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Blizzard. Before and After WoW.
Toquio3
Member Posts: 1,074
What did you think of Blizzard before WoW and what do you think of Blizzard after WoW?
I always thought Blizzard was one of those rare companies that couldn't make a bad game. Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft. It seemed that every game they released was fun and lasting. Hell, I'm still playing Diablo2 even now. This seemed to be the general consensus. Now, there are people that love Blizzard and people that hate it, most likely because of WoW.
So what about you? What are your feelings towards Blizzard? As for me, they still are that company that delivers the most solid, fun and lasting games out there. And when it comes to WoW, dumbed down or not, the only question you have to answer is 'Did you have fun playing it?'. I know I did. And that's all that should matter when it comes to a game.
Edit: typo.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
Comments
I think Blizzard as a games designer is fatastic. Certain aquisitions/mergers have had their toll on employees and there seem to be some worrying trends slipping in, but I dont think that will change anything in terms of playability. Lets just hope things dont get too draconian, nor that new owners dont drive off anymore of the old guys.
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
A+ company.
They gave MMO's so much exposure. They put MMO games 5+ years ahead of their time.
They are absolute mother-lovin' tiger-humpin' badger-bonkin' genii.
I know that WoW isn't everyone's cup of virtual escapism and that a lot of people wouldn't go near it with a 21ft totem pole; but I don't think anyone can deny that they are by far the most successful company in a genre which is by now well known for its epic failures. That WoW is a 5 year old game and still growing is evidence enough on that score.
Sure, they pretty much do it by cheating; slyly thieving innovative game mechanics from less successful contenders and incorporating them into its own product but, speaking as a consumer, I couldn't give a monkeys chuff which game a feature originally comes from providing Blizzard tack it onto WoW with an appropriate level of polish.
I really don't care that the innovations don't come from Blizzard themselves; that's not what they're great at .. their strength is in taking an existing idea, adapting it for the mass market and making it work better than anyone else.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Well Blizzard doesnt exist anymore.. or well it does but it has merged with Activision I believe. As for Blizzard as a company well even with WoW you gotta have respect for what theyve produced, from fantasy diablo to sci fi Starcraft and of course the jewl Warcraft itself.
With that said Blizzard have lost of its orginal crew from the glorious days of warcraft 2 and diablo. The quality is still there but they have clearly changed the direction of what their games astrive towards. From long strategies and build ups to a more action paced experience. The transformation from D1 to D2 clearly shows this as WC2 to WC3.
Back to topic, WoW was in the beggining intended to be like Warcraft 3 lore-wise, dark, mystic and headed down some form of storyline. This was however scrapped, a storyline seemed unfitting and like the transformation between D1 and D2 they wanted to lower the age req to get more players.
Blizzard is heading from a niche company producing outstanding games towards a more mainstream and less unique way. Quantity wins over quality in their eyes and to me, first having the huge letdown warcraft 3 was, without blood, gore, with disney like half animals, half man kinda creatures... then having a MMO based on something out of a disney movie published, its embaracing to say the least.
You may love or hate WoW but you cant deny its ugly and in a great many of ways childish. I know a lot of mature people play WoW but they dont do it for the lore or for the graphics that is for sure.
Coming from Blizzard WoW was the final straw, it has great game mechanics but its just not meant for adults, its meant for everybody which in turn means they have to make it kiddy proof, we wouldnt want to have any 11 years olds having any nightmares would we!? But then again why would you want to play with an 11 year old?
That's exactly what I think. How do you transition from being very generous to WoW players to launching a new MMO where players will have to start from scratch?
Whether its the best idea or not, Blizzard puts the challenge in their games lately squarely in multiplayer. The old everquest players that think WoW is too easy would get their clock cleaned in the arena. Try managing a raid against an opposing team controlled by players and tell me WoW is easy. All these "unskilled" WoW players are actually a real bitch to take down in PVP.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
mm diablo and wow really made this company shine ,what i m surprised about is soe,eq and eq2 are wow competition how come soe never thot of revamping eq and eq2 on the same scale cataclysm will be in a year or 2 .
lot of post have been posted over the years about how great eq is,problem its aging.and the model they used to do the game in the past might not easy to upgrade like wow seems to do and will prob do again in cataclysm
Huh? They just took a 5 year old game and polished it up a little (EQ). They did not evolved MMOs. They did get a lot of players which is impressive in itself but it was EQ that evolved the genre, Wow just continued down the same lane.
