Here Are Some Diablo III Issues You Ought to Watch Out For

Game is great though, only level 12 but playing really easily with all my friends is a godsend. I'll be patient. Plus optimized amazingly, plays great on my Macbook Pro 2009

@blacklab said:

It's always weird to me that stuff like this gets through QA on a title that was in dev so long.

The problem isn't that bugs got through QA. It's that QA hasn't ended and day-1 purchase consumers make up the QA team.

@EXTomar: I was just offering that purely as a response to those who are effectively waxing nostalgic about how bug-free SNES games were, not as any sort of excuse for these specific issues.

The more obscure shield-swapping stuff is way more forgivable in my view than the always-online requirement, which is purely a commercial/anti-piracy measure that screws the paying customer more than it will prevent illicit behavior.

Another hour wait... I was playing flawlessly from 1-2:30, but got kicked off my single player experience for a 'server reboot'? Unacceptable

Always on DRM makes games useless for travelling as well.

What about Error 666?

Complexity isn't an excuse though. Blizzard does need to fix features they promised where why and how is academic but often not a concern to the user/player.

I'll just wait.

@umdesch4: I hear you (I go back to the days of 640K conventional memory), but even if we took the static hardware completely out of the equation, comparing games of the 90's to those of today is still like comparing the engineering of a wheelbarrow to that of a Chevy Volt. It's just completely impractical to believe that bugs are ever going to be stamped out to the extent they were when entire commercial-grade games could be largely written and created by one person.

It's always weird to me that stuff like this gets through QA on a title that was in dev so long.

Oh PC, you're such a turd.

I can't even fucking play the game, does that count as an "issue?"

@NipCrip66: You should be able to remove it from your account and not use it, or use one of the phone apps (if possible for you) instead, if you weren't already.

Server issues are to be expected at the launch of a big game, I can forgive them for that.. But the fact we're having to queue to play a single player game is pretty ridiculous.

I've not been super against the always online thing as some people have, but they absolutely deserve all the crap they're getting because of this.

@LordCmdrStryker said:

I switched my Templar's shield immediately and had no problems, soo... yeah. Maybe Blizzard should have *gasp* delayed it.

Delayed for a bug that doesn't affect everyone and may as well be fake. Okay sure.

My current issue is that my authenticator has decided to become un-synced to my account. :(

The problems they been having are probably on par with Battlefield 1943's launch.

Always On DRM! Flawless.

@Epsilon82 said:

But comparing a multiplayer-enabled PC game in 2012 to games developed 15-20 years ago on static and immeasurably less complex hardware is just facile, pure and simple.

I often think that too, but then I go back to my hard drive backups from 15 years ago, and remember what a crazy shit-show it was, compared to now. The last decade or so, I've bought hardware, built a computer out of it, and it all worked. Likewise, besides a texture loading issue in Rage, all my Steam games have basically worked. In the 90s, I bought hardware I had to return because it would turn out that I couldn't have the particular combination of sound card and video card simultaneously connected to my motherboard. I have game FAQs that talk about altering the wait states on your RAM in your BIOS if you're having certain issues, depending on the manufacturer of the RAM in question. The ecosystem seemed much more fragmented and messy in those days, IMHO.

So apparently Americas is the default server in Europe and the game never asks which server you want to play on so now all my characters are stuck on a server I will never use.

Great

@RedRavN said:

Its stupid that they did not just make the multiplayer work serverside and have a seperate singleplayer mode that works offline.

Haha...you can't come into this thread and say that! Haven't you read the last few pages? Apparently (so we've been told), this kind of thinking is naive, and you have no idea wtf you're bitching about!!! LOL!

@AiurFlux: I'm totally with you when it comes to the online requirement for single player. There is absolutely no justification for that whatsoever.

But comparing a multiplayer-enabled PC game in 2012 to games developed 15-20 years ago on static and immeasurably less complex hardware is just facile, pure and simple.

