A big, online-enabled game having server issues on day one should by now be about as surprising as when an in-depth scientific analysis of a piece of cheese reveals it be be made of cheese. Diablo III? Pretty bloody massive game. Server issues almost guaranteed. 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.
Oh, and did I mention that there seems to be no queuing system, so repeated attempts to sneak into the just-vacated gap left by another player require manual password entry each and every time? Look on the bright side. You'll be able to Ctrl+V faster than any mere mortal can possibly envision by the time this is over. Seriously, your non-Diablo-playing office colleagues will be in awe.
Above: The horror...
Blizzard's current response? A post on the official forum currently speaketh thusly:
"Due to high concurrency the login servers are currently at full capacity. This may cause delays in the login process, account pages and web services.
"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience while this is being resolved"
So, solutions? Higher server capacity or a queuing system would seem to be the obvious approaches. Other than that, it's just a case of keeping on trying until you get in, or waiting until server traffic settles down into a normal routine. It seems that this isn't a vastly complicated problem at the moment, just a simple case of the hardware not being able to take the strain of the entire world simultaneously trying to log into a sequel it has been anticipating for over a decade.
Still, consider the online DRM arguement well-and-truly cracked open once again. Can of worms, ACTIVATE!
Want some tasty minute-to-minute action while you wait to get logged in? The lovely Tom Francis over at PC Gamer is posting his Diablo 3 review as it happens.
