Blizzard: We Might Return to Console Development

[Quaade]

The creative team that brought us Diablo was fragmented and Bill Roper was not the only person who was there to create the game. In fact there were people that went to about 5 different companies and helped make a number of games I enjoy. Also Hellgate London probably got nowhere near the financial support it needed to realize what Roper wanted to make. The loss of financial backing probably destroyed the game before it was released. I continue to stand firm in my beliefs that the Vivendi takeover ruined what made Blizzard a company that created excellence and converted it into a company that milked excellence instead.

(Not to mention that they crap all over most of their creative teams)

You make an argument on emotion and not facts.
Roper and 3 others from BN made Flagship, which got finacial backing from Namco Hometec and they released an unfinished game with a lot of ideas that even if they would had been finished, would still had been bad.
And if you don't have the money to do what you want to make, then you stop making it and find other solutions, if anything that's the number one lesson Roper and friends should had kept in mind from Blizzard.

And pretty much everything released by Blizzard ever since the original merger with Vivendi has still been excellent.
The various WoW expansions have been trying something new every time, that's creating, not milking.
Starcraft 2, well that speaks for itself in terms of excellence, some people lament that the system is the same as in SC1, but, don't fix what ain't broke. SC was excellent allready, trying to change the gameplay just for the sake of changing it would had been stupid.

 

[Wandrecanada]

The creative team that brought us Diablo was fragmented and Bill Roper was not the only person who was there to create the game. In fact there were people that went to about 5 different companies and helped make a number of games I enjoy. Also Hellgate London probably got nowhere near the financial support it needed to realize what Roper wanted to make. The loss of financial backing probably destroyed the game before it was released. I continue to stand firm in my beliefs that the Vivendi takeover ruined what made Blizzard a company that created excellence and converted it into a company that milked excellence instead.

(Not to mention that they crap all over most of their creative teams)

You make an argument on emotion and not facts.
Roper and 3 others from BN made Flagship, which got finacial backing from Namco Hometec and they released an unfinished game with a lot of ideas that even if they would had been finished, would still had been bad.
And if you don't have the money to do what you want to make, then you stop making it and find other solutions, if anything that's the number one lesson Roper and friends should had kept in mind from Blizzard.

And pretty much everything released by Blizzard ever since the original merger with Vivendi has still been excellent.
The various WoW expansions have been trying something new every time, that's creating, not milking.
Starcraft 2, well that speaks for itself in terms of excellence, some people lament that the system is the same as in SC1, but, don't fix what ain't broke. SC was excellent allready, trying to change the gameplay just for the sake of changing it would had been stupid.

There's the difference between you and me. I thought many of the ideas in Hellgate were unrealized due to funding issues when the game was forced out on the market by the publisher. I also believe that giving credit to Blizzard for everything in WoW past the first disk expansion or Starcraft 2 is just clinging to a brand.

WoW's continuance has become more and more mainstream focused and less of what made the game good when it launched comes out. Starcraft 2 proves that the design team has very few creative bones in them. Between Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 you see the game evolve towards something fun and new but when Starcraft 2 launches all we see is a reskin of the original with elements of other successful games thrown in the mix. I can see clearly that Blizzard has a lot of financial backing from the quality of the graphics and look of the game. I just don't see Blizzard as the pusher of great new ideas they used to be and they have proven this is the case many times over with Starcraft 2, Lich King and Cataclysm. All creative new content Blizzard has released since Vivendi was pulled from other sources.

 

[OmegaXzors]

Just as long as the games are not as atrocious as the N64 port of Starcraft.

That was co-developed by Blizzard. Wasn't all their fault. Same with Diablo, it was all EA's fault.

I think this is a bad idea, Blizzard. Unless you can really pull a miracle out of it.

