Warcraft III: Reforged Developer Update

[Kralljin]

Well, to paraphrase Steve Jobs again: "when marketing people take over the descision making roles in a product company ...it’s the end of the company."

The comparison doesn't really work in my opinion, the decision wasn't just made by some department, the decisionmakers at Blizzard simply didn't give a shit about the state of the product and simply wanted to push something out to boost the current quarter.

I don't think Marketing "runs" Blizzard, it's just that the devs are given sticks and stones to work with and have higher ups that disregard any concern regarding quality when it comes to releasing a new product.
A major problem at Blizzard seems to be that they seemingly start to live in this quarterly cycle and don't give a shit about the longterm consequences.

While a lot of people love to take this Steve jobs interview in this context, i don't think it really applies to Blizzard, they never had a monopoly (in the sense that you can't have a monopoly on video games) but simply that the corporate culture of a public traded company has arrived at Blizzard HQ.

And the mistakes that Blizzard made in the last ~10-12 years aren't based off that Marketing people controlled Blizzard but rather that the "previous leadership" (=Morhaime & Co) made some very poor decisions.
Which in my opinion is based off the fact that the leadership at Blizzard basically got drunk on their own success of WoW, but that's another story.

[Daymanmb]

Rock n roll racing reforged incoming...

Justice League Task Force

[Tntdruid]

When do we get the Custom Campaigns DLC?

[Orby]

CDPR community is also more welcoming to it. As soon as something gets delayed here doomsayers are crying the sky is falling.

CDPR will eventually succumb to the same standards Activision-Blizzard, EA and Ubisoft now have... You just know they eventual will, maybe not now but some day. So Don't get too attached. Bioware, Blizzard, Bethesha were much beloved companies at one point...

Or better yet don;t name your company starting with a B :P

[Kumorii]

CDPR will eventually succumb to the same standards Blizzard now have... You just know they eventual will, maybe not now but some day. So Don't get too attached. Bioware, Blizzard, Bethesha were much beloved companies at one point...

Or better yet don;t name your company starting with a B :P

I have no feelings towards any company tbh... so I have no reason to be attached.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Which is ironic since Apple is as big as it because of marketing more so than innovation at this point. Even that quote can be used for marketing.

Yes, but the question isn't which "model" makes the best company. The question is which "model" makes the best products, the product designers or the finace/marketing people.

- - - Updated - - -

The comparison doesn't really work in my opinion, the decision wasn't just made by some department, the decisionmakers at Blizzard simply didn't give a shit about the state of the product and simply wanted to push something out to boost the current quarter.

I don't think Marketing "runs" Blizzard, it's just that the devs are given sticks and stones to work with and have higher ups that disregard any concern regarding quality when it comes to releasing a new product.
A major problem at Blizzard seems to be that they seemingly start to live in this quarterly cycle and don't give a shit about the longterm consequences.

While a lot of people love to take this Steve jobs interview in this context, i don't think it really applies to Blizzard, they never had a monopoly (in the sense that you can't have a monopoly on video games) but simply that the corporate culture of a public traded company has arrived at Blizzard HQ.

And the mistakes that Blizzard made in the last ~10-12 years aren't based off that Marketing people controlled Blizzard but rather that the "previous leadership" (=Morhaime & Co) made some very poor decisions.
Which in my opinion is based off the fact that the leadership at Blizzard basically got drunk on their own success of WoW, but that's another story.

Blizzard has more or less had a massive market share (obviously not monopoly) for a very, very long time.
Devs given "sticks and stones to work with" and "higher ups" disregarding quality in new released games/content.
"living in a quarterly cycle and don't give a shit about long term..."

All of those points, that you made, are run by people who don't know product design but instead know how to run finance.
I think it's perfectly fine to apply Steve Jobs words to describe the downfall of Blizzard, but I think this is the "natural" course of companies that are driven by investors/share holders.

