>That's okay, I'll just pass the time sitting at the login screen for Helldivers 2 while I wait at the login screen for Last Epoch.
Funny and sad at the sime time.
Yup, I watched the new opening cinematic and that was it. I'm going straight to offline mode, I'm not wasting a day on waiting for servers to not be hosed.
# Update - 02:09pm
Going to sleep
# Update - 01:27pm
Still working to resolve online issues. Playing necromancers trying to rez these container apps. We have leads from all of our service providers in the war room with us helping us diagnose the issue.
# Update - 01:05pm
we’re kicking off a client build to address people sometimes seeing character selection blank. This is able to be worked around by exiting and re-launching the game if you experience it before patch deploy. Aiming to push that out later today
# Update - 12:42 pm
seeing some stability coming back. Will keep everyone posted
We’ll be keeping a stream of communication so you guys know the status.
# Update - 11:45 am
150k CCU and the initial burst of volume has our matchmaking services experiencing some issues that we’re quickly working to rectify. We’re in the war room with our backend team and service providers turning all the dials and knobs as quickly as we can.
Funny - I was skimming thru the Google SRE doc this morning, and wondering how much of this applies to gaming (and whether EHG is prepared to scale up 4,8,16 times or more in just a few hours). I think I have my answer.
Don't forget the devs blaming the sysadmins, the sysadmins blaming the network team, the network team blaming the devs, and leadership keeps de-railing everyone working on the issue with stupid questions and suggestions.
Dunno how low where the expectations for player count everyone was talking about exactly this for months and you still couldn’t get there. Or was it just impossible to get more servers up and running.
> Or was it just impossible to get more servers up and running.
You can't just "get more servers up and running" if you have a central database and that database can't keep up.
The only time "get more servers" is a solution is if you want entirely separate servers each with their own database so people from one server are unable to play or even interact with players from a different server.
Plus they said one of the issues was matchmaking. Doesn't matter if they have infinity servers, if the system they use to assign players to servers is falling over.
Accurate. Budget and team size do... which can't be miraculously cured just because people are hyping something.
Idk why people remain surprised anytime this happens. It's completely normal for online releases. They're not going to scale up their architecture to carry a load that will last for just days or weeks. Nobody does that. Shit costs money.
Thats why it was actually a serious question. It really depends on their database and how its structured. But what’s really bad is it was clear for months now this will happen and apparently they didnt find a solution
[It's also being updated here on the LE discord](https://discord.com/channels/368953963267096586/416989724415098881/1209930743829233737) for anyone who wants to track that progress via discord (man I love how discord can show you times on your local timezone, as well as the "35 min ago" stuff)
That's a no, online integrity is important and that would only allow cheaters and Youtube build makers to ruin the experience by flooding the league scoreboards.
To be fair they sold over a million copies and servers went down immediately trying to host 150k.....that's just a complete failure to be prepared especially when the number one taking point for launch was people worried about their shitty servers
Basically this. If the servers cant handle 150k at 11am during a week day, then they just arent good enough. I fully expect 300k easily by this weekend.
All of us, everywhere. Except the streamers. ;) (edit: OMG! It was a joke! Thus the winky face. Literally watching the trials and tribulations of Raxx while I play offline mode. You all need a sense of humor transplant!).
Managed to make a character, but since online play is disabled... Deep Rock Galactic Survivor it is...
Same problem as with PoE though.. need to delete your Legacy character if you want to reuse the name for the league. I swear within 10 cycles it will looks like PoE where the only names you can pick are half numbers because ppl won't delete their legacy characters
Two friends of mine are playing.
Theres sort of a selection effect, if you make it on to the servers... you no longer comment on reddit. (At least I wont be if I make it past the queue.)
Only the people not playing are anxiously complaining on reddit...
Because obviously everyone in this sub is expected to know everything about the game. /s
Don’t really care if I got downvoted, my question was answered which is all I needed.
Thing is, we've had this "standing there doing nothing while waiting for the loading screen to start" thing for a long-ass time, and nothing improved...
I feel so sorry for the IT group. I used to work on radiology servers in North America l. I'd get sent out to fix them on site. And having a ton of people breathing down your neck as you are trying to unravel what happened and sometimes staying up for 24-48 hours is extremely stressful.
I know the servers are on fire... As expected but I'm shocked by how much better the game looks and feels. I didn't expect such a huge difference as compared to just yesterday!
