For Obvious Reasons, Diablo III's Real Money Auction House Won't Launch On Time

@NewfieBullet said:

I like the always online connection, hopefully it'll motivate people to get a better fucking connection.

Wow, talk about oversimplification. Its not always that easy. I think companies need to be more mindful that broadband penetration in the US is still utter shit. I know people that live in areas where you cant get anything better than a 1MB DSL connection, and still have cable served up by LOCAL cable companies. There is still a quite large portion of the population of the US that are stuck with shitty internet. Hell, if blizzard were balsy, why not just only sell the game digital? if you are going to make your game require an internet connection ,why not only sell it online?

@CornBREDX said:

And yes, this goes for any game that uses terrible DRM (although there are worse ones, imo, then "always online DRM")

At first, I read that and thought, yeah, I guess so. But then I paused and tried to think of a DRM system that's worse than one that requires you to constantly be online to keep playing in single-player mode, and I couldn't think of one at first.

Sony's music CD rootkit fiasco, came to mind. I still don't buy Sony products because of that one (among other ongoing reasons, but that was what started it for me). I guess my reaction to this will be similar.

It's not anger, or entitlement, or "voting with my wallet" nonsense. It's just that I don't have time to waste on products from companies who make products that waste my time.

I should put that on a t-shirt, or something...

@lockwoodx said:

For obvious reasons, Diablo 3's Metacritic score is below 4. LAWL

It could have launched without any issue whatsoever and that score still would have barely changed.

@LordCmdrStryker said:

@CornBREDX said:

The game itself is fine. The way they are handling DRM is what's bad- that's not the games fault. And yes, this goes for any game that uses terrible DRM (although there are worse ones, imo, then "always online DRM")

The DRM in this case is inseparable from the game so I think that does make it a legitimate criticism of the game itself. If DRM makes the game unplayable, that's a big deal.

The DRM is inseparable from the product, and from a consumer advice perspective, which is what most reviewers are trying to provide, it totally makes sense to criticize that. The always online, game-logic-on-the-server stuff is pretty dumb, I know. On the other hand, I can appreciate the obvious care put into the game design and presentation parts of the product.

I think there is a significant difference between "Is this a good game?" and "Is this a good product?". In my opinion, Diablo III ranks high on the first one, but it takes major hits on the second, and I don't fault anyone for choosing not to buy it on those grounds, even if I'm willing to look past the serious technical flaws. Hell, I gave the STALKER games and the Bethesda Fallouts a pass, despite their obvious flaws too.

I guess all this rage just seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me.

Achievements that don't save properly are so annoying.

@BBAlpert said:

@NewfieBullet said:

I like the always online connection, hopefully it'll motivate people to get a better fucking connection.

The thing is that in this case, it's not the players' connections causing the problems. It doesn't matter how fast your connection is if Blizzard's game servers are down.

Yeah, not to mention, there needs to be a good connection at every point between you and the server. Traceroute tells me that there are at least a few steps between me and Blizzard's North American servers. Now, if I could buy everyone in the world a better internet connection so I could play this game more reliably in single-person mode, I would. Oh, and UPSs for all their gear so it could be as impervious to power failures as mine. And more robust RAID arrays so their machines would be as immune to drive failures as mine.

I'd also like to buy the world a Coke, but distributing them would be a nightmare.

I find the minor conveniences of being always online to outweigh the minor annoyances of being always online.

For obvious reasons, Diablo 3's Metacritic score is below 4.   LAWL

Doesn't really shock me that the auction house won't launch on time. It wouldn't shock me if it took them over a week to get everything ironed out. I see stuff like this in MMO's but never in singleplayer games that you can play in co-op. It's pathetic to be honest.

I don't feel sorry for Blizzard and the shit they're getting. I feel sorry for the guy that waited for 12 years, bought it at midnight on launch, took the day off work, and couldn't play the game that he paid 60 dollars for because of some fucking asshole sitting up in his ivory tower thinking, "Hey guys, I have a good idea for Diablo III," then proceeded to pitch this shit. When it works, and that's a rarity in my experience, it's a great game that's plagued by stupid people making even worse choices. Amazing game, but a terrible product.

But hey, maybe this is the bad thing that needed to happen for people to wake up, put their foot down, and start yelling a little bit. I guess it does have to get worse before it gets better, and this is pretty bad.

