Blizzard is getting more and more greedy

[Redryhno]

I always find the 'dumbing down' argument to be a crock of shit 'cause... well, I've played the bloody game for 8 years. I like all the 'dumbing down' they've done, since there was far, far, far too much piss-taking in the old days. Like riding across a continent through level 50 zones to do a level 20 quest to get a basic class ability, or having multiple redundant abilities for niche situations that only ever arose once (Vanilla Balance druids, anyone?). Ammo was expensive, unnecessary and irritating busy work to keep track of at all moments, with quests for better ammo or bigger bags incredibly time-consuming and difficult for only the bare minimum of an upgrade. Removal of faction gates for shit isn't that big a deal either, since it was always done at the end of an expansion (and even then, only rarely - BC and LK factions are still a thing), when that content is no longer relevant; the most recent one was removing the reputation lock on some mounts, which was pretty beneficial since those locks included some mounts that dropped in the world and weren't just earned by rep-grinding.

Now, I'm not one to argue that Blizzard is the greatest company in the world, but hating it for changing things from how they used to be always feels like arguments from rose-tinted glasses. Blizzard games haven't exactly been the... shall we say, 'best put together' games in the world, so the general tweaking and removal of piss-taking hasn't been something I've looked down on negatively. External business practices like the trading cards have been pretty shady (though as the unique cosmetics are now rarely available via the in-game Black Market for trade with Gold, they at the very least gave people the chance to get 'em again) and they do have a nasty habit of doing things and then going to their community 'Lol Problem?'. Shit, I stopped playing Diablo 3 for most of it's early life, since it was borderline unplayable with it's hyper-reliance on the Auction House and Blizzard's handling of complaints surrounding class balance consisted mostly of a 'Fuck you got mine'.

And as unfortunate as it is to hear for any Warcraft RTS fans... well, the Warcraft RTS isn't a thing anymore and the story is being continued in WoW. Unless WoW shits the bed anytime soon (which given it still rakes in billions a year isn't happening) those RTS fans will have to look elsewhere for their RTS fix. Alas, the sad fate of genre shifts in a series.

(as a side note, it seems companies involved with Trading Card games always do weird shady shit for some reason...)

Wait, really, going back through where you started is a pain in the ass to you? I never played WoW, never cared enough to spend more than a day on it before I got so damn bored because there was nothing to do but have your hand held through it. You say you played for eight years, this guy played since launch and loved the inventory management because he loves RPGs with more than just leveling on the brain.

He loved that it was alot like other RPGs and was the greatest MMO since pre-Planes of Power EQ1. Ammo is what kept Rangers from being broken as shit with their equipment and abilities, Warriors having to repair their armor every once in a while, spellcasters having to use up components that dropped from specific creatures for spells and keep their research up to date to keep their spells from being too low level. And the dumbing down took that part of the flavor of the game away from him. You say it was a waste of time and had little impact, according to him that faction grinding and concentrating on ammo made his Hunter really damn strong in raids and PvP since he could dish out an extra 20% while others that hadn't spent all that time weren't able to do as much.

The game rewarded the piss-taking with pretty substantial gains if you bothered to do them. And I'm very much inclined to believe him, since my family were big fans of the original EQ and WoW was originally built on what EQ fans wanted to see. The guy played since launch, he's seen it all, and the only thing he has to say that's positive about the dumbing down is that the skill trees were made alot clearer for everyone.

And here's another thing about dumbing down a game that people don't like. It makes every build the same, why play a Troll with a badly designed starting zone when you can play a Dwarf who has better faction, better equipment, better merchants, and just an easier time doing literally anything in the game? Stats mean nothing in that game. And when the numbers you build your character on can just be completely made up by twink gear, what is the point of picking anything other than cosmetics? Why even have different races?

Dwarf Fortress would not be half the game it is if they dumbed it down, I can tell you that for a fact, because alot of games on steam have tried to emulate it by dumbing it down, and I don't think a single one of them has been anywhere near as successful as a free game that's been in continuous development for like ten years that is known for being incredibly punishing and obtuse in what anything does. Skyrim is continuously criticized for removing stats and dumbing it down so that most characters end up being the same because when you get 200 in one of the three stats, you have no reason to put anymore into them since you don't need anymore. Total War made it more complex with how you had to decide which provinces built what with Empire, and it's been praised for that change-up since. Hitman was turned from a semi-puzzle game with multiple choices to a semi-action, semi-stealth, semi-dressup game, semi-whatsiwhosits with Absolution, and people still complain about that when they aren't throwing fits about an underground crime universe being full of underground crime stereotypes and tropes. DA2 and Inquisition dumbed down HEAVILY from Origins and it hasn't been the same franchise since. Bioware's become a dating simulator company with RPG elements essentially, when they used to be known for more, great characters with (relatively) mediocre stories in a fun world with solid mechanics.

