Only problem I've had is that after playing for a few hours on launch day when I played the next day my achievements were gone. It's not a big deal and I hadn't gotten any difficult ones but it was a weird thing to have happen.

xXSnowyXx:
Didn't work in the minutes after launch, was fine 2 hours later despite slow logins and a bit of lag, works perfectly next day. Not sure how different it was for others but it seems a bit overblown nonetheless.

It was definitely overblown, the whiners will use anything they can get their hands on though.

"Oh no! A single day of not being able to play... I WAS RIGHT THE GAME SUCKS WHAHAHAHAHAHHA!"

That is how I have perceived most of the whining.

All this stems from the online always requirement. There really is no excuse for not having a character stored on your computer and one stored on their servers. Like has been previously said, if people could play there wouldn't be an issue. Even if an emulator gives a slightly inferior product it still gives the player the option to play at a time and place of their choosing. I never was big into piracy and having already paid for a legit copy I plan to install the crack when it happens. That way I'll have the options that should have been included day one.

oplinger:

Sylveria:
Shitty, rushed game made by soulless corporate drones who have no concern about the quality of the game they make or consumer satisfaction is shitty.

Yeah! just like that duke nukem forever crap! Rushed as all hell! And look what happened.

Not the best example considering the assets were remade at least 3 times over the years, subsequently dropped, then picked up by another company, slapped together and recoded again in just a few months.

AzrealMaximillion:
I love how the argument here is this:
Person A says, "I got screwed the the majority of other players trying to simply play this game, this is horrible customer service"

Person B says, "I played the game with ease so Blizzard obviously did nothing wrong and everyone who's complaining needs to shut up."

Person B's argument is laughable.

Agreed, this seems to be an all too common logic when defending a company fucking up. I remember when I pointed out that everyone I know who owns a 360, including myself, has had to replace it at least once, I was met with a deluge of replies saying 'nuh uh mine works fine it's obviously your problem!'

If the number of people experiencing a problem is great enough to make it newsworthy, then it's the manufacturer that has dropped the ball, not the user.

The online only isn't to fight pirates in this case, it's to secure the RMAH, their new revenue source.

And in order for that business model to work, they can't allow any off-line play, not even play separate from the AH, because then a large group of people would forgo using the AH and thus reducing Blizzards potential revenue.

If the RMAH works, expect to see A LOT more of it in other games.

My stats screen says I've picked up 514,663 gold.
I've earned the 100,000 gold gathered achievement 3 times.
And I still don't have the achievement.
I'm not generally an achievement whore, but that's kinda annoying.

rob_simple:

AzrealMaximillion:
I love how the argument here is this:
Person A says, "I got screwed the the majority of other players trying to simply play this game, this is horrible customer service"

Person B says, "I played the game with ease so Blizzard obviously did nothing wrong and everyone who's complaining needs to shut up."

Person B's argument is laughable.

Agreed, this seems to be an all too common logic when defending a company fucking up. I remember when I pointed out that everyone I know who owns a 360, including myself, has had to replace it at least once, I was met with a deluge of replies saying 'nuh uh mine works fine it's obviously your problem!'

If the number of people experiencing a problem is great enough to make it newsworthy, then it's the manufacturer that has dropped the ball, not the user.

It's really some sad for of Buyer's Remorse where people who weren't affected are shielding Blizzard like they were part of some "rapture".

Ickabod:
The online only isn't to fight pirates in this case, it's to secure the RMAH, their new revenue source.

And in order for that business model to work, they can't allow any off-line play, not even play separate from the AH, because then a large group of people would forgo using the AH and thus reducing Blizzards potential revenue.

If the RMAH works, expect to see A LOT more of it in other games.

They shouldn't have had this IN game if it was going to require such drastically inconvenient measures.

rob_simple:

AzrealMaximillion:
I love how the argument here is this:
Person A says, "I got screwed the the majority of other players trying to simply play this game, this is horrible customer service"

Person B says, "I played the game with ease so Blizzard obviously did nothing wrong and everyone who's complaining needs to shut up."

