Diablo issues/Respect for Travis Baldtree grows

[kaosweilder]

I understand that technically its a fact. What I don't understand is their apparent failure to get appropriate hardware to handle it when they know this is gonna happen. It happened in WOW launch and again here. They could have let people in like those Socialist governments ration supplies and then it would have been even a bigger outrage. The only solution is getting more servers and they are not doing so. You can't tell people "hey man, don't login on 15th may because you know the server will crash if too many people do that". Or they could have sold lesser number copies but that goes against their money grabbing schemes. They are the most pre-ordered game on Amazon ever and they knew people were going to play at the prescribed time when game goes live.

[kaosweilder]

I am not justifying the kind of language people have used though. They could have stayed away from the game or could have been patient or could have been polite about it. But not many did so. Perhaps Blizz and its fans deserve each other.

[gold163]

Even if you ask Blizzard for your money back, I'm assuming most people bought retail copies. In which case I believe Blizzard makes a profit anyway just by shipping to retailers. So you get your money back, and Blizzard gets to keep on doing what they're doing, including the stuff that made you want your money back in the first place. Still, individual boycotts on the merits of personal principles alone are ineffective. Even if a bunch of people boycott Blizzard it would be nowhere near enough to make a real statement.

Ultimately, what people need to understand is that real, extreme action needs to be taken in order to send a message to these companies. And that's calm, civil discussion. It's not as if Blizzard wouldn't listen to their customers; I'm sure they do. So send them emails and letters expressing your concern. But if they don't listen (and this is likely)? Then stop buying their shit just so you can complain AFTERWARDS. That's really the most anybody can do.

[KnuckleHead]

I understand that technically its a fact. What I don't understand is their apparent failure to get appropriate hardware to handle it when they know this is gonna happen. It happened in WOW launch and again here. They could have let people in like those Socialist governments ration supplies and then it would have been even a bigger outrage. The only solution is getting more servers and they are not doing so. You can't tell people "hey man, don't login on 15th may because you know the server will crash if too many people do that". Or they could have sold lesser number copies but that goes against their money grabbing schemes. They are the most pre-ordered game on Amazon ever and they knew people were going to play at the prescribed time when game goes live.

Well doesn't the fact that this kind of thing happens to almost every company who attempts to launch a huge online game tell you something? It's a matter of time and resources vs release day rush.

I mean, yeah, they could probably buy twice as many servers and twice the bandwidth and the launch *might* have been smother, but that would have been VERY costly and probably a tremendous waste. They only have this huge concurrent initial volume for the first few days, then things stabilize and they don't need all those resources. Those resources have other costs than just hardware as well....things like licensing, labor and support costs, ect.

It very well may not have even been related to hardware at all too, could have been an issue in the software that didn't show up until millions of people were pounding on it.

[Zidders]

Even if Bliz was the 'bad guy' a lot of people make it out to be, is being a bad guy in return the answer?

[kaosweilder]

True. It only might have gone smoother that way and would probably have been a waste but the other side of the solution is impractical too. Telling people to not log in on the day of the launch would have been awful and a discriminatory practice as well. Not to mention a PR disaster. I don't see a single solution to this besides Blizz as a corporation stressing out their wallet a bit to mitigate the situation. Which obviously never happened. As far as server troubles with every big launch are concerned, well I blame them too if they are as big and capable as Blizz is.

[Nekky]

And today everything is fine, so why waste a huge amount of money of something that would be needed for maybe 1 day? People that scream for refunds on the day a game releases are just ridiculous. If you seriously don't have the patience to wait a few hours while a game works out a some bugs then there are bigger issues. I am betting the majority of those people never even consider going to get a refund, they just want to make some noise and act like fools. The next day they are playing just as much as everyone else and completely forgot about launch day.

The more I read gaming forums the more I lose hope of ever being able to play a game again with people that aren't trolls, whiners, dramaqueens, etc. It's hard to find people that just want to play and enjoy the game without listening to tons of BS in the process. Maybe it's because I am getting older but I know the community has changed so it's not entirely me.

The community in Tera is horrible, general is constantly spammed with stupid stuff. Constant trolling and Alienware talk, like they just discovered Alientware was overpriced junk and these are all new jokes to them. My tolerance for this type of crap has gone way down and now I want to just play RPG's with friends rather than dealing with the MMO crowd of immature kiddies.

[wolfmane]

Blizzard has been getting away with screwing people over for years. They could have avoided almost every issue, but they didn't. They deserve all the hate they're getting.

Who's letting them get away with screwing people over? You must mean the very customers that are purchasing the product. People are just so willfully ignorant that they're buying a product that requires a constant online connection and then get pissed that they can't connect. That's just asinine. I don't believe any company is responsible for saving people from their own ignorance.

Nobody deserves hate. If you don't like Blizzard, just walk away. It's not complicated.

I got d/c'd last night while playing and all I thought to myself was "Ah yes, Mr. Server Disconnect, we meet again my old friend". Then I went and ate some cookies.

