Diablo III’s Disastrous Launch: Phase Two
Posted 19 May 2012 by FluxHow did Diablo III’s launch go for you guys? The feeling I’ve gotten, from reading comments and forum threads, is that most of us (the hardcore fans) were expecting technical problems and B.net issues, and that we just hoped they wouldn’t go on all week (or month). When the log in problems only lasted a few hours, with a few other buggy flare ups over the next few days, I was actually quite relieved. Obviously the launch didn’t go fantastically well, but it could have been a lot worse, and honestly, I expected that it would be.
Eve Online jabs at Diablo III's error codes.
In some ways, I think Blizzard might have made an error by issuing that apology letter, since all the media observing from a distance took it as an admission of failure that ramified the “terrible launch” meme.
I titled this post Phase Two, since now that the disaster has been firmly established in the minds of non-players and media critics, they’ve move on to apportioning blame, weighing the fallout, and using the “terrible” launch as a hammer to beat on their own pet issues. The biggest focus of media coverage/hate has been Diablo III’s online-only requirement, which has become the whipping boy for all of Battle.net’s problems, and even a flash point for gamers who hate any sort of anti-piracy or DRM effort.
A few of the more moderate samples:
Diablo III’s DRM is the focus of most of the zero-bombing user reviews on Metacritic, and while the vast majority of those posts are clearly from haters who would have given D3 a zero for some other reason (such as the “pay to win” RMAH) even if the launch had gone perfectly, the bad launch and online-only requirement has served up their argument on a silver platter. Numerous articles have commented unfavorably on D3′s launch and features by citing the 2.5/5 Amazon score and 3.5/10 Metacritic average. These articles all follow roughly the same path: “Sure those Metacritic hates are dicks, but they have a point…” See Forbes blog, Unleash the Fanboy, MYCE, Digitally Downloaded, and 8 Bit Envy.
Some of the other media offerings on this issue:
It’ll be interesting to see if this controversy has legs. I doubt it, and next week when D3′s no longer the flavor of the moment and the Battle.net servers have performed well for some days, the gaming blogosphere will move on to some other circle jerk. One thing will remain forever, though. The mass media (mis)impression that Diablo 3′s launch was a complete and utter debacle. We’ll be reading and hearing references to that for years.
Yea, I wasn’t surprised there were problems. I don’t think it warranted all of the negative attention. I have had more than my share of fun over the past few days, that’s for damn sure.
I think you are going too far in defending Blizzard over this. RPS has a nice article about the topic (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/17/opinion-why-the-problem-with-diablo-isnt-diablo/), for me personally the biggest problem is that I still get lag spikes even though I have around 250ms delay. Few times it almost costed me my life, and I don’t see myself playing hardcore if such behavior continues. I payed more money for this game than usually (10€ more than for example DeusEx3 or Witcher 2), and as a a paying customer I really want to get my moneys worth.
Right now I don’t feel like I have recieved a top-notch quality product. I think we as a gamers are really in a strange place right now where we expect that having such problems is ok, and that we should be thankful to big game companies for allowing us to spend 60€ for their product. No, it is not ok to have disconnects, lag spikes and all sorts of errors, even though it’s only few days after launch.
Cmon man. You pay $13£ for 1,5 hour movie and bitch about $60£ for hundreds of hours of entertainment just because you couldn’t play for the first few or got some lag issues? The vocal majority who think Diablo 3 had a bumpy launch either haven’t experienced a true bumpy launch or are just miserable and want the world to know it. Diablo 3 had by no means a perfect first day, but was it a disaster? Not even close. Computer gaming is extremely cheap entertainment; stop bitching about a few lag spikes and “lost” hours, or go do something else with your time.
I pay 3£ to watch a movie in cinema. And every time when I see them running commercials from 21:00 to 21:30, even though the film is supposed to start at 21:00, and even arrive half an hour before to pick up my tickets, my inner slider moves towards ‘never go to cinema again’ side. I value my money, and if I pay someone, no matter how much, I expect to get a quality product, or at least what I was told I would get.
I’m not talking about first day problems, I knew it would happen. What I’m irritated about is that still today, I get rubber band effects, I get slight lag spikes in the middle of the fight, and I feel for 60€ (which is again higher than what usually goes for games), this is not the services I expected.
If this was MMO, I would say ok, there’s no other way around it. But blizz has decided to turn a single player game into always-online model because of the people who would pirate the game, and in the end the paying customers are the ones who feel the effects of such a decision.
I am not a fan of always-online, and have argued against it since I first heard of it.
Having said that, though, I am puzzled by the attention this is getting. How many MMOs have had similar or far worse problems at launch? Including, IIRC, WoW :p And yet these games were not crippled by a rocky launch, and the press didn’t act like the world was ending.
As for the performance issues and minor bugs mentioned in the post above me, that is also hardly unique. Games in D3′s price range do not typically launch with fewer bugs and other issues than cheaper games; in fact, they generally are more popular and more complex and therefore have more problems, not fewer.
Would be nice if we lived in a world where the tech worked the way it was supposed to out of the box, but that is not the world we live in, and that is not special to D3.
Haven’t had any log in issues started playing early Tuesday morning been on pretty much constantly this week with only a few problems with lag which all except one were when I first created a game and were over within a minute.
I think blizzard have done ok, going from 0 - 500,000 (or whatever the number of players is/was) is a hell of a task. It’s not perfect but then if your expecting perfection you might just want to do everything for yourself and see how that goes.
Most online only games have bad launches, and Diablo 3 is no different. But who really cares when you’re happily playing the game for months or even years after? I sure don’t.
I really didn’t have that many problems barring Tuesday. Since then no problems except a few lag spikes.
I didn’t try to get in game instantly bought the game in midnight opening at a very late hour got home slept woke up then played. Nearly didn’t have any problems
Hater’s will hate I guess, but DRM is a genuine problem I Agree and I hope all of you agree to, start a petition. DRM was to prevent piracy? Well I just found out that some Russian dork has been able to bypass the login, don’t know if it’s true though. But similar stories are starting to pop up, no word on the internet?
If you think this or any other game launch, or any other human endeavor, for that matter, will ever be flawless, you expectations are unreasonable. There is an old saying about fast, good, and cheap, and it holds for a reason! Now, if major problems were to persist, it would be a different matter. So far, it’s gone about as well as can be expected given the situation.
“Having said that, though, I am puzzled by the attention this is getting. How many MMOs have had similar or far worse problems at launch?”
The thing is, this isn’t an MMO. If it was people would be more forgiving. People who want to play single player are having a terrible time because of the completely unnecessary requirement that they stay connected to a server at all times. The RPS article is spot on. Blizzard made a bad, customer-unfriendly decision in the first place, then couldn’t even provide a robust enough infrastructure to cope with the implications of their decision, and are quite rightly being pilloried for it.
It is completely unacceptable, and I cannot get my head round hire anyone can defend it, or pretend it’s not a big problem.
“ then couldn’t even provide a robust enough infrastructure to cope with the implications of their decision”
What are you talking about? The servers have been fine for the last few days. Are you honestly using launch day as the grounds for this argument?
Hi all, I just wanted to ask this forum (in desparation) if any regulars are still unable to access the game??? I am still unable to even complete the installation, and despite all my best efforts with Blizzard online assistance, have yet to play Diablo 3 at all, despite purchasing the online version so that I could \go online when the servers came online\ etc. Was wondering if any of the forum moderators or guests have any information as to whether this is still a big problem? PS this is a great site – came across it when trying to solutions to my predicament, if I wasn’t trying so hard to avoid spoilers, it would be even better.