“Activision happend”

[Zyky]

Facts can be put together to create falsehood. See my example from the previous post. The fact is WotLK had highest subs, the falsehood is decreased subs means Activision involvement ruining the game.

The fact shows that after Activision came in the subs went down, wither they're directly to blame or not, it certainly feels like that is the case with all of the widely unpopular and huge design changes that happened from Wrath going into Cata/Mists. They had the tech prior to put a lot of these systems in prior, but didn't for a reason, just saying.

[Deficineiron]

Not true, at all.

When the merger happened, WotLK was already done. Activision got it's hands on WotLK near it's end (ToC ish/3.3.5 - RDF)

Then Cata happened and it lost 3M subs.

:>

merger was 2.4.3.

[Soon-TM]

merger was 2.4.3.

Which means that Kotick kept his grubby hands off WoW for the most part of WotLK development. Although he may very well have asked to nerf everything but hardmodes/HC raids into the ground, which would explain why Naxx 2.0 was such a roflstomp...

[Deleted]

Agree. WoW started to suck after wotlk.

Game had so much potential after Wotlk ... and they created Cataclysm ... I think it was a bigger failure than WoD.
Story was great, but the way how they represented it in the game was foolish.

[PaladinBash]

They've done all the extra cool things already. Now all they can do is add reasonably cool things and take others away. It's been that way since Cata, long before Activision. It's not even a matter of developer ability or skill, they've just done everything truly awesome and while the game gets better in lots of ways every expansion, it also has other problems and while you can finely tune gameplay and convenience, you can't do the same with storylines. Storytelling has gotten infinitely better but actual story has gotten worse. Can you imagine if they had this kind of shit to tell the BC or Wrath storylines? It'd be fucking incredible. That's how you know parts of the game got better and parts of it got worse.

[sykoex]

They still are able to create extremely successful games like Overwatch so Activision's influence doesn't really harm their product quality, they just moved on to something new.

[therealbowser]

I feel it's disingenuous to put all of the blame of Activision.

I'm sure they're responsible for a lot, but people blame every little thing on them without a shred of proof that it's them pushing it.

I blame them when I feel like the quality of the game is being compromised to push a paid product, or unfinished products are being pushed live.

I don't blame them, for instance, when the dev team ignores player feedback whether or not it might be their case. In these cases it's hard to pinpoint, in the former it really isn't.

[Deleted]

As some people are concerned, Blizzard can do no wrong. But the truth is, they have been a pretty crappy company for a decade or so now.

Blaming Activision for everything is just a form of denial. People refuse to accept that the company that once made great games is now no better than the rest of them.

[tikcol]

Not true, at all.

When the merger happened, WotLK was already done. Activision got it's hands on WotLK near it's end (ToC ish/3.3.5 - RDF)

Then Cata happened and it lost 3M subs.

:>

Yes.. It's almost as if ever expansion since Wotlk has been on a hit and miss cycle. A cycle of cutting down the costs and hooking people again

[Alkizon]

Well... there is a problem of course.

When I asked friends about stuff, they laughed and gave me two url-s: <1>, <2> saying that events were predicted long before manifestations. Are there any Russians in this forum who could explain, is this some kind of parody (read subs)? Since I’ve got nothing more from them then. Cartoon looks strange.

I believe that your friends were mostly referring to last part of that cut of cartoon. There's a song about a young boy named Bobby, who liked money a lot. While all children lived their normal lives, Bobby wasn't eating or drinking, only putting pennies into piggy bank. When he grew up, he became a sham and a fraud, but made a big chunk of money. And then he realized, that he wasn't the only person in the world to love money abobe all else. Money, money, money, make money. Anything that isn't money is trash.

(saw english subs) So it's not a parody, just original script. That's funny! Thx.

[Deleted]

Anyone who doesn't think Activision had some influence and responsibility for how WoW was run is pretty deluded.

They may have not had direct influence on design i.e "you will buff mages" or " nerf this" but they will have absolutely have had indirect influence through stuff like "you must increase sub numbers", "make more short terms gains", "increase profitability" all set with deadlines and expectations per quarter.

Its that kind of pressure that can indirectly effect the outcome of a multitude of design factors within the game as dev's are suddenly working towards new and maybe unrealistic deadlines or larger work loads from new content designed to meet those demands made by big brother.

