The "Stay faithful to the design" philosophy won't last, precedent is already there

[Relapses]

Activision-Blizzard lost $10 Billion in a little over a more than a week. It was not a dip, it was a crash. They were in dept already for acquiring King.

Double the loss if you go back to early October 2018. From $85 down to $55.

That's a huge hit, and yes it affects Blizzard's cash flow. They need money like yesterday, essentially. When investors cashed out, they removed money from Activision-Blizzard. The difference becomes dept, which could be paid off easily -- except Activision-Blizzard is already in debt.

Yikes!

Dude, stock prices are hardly telling of anything. There's so much speculation involved that it doesn't really make sense to frame your argument around it. If you look long term at ActiBlizzard's stock, you'll see that it's been on a constant upswing. The current stock price is roughly what it was in May of 2017. If anything, the markets likely over-speculated what was in store and the negative backlash from BlizzCon simply gave investors the inevitable reality check that was needed. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say that the over-inflated stock prices are one of the compounding reasons Immortal was announced to begin with. (Mobile gaming is, after all, the newest burgeoning market and Blizzard has a track record of success in burgeoning markets.)

And while this dip is definitely indicative of internal struggles within the company I'm fairly confident Blizzard has the chops to learn from this fiasco and make it back to the top. There's just way too many smart fucking people working for the company for it to go tits up like so many cynical gamers seem to be implying these days.

[SirCowdog]

And while this dip is definitely indicative of internal struggles withom the company I'm fairly confident Blizzard has the chops to learn from this fiasco and make it back to the top. There's just way too many smart fucking people working for the company for it to go tits up like so many cynical gamers seem to be implying these days.

If they're so damn smart, how did they think Diablo Immortal would go over well at Blizzcon as the only Diablo-related announcement?

[Seranthor]

Activision-Blizzard lost $10 Billion in a little over a more than a week. It was not a dip, it was a crash. They were in dept already for acquiring King.

Double the loss if you go back to early October 2018. From $85 down to $55.

That's a huge hit, and yes it affects Blizzard's cash flow. They need money like yesterday, essentially. When investors cashed out, they removed money from Activision-Blizzard. The difference becomes dept, which could be paid off easily -- except Activision-Blizzard is already in debt.

Yikes!

Thank you again for repeating yourself... Now try answering the questions that was asked. I'll repeat them so you can see them.

1. are you suggesting that because of a stock dip that we aren't going to get Classic/Vanilla?
2. Money Strapped? (Explain in detail please)

[Relapses]

If they're so damn smart, how did they think Diablo Immortal would go over well at Blizzcon as the only Diablo-related announcement?

Credit where credit is due, they did try to muffle the hype with the don't-expect-anything-too-big-at-BlizzCon "clarification" blog which was largely ignored before D:I's announcement. Additionally, it was hinted that there's more Diablo-related work going on behind the scenes, they just weren't ready to share it yet. I will say that the degree of negative feedback from D:I has likely reverberated far louder than they intended, that's for sure. I've said this before but it reminds me a lot of the EA controversy last year with their "sense of pride and accomplishment" bullshit. And EA survived that (though, BF:2 really didn't) much like I think Blizzard will weather this storm. However, unlike EA, I have more confidence in the core of Blizzard's designers to pull through.

::sigh:: I don't know, man, you're right to a degree; perhaps my feelings about Blizzard are far too rosy-eyed... I just want to believe that this is just a series of really tragic missteps rather than a sign of the end times.

[Byleth]

Yikes!

You don't know the first thing about stock markets or finance in general do you?

People need to stop posting anything about the stock. If you actually work the market, this should not scare you at all. You'll yes see a dip. But it does not mean anything particularly. Blizzard is not going to come crashing down. You need to look at it for way back. If you for example see how the stock was at WOTLK/Cata.... the peak. You'll see a lower stock value than it has currently. You are really all looking into this waay too deep.

And buying King has nothing to do with suddenly running out of money. You think banks won't support Blizzard? They just made a wonderful deal and now had a slight hiccup.... omg the world is crashing.... Stocks are fickle things... next month they might have grown.

You good sir speak the truth!

[Armourboy]

Activision-Blizzard lost $10 Billion in a little over a more than a week. It was not a dip, it was a crash. They were in dept already for acquiring King.

