WHat are your thoughts on the current status of Blizzard as a developer?

[Drewbacca]

They remain one of the best game companies. They consistently put out top quality work and every game they put out becomes a smash success. Don't pay attention to the naysayers in this forum. The vast majority of WoW players are very happy.

[Bigbazz]

All of their upper level talent left the company, it's a shit show run by Activision.

They remain one of the best game companies. They consistently put out top quality work and every game they put out becomes a smash success. Don't pay attention to the naysayers in this forum. The vast majority of WoW players are very happy.

That's a bit silly mate, the last game they released came out 3 years ago, Diablo is abandonware, Starcraft is in maintenance. Heroes never even made any real headway and has now been abandoned, WoW is in steady decline after an expansion that has been largely panned, the company has made lots of poor decisions, top level people abandoning ship within the company, many people getting sacked and meanwhile no new games.

You can't hold Blizzard to the standards of what they did in the past, we're looking at the company in the aftermath of Blizzcon 2018.

[WowIsDead64]

I simply cannot wrap my head around Blizzards latest decision regarding portals, there are now over 8,500 responses to their last comments on the matter.

First you had the Diablo/Blizzcon fiasco, then their stock tanked, then old employees started ranting online about their disfunction, then some of their core streamers abandoned them, which was followed up by sizeable layoffs. Instead of laying low, Blizzard doubles down by deciding to taint a major content patch with the news that portals, used by pretty much only the most die hard of players, are being removed after the better part of a decade because it will make the game more fun.

Since the Diablo fiasco, there seems to be an undercurrent of opinion that Blizzard is disconnected from their playerbase. I have also read many times that they are making gameplay changes that would improve their performance metrics for shareholders. I do not think either of these things are true, but that is not what is relevant. What is relevant is that people are questioning WTF is happening at Blizzard.

I immensely enjoyed Legion. I have tried so hard to love BfA, I really have, I just don't. Whats worse is I do not know why, I just do not find it fun. I am having more fun leveling up charactors waiting for Classic, thats me though. If there are other players, who are finding things to do in WOW outside of BfA, why do anything to alienate them?

Blizzard is one of my favorite developers. I hope they are able to ease up on their pride and dogmatic ideology and give their players a win, by returning the portals. All this mayhem over nothing. It is mind boggling.

I was wondering other peoples thoughts on Blizzard at the moment.

First of all portal change is totally ok. Situation is even better, than before. Every major city now has only one portal - to Org/Sw. And Org/Sw has all portals, consolidated in one room, so you don't have to run from spawn point in mage tower to opposite side of Sw, where portal, to, let's say, Pandaland is situated. Reason for this change? It's all about scaling problem. Number of portals grows with time. And Blizzard won't be able to place all of them in all possible cities. So, they decided to make dedicated portal room in capital. That's it.

But it doesn't mean situation at Blizzard is ok now. They still try to make game more about maximum profit, than about maximum fun. BFA is still extremely bad. As I've already said, it's mix of PVP-biased pointless war and feminism, very close to LGBT. Even more forced PVP. Flying isn't enabled at it's intended time. Even more lies about "better timing" for it's release. 8.2 is still way too far away - summer release in the best case. Not even on PTR. Communication with playerbase is still very close to non-existence.

[Klingers]

Basically, echo chamber. They don't listen to their community team, then they fire the community team.

They're big sufferers of sunk-cost fallacy. If an entire playerbase vocalises how much they hate a poorly designed system or feature, Blizzard will double- and triple-down on that feature rather than reverse course.

The solution to fixing an imbalance is always to take something away from another group of players rather than bringing the complaining group of players up to the others' level.

Amazingly talented writers, artists, musicians and quest designers have their work undone on a regular basis by an incompetent systems team that doesn't realise that a weak mob dying slower isn't more challenging and something being dragged out longer doesn't make it more fun.

The best old-school talent has already largely jumped ship and the Activision corporate cancer has metastasized within the heart of Irvine. Rest in Peace.

[Th3Scourge]

Lost their way.

[Drewbacca]

All of their upper level talent left the company, it's a shit show run by Activision.



That's a bit silly mate, the last game they released came out 3 years ago, Diablo is abandonware, Starcraft is in maintenance. Heroes never even made any real headway and has now been abandoned, WoW is in steady decline after an expansion that has been largely panned, the company has made lots of poor decisions, top level people abandoning ship within the company, many people getting sacked and meanwhile no new games.

You can't hold Blizzard to the standards of what they did in the past, we're looking at the company in the aftermath of Blizzcon 2018.

Warcraft: WoW is an old game that still has more subscribers than any other in the genre. While there are plenty of complaints on forums like this, there are still tons of players. The game is in decline because it is old. Legion was a great expansion but still lost players. On top of that they’re releasing a vanilla version.

Warcraft 3 got a remastered version and is still played.

Hearthstone is one of the most successful games they’ve put out and is still going strong.

Starcraft: It’s been awhile since a new title came out in this franchise, but esports still keep it around. They even launched a remastered version.

