9.0 General Discussion

[Aeluron Lightsong]

im actually curious how it turns out, considering its pretty much their last big chance to regain their ultra-dominant standing in the hack&slay rpg genre . especially with poe2 on the way.
another d3 and theyll loose the players completely.

I doubt D4 will be bad, I mean if they pull a RoS from D3 I think they're good. That and its been awhile since then and I think their Diablo team isn't really that bad. Worst decision IMO is RMAH but this isn't Diablo forums so /shrug

[Laughingjack]

I doubt D4 will be bad, I mean if they pull a RoS from D3 I think they're good. That and its been awhile since then and I think their Diablo team isn't really that bad. Worst decision IMO is RMAH but this isn't Diablo forums so /shrug

I mean blizzard doesn't have a good track record.. there last success outside of wow was starcraft 2... maybe overwatch though that failed utterly to become the esport game they desperately want it to be.

[EbaumsTipster]

I mean blizzard doesn't have a good track record.. there last success outside of wow was starcraft 2... maybe overwatch though that failed utterly to become the esport game they desperately want it to be.

Overwatch was definitely a success as an IP, they just absolutely dropped the ball on supporting it.

[LemonDemonGirl]

be WoW xpac, Diablo 4 beta and info dump, content for all the games, and probably 1 new announcement. They are working on at least 1 or 2 unannounced games so one could be announced in 2021 if its a smaller game like Hots or Heartstone.

Is HotS still on life support? From what I've read, people don't really play it anymore. It could use some new heroes from WoW

[Cosmic Janitor]

Overwatch was definitely a success as an IP, they just absolutely dropped the ball on supporting it.

Gotta agree there. Same with hearthstone actually, it was all the rage for a while. They just oversaturated hearthstone to the point that many people dropped out and can't or don't want to keep up anymore.

I think the expectation that every game you create is played for years as someone's go to game they spend the majority of their time on is just unreasonable in the first place. This is pretty much the live service pipe dream today's industry focus is based on, but it's realistically not sustainable. You just can't realistically keep making games that people want to play forver over all the competition out there. WoW was lucky accident, even SC2 isn't favored over brood wars in the hardcore mono-gamer circles. I mean 10 years ago WoW had already lost 10 times more players than consecutively played it. This isn't game dev tycoon where 2/3 of the world's population will end up playing your game and only your game.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Gotta agree there. Same with hearthstone actually, it was all the rage for a while. They just oversaturated hearthstone to the point that many people dropped out and can't or don't want to keep up anymore.

I think the expectation that every game you create is played for years as someone's go to game they spend the majority of their time on is just unreasonable in the first place. This is pretty much the live service pipe dream today's industry focus is based on, but it's realistically not sustainable. You just can't realistically keep making games that people want to play forver over all the competition out there. WoW was lucky accident, even SC2 isn't favored over brood wars in the hardcore mono-gamer circles. I mean 10 years ago WoW had already lost 10 times more players than consecutively played it. This isn't game dev tycoon where 2/3 of the world's population will end up playing your game and only your game.

I think Wow was not a lucky accident, it all ahppened for a reason. Most shooters had the whole live service thing because that is what they are, it just all depends how it is managed. Overwatch IMO seems to have a lot of balancing problems or so what I've seen. SC2 not being favored probably is more based on opinion as among all things. Even Counter Strike lasted for several years and still does and its technically a live service.

There's probably several reasons for it. Forgot to add in my experience with Hearthstone critics, it seems like people can't catch up with all the new cards and such, which I'll agree on. I don't feel like I could go back.

[karmazyn]

Is HotS still on life support? From what I've read, people don't really play it anymore. It could use some new heroes from WoW

Hots still has developers, smaller group but still. I play this game every evening and i didnt notice lack of players

[Beefhammer]

im actually curious how it turns out, considering its pretty much their last big chance to regain their ultra-dominant standing in the hack&slay rpg genre . especially with poe2 on the way.
another d3 and theyll loose the players completely.

I doubt it. While there is some crossover between the two, it seems like they appeal to two different audiences. I love isoARPGs and consider it my favorite genre yet cannot get into PoE no matter how many times I try. Anecdotal I know, but I know many others that feel the same way.

There is also plenty of room for multiple games innthe genre to succeed, just as GD, PoE, D3, TL2, and even recently Wolcen have proven. As for D3, it is one of the best selling PC games ever. It was incredibly successful despite the review bombing campaign by disgruntled D2 players. Critics reviewed it just as well as D2. It went onto sell ridiculously for years afterwards and even sold a million copies on Switch in the first weeks well after the games was considered dead by many.

As for PoE2 it really looks more of the same. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the exact same UI, lack of gender customization options is a huge downer today. The only thing that has it on my radar is the change to the gem system. Being slot locked as opposed to item seems like a good thing.

Overall, there is plenty of room for multiple games, D3, was a success and one can only wish a game could be as successful as D3. Plenty will play both. I play 3 currently, among many other games. Sure there are thise that choose to or can only play one game at a time, but I don't see PoE2 being a success hurting D3, nor if D4 is anything like D3 means it will close Blizzard out of the market.

[Makabreska]

They took a page out of Bethesda's playbook

"Yeah this game is coming before 2030"

I think we'll see D4 before the end of next year. They seem like they're still doing pretty decent development even working remotely. I mean...that's pretty optimistic but I could see it.

They had to cover last Blizzcon flop, and recent HS drama. But on the other hand, Blizz always announced games waaaay before their release (WoW expansions obviously don't count).


