Is Blizzard still quality games maker?

[Deleted]

Show me a game dev that's been in the business for several years, released several products, and hasn't stumbled once or twice.

D3 was Blizzard's stumble. Everything else they've released was fantastic. You might be able to count Cataclysm, but then that's what happens when Blizzard listens to all the community whines and tries to change the game to fit them. The quality of their games is still fantastic, it's just that some of their ideas about their target audience are a little off at the moment. They'll get it eventually.

You do realise it was there own design that failed, it's easy to blame it on "listening to the community" to avoid admitting you fucked up. People didn't quit the first week of Cata, which was the only week heroic dungeons were challenging. All raid content up to Firelands was good as well. The massive qq started after Firelands, and I doubt the community wanted a raid to last for a full year.

I'm not blaming Blizz to make a mistake, all companies make them, but atleast don't go around it and admit it was the company that failed for their own choices.

[TyrantWave]

Blizzard has not released quality after BC

Really? BC was honestly garbage. I can't think of a legitimate reason to like it outside of nostalgia. The story was so abysmally told I'm still not sure why I should care about Illidan, the gameplay was an absolute mess, and the game itself was so unfriendly if you weren't part of the raiding asshole crew there wasn't a point in playing.

Blizzards quality has vastly improved over time - Mists is easily the best xpac from a gameplay and story telling perspective, and the raids have been great. ToT's now my favourite raid. Ulduar had Mimiron, Algalon and Yogg which were great fights, don't get me wrong, but honestly outside of those 3 it wasn't as great as everyone keeps circlejerking each other over.
SC2's quality as an RTS is unrivalled at the moment, and for good reason. The balance and gameplay are rock solid, and the single player campaign is great. And D3, yes, it had an extremely piss poor start, but they've improved a lot on it. It still has a ways to go, however. D2:LoD had the same issues - until LoD D2 had massive flaws in the system, but the final version of it was damned well polished, and a game I still replay to this day.

Do they still mess up? Obviously, I'm not gonna blindly pretend they don't. The start of MoP's dailies fiasco was abysmal. But that's been rectified. They still haven't seperated PvE and PvP, something I think they should have done a long time ago. And they don't seem to have a clue how to balance Mages with each other.

[Repefe]

No dev makes legendary games.

Sure they do and Blizz did as well ... and they still can do it, they just haven't in the past few years. I can imagine WoW next expansion to release MOBAxMMORPG rated PvE content that will extend the very popular MOBA theme to MMORPG games in a way that even puritans will be able to stomach. I can imagine D3 expansion to define new way to make ARPG games. Same way WoW TBC or D2/LoD did.

[Glorious Leader]

. I can imagine D3 expansion to define new way to make ARPG games. Same way WoW TBC or D2/LoD did.

I think ultimately that's the problem here. They continue to make games based on REALLY old models, like going back 15-20 years now. They refine them and make slight additions but they don't really change up anything fundamentally and the product ends up feeling stale.

[Rucati]

No all the mechanics are not new and interesting. They are almost all exactly as you describe don't stand in bad shit. What is new and interesting about jin rokh? or horridon? or council? or Iron Qon? or Primordius? or Megara? their are a HANDFUL of variations and potentially unique things (turtle shells on tortos, durumu spectrum, dark animus) but even fights like Durumu are basically just rehashes of older mechanics. Hey lets do another maze because everybody loved Zul Gurub...

Jin'rokh is the first boss, wouldn't expect much complexity there. Horridon isn't all that interesting either. Council has quite a few mechanics interesting mechanics because of the empowerment, frost king, the priest lady, even the rolling guy are interesting, Sul dies too fast to matter. Iron Qon has the quick stacking mechanic in p1, nothing exciting in p2, the damage return in p3 (insignificant) and then the heavy AoE damage in p4, nothing to revolutionary but all the while dodging the ground mechanic makes it somewhat unique. The entire primordius fight is unique with the transforming and all the +/- buffs. Megeara or however you spell that is unique too, with the 6 heads all having different mechanics and things you have to watch out for.

For what it's worth, ICC wasn't particularly unique aside from the boss you had to heal to beat, the others weren't particularly interesting.