That "crock-o-shit" argument you're talking about is honestly very much justified in gaming, because dumbing things down leads to boring mechanics and uninspired innovation as we've seen the last few years with alot of stagnation in not just the AAA market, but alot of indies as well. Making it easier doesn't mean making it better. I love that Rome's sequels fixed the revolt mechanic, because it was a pain in the ass building up an army and having to take back your city every two turns from slaves, even when you worked them literally to death so that they shouldn't be able to in the context of the game. But I don't like that you had multiple ways of fighting in Origins(except for archery, god you were so useless with a bow unless you Leliana, and even then it was mostly because she had such bad stats to be in melee) and then Dragon Age was turned into a wannabe single-player WoW clone. Witcher 2 added storage, made it alot easier to actually keep the ingredients that you needed. Witcher 3 gave you back the ability to use potions for something other than a giant sign in big bold Comic Sans letters that you needed a Cat potion for the next part. Absolution becoming more about linear cover and guns instead of free-form puzzles didn't help long-time fans.

 

[Evilsausage]

What really strikes me as odd is that they don't get criticzed for the things they do. Atleast not by Reviewers. Look at Diablo 3 and Warlords of Draenor. Both got praised by reviewers, which is very misdleading when many fans where dissapointed.
Why doesn't anyone bring up the the things Blizzard do? I mean EA gets flak on a daily basis by reviewers.
Somehow Blizzard is immune.

Oh, damn me and my expectations. I was expecting a nice critic on how expensive the cosmetic items are in Blizzard, but given you keep listing 'dumbing down' as a criticism for 'greed'... well, I'm disappointed now.

Its just one of the things i brought up. You are free to add things i Missed.
Yes its very subjective if "dumbing down" things are good or bad. I don't think all things are automatically bad. But somethings are and changes like that are obviously made to lure a wider and younger crowd, that way making more money.
Blizzard was at a point a driving force in the RTS and ARPG genre. Diablo 2 made hugh improvements over the original, Diablo 3 however despite it came 10 years later brought very little new to the genre.
Games just end up feeling shallow and offer no "Wooow" factor the same way their older games did.

I dont play WoW anymore, but has it really been 8 years since Burning Crusade?

thanks for making me feel old ;o;

Haha im afraid so...scary shit :/

I don't think Blizzard is getting greedy at all.

Actually I think they are getting desperate.

I agree with this never played WoW but I know they are losing players at a rapid rate right now so right now blizzard is a bunch of people trying to bail out a sinking ship...

the real greed is going on in EA and Ubisoft right now

The thing is Blizzard is making hugh amounts of money. The question is where do they go? I mean they could do a far better job at keeping their players in WoW. Right now they know they don't have much competition in the genre so they are just supplying a minimal amount of content.

But when the game is 10 years old it needs more then that. So why aren't they trying harder too keep the players that supply them with money?
In the latest expansion there was only one new feature. A garrison with a mini game alot like farmeville...WTF where they thinking?
Why nothing more creative and why so little content? Currently they barely bother making new 3d models for items.

Diablo 3 can't compete with a free to play game like Path of exile in terms of content. Despite Blizzard being a much larger developer. Blizzard just don't wanna put resources on it, unless it comes together with a overpriced expansion.

Yes EA and Ubi are worse. But people are talking about them all the time.
Blizzard however gets away with it.

 

[Aeshi]

I always find the 'dumbing down' argument to be a crock of shit 'cause... well, I've played the bloody game for 8 years. I like all the 'dumbing down' they've done, since there was far, far, far too much piss-taking in the old days. Like riding across a continent through level 50 zones to do a level 20 quest to get a basic class ability, or having multiple redundant abilities for niche situations that only ever arose once (Vanilla Balance druids, anyone?). Ammo was expensive, unnecessary and irritating busy work to keep track of at all moments, with quests for better ammo or bigger bags incredibly time-consuming and difficult for only the bare minimum of an upgrade. Removal of faction gates for shit isn't that big a deal either, since it was always done at the end of an expansion (and even then, only rarely - BC and LK factions are still a thing), when that content is no longer relevant; the most recent one was removing the reputation lock on some mounts, which was pretty beneficial since those locks included some mounts that dropped in the world and weren't just earned by rep-grinding.

This. This so much. There was nothing "complex" about Class quests that consisted of spending 15 minutes dragging yourself out to the middle of nowhere with no mount to speed things up, combing the area for the thing(s) you need to right click and then dragging yourself all the way back to the questgiver. There was nothing "complex" about spending 15 minutes swinging away at a critter/low level mob/target dummy to level up your weapon skill because you'd gotten a new axe but hadn't used axes in ages.

Hell, the raids were only "complex" because you had to organize 40 people to do them, the bosses themselves were all glorified tank-and-spanks (except maybe the Twin Emperors.) Vanilla WoW wasn't more complex than modern WoW, it just stretched everything out like a prisoner on a torture rack.

Same goes for Diablo, those big complex skill trees get less impressive when you remember they're made up of stuff like "Arrow on fire, Arrow on fire (that explodes) and Arrow on fire (that leaves a trail of fire and then explodes)." or 6 different versions of "hit harder with this specific weapon type."

 

[Evilsausage]

I always find the 'dumbing down' argument to be a crock of shit 'cause... well, I've played the bloody game for 8 years. I like all the 'dumbing down' they've done, since there was far, far, far too much piss-taking in the old days. Like riding across a continent through level 50 zones to do a level 20 quest to get a basic class ability, or having multiple redundant abilities for niche situations that only ever arose once (Vanilla Balance druids, anyone?). Ammo was expensive, unnecessary and irritating busy work to keep track of at all moments, with quests for better ammo or bigger bags incredibly time-consuming and difficult for only the bare minimum of an upgrade. Removal of faction gates for shit isn't that big a deal either, since it was always done at the end of an expansion (and even then, only rarely - BC and LK factions are still a thing), when that content is no longer relevant; the most recent one was removing the reputation lock on some mounts, which was pretty beneficial since those locks included some mounts that dropped in the world and weren't just earned by rep-grinding.

