Why are blizzard games so bad now?

Multiplayer Discussion
21

You must not have played many good games then. Or you quit WoW after hitting level 40.

1 Like
22

Mobile+China = OMG truck loads of money regardless of how good or bad a game is.

That is the answer. Oh yeah EA isn’t helping things either.

23

I don’t have any answers. I thoroughly enjoy Hearthstone: I just despise all the negativity that is in every. single. hearthstone community.

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24

Aw, that brings back memories. Was a Druid back then - stepping into Hellfire Penninsula for the first time, going through Nagrand, holing up in Shattrath City. Not to mention Battlegrounds - going stealth healer, wearing mostly healing cloth from quests, using newfangled Lifebloom and Cyclone.

Druid got nerfed sometime in Cata where they couldn’t shift out of roots anymore, and then in Mists they axed the talent system and split Bear from Cat, so you couldn’t swap roles mid-fight - caused Druid to lose its feel. And it’s not like playing Vanilla solves anything, Druids were god-awful in Vanilla, imitators of other classes - wasn’t until BC they started showing their own strengths. Oh, and old world potions were nerfed to have no effect past a certain level, and in-city queueing for arena, raids, and battlegrounds made it almost too simple to just stay in a city without exploring the world except for grinding skills. That era’s gone.

I liked BC and LK very much, but they’re not going to bring it back, nor would I play it if they did - I’d expect more today than what simply existed back then. All games age - Ocarina of Time, possibly the top game of the era and one of the very first to use Z-targeting/lock-on, feels dated now with its cube-like looks, low framerate, and environments which feel cramped by today’s standards. But the Zelda series evolved, brought new titles with new mechanics, and eventually birthed Breath of the Wild - WoW in comparison, feels like it’s been idle, taking away as much as it tries to introduce. I miss the idea of it, like I’d play MMOs again if one blew me away, but I have nothing to fill the hole. WoW just feels stiff, where I have more fun in single player or limited multiplayer games than such a big game. I can play single player games for years and run into new, interesting things, but I can’t get that from an MMO anymore.

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25

Nah. I loved playing that game for a long time. Made a ton of friends and just genuinely enjoyed playing. Maybe it was because I was never in a super serious raiding guild. Seems like those people were always the ones with the complaints

2 Likes
26

WoW and Hearthstone are different.

WoW is an expensive investment. If it works, it can last 10+ years.
Hearthstone is a small investment. Even it works, it will not last very long.

Blizzard no longer makes big investment.
It hopes to get a big return from a small mobile game.
It will never work !

27

They don’t listen to the customers much. When they do they screw it up by trying to balance monatization and time investment. Take the biggest problem with this game: the sheer imbalance of the classic set. Cards repeat in very deck, some classics have no early or late game. Some no consistent removal. Power level is all over the place, sometimes commons are on the level of legendaries. It’s a mess. It needs to be completely reworked but they instead simply make A class or B class good by giving them tools in expansion X or Y, while everyone who doesn’t have a good classic is unplayable. Priest, for example has been unplayable for like 80% of the whole of HS’ life. People stuck it out expecting the team to get it right, I mean it was obvious problems and any reasonable person would think the team saw it. But the fixes never came and people got sick of it. The recent card buff was needed but relative to how much needed to change it is a joke. Hell, the worst class in the game somehow got a nerf.

1 Like
28

Blizzard Entertainment is no longer the company it used by be in the 1990s. Neither is Valve Software. Neither is ID. Neither is Gearbox. Neither is Electronic Arts. Neither is Activision.

Remember when Activision made some of the best freaking games the old Atari 2600 had ever seen? Their brand on a cartridge meant the game was gold. These are the guys who made Pitfall, Kaboom, River Raid, and Chopper Command. The stuff made by Atari - by comparison - sucked.

Same with Electronic Arts. In the 1980s, these guys made C-64 classics like Archon, MULE, Adventure Construction Set, and Starflight. Their stuff was head and shoulders better in quality than anything made by most other companies.

