James
MyGaming Alumnus
Diablo III refund refusal leads to Blizzard office raid
Korean FTC investigates Blizzard’s policies to see if it has broken the law
Korean FTC investigates Blizzard’s policies to see if it has broken the law
A play on the name of Flagship Studios; the developers behind the critically slammed Hellgate: London series.
It usually references to the fact that many of the game's features are currently broken, or bugs causing the player to be set back after doing a fair bit of work for a meager reward.
The example below shows just one of the many broken features. The current maximum character level a person can level their character to is fifty. However, there are many items dropping through the later stages of the game that are well beyond level fifty, many going into level seventy and higher character level requirements.
Player: I just found an awesome unique Arclight Fusion Rifle for my Engineer!
Player2: What is the character level requirement?
Player: 51.
Player2: You got flagshipped!
A term that was started on the hellgate: london forums, used to refer when you buy something and in turn the thing you bought is:
A: very poorly made
B: broken
C: bugged out to all hell (refering to a game)
D: not getting what you paid for
Tim: "I just bought a new table today and one of its legs broke"
Bill: "Man you got flagshipped"
_______________
Tom: "Wow man i just bought a brand new xbox360 and i got the three red rings as soon as i turned it on!!!"
Bob: "Heh sounds like you got flagshipped"
________________
Billy: "I just bought the new hellgate: london game and gave them $10 subscription fee right after i got it, not only did they take out 100USD more then they were suppose to, but there would have been no difference if i would have just not payed the $10 and played for free"
Dan: "HAHAHAHA, damn dude you totally got flagshipped"
____________________
Ron: "I bought a game today i cant even play it because it keeps crashing, and even when its not crashing im getting really bad lag on my $10000 computer i just bought yesterday!"
Alan: "Flagshipped, hahahaha"
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Thinking back and all the 'hell' around hellgate london not having lan and forcing you to play online for multiplayer, well they had great fail, but you were at least able to log in and play. Even if it meant that you were only showing as weapons.
It is however concerning that one of the biggest mmo's owners can't handle something as simple as D3. One would have thought that after wow's shaky launch, they would have learnt to have enough servers/network ready for this. Unfortunately it seems that $$$ over ruled this. Is it then a case of having less than enough servers ready to save a buck or three?
I have no problems with VAS/Online-"drm", but then at least it should be working. 1 or 3 days of issues is expectable, but this has been going on now past that. Then question then is... what was the beta for? Looking at TRION (Rift) I think we've seen the last smoothest launch ever. At least their beta counted for something.
I'd be curious to see how much fail guildwars 2 have on day 1.
Side note:
Error 37 is quickly gaining on *Flagshipped, because so far it seems that we have been FlagShipped.
Being flagshipped
I agree, I also have no issue with the always online nature but its been 2 weeks, what the hell is going on?
I am actually wondering is there isn't some serious security issue, i.e hacking or something, that Blizzard are trying to keep quiet or something.
Its so annoying, it has completely put me off the game. Just when I get into BAM dc'd then I attempt to login in again with no luck. I would opt got a refund as well if I could. Its a waste of money to pay full release day price only to be able to play enjoyably 2 months later anyway.
Well one can't rule out the possibility of children DOSing them I suppose.
The refund argument seems to make is sound as if Blizzard are purposefully leaving it broken or that they dont want us to play the game. Which is obviously completely off base. Some has to be seriously wrong/broken and I am sure Blizzard are not only working diligently to fix whatever it is but they are probably more enraged by this than anyone. Alot of people will make the argument that "they have our money, they dont care" which is woefully ignorant. These people spent 6 - 10 years of their lives on this title. But I digress 2 weeks is a bit stupid and there doesn't seem to be much in way of info coming from Bliz with regard to the issues.
Isen, I'm always curios to see how launch go. I'm going to compare their maiden voyage to Rift's and TOR. Sure they are not going to fail for days, but they might for few hours or day at max. Time will tell how well the are prepared having already done GW1...
