To say that the launch of Diablo 3, one of 2012′s most anticipated games, didn’t go quite as Blizzard planned would be the understatement of the year. Despite Blizzard’s awareness that their games tend to sell like gangbusters, and earlier lessons learned from the World of Warcraft launch, Diablo 3 suffered one of the more disappointing launches in a long time.
Gamers were experiencing problems logging into the game’s servers – a problem only created because the game requires an always-on connection – starting from moment one. Since then Blizzard has worked out some, not all, of the kinks from the Diablo 3 back-end, but they are still reeling.
As such they have issued a statement, or rather an apology, regarding the launch’s failures, and the “humbling” enthusiasm that has overwhelmed their game’s servers. It’s all standard procedure for Blizzard, and should do well enough to placate some of the fans that have been struggling to log in.
Blizzard also revealed that they plan to hold off on the unveiling of their much maligned auction house as a result of the Diablo 3 launch problems. Though the service – where players can sell in-game items for real world currency – isn’t directly impacted by the current slate of Diablo 3 problems, it’s probably best they work everything out before real money gets involved.
Just the announcement of the auction house stirred up quite a bit of controversy, including getting the game almost banned from South Korea, so it’s probably best that the poor launch doesn’t get folded into the issue.
Diablo Players:
We’d like to extend a very sincere thank you to everyone who joined the global Diablo III launch celebrations this week, as well as to everyone who was ready to jump into Sanctuary the moment the game went live.
To that end, we’d also like to say that we’ve been humbled by your enthusiasm — and we sincerely regret that your crusade to bring down the Lord of Terror was thwarted not by mobs of demons, but by mortal infrastructure. As many of you are aware, technical issues occurring within hours after the game’s launch led to players experiencing error messages and difficulty logging in. These issues cropped up again last night for the Americas and Europe servers. Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough.
We’ve been monitoring the game 24/7 and have applied several optimizations to help our systems better weather the global rush. As of late last night, specifically 11:50 PM PDT on May 15, all systems have been online and running relatively smoothly. We’re continuing to monitor performance globally and will be taking further measures as needed to ensure a positive experience for everyone. This includes some maintenance to implement additional improvements for each region.
In order to make sure everything is continuing to run as it should, we’ve decided to move out our target launch for the real-money auction house beyond our original estimated date of May 22. We’ll post further updates on that in the near future.
Aside from the tremendous number of players simultaneously logging in to the game, one of the launch-day service issues was linked to the achievement system. Some players began to notice early on that achievements were either not being earned properly, or not being saved between multiple logins. We’re investigating this issue and will provide a specific update as soon as possible.
We greatly appreciate everyone’s support, and we want to sincerely apologize for the difficulties many of you encountered on day one. Please visit the Battle.net Support site or Support forums for the latest service-related updates or for help in troubleshooting any technical issues you may be having downloading, installing, or while playing the game.
Thank you again for your patience while we reinforce the gates of Sanctuary and further strengthen it for your onslaught.
Respectfully,
Blizzard Entertainment
While an apology doesn’t outright forgive Blizzard’s lack of due diligence when it came to accounting for their game’s fan base it does acknowledge they are making strides to fix the problems. It will most likely be some time before everything runs as smoothly as it should, and players are able to log in without hassle, but at least we know somebody’s working around the clock to make that happen.
Are you still experiencing problems logging in to Diablo 3, or have the issues resolved themselves for you? Have you been waiting for the launch of the auction house?
Diablo 3 is out now for the PC and Mac.
Source: Kotaku
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Ah, the old ‘we didn’t expect so many people to play the game’-excuse. Yes, that one never gets old, does it.
While it is good to see they’re dealing with the problem, I find this official explanation extremely hard to believe. Especially considering the fact that the game set a new record in pre order-sales, by blizzard’s own admission. And you would think a company that runs the biggest mmo with the most subscribers in the world would know a thing or two about launching a game of this magnitude.
I dont know if the problem was due to laziness, negligence on blizzard’s part, or just sheer reluctance to invest in proper infrastructure and prepare for the launch. But I do know that it was not because they did not expect such a huge succes. It’s DIABLO 3 for chrissakes! Pull the other one, blizzard.
This is just another reason why people should stay clear of games that forces you into an always online-drm circus, regards of what the title may be.
Where I also find it hard to believe they didn’t “anticipate” the popularity (as if the record pre-sell number couldn’t indicate that), I think the biggest issue was just poor planning. When the North America servers went down, they listed approximate up times so millions of players kept trying to log in over and over just in case they went up early. Not to mention when they did open it, it was more like opening the gates at the Super Bowl and telling everyone “just find a seat!” MASS CHAOS ENSUES. I think they could have slowly opened to verify stability.
Pretty much every argument surrounding this issue is moot when considering you have to log in to play single player mode.
yeah the no offline mode is joke..
then again, i cant complain- i havent had a issue playing.. guess am online when most people are asleep or something..
fun game needless to say.. am enjoying it
After that first day of troubles I haven’t had a single issue. The only problem I’ve had is that Windows pops up a message about the launcher wanting to change things and asking for permission. It doesn’t seem to matter that I have set to “Run as an Administrator.”
Dont worry Blizzard we still love you
I’m not going to pretend that running a service like Battle.net is a simple process…but seriously, the server went down at least four times last night. Four? Come on, Blizzard.
So why exactly is it we can’t play off-line if we don’t have access to an AH? Seems to me, if they can not have this feature at launch, they can also have a version that allows players to run it off-line.
But what do I know…
Although I completely agree that there should be an off-line single player mode. I can see why they did it the way the did.. To many hackers would have had a field day with this and pirated copies would have run rampant. That being said after the initial release day I havent had any issues in game loggging in or any lag so Im happy about that. And as far as the real money AH… I could care less. I like the regular in game gold AH as it is.
All the pirates here who have bragged in other stories about how they steal games and think it’s ethical…this is the fruit you’ve earned us all. The more aggressive you are, the more aggressive they’ll be. Period.
so Blizzard sells an ONLINE-only single player game for 69,99 and **cks up the launch
why can’t we just activate it and play it in an offline mode?!
and NOBODY would’ve complained.
what if my internet goes down and i really want to play diablo?
“oh, sorry you can’t”
for that amount of money you expect a higher service
the game doesn’t worth it’s money
wish i downloaded a pirated version, at least it won’t require logging in every time