But at least I have a drink coaster, a notepad, and a book to read while taking a shit. It all evened out.

@NewfieBullet said:

I like the always online connection, hopefully it'll motivate people to get a better fucking connection.

My connection is mostly irrelevant. It's their servers inability to stay up.

From my perspective, it's weird how big of a shitstorm this became. At least in the EU, I haven't had any server issues beyond 45 minutes after launch and haven't experienced lag more than few times over the course of the last couple of days.

But even if that hadn't been the case. Didn't we all know there wasn't going to be an offline mode? Aren't we all aware that "only online" games can have issues with servers and lag? Why the fuck was anyone surprised?

And at least most D2 players should be fine with things as they are. Even though you could play D2 offline, you couldn't take that character online - where the meat of the game was. Who wants to spend hours gathering loot and then not be able to show off the shiny stuff to other people? And cheating is a big deal, since it can devalue your own efforts - so if that is eliminated by having D3 work this way, all the better.

I can sort of understand the issue some people have ("Why can't I play my singleplayer game?"), but I just can't see D3 as a singleplayer game even if you can play it alone. It's pretty much like saying SWTOR is a singleplayer game - in essence it can be, but the statement is still not true.

Wow, Alex almost made a news post without a snarky comment. He must have realized this and added one one the back end to rectify his mistake.

They were down from 5am-7am PST today. How do I know this? I got up early to play before work. Bummer

According to a post on Blizzard's forums, the servers have generally been running smoothly since last night

@n8: If Blizzard didn't deserve these posts in the first place, I'd agree with you. In the meantime, they kinda fucked up pretty badly. I love Diablo, and Blizzard, but these posts are totally acceptable in light of their just mediocre launch.

@Dunchad said:

From my perspective, it's weird how big of a shitstorm this became. At least in the EU, I haven't had any server issues beyond 45 minutes after launch and haven't experienced lag more than few times over the course of the last couple of days.

But even if that hadn't been the case. Didn't we all know there wasn't going to be an offline mode? Aren't we all aware that "only online" games can have issues with servers and lag? Why the fuck was anyone surprised?

And at least most D2 players should be fine with things as they are. Even though you could play D2 offline, you couldn't take that character online - where the meat of the game was. Who wants to spend hours gathering loot and then not be able to show off the shiny stuff to other people? And cheating is a big deal, since it can devalue your own efforts - so if that is eliminated by having D3 work this way, all the better.

I can sort of understand the issue some people have ("Why can't I play my singleplayer game?"), but I just can't see D3 as a singleplayer game even if you can play it alone. It's pretty much like saying SWTOR is a singleplayer game - in essence it can be, but the statement is still not true.

Little to no issues here as well. Great points.

The people complaining about the launch of this game have clearly never been around for very many launches of online games, or they're enacting selective memory.

For the past three days, I've been able to get online and play with friends more often than not. Sure, it'd be great if they were up 100% of the time. But that's a pipe dream for any game, much less one as massive as this.

@Rawson: I agree. As someone who has played many MMOs at launch, this is about normal. WoW was near unplayable for a month. Lets stop fooling ourselves, Diablo III is a F2P MMO in different clothing.

Seems like most of the people really complaining, are people still mad about having to log in to play alone. Valid complaints, but ranting on forums and posting negative user reviews is not going to effect change - they need to look at Operation Rainfall as an example of how to run a campaign, no developer or publisher will take launch day complaints seriously in the grand scheme of things. If they use the proper channels, remain civil, and maintain their campaign for months - it might change something for the next game. If we all rage online, then nobody remembers it a month from now, it means nothing.

@FateOfNever said:

@depecheload said:

Someone tell me how Blizzard's plan of forcing you to play this online does anything good for the consumer at all?

Not buying this. It's broken. I'll give Torchlight 2 a chance though.

It prevents cheaters. That's something good for the consumer. It also prevents people from going "but I totally spent like three months playing this guy to get him to hell mode and now I can't play him with friends? I do nots understand why my single player character cannot be taken to an online mode? I are confused and now I will rages!" and make no mistake, there would be just as much rage about that as there is about these launch day problems because people, as a whole, are idiots and have become so spoiled and cannot comprehend things like that anymore that they would throw just as much of a fit about it. There could also be other benefits that I don't know about. So there, some benefits for the consumers and for Blizzard to not have to deal with idiot people. And Blizzard not having to deal with idiot people is a benefit to consumers because it means they can put their efforts to more worthwhile things. Like people getting their accounts hacked because they refuse to use proper security measures when dealing with their accounts.