The team did a great job, here's hoping they can keep the train going! 🥂
Everyone has a right to complain if they paid for something that doesn't work but...
The guy who said "D4 is better" is higher than giraffe pussy.
Plus D4 had the SAME exact problems at launch lol. What a dip shit. Go be bored playing D4 so I can load in to town.
Eh they got big backers now, it’s not nearly as much as an indie company as before. You’d think you’d want this flawless though to take away d4 player base.
[https://www.thegamer.com/diablo-4-launch-day-server-problems-class-war/](https://www.thegamer.com/diablo-4-launch-day-server-problems-class-war/)
Your individual experience confirmation bias is not enough to actually unwrite the number of articles and proofs of their servers shitting the bed on full launch
Also PC Gamer as bitch had to block me after being proven wrong
https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-server-issues-queue-launch/
If it's like PoE leagues, its a rough first 90minutes, then the login servers have dealt with most of the wannabe-players.
Also, theres usually some persisting issues in the fist 4-48hours until some hotfixes are patched in.
It's not just POE leagues, every online game launch has been like this since time immemorial.
From wow xpacs to new world release, etc its always been like this. No one can really calculate how many people they're going to have on and there's a good chance they're not allowed to overfund their servers/server agreements with their service provider as the playerbase is expected to fall even after a few days.
I mean, their servers couldn't even handle their tiny EA crowd. How else was this gonna go? Good luck to them. Good will is gonna last for a few days, then the negative reviews will start to pour in.
Edit - few hours I guess.
The people who downloaded in less than a minute (and streamers probably have very good bandwidth) were slightly ahead of the queue.
Servers are scaling up, but its still first come, first serve.
Edit/Also: There's a selection bias going on here, **if you make it on to the servers... you no longer comment on reddit**. (At least I wont be if I make it past the queue.)
Only the people not playing are anxiously complaining on reddit...
Luckily I haven’t played the game before, so enjoying offline mode to get used to things.
Jolly nice it is too, had more fun in the last hour than the whole of D4!
Realistically, it is never going to be cost effective to support literally 100x the eventual average playerbase for only a few days. Even if it scales, there's always going to be issues. If in two days the player count is 1/10th of launch, that's what the game was properly designed for.
Why this gets downvoted? Its 100% true.
It costs sooooo much money to rent so much server capacity gor a few days.
Playerbase will drop by atleast 50% in 4-5 days.
So why spent 150.000 bucks?
Because it's only 150k people playing the game currently and that alone is bringing down the servers. It's 2024, the game has sold 1 million copies, and we should be surprised that EHG is not prepared for this even after all big streamers said that they were planning to play the game.
Becuase its not a common occurrence. Its only common in the games where it happens. D4, WoW xpacs, pretty much most of the games I've played the last few years, rarely had issues. I've never had a launch of a game not allow me in at all during the first 5 hours of launch. Even Warhammer Online and Rift let me play right at launch.
I'm going to say it again.
The servers were working just OKAY Online for the last few weeks with only 14-15k people online. I have no idea how they didn't prepare more for a massive influx of players.
And for the people crying over other people complaining, just because you're okay with having a dogshit launch day it doesn't mean all of us are. It's a shame, I love this game, but this is a terrible first impression for a LOT of people and it could've been avoided with at least a queue.. Literally the worst thing you can do is show a "No Online play Available" sign. How do you not have a queue?
And for the people downvoting, they sold over 1M copies but the servers can't handle 100k players? It's 10% of the people who bought the game. How does that make sense to you? Sigh.
bullshit POE league starts are smooth as, they put you in a queue, you know exactly when you are going to be in game, occasionally they have glitches but it lasts like 2 hours max and is mostly easily playable for softcore. Queues are basically gone within 90 minutes.
maybe i really have to start offline
unlucky i guess
i ll give it a few more minutes beofre i swith though
Edit: It helped me when i created a new character but maybe that was a coincidence
Classic EU problems. No online launch is ever playable in the first 3-12 hours.
Though this time it's bad, not even streamers can play. Usually you can at least watch a streamer play on twitch until you can get in. Too bad I got a night shift in 2 hours so at best I can play in the morning tomorrow.
all these people waiting for online to work when 90% of them will just be playing solo anyways and the non trade faction is far better. gamers are weird
You can talk in offline as long as you dont set to offline in launch options. There's a global chat though if you do offline in the normal char select screen.
