Diablo 4 servers finally start to buckle under launch strain, Blizzard's working on it

pcgamer.com:

For a minute there, I thought Blizzard was going to do the impossible: launch an online game without any significant server problems. I should've known better!

Things are far from dire at this point, but at about 8 pm Pacific today, Blizzard said on Twitter that it's «currently investigating an issue» that's causing «failed or slow login attempts.»

I tried to play after I saw that message, and hit a login queue for the first time since Diablo 4 launched in early access last week, when owners the special editions were able to jump in. Today is the full launch, which means many more people are trying to play, although we don't know exactly how many more.

In the replies to Blizzard's tweet, some players are reporting that they were kicked mid-game and are now stuck in a queue with the message «game start pending...» After a countdown from around five minutes, I got that message, too, and spent at least another 10 minutes waiting before I got in. But I did get in just now, so there's hope: If you're in line, stay in line?

Another player at PC Gamer was already in the game before server issues were reported, and said he experienced a huge lag spike that prevented him from moving to a new area for nearly a minute. For at least one of us, however, it's been fine.

[#Diablo IV] We're currently investigating an issue affecting our authentication servers, which may result in failed or slow login attempts.June 6, 2023

It's hard to say how many players are affected without more details on the problem, but we'll keep monitoring it.

If some server kicks, a frustratingly vague queue message, and 15-30 minute-ish waits are the extent of it, I'd still say that Diablo 4 has been a good online game launch, relative to every other online