The Division Players Are Lining Up In-Game Due to a Design Flaw

Ubisoft's latest mega-franchise The Division kicked off this week, and there are already some huge problems. Being an online-focused multiplayer action-RPG in the vein of Destiny, you could have probably predicted that the first few days would see some hiccups -- but nobody saw this coming.

At first, everything was about where you'd expect. A million people were trying to log on at midnight, and Ubisoft's servers melted immediately. Again, this is the sort of problem you'd expect from the launch of an online-heavy game, but that didn't stop snarky Steam reviewers from dropping soon-to-be-outdated bombs.

But servers aren't what lead to the bizarre display of civility you saw in that GIF above. No, it has to do with the physics of The Division. See, in a lot of online games, you can walk right through other players. It sort of looks wonky, but it makes the game more functional and easier to navigate without bumping into a thousand other dinguses starting a new character. But in The Division, player collision is turned all the way on. Without any way to knock a player out of the way, this has immediately given way togriefers blocking doors with jumping jack emotes. 

But okay, let's say your server isn't full of dickweeds like the one you see here. Player collision is still a pain in the ass, because everyone has to go to the same place to pick up the first mission. With dozens of people crowding around the same laptop, it can be impossible to get started. 

Whereas many servers are complete clusterfucks, the huge design flaw has lead to some players actually organizing single-file lines to that game-starting laptop. It's... kind of amazing.

via JoshHubi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSSkz6iDPvM

 

These dedicated fans just want to play the game that they paid for -- a game that seems pretty cool otherwise! -- and even a crippling oversight like this hasn't stopped them. Some players are waiting up to an hour through the queue just to fire up their game, and even then Ubisoft's servers still dick them over. 

Hopefully Ubi has some sort of fix in place, and maybe an in-game trinket as a reward for the patience of these guys. I have a feeling that gift will probably just have to be "somewhat functioning online play."