About Activision Blizzard

[Lolites]

The garrison didn't do that, the lack of anything out in the open world did that. You can't blame garrisons for Blizzard literally not putting in any outdoor content.

well, when even leveling and gearing alts or gathering crafting materials was more efficient inside garrison i would say it contributed to that issue A LOT
and, if more resources would be put into garrison it would make the problem even bigger (and ofc would not help with outdoor content at all...)

[Zyky]

well, when even leveling and gearing alts or gathering crafting materials was more efficient inside garrison i would say it contributed to that issue A LOT
and, if more resources would be put into garrison it would make the problem even bigger (and ofc would not help with outdoor content at all...)

It wasn't? The most efficient way of leveling was collecting treasures and doing the bonus objectives, you could even skip the treasures and only do the bonus objectives with the huge exp pot they had. Crafting materials, sure whatever, but crafting materials haven't really been a big deal since they made professions worthless. As for gearing alts, the Garrison was not the "more efficient" way to gear. Depending on the point of the expansion you had different best ways, Highmaul/BRF era the most efficient way to gear alts was from raiding, in the first Hellfire patch it was from the catch up tokens/rare spawns in Tanaan, in the second patch it was from doing Mythic dungeons. So again you're factually wrong.

[SirCowdog]

I've never much been able to get interested in POE because my first impressions of the combat engine were bad and I've seen nothing since that would change my mind about that.

Don't know how I missed this before. But you might be interested to know that last year(?) they updated the way the melee system works, and changed how many abilities interact, with the combined result of cleaning up a LOT of the issues with combat. And AFAIK the expansion they have planned for next year will tune it up even further.

If you haven't tried it in a number of years, you might take another look to see if you notice the difference.

[Beefhammer]

Because Activision forces them to appeal to investors rather than making a good game that makes money.

Spoken like someone who does not know what he us talking about. Almost 90% of ActivisionBlizzard stock is owned by institutional investors. Which basically means the company's shares are owned by mutual funds. They dont get involved in shit and the other 10% or so don't have a say due to how small they are. So go on and tell us how they are are appealing to investors.

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Don't know how I missed this before. But you might be interested to know that last year(?) they updated the way the melee system works, and changed how many abilities interact, with the combined result of cleaning up a LOT of the issues with combat. And AFAIK the expansion they have planned for next year will tune it up even further.

If you haven't tried it in a number of years, you might take another look to see if you notice the difference.

I check it out every season. I did like the change to the passive tree that has the initial classes start at different points and has talents that work well with them as opposed to starting off at the center. Nit sure when the change was made. But still I feel the combat is miles behind D3. It still felt clunky to me. Not a fan of the system overload as well. I'll admit if I played from the beginning I may feel different, but it seems like there is too much to do with very little explanation forcing you to go to outside sources. I don't need to be handheld, but some basic tips about many of these systems should be there. Unless I missed the tip pop up.

[SirCowdog]

Spoken like someone who does not know what he us talking about. Almost 90% of ActivisionBlizzard stock is owned by institutional investors. Which basically means the company's shares are owned by mutual funds. They dont get involved in shit and the other 10% or so don't have a say due to how small they are. So go on and tell us how they are are appealing to investors.

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I check it out every season. I did like the change to the passive tree that has the initial classes start at different points and has talents that work well with them as opposed to starting off at the center. Nit sure when the change was made. But still I feel the combat is miles behind D3. It still felt clunky to me. Not a fan of the system overload as well. I'll admit if I played from the beginning I may feel different, but it seems like there is too much to do with very little explanation forcing you to go to outside sources. I don't need to be handheld, but some basic tips about many of these systems should be there. Unless I missed the tip pop up.

Well yeah, POE has always been a number cruncher game. Builds generally feel a bit weird until they're complete, with interim builds and gear being used until you reach a critical mass point that you can swap to your actual build.

Whereas Diablo has always been a "plug&play" style of game that you can jump right in with no explanation. And you're also correct that D3's general gameplay is a bit smoother.

[Underdog2204]

Think it's pretty clear blizzard is very corporate now and detatched from it's playerbase.

Its what happens with business, the people that make the good products don't advance but the people who can market and use statistics do. It leaves no-one at the top looking to make a good product and just trying to fill metrics unfortunately.

[Beefhammer]

Well yeah, POE has always been a number cruncher game. Builds generally feel a bit weird until they're complete, with interim builds and gear being used until you reach a critical mass point that you can swap to your actual build.

Whereas Diablo has always been a "plug&play" style of game that you can jump right in with no explanation. And you're also correct that D3's general gameplay is a bit smoother.

