Anyone going to one of the midnight launch events? I called the local gamestop and they anticipated a heavy turnout, as in show up 90 minutes early and take a number, then stand in line for a couple of hours.

No thanks. I ordered the digital download.

Anyway super pumped for this game. Spent many a late night playing with buddies on the office computer network back in the day.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

Many of my friends who don't play video games anymore but did play diablo 2 will be getting it. I just ordered a new PC since it was time to upgrade. Should be getting it in 5 days and will be playing large amounts of D3 with it I imagine.

I pre-ordered the regular online digital download, and I've been logged in for ~35 minutes, still trying to create a character. Good job, Blizzard. You guys still know how to launch a game. *rolls eyes*

They are seriously retarded, there's no way they can't fairly accurately predict launch demand by now. They should have made login server images on Amazon EC2 so they could spin up as many as needed for the first week or whatever, to ensure they could handle the capacity; but no, they just need to make it unplayable by letting themselves get DDOS'd until enough people get frustrated and stop trying to login.

I seriously wish I could have pirated this game, Blizzard doesn't deserve my damn money.

Just spent a couple of hours playing it instead of working out.

Polished game. Addictive play mechanic just like D2 but with all the modern accouterments.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

aaaand the game servers are down.

Ok, it's times like these that cloud based gaming sucks. I would like an offline version of d3 please.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

I posted this on the Ars Technica article about D3's initial troubles, and it applies here equally well:

If Blizzard actually cared about a good launch experience and not just raking in as much cash as possible, they'd have created a login server mirror on Amazon EC2 so they could spin up as many as they needed to handle the influx; but of course they didn't do any such thing, and people banged their heads against the login server and character creation walls for hours.

Yup, the time in which I did get to play I was having a blast. But that error 37 boss was one of the most frustrating things I have ever come across. Naturally, me being the Diablo whore I am, will still come back to them when the servers go back up.

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"Plus I hate the seattle stadium the **** place is too loud, gave me a headache watchin the game." ~ Some 9er fan

Note the times and explanations. lol. Might as well put an out of order until further notice sign.


Server capacity issues at launch.. understandable except for the fact that you can't even play the game at all, even in single player mode, without getting permission from their servers. Fail.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

Massive fail. The idea not to have an offline single player mode was beyond stupid.

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"Plus I hate the seattle stadium the **** place is too loud, gave me a headache watchin the game." ~ Some 9er fan

And the servers are down again. I didn't pay $60 just so I could not play a game.

What's the point of including a DVD if you still need to D/L everything?

Still haven't been able to login.

**UPDATE** And now I'm getting a 14001 error...

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"Go for Broke" - 442nd Japanese-American Battalion

Shaun Alexander #37 for the HoF - 119 Games 2176 Att 9429 Yards 4.3 YPC 100 TDs (112 TDs total) 2005 MVP

"YOU POST...TO WIN...thethread." JesterHawk

You can switch to European or Asian realms in the "account options" screen if the North America servers are down. But you have to create a new player from scratch. Just a tip if you don't want to wait.

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How do you guys like it so far? They seemed to have fixed a lot of the server problems. My laptop barely runs it and I shouldn't even have played it yet; I got a warning that wouldn't let me play it because of my video card, but I found a way around it.

It's at the point where I may just wait for my new PC to come in next week before I play anymore. Pretty funny how slow it can be. I like it a lot though.

Servers still go down a lot but when you get kicked off you can get back in right away. Not so bad unless you're 15 minutes into a boss fight when it happens.

Graphics and diaglog are a bit cheesy at times. Some of it looks and sounds like it was lifted right out of a nintendo game. Expected a more gothic edgy feel.

That being said, the play mechanic and game pacing are great. And I love having good old fashioned boss fights which this game delivers.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

I really like the changes they brought to the boss fights. As fun as D2 was, it felt like bosses never were a challenge and were more of a pain to do. I've only gotten through Act 2 though, so I can't say much about future storyline.

I'm also pretty excited about the future PVP patch. I spent the majority of my time PVPing in D2 and really like the idea of organized PVP in Diablo.

I'm curious as to how much profit people will be able to make on the real money auction house that comes soon too. I'm sure gold farmers will become really active again, but it'll be interesting to see what kind of money the average player can make.

It's fun, but certainly nothing spectacular. Nightmare mode is more like daydream mode, though. I hear the difficulty bumps up a lot past that, but I've been leveling two chars (42 Demon Hunter with friends, 32 Witch Doctor solo) and nightmare's definitely a cakewalk.

For the wizard I discovered that Diamond Skin plus Hydra makes Boss fights pretty much a formality. Enable diamond skin, cast hydra, attack until diamond skin wears off, evade until diamond skin can be used again, casting hydras whenever the boss becomes stationary. Wash, rinse, repeat. With the final boss in act 4 I had to start evading before Diamond skin wore off, but other than that technique was completely effective.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

What difficulty are you finding diamond skin really useful on, Sad?

Definitely less useful after beating the game once, esp those clusters of 3 magical enemies surrounded by mobs. Ugh. Still working good for boss fights thus far tho. I'm at level 35 atm.

Honestly, I think those magic plus group surrounded by mob thingies are harder than bosses. Boss fights in D3 are about relax, finesse, control. The former seems to be more about trying to fight and retreat without accidentally being hemmed in or exposing another cluster, 'cause then you're dead for sure.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

That's why I asked. I don't have a Wizard yet, but one of the two friends I'm playing my Demon Hunter with stopped using it pretty much the second we hit Act II in nightmare mode. He was complaining about it being marginally useful in Act I on nightmare, and said it's utterly useless as of Act II, lol. Sounds like he's right. (We're 42, plus I have a 43 Witch Doctor.)

The boss fights are definitely not as hard as some of the random groups you encounter, I agree. We've mostly breezed through nightmare thus far, but I hear the bump up to hell makes a world of difference. I'm looking forward to that.