 

[Quaade]

WoW's continuance has become more and more mainstream focused and less of what made the game good when it launched comes out. Starcraft 2 proves that the design team has very few creative bones in them. Between Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 you see the game evolve towards something fun and new but when Starcraft 2 launches all we see is a reskin of the original with elements of other successful games thrown in the mix. I can see clearly that Blizzard has a lot of financial backing from the quality of the graphics and look of the game. I just don't see Blizzard as the pusher of great new ideas they used to be and they have proven this is the case many times over with Starcraft 2, Lich King and Cataclysm. All creative new content Blizzard has released since Vivendi was pulled from other sources.

I remember what made the game "good" and I'm glad that part is done with because it was nothing but catering to the worst behaviour that humanity can show. I was a hardcore raider, had a few server first, devised strategies before people were even giving hints on the internet. I've been there and I've done that, didn't get the t-shirt but learned to loathe people in entirely new and different ways.

And what have they stolen from other RTS for starcraft? Mercinaries were their own idea from WC3, everything in it is the old mechanics, which has been hailed as some of the best within the genre, again, if you have something that works, why change it for the sake of change?

The design of planes is pretty boring, should we change the wings to be made of cement just because it's change?

And not pushers of new ideas?
25 man raiding in TBC was groundbreaking (and would kill the game)
10 man raiding in WotLK was groundbreaking (and would also kill the game)

Phasing in a MMO is probably the singlemost groundbreaking idea to ever make it into that genre. It's done more for the changing world that MMO's wish to be than anything else has ever done short of having a group of people sitting and being active RPG GM's.

And being in the Cata beta I'm constantly amazed at all the new amazing ideas and innovative mechanics blizzard is throwing at the players.
Watching the land sink around you, a bomb creating a crater the size of a small town or a foret return to life after having been burned down.
That's all par for the course in singleplayer RPG, but it's groundbreaking when the same thing happen in an MMO, right before your very eyes without the need of a patch to be applied first.

And exactly how have they proven it with Cataclysm? The game ain't even out yet.
Oh sure, they "stole" siege warfare from WAR! No they didn't, they got inspired to make it from Dark Age of Camelot, and as opposed to those very same people putting it into WAR, they made it work.

Only amateurs copy, true geniuses steal.

And noone is as adept as Blizzard at stealing an idea and making it their own.

 

[Wandrecanada]

I remember what made the game "good" and I'm glad that part is done with because it was nothing but catering to the worst behaviour that humanity can show. I was a hardcore raider, had a few server first, devised strategies before people were even giving hints on the internet. I've been there and I've done that, didn't get the t-shirt but learned to loathe people in entirely new and different ways.

And what have they stolen from other RTS for starcraft? Mercinaries were their own idea from WC3, everything in it is the old mechanics, which has been hailed as some of the best within the genre, again, if you have something that works, why change it for the sake of change?

The design of planes is pretty boring, should we change the wings to be made of cement just because it's change?

And not pushers of new ideas?
25 man raiding in TBC was groundbreaking (and would kill the game)
10 man raiding in WotLK was groundbreaking (and would also kill the game)

Phasing in a MMO is probably the singlemost groundbreaking idea to ever make it into that genre. It's done more for the changing world that MMO's wish to be than anything else has ever done short of having a group of people sitting and being active RPG GM's.

And being in the Cata beta I'm constantly amazed at all the new amazing ideas and innovative mechanics blizzard is throwing at the players.
Watching the land sink around you, a bomb creating a crater the size of a small town or a foret return to life after having been burned down.
That's all par for the course in singleplayer RPG, but it's groundbreaking when the same thing happen in an MMO, right before your very eyes without the need of a patch to be applied first.

And exactly how have they proven it with Cataclysm? The game ain't even out yet.
Oh sure, they "stole" siege warfare from WAR! No they didn't, they got inspired to make it from Dark Age of Camelot, and as opposed to those very same people putting it into WAR, they made it work.

Only amateurs copy, true geniuses steal.

And noone is as adept as Blizzard at stealing an idea and making it their own.