If Joe Bloggs just wants to play co-op together with a friend and his girlfriend, why would he care that some guy thousands of miles away has cheated to clone some items? It has no effect on the consumer playing single player or private co-op with friends. These are not good reasons.

NB: I have never actually played a Diablo game and they didn't seem to even try to market this game to people like me. I would probably never have bought it anyway. Still, the whole scandal is interesting to me as they seem to have vociferous defenders on forums, which baffles me. They're a corporation who have screwed up here, they don't need your free attempts at PR.

Not too concerned about all these issues so far, but it is pretty funny having to deal with a full second of latency in a single player game.

@deerokus said:

@FateOfNever said:

@depecheload said:

Someone tell me how Blizzard's plan of forcing you to play this online does anything good for the consumer at all?

Not buying this. It's broken. I'll give Torchlight 2 a chance though.

It prevents cheaters. That's something good for the consumer. It also prevents people from going "but I totally spent like three months playing this guy to get him to hell mode and now I can't play him with friends? I do nots understand why my single player character cannot be taken to an online mode? I are confused and now I will rages!" and make no mistake, there would be just as much rage about that as there is about these launch day problems because people, as a whole, are idiots and have become so spoiled and cannot comprehend things like that anymore that they would throw just as much of a fit about it. There could also be other benefits that I don't know about. So there, some benefits for the consumers and for Blizzard to not have to deal with idiot people. And Blizzard not having to deal with idiot people is a benefit to consumers because it means they can put their efforts to more worthwhile things. Like people getting their accounts hacked because they refuse to use proper security measures when dealing with their accounts.

If Joe Bloggs just wants to play co-op together with a friend and his girlfriend, why would he care that some guy thousands of miles away has cheated to clone some items? It has no effect on the consumer playing single player or private co-op with friends. These are not good reasons.

NB: I have never actually played a Diablo game and they didn't seem to even try to market this game to people like me. I would probably never have bought it anyway. Still, the whole scandal is interesting to me as they seem to have vociferous defenders on forums, which baffles me. They're a corporation who have screwed up here, they don't need your free attempts at PR.

I never said "everyone cares if someone cheats." But it's just as likely that thousands of people would eventually go "huh, I feel like checking out this pvp thing they got going on" when it launches... and then hit a giant fucking brick wall of people with invincible characters with gear that lets them one shot other people that aren't likewise made immortal by hacked characters and gear. At that point they get completely turned off from the experience and the game and bail.

It also effects people that attempt to use the AH; gold based or real money based, as suddenly people dupe items, and make both auction houses total crap shows of nothing but hacked items, which can affect people.

On top of all of that, if Diablo 3 ends up with a ladder the way Diablo 2 had a ladder, hacking and cheating also completely destroys that.

Random person A may not be effected. Random person B may be effected. Why is random person A, in your scenario, more important than random person B?

@FateOfNever said:

@deerokus said:

@FateOfNever said:

@depecheload said:

Someone tell me how Blizzard's plan of forcing you to play this online does anything good for the consumer at all?

Not buying this. It's broken. I'll give Torchlight 2 a chance though.

It prevents cheaters. That's something good for the consumer. It also prevents people from going "but I totally spent like three months playing this guy to get him to hell mode and now I can't play him with friends? I do nots understand why my single player character cannot be taken to an online mode? I are confused and now I will rages!" and make no mistake, there would be just as much rage about that as there is about these launch day problems because people, as a whole, are idiots and have become so spoiled and cannot comprehend things like that anymore that they would throw just as much of a fit about it. There could also be other benefits that I don't know about. So there, some benefits for the consumers and for Blizzard to not have to deal with idiot people. And Blizzard not having to deal with idiot people is a benefit to consumers because it means they can put their efforts to more worthwhile things. Like people getting their accounts hacked because they refuse to use proper security measures when dealing with their accounts.

