Blizzard's Community Relations

[Xanthippe]

A few years ago, Kotick said, "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

Not content with that, now they're taking the fun out of playing the games, too.

[Paelos]

I understand Kotick's goal of making the game business an actual business. Too many projects go haywire in the game development process because people don't actually treat it as work.

I agree with you that they can't make the GAMES into work. That's where I think the disconnect happens. I don't want the people at Activision to be having fun at their job when the end result is shitty.

[Ironwood]

I really don't think you do understand.

When the creative process isn't fun, the end result isn't either.

[Paelos]

I really don't think you do understand.

When the creative process isn't fun, the end result isn't either.

Point out to me where Blizzard has done anything "creative" in the last decade and I'd agree with you. As it stands, Blizzard has been in the business of producing sequels and polished updates to other people's ideas since 1998.

In fact, I think Titan is really the first creative thing they've attempted since Starcraft in terms of IP.

[Miasma]

Blizzard doesn't do anything creative but they used to do fun.  They would look at other games, strip out the suck, emphasize the fun and boom, awesome best selling game.  They were the kings of perfecting other peoples' ideas but now they just tread water in a shallowing pool of their own success.

Also, if anyone gets credit for turning "shallow" into a verb I had better get God damn credit.  Or is that a gerund, someone with a mostly worthless English major figure it out.

[ezrast]

It's a present participle. Gerunds act like nouns, not adjectives.

(I'm a math major. An English major would just tell you if it was pretty or not)

[Paelos]

That's sort of the issue for why they are struggling. They don't do anything creative and haven't for a long time. Look around the video game industry and see that people are trying to do the same thing as Blizzard, when it was Blizzard that built the formula of doing what other people were doing only better. Now, with no innovation on any level, Blizzard has nobody to copy but itself.

In fact, I think the only successful thing Blizzard could copy right now would be Minecraft or an upgraded Blizz-version of Dwarf Fortress. I don't think they've dabbled in the TBS series, or maybe they could unfuck the Total War stuff. Or perhaps they'd like to have a try at Mount and Blade done bigtime.

[Malakili]

That's sort of the issue for why they are struggling. They don't do anything creative and haven't for a long time. Look around the video game industry and see that people are trying to do the same thing as Blizzard, when it was Blizzard that built the formula of doing what other people were doing only better. Now, with no innovation on any level, Blizzard has nobody to copy but itself.

In fact, I think the only successful thing Blizzard could copy right now would be Minecraft or an upgraded Blizz-version of Dwarf Fortress. I don't think they've dabbled in the TBS series, or maybe they could unfuck the Total War stuff. Or perhaps they'd like to have a try at Mount and Blade done bigtime.

Blizzard basically only got this reputation with WoW, lets not act like they did nothing.  Warcraft 3 was hugely innovative in the RTS genre, for example.  Starcraft 2 is arguably the best RTS ever made.  Diablo 3 is, despite the crying around here, probably going to be considered the best ARPG available over the next decade.  Diablo 2 had years of refining before it became the game people are remembering so fondly, Diablo 3 will get there, and it is already plenty fun.

As Diablo 3 - I'm about 100% sure if they tried to "innovate" with it, you'd all be way more upset that the game isn't really "Diablo" than you are with Inferno loot tables that need to be ironed out.

[Llyse]

Blizzard basically only got this reputation with WoW, lets not act like they did nothing.  Warcraft 3 was hugely innovative in the RTS genre, for example.  Starcraft 2 is arguably the best RTS ever made.  Diablo 3 is, despite the crying around here, probably going to be considered the best ARPG available over the next decade.  Diablo 2 had years of refining before it became the game people are remembering so fondly, Diablo 3 will get there, and it is already plenty fun.

As Diablo 3 - I'm about 100% sure if they tried to "innovate" with it, you'd all be way more upset that the game isn't really "Diablo" than you are with Inferno loot tables that need to be ironed out.

