What the hell happened to Blizzard?

[SirCowdog]

Denigrating it as fan-service isn't really fair. Legion had its problems but it was a well-crafted expansion, chock-full of content.

Fan service is not a denigration. It's often very good to give your fans what they want. The problem is that WoD was cut short in order to put all resources into Legion, resulting in an overall weaker product for WoD. Legion was good, but it used up everything left in the tank, resulting in the trainwreck of BfA.

Fanservice itself is not inherently bad, but the way in which Blizzard used it was. They used it to cover up weak and bad game design decisions. The random drop of legendaries causing massive performance imbalance. The AP grind. The layered RNG of the Netherlight crucible.

There were some very good parts about legion also, but in retrospect the fanservice helped grease a lot of squeaky wheels. You can see the difference in BfA, where there are also some good things(equal to Legion, imo), but the bad sticks out MUCH more because the fanservice is nowhere near the same level.

That leaves us going into Shadowlands with...what? There's no big bad that we know of to fight. No legion, or old god, or existing character besides maybe Sylvanus. And if they turn her into a raid boss, people are going to have a bad reaction because they're sick of fighting their own faction leaders(even though some schadenfreude will occur due to the sylvanus haters). You can see Blizz scraping the bottom of the barrel with "The Great Unpruning". Trying to fob players off by bringing back old 'iconic' abilities. But what else is there, really?

I don't know. I just look at Shadowlands and all I can see is it falling short. Obviously I'm at the far end of the pessimistic scale(as any of the blizz-clan fanatics will gladly tell you). But being objective as I can be, I just see Blizzard being creatively bankrupt at this point. They've got nothing left.

[DemonDays]

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?

I've been waiting for this to come full circle for 2 years now. Since BfA Beta.

Now with Warcraft 3: Refunded they're finally starting to get the shit they deserve. It's all piling up now.

Corporate pigs.

[iamthedevil]

I'm to the point of having to agree with people saying it's because of Activision. Upper management can make or break you. Look at what happened to Wildstar.

[SirCowdog]

I'll disagree with everyone here.

The failed MMO Titan happened to Blizzard. Specifically, the way Titan failed affected the whole company from the top down and they really haven't been back on their game since. It's been a different company ever since and I personally believe that has a lot more to do with where they are today than anything that's happening with Activision. That massive failure changed everyone and everything at the top of company reaching deep into the middle levels of management.

On top of that Vivendi came very close to hollowing out Blizzard with respect to finances, a move that Activision--love them or hate them--managed to thwart. A lot of noted stock people at the time said that if Vivendi had had its way on that, the odds were about 50/50 that Activision and Blizzard would effectively been unable to operate. I imagine that had an effect on people as well, especially at the top.

The culture there is more cautious now. Rightfully so. ATVI is still an attractive target of a hostile takeover.

But if you want to only consider what's going on with their games, designs, new releases and management of IP's the failure of Titan is where you begin.

On a related note: Do you think the layoffs followed by the dissent caused by the Blitzchung thing(which did cause employee protests) contributed at all to the current state of things? I could see how having morale devastated by not knowing if your job is next on the chopping block the following quarter, combined with lack of faith in company guidelines and morals, would really hurt creativity and motivation.

But that part is pure speculation by me. For all I know the employees could be cheering and having parties every day.

[Darkeon]

The core mentality of the company changed over the years, just as the people in it did.

Plus Activision.

[SirCowdog]

I'm to the point of having to agree with people saying it's because of Activision. Upper management can make or break you. Look at what happened to Wildstar.

Well...to be fair, as much as I loved Wildstar, that game had serious problems in design, balance, and bugs. The entire concept of making a game that was going to cater to only top-end players was fundamentally flawed. I don't know who pushed that idea the most: The devs or the upper management. But either way it was doomed to fail from almost the beginning.

(I would totally play a private server or a reboot of it, though, without hesitation).

[MoanaLisa]

On a related note: Do you think the layoffs followed by the dissent caused by the Blitzchung thing(which did cause employee protests) contributed at all to the current state of things? I could see how having morale devastated by not knowing if your job is next on the chopping block the following quarter, combined with lack of faith in company guidelines and morals, would really hurt creativity and motivation.

But that part is pure speculation by me. For all I know the employees could be cheering and having parties every day.

It's hard to tell. If the layoffs affected anything it's likely, given Blizzard's exceedingly long lead times to get anything out, that it would not be visible now. I do think that WC3 Reforged and a couple of other things (Classic for one) are just stopgaps because they haven't released anything in years and still have nothing really new to announce. I'm happy enough that WC3 has been given a facelist but come on. This isn't a company moving forward and their development has been completely off the rails since Titan. Overwatch was scraped together from that and a couple of retrogames.

You could see it at Blizzcon. This was the year to announce a new IP but they clearly have nothing ready. So, WoW expansion, D4 which is probably still years away. It's thin stuff. The company is in a rut and appears to be distracted. Now they're trying internally to do a reset with Morhaime gone. All of that piled up is a massive amount of distraction and disruption. I know they are slow but their inability to generate new games is what's killing them. It's not Activision.

[Redroniksre]

Fan service is not a denigration. It's often very good to give your fans what they want. The problem is that WoD was cut short in order to put all resources into Legion, resulting in an overall weaker product for WoD. Legion was good, but it used up everything left in the tank, resulting in the trainwreck of BfA.

Fanservice itself is not inherently bad, but the way in which Blizzard used it was. They used it to cover up weak and bad game design decisions. The random drop of legendaries causing massive performance imbalance. The AP grind. The layered RNG of the Netherlight crucible.

