GAMING NEWS

Buy Diablo III Online, Wait Three Days To Play In Full

Posted on Thursday, June 21 @ 09:59:58 Eastern by Keri_Honea

Blizzard has decided to reduce their Diablo III server overload by preventing players from playing the entire game if they purchase it online. The official word from their forums is below:

As of patch 1.0.3, when purchasing a digital version of Diablo III through the online store or your Battle.net Account, players are restricted to the Starter Edition for the first 72 hours (sometimes less). Players on Starter Editions have the following restrictions:

Act I up to the Skeleton King is available

Level 13 cap

Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players

No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)

Global Play is not available. Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net Account's home region will receive Error 12. See the Global Play support article for more information.

More information regarding the Starter Edition is available here: http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-starter-edition-guest-pass

As you can imagine, this caused quite a bit of complaining in the battlenet, which then prompted the following explanation:

Outside of the issue that we fixed, digital purchases do require a review period before they kick over from Starter to Full editions. We apologize for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone's play experience.

The delay is no longer than three days, and is often much quicker than that. Hang tight. :)

I know I love being forced to wait up to three days to play a game in full that I've bought for full price, don't you?

Related Games: Diablo III

Tags: Diablo 3, Diablo III, Blizzard

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Comments

Jonathan_Leack
Joined: Jan 2012

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 10:20 am
What... the... hell.

As much as I'm a fan of Blizzard I think they're going downhill. Diablo III has so many design flaws it's impossible to list them all. Let's just hope Mists of Pandaria doesn't catch the same disease.

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NecroWolf
Joined: Oct 2005

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 11:24 am
It's not surprising, a developer company's reputation doesn't determine how well they make a game or their business decisions, it is their employees, leadership and skills. Considering Blizzard is one of those companies that goes through employees like a wood chipper, Blizzard isn't even Blizzard anymore really, kind of like Bioware. At this point, it's just a name. Also, Activision.

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OdiousLupous
Joined: Jul 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Nobody really talks about MoP, I havent even been on WoW to see if its affected the realm populations.

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tinymhg
Joined: Jun 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Yes, they do, Jonathan just did. Open your ears bud.

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tinymhg
Joined: Jun 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Don't forget it took 10 years to make.

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xDUMPWEEDx
Joined: Jan 2012

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 10:28 am
Lol very nice

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LawnGnome
Joined: Apr 2007

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 10:47 am
I hope everyone buys physical versions instead of downloading. Their profit margins are smaller on the physical versions too.

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tinymhg
Joined: Jun 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 2:47 pm
I just had to have a hard copy of this game.

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Capt_Dastardly
Joined: Sep 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 10:58 am
The new ethos of Blizzard 'punish the many for the faults of the few'

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C_nate
Joined: Apr 2009

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 11:23 am
Every time I read something crazy like this about this game, I give myself a little mental pat on the back for not buying it. Bring on Torchlight II!

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NickKmet
Joined: Jan 2007

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 1:29 pm
My thoughts exactly!

Not Spam.

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thedarkstar
Joined: Feb 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 11:23 am
Wow, I am glad I bought the physical version. That is BS.

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xavier_2000_ie
Joined: Jun 2007

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 12:39 pm
how is this anything new? its the exact same as they do for WOW.
has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with "reducing server load". thats a load of crap. how would only being able to play to level 13 reduce server load?

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sandineyes
Joined: May 2008

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 2:04 pm
I don't think Blizzard ever claimed this was about server load. As far as I can tell, it was Kotaku that suggested server load as motivation for this, and I assume Keri read that and decided to include the idea here.

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drathbone
Joined: May 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 4:48 pm
My assumption is the global play restriction

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OdiousLupous
Joined: Jul 2011

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 1:39 pm
The EULA states that you do not own the game, youve bought the opportunity to play the game. They can shut down the game and all its servers whenever they want, you dont have a say in it. Also if a rmah transaction is screwed up and you lose the item and do not receive the money as long as the other person did not receive the item theres nothing you can do about it. Weve made a deal with the devil... Im unsure how I feel about it.

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warmaster670
Joined: Jun 2007

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Same goes for every game, only reason it matters here is because you need to be online.

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Lethean
Joined: Jan 2001

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 2:16 pm
And this is why I've been complaining about even needing to log in for single player place.

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warmaster670
Joined: Jun 2007

Posted: Jun 21st, 2012 at 7:36 pm
More huge fail from blizzard, big shocker here, I know i would be pissed off if i bought a game and they said "nah, Fuck you you only get a trial until we tell you you can play the game you bought".

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R0ADK1LL
Joined: Jul 2009

Posted: Jun 27th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
Every time I get tempted to buy this game I read something like this & I think, "No Blizzard, I will not give you my money!"

How does this "combat fraud and other malicious activities"? They already made an internet connection mandatory & now even that isn't enough.

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