Korean Diablo 3 Players Ask Blizzard to Ban Chinese IPs

The dreaded server login error message

Blizzard’s newest drug game, Diablo 3, is busy consuming the lives of everyone worldwide who has purchased it over the past week or so. In China, of course, it’s not available yet — and there’s still no word on when it will be released here — but that hasn’t stopped some enterprising Chinese gamers from acquiring copies of the game (often via piracy) and signing into Asia-region servers to play (since Mainland China doesn’t have any servers of its own yet).

Unfortunately, gamers in those aforementioned countries-that-aren’t-China aren’t usually too happy about their servers being overloaded with eager Chinese gamers (Taiwan is sometimes an exception). It’s something that has been an issue with virtually every Blizzard release, and Diablo 3 has been no different. Already, some Korean gamers have asked Blizzard to ban Chinese IPs from connecting to Asian servers, and other players have been pelting Chinese players with foul language and exhortations to stop playing on other countries’ servers.

Speaking in generalities, some net users in Korea and China have a history of mutual dislike and abuse, so that’s certainly part of the problem. The other problem is that there are so many Chinese gamers that they are reportedly crashing the servers in other countries and making it more difficult to play a proper game. That may be partially Blizzard’s fault, as Diablo 3 gamers have been experiencing connectivity issues all over the world, even on servers that aren’t populated by legions of Chinese fans wanting to play the game before its official Chinese release.

This release is also a bit different because of Diablo 3’s global play feature, which integrates servers in different regions that had previously been separated by country. Chinese gamers with a copy of Diablo 3 are trying to log onto the Asia servers and play, but and the Korean gamers calls for Chinese players to be banned from the servers has raised the ire of Taiwanese players, who along with Chinese players are now engaged in a multi-lingual war of words on the official Korean Diablo 3 site.

Basically, it’s a multinational mess, and Blizzard is trapped right in the middle of it. It’s not clear yet how the company will attempt to resolve the debate, although a Blizzard Korea rep did say the case was complicated and that Blizzard would be attempting to find a solution that satisfies gamers in all countries. Good luck, Blizzard!

[178 Games via Sina Tech]