If Joe Bloggs just wants to play co-op together with a friend and his girlfriend, why would he care that some guy thousands of miles away has cheated to clone some items? It has no effect on the consumer playing single player or private co-op with friends. These are not good reasons.

NB: I have never actually played a Diablo game and they didn't seem to even try to market this game to people like me. I would probably never have bought it anyway. Still, the whole scandal is interesting to me as they seem to have vociferous defenders on forums, which baffles me. They're a corporation who have screwed up here, they don't need your free attempts at PR.

I never said "everyone cares if someone cheats." But it's just as likely that thousands of people would eventually go "huh, I feel like checking out this pvp thing they got going on" when it launches... and then hit a giant fucking brick wall of people with invincible characters with gear that lets them one shot other people that aren't likewise made immortal by hacked characters and gear. At that point they get completely turned off from the experience and the game and bail.

It also effects people that attempt to use the AH; gold based or real money based, as suddenly people dupe items, and make both auction houses total crap shows of nothing but hacked items, which can affect people.

On top of all of that, if Diablo 3 ends up with a ladder the way Diablo 2 had a ladder, hacking and cheating also completely destroys that.

Random person A may not be effected. Random person B may be effected. Why is random person A, in your scenario, more important than random person B?

And why is person B more important than person A in yours? No matter what they do they are going to piss off one group or the other. They choose to piss off group A and give B what they want. That's it.

@n8 said:

Sigh... these trash-on-Diablo posts are starting to get really fucking old.

Um anyone got a spare code for the starter edition for Diablo 3? I will remember this the next time the steam sale comes along.

@crusader8463 said:

@FateOfNever said:

@deerokus said:

@FateOfNever said:

@depecheload said:

Someone tell me how Blizzard's plan of forcing you to play this online does anything good for the consumer at all?

Not buying this. It's broken. I'll give Torchlight 2 a chance though.

It prevents cheaters. That's something good for the consumer. It also prevents people from going "but I totally spent like three months playing this guy to get him to hell mode and now I can't play him with friends? I do nots understand why my single player character cannot be taken to an online mode? I are confused and now I will rages!" and make no mistake, there would be just as much rage about that as there is about these launch day problems because people, as a whole, are idiots and have become so spoiled and cannot comprehend things like that anymore that they would throw just as much of a fit about it. There could also be other benefits that I don't know about. So there, some benefits for the consumers and for Blizzard to not have to deal with idiot people. And Blizzard not having to deal with idiot people is a benefit to consumers because it means they can put their efforts to more worthwhile things. Like people getting their accounts hacked because they refuse to use proper security measures when dealing with their accounts.

If Joe Bloggs just wants to play co-op together with a friend and his girlfriend, why would he care that some guy thousands of miles away has cheated to clone some items? It has no effect on the consumer playing single player or private co-op with friends. These are not good reasons.

NB: I have never actually played a Diablo game and they didn't seem to even try to market this game to people like me. I would probably never have bought it anyway. Still, the whole scandal is interesting to me as they seem to have vociferous defenders on forums, which baffles me. They're a corporation who have screwed up here, they don't need your free attempts at PR.

I never said "everyone cares if someone cheats." But it's just as likely that thousands of people would eventually go "huh, I feel like checking out this pvp thing they got going on" when it launches... and then hit a giant fucking brick wall of people with invincible characters with gear that lets them one shot other people that aren't likewise made immortal by hacked characters and gear. At that point they get completely turned off from the experience and the game and bail.

It also effects people that attempt to use the AH; gold based or real money based, as suddenly people dupe items, and make both auction houses total crap shows of nothing but hacked items, which can affect people.

On top of all of that, if Diablo 3 ends up with a ladder the way Diablo 2 had a ladder, hacking and cheating also completely destroys that.

Random person A may not be effected. Random person B may be effected. Why is random person A, in your scenario, more important than random person B?

And why is person B more important than person A in yours? No matter what they do they are going to piss off one group or the other. They choose to piss off group A and give B what they want. That's it.

The difference there is that when the system works - and so far it has not work and I'm not defending that part of it other than telling people that think Blizzard was just being lazy about this problem or that they didn't throw enough money at it to make sure they were prepared that they have no idea how this stuff works - but when the system works, person A is not affected. Person A, when the system is working, is unaffected by the always on and Person B is also saved from problems.

