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Blizzard SUCKS!
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: Null Actor
From the diablo 2 expansion pages on battle.net:
Rune Words are currently only active for Realm Characters. We expect Rune Words to be added for Single Player and Open Characters in a future patch.
There is currently an issue with Rune Words morphing into other items if you drop them or give them to a Hireling that dies. Do not drop Rune Word Items. Do not give them to Hirelings until this issue is fixed. It's ok to use the Trade Screen to transfer them between characters.
What the hell is up with blizzard? How could they have fallen so low since the original Diablo?
Rant on blizzard, tell what you think.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
It still baffles me that the game looks so freaking crappy considering how long they worked on it.
Posted by: Null Actor
management: "we need a new monster type, and FAST!"
programmer: "All the artists have gone home!"
management: "We don't care! make something!"
*programmer grabs ms paint, uses the spray paint feature*
programmer: "Here, it's a cloud of bugs!"
management: "great!"
Posted by: Null Actor
And I'd bet money that that is a very accurate representation of events.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
ROFL, I bet he made the sound effect too. Probably hummed in the fan or something.
Posted by: CETORT
ROFL
for once, i actually agree with you two 
hence, i didn't bother to get D2-X. i mean, i wasted enough cash on just plain ole D2. why make the same mistake twice?
besides, everyone nows that Diablo 1 is STILL the best game ever 
Posted by: Chako
Yes it was a big disappointment. I however was not as smart at Cetort. Blizzard was synonymous with how the game industry should have been, awesome products with no bugs. We used to wait in avid (or is that vapid) anticipation for their next big hit. So what if they made us wait for ages, we knew that time would be used very productively to iron out all bugs and polish the gameplay to make the other game companies envious. Well…not anymore!
Posted by: CETORT
aye Chako. at one time, Blizzard did have my loyalty and respect. they did have a reputation for taking a long time to finish a game, but the wait was worthwhile because the finished product ran virtually bug-free. it's unfortunate they didn't bother to utilze all the FREE resources they had at their disposal to help ensure D2 lived up to their once great reputation.
i am awaiting the release of WC III. it looked pretty cool at E3. i just hope they don't disappoint us again.
Posted by: Swilo
They better deliver on WC3.
Posted by: Chako
I thought I had seen it all until the day people started to report that if they clicked on the feet of their characters in D2, the game would crash. How did that pass testing? Do they even use professional testers anymore that try to break the game to see if it passes muster? After those reports and more, I shall reserve judgment on WC3 until I see it. Don't get me wrong, I loved WC and WC2, but after seeing what Blizzard did to Diablo with Diablo 2, I don’t know what to expect with WC3. Crosses fingers in hopes they don't drag their other franchise into the mud.....
Posted by: Null Actor
Diablo 2 and the expansion COULD be a good game, if blizzard were to just sit down and FIX it. ESPECIALLY the SHITTY net code.
I mean, I lag to myself, when I'm alone in a game. WTF???
Personally, I'd prefer the hourglass of Diablo, and a synched game, instead of this unsynched, laggy buggy piece of crap that they delivered to us.
Posted by: Null Actor
Hey everybody! Not only is warcraft III going to be LATE (big surprise), but they've already started trimming the size of the game!!
http://www.voodooextreme.com/#19806
"Welcome to Blizzard, where our official policy is 'Less and Late'"
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
They're probably removing the last half of the game so they can put it on the expansion release. So we should be able to buy the rest of the game a year from release.
Posted by: Outlaw
a blizzard year from release...
Posted by: CETORT
they're just cutting the size of the game down some to help out the gamers in the world. afterall, we all know how expensive any hdd more than 2 gigs in size are nowadays
Posted by: Wargasm
i talked to one of the ppl who left blizzard and was one of the ppl who did wc and wc2 and diablo 1 and sc ..
i will not going to comment this person hehehe
however tobe on the pro side of blizzard
what totally bugged me was the screenshot of the week a year long !!
you could watch it age every week !!!!
when i saw the first screenie i thought oh cool !
when i saw the last few i thought hmm maybe someone oughta tell them about the new vidcards available and the new cpu's ...
and the damn hype !!! D2 near your computer soon (1998)
see duke nukem whenever is taking even longer !! least they don't hype it like it is going tobe the next big thing .. sure you see a few assholes err programmers do some plan updates telling us that we gonna like it .. but apart from super old screenshots and some kickass E3 movie not much is told or hyped .
