What the hell happened to Blizzard?

[TheFirstOnes]

They sold out.

[FelPlague]

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 couldnt have just kept classic, people speficiyl were mad that blizz was gunna update the game, and it was gunna be something new, not just an update, you can look to these very forums for people for MONTHS, upwards of a year complaining "wow blizz changing the good lore to be shit.... wow blizz ruining cinematics.... wow blizz ruinign charecters and want to alter gameplay? wow."

[Ticj]

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.

I think this post is less about WoW and more about Blizzard as a whole though, especially with WCIII Reforged just releasing and flopping.

I completely agree with it as well. There has been an incredible drop in quality across the board in every single blizzard game over just the past two years.

Even WoW classic blizzard seems completely unable/unwilling to manage, and that's incredible to screw up.

[sam86]

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.

it is one of things i really HATE i was right, i had hope i was wrong, many ppl bet that the cinematic we saw in 2018 demo was the real deal
blizz NEVER lied that way before, tbh i can only think of EA who did something like that before, and of course Activision if we consider it different entity than Blizz do that since the 70s

[Shuji V2]

Remember how Blizzard used to go by "It's ready when it's ready" or "Soon™"? It's funny and sad at the same time how a company that was so renowned for it's quality and polish churns out crap games and expansions/patches that would have never passed QC just to chase the money...

[Aleksej89]

The people at the top who make decisions do not care about blizzard, its fans or its games.

They only care about profit - and they decided its more profitable to burn down blizzard for a quick buck and then abandon ship while ruining its reputation and pedigree and fanbase.

[Dracullus]

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.

Was it? I think people were less demanding/more forgiving back then and games - much more simple. Now games are mocked for literally every single bug and if game is too simple, people just beat it in few days and say it's not worth their money.

(And it's not just games, people get more whiny in general, because sites like Twitter or, well this give them platform to whine together).

Also new studios get benefit of the doubt - Morrowind wasn't as critiqued for it's bugs as Fallout 4. Same with Witcher 3, I don't think many remember how buggy it was on release.

I don't say Blizzard didn't have major fuckops lately both with games - rushed BfA launch, Reforged and PR - Immortal, Blitzchung, but it's not fair comparing it to Wild West 20 years ago. If anything, we should compare Blizzard to current devs that are doing things more or less right (of course with quality of their games, not stuff like crunch) like CDPR or Rockstar.

[Ickz]

I'm 34. If you told me back in the late 90s/early 00s that Blizz would end up like they currently are, I would've laughed. Blizz used to be on a whole other level. Very sad.

[sam86]

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."

also if we go 'players asked that' i bet there are ppl out there who asked for change story to fit wow and ppl who asked for new records and ppl who asked to replace Thrall with murloc for the lols
if u use 'player asked for that' bullshit reason the answer will be infinity, since vanilla days ppl ask for playable murloc race on official forums that i saw myself, and i consider that one of worst ideas ever
then we got furries... maybe it wasn't the worst

[ThatsOurEric]

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

Pretty much this right here.

Little by little, Activision has been influencing Blizzard, and it clearly shows in the decisions they've made over the last couple of years.

I would also argue that the Dota 2 case, and the failure of Titan were also huge issues that affected Blizzard negatively.

[Mojo03]

I'm not exactly disagreeing, BUT

Other than stuff that is supposed to get added soon (AR, profiles, clans, etc) What got cut from Reforged other than updating maps to match WoW, which they said they weren't doing anymore (for whatever reason)?

[Candy Cough]

Wondering that myself, grown up with blizzards games and been fanboying them for aslong as I can remember but even my inner fanboy now is starting to question things

Abandoned hots

Ion Hazzikostas being completely out of touch with the community when it comes to the game design of world of warcraft

Overwatch not having a single fucking new feature since launch other than the workshop. A couple of heroe and maps a year and new seasonal skins. WOOOO!

Starcraft 2 on life support.

Diablo 3 abandoned for like 10 years

About the only thing that isnt on fire these days is Hearthstone out of all things.

For me it all went to hell after they released Overwatch. Their mentality nowdays seems to be "We know what's fun, you don't. You will play our games and you will enjoy it."

[crusadernero]

I'm 34. If you told me back in the late 90s/early 00s that Blizz would end up like they currently are, I would've laughed. Blizz used to be on a whole other level. Very sad.

Yeah me to. It was unthinkable back then. Times have changed.

Money and greed has taken over. A company that once were driven by great desire, passion and HIGH quality is gone.

[sam86]

Was it? I think people were less demanding/more forgiving back then and games - much more simple. Now games are mocked for literally every single bug and if game is too simple, people just beat it in few days and say it's not worth their money.

Witcher 3 says hi, it has the infamous roof horse bug yet most ppl praise the game
Heck doom is praised, Skyrim with all its bugs was praised until bethesda 76 happened
no ppl still forgive, check how blizz still has white knights even now, in fact most gamers have memory of goldfish, it is companies who are real shit now, with micro transaction everywhere and the focus is how to squeeze the victims who buy instead of actually offering quality products

[Toppy]

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.

they couldnt have just kept classic, people speficiyl were mad that blizz was gunna update the game, and it was gunna be something new, not just an update, you can look to these very forums for people for MONTHS, upwards of a year complaining "wow blizz changing the good lore to be shit.... wow blizz ruining cinematics.... wow blizz ruinign charecters and want to alter gameplay? wow."

They had originally intended to have both classic and reforged options when doing the campaign, it was datamined in the early alpha. This is one of those cases in which they could have done both. Likewise if they decided to not do this, they should made this clear which they didn't. They still advertise removed features on the games site.

You're also glossing over that they removed many features present in WC3.

[Jastall]

The tide ebbs and flows, I'd say.

There was a time where Blizzard was releasing things like HOTS, Diablo 3 and Warlords of Draenor, and I saw the same discourse I see now; what happened, Blizzard is dead, ship's sinking, Activision nuked the company, etc. Then they released Overwatch and Legion and a lot of it died down. That's not to say everyone suddenly liked them, but doomsaying gave way to far more reasonable dislikes and disagreements with the company.

We're in another down phase for sure. BFA isn't what it's supposed to be and Reforged was inexplicably rushed out the door to a poor result. We'll see if they turn things around with titles like Shadowlands, Overwatch 2 and (eventually) D4.

[Kyphael]

Their hearts filled with greed, and they have doodoo in their soul.

[Tarba]

I like the "communauty cried about changes" argument.
All I saw was a blizz guy who said that some people where like "ho don't change to much the story we liked it" and from that they decided to shit on everyones by doing the less possible.

No no no. That shit we got is not because of the communauty. It's because they didn't want to work on it.

[Nnyco]

What an original post, never seen this one before. You came up with that yourself?

[sam86]

I would also argue that the Dota 2 case, and the failure of Titan were also huge issues that affected Blizzard negatively.

Chris Metzen did say many times how Titans failure was very negative on them, not to mention how it massively effected and costed blizzard
they were planning a mmo that would eclipse wow, and it failed