Let's take Joe Bloggs as an example. Diablo 3 is not always online. Joe Bloggs can play the game offline by himself, sweet! Joe Bloggs then decides he wants to play online with his friend Timmy Tutoes. Except Joe Bloggs has to create an entirely new character to do as such because he didn't bother reading the part of offline mode that told him he could not take that character online due to issues with hacking. Joe Bloggs is now pissed off and decides he'll never play multiplayer and that he's done with D3 because of something so stupid. Or how about Joe Bloggs decides it's worth it to start all over again. Now he's forced to play online and... it's just like if D3 had always on, any time he wants to work on his character that he can play with Timmy Tutoes, he's subject to what he would already be subject to the way the game is now. However, here's the catch, Timmy Tutoes who has strictly played online got incredibly turned off by the game because of bull shit hackers ruining his experience in some way. So now Joe Bloggs can't play with Timmy Tutoes because Timmy Tutoes had his experience ruined by the thing that always on helps fight against while Joe Bloggs is now playing by the rules that always on would want him to abide by anyway.

So where's the difference here? Joe Bloggs can work on a different character that he can never take online? Which is a benefit that can also be a negative. While Timmy Tutoes is left to deal with the possible ramifications of hackers flooding the AH, creating broken items, and destroying the entire online aspect of Diablo 3 for a very large portion of the player base (whether it be because they bought hacked gear for 20 dollars that now makes them invincible and thus trivializes the entire game, because PvP is completely busted, because the ladder system is completely borked due to cheaters, etc.) And Blizzard is also left with having to deal with trying to clean up the whole mess and has to put in two, three, four times the effort to try and just keep the game free from hacked gear that breaks their game, cheaters in pvp for a better experience for everyone that wants to do that, a fair playing field for the potentially in the future but not existing right now ladder.

The downside is that when always on breaks, it really fucking sucks. But guess what, it sucks for everyone, both the people that understand WHY it's in place and the people that cannot fathom why people don't want other people cheating because they only care about themselves and their own experiences and not at all about what other people have to experience in the game. But the point I've been trying to make since that first reply was that there are, in fact, reasons for always on. People may not agree with them, people may not think they matter, but there are, in fact, reasons why always on exists for Diablo 3 regardless of whether they think those things may affect them this very minute or not, but they could affect them in the future.

It also comes up that the people that want to play through Diablo 3 once, by themselves, and never touch it again, always on doesn't affect them that much. It will affect them for their one play through, and then they're done with the game and it will never bother them again or hamper their experience of the game again. Where as the people that want to play online, want to play with other people, this is exactly the experience they would have anyway so it doesn't affect them at all.

ya know, i was mad about the error 37 stuff too.... then i played the game.... it's a damn good game and i would like to see how the pvp comes out, and not having cheaters in the auction houses will also help the game in the long run. once people stop crying they'll realize how fun this game is.

You'd think after what 8 years of WoW Blizzard would know by now how to launch a game that requires online. -_-

Omg people.

Shut the fuck up and either play the game, or don't play the game.

You know, sometimes it feels good to play a game that doesn't treat me like a fucking criminal.

Which is why I don't have D3.

I definitely wouldn't have bought this game in the first place if it wasn't Blizzard. At least I know they'll keep things running for a decade at least.

It's still a big tic against the game though. It feels like very much was compromised just to get that auction house running as intended, a feature I abhor in the first place. I often wonder if this game was made for the right reasons or the wrong reasons.

@n8 said:

Sigh... these trash-on-Diablo posts are starting to get really fucking old.

Perhaps, but not unearned. As @Humanity says, Blizzard isn't a company without experience in the field of online gaming servers.

I will say this, I'm actually relieved by the reaction people are having. It shows that there still exist gamers and media outlets who won't let Blizzard get away with laziness. I was convinced for a while there that they'd reached Nintendo levels of untouchable.

@BoomSnapClap113 said:

Omg people.

Shut the fuck up and either play the game, or don't play the game.

How about you shut the fuck up? People paid a shit ton of money for this game and aren't happy that they've been dicked around. This isn't Retake Mass Effect; this is a legitimate concern, and people like you wouldn't be coming out of the woodwork to shout the dissatisfied people down if it weren't for the fact Blizzard made it.