That is the one thing I want to see with D4 is a huge variety of builds. I'm thinking Legendaries could have a similar effect as gems by allowing a much wider range of building tour character. Obviously, D4 will have a more structured class design as opposed the more open class design of PoE.

[Flutterguy]

People just don't acknowledge that Blizzard isn't run by the same people that were there in the 90s. Most of those people are gone.

[sam86]

You know he doesn't actually hate video games, right? He was a big gamer in the 80s and will still play video games with his kids if they want to.

no i don't, also that was ages ago, he did state in interview ages ago that he doesn't play video games, and doesn't even allow his grand kid when he visit him to play (he didn't mention his direct son in any form)
the source is a Kotaku article that was published at least 8 years ago, i may find it but it will require hours of search, and since i exist in the WORST country on earth with the WORST internet connection i'm not interested at all to spend entire day to just search for article

[Dhrizzle]

Was it this one - https://kotaku.com/a-delightful-chat...o-game-5559201

"There are four to five things that I've said that can totally be taken out of context," he said. "Like 'Taking the fun out of making video games.' I've used that line for a really long time with the investment community to explain that 'Hey, we're mindful of our responsibility to provide a return to our investors.'"

"It was kind of like a joke!"

Kotick sometimes borrows trouble. Like when he told a gathering of developers that he doesn't play games.

That's not exactly true.

"I have three kids, I'm a single dad," Kotick said. "If they want to play video games I would love to play with them but if they don't I gotta do what they want to do. I also have an addictive personality."

But much more importantly, both for Kotick and the many developers who work for him, he knows that if he plays a game, he might very well ruin it.

"I really like video games and that passion has never really gone away," said Kotick, who rattles off an impressive list of consoles he's owned in the past and games he loved. "If I go play Modern Warfare, I'll find a hundred different things I'd like done differently. And I don't have the discipline to not express my opinion."

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All it would have taken is for garrison mission completion to require the final step be out in the world before collecting the reward inatead of just clicking an UI element.

All the ingredients were there for WoD to have some great casual/non-dungeon content but it was poorly implemented. A big part of it I think was typical Blizz overreacting to negative feedback about the amount of content players were "forced" to do at the start of MoP. Here are the changes I would have made -

More Apexis missions each day with better rewards, similar to how they implemented Tanaan.
Guaranteed invasion each day.
Garrison resources (mine/garden) and workshops should have been a slow and efficient way to eventually level professions and get some items. Going into the world to gather and crafting from your own recipes should have taken more resources but with no time-gating.
Content available from garrison buildings should have been replicated somewhere out in the world so it feels less restrictive. I shouldn't have to stop doing the quests for the Stable mounts because I want to have gnome guards around the place. The choice should have been about convenience - what do I want on my doorstep, what should I travel for.

I agree with your point - going out to meet the companions you sent to complete a quest would have been much cooler than just accepting.

[Gadzooks]

Don't know how I missed this before. But you might be interested to know that last year(?) they updated the way the melee system works, and changed how many abilities interact, with the combined result of cleaning up a LOT of the issues with combat. And AFAIK the expansion they have planned for next year will tune it up even further.

If you haven't tried it in a number of years, you might take another look to see if you notice the difference.

I don't want to derail the thread, but PoE is odd to me. I should like it, because I loved Diablo 1, 2 and 3, but i just can't get into PoE. I tried the new update...nope. Just doesn't hit the right notes with me, I guess. Very successful game, but I just can't get into it. I'm the same way with Skyrim - loved Fallout, Witcher, but I just can't get into it.

[SirCowdog]

I don't want to derail the thread, but PoE is odd to me. I should like it, because I loved Diablo 1, 2 and 3, but i just can't get into PoE. I tried the new update...nope. Just doesn't hit the right notes with me, I guess. Very successful game, but I just can't get into it. I'm the same way with Skyrim - loved Fallout, Witcher, but I just can't get into it.

Well, as has been pointed out, Diablo has always been more of a hack and slash, power-heavy, experience where you just mow through enemies without even much effort. Whereas POE is a game that needs much more strategy and planning, and REALLY has an incredible amount of depth. A lot of the fun is in trying builds and seeing how they work. If you're not so much into that, I can see why Diablo would be more appealing, since you just hop in and go.

[Beefhammer]

W
I agree with your point - going out to meet the companions you sent to complete a quest would have been much cooler than just accepting.

