While Blizzard's ongoing efforts to merge Diablo Immortal servers are aimed at improving the gameplay of the popular action RPG, some dedicated players are now reporting that the move is ruining their experience. Namely, combining the game's infrastructure led to a bug that resulted in a number of clans getting deleted. Not only does the change appear to be irreversible, but some affected Diablo Immortal players are now also complaining about meager in-game compensation that's "more insulting than no compensation at all."
Following this week's server maintenance that took place on Wednesday, Blizzard started merging select Diablo Immortal servers on a continental basis. The move was announced earlier this year, with the gaming giant stating that the merges are rooted in an effort to improve matchmaking times, among other benefits. Much like many of the most popular free-to-play titles out there, Diablo Immortal is a game for whales, but it's currently suffering from success in the sense that some of its highest-paying customers are unable to get into matches after spending thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars, thus effectively outleveling the vast majority of the player base.
Even though Blizzard correctly anticipated that the server merges will lead to both player and Shadow Clan name collisions, the system it designed to automatically resolve those issues by adding numbers to the affected monikers in order to avoid duplicates now appears to be failing. Some clans are getting deleted, with certain players even reporting they were unable to regroup on the new servers, on top of losing their progress toward joint activity rewards. Unlike the bug that caused Diablo Immortal players to lose millions of XP earlier this year, this affair prompted Blizzard to compensate the affected players, albeit the recompense it's sending out appears to be measly at best, as one Reddit user has now revealed.
Regardless of the inadvertent issues caused by the ongoing server merges, Blizzard is all but certain to continue combining its infrastructure until its most valuable customers can once again enjoy the game with reasonable matchmaking times. From a business perspective, the company simply cannot allow cases wherein players who spent $100,000 can't get into matches.
Looking at the bigger picture, Blizzard's freemium hack-and-slash RPG is still a massive success. The latest figures from industry watchers suggest that Diablo Immortal already made over $300 million, instantly becoming one of the highest-grossing games of the year, five months into its release.
Diablo Immortal is available now on Android, iOS, and PC.