How is it that the torchlight 2 beta works flawlessly online and D3 has a busted launch? You would think the company that employs like 500 people and makes a billion dollars a year would be the one to get it right. I would rather have to avoid cheaters and bots then deal with log in issues and DRM. Its stupid that they did not just make the multiplayer work serverside and have a seperate singleplayer mode that works offline. I'm guessing they just want more people to be exposed to the auction house, even those who choose to play single player.

@umdesch4 said:

@depecheload said:

Whatever, call me behind the times,

That was me, and I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek with that comment. I agree with you 100%, but increasingly these days, I find that it's because the person I'm agreeing with is roughly my age, and we're both old enough to remember when things that are commonplace now were unacceptable when we were younger.

If things like this happened in the cartridge and cassette days the Nintendo offices around the world would have been smouldering piles of rubble. Imagine if Ocarina of Time had a bug where you might crash, say 33% of the time, if you equipped a certain shield. The company would have to issue a recall and send out a new product or face the ire of millions. Now though? Release it and patch on day 1. Testing has gotten lazy because of this single fact.

So yeah. Hugs?

well its not almost 10pm, have to go to work soon, still havent been able to log in, no idea if my character is indeed deleted or not (the last time i did manage to log in it was gone), so this is fun. And i bought the game today, not even yesterday on launch day. Thankfully ive been playing Tera, otherwise i would be raging hard right now. As it stands, im just sad / disapointed

@depecheload said:

Whatever, call me behind the times,

That was me, and I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek with that comment. I agree with you 100%, but increasingly these days, I find that it's because the person I'm agreeing with is roughly my age, and we're both old enough to remember when things that are commonplace now were unacceptable when we were younger.

I tried playing the thing for an hour over lunch on my laptop and couldn't even get it to work. Singleplayer mind you, I didn't even want to touch the multiplayer yet.

I'm sorry, but I shouldn't have to have an active internet connection to play by my fucking self. EVER. It's absolutely retarded bullshit. Legitimate customers are once again being treated like fucking criminals, meanwhile criminals will crack the game and make it able to play offline in the span of a week. This is the same type of DRM bullshit that UbiSoft does* (*did) and it's just as insulting.

I spend over 1400 on computer parts, I spend 1800 on a laptop, I buy the game legitimately, and I STILL get treated like a fucking criminal. Absolutely unacceptable, and the fact that there are bugs in the game where it can completely cripple it if someone equips a goddamn shield is even worse. How in the hell does testing not catch this? Especially after how many goddamn times this game has been delayed and after they actually cut content so they could release.

If this shit continues I'm honestly going to be done with games, or at least companies that follow business models like this. It's not acceptable and it's not fine. In fact they're more criminal than the fucking pirates because at least the pirates believe in freedom of information and software, for better and for worse.

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

Game is out today and NO ONE can play it because of broken elements and horrid DRM. I'm calling them out on that and somehow I'm the naive one? Wow.

If NO ONE was playing the major issue right now wouldn't be a problem; servers. Due to the high number of people actually playing the game, many others can't log in. That's not a bug, that's a tech limitation. This could have been mitigated by investing in further servers, but it appears they chose to try and live through the shit storm of people not being able to play day 1, rather than having to pay for servers which will be mostly empty in the future. Since I can't play at the moment I feel this choice was a bad one, but I can see why they did it.

So yeah...you have no idea wtf you're bitching about = naive in my book.

They actually pulled the game offline to fix bugs. So I AM talking about bugs, not technical limitations. But while we're at it, they should properly prepare for those as well.

Whatever, call me behind the times, naive and so on, but games should work when you buy them. And until more gamers realize this and speak with their wallets, this problem is only going to get worse as developers get lazier and lazier about this stuff.

Fans demand game's release, game is released, fans express shock at how broken it is, Blizzard wishes its fans behaved less like spoiled children.