How was War3 innovative? The customised mapmaker for Starcraft1/War3 was amazing but I rate Starcraft:Broodwar much higher than Starcraft2 considering it's impact on the RTS scene

[Paelos]

<innovation from Blizzard>

I disagree that those sequel games truly "innovated" much of anything. What I'm referring to is a game that either creates a new IP that's successful (Mass Effect would be an example), or it revolutionizes the genre/creates the genre.

Examples of innovative games to me would be the first Starcraft, the first Warcraft (for both reasons), UO, Mario 64, Portal, Minecraft, The Sims, etc.

Still, at it's core we're arguing a word. At the very least we can agree that Blizzard has not produced an original IP since 1998 with Starcraft. That's a problem for any gaming company that wants to remain relevant.

[Ingmar]

The word you used that I would pick out to argue about is "struggling." 

[Paelos]

The word you used that I would pick out to argue about is "struggling." 

I would say plateaued is probably much more apt, upon further reflection.

[Malakili]

How was War3 innovative? The customised mapmaker for Starcraft1/War3 was amazing but I rate Starcraft:Broodwar much higher than Starcraft2 considering it's impact on the RTS scene

Warcraft 3's RPG/Hero mechanics were pretty widely heralded as innovative and awesome if I recall correctly. Of course SC2 isn't innovative, but my point is that it didn't need to be.  Just throwing in new shit for the sake of new shit doesn't make good games.

Still, at it's core we're arguing a word. At the very least we can agree that Blizzard has not produced an original IP since 1998 with Starcraft. That's a problem for any gaming company that wants to remain relevant.

Ignoring the other part, since yes, I think we were basically talking about different things, I don't know that this is actually a problem.  I'll take SC10 and Diablo10 if they are great games.  

[koro]

Warlords Battlecry did the RPG/hero unit stuff two years before WC3 did, by the by. 

[Tebonas]

Diablo 3 is, despite the crying around here, probably going to be considered the best ARPG available over the next decade. 

When you realize how fast it got boring, I strongly doubt that. Depending on mode of measurement, I'm even willing to bet money it won't.

[Setanta]

Total Annihilation > Warcraft 3
WC3 was good, don't get me wrong, but I preferred SC: Brood War to it.

D2 > D3
and I have a feeling Torchlight 2 is going to be the better game than D3 - because they didn't forget the fun factor (and for no other reason).

[Ironwood]

TA didn't really have the longevity of WC3.

And that's about as involved as I want to be with this argument, which I find mental.  I'm not even going to touch 'Diablo 3 is awesum'.

[Malakili]

D2 > D3
and I have a feeling Torchlight 2 is going to be the better game than D3 - because they didn't forget the fun factor (and for no other reason).

My point is that D2 after years of patching is better than D3. (and arguably it isn't, how many of you have ACTUALLY played through D2 recently?)  I don't see any reason to expect that D3 won't hit its stride later as well. 

[Ironwood]

I've played through it recently, since the wife went back to it in disgust.

Hey, true story ;  it's still better than d3.

Fucking Shocking.

[Setanta]

Played D2 tonight - shitty graphics, played it to death more times than I can think since release.


... still enjoyed it more tonight than D3.

If only D2 was the exact clone of D2 but with better graphics... I'd play that :)

[Xanthippe]

Played D2 tonight - shitty graphics, played it to death more times than I can think since release.


... still enjoyed it more tonight than D3.

If only D23 was the exact clone of D2 but with better graphics... I'd play that :)

I suspect that at least half the people complaining about D3 would be quite happy if this were the case.

[Lantyssa]

I suspect more than that.  I'd have probably bought it myself were it just an updated D2.

[Rendakor]

Played D2 tonight - shitty graphics, played it to death more times than I can think since release.


... still enjoyed it more tonight than D3.

If only D2 was the exact clone of D2 but with better graphics... I'd play that :)

Pretty much this. Every change they made in D3 that deviates from D2 has been for the worse, graphics aside.

[Segoris]

Pretty much this. Every change they made in D3 that deviates from D2 has been for the worse, graphics aside.

