What Cataclysm actually didnt deliver?

[Deleted]

- They first talked about a step by step progress with the world changes (now all of them are present in 1 step in 4.0.3a) - like the pictures of the coast we've seen at BC09, where the water would slowly push forward... and so on.

- Merge of BE/Dreanei zones with the real Azeroth to allow flying.

- Untouched/unchanged zones (all of them except SW/Org - you cant really compare the other updates with these two) and zones (STV, Silithus, Winterspring, Ungoru, Hinterlands - most of them didnt get the same treatment). And in Silvermoon it would've a great chance to update the destroyed parts and the timeline.

- Revamp of recials to bring them all in line.
a) not only with worgen/goblins but also
b) that everyone has a useful racial for pve and pvp

- Update to character models. Everything has been said on this one, sadly they still refuse to do it.

Edit: meh, some people just cant drop the flaming stick ... you get what you seek.

Facts you should know before you post:

Blizzard has all the money in the world to put into development. Now you'll probably say "its about time, not money" - why dont they hire MORE of the people they need if they obviously have the money.

They probably didnt even invest 1/5 of the revenue of WotLK into the development of Cataclysm.

Lol @ retards telling me that Cataclysm is not out yet. Most of the content was shipped 2 days ago, remember? THIS IS CATACLYSM.

And, sorry that most of you have such low standarts when it comes to your personal enjoyment - but I'm not so easily pleased with this.

[Taiki420]

I only have three things to reply on.

1) I think the step by step progress was only for certain zones/questlines, being the one they showed was Gilneas.

2) Not every zone got drastically changed because there was nothing really there to update, but even silithus has the new outdoor AQ, etc.

3) If they just hired more people, there's a higher chance the 'feel' of the game could get off balance. Everything made has a specific feel and look to it. And while they do update from time to time, it's harder to get a big group in the same mindset than the medium/smaller group they have constantly working on stuff now. As for where the money goes, we had all the realms moved to new servers, which I'm sure wasn't cheap, and I bet there's tons of things behind the curtain we don't know about.

Everything else is a big disappointment though, especially the no racial revamp

[Deleted]

1. there arent so much good programmers out there. And then you have to find them, or they have to come to you. Then the team work ahs to fit. And then you have to coordinate all that, for what you would need more men and they cost more money. If it would be so easy, everybody could do it. Go and get a job at Blizz an dshow them how good you are.
2. The ideas dont come when you need them.
3. Its not about money or time, its about both. You need to get back the money you have spent into the production. Efficency.

I dont mind the DE/Draenei zones, when i have to spend 2-3€ less for the game.

then you talk about facts and mention the word "probably". A fact is a fact and not "probably" a fact.

[Vlags]

Cataclysm hasn't actually delivered anything yet, as it's still not out.

[Kreuz Kontrol]

1) Path of the Titans

/thread

[Patrickstarr]

Worgen Mounts.

[Vetis]

you clearly have no idea about business. you cannot just throw money at problems unless you want to lose a fortune and create organisational nightmares. recruiting, training on business specific process and tools more hr ,admin staff, office space ,infrastructures ,equipment , legal for contracts and so on. especially in changeable markets like mmo games. they are successful because they have a good business built on good games.

---------- Post added 2010-11-25 at 04:30 PM ----------

also revenue is not even close to profit. check last years financial report to see just how much they spend running this thing.

[rakall]

- They first talked about a step by step progress with the world changes (now all of them are present in 1 step in 4.0.3a) - like the pictures of the coast we've seen at BC09, where the water would slowly push forward... and so on.

- Merge of BE/Dreanei zones with the real Azeroth to allow flying.

- Untouched/unchanged zones (all of them except SW/Org - you cant really compare the other updates with these two) and zones (STV, Silithus, Winterspring, Ungoru, Hinterlands - most of them didnt get the same treatment). And in Silvermoon it would've a great chance to update the destroyed parts and the timeline.

- Revamp of recials to bring them all in line.
a) not only with worgen/goblins but also
b) that everyone has a useful racial for pve and pvp

- Update to character models. Everything has been said on this one, sadly they still refuse to do it.



Facts you should know before you post:

Blizzard has all the money in the world to put into development. Now you'll probably say "its about time, not money" - why dont they hire MORE of the people they need if they obviously have the money.

They probably didnt even invest 1/5 of the revenue of WotLK into the development of Cataclysm.

as of revamped zones , you can always make another Deathwing-killingspree to revamp new content ,as well as to Make actuall content

[sulfuric]

1. there arent so much good programmers out there. And then you have to find them, or they have to come to you. Then the team work ahs to fit. And then you have to coordinate all that, for what you would need more men and they cost more money. If it would be so easy, everybody could do it. Go and get a job at Blizz an dshow them how good you are.
2. The ideas dont come when you need them.
3. Its not about money or time, its about both. You need to get back the money you have spent into the production. Efficency.