[Nebria]

I really enjoyed D3, I don't think I could play it for as long as I played D2 but I think I have moved on from those days, the changes they have done have made it a better game.

that's it. every time I read d2 had so much more depth and I had so much fun all I think about is "nostalgic pure".
in d2 you played endless ours to find better gear.
and what do I have to read here in this thread "I dislike d3 because it makes no fun to run for items over and over". so for this guy d2 wouldn't be fun either.
and this is also the reason for a rmah. people who dislike item hunting for a specific item and having bad luck can buy it.
I think the main issue is d3 is not the game a lot of people expected (d2 with new ui) and nostalgic memories. they added some feature I personal totally like (skill system, life globes) but a lot of people dislike and kept the play style of d2. I think what a lot of people do not realize that they might grow out of a dungeon crawler and that this kind of game isn't fun for them anymore after some hours. see the demand for more content by some people. in d2 you had also a fixed area and you just repeated it million of times.
now, after wow where you know what a content patch is, people want to see it in d3 too. but d3 is not wow, not a mmo where you get new content over time, it is like d2, a dungeon crawler where you will repeat the same for endless ours.
ask yourself would you keep playing d2 for hours and days if it would be released this days? or would play it for a some weeks and then return to another game as you did with d3?

[Vankrys]

Really? BC was honestly garbage.

really. Every now and then, a poll pop up on this forum polling the best wow time, and almost every time TBC comes 1st.
And i must add, it comes first with a enormous disadvantage that many voters started playing in WOLK or after and thus couldn't vote for TBC.
Also, MAny TBC player have quit and don't read these forums.


regardless, times and times again, TBC still comes ahead. If it was possible to make a poll of ALL wow players, past and present, not just the readers of MMOC, TBC would be lightyears ahead of all other (except maybe vanilla).

[Seefer]

MoP is the best WoW expac to date.
D3 was great (but a bit too short, needs expansion naow!) and sold like hotcakes
SC2 HotS is Blizzards 16th (16th!!) numer 1 selling PC game..

Hearthstone is looking great.. All-stars as well (though MOBA's are not my cup)

So.. yeah they are.

.............MoP is not the best expansion to date I am sorry, it's ok but by far not great.

[TyrantWave]

really. Every now and then, a poll pop up on this forum polling the best wow time, and almost every time TBC comes 1st.
And i must add, it comes first with a enormous disadvantage that many voters started playing in WOLK or after and thus couldn't vote for TBC.
Also, MAny TBC player have quit and don't read these forums.


regardless, times and times again, TBC still comes ahead. If it was possible to make a poll of ALL wow players, past and present, not just the readers of MMOC, TBC would be lightyears ahead of all other (except maybe vanilla).

And I'll respectfully disagree. As I said, I can't think of a single compelling reason other than severe nostalgia why people would rate it so highly.

[Korie]

The fact that you even need to state this speaks volumes to the pathetic state of video game culture. Obviously if you're stating it.. it's your opinion. And if you're implying by the "personal" preface that you are the only one who has that as their opinion, then you are wrong. But you're not "simply" wrong. You're also rather moronic because *obviously* many other people feel this way as well. You feel the need to punctuate your statement with a reminder that it is your opinion because that will mitigate the fallout, which usually arrives in the form of angry kids slinging insults and threats over the internet. That is the state of video game culture. And internet culture. And the culture of anonymity.

That said, Blizzard has certainly fallen from grace.

They've become a very greedy, very profit-focused company. Is this a redundancy? I don't think so. But even if it is, there are other companies, like Valve, that are more committed to an ideal than they are to at least -immediate- profits.

Diablo 3. Had one real not-Blizzard's-usual-level-of-quality flaw. And that was its pathetic length.

Having to pay to transfer to a different server is corrupt. It is corrupt and evil and people should have (and maybe did and if so I am glad, but more than likely they didn't and therefore I am further ashamed) quit in droves over the insult. A lot of the time people want to transfer servers because, due to Blizzard's evil, greedy, shareholder-impressing-motivated refusal to merge servers, their server has died. In this case, they need to transfer because a failure on Blizzard's part has forced them to need to leave. And Blizzard wants to charge them for it.

Disgusting. How can anyone tolerate this?

We hear an exciting announcement that Blizzard is introducing a new IP. What is our waiting rewarded with?

Hearthstone. One of the biggest slaps in the face in video game history.

In-game auction house for D3? Disgusting. How can anyone support this?

Promises of Arena in Diablo 3. Years later. No arena in diablo 3. How can anyone support this? Disgusting.

Seems like one of the "angry kids slinging insults" found himself a dictionary.

[Wildmoon]

I am actually quite confused by some people's logic here. They use WoW's subs and a proof that previous WoW's xpac were better and at the same time they said D3 selling 12mil copies doesn't matter because the game is bad anyway.

[Vankrys]

And I'll respectfully disagree. As I said, I can't think of a single compelling reason other than severe nostalgia why people would rate it so highly.

you have your opinion, and you taste in matter of gaming.
but you can't possibly know what in my head or other people head.

You say that me thinking TBC was the best WoW expansion is only nostalgia is like saying you know what's in myhead better than i do? How arrogant can you be. At least respect other people opinion and taste in gaming.

[mireigi]

Blizzard is still one of the major powerhouse game developer out there. Bioware and Bethesda are the other two. Depending on tastes and genre they each fight for the goldmedal.

