Blizzard has chosen its poison with regard to catching flak from fans, and announced that the long awaited Diablo III will launch without PvP mutliplayer functionality, because "the PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards," says lead designer Jay Wilson.

PvP will launch as a patch once it is up to the team's standards. Wilson takes some of the sting out of the disappointing news by explaining that "delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete....We know a lot of you are looking forward to PvP, and we’ll be focusing our post-launch efforts on making sure the Arenas are as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be."

This delay will undoubtedly instigate a lot of whining from impatient fans, but Blizzard has to weigh that against the inevitable rantings of other fans who would be disappointed by purchasing a sub-par product at launch.

We've seen this time and time again, from the disastrous multiplayer elements in Twisted Metal to the myriad annoying glitches in Skyrim, and ultimately Blizzard had to make an unpleasant choice between annoying fans by holding to their standards despite the fact that it would delay a large portion of the experience or rushing to release something they knew they'd have to fix later anyway. It seems they took the high road on this one.