If you would have asked me about this 3 weeks ago, I would have probably said the same thing. Currently, I’m not so sure. The delays in fixing a relatively trivial DBM problem, the lack of communication, etc. leaves me with much doubt, perhaps.
Or, perhaps, you’re still in the denial phase, while I’ve moved on to anger… 
I really don’t think the issue is trivial. I think it is pretty major and that they are dealing with 20+ year old code they did not write. Not only that, but they are trying to do it while the game is Live.
I worked in that realm before where you are dealing with really old systems that are still used and need critical fixes - and it SUCKS. You don’t have code documentation, you don’t have access to all the resources you need. You need to figure out how to get the old code to talk to newer systems you want it work with.
What I can’t figure out is why they thought using the old code was a good idea at all. What made them think it would scale to a Global level with modern gaming numbers? A LOT more people play games now than did in 2000. I would have suggested a different database solution that could handle modern global scaling and traffic volumes.
That is just me though. Nobody was going to ask me for my thoughts so yeah. I certainly would not expect them to. I don’t work there.
I skipped denial and went straight to anger that they screwed up the re-release of my favorite game of all time. One with a very dedicated fan base who has been waiting for this for years.
Realizing this could have been avoided if they had approached the database part differently makes me furious. It would have stopped so many of the issues we have dealt with for the past month.
I will give them credit though, at least they admitted what was wrong even though it makes them look even worse. I strongly bet some of the engineering team told them flat out that this was going to be a challenge and that the better idea was to make a new DB…and that someone said no at the suit level.
Yachts cost money, so does RnD. Vacations in the RnD department aren’t fun though.
I understand they are working on a solution, but how they are handling the current workaround is unacceptable. Unprofessional. If they must force a Queue on us for the time being, they should have at least written any new description or error message about the Queue .
For example, they are only displaying the most generic ambiguous “error message” that prompts the player to “Check their internet connection”. When in reality what you did was intentionally limit how often a player can (attempt) to connect. At least be upfront about the reason why and that temporary solution is in place while a real one is worked on.
Here let me write one for you free of charge:
“* Sorry! The evil Lord of Terror has temporarily blocked your passage to his realm! Please wait 1 - 2 minutes and then try again. ( This is a temporary solution while Blizzard works on a better solution. No ETA at this time. Sorry for the inconvenience” *
– a few weeks ago when the Queue was added, For console players (at least Nintendo Switch) could not connect at all and would timeout after a minute not knowing how to handle the Queue. If you got lucky you got in. ( I dont know what its like now, I stick to PC now)
So their first “temporary” solution is to provide a tiny tunnel for mostly only PC players to get through and consoles were SOL.
My other gripe about this is after delayed launch and TWO Open Betas? And 1 Closed Beta? (AND 1 (Private??) Alpha?)
After all of those months of final tweaking and open betas they really didnt see this coming? Or knew it was coming and let it happen because … Cha-Ching. Too late. Oh well.
There is nothing we can do about the state of it now. I thank the engineers for their work and I hope they can find a solution.
But we as a player/consumer must not approve this type of behavior that is rampant across the gaming industry. Ala Cyberpunk or NoManSky. We must not normalize this behavior.
Id rather a game take 10 years to finish, than have it released in 3 years and crippled by bugs and broken content for the next 6 years.
R&D is way more interesting than a stupid floating white elephant. Imagine, doing things right and having a fantastic re-release of a much loved game at a Global scale. Imagine setting the stage for D:I and D4.
Diablo was not even the problem group at Blizz. This could have been a home run. Makes me angry. Almost 2018 Blizzcon levels of angry.
They do have a very long detailed post about that, and it covers the poor error messaging too.
April was a single player Alpha. It was limited to the first two acts and had a small player base. Being offline it did not test the Global Database functions.
Closed “Early access” Beta was one weekend in August.
Open Beta was a second weekend in August.
Those were both Multiplayer and did test the Global Database, but given the limited scope of just two acts, the short duration, and that nothing from Beta is kept, it did not have the player participation Live does.
So yeah the test phases were small.
