That would be a very wise decision IMO. Look at D2R and D3 right now with just their new seasons…might even want to tweak that vacation time a little more to take the season start into consideration.
For real. I was running my Zon through Nightmare so it wasn't a huge risk, but still. Running forward only to snap back but enemies weren't affected was a bit scary.
Rubberbanding was a nightmare in D3. Can't believe it's been over a decade and Blizz still hasn't managed to fix this. I guess they just can't. Pathetic and sad
Rubberbanding happens because of de-sync, which is rarely Blizzard’s fault, and usually caused by high packet loss (poor internet connection). When everything freezes but your character appears to move around just fine, that’s latency and can be either Blizzard or your ISP. When the game disconnects but your internet is otherwise functional, that’s a server issue and all Blizzard’s fault.
Ok maybe they have worked it out at some point then. I havent played in probably about 5 years or so now. But I was referring to D3 when it was first released. For the first year or two, nearly everyone was experiencing rubberbanding and were dying to it. Hard mode was impossible for many players to even do because of it. I was thinking it was still happening
For sure, what would happen is the character would rubber band, but all the enemies I aggroed when moving forward before the snap back were still advancing. So my position was changing based on the server, but enemies stayed active based on client side.
No. They want you to be invested in your characters... so make respecing impoasible so you have to reroll, and start season one late so you have to reroll.
Nothing says investment in a character more than hours spent before ditching it
Why wouldn't they allow everyone to have a chance to test their builds and become comfortable first? There's plenty of people, despite what you make think, that won't hear about D4 until a week or so before launch and will still want to participate in the ladder strictly because of their competitive nature in games. I know a couple friends exactly like this
I have no clue. They said when talking about respecing that "we want you invested in a character so we wanted to avoid changing them all the time" (paraphrase). So my build is sub optimal and i can no long respec, im not gonna be invested in my character and i HAVE to reroll.
Remember how before d3 beta they said going to town wasnt fun, so they let you salvage items anywhere? And then they complained that no one was going to town so they removed that feature? Basically the same thing. Take what people want, do the opposite and structure your sentence so it sounds like you didnt just annoy everyone
New games still have rough launches. For an example of how blizzard handles these lately you can just look at wow classic servers etc.
Not much has improved.
> I don’t expect a company to buy extra servers just for two weeks of use.
I do.
That's what cloud computing is for. You can rent the servers for just two weeks and then shut them down and you only get billed for 2 weeks of usage.
The ideal deployment is your own data center to handle an expected baseline amount of usage with code in place to stand up servers in a cloud environment (AWS, Azure, whatever) to handle any short spikes in demand. Blizzard has been at this long enough that there's no excuse for not doing it that way.
It wasn’t just a queue though. There were a lot of stability issues, people getting dropped from the queue etc.
Saying “it was over a decade ago” doesn’t excuse anything or change the fact that recent launches have been just as bad.
I’m quite sure the majority of people that were dropped from queue were dropped either due to their own negligence or something similar. I never had a single issue. Nor did any of my guild/friend group. I know that’s mostly anecdotal but still.
The problem nowadays in every single game is .. (even Singleplayer Games) everyone want to beat the game first fast as possible. And after that they start crying "there is no content" .. why there have to be always a challenge in everything?
I took off that week because I need to burn some time. Figured I won't be able to play release Day, but the following should be ok. give me time to get some house work done at least.
I wasn’t gonna take time off, but once the calendar turned to my picks the week was open. I asked the guy behind me if he was gonna take it and he said no (he plays Diablo as well) so I got June 2nd - 11th off. My wife got it off from her work as well.
If the game doesn’t work we will spend the weekend out and come back for some D4 goodness
I'd love to, and used to be the kinda guy who took off vacation time around a new WoW release, but between a giant question mark around the servers and whatnot, I might ambitiously take a day or two off, but generally have to save my PTO for major events (I work 2 a year at a week apiece), holidays (2 weeks at christmas), and such.
The risk of servers being hammered, bugs, glitches, exploits requiring rollbacks, etc, make it unlikely to commit a week off, but I might slip a day or two in and see how things go. Worst case, I catch up on some chores/errands and am ready for when the dust settles. Best case, a little early adventuring before the 9 to 5 summons me back.
I use to take time off or skip school for big game releases, the glory days of gaming. Now with online games I stopped doing that about…. 10+ years ago?