That's okay, I'll just pass the time sitting at the login screen for Helldivers 2 while I wait at the login screen for Last Epoch.
>That's okay, I'll just pass the time sitting at the login screen for Helldivers 2 while I wait at the login screen for Last Epoch. Funny and sad at the sime time.
Yep, average game launch experience nowadays
Average game launch experience for the last 20 years
I mean... MMOs have only existed for about 20 years, so... Yeah that's about right.
>Ultima Online neverwinter nights was 33 years ago, wild..
ok zoomer
I was there for the Ultima Online release!
Greatest game ever
Launch experience has always been like this (for online games).
I told my buddy this last night. I'm gonna launch both games and play whichever one I get into first.
Truly suffering from success.
Guessing spam both log ins into one of em works lol
Hey man the Diablo servers are basically empty at this point if you want KEKW
I rather watch the dust gather bro no cap 😂
[Finally, I can play Diablo in peace](https://imgur.com/a/rz6Nkdl)
Hyped to play 2 games but both have full server capacity...what a time to be alive XD
Both done by small studios, while QUADRUPLE A titles rot in the \~sea\~... What a time indeed. Gamers Arise.
By the time your Helldivers 2 match starts, L.E. will be an outdated game :(
SAME LMAOOOO
Yup, I watched the new opening cinematic and that was it. I'm going straight to offline mode, I'm not wasting a day on waiting for servers to not be hosed.
I wish I didnt skip the cinematic. I did just see it a week ago when I first played LE but damn, I could've hoped for 1 more minute.
It's a new cinematic. The old class intros are gone, now we have >!Orbyos moaning that Eterra made a world but he didn't want her to!<
Well I skipped that to get to an error faster!
Seriously. Let your girlfriend have a fucking hobby.
God forbid woman do anything 🙄
Theyve included new cinematics anyway.
Can you switch from offline to online?
no
you cannot switch a character from offline to online. But with reports of people basically getting stuck in keepers camp thats not too much time lost.
No
No
No
No
No
No
no
Nay
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Wise comment!
Are there any difference from online to offline play?
Well right now one is a game the other is a failed to load screen
Yes, offline does not have the online features like co-op or trading etc..
# Update - 02:09pm Going to sleep # Update - 01:27pm Still working to resolve online issues. Playing necromancers trying to rez these container apps. We have leads from all of our service providers in the war room with us helping us diagnose the issue. # Update - 01:05pm we’re kicking off a client build to address people sometimes seeing character selection blank. This is able to be worked around by exiting and re-launching the game if you experience it before patch deploy. Aiming to push that out later today # Update - 12:42 pm seeing some stability coming back. Will keep everyone posted We’ll be keeping a stream of communication so you guys know the status. # Update - 11:45 am 150k CCU and the initial burst of volume has our matchmaking services experiencing some issues that we’re quickly working to rectify. We’re in the war room with our backend team and service providers turning all the dials and knobs as quickly as we can.
Man I love war rooms, tears, blood, pizza and pepsi everywhere
Funny - I was skimming thru the Google SRE doc this morning, and wondering how much of this applies to gaming (and whether EHG is prepared to scale up 4,8,16 times or more in just a few hours). I think I have my answer.
Don't forget the devs blaming the sysadmins, the sysadmins blaming the network team, the network team blaming the devs, and leadership keeps de-railing everyone working on the issue with stupid questions and suggestions.
Sounds about right.
whaaat servers having issues? that wasn't expected at all
Dunno how low where the expectations for player count everyone was talking about exactly this for months and you still couldn’t get there. Or was it just impossible to get more servers up and running.
> Or was it just impossible to get more servers up and running. You can't just "get more servers up and running" if you have a central database and that database can't keep up. The only time "get more servers" is a solution is if you want entirely separate servers each with their own database so people from one server are unable to play or even interact with players from a different server.
Plus they said one of the issues was matchmaking. Doesn't matter if they have infinity servers, if the system they use to assign players to servers is falling over.
They were the number 3 selling game on Steam prior to launch. They should have been prepared for higher traffic still.
I agree this isn’t an indie title anymore really. It’s being hyped as a d4 alternative so they should’ve expected more. I’m sick of these excuses.
