3 days in Diablo Europe

[Dr. Mongo]

I must admit that I felt a little guilty when I bought the game. Now I'm just angry at myself.
Oh well. A lesson learned, I guess.

No more Ubisoft games.
No more EA games.
No more ActiBlizz games...

I wonder which company will be next on my list.

Captcha: long in the tooth
True that.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

-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.

It's more Blizzard's track record with game launches and server loads, you'll think they would learn by now.

 

[black_knight1337]

Really easy fix for that. Just switch which server your connecting to. You don't have to worry about losing your characters or not being able to play with friends because I've switched a few times between us and asia servers using the same characters and playing with the same people (some us and some asia). Also, error 37 isn't a valid attack on the game, bliz etc all it is is a safety mechanisms that slows the flow of log-ins so the servers don't explode every 10 minutes. So if you get error 37 just have a bit of patience and alt-tab to something else for 5 minutes or so then log-in.

 

[Whateveralot]

That's funny. I played Diablo 3 for a single day a week back, had no trouble with the servers. It's just..

.. my computer randomly crashes when playing (and ONLY when playing). So I'll wait for my new computer (which I'll get somewhere this month). However, I don't think it's just my computer causing this crash, since it runs everything else I throw at it smoothly.

 

[Lunar Templar]

you'd think they communicate between branch's so this kinda crap doesn't happen.
cause the US side seems to be running like a champ.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I've only been unable to log into the EU servers once, so I'm not complaining.

I'm not defending them either, because the problem seems to be very wide spread (unless consumers are just being especially vocal seeing as it's Blizzard). But I assume the problem will be worked out eventually.

 

[Savryc]

I know Actilizzard is cheap as fuck but surely they could just, I don't know, buy more servers and plug them in? (i ar tech wizard) Then again I haven't played a game by them since Frozen Throne (and the recent WoW play for free till level 20 thing, but that doesn't count since I'm trying to bleach the experience from my memory and thus existence) so maybe the competent folk all buggered off after that.

Although is one shoddy game all it takes to declare a company dead forever these days? Yeah from what I've heard D3 fails pretty badly but it still gives Blizzard a good gems to turds ratio. Although that could possible be read as defending Blizzavision so I better high tail it lest I be declared a dirty consumer rights hating scrub who spreads my whore legs for teh evul capitalists.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Yeah, I don't think it's a case of the Snidely Whiplash-type evil masterminds at ActiBlizz deciding to find a way to earn money *and* massively troll their customer base. It's much more a case of someone not understanding what an always-online DRM method implies, especially in the way it's implemented.

Take Assassin's Creed II on the PC, for instance. It came with always-online DRM, but all it consists of is the need to authenticate with a remote server. Everything else is stored locally. This means pirates had no trouble whatsoever using Hamachi or Tunggle to emulate the authentication server. Once you've got that going, you're essentially playing offline.

The problem with D3 is all drops are server-side. All enemy placements are server-side. Nearly everything except for dialog, cinematics and the basic level layouts is all server-side. This cuts back on duping and hacking attempts, of course, but it also severely restricts what the customer can do.

The official blurb is Blizzard needed to make the game run in an always-online mode because of the Auction Houses. That's complete bullcrap, obviously. If the auctions mattered that much, you'd be able to log into a service that's part of the core install, but that requires an actual login. Everything else could and should, ideally, be offline.

I'm pretty sure a lot of server techs at Blizzard know this and that quite a few are secretly gunning for the attempts to create an emulated server. With their jobs on the line, though, and with Corporate pushing for control over user-friendliness, that's not about to happen anytime soon.

You also have to consider what emulated servers look like, traditionally. When that barrier was broken for World of Warcraft, a lot of people cheered. They only realized far too late that what they'd earned was an empty wasteland. To this date, I haven't found a public WoW server with anything closely resembling the vanilla experience.

I'm more or less foreseeing the same thing with D3. It'll be a long while before we can cleave through Sanctuary's demonic hordes away from Bobby Kotick's grubby hands.