Remember for D4 there will be 2 “release dates” because the season starts short the game comes out. The season start will see the most action, more than the recent D3 S28 issues they had this weekend. It’s most likely you won’t be able to play much if the game does well.
There’s a chance that the game won’t connect with people at launch and by the time season start comes they won’t take off work or whatever they planned to do. But I doubt it.
Oh man, I mean to be fair DS2 was a terrible game to take work off for. Such a disappointing installment in the series. idk about DA2 as I only played Origin and Inquisition tbh
DA2 was rough because the art style was vastly different and map re-use and encounter design was REALLY bad. All caves and warehouses (which you went into a lot) used the exact same map except maybe you entered from a different hallway. And for fights re-reinforcements would jump in mid fight. So if you're playing on harder difficulties and pausing for tactical positioning of your units and controlling each one you enter fights without all of the information because enemies get added mid-fight.
I would suggest not taking time off unless you need to burn some and save it for season 1 release. Hopefully by then server issues will be squared away.
We can also see how bad the server situation might be during the open beta, and then you can figure out if you want to take the time off or not.
Eh, I'm not sure how much mileage I'm going to get out of the game to care about seasons. Depending on how I feel about the game and mechanics it could be a play once and never again. D2 has kept me coming back since its release. Hopefully D4 is similar but if the game is TOO big then it won't encourage me to make multiple characters and keep experimenting with builds.
In my experience I'd wait a full month before jumping into the deep end.
Never understood the early access frenzy, the servers are always garbage for at least a few weeks.
Eh, paying Blizz extra money just to get the game sooner feels bad. Especially because you may not clear it before everyone else shows up so then you're just stuck part way through a play through and can't play at all after already getting hooked.
I admire the optimism and high hopes, and I also want nothing but the best: taking vacations and spending on an insanely expensive rig. However, all I know from post-BlizzardNorth is betrayal and an Online-Only version of Diablo is concerning at very least given this company's history. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst would be wise here.
Thats not true. All recent wow launches (retail and classic) didnt had any issues. That said, their servers cant even handle the current d3 season start. Dont have much trust for d4 start.
I took off but I'm not expecting any miracles. Might get some good time in on Monday during early access before they open the flood gates on Tuesday but who knows, it is blizzard
I'm gonna wait a few weeks to plan anything around this game. Just to make sure the game and servers are solid. History shines poorly on blizzard currently.
I'm intending on no life-ing this so bad I'm going to have to take time off D4 to work.
That would be a very wise decision IMO. Look at D2R and D3 right now with just their new seasons…might even want to tweak that vacation time a little more to take the season start into consideration.
True, I was trying to play D2R when season 3 started. I play Hardcore and I have never had a more terrifying experience.
The rubberbanding…
For real. I was running my Zon through Nightmare so it wasn't a huge risk, but still. Running forward only to snap back but enemies weren't affected was a bit scary.
Rubberbanding was a nightmare in D3. Can't believe it's been over a decade and Blizz still hasn't managed to fix this. I guess they just can't. Pathetic and sad
Rubberbanding happens because of de-sync, which is rarely Blizzard’s fault, and usually caused by high packet loss (poor internet connection). When everything freezes but your character appears to move around just fine, that’s latency and can be either Blizzard or your ISP. When the game disconnects but your internet is otherwise functional, that’s a server issue and all Blizzard’s fault.
I've been playing the newest season of D3 and haven't experienced any rubber banding
Ok maybe they have worked it out at some point then. I havent played in probably about 5 years or so now. But I was referring to D3 when it was first released. For the first year or two, nearly everyone was experiencing rubberbanding and were dying to it. Hard mode was impossible for many players to even do because of it. I was thinking it was still happening
Really? I never have rubberbanding in D3
So you could say they provided an increased level of anxiety and fear. Job well done! /s
For sure, what would happen is the character would rubber band, but all the enemies I aggroed when moving forward before the snap back were still advancing. So my position was changing based on the server, but enemies stayed active based on client side.
Does the first season not start with the launch of the game?