However, after Blizzard have booted Vivendi, we should see some of the old Blizzard back. Most people think it's Activision who is to blame, but Blizzard was owned by Activision a long time before Vivendi came along. The renaming was just a marketing hoax.

[TyrantWave]

you have your opinion, and you taste in matter of gaming.
but you can't possibly know what in my head or other people head.

You say that me thinking TBC was the best WoW expansion is only nostalgia is like saying you know what's in myhead better than i do? How arrogant can you be. At least respect other people opinion and taste in gaming.

Congratulations for not being able to read, I guess?

I said I can't see a single reason other than nostalgia. If you can, by all means that's entirely your opinion as well. But any reason I've ever been given for why its better has, so far, been nostalgia. You're more than welcome to give me reasons, and I'll consider them, but I've yet to be given an actual reason why it was supposedly so much better.

The story? All I ever get was "Illidan was so cool in WC3!", that's not a reason for BC, that's a reason for WC3.
The raids? Honestly, they were ok. Just... ok. Mechanically they were very simple, I'd say KT was probably the best fight, and I do like that raid. Certainly not in my top raids though. And less than what, 0.5% of players even set foot in Sunwell?
The gameplay? Unbalanced, and felt kinda sloppy really. Maybe that's just me.
The community? Here's a shock horror for people: It was just as toxic then as now. Only now you see a much larger playerbase, so you'll remember more assholes than back then.

[macke]

regardless, times and times again, TBC still comes ahead. If it was possible to make a poll of ALL wow players, past and present, not just the readers of MMOC, TBC would be lightyears ahead of all other (except maybe vanilla).

Do you know why that is? If you took a closer look to your so called "polls" it's always the same pattern right? First Vanilla is the best expansion, then TBC, Wrath and then Cataclysm.

Do you not see it? Are you really that blind? It's called nostalgia. People miss things because it's human to do, you simply block out all the bad memories and focus on the good once. I still enjoy MoP more than I did any other expansion but I think I had the most fun with my friends in Wrath because of the people I played with but MoP is a far superior expansion in every single way.

[Deldavala]

However, after Blizzard have booted Vivendi, we should see some of the old Blizzard back. Most people think it's Activision who is to blame, but Blizzard was owned by Activision a long time before Vivendi came along. The renaming was just a marketing hoax.

Its the other way around. IIRC Blizzard has been part of Vivendi since 1998

[Chickat]

Blizzard is still one of the major powerhouse game developer out there. Bioware and Bethesda are the other two. Depending on tastes and genre they each fight for the goldmedal.

However, after Blizzard have booted Vivendi, we should see some of the old Blizzard back. Most people think it's Activision who is to blame, but Blizzard was owned by Activision a long time before Vivendi came along. The renaming was just a marketing hoax.

You have that way backwards. Blizzard was owned by vivendi for years before activision came along.

[Nebria]

I think ultimately that's the problem here. They continue to make games based on REALLY old models, like going back 15-20 years now. They refine them and make slight additions but they don't really change up anything fundamentally and the product ends up feeling stale.

the problem is people addicted to d2 wouldn't like it if it is too far away from the old system and you would have another shitstorm... see remove attribute points you can spend or talent trees removed, new glyph system. a lot of people have played d2 when they where a teenager so they have good memories with it. problem is not everything was so good as they remind. but still they want to have the same feelings as back in that days when they played d2 but it doesn't work. so they blame the new game is just bad and not as good as d2. that's why I think most people just grew out of dungeon crawlers.

[Deldavala]

Well lets put subjective opinion aside. If we look at the game in an objective view you see that the quality of the game is high. And the gaming populace is still very fond of the games.

WoW is still the biggest subbased MMO

D3 is still the biggest Hack and slash/dungeon crawler

Starcraft is still the biggest RTS

[Layuth]

Show me a game dev that's been in the business for several years, released several products, and hasn't stumbled once or twice.

The question is NOT about other developers, it is about Blizzard.

First and foremost, other than doing some deep digging online, I really think this thread will be nothing but pure opinion.

Thank you for the deep insight Captain Obvious. We know this thread will be nothing more than opinion, that is kind of what the OP is asking for.

D3 was far from a stumble in the eyes of the industry. Something like the 6th or 7th highest selling PC game of all time now. Sure it let down a vocal minority but no one can say it wasn't an extremely successful game.

I don't think Blizzards lost it. MoP has been some of the best quality WoW we've ever had.

Diablo3 sold copies SOLELY on the reputation of Diablo2. Without Diablo2 people would have seen the game and laughed.

My opinion is that Blizzard lost their touch of their 8 core values when they sold out to Activision. Quality has gone drastically down and the greed has gone drastically up. Yes it happens all the time now. Quality game makers are a dying breed anymore.