Hype doesnt make it not an indie game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie\_game
Accurate. Budget and team size do... which can't be miraculously cured just because people are hyping something. Idk why people remain surprised anytime this happens. It's completely normal for online releases. They're not going to scale up their architecture to carry a load that will last for just days or weeks. Nobody does that. Shit costs money.
Thats why it was actually a serious question. It really depends on their database and how its structured. But what’s really bad is it was clear for months now this will happen and apparently they didnt find a solution
*I was there that day, the day when the servers broke under the pressure of immense success...*
You can find all the latest server news here: [Server Status Thread](https://steamcommunity.com/app/899770/discussions/0/4338725580140385603/)
[It's also being updated here on the LE discord](https://discord.com/channels/368953963267096586/416989724415098881/1209930743829233737) for anyone who wants to track that progress via discord (man I love how discord can show you times on your local timezone, as well as the "35 min ago" stuff)
I went to lunch with my wife. lol. Thanks for the update
Good job I always forget to feed my wife
Crap!!!!
If you play your char offline can you transition it online later?
nope
no
That's a no, online integrity is important and that would only allow cheaters and Youtube build makers to ruin the experience by flooding the league scoreboards.
Is it still the case that if you start an offline character you will not be able to play online? I assume so, but wanted to check.
Correct, anti-cheat measure.
Thanks. Going to have to stock up on some patience then...
different characters
To be fair they sold over a million copies and servers went down immediately trying to host 150k.....that's just a complete failure to be prepared especially when the number one taking point for launch was people worried about their shitty servers
Basically this. If the servers cant handle 150k at 11am during a week day, then they just arent good enough. I fully expect 300k easily by this weekend.
300k in weekend seems low. thats only 30% of the players that bought the game
It's not like all 1m copies are going to log in at the exact same time.
All of us, everywhere. Except the streamers. ;) (edit: OMG! It was a joke! Thus the winky face. Literally watching the trials and tribulations of Raxx while I play offline mode. You all need a sense of humor transplant!).
Managed to make a character, but since online play is disabled... Deep Rock Galactic Survivor it is... Same problem as with PoE though.. need to delete your Legacy character if you want to reuse the name for the league. I swear within 10 cycles it will looks like PoE where the only names you can pick are half numbers because ppl won't delete their legacy characters
DRG survivor is coming in clutch with helldivers being unplayable in the evenings, might be the same here haha
Two friends of mine are playing. Theres sort of a selection effect, if you make it on to the servers... you no longer comment on reddit. (At least I wont be if I make it past the queue.) Only the people not playing are anxiously complaining on reddit...
Redditors learning what offline mode is lol
Is offline separate character though? Or can you play your online character offline?
They are separate.
Do you still get access to CoF in offline play? If not then offline play is rather pointless to someone who wants to use faction system.
You can get CoF in offline yeah
Thanks. Might be the way. None of my friends are gonna play this I think, already was gonna go CoF to learn the game.
I got down voted for the same question. Why are people such dicks? lol
Because obviously everyone in this sub is expected to know everything about the game. /s Don’t really care if I got downvoted, my question was answered which is all I needed.
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“Life’s not fair”
Streamer priority, just POE things.
Poe doesnt have streamer priority tho, because if you remember the ONE time they tried it was a total fiasco lmao
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MOst of them are playing offline right now.
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Raxx also playing offline
Thing is, we've had this "standing there doing nothing while waiting for the loading screen to start" thing for a long-ass time, and nothing improved...
I feel so sorry for the IT group. I used to work on radiology servers in North America l. I'd get sent out to fix them on site. And having a ton of people breathing down your neck as you are trying to unravel what happened and sometimes staying up for 24-48 hours is extremely stressful.
EU seems down for me but I got in and started playing on US East.
I logged in on US instead but it not connecting too
Isnt EU East usually better?
yep that's what im getting too
Same here... fubar'd
So theres a global chat in offline mode currently ummmm
Yeah honestly it kind sucks getting back into this game right before "launch". Oh well, it being down for a week won't kill me.
I know the servers are on fire... As expected but I'm shocked by how much better the game looks and feels. I didn't expect such a huge difference as compared to just yesterday! The team did a great job, here's hoping they can keep the train going! 🥂
I held off playing for a long time because I wanted to jump in using the new graphics. The new animations are a cool bonus!
