Blizzcon 2019 - Your Hype Level

[Sughs]

I would say between normal and slightly hyped. I always get hyped on new WoW expansion years, aka odd years, but seriously, I have lost so much hope on Blizzard that it's not even funny.

- StarCraft: Don't give a crap about 1 or 1Remastered. SCII trilogy was good and I played all three versions competitively at Plat + level but I don't give a single fuck about the current DLCs, commanders and other crap they are releasing to milk the shit out of it.

- Overwatch: Only played Beta and some free weekends. Bunch of toxic and cry babies playing it and I am not really into FPS'.

- Diablo: Never liked ARPGs but respected Diablo and it's lore, music and cinematics. Always saw streamers playing it and followed the lore. With D3 and now Immortal and not having guarantees of a D4 announcement this year? Fuck it.

- Hearthstone: Was cool to play 1 hour a day for a year or so after a long day of work. Don't really feel like buying new packs every few months to stay competitive. It just gets old really quick.

- WarCraft: Not sure if they will add something to WC3R or even announce a WC4 but even if they do they will probably wait to see how WC3R does and wait for WoW to have even less players to go for WC4.

- Heroes of the Storm: Played it since alpha, had really high hopes for the game but they bottled it and now with officially being just on life support, meh...

- WoW: New expansion announcement year, even if I way otherwise now, I know when it's closer to November I will get hyped, even if it's just for the rumors and fake leaks. But like I already said, I have lost tons of fate. Every expansion they say they learned from the previous one and then they do even worse.


- Possible new IP: Don't know anything so if it happens, let's hope it's something good.


Maybe they could do one Blizzcon in Europe for once.

[Vineri]

Their announcement right before last Blizzcon?

Ummm lol? What announcement, right before last Blizzcon?

In case you missed the boat, fans were anticipating the announcement AT Blizzcon

But when they didn't get it, they boo'ed. Yeah. You know, when they got a mobile announcement, instead of a D4 announcement...

[Vineri]

Seems to be you who missed the boat.

I'm talking about the announcement they made a month before Blizzcon 2018 in which they effectively said they won't announce Diablo 4 because they were not ready yet, but they'd announce something else (the mobile game which started a huge drama).

This one: https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/22549...018-10-17-2018

So the announcement was that they weren't going to announce it. Terrific.

[this is caranthir]

quite honestly I'm always hyped for blizzcon, despite not liking this expansion i'm looking forward to some news about 9.0 and Diablo (yes I know).

[Synros]

At this point, I honestly don't care. I'd imagine they're going to announce a new WoW xpac, but it isn't going to matter if they continuously keep making the same mistakes. It's been over half a year, and Blizzard is finally getting around to fixing some of the shit that should have been fixed before BFA even launched. It shows they just don't give a fuck, and that most likely isn't going to change come next xpac.

[Vineri]

Exactly. So this year, we should expect to see Diablo 4 announcement at Blizzcon.

I appreciate your hype, but I don't see the logic to your conclusion.

Activision-Blizzard is likely non-committal with D4 because they are considering it to be a mobile exclusive (speculation).

https://www.pcgamer.com/rumor-blizza...e-last-minute/
Blizzard denies that Diablo 4 announcement was planned for BlizzCon

2018-11-05
One of Kotaku's sources said that Blizzard decided it wasn't ready to commit to the announcement because development is still in a state of flux, and the game may continue to change as it progresses.

The only reason I can think of to prevent an announcement due to "flux" is because the platform wasn't decided on, or Activision-Blizzard did not want to announce 2 mobile games at once. Think about the careful wording of the quote. Something stopped them from announcing it. Changes shouldn't affect an announcement, as they claim they did.

If it comes out on PC it will likely be because of the severe backlash the company received.

It's questionable whether the PC was the original intended market, IMO. Or even if it still is.

If it comes out on PC, it's going to be rushed and forced, which isn't good.