In the early 90s it was a similar vibe. The games put out by Valve were always top notch. Every Blizzard title was a love letter. ID Software … Gearbox … the games from that era are the foundation modern gaming was built on.

So what happened? Today every single one of these companies is a shell of their former selves. Well - it’s pretty simple. All successful businesses follow a similar pattern…

  1. Small business begins a labor of love
  2. Labor of love results in a quality product
  3. A quality product creates market success
  4. Success results in profits
  5. The company seeks to maintain or increase those profits
  6. Increased profits attracts attention from larger industry
  7. Industry interest necessitates “Corporatization” of the small business
  8. Corporatization results in the business increasingly being run by people who treat it as a Q1-4 ‘product’ rather than a labor of love
  9. Marketing, Sales, and quarterly revenue are now more important than quality products, love, or hard work.
  10. Fans of the company back in Step 1 mourn.

That’s just how it is, folks. Blizzard, and every other gaming company become victims of their own success.

4 Likes
29

Video games got profitable enough to catch the eye of the entertainment industry — not so long ago video games surpassed the movie industry in terms of overall revenue.

The movie industry suffered from the same problem.

More money and less artists (I consider game design an art tbh) will ruin everything.

However this has affected every gaming company, to date I think blizzard is holding up pretty good to the likes of EA etc.

CD Project Red is a studio I really like, and in time, it will bend to the pressure of the industry as well.

30

Any company that seeks to replicate its successes will eventually go down this path. It’s simply part of reality. Companies need regular profits to survive. Maintaining regular profits requires a business plan, quarterly reports, projections, marketing, and a whole bunch of other functions that have absolutely nothing to do with making great video games. The VG companies are run by the people who can reliably and repeatably generate positive NON-VG functions. And those people who run the VG companies only see VG’s as “Corporate Widget 2XQB” … a tool that is a means to an end.

The good companies will try to hire creative people, programmers, artists, and other talent that will fuel their “Q2 Widget 2XQB” releases on a regular basis. However, they themselves wouldn’t know a good VG from a bad one. It’s just a product, and in the end if they have to meet an earning’s target they’ll release sub-par products because the earnings are more important than making a good game.

That’s life.

1 Like
31

A starving artist, with complacency, that no longer has the ability or inspiration to be creative :frowning:

What’s sad is the developers aren’t the ones going sour, it’s the entities around them.

32

[Insert rant about how CAPITALISM IS WHAT’S WRONG WITH MODERN DAY HUMANITY]

Assume the ‘/s’ at your own peril :yum:

33

Generally speaking, capitalism has resulted in far more good than bad. It’s not without its warts though. One of those warts is that a company that has a great idea and fiery passion will eventually become blander as profits and earnings become the driving force for the organization in place of quality work.

And let’s admit that even the corporatization of companies like Blizzard has allowed for the large majority of players to get a lot of really cool stuff for good prices. It’s not all bad. Far from it. But you do lose that “relationship” (for lack of a better word) that people felt they had with Blizzard Entertainment back when they were an indie company cranking out Warcraft 2.

34

I feel as though you might’ve missed the sarcasm denotation reference.

35

Nah - I got it - but I was still in Dad mode. :slight_smile:

36

I’ll dad your mode!!!

I get to go be in dad mode after work today, I’m pretty stoked for 7 days off.

37

i used to think that to a degree and then epic came along. the most incompetent game company ever and theres no corporate overlord to blame.

1 Like
38

Because we stopped being young. Kids 15+ years from now will be yammering on about never having as good as fortnite any more.

things change, often times people fail to even realize they do. And instead want the world to warp itself to fit a version of themselves that no longer exist.

3 Likes
39

There’s some truth to this as well. Nostalgia is a heck of a drug.

3 Likes
40

Yes, yes it is… only two games to me have stood the test of replaying them:

  • Diablo 2
  • Rise of Nations

Everything else I replay that I am like “that was awesome!” is a lot less when I replay it, heh

One of the reasons why I am very hesitant to pay $12 to return to WoW Classic despite me knowing a lot of people who are. The game was great then but now… ehh… I doubt it’d be the same. (Note: I haven’t played WoW since Cata)