This is what they wanted for WoD, yearly xpacs I want to say. It seems they may have found a way to make faster xpacs work.
This is a leap year.
Would’ve been great if it lasted half as long.
Just want to note that I went and looked up the email that gave me wrath beta access, just now, and it was before that.
There is. People just love to hate on America lol they love being oblivious to their own or any other countries problems lol
yea that’s the whole marketing of the world soul saga, pay more and get less, that’s why they hired metzen to sell this at blizzcon (and it worked)
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shrinkflation in the digital realm?
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I mean, do we have confirmation Microsoft had a hand in this? Microsoft very rarely does anything to harm a game’s quality, directly or otherwise. They just get rid of developers that have previously made good games.
It kind of sounds like a Blizzard call based on budget changes.
Not that a budget change squeeze isn’t some influence by Microsoft, I acknowledge this, but… this really boils down to what I said about redundancy. It’s ultimately up to Blizzard how to allocate their funds, so far as I know.
All the Articles from the time I found say yes, Microsoft ousted Ybarra and enacted a mass layoff, cutting hundreds of people at Blizzard. All the articles say ‘Microsoft lays off’ or ‘microsoft fires’ and none if t was from their own company.
The front of the box will be taller but the width will be thinner.
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Right? People griping that “omg the next 3 expansions are gonna be short” forgetting that until now we’ve always been griping about a long content drought waiting for the next expansion.
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I hate that the Verge is the first option. If I had a penny for every time they misrepresented or lied about something I’d be rich.
The FTC lawyer also cited in the letter Microsoft’s intention “to maintain the pre-merger status quo” with its “vertical acquisition of Activision,” specifically contrasted with a horizontal merger, where companies often “eliminate redundancies.” Abyad’s point is that Microsoft’s stated plan to work as a vertically merged “limited-integration studio” implies it wouldn’t need to eliminate redundancies and lay off workers — at least in the FTC’s reading.
Given that Microsoft’s being hounded by the FTC over it, I take it you’re right, though.
Still, I’d argue (and proceedings will likely go this way as well) that a sub 10% layoff doesn’t make a horizontal merger out of a vertical one. You can eliminate redundancies in either case. Point being that Blizzard is still going to retain autonomy. I see no reason for Microsoft to want to do otherwise.
I mean, almost especially if they’re laying people off as a part of redundancy cutback, they aren’t going to want to spend money (time, in this case) collaborating on any detailed level with Blizzard over expansion cycles. I wouldn’t expect them to go any deeper than “hey do we have a release planned for this holiday quarter”
I think it’s something they’re putting in the water. Something like that.
And that’s why I don’t buy AAA on release anymore.
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The bloomberg article said they promised that, but then they actually aren’t which is why Ybarra and some others were let go or left. A bunch of the people that said good things about the merger are gone. I believe the changes are affecting them a lot, even if Microsoft doesn’t have a direct hand in making the expansions putting pressure on the devs or their own timelines/budget will affect things a lot, and not for the better it seems.
It’s all about timing and launching wow 2.
I mean, sure, but not any more than Obsidian was under pressure on the brink of bankruptcy, or even still Blizzard under pressure heading into Legion.
I don’t see the doom and gloom OP is from this, I guess.
Do you happen to have a date? Quick google search gave me that one. I will edit if date is wrong
The email doesn’t say when the beta began, it’s just inviting me to it, which was already in progress. I have no idea when the Wrath beta began, other than that it was before the date mentioned.
Blizzard also took a huge amount of feedback in regarding Death Knight design, to the point that they made an in-game book listing the testers who helped design the class. (It’s probably still there, in Acherus.) But I don’t remember if that was alpha or beta.