EVEN so, there were issues identified there that were not fixed for Release.
As a tech person, I agree completely. Solving problems is my forte. When I go to a microcenter, I’m in candyland. I was speaking from Bobby K’s perspective. 
Let me correct myself. It would have been trivial if they would have designed new accessibility/database code from the outset. This is all front end stuff. It’s true, that fixing it in a live environment is now an order of magnitude or more complex, with lots of opportunities for catastrophic results.
This is why you need to plan and scope these kinds of capacity issues from the beginning.
The fact that it obviously wasn’t, tells me a lot about the team’s priorities. From seeing Dave B’s video on twitter suggest there really work resources available, but, to quote D3’s lead Mr. Wilson, “Dave B, that f*****…”
So, I suppose current Blizz must have a similar respect for the potential of those resources.
Going with a single global domain was such a huge change they should have anticipated that the old DBM code would not scale up.
Amen, Sister!! Preach on! I feel entirely the same way. But, I will admit, when it works, I love it. My problem is that it’s not working enough. I’m in my 6th queue of the morning, waiting over 3 hours today. A TUESDAY.
This is something I have to remind myself of. I worked in provisioning global IT real-time solutions for more decades that I feel comfortable admitting, and I can recall dozens of times I and my team could have implemented some truly impressive, elegant solutions, if only we could have squeezed a few more pennies out of management. Most of these works of art never got off the drawing board.
Or the cocktail napkin in some cases…
Ok so I am not a programmer or dev, but is this “Legacy” D2 code so old they cant event add an in-game notification , banner, or New temporary error message to replace the Generic one? I have read that post, and its coming up on 2 weeks old.
Up until last night I’ve been OK with my experience in the game. Even considering some of the odd crashes and yes, the queuing I’ve experienced–which for me isn’t remotely as bad as some folks have it.
However, last night I hopped on to do a few MF runs before shutting things down for the night and was met with “Connection Interrupted” after “Connection Interrupted”. This happened in a couple games and I got a little annoyed. At the end, I ended up dying and quitting out 3 times in a row and finally said screw this and shut it down.
I like to think I’ve been exceptionally patient with how things have been going, but that doesn’t mean I think things are being handled in an acceptable fashion. It’s well past the point where we should be receiving regular updates about progress on fixes, release/testing schedules, etc…
I’m pretty close to saying screw this game for now and I’ll revisit it in a couple months, maybe. I just don’t have the patience to deal with this anymore and my free time is at a premium. I’d rather run through Game of Thrones for a 6th time vs deal with this nonsense for the foreseeable future.
Sadly, it’s never that simple. There is an old analogy, “You fix one thing, only to break another.” In this case, it’s more like fix one thing, break everything else.
…but yeah…to the original point, they should find a better way of communicating any updates.
Push notifications/alerts?
Maybe add more information on the queue box?
I was in the same boat last night at around 5PM pacific. Running cows, saw them suddenly freeze, I thought “Oh shi…” Disconnected. “Your character is already in a game.” Quit playing for a bit, came back later and found my sorc dead. Luckilly playing softcore.
Things are getting progressively worse. 
Yeah. I was doing some casual play with some friends on console a little earlier in the night closer to the time you were on and was seeing some pretty severe lag there as well.
We hadn’t seen ANY lag issues on console up until that point.
What do mvps get out of carrying blizzard’s water free of charge?
Green text and the MVP tag, and also people badgering them about it.
They’re players just like everyone else.
You have no time to play if you posted as much as mister cheetah. We all know what MVPs are, they are people who are willing to carry blizzard’s water for free. People saw through the mvp system the day it was created. Its no coincidence that they started firing CMs shortly after it was implemented.
Keep on trolling, the end is near.
Well, they give an ETA everytime launch a new game. Why not give an estimated deadline for the total solution of the problems, including expressing whether or not they will disable the queues in the future? Makes no sense to me.
If they don’t meet the deadline people get upset. I honestly don’t think they KNOW how long this is going to take. I would rather they do it right instead of end up wiping all our progress by touching the database in a bad way.
They need to upgrade from Office 95 to at LEAST office 2010.