Diablo 2 was totally over hyped
and failed to deliver .
What i saw at the E3 judging WC3 was a nice game (i say nice i am not a big RTS fan)
i do however notice not big hype creating .
i do not see a year long bloody screenshot of the week screenies
quote and it ain't mine hehehe :"d2 should not bin released and if it had too they could have made it on 2 cd's"
Posted by: Null Actor
*bump*
How do you diablo 2 realm players feel about not being able to play, and/or having your char reset to level 1?
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
At least they can still get the benifit of combined Runes. 
Posted by: Bishop
blizzard can't deliver anything on time.
my SC dvd was supposed to be here on tuesday, here it is thursday and it still isn't here.
Posted by: Yer_Mom
Ok I'm with everybody else on this - Bliz has really dropped the ball on this one. I have reason to be a bit sore - I'm one of the ppl who couldn't run D2:LOD after the 1.09 patch (read the thread under PC Games if you're interested). However, at least one of the posts on this thread I feel the need to rebutt a bit.
NovaZ - the reason you lag in a game you're in by yourself is because EVERY action you do is confirmed by the server. I mean EVERYTHING - picking up an item, whacking a bad guy, tossing down the occasional pot, etc. This was done as a way to combat the rampant cheating that was going on in D1. Granted with a solution like this they could really use better net code so it doesn't lag quite so much but you have to admit there's been very little cheating (comparatively) on D2, especially when compared with D1 or something like Quake2 or 3.
Anyway just my $.02 
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
Actually he means single player and open games. We don't bother with Blizzard's laggy unstable servers.
Posted by: Null Actor
 Quote:
Originally posted by Yer_Mom
NovaZ - the reason you lag in a game you're in by yourself is because EVERY action you do is confirmed by the server. I mean EVERYTHING - picking up an item, whacking a bad guy, tossing down the occasional pot, etc. This was done as a way to combat the rampant cheating that was going on in D1. Granted with a solution like this they could really use better net code so it doesn't lag quite so much but you have to admit there's been very little cheating (comparatively) on D2, especially when compared with D1 or something like Quake2 or 3.
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You don't need to educate me on how multiplayer games work... I've made them before
Posted by: Yer_Mom
Well since this IS OpenTechSupport, I thought I'd be nice and provide the info anyway :P~ Even if you don't need it, someone else reading this thread might find it informative. Besides I like to play the devil's advocate.
Having said that...
The reason it lags in single player games is probably from bad HD caching code. As you move around the screen or pick up items, it has to dynamically load graphics and sounds into memory, therefore accessing the hard drive and sometimes interfering or slowing down the graphics processing. There are several styles of doing this, with two of them being the most commonly used. (Note that these are simplified explanations, not technical discourses.)
The first is area or level loading. Used heaving in first person shooters (FPS), this loads all of the graphics and sounds needed for a given area (level) into memory before you start the level at all. Historically this could take quite a while and lead to very frustrating load times. However on the other hand you have everything in memory you need (supposedly) and therefore don't have to stop and read it partway through the level/area.
Second is dynamic or "realtime" loading. This is used in some top-down strategy games, as well as games where the level or area is randomly generated as you come to it. This is actually easier on memory because it only loads into memory what has recently been used or, if it's smart, what might be used soon. Diablo2 and LOD use this system, which is the cause of a lot of the single player lag people experience. Most notably is in LOD when fighting Baal's minions in his throne room. Originally the game would load the graphics and sounds for the creatures as they entered the screen (i.e. when Baal threw them into the room) but this turned out to be a large problem because a lot of people were dying when their machines couldn't load the data fast enough. Essentially they were dying even without a fight. Blizzard has now changed this so that the loading is done AFTER you kill all of a group of monsters, in the waiting period before the next group. It's still annoying as hell but at least you don't have quite as many really angry dead people...at least not angry over that
Now as to the subject of this thread, Blizzard's implementation of HD caching does leave much to be desired. It's not the worst I've seen (For even worse try playing the game Revenant. Classic example of a brilliant idea with a crappy implementation) but it's annoying enough in itself. For people with faster machines the lag is still quite noticeable but nothing to get your panties all in a bind about. However, for the vast majority of people out there with machines that are a few years old, this can be a SERIOUS pain because of lack of sufficient memory (more memory = can hold sounds/graphics for longer time) and older, slower HD's and controllers.
