Source
r/explainlikeimfive•
zerobot

EL5 - The problems people were having with Diablo 3.

I did a search, didn't find a post. Was there an issue with the log-in screen? Fill me in.

Posted May 16, 2012, 1:05 PM UTC

012
JakeSteam•
  • Blizzard's DRM (basically anti-piracy, although that's not why Blizzard is doing it. I'll explain why if you like) means even if you're playing single-player, you have to connect to their servers for everything.
  • Blizzard's servers screwed up on release, so people couldn't play a single-player game they'd purchased and installed for around the first 12-24hrs of release.
  • People with poor connections were also having a laggy single player experience, due to the DRM again.
1
zerobotOP•

Thanks! I don't do a ton of gaming and never on a computer. I saw some pics and things and people complaining and it seemed like a big deal. I guess I'd be pretty upset if I was anticipating a game like Diablo 3 for as long as people have, pre-bought it, and then found that I couldn't play when I got it home.

1
Mortarius•

The official reason they can't play offline (apart from DRM) is to enhance gaming experience with quality service of battle.net 2.0.

They've been doing it since Starcraft 2 release (it has offline mode, but you can't play via LAN). It's supposed to give anti cheat capabilities, achievements, community interactions match making ect.

2
JakeSteam•

Mm. If it was just the multi player unplayable at launch, that's reasonable. But the single player? Not cool.

Also, with Blizzard being the beast that they are, you'd have thought they could anticipate the server strain and deal with it accordingly.

1
b1ackcat•
  • Diablo 3 isn't a 'single player game'. The entire experience is designed around multi-player, with the option of playing it by yourself. Could they have done what they did in D2 where there was both an online and offline mode? Maybe, but it would've resulted in having two separate experiences, almost two codebases to get it done. Would not have been feasible.
  • Blizzard being the beast they are is the only reason it went as smoothly as it did. This was the most pre-ordered game in history. There were literall millions of people trying to hit one cluster of servers. The fact they were up at all for the first two days is a technical achievement that should be admired.
1
JakeSteam•
  • It has a full single player campaign, and it is perfectly possible to complete the game without ever connecting / viewing / contacting another player. I'd say that's single player. And "would not have been feasible"? Give players an offline version of the server's code, and say characters created in that mode cannot trade or play with others.
  • Then they should have temporarily rented more servers for launch day. There's no excuse for a large percentage of players being unable to play their game, especially when it comes from a developer used to hosting millions of players, and making highly anticipated releases.

Edit: Besides, it's a rogue-like, they're often single-player only, multiplayer is a bonus, not a standard.

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