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Updated - Diablo III restricting new players for up to 72 hours

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Posted 03:33pm 22/06/12 by:
9 Comments | 0 Faves

Update: Blizzard have contacted us with updated details on the issue - read on for more info.

Man alive, the hits keep coming for Blizzard's third installment in the Diablo franchise. Their Seoul based offices were raided this month by the Korean Fair Trade Commission after swarms of people complained about the server issues and the company's no-refund policy. In a Korean Battle.net post today (translated by the Wall Street Journal) it was announced that refunds would now be available - to any users with no characters above level 40.

And now it seems that new players worldwide may not be able to play the entire game if they purchase the game digitally. As reported by Kotaku, new players might not be able to access any more than the Starter Edition for up to 72 hours after their purchase. Starter Edition is limited to the first Act, with a level cap of 13, No Auction House access - Real Money or Gold and no Global Play. The reasons for the restriction were explained in a post on the forums:

Outside of the issue that we fixed, digital purchases do require a review period before they kick over from Starter to Full editions. We apologize for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone's play experience.

The delay is no longer than three days, and is often much quicker than that. Hang tight. :)

The new policy was instituted as of patch 1.03 - and it does seem like a necessary precaution to combat fraud. It's beginning to look however, like a better precaution might just be to scrap the entire thing. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

Edit: Blizzard have contacted us to clarify that the level cap and Act 1 restrictions are an unintended consequence of the 1.03 patch which they are currently working to fix. The standard restrictions, which will stay in place to combat fraud and keep players safe are as follows:

No public game access for unverified digital purchasers

No auction house access (real-money or gold) for unverified digital purchasers

Unverified digital purchasers cannot trade items or drop items for other players to receive

Unverified digital purchasers are not able to chat in any public or game channels

Unverified digital purchasers cannot attach a custom message to friend requests, but they can send/accept friend requests, and play with their friends

Global Play is not available for unverified digital purchasers

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Comments on this Article

Fri 22 Jun 12, 2:04pm

roadhog29389
Posted: Fri 22 Jun 12, 2:04pm

it's a crap game, it's a crap game, it's a crap game

Fri 22 Jun 12, 4:13pm

Hotcakes
Posted: Fri 22 Jun 12, 4:13pm

So those who want their money back within those 72 hours get it no questions asked, hassle free?

Fri 22 Jun 12, 4:16pm

Hotcakes
Posted: Fri 22 Jun 12, 4:16pm

And I suppose support tickets for these people are given priority, so that it doesn't take 2 weeks for them to get an (useless cut'n'paste) answer?

Fri 22 Jun 12, 5:18pm

frostedfire
Posted: Fri 22 Jun 12, 5:18pm

^^ both of those posts indeed

Sun 24 Jun 12, 4:39pm

Vile Shadow
Posted: Sun 24 Jun 12, 4:39pm

Pro tip Blizzard!
Actually make your singleplayer offline without all this server **** to prevent 'Trainers' because if somebody wants to ruin their own gaming experience then it's their issue and not yours. Oh and that DRM crap? Sorry but preventing piracy isn't going to work cause there is emulated servers for Diablo... You know a 5MB file that pirates can run and... no server authentication! It is all controlled by their computer and NOT your servers.
Blizzard. Don't fight piracy. You keep just doing **** like this which everyone hates and it will attract more to the pirates ship! Fools.

Mon 25 Jun 12, 9:56pm

BeeJaY
Posted: Mon 25 Jun 12, 9:56pm

This post reminded me to uninstall the game, cheers!

Tue 26 Jun 12, 4:40am

OHAIDERE
Posted: Tue 26 Jun 12, 4:40am

I heard some other things which didnt exactly shock me given blizzards unethical approach to game development, some player listed an item on the auction house for $250 US which sold, (I'm not gonna say do or dont do this, what you do with your leasure money is your own business...)

Shortly after the sale he requested the money be sent to his account, blizzard promptly banned him, now the person who bought the item never received it either, when he requested a reply from blizzards billing department he also got banned...

The reason for the ban was not given only a short reply saying the item he sold was overpowered because it gave attack speed, which for a game developed for 10 years seems well kinda pants-head-retarded.

On a side note;
A stray blue post was discovered by a few forum trolls of a GM stating "You are having fun, just not the way you should be." Which was shortly deleted to prevent an uprising however several people saw it.

If these two incidents dont infuriate you how about the 100000 people that lost their Hard-Core mode characters in one day due to lag.

I myself was an avid Blizzard gamer if it had blizzard next to it i played it and clocked it, untill most recently i have chosen not to play D3 or WoW or anything else blizzard releases, i do however support private servers which spit in the face of Blizzard, its amazing how calous and self-obsesed Blizzard is getting.

/end rant

Tue 26 Jun 12, 4:00pm

Hotcakes
Posted: Tue 26 Jun 12, 4:00pm

Banning the people banning/selling items doesn't make any sense since Activision gets their cut of that now. Unless you're saying they took the $250 all for themselves?

Tue 26 Jun 12, 5:22pm

OHAIDERE
Posted: Tue 26 Jun 12, 5:22pm

Yes thats what they did no apologies or refunds were made for their actions either...

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