Don't Tell Me You Still Trust Blizzard...

[Firey_chasm]

BLizzard have lost a step but hardly have fallen for me.

Diablo 1 and 2 insanely epic games, both taking way more hours of my life than they really should have done! I agree they were simple, but they worked!

SC1 I played and enjoyed but was too young to be into hardcore multiplayer then so it didnt have as many days lost into it

WC1-3 Each bringing something new to the world of rts. If it wasnt for wc3, I am prety sure we probably wouldnt even see LoL and other games like it.

WoW Highly argued games, but it was again a revolution, and is sitll to this day the best mmorpg around. I burned out eventually (havent played cataclysm or MoP) but that wasnt because it was a bad game, or even the monthly paying thing, it is purely time, I dont have the time to play an MMO anymore!

SC2: Obviosly I am in the minority with this one, but I loved it, dont regret buying it on release at all, for £ per hour of gaming it is still probably in the top 10 of games I have ever bought! The single player was fun and relatively challenging on brutal.

D3: Ok, they did trip up a bit here, but the core gameplay and design is brilliant. I am not going to turn this into what went wrong, but for me the loot wasnt epic enough, making rares so key was annoying, uniques should have been more prevelant. But the game itself was sitll fun and I still got my moneys worth, dont regret buying it at all.

SC2:HoS I would love to buy and play it I really would, just not sure if its a game I can enjoy playing 30mins or so a week but It doesnt phase me at all having sc2 in 3 releases. WoL was still definately a full game release!

I am highly interested by project titan as Blizzard havent come up with a new franchise is so long, I am very curious as to what they will do, every game they have released recently immediately comes with the stigma of old fans who play no.1 or 2 and expect no.3 to be tailored specifically to them!

 

[briansun1]

True enough, but it definitely did it much better...

I would have to disagree

 

[rainless]

SC2: Obviosly I am in the minority with this one, but I loved it, dont regret buying it on release at all, for £ per hour of gaming it is still probably in the top 10 of games I have ever bought! The single player was fun and relatively challenging on brutal.

Here I'll plead the San Andreas/GTA IV case:

It had less features than the game before it.

FAR... faaaaaaaaar less features. And what it did have was dumbed-down.

Sort of like comparing Bioshock to System Shock 2.

And remember... they initially wanted EVERYBODY to buy the game AND pay an hourly fee to play it. They just couldn't figure out how to pull that off...

 

[briansun1]

And yea I only bought SC2 to see how much of a ripe off it was of warhammer 40K.

 

[synthetic_fenix]

I will also point out the fact that SC is basicly a huge knockoff of the warhammer 40k game

The same basically could be said for Warcraft, in fact IIRC Warcraft was originally supposed to be Warhammer, but things didn't end working out between Blizzard and Game's Workshop.

Here I'll plead the San Andreas/GTA IV case:

It had less features than the game before it.

FAR... faaaaaaaaar less features. And what it did have was dumbed-down.

Sort of like comparing Bioshock to System Shock 2.

And remember... they initially wanted EVERYBODY to buy the game AND pay an hourly fee to play it. They just couldn't figure out how to pull that off...

I miss System Shock 2...

 

[pwnmachine]

I would have to disagree

Honestly I could care less, both games don't really interest me to any degree.

 

[SteveLord]

I miss System Shock 2...

SS2 just became available on gog.com for 10 bucks this week.

 

[pwnmachine]

I played SS2 a little while back with fulls mods and it is still a fantastic game, it holds up extremely well despite being over 10 years old.

Man, I would give anything for a new SS...

 

[wagex]

diablo 2 was a blast! diablo 3 makes me want to jump off a bridge for paying 60 bucks for it. as for other blizzard games i wouldn't know, played WoW for about 5 hours before it got too repetitive for me.

if you want an easy story that takes no skill... go watch a movie. make games hard again. but all games are getting like that now.. go play call of duty cod4 was amazing took skill, mw3 i played maybe like 40 hours of and got bored because it just mattered which noobs were camping with akimbo sub machine guns spray and praying. i put a combined 1200 hours into cod4+mw2+blackops easy to put the perspective how much i played games.

 

[synthetic_fenix]

I played SS2 a little while back with fulls mods and it is still a fantastic game, it holds up extremely well despite being over 10 years old.

Man, I would give anything for a new SS...

I completely agree, even if it is just an upgrade of one of the two games to a newer engine and upgraded graphics. I have it setup to run on my linux machine currently as it was easier to get that going than what it is to get it going on Windows 7.

 

[rainless]

I played SS2 a little while back with fulls mods and it is still a fantastic game, it holds up extremely well despite being over 10 years old.

Man, I would give anything for a new SS...

Well yeah... Bioshock was really just "System Shock Lite."

SS2 is a classic. I still have it. Original disc and all.

 

[Springbok]

For me, Warcraft 3 was the stumble, WoW I really like. Sure Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 didn't have quite the same magic as the originals, but I think Blizzard is doing fine. They still have the best art of anyone in the games industry.

I avoided WoW like the plague when it first came out, but eventually I tried it when they released the first expansion, and got hooked, and I've played every expansion since then. It's not an easy game to get into, it takes a LOT of stamina to go on 4 hour raids, but it's the logical next step from Diablo 2.