 

[teebeeohh]

yeah, at first i thought it was because my internet was wonky the past few weeks but i changed ISP and my connection is way better now. however, this only really bugs me because I really like the game but the connection issues stop me from playing hardcore.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Two hours or so, of login-bashing from launch time. Then maybe 4 times I couldn't get in at the moment, but hour, a half, or fifteen minutes later. Two or three disconnections when I could get right back in quite easily.

That's all the problem I've had. Game-wise: I'm getting exactly what I wanted, and I've been waiting for D3 since D2, even more after Titan Quest, and had raised quite high expectations. They delivered. I'd rather not have these problems, which will most probably disappear soon enough anyways. But they have been basically nothing but a minor annoyance. Just like plenty of games that have bugs or crashes, although this one doesn't have those two.

The few times I've played D3 recently, there hasn't been notable problems.

 

[shrekfan246]

Although is one shoddy game all it takes to declare a company dead forever these days? Yeah from what I've heard D3 fails pretty badly but it still gives Blizzard a good gems to turds ratio. Although that could possible be read as defending Blizzavision so I better high tail it lest I be declared a dirty consumer rights hating scrub who spreads my whore legs for teh evul capitalists.

You clearly haven't seen all of the anger thrown at Bioware over Dragon Age 2, with people who were declaring up and down that "if they fuck up Mass Effect 3, I'm done with them FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"

And now with the whole Mass Effect 3 thing, people are declaring that Bioware is "RUINED FOREVERRRRRRRR!" and that they'll never buy a single game from the company ever again. Because of the last ten minutes of the game. In a twenty-to-thirty hour game.

OT: So apparently the EU servers are worse than the US servers. Well, I'm sorry. I'll admit that the game has had it's rocky moments with all of the unscheduled maintenance they're doing, but honestly, I'm not usually playing games from 1 AM to 8 AM, and considering it doesn't have a monthly fee or anything I'm not really all that fussed about servers going down. I can just do other things.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I know some will hate me for this, but I just love saying this.

You.Asked.For.This.

Seriously, you gave Blizzard your money knowing that it has the WORST kind of DRM ever. You supported them doing this, I don't think anyone should have sympathy for people who can't play Diablo 3.

I'm a HUGE fan of the Diablo series, but unlike other people, I can say "no" to something like and keep living without it. I still think about D3 from time to time and miss the fun, but I don't want to support what it represents.

And anyone who does support it won't get any sympathy from me. So yeah, you got what you asked for and I hope for more rage so that people realize they should THINK before trowing their money at Blizzard (and Valve, tho I'm a fan of them too).

 

[Worgen]

I like how blizzard is stuck paying server costs forever, I hope it bleeds them dry.

 

[Frostbite3789]

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.

Also most people have jobs that have them working during the daytime.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Although is one shoddy game all it takes to declare a company dead forever these days? Yeah from what I've heard D3 fails pretty badly but it still gives Blizzard a good gems to turds ratio. Although that could possible be read as defending Blizzavision so I better high tail it lest I be declared a dirty consumer rights hating scrub who spreads my whore legs for teh evul capitalists.

You clearly haven't seen all of the anger thrown at Bioware over Dragon Age 2, with people who were declaring up and down that "if they fuck up Mass Effect 3, I'm done with them FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!"

And now with the whole Mass Effect 3 thing, people are declaring that Bioware is "RUINED FOREVERRRRRRRR!" and that they'll never buy a single game from the company ever again. Because of the last ten minutes of the game. In a twenty-to-thirty hour game.

OT: So apparently the EU servers are worse than the US servers. Well, I'm sorry. I'll admit that the game has had it's rocky moments with all of the unscheduled maintenance they're doing, but honestly, I'm not usually playing games from 1 AM to 8 AM, and considering it doesn't have a monthly fee or anything I'm not really all that fussed about servers going down. I can just do other things.

