Diablo 3? More like Diablo Pee! Amirite?
If there's one thing you can count on, it's that the Internet at any given time has got it's panties in a bunch about some stupid thing or another. Right now the totally hot thing to bitch about is Diablo 3, and I don't wanna be left out. If all the cool kids are doing it, then I want to as well.
I would like to hit this from a slightly different angle then most though. To start off with, I have not bought the game, and don't intend to for at least a few more weeks. In that regard I can't bitch about not being able to play the game I spent my hard stolen lunch money on. Before the game even came out I just knew the whole thing would be a fiasco wrapped up in a debacle. Me! Just some asshole with a shitty blog that nobody reads knew that the launch would be a disaster. So, why didn't the network engineers at Blizzard know this? You know, the guys that have the capability of 12 million simultaneous connections on their WoW servers. Or maybe they did know, and this was part of thier evil plan the whole time! (dun dun duuunn!!!) No, most likely it boils down to simple dollars, as things so often do. Why go on a spending overkill to ensure that all their paying customers can all get in the game smoothly if they don't have to. Someone at the top decided to launch with a bare minimum and ramp up as demand ramped up. Only the ramp was much steeper they could handle.
Now, like I said, I don't own the game, so I couldn't care less about whether the game is up or not, but here's the twist kids, hold on to your He-man underoos. My problem with this travesty of a launch is this: It servers to undermine ever further the validity of the PC as a viable gaming platform. Think about this: When was the last time you recall a triple A title released exclusively on the PC? (Not including MMO's) In this console happy day and age, that happens, well, this is probably the last, thanks to Blizzard fucking the whole thing up. This is how it looks to people on the outside looking in: Blizzard one the largest game companies in the world, renowned for it's impeccable quality standards, can't get thier game up and running on this platform. If they can't do it, who can? A lot of deveoplers are saying, "ah fuck it, let's just poop out our game on iOS and call it day." When's the last time you fired up the old xbox and just couldn't seem to log on to Barbie's Horse Adventure? Never! That shit just works! Turn the sumbitch on and play. That's what Diablo 3 NEEDS to do. Double click the icon and just play, no muss, no fuss, just play the damn game. That's one of the reasons PC gaming is losing ground to consoles.
So thanks Blizzard, this is why we can't have nice things.
-Jer
But anyone could juxtapose any PC server-related outages with the PSN outage of last year or any of the smaller, but still noteworthy, XBL outages. Furthermore, XBL is a service that you must pay for. In this instance, you better damn well get your money's worth (jokes on them though, they don't!).
ReplyDeleteThe main problem with Diablo III lies with the million kidlets and teenagers that bought the game. These fools have never played Diablo or Diablo II a day in their life. However, through mass marketing they just know they have to purchase and play Diablo III and of course they are going to be ridiculously impatient with it.
I have yet to purchase D3 though, as I had an unfortunate D2 addiction that I have no desire to re-live. Meh.
The difference is that nobody is calling into question the validity of the PS3 or Xbox as a platform, even with the evident lack of security. Developers continue to shy away from PC with a litany of excuses, and this just gives them more ammo. Really I just love gaming on my PC, and I don't want it to go away.
DeleteI will still pick up D3 at some point, I played the first two. I'm not remotely worried about some unhealthy addiction, I'm borderline ADD when it comes to games. Or maybe I just have an unhealthy obsession with the beginning of games. Or maybe an unhealthy fear of the end of games.
-Jer