We're getting quarterly results today as well. Who knows, maybe they're not looking good either.
We're getting quarterly results today as well. Who knows, maybe they're not looking good either.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
After some shareholders started to whet their soulless lawyer-shaped knives it was obvious that JAB would wouldn't keep his seat at Blizzard for much longer. The moment he butchered their first press release was when it was over, especially after it kept snowballing from that point on to the point that even their stock dipped a bit. Him being part of the old crew that watched Afrasiabi for over a decade doesn't help much either. Now it remains to be seen how all of this will play out in the future.
Edit: At least first glance they didn't try to put some former Trump wannabe-GeStaPo at the helm and went for people that have at least worked on a game before. I expected worse for his replacement, tbh.
Last edited by Cosmic Janitor; 2021-08-03 at 01:39 PM.
You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
Would the shareholders meeting give us a hint about 9.2 or 10.0?
Sometimes it contains phrases like "bla bla will release later this year" or stuff like that, but at the last shareholder meeting they didn't announce the TBC Classic launch at all, just to announce it a few days later with a blue post.
And with no official word about 9.2 yet I very much doubt they'll mention it in the report.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
I doubt it, they might reafirm that they are working to get back on track with their release schedule or at best they might admit that this all might have delayed it a couple of weeks. I doubt strongly that we'll be seeing concrete release dates, even just rough estimates by quarter.
You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
They basically gave Blizzard leadership to people outside Blizzard. Acti must be really paranoid with who was involved or ignored harassment. Or everyone with executive position was ignoring it...
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
All I gather from this is:
Phew, at least Shadowlands ends with 9.2, I couldn't have asked for a better pick to get the WoD treatment.
Because let's be real these people are not going to do 9.3 with all this mess
The Void. A force of infinite hunger. Its whispers have broken the will of dragons... and lured even the titans' own children into madness. Sages and scholars fear the Void. But we understand a truth they do not. That the Void is a power to be harnessed... to be bent by a will strong enough to command it. The Void has shaped us... changed us. But you will become its master. Wield the shadows as a weapon to save our world... and defend the Alliance!
If 9.3 was planned month ago, it will still release, it's not like they suddenly will speed up 10.0 production cause drama. If anything, last few months should force them to reflect what they exactly want to do in 10.0, since Legion foundation simply doesn't work anymore.
And how they should call it? It's a studio.
Last edited by Makabreska; 2021-08-03 at 02:08 PM.
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.
Oh come on, we've seen what happned earlier this year with how far along Korthia was (or not to be precise given the anemic showing at blizzconline. Blizzard is not preproducing tonns of content right now. If they planned 2 they could easily cut and merge it down to 1. Other game studios have stamped out whole games with the debris of past projects in half a year, Blizzard can do the same.
You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.
Not to derive the thread, but I think it is a good thing. The apologetic/disgusted tone of his statement was really off compared to those videos from Blizzcon. It sounded like someone who knew he fucked up, but was trying to save his skin in the process under the cover of a tolerant and apologetic message. Although I genuinely believe he came to realise there was an issue... I also believe he was a part of the said issue, for closing his eyes or ignoring Afriasiabi's behaviour for years.
I think new blood is what Blizzard's management needs at the moment.
That being said, I truly believe 9.2 will be the end of Shadowlands, and that an 9.3 patch is highly unlikely. And if that is the case, I also believe it will be a good thing: better to have a strong ending with 9.2 than a lukewarm one stretched over to 9.3 imo!
But maybe all of this is wishful thinking, time will tell...
Last edited by Fahrad Wagner; 2021-08-03 at 04:14 PM.
A potential new class doesn't need to have Legion Order Halls.
DK's didn't have anything added after their introduction. (bar the S4 set)
Monks didn't have anything added after their introduction.
DH's didn't have anything added after their introduction.
Seeing the pattern here?
I don't think there won't be a 9.3, not because of recent events, because they must have already started working on it storywise. I'm only afraid that it will turn out to be a 8.3 style patch again - a patch with only the new raid being a new "zone" while something else is re-used.
The reason I think this is because they were already working on 9.2 the moment 9.1 PTR went out (at least I hope). I'm talking about art and story design team who must have already finished the plans for 9.2 and are already working on 9.3 designs. I don't know how it works, but before they made 6.2 back in WoD, they must have decided that it's the last patch for the expansion before they started working on it so they wanted to make sure the story plays out like that. In this case, if they decided to make 9.2 the last patch, they must have made that decision a few months ago, not recently.
None of that is too hard to do. For the covenent spells, you could just create a generic set of spells for the new classes, similar to how the new Horde races get generic quest text/images during the Lorewalker Cho intro quest chain. It might not be exciting, but Blizz doesn't tend to go back and do massive updates to old content as is.
I imagine that most Legion Order Halls would be set up in either whatever the starting zone for the new class would be, or it could just be a generic one set up in Dalaran just for new classes with a smaller/easier storyline. The spec Artifact Weapons would be a great way to build out the lore of a new class.