Starcraft 2 announced today, the end of all new content and is switching just to patch updates here and there. I know the newest patch for diablo 3, people have been calling lackluster at best, but is this just because it’s following the same trends, and will hit maintenance mode soon too? Just curious peoples thoughts.
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Probably means they agreed on a direction for SC3 and are moving ahead with it.
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If you call “2 years ago” Soon™ then sure.
AFAIK - D3 was moved to the Classics team awhile ago.
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CM PezRadar on Reddit regarding former CM Vaeflare’s return to Blizzard’s “Diablo Legacy” team:
“Diablo Legacy is kinda newish. It’s the renamed D3 team. They were part of the Classics team, but now since Rod Fergusson is here (EP for the Diablo franchise), the goal was to bring Diablo teams under his leadership so they are now referred to as Diablo Legacy that sits alongside Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4 teams.”
So I believe that maintenance mode and being a Classic is pretty much the same. D2 received updates (for example, Token of Absolution) while being in maintenance mode and long after D3 being released, so to me, the only change it could be cycling old season themes.
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Oh I never knew this i’m surprised there making sets still if diablo 3 is already in maintenance mode already.
I thought SC2 entered maintenance mode years ago.
Seems more likely there will be no SC3.
But maybe people can dream of WC4 instead!
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I’d rather see a new genre for SC. I think RTSs are toast these days. As long as WoW exists there will be no WC4.
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I know they’ve tried that at least once, and I think twice… neither attempt made it far.
Starcraft 2 is probably the best new game Blizzard has made in 15 years (I know, it doesn’t say that much), despite its awful story, so I’d happily take a third game. I’d rather have WC4 however. Heck, they could try a new IP in the RTS genre.
In reality, they wil probably make a mobile MOBA or something 
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New people are joining the Diablo Legacy team.
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D3 is already in life support mode…
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Yes… But perhaps not franchise’s fault. Concept, developing team of that game, …
That’s the current issue at Blizzard: their IPs are more valuables than their games. They either have a rampant lack of know-how or an interventionist board of suits that think that they know more about development than developers and don’t let talent shine.
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I doubt it tbh. There isn’t much of a market incentive to work on an RTS at this point in time, and there’s next to zero hype for StarCraft as a franchise.
Things could potentially change if Age of Empires IV turns out to be a game that brings back the RTS hype but I’m skeptical about it.
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More people, yes. New, no. Kimberly LeCrone (Vaeflare) was previously a D3 community manager alongside Nevalistis and for a brief time, Kauza. She does some really amazing sculpted art pieces, so having her talent on any art team is a major boost.
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I was also thinking about AoEIV, and perhaps it’ll be too late starting to move after its release.
I mean, given the long development times of AAA games, the time to jump aboard a certain genre is way before it becomes a massive success. As Blizzard has been a little late to too many parties (MOBAs, shooters), an eventual successful release of AoEIV next year would catch them with an 11 year old contender. I believe that ATVI shareholders are especially sensitive to protect every inch of terrain where they have the upper hand after DoTA’s humiliation, so AoEIV hypotetically becoming a success while they either compete, as I’ve said, using a game that’s more than a decade old or having to start from scratch needing years to rush a contender that would be again late to the party would be another nail in the coffin. Heads would roll.
ARPGs were also dead and look how now they’re like a plague. A main series release of a genre’s staple like Age of Empires will shake the genre for sure.
Also Blizzard has stated the intention of moving towards the philosophy of releasing a ton of games, so perhaps it’s easy to pull the trigger now and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have games covering all genres under development.
I mean, nothing I’ve said grant that’s the case, but I also wouldn’t discard it. If I were J.A. Brack, I’d be having nightmares right now if a competitor stole my crown while I’m being caught completely off-guard.
Yep, I thought everyone was aware, as this was PezRadar regarding her return:
Now those D3 haters can’t make fun of D3 team for having 1 Intern handling D3 content. 
Trust me. I was as surprised as you do when they announced new sets for D3 at that time.
