BlizzConline 2021 Recap

[hulkgor]

My overall opinion about this Blizzcon* (Everyone should keep in mind this wasn't a typical, big blizzcon, but more of an online reveal of some info with some limitations).

It was bad. WoW dive was horrible and awkward, but the Diablo one was actually interesting and fun. The Q&A is, as always, overly safe and controlled with all the typical questions we get every year. And the 'extra panels' like Thrall, Voices and Cooking were all absolutely pointless, even bad on some cases.

As for the reveals, the Diablo 2 : Resurrected alone, was enough to make me happy as a big reveal, and having given up on lots of their franchises (no info on Starcraft for example) makes me sad.

So yea, i would have hated it if not for the D2:R and TBC confirmations, but those made it 'nice'.

[ryanmahaffe]

Both W3R and D2R are published and being sold by Blizzard, no matter what are the names of actual developers.

I'm not expecting D4 to come out soon, I expect that it will never be released.

OW received less content recently than the "officially" abandoned HotS, seems pretty abandoned to me.

Point 1 is irrelevant. The publisher can fuck up by rushing a release or not giving adequate recourses, but there is no reason to believe D2R will have the same obvious development struggle reforged did, false equivalences.

Point 2 is just....100% unrealistic lmao.

It is clearly in Limbo with the team working on OW2, whether that is a good decision or not is up for debate.

[Gratlim]

2021 release basically mean Q4 release in PR so december probably. Yet i am happy for D2 so i cba about the rest.

We are still in the middle of a pandemic and mostly nothing is back to normal yet. Patience

[Puri]

Not that I am not looking for some of those titles, but when half of the announcments are about remastering old games (and those get the most hype) they might want to reconsider their development strategy before they run out of rehashable content.

[btorz]

Not that I am not looking for some of those titles, but when half of the announcments are about remastering old games (and those get the most hype) they might want to reconsider their development strategy before they run out of rehashable content.

yeah blizz needs to step up, when the only hype you get is from people more interested to play a remastered 20 year old game (D2), and a 14 year old expansion (BC) then you have a design problem with your current games.

[scubi666stacy]

Though TBC is still one of my favorite expansions so far, I will not be playing TBC Classic. Classic WoW lost me before I got to level 20, because it was utterly pointless for me to replay content I already did before. I remember the content of TBC quite well, have done most of it, and will not have the time nor the motivation to replay all this. I would not even want to replay Legion with my beloved Mage Tower feature once more, because I will not have the time for gearing up a legion of alts anymore. I wish they would give us a personal server-client kit for every past expansion with the option to copy your live characters into it as some kind of a 3D museum.

Also, Shadowlands is quite good in my opinion. Granted, I play very casually this time, because of RL issues, but still. Torghast is a great improvement compared to IE and I have plenty of things to do in my limited gaming time. Also if we get flying easier, this is a bonus for me. For the first time in many years I am still not done with Loremaster.

[Pacster]

yeah blizz needs to step up, when the only hype you get is from people more interested to play a remastered 20 year old game (D2), and a 14 year old expansion (BC) then you have a design problem with your current games.

Possibly one of the reasons why we didn't see WoW:Classic earlier. Either it fails...or it is a success. But if it is a success it is competition for your own game...and questions a decade of development. The sweet spot there is very, very small...

[MrFawlty]

Point 1 is irrelevant. The publisher can fuck up by rushing a release or not giving adequate recourses, but there is no reason to believe D2R will have the same obvious development struggle reforged did, false equivalences.

The point is however that Blizzard did release Warcraft 3 in a suspect state so their quality control isn’t what it once was. The advice to not go throwing money at the screen is therefore valid.

[javierdsv]

Given Ion's past failures its clear they're budget limiting wow now.
It's a very sad thing to see. Even more when you know they could save millions by just replacing Ion with a more capable individual.

[lolmmofuture]

the overwatch stuff was i n s a n e

[gnomemonster]

My overall opinion about this Blizzcon* (Everyone should keep in mind this wasn't a typical, big blizzcon, but more of an online reveal of some info with some limitations).

It was bad. WoW dive was horrible and awkward, but the Diablo one was actually interesting and fun. The Q&A is, as always, overly safe and controlled with all the typical questions we get every year. And the 'extra panels' like Thrall, Voices and Cooking were all absolutely pointless, even bad on some cases.

As for the reveals, the Diablo 2 : Resurrected alone, was enough to make me happy as a big reveal, and having given up on lots of their franchises (no info on Starcraft for example) makes me sad.

So yea, i would have hated it if not for the D2:R and TBC confirmations, but those made it 'nice'.