Diablo: Diablo 3 was also massively popular and remains so, especially after releasing on the Switch. There were some hiccups initially, but they righted the ship. Diablo 4 rumors continue to persist.

Overwatch: Another massively popular game that continues to be strong.

Heroes of the Storm: This game was also massively successful as Blizzard showed their ability to make gebres that aren’t friendly to newcomers accessible. It has slowed a little but new content continues.

That’s a vibrant company right there, and I have no doubt new things are on the horizon. There has been some downsizing, but I still fell the company remains strong.

[Kokolums]

I don't even play Current WoW... I put a pretty big emphasis on community in my multiplayer games. That is one of the reasons why I quit WoW. However, I have played on a few private servers and I can honestly say the community there isn't that much better. The players are arrogant assholes that can't bother to stop to help anyone.

The battle.net community cross-pollinated all of their titles. Gamers made friends on the battle.net social service and then it became a requirement to buy all the games and play them to hang out with friends. I can remember lots of times in the 1990s or early 2000s I wasn't sure if I wanted to play or not BUT because the group was doing a social activity across several different games like SC, D2 and War3 I wound up getting pulled in to hang out.

The WoW in-game community was like crack compared to modern retail because you had true server identity. Without phasing, sharding, and cross-realm, that meant you got to know people on your server. You ran into them frequently. Your guild tag became your prestigous item, and you worked to build up the reputation of your guild. That meant raids weren't JUST about your progression. While you were wiping 25x on the boss, you were getting reports from guilds close to you in progression. Maybe they just wiped again on the same boss. Maybe they just beat the boss you are on and pulled ahead. This DROVE players to push harder and compete. In modern retail, you have basically a global contest that feels so impersonal that it is irrelevant. If you aren't one of the top 5-6 guilds in the world, it doesn't matter. The "Hall of Fame" achievement is a joke because it doesn't drive players to compete and make each raid nite so damn interesting like back in the day.

Today, you just raid, maybe kill some bosses, maybe not, and that's it. No reports on what other guilds are doing. nothing. Maybe you get the Hall of Fame achievement which has no social component so its meaningless as well. Raiding today feels so shallow compared to vanilla. And I think if they can rebuild true server identity again in Classic, they can recapture that and make raiding feel a lot more interesting again.

I'm not sure where you are coming from, talking about how players are assholes in both retail and private servers. That has nothing to do with what made the game so much better back in vanilla and BC.

Today they do things like ELO chess ratings of some variation in Overwatch which is so terrible and impersonal, bland, boring and doesn't feel like it means anything. Before it was all about competing in smaller groups which made it a lot better because smaller groups can be social.

[Asaliah]

The good ol' Blizzard spirit has been killed by Activision.

They have to leave them ASAP and become independant again.

[Galathir]

I still find It hard to see people hating BfA If they've claimed Legion was JUST OH SO GOOD... since It's EXACTLY the same as Legion bar a few new additions that doubledown on what, apparently, made Legion so good. So that always gives me a giggle.

For me this is mostly due to story and other goodies that made Legion stand out (especially Artifacts, with their rich history they just felt a lot better than the Azerite pieces now).

Legion was the culmination of the battle against the Burning Legion, a story that has been ongoing for the entirety of Warcraft.

In BfA I am forced to follow a leader that commited a genocide and started a war (again) because of a tantrum.

Also class design. Legion was tuned around us having our artifacts and the skills they granted. BfA took them away, gave us a fraction of what we lost and expected us to be happy about it.

[Nyel]

Blizzard is burnt out. They haven't created anything innovative or fresh since Overwatch and even that was just semi-innovative.

Once they were state of the art, now they're a B-class studio with AAA money. The same as BioWare.

- - - Updated - - -

That's a bit silly mate, the last game they released came out 3 years ago, Diablo is abandonware, Starcraft is in maintenance. Heroes never even made any real headway and has now been abandoned, WoW is in steady decline after an expansion that has been largely panned, the company has made lots of poor decisions, top level people abandoning ship within the company, many people getting sacked and meanwhile no new games.

You can't hold Blizzard to the standards of what they did in the past, we're looking at the company in the aftermath of Blizzcon 2018.

So much this.

[Galathir]

First of all portal change is totally ok. Situation is even better, than before. Every major city now has only one portal - to Org/Sw. And Org/Sw has all portals, consolidated in one room, so you don't have to run from spawn point in mage tower to opposite side of Sw, where portal, to, let's say, Pandaland is situated. Reason for this change? It's all about scaling problem. Number of portals grows with time. And Blizzard won't be able to place all of them in all possible cities. So, they decided to make dedicated portal room in capital. That's it.

Except the number of portals removed is easily double or triple the one they put in the portal room. No Shrine of Two Stars anymore, just Jade Forest, no Karazhan anymore, just zeppelin to Stranglethorn and getting to the portal room is a lot more inconvenient than to BI Dalaran which had a dedicated Hearthstone (Og only has the cloaks that a) have to be equipped to be used and b) are on a longer cd) and easy, direct ways to reach for many classes through their class halls.