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SC2 remains the de facto “AAA game + game maker suite” with no obvious substitute or heir apparent, at least in my eyes. The SC2 API is quite advanced for how accessible it is, not only for fancy stuff like custom UI and file I/O, but tools & features related purely to optimization such as bitwise operators and inline functions. On top of the native library, the powerful Trigger Editor lets you create just about any beginner-to-intermediate algorithms you can shake a math-stick at, such as linked lists/binary trees (so that you don’t have to iterate every little thing). You can essentially set up “trigger arrays” to work like functors (so that you don’t need costly conditional “if” blocks). And much more. Of course there are limitations compared to traditional coding, particularly with handles/pointers, and lots of unnecessary overhead in places, such as having to scan for a substring to replicate a proper character map (AFAIK), but for what it is it is robust. And who knows what a non-layman is capable of.
My one mistake was not championing the call for “lobbies” during SC2’s formulative years (2010-2012), opting instead to advise creators to “make the best of a bad situation” by giving their games proper single-player support, whatever form that might take (typically AI players), so that the games don’t need a huge active community to be playable. And while I stand by the idea that a game’s design should not take a player-base for granted (including MMOs) (after all, somebody had to raise every single one of these players, feeding and clothing them for years!), and the importance of honoring & respecting their precious time with a playable, well-rounded product, and making it immune to “player drought”…it was dumb to assume that no drastic changes would ever come to “Battle.net 2.0”. Damn. Of course when lobbies finally came, it was “too little too late” as much top talent had long-abandoned the platform by then. And the kicker: at the end of the day, we are once-again sifting-through multiple instances of the same game (Deserted Strike anyone?), with no way to neatly condense them, the one issue that the new system was actively addressing, which I find a touch ironic. But I digress.
I am curious as to whether a proper successor to this “game studio” concept is viable. Maybe a Nexus-themed “game maker” game with an all-new Lost Vikings as its central “sample” title (open source)? It just might establish an “appropriate” space for every wacky, unconventional game concept that would otherwise never get the green-light, complete with official Blizzard game controllers for good measure (as that ever-important “business model” in additional to retail sales). Remember when Blizzard tried divorcing the Battle.net brand (and what a weak brand, amirite??), maybe try doing the exact opposite this time, create some new moniker, and as long as it’s less dumb than “Amiibo” it will probably be OK? The Nexus Forge or something. That is if you think the old hats were onto something with the “SC2 Marketplace”. But again, don’t take community participation for granted, have an official game at the forefront, so it can succeed regardless if nothing ever comes from the end users.
Maybe the idea is too obtuse for a big-shot like Blizzard? Too risky/“all-in”? Maybe coding conventions are too much in-flux and it’s best to wait 'til that situation settles, if it ever does? Or maybe it simply smacks of “reinventing of the wheel” and that’s what Unity is for? In theory you’re just building a standard graphics API (per platform) and a means of converting mesh files into binary…then there’s animation which is all-but universally-proprietary last I checked…hrm. Blizzard probably has all of this infrastructure in place anyway, just waiting for a proper application of it. I just really like the direction that the RTS genre took, not unlike how DOOM/Quake made a point to expose itself and be mod-friendly. And what better time to make something so perennial than at the conclusion of Moore’s Law. I hope I’m being clear.
I’m wondering why no one has tried to rip-off Savage: The Battle for Newerth…presumably because it was selling for $20 less than a year after release…but the game wasn’t half-bad.
They can follow up with new content if they’re hiring people in a very old team. Just let’s hope their scope is not limited to new weapon with 50000% multiplier or a new season theme that make everyone’s eyes regret the moment they decide to play the game.
Team doesn’t seem to have any passion left for this game besides number tweaks. Knowing Vaeflare is a talented artist, I worry that if they ever let her do her own thing or just give her tasks like “add shine to this boring looking axe” while they amp up numbers up to 20000% and then 30000% for the next and oncoming seasons.
i thought d3 WAS in maintenance mode…errrr was tha HoTS
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