Activision Blizzard breaks free of Vivendi

[Avallon]

When you point to Wikipedia pages, you should make sure they actually support what you were claiming. Those don't.

In particular, your statement "Both Blizzard and Activision were bought by parent company Vivendi" is nowhere supported (which is a good thing, since it's false).

The discussion of Activision and Blizzard existing "as separate entities" is also misleading. The word "entity" can mean many things. A division in a corporation, for example, is an "entity".

Blizzard does NOT exist as a separate corporation. To prove me wrong, please find the legal paperwork for this supposed corporation (the Certificate of Incorporation, and the documents that amended it, for Activision-Blizzard can be found at activisionblizzard.com under "Corporate Governance".)

What separation between Blizzard and Activision-Blizzard that actually exists are some clauses in the Activision-Blizzard corporate bylaws (also available at that web site) that impose certain limitations on what the CEO of Activision-Blizzard can do to the Blizzard division without prior written approval of the board of directors. That's a very far cry from Blizzard existing as a separate corporation.

Apparently you beat me to it with your post - which is entirely accurate. Are you a fellow attorney?

[Byniri]

Ok now explain this to me like I am 5.

How will this affect Blizzard and WoW in the future?

[Osmeric]

Apparently you beat me to it with your post - which is entirely accurate. Are you a fellow attorney?

No, but I do have some post-graduate degrees in another field.

[Drithien]

'What the game was supposed to be' is a pretty subjective perspective from any game developer. There was no long established genre of MMORPG that Wow had to fit into when it came out. Instead, they had free reign to do things a number of ways, and in the beginning, they took elements from other MMOs and made a very successful product that was largely different from any other MMO out, thus becoming the most popular MMORPG to date.

They've also evolved the MMO formula and consistently defined it in new ways with each expansion, proving that they can still think outside the box and make a quality product.

Wow popularity has been declining for many reasons, most of all because it's an aging game with a sub fee, being forced to compete with newer games that only require a one time fee or offer free play with micro transactions. Despite the fact they keep coming out with new systems and ways of handling them, they are still falling behind in terms of overall game quality and innovative game play.

Things like class balance and ability/talent design continue to be problematic, becoming increasingly complicated and frustrating to long time players, surely driving them away. Meanwhile Blizzard is trudging forward with new PVE content, ignoring the major problems that actually make the decision to quit playing much easier for players.

I disagree. I think "balance" is impacting the game negatively only because of the developers' obsession with it, which leads naturally to homogenisation, since that is the only way you can ever balance two things: to make them the same thing. they will never balance the game. Most players don't care much about balance either way. Newcomers don't know what balance refers to even. Most players care about having a fun time. Your character playing the same as most of every other character of the same role is not that fun. The game in the past was at least exciting, and had some, unintended at times, surprises for peple that delved into it. Now? Depth is removed to make way for accesibility. Making both the gameplay boring, and not getting low-performance players to actually do any better. But at least the game is more balanced, yawning from homogenisation aside.

As to the formula of the game: that is why the game wa successful in the first place. It didn't follow the formula of the other mmorpgs, and there were lots of them at the time; it created its own formula: it played far more like a single-player rpg, than an online one. this has been stated by the developers themselves as one of the defining elements of WoW Vanilla. A lot of questing and exploring content, not just dungeons and group content. It was with the expansions that WoW became similar to other mmorpgs: less exploring and questing content, more instanced/group content, with an emphasis on grinding. And these are the results.

Of course that is not the only reason the game has declined. But to witness such an immense change in its gameplay and to claim "it had next to nothing to do with its decline?" Really? When something changes so drastically it is almost bound to have some repercussions, good or bad.

@ Avallon: relax man. You are going to have a seizure that way. No need to get so upset because someone disagrees with you on a forum. You can disagree with people and not get angry. Honestly. What's up with that attitude?

As to how many resources zones require: check all the quotes and interviews with developers in the history of the game! I am not going to do your work for you. Ghostcrawler even mentioned something about having to choose between more group-dungeons or one additional zone during Mists' development if I remember correctly.

As to there being more things to do nowadays: there are more activities, but not more quantity. Do you understand the difference? I implore you to think about it. Because it seems you don't do much of it, you just react with the intent to "get back" at the peson you are disagreeing with. Levelling took months in Vanilla, and spanned tenths of zones. Now it takes a few weeks, and it doesn't even reach ten zones. Also: vanilla: 38 zones - expansions: 8 zones. Vanilla: six main campaigns - expansions: two main campaigns. Why am I repeating this? It feels dumb. But you ignore it for some reason, so here is my dumb repetition. Did it sink in yet?

Exploring and questing was far bigger a part of the game back then. And casual players who enjoyed that part of the game most, played happily. What is more, since things were much slower in general back then, the developers had more time to actually work on future content. Not to mention how the zones were filled with people playing around, forming friendships, learning how to play together, and so on.

