video Diablo III launch epic FAIL!

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Here's how it always is on launch day:

Give it some time and the it'll have dropped to a more reasonable level.

[rafter109]

It's business. I'm assuming Blizzard couldn't justify the costs of having the ability to deal with the initial surge of users when a few weeks from now things will be more balanced and bearable. That said, I'm only speculating on that. Maybe they honestly thought that they had the ability to deal with the mass of players and were just caught off guard, but that would surprise me given people's admiration of the Diablo series.

Based off of Jub's figures which I am willing to bet aren't too far off, Blizzard made $600 Million on launch. I am in management so I understand the costs involved but I bet they have already made a massive profit off of the game once you factor production, marketing, and distribution costs. The least they could do is invest in some short term load balancing. I hear Amazon is great at that (EC2 anyone?).

[firey]

And you keep with your argument that "I don't mind, so it doesn't affect anyone else and it's just fine"

Well I am in and playing with 0 lag, and 0 problems. I am 100% positive I am not alone with this.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

I am in management...

Being in management, you of all people should therefore understand that there is probably some fool up the food chain who said, "but if we don't give the funds for a "possible overload" solution we can save more money! This is a great idea, let's do that!"

[rafter109]

Here's how it always is on launch day:

Give it some time and the it'll have dropped to a more reasonable level.

So by your logic Blizzard is totally justified in building up massive anticipation, setting an expectation through various marketing channels that it will be available for play instantly upon launch, then totally blowing it? I work in retail and I would have my arse handed to me by my customers, my superiors, and the courts if I pulled a similar stunt in my store. Lemme give it to you in a different light(The Apple folks will love this one) - Apple announces a new iCrap and takes millions of pre-orders, makes no mention of availability issues on launch - in fact speaks as though anyone who wants one can get one, has millions of people waiting in line at their stores, and makes most of them wait for days, even weeks before they can get one. Consumer protection groups here in the US would have a field day. Fortunately for Blizzard they have EULA's that allow them to weasel out of this sort of situation.

[rafter109]

Being in management, you of all people should therefore understand that there is probably some fool up the food chain who said, "but if we don't give the funds for a "possible overload" solution we can save more money! This is a great idea, let's do that!"

Yes and that idiot usually only makes that mistake once before he is reprimanded or fired! In my company customer service is first and foremost. If you don't have a loyal customer base where are you going to get the money to save?

[rafter109]

Well I am in and playing with 0 lag, and 0 problems. I am 100% positive I am not alone with this.

I did finally get in after about 2 1/2 hours of trying and had massive lag the entire time. This is still a very disappointing situation.

[HawkMan]

Well I am in and playing with 0 lag, and 0 problems. I am 100% positive I am not alone with this.

Not really relevant to the topic anyway, you're still doing the same "doesn't affect me, and I like it, so everyone else should as well" argument.

[firey]

Not really relevant to the topic anyway, you're still doing the same "doesn't affect me, and I like it, so everyone else should as well" argument.

It is relevant to the topic because.. that's what 90% of his post was made up of was moaning about online only.

[DoctorD]

I woke up 2 hours after launch and it worked perfect for me.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

So by your logic Blizzard is totally justified in building up massive anticipation, setting an expectation through various marketing channels that it will be available for play instantly upon launch, then totally blowing it?

Not at all. But also by my logic Blizzard have far from blown the launch. Just because some of the more diehard fans can't play Diablo 3 the very moment that it is in their hands does not mean that the whole thing is a failure. Heck, you'd think everyone had one day to live and this was something that they have to experience before they die. It's a game, it's release day, there are going to be problems. Play one of the other games you have for another day, go for a walk or something. It's not the end of the world.

And if anyone wants to counter that with the argument, "but I booked today off work/school so that I could play this game"...well, I wouldn't bother using that argument if I were you.

[HawkMan]

It is relevant to the topic because.. that's what 90% of his post was made up of was moaning about online only.

And guess what, if the thousands of people who didn't want to play online where allowed to play single player offline. you wouldn't have these queues and you wouldn't have the lag many suffer from.

[rafter109]

It is relevant to the topic because.. that's what 90% of his post was made up of was moaning about online only.

This topic was not started as a gripe about the game being online only. The gripe I have is that when you buy something with the expectation that everything will be "all systems go" at 12:01 and have to spend hours waiting to play it. I was purely pointing out how they could have avoided the fiasco in the first place. While I would prefer if there were single player or LAN elements such as what was available in Diablo 2, I have no problems with online only play... as long as I can actually play when it was promised that I could!

[bnathan]

Yeah bit of a mess here in Sydney, Australia. Been trying to log in for about 30 minutes and come up with multiple errors ranging from unknown error to an account error. When I was finally able to connect and start playing to dropped out after 30 minutes saying the connection with battlenet was severed. I am only playing single player so personally I think its a silly mistake to have battlenet handle the single player side. I dont want ot wait to play a single player game if there is a problem with their servers.