I dont mind the DE/Draenei zones, when i have to spend 2-3€ less for the game.

then you talk about facts and mention the word "probably". A fact is a fact and not "probably" a fact.

They are programming with the "not so good"programmers, they sent the good ones onto another game. Haven't you realized WOTLK was design team three? It shows

you clearly have no idea about business. you cannot just throw money at problems unless you want to lose a fortune and create organisational nightmares. recruiting, training on business specific process and tools more hr ,admin staff, office space ,infrastructures ,equipment , legal for contracts and so on. especially in changeable markets like mmo games. they are successful because they have a good business built on good games.

---------- Post added 2010-11-25 at 04:30 PM ----------

also revenue is not even close to profit. check last years financial report to see just how much they spend running this thing.

Yeah, they spent 40% of their earnings running the show and 60% of that is profit. When you make 1.15 billion dollars you're calling ~650,000,000 of that profit

[Okard]

I know you may not think about this. But combining quel'thalas/draenei islands into azeroth servers would require a LOT more time. We would not be playing in the cataclysm right now, and possibly would have to wait till midsummer or more. Because you probably won't understand why, I'll explain it. Those two are on the outlands servers. They would literally have to strip them from that server, which would cause issues and bugs. And then, they would have to remake the zones completely and add them into the azeroth servers, meaning that they would have to completely redo those zones AND create more room to put them in. I would see this happening by July at the earliest before you even see a beta. Blizz can't just snap their fingers and drag/drop stuff across servers. Regardless of money, it DOES take time.

That's just one of your complaints.

[The Glitch]

I don't get it , no matter what Blizzard do good or bad, people will complain, if I was really annoyed and disliking what a game was/is about I would just stop playing, why continue to play something your not happy with?

- They first talked about a step by step progress with the world changes (now all of them are present in 1 step in 4.0.3a) - like the pictures of the coast we've seen at BC09, where the water would slowly push forward... and so on.

If you bother to go out and quest in the New Old world, you will see there is phasing, when you complete quests it affects your surroundings, so they delivered on this, and it gets even better in the level 80-85 zones.

- Merge of BE/Dreanei zones with the real Azeroth to allow flying.

They also responded to this, by saying they looked at merging them but it wasn't feasable, compared to getting new content out, why spend huge amounts of time on doing something as small as this that isn't *current* content when they could really put the time into the more focused new content.

- Untouched/unchanged zones (all of them except SW/Org - you cant really compare the other updates with these two) and zones (STV, Silithus, Winterspring, Ungoru, Hinterlands - most of them didnt get the same treatment). And in Silvermoon it would've a great chance to update the destroyed parts and the timeline.

Again alot of the not entirely hugely affected zones are dealt with, with minor/major phasing going through questlines, take the time go out and do those quests and have some fun with them.

- Revamp of recials to bring them all in line.
a) not only with worgen/goblins but also
b) that everyone has a useful racial for pve and pvp

Ahh racials... one of the worst things in this game. I think racials should be fun things nothing that will increase your gameplay towards pve or pvp, balancing is a huge problem for Blizz they said it themselves there just getting balancing sorted to where it feels alot better than WotLK went, changing racials could cause major problems for this. And personally I don't feel a racial should make a huge gamebreaking change to how someone plays.

Make racials fun stuff that in no way benefits pvp or pve and i think they could go back and redo them all eventaully.

- Update to character models. Everything has been said on this one, sadly they still refuse to do it.

Oh dear god. They have never said they REFUSE to go back and update character models, They have said that its a huge project with alot of downsides, Change a player model too much that players don't recognise it as their own character, you will cause an uproar, don't change it enough, "oh Blizzard is lazy". I would imagine it would take a great amount of work and time to do this and I am confident eventually it will be sorted but I for one would rather all that time went into new Content to keep us busy and happy.

Facts you should know before you post:

Blizzard has all the money in the world to put into development. Now you'll probably say "its about time, not money" - why dont they hire MORE of the people they need if they obviously have the money.

They probably didnt even invest 1/5 of the revenue of WotLK into the development of Cataclysm.

AS for this.... Oh dear god make it stop, It's bad enough having to see all this rubbish in guild chat/party chat/trade chat/BG chat/raid chat/vent whenever someone thinks Blizzard is out to get them personally by doing something that "greatly" upsets them ... like making them not the FotM class quite rightly too, but seeing multiple threads on how Blizzard has RUINED everything and are money grubbing hogs that don't care about their customers or game and Don't know how to hire employees or designate their time and resources to the best benefit, makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out.

Sorry for tha rant, but since this patch I swear I have never wanted to log out of the game more, and not because I hate Blizzard and their game (I don't) But because of the players. 5 years of playing and I have never seen such moronic crap than I have recently.

