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...or, to be blunt, the lack thereof.
Where did it go?
It's not like I didn't see the signs years ago. Is Blizzard even Blizzard anymore?
Blizzard's stance is that they don't make games for hardcore players... they 'make games for [casual] players with intent to turn them into hardcore players'.
To be fair, I definitely started playing Diablo 1 and Starcraft 1 as a casual player. But somewhere along the line that changed (BW/D2/WC3). When those didn't cut it, I strayed away to different games from developers in my thirst for more (heart blizz!)
WoW comes around. What Blizzard fan (nearly synonymous with 'gamer') could miss this? It didn't take me 5 years to realize it was too casual for me, but that's how long I lasted.
With my boredom of WoW came an appreciation for the BW Korean pro scene. Surely... SC2.. the successor to BW. That's gotta be hardcore. I'm not bashing SC2 here, it's waayyy better than WoW for someone like me, but it didn't fully live up to my expectations.
D3. Diablo is my favorite gaming/fantasy world/theme (angelic vs. dark gothic), I have played D2 longer than any other Blizzard game, and Diablo 3 as their final modern installment to the three major franchise is my last hope.
INFERNO MODE. Trust me, D3 is not 'casual'.
So why am I unsatisfied?
Greed. In the hunt for greed *cough*RMAH*cough*, Blizzard failed to pay enough attention to the quality of their game. Or maybe they aim to keep adding on (efficiently) and keep you coming back.
I've done what I can to help give suggestions for D3...
I don't know. I mean, I want my game's developer to make some good money. But isn't there some etiquette as for how much you should give versus how much you take?
I've played a lot of other games from other developers, but few games (for their time) have matched the epicness of games like Brood War and Diablo 2 (and oldschool Ultima Online fuck yeah!!) and the polish we've usually seen from Blizzard games.
Maybe I'm just asking for too much? D3 did a lot of cool things right. But man did it get some really big things wrong. Just ask anyone who's played Inferno for a while >.<
I guess when faith fails, there is still hope! Or should I just stop buying their games?
It's funny because making $ on RMAH kinda makes up for the bad. If only people would keep playing so items keep selling.. then it might not be so bad in the first place. Doh!
/disgruntled vet
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Some people argue that D3 is still the best dungeon crawl, Starcraft II is still the best RTS amazing despite it's massive flaws, WOW is still the best MMO. That's all probably (or close enough to being) true, but relative to what we expect out of Blizzard, these games are disappointments (less so WOW, this new one is par for the course). People expect a lot from Blizzard, and they shit the bed a bit on SC2 with their awful replay system, no chat channels, no LAN, etc; however they really fucked up with Diablo III, I don't know anyone who is still playing it besides a couple people who are making some money off the RMAH - but even they admit they don't enjoy it.
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If you liked d2 try paths of exile? D2 feel, free online and a wtf skill tree
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5/5 I agree Barrin. I want to look at this and make other reasons their most recent titles could have a lot less appeal to them than their predecessors, but after some amount of time, it's hard to hold onto hope.
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They need to listen to the community. I just started playing LoL (even after making fun of it for nearly a year) and HOLY FUCK IS RIOT AWESOME. They listen to everyone and everything, give awesome feedback, follow the community and cater to every range of players. If Blizzard did this SC2 would easily be orders of magnitude better than it currently is. They try and solve every issue themselves when community members already have better solutions to literally every facet of SC2 that has a problem.
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They kind of suffer from a Pixar-status. Everyone is just waiting for them to trip up, people can't wait to be the first to "call it" when they go down.
Diablo III can be called the first real failure from Blizz, the first Blizz game that people won't be playing for months on end, if not years. Even still, it entertained me for a good 60 hours, which makes it worth the money, but we expect more than "worth the money" from Blizz.
Blizz has had a long track record of good games, and now they make one medicore game and people are starting to declare them dead in the water.
I say wait and see. They were bound to trip up sooner or later, but that don't mean they are down for good.
