New Diablo III purchasers are no longer limited to the first act of the game, as of a patch released this week that fixes some issues in the popular action-role-playing game.
Last week, Blizzard announced that people who bought the game online would have to wait up to 72 hours before progressing through the entire campaign. In an e-mail to Kotaku, a Blizzard representative then explained that this was a temporary restriction.
Now that restriction is no more. As Blizzard tells me (and explains on their forums):
Players who download the game will only have the following temporary restrictions:
- No public game access for unverified digital purchasers
- No auction house access (real-money or gold) for unverified digital purchasers
- Unverified digital purchasers cannot trade items or drop items for other players to receive
- Unverified digital purchasers are not able to chat in any public or game channels
- Unverified digital purchasers cannot attach a custom message to friend requests, but they can send/accept friend requests, and play with their friends
- Global Play is not available for unverified digital purchasers
This is for up to 72 hours until Blizzard can verify your credit card information. And it's certainly more reasonable than restricting new players to a single act of the game.
Blizzard is also releasing a patch today that fixes several bugs, including an item pathing issue and a crash that would sometimes be triggered by opening chests and interacting with environmental objects.