Person B's argument is laughable.

Agreed, this seems to be an all too common logic when defending a company fucking up. I remember when I pointed out that everyone I know who owns a 360, including myself, has had to replace it at least once, I was met with a deluge of replies saying 'nuh uh mine works fine it's obviously your problem!'

If the number of people experiencing a problem is great enough to make it newsworthy, then it's the manufacturer that has dropped the ball, not the user.

You both are speaking words. Words with wisdom inside of them.

CriticKitten:
Considering one of their big selling points was that Diablo 3 would have vastly improved PvP over Diablo 2, yet is releasing with NO PvP, that sounds like a rushed game to me.

Really? Sounds to me like they delivered many times over on that.

Realistically i shouldn't care, i play HoN which is online only but i know its ALWAYS against others, also played swtor, wow etc etc. But it does bother me, i dont like logging in to stuff to play a single player. I played skyrim when SWTOR was down for the day, or Dawn or war, like steam, this should have an "offline" function. Even if you had to go online to verify it just the once that'd be reasonable, but forcing people to use a server for no other reason than to scoop up that small %% of pirates who have cracks anyway so still, arent affected seems ridiculous and once again, greed wins through which is all this is a result of.
I'll wait if it changes brilliant, if not, well not to worry, i'll just not. I didn't bother with starcraft 2 for the same reason, havent lost any sleep over it and im happier with tha £40 than without it.

Well, the only issues i have with D3 are:

1) The online auction house, you may think its not such a big deal, but drop rates and the amount of gold you get have been made extremely low, to force people to use it.

2) The game is mediocre at best, both path of exile and torchlight 2 are better in every way.

3) You have to log in to play single player (i know its part of the product but thats just retarded), and there where two reasons for that: a) they dont trust their costumers and b) they want you to look at the auction house to tempt you to spend money. Because when you get "the Axe of chaotic death of everything that moves and most things that dont" and you see that you can sell it for about 40 bucks, you will want to sell it for real money.

4) You cant customize your character, the only thing that matters is the gear (again, one more reason to look at the auction house) and because of that its neither deep nor involving in that regard.

5) I hate the graphic style, its just not diablo, again path of exile feels more like diablo than D3.

6) Someone will hack it soon, and the pirated version will offer a better service than the original one, and thats about as stupid as you can get when you are trying to sell a product.

7) full price for that... thing? really?

See, this is what I hate. If any other company did this they'd probably take a loss or even go under, but since it's Blizzard it'll still come out smelling like roses. Seriously, I think they allowed a rocky launch because they knew they could do it with impunity. They just want to dick with the fans now because they know that they'll come back. I mean people waited for a game that by some accounts is not only still rocking archaic design philosophy but is dumbed-down from its predecessor. I didn't even think it was possible to dumb down Diablo. How does it get more simple than click, kill, level up, hotkey potions, rinse, repeat?
A grave injustice is how I see it.

Abedeus:

Did you play the game?

Yep. Wasn't my copy, though.

Then shut up and don't say it's shitty without having played it. Rushed? It took 10 years to release, and was announced in... 2008 or 2009? That's not rushed.

The game, as we see it today, took about a year and a half of total development time. 2008-2010 development was scrapped whole when they realized they were using a non-proprietary engine.

Keep your rose-tinted glasses on, though. I'm not going to waste my time on a forum poster that can't look at something critically.

I remember problems Half Life 2 had after release. Game was unplayable not for the first few hours, like D3, but DAYS.

I remember another game that was unplayable for weeks after it's launch. It' a pretty popular game now, though. You might have heard of it. It was called wow or something.

Innegativeion:
God I'm so glad I chose to withhold getting this until Blizz gets their shit together.

It is together, has been togheter since like 4 hours after launch except 1 maintenance of 30 mins the launch day and 1 server restart yesterday.

