Diablo III - Major Rollback Issues; Loss of Levels/Gold

I've had enough of this game!

On Wednesday, I log out with 100k gold and Act III Quest 7 Normal.

On Thursday, I log in with 6k gold and rolledback to Act II Quest 5 Normal.

On Friday AM I log out lv.38 Monk Act III Quest 2 Nightmare

On Friday PM I log in with lv.15 Monk Act II NORMAL.

Friends Real ID list is all deleted...

Blizzard is taking an eternity to answer my tickets; phone support is useless.

Anyone else having these issues? I'm constantly being rolled back; my friends list is deleted; my gold is all gone....

What a terrible gaming experience this is turning out to be.

 

I got rolled back when I found 3-5 Dmg rings +8% mf(x2) with amulet having +15%mf with 24int... Decided to give diablo a break tip the end of the month

 

Man that sucks. I havent`started playing it yet, so maybe I`ll wait until they got their first patch up and running

 

This is how ridiculous their GM support staff are:

1. First Ticket (regarding my Wed-Thurs issue):
GM replies and tells me that I'm using integrated graphics card and that's why I am having issues with the game...

The first ticket was regarding my quest and gold rollbacks ...had nothing to do with performance or GPU's...

2. Second Ticket (regarding my Friday issue);
My account has been compromised, so it's now temporarily locked...

How can it be compromised if the servers rolled back my character 23 levels, quests and gold? *sigh*

---

I tried their phone support and was on hold for 1 hour and 30 minutes via google voice - just gave up, not going to waste my time fixing their problem.

It's like the GM's are selecting random pre-written templates and sending them off as e-mail replies to customers experiencing issues.

 

Well, that is sort of a disaster. I haven't experienced any of these types of issues. The worst that has happened to me was server downtime earlier in the week, and occasional server restarts with notice.

I also lost a good bit of gold (maybe 75k in total) in the auction house, because it was critically buggy a few days ago. It would give you an error message indicating that the buyout was not successful and had timed out, though the buyout completes normally.

The items wouldn't show up in your inventory until much later (it still takes several seconds, but this was several minutes) - and the gold bank figure would not be updated either.

Not the biggest deal. Trying nightmare mode next.

 

I've experienced similar, but not nearly as disastrous issues.

Currently downloading the Torchlight 2 Beta. Hopefully it's good enough that I can forget D3 exists. I'm hearing good things, so far.

 

Reminds me of the server issues in D2, I guess they are doing worse in D3 lol. Well good thing I didn't buy the game; let's see if it improves in the future then I'll think about buying it.

 

If you really aren't happy, supposedly Blizzard has a policy where you can get a refund within 30 days of the game purchase/activation. Might want to look into it .

 

They REFUSE to restore rolledbacked characters and progress:

I initially contacted D3 support because of the progress/gold roll back. While I was waiting for the ticket reply, I continued playing and recovered my lost progression (about 1-2 hours worth). I finally reached Nightmare Mode - Act 2 Quest 2.

A GM finally answered my ticket and instead of providing the lost items back to me, he rolls back my entire account from level 38 to level 15 JUST to recover 100k gold. Who in their right mind would put a player 2 days behind just to recover gold?

So I contacted Blizzard again, and the second GM said he can't do anything.

Now I'm at Normal Mode - Act 2 as level 15 ...

I also made a post on the Technical Support forums and bumped it twice since it immediately fell off the frontpage within 15 minutes, only to find my forum account can no longer post...(it was politely written). I guess they don't want their failure publicly exposes. I've totally lost respect of this company.

As of now, I'm shelving the game. D3 is an absolute mess.

 

Can you find a link to your post on their forum? Or did they moderate it away? It might be a good idea to make a snapshot of your posts if they start developing a habit of making bad press disappear.

 

glad I haven't bought the game yet. I'll give it a few months.

 

To be honest I can't really blame them... A lot of people are bomberding them and there servers, also can you imagine the amount of trolls requesting support?

The best thing to do is just wait it out a bit. I trust blizzard will do the right thing, also there offering full refunds and I really doubt a lot of companies do this *cough ea*

 

They remind me of the OCZ forums (lol).

I can no longer access them. Been on hold for 1hr08min so far via google voice (giving it one last try).

According to "City.", they give out refunds, so I may just opt for that and never purchasing a Blizzard product again.

 

First off, I'm pretty sure they don't offer refunds.

Second, I would give them a reasonable amount of time. Obviously, you wanted the game. You're upset that you're having problems... but I would give them a reasonable amount of time to clear things up. It's pretty hard to solve everyone's problems when the flood gates are opened. I don't think it's worth any extremism just because you had some difficulties during a software launch.