This. This so much. There was nothing "complex" about Class quests that consisted of spending 15 minutes dragging yourself out to the middle of nowhere with no mount to speed things up, combing the area for the thing(s) you need to right click and then dragging yourself all the way back to the questgiver. There was nothing "complex" about spending 15 minutes swinging away at a critter/low level mob/target dummy to level up your weapon skill because you'd gotten a new axe but hadn't used axes in ages.

Hell, the raids were only "complex" because you had to organize 40 people to do them, the bosses themselves were all glorified tank-and-spanks (except maybe the Twin Emperors.) Vanilla WoW wasn't more complex than modern WoW, it just stretched everything out like a prisoner on a torture rack.

Same goes for Diablo, those big complex skill trees get less impressive when you remember they're made up of stuff like "Arrow on fire, Arrow on fire (that explodes) and Arrow on fire (that leaves a trail of fire and then explodes)." or 6 different versions of "hit harder with this specific weapon type."

Not everything they removed was bad. I totaly agree that leveling weapon skills are dull.
But talent tree is soo meh now, its so boring to level up knowing you only get something to pick every 15 levels.
Many of those talents are useless or barely noticable...Frost barrier, 25k absorb on my mage with 300k hp -.-
Vanillas talent tree was by no means perfect, but you had options and had something to look forward to each level up.
We also got less skills, no parry or dodge anymore,simplified dungeons where you don't really need CC, professions, Hunters can shoot at point blank and has no melee.

Everything is so conveniant and easy now. No real exploring,No real need to group up with people for quests.
Once your max level there really isn't much to do besides sitting in your Garrison queuing for Battlegrounds or or Instances/Raids with people who barely communicate.

Diablo 2s talent tree might not look that impressive by today. But it was a huge improvement over what the first Diablo had.
D3 came 10 years later and had a chance to improve upon it. But they didn't instead Path of Exile did it.
Thats the main problem there is no real innovation anymore because they are too focused on making things as casual as possible.

Even if you like the simplified gameplay you can't honestly say its only been done for the sake of "better gameplay" Ofc alot of it has also been done to reach out to a bigger/younger crowd.

 

[Jandau]

The truly tragic part is that Blizzard still makes good games.

Starcraft 2? The only relevant RTS on the market. Diablo 3? A very polished and well made ARPG. Hearthstone? A fun, broad-appeal CCG. Heroes of the Storm? Solid MOBA with some interesting mechanics and good map veriety. World of Warcraft? Still a good game at its core.

However, they keep trying to milk their IP waaaay too much, expecting customers to pay quite a bit above what's reasonable. Starcraft 2 is the last game they didn't fuck up in that regard. Hearthstone can be a bit expensive, but a decent amont of in-game currency as well as the Arena potentially finincing your decks makes it at least somewhat fair.

But it really went down hill with Diablo 3 - the Auction House was an atrocious idea, and now they're stuck with the server costs (which wouldn't be nearly as bad if they didn't make it always online). As soon as you start compromising game design to monetize further, people tend to react poorly.

The latest WoW expansion was really nasty - little content, costs more than any expansion before, few content updates, ever more monetization schemes...

HotS is likely going to run into a brick wall - it's trying to break into one of the most competitive and unwelcoming genres where the market is dominated by 2 major games (one of which is arguably the most popular game on the planet), and a few minors like Smite picking up any stragglers. And it's doing so with one of the least welcoming business models in the genre - with a tiny currency income and massively overpriced real money costs.

Those are all good games, and people really want to play them. But as it tends to go with big publishers/developers, they want to make ALL the money or no money at all...

 

[major_chaos]

Oh goody, haven't seen this thread since D3 launched...

Diablo 3
1. At launch 60 euro for a mediocre game,

Standard price, and the quality is totally subjective. A lot of reviewers and a lot of players would certainly disagree with you. And before you try to brush off sales as being sole because people didn't know what they were getting into, let me remind you that the expansion also sold well, and by that point everybody knew exactly what they were getting.

2.The entire game was balanced around the auction house and had a terrible impact on the game.

Disagree. I put in shitload of hours before loot 2.0 and had a friend who put in close to twice what I did and neither of us ever used the RMAH or felt any reason to. It was there for people who wanted it and optional for those who didn't, not to mention that you could use it for free by selling your own items.

3. Microtransactions is now on its way to D3. So far only cosmetics but who knows whats next. The game is starved on content yet they put the resources on shit like this. That doesn't feel right.

Again, cosmetics are there for people who want them and have zero effect on those who don't. And just because they have some artists working on cosmetics doesn't mean that no one is working on the next expansion (if it exists that is, still just a rumor).

Diablo 3 will also be launched in China and it will be free to play and all out pay to win.

AKA just about the only way for games to make money in China. Isn't CS:GO f2p in China? does that make Valve greedy?

4.Anything from dumbing down the game

[Citation needed]. D2 was not nearly the intellectual powerhouse some people want to make it out to be.

and the cartoony graphics where obviously there to lure a new young audiance.

Wait, wait, I thought kids hated color and that's why shooters are "brown and grey"? You can't have it both ways.