[Kathranis]

Need an option for "Curious."

I'm not hyped, though I'm always a bit excited to see what the next WoW expansion will be. The possibility of having an expansion that centers around the Void, Shadowlands, undeath, Black Empire, are all things I would be happy to see.

Beyond WoW, I'm just curious to see what they do. Surely they will announce new games. They've had a variety of stuff in incubation, from mobile games to AAA PC and console games, and I'm just really curious to see which of those projects will make it out of incubation and become real games, and which IPs they will be parts of.

I've never been a huge Diablo guy, but I want to see what other Diablo projects get announced and whether they'll appease the fanbase or anger it.

I'm interested in whatever the Classic Games team has planned for after Reforged.

I'm extremely curious to see whether or not they push out major updates for Overwatch and Hearthstone, which have been stagnating somewhat this last year, or whether they push completely new games and let those two fade into the background.


So, yeah, basically I'm just curious. Curious to see how things change compared to last year, curious to see what they've been working on, and curious to find out how much stuff they'll announce. It's kind of make-or-break for them I feel.


And for that matter, I'm curious to see how they approach Gamescom this year, whether it'll have major announcements or just get the more minor announcements out of the way while hinting at more to come.

[Kathranis]

I appreciate your hype, but I don't see the logic to your conclusion.

Activision-Blizzard is likely non-committal with D4 because they are considering it to be a mobile exclusive (speculation).

https://www.pcgamer.com/rumor-blizza...e-last-minute/
Blizzard denies that Diablo 4 announcement was planned for BlizzCon

2018-11-05
One of Kotaku's sources said that Blizzard decided it wasn't ready to commit to the announcement because development is still in a state of flux, and the game may continue to change as it progresses.

The only reason I can think of to prevent an announcement due to "flux" is because the platform wasn't decided on, or Activision-Blizzard did not want to announce 2 mobile games at once. Think about the careful wording of the quote. Something stopped them from announcing it. Changes shouldn't affect an announcement, as they claim they did.

If it comes out on PC it will likely be because of the severe backlash the company received.

It's questionable whether the PC was the original intended market, IMO. Or even if it still is.

If it comes out on PC, it's going to be rushed and forced, which isn't good.

1. Diablo Immortal is their mobile Diablo title. There is no sense in doing Immortal, which is clearly intended to have a long tail and to be a consistent revenue generator, and then to also be developing another mobile Diablo title in parallel.

2. From their careers page, hires, and other leaked information, we know quite a lot about what the Diablo 4 project entails, and it is without a doubt a AAA PC project, considering they're specifically hiring people with expertise in DirectX and other PC tech.

[Sarethion]

My hype level is "meh".

It will probably be my first Blizzcon in years where I won't even bother to watch the opening ceremony. I'd rather just read the news I'm actually interested in on some fansite then willingly subject myself to watching their mobile cashgrab advertisement campaign, which I'm sure is going to take up a big chunk of the opening ceremony and Blizzcon as a whole.

[Kathranis]

It shows they just don't give a fuck

I think if they didn't give a fuck they wouldn't bother fixing the things people complain about. Yeah, it took a long time, but developing a completely new progression system mid-expansion is not exactly easy. If anything that's more reason to think that they actually do care about fixing the problem.

Blizzard is usually pretty good about learning from mistakes. Their only issue is that they take a long time to change course, and tend to swing too far back in the opposite direction.

I don't see them repeating these mistakes in the next expansion. Though the next expansion won't be perfect and will have its own issues, as they all have.

[Vineri]

2. From their careers page, hires, and other leaked information, we know quite a lot about what the Diablo 4 project entails, and it is without a doubt a AAA PC project, considering they're specifically hiring people with expertise in DirectX and other PC tech.

Recently, or prior to Blizzcon 2018?

[Asaliah]

How can't you be hyped by the announcements of Diablo 4: Battle Royablo and WoW next expansion: Battle Wowal ????

