Complaints, gripes, kvetches...

[Merusk]

Yeah, anything that isn't a weapon or armor can't be traded on the AH.  I was trying to find out if it was reasonable to destroy rather than vendor blues now found you can't get the essences in search results.    I suppose that's one way to try and force people to use the jewelcrafter.  My stash is filling up with shit gems but it doesn't make sense to upgrade due to costs.  I guess I'm supposed to vendor them.

Last time the commodity AH was up it was far better to vendor blues than to sell the essences*. And I am not quite sure, but I think to recall reading that gem-upgrading costs will be fixed.

Edit:

*To back that up with numbers, "Subtles Essences" were selling for 26 gold each.

Oh yeah, I'm quite aware of that.  I was wanting to see if the prices had gone up at all or if they were still down in the 'lol who does that' range.

[Xanthippe]

I'm entirely sure there is nothing of a technical nature wrong with the commodities AH.

I suspect they shut it down because it made the game trivial.

I don't know about that.  When it was up, it was impossible to use. I suspect it had problems because it had such a shitty interface. Whoever thought the design for the auction system for gems was sufficient is an idiot.

[Ironwood]

Wow, all these issues. Glad I didn't buy D3 (the AH and online-only raised one too many flags for me and what I want in my Diablo) despite the fact I still play D2 regularly. Didn't think it would be this bad, though.

You're reading the headlines in the news paper, "EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE, WE"RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!"  Stop reading the headlines, turn off the talking heads and give the game a shot.  If you love D2 there is nothing here that's not at least as good (IMO) and generally better than it was there.

This is excellent advice.  Please, by all means sink 60 of your hard earned chunks into a game that blows same.

[kildorn]

Wow, all these issues. Glad I didn't buy D3 (the AH and online-only raised one too many flags for me and what I want in my Diablo) despite the fact I still play D2 regularly. Didn't think it would be this bad, though.

You're reading the headlines in the news paper, "EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE, WE"RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!"  Stop reading the headlines, turn off the talking heads and give the game a shot.  If you love D2 there is nothing here that's not at least as good (IMO) and generally better than it was there.

This is excellent advice.  Please, by all means sink 60 of your hard earned chunks into a game that blows same.

Err, isn't there a free demo thing up for download?

[Mrbloodworth]

I think that's only if you have a key from a preorder user. Unless they recently added it.

[Xanthippe]

I would be completely pissed off if the US servers were like the Euro servers. Since they haven't been down for the most part, I've been able to play the game and enjoy it more than I ever enjoyed D2 (which I thought was really fun).

Are the US servers too laggy for Europeans to play on?

Do companies outsource running the servers or what? What explains the difference in how well/poorly the US/Euro servers are?

[kildorn]

I think that's only if you have a key from a preorder user. Unless they recently added it.

Aha, found it. It's a pass from an owner for 30 days, so in two weeks the starter edition should be live for general use. Well then!

[kildorn]

I would be completely pissed off if the US servers were like the Euro servers. Since they haven't been down for the most part, I've been able to play the game and enjoy it more than I ever enjoyed D2 (which I thought was really fun).

Are the US servers too laggy for Europeans to play on?

Do companies outsource running the servers or what? What explains the difference in how well/poorly the US/Euro servers are?

Depends on how stupid Blizzard's folks are being or who they outsourced to. I know for my company we rank a 9/10 on the idiocy scale for our UK datacenters and insist on shipping everything to a DC in the states and then re-shipping it overseas (and then having non stop fun by annoying our UK DC folks by using US style C13/C14 power..)

If they're smart, they'd ship directly and be hosting somewhere that could provide some burst capacity if needed (every DC I'm in right now also hosts a 'cloud' service that they're willing to bend you over a barrel for access to on a burst basis)

Really, I can't think of any reason for the EU issues with the servers. Mostly because that much downtime repeatedly during prime hours would maybe be understandable two or three days in a row if something lit on fire or you can't find a vendor with spare gear to sell you. After that your duct tape fixes should be in place damnit.

I suspect part of the issue is that EU data privacy law prevents them from simply redirecting you to US login servers to bypass any bottlenecks. At least it's the issue we've run into when trying to use US sites as DR of last resort for UK datacenters.

fake edit: I'm actually kind of fascinated as to what is going wrong over there. It's pretty much a nuclear event to have that much repeated downtime in a service. I can't figure what the shit is wrong unless they absolutely can't get more power in their cage and the solution is "more servers"

[Ratman_tf]

So, I tried to log into my account this morning, and I'm locked out. (I have an authenticator) I go to reset my password, and I'm still locked out. I can't submit a trouble ticket because I can't log in to my account. 
WTF?

