It's Sunday, I'm relaxing and all I want to do with play Diablo 3. Seriously this is total mess by Blizzard. Seems servers have been down for a good while now, it's frustrating. Heard a few people call for some sort of offline mode but you just know that'll never happen. Really hope Blizzard get the criticism they deserve for this, Diablo 3 seems a pretty awesome game but how poorly the launch as gone is an eye opener. Makes me glad I wasn't around for the launch of WoW, now that must have been a nightmare :D 
 
So, I can only hope Blizzard learn from this for the future expansions and this is just growing pains. But seriously, it's Sunday and I can't play a game I paid good money for because Blizzard can't get there crap together. Rant post over! :)

I've been playing fine for the past few days. Sorry you happen to want on right when they're working on something,

Take a break, clean your room and go outside for a couple hours. I'm kinda pleased it's down, means that I will appreciate it more when its back up.

@CrazyBagMan said:

I've been playing fine for the past few days. Sorry you happen to want on right when they're working on something,

A common sense offline mode like D2 had would mean no one gets screwed in such a way. Also no lag in a solo game.

Its an EU thing... I can't get on either :(.

Kind of sucks in the sense that this three hour window right now is basically the only time I've had this week to play anything, and now the servers are down. Hopefully this will be different next week, when my next window of playing comes along.

the took down the servers an hour ago or so for maintenance hopefully to fix so of the lag. i think alot of the launch issues is cuz they wanted to fix it but to get a better lauch would mean they had to move the launch date and then even more nerds would rant on and on about how much blizzard suck and they will cancel there pre-order and never play it... lost track of what i was saying

but thats also why the real currency actions house and pvp is not in yet they would rather lauch the game and then fix the other thing in later then delay the hole game for that.

@Grillbar said:

the took down the servers an hour ago or so for maintenance hopefully to fix so of the lag.

its been at least 3 hours.

People should probably stop clinging to the idea of Ofline Mode. The way DRM is headed in a few years everthing will requir an internet connection. This is just the learning period for that era. It's a little wonkey now, but it will get better. For now just relax, and stop overreacting.

My heart goes out to you, EU brothers. Blizzard have really shit the bed with this thing.

@gamefreak9 said:

Its an EU thing... I can't get on either :(.

Yep, it's an EU server issue (status).

Also there is this thread with about 5k posts in it!

Well, we can only wait or create a new character on other region server. I just bought the game and played 2 hours of it before the servers went down. On sunday... I know Blizz top men are on it, but I am still not a happy customer. At least the game seems awesome.

Lauch issues with big online games like Diablo III are the rule, not the exception. I believe no amount of smart internet technology engineering can prepare a service for the traffic Blizzard games do receive, nor do I believe it would be economically sound to do so, if it was.

I imagine the internet to be a network of roads, and the closer the roads get to Blizzard's servers, the more clogged these roads are going to be, and at the gates to the Diablo universe, there's a massive pile-up every couple of hours. Something like that.

That said, I want to play too. Doing pushups right now. So many pushups.... GRRRR

@NekuCTR said:

People should probably stop clinging to the idea of Ofline Mode. The way DRM is headed in a few years everthing will requir an internet connection. This is just the learning period for that era. It's a little wonkey now, but it will get better. For now just relax, and stop overreacting.

i'm totally with you that DRM is not a big deal and this is just a transitioning period... though that doesn't mean i'm not annoyed with the number of maintenances going on.

Hey! Torchlight 2 is having a beta weekend! You can give that a shot if you need to get your click on.

@NekuCTR said:

People should probably stop clinging to the idea of Ofline Mode. The way DRM is headed in a few years everthing will requir an internet connection. This is just the learning period for that era. It's a little wonkey now, but it will get better. For now just relax, and stop overreacting.

I've been hearing this a lot lately. That people need to get used to the idea of online DRM. I never heard this when EA and Ubisoft had online DRM.

@StingingVelvet said:

@CrazyBagMan said:

I've been playing fine for the past few days. Sorry you happen to want on right when they're working on something,

A common sense offline mode like D2 had would mean no one gets screwed in such a way. Also no lag in a solo game.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they offered one a year or so down the road, once they see less of a need to prevent piracy. But I dunno how they think.

If it bothers you that much, google the name razor 1911, there is a crack that allows you to play your game offline.

Do people really want to play this game in an offline single-player? Even if I was going to play solo a majority of the way through, I would hate to think that the character I was investing hundreds of hours in would never be able to interact with any of my friends' characters.

@SpunkyHePanda: It's been 2 years since SC2 and people have been begging for LAN all the while. Didn't happen. It won't happen here, either. Blizzard rule over their games with an iron fist, the only reason they get away with it is because the games are awesome.