AFAIK... i am not following it too closely. Have played 12 hours in 3 days with few if any issues.

But if you are wanting to play a single player action RPG with mods, don't bother, diablo iii isn't that. It's a kickass multiplayer game with action RPG elements though.

Sylveria:
Shitty, rushed game

And lols were had by all.

OT: I'm kinda glad I can't afford this atm. I will be able to afford it next month though, so hopefully the creases will be ironed out by then.

I got 37 problems but a server ain't 1

Aeshi:

CriticKitten:
Considering one of their big selling points was that Diablo 3 would have vastly improved PvP over Diablo 2, yet is releasing with NO PvP, that sounds like a rushed game to me.

Really? Sounds to me like they delivered many times over on that.

They delivered on a promise to have vastly improved PvP in Diablo 3 by releasing the game with NO PvP?

Your argument makes no sense, unless you're saying that having no PvP *is* an improvement over having it....which I might not disagree with. xD

tony2077:
shit happens and too many people are blowing this way out of proportion

this :3

cause by the time i got home and installed Tuesday, i was actually able to play.

CriticKitten:

Aeshi:

CriticKitten:
Considering one of their big selling points was that Diablo 3 would have vastly improved PvP over Diablo 2, yet is releasing with NO PvP, that sounds like a rushed game to me.

Really? Sounds to me like they delivered many times over on that.

They delivered on a promise to have vastly improved PvP in Diablo 3 by releasing the game with NO PvP?

Your argument makes no sense, unless you're saying that having no PvP *is* an improvement over having it....which I might not disagree with. xD

That's just it though! By releasing D3 WITHOUT PvP, players have to come up with their own PvP, which itself is PvP. The battlefield is the internet and the weapons of choice are whatever items people can get their hands on. Like a friend who is a mod, or maybe a small group of people who can DDoS servers. It's brilliant! Blizzard has created a meta-pvp system without actually creating any pvp.

captcha: slippery slope
What Blizzard seems to be on, yes?

ManThatYouFear:
"ONLINE DRM CREATED PRIACY"

^^ i wonder how many people will say this before threads end.

It certainly didn't create it, piracy was around well before online DRM. That being said, online DRM encourages piracy. It pisses people off to have to jump through hoops to play games they legally purchased, and in general DRM only hurts people who actually bought the game. It's all about convenience; is it worth it to go through all the crap to play the legally purchased game, or is it more convenient to just pirate it and miss out on the multiplayer/patches. If you can take a game out of the box, put it in, and play it, people are a lot more likely to trust the company and give them their money then if the company makes the playing experience painful.

I personally spend part of my summer out in the boonies with no internet connection, and not being able to play some of my single player games because they want me to be online for them pisses me off. I'm sure as hell not going to give someone money for a game I'm not going to get to play.

Blizzard might have screwed up, but frankly, I could give less of a damn. I've sunk five hours into Act 1 of the game and I could honestly say I enjoyed it immensely.

LordLundar:

oplinger:

Sylveria:
Shitty, rushed game made by soulless corporate drones who have no concern about the quality of the game they make or consumer satisfaction is shitty.

Yeah! just like that duke nukem forever crap! Rushed as all hell! And look what happened.

Not the best example considering the assets were remade at least 3 times over the years, subsequently dropped, then picked up by another company, slapped together and recoded again in just a few months.

That was sort of the joke. The game was not rushed. Neither of them were really. DNF took 12 years, was redone a bunch, in different engines, given to other companies, scrapped, remade again, and then finally got picked up, cleaned up and thrown out the door. It wasn't rushed, it was just -bad-.

Diablo 3 spent 7 years in development, and 4 years in production, which was then redone 3 times, and overhauled a bunch because of fan input.

Really blizzard made the same mistake with Diablo 3 that they did with WoW, They didn't think -so- many people would play it. It took them like 6 years to realize WoW was really really popular. And they did the same with Diablo 3 here. They'll fix it faster this time at least. SO a little patience and everything will work at least. Weather people still like the game will be different.

wildebeest careering over a cliff.