Double the loss if you go back to early October 2018. From $85 down to $55.

That's a huge hit, and yes it affects Blizzard's cash flow. They need money like yesterday, essentially. When investors cashed out, they removed money from Activision-Blizzard. The difference becomes dept, which could be paid off easily -- except Activision-Blizzard is already in debt.

Yikes!

That's not how this work's, that's not how any of this works.

Activision-Blizzard did not lose 10 billion dollars, Activision-Blizzards stock holders saw the value of their stocks drop that much. It actually has very little to do with ATVI's cash flow unless ATVI as a company bought those shares that were sold. I'm going to assume they didn't because I have seen no announcement of it ( which they would do ). Any value or shares sold is a separate transaction between individual shareholders, not ATVI itself ( So Mike Morhaime lost money for instance but not ATVI ). The money from shares sold comes from the individual ( or could be an investment firm) that they were sold to, not ATVI. It's really no different than buying a coke at a store. You aren't giving the money directly to Coke, but rather to the convenience store who already bought it from Coke and now owns the product.

If ATVI had 40 billion in cash on hand Monday morning, then they had 40 billion on hand Monday afternoon. Stock Value has nothing to do with cash flow or cash on hand for the company outside of the IPO.

[Floopa]

I want Classic to be as faithful to the original as it can possibly be. I want it to be completely, truly, identical to how the game was back in 2004.

this is not possible. this will never be possible.

[Airlick]

Ok. What do weapon skills add to the game? Its super easy to say "Just keep everything the same". But inevitably, things like weapon skills get changed over time.

Removing weapon skill would not hurt "the classic experience" in any meaningful way.

Actually, it would. As it was, it was another layer of a classic RP experience. Our characters (except of DKs and DHs, but they are hero classes) don't start out as great heroes leaving on a journey to save the world. They start as complete greenhorns. It only makes sense that they have to LEARN to use their weapons. If they start out with a mace, it makes sense they won't be able to pick up a sword and go kill a dragon with it right away. They need to learn to use it first. Sure, it was pretty boring having to go to Elwynn to kill kobolds to learn to swing a new weapon on your 5th character, but claiming that removing weapon skills wouldn't hurt the experience... Well, you're wrong. Weapon skills were removed exactly because most of the players were already veterans by the time they were removed, and so we didn't care much for the RP experience anymore. But we're riding on nostalgia here, and I personally definitely consider grinding weapon skills a part of classic experience.

[Whitedragon]

Credit where credit is due, they did try to muffle the hype with the don't-expect-anything-too-big-at-BlizzCon "clarification" blog which was largely ignored before D:I's announcement. Additionally, it was hinted that there's more Diablo-related work going on behind the scenes, they just weren't ready to share it yet. I will say that the degree of negative feedback from D:I has likely reverberated far louder than they intended, that's for sure. I've said this before but it reminds me a lot of the EA controversy last year with their "sense of pride and accomplishment" bullshit. And EA survived that (though, BF:2 really didn't) much like I think Blizzard will weather this storm. However, unlike EA, I have more confidence in the core of Blizzard's designers to pull through.

I don't know, man, you're right to a degree; perhaps my feelings about Blizzard are far too rosy-eyed... I just want to believe that this is just a series of really tragic missteps rather than a sign of the end times.

Hell I would point out to that we have no idea how well the game will actually do. I myself was quite shocked at it's reveal but by the end of day one, the shock had worn off and I was left with what It actually was, an attempt at a new market. Ya if you talk to the die hard fans who never go outside of their box, they will all say that the game is doomed and S***. What dose that actually mean though? Ohh ya nothing! The game will still have its shot at the markets, and it may very well sell gangbusters for all we know...

The game I always like to bring up now when ever the "D:I is going to bomb" arguments come out, is Fire emblem heroes, the hardcore FE fans where ridiculing that game with every negative thing imaginable. Funny enough the game went live and went ludicrously vertical sales wise, and it is still dumping bags money In Nintendo's pocket to this day. If Nintendo can do it, Blizzard sure can as well, and after the shock of "Mobile Diablo" went away, and I looked back at what we got, I can say it at least looks somewhat fun so.... *Shrugs*

[reauxmont]

But watcha gonna do I suppose.