 

They already concluded that I would not be able to get anything back.

View image: GM Response 1 Fixed 2

In the original rollback I inquired on (loss of gold; loss 2 hours gamelay), Blizzard mentioned they would take a look into it. While the ticket was active, I levelled to around 38 (Act II of Nightmare).

When the ticket was answered, without my permission, the GM rolled me back to level 15 (Act II of Normal) in order to recover the 100k gold that was originally rolledback.

I spoke to supervisors and reps - every answer is "you're going to have to re-level as there is nothing we can do to recover your character". They didn't even apologize to me because of the GM's error.

"Difficulty" is performance issues and bugs - not an irreversible error done by an employee of the company with no resolution

That's like taking your computer in to a shop for repairs.

A day later you get the computer back, only to find that the computer shop downgraded your entire system and when you inquire on it, he tells you "we're sorry, there's nothing we can do".

 

So how does that excuse their complete lack of ignoring his requests and fubar his progress? Just because they're busy doesn't mean they should go and do whatever they want.

Tell your boss that you screwed up because the floodgates opened up. That wouldn't fly at my job. I would say I need help to get it done otherwise it won't get done on time or in a reasonable amount of time. But to just screw something up just to get it done screams horrible CS and quality.

I haven't bothered to look up the actual terms but lots of forum entries with a quick Google search indicate there is 30 day money back guarantee. Also many Google searches that show up at Blizzard forums with complaints when you click on them say thread deleted... Blizzard, I've lost all respect.

 

The biggest problem here is that they spent so long working on D3 in the first place. It's supposed to lead you to believe that they're making sure that their product is the best it can be, and that means no major bugs, on day one. Instead they take their time tweaking and fine-tuning the game and after making their customers wait so long come out with a product that doesn't do what it says on the tin.

Deleting the forum posts is shady as well, but the biggest issue is that they put themselves in such a position where they would even consider doing so.

 

Damn pleased I didn't buy this game, the login issues people had for a single player game and now random rollbacks with people loosing their hard earned gear and more importantly time.

Torchlight, take my money please, Blizzard stay the away!

 

I'm actually pretty hard broken as people say that lol, Diablo is just a childhood game that I love and I actually love D3's story and gameplay despite all the inconvenience. TBH it was expected with such a huge release.

 

No. People bought the product expecting an advertised experience. Blizzard didn't advertise buggy servers, didn't advertise random rollbacks, and didn't advertise days of customer support issues. Their servers still experience high lag (from what I understand), and now Blizzard is resorting to deleting critical comments on their forums? That is definitely a good way to tick off your customer base.

They advertised a working game. So far, it isn't a working game. Issues like the OP's proves at least some people are not getting what is advertised.

Blizzard can make all the excuses they want. We can make all the excuses for them. But at the end of the day money changed hands and Blizzard has a responsibility to deliver a functional product on day one. Huge release, sure. But they have NOT done right by their customers and their always-online-DRM is biting them in the rear.

I've read a few pieces of information here and there about getting refunds -- some people have been successful. If you bought it online from Blizzard either get a refund or do a credit card chargeback. Either is a perfectly fair action.

I played both the original and D2, loved them both. But at the end of the day I've read enough complaints to know I am not interested in games that require an internet connection for single player. Not at full price at least. Blizzard has really shown us all what can go wrong with this DRM approach.

 

All of this because of their awesome draconian drm always online system, fail !

 

He then closes the ticket and marks it as "resolved", which completely blocks me from responding.

Guess I'm SOL. I even wrote a polite e-mail to the CEO (Michael -something) and he wrote back within 5 minutes telling me he'd look into it this morning (probably has an executive CS team running the e-mail like Michael Dell - doubtful it was actually him).

It's a good thing the Civ V expansion pack is coming next month since SWTOR (5 people in Imperial Fleet primetime; no Q's) is dead and now D3 is dead to me too.

 

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to side with Blizzard on this one. You complained that you had lost xxx items and xxx gold and xxx time. You asked them to restore that to you. The only way for them to do that was to pull up a save of your character before you were rolled back. They complied and restored you to the point you had originally asked to be put back at.

But in the meantime you went ahead and played and leveled your character up. When they did what you asked for in the 1st place it wiped out your progress that you went ahead with.

Been playing MMO's a long time.
A) If you lose something big and ask for your character to be restored you should not play that character until your account has been restored or they tell you that they cant restore your character.
B) Look at what you lost and decide appropriately if you should not bother because by playing you can get back the items and have fun in the mean time.