Ah ha, like I said in another thread, Mass Effect 3 was like buying a luxury car, and everything is fantastic. Then you suddenly find out those nice leather seats are actually pleather.

Diablo 3 is like a car that braeks down every 3 miles for any reason or no reason at all.

 

[shrekfan246]

Ah ha, like I said in another thread, Mass Effect 3 was like buying a luxury car, and everything is fantastic. Then you suddenly find out those nice leather seats are actually pleather.

Diablo 3 is like a car that braeks down every 3 miles for any reason or no reason at all.

I can get behind those analogies.

Of course, I don't particularly care for leather seats in the first place, especially during summer months. So I wouldn't be bothered by them not being real leather, as I'd probably cover them up anyway.

And as far as the car that breaks down every 3 miles, well, it was given to me for free (yay for the promotional WoW subscription) and the manufacturer works on making it more reliable and stable for use every week or so free of charge, getting more miles on each drive before it breaks down, so I can't really get all that angry at it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to back to driving my car that breaks down every 3 miles.

EDIT: In a show of utter irony, the server authenticator is stuck at "Retrieving Hero List" again, so...

 

[ElPatron]

And as far as the car that breaks down every 3 miles, well, it was given to me for free (yay for the promotional WoW subscription) and the manufacturer works on making it more reliable and stable for use every week or so free of charge, getting more miles on each drive before it breaks down, so I can't really get all that angry at it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to back to driving my car that breaks down every 3 miles

The only think you forgot to mention is the workout you do everyday by having to run the other 3 miles to work.

It's fine to see the positive aspects of things, but a car that breaks down every 3 miles would be a ***** to insure or to sell/trade. Basically you're stuck with a defective product, and the worst part is that many had to pay for it.

A car that breaks down every three miles is a one trick pony destined to make a few stressful laps on a private track and go back to maintenance.

It's not the car you want to take on a smooth, relaxing ride into the sunset.

 

[karloss01]

I'm glad that i didn't put money into this. after my experiance with Starcraft 2 the blizzard i knew is dead to me.

starcraft had the same problems for me and the memory pool problem which i haven't had for any other game was a pain in the arse only able to play for an hour before it decided to reboot my PC.

 

[shrekfan246]

The only think you forgot to mention is the workout you do everyday by having to run the other 3 miles to work.

It's fine to see the positive aspects of things, but a car that breaks down every 3 miles would be a ***** to insure or to sell/trade. Basically you're stuck with a defective product, and the worst part is that many had to pay for it.

A car that breaks down every three miles is a one trick pony destined to make a few stressful laps on a private track and go back to maintenance.

It's not the car you want to take on a smooth, relaxing ride into the sunset.

Well, if we're really going to drive this metaphor home, then while I agree with what you're saying, I also feel the need to point out that the car that breaks down every three miles isn't the only car I have. To get incredibly unrealistic with it, then I could easily just point out that when the car breaks down, I can essentially pull another, albeit different car out of the ether and use that to get the last three miles.

Hey, I get that people are pissed off with how Diablo III is or isn't working, especially two and a half weeks after release. But it's not the only game in existence. It's not even the only game I own that I haven't fully completed yet. If it goes down while I'm playing, sure I'll get angry for a while, but I can just go play something else or do something else entirely.

I guess I have a vastly differing opinion of it because I got Diablo III for free due to the promotional WoW subscription Blizzard did. Since I didn't drop $60 on it, I just don't feel any need to get angry about it. I understand the people who do want to get angry about it (at least, if they did buy the game. The people who get all into schadenfreude over people who bought the game just shock me), I just don't share the sentiment.

 

[ElPatron]

snip

If you have alternative cars, you don't really need another one specially if it's still not fixed.

One thing is buying a Countach, it's flaws can be ignored if you just love the car to death. It's not practical. It's not what you want from an automobile. But you love it.

But I would be reluctant to buy a car that I can't even drive when I want and that does break once in a while.