What the hell happened to Blizzard?

[Gimlix]

The total content quality Blizzard has been giving us has been quite bad lately.
Promising us features and not deliver them.

Blizzard used to have a great title under his name, nowadays Blizzard is seen just as bad as EA.

What the hell has happened to the quality blizzard used to put into their games?

[Teoita]

Activision happened, pure and simple. It's slowly getting been worse for a long time, but now they are pretty much indefensible.

[Castration]

nothing... why?

what happened to you?

[FelPlague]

The total content quality Blizzard has been giving us has been quite bad lately.
Promising us features and not deliver them.

Blizzard used to have a great title under his name, nowadays Blizzard is seen just as bad as EA.

What the hell has happened to the quality blizzard used to put into their games?

examples or you just gunna make a blog post?
Cause idk if you know, but they have not delivered on promises since back in the days before activision.
and no, its no where as bad as EA.

- - - Updated - - -

Activision happened, pure and simple. It's slowly getting been worse for a long time, but now they are pretty much indefensible.

no it didnt, they have done this since before activision, all game companies have, they set an idea, and then obviously cant go as far.


if you lot are talking about reforged, sadly alot of the playerbase screamed and cried for them to undo things they planned to do, so blizz decided against it, and now everyone is mad that is not there.

[Dr Assbandit]

I was in the "Blizz can do no wrong" camp while they used to have at least something that was worth defending. There has been an audible drop in quality between expansions, writing, their other IPs such as HotS and I earlier refunded WC3 reforged even though I was very much excited about it.

Good thing there are still some things I enjoy in WoW more on the collection side and some raids, and there are always other games to enjoy apart from WoW.

[GreenJesus]

I was in the "Blizz can do no wrong" camp while they used to have at least something that was worth defending. There has been an audible drop in quality between expansions, writing, their other IPs such as HotS and I earlier refunded WC3 reforged even though I was very much excited about it.

Good thing there are still some things I enjoy in WoW more on the collection side and some raids, and there are always other games to enjoy apart from WoW.

Yep. HoTS, Diablo 3 launch, Snorelords down the Drainor, Dragon Soul patch, BFA, and now WC3.

[xeddin]

For the most part wow is a cycle. You farm up your gear, get the new achievements/mounts/pets, explore the new zones and you repeat. Eventually, if you have played consecutively enough you get burned out. But that is what it has always been, an endless cycle of starting fresh and questing/raiding/pvping all over again to get all the new stuff. Every new expansion and patch will refresh this cycle.

Wow has been running for over 15 years now. Each expansion or patch is meant to introduce new things in terms of story and gimmicks (corrupted gear and horrific visions in 8.3). Sometimes they get it right and it's really interesting and fun (mage tower in legion), other times they don't. To expect a company to patch after patch, expansion after expansion, deliver fresh new content precisely to the liking of millions and millions of players is quite a high expectation.

[Redroniksre]

I was in the "Blizz can do no wrong" camp while they used to have at least something that was worth defending. There has been an audible drop in quality between expansions, writing, their other IPs such as HotS and I earlier refunded WC3 reforged even though I was very much excited about it.

Good thing there are still some things I enjoy in WoW more on the collection side and some raids, and there are always other games to enjoy apart from WoW.

I dont know about the writing side, it has always been pretty bad it was just less noticeable before they piled more onto it. Their art and music teams have always been stellar though.

[Gimlix]

For the most part wow is a cycle. You farm up your gear, get the new achievements/mounts/pets, explore the new zones and you repeat. Eventually, if you have played consecutively enough you get burned out. But that is what it has always been, an endless cycle of starting fresh and questing/raiding/pvping all over again to get all the new stuff. Every new expansion and patch will refresh this cycle.

Wow has been running for over 15 years now. Each expansion or patch is meant to introduce new things in terms of story and gimmicks (corrupted gear and horrific visions in 8.3). Sometimes they get it right and it's really interesting and fun (mage tower in legion), other times they don't. To expect a company to patch after patch, expansion after expansion, deliver fresh new content precisely to the liking of millions and millions of players is quite a high expectation.

Right now my biggest example is WC3 Reforged. they fucking dropped the ball on that.
Oldschool Blizzard wouldn't had cut most of the promises or release it till they are pleased.

[Dr Assbandit]

I dont know about the writing side, it has always been pretty bad it was just less noticeable before they piled more onto it. Their art and music teams have always been stellar though.

Well campy writing can be quite fun when it doesn't just chuck character and lore development right out the window.

In more recent years the writers are even able to miraculously have Sylvanas subconsciously trick herself in her inner monologues. I believe they mentioned they plan expansions and what will happen 2 years in advance, but I'm not sure what is going on behind the scenes as it was never this jumbled before even if the writing wasn't super good.

Agree on the art and music though. They are staple background music for me while working.

[Martymark]

Half of it is Activision and Bobby Kotik are calling the shots.

Half of it though is that "Blizzard Quality" was 20+ years ago, and the people who made it great have all retired.

[Helliades]

What happened? Shareholders happened. "Hey blizzboss if you make more money for us shareholders you will get a fat bonus paycheck at the end of the year" so the boss fired people, lowered the quality requirements, targeted the whales and released half baked games to lower the costs of the company and make more short term profit to please the shareholders in order to get the fat bonus paycheck.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

They sold out to the devil, the insidious killer of passionate game studios: corporatism.



Blizzard has been murdered, just like Bioware, Visceral, Maxis, Mythic, Origin, and Squaresoft before it.

[FelPlague]

Right now my biggest example is WC3 Reforged. they fucking dropped the ball on that.
Oldschool Blizzard wouldn't had cut most of the promises or release it till they are pleased.

they listened to what the players wanted. no changed cinematics, no changed lore, and no changed gameplay, it turned from a reforge, to a remaster, because players refused to let blizz make it new.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Money. It happens to every company eventually. They get so big that money isn't some mythical thing you can just start a patreon for, you have to start balancing your books, getting investors, being beholden to said investors.

It's not selling out, it's natural.

As to why they're seen as bad as EA, most of that is straight hyperbole, but also Blizz is comically bad about their PR (see: China).

[Redwyrm]

Half of it is Activision and Bobby Kotik are calling the shots.

Half of it though is that "Blizzard Quality" was 20+ years ago, and the people who made it great have all retired.

Basically this. Company is still named the same, but it's being guided by a whole different set of people than it was back in it's heyday. And with this came a different mindset and philosophy. All those people that left Blizzard over the last ten or so years haven't just retired, they usually go on to work on other projects or start new companies. Places where they can carry on the mantle of "it's ready when it's ready" and "quality before quantity" means something.

But this is all just speculation.

[Lazuli]

Yep. HoTS, Diablo 3 launch, Snorelords down the Drainor, Dragon Soul patch, BFA, and now WC3.

lmao I've never actually seen that 1

I love boredlords of paymore as well

OT: all good talent has quit, as with most game companies now. And with them also goes good vision. Corporate cucks run the show now!

[Schizoide]

It's just one bad patch. Yes, it is extremely buggy, unusually so, and they need to release higher-quality software, but it's a bit early for "what happened to Blizzard" threads.

If you were referring to BFA as a whole, Blizzard has released tons of expansions generally perceived as poor over the years. Cataclysm, WoD, and now BFA. That isn't a recent development.

[GreenJesus]

they listened to what the players wanted. no changed cinematics, no changed lore, and no changed gameplay, it turned from a reforge, to a remaster, because players refused to let blizz make it new.

Lol stop blaming the players. They could have easily just kept classic classic and reforged reforged. They just wanted to save money. "If you want the old stuff Classic is right there waiting for you."

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Lol stop blaming the players. They could have easily just kept classic classic and reforged reforged. They just wanted to save money. "If you want the old stuff Classic is right there waiting for you."

They could have, and people would have complained anyway.