5. Online DRM. Any way to prevent losing money to piracy. But many don't want to play online and the game had major issues at launch when the servers didn't respond.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/08/08

World of Warcraft

1. More expensive expansion packs(WoD) but we get less content. According to Blizzard they got bigger staff then ever working on WoW. Then how come Warlords of Draenor had like half the content the 8 year old Burning Crusade had? And how come it receives less content in patches today then what it did 7-10 years ago? No wonder people are quitting faster then ever.

By what metric is WoD so small? Content patches are smaller now because there is less to fix, and people are leaving because nothing last forever and the old timers are going to lose interest eventually no matter what. They have also shaved off more of the bullshit grind with every expansion so it takes less time to see everything(not what I would call a bad thing).

2. Microtransactions. Since people are paying every month for content it shouldn't even exist. Shouldn't they spend resources on adding more content for everyone?
3. Buying gold and levling services was something Blizzard once upon a time banned people for. Now its all possible to do in the game.

Same unnecessary hate on things that don't effect you, same faulty assumption that cosmetics being made somehow prevents other content from being created at the same time.

4. Dumbed down and streamlined game. Like Diablo 3 changes made for the sake of reaching as big audiance as possible. Even if it has a negative effect on the gameplay.

Or you know, things changed to make the game better and less meaninglessly grindy. As someone else in this thread already pointed out vanila WoW had more "options" but so few were actually any kind of viable that it was meaningless.

Hearthstone
1. The small expansions. Concidering how little content you get its kinda pricy. There is usually a few must have cards that force you to pay up.

Its a free game, and its still less pricey then a physical card game.

2. Pay 10$ for a different portrait of your hero. Okay its no big deal and I know its totaly optional. But its still greedy and could be alot lower.

Or they could charge what people are willing to pay. If people buy the ten dollar portraits then I see no reason for Blizz to not sell them for that price.

Heroes of the Storm

1. Well its obvious they are jumping on the Moba free to play train because they know it yeilds more money then for example making a Warcraft 4.

That, or they just wanted to make a MOBA not WC4 for god knows how many reasons.

2. Dumbed down version of Lol,

[Citation needed] Just the teamwork required by HOTS makes up for any loss of complexity created by the loss of items

3. The price on the Heroes you can buy is more expensive then other Moba games. You also got rediculus prices for mounts. 20$ for a unicorn mount..wtf.

The cosmetic prices are not something I see any reason to object to, but I do actually agree that hero prices need to come down or ingame gold gain should go up.

Starcraft 2...

Is a far more mechanically sound game than SC1 IMO and the split into 3 games is a small price to pay for each faction having more SP content than the entirety of the incredibly shaky SC1 campaign.

I'm not going to pretend Blizz isn't out to make money, all corporations are (even Valve despite what some of their devotees would claim), but the "EVUL CORPARATION!!1!" way of thinking is not something I have ever or will ever agree with. I own nearly every Blizzard game, and I'll keep buying their products as long as I keep enjoying them.

So again I would say that anybody playing Diablo 3 is probably doing it for the name or simply isn't aware of what other games have been doing.

I have played PoE, I thought it was like pulling teeth, I played Torchlight 2, I felt it was just Diablo 1.5, I played Grim Dawn, felt it was quite good albeit lacking in variety, I played Diablo 2 and loved it, and I played Diablo 3 and loved it just as much. So care to tell me how I fit into your "people who like things I don't are either sheep or ignorant" flowchart?

 

[Rattja]

Well I don't know, but they sure are not the Blizzard I got to know back in the Diablo 1 and 2 or Warcraft days. They seem to focus more on getting payed than actually making things, which is kinda sad as if they just made good stuff like before the money would come anyways.

Not sure where this is headed, but in my opinion they should just abandon game making as a whole and just animate movies. It will be interesting to see what becomes of the upcoming Warcraft movie, but I can't help to feel that they would be far better off going down the movie route. They have the animation skills, they have the lore, and I also think they would reach more people by doing that than what their games are currently doing.

But then again, that's just what I think, I have no real numbers to base this on or any idea of what things costs. All I know is that I would love for them to just make full length movies.

 

[Aeshi]

But talent tree is soo meh now, its so boring to level up knowing you only get something to pick every 15 levels.
-Vanillas talent tree was by no means perfect, but you had options and had something to look forward to each level up.

Having a certain ability be 2% more effective was hardly something to look forward to. In Vanilla the only talent points that really made a meaningful difference were the ones where you had reached a new tier and could pick on of those "1-point for a new skill" talents up. And those tended to come up... about every 10-15 levels. Huh.

We also got less skills, no parry or dodge anymore,simplified dungeons where you don't really need CC, professions

The lack of CC I'll grant you is a tad saddening, but most of the removed skills were situational to the point of uselessness (why does a class capable of Stealth need an aggro-radius reducing spell again?) and Parry/Dodge only ever really rewarded dumb luck as opposed to skill.

I also quite like the lack of Profession bonuses, it means I can pick the professions I want rather than feeling forced into picking the one that gives the optimal bonuses. I've always thought professions should be a fun side-thing, not a key part of your build.

Hunters can shoot at point blank and has no melee.