[KnuckleHead]

And today everything is fine, so why waste a huge amount of money of something that would be needed for maybe 1 day? People that scream for refunds on the day a game releases are just ridiculous. If you seriously don't have the patience to wait a few hours while a game works out a some bugs then there are bigger issues. I am betting the majority of those people never even consider going to get a refund, they just want to make some noise and act like fools. The next day they are playing just as much as everyone else and completely forgot about launch day.

The more I read gaming forums the more I lose hope of ever being able to play a game again with people that aren't trolls, whiners, dramaqueens, etc. It's hard to find people that just want to play and enjoy the game without listening to tons of BS in the process. Maybe it's because I am getting older but I know the community has changed so it's not entirely me.

The community in Tera is horrible, general is constantly spammed with stupid stuff. Constant trolling and Alienware talk, like they just discovered Alientware was overpriced junk and these are all new jokes to them. My tolerance for this type of crap has gone way down and now I want to just play RPG's with friends rather than dealing with the MMO crowd of immature kiddies.

You're not the only one who feels that way lol...I made a post about similar things a while back:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=15380

Could just be perception, but honestly I feel like there has been a noticeable change.

[JediFreeman]

All I have to say on this right now is server launches are crazy, scary, tricky things. It is sad that so many people have had issues playing.

[Zidders]

Human beings didn't get to the top of the heap because of their 'oh so great' intellect.
They got to the heap because out of all the creatures on earth, mankind has proven to be the most creatively vicious and bloodthirsty species on the planet. If nature is in the business of being red in tooth and claw, human kind has managed to become the captain of the industry. No other creature causes as much pain, misery and suffering as the human race does to not only it's fellows, but to almost every single other species on the planet.
Some of you people wonder why i'm ashamed to be a human being sometimes. Take a look around you. You want a reason why it's paramount we do our best to not treat each other unkindly? Look at the killing fields. Look at the holocaust. This whole being dicks to each other..it's nothing new. It's not 'gamers'. Things aren't getting worse. They're the same they've ever been. Always will be. Most people suck. People are cruel. Some days I look at the things going on around me and I swear, I'm not a member of any faith or religion but there are times when I truly understand what some religious folks mean when they say 'Jesus Wept'.

So yeah. Blizzard. Whatver. Get over it. Don't like em', don't buy from em' Simple as that. There are SO many other things worth being angry about. Tons. You want to rage at someone? Go look up my 'Denver makes being homeless illegal thread' and then go give the Denver town council a piece of your mind. Tell them you'd like to live in a country where members of government understand the concept of 'human rights'. They might be homeless, that doesn't mean you stop treating them with dignity, damnit.

Just get. Over. it.
Go do something useful and helpful to your fellow human beings and donate the money you would have blown on a game made by a company you don't like and give it to a charity.

http://www.childsplaycharity.org

[Nekky]

Part of the problem with the communities in MMO's now is that people don't care about their persona/reputation. Back in the EQ/UO days it actually took months if not longer to build your character, there were a lot of things that needed a large group for so people were more concerned with what others thought because they knew some day they might have to rely on them. For example, I had a necro with the corpse summoning robe, I made a lot of friends helping out guilds that wiped deep in a dungeon or planes somewhere. Sure there was competition for raid mobs but you never even saw 1/10th of the crap that you can see in any games general chat nowadays.

Now you can make an alt, get them to max level and geared out in a week or so depending on the game and no one knows you were the idiot talking trash nonstop for the past month.

[Zidders]

In the interest of fairness (and in case anyone is still bothering to pay attention to this) I would like to post something from the recent Penny Arcade comic. Specifically, Tycho's blog. I'm putting this here because I know how much of an insufferable annoyance I can be when it comes to my white knighting/guilt tripping.

"Reading around, it’s clear that one needs to phrase their dissatisfaction in these matters in a very specific way. This is one of the stranger new Universals, by which I mean things All Right-Thinking People Believe; things like China Miéville Is An Enjoyable Read. Before you can say that you’re unhappy about something you bought not working, you have to make the parenthetical case that you’re above the whole fray, and it can work or not work, it’s all so droll; you can’t imply that any of it matters because that would mean you weren’t concerned with matters of global import.

I should take care not attend the same potlucks as these people. The kind of family I have would eat them; I think that they would actually cook them and eat them, because these people have not done enough to distinguish themselves from food.

We need to think for a second about the extent to which this supposedly carefree dialectic enables these precise abuses. No, actually; it is not okay that the definitive Game Developer can’t make their shit work. Is it as bad as the Foreclosure Crisis? I don’t know, probably not; but nobody is talking about that. There isn’t a list of things that we have to worry about in order. We can decide on a case by case basis whether or not something is bullshit, and then we can feel some way about it, and we don’t need to wait for a transmission from central command to know if we’ve paid in enough psychic penance to enjoy something.

(CW)TB out."

