What Cataclysm actually didnt deliver?

[Deleted]

OP must have been one of the people to quit wow when they didn't introduce new dance moves

[Tanfastic]

I think they still WILL have step by step progress. I foresee Draenei/BE starting zones coming in a patch. I also see MORE changes to zones to reflect whats happening during that patch (Silithus for example.)

Character models will come in time.

[pyrostorm9001]

I remember when we used to beat up the cry baby kids, what happened to that?
When did constant bitching about EVERYTHING become cool?

[zingar]

UD racials suck atm. wtf is blizzard thinking...

[Menegroth]

which is funny because they didn't hire as many new developers as a new game required to make starcraft 2 and currently diablo 3. these new positions they lack and are now trying to fill, either got canned somewhere during cataclysm development, or they went somewhere else (starcraft 2)

if they didn't remove developers from warcraft, more content would have been in cataclysm, such as content that was planned and scrapped, and thats one of the OP's major points. warcraft is a stepping stone for other blizzard games, and the concern is that warcraft is being taken advantage of because we pay and play as loyal customers, waiting for expected or promised new content, which turns out to be cancelled or underdeveloped because a NEW game comes out that the warcraft players are paying to be developed.

because warcraft won't fail and there's no competition, the standards and bar can be lowered, regardless how disappointed the players are because they won't quit.

I like this post. I often defend blizzard, but I respect this well written, well thought out post that is critical of Blizzard. Just like just about every other post on these forums, it is based on assumptions such as removing developers, but it is still put together well.

Though, I think that the planning and scrapping could also be attributed to simply planning for too much, taking off more than they can chew, so to speak. Then the advertising department (or whoever says what can be released and not released) said it would be in in order to boost anticipation. They did this before the feature was completely finalized. That is some mistakes oN Blizzard's part, as they are not infallible.

[Simca]

which is funny because they didn't hire as many new developers as a new game required to make starcraft 2 and currently diablo 3. for these new game job positions they lack and are now trying to fill, either got canned somewhere during cataclysm development, or they went somewhere else (starcraft 2)

if they didn't remove developers from warcraft, more content would have been in cataclysm, such as content that was planned and scrapped, and thats one of the OP's major points. warcraft is a stepping stone for other blizzard games, and the concern is that warcraft is being taken advantage of because we pay and play as loyal customers, waiting for expected or promised new content, which turns out to be cancelled or a disappointment because a NEW game comes out that the warcraft players are paying to be developed.

No, the job openings were there BEFORE Alex and a few select others got pulled off of the World of Warcraft project. Looking at the dates in old news articles will prove this.

Barely any of the developers were pulled to Starcraft 2 at all. Most of the new Starcraft 2 team consists of the old Warcraft 3 team and new faces (Dustin Browder from C&C: Red Alert 2, etc).

The reality is simple. They tried to do MORE than they've ever done with the same development team they've always had.

For the most part, they succeeded. They had to cut some content, not because the development team was split between games but because it was just TOO small for the mammoth undertaking of Cataclysm.

I like this post. I often defend blizzard, but I respect this well written, well thought out post that is critical of Blizzard. Just like just about every other post on these forums, it is based on assumptions such as removing developers, but it is still put together well.

Though, I think that the planning and scrapping could also be attributed to simply planning for too much, taking off more than they can chew, so to speak. Then the advertising department (or whoever says what can be released and not released) said it would be in in order to boost anticipation. They did this before the feature was completely finalized. That is some mistakes oN Blizzard's part, as they are not infallible.

I agree. His assumptions are wrong, though.

I agree very strongly with your second paragraph. That is likely exactly what happened. They need a bigger team (Read: APPLY TO BLIZZARD, GUYS) before they can chew off something that big.

However, the fact that they delivered on 95% of what they promised makes me happy.

[eightohfive]

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.

rofl@STANDARTS. The T isn't even proximity to the D. It isn't even touching the D or anything

[Kunz]

To me good sir, It looks liek you are trolling abit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM

[eightohfive]

lol

Quality > Quantity. Yes, they CAN buy more people. They could EASILY hire more.

But guess what? In that parallel universe you would be crying about how crappy the zones were redone.



In all honesty, they really don't get near as much as people think. A lot of people completely misunderstand(Or are flat out ignorant) of the price of the servers alone. Did you know they have more servers than the US Healthcare?

And all money from all games is spent into all games. So money from WoW GOES go into SC, and Diablo, and the new MMO. But money from those 3 also go into WoW. it's a shared pool.

Agreed. Assuming 99% of you haven't worked on any kind of wow terraining, it's a bit like architecture. Sure you could higher 500 people to design the building faster, but it would look like it was hundreds of different building designs in one and would look stupid. You can go and get as many terrainers for cata as you want but working together on something as large scale as this requires discussion and thought. And yes this is the cataclysm, but have you SEEN the new instances? That sky shit looks amazingly well done.
Also -- all of OP's statements are about artistic things. WoW isnt the most graphically impressive game. I for one play the game for the gameplay. If you want the best graphics go play crisis or something

[Sabitharan]

Here's my list of things cataclysm hasn't delivered yet:
The whole x-pac hasn't even been delivered to the stores yet. WTF blizzard you have all the money in the world you shouldn't have release dates a new expansion should be delivered monthly to the stores. Just hire more people.

I have a lvl 80 paladin there for I am right and always will be. AMIRITE

[Deleted]

Im stil waiting for my dancestudio

[Deleted]

if you have ever read the book "the mythical man month", you would realise that doubling the workforce doesn't mean halving the time the work takes.

Microsoft was in that situation somewhere around 2K. they were about 3000 workhours behind on their new Windows release, with only 1 month to go (30 days). what did they do? they hired 100 extra employees. result: after 2 weeks, all changes had to be finalised because no work could get done.

[Vehemence]

Path of the Titans and Guild Talent

[awake283]

All I know is there's more stupid people in the game every day. Where are they coming from!?

[swissaccount]

The fact here is that Acti-Blizz spend nearly as much as they make. You can actually verify this by doing a little research.

no they don't

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A35O520101104

"Activision and Blizzard segments of the company generate roughly the same amount of revenue, Blizzard is highly profitable, while Activision operates at a loss."

[Frozenbeef]

It didn't deliver a nicer community -.-

i think i made a friend tho...