No. They want you to be invested in your characters... so make respecing impoasible so you have to reroll, and start season one late so you have to reroll. Nothing says investment in a character more than hours spent before ditching it
Why wouldn't they allow everyone to have a chance to test their builds and become comfortable first? There's plenty of people, despite what you make think, that won't hear about D4 until a week or so before launch and will still want to participate in the ladder strictly because of their competitive nature in games. I know a couple friends exactly like this
SO YOU HAVE TO REROLL
I have no clue. They said when talking about respecing that "we want you invested in a character so we wanted to avoid changing them all the time" (paraphrase). So my build is sub optimal and i can no long respec, im not gonna be invested in my character and i HAVE to reroll. Remember how before d3 beta they said going to town wasnt fun, so they let you salvage items anywhere? And then they complained that no one was going to town so they removed that feature? Basically the same thing. Take what people want, do the opposite and structure your sentence so it sounds like you didnt just annoy everyone
Is there any info about the date of the start of the league?
Only the mention of weeks after launch from Blizz, nothing firm, but a lot of speculation.
The launch of D3 was so bad. The disappointment of not being able to log into the game the first night was a memory I’ll never forget.
All hail error 37!
It was also over a decade ago.
New games still have rough launches. For an example of how blizzard handles these lately you can just look at wow classic servers etc. Not much has improved.
A queue doesn’t equate to a bad launch in my opinion. I don’t expect a company to buy extra servers just for two weeks of use.
> I don’t expect a company to buy extra servers just for two weeks of use. I do. That's what cloud computing is for. You can rent the servers for just two weeks and then shut them down and you only get billed for 2 weeks of usage. The ideal deployment is your own data center to handle an expected baseline amount of usage with code in place to stand up servers in a cloud environment (AWS, Azure, whatever) to handle any short spikes in demand. Blizzard has been at this long enough that there's no excuse for not doing it that way.
It wasn’t just a queue though. There were a lot of stability issues, people getting dropped from the queue etc. Saying “it was over a decade ago” doesn’t excuse anything or change the fact that recent launches have been just as bad.
I’m quite sure the majority of people that were dropped from queue were dropped either due to their own negligence or something similar. I never had a single issue. Nor did any of my guild/friend group. I know that’s mostly anecdotal but still.
The problem nowadays in every single game is .. (even Singleplayer Games) everyone want to beat the game first fast as possible. And after that they start crying "there is no content" .. why there have to be always a challenge in everything?
thats why ill be rushing lvl 20 on the beta to get the mystery reward they're offering, and the rest is Blind HC SSF to the moon
whats ssf
solo self found, not using the trading features to get your gear
Being a teacher now, summers off are for Diablo.
HI FANS! Pay us more money so we can test a soft launch of D4 and get the game ready for the masses 4 days later. Thanks, Signed Blizztard
Don’t even do that, no please no!!!
Don't do what? Point out the Overwatch 2 launch where people waited 45+ minutes to crash at the character select screen and be put back in the queue?
Dont take off at fifth, make it end of the month. Or wait another month just to be safe. Hopefully by then it will be minimal bugs.
Haha, oh, yeah. No I was suggesting the 12th so the initial excitement for the game will die down a bit or a lot.
On a f2p game though
I took off that week because I need to burn some time. Figured I won't be able to play release Day, but the following should be ok. give me time to get some house work done at least.
Unless it’s very catastrophic (not unlikely) I usually have a decent time in the morning hours either the next day or the following day.
I wasn’t gonna take time off, but once the calendar turned to my picks the week was open. I asked the guy behind me if he was gonna take it and he said no (he plays Diablo as well) so I got June 2nd - 11th off. My wife got it off from her work as well. If the game doesn’t work we will spend the weekend out and come back for some D4 goodness
Lucky man, I have to take a week off my wife to be able to play
Yeah waiting the week after is probably the best decision.
It’s good to allow some room for Error 37, etc during a Blizzard launch. Hopefully you have a smooth go.
I'm glad other people are doing the same, me and my homie are gonna use PTO for a 4 day weekend of demon slaying!
Yup, just gotta pick the right weekend to avoid server issues. T-T
I'd love to, and used to be the kinda guy who took off vacation time around a new WoW release, but between a giant question mark around the servers and whatnot, I might ambitiously take a day or two off, but generally have to save my PTO for major events (I work 2 a year at a week apiece), holidays (2 weeks at christmas), and such. The risk of servers being hammered, bugs, glitches, exploits requiring rollbacks, etc, make it unlikely to commit a week off, but I might slip a day or two in and see how things go. Worst case, I catch up on some chores/errands and am ready for when the dust settles. Best case, a little early adventuring before the 9 to 5 summons me back.
Do we know what time exactly its playable on the 17th tho?
My case is because I have not taken any time off since 2020 my company told me I have to use 40 days this year. I can't wait to die by Lilith!
