While many players are enjoying the latest additions and bug fixes that the new 1.03 patch has brought, some new users are now experience difficulty when trying to play their digital version of Diablo 3.

According to an official post on the Diablo 3 forums, users who purchase the digital version are now being restricted to the "Starter Edition" of Diablo 3, which severely limits what an account can do in-game. The big problem? Users accounts may be stuck on the very limited edition for up to 72 hours according to Blizzard, though it may sometimes be less.

Players on Starter Editions have the following restrictions:

Act I up to the Skeleton King is available

Level 13 cap

Matchmaking available only with other Starter Edition players

No Auction House access (Real Money or Gold)

Global Play is not available. Players attempting to connect to Diablo III Starter Edition in a region other than their Battle.net Account's home region will receive Error 12. See the Global Play support article for more information.

A Blizzard representative on the forums explained just why they have decided to implement these changes and not to worry:

“Digital purchases do require a review period before they kick over from Starter to Full editions,” a Blizzard spokesperson said. “We apologise for the inconvenience, but it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone’s play experience. The delay is no longer than three days, and is often much quicker than that. Hang tight. :)”

While it can be understood that Blizzard want to combat the ever increasing threat of gold farming or account hacking, it is slightly annoying that legitimate customers are being thwarted that opportunity by Blizzard's own obstacles.

Update: Blizzard has released a statement regarding the new security measure put in place for anyone purchasing a digital copy of Diablo 3, where they outline the unintended consequences of such measurements.

"Similar to World of Warcraft, these restrictions were put in place to deter credit card fraud, which in turn helps reduce gold spam and other harmful activities that can have a negative impact on the game experience for everyone.

However, as an unintended consequence of these security measures, players who purchase the game digitally after patch 1.0.3 are temporarily being capped at level 13 and not able to proceed beyond Act I. We are working to correct this as soon as possible and will provide another update when we have more details to share."

You can read the full statement over here, which gives a better insight into just why Blizzard have had to outweigh the negative with the positives of increased security.