I think less of Blizzard now then 6 years ago, mostly because they have lost most of their best people, like Jeff Strain.
Wow isn't a bad game but it is not something that works for me. But lately Blizzard seems to just make updated versions of their own games like Diablo 2 & 3 and Starcraft 2. Maybe they have lost too much good people to make a new interesting game now.
Maybe they are *shudders* turning into EA. EA also made great games a long time ago.
Hopefully I am wrong and Blizzard actually makes a great new game that feels like it did when I started playing Diablo, something I havn't seen before that was fun and original. But I wont bet any money on it.
Are you on crack? The first two Warcraft games look like saturday morning cartoons...
My youtube MMO gaming channel
I didnt think anything of Blizzard before WoW because I wasnt into those games.
I got into PCs kinda late, dont think I actually built my first pc until I was 27 or so. So Starcraft kinda before my time and WARCRAFT was just another RTS to me that I never played.
After WoW, they are still a good company. Really all my angst towards WoW is just being bored of it. MMOs imo are meant to die. When the hell is WoW gonna die?
I think a large majority of hate for me is the people that play WoW.
I cant blame blzzard for there fans.
This Attitude that WoW is perfect, that WoW is the best, that WoW had original ideas and is good all on its own, that there are no other mmo's before or after WoW, that ARENA is actually pvp...really I could go on and on.
The other thing WoW did for me was set false expectations for what a successful MMO is.
Couple that with the ignorant WoW fanois and they act like they know something about this genre and they make claims of this game being FAIL or that game being a WoW ripoff.
But again, I cant really blame Blizzard for that.
EQ2 have added both multi-core processor support and upgraded it's graphics a lot. Wow have just added more effects and shadows. EQ2 has evolved a lot more as a game then Wow have, flying mounts or not.
The original EQ is worse, a total revamp of the game costs as much as making a EQ3.
As for Wow, the basics of the graphics engine was made by Jeff Strain, he does not work for Blizzard anymore so good luck with changing the basics of the game. Adding effects are not that hard however and will most likely be added more but do a EQ2 free trial again and see how much the game have changed.
EQ2
If anything killed EQ it was when they refused to adapt and evolve with WoW until it was too late. Cataclysm shows Blizzard understands that you have to keep investing in the low level game to keep bringing in new players. SOE totally ignored the low level game and when the newbie zones are empty, the high level zones follow.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
For me Warcraft 3 made Blizzard.
EQ2 have added both multi-core processor support and upgraded it's graphics a lot. Wow have just added more effects and shadows. EQ2 has evolved a lot more as a game then Wow have, flying mounts or not.
The original EQ is worse, a total revamp of the game costs as much as making a EQ3.
As for Wow, the basics of the graphics engine was made by Jeff Strain, he does not work for Blizzard anymore so good luck with changing the basics of the game.
EQ2
Well they just did it. It was announced yesterday.
EQ2's graphics try to look realistic and instead wind up looking animatronic CGI.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
Are you on crack? The first two Warcraft games look like saturday morning cartoons...
Yeah Quantity because Blizzard just keeps rushing out all their titles every year like Madden don't they.......
Blizzard havn't made a game since 2004 that wasn't and expansion and even then theres only been 2 in five years. Unlike SOe which likes to release 2 or 3 half arsed attempts which end up ruining the game. Starcraft 2 has been delayed yet again and Diablo 3 doesn't even have a target year yet but it'll probably be 2011.
Blizzard take the term it'll be ready when it's done to the extreme and they have yet to make a bad game.
Morons on this board.
I think Blizzard is a good company but could be so much better. I mean Blizzard has not made a game in 5 years since World Of Warcraft and all they have comming are sequels of 2 of there previous games. I would love to see something new and fresh. Starcraft II looks good but its still just another rts.Diablo 3 just does not intrest me. That top down view, hack & slash gameplay is just not what I am looking for now. I know the game will do well but I think should be more like Guild Wars. Set in a 3D enviroment like Guild Wars but with the Diablo type gameplay. I think Blizzard is like an undefeated fighter. They are perfect right now and want to stay that way so the are kind of afraid to take chances because they dont want a fail on there perfect record. If there is any company out there that can bring change its Blizzard.