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Blizzard doesn't pay respect to their old games like they used to, they are a different company. There was a time when they were patching games that were 7 years old, and you felt like maybe it was because they were a company that care about making games and building trust with their fan base than purely maximizing profits. I don't fucking care that business is business and people are gonna say that a million times like it makes everything a company does ok. Blizzard built up all that trust and then sold in a few swift movements for quick profits when their brand got so big that maybe it doesn't even matter anymore. That is a pretty shitty thing to do. I have no idea how many of the same people are working there and how much has changed, but the company philosophy is definitely vastly different.
No faith in Blizzard anymore. They can't even respect those who helped to build their brand, I hope they fail catastropically for selling everyone up the river. For me, the value of the Blizzard brand is destroyed.
I would also mark WoW as probably the point at which Blizzard stopped being innovative and just started using their brand and power to make their generic version of games of every genre the most popular. Even if they are the ones who first made the innovations that became generic. That's not the spirit of a good game company in my opinion.
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I hope they fail. I think Blizz needs to throw all the baggage away and come back to what made them great. I want a great blizz game just as much as the next guy but I dont see it happening with their mindset and company policy.
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On August 01 2012 03:46 Leeoku wrote: If you liked d2 try paths of exile? D2 feel, free online and a wtf skill tree You mean the FFX sphere grid x3?
On August 01 2012 04:18 Chef wrote: Blizzard doesn't pay respect to their old games like they used to, they are a different company. There was a time when they were patching games that were 7 years old, and you felt like maybe it was because they were a company that care about making games and building trust with their fan base than purely maximizing profits. I don't fucking care that business is business and people are gonna say that a million times like it makes everything a company does ok. Blizzard built up all that trust and then sold in a few swift movements for quick profits when their brand got so big that maybe it doesn't even matter anymore. That is a pretty shitty thing to do. I have no idea how many of the same people are working there and how much has changed, but the company philosophy is definitely vastly different.
No faith in Blizzard anymore. They can't even respect those who helped to build their brand, I hope they fail catastropically for selling everyone up the river. For me, the value of the Blizzard brand is destroyed. Wow, strong words. And I can't really disagree with any of it either. I dare say you could probably boil that all down into one word...Hubris.
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I think most everyone would agree that D3 was probably the largest blizzard fail ever. I can't make an opinion about WoW bc never played it. But the company started going downhill with the release of SC2 for me. Don't get me wrong, I think SC2 is a great game, and I've spent who knows how many hours on it, but Blizzard could have done so much more with it. Their release of SC2 without standard chat channels really blew it for me. As an avid player of Diablo 2, It was great seeing all the player avatars and the general chat, just to know that there were other people who played the game and that I wasn't all alone (which is definitely what SC2 feels like). Blizzard's incredibly stubborn stance on changing crap like this made me lose faith in them.
I know there are private chat channels now, but I feel that they should have done it D2 style and thrown everyone into general when they logged in.
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On August 01 2012 04:18 Chef wrote: Blizzard doesn't pay respect to their old games like they used to, they are a different company. There was a time when they were patching games that were 7 years old, and you felt like maybe it was because they were a company that care about making games and building trust with their fan base than purely maximizing profits. I don't fucking care that business is business and people are gonna say that a million times like it makes everything a company does ok. Blizzard built up all that trust and then sold in a few swift movements for quick profits when their brand got so big that maybe it doesn't even matter anymore. That is a pretty shitty thing to do. I have no idea how many of the same people are working there and how much has changed, but the company philosophy is definitely vastly different.
No faith in Blizzard anymore. They can't even respect those who helped to build their brand, I hope they fail catastropically for selling everyone up the river. For me, the value of the Blizzard brand is destroyed.
I would also mark WoW as probably the point at which Blizzard stopped being innovative and just started using their brand and power to make their generic version of games of every genre the most popular. Even if they are the ones who first made the innovations that became generic. That's not the spirit of a good game company in my opinion.
I was about to type, substantially, that.
