Diablo III Launch May Get Messy

[Loop Stricken]

that was the first explanation, then they right out said they were only selling a set number of subscriptions per day...

I was more referring to when Blizzard added the Celestial Steed to the store, but fair enough.

Also as an aside I think Blizzard have enough beta testers for MoP; something like 1.2 million from the Annual Pass alone.
I'd be giving mucho feedback if they didn't make it a pain in the arse for European players to do so.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Guess who won't have a log-in problem?

...is that the right answer? Is it the pirates?

Or did you mean the Swedes? Damn those Swedes!! >;o

 

[samsonguy920]

I will be sitting back and enjoying my zero delays on the games that don't require me to be online, which will include Torchlight on Steam. Hell, I will set Steam to offline mode on that day, all day, and enjoy every minute of it.
I love the power of choice.

 

[The Lugz]

Blizzard is creating their own damn headache just to have complete control over customers. If they had a regular game with offline mode and reasonable drop rate that isn't manipulated to increase demand on their auction house, people could just play the damn thing without accounts or logins or all other sorts of corporate money grubbing bullshit.

I might not be giving them money, but the way they and others do business now just drives me nuts.

i tend to vote with my wallet when company's pull this bs, if consumers would wise up for a moment they'd realise we could simply buy the game a day late
( 0 sales on day 1 would certainly embarrass someone enough to be taken seriously )

unfortunately with the ultra competitive nature of players in these types of games any movement like that would be nearly impossible
we HAVE that power. but people wont use it
oh well, they sell 1 copy less. serves them right imo

I will be sitting back and enjoying my zero delays on the games that don't require me to be online, which will include Torchlight on Steam. Hell, I will set Steam to offline mode on that day, all day, and enjoy every minute of it.
I love the power of choice.

^ Been doing this myself recently, my network isn't the best even when there are no problems or delays so i prefer single-player games these days
been working on trine and serious sam this week, it's a nice break from multi-player and its loading screens and logins

 

[Loop Stricken]

oh well, they sell 1 copy less. serves them right imo

You're... 'punishing' a company because they're trying to make sure their login servers don't get overloaded on release day?
Well done.

 

[samsonguy920]

Stop complaining about the DRM and Online only issues. If there were't so many thieving douchebags around this would not be necessary. What do you expect? This is the future of PC games. Its not Blizzards fault. They do deserve to get payed for there work and if you are so dead set against it don't by it. Its a free country.

I have many other issues with D3, such as the cartoon art style and lack of skill tree, but the mild annoyance of online only to prevent cheaters and pirates I support.

Welcome to the Escapist. Let me give you a little primer on DRM. It isn't just to combat piracy as the publishers want you to believe. Many developers and publishers have so much love for their game they refuse to believe in the concept where they are selling the game to you. Instead they are giving you limited control so you only receive only what they want you to receive.
Consider this: Thanks to the always online mode, there will be no mod content for Diablo III. Blizzard, a company that has benefited from every single game they have released due to the ability of people being able to mod those games has just put a stop to that with one highly anticipated game. Why? Who the hell really knows.
Games like League of Legends and DOTA are about because they are modded forms of Warcraft III. How many people bought a copy of Warcraft III just for the sole purpose of being able to play LoL or DOTA? Quite a few. There are a number of mods floating about for both Diablos I&II, as well, which helped drive up sales for those games.
Why is DRM crap? I just gave a good reason here. But Blizzard won't be complaining about the smaller sales on Diablo III because of their bullshit Auction House which they get a cut of every dollar purchase. Of course some of that will be put to maintenance of the game servers required for the always-online content, but you can bet there will be enough left over for steak dinners and mansions for the crew in Irvine.
Now I would imagine that wouldn't bother you if your mommy and daddy pay for all your online content or you are some wall street whizkid ripping off people of their homes and stuff, but those of us who aren't so greedy will be screwed over in the game when it comes to multiplayer content.
There is a lot more to be said against this game and Blizzard's attitude, but I will just leave it at this. Consider yourself informed.

 

[Andrewtheeviscerator]

Just know, that by buying this game you're supporting Always-Online DRM without an Offline Mode, No LAN, Real Money Auction House / Pay2Win, No Mods, Dumbification by removal of Skills/Stats and you're directly feeding your money to this guy if you do that...

If other games "learn" from Diablo III and move even more towards that way, if you see increasing Always-On DRM or Auction House Ripoffs know that YOU, YES YOU are responsible.

Well since I don't have a problem with DRM, the "always-online" part is because of the real money auction house which they have a pretty good reason for, LAN I don't care about, I think the real money auction house is interesting, there is no pay2win in this, don't care about mods, and the "Dumbification" is completely subjective, I find what they've done with the skills/stats more interesting and refreshing (and I played alot of Diablo 2 so I know what the old system is like), and since I like to support the developers and publishers I see no harm at all in me buying this game, and I for one cannot wait for it to get released.

 

[Voltano]

Which... Has nothing at all to do with my post or my point. I'm not talking about some system that won't get rid of the 3rd party sites, I'm talking about the decision to enforce an Online-only policy on a game that has never needed it.

Not to mention, of course, a policy that's going to be cracked within days of the games release to allow for offline single-player.

Online games like these are pretty hard to crack when compared to a single-player game since the authentication happens on the server, not through encryption process right on the user's machine. Plus, if Blizzard is smart (which they are), they would have every player's character account saved on the server like a typical MMORPG. So the chance of a potentially malicious user hacking/cheating in the game might be minimal at best.