And yeah, raiding is not that popular. Even with the developers trying so much to get everyone into it, by removing exploring and levelling content, and making raiding and instanced PvP the only ways to meaningfully advance in gear, and gear the only way to meaningfully advance in the game; players still don't like it. Did you even check the graph I linked previously? Obviously not. Regardless, raiding is not the driving force of the game. Raiding was the guiding force of games like Everquest, and those games got stuck to a few hundred thousands of subscribers. WoW reached two millions within weeks, exactly because it did not focus on raiding, but questing and exploring instead. When you have a population, that used to be so energetic and excited about the game, reduced to routinely gathering points by doing the bare minimum required because they are tired or bored of the game, and most of what is available is instanced content, you may have to start thinking that said content is partly to blame. Especially when the same players seemed far more happy when the game was mostly about open-world role-playing content.

But I am getting ahead of myself, what I should have asked was: do you even play role-playing games outside WoW and mmorpgs? Do you have any idea how open-world role-playing games function? Because if you don't, I may as well be talking to a wall. A "WoW raider" is such a secluded entity, it's almost impossible for him/her to understand anything but raiding. Just to at least try though: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-actually-raid And please consider how this is a thread, in a forum, of about 36k people, talking about, a, at the time, 11 million players' game.

[Avallon]

I disagree. I think "balance" is impacting the game negatively only because of the developers' obsession with it, which leads naturally to homogenisation, since that is the only way you can ever balance two things: to make them the same thing. they will never balance the game. Most players don't care much about balance either way. Newcomers don't know what balance refers to even. Most players care about having a fun time. Your character playing the same as most of every other character of the same role is not that fun. The game in the past was at least exciting, and had some, unintended at times, surprises for peple that delved into it. Now? Depth is removed to make way for accesibility. Making both the gameplay boring, and not getting low-performance players to actually do any better. But at least the game is more balanced, yawning from homogenisation aside.

As to the formula of the game: that is why the game wa successful in the first place. It didn't follow the formula of the other mmorpgs, and there were lots of them at the time; it created its own formula: it played far more like a single-player rpg, than an online one. this has been stated by the developers themselves as one of the defining elements of WoW Vanilla. A lot of questing and exploring content, not just dungeons and group content. It was with the expansions that WoW became similar to other mmorpgs: less exploring and questing content, more instanced/group content, with an emphasis on grinding. And these are the results.

Of course that is not the only reason the game has declined. But to witness such an immense change in its gameplay and to claim "it had next to nothing to do with its decline?" Really? When something changes so drastically it is almost bound to have some repercussions, good or bad.

@ Avallon: relax man. You are going to have a seizure that way. No need to get so upset because someone disagrees with you on a forum. You can disagree with people and not get angry. Honestly. What's up with that attitude?

As to how many resources zones require: check all the quotes and interviews with developers in the history of the game! I am not going to do your work for you. Ghostcrawler even mentioned something about having to choose between more group-dungeons or one additional zone during Mists' development if I remember correctly.

As to there being more things to do nowadays: there are more activities, but not more quantity. Do you understand the difference? I implore you to think about it. Because it seems you don't do much of it, you just react with the intent to "get back" at the peson you are disagreeing with. Levelling took months in Vanilla, and spanned tenths of zones. Now it takes a few weeks, and it doesn't even reach ten zones. Also: vanilla: 38 zones - expansions: 8 zones. Vanilla: six main campaigns - expansions: two main campaigns. Why am I repeating this? It feels dumb. But you ignore it for some reason, so here is my dumb repetition. Did it sink in yet?

Exploring and questing was far bigger a part of the game back then. And casual players who enjoyed that part of the game most, played happily. What is more, since things were much slower in general back then, the developers had more time to actually work on future content. Not to mention how the zones were filled with people playing around, forming friendships, learning how to play together, and so on.

And yeah, raiding is not that popular. Even with the developers trying so much to get everyone into it, by removing exploring and levelling content, and making raiding and instanced PvP the only ways to meaningfully advance in gear, and gear the only way to meaningfully advance in the game; players still don't like it. Did you even check the graph I linked previously? Obviously not. Regardless, raiding is not the driving force of the game. Raiding was the guiding force of games like Everquest, and those games got stuck to a few hundred thousands of subscribers. WoW reached two millions within weeks, exactly because it did not focus on raiding, but questing and exploring instead. When you have a population, that used to be so energetic and excited about the game, reduced to routinely gathering points by doing the bare minimum required because they are tired or bored of the game, and most of what is available is instanced content, you may have to start thinking that said content is partly to blame. Especially when the same players seemed far more happy when the game was mostly about open-world role-playing content.

But I am getting ahead of myself, what I should have asked was: do you even play role-playing games outside WoW and mmorpgs? Do you have any idea how open-world role-playing games function? Because if you don't, I may as well be talking to a wall. A "WoW raider" is such a secluded entity, it's almost impossible for him/her to understand anything but raiding.