And speaking as someone who mained a Hunter back in Vanilla, I have no problem with that. Getting hit by a Root/Snare effect and getting meleed to death with basically fuck all chances to stop it was downright maddening, especially when no other Ranged class had equal DPS but lacked this drawback. Although come to think of it, the "Deadzone" mechanic would probably work a lot better now, as it could compensate for the Hunter's ability to attack on the move 24/7 (which no other Ranged DPS can do.)

No real exploring,No real need to group up with people for quests.

Exploring is always going to be a finite activity, because there's always going to be a finite world to explore.

As for group quests, whether their disappearance is a blessing or a curse depends on how populated your server of choice was. For those of us who play on a low population server, a group quest popping up in the middle of a quest chain meant at best having to spend 20 minutes trying to find someone to help you, and at worse having to abandon the quest chain in question entirely.

Once your max level there really isn't much to do besides sitting in your Garrison queuing for Battlegrounds or or Instances/Raids with people who barely communicate.

This might come off as mocking, but this comic [http://www.darklegacycomics.com/368] sums up what I usually think when I hear that sort of comment.

Diablo 2s talent tree might not look that impressive by today. But it was a huge improvement over what the first Diablo had. D3 came 10 years later and had a chance to improve upon it.

I'd argue that it did improve upon it, if you consider each ability rune to be a separate ability then a Diablo 3 class has more abilities than Diablo 2 ones do (64 for the former, 30 for the latter), and said abilities are often more different than they were in Diablo 2 to boot. True you can only take 6 of them, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a non-minionmaster build in Diablo 2 that used more than 6 abilities on a regular basis.

But they didn't instead Path of Exile did it.

I like Path of Exile, but I'd say its "Skill Labyrinth" was less an improvement of D2's skill trees and more an exaggeration of them. D2 had the aforementioned 6 different "hit things harder" skills, PoE has 200 "[STAT] +10" skills. The Skill Gem system on the other hand, is probably the best approach to skills I've seen in a Diablo-like (even moreso than Diablo III's), I'll give you that.

 

[Nazulu]

Ha! I already called them greedy when they started letting people pay for mounts. It didn't help they let players purchased capped toons either when they could've just made that one toon could become other classes, like another better MMO did. Then splitting SC2 into 3 games covering each faction, telling absolute bullshit about how it will make them make a better story when you only need one brain cell to know that's not how story writing works. I really hate Blizzard South.

 

[Redryhno]

snip

And once again, "dumbing down" is reinterpreted as "making it easier". It's not that, I put it in every post here, dumbing things down is making it overly simplified to make the game have a wider appeal(while not a bad thing, most games that do it become dime a dozen copies of others that are cheaper), not the removal of problematic mechanics or buggy code. Making things easier is good. I put up TW:Rome as an example, slave revolts became a big problem in vanilla in that you always had to have a full stack to actually do anything in every city because they became such a problem. Getting rid of basic mechanics like EQ1's body nude runs to get your shit back after you died because people threw a fit because it wasn't WoW is. It completely ruined three entire in-game money-makers because getting your body back meant literally nothing anymore, and all the classes that had a spell slot designed to get bodies back kept those spells and the slots that were designed for that in mind were left with those useless things.

Xcom, while I love it to death, is incredibly dumbed down, research is a time-waster most of the time because once you get carapace armor and lasers, you don't really have to research anything for the next six months in-game, tactics mostly consist of running between cover and overwatching despite all the other tools you've got because they're essentially useless, and the genetic modifications aren't really worth the trouble you have to go through to get them compared to the mechsuits which you can have running by the third mission.

Dumbing things down is very rarely a good thing. Making stats show what they do besides go up is a good thing, adding tweaks that make the game run smoother so you aren't playing city counselor in a wargame is a good thing. And it's called keeping it simple. Ripping out an AI's already limited ability to react to itself is never a good thing. And that's called dumbing an already easy game down so that you can mash buttons and feel like you're actually doing something.

The truly tragic part is that Blizzard still makes good games.

Starcraft 2? The only relevant RTS on the market. Diablo 3? A very polished and well made ARPG. Hearthstone? A fun, broad-appeal CCG. Heroes of the Storm? Solid MOBA with some interesting mechanics and good map veriety. World of Warcraft? Still a good game at its core.

Sadly I think the only reason it's relevant at all is because of the infrastructure set up around it that's been running pretty well for nearly twenty years, and even it's starting to fail because RTS isn't considered all that great anymore. Which is a shame, because it's sorta been put on the heap along with Turn-based combat of abandoned genres(even if alot of them have sorta moved to the DS). I'd love another Age of Empires, because it was alot of fun watching a city appear out of a couple of wandering natives. Even if there wasn't a huge amount of strategy to build orders, it was a fun little resource race game.

 

[DoPo]

But after seeing the way they are shoehorning players into spending money on a F2P game (Hearthstone), by having absolutely crucial cards in the adventure expansions

You literally don't need to spend real money on those expansions unless you want to. I bought every single one of them using in-game gold. Sure it took me a while to gather it, but I just basically play while doing something else that doesn't require my full attention. Like, right now, I'm reading the forums and playing Hearthstone. When I'm done with that, I'll also close down Hearthstone.

 

[OhNoYouDidnt]

You guys... You guys really baffle me sometimes with your arbitrary negativity. Did someone seriously suggest that Blizzard was going to end up like THQ soon? Like, what?

