Diablo, Lord of Error.

Whilst visiting Pike her brother generously donated a guest pass for Diablo III, letting me play until the Skeleton King in Act I. Back in England I gave it a try yesterday, and found it a fairly enjoyable game that seemed to lack something that D2 had which was so compelling, though I hadn’t yet identified what that was.

But this post is not about that. No, this post is about what just happened. I figured “I’ll play it for a couple of hours, see how it goes; the Cathedral was definitely better than the outdoors, maybe it continues improving.” so I fired it up. Logged in. Got this.

More like WHYablo

I was trying to play single player. Indeed, I was not yet at the point where you decide whether you’re playing solo or multi; this is just what you get. Yeahhh… no. We’re not having any of that. I’ve not spent one penny here and I am outraged at this. How people who spend LODS OF EMONE on the thing have failed to riot and burn down Blizz/Activision HQ is beyond me, but they are clearly exercising the saintly virtues that Diablo and his brothers seek to extinguish.

There is no reasonable basis for this. If you are going to make people connect to play in single-player, then you best have a reliable freaking service. Taking the servers down for regular maint does not constitute reliable. It’s fine with an MMO; heck it’s fine with any game in fact, but you best believe people should be allowed to play their single-player game in single-player mode when they want to, not when you permit them to.

In short I just uninstalled D3, I will not be buying it at any point in the foreseeable future (Blizz did me a favor actually because I have no money), and I’d urge anyone on the fence whether they want to support insane policies like this one with their patronage.

7 thoughts on “Diablo, Lord of Error.”

  1. Yep. Basically why I’m glad I didn’t pay actual money for the game, not that I’ve played it more than twice.

    Blizz has made me sadface quite a lot lately. If Mists doesn’t blow me out of the water, I may be moving on.

  2. Yeah, I got my copy for free when I signed up for the Annual Pass and to this date, I still haven’t finished Act I. It’s stupid that it requires a constant internet connection and it’s down for maintenance when WoW is. If you have no interest at all in playing with other people, which I don’t, you should not need to have an internet connection to play it.

    If I wanted to socialize in a video game I’d go play an actual MMO.

  3. It’s been stable lately. The first few days it was touch and go almost constantly. Error 37, etc. Today is a big D3 patch day, so Battle.net has been on the fritz across the board, though I suspect by this evening it should be a-ok.

    I agree about not being able to play “disconnected” (read: can’t play this game while at relative’s house who has no net connection…no LAN parties with the family *sadface*), although I find the social aspect kinda fun. I can still keep in touch with guildies in WoW, even if I’m not nuking dungeons with them in D3.

    I wish they would allow us to make our own chat channel…if I have to join ‘general’ chat when I log in, I should be able to create a channel for my friends and family. Lately, we’ve been using Mumble to make groups and smash co-op games.

    Turning off the quick join is easy and worth it so you don’t have random friends popping in on your game……well except the ones who have been clearing inferno mode and want to give you gifts of legendaries for your twinked out barbarian, that’s okay. ^.^

    I like the connectivity, some don’t.In the end, it’s just a matter of letting us have a CHOICE about being connected or not.

  4. In a way, this is Blizzard being the future-facing company they are and adding high-level features in order to give their players a better experience.

    In reality though, we’ve ended up with a game that assumes we’re living in the future where everyone has perfect internet everywhere they go and doesn’t mind that they are only allowed to play their game when the company that runs it can manage it.

    The most disappointing thing is that they were doubtless perfectly aware of how unhappy people would be with fact that this game would be played completely online, so they deliberately obfuscated this fact right up until the release date.

  5. This game has its moments when playing with 2 or 3 friends. Single player is just … meh (from a Barbarian’s perspective at least). I got this game as part of the Annual Pass – in fact it was the main reason I got that pass in the first place.

    The main problem I have is not the online aspect, although that is a big one. The biggest issue is that this game is designed around the auction house. You can just quite get by on Normal mode without using it, but once you’re in Nightmare, let alone Hell (and lol with Inferno) you are literally forced to use it if you wan’t to be able to progress. Mucking about in an auction house is not the reason I wanted to play Diablo, I wanted to kill stuff, get loot, and progress. :'(

    1. +1

      The excitement around loot drops is severely undercut by the fact that you will almost never actually find loot which is useful to you personally. Rare drops are essentially somewhat more inconvenient gold supply, that you then use to buy the gear that you actually need.

  6. I plan to get Diablo III but then few days before a release I decided to spend cash on Arma 2 for DAYZ mod and save rest for Torchlight II.
    And I am really happy that I did that.
    DAYZ consume me now and Torchlight II beta looks very promising(compared to what I see in D3).
    So yeah. See you later Blizz

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