If the 6 main campaigns you are referring to are the racial quest-lines that eventually merge around level 15 or so...its not much of a campaign. Also, Cataclysm did an entire world revamp of every zone, fostering a "go and explore!" sort of feel...and there was an uproar for lack of content. Based on this backlash, it appears that not all people, or even most people for that matter, really care all that much about explorable and leveling content. I base this opinion on the massive disappointment and Blizzard's acknowledgment that people wanted more to do at max level, and the new continent just wasn't enough to keep people interested.

Why are you assuming I'm upset? our posts have very similar tones - are you projecting? lol

I've played a variety of mmo's, as well as single player RPGs with open-world environments. My experience in these other games is rather irrelevant to the discussion we were having...but just to sate your curiosity, as far as mmo's go I've played Nexus, Ragnorok, Aion, Tera, SWTOR, and GW2. I've enjoyed single player RPGs, such as The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim, etc. Although again, I fail to see what relevance this has to our discussion.

I get that you are part of the crowd that enjoyed the open exploration of a vast new world. Unfortunately, and again, the numbers do not lie - when the zones were revamped, and the world was "new" again....WoW experienced a massive subscription decline. I too (believe it or not) fondly remember working for weeks to get my epic paladin mount, and just riding through some of the zones exploring in-between raids etc. It was new and shiny, and was a fun part of the game. Unfortunately, its not a part of the game that keeps people playing.

I would also disagree that gear is the only meaningful way to advance in the game. Achievements are a way to advance in the game - part of the achievements is: Exploration! Raiding has been a part of WoW since its inception. Lets look at open world environment (dynamically changing events included) such as Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 has NO raiding whatsoever...and the general consensus from many articles, forum posts, etc is that people are bored and have stopped logging in altogether (although the exact number is hard to determine because GW2 does not have a subscription).

Also, the game jumped to 2 million subscriptions within weeks....and then continued to a peak of 12 million - and raiding was still a major part of the game. So I don't understand where you are going with that line of thought. And again, I just want to reiterate the point: Cataclysm introduced a vast new explorable world - and there was a public outcry and a massive subscription decline. So when you say that "players seemed far more happy when the game was mostly about open-world role-playing content"...I would say the numbers don't lie.

[Deficineiron]

Blizzard not being saints is pretty much what I mentioned, a few posts back

On the matter of how Kotick influences them, nobody can prove anything, but Kotick's intentions have been publicised often enough to provide an idea of his thoughts, and Blizzard's changes over the recent years add-up to that portrait. Blizzard, under the guidance of their own executives has been steadily steering towards a less player-friendly direction for years. From the freedom afforded to the players in the 90's to suing people left and right in the past decade, to absorbing most of the profits from WoW instead of investing them back to the game to provide an equal amount of content as vanilla, they have their fair share of not-so-player-friendly-but-quite-profitable decisions. But lately things seem to have accelerated considerably.

I think the blizzard tuning changes in 3.0.2 coinciding so completely with kotick's clearly stated view of accessibility in video games is not a coincidence.

- - - Updated - - -

This is completely wrong. Vivendi never bought Activision. What the deal did was merge Blizzard INTO Activision, rename the corporation to Activision-Blizzard, and give Vivendi a controlling share of its stock. At no point was Activision ever owned by Vivendi. And now, there is only the single corporation, Activision-Blizzard, with one set of shareholders and one board of directors. Blizzard is a division within this corporation, but is not a separate legal entity. Blizzard does not own anything (or owe anything); Activision-Blizzard does. There is no stock for "Blizzard", just for Activision-Blizzard (symbol ATVI, same as it was when the corporation was called Activision).

i am giving up on fighting the various views on what happened. don't you get tired?

- - - Updated - - -

Also, doing the math on the deal, who exactly is buying up the other 26.1% of the stocks? Vivendi going from 63% to 12% is a difference of 51%. If Kotick and Tencent are only walking away with 24.9%, where did the other 26.1% go?

Unless my math skills are just terrible, does that mean that Blizzard themselves bought those stocks?

ATVI is buying back the stock, and it will be retired. This in effect is a buyback of 30% or so of outstanding shares, itself non-trivial.

[Frozenbeef]

They are not your friends. They want to sell you their products. It's what they do.

But GM's are so cuddly

[DrIvoRobotnik]

Well...this was unexpected.

[Drithien]

...

If you are not upset, then are you just rude? Or do you call strangers "morons" routinely. Stop trying to insult me, so I can stop trying to understand why you seem so upset. And "lol" does not a cool poster make.

As to Cataclysm's revamp: that was a major way to turn somewhat good content to safe, boring content. But you seem to have totally missed that. Which is why I asked you if you have played any other role-playing game.

