Diablo III's Server Issues Are Becoming Ridiculous

I feel for you man. Although I now feel less bad I can't play diablo until I upgrade my comp. Hopefully this is all sorted out by then (it will be, I'm sure I won't be upgrading till 2013)

Wow, usually it takes much longer for the big problem of online-required gaming to rear its ugly head. And I mean *years* longer. Servers inevitably shut down eventually, but it usually takes long enough that nobody really stops to think about it at the time.

I actually wish this kind of thing would happen more often, so that people would actually stop and think the next time a developer goes down this road. "Hey, wait, remember what happened with Diablo 3? No way am I putting up with that again!"

Maybe now developers will think twice about....oh who the **** I'm kidding? They'll just repeat the online connection bullshit for single player again and know gamers will bend over and take it.

For me, offline single-player would never be an option even if it were, because I wouldn't want to invest time in a character and loot that I couldn't bring online with friends. I don't think the lesson here is "add offline single-player," it is "make sure your **** works."

Jonathan, You were defending online-single player? How? Why?
Also, I think you meant "...chose to run Diablo III with layers of DRM" instead of anti-DRM.

That's what ladder was for. It's exactly what D3 does now, as far as I know, to prevent cheating, what with saving your character online and stuff. Removing the regular mode is just Blizzard's way of saying "F'you, consumers."

I believe that you forget the whole patch loop, region locking, separate patch timers

Silverstorm you forgot that Diablo 2 had offline single player and you could get online just fine with it. Of course you had people using trainers to contend with who attacked you the first chance they got...
...Either way, this is why I haven't bought Diablo 3 yet.

You brought up a lot of good points. Error 37 made a nasty return, preventing people from playing the game. The AH is down the majority of the time, preventing people from getting the loot required in order to progress through the acts. And if you do manage to be logged in, you will be forced to play single player because the 2+ player difficulty scaling is so messed up it's a joke. D3 in its current state is nothing but major problems, and after a couple weeks of playing it's clearly evident that development wasn't even close to being finished.

Ive actually been having a great time with it, granted i work evenings, so im only on after midnight. But even so ive only actually been upset once and that was last night when they went down from like 3-11. Yeah and the AH has been down off and on....maybe this is some bulllshit? I did lose the first item i ever payed for, 10,000 gold and it never made it to my stash :( The more i think about it the more pissed off i get... At least im not paying fifteen bucks a month for it lol

Rory#1286 - - If anyone wants to group with me ;)

...and this is why I don't support single player games the require a constant online connection. It was a bad idea when it was first implemented, it was a bad idea when it bit Ubisoft on the ass with AC2, and it's still a bad idea now. You'd think a company as big as Blizzard would be able to look at the mistakes of their competitors and learn from them. If they ever pull their collective heads out of their asses and come up with a system that works without requiring a constant connection, I might buy the game, until then, I'll be keeping my money.

Honestly, it's a bit of a tragedy for gaming in general that the game sold as well as it did. Despite the near inplayability of the game, it will go down as a huge success for the company. They already made a fortune off of the game, and people are still buying it, and will probably continue to do so. Unfortunately, that means that they probably won't learn a damn thing from their failures.

And this is why stuff like Minecraft and Steam will always do it right. At least when their servers are borked, you can still play in offline mode.

Way to whine about something the day after the holiday that commemorates the fallen defenders of trivial freedoms such as playing games. You're a games "journalist" -- go play something else, then!

Way to miss the point...

I just watched something on how we shouldn't bend over and take this. Online DRM for cheating, they claimed, takes Blizzard's problem of needing a steady in-game market, and makes it every customer's problem.

I will stay strong... I will not pay £45 for a game... but I want to play it so much... no online DRM... must stay str but but but I could be clicking demons to death... NO must not give in... wait for starter edition demo... or price drop... or server fixes... but...

This is just a sample of the daily battle(.net?) I have with my head and my heart. Such a shame but the lesson we are learning is that after a 10 year wait for a sequel your most likely to be dissapointed (Duke Nukem anyone?)

Cap, I'm in the states but if you want one of my Act 1 Skeleton King demo codes just send me a PM.

Jonathan, I'm glad you addressed the completely broken multiplayer scaling just for my own sake. Myself and the two friends I've played with since launch all jumped into Inferno for the first time last night. I rage quit after we hit our first teleport molten jail mobs. I had respecced my WD to basically just offer CC and support since its damage is so gimped, and was wondering how in the hell I was supposed to play inferno. Now I'm thinking we may all just have to play solo for a bit till there is some rebalancing.

Meh this was supposed to be two messages but I think you get my point.

From talking to folks who have been playing, they say Act II is a major gear check, but act 3 is actually slightly easier. I really want better gear because kiting mobs around for 10 minutes isn't my idea of fun. At the same time, I can only either get better gear by killing champ packs (which I can't in a group) or by buying it (which I can't because it's perpetually b0rked).

All that said, I can't believe Blizz is still having problems to this degree with the servers BUUUUUUUUT to me it's worth it to avoid the hackers.

Nothing I enjoy more in a single player game is massive lag.

Don't we all?

Realy? That's not what I would have thought.

How many hardcore characters have needlessly lost there lives in the time vortex of a lag spike? Its not about me anymore, its about them, and the task of ridding the world of demonic evil.