This is an easy one: play retail.

[Accendor]

Im sure most people in this forum are aware of Everquests long line of progression servers.

At first it started out much like the majority seems to want. Stay faithful to the old experience, etc.

As time went on, more and more QoL changes were asked for, and implemented. They even added raid instances for the old raid bosses that used to be contested open world only. Now we have the instances AND the contested stuff, for the crazies.

Currently, everyone loves the instances, no one wants corpse runs back, changes to epic weapons are welcomed, almost everyone hates when they do lower exp rates, everyone enjoys being more powerful then we were back then etc etc etc I could go on with hundreds of these.

I sort of wish they would just accept this from the start, and we could get things like weapon skills removed. What about hitting trivial mobs for a couple hours to level a weapon skill is interesting or meaningful? What does only letting half the specs be able to raid accomplish?

Sigh.

You are one of the persons that do not understand the basic principle:
Change things, it will fail. People do not want changed things. People are not playing, you are alone on the server -> No classic experience.

Keep that in mind: You are not looking for the classic experience. You are looking for something between Retail and Classic, but not classic itself.
You can have fun playing classic, but you are not the target audience.

[Kokolums]

As I said many times before, players have no self control. If you just give them the code to a game, they will hack it, give themselves God Mode, one shot the final boss, and then 5 minutes later say the game sucks and quit. We know this because of our experience with Diablo I in the 1990s. There was no client / server. The entire game was on your computer. So people immediately hacked their toons to make themselves invincible and ran down into the catacombs and one shot Diablo. It sucked.

After that experience, there was tremendous demand among the gaming community for anti-hack measures because gamers needed to be protected from themselves. Blizzard responded with Diablo 2, which offered a client / server model as an antihack measure. Bad players immediately set to work trying to hack the server data with maphack, cheats, god modes, anything they could find.

Then came WoW. One of the big selling points for WoW was improved antihack and active monitoring with the warden program. The extended initial leveling time from 1-60 with NO workaround also was an antihack feature because if you had a level 60 geared up for AQ and got banned for hacking, it would take you a very long time to rebuild a new account. People still tried but it curbed it greatly.

A NEW method developed around this time of running to the forums and begging Blizzard to nerf everything into the ground in the name of QoL. This was a method of attaining God Mode without altering code but by via social engineering.

Now classic approaches and now you understand why everyone keeps begging on forums to nerf everything. Its a way to try to hack classic and get God Mode. Gamers never change.

[Chaelexi]

Ok. What do weapon skills add to the game? Its super easy to say "Just keep everything the same". But inevitably, things like weapon skills get changed over time.

Removing weapon skill would not hurt "the classic experience" in any meaningful way.

Weapon skill adds another dps stat. getting +weapon skill was the best melee dps stat in the game.

- - - Updated - - -

That's not how this work's, that's not how any of this works.

Activision-Blizzard did not lose 10 billion dollars, Activision-Blizzards stock holders saw the value of their stocks drop that much. It actually has very little to do with ATVI's cash flow unless ATVI as a company bought those shares that were sold. I'm going to assume they didn't because I have seen no announcement of it ( which they would do ). Any value or shares sold is a separate transaction between individual shareholders, not ATVI itself ( So Mike Morhaime lost money for instance but not ATVI ). The money from shares sold comes from the individual ( or could be an investment firm) that they were sold to, not ATVI. It's really no different than buying a coke at a store. You aren't giving the money directly to Coke, but rather to the convenience store who already bought it from Coke and now owns the product.

If ATVI had 40 billion in cash on hand Monday morning, then they had 40 billion on hand Monday afternoon. Stock Value has nothing to do with cash flow or cash on hand for the company outside of the IPO.

This is also a company that just had a bunch of C level staff turnover. A drop like this would be predicted when this happens, it depends on how they are able to rally.

[Jibjub]

Ok. What do weapon skills add to the game? Its super easy to say "Just keep everything the same". But inevitably, things like weapon skills get changed over time.

Removing weapon skill would not hurt "the classic experience" in any meaningful way.

I think you are failing to ask one important question: "Why were this experiences in the game in the first place?"