In Vanilla, zones, with some exceptions, felt alive and full. In Cataclysm's revamp, they fill empty at most times. That is because you are guided from quest-hub to quest-hub, by the hand, like a mentally challenged individual; said quest-hubs have a few and easy quests, with markers on the map even; and outside them, there is rarely ever anything. I love questing; but when I created a new character to see the changes in Cataclysm, I got depressed. The only thing done better was the stories; they were more interesting. But everything else: it was just simple, easy, safe, and dammit-why-do-you-show-me-where-to-go-?-frustrating.

Which is also why exploration in Cataclysm sucked. It was not exploration. Exploration implies effort and interactivity. Also some danger and thought are welcomed. You have to figure how to get up that mountain, not /cast flying mount #24. Flying over zones is not exploring. It is sight-seeing.

What is more, the content lasted far less. Sorry for the repetition but: in Vanilla it took players moths to get to level 60; during which they had to figure stuff out for themselves, they were actually in danger out in the world, had to travel long distances, took part in complex questlines, and in general had an adventure. Cataclysm's revamp offered a nice rofl-stomping experience for players that don't want to... play much, or think, or try, or master some skill in the game. Levelling sunk to Facebook-game-levels of mediocrity. What was once an exciting adventure became an excercise in boredom. Do you understand the difference between playing and just killing time?

Kind of like Mass Effect 1, with its amazing potential for character-customisation and story-shaping; it became Call of Duty with attributes and a bigger story from 2 and onwards: streamlining and over-accessiblity. It's almost as bad as homogenisation. They tried to make the game easier for players, instead of teaching them how to play. And as a result a lot of its depth was lost, and a lot of its wild nature. And players still didn't learn how to play, or got excited much.

When thinking of such stuff you have to try to think as broadly as possible. 1-60 in Cataclysm lasted a couple of weeks, and was ridiculously easy, guided, streamlined, focused, lacked sandbox elements, lacked the staying power of its predecessor: it didn't keep players in the zones, it rushed them through zones. You can't reference such a poor job at an interesting levelling experience and say "it didn't work." That's like me driving a Ferrari at 25 km/h and saying that it's such a slow car. If the Cataclysm content was as deep, preferably deeper than Vanilla's then you could compare them. But they are not.

As to why the game reached 12 millions: I have written my opinion. It lured players in Vanilla with its open-world role-playing content, instead of almost exclusively raiding content like other mmorpgs, and kept them because there was a lot of it; people were levelling for months. It's why it was a success unlike all the other mmorpgs you mentioned. Sorry for the repeat, but this is an admitted by the developers reason even, and you just ignore it. They removed most of the content in Crusade but substituted it with epic gear from PvP, and tried to funnel players into instanced content, beginning with battlegrounds that are an easy target since they require no achievements, and it's difficult to remove players if they are not breaking the rules of the game. Then they expanded their lure to epic gear from PvE in Wrath, and introduced achievements to incite the ocdness in most of us. Put a bar that needs to be filled or emptied in front of a player is what most games are about. And what achievements are about; so they naturally worked. But both of them started to lose steam come Cataclysm: people just got used to epics, and achievements got out of control. That's when the drop started. Of course that was not the only reason. But I think it is one of them; one of the important reasons.

Also: racial campaigns did not converge at level 15 in Vanilla. That was Crusade. Night elves had nine zones all their own for example. And more importantly: if the game got better, they could have even more unique campaigns in the expansion, advanced campaigns. Alas instanced content is king. But king in a game that was supposed to be of another genre. Not the MOBA it has become.

[Notos]

As to the formula of the game: that is why the game wa successful in the first place. It didn't follow the formula of the other mmorpgs, and there were lots of them at the time; it created its own formula: it played far more like a single-player rpg, than an online one. this has been stated by the developers themselves as one of the defining elements of WoW Vanilla. A lot of questing and exploring content, not just dungeons and group content. It was with the expansions that WoW became similar to other mmorpgs: less exploring and questing content, more instanced/group content, with an emphasis on grinding. And these are the results.

If you look at interviews for Wrath, for example, I think they mention that the expansion has more quests than all of Vanilla WoW combined. Vanilla also had more content that required a group than any expansion to date thanks to all the group quests and quests that forced you into dungeons to complete, such as the level 50 class quests.

As to there being more things to do nowadays: there are more activities, but not more quantity. Do you understand the difference? I implore you to think about it. Because it seems you don't do much of it, you just react with the intent to "get back" at the peson you are disagreeing with. Levelling took months in Vanilla, and spanned tenths of zones. Now it takes a few weeks, and it doesn't even reach ten zones. Also: vanilla: 38 zones - expansions: 8 zones. Vanilla: six main campaigns - expansions: two main campaigns. Why am I repeating this? It feels dumb. But you ignore it for some reason, so here is my dumb repetition. Did it sink in yet?