If Blizzard games don't float your boat anymore, they inspire plenty of spinoffs to choose from.

 

[briansun1]

For me, Warcraft 3 was the stumble, WoW I really like. Sure Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 didn't have quite the same magic as the originals, but I think Blizzard is doing fine. They still have the best art of anyone in the games industry.I avoided WoW like the plague when it first came out, but eventually I tried it when they released the first expansion, and got hooked, and I've played every expansion since then. It's not an easy game to get into, it takes a LOT of stamina to go on 4 hour raids, but it's the logical next step from Diablo 2.

If Blizzard games don't float your boat anymore, they inspire plenty of spinoffs to choose from.

Best art eh... I would have to disagree

 

[rainless]

For me, Warcraft 3 was the stumble, WoW I really like. Sure Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 didn't have quite the same magic as the originals, but I think Blizzard is doing fine. They still have the best art of anyone in the games industry.

I avoided WoW like the plague when it first came out, but eventually I tried it when they released the first expansion, and got hooked, and I've played every expansion since then. It's not an easy game to get into, it takes a LOT of stamina to go on 4 hour raids, but it's the logical next step from Diablo 2.

If Blizzard games don't float your boat anymore, they inspire plenty of spinoffs to choose from.

You didn't explain *why* you think Warcraft 3 was the stumble.

And if Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 don't have the same magic as the originals... then Blizzard CAN'T be doing fine.

For the PS4 launch Blizzard just announced... DIABLO 3!

What the hell is that? Who would do such a thing? (Besides EA...)

 

[briansun1]

Blizzard du... oh yea you salo did not say why they had the best art.

 

[SteveLord]

I think War3 may be considered a "stumble" because it went in new direction with RTS games at the time. Until then, we only knew "build workers, collect resources, build buildings, build troops, attack, repeat." War3 added the hero and creep elements to the game, which were largely controversial at the time.

It was also originally going to be a much smaller scale of a game. Old timers will remember it was going to focus even more on role playing aspects and your armies would be more "squad" sized with a much closer camera.

I personally liked it. It added some nice features, the map editor was a large improvement over SC and it allowed 12 players.

 

[GatorChamp]

All I will say is this. Blizzard has really changed over the years. I stopped playing WoW little after Cata, SC2 has been great and Diablo 3 was the biggest disappointment ever.

SC2 HoS, so far, has been great. I honestly can't complain. SC is something that they still listen to the players. I cite the fact that blizzard incorporated changes that professional/competitive gamers were making to maps. Blizzard has listened and incorporated these changes.

WoW is....WoW - it's now there to make Money. If they have to bend to every fanboy 13 year old they will. As long as it keeps making them money.

I don't know if Diablo can be saved, but pulling Jay - I should never make another video game - Wilson was a good start. Time will tell.

I hope they can turn it around. Blizzard is my favorite video game company.

 

[rainless]

All I will say is this. Blizzard has really changed over the years. I stopped playing WoW little after Cata, SC2 has been great and Diablo 3 was the biggest disappointment ever.

SC2 HoS, so far, has been great. I honestly can't complain. SC is something that they still listen to the players. I cite the fact that blizzard incorporated changes that professional/competitive gamers were making to maps. Blizzard has listened and incorporated these changes.

WoW is....WoW - it's now there to make Money. If they have to bend to every fanboy 13 year old they will. As long as it keeps making them money.

I don't know if Diablo can be saved, but pulling Jay - I should never make another video game - Wilson was a good start. Time will tell.

I hope they can turn it around. Blizzard is my favorite video game company.

They remind me a lot of Valve. Valve used to be my favorite company... until they stopped making games.

Everybody was jumping up and down about The Orange Box... to me it was just an ensemble cast movie: Lots of stars but no direction. (Plus I already had most of the games.)

The years and years that they spent with all the drugs and hookers they got from WoW, Blizzard wasn't making any games. You could tell with SC2 they were rusty. I didn't even entertain the thought of buying Diablo 3 after reading about what it was going to be.

At this point Blizzard would have to create some hot... brand new IP.

...but I don't think they're capable of doing that anymore.

 

[Firey_chasm]

tbh it is all quite simple, if you dont like blizzard dont buy blizzard

For me they are still the most reliable developer around, Valve are up there as well, but for me noone else can compete at all. Now I klnow some people might say Bethesda, or maybe some more people might even say Bungie, but ignoring Halo 1 and elder scrolls 3 I havent seen what I would call an unmissable game out of either!

Now yes, diablo 3 stumbled but it wasnt a disaster, just wasnt as addictive as some other blizzard games, still more fun than 90% of other games I have played in the past 4 years, certainly better than any CoD game since MW1, better than skyrim, better than mass effect. I will caveat that with, for me, this is my opinion and as such I recognise yours might be completely different !!!

SC2 didnt stumble at all for me, it was well polished, incredably well balanced piece of art, just wish I had the time to play again.

 

[briansun1]

you do know that blizzard is ****ing the "fans" of star craft by realsing it in 3 "parts". Blizzard has fallen alot they are now just farming money off of there poor "fans"