[kildorn]

So, I tried to log into my account this morning, and I'm locked out. (I have an authenticator) I go to reset my password, and I'm still locked out. I can't submit a trouble ticket because I can't log in to my account. 
WTF?

https://us.battle.net/account/support/login-support.html

There should be a button there for being currently locked out that does not require a login.

[Tebonas]

I would be completely pissed off if the US servers were like the Euro servers. Since they haven't been down for the most part, I've been able to play the game and enjoy it more than I ever enjoyed D2 (which I thought was really fun).

Are the US servers too laggy for Europeans to play on?

Do companies outsource running the servers or what? What explains the difference in how well/poorly the US/Euro servers are?

They are somewhat laggier, but the main Problem is you lose all your Progress when you switch.

[Segoris]

Given how long and often the Euro servers are down, I don't think you'd lose too much by switching then 

[Mrbloodworth]

IF its any help. My ping stays around 300ms, and spikes up to 2500. I'm US, playing in the US.

[Jeff Kelly]

The problem is that Diablo 3 cannot use the concept of sharding so everything is either a big-ass single cluster where everyone is directed to (e.g. Auction House) or you have to dynamically create and destroy shards with lots and lots of signalling between them whenever people want to play together because they are probably assigned to two different shards at the moment.

Imagine if you will as if all WoW players had to use the same server cluster.

You have a metric crapton of items in the AH, probably at least two orders of magnitude more than you have on any WoW server. People constantly leave and enter games to reset maps, average play time is less so you have a much higher load on the login infrastructure and instance servers.

If everyone plays single player you nevertheless have to create instances on your server for each one of them because they might at any time be joined by another player.

And in contrast to WoW everything has to be NOSQL because RDBS tend to be bad at that transaction per minute numbers we're probably getting with Diablo.

Combine that with evidence that Diablo 3 is either a little bit rushed or lacks polish and you have a recipe for trouble.

I liked the blue post by the Diablo developer a lot but it also made me shake my head in disbelief about how clueless they are about some features.

I mean come on, if a player suggests that it's annoying to have to log into your game to repair items because you cannot see their stats in the AH otherwise and the answer to that is basically "Hey great idea, we should really do something about that" then they are exceptionally clueless or lazy.

Also "our interface is not at all customizable, so feature X would be hard or impossible to implement", from a company that has another online game with a fully customizable and extendable UI based on LUA.

Some of those answers were weapons grade stupid and showed that they basically didn't think many things through.

[Ratman_tf]

So, I tried to log into my account this morning, and I'm locked out. (I have an authenticator) I go to reset my password, and I'm still locked out. I can't submit a trouble ticket because I can't log in to my account. 
WTF?

https://us.battle.net/account/support/login-support.html

There should be a button there for being currently locked out that does not require a login.

Huh. I could log in to the game just fine, but can't log in to my account through battle.net. Maybe battle.net is getting brute forced?

[Tannhauser]

Also, aren't all the servers on the West Coast?  That would more affect our Euro friends' latency/stability wouldn't it?

Love D3 much more than D2, but the entire AH needs to be nuked from orbit. 

[Cheddar]

IF its any help. My ping stays around 300ms, and spikes up to 2500. I'm US, playing in the US.

Still in Mid Atlantic?  Same issue here, though gotten better.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yep.

[Zetor]

Also, aren't all the servers on the West Coast?  That would more affect our Euro friends' latency/stability wouldn't it?

Love D3 much more than D2, but the entire AH needs to be nuked from orbit.  

I don't play D3, but I did play WOW on a west coast server from Europe.. it wasn't pleasant at all. 700+ ping was commonplace (with occasional 6000-7000 ms latency bursts) and playing a melee character was pretty much out of the question.

[apocrypha]

I spent a couple of hours playing a Barbarian on the US servers last week (I'm in the UK) and had a constant ping of about 250ms.

Thing is that it's easy and free to check. If you want to play on a different region's servers you can do so any time and see how it works out for you.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

What is the point of having a server status page if it does not automatically poll the actual server status?

[Merusk]

Near the end of Act3 nightmare and still not a single legendary.  I'm getting sad.

[01101010]

What is the point of having a server status page if it does not automatically poll the actual server status?

To give the impression that everything is fine and dandy.   

Near the end of Act3 nightmare and still not a single legendary.  I'm getting sad.

I finally got a lvl 40 legendary Xbow to drop in Whimsy on Nightmare... while farming. Pretty sure it dropped off a cloud as well. Otherwise, level 57 Barb in Act2 of Hell and never seen one till then.

[SurfD]

I got my first legendary yesterday.  After clearing up to act 3 Hell on 2 toons, most of nightmare on 2 more, and doing countless farm runs for Staff of Hearding mats (still no fucking Liquid Rainbow), my Witchdoctor got a level 15 2 handed Axe with pretty much useless stats off a Demonic Vessel in act 3 Normal.   I cried.