If you are expecting an expansion to have as much content as the base game, then perhaps you need to look up what an expansion is. Also look at the quality of Vanilla zones compared to expansion zones. Arathi Highlands, Desolace, Badlands? Some of the most barren and boring zones in the game. Yeah Vanilla had quantity but expansion zones in general and with little exception are always way more content-dense and interesting.
Leveling took forever because the amount of xp given per mob or quest wasn't that great and you had to do nearly every quest available to avoid having to just grind mobs to level. I remember running out of quests at around level 56 and just grinding mobs at Corrin's Crossing the rest of the way to 60, with a BRD run thrown in every now and then.

Exploring and questing was far bigger a part of the game back then. And casual players who enjoyed that part of the game most, played happily. What is more, since things were much slower in general back then, the developers had more time to actually work on future content. Not to mention how the zones were filled with people playing around, forming friendships, learning how to play together, and so on.

The game was new, of course there were more people doing leveling content than at the level cap. Things were much slower back then? Yeah, and not in a good way. Class balance was plain awful and it took them forever to fix bugs.

But I am getting ahead of myself, what I should have asked was: do you even play role-playing games outside WoW and mmorpgs? Do you have any idea how open-world role-playing games function? Because if you don't, I may as well be talking to a wall. A "WoW raider" is such a secluded entity, it's almost impossible for him/her to understand anything but raiding. Just to at least try though: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-actually-raid And please consider how this is a thread, in a forum, of about 36k people, talking about, a, at the time, 11 million players' game.

Raiding keeps people occupied. Exploring does too, but for a much shorter time. Look at GW2, which places a heavy emphasis on exploration and absolutely none on raiding (it doesn't exist in the game). Once you're at 100% map completion and have the looks you want, the game is essentially over unless you play WvW. And guess what tends to happen, people who don't play WvW or do sPvP leave the game.

[Drithien]

...

Once again: I am not expecting an expansion of the game nowadays to have as much content as Vanilla. The way things are at Activision-Blizzard right now it would take an amazingly good rhetor to convince the powers that be to allow the budget for such an attempt. And, as Cataclysm showcased, the results could be quite dissapointing, if they stick with the excessive hand-holding instead of advancing the gameplay and adding depth.

Which brings me to the second matter, the ever-present short-sightedness of such discussions. Just because a concept had some flaws in the past does not mean those flaws can't be fixed, or removed if necessary, so that the concept can get improved.

As I said, questing lacked good stories in Vanilla, Cataclysm had much better in most occasions. On the other hand Vanilla's questing was more freeform. There was very little hand-holding, which made players stop and think, and try things out, and ask other players. So why not have quests that are as demanding as the older ones, with the better stories of the new ones? Why not make questing even deeper? Have an additional layer of quests, perhaps specialised for questing enthusiasts that are real brain-wreckers, and very difficult to complete?

The same goes for exploration. It started with the immense size of the first two continents and the little things the developers spread on their random corners, far from the usual questing grounds. Why not develop it further? Introduce exploring attributes like stamina for trekking and climbing. Why not trekking and climbing skills? Special equipment to climb or traverse harsh terrain. The need to observe and get to know the behaviour of fauna in an environment to survive. And so on.

Ideas are abundant. But, the focus of development is almost exclusively on instanced content. And because players don't have anything else to do outside repeated content and some extras (like Brawler's Guild), that's what they end up doing; all the while getting bored and tired. That's what's wrong with the game.

An expansion can't, or isn't allowed, the way things are, to be as big as Vanilla. Time and money problems. But it can be bigger overall, and especially in the areas that casual players enjoy. Raiders get a new dungeon each tier, quest enthusiasts and explorers don't get eight zones each major patch. See how unfair the game is in its distribution? And that's why you can't compare exploration with raiding. They are not treated the same, by a long margin. In Vanilla they were, because questing and exploring got the headstart from raiding. And things worked out very good. So, hard as it is, I think that part of the solution to the game's decline is to give more content on those two areas.

As well as most others. Crafting sucks as well. Make it more interactive and deeper, not just a money-maker. Secondary professions suck. Make them interesting. Group-dungeons are a shame on game-design. Give them their awesomeness back: create bast group-dungeons, like Blackrock Depths, with lots of quests associated with them; make the complex in structure, and progress; fill them with progressive challenges that start softly and escalate to heroic-level difficulty; also fill them qith appropraite loot, do away with just points, and include some raiding-lvel powerful rewards like gear and crafting recipes, but make them painful to get, in a good way of course. At the same time have some rofl-stomping group dungeons as well, for those that like that sort of thing, or have time only for a short run. Gaining reputation with factions also: I loved the thinking that one had to do to figure out how to gain reputation with Bloodsail Buccaneers. It was rough and completely up to the player to figure things out. Why aren't there more such interesting factions and ways to earn reputation with them?! Why get guided to everything?

In general, give the various players content for their own preferences. Don't try to shoehorn everyone into instanced raiding and arenas. The game is huge, concepts-wise. It has so many ways to play, and people gravitate towards different things. Satisfy those preferences. That is what I am saying.

[Duster505]

The worst fears have turned into reality.

