Despite Blizzard Entertainment’s previous pre-launch events and predictions, Diablo IV had a rocky start as unruly boss spawning and licensing issues plagued players during its early access. Kotaku has reported on both instances. First up is that PlayStation players had the unfortunate experience of finding out that their licenses were not getting properly authenticated thus preventing them from playing their paid-for game. Upon launching the game players were greeted with “Unable to find a valid license for Diablo IV” screens which prevented them from moving forward. Within an hour of its release, Blizzard was quick to respond.
We are looking into the Invalid License issue that some PlayStation users are reporting. We will update this forum thread once we have more information.https://t.co/U1KKQtQ4OW
— Adam Fletcher (@PezRadar) June 1, 2023
Kotaku also reported a workaround, but also for good reason recommended against doing, that it was discovered paying more could potentially let players get in. As it turns out, for some reason, paying a $1.99 fee could allow players to join the game.
Per Kotaku:
“I’m not recommending you do this—it’s not guaranteed to work, and you’ve paid for the game already, don’t pay more!—just pointing out it is very funny that a full-price game that is already going to try and fleece you with microtransactions is now inadvertently offering another to circumvent a rocky launch.”
A round of Bosses on us
On a somewhat more humorous note, there’s a side quest that could make even the most stoic demon chuckle. It’s a pretty simple looking and basic kill the boss and get its treasure type of quest. For most, this is a do-it-and-move-on type of thing but what do you do when the boss continually spawns more incarnations of themself? For now, one of Lillith’s little hench demons named Darcel is getting the last laugh on this one.
Per Kotaku:
“I went to kill Darcel and there was like 200 of him standing there, fix?” posted one user on Blizzard’s official Diablo forums. Another player jokingly posted a clip of the glitch on the Diablo subreddit, adding that they “did not expect Diablo IV [to be] this hard” and that it was “one too many Darcels for me.”
At the moment the early access launch, while not perfect, could be far worse in light of many others this year. The game is getting positive reviews and Blizzard is working on these issues and has released its first update for others.
Discussion (12 replies)
Join Discussion →I was a pretty big D1 and D2 fan, but D3 was meh.
Wondering if D4 is all that or just wait for it to go on sale. It seems to be getting mostly positive vibes, but not buying it based on that alone.
Seems like another "let's get this out there and fix it as we go" release.
It was AWESOME Thursday night starting at 6pm I was able to get in and start playing,
Played all day Friday... good times logged around midnight maybe 1am.
trying to get in today has been a shit show. They are actively working on issues, but the load is FAR higher.
Seems the login issues have been abated. Lets see what happens when the regular edition access starts on the 6 th.
It seems like what would be newsworthy nowadays is if a title has a problem free launch.
I never played any of the Diablo games before, I wonder if it is too late to start. But what worries me is that you can just skip the campaign in the game. I mean how much effort did they actually put into it if there is an option to skip it entirely? I worry, that it is just an afterthought not worth paying or playing for.
I played the first one back in the PS1 days but mainly because I wanted to play Gauntlet and that version was horrible. I got it on PC and had some fun but eventually got burnt out and never went back but I was surprised to see how huge it became over time.
I realy did not like D1 and 2, 3 was heaps better after they fixed it, might still get this one, could use a break from borderlands 3 and PEO and grim dawn are imo not that good, grim dawn has potential but I don't realy get how the stats work, too rusted in my old ways.
Honestly these days, and D4 is another example. I want to be able to enjoy the game and the story. And my idea of enjoying that is not number crunching every little piece to death. So I just pop over to icy-veins and said... Oh hey look a leveling build for my barb... guess what I'm doing... and the game content... still gives me enough to crunch between gear, and aspects, and gems. So I still get that aspect of it without worrying that the core build I'm playing is trash. (meaning ineffective and no fun.)
I played Grim Dawn years ago, but only the single-player campaign mode. The character classes and devotion system (with the various constellation trees) were interesting and fun to play with, but combat was ultra cheesy. And way too much mouse clicking. The "balancing" patches ultimately made it so that only a handful of builds were viable for the most difficult content — those that were defensively built to "facetank" the toughest mobs and bosses. The game loved to lock the player in tiny little rooms with no room to maneuver, and create encounters with monsters that moved at warped speed and could dispel all of your active and passive abilities and proceed to one-shot you. IIRC, that only became an issue at the highest difficulty level.
It was near impossible to see what was going on half the time because the screen was covered in special effects. I also played the game on a secondary PC with an ancient GPU that probably managed .001 FPS during the intense scenes, which probably didn't help.
I may have exaggerated a bit, as some of those frustrations apply to optional encounters and "super bosses" that you have to seek out. I actually think that Grim Dawn is a pretty interesting game, so don't let my criticisms stop you from enjoying it. This type of game probably just isn't for me. I played it with Ashes of Malmouth (AoM), which was the only expansion available at the time. The game may have changed a lot since then. I just remember wanting to play a summoner type character and feeling disappointed with the result: investing most or all of one's ability and devotion points into pets left the player too squishy, and enemies would just make a beeline for the player and ignore the wimpy pets. The gear that granted pet bonuses suffered from the same problem. I should add that I generally hate "boss" fights in games. They're inevitably contrived and inflexible.
Take a look at the following link if you haven't already: https://www.grimtools.com/
Yeah, me too. Casually for a lengthy period. Most of the super high end builds provided by the community tended to have gear a casual player would never find. But I enjoyed the dual-class and constellation skill augments as different for the genre. I have all of the expansions, but I have never played the Crucible because it's simply not something I think I would enjoy (it came with a bundle). AoM and Forgotten Gods were ... interesting ... additions. They're the result of the community asking for MOAR STUFFZ!
Backing up further in this thread, I played the hell out of Diablo and Diablo 2 and all their expansions (pun intended). I recently acquired a copy of the D2 remake, and I'm not at all impressed. I also tried D3 and, again, I'm not at all impressed. I tried launching the offline version of D2 and I'm required to "check in" with the Battle Net servers periodically before I can play offline. Fudge that! At this point, the franchise is headed toward being dead to me. I doubt my arm could be twisted far enough to try D4. It just doesn't appeal. But good on those who do.
I mean at it's core Diablo is just a pretty version of Vampires. ;)
D2 remaster without drm free or offline mode or direct IP or lan was just kinda pointless. I got it and the D3 Necro last holiday sale and wasn't impressed. Had more fun back in D3.
D4 stress test was ok but I'm not sure worth $70.