Overwatch's slow development and why that's a good thing

General Discussion
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I was watching a video a little earlier that talked about how Overwatch came to be. It was mostly pre-alpha footage that I’ve seen before, but it reminded me how Blizzard operates their games.

I think Blizzard is focused on quality over quantity. You can debate this with me in the comments, but let me explain why I think this.

World of Warcraft only gets an expansion every two years, the world evolves a little as those expansions are released, but primarily the meat of the content is in that initial release of the expansion. The quality of the story, gameplay mechanics, and UI may not be what everyone considers the best, but for a game that’s been around since 2004 I think it’s doing fantastic. And some things like making the game more accessible is just an unfortunate reality of how things need to be to help keep the game going. But that’s a big deal, instead of releasing a new WoW every two years, they release expansions that greatly extend the lore of the world. (I understand that this how most/all MMOs operate, but I’m not done.)

Starcraft 2 was initially released in 2010. It was nearly 3 years later before it’s first expansion was released. A timeframe where a lot of companies would be working on their next game, not an expansion. After that it was over 2 years before the next expansion was released, more than 5 years after the game hit shelves.

Diablo 3 released in 2012, nearly two years later it received its first expansion in 2014, then its last expansion in 2017, just over 5 years since the game’s release.

What I’m getting at is Blizzard takes their time, they’re not worried about the quantity of the content and they don’t follow the scheduling trends of most of the industry. They instead focus on their games and take what they’ve made and craft it into something greater than it was originally.

The way we’ve received content for this game is very in-character for Blizzard. They’re maintaining their game and releasing new things regularly, just like they always do. But greater things will come, we just have to be patient.

The game is losing players, but what game doesn’t? They’re not worried about that, they’re focused on the ideology they’ve always had: to make quality games.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/
By focusing on creating well-designed, highly enjoyable entertainment experiences, Blizzard Entertainment has maintained an unparalleled reputation for quality since its inception.

Whatever happens, this franchise is not going away anytime soon, we can look back on Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo as proof of that.

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People are going to jump all over you over whether overwatch is quality…I think it is and I have no problems with amount of content and how often we get it…

But that’s where people are going to pounce (Even though it’s completely subjective)

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Yep, I’m aware of that. I’m expecting a lot of comments about how buggy it is or how some features still haven’t been implemented.

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I read the title, and ive never been more sure that this is gonna be a war

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WoD and BfA (at least the launch) would like to have a word with you. Both were rushed to meet schedule expectations.

… And yeah, I’d argue that the quality of the content they’re delivering in OW for roughly the last year isn’t high enough to warrant the low quantity (with the sole exception being the archives event). I won’t go into detail here why I think that, because I don’t have the time for it right now.

So I’m just going to leave it at this: I’m usually a pretty easily satisified customer when it comes to video games, yet Overwatch fails to satisfy me currently.

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Yes, quality over quantity has always been what makes Blizzard stand out.

I for one have no problem at all with the “slow” release of new content. I didn’t buy Overwatch for a character who doesn’t exist yet, and I’ll be perfectly fine if that hypothetical character never exists.

I do wish they’d commit to a quicker update cycle for balance and bug fixes. Every game team I’ve worked on occasionally dedicates a week or two solely to cleaning up the current state of the game (halting progress on new features).

For Overwatch’s scale, it should probably be months instead of weeks, but the same concept applies. I understand the aversion to it, though, when half of their forum community is begging them to pile new stuff on like it’s a free-to-play game.

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My god, i played WoD and i never felt more BORED, theres was nothing, the “Legendary” ring was a joke, only 3 raids, a lot of wasted potential on the Warlords such has Kargath

The insufferable Garrisons…

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For me the game doesn’t keep me playing nearly as often as I used to. But that’s probably down to it being 3 years old now, I still greatly enjoy it when I play it with friends and still get into it at least one night out of the week. I would say that for the $60 I spent on it I got far more value out of it than I have with most other games.

If I apply that mindset to now, no I’m not getting much value out of the game. But I think that’s due to me not being as addicted as I was back when it was new. I still find each match I play to be different than the last and the game is just as engaging as it used to be, it’s just not “new” anymore if that makes sense.

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And don’t forget the ‘Draenor is free’ meme for its terrible storytelling near the end.

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The thing is the quality portion isn’t going everywhere.

The sounds great but, the gameplay and balance is significantly lacking.

This isn’t a case where they take two months to fix something but once they do it works. If it was most people wouldn’t have a problem. It’s a case where they miss over and over and over while also moving a snail like pace and making sweeping changes.

I come from TF2 the updates in Overwatch are far faster than TF2’s.

Additionally, people from several of games such as WOW might feel that they are no longer doing the quality as they rushed the last expansion.

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Oh the good old days

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i cannot see the current balance is in the same page as ‘Quality’.

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I would be fine with more quality and slower game content such as events had there been more frequent and better balance changes.

Look, I get it, making game content isnt easy and it never is. However, months ago before Junkenstein, they said they wont be focusing on game contents in exchange for better balancing, and theres the problem. The ‘better’ balancing they delivered isnt even good and its still slow af.

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They just said that to keep people from criticizing them for an extended period of time. It is pretty apparent that nothing changed, however.

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WoW is at worst state possible. Everyone hates it.

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They just fired 800 people, so they could bring in 150 more developers to start pumping out way more games.

Old Blizzard is dead m8

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I’d say it’s here in overwatch regarding the lore. They advertised lore and characters with stories. Blizzard is usually very good at lore in each and Every one of their games. I mean, even Hearthstone and HotS now has lore!!

But the lore from Overwatch isn’t only lacking, it’s not that good on quality. At first yes. But just even looking at the Bastet short story and comparing it to hundreds of short stories, even those on the WoW universe where it’s just a fun story telling side lore. The quality is not there.
The comics that were quality just stopped for as far as we know, no good reason. Jeff says there was, but who’s to say it is unless we know more?

I came to Overwatch with expectations that they advertised and so far are failing to show. There’s no excuse especially if they’re not willing to mention it

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The Blizzard you speak of is dead.

Seems you missed the memo. And by that, I mean the actual damn memo that Actvision Blizzard released to their investors how Blizzard will now be pumping out games faster then ever before.

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Quality is like this dude:

One Hero January
One Map February
One new mode March on arcade/quick-play first
April “Big” one-quarter of year balance changes
One hero on May
One map on June
One new mode on July
August second “BIG” balance chance of the year
One hero on September
One map on October
One new mode on November
Final BIG balance PATCH of the year December

This is working hard on WORTH content keeping your game HEALTHY and with news every month.

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Blizzard’s “quality over quantity” is no longer true. Alot of their recent content has been low quality yet the quantity has remained also low.

We got literally 3 heroes last year. One of them broke the game, another one is barely played and very nische and the third is generic DPS that didn’t change anything. We also got only 1 map.

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