Activision and Bobby Kotick are now biggest single share holders of Activision Blizzard. Vivendi - the company that allowed Blizzard to make the best games with full focus on great player experience since 1994 is no longer in control of Blizzard. Activision and Bobby Kotick are.

And its just starting...

The deal to buy Vivendi shares included a new investor... Tencent. They are major share holder in League of Legends. Kotick said they were not going to have any influence on AB ...But you only have to take note of how Blizzard All Stars has apparently vanished from the face of the earth in last few months to realise thats a deal has been struck between Activison and Tencent.

As far as Titan is concerned.... lets say that the launch delay of Titan leaves Destiny as the next major "MMO" coming out with no other casting shadows. Coincident ?

The real worry here is ofc that it seems like Blizzard no longer has any say on matters that are going on within AB. The main cash cow is still making money... but is loosing subs at alarming rate and leaves Blizzard in very bad position to get a foothold. And with Vivendi gone... Activision is in full control of all decisions made in AB.

As far as WOW is concerned - Blizzard has no real say any more about the business model for the game. Bobby Kotick and his new board decides that. Subscription based with ingame shop to milk as much out of the existing player base while they game is bleeding subs? Sounds like a great way to maximise profits for short term - and at the same time show once and for all that Blizzard is just like any other developer company now for Activision.

All I can say as a long term follower of Blizzard games. You know that something is very fishy when Bobby Kotick comes out as a knight in shiny armour on a white horse. Thats a clear cut warning sign that should scare all real gamers that have been followers of Blizzard and their games in the past.

[MoanaLisa]

Got to disagree with you Duster. I posted to this effect earlier so I'll keep this short but the top guys at Blizzard are quite capable of being capitalists without any help from Kotick. They aren't your gaming buddies even though they say things like 'awesome' and 'really cool' on a daily basis. They want to sell you stuff; always have and always will. Long version is back a few pages. It's time to stop putting Blizzard on a pedestal and deal with reality. As far as their relationship goes with you or me, it's strictly business. Business with a nice face but business nonetheless.

[Duster505]

When you point to Wikipedia pages, you should make sure they actually support what you were claiming. Those don't.

In particular, your statement "Both Blizzard and Activision were bought by parent company Vivendi" is nowhere supported (which is a good thing, since it's false).

The discussion of Activision and Blizzard existing "as separate entities" is also misleading. The word "entity" can mean many things. A division in a corporation, for example, is an "entity".

Blizzard does NOT exist as a separate corporation. To prove me wrong, please find the legal paperwork for this supposed corporation (the Certificate of Incorporation, and the documents that amended it, for Activision-Blizzard can be found at activisionblizzard.com under "Corporate Governance".)

What separation between Blizzard and Activision-Blizzard that actually exists are some clauses in the Activision-Blizzard corporate bylaws (also available at that web site) that impose certain limitations on what the CEO of Activision-Blizzard can do to the Blizzard division without prior written approval of the board of directors. That's a very far cry from Blizzard existing as a separate corporation.

So lets see ... Activison and Blizzard not the same company...

http://www.activisionblizzard.com/homepage

See the two different buttons on each side? One says go to Activision.com The other says... go to Blizzard.com

What we saw yesterday was Activision formally taking over Blizzard from Vivendi. Blizzard has now no say on any calls that are made about their products. The new board controlled by former and current Activision members will decide that.

These are just facts. Blizzard had FULL control of all their products while Vivendi had majority in the board. Now Vivendi will loose all theirs members and Kotick has full control over Blizzard.

In other Words... Activision just took over BLizzard. With the help of Tencent that is majority shareholder in League of Legends. So where does that leave Blizzard all stars then if Blizzard is in charge of their games? Fact is... they are not... thats why Blizzard all stars has vanished from the face of the planet in the past few months.

- - - Updated - - -

Got to disagree with you Duster. I posted to this effect earlier so I'll keep this short but the top guys at Blizzard are quite capable of being capitalists without any help from Kotick. They aren't your gaming buddies even though they say things like 'awesome' and 'really cool' on a daily basis. They want to sell you stuff; always have and always will. Long version is back a few pages. It's time to stop putting Blizzard on a pedestal and deal with reality. As far as their relationship goes with you or me, it's strictly business. Business with a nice face but business nonetheless.

We all know that Blizzard has changed. What Im trying to point out that they have no say IF they want to change back now to make game for gamers.

Blizzard is now in exact same position as Bioware when EA took over. Blizzard has now for example Zero control on how their business model will be. All the founders of Blizzard are just a work force for Activison like all the other developer companies that they are in control off.

[Wildmoon]

The worst fears have turned into reality.

Activision and Bobby Kotick are now biggest single share holders of Activision Blizzard. Vivendi - the company that allowed Blizzard to make the best games with full focus on great player experience since 1994 is no longer in control of Blizzard. Activision and Bobby Kotick are.

And its just starting...