But malicious users will probably go after the servers themselves instead of cracking the game. Remember last year how Sony's servers went down due to a hacker getting in and getting a whole bunch of credit card info? That scenario showed that most game companies out there don't have good security when it comes to protecting user accounts from malicious users like Credit card companies or banks do with their customers. Of course this is comparing Sony with Blizzard, with the latter having some good experience with protecting their customers (albeit to the best of their ability) in online games. But if they're not careful, some lucky hacker could potentially screw that entire auction house service if they could repeat what happened to Sony last year.

 

[ShotgunZombie]

Hmm, well that's a certainly a doozy Blizzard. Now I think I know what can be done. What if, and bear with me now, with if you gave up this insane idea of Always-On DRM huh? Anyone? No? Yeah I guess it was a stupid suggestion. Forget I said anything.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Guess who won't have a log-in problem?

Ooh! Ooh! I love this game!

Umm... Is it bigger than a bread box?

Yes? Okay, now let's see...

Does it.. um.. what's the word? Break? Bend? No, that's not it either...

Crack! That's it! Does it crack things?

Does it rhyme with "Dye cats?"

Seriously... It's like they don't even want the single player crowd to buy their game.

 

[Vigormortis]

Blizzard is creating their own damn headache just to have complete control over customers. If they had a regular game with offline mode and reasonable drop rate that isn't manipulated to increase demand on their auction house, people could just play the damn thing without accounts or logins or all other sorts of corporate money grubbing bullshit.

I might not be giving them money, but the way they and others do business now just drives me nuts.

Hear, hear. This whole mess is their own making. Having solo-offline be an option would have saved them a MASSIVE head-ache. Several in fact. Both from this inevitably botched launch but also the fan back-lash that's popped up because of the always-on.

They wouldn't even have had to include it in the co-op. As much as I would have preferred to have LAN support, I've come to accept that Blizzard just doesn't give a shit about it's customers anymore. Not since Starcraft 2 started this trend.

I'm also glad to see I'm finally not the only one to realize that one of the primary reasons for it being always-on is so they can manipulate natural drops rates to drive up demand on the popular items. Thus, netting them more cash within the Auction House. (since they, you know, take a cut of all money exchanged there)

All of the news I've been seeing on Diablo 3 the past few months has served as nothing more than a reminder as to why I stopped caring for Blizzard and a reminder as to why I'm so excited for Torchlight 2.

 

[Ascarus]

Their silly battle tag system gives everyone a uniquely hand crafted number after their username. But due to using the handle as part of the key, you only have to remember a 4 digit number instead of the much larger number they use internally. Hrmf.

<- Kross#1743 BTW

so that wasn't unique to me. mine turned into linkdtech####. i though that was because there were already numerous linkdtech tags taken. i was going to try to find something unique but decided i was too lazy and didn't care enough.

interesting to know that it happened to someone else.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

I'll be helping correct the problem by not buying the game in the first place, so all D3 fans should thank me.

 

[Callate]

Maybe someday- just someday- we'll have the kind of advanced hardware and technical know-how that will enable us to play games on our own machines.

 

[irishda]

Stop complaining about the DRM and Online only issues. If there were't so many thieving douchebags around this would not be necessary. What do you expect? This is the future of PC games. Its not Blizzards fault. They do deserve to get payed for there work and if you are so dead set against it don't by it. Its a free country.

I have many other issues with D3, such as the cartoon art style and lack of skill tree, but the mild annoyance of online only to prevent cheaters and pirates I support.

Why is DRM crap? I just gave a good reason here. But Blizzard won't be complaining about the smaller sales on Diablo III because of their bullshit Auction House which they get a cut of every dollar purchase. Of course some of that will be put to maintenance of the game servers required for the always-online content, but you can bet there will be enough left over for steak dinners and mansions for the crew in Irvine.

I can't find that video of Bender laughing, so I have to write out

HAHAHAAA! Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

I love that that's your image of how the programmers at Blizzard live. It reminds me of how Fox News thought all teachers made boatloads of money last year on taxpayer dollar.

Seriously, man, if you hate that Real Auction House, fine. I do too. But I hate it because it represents people who take games way too seriously, not because I have unrealistic views on where money's going

 

[FoolKiller]

Blizzard recomends players go and register their BattleTags right now [http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/battletagfaq#q1] to avoid the inevitable new user rush, and presumably to ensure you score that hilarious "HarryPothead420" user name before anyone else thinks of it.

Permalink

Umm... you dropped the ball on that one. The tag doesn't need to be unique (because they are adding a random number to it anyways). And references to illegal drugs or substances is prohibited.

As for the game, until there is a version I can play offline this game is a no for me.

 

[DanielBrown]

Hope I'll be as lucky as I was during the open beta weekend. Friend of mine tried logging in for hours, I got in on my second attempt, then I never had any more problems logging in and out.
6 days, 3 hours and 47 minutes left!

 

[Charli]

Well it's not the 1 hour queue to get in on my realm the day Burning Crusade Launched at least.

I really don't mind that much.

Seriously is this causing people that much heart ache? Just under a minute?
Damn we've become spoiled...

 

[DarkhoIlow]

It's well to be expected that there will be login problems when hundreds of thousand of players will try logging in at the same time.You can't really "prepare" for that.

It was the same problem with WoW in vanilla and with all big games that have a very big pool of people that want to play it the second it launches.