Anyway that's another piece of my $.02 for this thread. You never imagined two bits could go this far did you?
P.S.
Quote:
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You don't need to educate me on how multiplayer games work... I've made them before
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Well how was I supposed to know that? It's not like I have your resume in front of me or anything
Posted by: Null Actor
Sorry
But I'd just like to state some counterpoints:
Yes, blizzard's loading sucks, but it's not the cause for the lag, and sync problems. When I talk about the single player game lagging, I'm talking about monsters not being in the right places, clicking the attack button, seeing your character swing, and seeing the monster die a full second after that. Lag.
The problem for this lag is most likely that the single player game runs as a multiplayer game. That means the game sets up a server, and the client talks to it, as if it were a multiplayer game. This is inherently bad for single player games. With both processes running on one machine, they have to time slice. They probably even talk to each other using the standard IP protocols. What blizz should have done is make a shared memory space between threads when they are running on the same machine, and then the client and server just talk to each other through a buffer. It wouldn't fix the problem completely, but chances are it would be a lot better than what's there now.
Oh... and I think many people would rather see the hourglass once in a while, instead of having monsters hit them when not on the screen, and nothing being in the same place for two people in the same game.
-------------------
I found this in a game of D2 LoD:
Lucky Charm: +1% Chance of finding magical item.
Posted by: Bishop
well think about it from this point of view nova.
Pausing the game every now and then to re-sync all the data is a good idea in all aspects but one.
realms and open would be unplayable.
would be one, long, never-ending hourglass.
^_^
I actually had a point to make here but I just woke up so it's kind of coming out in a groggy sort of way.
Posted by: Null Actor
You shouldn't have to pause the game, unless one of the players is lagging badly.
Anyways, doesn't change the fact that blizzard sucks.
Posted by: Yer_Mom
NovaZ: Your point is also quite valid Most likely it's a combination of the two to some extent albeit it's still a bad implementation probably of both. Quake2 and Quake3 (at least) as well as Serious Sam and others do the exact thing you're talking about, and they don't have problems of that nature at all, granted they all use level style loading. Makes it MUCH easier to design the game, since you only have to program the whole thing once and the same code is essentially used for single/multiplayer. However you do need an efficient interface between the two. D2 already has notoriously bad net code, making communication between the client and local or remote server spotty at best and an inefficient implementation of HD caching will just make it that much worse.
Bishop: that's exactly the problem that Revenant had. You would run for about 200 yards, then it would pause and load new graphics/sounds. Find someone who has it or, even better, get it from the bargain bin at your local software store Classic example of an incredible idea with bad implementation
Posted by: TotalRecall
Quote:
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Originally the game would load the graphics and sounds for the creatures as they entered the screen (i.e. when Baal threw them into the room) but this turned out to be a large problem because a lot of people were dying when their machines couldn't load the data fast enough. Essentially they were dying even without a fight. Blizzard has now changed this so that the loading is done AFTER you kill all of a group of monsters, in the waiting period before the next group. It's still annoying as hell but at least you don't have quite as many really angry dead people...at least not angry over that
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Actually, for me...the game lags when the monsters appear. I don't think there's any pre-loading there.
Posted by: Null Actor
Actually, the preloading has a lot to do with the amount of ram you have.
D2 uses over 100megs of ram on my machine.
Posted by: Yer_Mom
TotalRecall: Actually what I posted there was, more or less, taken directly from a Blizzard FAQ. It's supposed to preload the information for the next group of monsters as soon as you destroy the previous group. However, the load routine is still so inefficient that on a lot of machines they lag right through to after the monsters appear.
I've also noticed, though, that on at least some monsters it will lag right when they appear (Baal's Minions for example) so apparently they Blizzard FAQ isn't exactly correct.
Posted by: Bishop
I once had a screenshot of diablo 2 in town.
it was consuming 254 out of 256 megs of ram.
Posted by: Yer_Mom
Ok bad song pun. Bishop, that's why it's a great time to order new memory I believe Crucial Crucial.com still has their free shipping sale going on. I just picked up 256 meg of PC133 for like $39 US You know you want to...
Posted by: Spider
I have 512mb of pc133 crucial, only a few months old
and D2 uses 511/512 at least that's what D2 tells me.
Posted by: Humpfh
(Disclaimer: I was sort of redirected here in a roundabout fashion, don't mind me).
