Diablo IV players call for Blizzard to add an offline mode after a DDoS attack renders game unplayable
by Danny Craig
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Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard spent much of the weekend dealing with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its servers, which caused players to be unable to play Diablo IV in any capacity.
The details:
- Battle.net connectivity issues began late Saturday, affecting Diablo IV and other Activision Blizzard titles on the platform into the following morning. Following reports of login issues, Blizzard's customer support team took to Twitter to reveal that the cause of the issues was a DDoS attack and that it was "actively working to mitigate this issue." Shortly after, the company issued an update confirming that the attacks had ceased, though it did not specify whether the attackers had stopped or if Blizzard had mitigated the attack.
- Many fans expressed their displeasure with the developer's decision to force Diablo IV to be an always-online title requiring constant connectivity to its servers, which also caused issues during its launch period when players were left staring at error codes on the first day of release. Authentication issues have also had an impact on gameplay, with countless Hardcore characters being lost due to server disconnects, effectively resetting the progress of those attempting to reach the level cap of 100 after hours of grinding.
- Blizzard has actively encouraged players to interact with one another through the game's MMO elements, such as in-game social spaces, party-based dungeons, and PvP combat, so it's unlikely that the studio will abandon its online-based model, which is also featured in Diablo III, given the game's success since its launch in early June.
More Blizzard news:
- Diablo IV may have surpassed Diablo Immortal's annual revenue figures within a week of its release, earning $666 million versus $525 million. Since its release in 2018, the free-to-play mobile game has been plagued by controversy, including its heavy reliance on microtransactions.
- The upcoming PvE story missions in Overwatch 2 will be behind a paywall. Following the cancellation of the highly anticipated hero mode, fans are outraged by Blizzard's decision to make the set of three missions available only to those willing to spend $15 on its Invasion bundle.