@YukoAsho said:

@BoomSnapClap113 said:

Omg people.

Shut the fuck up and either play the game, or don't play the game.

How about you shut the fuck up? People paid a shit ton of money for this game and aren't happy that they've been dicked around. This isn't Retake Mass Effect; this is a legitimate concern, and people like you wouldn't be coming out of the woodwork to shout the dissatisfied people down if it weren't for the fact Blizzard made it.

No, people paid an average amount of money for a game that suffered a few days of launch jank. It seems to be relatively stable now, and if it weren't for the fact that Blizzard made it, people wouldn't be making such a big fucking deal about it.

Either settle down and wait until it's perfectly stable, or deal with the few problems that it suffers from at this moment. Bitching and whining on the internet isn't getting anybody anywhere...

Seeing a full comment section full of nothing but arguments and complaints for something that is pretty normal (especially in online PC games) is annoying and childish.

@FateOfNever said:

At that point they get completely turned off from the experience and the game and bail.

I knew there was going to be an online connection requirement but decided to give it a try anyway. I got booted 6 times playing all by myself over the last two days and guess what? I got completely turned off by the experience and bailed. How's that for good planning? Playing all by my lonesome to see what it was like, get a feel for the story and see the set pieces, but nope! Couldn't do any of that because I kept getting booted back to the menu. How am I realistically going to get interested in the game if I can't even play by myself? They had the potential to make a lot of money off me and the first impression was awful. Blizzard got one chance to suck me into Diablo and blew it. Horribly. Launch day problems are no excuse, I wanted to test the game and it failed. Spectacularly. They knew the shitstorm was coming and guys like me that wanted (really wanted) to try out Diablo and be impressed with it are left with a horrible impression and are never coming back.

The only thing I am impressed about the game is the fact that it ran smooth as butter on my MacBook (Windows 7) graphically without having to turn anything important off. Other than that it was a shitty experience and Blizzard screwed themselves out of a single sale and maybe years of continuous revenue.

@n8: http://penny-arcade.com/2012/05/16

@HKZ said:

@FateOfNever said:

At that point they get completely turned off from the experience and the game and bail.

I knew there was going to be an online connection requirement but decided to give it a try anyway. I got booted 6 times playing all by myself over the last two days and guess what? I got completely turned off by the experience and bailed. How's that for good planning? Playing all by my lonesome to see what it was like, get a feel for the story and see the set pieces, but nope! Couldn't do any of that because I kept getting booted back to the menu. How am I realistically going to get interested in the game if I can't even play by myself? They had the potential to make a lot of money off me and the first impression was awful. Blizzard got one chance to suck me into Diablo and blew it. Horribly. Launch day problems are no excuse, I wanted to test the game and it failed. Spectacularly. They knew the shitstorm was coming and guys like me that wanted (really wanted) to try out Diablo and be impressed with it are left with a horrible impression and are never coming back.

The only thing I am impressed about the game is the fact that it ran smooth as butter on my MacBook (Windows 7) graphically without having to turn anything important off. Other than that it was a shitty experience and Blizzard screwed themselves out of a single sale and maybe years of continuous revenue.

They "didn't know this was coming." Trust me, if Blizzard knew that their launch was going to be this bad, they wouldn't have launched it when they did. Blizzard doesn't WANT this. Blizzard doesn't want this horrible start. Between bad impressions, money going to paying workers over time because they need to keep people on to try and fix all this shit in time, potential damage to their servers or needing to pay more money into rebuilding and fixing problems, this isn't something Blizzard knew was coming nor something they wanted.

Like I said, and I stress this part, if it works perfectly, you wouldn't see or notice any difference. It did not work perfectly. You are well within your rights to hold this against them, even if I feel judging a company 'forever' based on something like this isn't fair. I don't look at Sony and go "man, they got hacked and their online was down for over a month because of it, fuck Sony for forever." or look at Amazon and go "dude, their server hosting blew up one day and that took a lot of my favorite sites off line, go fuck Amazon." because I understand that shit happens that people weren't prepared for, perhaps could not be prepared for, and just because it was a bad situation and I happened to experience part of that bad situation doesn't mean I should grab a torch and pitchfork and start screaming for Dr. Frankenstein's blood.

