Path of Exile 2 Becomes Victim of Its Own Success As 450,000+ Players Overwhelm Servers

[Cpt.Jank]

Path of Exile 2 today released in Early Access on Steam and consoles, and, despite the game's $29.99 Early Access pricing, it has already managed to amass a peak player count of over 458,920 players on Steam alone. While this is undoubtedly good news for the developer and publisher, the increased server load has apparently already caused problems, resulting in excessive queue times to get into game sessions. At the time of writing, the game has only been available to play for a little over four hours, and the player count is only beginning to plateau now.

According to the Path of Exile X account, the development team has been hard at work trying to stem the bleeding, as it were. So far, the Path of Exile website has been down several times due to the high traffic, preventing players from claiming their Steam keys. Additionally, and somewhat hilariously, this outage has also affected the "Early Access Live Updates" site that was meant to be a resource for gamers to keep track of work the live service team was doing to try and deal with the high launch-day volumes.

While Path of Exile 2 launched to Early Access as a paid game, the developer plans to release the full version of the ARPG as a free-to-play game, like its predecessor. The original Path of Exile launched in 2012, and it has been moderately successful in it 11-year run. That said, Path of Exile 2 has managed to garner nearly twice as many concurrent players on PC in its first 24 hours than the first game in the series could in over a decade.

It's unclear when the developer, Grinding Gear Games, will be able to get Path of Exile 2's player volumes under control, but you can follow along on the game's X account.

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[gmn17]

POE2 FTW

 

[Prima.Vera]

Does it have a better story than POE 1? Or better put, does it have a story??
I didn't understanding absolutely anything of the POE 1 universe when I played the first one. It was just the OKish gameplay, but with no actually story I got bored after the first run, and never redo it with another character.

 

[AsRock]

Does it have a better story than POE 1? Or better put, does it have a story??
I didn't understanding absolutely anything of the POE 1 universe when I played the first one. It was just the OKish gameplay, but with no actually story I got bored after the first run, and never redo it with another character.

HAHA yes as the original didn't really have one. I would of thought the "story" would not be completed yet as it's another year out yet and that could change too.

Much more fun with some one for sure, i wouldn't of put 3600+ hours in it if i played on my own that's for sure.

 

[Event Horizon]

I liked PoE 1 a lot but I'm concerned with Tencent's influence on PoE 2.

 

[Vayra86]

Does it have a better story than POE 1? Or better put, does it have a story??
I didn't understanding absolutely anything of the POE 1 universe when I played the first one. It was just the OKish gameplay, but with no actually story I got bored after the first run, and never redo it with another character.

Then its not your ARPG, and Diablo is your place to be. They've got that fantastic narrative going on, with awesome cutscenes, and no real game behind it

Honestly I've never even thought of playing an ARPG for the story...Its just a background to destroy all the things much like in most shooters to me.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Then its not your ARPG, and Diablo is your place to be. They've got that fantastic narrative going on, with awesome cutscenes, and no real game behind it

Honestly I've never even thought of playing an ARPG for the story...Its just a background to destroy all the things much like in most shooters to me.

Sorry, I don't play games just for mindless hack and slashing or just to shoot things. Diablo 2, even 3 had very good story and atmosphere. 4 is a disaster.
POE 1 had zero story, but the gameplay was interesting. However that was 11 years ago. I don't have that patience anymore...

 

[Veseleil]

Sorry, I don't play games just for mindless hack and slashing or just to shoot things.

Then, in essence, multiplayer ARPG and MMORPG games aren't for you. The story is the irrelevant part of the gameplay for those. It's about grind, good game mechanics & world building, crafting good weapons & armour or looting one, killing all enemies and bosses in the most fun way possible while having a lot of different playstyle and classes build options, together with other people. You get to make the story, not waiting for some low key dev to pull something out of his/her ass. Because believe me, most of the time it's better to not have any story at all, than to have a BS Spanish soap telenovela plastered all over your MP action game.

 

[Onasi]

Then, in essence, multiplayer ARPG and MMORPG games aren't for you.