Remember the days when you could play a non-MMO without having to worry about servers being up and stable? Increasingly, neither can I. I don't see a need to yet again harp on this decision of theirs, but I am certainly not second-guessing my decision to skip this game.

I haven't been able to login at all. They recently posted it should be fixed by 130PDT (330 CDT). Kinda sucks. Wish I could play already haha

This is what happens when you require people to play online. I am kind of surprised, though, they didn't have these kinds of kinks worked out already. I guess some things break easier then others, I don't know. I'm no programming expert.

Brad's finally playing on the livestream, BTW.

I don't know if this has been posted here yet, but it apparently only happens if you swap out his shield for your equipped one.

The shield bug only happens if you try to trade with the templar before killing Jondar and having him as an actual follower.

Servers are currently down for emergency maintenance, FYI.

Yeah, 'cuz it's naive to think that playing a single player game might, you know, not require an always-on remote server connection. I must be getting old.

@depecheload said:

Game is out today and NO ONE can play it because of broken elements and horrid DRM. I'm calling them out on that and somehow I'm the naive one? Wow.

If NO ONE was playing the major issue right now wouldn't be a problem; servers. Due to the high number of people actually playing the game, many others can't log in. That's not a bug, that's a tech limitation. This could have been mitigated by investing in further servers, but it appears they chose to try and live through the shit storm of people not being able to play day 1, rather than having to pay for servers which will be mostly empty in the future. Since I can't play at the moment I feel this choice was a bad one, but I can see why they did it.

So yeah...you have no idea wtf you're bitching about = naive in my book.

@depecheload: Let me guess. You were a hardcore gamer in 1998 (the watershed year that brought us such games as Half Life, Unreal, Starcraft, etc.) So you remember a year in which no matter how crazy, new, and bleeding edge a game seemed, it shipped without game breaking bugs. In fact, I never patched any game I bought in 1998 at all.

Since then, we've gone downhill a lot in terms of attention to QA, and the expectations have dropped accordingly. People accept game breaking, OS breaking, cellphone breaking software bugs these days. You sir, are behind the times.

Interesting that many are having issues. I played problem free for 5 hours this morning (started at 3am PST). I'm playing a Demon Hunter with the Paladin as my Follower. I've changed his shield 5+ times with no issue.

I'm having a blast!

@dprabon said:

@NickyDubz said:

@Andtheworld: maybe you should bitch at the people who steal things and make this a necessity for a company to make money...

Preach it!

It is far from being a necessity, just ask CD Projekt.

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

@Galiant said:

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

Utterly pathetic and inexcusable bullshit.

How do you figure?

I'm in that ever-increasing minority that bugs should NOT be in finished games, unless they are related to unexpected/updated hardware configurations. I'm sorry, you spend years making a game and testing it, then it should work right the day it comes out, stop shipping unfinished games.

There's no excuse for it. I'm a freelance writer, if I turn in an unfinished article, my ass gets fired.

Seriously? You compare writing to coding games? Dude, if you make a fucking spelling error no one cares. If they make a spelling error the whole game potentially breaks down.

Imagine that if you misplace a single comma, your entire book would burst into flames if a user reads it while wearing sunglasses made by Gucci. That's how hard it is to test software on a fragmented platform.

It's not about spelling errors though, the code probably wouldn't compile if there was something as simple as a spelling error present. It's more about logical errors, things you didn't predict properly or whatever.

But yeah, comparing this to writing an unfinished article? Incredibly silly. A mistake in an article doesn't prevent anyone from reading it.

Both of you have lost the point I'm making entirely, taking what I said far too literally.

I can't believe I have to argue the idea that games shouldn't ship broken.

I think naive is a good word here.

Game is out today and NO ONE can play it because of broken elements and horrid DRM. I'm calling them out on that and somehow I'm the naive one? Wow.

@binhoker said:

aw hell

I pictured you as Marcus Fenix saying that.

