New Diablo III players forced to wait 72 Hours to play the whole Game

[garyopa]

Online purchasers must play 'Starter Edition' before Blizzard review



As part of the fight to combat thieves and cheaters, Blizzard will be forcing new digital Diablo III players into a 72-hour Starter Edition trial before letting them play the full game

In what it appears to be a really bizarre move, Blizzard seems committed to try to protect the "sanctity" and "security" of the Diablo III experience.

That's right, players who purchase the downloadable "Digital Edition" of the game will be severely limited to the "Starter Edition" for up to 72 hours while their accounts are approved by Blizzard staff.

Here's their official statement:

As of patch 1.0.3, when purchasing a digital version of Diablo III through the online store or your Battle.net Account, players are restricted to the Starter Edition for the first 72 hours (sometimes less). Players on Starter Editions have the following restrictions:

- Act I up to the Skeleton King is available
- Level 13 cap
- Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players
- No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)
- Global Play is not available. Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net Account's home region will receive Error 12. See the Global Play support article for more information.

More information regarding the Starter Edition is available here:
http://us.battle.net/support/en/arti...ion-guest-pass

Another support agent from Blizzard addressed complaints and explained the following:

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.

Keep in mind this only affects the Digital version. If you buy the boxed retail ver., you'll be alright.

However, that doesn't make the move better at all.

What do you think?

NEWS SOURCE #1: If you buy Diablo III online you may have to wait 72 hours to play the whole game (via) Kotaku
NEWS SOURCE #2: Diablo III digital purchases can be limited for up to 72 hours (via) ArsTechnica

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[MadonnaProject]

lol and the end user abuse continues....

[Diztructor]

lol and the end user abuse continues....

yea but to think of it, if it wasnt the dirty piraters stealing the game and finding ways to get full access as if it was a retail version, it has to be done.

i know its not fair to legit users, but why should a pirate get access to what you paid for, for free.

youd want the same if it was your business to weed out the theiving fuckerz

[JonathanD]

yea but to think of it, if it wasnt the dirty piraters stealing the game and finding ways to get full access as if it was a retail version, it has to be done.

i know its not fair to legit users, but why should a pirate get access to what you paid for, for free.

youd want the same if it was your business to weed out the theiving fuckerz

Had zero to do with piracy and everything to do with scams and gold spammers.

The gold spam alone made it nearly impossible to ask a question in chat or do anything, since the patch I have seen a crap ton less spam.

Edit: Besides the pirates are already working on private D3 servers so anything Blizz does will not stop that. All thats left on the more advanced ones is scripting for enemy AI, everything else is in place from what I have heard.

[billysastard]

yea but to think of it, if it wasnt the dirty piraters stealing the game and finding ways to get full access as if it was a retail version, it has to be done.

i know its not fair to legit users, but why should a pirate get access to what you paid for, for free.

youd want the same if it was your business to weed out the theiving fuckerz

you do know there is no pirate version of this game that works yet dont you? or that once there is it wont use blizzards severs to play?

[Nicotine]

the people who wern't going to buy it still havn't, and are working on getting it working - those people would have never bought it in the first place. Always ON DRM or not.

The people like me who would have (and did) buy it are being screwed over hard.

we are being punished because other people are too cheap to support a game dev.