That is pretty arguable, but it would be interesting to see people's thoughts on what changes are actually improvements (since I'd guess that would be the much shorter list but possibly large enough to be worthy of its own thread along with the recent posts of people comparing D2 and D3), I know there are some things that I enjoy more in D3
-No scrolls. Home/id scrolls did nothing but annoy me by taking up inventory space and having a quantity/cost without being a high enough cost to be considered a real money sink. Some sort of hybrid between the home scroll of D2 and home teleport spell of d3 would have been welcomed though, and ID can fuck off entirely imo in both D2 and D3 in their respective implementations
-Shared bank space is nice, even if it is limited
-I like having more hotkeys. I'd prefer some sort of a hybrid between more hotkeys and D2's F-key binding system but without going too deep into this I'll leave it at that
-I like the idea of crafting but I just think it was poorly implemented, even with reduced costs there's very few items worth crafting at all
-I'm torn on removable gems. I think the only thing removing gems is missing is some sort of penalty (such as removing a gem should downgrade that gem and have higher tier gems giving you two of the lesser tier gems) besides some small gold fee
-Multiplayer/friends list is so damn smooth. Granted that is less of a gameplay design change and more of a social/ui change I think most can agree that this social aspect and how smooth it was still had a large effect on many people's enjoyment of the game and should be considered as a positive change even in the gameplay changes discussion

[statisticalfool]

Skills. Nephalem Valor.

I think both are kind of flawed in execution a bit. Too many must have skills for all but the WD. But the overall concept, and lack of respeccing cost? Good.

Similarly, NV should be a force for good. It's surrounded by a lot of bad systems at the moment.

[Rendakor]

I realize I'm in the minority, but I really don't like the skill system; D2's with respecs would have been better for me. The multiplayer is better, and the removal of scrolls is nice I guess (but not a huge change) although I do like the unwrapping aspect of identifying an item. The crafting would be interesting if it either
a) It was free (only took mats broken down from other items), or
b) It allowed some stat choice on the items instead of strictly random for increasing fees.

I never made it to Inferno but NV does sound nice; it's a shame it wasn't implemented into the whole game.

[SurfD]

NV kicks in at 60, so I suppose if you dont want to do Inferno, you can do level 60 runs of act 4 Hell with NV stacks to farm loot.  But yeah, having some lesser buff that worked along the same lines at lower levels would be nice.

[Segoris]

I was always a fan of NV being "unlocked" for alts with limited stacks per 10 levels (I think I saw that idea here and have been a fan of it since).

As for crafting, making it free I can't really agree with since it is basically D3's version of gambling and seems like it was intended to be the main money sink which failed horribly with awful itemization and attached fees being way too high. I'm all for further reduced costs, but not free. I do agree with some stat choice on crafted gear. I would really like being able to salvage items but keep a single stat from the item that was salvaged (not the amount but the actual stat so when crafting with that material it gives that stat but the amount is randomized). So if you craft a 6-affix gloves and use a +crit dmg essence then the gloves would be guranteed to have +crit dmg as either one of the six affixes or it would act as a 7th affix.

For the skill system vs D2's with respecs, I don't mind the speccing aspect of their system but I can't stand the lack of hotkeys. Only having lmb/rmb and some f-key bindings feels clunky for a UI now. Though I think D3's ability system feels shittier than intended partly due to ~90% of abilities/runes are garbage, or at least they aren't competetive.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

So I got so frustrated with Diablo 3 that I went back and reinstalled Titan Quest -- and probably much like going back to play D2, it was an instructive experience.

As such, some things I think D3 did right, or at least moved in the right direction:

* Graphics, interface, 'feel' of play, etc.
* A lot of the actual skills are pretty cool, mechanically, and there are a lot of them. Runes are interesting.
* Nephalem Valor, as mentioned. I kind of wish it was the only way to get better MF, but this is Diablo after all.
* I think their move to emphasize Rares is to some degree a good idea.
* I think giving most Set and Legendary items 2-3 completely randomized affixes is part of that same good idea.
* Health globes > potion-spamming. Health globes are IMO a genuinely great idea.
* Edit: oh and treasure goblins, of course.