Diablo III, despite the neverending complaints about DRM and the Auction House, has sold more than 15m copies. Hearthstone has more than 30m players. Positively ancient World of Warcraft still dominates the MMORPG market, despite its dwindling subscriber numbers. I mean... Sure, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but come on, you guys.

Blizzard is a big business that is indeed mainly interested in your money. And people are giving it to them, evidently. I think $10 for a new Hero in Hearthstone is ridiculously pricey, but then again, plenty of people threw a whopping $25 at them for a silly mount in WoW. Blizzard's "greed", as you put it, is not nice. But let's be realistic: why would you expect them to have the mentality of a little indie studio mainly doing it for the kudos? Is that a reasonable expectation?

 

[Redryhno]

You guys... You guys really baffle me sometimes with your arbitrary negativity. Did someone seriously suggest that Blizzard was going to end up like THQ soon? Like, what?

Diablo III, despite the neverending complaints about DRM and the Auction House, has sold more than 15m copies. Hearthstone has more than 30m players. Positively ancient World of Warcraft still dominates the MMORPG market, despite its dwindling subscriber numbers. I mean... Sure, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but come on, you guys.

Blizzard is a big business that is indeed mainly interested in your money. And people are giving it to them, evidently. I think $10 for a new Hero in Hearthstone is ridiculously pricey, but then again, plenty of people threw a whopping $25 at them for a silly mount in WoW. Blizzard's "greed", as you put it, is not nice. But let's be realistic: why would you expect them to have the mentality of a little indie studio mainly doing it for the kudos? Is that a reasonable expectation?

Actually, if you read my post again, I say that it's something that COULD happen, not that it would and that I'd much rather their franchises not disappear because they did something phenomenally stupid. And I also say in that same post that this is somewhat how the current whipping boys of the industry(EA and Ubi) started the crap that got them into that position in the first place here with their microtransactions and "LIMITED TIME OFFERS GRIND THAT FACTION TO BE ABLE TO BUY IT IN-GAME" actually be limited now, but we'll let you buy them with real money later on down the line..

I don't really hate on Blizzard for anything other than them continually expecting WoW to rake in all their money for them for the rest of the century when every expansion, they have about a week more of huge numbers, that then drop and drop and drop. And them starting to make 90's WoTC look like a consumer and early adopter friendly company.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Ofc alot of it has also been done to reach out to a bigger/younger crowd.

I would argue the exact opposite on your last point. That its been done precisely because the audience has matured and therefore has much less time and patience for putting up with the silliness that has been served up in the past.

 

[Evilsausage]

Oh goody, haven't seen this thread since D3 launched...

Diablo 3
1. At launch 60 euro for a mediocre game,

Standard price, and the quality is totally subjective. A lot of reviewers and a lot of players would certainly disagree with you. And before you try to brush off sales as being sole because people didn't know what they were getting into, let me remind you that the expansion also sold well, and by that point everybody knew exactly what they were getting.

2.The entire game was balanced around the auction house and had a terrible impact on the game.

Disagree. I put in shitload of hours before loot 2.0 and had a friend who put in close to twice what I did and neither of us ever used the RMAH or felt any reason to. It was there for people who wanted it and optional for those who didn't, not to mention that you could use it for free by selling your own items.

3. Microtransactions is now on its way to D3. So far only cosmetics but who knows whats next. The game is starved on content yet they put the resources on shit like this. That doesn't feel right.

Again, cosmetics are there for people who want them and have zero effect on those who don't. And just because they have some artists working on cosmetics doesn't mean that no one is working on the next expansion (if it exists that is, still just a rumor).

Diablo 3 will also be launched in China and it will be free to play and all out pay to win.

AKA just about the only way for games to make money in China. Isn't CS:GO f2p in China? does that make Valve greedy?

4.Anything from dumbing down the game

[Citation needed]. D2 was not nearly the intellectual powerhouse some people want to make it out to be.

and the cartoony graphics where obviously there to lure a new young audiance.

Wait, wait, I thought kids hated color and that's why shooters are "brown and grey"? You can't have it both ways.

5. Online DRM. Any way to prevent losing money to piracy. But many don't want to play online and the game had major issues at launch when the servers didn't respond.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/08/08

World of Warcraft

1. More expensive expansion packs(WoD) but we get less content. According to Blizzard they got bigger staff then ever working on WoW. Then how come Warlords of Draenor had like half the content the 8 year old Burning Crusade had? And how come it receives less content in patches today then what it did 7-10 years ago? No wonder people are quitting faster then ever.

By what metric is WoD so small? Content patches are smaller now because there is less to fix, and people are leaving because nothing last forever and the old timers are going to lose interest eventually no matter what. They have also shaved off more of the bullshit grind with every expansion so it takes less time to see everything(not what I would call a bad thing).

2. Microtransactions. Since people are paying every month for content it shouldn't even exist. Shouldn't they spend resources on adding more content for everyone?
3. Buying gold and levling services was something Blizzard once upon a time banned people for. Now its all possible to do in the game.

Same unnecessary hate on things that don't effect you, same faulty assumption that cosmetics being made somehow prevents other content from being created at the same time.

4. Dumbed down and streamlined game. Like Diablo 3 changes made for the sake of reaching as big audiance as possible. Even if it has a negative effect on the gameplay.

Or you know, things changed to make the game better and less meaninglessly grindy. As someone else in this thread already pointed out vanila WoW had more "options" but so few were actually any kind of viable that it was meaningless.