Look, I understand the need for copy protection, and I support it, as long as it's not to such a ridiculous extreme. However, I'm not a full-time hacker, and it's damned near impossible to make a backup copy of software you legally own (a thing you are legally allowed to do), because Blizzard got so ridiculous with the copy protection. (I have tried, the software out there wouldn't work with my CD-ROM, my CD/RW, my roommate's CD-ROM, or his DVD-ROM, and they are all different models).
For crying out loud, Blizzard's copy protection makes Bill Gates look like Linus Torvalds, and their "tech support" is so abyssmal as to more accurately be called "customer DISservice".
</rant>
Thank you.
I feel better, having gotten that off my chest now.
I'm seriously contemplating writing Blizzard a hate mail...
Posted by: Yer_Mom
Hey you forgot to open that <rant> tag that you closed
In response to your rant, I believe that MOST cd's/games can still be copied if one has the following items:
1) An older copy of Adaptec Easy CD Creator (PC) or Toast (Mac) (pre IDE cd-r's)
2) SCSI CD-R
3) SCSI CD ROM
Most older (and some newer copies) of those programs would allow you to do a direct SCSI to SCSI copy if it was totally across the SCSI bus. Basically it would do a direct bit copy of the source disk onto the target disk. The newer copies of the program may still have the SCSI-SCSI copy option but from what I understand it's been modified to check for "uncopiable" areas. Someone check me on this last part plz. As I currently do not have a SCSI CD-R or Easy CD Creator/Toast, I am unable to verify the newer functionality.
Posted by: Outlaw
blizzard only makes problems with their copy protection. not only does it prevent people from actually playing the game, I can copy d2/d2:lod with a normal ide burner by just using the right program for it
only Electronic Arts has a good protection, it works on every cdrom drive (as far as I know) and it seems there are only 2 burners in the whole world that can still copy those cds
Posted by: Bishop
I have two words for blizzard.
****
and
You
so I figure I'd pass time and play d2x for an hour or so.
BSOD, cd not found, any attempt at fixing the problem requires effort on my part or at least 5 minutes of time, so I'm not even going to bother.
uninstall right now, actually.
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by Bishop
I once had a screenshot of diablo 2 in town.
it was consuming 254 out of 256 megs of ram.
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I'm not sure what those stats are supposed to represent, but they aren't representative of how much memory is being used. It says that for me too, but good ol' NT Task Manager says it's only using 100 or so megs. Task Manager doesn't lie.
Posted by: Yer_Mom
Quote:
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It says that for me too, but good ol' NT Task Manager says it's only using 100 or so megs.
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Would it be possible that D2 is including not only itself but the disk cache too?
Posted by: Humpfh
Quote:
Originally posted by Yer_Mom
Hey you forgot to open that <rant> tag that you closed
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Naw, it was opened in the subject line.
Quote:
In response to your rant, I believe that MOST cd's/games can still be copied if one has the following items:
1) An older copy of Adaptec Easy CD Creator (PC) or Toast (Mac) (pre IDE cd-r's)
2) SCSI CD-R
3) SCSI CD ROM
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None of which I have. 
(I got the game to work, btw)
Posted by: -Memnoch-
Just for the heck of it.
Lets build the dream system.
And we will even use an AMD chip so Nova will be happy.
Lets load it up with like 2 gigs of pc133RAM.
We will configure it with the best hardware money can buy.
Lets install Diablo II and watch the system resources get sucked to 0 available.
Lets watch as the CD fails to be detected.
Lets get a T3 line and still get lag killed on the closed realms.
Then lets send Blizzard the System spec's and wait for the response telling us to attempt the most insane and incorrect configuration changes. Only to remain unable to play.
Then lets post this information on the blizzard forums and watch the morons defend Blizzard and the game. Lets watch as the brainwashed drones tell us we have no ideia what we are talking about.
And then after accepting we can only play single player games(provided the CD can be detected) and develop a character very carefully, Lets install the latest patch to fix all the issues in hopes that it will really work, Only to find the patch did nothing but ruin the character with balance changes.
Posted by: Bishop
amen brother ^_^
Posted by: Chako
ditto
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by Yer_Mom
Would it be possible that D2 is including not only itself but the disk cache too?
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Nope, not possible. Disk cache is an internal windows thing, and you can't access it. Anyway, even with my file cache numbers added in (the amount is also reported in task manager) it doesn't even come close to my total amount of ram.
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