
In case you didn’t notice, the Diablo 3 servers are down again today for “maintenance.” So my plan of playing some Diablo 3 this morning before getting into my workday has been shuttered, forcing me to actually read emails, reply to emails, and finish up E3 scheduling (I hate E3 scheduling). How long will the servers be down? Who knows? Blizzard said it was to be from 4:00AM to 7:00AM PDT.
When you buy an MMO you expect this sort of thing as it goes with the territory but it didn’t have to be this way for Diablo 3. In speaking to Todd yesterday he made a great point. I remember because that doesn’t happen every day.
This is less about Diablo. People are going to jump through hoops to play Diablo because it’s Diablo. It’s an “event” game. However, this will most assuredly affect the next new Blizzard IP if the company tries to pull this online nonsense off again with a game that isn’t built specifically for online play. I’ll be your monkey to play Diablo. But not the next game.
Of course I have no idea if Todd really means that, but I’m willing to bet there are going to be people who remember this launch because I’m looking at a $60 piece of software I cannot use until Blizzard says it’s ok to do so. Will all of these hiccups get worked out in the coming weeks? I hope. I think they will. But that’s not really the point though is it?
At least Blizzard has acknowledged this. The company released a statement asking for patience.
…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.
Full statement is below:
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