I know you are one for the programmers BUT what if your ISP, Bank, shop etc were to have issues like this for 2 weeks??? Is that acceptable? Its not even a matter of oh ok well we cant join our friend in playing the game or damn pity I cant use real money(more) to buy the cool weapon in stead of spending hours finding it. Its a situation that makes it impossible to use the game that you have paid for.
If my company wasn't running because of my server issues for 2 weeks do you REALLY think it would be ok? My boss would send me packing. Gaming is a business now and should meet certain requirements as other businesses have to.
Yes they spent 6-10 years, maybe they should have used some of that time to actually make the game work? I also know they dont want to prevent me from playing but instead of screwing the pirate they screw the consumer once again.
Yes, Blizzard have still not resolved the D3 login woes 2 weeks after login. It is annoying and it should've been fixed by now.
BUT, I really wish some people could see past this. In the past 2 weeks, I haven't had enough time to play D3 due to work / RL etc.. But every time I have wanted to play (except the massive outage about a week ago), I have managed to get in with a bit of patience. Error 37? Its fine, I'll try again in 1 min. After 10-15 minutes, I get in just fine. Maybe I am lucky, or life has taught me patience.
My Wizard is only level 50 (as of last night. /flex), but every single second I have played Diablo 3, I have loved it. I have been more absorbed with D3 than what most titles have done to me in the past 5 maybe 6 years. The scenery, the monsters, the gear, the skills.. It works so well together.
I have enjoyed all the intricacies of playing a glass cannon, marvelled at the sight of 40+ mobs getting smashed by me and my friends, cried when I got my first legendary, made up new jokes and meme's ("JONDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA") and generally just enjoyed the thought of playing Diablo 3.
The amount of negative publicity Blizzard has received since D3's release is now on par with the 10 years of positive publicity I think. I haven't visited one gaming site / forum / subreddit (Diablo related or otherwise) where there haven't been OVER NINE-THOUSAND negative comments. "I QUIT", "sold my account", "i want my money back", "inferno too difficult", "nerf this nerf that buff this buff that".
Over it. Will read every Diablo article on "how bad it is" with a kilogram of salt from now on. I still enjoy this game thoroughly and see myself playing for many years to come. For those of you that feel the same as me, catch you in Sanctuary.
But it hasn't been off for 2 weeks. I've got 3 characters and about 65 total game hours. Not bad considering I work full time and have a wife that demands some attention. Yes there where issues the last 2/3 days when everybody gets home but at quieter times logging in is issue free. If we had not been able to log in for 2 weeks it would be a different story.
Yes, Blizzard have still not resolved the D3 login woes 2 weeks after login. It is annoying and it should've been fixed by now.
BUT, I really wish some people could see past this. In the past 2 weeks, I haven't had enough time to play D3 due to work / RL etc.. But every time I have wanted to play (except the massive outage about a week ago), I have managed to get in with a bit of patience. Error 37? Its fine, I'll try again in 1 min. After 10-15 minutes, I get in just fine. Maybe I am lucky, or life has taught me patience.
I agree, I also have no issue with the always online nature but its been 2 weeks, what the hell is going on?
I am actually wondering is there isn't some serious security issue, i.e hacking or something, that Blizzard are trying to keep quiet or something.
Some people have experienced better than others everyone knows that. Last night for example, tried 4 times within 30 minutes no luck. 5th attempt YAY im in, oh look LAG yay, 30 minutes in, KICKED. Attempted to login for the next hour, eventually got in. Played for a good 30-40minutes and I was kicked again. Fine I will try login. Oh look no error 37 but now it REFUSES to load the characters and just hangs there. This continued from 7pm to 10pm when i last tried.
This destroys the game for and it deserves the negative publicity. It cant be excused and its not about patience.
I don't see why its fair that with any other business if you are not happy or the product does not live up to its expectations refunds or cancellation of service is an acceptable practice.
From looking on the forums, having been hacked myself sometime yesterday between 8am and 8pm, I believe they have had one massive security breach that they are just not willing to admit to.