Today, I would like to share one of the worst experience I had with Blizzard as a gamer: Dealing with the Technical Support System. I would like to share what happened because I can feel that a lot of you, fellow players, will probably relate to this nightmare and very unpleasant experience and I think that gamers, should be able to politely tell others players about their experience, on forums, on social media, on reddit, and everywhere as possible to educate people about this.
Few days ago, D2R was announced, and as a Original Diablo II fan, it didn’t take much to get a major excitement about this. Not even 24H after, my pre-order was registered and completed for the upcoming release.
Now waiting for such long time, it will require me to pass time right ? So let’s take this old Diablo 2 + D2LoD French cd’s set, that I bought myself in store many years ago, (I still have the boxset and original cds), and let install it to enjoy some good old time… right ?
This is where my nightmare started: first of all, I installed the D2C, with the 3CD set, then I installed the LOD Expension. When I tried to launch the game for a self-update, it failed so I though myself, let go online and download the latest installer, and claim my cd-key on my battle.net account. That exactly what I did, and this time, Diablo 2 installed itself without a bug or a critical error.
Finally I tell myself, right ? WRONG. I start the game for the first time, I create an new in-game account, and I attempt to create a char (barb). While I was trying to create the char, I got disconnected from battle.net without any reason, popup, message or anything. Suddently I am now Temporarely Restricted from joining the Realm. I mean, you can understand the confusion, I didn’t even started to play the game !
A little bit frustrated of this bad game experience, I tried to contact battle.net and blizzard support and this is where things got worst: During my initial research, I though that maybe that having a VPN installed on my computer could be a reason since battle.net is not allowing you to use a VPN. So I create a Ticket, and I am up-front with everything and all surrounding the situation, I explain that I have a VPN/OpenVPN installed on the computer because I need it for the workplace but that it was NOT connected during the installation or any online play on battle.net.
After creating my initial ticket, I get a reply from “Gamemaster Gronnfindel”, who take the following pre-canned message and reply to me :
"Gamemaster Gronnfindel here, I hope you had a nice day so far.
I checked your OP address and your game licenses for Diablo II and Lord of
Destruction, but unfortunately I was unable to verify if your IP address is currently
restricted because you were using a VPN. These restrictions exist to maintain server
stability and prevent exploitative behaviour such as botting and hacking.
- Attempting to use an invalid CD-key
- Attempting to use a hacked or modified game client to log in to Battle.net
- Using unauthorized third-party programs or addons
- Connecting to Battle.net using a business network, cloud hosting service, VPN, or
Proxy - Rapidly connecting and disconnecting from Battle.net
- Switching between accounts or characters too quickly
- Leaving and joining games too quickly
- Scrolling through skill selection too quickly using the mouse wheel
- Repeatedly leaving an area and coming back to change shop or gambling items
- Repeatedly using a spell with no cast delay such as Amplify Damage or Glacial Spike
- Repeatedly using an incorrect password
- Harassing other players
- Advertising inappropriate website urls
- Spamming text or chat commands such as /whisper or /whois
- Connecting to Battle.net with more than 8 clients."
So at this point, I tell myself, maybe just the fact of having a VPN installed is a problem because I did not do anything in that list, I wasn’t even able to create a character yet, remember ? So I reply to this tickets, first clearly explaining that it is not possible the ban come from one of the reason mentionned in the list.
I then though, maybe they see my home ip address as a business ip because they might have outdated ip address database, so I provided further information on my ISP, all the technical information about the ip and a technical proof that it is residential class.
So once I send these informations, I finally got a reply, from “Game Master Ektiledil”:
“Game Master Ektiledil at your service! Please note that we do not associate IP
addresses with specific users, user accounts or cd-keys. So we can’t and don’t know
who used this IP prior and who’s actions lead to this restrictions. In other words this
restriction is not targeting you specifically. You are free to play the game from another
IP address. I’m afraid this restriction cannot be lifted by Customer Support.”