Going to go boil my head in a huge pan of hot water now, have a good day.

[walkingbeef]

Facts you should know before you post:

Blizzard has all the money in the world to put into development. Now you'll probably say "its about time, not money" - why dont they hire MORE of the people they need if they obviously have the money.

They probably didnt even invest 1/5 of the revenue of WotLK into the development of Cataclysm.

Lets look at simple economics here:

1. Macro-Blizzard doesn't have a monopoly on the market, i have no idea what the numbers are but i am assuming its not perfect competition either, but for the sake of argument lets say its more like perfect competition then it is a monopoly, this means in the long run Blizz marginal cost will equal marginal revenue, and marginal revenue will equal total cost, meaning no profits. In the short run, yes blizz will have profits, but this is put back into the company and is draws in more competition.

2. Micro-Blizzard has an iso-cost line (a budget) and they have to stay within that iso-cost (can't spend more money then they have but will spend all that they have). Now in the short run, for them to do more things (we will say this is quantity) they most definitely can hire more people (which they are, look at the website) but this is not efficient, yes they would move to a higher iso-quan (quantity being produced) but at a much higher total cost. What they are doing though is meant for the LR, and you can see it every day. To get to the product maximizing bundle/cost minimizing bundle they would need to not only higher new employees but more capital. And they are doing that, better/more servers, not sure if they have built any new buildings yet, and they are consistently upgrading their technology. They are doing everything, imo, as a company they can economically like any other firm or business would do. Or you know, they could just be corporate fat cats sitting in their gold towers laugh at all us poor bastards, idk, i think the more educated and mathematical (theory) based argument is more sound, but what do i know.

[Dannz]

1) Path of the Titans

/thread

^ this

[Deleted]

Sorry for tha rant, but since this patch I swear I have never wanted to log out of the game more, and not because I hate Blizzard and their game (I don't) But because of the players. 5 years of playing and I have never seen such moronic crap than I have recently.

/thread

[cise4832]

- Update to character models. Everything has been said on this one, sadly they still refuse to do it.

lol...
ToL QQ
nuff said

[furyform]

cataclysm is here? since when ^^

this is just the shattering - chill out

[Blur4stuff]

the option of no tail for cows and space goats

[freezion]

They are programming with the "not so good"programmers, they sent the good ones onto another game. Haven't you realized WOTLK was design team three? It shows



Yeah, they spent 40% of their earnings running the show and 60% of that is profit. When you make 1.15 billion dollars you're calling ~650,000,000 of that profit

They spend 40% of their earnings running wow, then there's people who have to get paid, servers that need to be updated, alot of electronical stuff that needs to be maintained and updated and taxes.
and 15*11000000 = x
x*12= y
According to my calculations are they earning 1980000000$ a year from wow subscriptions (not including paid services like transfers and pets)
and aprox. are a company keeping 20-40% of the earnings(this is included income and outcome from starcraft and other games).
currently at a business college, we are getting taught this stuff.

[NineSpine]

You can't just keep throwing money and people into the game and expect results. That's not how it works. At a certain point, there are severely diminishing returns on new staff, because of the increase in coordination required for the new people. In other words, once you have so many artists, more artists don't actually get the job done faster or with any higher quality. Think of it like building a house; More people makes the job go faster... until people are bumping into each other all over the place and the coordination requires an inordinate amount of bureaucracy. Twenty people is nice for building a house. Thirty might make it faster. Three-thousand will not. It will make the job come to a halt, no matter how much money you have.

WoW has a VERY large development team, and they are extremely highly organized. If adding more people to that team would increase the quality of the game, and therefore the sales, they would do so. Trust me, as someone who has worked in games, the WoW team is significantly larger than the average game team, and the amount of content that they produce is staggering. To give you a comparison: A game like Guitar Hero 5, built on an older game's architecture, takes dozens of people full time work for upwards of a year. Blizzard is not made of slackers.

[deevicoos]

It's not even about economics. You can develope more but blizzard assume they have the best developers they can get, new developers won't be as good. As a result new content added by having more staff will blow.

As it is, when blizzard pull their best devs off a project it shows. I have it from a pretty reliable source that when SC2 needed polish we got 3.2 and ToC which not only had several class changes which nerfed underpowered specs they had said they'd buff, but actually had shit content, because all their top devs were ensuring SC2 could be beta ready. Think about it. Blizzard already are past the point where extra devs are worse. To a point they can shunt them on to simple tasks that are hard to screw up but they're already well past the point where they dilute the team apparently. I don't think they had duffers on it all expack, infact look at ulduar and ICC, they were great raids (the latter suffers being spammed a year and the buff stacking too early) the questing was great the zones were awesome. But then you got ToC which is what happens when another game needs work. Expect whichever raid corresponds to D3 being made beta ready to suckl