I wrote a similar topic on a french forum. I'm a first hour fan of blizzard. Loved Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing (omfg yeah), warcraft 1, diablo 1, etc.
I bought every blizzard game with -sometimes massive and months-long- expectations. I enjoyed them all so much. I played with my father. I made ton of IRL friends by only playing those games, travelled to places for LANs.
In a nuttshell I agree in saying it all began to go wrong with WoW fantastic succe$$ (up to 10.000.000 paying customers? what?). It looks that from that point on, the soul slowly extinct.
I didn't find any soul in SC2 which looked to me like a ball-less copy of SC:BW, more aimed at milking the trendy "esports" market than anything. In fact, after playing beta ofc, I only got my copy couple of month ago, due to christmas discount and a friend insisting it was an ok game.
Then came Diablo 3 and it was all clear to me. I gave this one many, many hours (300?) in respect to all the good memories I had from Diablo 2 (it will get better, it will get better, hang on, it will get better). It didn't get any better, it lasted 1 month and I have absolutely no intention to play it again now.
Yes, 300 hours is a lot and I had stuff for my money but that's not the point I mean come on.... it's freaking Blizzard and it's freaking Diablo 3, we EXPECTED more.
I now no longer expect more, if anything, from Blizzard. I'm not even thrilled the slightest by HotS.
2 more things : - it could be also due to me ageing, to some extent - it's not only Blizzard, sadly. And it's sad because the current developers are the the children of the first "cool games", one could wish they knew better. We are making this to ourselves.
Then again I'm not in the market and one needs to eat too. Still, not good from a gamer perspective.
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On August 01 2012 04:18 Chef wrote: Blizzard doesn't pay respect to their old games like they used to, they are a different company. There was a time when they were patching games that were 7 years old, and you felt like maybe it was because they were a company that care about making games and building trust with their fan base than purely maximizing profits. I don't fucking care that business is business and people are gonna say that a million times like it makes everything a company does ok. Blizzard built up all that trust and then sold in a few swift movements for quick profits when their brand got so big that maybe it doesn't even matter anymore. That is a pretty shitty thing to do. I have no idea how many of the same people are working there and how much has changed, but the company philosophy is definitely vastly different.
No faith in Blizzard anymore. They can't even respect those who helped to build their brand, I hope they fail catastropically for selling everyone up the river. For me, the value of the Blizzard brand is destroyed.
I would also mark WoW as probably the point at which Blizzard stopped being innovative and just started using their brand and power to make their generic version of games of every genre the most popular. Even if they are the ones who first made the innovations that became generic. That's not the spirit of a good game company in my opinion.
I totally agree, especially in regards to Diablo 3. It feels unpolished, unfinished, and comes with blatant money grabbing (RMAH). Starcraft 2 didn't really live up to BW standards (totally just my opinion there), but was still a pretty good game, which I feel is held back by some to degree by b.net 2.0 being aweful.
It does seem like it might have caught up with them with Diablo 3. It doesn't seem like the "lost faith in Blizzard" is all that uncommon nowadays; I know thats the way I feel. They had build so much good faith in their company by just being awesome over the years, and now they just seem intent on cashing out on that reputation.
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I haven't purchased a blizzard game since Warcraft 3 (which I didn't even purchase for the game itself, but for the player made scenarios)... I don't intend to purchase any game from Blizzard upon release, it'll take a lot of waiting and seeing before I actually go out and spend money on their stuff.
I always saw Starcraft 2 as a possibility, but with the announce of buying 3 separate campaigns, I quickly grew skeptical. And to be fair, the game is average... You can't rake an average game for that type of money. I would buy Brood War again if it came out in 3 parts, not SC2.
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I'm feeling the same disillusionment, Barrin. As I attend the final installment of the professional BW epic that has dominated my life for the past 10 years, and as I look onward to being forced to swallow SC2 or just give up trying to enjoy it and move on to other games, it's left nothing but a sense of bitter longing over what might have been.