That was the plan, and if WoD development wasn't so slow, I'm sure it would have been in there. Mission board quests were supposed to be a mix of quests with some of them being scouting missions where you sent scouts to locations they reported back and a new area opened up or a new quest popped up in the world for you to do. My wife liked how in each zone there were these max level areas. I wonder if those areas may have been the scouting areas where new quests or objectives would have appeared.

[Dhrizzle]

That was the plan, and if WoD development wasn't so slow, I'm sure it would have been in there. Mission board quests were supposed to be a mix of quests with some of them being scouting missions where you sent scouts to locations they reported back and a new area opened up or a new quest popped up in the world for you to do. My wife liked how in each zone there were these max level areas. I wonder if those areas may have been the scouting areas where new quests or objectives would have appeared.

Those max level areas (about a dozen spread across Draenor) were used for the Apexis daily quests, they each had a little bit of lore from a quest and usually some sort of gimmick or special mechanic such as entering the nether at the Pillars of Fate, freeing the slaves during the Assault on Skettis and the flamers in the Assault on Everbloom Wilds.

[FelPlague]

https://classic.wowhead.com/news=297...by-john-staats

From the book:





Can there be any doubt left that the Blizzard we knew and loved, the one that once gave us quality games, for gamers by gamers, is well and truly dead? Its very soul consumed by Activision?

See that is 100% false. Cause literally in the book many times he mentioned how many people. Including himself. Didn't play video games

[rrayy]

even with ignoring titan and only looking at released products, did this guy somehow delete diablo 3 launch from his brain? people literally couldn't log in, there was a real money auction house, gear was so rare that i didn't get my first legendary until my 4th play through and it was a wizard orb that had no wizard stats on it. d3 was literally broken, compromised by greed, and horrendously balanced and stayed that way until ros.

i really hate to say it but i think this guy might be a nostalgic fan boy of blizz and refuses to admit fault. any level-headed person would not call original d3 unbuggy and polished.

SO, because you had issuews with one ghame, that guy is a fanboi and your opinion is fact? That is no way computes.

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Think it's pretty clear blizzard is very corporate now and detatched from it's playerbase.

Its what happens with business, the people that make the good products don't advance but the people who can market and use statistics do. It leaves no-one at the top looking to make a good product and just trying to fill metrics unfortunately.

This is completely ridiculous What is really being said here is:

Blizzard makes a game that caters to me = they make good products and have passion

Blizzard makes a game that doesn't cater to me = they are soulless drones that only care about money

The game devs they have now have just as much passion and try just as hard to put out good products that everyone will enjoy. You and many others need to realize you are not the only ones playing the game and that it is impossible to please everyone and they are in no way corporate drones that only want to make money simply because they don't cater to you. People need to stop with this myth.

[Thenatural]

Spoken like someone who does not know what he us talking about. Almost 90% of ActivisionBlizzard stock is owned by institutional investors. Which basically means the company's shares are owned by mutual funds. They dont get involved in shit and the other 10% or so don't have a say due to how small they are. So go on and tell us how they are are appealing to investors.

He's right, the Blizzhate rhetoric is a really good study on how trivially easy it is for a vocal minority to impact a company's imagine on social media.

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activi...ional-holdings link btw. Blizzbads BTFO

[TwoMana]

People just don't acknowledge that Blizzard isn't run by the same people that were there in the 90s. Most of those people are gone.

People just don't acknowledge that it's not the 90s anymore.

[aceperson]

SO, because you had issuews with one ghame, that guy is a fanboi and your opinion is fact? That is no way computes.

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This is completely ridiculous What is really being said here is:

Blizzard makes a game that caters to me = they make good products and have passion

Blizzard makes a game that doesn't cater to me = they are soulless drones that only care about money

The game devs they have now have just as much passion and try just as hard to put out good products that everyone will enjoy. You and many others need to realize you are not the only ones playing the game and that it is impossible to please everyone and they are in no way corporate drones that only want to make money simply because they don't cater to you. People need to stop with this myth.

the guy refuses to admit any fault with blizzard games. that's the issue. whether i like a game or not is irrelevant to this discussion. d3 was not an unbuggy, polished game on release like the guy says. that means either he is being dishonest or is a blind fanboy. if there are more options, i'm open to hearing them but you can't say blizzards absolute worst game of the decade was amazing and expect people to buy it and anything else you say.

edit: if d3 wasn't buggy or unpolished there wouldn't have been such popular songs like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqXO...erenceJayMusic about how buggy the game was. this is a matter of context to what was said, not my opinion on the game when it was released.

[Bosen]

Yes,the company as founded is gone.