You can get mad at them if you want to but your at fault as well. They did what you originally asked. You went ahead and played and thus took it upon yourself without regard to your original ticket.

 

Greg, I totally hear you, I hate DRM, but it is a must in order to profit for these million dollar companies

Also, the game is FUN, I mean it! Give it a try, you won't regret it!

 

Due to Blizzard's rollback/server issues, I asked for 100k gold to be restored - The original rollback only caused 2 hours of lost time, which I recovered. Between the time I wrote the ticket and the time the GM answered the ticket, I progressed from level 15 to level 38. The GM then takes it upon herself to roll me back to level 15 without my permission, which is required to do such rollback (as indicated in the ticket screenshot I posted). This permission was never given.

Any player in their right mind would decline a full character rollback from level 38 to level 15 to recover 100k gold (which I remade by the time I was 38).

The forum post deletion and friends list deletion is also the icing on the cake to the frustration.

The key word here is permission - which wasn't given.

 

Again, I'm guessing your haven't played many MMO's. They normally don't just hand out xxx item. They restore the account to XXX point in time. That way the player gets EXACTLY what they had at xxx point in time. No fudging with players lying etc. You went ahead and played after telling at them that you had lost levels, gold and time. They did what you asked and restored you to xxx point in time. YOU took it upon yourself to play in the meantime and thus when they restored your account you lost out.

Sorry bro, that's how it works. I can understand your mad but nothing will change the account restoration.

 

I don't agree with that at all, they prepared as much as they could for the servers to go up but they didn't expect such a stress on there servers, and no matter of preparing could have forseen such a thing, At least they are attempting to listen to the players by such above by rolling back, some MMO's would say your SOL, good luck. There under extensive bombardment from other customers and most who are probably too frustrated to think coherently.

It wasn't false advertising it was simply over stress on something they didn't expect, and these things come up from time to time. And to be honest this incident is most likely going to be resolved within the month, its only been 5 days so I can't fathom why people are taking such a negative turn.

Also TBH I understand why companies like blizzard choose to put such extensive DRM's on there games its simply because so many people choose to pirate games. I remember reading a statistics one time stating that PC games at one point had over 40% loss in profits due to pirating, and blizzard simply doesn't want to lose any profits when there only target audience is PC users.

 

Again, sorry for your trouble and I'm guessing you've never read any of the EULA's right? You do know that you don't own your Blizzard account right? Blizzard owns it and can pretty much do anything they want with it. While you the end user are severely restricted in what can and cannot be done with said account.

Any online game or service these days holds to pretty much the same model. They own the account can terminate the account with no reason given and can do what they want at any time when they feel like it.

The biggest issue isn't that they didn't get your permission. They don't need it, tbh. The biggest issue was you playing after you had already asked for items, levels etc to be restored. If you had sat it out until they were finished with the restore you wouldn't feel cheated. Your items would have been restored and your levels etc and then you would have gone about playing as usual.

The only thing you can REALLY do is vote with your $ and not play their games from now on and stay away from all online games that have accounts, because in the end you don't have a say in what is done or not done with the account. And, yes I do believe public opinion matters. I'll be really convinced about public opinion when actual accounts have legal backing, i.e. laws in the US for BLIZZARD where users actually own their accounts. Now that would be something to see.

 

Only not since it doesn't cost you any money to get your stuff back in game, just time. Plus, you'd have a valid argument against the computer shop. Like... theft perhaps?

Also, you agreed to the terms and conditions that Blizzard set out WHEN YOU SIGN IN FOR THE FIRST TIME. Perhaps it's time to read that list before you start bashing a company.

 

NO! A resounding NO, infact! Don't believe for a second that when they tell you this it is true. At the very most, I'm OK with DRM as an account/CD-Key for multiplayer functionality using first-party servers.

Check out The Witcher 2 sales-a DRM-free single player game.

 

Agreed abut DRM, it doesn't work (for single player games). Now online authentication for multiplayer I'm all for.

 

Don't be sad.. Blizzard has way too much on their hands..

Level 58 Barbarian last friday. Logged in today after a break found myself F***** level 40.

Filed 3 tickets, also lost 20K gold and 2 swords.. Oh god, back to LoL then...

 

The sad thing is people keep giving Blizzard excuses and sympathy. This isn't Blizzard's first rodeo people! If anything Blizzard should be the model of efficiency and quality. Instead they are acting like an understaffed, low quality, shady new developer with a low budget.

 

Snipped.

Blizzard is a huge company, with at least as much experience in the realm of hosting online games as any other company out there. They knew how big the release of D3 was and they had every reason to expect first-week sales to be as high as they've been. They also know that the player base is likely to be larger in the first few months than it will ever be at any later point, since there will be many early purchasers who buy it, play it, and then move on, especially since it's not a subscription-based game. They don't care that a lot of customers are going to be upset with technical issues because many of those issues will disappear with a patch or two and a thinning out of the crowds.

Most of the people upset about these issues will come back to Blizzard in the future, and very few of them will even bother asking for their money back. Why would they invest in enough servers and QC to ensure that the game experience is optimal for everybody from day one when a notable portion of those server banks will be unnecessary after two months? They don't care about your experience with their product - they know the game fits the formula well enough to get you spending, and they know that you'll have forgotten about release-day issues by the time their next big release rolls around.

Once again - Blizzard is a company that exists to make money. They know how to make Diablo III a game that you'll spend money on, and they know how to cut corners to increase their profit margins. Many of the individuals working there certainly care about the end-user's experience, but management decisions are made by people who care about the bottom line. I fully support anyone here who pisses and moans about that, since it's a pretty crappy situation, but welcome to human civilization.

 

I was just thinking about this last night, but what happens when the auction house thing goes live? Are people going to buy some gear only to have it rolled back later? Not to mention what happens when you get that uber-nice item that you're going to sell, only to log in the next day and find it gone?

Blizzard is going to have a heck of a time explaining things like this when their money-for-items-racket goes live.

 

As seen here:
View image: GM Response 1 Fixed 2

"please respond to this ticket and clearly tell us you want to use a limited restoration" ...I did not do this. That's the point I am getting at.

Customer's permission is required in order for rollbacks of any kind to proceed.

@imglidinhere
It was only a matter of time until the Blizzard fan-boys came out of the wood work. You're basically telling people that have valid complaints against a company "L2READ TOS". You know as well as I do that barely anyone reads the ToS and even so, it doesn't excuse Blizzard's gross negligence.

What Blizzard is doing is ignoring a real problem. If you inquire on it, they close your ticket and mark it as resolved. If you post about it, they delete your forum thread.

Just look at user "jaug1337", yet another victim of Blizzard's rollbacks and he's probably going get treated the same way as I did. One of the guys I played SWTOR told me on MSN this morning that his Demon Hunter lost 7 levels and he was level 40-something.

I can only hope that you experience this first hand, so you can know how it feels to have days of work lost.

@Greg
Yep. Apparently the limit of a transaction is 250$. Can you imagine spending 250$ and then waking up the next to find the item GONE. Sadly, the real money AH is going to be a nightmare for some people. The richer Blizzard gets, the weaker it becomes in customer service.

 

I'm starting to be pissed with Blizzard too, first sunday after launch servers are down for the whole afternoon (euro servers only it seems; they are up now but everyone I know is getting an error 37).

I really wish torchlight 2 and Path of Exile could have been released before D3.
I paid 55 euros for a game that I cant play and that's basically D2 with better graphics

 

ok your still not getting the point of what previous people are saying, YOU GAVE THEM PERMISSION to do a rollback by the very act of asking for items to be restored, they did EXACTLY WHAT YOU ASKED THEM TO. It is your fault for playing while an investigation and rollback was occurring, your fault not blizzards.

And just because blizzard is large an experienced does not mean the equipment they buy is perfect, there is ABSOLUTELY no way to stress test servers to the extreme of a launch day rush, period, end of story, people need to actually learn how this technology works before criticizing anybody

 

I understand your anger towards blizzard. I would be upset too if that happened to me. Well it has happened to me in other games, but as you said in a prior post you only lost 2 hrs. everquest rollbacks was weeks worth of work, wow had some that was days worth. and both would take weeks not hours to fix.

Not that I am giving blizzard a free card, but take it as a learning experience. Something is wrong with your account of any mmo, stop playing that toon. you will probly be rolled back if you are lucky and get the stuff back.

Btw what did you expect to happen when you did the ticket? Just wondering, and why did you keep playing the toon if you knew there was something wrong with it? Yes you are going to take this the wrong way and like I said I am not sticking up for Blizzard.

And yes I have been rolled back once. It happens, it shouldn't but it does.

Very few people post that everything is peachy with their online gaming experience, many people post when something goes wrong.

And yes you should had read the tos, I did. That is what I did waiting on the servers to come up. I wanted to know what Blizzard was doing with my info. That is a poor excuse, I didn't know because no one ever reads the tos.