I replied to Game Master Ektiledil the information about my IP, and explained him that nobody is sharing my IP address, that I have the same IP address for over a year, and nobody has exploited or abused this IP. I showed him the netblock and everything technically necessary to make en enlighted bug research.
Thing are getting worst and worst…
I finally get a reply that seem promising from Tech Master Ekield:
"Technical Specialist Ekield here.
Thanks for getting back to us with that info.
I double checked everything on your IP address and CD keys, but I am not seeing any
active restriction.
IP address a.b.c.d (hidden for privacy) is not currently restricted.
The CD keys that are tied to your Battle.net account are in good standing and are not
banned/disabled.
It is perfectly fine if you have a VPN installed on the system, as long as the VPN is not
connected when you go to connect to Battle.net in Diablo 2. I see no evidence to
indicate that the VPN was connected.
Everything that I can see shows that you should not be restricted from logging in at
all, so it is unclear why you are having trouble connecting."
At this point, “Tech Specialist Latcrick” asked me to try a LTE connection, and told me I should be able to play, but when I tried, that didn’t work. So I replied to the ticket asking for further help.
"We’ve now gone through all your game licenses and connection addresses so far, and
we weren’t able to locate any restrictions active at this current time. However, there
are situations where restrictions don’t register, such as when they’re <24 hours in
length, and this could be due to minor interference with your connection causing a
packet flood in the server.
If it works on LTE, you can assume it’s your Internet provider and reach out to them for
further support. If it doesn’t change a thing, we can look further to local causes within
your PC."
At this point I reply to the ticket to explain that the LTE test did not work, and that I would like to proceed with further trouble shooting because I sincerely believe that this is a bug and that as a legit player, in this EXACT situation, shouldn’t have to be randomly punished of playing two week because the game has a bug that they can’t explain !
… At this point, hell is being set loose …
I get one last ticket reply from “Rainmithwen”, which I am not sure if he a tech specialist or a game master because he did not introduce him or herself like the rest of the TS and GM. (The reply did set the ticket to resolved, without a chance to reply to it), and the ticket basically tell me this, after all we went through, and all the facts that we established :
"Your connection has been temporarily restricted from Battle.net. This restriction is
realm-specific and can last up to 2 weeks.
It can happen for any of the following reasons:
- Using an invalid CD key
- Rapidly connecting and disconnecting to Battle.net
- Creating or joining numerous games within a short time period such as “Magic
finding” or “Baal runs” - By the use of “add-on programs”
- Chat channel abuse
- Failed login attempts
- In game latency caused by excessive spell effects
These restrictions can be manually applied by a Battle.net Support Administrator or
automatically applied by Battle.net for a variety of reasons. Some common causes are
attempting to connect to Battle.net using an invalid CD-Key and misconduct in-game
or abuse of Battle.net chat channels."
At this point I panic, I feel like I bought a game, and when I tried to play it, I get restricted from playing it for unknown reason, for a whole 2 weeks with no possibly of knowning why, or requesting battle.net to justify the restriction. I basically got left abandonned with a bug, that seem to be too much trouble to look at and to actually fix.
How would you feel if you reached for support about this, reach over 4-5 agents that each tell you different reasons or explaination, but that all come down to : They do not really know why I am restricted, and they can’t do nothing about it. I am to be sorry for something I didn’t do and accept that I am the victim of a game bug. I also have to accept this free and unjustified punition, and since we can’t explain it, it might re-happen after these 2 weeks.
What the hell is this gaming experience ? I am scared that D2-R will be similar in term of customer support. That one day, there will be a bug somewhere, and someone will be a victim that won’t get the support he/she deserve and will be abandonned with pre-canned answers and with no possible way to reply others than creating new tickets everytime.
I understand D2 is old game, but it not like I didn’t register my battle.net account, did my 2fa, and have others game such as D3 on my account for them to look at. I even pre-ordered my D2R less than 24 hours after announcement, and this is the kind of reward I get… I mean at this point, I have 2 weeks to relate this experience to everyone until I can pass time otherwise.
