Viridian Dreams Forum

Diablo 3 is going to be anounched on saturday!!!

Link: http://kotaku.com/5020458/is-this-image ... lo-iii-nah

And how! Not only was it announced, there's all kinds in game footage and whatnot released as well. It looks pretty, and pretty fun too.

Collection of trailers and whatnot.

So, this makes three games that are the third in their series which make me really wish I had a computer capable of playing them. Deus Ex 3, Diablo 3, and most of all, Fallout 3. *sigh*

And now, four years after this particular thread was made, it's finally being released.



12 years of development, you can't blame Blizzard for going for quality here. Well, that and using the World of Warcraft franchise to make them solvent enough to focus enough development on this.

Already have the client downloaded, just need my key, and I am set to install the game. Oh, I am really looking forward to this.

Picking up my hard copy at the midnight release (which I'll be getting in line for around 9 or so probably). Won't install it till the next day though, I fully expect the servers to be buried, a lot of people didn't hear about the open Beta weekend event.

Yeah, there will be a rush for people to install and get on the game which will play merry hell with the servers.

And launch has happened. Not surprisingly, right at the instant of launch, the ports were clogged with people trying to get in. I did my mandatory few attempts, expecting nothing and promptly went to the forums to start laughing at all the whining from people trying to get in.

Once the main site is back up, I'll give it another shot, since all the people getting in just crashed Diablo III.

Here's a good representation

Grrrrr... Blizzard dropped the ball on this one. I couldn't even authenticate my game, the site simply rejected the key code.

This game is a big deal right? I didn't play any of them and I've been hearing about for years. Incidentally, I was reading Penny Arcade as I read the above posts...

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/1998/12/21

I'm not sure I understand how companies still fail to properly plan for these type situations. I mean, it's not like such things have happened repeatedly for the last decade, all the way back to Half-Life 2 and Steam (if not further back). And yet Blizzard steps up alongside all the other companies that seem to not bother to ramp up authentication servers or the like (and/or relevant networking infrastructure) sufficiently in preparation for the release of a massively anticipated game release despite seeing what happened with other companies in the same situation.

To be fair it costs a lot of money to have servers, bandwidth, and so on for new games. It is also the one time you will see everyone and their cousin online at the same time. Take your favorite MMO - and I'll (ab)use World of Warcraft as an example.

When the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, came out the servers were swamped. There were lines just to get in the door, even when the game was crashing folks out on a semi-regular basis. A few weeks later (and again, to be fair, some additional servers being added) and those problems were gone. Why? They didn't have a massive percentage of their player base all trying to be online at the same time.

D3's fan base is going to calm down in a few weeks. There will be less people playing the game at any given moment. Instead you will see the same people playing when they can. Thus instead of having a single "clump" at midnight to say 4AM in the server populations, then a lull in population until folks sleep it off and recover you will see a more average trend.

If anyone has Steam you can watch the Steam server populations online, in semi-real time whenever you log in. They have a little graph saying "number of players online" or some such. When it is "peak hours" in the U.S. it is busy. When it is "peak hours" in Fiji - country at random - it is slower.

Anyway - moral of the story - I don't think that the developers will ever solve this problem because in the end it is a business decision. If they have all the bandwidth & servers they need to do everything then they are buying more hardware than they will use for most of the game's lifespan. That hardware may or may not be applicable to anything else, so if they have enough for everyone they have effectively over-bought on a resource.

Sadly, it just isn't good business because players have shown that we are willing to hang around and wait until the servers are actually working, then pay our $60 U.S. in this case to play the game. There aren't any economic or legal reasons to force this issue.

Thoughts? :)

A good summation.

Blizzard did anticipate this and was bringing more servers online as fast as they could, but when you have several million people trying at once, you'll crash the network. I agree that it's less dropping the ball and more of a business decision on how much in the way of resources they will acquire. Bandwidth is less of an issue, but still expensive, even for a short time. Servers, on the other hand are a permanent purchase. They had plenty available, but with literally hundreds of gigabytes in bandwidth tied up, the servers could not be accessed. The even literally took Battle.net down while they got the servers up.

Oh, and the BC launch wasn't the worst for them (they had plenty of servers, just not the bandwidth). The initial launch of World of Warcraft crashed every server and they had to bring sixteen more up the second day in the US alone just to handle the intial load. That was effectively doubling the servers at that time and there were still major issues for the first week.

Again, I had expected this.

At this point I'm kind of resigned. I figure the earliest I'll be able to actually play the full game is next week. Maybe.

I've been able to play it several times after the first couple of hours, the hiccup with the servers notwitstanding, of course, it was also during the mandatory tuesday maintenance as well, which was another reason they were down. You should be able to get on even during peak hours.

I stand corrected. After an hour on hold this morning, I got through to a living person. Who then helped me get the game set up.

Blizzard's customer service is actually pretty good. They're tied up due to the launch and a lot of people having issues with the install and authentication right now, but you got through to them. I didn't have the problems a lot of people had, largely due to having fixed those issues when I started playing the Mists of Pandaria beta.

Never really played a Diablo game before, so I wouldn't know from the franchise if I should buy this. However, I will say that looking at game bits of this, the game reminds me of Nox, which I did greatly enjoy way back when.

So, for people who've also played Nox, is Diablo III enough like it that I might find it enjoyable? I ask because I'd rather have a point of reference I can refer to than just general 'oh yeah, it is awesome, you should totally buy it'.

Unfortunately, I haven't played Nox, so I wouldn't be able to use it as a frame of reference. I've been a fan of Diablo since the first game, so I would get this game.

Anyway, a down and dirty review.

Graphics: 8.5/10

The graphics are good, very good, but not exceptional. Blizzard is often willing to trade some graphics quality in order to get the game to as many systems as they can. However, they also do extensive work on the graphics so that the lower quality is not as apparent. Considering that it is in a top-down third person view in a fantasy environment, some of the better aspects of the graphics are toned down. However, Blizzard also pays attention to detail so that the environments are well done.

Music: 8/10

The music is appropriately dark themed and fits the environments.

Story: 9/10

Generally well done, with lots of lore which comes out to allow thos to familiarize themselves with the world of Diablo without needing to play the first two games. They've managed to avoid major plot holes in the story for those familiar with the rest of the lore without having to really retcon anything.

Gameplay: 9/10

The interface is simple and easy to learn. 4 action keys, plus your mouse buttons involve all the action commands. As you progress your skills become more and more customizable so that you can tailor them to your wishes and the combat is quick, fast and brutal. Being in real time, things can get hectic real fast in a fight. The bosses are epic confrontations, each with their own mechanics. For those who want a real challenge, once you get a character to level 10, you can go into hardcore mode, which is very risky, as a character death there is permanent and will wipe out hours of work if a fight goes wrong.

Replayability: 11/10

This is Diablo, the game is based around replayability. The dungeons are random, though the world outside of them is somewhat static. Dungeon locations are somewhat randomized for every area on each session of play. One day you can hit a zone and go itno a dungeon which can be breezed through quickly only to hit a similar dungeon the next day in the same zone which can take you over an hour to fully explore. The zones also have events, some which are simple slugfests to timed dungeon runs through hordes of monsters, many which can be elite or rare (making you want to fight them, though doing so can cost you meeting the event's objective). After you beat the game, the next difficulty opens up for that character, with the enemy levels upgraded and the gear drops also upgraded to match.

Apologies on the double post, but beat the game on normal and got all the items including the recipie to make the staff to get into Diablo III's equivalent of the Cow Level.

You have to see it to believe it.