EQ2 have added both multi-core processor support and upgraded it's graphics a lot. Wow have just added more effects and shadows. EQ2 has evolved a lot more as a game then Wow have, flying mounts or not.
The original EQ is worse, a total revamp of the game costs as much as making a EQ3.
As for Wow, the basics of the graphics engine was made by Jeff Strain, he does not work for Blizzard anymore so good luck with changing the basics of the game. Adding effects are not that hard however and will most likely be added more but do a EQ2 free trial again and see how much the game have changed.
EQ2
if what you say is true then stream dont do this game justice, i was checking eq2 out on stream and graphic were bad it might have been the stream it self ill get their free trial and try it out see what it really looks like,ty for info by the way
EQ2 have added both multi-core processor support and upgraded it's graphics a lot. Wow have just added more effects and shadows. EQ2 has evolved a lot more as a game then Wow have, flying mounts or not.
The original EQ is worse, a total revamp of the game costs as much as making a EQ3.
As for Wow, the basics of the graphics engine was made by Jeff Strain, he does not work for Blizzard anymore so good luck with changing the basics of the game. Adding effects are not that hard however and will most likely be added more but do a EQ2 free trial again and see how much the game have changed.
EQ2
Problem with EQ2 is it's bland as hell, one of the most boring fantasy IPs I've been in. Also the character models like the Humans look like plastic and the human females are so ugly like they're on crack. Every I speak to looks at the graphics and is instantly put off, they all went to WoW instead back when both games launched. They look at EQ2 now and think it looks dated where as they look at WoW and think it looks fresh and upto date casue they've done an amaizng job with the art.
Another thing I hate about EQ2 is the crap PVP and all the loading screens. I just hate clicking on a bell to warp somewhere, breaks the immersion for me. Not to mention that most of the servers are dead so good luck getting a low level group.
I'd love Blizzard to make a full epic RPG like a Kotor but set in the Warcraft Universe or something.
I was a big fan before, one of the things I loved about them was the frequency in which they made games. That is all gone with WoW. How long is it taking to make D3? 5 – 8 years? This is just ridiculous. We know they have money, why they can't hire more people and get things done faster is beyond me.
So to answer the question – huge fan before – they were my favorite PC game developers. Just a so so fan now. They are not even in my top 5 favorite developers now. BioWare is my new number 1.
Post-WoW and I think they're far more money-orientated. But otherwise they're still the same Blizzard emphasizing it's fun abilities, and distinct and recognizable art-style.
I liked the Warcraft franchise (Starcraft and Diablo didnt interest me much), but they already destroyed it with Warcraft3. So, its not my first choice developer.
Blizzard's Warcraft series was a concept ripped off, like so many RTS's. However, they were GOOD rip-offs that had some great fun times associated with them. The RTS market was still relatively weak back then. Warcraft 1 and 2 were pretty good, and Warcraft 3 added alot of story-based aspect to a game that wasn't really developing that much.
Diablo was dire. It showed a distinct direction for Blizzard that started it's definite spiral into what I tend to sneer at in games. Complete baseline repetitive tedium. Another drawn icon and slightly different numbers on a database object and you had another 'awesome item of l00t'. Rather than there being some basic items and some awesome rarer items, or especially crafted items generated by games of skill (so the good players who practiced could become better) they started slapping in random drops of 10 tons of cr*p. Thus the obsession with l00t grew.
World of Warcraft came along and was yet another ripoff, and it took the most basest, common denominators and stuck them into a game so basic that even Everquest players sneered at it. The pace was slow enough for the most simple of players to join in, and the quests so tedious that it numbed many, many players' minds down until they were content to sit there day after day with multiple accounts raiding constantly.
WoW's biggest success was in the player-base, since if you stuck with it enough you would eventually find some decent people and all end up having fun together. My brother was like that, he found a great guild and they all stuck together and enjoyed themselves immensely. Inevitably though, the guild broke down as people became bored, and he ended up leaving, as he realised the only reason he'd been playing for the last 9 months was for those few people, and that the game really WAS tedious.
Blizzard's ultimate success stemmed from the same thing that made Microsoft so huge - marketing. Blizzard swamped the world with adverts, TV shows, stories and sometimes outright lies and misrepresentations about how fantastic the game was. Soon enough it became the case, like Windows, that you should play it because it is THE game everyone plays and there aren't any others worth mentioning. People chose it because other people chose it.
