Personal Reply reg. the SC2 in the Gaming Industry

General Discussion
1

Please note that I am not attempting to target any individual directly, and I’d probably attribute it to the lack of information about how the gaming industry and the gaming development process works (along with how it ties in with investors and stakeholders).

But I thought I’d point out certain ideologies that I feel may be harmful to gaming development from certain point of views (even if they are not intended to be that way). You are free to agree or disagree with me on this (as I do not intent to impose this POV on anyone else as well) and I am always open to critical discussion relating to this matter.

================================================================================

I would like to just spend time to dive into this because it is important to look into various perspectives. I do think it really depends on how you see it. There are many factors relating to this matter:

  • There are usually a lot of bugs when any new update / software is first released. This is why some choose to go through closed testings before launch, but even then it is impossible to test every single thing because different people will have different ideas on how to navigate them as compared to the developers.
  • This anniversary patch basically just focused on only a few areas to expand on as compared to a full fledged game release where the bugs may be sporadic across many different features / menus / etc. As a result, it is going to be more obvious in this case.
  • The SC2 developer team is probably the smallest out of all the franchises. That is because the money generated (if any) is probably insufficient to support a proper team let alone upkeep server costs while supporting certain tourneys and the official casters’ pay. This is also why the forums avatar is still not fixed. They are basically paying a 3rd party just to maintain the functionality of the forums. The same team may even be split between debugging for SC1 and SC2, which means slowly patches and updates.
  • The game is already 10 years old. It’s already surprising that there are still updates for a game this old (let’s not consider WoW to be in the same category because it has revenue from monthly access passes). It’ll be interesting to look into the gaming industry and figure out how many of those games match up to the level of replayability and balance like SC2.

So to link it back to your claim, I do 100% agree that it is “unprofessional” that there are bugs and that some achievements are not working exactly as they intended to. But the context is that resources on the SC2 team is very likely limited compared to other projects or games.

================================================================================

< Just Additional Stuff >

The landscape of the gaming industry is already crappy the way it is right now with the scandals involving EA, Naughty Dog, Sony, etc. There are matters that I am strongly against, like loot boxes, or time / money gates, etc, and I do think that people should rise up against such practices. But if we do a sweep and just consider everything to be bad, then most companies will just resign to the fact that they are going to get flak either way and take the way that earns the most money. I don’t think anyone, as an individual, has considered everything to be bad. But it may sound this way if everyone picks a different area to deem as such. On the whole it will seem as though everything is this way.

SC2 is what I’d call the last remaining game that was created by Blizzard. All other games were created or updated by Activision already. Once it goes, it will truly be the end of the games that we love especially since Michael Morhaime has left the company. It is sad but until the gaming community rise up and really boycott such practices on a larger scale (rather than just from a per individual basis), I am only afraid that it will get worse.

3 Likes
2

My money is usually best spent independent developers that still have passion for making games.

Blizzard used to be that company that put a lot of passion into produceding games but that nostalgia will only get you so far.

3

The paper is too long. But I finished reading it.
In fact, I think Blizzard only need to update some interesting things such as commanders or new campaigns, just like this 10th anniversary celebration. And I will purchase it, Purchase! Not free. Don’t charge more than $10 every updates new patch. I believe many student groups can accept the price. There is unnecessary to invite so many girls from the red light district.
If Blizzard have a good mood, make a 3A RTS game.( About 50-80 dollars retail price.) If Blizzard don’t have a good mood, forget it.
But give me some time to run my company, or I won’t have the money to purchase Blizzard games.

4

In fact, I don’t think E-sports can make tens of millions of dollars a year by running competitions.
Because customers who are willing to pay for games don’t pay attention to esports, there’s a problem with the target audience. Blizzard shouldn’t spend all day to serve people who don’t have money, otherwise Blizzard will be pathetic. Esports can only serve as advertisement.
If you don’t believe me, ask the people in esports how many of them have credit cards. Credit card customer is the lowest standards rate.

5

To put some context behind my own comment aswell, seeing it is not very long, I of course didn’t get to fully fledge out my thoughts. Also didn’t want to create a wall of text on a post, when it wasn’t exactly completely related to the topic.

I am all for not seeing things black and white, I of course understand that the SC 2 team, is one of Blizzards smallest teams. But then again, seeing as this is a 10th anniversary update (it is supposed to be something awesome right). And as I also said, I can totally understand that with unlimited ressources there are bound to be a few bugs that slip though the cracks. These things happens and I am okay with that.

What I do find very weird though, is the magnitude and amount of bugs. For example the “Contract Saviors” achievment. I have a pretty hard time imagining that this was even tested. It is absolutely impossible to get this achievment no matter how we play the map, it would only take one person to test this.

Also the warp prism one on Unlikely Allies (I forgot the name). I have a hard time believing that everyone who tested this, killed the units warping in at the back. Especially considering how fast they warp in (I personally had to lower the game speed, to even have a chance of killing them).