[Kralljin]

All of those points, that you made, are run by people who don't know product design but instead know how to run finance.
I think it's perfectly fine to apply Steve Jobs words to describe the downfall of Blizzard, but I think this is the "natural" course of companies that are driven by investors/share holders.

Yeah, but those that run the finances are not necessarily sales and marketing people, that's my point.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Yeah, but those that run the finances are not necessarily sales and marketing people, that's my point.

Finance people are market and sales people.

[Jarrot82]

"Related to that, as we talked about last year at BlizzCon, we did not want the in-game cutscenes to steer too far from the original game. We went a little deeper into the thought process behind that at the show, but the main takeaway is that the campaigns tell one of the classic stories in Warcraft history, and we want to preserve the true spirit of Warcraft III and allow players to relive these unforgettable moments as they were (albeit rebuilt with new animations and the higher fidelity art)."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit. Absolutely no one would buy this corporate-speak, and whatever first-year PR mook was responsible for writing it should be fired. If we wanted to relive the shitty old game-engine cutscenes, we'd just watch a Youtube video of it or just PLAY THE ORIGINAL GAME AGAIN. They know this explanation is nonsense but for some reason they refuse to acknowledge that they got caught pulling a bait and switch and that they ran out of time/resources because Activision made them push the game out prematurely to pad their first quarter cashflow in the wake of a poorly recieved 8.3 that failed to significantly boost sub numbers.

At this point, the truth couldn't possibly hurt the game's bottom line, so may as well be honest and gain back a player or two for managing to actually admit to fault.

preserve the truespirit of warcraft 3?
yes the cut-scene change the entire spirit, instead the shit dub change for all non english Language and the cut of every joke like dryad and moutnain king no this perfect mantain the truespirit of war3
bullshit this is simple lazy, the all game grapchis are outsourcing in Asia so when the graphics arrive at blizzard hq they just must program the cutscene i call that simple lazy like tha app we menù

at least if they make a little patch for offline game for just add in 1.27 widescreen and button for switch campaing and play that in the real hard mission i can be fine instead no destroy everything is like a locust swarn destroy everything about war3

[indexpert]

that's pathetic

[Ielenia]

Is that because SC remaster worked out of the box np, for less? If youre just another BLizzard zealot, like your post history suggests, you can fuck right off and save us both some time.

Or you could, y'know, not be dishonest and completely remove 70% of the paragraph you quoted which just so happens to give the answer to your question?

Hardly a fair comparison. SC remaster was basically just upscaling 2d models (sprites) and polishing them...

[Daymanmb]

Or you could, y'know, not be dishonest and completely remove 70% of the paragraph you quoted which just so happens to give the answer to your question?

Im being dishonest, while Blizzard guts half of the advertised features, while maintaining the same price point?.. gotcha.

[Ielenia]

Im being dishonest, while Blizzard guts half of the advertised features, while maintaining the same price point?.. gotcha.

Yes, you are. Plain as day, clear as crystal.

Also: nice "whataboutism" there. "Blizzard did it too, but I'm the one being called out?"

You made an unfair comparison. Just accept it, and move on.

[Stormspark]

Nothing of this matters at all while we still have legions of blizzard fanboys with their hands over their keyboards, ready to defend blizzard as hard as they can whenever they mess up.

It doesn't matter if some sort of leak comes out showing some blizzard employee saying something like "people are idiots for buying this game, lol", they would still find a way to defend them.

Just look at most of the WoW players. Many people play WoW out of tradition, pretty much. They never stop subbing, when a new xpac comes out they instantly pre-order it, they buy all the stuff in the blizzard store. WoW is part of their lives so they refuse to admit that blizzard can do something wrong. If blizzard or WoW dies, what are they gonna play? What will they do with their lives and time?
And Blizzard knows this. Which is why they prey on game devs that wanna work at blizzard because it's a dream for them after decades of playing blizzard games, so they pay them way less than other companies. Many employees gotta work as uber drivers or sleep in their cars because of this BS.