There were some very good parts about legion also, but in retrospect the fanservice helped grease a lot of squeaky wheels. You can see the difference in BfA, where there are also some good things(equal to Legion, imo), but the bad sticks out MUCH more because the fanservice is nowhere near the same level.

That leaves us going into Shadowlands with...what? There's no big bad that we know of to fight. No legion, or old god, or existing character besides maybe Sylvanus. And if they turn her into a raid boss, people are going to have a bad reaction because they're sick of fighting their own faction leaders(even though some schadenfreude will occur due to the sylvanus haters). You can see Blizz scraping the bottom of the barrel with "The Great Unpruning". Trying to fob players off by bringing back old 'iconic' abilities. But what else is there, really?

I don't know. I just look at Shadowlands and all I can see is it falling short. Obviously I'm at the far end of the pessimistic scale(as any of the blizz-clan fanatics will gladly tell you). But being objective as I can be, I just see Blizzard being creatively bankrupt at this point. They've got nothing left.

I mean performance imbalance will only really affect those trying the hardest content which is the vast minority of players. Hell the game did well when it was the least balanced. Shadowlands...i'm not too worried about, they are trying to expand the lore into unknown territory which is fine if done right. There was only so long we could push back the known bads until we need to start making new ones. Hell remember when Sargeras was the big bad and the Old Gods really didn't exist in lore until WoW?

[Soeroah]

With each original developer who leaves, Activision's power grows.

[Laqweeta]

I think FelPlague of MMO-Champ and Yesuna of the official forums are about the only two dedicated knights left lmao

[SirCowdog]

It's hard to tell. If the layoffs affected anything it's likely, given Blizzard's exceedingly long lead times to get anything out, that it would not be visible now. I do think that WC3 Reforged and a couple of other things (Classic for one) are just stopgaps because they haven't released anything in years and still have nothing really new to announce. I'm happy enough that WC3 has been given a facelist but come on. This isn't a company moving forward and their development has been completely off the rails since Titan. Overwatch was scraped together from that and a couple of retrogames.

You could see it at Blizzcon. This was the year to announce a new IP but they clearly have nothing ready. So, WoW expansion, D4 which is probably still years away. It's thin stuff. The company is in a rut and appears to be distracted. Now they're trying internally to do a reset with Morhaime gone. All of that piled up is a massive amount of distraction and disruption. I know they are slow but their inability to generate new games is what's killing them. It's not Activision.

I'm not one of the people who's in the camp of "Big Bad Activision". I think, in more of a general sense, the entire corporate atmosphere of ATVI gets worse and more detached the higher up the in the leadership you go, whether it's Activision or Blizzard. This is reflected in the behavior and trends of the entire AAA industry almost universally. I suspect it's a large contributing reason for why so many of the original passionate Blizzard devs ended up eventually leaving for other things. The environment of "profit at the expense of all else" probably didn't sit well with them. But that's not something specific to Activision. Activision doesn't have a unique trademark on shitty corporate atmosphere.

I can't say it better than Steve Jobs. I really think that what he describes in this video is the core of what happened to ATVI. All of the creative, motivated, passionate people have slowly been pushed out of the decision-making process, or left of their own accord. The result is what we have now with Blizzard. A company that used to be known for great games, but without any of the ingredients that lead to the initial success.

But you're absolutely right about Titan, I think. That was the blow that really hurt them the most.

[lockybalboa]

I think FelPlague of MMO-Champ and Yesuna of the official forums are about the only two dedicated knights left lmao

Yesuna is clearly a troll lol. Her posts made me chuckle a little. Trying a bit too hard to bait.

[Laqweeta]

Yesuna is clearly a troll lol. Her posts made me chuckle a little. Trying a bit too hard to bait.

Oh I figured, especially the hiding behind an alt type a' deal. It's just hilarious though

[javierdsv]

It's actually really strange for me.

Sometimes I hope they are working on something so big that it justifies them cutting corners everywhere else but well...

At this point we all know Shadowlands, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 will be as bad.

[Daymanmb]

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.

Youre over simplifying. People are mad that they we charged $30 for a texture pack. Theyre mad that Blizzard is currently advertising cut features on https://playwarcraft3.com/en-us/.

[Dystemper]

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?

Activision. The BlizzBoi defends have said for years that Activision is not to blame, now we have Employees saying thats not the case that ATVI has been in conrtol for a while. Blizzard being known for quality is long gone now. Its a shell of the company it once was. The only thing that could save it would be if the Originbal founders got together and made a new Blizzard

- - - Updated - - -

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 - - -



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.

ROFLMAo @ all of what you just said.

[Metta World Peace]

If you asked me 10 years ago if a Blizzard game would be review bombed on metacritic with 0's and 1's, I'd be laughing.

Just seeing what's going on with Blizzard is sad. I'm stunned on how people here can still defend their business practices and the "Blizzard polish".

What Blizzard just did with Warcraft 3 is similar to Konami turning Metal Gear into a pachinko machine - effectively killing that franchise for good.

[Dystemper]

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.

And they even had more time , it was delayed was it not?

[Weatherwax]

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.

Which players, a half-dozen hysterical people on forums?
Nope. They didn't do that because of the players, they did it to CUT COSTS. That, and the fact the Chinese people don't really give a shit about how bad Reforged would be, they'll buy anything because back when the original came out most of them weren't even born and the rest were too busy half-starving in the sorgum fields.

WoW is going down the drain for the exact same reason, the Chinese will buy anything. Why do you think Shadowlands will have Chinese faces for humans? Blizzard doesn't care about the Western playerbase anymore.

[Beastiel]

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.

Imagine being stupid enough to believe this.

something I imagined even FelPlague was above.