The deal to buy Vivendi shares included a new investor... Tencent. They are major share holder in League of Legends. Kotick said they were not going to have any influence on AB ...But you only have to take note of how Blizzard All Stars has apparently vanished from the face of the earth in last few months to realise thats a deal has been struck between Activison and Tencent.

As far as Titan is concerned.... lets say that the launch delay of Titan leaves Destiny as the next major "MMO" coming out with no other casting shadows. Coincident ?

The real worry here is ofc that it seems like Blizzard no longer has any say on matters that are going on within AB. The main cash cow is still making money... but is loosing subs at alarming rate and leaves Blizzard in very bad position to get a foothold. And with Vivendi gone... Activision is in full control of all decisions made in AB.

As far as WOW is concerned - Blizzard has no real say any more about the business model for the game. Bobby Kotick and his new board decides that. Subscription based with ingame shop to milk as much out of the existing player base while they game is bleeding subs? Sounds like a great way to maximise profits for short term - and at the same time show once and for all that Blizzard is just like any other developer company now for Activision.

All I can say as a long term follower of Blizzard games. You know that something is very fishy when Bobby Kotick comes out as a knight in shiny armour on a white horse. Thats a clear cut warning sign that should scare all real gamers that have been followers of Blizzard and their games in the past.

wut? Where did you get that Blizzard doesn't have any say in their development? Activision didn't buy Blizzard. They merged. There's no way in hell Blizzard will just let their parent company does whatever they want. Blizzard didn't merge with Activision because they were desperate and could not live without Activision. Blizzard themself was big even before they merged. Why would they let Activision own them? Both of them were owned by Vivendi and both of them bought themself out. Activision didn't buy Blizzard out. Blizzard Dota is also planned for 2014 so you are mostly wrong.

[Duster505]

wut? Where did you get that Blizzard doesn't have any say in their development? Activision didn't buy Blizzard. They merged. There's no way in hell Blizzard will just let their parent company does whatever they want. Blizzard didn't merge with Activision because they were desperate and could not live without Activision. Blizzard themself was big even before they merged. Why would they let Activision own them? Both of them were owned by Vivendi and both of them bought themself out. Activision didn't buy Blizzard out. Blizzard Dota is also planned for 2014 so you are mostly wrong.

Vivendi Games was Blizzard part in Activison Blizzard. Vivendi just lost majority shares and all their board members. That means Blizzard has no real say anymore. With Kotick and Activison beeing the biggest single share holder... they can dominate the board of directors and Kotick and Activison can do what they want.

When Kotick said the company was now independent... that just means he has full control to do what HE wants with it. If its for the best interest of the share holders to close down Blizzard some day... they can do that and BLizzard would have zero say in that. Same as any other developer company that Activision Blizzard controls.

[Avallon]

If you are not upset, then are you just rude? Or do you call strangers "morons" routinely. Stop trying to insult me, so I can stop trying to understand why you seem so upset. And "lol" does not a cool poster make.

As to Cataclysm's revamp: that was a major way to turn somewhat good content to safe, boring content. But you seem to have totally missed that. Which is why I asked you if you have played any other role-playing game.

In Vanilla, zones, with some exceptions, felt alive and full. In Cataclysm's revamp, they fill empty at most times. That is because you are guided from quest-hub to quest-hub, by the hand, like a mentally challenged individual; said quest-hubs have a few and easy quests, with markers on the map even; and outside them, there is rarely ever anything. I love questing; but when I created a new character to see the changes in Cataclysm, I got depressed. The only thing done better was the stories; they were more interesting. But everything else: it was just simple, easy, safe, and dammit-why-do-you-show-me-where-to-go-?-frustrating.

Which is also why exploration in Cataclysm sucked. It was not exploration. Exploration implies effort and interactivity. Also some danger and thought are welcomed. You have to figure how to get up that mountain, not /cast flying mount #24. Flying over zones is not exploring. It is sight-seeing.

What is more, the content lasted far less. Sorry for the repetition but: in Vanilla it took players moths to get to level 60; during which they had to figure stuff out for themselves, they were actually in danger out in the world, had to travel long distances, took part in complex questlines, and in general had an adventure. Cataclysm's revamp offered a nice rofl-stomping experience for players that don't want to... play much, or think, or try, or master some skill in the game. Levelling sunk to Facebook-game-levels of mediocrity. What was once an exciting adventure became an excercise in boredom. Do you understand the difference between playing and just killing time?

Kind of like Mass Effect 1, with its amazing potential for character-customisation and story-shaping; it became Call of Duty with attributes and a bigger story from 2 and onwards: streamlining and over-accessiblity. It's almost as bad as homogenisation. They tried to make the game easier for players, instead of teaching them how to play. And as a result a lot of its depth was lost, and a lot of its wild nature. And players still didn't learn how to play, or got excited much.