All on mobile of course.

[Vineri]

Last summer (April-ish), they had 17 Diablo related job postings. So prior to Blizzcon 2018.

I hate to drag this on, but were they specific for PC or mobile positions, unspecified, or for something else, like admin, artist, testing, QA, etc.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

I couldn't care less about it. I haven't even played any blizzard games since 2017. I'm waiting for Warcraft 3 reforged, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this blizzcon.

[GreenJesus]

No hype at all because the Blizzard of Today is no where near what it used to be. Might as well call it Activisioncon . I mean even moral at Blizzard has to be rock bottom these dyas. I cant see them putting any heart or soul in to Blizzcon. It will be a simple cash grab that really doesn't offer much like last year

Lol remember when they tried saying "let's welcome Destiny to the blizzard family" when it was put on battlenet there were a ton of boos? Battlenet will soon have candy crush I bet.

[Sarethion]

Battlenet will soon have candy crush I bet.

I would not be surprised

[TheProphetLord]

I am skeptical I’ll still watch it but the last two blizzcons have been meh honestly. I enjoy it more I think because I sit in a discord call with friends than seeing what is actually announced.

[Karlz0rz]

After they announced Diablo for mobile, I've just lost all faith in Blizzard.
That shit hit me right in the soul after hyping up Diablo for so long. Maybe that's on me, but I still took the hit!

[Kathranis]

Recently, or prior to Blizzcon 2018?

Both. /10chars

- - - Updated - - -

I hate to drag this on, but were they specific for PC or mobile positions, unspecified, or for something else, like admin, artist, testing, QA, etc.

There were two distinct Diablo projects being hired for. One explicitly for an unannounced mobile game that wasn't specifically stated to be Diablo but which in retrospect was obviously Immortal, and another one that was more vague but was explicitly for an unannounced Diablo project.

The mobile title dealt, obviously, with mobile platform expertise. There were positions for designing 3D levels, writing quests, UI design, working on implementing assets produced by third party vendors, etc.

The unannounced Diablo project dealt with PC technical expertise, experience with AAA games, and specifically features that would represent new technology in terms of 3D modeling and animation. There was (and still is) positions for this project that deal with concept art, story development, worldbuilding, etc., as well as engineering positions for a new game engines, including graphical and audio systems.

Most telling for the latter project was a Creative Director position, which disappeared after they hired Sebastian Stepien (CD Projekt Red creative writer/director for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077). Which means he was almost certainly chosen as the new Creative Director for Diablo IV, or whatever it will be called.

Here's a more detailed thread I posted about the job listings back in August 2018.

---


It has been a while since I looked at their Career's Page, but it currently looks like they are still hiring for the "Unannounced Diablo Project" however there are also several new listings for yet another Unannounced Project which is not explicitly connected to the Diablo franchise, and may be another Incubator project. It's unlikely to be Diablo-related, since no mention of Diablo is made in the listings.

This new Unannounced Project (or perhaps multiple projects, or the same incubator projects that have been in prototyping since last year, including one that seems to be first person) has one listing for Senior Character Concept Artist / Illustrator, and several listings for engineers and technical directors/leads, including new game engine stuff and a new shared game engine, which suggests something that could be used for multiple future projects. These are talking in terms of state-of-the-art, next gen kind of tech. Also has a Systems Designer position with mentions of being a multiplayer AAA game. Also has a Production Director position open.

Again, none of those particular listings are tied to Diablo and could be anything from a single major new title, to various prototypes in development under Allen Adham in the Incubator department or whatever it's called.

They do seem to be hiring producers for one unannounced mobile game, which probably isn't Diablo Immortal. They don't seem to be actively hiring for Diablo Immortal at the moment. All of the current open Diablo-related positions are for the big Unannounced Project that Sebastien Stepien is seemingly heading up.

[bowlink]

The only hype i have is watching the next shitshow. And watching them crash and burn.