The much anticipated game Diablo 3 was just released yesterday at midnight and though many people have managed to play it, there's also a great number of people that have not, despite having purchased the game at midnight launch parties or pre-ordered the game through various online vendors (the game hit a record for pre-orders on Amazon.com). Some customers are extremely ticked off, and it all comes down to the copy protection (or DRM, Digital Rights Management) built into the blockbuster game.
The game requires that you always be connected and signed in to the game company's online servers to play, even if you're playing the game by yourself, single-player. Back in the "good old days", if you bought a single player computer game, you could take it home, install it, and then play it. Now, you have to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to prove that the game is a real purchased copy of the game before (and while) you play, otherwise the game locks you out.
I ran into this very same problem just last week when I bought a cheap computer game and spent days messing around with it and my computer system to try and get the stupid thing to work. My final fix was to do EXACTLY what the game company was trying to stop. I downloaded a hack that blocked all the copy protection and constant (as you play) online server verifications. The game then ran like a dream, instead of stuttering all over the place and freezing up every 10 minutes. The problem? Excessive copy protection and constant online authentication.
Diablo 3's user review average score on Metacritic is currently running at 3.6 out of 10. That's horrible. Many people were super excited about Diablo 3 coming out and when they went to play this greatly anticipated game that they'd purchased, they were locked out of the game by the now infamous "Error 37".
Diablo 3 User Reviews at Metacritic: 3.6 / 10
Metacritic Diablo 3 User Reviews
At VentureBeat someone created a Day 1 game review. The reviewer's final conclusion?
VentureBeat: World exclusive Diablo III review!!!!
Overall, I am impressed by the production values and execution of Diablo III’s main menu. It’s admittedly a very slick menu...
Yup, the main menu title screen was as far as the reviewer got. Thanks to Error 37.
It's been so bad that "Error 37" has actually been trending high on Twitter all day and internet meme websites are filling with Error 37 jokes. IGN: Diablo 3's Best Error 37 Jokes
GamesRadar has this to say about it all...
GamesRadar: Diablo III error 37 causing a great wailing and gnashing of teeth as players worldwide fail to log in.
What's galling in this case though is that the log-in failures currently being suffered by a large number of aspiring players block the single-player game as well as multiplayer. Yay online authentication.
Consider the online DRM arguement well-and-truly cracked open once again. Can of worms, ACTIVATE!
Over at IGN, their "review in progress" of the game was off to a rough start.
IGN: Diablo III Review in Progress
Diablo III has all the launch problems of a major MMO. Blizzard’s action-RPG requires you to connect to their proprietary gaming network, Battle.net, if you want to play, but since its launch it’s been an aggravating slog to log on. It’s annoying enough that you can’t play without an Internet connection, but it’s even worse that the company that runs the biggest MMO in the world, and who no doubt had a good idea of how well Diablo III was selling, couldn't make the first day run smoother. Even now, at the time this is being written, the whole system has been shut down for server maintenance. Thankfully I’m playing it from my office, since I can only imagine how irate people who took the day off to enjoy one of the biggest game launches all year must be feeling right now.UPDATE:
Even when I managed to successfully log in and Diablo III running things didn’t go well as far as user experience is concerned. Regularly my friends and I would have multiple minutes go by between messages we sent one another, only to have an error code pop up and a wall of text spam through the chat. Or there was the point when early on in Act I my game simply crashed, prior to which half the world disappeared along with my character’s spell effects. The best part? After forcing my way out of Diablo III I logged back in only to find that my items and progress from the previous few minutes had disappeared. Goodbye, shiny new helmet. This didn’t bother me too much since I was so early in the campaign that I hadn’t found anything special, but if I lost a rare or special item due to their server issues you could bet I’d be on the phone with someone in customer service. Items can now net real money, so its inexcusable to lose them due to problems with Blizzard's servers.
Here's a few more meme pics related to the problem. :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment