Author Topic: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*  (Read 7361 times)

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Offline The Illusive Man

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Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« on: May 31, 2012, 09:02:57 pm »
Quote
The government has launched an investigation into Blizzard Entertainment over allegations that the American computer game maker has refused to refund Koreans who purchased its latest real-time role-playing game Diablo 3.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said the firm is suspected of having violated the country’s law on electronic commerce and commercial contracts. The FTC said Tuesday that it raided the firm’s Seoul office Monday and secured related documents and other evidence with which it will determine whether Blizzard broke the law.

*further down*

Other FTC officials said the probe is aimed at confirming whether the firm has sold the game based on what they describe as an “unfair” contract so that people cannot receive refunds even if they discover problems with the game. They said they are studying whether the company should be held liable for “ill-preparation” for unexpected traffic.

Ruh-roh, that is Blizzards major consumer base! They really should have built more Pylons Overlords Supply depos farms Vespene refineries infrastructure and debugged Battle.net 2.0!


For those who do not know about the relationship between Blizzard and Korea, here is a history on how it began and how everything starting turning to shit:

http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-one
Its quite long, but read it anyway. You will learn quite a few things and laugh.


Earlier history:
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-one
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-two
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-three
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-four

Things go downhill:
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-five
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-creation-of-battle-net-2-0-part-six
« Last Edit: May 31, 2012, 09:13:42 pm by The Illusive Man »
Despite knowing about indoctrination I thought it was a good idea to put a human Reaper near my office. Now I am a sentient husk :(.

*RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR* *SCREECH* *smokes*


Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2012, 11:16:13 pm »
Oh, give me a fucking break.  These are the same exact issues that hit the USA and Europe.  It's called EVERYONE TRYING TO PLAY AT ONCE!

Fucking whiny shits.
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Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2012, 11:30:20 pm »
Who the hell demands a refund because one of the most highly anticipated online games of all time is having trouble keeping up in the first few days? The problems were pretty much entirely solved within days.

It's stupid on the part of the company to set up servers in accordance with first-day projections. The traffic those first couple of days will likely be higher than at any other point in the game's lifespan. If you plan for that specific day, within a week you have rooms full of useless servers.

I understand is can be disappointing, but asking for a refund over normal issue is stupid. Nevermind issues of refunding video games anyway--once a person has downloaded the program/opened the game package, there's nothing to stop them from copying the software. You can shut off their account access, but you can't take back the coding. And I can all but guarantee there's already pirate servers up and running.

Offline Juna Starrider

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2012, 07:26:45 am »
Looks like Illusive man isn't content enough to bash ME3 endlessly, now he's moved on to the next biggest target, Blizzard. 

Offline The Illusive Man

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2012, 08:02:40 am »
Looks like Illusive man isn't content enough to bash ME3 endlessly, now he's moved on to the next biggest target, Blizzard.

Are you actually going to read the article and links posted? Otherwise you are missing out on the history of bad blood that formed between Blizzard (before Activision merger and after) and Korea (Garena and KeSPA (Korean e-Sports Players Association)) that makes the raid on Blizzard not surprising. Context pertaining to information matters.
Despite knowing about indoctrination I thought it was a good idea to put a human Reaper near my office. Now I am a sentient husk :(.

*RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR* *SCREECH* *smokes*


Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2012, 09:56:09 am »
This is what I see:

KeSPA didn't want to agree to Blizzard's terms for broadcasting rights. Someone else did. This made KeSPA pissy, because their entire market is broadcasting Blizzard games. So KeSPA started using underhanded measures to get StarCraft 2 labelled "adults only" and thus not able to be broadcast in Korea at all. They failed. So they caved like the parasites they are and agreed to actually do what the makers of the games that make them money wanted them to.

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #6 on: June 01, 2012, 10:16:44 am »
Who the hell demands a refund because one of the most highly anticipated online games of all time is having trouble keeping up in the first few days? The problems were pretty much entirely solved within days.
From what I understand it's largely people trying to play in webcafes, who got completely cheated out of whatever money they paid to try any play it. And some how blizzard is responsible for this rather than the people who sold them the time.

Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #7 on: June 01, 2012, 11:35:59 am »
Who the hell demands a refund because one of the most highly anticipated online games of all time is having trouble keeping up in the first few days? The problems were pretty much entirely solved within days.
From what I understand it's largely people trying to play in webcafes, who got completely cheated out of whatever money they paid to try any play it. And some how blizzard is responsible for this rather than the people who sold them the time.

Honestly, I'd say it's the consumer's fault, not even the webcafé. Everyone knew full well it would be hell to play those first few days. There was no avoiding it. The same thing happened with SC2. The same thing happens with every online-only game that's big news. People swarm those first few days, trying to get a taste of the action.

Is it understandable? Absolutely. I feel that itch too, and the only reason I wasn't counted amongst the throngs is because my current computer couldn't hope to run D3. But to go to a webcafé and spend money to access a game that any rational person knows is going to be unstable for the first days is just stupid.

Offline The Illusive Man

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #8 on: June 01, 2012, 02:05:57 pm »
Who the hell demands a refund because one of the most highly anticipated online games of all time is having trouble keeping up in the first few days? The problems were pretty much entirely solved within days.
From what I understand it's largely people trying to play in webcafes, who got completely cheated out of whatever money they paid to try any play it. And some how blizzard is responsible for this rather than the people who sold them the time.

Honestly, I'd say it's the consumer's fault, not even the webcafé.

Look at how ignorant of Korean culture you are. Secondly, webcafé stand to gain profit by violating Blizzard's EULA. Was it somehow forgotten how Diablo II and games with online functionality are handled by webcafés? Or how webcafés make a profit?

Blizzard made Battle.net 2.0 to force people to use it. LAN is competition, other services are competition. Exclusion is their new business model.


Everyone knew full well it would be hell to play those first few days. There was no avoiding it. The same thing happened with SC2. The same thing happens with every online-only game that's big news. People swarm those first few days, trying to get a taste of the action.

  • Given that Blizzard has forced everybody to use Battle.net 2.0 for everything since WoW, why is this considered acceptable?
  • If there is inevitably going to be outages, hacks, ect why place all of your eggs in one basket?
  • For the love of all that is holy do not rely on a digital distribution method if the above occurs!

Valve realized such a while ago, thus Steam has an offline mode and games can be installed via physical medium.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2012, 02:23:23 pm by The Illusive Man »
Despite knowing about indoctrination I thought it was a good idea to put a human Reaper near my office. Now I am a sentient husk :(.

*RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR* *SCREECH* *smokes*


Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #9 on: June 01, 2012, 02:28:32 pm »
"For the love of all that is holy do not rely on a digital distribution method if the above occurs!"

By that astounding lack of logic, no company should ever use digital distribution.  Try coming up with decent arguments this time.
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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #10 on: June 01, 2012, 02:34:21 pm »
Look at how ignorant of Korean culture you are. Secondly, webcafé stand to gain profit by violating Blizzard's EULA. Was it somehow forgotten how Diablo II and games with online functionality are handled by webcafés? Or how webcafés make a profit?
Knowledge of web cafe culture is reasonably limited. Which would be why I put it out there.

Quote
  • Given that Blizzard has forced everybody to use Battle.net 2.0 for everything since WoW, why is this considered acceptable?
  • If there is inevitably going to be outages, hacks, ect why place all of your eggs in one basket?
  • For the love of all that is holy do not rely on a digital distribution method if the above occurs!

Valve realized such a while ago, thus Steam has an offline mode and games can be installed via physical medium.
Simple, because they don't want the rampant, rampant rampant piracy which occured with the earlier games happening again. They want to actually make money from the people who play their games.

Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #11 on: June 01, 2012, 03:05:05 pm »
So... I'm ignorant of Korean culture... because I think it's stupid for people to pay a webcafé money to access a brand new online-only game during the first few days after its release, when access to that game is pretty much guaranteed to be unreliable?

This isn't something limited to Blizzard games. Blizzard just happens to produce a lot of games that fall into this category. Any game that is online only, and really popular, will have trouble in those first few days. This is entirely unavoidable, as the only way to avoid it is to basically double the number of servers you think you'd need for standard traffic--which means half of your servers are basically useless as soon as that initial rush is over. It's entirely possible you'd even have to run triple or quadruple the number of servers you estimate you'd need on a normal day to handle that initial surge without issues.

I have no sympathy for the webcafés. They made assloads of money by abusing the fact that accounts in Diablo 2 and StarCraft weren't tied to any specific CD key, meaning they only had to buy one copy of the game per computer to serve infinite customers a free game. I'm glad Blizzard's made it so that these places don't get a free ride on Blizzard's work anymore.

As for your three point list at the end:

1: Because it's their game, and they can run it how they choose to. If you don't like what they're doing, don't buy their product. It really is that simple.

2: Because the singleplayer aspect of Blizzard games honestly doesn't matter. Diablo has always been a multiplayer game that you could play alone if you wanted. Same with StarCraft. They're making their games with the fact in mind that the world increasingly has stable high-speed internet access. Does it suck for the extremely small minority of players who don't have this? Yep. But the world can't stay still to cater to them. Outages, maintenance, etc are simply a fact of life for online games, and something everyone has either already has learned to deal with, or will very soon.

3: ...Why? "Digital distribution" just means how you get the game software. Diablo 3 has both digital distribution and physical copy options. So I don't see why you even say this.

As for your little Valve tidbit: Quite a lot of games on Steam have no physical medium. They're digital-only titles. And offline mode only matters if the game you're playing can be played offline. I don't think offline mode matters if you want to play TF2.

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #12 on: June 01, 2012, 03:59:11 pm »
Yaez, I agree with most of your points, but Diablo 1's ending (and therefore the plot of 2) kind of relied on playing solo, so it was more of a single-player game with a multiplayer option. So, no, it wasn't always a multiplayer franchise. Besides, what's the point of having a single player option if you have to be online all the time in order to play at all? Oh, and I don't think that not having always-online DRM is the world "staying still", it's a matter of not bothering with DRM which will only serve to inconvinience legitimate customers.

Offline Yaezakura

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #13 on: June 01, 2012, 04:14:58 pm »
Yaez, I agree with most of your points, but Diablo 1's ending (and therefore the plot of 2) kind of relied on playing solo, so it was more of a single-player game with a multiplayer option. So, no, it wasn't always a multiplayer franchise. Besides, what's the point of having a single player option if you have to be online all the time in order to play at all? Oh, and I don't think that not having always-online DRM is the world "staying still", it's a matter of not bothering with DRM which will only serve to inconvinience legitimate customers.

I realize. But even back then, Diablo played much better as a multiplayer experience. The original Diablo didn't even have hirelings to help make up for your PC's lacking traits. And the completely random of drops really does just lead to a multiplayer experience being better, where even if an item you find sucks for you, it may be awesome for someone else.

As for single-player being online, I do find a rather appropriate reason for it, and that's eliminating the separation of single and multi-player characters. In Diablo 2, you couldn't use your single player character online, because there was no way to ensure the character wasn't altered using third-party programs. In Diablo 3, since this separation no longer exists, one can play Normal difficulty solo to experience the story at their own pace, then go multiplayer with friends for Nightmare and beyond, using the same character they've already been working on. When I do finally get the game, this is the route I'll likely be going myself, and I'm really glad I have that option. It's an option I wouldn't have if Diablo 3 weren't always-online.

I do realize it may be an inconvenience for some. But always-online features are what pretty much all games are eventually going to have, even console titles. Physical medium isn't going to be standard for much longer, and one could reasonably make the case that it's already archaic--many high-end gaming PCs don't even come with optical drives anymore, because they're often pointless and are wasted money. The future sucks for people without broadband, but at the same time, that accounts for fewer and fewer people every day. Game companies can't make progress if they ignore the progress the rest of the world is making.

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Blizzard gets Zerg rushed *kekekekekekek*
« Reply #14 on: June 01, 2012, 05:33:23 pm »
Uh, Yae...

You always had that option in D2.  It's called "Connecting to battlenet and soloing"
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