On an unrelated note, who would expect a big, demon like dude to be a villain?

[Cosmic Janitor]

Awww. I hope they will make a short cutscene with proper rendering out of that one (like back in legion for all the major zone events). The base animations in WoW are so god awful, they just don't lend themselves well to ingame cutscenes. This is the same unhinged jaw that Jaina and Sylvanas had throughout all of BfA. It tries to be on the level of what FFXIV does, but it just looks jarringly worse whenver I see it :/.

If they want to make this work then they should really do some new animations for talking NPCs that aren't comically over-acted, and you just can't go back from an angry expression shouting something to the default smiley pose of the face.

[Makabreska]

Awww. I hope they will make a short cutscene with proper rendering out of that one (like back in legion for all the major zone events). The base animations in WoW are so god awful, they just don't lend themselves well to ingame cutscenes. This is the same unhinged jaw that Jaina and Sylvanas had throughout all of BfA. It tries to be on the level of what FFXIV does, but it just looks jarringly worse whenver I see it :/.

If they want to make this work then they should really do some new animations for talking NPCs that aren't comically over-acted, and you just can't go back from an angry expression shouting something to the default smiley pose of the face.

All they really need to do is a matching mouth movement, it would instantly make it much better. But I don't know if there is any a middle ground between this cutscene, and a fully custom one.

[Cosmic Janitor]

All they really need to do is a matching mouth movement, it would instantly make it much better. But I don't know if there is any a middle ground between this cutscene, and a fully custom one.

The issue is it isn't really a cutscene, it's just wow models playing out a script with certain animation triggers in the ingame engine and sound overlayed later. Matching the mouth movement is something that is rather difficult if you don't have the right engine for that and I'm taking a guess here and say that WoW was probably never intended to be used in such a way, so this isn't an option. The way to solve this is to make more animations with different gestures and for different tones of the scene. . Currently these animations try to be emotive in a one for all kind of way for someone that has their camera zoomed out to max. That just doesn't work if you try to wrap it in a pseudo custscene with closeup shots.

[Sondrelk]

I think the cutscene looks really good, honestly. Just needs a few touchup jobs on the animations, the sword especially. Once it has proper music, sound and voice acting it will be much better.

[Beefhammer]

I think Wow was not a lucky accident, it all ahppened for a reason. Most shooters had the whole live service thing because that is what they are, it just all depends how it is managed. Overwatch IMO seems to have a lot of balancing problems or so what I've seen. SC2 not being favored probably is more based on opinion as among all things. Even Counter Strike lasted for several years and still does and its technically a live service.

There's probably several reasons for it. Forgot to add in my experience with Hearthstone critics, it seems like people can't catch up with all the new cards and such, which I'll agree on. I don't feel like I could go back.

I can tell you for a fact WoW was not an accident in terms of how god it was because Blizzard surveyed EQ players about their favorite and least favorite aspects of EQ. and basically made those changes like no exp loss on death, soloable leveling, instanced dungeons and the like. WoW happened to launch at the proper time. If someone want to call that a happy accident sure.

[huth]

I can tell you for a fact WoW was not an accident in terms of how god it was because Blizzard surveyed EQ players about their favorite and least favorite aspects of EQ. and basically made those changes like no exp loss on death, soloable leveling, instanced dungeons and the like. WoW happened to launch at the proper time. If someone want to call that a happy accident sure.

That's pretty much the definition of one, and wasn't really something they had much ability to plan for given development timeframes. It's well-known WoW was a lot more successfull than Blizzard anticipated.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

That's pretty much the definition of one, and wasn't really something they had much ability to plan for given development timeframes. It's well-known WoW was a lot more successfull than Blizzard anticipated.

Still think there wasn't as much luck into it. Man we really are in a info drought for Shadowlands.

[FlubberPuddy]

Man we really are in a info drought for Shadowlands.

There's still a lot to come, the thing is they're rolling out mainly classes for Torghast, which are nice but it's not as extravagantly different to see it played on a Mage vs Druid as the content is pretty much the same.

Also it feels like we're getting to see just how much work has to be done when it comes to character customization as there's still not many options available for many of the original races.

But we gotta remember this is the first time they've decided to open up things to testing in the very rough stages that they are.

As long as they give the weekly builds imo then things are fine.

[EbaumsTipster]

Awww. I hope they will make a short cutscene with proper rendering out of that one (like back in legion for all the major zone events). The base animations in WoW are so god awful, they just don't lend themselves well to ingame cutscenes. This is the same unhinged jaw that Jaina and Sylvanas had throughout all of BfA. It tries to be on the level of what FFXIV does, but it just looks jarringly worse whenver I see it :/.

If they want to make this work then they should really do some new animations for talking NPCs that aren't comically over-acted, and you just can't go back from an angry expression shouting something to the default smiley pose of the face.

There is a "big epic moment" at the end of Revendreth that cuts out in Alpha so I'm assuming that's the cinematic. But we may not get zone cinematics at all just like BFA.

[gunner_recall]

They had to cover last Blizzcon flop, and recent HS drama. But on the other hand, Blizz always announced games waaaay before their release (WoW expansions obviously don't count).


On an unrelated note, who would expect a big, demon like dude to be a villain?

I know that cutscene is WAY early but the sword floating behind him had me laughing.

[EbaumsTipster]

Now that I've actually seen the cutscene it might be one of my favorites, there are some pretty cinematic angles for an ingame frankenstein event.

I still remember the Argus ones and how they surprised people. That Aggramar one is classic.