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Diablo III

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That's interesting! I'm assuming your phone is a 3GS or earlier(?) and that it has to do with name shortening thing. Unless you're on an iPad, in which case the app just has a different bundle display name or something.

I am on a 3GS, so I imagine there's a set character limit for the icon title of an app that the developer has to stick to. This is a pretty good one. The Witcher Interactive Comic Book devs didn't come up with quite as elegant a solution, for example - their app is titled "The...Book".

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My copy of Diablo III arrived in the post yesterday, a whole 4 days early! :woohoo:

Setup downloads a patch for itself before you even get to the welcome screen, which blocks you from installing the game early. :(

This seems petty and entirely pointless. :tdown:

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My copy of Diablo III arrived in the post yesterday, a whole 4 days early! :woohoo:

Setup downloads a patch for itself before you even get to the welcome screen, which blocks you from installing the game early. :(

This seems petty and entirely pointless. :tdown:

I had exactly the same experience. I'm probably going to preload the client from the Battle.net site before Tuesday, just keeping the disc as a backup in case I don't find time to do so or somehow manage to fuck up the download.

Edit: You're not saying you expected to play early, right? I mean, I see how that'd make sense if you don't know how Blizzard generally works, but yeah that never happens. All of their games are server-based these days and they refuse to flip the switch before time. The best you could have hoped for (and that I was hoping for) was to get to install it from disc early rather than having to pre-download.

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Edit: You're not saying you expected to play early, right? I mean, I see how that'd make sense if you don't know how Blizzard generally works, but yeah that never happens. All of their games are server-based these days and they refuse to flip the switch before time. The best you could have hoped for (and that I was hoping for) was to get to install it from disc early rather than having to pre-download.

I hoped I might be able to do something at least, like install the flipping thing but not really play.

To not even be allowed to use the disc ahead of time is what seems petty; let me install it, sure, but I wouldn't complain about being locked out until Tuesday after the fact.

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there's a patch for the installer?

  1. Insert DVD
  2. DVD 'autorun' immediately connects to the web
  3. Autorun downloads a large(?) patch for Setup
  4. Setup eventually runs, typical Blizzard menu appears
  5. Pop-up also immediately appears, saying the game isn't unlocked yet
  6. Quit setup and eject the DVD

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Yeah, my experience exactly. It was very disappointing. Also feels somehow unfair to be worse off with physical media, since pre-downloading will make sure you have exactly the files needed for Tuesday, whereas what's on the disc may be somewhat out of date. The last thing I want is to install it from disc on the day and then have to download further patches anyway while everyone else is also trying to do that.

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This sounds dumb. It's not a big issue, but entirely pointless complication nonetheless.

Is it possible to pre-download the game and use to retail CD-key to activate it or something?

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Is it possible to pre-download the game and use to retail CD-key to activate it or something?

Yes. That's what I'm doing now. You can use the retail key to activate Diablo III on your Battle.net account (and in fact need to in order to play the game) and at that point you have access to the pre-download client in the same way as if you'd bought it digitally. Obviously it still can't actually be played until Tuesday though.

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Is it possible to pre-download the game and use to retail CD-key to activate it or something?

I haven't tried it on BattleNet, but I would imagine so just like the older games I have on there (all physical purchases that I later tapped into Blizzard's site).

Edit: Yep, I've just added it to my BattleNet account.

There were two main reasons for me getting a physical copy, however:

  1. Cheaper* than Blizzard's fixed pricing
  2. My download speed at home is awful (about 125kb/s)

Whilst the cheaper price was nice, I'm pissed off with Blizzard cockblocking a physical media install for exactly the same reasons Gwardinen stated.

* I paid £27 for my copy, which is roughly €34 or $44 US.

Edited by Wrestlevania
Tinkering with CD keys and websites.

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for what it's worth, the behavior of the physical disc described by Gwardinen is identical to the digital download copy.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that -- if Blizzard is planning a day-1 patch -- they punted it out of both the disc and the initial digital download, and it'll be downloaded through the WoW-style installer we saw in the beta, which we don't even have access to yet.

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for what it's worth, the behavior of the physical disc described by Gwardinen is identical to the digital download copy.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that -- if Blizzard is planning a day-1 patch -- they punted it out of both the disc and the initial digital download, and it'll be downloaded through the WoW-style installer we saw in the beta, which we don't even have access to yet.

Yeah, having now started (and then stopped) pre-downloading the client from Battle.net, I actually think digital and retail are in the same boat. You can't patch properly from the digital pre-download either, so I'm guessing the pre-download and what's on the disc are identical and equally unupdateable, despite that being pretty dumb.

Just pray there's no day 0 patch, I guess, because if so everyone's going to have to download it at once.

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If you have a digital copy from Blizzard (or your physical copy arrived early), you can install as of a few hours ago, and I'd recommend it to avoid the launch-day crowds.

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If you have a digital copy from Blizzard (or your physical copy arrived early), you can install as of a few hours ago, and I'd recommend it to avoid the launch-day crowds.

Yeah, for Europe the installation became open 7 hours prior to the release time, I don't know if the same schedule is being followed in other regions or if the installation time was global as technically the software is global.

That said, you won't really be avoiding the launch day crowds very much, because you'll still need to login to play when the servers go live. What's more all games effectively have to be created on the server (even singleplayer games) so there may well be queues for both logging in and creating games. Alternatively (or potentially additionally), there may be lag in the game, again, even in singleplayer.

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Yeah, you can start the game, watch the intro, set the options and even enter your log-in credentials, and then it looks like you'll actually be able to log in, but then you're told the servers are down for maintenance.

Was anyone else disappointed by the intro video quality? That was some terrible stuff.

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This is what I get for ignoring all the news on this because I didn't want to anticipate it for the last 3....5 years.

I had no idea it was coming out this year, let alone tomorrow.

shit.

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Was anyone else disappointed by the intro video quality? That was some terrible stuff.

Do you mean visually or the writing? It looked fine, and the dialogue was just... dull. But honestly I've always thought the Diablo lore was the weakest of the three big Blizzard franchise. The Diablo games aren't really built around a strong narrative, I don't think. The game mechanics have tended to take precedence in such a way that make the games very much an interlocking of systems.

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To be honest, the best story in any of Blizzard's games is in The Lost Vikings. Diablo 1 didn't have much of a story, and I think that was a good decision, leaving the player much in the dark instead of presenting a half-assed plot.

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Do you mean visually or the writing?

I mean the video quality. Blizzard have always been great at awesome, beautiful CGI, but the intro had such terrible compression artifacts, parts of it was just a big mess of blocks.

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I mean the video quality. Blizzard have always been great at awesome, beautiful CGI, but the intro had such terrible compression artifacts, parts of it was just a big mess of blocks.

I thought I noticed that when the angels first appeared and were zooming over something, but then I wondered if I was just being tricked by the moving line drawing over paper style. It's a bit too dull of a cinematic for me to want to go back and check.

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I mean the video quality. Blizzard have always been great at awesome, beautiful CGI, but the intro had such terrible compression artifacts, parts of it was just a big mess of blocks.

Hah, that was the one thing that really stuck out to me as well. The algorithm just choked on the hand-drawn look they used for most of the cinematic. It was so jarring.

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By the by, does anyone who's going to play on European servers tonight (you can switch at any time) want to group up for the hours after release?

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