Blizzard shipped a game with bugs and server issues at launch? MINDLESS INTERNET RAGE!!!

::thinks back to every Blizzard launch day since 2004::

OH RIGHT.

Thanks Alex, very informative. Always good to know how to avoid running into the gamebreakers.

Lol ... the first thing I did when I got the templar was give him a new shield, nothing out of the ordinary happened, the only weird I noticed is I was not getting any achievement notifications (despite me earning them).

So I ventured forth and made quite a bit of progress.

I have taken a break and exited out of the game, now I can no longer log back in and I fear that my character may no longer exist =S

@dprabon said:

@NickyDubz said:

@Andtheworld: maybe you should bitch at the people who steal things and make this a necessity for a company to make money...

Preach it!

"I'm grounding you, because your little brother stole money from my purse!"

Why punish the paying users for the users that don't pay and don't have to deal with the consequences?

managed to play a few hours thus far, seems fun although it screwed up on me an hour ago and now can't even log back in.

@depecheload said:

@Galiant said:

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

Utterly pathetic and inexcusable bullshit.

How do you figure?

I'm in that ever-increasing minority that bugs should NOT be in finished games, unless they are related to unexpected/updated hardware configurations. I'm sorry, you spend years making a game and testing it, then it should work right the day it comes out, stop shipping unfinished games.

There's no excuse for it. I'm a freelance writer, if I turn in an unfinished article, my ass gets fired.

Seriously? You compare writing to coding games? Dude, if you make a fucking spelling error no one cares. If they make a spelling error the whole game potentially breaks down.

Imagine that if you misplace a single comma, your entire book would burst into flames if a user reads it while wearing sunglasses made by Gucci. That's how hard it is to test software on a fragmented platform.

It's not about spelling errors though, the code probably wouldn't compile if there was something as simple as a spelling error present. It's more about logical errors, things you didn't predict properly or whatever.

But yeah, comparing this to writing an unfinished article? Incredibly silly. A mistake in an article doesn't prevent anyone from reading it.

Both of you have lost the point I'm making entirely, taking what I said far too literally.

I can't believe I have to argue the idea that games shouldn't ship broken.

I think naive is a good word here.

Still at 1%. I ran installer as admin, I disabled antivirus, I ensured the requisite services are enabled and running, I am well acquainted with fussy installations. I have 7.6GB of data sitting on a disc in my DVD drive waiting to install, but it is just sitting there. I think the installer is waiting on the blizzard servers for some kind of go ahead, and is stuck because of congestion. It has downloaded the 65MB of patches needed for the EU English install, but they are just sitting there.

I may do a Vinny and install Diablo 1 or 2 off the thumb drive and play that while I wait...

@Galiant said:

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

@Vodun said:

@depecheload said:

Utterly pathetic and inexcusable bullshit.

How do you figure?

I'm in that ever-increasing minority that bugs should NOT be in finished games, unless they are related to unexpected/updated hardware configurations. I'm sorry, you spend years making a game and testing it, then it should work right the day it comes out, stop shipping unfinished games.

There's no excuse for it. I'm a freelance writer, if I turn in an unfinished article, my ass gets fired.

Seriously? You compare writing to coding games? Dude, if you make a fucking spelling error no one cares. If they make a spelling error the whole game potentially breaks down.

Imagine that if you misplace a single comma, your entire book would burst into flames if a user reads it while wearing sunglasses made by Gucci. That's how hard it is to test software on a fragmented platform.

It's not about spelling errors though, the code probably wouldn't compile if there was something as simple as a spelling error present. It's more about logical errors, things you didn't predict properly or whatever.

But yeah, comparing this to writing an unfinished article? Incredibly silly. A mistake in an article doesn't prevent anyone from reading it.

Both of you have lost the point I'm making entirely, taking what I said far too literally.

I can't believe I have to argue the idea that games shouldn't ship broken.