Yeah, I see myself putting down $60 the day after one of the various underground server-recreation groups puts out a decent beta release for the full game.
I mean, I’ve got my morals and my beliefs, but come on, I’d probably give Hitler $60 for a new Diablo game.
The game is almost certainly to be down for at least a few days after release, just like every mmorpg (yes i know diablo is not a mmorpg, but it is a popular game that requires logging in and playing somewhat on their servers) during release week, including wow.
People who say blizzard learned their lesson or knows better are fooling themselves. Every company and its supporters say this before release and so far almost every single one has had the same exact problems.
The always on DRM is shit for the customers, but it is pretty common these days so most people, myself included, can accept it. Whenever a company does this, they make up some lie nobody believes about “in order to provide the best experience for our customers we have enabled all of these online functions which sadly requires you to have an active internet connection.” Nobody is fooled of course and gets that that really means “the game has always on DRM to slow down piracy.” I just wish companies had the respect for their customer to tell the truth about it instead of making an obvious lie.
stusser
3823
The problem is that usage patterns change. Immediately following release, everybody logs in and plays like a maniac for the first week or so. After most of those initial players beat the game in a week, usage patterns flatten, and only longer-term players and new purchasers remain.
This isn’t an insurmountable problem, particularly for a game like D3 where all content is instanced and there’s no persistent world to maintain. You just plan for burst capacity, leasing a bunch of extra servers for the first 90 days. Alternatively, you decide not to spend that money and instead provide your customers a terrible experience for the first week or two.
My money is on the second option which is an industry standard.
mystery
3825
I just “beat” the Beta.
Now I have to wait? YOU BASTARDS.
Teiman
3826
A short diary written with the POV of my character in the game. It has mixed Meta elements because the game has mixed Meta elements.
Day 0
"I am a wizard lady, almost naked, butt sexy. My main weapon is a bow. Apparently my mother was a witch. If this where a direct to DVD movie, the output would be really obvious by now… "
Day 1.
“I have found a templar. Is a weird guy, looks like hulk, or a jerseyshore-ficiation of a real human”
Day 2
“More zombies. Also I found a challenge, and executed a score attack on it. My achievement list has another item”.
Day 3
“Nothing usefull in the vendors. I have sink 4000 gold coins training the artisan. Big error”.
Day 4
“I have killed the old king. Yay me!. I saved the world!. For some reason I still want to get that fallen star that seems to spur radiactive magic acid. Will probably burn a hole trough my hand, but for some unexplained reason I still want it”.
KevinC
3827
Option 3: Do not require people to pound on your poor servers when all they want to do is play single player.
Giaddon
3829
Yes! I am queuing for my single player game! This is delicious. My tears are the taste of modern gaming. I love it!
DeepT
3830
I think the difficulty is a bit harder in this latest beta release. In solo mode, my barb had to suck down a few healing potions and that has never happened before. It also seems the loot is a bit more diversified.
I thought this time Id try and get all my characters to level 13, but that is a bit of a grind to do so.
I do think the crafting system needs some work. It seems that as far as weapons go, I am able to find weapons that are just as good if not better than the ones I can craft at a certain level. IE: I found a hand axe that does like 14 dps. The same kind of hand axe which craftable for level 6 ( I think ), is like 8 dps or so. My first wizard has a 1h weapon that is almost as good as the level 15 wand he could make.
Armor, on the other hand seems to have superior stats when crafted. It would be nice if you could use a white piece of gear as a base in crafting. IE: Find a superior axe and craft a superior blue axe from it.
stusser
3831
Diablo is better connected with other people, even if you don’t actually go multiplayer. Almost everybody played D2 on their closed servers for this reason.
The only advantage to offering local play would be avoiding the crush in the first week. But then your character would have less value, since it wouldn’t be able to participate in the auction house, etc.
Diablo was better when I was by myself, training up infinite gold to gamble with in the Rogue’s Encampment in Nightmare. I kept alt-tabbing from the 800x600 game and my 1280x1024 desktop on a CRT to get back to the trainer program to add more gold (since you could only add a certain amount at a time before maxing out your character’s storage capacity).
Apparently I did this alt-tabbing between resolutions too long and too often, because my monitor sparked. fizzed, smoked, and died.
Oh, I get it now! Blizzard is just saving me from my own bad habits :D
stusser
3833
If I could cheat, I would play through the campaign once then uninstall, never to play again. The entire game is about getting cool item drops. Once that’s gone, there’s no reason to continue.
Except this hasn’t been true for a WoW expansion in several years and there are far more players to deal with than there will be for D3. The last two expansions released without much trouble at all. Cataclysm was surprisingly smooth and while the login servers crapped the bed a few times, other than being crowded it was pretty much problem-free. I think saying D3 will be down for “at least a few days” seems pretty severe. In fact, I don’t remember the last MMO I played on release that was completely down for any significant amount of time. I’m not saying there won’t be problems, but being down for days? That won’t happen.
KevinC
3835
I’m a big MP gamer, but there’s tons of people that just want to play Diablo 3 in singleplayer or offline. For the people who want to play it single player, don’t force them to log in and crush the multiplayer service for those who do want to play MP.
It’s asinine, but this particular battle was lost ages ago, so instead I’ll just enjoy my Error 37’s.
Kadath
3836
Burns me a bit that i signed up for beta the hour it went live and never once got in before the hordes ruined it :) oh well, now i can just hate everyone!
I can’t believe they are a few weeks before launch and they don’t have login queues. Server overload I can understand but typing your password in over and over is just bullshit.
Ninyu
3838
It isn’t supposed to be convenient for you. They are stress testing. Typing in your password over and over helps test the login servers. You aren’t a paying customer yet.
KevinC
3839
Typing in your password over and over helps test the login servers.
Lol. You can’t be serious.
Pogo
3840
You guys are literally typing in your passwords over and over again?
