Diablo 4 is Blizzard's fastest-selling game, so it's no big surprise that its first season realm launch is crowded: Diablo 4 Season 1 went live this morning at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, and Blizzard said that with players pouring in, " seeing "some unusually long queue times," it said.

I myself did not encounter any queues after logging in from California less than an hour after the start. If you do get stuck in a long queue, Blizzard has stated that they are working on it.

To join the first season of Diablo 4, you will need to create a new character. At the end of the character creation process, you will be asked whether you want that character to live in the Seasonal Realm or the Eternal Realm. At the end of Season 1, the Seasonal character will be moved to the Eternal Realm for approximately 3 months (but without any special seasonal attributes).

The new quest line for Season 1 is after the campaign and can be skipped with the new character if you have already finished the campaign with another character. If not, you will need to play the campaign first, but you can do so with a character from the season realm and level up to earn the Battle Pass tier.

Blizzard prepared for this launch with a major patch earlier this week. While there have not been many complaints about the new unique items added in this patch and most of the bug fixes, the class balance changes have been very controversial. There is some debate about how much each class actually took a hit, and the new season's powerful gem-like item, the Marignant Heart, may mitigate some of these changes Blizzard will be live streaming a developer chat on Friday to discuss the patch and future plans will be explained.