Really who didn't expect this with a Blizzard game?

Diablo III launched yesterday. It was thought that after their open beta, with the shaky start, Blizzard was prepared to shoulder the burden of handling that many excited gamers. They were apparently not.

Ever since its first day up, frustrated gamers have had an impossible time logging in, receiving a flood of varying errors, such as 3006, 3005, and 37. Most, if not all, completely shut players out for hours. The required online connection clogged Blizzard's servers, locking out everyone as millions of pings hit it all at the same time. Within virtually hours "Error 37" became a meme in itself, tossed about on sites like Halolz.com as well as the Blizzard forums. 

Locked out of their game, thousands of bored and angry gamers took out their aggression elsewhere. I played five matches of League of Legends, and virtually every one had at least two players who complained about D3's issues. One Blizzard forum poster compared the game's demand to a dying man not recieving a heart transplant. The user score on Metacritic has been completely sunk by scores and comments trashing the permanent online connection, some claiming greed on Blizzard's part. Some amusing samples: 

Cevn, 0/10: "Absurd how badly blizzard screwed this up. There isn't even an offline mode. What kind of Diablo doesn't have offline gameplay? Other than this the game itself is very fun and plays smoothly, even on my macbook air."

Amargosa, 0/10: "Always online-DRM and then no capcity(sic) to handle all pre-orders and known retail and digital sales? Buying a product you can't use. Last time I bought a Blizzard product or EA game."

hcuta, 0/10: "12:01 AM PST was the official start of my licensed time to play the game. Despite the fact that things will undoubtedly get better with time, I am unable to play the game because Blizzard has failed to uphold their end of the contract. Not only have I wasted my money tonight on an unplayable product, I have also wasted my time."

Today, things seem to have finally smoothed out, and gamers all over are pouring their time into the game. But, as a non-fan, I thought this was an amusing tale to remember years from now when we're all buying the expansion pack.