When thinking of such stuff you have to try to think as broadly as possible. 1-60 in Cataclysm lasted a couple of weeks, and was ridiculously easy, guided, streamlined, focused, lacked sandbox elements, lacked the staying power of its predecessor: it didn't keep players in the zones, it rushed them through zones. You can't reference such a poor job at an interesting levelling experience and say "it didn't work." That's like me driving a Ferrari at 25 km/h and saying that it's such a slow car. If the Cataclysm content was as deep, preferably deeper than Vanilla's then you could compare them. But they are not.

As to why the game reached 12 millions: I have written my opinion. It lured players in Vanilla with its open-world role-playing content, instead of almost exclusively raiding content like other mmorpgs, and kept them because there was a lot of it; people were levelling for months. It's why it was a success unlike all the other mmorpgs you mentioned. Sorry for the repeat, but this is an admitted by the developers reason even, and you just ignore it. They removed most of the content in Crusade but substituted it with epic gear from PvP, and tried to funnel players into instanced content, beginning with battlegrounds that are an easy target since they require no achievements, and it's difficult to remove players if they are not breaking the rules of the game. Then they expanded their lure to epic gear from PvE in Wrath, and introduced achievements to incite the ocdness in most of us. Put a bar that needs to be filled or emptied in front of a player is what most games are about. And what achievements are about; so they naturally worked. But both of them started to lose steam come Cataclysm: people just got used to epics, and achievements got out of control. That's when the drop started. Of course that was not the only reason. But I think it is one of them; one of the important reasons.

Also: racial campaigns did not converge at level 15 in Vanilla. That was Crusade. Night elves had nine zones all their own for example. And more importantly: if the game got better, they could have even more unique campaigns in the expansion, advanced campaigns. Alas instanced content is king. But king in a game that was supposed to be of another genre. Not the MOBA it has become.

Sorry if I upset you with logical counterpoints and a coherent argument. Sensitive you are.

Bottom line is, sorry you aren't enjoying the experience and are upset with the state of the game - I hope you stop wasting your money and find a game that is made according to your requirements. Although I am nostalgic about the vanilla WoW experience, the game itself in it's current state is challenging and rewarding, and I enjoy it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, the game itself is a subjective experience.

[Wildmoon]

Vivendi Games was Blizzard part in Activison Blizzard. Vivendi just lost majority shares and all their board members. That means Blizzard has no real say anymore. With Kotick and Activison beeing the biggest single share holder... they can dominate the board of directors and Kotick can do what they want.

When Kotick said the company was now independent... that just means he has full control to do what HE wants with it. If its for the best interest of the share holders to close down Blizzard some day... they can do that and BLizzard would have zero say in that.

Vivendi owned both... You could just see it in wikipedia.. Activision Blizzard is one company that work seperately on their games. AB bought themself out not Activision bought Blizzard out. To put it easy it's money of Activision AND Blizzard that bought themself out.

[Duster505]

Vivendi owned both... You could just see it in wikipedia.. Activision Blizzard is one company that work seperately on their games. AB bought themself out not Activision bought Blizzard out. To put it easy it's money of Activision AND Blizzard that bought themself out.

You don't seem to understand that Activison merged with Vivendi games to make Activision BLizzard. Activision was controlled by Bobby Kotick. He is now controlling the entire Activison Blizzard. With Vivendi having no members in board of directors... Blizzard has no say in the future of Activison Blizzard. The old Activision has now full control over the entire company cause the rest of the shares are owned by the public share holders.

When Activison Blizzard is buying Vivendi out... its actually Activison and Bobby Kotick that are taking over the control of the company. Blizzard's control before was through Vivendi. And Vivendi is now out.

[Drithien]

Sorry if I upset you with logical counterpoints and a coherent argument. Sensitive you are.

Bottom line is, sorry you aren't enjoying the experience and are upset with the state of the game - I hope you stop wasting your money and find a game that is made according to your requirements. Although I am nostalgic about the vanilla WoW experience, the game itself in it's current state is challenging and rewarding, and I enjoy it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, the game itself is a subjective experience.

Sorry that you think you had any logical counterpoints, and are easily frustrated, so you call people morons. Or is that a logical counterpoint? I am not upset, I am just sad that you did so, because it is sad when grown-ups behave like that, and then they try to pretend they are above such things (especially when they play make-believe thinking they are in a court-room), but oh well. If after all that was written, you still can't understand anything, but are still trying to "win" this argument, this is just sad. I hope you don't, although your snarky comments imply differently. Oh well #2. Maybe one day you will understand that different people have different opinions, and you can't "win" in an opinions' argument.

And no, I am not going to leave the game, I never said anything about leaving. I have been playing ever since WarCraft 2. And in WoW since Vanilla; I have friends that I play with, I enjoy raiding quite a bit (oh yeah, I raid on quite a high level; I can enjoy raiding and still wish for the game to have better questing and exploring. And I do Brawler's Guild as well! What a rush), and can spare 15 euros a month. So I will still be here, with my opinions. Willing to discuss them with anyone that is polite, or close to it.