What a surprise—the Diablo 4 beta test servers are being crushed and people can't get in

The Diablo 4 preorder beta is now underway, and as you might have expected, it's not going perfectly smoothly. The biggest and most obvious issue for people trying to get into the beta is lengthy queue times: I'm currently staring at an "87 minutes left" message as I try to get in on the action.

Some of us at PC Gamer are looking at even longer wait times:

An hour into the beta, Blizzard has reported "an issue affecting our authentication servers," which it said could result in slow or failed login attempts. That might sound familiar: The dreaded Error 37 that plagued the launch of Diablo 3 back in 2012, was also an authentication server problem. It's the one thing about Diablo that genuinely scares us. 

Some things, it seems, never change.

Some people who were able to get into the game have also found themselves being kicked to the curb in the midst of the action. PCG staff writer Morgan Park was shown the door rather abruptly while dropping the hammer on a pack of evil-doers.

Blizzard is maintaining a list of known issues with the Diablo 4 beta on PC on its forums. Most of it is stuff you'd expect—performance isn't what it will be at release, that sort of thing—but one point in particular is worth noting: The queue countdown timer is not 100% accurate and wait times may be longer than indicated.

"Please note that the countdown may finish and go beyond the duration listed on the queue timer,"  Blizzard said. "Do NOT leave the queue as this will restart the queue." The beta happening now is open to anyone who pre-ordered Diablo 4, but next weekend's Diablo 4 beta is open to everyone. It's hard to imagine it going more smoothly, and Blizzard doesn't promise that it will, but it does say we'll at least have a better indication of how long the wait is: "We will have more accurate timers in place for Open Beta Weekend," Blizzard said.

For now, stay queued if you're queued. Global community development director Adam Fletcher repeated the point on Twitter: Shuffle your feet, lose your seat.

We'll keep you posted as queue times, and other potential issues, get better or worse.