I liked SC2, and I had a lot of fun watching some tournaments. I gave it two years, but after over a year of laddering and a few months plateaued at mid-masters, playing just got old. Interestingly, around the time I moved to Korea, I stopped watching SC2 all together. I've been trying to get into the TSL3, but it's just so time consuming and it's simply not as fun as playing other games.
Blizzard really gave it their best shot. But along the line, something was left behind. I don't know what it is, or how to describe it. I'm currently having more fun playing and watching dota 2 than I ever did playing or watching SC2, but even that still doesn't live up to BW.
Brood War was just magical. I can't describe it. The emotion I felt during the Jangbi/Calm semifinal was almost overwhelming. This weekend, the finals will be electric, and I imagine there will be moments I will never forget for as long as I live, as the final game of Blizzard's golden age makes its last stand before being completely snuffed out by the powers that be.
I'm glad someone shares my sentiments.
I want to add that D3 was obviously a huge let-down, the items are absolutely horrible, I mean they're about as complex and intriguing as what I would expect from a flash game made by college students to have. Inferno is a complete gimmick, its difficulty combined with the skill system leads to less variation than I've ever seen in an RPG, and it's just completely unfun. And if you get sick of restarting 50 times until you finally get the right champion packs that are killable so you can progress, you can't even kick it with your buddies and PvP.
I spent years, literally years playing D2. I spent 3 weeks playing D3 and I'll never pick it up again. But I don't care, I didn't love D2. I loved BW. SC2 is miles ahead of D3, to be sure, but I'm just not feeling it. I'm glad Valve is doing a stellar job with Dota 2, I have a feeling they will truly be the developer that everyone can rely on for quality games over the next 10 years.
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I quit SC2 a while ago and started playing more DotA 2, and Valve's support for esports and the community is a complete breath of fresh air. I didn't even know a huge amount of features were there in the interface because I didn't even know to look after dealing with BNet 2.0 for a couple of years. The feature set blows BNet out of the water and the game is still in beta!
It was completely mindblowing.
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The only way is to stop buying their games. It's unfortunate that you can't just, say, give them only 20 dollars on a 60 dollar game to show that you're only 33% satisfied, or only pay for the features that you like and don't have to pay for the ones you don't, but that's the waste of the corporate world. If they only listen to money, stop giving it to them in exchange for a bad product. Maybe they'll intuit what's going on, maybe they won't. At least you won't be wasting money on a company in its demise.
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I feel the same way, Barrin. HotS is gonna be a last chance dance for me. I also played WoW for about 4-5 years, but Cata pretty much killed it and MoP seems like beating a dead horse (or a dying cash cow). I played D1, D2, and quit D3 the day I hit level 60. I never played WC1, but I did play WC2, and beyond the dark portal, and WC3, and TFT. So pretty much they've ruined all their franchises except for starcraft, and thus HotS is their last chance in my mind before I adopt a "let the game be out for a month before buying" attitude towards blizz like I have already to other developers.
The biggest question mark for me is why even bother with the RMAH and the monthy sub fees? The "make a great game, charge $30 per expansion pack" system was working fine and making them money. I guess they saw the light of even more dollar signs and couldn't resist. I just really hope HotS doesn't kill SC2...
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5 star'd, feel the same way. made my $$ back with d3 and quit. not buying any more actiblizz games.
dark souls ftw! maybe some dota 2
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It takes a long time to build a name like Blizzard, but it doesn't take as long for a big name to destroy itself. The blizzard of today is an evil corporation, I know that sounds overly dramatic, but I stand by it. They are intelligent, but they use that to make games that lately are designed from the ground up to take advantage of a large base of consumers to nickel and dime them. All the 'carrot on a stick' mechanics and the psychological ways they get people to just log in and play (daily quests in WoW ect). They don't make games just to make a really kick ass game and put it out there to the fans. They make a product that they can fish hook into their consumers and keep them dragging along in order to maximize profits, and they are really good at it.
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