Kotaku har publicerat en artikel om hur Blizzard räddade Diablo 3 från en säker död. Artikeln är i själva verket är ett utdrag ur Jason Schreiers kommande bok Blod, svett och pixlar, som berättar historien om hur över 10 olika speltitlar, därbland Diablo 3, Uncharted 4 och Star Wars 1313, mirakulöst räddades av sina utvecklare.

Over at Blizzard’s campus in Irvine, California, a group of engineers and live-ops producers sat in their self-proclaimed “war room,” freaking out. Diablo III had outsold their wildest expectations, but their servers couldn’t handle the flood of players trying to log into the game. Around 1:00 a.m. Pacific time Blizzard posted a brief message: “Please note that due to a high volume of traffic, login and character creation may be slower than normal. . . . We hope to resolve these issues as soon as possible and appreciate your patience.”

A few miles away, at the Irvine Spectrum outdoor mall, the rest of the Diablo III team had no idea that people couldn’t play their game. They were busy partying. Hundreds of hard-core fans, dressed in spiky armor and carrying giant foam battle-axes, had come out for the official Diablo III launch event. As Blizzard’s developers signed autographs and passed out swag to the crowd, they started to hear whispers about overloaded servers. Soon it became clear that this wasn’t a standard launch hiccup.

“It really caught everybody by surprise,” said Blizzard’s Josh Mosqueira. 

Vilka minnen och intryck har du från lanseringen av Diablo 3? Såhär gick snacket på SvenskaDiablos forum 5 minuter innan servrarna gick live den där magiska natten.