@MonetaryDread said:

If it bothers you that much, google the name razor 1911, there is a crack that allows you to play your game offline.

But you would be risking a ban from battlenet...

If the work they are doing on the servers now is going to fix the latency issue so many are experiencing, then it's all good.

I haven't finished Torchlight yet so I started that up again. I really enjoy that game, and now I really want Torchlight 2

These loot based games are really the thing I wanna play these days

@StarvingGamer said:

Do people really want to play this game in an offline single-player? Even if I was going to play solo a majority of the way through, I would hate to think that the character I was investing hundreds of hours in would never be able to interact with any of my friends' characters.

I think that should have been the base state, though not limited to that, or even considered the optimum way to play the game. Could say the same thing about borderlands. The reasons w/out thumping them have their anchor in considerations little to do with having your friends over. Thus online always has to be running, and I personally need to buy a new router (and switchbox )when no other game I have demands this.

I agree with you on two points, even if I had no issue playing today. There should be an offline mode, and it will never, ever happen. Welcome to the DRM scheme of a company with nothing to lose.

You can complain about Steam, but at least there's an offline mode that sometimes works.

Everything comes down to wanting to play a single player game when I want to play it. Ugh. Sure it'll get sorted out soon but this always sucks.

Just play Diablo 2 until they either fix it, some miracle happens and they offer offline mode, or wait till it gets cheaper.

I'm so tired of seeing people whining about everything. A game of this size, with a userbase this big has almost no chance of going live without issues. If this was something that happened constantly in the 4-5 months after release, then be mad. If you won't let them have the first week of live servers to get stuff stable then you probably shouldn't play games like this.

Frankly, I have had no problems these past 5 days other then 2 disconnects and those happened yesterday.

I totally understand the offline mode complaint though. But as someone who wants to find items and play with friends, I see D3 completely as an online experience.

It's a serious bummer that the servers are down, but I couldn't play this game offline. I have had such a good time playing with fellow duders that playing it solo seems so boring. Why have one Wizard when you can have three and kill your frame rate! That's right.

@destruktive: You tell people to stop whining about being unable to play the game because the servers are down, yet you understand the complaint about people wanting an offline mode? That's a contradiction if I ever saw one.

You know what I'm tired of? People who always find some way to excuse bad practices in game development.

I'm sure paying customers who use the real-money auction house would love to know that 90% of the shit on there is duped and they're paying for an essentially worthless item. Oh wait, Diablo 3 doesn't have offline, so that won't happen.

I'm so tired of seeing people whining about everything. A game of this size, with a userbase this big has almost no chance of going live without issues. If this was something that happened constantly in the 4-5 months after release, then be mad. If you won't let them have the first week of live servers to get stuff stable then you probably shouldn't play games like this.

Frankly, I have had no problems these past 5 days other then 2 disconnects and those happened yesterday.

I totally understand the offline mode complaint though. But as someone who wants to find items and play with friends, I see D3 completely as an online experience.

This is exactly the kind of thing I feared would happen. It's sunday evening, I've done all necessary errands and chores for the day and was looking forward to an evening of Diablo 3. Nope. Not happening. This DRM system is disgusting. You disappoint me, Blizzard.

I don't know why people think an offline mode is unfeasible. SC2 had an offline mode, and all that did was disable achievements. I understand Blizzard's concerns with the real money auctions and whatnot, that they don't want people hacking the shit out of the game like they did with the previous Diablos. But I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of people playing won't get into that and it's not an issue. Give me an offline mode where I don't get achievements and flag any items I get during that time as inelligible for auction or trade. I don't care about that stuff, but let me play the game I paid for

@StingingVelvet said:

@CrazyBagMan said:

I've been playing fine for the past few days. Sorry you happen to want on right when they're working on something,

A common sense offline mode like D2 had would mean no one gets screwed in such a way. Also no lag in a solo game.

It wouldn't do me much good because I would have to start a character I would never play again.

Blizzard Europe is based in France, isn't it?

Oh, and this isn't a comment about the French work ethic or their habit of striking at the drop of a hat. Just kidding.

I'm so tired of seeing people whining about everything. A game of this size, with a userbase this big has almost no chance of going live without issues. If this was something that happened constantly in the 4-5 months after release, then be mad. If you won't let them have the first week of live servers to get stuff stable then you probably shouldn't play games like this.

Frankly, I have had no problems these past 5 days other then 2 disconnects and those happened yesterday.

I totally understand the offline mode complaint though. But as someone who wants to find items and play with friends, I see D3 completely as an online experience.