Nowadays, Blizzard is a disgusting company. I wish they could act just like Activision and just stay quiet while doing all the cash grab, but no they gotta do the usual apologies or speeches about how much they love their games and how they are really listening to the players.

The "legion" gets smaller every time they do this. WOD was the last straw for a lot of people. "Don't you guys have phones" was the last straw for a lot more. Blitzchung was the last straw for even more. And WC3 Refunded did it again. For me, it was "don't you guys have phones", I put Blizzard on permanent boycott then and removed all their products from all my devices.

Blizzard is one of the worst developers in existence right now. They do nothing but produce recycled shovelware. Most of their focus is on mobile shit. There is absolutely zero talent, zero care, and zero polish. The talent all left. The people that work there now don't care about anything but the paycheck. Freaking SILVER DOLLAR GAMES makes better products than Blizzard now, these are the guys that, before One Finger Death Punch, were only known for a game called Try Not to Fart.

The developers behind Ride to Hell are better than Blizzard. They at least had vision, they just didn't have the budget or talent. Blizzard doesn't have vision, talent, or budget.

[Daymanmb]

Yes, you are. Plain as day, clear as crystal.

Also: nice "whataboutism" there. "Blizzard did it too, but I'm the one being called out?"

You made an unfair comparison. Just accept it, and move on.

Its not unfair in any way. The conversation was about the value of what you got for WC3RF vs SC Remaster. Seems like you came into a conversation half way through it. Are you here defending $30 WC3RF vs $15 SC Remaster, even though half of the advertised features of WC3RF were gutted?

[Triceron]

Shit, just give me base 16:9 in DII and i'd be ecstatic

Can't happen. Its one of the core problems with remaking D2, as addressed by the original programmer David Brevik. The AI is tied to the screen space, so making it wider will expose certain 'limitations' of the monster AI and sorta break the game.

Basically they spawn monsters right outside your 4:3 screenspace. 16:9 would let you see idle monsters and you could target them with spells, so players with ranged builds would have a much easier time gaming the system.

The AI can't really be changed either, too much spaghetti code that will introduce new bugs if they try to 'fix' it now I think. Maybe there is a solution, but if the original programmer says its difficult then I don't trust current Blizz enough to see them fixing without breaking *cough REFORGED cough*

[Thibble]

The developer update is a joke. Just learned my lesson and not gonna preorder again. Not like digital games gonna be sold out anyway. Im not angry but its sad.

Take a look at Final Fantasy 7 remake. Thats something that really earns the title REMAKE. Warcraft 3 ist more of a regraphicupdatepatch.

And that talk... We have a Team that truely cares about... *Outsource to Malaysia*

[Ielenia]

Its not unfair in any way. The conversation was about the value of what you got for WC3RF vs SC Remaster. Seems like you came into a conversation half way through it. Are you here defending $30 WC3RF vs $15 SC Remaster, even though half of the advertised features of WC3RF were gutted?

And that is precisely why it was a bad comparison. Starcraft remaster was just a HD upscale and polish of 2D sprites, whereas WC3RF was a complete remake of 3D models and textures, the engine, as well as new voice acting.

In other words, not a fair comparison.

[Daymanmb]

And that is precisely why it was a bad comparison. Starcraft remaster was just a HD upscale and polish of 2D sprites, whereas WC3RF was a complete remake of 3D models and textures, the engine, as well as new voice acting.

In other words, not a fair comparison.

Its the same engine lol. And out of the couple of things you listed for WC3RF, when they first listed the price @ $30, it had 50% more features. They then gutted those feature, leaving the price untouched.. For all intents and purposes, reforged is a remaster, its not anywhere near a remake.. youre clowning..

[Ielenia]

youre clowning..

And you are projecting. All the work done to WC3:RF that went live is still more work than was done to Starcraft's remastered version. To argue that WC3:RF was overpriced when compared to SC:RM is simply dishonest.

Have a good day.