The knock on effect is area's of the game start to suffer either due to time constraints or man power issues to meet this new workload also resulting in dev's becoming more and more disconnected each year from the player base to and eventual stand point where we are now where they are totally out of touch with what made WoW a good game in the first place.

Remember the Blizzard mantra of "it will be done, when its done"...................we've pretty much not really heard that since 2007, funny that eh?????

[Jinzuru]

Well... there is a problem of course.

When I asked friends about stuff they laughed and gave me two url-s: <1>, <2> saying that events were predicted long before manifestations. Are there any Russians in this forum who could explain, is this some kind of parody (read subs)? Since I’ve got nothing more from them then. Cartoon looks strange.

I believe that your friends were mostly referring to last part of that cut of cartoon. There's a song about a young boy named Bobby, who liked money a lot. While all children lived their normal lives, Bobby wasn't eating or drinking, only putting pennies into piggy bank. When he grew up, he became a sham and a fraud, but made a big chunk of money. And then he realized, that he wasn't the only person in the world to love money abobe all else. Money, money, money, make money. Anything that isn't money is trash.

[Clone]

The fact shows that after Activision came in the subs went down, wither they're directly to blame or not, it certainly feels like that is the case with all of the widely unpopular and huge design changes that happened from Wrath going into Cata/Mists. They had the tech prior to put a lot of these systems in prior, but didn't for a reason, just saying.

Two things happening around the same time doesn't make them related.

And what are these huge unpopular changes?

[Linkedblade]

Blizzard went from "Soon (tm)" as a mark for polishing the game till it's ready, to meeting deadlines and releasing games buggy and unfinished.

Which game was released that wasn't polished? BfA release was the smoothest expansion launch yet. And besides a few bugs, was perfectly fine.

[Deficineiron]

Which means that Kotick kept his grubby hands off WoW for the most part of WotLK development. Although he may very well have asked to nerf everything but hardmodes/HC raids into the ground, which would explain why Naxx 2.0 was such a roflstomp...

my basic premise is it was strongly suggested to blizz that the best past for the product in their view was that everyone needed to readily be able to see all of the content in 3.0.x, and they needed to produce metrics to measure this, and it was left to them to figure out what to do.

all they could do was nerfs mob dmg and maybe mob health, and threat as an important mechanic.

[Aresk]

Blizzard was a developer for Vivendi Games in 1994. Vivendi and Activision merged to create Activision Blizzard. Blizzard is still a developer of Activision Blizzard. I really don't believe that the merger caused that much of a change to the running of Blizzard. It's just the word Blizzard appears in the parent company's name whereas before it didn't, drawing more people's attention to it.

[Soon-TM]

Blizzard was a developer for Vivendi Games in 1994. Vivendi and Activision merged to create Activision Blizzard. Blizzard is still a developer of Activision Blizzard. I really don't believe that the merger caused that much of a change to the running of Blizzard. It's just the word Blizzard appears in the parent company's name whereas before it didn't, drawing more people's attention to it.

In hindsight, I think that Blizzard would have gone down the current path with or without Activision calling the shots. But the merger may have certainly hastened the process.

[dpark1023]

WoW used to make money because it was a great game, now it makes money because the corporate structure dictates that it must.

[Deficineiron]

In hindsight, I think that Blizzard would have gone down the current path with or without Activision calling the shots. But the merger may have certainly hastened the process.

right. i have assumed the slow steps taken during bc would have continued in wotlk, with the obvious inclusion of 2 raid sizes and difficulties per size. However, 1) wotlk content in general may have been tuned harder, and in particular 25 man raids may have been notably harder than 10-mans, and 2) the entire 'got to get everyone into the latest raid with very fast catch-ups' may simply not have happened. I am convinced the most likely explanation is that this was metric-driven and the underlying genesis of this wasn't blizzard.

it is possible features like LFR may not have been done at all, and certainly not in the faceroll metric-boosting tuning they were.

[Orby]

I am sure Activision havew some input into the more ugly sides of WoW like the shop and WoW token... that shit reeks of Activision. As far as game choices go thats just Blizzard, for good or worse :P

Just a guess, because I have no idea what goers on between those doors.