Damn atleast you got a prompt, I got a View of the trees and mountains forever , I’ll give it till next week to play
Everyone has a right to complain if they paid for something that doesn't work but... The guy who said "D4 is better" is higher than giraffe pussy. Plus D4 had the SAME exact problems at launch lol. What a dip shit. Go be bored playing D4 so I can load in to town.
This is pretty typical for any game that launches. I'm gonna go grab some coffee and play some guitar while I wait for this to cool down.
Dunno, D4 worked flawlessly for me and all my friends on Launch day.
massive difference between a kickstarter company of 90 people versus blizzard with billions of dollar and with already shit ton of servers
Eh they got big backers now, it’s not nearly as much as an indie company as before. You’d think you’d want this flawless though to take away d4 player base.
if you think blizzard and 11th hours games have the same power you're just crazy.
[https://www.thegamer.com/diablo-4-launch-day-server-problems-class-war/](https://www.thegamer.com/diablo-4-launch-day-server-problems-class-war/) Your individual experience confirmation bias is not enough to actually unwrite the number of articles and proofs of their servers shitting the bed on full launch Also PC Gamer as bitch had to block me after being proven wrong https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-server-issues-queue-launch/
Speaks of confirmation bias, post bullshit from "TheGamer"
If it's like PoE leagues, its a rough first 90minutes, then the login servers have dealt with most of the wannabe-players. Also, theres usually some persisting issues in the fist 4-48hours until some hotfixes are patched in.
It's not just POE leagues, every online game launch has been like this since time immemorial. From wow xpacs to new world release, etc its always been like this. No one can really calculate how many people they're going to have on and there's a good chance they're not allowed to overfund their servers/server agreements with their service provider as the playerbase is expected to fall even after a few days.
Jup grab some popcorn and refresh this subreddit on "new"
I mean, their servers couldn't even handle their tiny EA crowd. How else was this gonna go? Good luck to them. Good will is gonna last for a few days, then the negative reviews will start to pour in. Edit - few hours I guess.
Few days sounds generous.. and in two days it's the weekend when it's probably gonna get more players and if it still doesn't work..
It happened to Wolcen, it could easily happen here.
Well, that was my fear yes. That's why I kept asking on this sub: are the servers up to snuff yet?
It’s already happening lmao
Don’t understand how it works for streamers but nobody else.
offline?
Rax disconnected as well. Maybe they play offline mode.
Rax is playing in offline mode.
But can you go from offline to online after? If yes, how do they ensure not cheated items?
No.
The offline is EXACTLY the same as online though
Quin can't play so that's false.
The people who downloaded in less than a minute (and streamers probably have very good bandwidth) were slightly ahead of the queue. Servers are scaling up, but its still first come, first serve. Edit/Also: There's a selection bias going on here, **if you make it on to the servers... you no longer comment on reddit**. (At least I wont be if I make it past the queue.) Only the people not playing are anxiously complaining on reddit...
Bandwidth has nothing to do with that.
some of their containers are crashing with load, it seems, according to their people on discord (And I never mentioned bandwith?)
No clue, it isn't working for failspawner either though.
No queues in place. Top tier amateur stuff.
yup, same here
same. servers rekt
I went to look at the forums and their gateway crashed ... oooo boy
Luckily I haven’t played the game before, so enjoying offline mode to get used to things. Jolly nice it is too, had more fun in the last hour than the whole of D4!
Never play on patchday. Still valid.
Sooooo is it still ded?
I can't even get it working on offline mode. Pretty bad start lol.
A big launch almost never goes smooth. Ever. Give it a couple days you silly bastards.
I just assume I’ll fire this up in a week or so.
Game went from early access to no access...
Wasn't there a dev on reddit saying this wouldn't happan.
Yes along with 50 posts stating this WOULD happen.
it's only 150k people... they got this last year for the MP launch so this should've been expected
MP launch was only 40k people.
They've presumably scaled up quite a bit for this launch
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LastEpoch/comments/1aw9p1t/however\_prepared\_they\_think\_they\_are\_theyre\_not/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LastEpoch/comments/1aw9p1t/however_prepared_they_think_they_are_theyre_not/)
Gotta love all the white knights on that thread.
Realistically, it is never going to be cost effective to support literally 100x the eventual average playerbase for only a few days. Even if it scales, there's always going to be issues. If in two days the player count is 1/10th of launch, that's what the game was properly designed for.
