Last weekend's Diablo 4 (opens in new tab) early access beta got off to a rough start. The servers were immediately thrown into chaos, people trying to join had to wait for long periods of time, and everyone who joined had unstable connections. We were all shocked (opens in new tab). [Blizzard's Rod Fergusson said that in the big picture, the uproar was a good thing because it helped Blizzard fix some of Diablo 4's problems (opens in new tab) before launch. This weekend," he said, "is to prepare us for next weekend, and next weekend is to prepare us for launch.

However, with the open beta set to begin tomorrow, Blizzard warns that eager players can expect more of the same. The early access beta was limited to those who pre-ordered Diablo 4 and had promotional invites.

"We expect many more when we reopen the gates to absolutely everyone this Friday," wrote Adam Fletcher, Diablo global community development director, on Blizzard's forums (open in new tab)." There will be long lines, especially on Friday, the first launch, and during the peak regional window. This weekend has allowed us to predict the expected capacity for this weekend.

"In summary, we know it can be frustrating, but we need the queue to properly stress test our services and we have designed the queue to be available for some amount of time.

Fletcher also noted that the Diablo 4 beta may be offline from time to time so that Blizzard can make adjustments and fixes, and asked for player feedback on both technical issues and gameplay.

"By providing feedback, reporting back, and waiting patiently in the queue before enjoying Act 1 of Diablo IV, you are helping us continually improve the game. This weekend has energized our team and allowed us to see firsthand what players around the world have been building and experiencing."

Reaction to the early access Diablo 4 beta here at PC Gamer was a bit mixed: I thought it was great (opens in new tab), but Senior Editor Robin Valentine felt it wasn't advanced enough from Diablo 3 (opens in new tab). The overall reaction from players seemed to be generally positive: there were some complaints about specific issues, of course - repeated dungeons were at the top of many lists - but for the most part, everyone seemed at least cautiously impressed with the experience (opens in new tab).

The Diablo 4 open beta pre-loading is now live. The event itself will begin on March 24 at 9am PT/12pm ET (opens in new tab) and run until March 27 at 12pm PT/3pm ET.