[rafter109]

Not at all. But also by my logic Blizzard have far from blown the launch. Just because some of the more diehard fans can't play Diablo 3 the very moment that it is in their hands does not mean that the whole thing is a failure. Heck, you'd think everyone had one day to live and this was something that they have to experience before they die. It's a game, it's release day, there are going to be problems. Play one of the other games you have for another day, go for a walk or something. It's not the end of the world.

And if anyone wants to counter that with the argument, "but I booked today off work/school so that I could play this game"...well, I wouldn't bother using that argument if I were you.

You are missing the entire point. This is about promised vs. actual availability. Last time I checked 12:01AM PDT != 4:01AM PDT. They have betas to work out these problems. Manufacturers of tangible merchandise do not get the same graces that you are giving Blizzard and other game vendors. Yes, it is just a game, but software vendors are all to often given free passes on major issues as they often hide behind license agreements. Software vendors and the courts have totally lost sight of what EULAs were intended to do which was to protect the vendor's intellectual property and to prevent frivolous lawsuits. Unfortunately EULAs have become more of a "You only get to use it when, where, how and for what purpose we want you to and we aren't responsible for anything because we own the politicians" hunk of bull crap I don't expect perfection, I just expect that I get what is advertised exactly as advertised. It has been all about software vendors rights. What about the consumers?

[firey]

You are missing the entire point. This is about promised vs. actual availability. Last time I checked 12:01AM PDT != 4:01AM PDT. They have betas to work out these problems. Manufacturers of tangible merchandise do not get the same graces that you are giving Blizzard and other game vendors. Yes, it is just a game, but software vendors are all to often given free passes on major issues as they often hide behind license agreements. Software vendors and the courts have totally lost sight of what EULAs were intended to do which was to protect the vendor's intellectual property and to prevent frivolous lawsuits. Unfortunately EULAs have become more of a "You only get to use it when, where, how and for what purpose we want you to and we aren't responsible for anything because we own the politicians" hunk of bull crap I don't expect perfection, I just expect that I get what is advertised exactly as advertised. It has been all about software vendors rights. What about the consumers?

While I agree that it should of been perfect from launch, where is it that it states you WILL 100% no doubt be able to play? All I've seen is that it will launch at 12:01, and you should be able to login. Even the main login screen says there is high server traffic, and logins may not succeed.

[ahhell]

Yet another reason not to buy anything on launch day.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

You are missing the entire point. This is about promised vs. actual availability. Last time I checked 12:01AM PDT != 4:01AM PDT.

In fairness I'm probably going to stop reading this thread, as my level of concern over this is becoming less than the "I couldn't care less" level. I just find it odd that 4 hours after the initial launch of a product people are saying that it's been an epic fail.

[Midge]

Yeah bit of a mess here in Sydney, Australia. Been trying to log in for about 30 minutes and come up with multiple errors ranging from unknown error to an account error. When I was finally able to connect and start playing to dropped out after 30 minutes saying the connection with battlenet was severed. I am only playing single player so personally I think its a silly mistake to have battlenet handle the single player side. I dont want ot wait to play a single player game if there is a problem with their servers.

due to the nature of the rmt trade it is paramount that blizzard keep the control of the game world, or would you rather the first guy to make a program spawn him weapons making a mint on there?

i hate RMT in games - specifically games where it just isn't needed, and is just another avenue for cash to flow - but the bottom line is blizzard need to control every aspect of the game and your client must be just a dumb terminal to play the game otherwise it all goes to ****

[Yazoo]

Just curious, those who are complaining about having to play single player whilst connected online, do you disconnect your internet when playing other non online games? not sure what the issue is here?

[PurpleHaze420]

I'm going to avoid it for a few days until things calm down then i'll get it. :D

[Lovell]

It's been fine for me although I'm playing SP but no login problems.

[Rohdekill]

In fairness I'm probably going to stop reading this thread, as my level of concern over this is becoming less than the "I couldn't care less" level. I just find it odd that 4 hours after the initial launch of a product people are saying that it's been an epic fail.

If everyone used that same logic, Apple launches were also massive fails.

Everybody freakin' chill. You have a whole 10+ years to play the game before Diablo IV. Get a life and stop crying over little ****.

[Odom Member]

While I would prefer if there were single player or LAN elements such as what was available in Diablo 2, I have no problems with online only play... as long as I can actually play when it was promised that I could!

It was known a very long time ago that the LAN elements were taken out of Diablo III, and that an online authentication would be required to play the game, even though it's essentially an "offline" game.

As stated before, it is also known from other Blizzard titles (namely WoW), that every time a new expansion/addon is launched, there is massive lag, login delays and overload on the servers. This is known since 2005.

The same case was also with other games by other publishers, following the same authentication model for offline playing.

Essentially, this is nothing new and was to be expected.

Life's a bitch!!

Get over it and move on.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully Diablo III will be running better.

[Rudy]

I'll never understand the required server connection for a single player game DRM :/