I love Grey...

but in other news, I wrote a post earlier about how Blizz 'defeated' piracy with this, but how annoyed i was about -how- they did it.

Although, I heard they restricted SP to online because it would keep hackers from making dupes/hacks/bots etc. They basically don't want to reveal their secret-infrastructure for everyone to see, so they put everything server side.

Ugh...WTF mind is blown. Online DRM?? Defeating piracy?? But... *shrug*

edit: food for thought, my old post

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:

I know this is a thin hope, but perhaps studios will begin to see that always on internet is a stupid idea?

I know, not gonna happen, but a man can certainly hope can't he?

Ympulse:

I remember another game that was unplayable for weeks after it's launch. It' a pretty popular game now, though. You might have heard of it. It was called wow or something.

QFT...

Just about EVERY GAME Blizzard has released has had problems...the SAME problems. You think they would have learned by now how to release a game with online servers attached to it by now.

glad they didn't try to make excuses.
because it is inexcusable.

Sylveria:
Shitty, rushed game made by soulless corporate drones who have no concern about the quality of the game they make or consumer satisfaction is shitty.

Personally I can't wait till they release Diablo III Gold which, for a nominal monthly fee, will allow you access to a higher quality server with better drop rates and exp multipliers as well as two new classes only available to Gold membership holders.

Someone's very angry. I'll assume your sarcastic. Or a video game hipster.

OT: The game ran fine for me. I had one issue running it on day one launch. I waited a few hours and I've never had a problem since.

Ive been reading a lot of bitching about this, all i can say is ive now finished normal mode with my barbarian on the US servers, and half way though a co-op hardcore on the european servers with some mates. A few hours i couldnt log in just after release, and a 15 minute down time yesteray, a few disconnects(2 in the one 1 hour period) but aside from that no issues.

oplinger:
That was sort of the joke. The game was not rushed. Neither of them were really. DNF took 12 years, was redone a bunch, in different engines, given to other companies, scrapped, remade again, and then finally got picked up, cleaned up and thrown out the door. It wasn't rushed, it was just -bad-.

Diablo 3 spent 7 years in development, and 4 years in production, which was then redone 3 times, and overhauled a bunch because of fan input.

Really blizzard made the same mistake with Diablo 3 that they did with WoW, They didn't think -so- many people would play it. It took them like 6 years to realize WoW was really really popular. And they did the same with Diablo 3 here. They'll fix it faster this time at least. SO a little patience and everything will work at least. Weather people still like the game will be different.

But DNF was ultimately rushed. When Gearbox had to remake the assets, they had to essentially work from concept designs.

The game had an overall time of 14 years, but most of that time really didn't count because Gearbox had to essentially start over because 3DRealms couldn't get it out. In actuality, the development time was really only a few months as opposed to the 14 years it was in limbo.

PingoBlack:
Again Escapist turns to sensationalist side.

Yesterday I saw zero reports that there were any problems. That apology was posted after they sorted out most of issues, especially log in ones.

So they seem to have managed to make it "actually work" in 2 days, Johnny. Not to mention you should be experienced enough to know D3 runs server side, so it is not quite single player with DRM. But then again, we knew this before purchase, didn't we? Especially professionals in the field of gaming should know the difference. Press then could explain it to lay people, right?

Guess you are going for hipster rage, one day too late. :) Or is this caused by Blizzard not giving you early access before masses for your review post?

I find it mildly amusing that you're accusing Grey of shitty journalistic practices while basically admitting that you didn't do any research on the subject. All you need to do is google 'Error 37' - which, incidentally, was a trending topic on Twitter on launch night - to get an idea of the scope of people who have been affected.

Of course there are no 'hard statistics' on the launch, but you can't really overlook the huge glut of anecdotal evidence without looking like you just want to stick your fingers in your ears and go 'lalalala'. Not to mention that filling out your post with condescending ad hominem makes you look even more in denial.