But, I want to ask you - you've already spent the 60$ for the game. Blizzard already has your money. So why, in let's say six months from now, would you continue to look at your 60$ game and go "Nope, I don't even want to try and experience this game because I had one bad experience that probably no longer exists, but, go fuck Blizzard because they weren't gods among men and weren't flawless, perfect beings."? That money is already spent, you already have the game, why not revisit it down the line after problems get fixed? I'm not talking about giving Blizzard a free pass, but the only one that really gets hurt from that is you because you've already spent that money, and if one negative experience was enough to turn you off from a company completely for forever, you weren't ever going to be a long time Blizzard fan anyway.

"hocking", Mr. Navarro. That's what people do at pawn shops and Gamestops. "hocking"

Navigating the AH has been a pain, atleast for me. Other than that, the game is silky smooth like a newborn's ass or melted butter for your popcorn.

What?

Game is great.

So you get the money? Odd concept.

@kollay: Yeah, I found the AH interface to be real spotty at times. Sometimes it would not reorder the items, go blank when I switch pages, or even freeze altogether when clicking the search button. I browsed it today, however, and it seemed better, not sure if they tinkered with anything or if I was just lucky.

This is why next-gen consoles should stay offline

@satansmagichat:

hawk

verb(usedwithobject)

1.topeddleorofferforsalebycallingaloudinpublic.

2.toadvertiseorofferforsale:tohawksoapontelevision.

@YukoAsho: It's illegal in some countries to speak badly about Zelda. They have jails for people bad mouthing it and they force them to play Wind Waker every day until they learn to appreciate it.

The only thing more obnoxious than people complaining about a service or event is people complaining about people complaining.

I haven't been able to follow the full comment thread, but, having seen a bunch of the press out there, I think people are missing something.

The issue here, to me, is the fact that Blizzard took a really good single player game, and turned it into (by all accounts) a really good single player game with MMORPG trappings.

However, the MMORPG setup means the company decides when you're done with the game, not you. At some point, Blizzard is going to turn the servers off, and you won't be able to play Diablo III anymore. In other words, when you buy a copy of Diablo III, you're betting that the day you get tired of the game and never, ever want to play it again is before the day that Blizzard decides that maintaining the Diablo III infrastructure is too costly and shuts everything down.

If you view Diablo III in the light of a single player experience, all the problems over the past several days were inexcusable. If you view Diablo III in the light of a multi-player experience, all the problems are expected (though, once again, very worrying that even Blizzard with all the time and resources poured into the game couldn't get it right - or didn't want to get it right.)

To me, that's why I don't think the value proposition is there - for games like Diablo III, I want an uncompromised single-player experience, played whenever I want to, when I want to, even if that's ten years from now. I don't want to have to worry about network latency, server queues, maintenance periods et al. for a game that I'll only ever play with my wife and/or my brother - at least, not at $60.

JGH

I really hope this always online system doesn't creep its way onto consoles. I'll always have an internet connection to them, but there's still too many things that can go wrong at any point to cause failures and keep me from playing.

@ghoti221: Or they'll patch it to be playable offline since, when the servers go down, there won't be any cause for the real-world money auction house anymore. But preach on, doomsayer!

@BBAlpert:

Also, not everyone has the *option* of "high speed internet".

Its so hard for people to get that in their head...ISPs, like your utility companies, only set up shop where they think they can make money. The end users don't get any real choice over who serves them what.

@Undeadpool:

I'm definitely not a doomsayer, and I don't think the D3 servers are going anywhere in a hurry. But hoping that the game will at any point be patched to not require Blizzard servers is highly optimistic. The client we have on our discs lacks a significant amount of functionality required for the game to run, persistence for starters. You'd essentially have to create a system similar to realm emulation, runnable on a home computer, for the client to connect to. That's a significant task.

Some crazed open-source fanatic is probably working on that already, though.

@FateOfNever: I really don't understand how people don't get this. Its a business decision for blizzard and ends up working in our favor in the end.

I bought the game the day after it came out. Sat down to play and have not experienced one single issue at all. Should things have perhaps gone better, given Blizzards past experience? Probably. But the world has only seen MMO style games for about 10 years; and the super mega popularity within the last 5 or so. These things will be ironed out over time but the shitty entitlement attitudes of some people on the internet is downright depressing.