I get the point about ARPGs, but the MMO one is somewhat shakier. Those have been trending towards being story-based for a while now - FFXIV is one of, if not the, biggest MMO around (hard to say since Blizzard stopped publishing numbers for WoW) and is heavily story driven, to the point it’s usually gets recommended on the basis of said story. Hell, WoW has been going more and more story-based lately with… mixed results. And, of course, there’s SWTOR which is, essentially, an excellent single player RPG contorted into being a mediocre MMO. So is Guild Wars 2, really.
Of course, there are significant opposites like EVE which is entirely player driven. Arguable still has a narrative, just said narrative is entirely through players actions. Which can be compelling in its own right.
And yeah, Korean and Chinese MMOs are almost entirely brainless grimd-fests, though that’s a given, they have always been like that.

 

[kapone32]

I am a fan of ARPGs. POE is pure ARPG but the issue for me is how much it is ARPG porn. The skill tree is an example of ARPG porn and getting points to upgrade is a huge hook to keep grinding. That is the the thing though the lack of an immersive story (For me) has me wishing that Torchlight 3 was actually a good Game.

 

[Onasi]

@kapone32
PoE is basically made for the people and by the people who consider Diablo II patch cycle to be something that transformed the game for the better. Then just take those lessons and turn the knob up to eleven. Whether or not one vibes with such an approach is very much based on pure preference. I personally tend to think that Blizzard have, essentially, misunderstood their own game in the process of “improving” it and following up on the vanilla release D2 more Diablo 1-esque style could have made for a better game. But they committed fully to the zoom-zoom, loot gobbling, Baal-running style. PoE is that, but on krokodil. It’s not BAD in any way, it’s just when you compare D1 sensibilities to PoE you kinda get a whiplash. Unironically, something like Dark Souls is closer to D1 than its own modern successors.

 

[Veseleil]

And yeah, Korean and Chinese MMOs are almost entirely brainless grimd-fests, though that’s a given, they have always been like that.

Really enjoyed Metin 2 for some time. Even the lowest quality MP game becomes a good one with a good community (friends to play with), not exactly a revelation, right? There are games with no dialogue, and the ones you'd wish to skip it completely as it hurts intelligence. I think it's better for MP games to not be entirely story driven and to not have a deep story, as it brings more problems to gameplay mechanics, than it does good.

 

[theglaze]

Blizzard have, essentially, misunderstood their own game in the process of “improving” it

Truer words have never been spoken about the 'downfall' of Bliz, and whats become of it franchises in the pursuit of quarterly profits

 

[phints]

Is PoE2 legit better than D4 or is it too early to tell? I heard it's actually somewhat challenging other than the mindless spamfest that D4 is.

Really looking forward to getting into it later as it gets out of EA.

 

[Onasi]

@phints
I heard they’ve improved D4 somewhat, but reports vary. Some actually think it got worse. When I checked it out in Beta… well, I dunno about PoE2, but fucking ebola was better than that abomination of a game, IMHO.

 

[bonehead123]

Ah, so to summarize:

Buttloads of gamr bois/gurls with their gamr tois, trying desperately to do something, anything, to bring some sort of purpose to their measly existences **AGAIN**, hahahaha

They could have just said so, instead of boring us with all that techo-babble, load charts, vids etc...

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Is PoE2 legit better than D4 or is it too early to tell? I heard it's actually somewhat challenging other than the mindless spamfest that D4 is.

Really looking forward to getting into it later as it gets out of EA.

It depends on what you enjoy. D4 is substantially easier they went in an almost dark souls direction with POE2. Visuals are about the same but POE has better art direction.

I haven't played enough of POE2 yet but so far I've enjoyed them about the same for different reasons.

 

[AsRock]

Then its not your ARPG, and Diablo is your place to be. They've got that fantastic narrative going on, with awesome cutscenes, and no real game behind it

Honestly I've never even thought of playing an ARPG for the story...Its just a background to destroy all the things much like in most shooters to me.

Diablo 4 is lost! he isn't even in it any more, they killed that game now and time to change the name already.

D3 was pretty trashy tbh never mind 4.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Diablo 4 is lost! he isn't even in it any more, they killed that game now and time to change the name already.

D3 was pretty trashy tbh never mind 4.

I think because I enjoyed 3 the fourth one doesn't bother me.

I also have a group of friends that play with me since the D2 days so they are all more enjoyable than they would be solo.

Most my friends did not like poe 1 but they are enjoying 2.

 

[Dahita]

POE 2 is neither an action RPG, nor an MMORPG. It's an online hack and slash. And for my 2 cents, so far, generally speaking it sucks. Too hard, not rewarding, convoluted.