The two major issues are just crappy depth of itemization -- the lack of unique affixes and suffixes in general, everything being focused around some very obvious stats, the terrible decision to try and have the item-game 'start' at 60 -- and a very superficial-feeling skill system. Like, many of the skills are fun to use and runes are neat, but the lack of a 'skill point equivalent' makes it feel like there's no way to 'commit' a build, or take any sort of risk, or really push a synergy. Also because items are so boring there's really very little unexpected synergy to discover/exploit, and I feel like most of the skills don't interact nearly enough. Lack of emphasis on damage types, etc.

[Job601]

The two major issues are just crappy depth of itemization -- the lack of unique affixes and suffixes in general, everything being focused around some very obvious stats, the terrible decision to try and have the item-game 'start' at 60 -- and a very superficial-feeling skill system. Like, many of the skills are fun to use and runes are neat, but the lack of a 'skill point equivalent' makes it feel like there's no way to 'commit' a build, or take any sort of risk, or really push a synergy. Also because items are so boring there's really very little unexpected synergy to discover/exploit, and I feel like most of the skills don't interact nearly enough. Lack of emphasis on damage types, etc.

I don't agree with all of this, but the damage type thing is interesting.  You can see a shell of a system there that was intended to encourage skill diversity by requiring players to have multiple damage types -- lots of skills have runes that change the damage type for no apparent reason, some classes are "better" at some damage types than others, etc..  They must have designed the skills and the runes assuming there would be mobs immune to at least one element and then decided not to pull the trigger.

[Llyse]

Actually as annoying as mobs were in D2, some unique/champions were just completely immune to types it forced you to change your skills.

That is way preferable to crappy random prefixes that make a mob just impossible.

[Paelos]

Horde and arcane should not be allowed.

[Rendakor]

I was always a fan of NV being "unlocked" for alts with limited stacks per 10 levels (I think I saw that idea here and have been a fan of it since).

As for crafting, making it free I can't really agree with since it is basically D3's version of gambling and seems like it was intended to be the main money sink which failed horribly with awful itemization and attached fees being way too high. I'm all for further reduced costs, but not free. I do agree with some stat choice on crafted gear. I would really like being able to salvage items but keep a single stat from the item that was salvaged (not the amount but the actual stat so when crafting with that material it gives that stat but the amount is randomized). So if you craft a 6-affix gloves and use a +crit dmg essence then the gloves would be guranteed to have +crit dmg as either one of the six affixes or it would act as a 7th affix.

For the skill system vs D2's with respecs, I don't mind the speccing aspect of their system but I can't stand the lack of hotkeys. Only having lmb/rmb and some f-key bindings feels clunky for a UI now. Though I think D3's ability system feels shittier than intended partly due to ~90% of abilities/runes are garbage, or at least they aren't competetive.

I forgot about the lack of hotkeys; that is an improvement in D3. By skill system I meant a speccing system, trees, etc. In D3 I don't have any identity for my character beyond "I'm a wizard" while in D2 I was "a whirlwind pike-barb" or "a lightning sorc" or "a spear/golem necro".

Regarding crafting, even if you made it "free" there is still a cost in the form of the money lost by not vendoring or AHing the items you salvage. Just ratchet up the amount of materials it takes if you want to make it "cost" more, but having to spend money and materials to craft things just rubs me the wrong way.

[Ironwood]

Can I ask what crack people are smoking about hotkeys ?

I had tons in D2, certainly more than I have in D3.  Am I missing something ?

[Malakili]

Can I ask what crack people are smoking about hotkeys ?

I had tons in D2, certainly more than I have in D3.  Am I missing something ?

I don't think D2 had hotkey in sense that pressing them didn't cast the skill, you hit the buttons to assign the skills to your mouse buttons on the fly, and then clicked to cast.  That being said, I think the D2 system was fine and I don't think Diablo 3 is an improvement.  I guess most people are just used to that style casting in RPGs now and that is probably why they did it.