This is what I like to call 'psychic karma' or rather, 'I got all holier than thou, so karma took me aside and said 'yo..chill, k?''.

[tekkamansoul]

Human beings didn't get to the top of the heap because of their 'oh so great' intellect.
They got to the heap because out of all the creatures on earth, mankind has proven to be the most creatively vicious and bloodthirsty species on the planet.

Being the only creatures on the planet capable of self-aware thought and language ability helps. Also, we don't eat our own young

I don't have much to add to the discussion, unfortunately, except I've seen a thousand posts and editorials in the past few days across a dozen different websites and I've seen two opinions:

1. Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 are both great, and I will be playing both.
and,
2. I won't be buying Diablo 3 because <design / business model decision A, B, C and D> but I love Torchlight 2.

At the end of the day, no matter how fun I think a game is or could be, there are a lot of external factors that will contribute to my purchase decision. Unfortunately, Blizzard and its associates have made <design / business model decisions A, B, C and D> that I don't agree with, and despite what many internet warriors think, making a post on their forums or a cleverly-worded email isn't going to change the game or the decision.

Capitalism has the same voting method as its had since its inception - vote with your wallet. Which I am doing. I would much rather support a smaller company of personable people like Runic and have money left over to buy a bunch of awesome indie games (Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 coming soon!) than give 60 bucks to Blizzard - a fraction of a mililitre of a drop in the proverbial ocean.

I gave Blizzard a lot of my money in the past (Diablo 1+2, Warcraft 2, 3, WoW, Starcraft, Lost Vikings, Blackthorne, etc etc) and they have repayed my support by releasing the most anticipated action RPG title probably ever with the issues being discussed to death elsewhere. So, vote casted. ^^

[Cameroo]

I've been around awhile and I remember Diablo 2 had it's share of launch issues also. There was an issue with the EXE file not liking the read-protection on the game CD. At the time of launch, you were required to keep the game CD in your CD-Rom for copyright protection. A thing which was at the time fairly controversial among gamers. I remember the issue vexed me a quite and few other people at launch and I even had to resort to a crack to play the game. But, Blizzard fixed it eventually. And you know something? People don't even think about this launch issue anymore since the game was so brilliant.

I honestly think the same thing is going to happen here.

[Neverr]

Blizzard is the owner of the game with more Players Online at the Same time(World of Warcraft), they have the experience, but seems that they are not learning with their mistakes, doing the same again and again, the people insults about the game are not ok, the game has their amazing things, but the criticism i think is the best way to help a company to improve their product, but as i said, blizzard is not learning with their mistakes.

[Brixtan]

I think most of the outcry relating to the downtime is simply because gamers have gotten a lot more self-entitled these days, and many of them aren't old enough to remember things like the server problems of Diablo 2's time. Considering that Runic had a hectic first few days with their beta (after the "Second wave") I can't imagine they would feel anything but sympathy.

Pretty much this. Seriously, the older you get the more broader your perspective will be on things going on in the world (you'll also hopefully be less knee-jerk reactionist in your thinking...that's a thing seen in late teens/early 20's folks imo).

And for anyone whose breathing fire and isn't a programmer, this might give you just a bit more perspective: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149536038

[tekkamansoul]

Spoiler: show

I wanted to post this because I went to Penny Arcade to read today's comic, knowing that it would be about D3's downtime, and lo and behold, Tycho's rant about how he can't play Diablo 3 is framed by twin D3 banner ads.

Oh. Oh my.

[gold163]

None of this would have happened if you didn't have to be connected to Battle.net just to play. People weren't just concerned that the servers were down -- it was because the servers were down, the majority of people couldn't access the game in any way, shape or form. A game that they had already purchased and rightfully owned. I'd put down hard cash that if Diablo III had an offline component people would not have complained so loudly.

Of course the servers are going to be hard hit on day one if everybody who has bought and tried to play the game has to be connected. This is a big-budget, mass-marketed game that probably sold close to a million copies on day one alone. There was no way Blizzard could possibly be prepared for something like this, because the system in the first place simply wouldn't be able to handle it. You can't blame them for that. You can blame them for the absolutely brilliant idea of always being connected to B.net to play, but they already have your goddamned money.

I don't think Tycho is really ranting about how he can't play Diablo 3; he's trying to be reasonable while at the same time expressing his understandable frustration. I mean, a couple of months before this when Blizzard first announced you'd have to always be online to play Diablo 3 they poked fun at people who would complain at the idea. And then to find out that in practice, it doesn't work perfectly out of the gate? No fucking shit, sherlock.

[turnipz]

I kind of see where blizzard haters are coming from, I didnt like starcraft 2 either because of their popularity system; which was implemented in a futile attempt to make more money by selling maps. Then we have this no single player drm and auction house. People will always hate on those companies that try to monetize everything, and they should, otherwise these companies have no reason to be ethical. You should probably be thanking those people that overreact, I'm sure it will help you indirectly eventually.