They know there is a problem, but just like this forum if you don't post in the right thread, what happens, the thread is locked and moved. Blizzard isn't the only one that makes threads disappear.

And yes their support isn't the greatest, I don't know what you was looking from them when you did the ticket.

edit:

You asked for something. That kinda gives permission.

post a ss of the orginal request.

 

If you look at the screenshot link, the GM asked for my permission:
View image: GM Response 1 Fixed 2
And went through with it without getting my permission. As you can see in my reply, following the request, I was shocked for my account to be rolled back.

The root of this problem is due to Blizzard's initial rollback, which lead to the loss of 100k gold and 2 hours of progress. If this initial rollback never occurred, then I wouldn't of inquired on my 2 hours of progress/100k gold and the GM wouldn't of rolled me back.

@jlyons264
It was my first rollback experience and by creating tickets, I expect the issue to be resolved instead of swept under the rug - they didn't even acknowledge it was a problem or give me an apology.
As for your other comment: "That is a poor excuse, I didn't know because no one ever reads the tos."
Another "read ToS" comment, really? I only hope that Karma finds those who are saying "L2READ ToS".

 

if your original one went along the lines of I am missing 100k from my account and I want it back. I would think that means you know there is going to be a rollback to when you had the 100k. And you imply that you want it back, which gives permission to roll the toon back.

 

Obviously they made a mistake. You need to keep the ticket open and resolve it.

 

I don't think anyone would expect a rollback. In World of Warcraft if you loose an item they don't rollback the character, they send the item is question by mail. I was not able to try out Diablo 3 yet, so I am not sure if there is a mailbox in the game but even is there isn't, they could just simply put it in the inventory.

 

This is the company that runs WoW. I find it hard to sympathize with the idea that they could have underestimated needs on the server side.

And some of you sound like Blizzard employees.

 

Who thinks like that? An in-game item like gold has nothing to do with one's level or status. If the gold disappears and Blizzard is going to do something about it, they should give the player the gold, not take his character back to a (far) previous state when he had that much gold. That's like cutting open the chicken to eat the egg.

@Kevin - You summed up in one sentence what I took three paragraphs to say a page back - well done. I don't agree that they sound like Blizzard employees, though. Typically employees of a company are usually willing to bash said company, at least a little bit. These guys sound more like rabid fanpersons, which are much worse to deal with, and MMO know-it-alls, "Duh! Of course you got rolled back! Who would be such an idiot to not expect that?"

 

If they can launch StarCraft 2 with the same battle.net DRM and it be a lag free experience day one they can definitely manage launching Diablo 3. There's no excuse for this at all folks... not Blizzards first rodeo, they know how to manage the floodgates.

 

problems happen. not sure what else to say. open a support ticket. i would be seriously surprised if you couldn't get this resolved eventually.

You have to keep in mind the support demand is probably overwhelming them right now, but the good news is that the servers have stabilized as far as I can tell.

It looks like they made a support mistake. There is no such thing as a good company that doesn't make mistakes. Good companies work with customers to resolve mistakes.

 

Wow. Nowadays the player base actually expects games to be a huge fop on release, and is ok with that. Sad, sad, sad.

In any case, it's your money, isn't it.

 

I guess I am the only one, the gold has everything to do with level and status. He logged in, played game, Logged out (save point), logged back in, saw something missing because something got messed up, He asked for it back, and continued to keep playing. And they moved him back to the last good save point. Just because the player says "Hey I lost 100k gold, and I was stupid and I kept playing so take my word at it and give me the gold and don't verify." Sorry don't play the toon, won't lose time.

It is the same when playing a single player game, save often because you never know if one of the saves will become messed up.

I don't know maybe it is because I have played mmo's since 1998, I know when there is something wrong with my toon I stop using that toon and play another while waiting for them to fix it.

Everyone in here is hating on Blizzard because they did something wrong, or the servers are down for them but up for others. I guess I planned on them having problems with the servers. You throw 400k people at any server setup at once and it probaly is going to crash like it did. In a blaze of glory.

I go back to everyone post a bad experience and no one really posts a good one. We are under 0.1% of the amount people trying to play the game. Out of those people who post about the game most are going to be downing the game about something they feel is wrong with said game.

And I don't understand people, you complain that the single player is online. Would you complain that you couldn't use the same toon in multiplayer if their was a offline single player but a online multiplayer? Would you complain that people could cheat, get a massive toon on the single player game and then bring that toon into the multi player, or do you think you should have to level another toon in multiplayer?

 

Yup, proves my point, thanks for the post. Still, each one does what they want with their money.