To those thinking Microsoft is going to make a difference

The Nikkei dropped like 5% that day, Sony would have gone done regardless.

I hope you sat down after making that overpowered statement. :rofl:

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Worth Noting:

Currently D3 is in the “Classic Game Status” - Reminder that this means they are only obligated to do bug fixes and patch updates to keep the game stable. However, BLIZZARD have chosen to keep updating the character classes, the game and its features each season.

Microsoft in ‘Classic’ mode has regularly gone the path of going to the minimum updates in many of their games once in classic status fairly quickly. They may re-release updated versions like Age of Empires and Age of Mythology a decade or more later, but they often do not show enthusiasm past DLC’s other than updates once the game changes its standing.
If the player base is substantial, they may continue but do not be surprised if D3 suddenly goes into patch-only mode.

No other game acquired by MS had seasonal content like D3 as far as I’m aware of. So we can’t really make a call.

No argument on the content aspects. Lets hope the differences cross to their approach like the people playing it understand.

D4 will be out soon enough so updates to D3 won’t matter and shouldn’t be expected after that. I’d be willing to bet the classic games on GP/games app are games that have sequels already out or no more games in that direct IP so it wouldn’t really matter.

I mean, no one was expecting new content when BN shifted development to D2, likewise with woth D2 when they shifted development to their D3. No one was expecting new content when SC2 was announced for SC1 and so on.

I just think this is a nothing burger since D4 will be released by the time the deal closes in 2023 or we will have a release date. No rational person expects new seasonal content/themes for D3 post D4. At best I’d expect a rotation of old themes if the game is to remain up.

As for people understanding, it should be a no brainer, but I have learned people don’t pay attention to much and get shocked/outraged over info that’s been public for years even if the info is neutral, especially when it comes to Blizzard.

Age of Empires being the exception, at least AoE II DE which is probably the most updated and constantly improved RTS out there (WAY more than any of the Blizzard RTS games)

I want to agree however we don’t really know if Microsoft will take a hands-off approach in this acquisition in particular. After , the uh… current situation for Activision Blizzard is very different when compared with Bethesda and Minecraft. Maybe they will want to take a more hands-on approach on it to make sure there are no other scandals.

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Even then it will be a while before MicroSoft dinks around with anything besides shuffling management and getting the corporate daily functions sorted.

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Personally, I believe if this deal goes through, D4 will be released by Microsoft. Microsoft would have to be pretty dumb to not have clause in this sale that prevents Activision from releasing a tittle as big as D4 before taking ownership and lose out on all the profits. That’s just my take.

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It wouldn’t matter. MicroSoft is buying the profits the losses the fixtures the paperclips and all the contracts for an already determined price. There will be clauses in the offer to protect their interests. There’s no way any money can leave the Activision without Microsoft knowing about it. One thing a lot of people don’t know is if the deal fails to go through Activision gets three billion from MicroSoft.

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M$ has taken on Age 2 DE as a bit of a passion project. Most importantly, they’ve been able to release some significant content expansions which have brought in revenue to justify the continued time and effort on the game. Age 3 DE has received considerable developer time as well and for the same reason.

The difference with War 3 is that War 3 is done. It really is content complete. It’d be extraordinarily difficult for them to add new content to the game to justify putting a dev team together to go back and clean up the mess Blizzard made of the game when they launched Refunded, then eventually abandoned the thing and never made good on it for customers. What an incredible waste of effort and potential. For M$ however, they have no incentive to fix it. This isn’t their problem.

There may be some nuance here. They’ll have people watching the corporate side for compliance and HR issues. And of course, the progression of woke DEI will continue to appease the ESG investors. But will they try and interfere with the creative teams that are presumably going to be making them money? They spent something like $95/share when it was trading well under that, which means they think future profits are coming. I don’t think they want to get in the way of the creative side too much.

At most, they’ll impose themselves as distant bosses: wanting regular progress updates, proof of progress on projects, accountability for team members, and setting deadlines. They’ll keep the teams focused to try and prevent loss of projects for failure to progress like Starcraft:Ghost or failure to deliver quality like Warcraft 3: Refunded. But they’ll leave the day to day management and the key decisions to the dev teams with the track record of making profitable content.

I increased the damag by 7500% :rofl:

We’ll probably get a Halo Wars 2 but with diablo IP.

I do hope that no bad changes will be made to the games we play. Like being forced to have the game pass just to play any games that we already have bought. Or forcing us to buy them again since our accounts don’t cross over. Which I hope they won’t do that, but stranger things have happened that is why I am not putting it out of the realm of possibility.

The only real change that I would love for them to do is to truly put an end to the problems that women have been having with Activision/Blizzard. Where they clean house, and eve do some house cleaning of their own if they need to. Women should be treated with the same respect and dignity that men are given.

They will have to care about how much money Activision/Blizzard is giving them. If they are not producing enough. Or they have so many legal troubles that could put them in a bad light. Their hands off approach might have to change at that point.

For sure if you pay the personal $15 per month fee.

MS appreciates your $180/year.

Just give me my very own server on my very own PC. Aka. offline mode.
That would be worth a subscription.

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I read some interview with Bill Spencer. His the CEO of Microsoft Games. He said something about “old franchises” and getting them back. That’s a good sign. There is a sliver of chance for WC4 and WoW2. That would be a BOLD move in the spirit of old Blizzard and MS can pull that off.

I’ll bet they are going to take many old games and port them to xbox.

This really makes sense to me as a small part of MS buying out Acti/Blizz.

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Activision has a game catalog that goes all the way back to Oregon Trail.

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