Hearthstone
1. The small expansions. Concidering how little content you get its kinda pricy. There is usually a few must have cards that force you to pay up.

Its a free game, and its still less pricey then a physical card game.

2. Pay 10$ for a different portrait of your hero. Okay its no big deal and I know its totaly optional. But its still greedy and could be alot lower.

Or they could charge what people are willing to pay. If people buy the ten dollar portraits then I see no reason for Blizz to not sell them for that price.

Heroes of the Storm

1. Well its obvious they are jumping on the Moba free to play train because they know it yeilds more money then for example making a Warcraft 4.

That, or they just wanted to make a MOBA not WC4 for god knows how many reasons.

2. Dumbed down version of Lol,

[Citation needed] Just the teamwork required by HOTS makes up for any loss of complexity created by the loss of items

3. The price on the Heroes you can buy is more expensive then other Moba games. You also got rediculus prices for mounts. 20$ for a unicorn mount..wtf.

The cosmetic prices are not something I see any reason to object to, but I do actually agree that hero prices need to come down or ingame gold gain should go up.

Starcraft 2...

Is a far more mechanically sound game than SC1 IMO and the split into 3 games is a small price to pay for each faction having more SP content than the entirety of the incredibly shaky SC1 campaign.

I'm not going to pretend Blizz isn't out to make money, all corporations are (even Valve despite what some of their devotees would claim), but the "EVUL CORPARATION!!1!" way of thinking is not something I have ever or will ever agree with. I own nearly every Blizzard game, and I'll keep buying their products as long as I keep enjoying them.

So again I would say that anybody playing Diablo 3 is probably doing it for the name or simply isn't aware of what other games have been doing.

I have played PoE, I thought it was like pulling teeth, I played Torchlight 2, I felt it was just Diablo 1.5, I played Grim Dawn, felt it was quite good albeit lacking in variety, I played Diablo 2 and loved it, and I played Diablo 3 and loved it just as much. So care to tell me how I fit into your "people who like things I don't are either sheep or ignorant" flowchart?

1. If you read the next line you see that I said it was no big deal because most companies charge that. I brought up the price because It becomes fucked up when they have pay to win in a full price game.
Diablo 3 got great reviews yes but that was fucked up. Just like Dragon age 2 got great reviews. I don't think many hardcore Diablo 3 fans can say vanilla deserved 8.9 on metacritic.
Diablo 3 has a horribel user rating on metacritic, it received no rewards or praises by reviewers in retrospect.
But it got mentioned by many as one of the most dissapointing game that Year.

Actually RoS sold alright, not great. It has sold around 5 million if im correct? Thats 1/3 of the Diablo 3 sales. Thats a small % for a expansion, especially for a Blizzard product.
If D3 players where so satisfied with the game how come they had to remove the auction house just before RoS?
Who knows what the RoS sales figures would have been if they had not done that.

2. Well then you where one of the few who thought so. Everyone i knew and myself used it. I only payed with gold but 90% of my gear was bought, because the majority of loot sucked. And when playing as melee before inferno nerf you would fall behind if you didn't.
So pretty much everyone did that because they wanted gear upgrades.
I stopped playing shortly after RMAH came and didn't touch the game until 2.0
The idea of people being able to pay real money to get gear is just slap in the face on the Diablo fans.

3. There are obviously not many working on D3 currently. So yeah having people work on stuff most people will never see is pretty bad. When it could be added for free, its not like they got a ton of content currently.
RoS improved the game, but some end game content and decent loot is something people expected to get in Vanilla. Path of Exile had that in Beta and its a tiny studio.
Blizzard was once known for being the best studio when it came to supporting their games. At a time when people had no high expectations of getting that.
So its kinda sad seeing how D3 can't even compete in terms of content with a free to play game like PoE.

4. This discussion is not about if Valve is greedy or not.

5. The game is 15 years old. Neither is half-life 1 when just looking at it today. But for its time it was. But valve still introduced alot of new things in the sequal.
Diablo 3 didn't really do that and in some cases it was dumbed down. No stat points on level up, no runewords, dull loot, only one potion and no real ways to experiment with builds.
Atleast In D2 you could make a Melee sorc or other odd builds.

6. Ohh I guess Team fortress 2, WoW, league of legends, Dota, bordelands and all Nintendo games is nothing for young players then...

7. The thing is EA got alot of shit for their Online DRM in SimCity and now in the upcomming Need for speed game. I just brought it up to point out that Blizzard also does this.

8. Oh my you are just defending everything to the point its getting silly.
Yeah WoD can OBVIOUSLY not be improved...haha what a joke. You have less imagination then WoWs dev team.
They got huge resources to do something more then just adding a companion system that feels like a mobile game.
When you progress so fast to 100 and complete the few instances there is there need to be something more to do.
Many have played WoW for years and needs somthing that feel fresh. If they atleast tried to do that then maybe people wouldn't be leaving as fast.
But yeah I guess thats a totaly unrealistic expectation...

Yes WoD is small compared to Burning Crusade which btw was much cheaper.
WoD was smaller both in terms of content, Raids and instances. But also in terms of new features.


9. Its still greedy and yes that content could be in the game. Its extra money they don't really need/deserve. I understand if its in a free to play online game, because they have to get money somehow.
But Blizzard get money from Expansions, monthly sub and other things like character transfere etc..


