Do you trust the new geenration of Blizzard developers?

[Mojo03]

It's a different company. It's very corporate now.

It's basically the Disney of video games and there was even a story I read recently comparing the two (forget where). The goals are different now (it seems) and are focused more on getting as many people as possibly playing (post activision merger/wow success), rather than making the best game possible (pre merger).

I don't want to say environment is everything, but it's a very, very big factor and making things with people your close to in an almost art house video game studio is drastically different than a corporate campus. Not to mention significantly more pressure (I'd imagine) from the board and investors who want to see big activity numbers and sales.

It's not necessarily just the new people and I'd imagine it's a very hard job to get, much harder than it was in the older days.

[MoanaLisa]

Bunch of developers moved from Diablo - we got lots of Diablo features, such as excessive RNG, legendaries.

Who else besides John Yang and Don Vu? Diablo III hasn't had that many developers for some time now. And neither Yang nor Vu moved into any sort of position where they can call design shots that would bypass Hazzikostas or J. Allen Brack. It's so curious how people ignore the chain of command in some games. WoW has a pretty huge team. Elements of Diablo III were included because people a lot further up the development food chain than Yang or Vu thought it was a good idea.

I wouldn't want anyone from current Blizzard team anywhere near development of new MMORPG games. Only old school guys.

That worked out so well for Titan.

[Wildmoon]

It's a different company. It's very corporate now.

It's basically the Disney of video games and there was even a story I read recently comparing the two (forget where). The goals are different now (it seems) and are focused more on getting as many people as possibly playing (post activision merger/wow success), rather than making the best game possible (pre merger).

It's simply silly to separate these two things when you are making big games. Great games are most of the time great because many people think so.

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I wouldn't want anyone from current Blizzard team anywhere near development of new MMORPG games. Only old school guys.

If you review the history of MMORPG post-WoW then you would not have said that.

[Mojo03]

It's simply silly to separate these two things when you are making big games. Great games are most of the time great because many people think so.

"more focused on"

[Wildmoon]

"more focused on"

You can really not focus on them separately. Focusing on making people a game that many people will enjoy simply means focusing on making a great game. The concept of "great game" exists in relation with people's perceptions in the first place. It has no objective value that exists in vacuum.

[skitzin]

I think a lot of trust has been lost since Blizzard has significantly dropped much of it's efforts to communicate with the community.

This is not helped when patch outcomes strike many people as not having taken in much of the feedback provided or the rather simplistic dismissal of issues raised that basically reek of pride or ego more than sound design decisions. The loss of specific class developer focal points has also further hurt the community's ability to trust the developers.

[MoanaLisa]

I think a lot of trust has been lost since Blizzard has significantly dropped much of it's efforts to communicate with the community.

Same question for you as others: when did that happen?

People have been complaining about Blizzard developer communication for as long as I've been playing Blizzard games. That's like 17 years now.

[Daedius]

Nothing wrong with new developers (artists, programmers,etc.), it's the greedy management that is sucking the fun out of the game with their constant changes and pushing of the bar to make people play more with little to no rewards.. as so clearly shown in Legion with its carrot-on-a-stick approach in practically every crevice of it.

I used to love Blizzard, but I have rapidly lost respect for them... especially with Legion.

[Deleted]

Elements of Diablo III were included because people a lot further up the development food chain than Yang or Vu thought it was a good idea.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe those 2 developers pushed their idea. We don't know that.

That worked out so well for Titan.

Yep, that's unfortunate

[Saffa]

This is another one of those lame ass threads where the OP presents some variation of the imposter theory, seemingly identifying how everything used to be much better back in the day, before the venerable who's-not-here-anymore was replaced by the malign, infamous and not-as-good other.

Changes! They're scary!

You know nothing about any of these people - "old" or "new" - nor the company, the corporate culture, the way they work etc. The whole idea of "trusting" one or the other is a completely silly thing to begin with.