It is implied, I think, that many of the "old school elements" existed because of technical limitations. But they existed because people liked them. Some things were really frustrating... but they made the world seem more alive and real. They made you more connected to your character. They helped you escape the real world. The whole point is that you don't feel like you're playing a video game. You don't want quality of life. You want challenges, even if they are "boring."

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." -- GK Chesterton.

[Craaazyyy]

People need to stop posting anything about the stock. If you actually work the market, this should not scare you at all. You'll yes see a dip. But it does not mean anything particularly. Blizzard is not going to come crashing down. You need to look at it for way back. If you for example see how the stock was at WOTLK/Cata.... the peak. You'll see a lower stock value than it has currently. You are really all looking into this waay too deep.

And buying King has nothing to do with suddenly running out of money. You think banks won't support Blizzard? They just made a wonderful deal and now had a slight hiccup.... omg the world is crashing.... Stocks are fickle things... next month they might have grown.

but its not blizzard stock, its activision blizzard stock..

and yeah they fluctuate all the time, i agree, but not by 20%+ in a week, but at the same time it hardly matter anyways. I wish it did tho

[Deficineiron]

This is fair, I guess the slow process will just need to play out.

BUT, I still don't see any objective value to weapon skills. I'm sure there are many things like that, i'd rather us not waste time with the obvious changes.

But watcha gonna do I suppose.

if we let players vote on the top 25 'no objective value' game elements, you know what we end up with?

weapon skills were an RPG element, and blizzard clearly agrees with you.

- - - Updated - - -

People need to stop posting anything about the stock. If you actually work the market, this should not scare you at all. You'll yes see a dip. But it does not mean anything particularly. Blizzard is not going to come crashing down. You need to look at it for way back. If you for example see how the stock was at WOTLK/Cata.... the peak. You'll see a lower stock value than it has currently. You are really all looking into this waay too deep.

And buying King has nothing to do with suddenly running out of money. You think banks won't support Blizzard? They just made a wonderful deal and now had a slight hiccup.... omg the world is crashing.... Stocks are fickle things... next month they might have grown.

stocks go up and down. a/b has a fwd-looking earnings growth issue. they are still very, very profitable and cash-flow positive.

all that said, no senior mgmt likes to see their stock down 40% in a short time-frame, and some cannot help but try to react with positive press stuff.

[Xecks]

first they came for my weapon skills and i did not stand up.

then they came for my class balance and i did not stand up.

then they came for me and there was nobody to stand up for me.

[Holtzmann]

I think you are failing to ask one important question: "Why were this experiences in the game in the first place?"

It is implied, I think, that many of the "old school elements" existed because of technical limitations. But they existed because people liked them. Some things were really frustrating... but they made the world seem more alive and real. They made you more connected to your character. They helped you escape the real world. The whole point is that you don't feel like you're playing a video game. You don't want quality of life. You want challenges, even if they are "boring."

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." -- GK Chesterton.

I wonder what they would have come up with if they ever released their original idea of "pristine" servers.

Open a few current expansion servers. Remove all cross-realm interaction outside of Battlegrounds, reduce the ratio of gear acquisition, increase difficulty on dungeons and open-world content, consolidate all raid difficulties into just one, and remove flying (and add flight paths to areas that are only accessible via flying). Bit of a wild idea, but I really wonder how people would react to those servers.

[Xecks]

I wonder what they would have come up with if they ever released their original idea of "pristine" servers.

Open a few current expansion servers. Remove all cross-realm interaction outside of Battlegrounds, reduce the ratio of gear acquisition, increase difficulty on dungeons and open-world content, consolidate all raid difficulties into just one, and remove flying (and add flight paths to areas that are only accessible via flying). Bit of a wild idea, but I really wonder how people would react to those servers.

people wouldve took a big dump on those servers cause they werent what the people clamoring for vanilla servers wanted.

[Jibjub]

I wonder what they would have come up with if they ever released their original idea of "pristine" servers.

Open a few current expansion servers. Remove all cross-realm interaction outside of Battlegrounds, reduce the ratio of gear acquisition, increase difficulty on dungeons and open-world content, consolidate all raid difficulties into just one, and remove flying (and add flight paths to areas that are only accessible via flying). Bit of a wild idea, but I really wonder how people would react to those servers.

I completely forgot that they floated that idea! That would be a fun experiment, actually.