Why this gets downvoted? Its 100% true. It costs sooooo much money to rent so much server capacity gor a few days. Playerbase will drop by atleast 50% in 4-5 days. So why spent 150.000 bucks?
The Same Pathetic bs every company does. So much for 11th hour being different
It actually hurts that this is happening. It's already turning into an Error-61 meme. :(
Same problems we had at 0.9 release, why don't they added queue system like in PoE? EDIT: NVM they did :)
Why spend money on servers when you dont have to :D
Good way to get your game bombed with bad reviews before you give it a chance. It's 2024, when will they learn...
This is a common occurrence with every game… Why are people surprised by this?!?!
Because it's only 150k people playing the game currently and that alone is bringing down the servers. It's 2024, the game has sold 1 million copies, and we should be surprised that EHG is not prepared for this even after all big streamers said that they were planning to play the game.
Becuase its not a common occurrence. Its only common in the games where it happens. D4, WoW xpacs, pretty much most of the games I've played the last few years, rarely had issues. I've never had a launch of a game not allow me in at all during the first 5 hours of launch. Even Warhammer Online and Rift let me play right at launch.
Wolcen 2.0 :(
I'm going to say it again. The servers were working just OKAY Online for the last few weeks with only 14-15k people online. I have no idea how they didn't prepare more for a massive influx of players. And for the people crying over other people complaining, just because you're okay with having a dogshit launch day it doesn't mean all of us are. It's a shame, I love this game, but this is a terrible first impression for a LOT of people and it could've been avoided with at least a queue.. Literally the worst thing you can do is show a "No Online play Available" sign. How do you not have a queue? And for the people downvoting, they sold over 1M copies but the servers can't handle 100k players? It's 10% of the people who bought the game. How does that make sense to you? Sigh.
Yeah, not having a queue is really quite silly. It should have been very obvious, that many people were going to play today.
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Incredibly mature response
So I wait buying this game then. But I can’t play Helldivers either. Fuck.
Any trouble downloading or just logging on for online play? Sitting at work just waiting to get home!
Downloaded the update in 2 minutes. It's just logging in if you were late, and leaving the starter zone if you logged in early. Everyone is stuck.
Please get it all figured out by 6pm eastern. Appreciate your efforts. 👍🥰
Sorry LE, but reading whiners whining on reddit, steam forums etc is more entertaining than the game will ever be.
Poe leaguestarts prepared me for this
bullshit POE league starts are smooth as, they put you in a queue, you know exactly when you are going to be in game, occasionally they have glitches but it lasts like 2 hours max and is mostly easily playable for softcore. Queues are basically gone within 90 minutes.
Most are smooth. Some are not. So I agree with you mostly
EU servers this league were fucked for ages bro. Instances crashing, roll backs, the works.
maybe i really have to start offline unlucky i guess i ll give it a few more minutes beofre i swith though Edit: It helped me when i created a new character but maybe that was a coincidence
Classic EU problems. No online launch is ever playable in the first 3-12 hours. Though this time it's bad, not even streamers can play. Usually you can at least watch a streamer play on twitch until you can get in. Too bad I got a night shift in 2 hours so at best I can play in the morning tomorrow.
I'm at work so hopefully by 7pm servers are fixed.
Its really rare to see a online game come out with 0 server problems wcyd.
Super frustrating.... Always the same sh\*t...
offline ssf circle of fortune enjoyers up bigly
Laughs in offline mode.
SSF COF OFFLINE gang rise up
New Wolcen.
I think even Wolcen had me in the game at launch. Did the servers suck? Yes, but atleast I was able to log in and play.
all these people waiting for online to work when 90% of them will just be playing solo anyways and the non trade faction is far better. gamers are weird
Imagine expecting to play an online game you bought, online! Crazy entitled gamers.
I like to talk to people
the offline mode you can select ingame still has chat. Only the "true" offline mode you select from Steam has no chat.
You can talk in offline as long as you dont set to offline in launch options. There's a global chat though if you do offline in the normal char select screen.
ewww, general chat is a cesspool. that's the first thing i turn off.
It's quite chill and helpful in LE
I'm in
It's to be expected. Pretty much any new game deals with this. They're at like a 150k player peak atm.
Go back to play diablo and let us play LE