Overall this con just felt weak and lacking. I feel like there were way too few details about ANYTHING mentioned. With the remasters (TBC, D2R) staying "true" to themselves, there wasn't much to actually talk about. It was surprising that they didn't go into more details with WoW Shadowlands futures besides story spoilers. D4 still has so little gameplay and mechanics shown, feels like the slowest drip of information which makes me think that there isn't much or it is not that far at all. Their panels were not engaging and I found myself tuning out a lot because I just wanted to see gameplay and screenshots, not 4 folks talking and answering basic questions where we end up of a list of 5 things we know about D2R, D4, DI, TBC, etc.

[Huggykaze]

Ugh... So we're doing Arthas all over again? It's outright pathetic... A team with no ideas how to progress their story even after butchering all existing lore in order to progress the story... It's sad to see this, honestly. And suddenly Sylvanas is feeling remorseful? I'm feeling bad for her. She used to be an awesome character, but then got turned into an idiot Mary Sue... Is this how they plan on FINALLY showing her "moral grayness"? It's beyond me how bad has this franchise become...

[xdunpealx]

This WOW story is whack. They keep making males the "bad guys" and now Sylvanas, a badass imo, is now having second thoughts in trailer? All the "top" dogs in Shadowlands are female, but the big bad is another guy. It is literally boiling down to men bad women fight and will be our saviors. Anduin? I dont know what training he got during MOP or after, but for someone that is supposed to be groomed to be a king he is a soyboy. Thats what I am seeing in this Blizzcon trailer.

As other said, if you have to bring back or rehash your older titles, that means no one is getting creative. Maybe they should stop hiring college kids, where the older generations we HAD to be bring imagination while playing. I am not saying all kids, but really what has Blizzard really introduced that is creative besides Overwatch? Diablo 2 remastered -- absolutely looks great and I will purchase it. Diablo 4 I am hoping shapes up to be great in its own right. Poor HOTS i play the game still, but I am waiting for them to just pull the plug on the servers. SC was iconic and eventually had to end, which I am perfectly fine with.

So again, whats coming? D2, D4, Diablo Immortal, OW2, WoW patch. They said titles they have not revealed, and come on, we all know they are working with TENANET to get those mobile games out.

I would love to see a story driven game along the lines lets say Witcher or something that can bring that RPG back where graphics/mechanics are top notch, but we played 100+hours for story and side quests.

[Appelgren]

Looking forward to D2 and D4.
Im also curious how we will progress with Sylvanas. (Kill her? She escapes to another patch/expansion? Do we forgive her? etc etc)
The rest of the announcements is irrelevant and could be scrapped for all i care.

[maulofamerica]

No macOS version for D2:Rez? What a load of BS. There was a Mac version of the original D2 and D2:LOD that I played so much, my CD drive cracked the Lord of Destruction CD from constant use. Thanks Blizzard for marginalizing macOS users. It won't be forgotten.

[Asaliah]

I've maybe missed it but will we be able to skip the maw intro with our alts during 9.0.5 or 9.1 please?

[Eggroll]

I'm just so glad I didn't spend a significant amount of time in the Maw. I focused more on mount farming in earlier xpacs. :-)

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I've maybe missed it but will we be able to skip the maw intro with our alts during 9.0.5 or 9.1 please?

Indeed, that would be great. Like the skip in earlier xpacs... the "I've head this tale before..." skip.

- - - Updated - - -

I enjoyed the day one, Overwatch 2 news was really the highlight of the night for me. Also, the shit that really got my feels is when she got stabbed in a heart. So fucking sad, I really admired her, some rebirth would be nice.

She survived

- - - Updated - - -

Looking forward to D2 and D4.
Im also curious how we will progress with Sylvanas. (Kill her? She escapes to another patch/expansion? Do we forgive her? etc etc)
The rest of the announcements is irrelevant and could be scrapped for all i care.

I hope Tyrande finishes her off - after she tortures her and she dies in excrutiating pain.

- - - Updated - - -

Point 1 is irrelevant. The publisher can fuck up by rushing a release or not giving adequate recourses, but there is no reason to believe D2R will have the same obvious development struggle reforged did, false equivalences.

Especially since they replaced the team that screwed up WC3R with a team that has a track record of bringing old games back to life successfully.

- - - Updated - - -

yeah blizz needs to step up, when the only hype you get is from people more interested to play a remastered 20 year old game (D2), and a 14 year old expansion (BC) then you have a design problem with your current games.

I think the WoW team really has to get in shape since Riot is developing an MMO based on the LoL Moba - and Ghostcrawler is leading the developement. This could indeed become the WoW killer, given the huge amount of LoL players.

[Appelgren]

I hope Tyrande finishes her off - after she tortures her and she dies in excrutiating pain.

You ok dude? God damn...

[Eggroll]

You ok dude? God damn...

Well, at least the way Varian died. The devs had fun rubbing this in for Alliance.