Well said. I don't need to trust them, I am not giving them all my money! The company gets my tiny monthly subscription because I enjoy most of the content they provide. Argus is a nightmare - for me - because I am old and have failing sight. However, I do not take it personally - they are not going to be designing games of this quality for pensioners going blind in one eye are they? I have been playing almost 10 years and have enjoyed most of what has been presented. The only thing I do not trust in the game are the self-centred who spend most of their time crying over changes - they need to grow up and learn that is what life is. It will never be just as it was when you were still in nappies, from the sound of many that was about 6 months ago. If you don't like it, unsub and find something better or different.

[skitzin]

Same question for you as others: when did that happen?

People have been complaining about Blizzard developer communication for as long as I've been playing Blizzard games. That's like 17 years now.

Placing at exact "when" is hard because this is a much more subtle event.

But we can see plenty of modern examples of this issue. We went through an Alpha and Beta cycle for legion where 70+ page threads went unanswered. Issues and problems that somehow made it live, are still live and despite being well known are still not being addressed multiple patches in.

In Dec 2016 Watcher wrote an apology and pledged to improve communications with the developers. The sad thing is that this is the 3rd or 4th time he has made such a post.

And despite the pledge for improvement I don't really believe much has changed.

Now I will not say anything on the number of posts because I simply do not know how many posts are made comparing now to then.

But for all the communication they do we still get told very little.

We have large sections of patch changes that are omitted from the official notes. We have nerfs, hotfixes, bugs and other changes made to many different classes without much in terms of notification. We only find out from data mining or extensive testing by theorycrafters and other players.

There is very little discussion with developers or in fact any Blizzard members regarding significant issues, problems or proposed changes. When asked about this we get some rote learned response that they read it all blah, blah, blah.

We still have responses to valid concerns being given basic responses that I am sure most writing software will auto-populate for you. Or worse some that are in essence a cleverly worded dismissal of the issue.

Are you familiar with the term "circumlocution"? Because when it comes to WoW Blizzard are masters of circumlocution.

This is made even worse when other gaming communities have a much better relationship with the developers. For example, have you seen the Overwatch forums? That is a good example of how to communicate with the community. So it can be done for a large player base easily enough.

[Armourboy]

Who else besides John Yang and Don Vu? Diablo III hasn't had that many developers for some time now. And neither Yang nor Vu moved into any sort of position where they can call design shots that would bypass Hazzikostas or J. Allen Brack. It's so curious how people ignore the chain of command in some games. WoW has a pretty huge team. Elements of Diablo III were included because people a lot further up the development food chain than Yang or Vu thought it was a good idea.

Jay Wilson was moved to WoW too after the Diablo 3 mess. Not sure if he is still working on it, but he was at one point.


I don't know that I've ever trusted the Devs/Designers/Management tbh. Playing SWG for 3 years prior to WoW pretty much destroyed any trust I ever would have with individuals in that position. That said, having played Blizzard games for a very long time, it's not real hard to see the shift in the way the company itself is designing games. There was a time, or at least it felt like it anyways, where they made a game and then the economics of it was secondary. Part of that may be just because it wasn't feasible at the time, but today it definitely feels like games are designed to achieve certain metrics that they can then take by to the board of directors.

I'm not going to say these people aren't passionate, because that takes knowing them as individuals. I do think internally Blizzard has changed how games are designed though. I think the designers are pushing things that they think will create longer play cycles with players, and I'm not sold that hasn't always been the case. I just think now that it is far more noticeable, and they either do a worse job of hiding it, or don't even care if it sticks out like a sore thumb anymore.

As a casual player I think this corporate outlook has been mostly a positive thing for my play style. I'm not sold that necessarily those things have produced a better product though.

[Aeula]

Not after I watched the making of Cataclysm video.

"Now I'm a developer and I can destroy all the zones I don't like!" Wasn't a great attitude.

[CaptainV]

Most of them seem fond of the diablo loot grind which isnt healthy for wow, when they start realizing they need to put more effort into their scripts than just pre-generated loot drops, they can start being trustworthy.