 

[Vayra86]

I get the point about ARPGs, but the MMO one is somewhat shakier. Those have been trending towards being story-based for a while now - FFXIV is one of, if not the, biggest MMO around (hard to say since Blizzard stopped publishing numbers for WoW) and is heavily story driven, to the point it’s usually gets recommended on the basis of said story. Hell, WoW has been going more and more story-based lately with… mixed results. And, of course, there’s SWTOR which is, essentially, an excellent single player RPG contorted into being a mediocre MMO. So is Guild Wars 2, really.
Of course, there are significant opposites like EVE which is entirely player driven. Arguable still has a narrative, just said narrative is entirely through players actions. Which can be compelling in its own right.
And yeah, Korean and Chinese MMOs are almost entirely brainless grimd-fests, though that’s a given, they have always been like that.

WoW was also very much story driven, though you might also classify all of that as world building too. Dungeons also present small story arcs. I think the MMO definitely does use story a lot more than the ARPG. But even those... I gotta hand it to @Prima.Vera D2 for example definitely has story in quite a similar way; its condensed but whats there merges perfectly with the areas you move through and the quests also support it. I think the problem is more in the rehashing of ideas and stories that have already been told. I agree the D4 story isnt all that... but the game spends as much time on it as D2 did. A few cutscenes... a questline, some characters that evolve and return throughout the game.

PoE though is just super vague and feels random. The lore feels weird to me. It tries some grimdark fantasy but feels mostly like an excuse to provide us with a huge assortment of bosses, gods to worship and abominations to hate. And still, it never really bothered me, the focus of the game is elsewhere entirely.

 

[Onasi]

@Vayra86
WoW evolved. Or devolved, depending on perspective. It started out with a very barebones story. I think OG designers even admitted that they didn’t really know where to go and whether the game will succeed massively, so vanilla had a barely there story that had vague threads like something weird going in Stormwind (it was Onyxia) and the final raid boss was fucking Ragnaros, a literal “who dis”. Then yeah, they started adding more connections to WC3 which culminated in Naxxramas and Kel’Thuzad. Problem was they kinda blew their load early-ish with BC and Wrath and with Illidan dead (didn’t stick) and Arthas dead they ran out of notable antagonists from WC3. And, well, then they started… improvising.

I feel like PoE is in the same boat. What you say about its story beats feeling scattershot is probably on point because it WAS. There was never any actual plan and they just made shit up as they went along. Which usually leads to things just feeling hollow.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Looks great, do want to play, c'mon nGreedia, launch your next line of GPU's, my wallet is ready.

 

[bug]

Does it have a better story than POE 1? Or better put, does it have a story??
I didn't understanding absolutely anything of the POE 1 universe when I played the first one. It was just the OKish gameplay, but with no actually story I got bored after the first run, and never redo it with another character.

The first installment did have some story, but after 5-6 expansions it really started to feel "meh", because you knew it was something derivative, with no conclusion because it had to leave room for upcoming expansions.

I did play that since beta, but that was because there was a standalone client available. Today, I'm not really playing anymore. I thought I would make room for POE2, but I'm not touching Steam/Epic, so GGG kinda sorted it out for me.

 

[kapone32]

POE 2 is neither an action RPG, nor an MMORPG. It's an online hack and slash. And for my 2 cents, so far, generally speaking it sucks. Too hard, not rewarding, convoluted.

Hack and slash and Arpg are the same thing. Does POE play differently to Victor Vran, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, Van Helsing or indeed Diablo?

@kapone32
PoE is basically made for the people and by the people who consider Diablo II patch cycle to be something that transformed the game for the better. Then just take those lessons and turn the knob up to eleven. Whether or not one vibes with such an approach is very much based on pure preference. I personally tend to think that Blizzard have, essentially, misunderstood their own game in the process of “improving” it and following up on the vanilla release D2 more Diablo 1-esque style could have made for a better game. But they committed fully to the zoom-zoom, loot gobbling, Baal-running style. PoE is that, but on krokodil. It’s not BAD in any way, it’s just when you compare D1 sensibilities to PoE you kinda get a whiplash. Unironically, something like Dark Souls is closer to D1 than its own modern successors.

I hear you I guess the issue is that POE was around the same time as Victor Vran, Torchlight 2 and Grim Dawn. I enjoyed it but the lack of pace made it a sleep inducer Grind fest after some time. Especially compared to the Games I mentioned before. Torchlight 2 can be finished in a Weekend if you try. The skill tree was the biggest hook for me with so many choices.