For my weekly mountfarm I'd need to use portals 5 times within a short period which was easy before through Dalaran without even touching my normal Hearthstone but is a lot more of a hassle through Og.

[Biggles Worth]

Some of the most popular titles, tons of potential, do nothing with them. feelsbadman

[Thrif]

Well it seems like they fired everyone in their staff who knew what fun is in a video game, and the results are as expected. Except Jeffie but I don't play Overwatch.

[WowIsDead64]

Except the number of portals removed is easily double or triple the one they put in the portal room. No Shrine of Two Stars anymore, just Jade Forest, no Karazhan anymore, just zeppelin to Stranglethorn and getting to the portal room is a lot more inconvenient than to BI Dalaran which had a dedicated Hearthstone (Og only has the cloaks that a) have to be equipped to be used and b) are on a longer cd) and easy, direct ways to reach for many classes through their class halls.

For my weekly mountfarm I'd need to use portals 5 times within a short period which was easy before through Dalaran without even touching my normal Hearthstone but is a lot more of a hassle through Og.

Did we really have direct portal to Shrine of Two Stars? I've always been using Jade Forest one. So, I don't feel any difference. Only good things, like when I need to get from Pandaland to WotLK Dalaran and back - I just need to make two steps from one portal to another.

[Drusin]

I'm more confused by Blizzards choices lately. I find that I spend more time trying to figure out just what is going on in their "heads" than thinking about the change itself lol. I don't believe in the MAU, "time played", "stock holder", "activision", "wow mobile", "trying to kill the game" conspiracy theories. All of that sounds a little too "down with the man" to me. I'm interested in the truth and I'll usually end up thinking why did they make this change? What are they trying to accomplish? Who does this benefit? Who was this hurting? Why didn't they do it another way? Is it a matter of time? Resources? Technical limitations? Is this a part of a larger system to be implemented at a later time?

[Galathir]

Did we really have direct portal to Shrine of Two Stars? I've always been using Jade Forest one. So, I don't feel any difference. Only good things, like when I need to get from Pandaland to WotLK Dalaran and back - I just need to make two steps from one portal to another.

Yes, there was a direct portal in BI Dalaran next to the other capital portals.

Also forgot Caverns of time in my list. I don't know if the Shattrath port by talking to that one NPC is still working otherwise you'd have to fly from Uldum.

[Soon-TM]

Yes, there was a direct portal in BI Dalaran next to the other capital portals.

Also forgot Caverns of time in my list. I don't know if the Shattrath port by talking to that one NPC is still working otherwise you'd have to fly from Uldum.

It still works - but only if you are revered with Keepers of Time.

[Eon Drache]

The battle.net community cross-pollinated all of their titles. Gamers made friends on the battle.net social service and then it became a requirement to buy all the games and play them to hang out with friends. I can remember lots of times in the 1990s or early 2000s I wasn't sure if I wanted to play or not BUT because the group was doing a social activity across several different games like SC, D2 and War3 I wound up getting pulled in to hang out.

The WoW in-game community was like crack compared to modern retail because you had true server identity. Without phasing, sharding, and cross-realm, that meant you got to know people on your server. You ran into them frequently. Your guild tag became your prestigous item, and you worked to build up the reputation of your guild. That meant raids weren't JUST about your progression. While you were wiping 25x on the boss, you were getting reports from guilds close to you in progression. Maybe they just wiped again on the same boss. Maybe they just beat the boss you are on and pulled ahead. This DROVE players to push harder and compete. In modern retail, you have basically a global contest that feels so impersonal that it is irrelevant. If you aren't one of the top 5-6 guilds in the world, it doesn't matter. The "Hall of Fame" achievement is a joke because it doesn't drive players to compete and make each raid nite so damn interesting like back in the day.

Today, you just raid, maybe kill some bosses, maybe not, and that's it. No reports on what other guilds are doing. nothing. Maybe you get the Hall of Fame achievement which has no social component so its meaningless as well. Raiding today feels so shallow compared to vanilla. And I think if they can rebuild true server identity again in Classic, they can recapture that and make raiding feel a lot more interesting again.

I'm not sure where you are coming from, talking about how players are assholes in both retail and private servers. That has nothing to do with what made the game so much better back in vanilla and BC.

Today they do things like ELO chess ratings of some variation in Overwatch which is so terrible and impersonal, bland, boring and doesn't feel like it means anything. Before it was all about competing in smaller groups which made it a lot better because smaller groups can be social.

Up until BFA my server still had that on server push for what the other guilds were doing? Until about Helya? And I was making a comment about how the community back then was sooo much better than it is now. It is one of the things that people tout so much about when talking about Vanilla. You always hear how there weren't assholes because what you did mattered. And if you were an ass you were basically rejected for all content. Ninja loot? GL getting into that Molten Core again.

[Calfredd]

The good ol' Blizzard spirit has been killed by Activision.

They have to leave them ASAP and become independant again.

So back to their Silicon and Synapse days?