I still say they're the laziest team so far.

[tikcol]

The bolded part makes me giggle.

If you dont trust them then stop playing and leave this forum. If you want to see what happens then keep subscribed til you arent, and shut up.

/thread


Edit:

Its funny to see what posters these threads attach. Its almost like the title makes the entire thread loaded somehow

"There's no space for criticism. Leave"

Deep

[Armourboy]

Same question for you as others: when did that happen?

People have been complaining about Blizzard developer communication for as long as I've been playing Blizzard games. That's like 17 years now.

Frankly I think that is less of a Blizzard thing and more of the fact that Ghostcrawler was much more vocal, and when he left there was either no one that agreed with his ideas on communication, or that could really fill that void. People can say what they will about the man and his design views, but at least he was out there discussing things and pushing the direction of conversation.

Honestly I think somewhere around the end of MoP you really saw a drop off in back and forth between the community and the developers. Whether that is true or not I'm not sure, but it certainly feels like it. I can definitely say that their promises from earlier in this expansion have certainly gone unfulfilled.

[Arainie]

I genuinely think that the problem lies with the playerbase. "We" are no longer happy with the same quality content and constantly demand massive improvements, something which is not possible to achieve for every patch or expansion. As soon as "we" don't see clear steps forward "we" begin to scream in anger and demand justice. Not every patch can beat the previous one, that's the hard cold truth some people need to realize.

I for one think the game is in a great state at the moment after taking a big hit last expansion with some very unfortunate design choices (and even then the questing was great, and from what I hear the raiding as well but I took a break after Highmaul so don't blame me if I'm wrong!). I do trust them to make the right choices for the next expansion as well, as I pretty much think they nailed Legion despite a few minor issues.

And if we're going to be picky it's not really the developers that call the shots, they just implement whatever the design team got past the lead designer or whoever is ultimately in charge.

[TheDestinatus]

They will probably make something that is quite high quality in terms of game play etc, but I would never trust anyone that works at blizzard to write a coherent or consistent story anymore.

[Armourboy]

Most of them seem fond of the diablo loot grind which isnt healthy for wow, when they start realizing they need to put more effort into their scripts than just pre-generated loot drops, they can start being trustworthy.

I still say they're the laziest team so far.

I will say this, whether they are or not, it certainly feels like they are doing everything they can to set the game up to be ran on a shoe string budget and have it ready to go when F2P arrives. I'm not sold that means they are lazy, but I've felt for a while that the goal was to make the game and it's systems much easier to run with a hand full of people.

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I genuinely think that the problem lies with the playerbase. "We" are no longer happy with the same quality content and constantly demand massive improvements, something which is not possible to achieve for every patch or expansion. As soon as "we" don't see clear steps forward "we" begin to scream in anger and demand justice. Not every patch can beat the previous one, that's the hard cold truth some people need to realize.

I for one think the game is in a great state at the moment after taking a big hit last expansion with some very unfortunate design choices (and even then the questing was great, and from what I hear the raiding as well but I took a break after Highmaul so don't blame me if I'm wrong!). I do trust them to make the right choices for the next expansion as well, as I pretty much think they nailed Legion despite a few minor issues.

Well and I think besides player expectations, I think the company does a very poor job of expressing the content they are putting out. How many times have we seen " X is the largest patch in history " only to get it and it realize there isn't really that much there. I think some times the developers equate the amount of work they may do with the amount of content that players are getting, when in reality they may put a ton of hours into a single patch and then once it gets to us there just isn't that much substance there.

[Deleted]

I fully trust them to fuck up everything that's still plodding on.
I trust them to lose the point of D3 features when porting them to WoW.
I trust them to forget that importing a story from SC2 to WoW can be a bad idea and require epic forum uproar to even notice someone noticed.
I trust them to keep increasing financial efficiency of the game by adding even more pointless time-gates, removing long-standing QoL features and delivering as little content as possible without 50% sub loss on patch day.

So yeah, I trust them.