DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

You know al the crap going wrong with Diablo 3 is exactly why I'm happy I decided to wait for a price drop.

You'll be waiting a long time. Starcraft II is still the same price as when it launched 2 years ago. You might get a Battle Chest type deal several years down the road after the as yet unannounced expansion pack has been out a while.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Oh quit your bitching. BF3 had some major server issues as well but that didn't stop people from playing the game in the end. The initial hickups are incredibly frustrating, but they will subside eventually. I just got to the temple of the ancients in act 1, and I am fucking LOVING all the references to the Sin War novels. Blizzard has seriously done their homework this time around and I love them for it. I play Diablo for the dark lore more than anything else, and this game has it in spades. Shit, THEY EVEN BROUGHT BACK THE BUTCHER FROM D1!!!! Though I've yet to encounter him.

[Firewind]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I don't play Eve but this did make me laugh

[Armando]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

BF3 had some major server issues as well but that didn't stop people from playing the game in the end. The initial hickups are incredibly frustrating, but they will subside eventually.

Mal, there's a big difference. BF3 is a game you play online, with other peoples. It's an online game. It's normal not to be able to play an online game when the servers are down.

What's not normal is not being able to play a single player game because the company wants to force you to be online all the time even when you're playing in what would otherwise be offline mode. I'm not saying it is or isn't a big deal. What I am saying is that they're not comparable.

[Etra]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

OH MY GAGGLE BLIZZARD IS REQUIRING ME TO USE THE INTERWEBS IN 2012. HOW DARE THEY. AND LAUNCH ISSUES? THIS IS 2012. SERVERS ARE OBVIOUSLY IMMUNE TO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE CONNECTING AT ONCE. BLARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRCAPSLOCK.

In other news, I had to reroll my Monk because I got hit with the achievement bug (one of the reasons why the servers were brought down for those three-odd hours yesterday.) Oh well. Stole all my gear off of her and just stuffed it in my stash. Overpowered leveling gear gogo.

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

OH MY GAGGLE BLIZZARD IS REQUIRING ME TO USE THE INTERWEBS IN 2012. HOW DARE THEY.

It lost them at least one sale.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I lost a bunch of achievements yesterday as well, but I figure I'll be starting multiple new characters to play with the people who are just appearing on my friends list and will pick them up eventually.

Game is fun as hell in spite of launch hiccups. Finished act 2 and probably most of act 3 with Hayde this afternoon. The boss fights have been great and act 3 has been amazing so far.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Yeah I gotta go back and get the achievements again, which should be a snap on one of my new characters so no biggie.

Still don't see how the hell you can possibly beat Act 1 in under an hour without at least +50% movement speed. It's not the monsters, it's the sheer amount of running around you have to do. Still trying to figure out just wtf I'm supposed to use Leoric's Shin Bone for as well.

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

So j9, how are you liking Diablo 3?

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

Servers are down again ffs, this time for a "scheduled" 1-2 hour maintenance (accounts differ).

Tycho's post yesterday went up some time after I posted the comic and went thusly:

This was a goofy joke when we wrote it at eleven or so yesterday morning, though it became less hilarious as the day progressed. During “normal hours,” the failure of Blizzard to recall that Diablo is a popular game was a boon: I have my own shit to write. But later, when I began to prowl for leisure activities, and it occurred to me that I might utilize the sixty dollars of congealed entertainment I had recently purchased, I was not able to. And then I was, and then I wasn’t, and then no wait it’s still okay now it’s back. Requiring that players be online is one thing - but we are! We’re online right now! They’re the ones who aren’t online. Who watches the watchmen?!?!

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 fucking 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.

In other news, Bashiok posted this open letter to D3 players on the official forums last night:

Diablo Players:

We’d like to extend a very sincere thank you to everyone who joined the global Diablo III launch celebrations this week, as well as to everyone who was ready to jump into Sanctuary the moment the game went live.

To that end, we’d also like to say that we’ve been humbled by your enthusiasm -- and we sincerely regret that your crusade to bring down the Lord of Terror was thwarted not by mobs of demons, but by mortal infrastructure. As many of you are aware, technical issues occurring within hours after the game's launch led to players experiencing error messages and difficulty logging in. These issues cropped up again last night for the Americas and Europe servers. Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough.

We’ve been monitoring the game 24/7 and have applied several optimizations to help our systems better weather the global rush. As of late last night, specifically 11:50 PM PDT on May 15, all systems have been online and running relatively smoothly. We’re continuing to monitor performance globally and will be taking further measures as needed to ensure a positive experience for everyone. This includes some maintenance to implement additional improvements for each region.

In order to make sure everything is continuing to run as it should, we’ve decided to move out our target launch for the real-money auction house beyond our original estimated date of May 22. We’ll post further updates on that in the near future.

Aside from the tremendous number of players simultaneously logging in to the game, one of the launch-day service issues was linked to the achievement system. Some players began to notice early on that achievements were either not being earned properly, or not being saved between multiple logins. We’re investigating this issue and will provide a specific update as soon as possible.

We greatly appreciate everyone’s support, and we want to sincerely apologize for the difficulties many of you encountered on day one. Please visit the Battle.net Support site or Support forums for the latest service-related updates or for help in troubleshooting any technical issues you may be having downloading, installing, or while playing the game.

Thank you again for your patience while we reinforce the gates of Sanctuary and further strengthen it for your onslaught.

Respectfully,
Blizzard Entertainment

I'm not much for weeping and my lawn doesn't need mowing, so I'm off to spend the next 1-2 hours foraging and simulating fatherhood and I guess attending to basic hygiene.

[Armando]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

I read Tycho's post yesterday. I laughed at "Who watches the watchmen?!?!" Came out of nowhere.

I'm not much for weeping and my lawn doesn't need mowing, so I'm off to spend the next 1-2 hours foraging and simulating fatherhood and I guess attending to basic hygiene.

No dutiful, terrified coupling?

[Taskmage]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

No dutiful, terrified coupling?

My relationship has scheduled downtime until 2 pm every weekday.

[Malacite]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

teh lulz

[jenova_9]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

So j9, how are you liking Diablo 3?

well this is more of a "watch video walkthroughs and gameplay videos" kind of thing since I don't play with PC, mew. very expensive.

[cidbahamut]

Re: DIABLO III - J9's thread of infernal enthusiasm!

...wat?