[Paelos]

I've played ~70 hours without seeing a legendary on my barb.

[Jeff Kelly]

Now that the servers work (most of the time anyway) I've managed to reach hell act 2 and hit a wall.

I'm level 56 and I'm outgeared and constantly die to elite or rare mobs. Kiting is neigh impossible because everything I encounter is fast. (and the RNG has a fondness for sticking "invulnerable minions" or "arcane enchanted" on mobs) and my gear is sub par.

Problem is that I already don mostly level 52+ gear so I don't expect huge upgrades to stuff until I hit 60. Other problem is that everything with resists on it is hugely expensive in the 55 to 60 level in the AH.

So I spend every penny I earn to get modest to slight upgrades on the AH yet I constantly die anyway.

Only other option I see is redoing ACTs 1 and 2 to farm money so that I can spend millions on the AH for the good stuff and get XP. Not my idea of fun but avoiding elite obs because I simply can't kite them seems equally bad. I'll also never get past Belial in my current state.

One of the unbeatable combos so far was fast, molten (other was same combo but arcane enchanted), mortar, invulnerable minions on the naga of act 2. So you can't kite them (fast), can't shoot them from afar (mortar) can't engage them close range (molten resp. arcane enchanted), most of your shots don't hit the target (invulnerable minions block them) and once you get to far away they cloak and you can't hit them. Also the naga hit really hard.

So I'm stuck at the moment

[Xanthippe]

Near the end of Act3 nightmare and still not a single legendary.  I'm getting sad.

I did not get a legendary until I got to inferno with NV. Now I have 2 legendaries (both from inferno).

I have never stacked MF.

I don't know what they are because I heard that they are going to buff legendaries in the next big patch (1.0.3?) but the buff only applies to unidentified legendaries. So I tossed them into stash for future identifying.

[Paelos]

Some options then:

1 - Upgrade your weapon. You'll see the biggest bang for the buck doing this. Weapons in the middle teir with sockets can be cheaper subs for good DPS with
2 - Level up in the lower zones. Getting to 60 will help a lot.
3 - Once 60, if you still have issues, go into nightmare with 5 stacks of the Nephalem buff and buy yourself a goldfind set. If you do it right, you can stack over 200% GF and make a ton of cash.

[Xanthippe]

Those are great suggestions.

Leveling up is most efficiently accomplished by repeating quests rather than killing mobs.  You could also stack exp% until you hit 60. That stuff is often underpriced and easy to find.

I prefer to work on achievements like finding books or finding places I've never been to straight out farming, because it distracts me from the idea that I'm farming, since I hate farming.

You could also try multiplayer, and get thru hell with someone else. Some packs are best bypassed rather than killed.

[MrHat]

Some options then:

1 - Upgrade your weapon. You'll see the biggest bang for the buck doing this. Weapons in the middle teir with sockets can be cheaper subs for good DPS with
2 - Level up in the lower zones. Getting to 60 will help a lot.
3 - Once 60, if you still have issues, go into nightmare with 5 stacks of the Nephalem buff and buy yourself a goldfind set. If you do it right, you can stack over 200% GF and make a ton of cash.

It's been suggested before but -Level Requirement L60 weapons will break your hump.

[Der Helm]

What is the point of having a server status page if it does not automatically poll the actual server status?

So I am not the only one who can't connect to the server ? 

[Xanthippe]

What is the point of having a server status page if it does not automatically poll the actual server status?

So I am not the only one who can't connect to the server ?  

Tuesday update/maintenance! Until 11am Pacific Time - except it's Wednesday!

[Der Helm]

Tuesday update/maintenance! Until 11am Pacific Time - except it's Wednesday!

So the maintenance is taking them a bit longer ?

[calapine]

@Jeff: What class are you?

1) Pealos said it, but bears repeating. Go to the AH, enter you level and sort weapons by DPS. Don't worry about the other stats, unless it's a really cheap weapon.

2) I didn't bother with "All Resitance" until level 60. I purchased 99% of my gear from the AH, looking for Int, Vit and MagicFind. OK gear is not expensive at all, I mostly capped my search at 30-40k gold for armor (more for chest pieces). Stuff without MF is even cheaper.

3) Group with someone. Sounds you are playing a kiting class...as a wizard the difficulty drops dramitically once you play with someone else. A lot less kiting is involved if some dumb barbarian takes all the heat for you. *glances at Pealos* But honestly most class combos have good synergies. Wiz+Wiz is wicked fun.

4) Find a Sugardaddy or Sugarmommy. I am farming Hell Act 4/Inferno Act I and keep finding rare lvl 55 gear I know I never will use. Most F13eers are even farther in.

4.5) For god sake come to the US server. It's were all the cool people are!

[Paelos]

Yep, I do wander into stuff like a whirlwinding idiot.

And pAElos, not pEAlos.