In conclusion I don’t hate the SC 2 team at all. SC 2 has always been my favorite game, and I love the community. But what is especially apparent in this update, is the lack of love towards SC2 from Blizzards side and it annoys me(when I say Blizzard I mean the company not the SC2 team). I firmly believe that this wasn’t the developers fault, I think Blizzard had a deadline, and with the amount of resources the team had. It was impossible to meet that deadline.

But again I don’t think it is a secret that Blizz as a company has been going downhill lately.

But I absolutely agree, that there are times where people just hate on companies almost no matter what they do. And this absolutely has to stop, for the exact point you made yourself. I don’t think we disagree, I just didn’t really articulate my original point very well.

2 Likes
7

Just wanna add to this to say that computers are really dumb. Obviously typos in coding will cause bugs, but in no way is that the only way they get introduced.

Here’s an example of a code with no typos creating a bug:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/11/14/the-most-interesting-bug-ive-fixed-in-my-programming-career-to-date/

In no way was that bug the coder’s mistake. There’s no way the SC2 devs would have been able to test on the live servers, or every change would require it to go offline for a period.

Plus every time you change something there’s a chance the computer will glitch and change a 1 to a 0 in the code somewhere. It may not be the coder’s code that contains the originating glitch.

Of course it could still be the coder’s mistake, but it’s not necessarily theirs, and as someone who’s done some scripting it really is trivial to overlook something that appears to work. There wasn’t a lot changed for Ladder, but there was quite a bit of changes in the patch overall.

8

That won’t stop. The release of Diablo 4 will be devalued by Robots and spammer. It’s normal. And then, I will purchase it from XBOX store becuase I like it. Don’t expect them to stop until Blizzard go into liquidation. Many people go on about how shameless the fund managers are every day, and they never stop, trust me, endless war.

9

Actually, regarding D4, I have no idea what is the hype around it. When I looked at it, it looked pretty similar to D3 LoL. Maybe there is something I am overlooking.

12

DONT BUY SKINS. DONT SUPPORT COMPANY WHICH OPPRESS HUMAN RIGHTS AND DON’T CARE ABOUT ITS CUSTOMERS. SIMPLE AS THAT…

20 chars

13

What you said is like theirs…
https://i.imgur.com/dWrklK9.png
But I still enjoy Blizzard games.
https://i.imgur.com/ZmlhW91.jpg
They won’t stop. Pretty Sure.

14

I never said that they would, I just said that it had to

15

Okay chill mate, no need to do caps only. Also though I might agree, that some businesses do shady practices, it is not like they’re the spawn of satan itself.

16

I feel like Blizzard and StarCraft 2 are a microcosm of the US and the out of hand corruption that is rewarded far more often than it is punished or dissuaded.

Everything about this game and community is just wrong. The only thing that would confuse one to that fact is that it seems to be the norm, in general.

How many people have been banned for hacking in this game? Aka, people that can’t compete in tournaments? Try zero exempt from playing. If people had any idea how frequent it was… they would vomit, if they weren’t involved themselves.

I can’t even read the forum without having to hear about people worshiping builds I created, which are assigned to random people, simply cause of psychopathic/corrupt reasons that are character traits of basically everyone to ever grace “blizzard tv.”

Everything about this game is a farce. A never ending farce. Units/races aren’t treated fairly/objectively. This game is the antithesis of fair. Playing this game might not make one believe in satan but it sure makes people believe in satanic worshipers. Something is wrong with this game/company and community.

What is one of the most banal things known to man? Talking. What does SC 2 worship more than anything else? People who talk while a SC 2 game is played. Commentators are the sun that everything revolves around. This game and community are just too devoid of intelligence and integrity to succeed/warrant optimism.

On a miraculous note… I started playing MLB the Show 20 and it is the exact opposite of this game. There is no cheating. There is no arbitrary worship. There’s no children’s clubs. Imagine this: you don’t even have to spend money to end up with all of the best cards in the game.

In Hearthstone, you’re not allowed to try out creative stuff, because after you realize it won’t work or you want to try more creative stuff, you inevitably have to trade cards to get more “money,” to get other stuff… but every time you make an exchange… you get pennies back on the dollar. Thus… you’re forced to spend thousands upon thousands on the game, just to have a shot of trying out all the cards you would like to.

In MLB the Show 20… in the process of making an exchange, you can actually MAKE in game currency. And the game is always coming out with content.

End of the day… this game will kill your soul unless there’s something wrong with you, to begin with. People might feel like SC 2 can do w/e they want cause there’s no RTS competitors, but… even a game like MLB the Show has manged to incorporate many facets from all games; there is strategy involved.

Given this game has no path forward, imo… hopefully you guys can also find a game that adds more to your life than it takes away from.