I can respect Blizzard the same way I respect Microsoft. They pushed themselves out there onto everyone and made a shedload of money from it. Their earlier games had some promise, but rather than develop they chose to sit in the dark with the lights off.
So you are upset because blizzard and microsoft make money by only doing the minimum? Sorry to tell you this but the entire business world is about this, do only what you have to do to get money you are looking for.
I have great respect for Blizzard, and more or less always have. They've taken a lot of old-fashioned, tried-and-true mechanics and wrapped them up in stories, artwork and conscientious design so tight that they feel new, or at the very least fresh, for just about everyone who plays them.
Personally, however, I have problems with them these days. World of Warcraft was great at launch; it did what everything before it has and it did it with style and grace, iterating the genre and stripping away a lot of the annoying parts of it while polishing up everything else to a mirror-high shine. As far as I can tell, it largely failed to innovate; it just made things more comfortable for players, giving them a place they could go just about any time, in any mood, and have something to do.
That's fine. It's worked great for them and I'm pleased by their success in itself. The issue with this is that Blizzard, either via their own company, their partners or their publishers, has largely forgotten about the players who were with them from the start; all of us geeky guys who were largely ostracized in school when we were kids thanks to our shrugging-off of social norms and staying inside deep into the night, summer or school year, playing video games, are kind of the folks who made their whole deal. We're the guys who brought StarCraft into Programming class and batch-installed it on every machine in the place, having big eight-man battle royales when we had all our work finished. A lot of guys, when I was starting out in gaming, had no idea that it really existed. One of the major reasons for its success was its playability, and the capacity for a guy and their friends to just get together and play around.
Now, it seems, none of their games are going to be particularly interested in guys like me. No longer will I be able to bring a Blizzard game into a roomful of guys and, in minutes, be playing it with everyone, extolling its virtues and telling all my friends that they ought to buy it. Now, that's not to say Blizzard will lose anything on this deal; they make so much money now and have so much exposure that that kind of free advertising really isn't necessary for them anymore. They can afford proper advertising, but now that the grassroots efforts to spread their game are no longer necessary, the folks who spent the time and energy to show their work off are largely forgotten, amongst many of the conventions Blizzard has kept alive from Diablo to Warcraft 3.
A lot of people tell me I'm too sensitive or the stuff isn't necessary anymore, but frankly, I like to LAN. I love having my buddies over and setting up purely for the purpose of showing them all a new game I like to play; I used to own an Internet cafe, so I've got a load of computers just sitting around in my house waiting for folks to swing by and occupy a place on my 24-slot switch. Being able to hop in and play a few games of Diablo 3, internet or not, would be cool, but it doesn't seem like that's going to be an available option.
This is all, in essence, -combined- with the fact that World of Warcraft's massive, unprecidented success -also- means that most publishers won't pick up a game that does something different. Even years later, WoW is incredibly popular and populous, and getting more so every day. Other big, neat things can come out, but they'll never get the attention WoW did because, as a rule, its fans are so rabid and so singleminded in their pursuit of Azerothian riches.
So, in closing, I liked Blizzard. I remain respectful of their company and their amazing achievements, and it was enjoyable being part of their growing-up and helping them become a big name in gaming. I just wish that they remembered us old guys who spent so much time losing sleep over one last round of Starcraft, and I wish that their game hadn't caused such a splash that no game with different mechanics is considered seriously by publishers or, really, by developers. I think the RPG genre, and the MMORPG genre in particular, could use some real changes. That said, I don't believe that they'll be getting them anytime soon, thanks to the massive success of a game which does nothing more than take an old formula, strip away the dross, and make it so incredibly comfortable to just stay online all day and night. Stylishly, perhaps, but that comfortable, familiar feeling gets ridiculously dull for folks like me who're starving for innovation and punch.
I'm not upset in the slightest. Don't put words in my 'mouth'; and your patronising MMO-forum tone is not welcome either. Believe it or not, some of us hope for a brighter world where people do the best they can rather than sell-off the shoddiest product at the cheapest price. That is how some companies have become successful - so your know-it-all assertion that the 'entire business world' is your way of thinking is distinctly wrong. The bad ones just made it through sheer marketing and the willingness of people to be led.
I just find it regretful that so many people out there in the world buy cr*p when it's pushed out there simply because they're so desperately bored with their lives that they'll buy at least one option from a selection of all-bad options.