the DRM.

If you think this DRM will keep stuck up people from the servers, or stop people from pirating it, then I really feel sorry for you.

 

[Vie]

Oh man yea, imagine if I wanted to boot up an original copy of Spacewar!
Err no wait, things have changed so much there's exactly one computer in the world able to run it

http://spacewar.oversigma.com/

In 50 years time you'll probably be able to run Crysis in the future equivalent of Java. And yes, Spacewar (and the specs of the hardware it ran on) is in the public domain so there should not be any legal issues regarding an emulator for it.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I find it sad, funny and ironic all at the same time...

That I'm playing Diablo 1 on my PS2 (and enjoying my single-player) while laughing my tits off about the problems Blizzard is having ATM with their servers. I now feel vindicated that I cancelled my Collector's Edition pre-order of D3 and put that money instead towards Borderlands 2, Trials: Evolution and Torchlight 2.

However, I wish all the luck in the world to the people that did buy the game that they will eventually enjoy it.

 

[Snotnarok]

Best part is, no one will remember this in a month, but everyone will whine anyway

Always online DRM is dumb no matter how you swing it though. Hey if they just let you play offline single player, these complaints wouldn't be here.

 

[sms_117b]

The onl;y problem I had was single player LAG, LAG IN SINGLE PLAYER WTF Blizzard, anyway 15 hours later the server shut down and booted me off, act 1 is done though XD

 

[Micah Weil]

Well, since I didn't buy the game, I see one good thing and one bad thing about this:

Bad thing: I have a lot of coworkers that do play it. I have to listen to it ALL DAY.
Good thing: I have a lot of coworkers that do play it. I get to have a giggle at their expense.

Blizzard Entertainment: Entertainment by Any Means Necessary

 

[Abedeus]

'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.

In Diablo 3, drops are server-side. That's to prevent people from getting data about items, coming up with duping methods, then ruining the market. Like in Diablo 2.

You can easily compartmentalize, as in retain server side drops while providing drops client side in a separate file for single player.

No. If you give any drop table to the client, people WILL find a way to get dupes and cheats online.

 

[Kargathia]

If they'd made sure the release went smoothly they probably wouldn't have to worry about loosing half the userbase within the first couple of months.

Somehow I don't think they're worrying about that.

 

[ExileNZ]

This makes my "should-have-left-it-offline" argument better for me than anything I could have come up with (or DID come up with, if anyone finds that thread).

Blizzard, Blizzard, Blizzard, just allow me to pat you on the back, put a warm hand on your shoulder, and say I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.

 

[RvLeshrac]

'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.

In Diablo 3, drops are server-side. That's to prevent people from getting data about items, coming up with duping methods, then ruining the market. Like in Diablo 2.

You can easily compartmentalize, as in retain server side drops while providing drops client side in a separate file for single player.

No. If you give any drop table to the client, people WILL find a way to get dupes and cheats online.

So you're saying that having the drops client-side is the only way to dupe/cheat? That must be why no MMO has ever had item duplication bugs or hacking of any kind.

 

[MrMan999]

And this is why cloud gaming will not work in the near future.