10. Like I said old talent tree wasn't perfect that doesn't mean it can't be improved after 10 years to give even more options.

11. Cards have to be printed, shipped away etc. So totaly different.

12. Im sure some will buy those portraits. But it doesn't make it less greedy.

13. Maybe, but I think its more because they know there is more money to be made in the free to play moba genre.

14. Well thats subjective, the question is how much teamwork is possble to get on a average game with randoms.

15. We agree on atleast one thing. Crikey!

16. As for Starcraft. Didn't say anything about so no idea why you quote me on that.

Im not saying that each of these things are super greedy. But when you add them together its a clear sign they have gotten worse. Its not just an oppinion, its a fact they are more greedy today.
Im not saying they are the worst but it needs to be brought up, because many see Blizzard as saints in the gaming industry.

Btw just curious why do you dislike PoE? To me its the closest thing to a modern Diablo 2. The flaws it got pretty much exist in D2 aswell. Except for the story which is obviously better in D2.

 

[RJ 17]

Starcraft 2...can't say anything about it because i haven't played it.
But people are free to mention things I have missed.

The "greed" factor here could be the fact that they felt it necessary to break it into 3 games rather than having one game with three campaigns (as was the case with every other RTS they've put out: each game has a campaign for each faction). Oh sure, there's 30 missions or so for each game, but from what I've been told only 10 of those missions actually have anything to do with the primary story...the rest are just fluff.

 

[Aeshi]

If D3 players where so satisfied with the game how come they had to remove the auction house just before RoS?

Because there were a bunch of sour grapes going "I don't use the RMAH, I don't want anyone else to use it either."

The idea of people being able to pay real money to get gear is just slap in the face on the Diablo fans.

Ok, putting on some rose-tinted goggles for a second so we can ignore all the bots in Diablo II advertising websites that do just that: And your progression being 100% dependent on dumb luck is not? Am I supposed to enjoy going 10 levels straight while only finding 1 or 2 upgrades for having the nerve to not have dumb luck on my side? All while some mouthbreather walks off with a Legendary on each arm?

4. This discussion is not about if Valve is greedy or not.

All I heard here was "Blizzard's cool to hate on, Valve's not." is Valve greedy for doing the same thing as Blizzard, Yes or No? Takes about .3 seconds to type. Simple question.

Diablo 3 didn't really do that and in some cases it was dumbed down. No stat points on level up, no runewords, dull loot, only one potion and no real ways to experiment with builds.
Atleast In D2 you could make a Melee sorc or other odd builds.

Oh no, your barbarian can't have 14 strength instead of the standard 15 strength anymore, oh woe is your lack of uniqueness. Seriously, there were 2 stat builds in Diablo II:

1. Enough Str & Dex to meet gear requirements, everything else into Vitality, don't touch the Magic stat at all (aka the Optimal set-up.)
2. The gimmick builds you mentioned that you'd play for an hour or two until the novelty wore off and then never look at again nine times out of ten.

And lastly, care to explain how the game where you can switch abilities whenever you want has "less room to experiment" than the one where every skill point is permanently invested and if you put one point in to a spell that turns out to be shit then you've basically wasted a point forever?

10. Like I said old talent tree wasn't perfect that doesn't mean it can't be improved after 10 years to give even more options.

That's like saying we shouldn't have switched to CDs/DVDs and should've just tried to figure out how to make floppy disks faster/bigger. There's a point where upgrading an old system becomes less efficient than swapping it out for a new one.

13. Maybe, but I think its more because they know there is more money to be made in the free to play moba genre

So not willfully shooting yourself in the foot by making games that that you know for a near-fact wouldn't sell as well is "greedy" now?

BRB, off to suggest Valve should make TF3 even though they have no reason to do so. No complaints or else they're greedy!

 

[Arctic Werewolf]

I don't know if they are greedy, but their releases these days are either light on features that appeal to me or light on content for the price. Either that, or they feature free to play, pay to win, or micro-transaction payment models to which I am deathly allergic. Blizzard titles are great discount buys these days, but not day one must-haves.

Because there were a bunch of sour grapes going "I don't use the RMAH, I don't want anyone else to use it either."

I think it is way too easy to hand wave the problems people had with the RMAH and even the normal AH like this. It affected everyone's game, as a system like that would simply have to do. And Blizzard seriously compounded the issue by forcing everyone online and intentionally corralling them into the Auction Houses and multiplayer. I remember people asking me why I would even want to play offline, like it was a totally random and ridiculous thing to even ask for. I'll bet those people wish they had just let us play offline, now. The people who burned down the Auction House were pushed into it in the first place by design. This one is on Blizzard for not thinking things through.

Ok, putting on some rose-tinted goggles for a second so we can ignore all the bots in Diablo II advertising websites that do just that:

I wanted this fixed. Having it take over the entire development of the game was the opposite of what I wanted.

And your progression being 100% dependent on dumb luck is not? Am I supposed to enjoy going 10 levels straight while only finding 1 or 2 upgrades for having the nerve to not have dumb luck on my side? All while some mouthbreather walks off with a Legendary on each arm?

Is that still the state of things? Oh well. I think Blizzard needs to understand that turning their RMAH game into an Action RPG requires slightly more effort than literally just shutting down the Auction House.