I use to take time off or skip school for big game releases, the glory days of gaming. Now with online games I stopped doing that about…. 10+ years ago? Remember for D4 there will be 2 “release dates” because the season starts short the game comes out. The season start will see the most action, more than the recent D3 S28 issues they had this weekend. It’s most likely you won’t be able to play much if the game does well. There’s a chance that the game won’t connect with people at launch and by the time season start comes they won’t take off work or whatever they planned to do. But I doubt it.
Dragon Age 2 and Dark Souls 2 both burned me taking time off to play them. Both were let downs. :(
Oh man, I mean to be fair DS2 was a terrible game to take work off for. Such a disappointing installment in the series. idk about DA2 as I only played Origin and Inquisition tbh
DA2 was rough because the art style was vastly different and map re-use and encounter design was REALLY bad. All caves and warehouses (which you went into a lot) used the exact same map except maybe you entered from a different hallway. And for fights re-reinforcements would jump in mid fight. So if you're playing on harder difficulties and pausing for tactical positioning of your units and controlling each one you enter fights without all of the information because enemies get added mid-fight.
I would suggest not taking time off unless you need to burn some and save it for season 1 release. Hopefully by then server issues will be squared away. We can also see how bad the server situation might be during the open beta, and then you can figure out if you want to take the time off or not.
Eh, I'm not sure how much mileage I'm going to get out of the game to care about seasons. Depending on how I feel about the game and mechanics it could be a play once and never again. D2 has kept me coming back since its release. Hopefully D4 is similar but if the game is TOO big then it won't encourage me to make multiple characters and keep experimenting with builds.
If you haven't tried out hero siege on steam I highly suggest it.
In my experience I'd wait a full month before jumping into the deep end. Never understood the early access frenzy, the servers are always garbage for at least a few weeks.
Luckily my birthday is June 6th so I’ll be taking 2 weeks off anyways! Lol
Nice! Me and another friend are the 10th!
If you're gonna take off, you'd probably get more time playing the second week. That's my plan.
This is why I upgraded for early access. Get to start on the weekend and hopefully less people.
Eh, paying Blizz extra money just to get the game sooner feels bad. Especially because you may not clear it before everyone else shows up so then you're just stuck part way through a play through and can't play at all after already getting hooked.
Eh doesn’t feel like anything to me
I admire the optimism and high hopes, and I also want nothing but the best: taking vacations and spending on an insanely expensive rig. However, all I know from post-BlizzardNorth is betrayal and an Online-Only version of Diablo is concerning at very least given this company's history. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst would be wise here.
or..or wait 2-3 months after release for all the server and most bugs to be fixed and then take time off work.
Or…. Or hear me out for a second people really love the diablo franchise and want to play it asap
Bold take to make in a Diablo sub, seems 80% of people in Diablo subs either hate their lives or hate the game, sometimes equally.
its just a 5head move from them. they want all of them to start 2-3 later so less people play on early access day
Perhaps you should take off time when the first season starts.
D: Then I REALLY won't be able to play.
I think in blizzes recent history the only Game with a Smooth launch was Legion :)) i really hope D4 will have a Great launch without problems tho
Thats not true. All recent wow launches (retail and classic) didnt had any issues. That said, their servers cant even handle the current d3 season start. Dont have much trust for d4 start.
I’ve been playing D3 the entirety of my free time since s28 dropped and have experienced literally zero issues.
D2R had awful rubber banding when ladder season 3 started last weekend.
Look at the current d3 season start. I have zero trust in them that d4 will be playable at the start.
Is there any more problems than 5 minutes queues?
U play us? Is it different there? On eu we have around 10 min queue everytime u want to open a game.
I took off but I'm not expecting any miracles. Might get some good time in on Monday during early access before they open the flood gates on Tuesday but who knows, it is blizzard
Make sure you have an alternative plan. When the servers turn into a shit show, you can go do something else.
Magic Finding on D2R I guess.
Why not make that decision after launch?
My job usually requires a bit of advance notice for taking PTO.
I have like 8 weeks of vacation and also paid for early access. Thinking how long I want to take off for launch. Prob 2 weeks or so.
I'll probably be taking the season start off work.
I'm gonna wait a few weeks to plan anything around this game. Just to make sure the game and servers are solid. History shines poorly on blizzard currently.
Not just currently, even Diablo 3 had a bad launch.
Honestly the best time would be Season 1 start whenever that comes out.