@MildMolasses: I could be totally wrong here, I aint no video game making magician, but I'm under the impression that a lot of the calculations to do with the mechanics of the game are done server side. By making an offline version of the game all these calculations would have to be included in the client and as such could be reverse engineered by some nefarious individuals and totally mess up the online stuff as a result much like what happened with D2. Whilst I am totally for an offline way to play the game (currently the eu servers have been down for like 4 hours...) I kind of can see why Blizzard wants to hold the keys to everything.

love the game, but this is just a fucking joke and i honeslty dont understand how anyone can defend this. Nor the whole "its not a single player game lol" reason... im halfway through nightmare, never played with anyone else. Its a single player game. Just because you can play gears 3 story mode with 4 friends people dont call that multiplayer (only) game

Yea...I think im done with this game really.

I want to be able to play my games on my term when i got the time not when blizzards servers wants me to play.

I got through normal mode and not to excited to jump back in with the server problems and oh god the lag.

@Example1013 said:

I'm sure paying customers who use the real-money auction house would love to know that 90% of the shit on there is duped and they're paying for an essentially worthless item. Oh wait, Diablo 3 doesn't have offline, so that won't happen.

Even if it did have offline it wouldn't happen (unless it was designed by incompetents), because it's trivial to have separate online and offline characters (and even transfer from online to offline only). The reason there's no offline is because of DRM, not cheating or AH concerns. If you want to argue against offline, do so on the real issues, don't invent shit.

Really not happy about this. As someone who doesn't have a lot of free time its so infuriating to have shit like this for what is for me a SINGLE PLAYER GAME.

I know the arguments for why these "always on" server things exist - anti-piracy, cloud saves, multiplayer, etc - but if a company can't handle the features they're so intent on having for their game then they shouldn't include them.

I think that fact that this is from Blizzard is a big reason why it pisses me off so much. I can't believe we have to put with this from one of the most online-savvy companies in the industry. One of only a handful of companies who can more or less release their games when they like. Isn't Blizzard's unofficial motto: "when it's ready"?

The server side of D3 doesn't feel particularly fucking ready to me today!!!

Say what you will about DRM, etc., right now the game doesn't work (for Europe) and that's lame. I should be able to play a game that I own whenever I want. It's hardly whining to be annoyed that a product you payed for does not work. Complicated server architecture is irrelevant in the face of consumer experience.

When the servers were up it was great, and generally speaking I have no problem being online all the time, even when I'm playing solo. It just needs to work.

TBH the timing is ridiculous, it's Sunday and people in the EU can't play at all. Great here i was waking up a bit late and had an entire day set aside to make a dent in Hell, ooops too bad. Next work week is going to be hell for me, this was my big chance to make the biggest progress.

by the way, i went on the US servers to mess around with a new char for a bit, and holy lag batman... what the fuck is up with THAT? I had heard about it, but jesus christ :/ (I have no lag on the EU server at all...you know... when i can FUCKING PLAY).

the EU servers are now back up, try to log in.... error 37, busy FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU

@eloj said:

@Example1013 said:

I'm sure paying customers who use the real-money auction house would love to know that 90% of the shit on there is duped and they're paying for an essentially worthless item. Oh wait, Diablo 3 doesn't have offline, so that won't happen.

Even if it did have offline it wouldn't happen (unless it was designed by incompetents), because it's trivial to have separate online and offline characters (and even transfer from online to offline only). The reason there's no offline is because of DRM, not cheating or AH concerns. If you want to argue against offline, do so on the real issues, don't invent shit.

So I take it you were at there meetings and know why they did it this way huh? Moron.

@gamefreak9 said:

@eloj said:

@Example1013 said:

I'm sure paying customers who use the real-money auction house would love to know that 90% of the shit on there is duped and they're paying for an essentially worthless item. Oh wait, Diablo 3 doesn't have offline, so that won't happen.

Even if it did have offline it wouldn't happen (unless it was designed by incompetents), because it's trivial to have separate online and offline characters (and even transfer from online to offline only). The reason there's no offline is because of DRM, not cheating or AH concerns. If you want to argue against offline, do so on the real issues, don't invent shit.

So I take it you were at there meetings and know why they did it this way huh? Moron.

I didn't have to be at their meetings because I know how computers, networks and software works.

Wait, what? Servers in Europe are down? For how long? I've been gone over the weekend so I'm not in the loop right now.

@eroticfishcake said:

Wait, what? Servers in Europe are down? For how long? I've been gone over the weekend so I'm not in the loop right now.

They are back up.

@emergency: That's good. Still, doesn't excuse the annoying issue of always on-line but urgh, that's a path I don't want to go down again. Thanks anyway.