I'm sorry your experience with RTS games and MMOs end at what Blizzard made but just because you've never played or heard of some older titles does not mean it hasn't happened before. Starcraft 2 just added some elements from Westwood style RTS games and a smattering of the FASA Mech Commander series. Cataclysm and Lich King pulled many things from MMOs like Guildwars and Warhammer Online as well as some other titles that are perhaps more obscure.

All the things you have mentioned are just ideas that already exist elsewhere in games that are already currently running. Warhammer had events that alter the terrain from day one and even though they popularized public events it already existed in MMOs (Tablua Rasa for instance). Oh and Dark Age of Camelot was made by the people who brought us WAR so... I don't know what you're driving at there.

All I can say is that the best innovation we've gotten from Blizzard since the Vivendi takeover has been was the arena tournament system with integrated ladders. Other than that all we've seen them produce has been an up rez Starcraft that took 12 years to get on shelves and some WoW expansions that have homogenized the game with each iteration. Ahn'Qiraj was the last truely unique experience Blizzard brought us and most people didn't even see a quarter of it.

 

[Quaade]

I'm sorry your experience with RTS games and MMOs end at what Blizzard made but just because you've never played or heard of some older titles does not mean it hasn't happened before. Starcraft 2 just added some elements from Westwood style RTS games and a smattering of the FASA Mech Commander series. Cataclysm and Lich King pulled many things from MMOs like Guildwars and Warhammer Online as well as some other titles that are perhaps more obscure.

All the things you have mentioned are just ideas that already exist elsewhere in games that are already currently running. Warhammer had events that alter the terrain from day one and even though they popularized public events it already existed in MMOs (Tablua Rasa for instance). Oh and Dark Age of Camelot was made by the people who brought us WAR so... I don't know what you're driving at there.

All I can say is that the best innovation we've gotten from Blizzard since the Vivendi takeover has been was the arena tournament system with integrated ladders. Other than that all we've seen them produce has been an up rez Starcraft that took 12 years to get on shelves and some WoW expansions that have homogenized the game with each iteration. Ahn'Qiraj was the last truely unique experience Blizzard brought us and most people didn't even see a quarter of it.

By that definition no RTS is original and they are all all just reskinned clones of either Westwood games or Cavedogs Total Annihilation series. Put your complaints on everyone then, not blizzard.

Everyone pulls from other sources, truely new ideas are hard to come by and often doesn't fit in with what is practical for what you want to deliver. Octagonal wheels on cars would be a new idea, but yet all I see are wheels driving on round wheels, clearly other car manufacturers are stealing ideas from the first car with rubber tires (which punctured roughly every 2 miles)

But the thing is that when you take something from another source, the challenge is to make it their own and make it better than where it came from.

I played WAR, but I never found any terrain that changed from day one, never ran into any elements of the world's inhabitants appearing and reappearing based on the quests I did either.
And what I meant with the siege was that WAR's siege was horrible. While Blizzard undoubtedly got inspired by sieges from DAoC they at the same time improved on it. DAoC sieges were "knock on the door untill it dies." WAR sieges are also mostly "knock on the door till it dies" though you can knock on walls too. Wintergrasp sieges are "knock on anything untill it falls over," which gives it a more visceral feeling.

What you see as homogenisation of WoW with each expansion, I see as tightening up mechanics and removing the things that are different for the sake of being different.
Buffs have been consolidated in Wrath and they will be even more so in Cataclysm. That's good homogenisation as it makes fights easier to balance around what you can bring.

I'm a raidleader and I'm bloody tired of being hamstrung on encounters because Class X Y or Z is not available that night and as such their major buff is absent making the fight harder than it should be.

WoW fights were purposefully underpowered for most of the content because it assumed you were dragging 15 slackers along.

TBC cut down on raidsize, but not on the relative difficulty, removing the wriggleroom for slackers. This made raids an absolute fucking nightmare because all of a sudden the difference between having, say, Windfury on a fight or not was monumental.

Wrath reduced the amount of juggling you had to do to make sure that all buff and debuffs in a raid. At least for 25 man, for 10 man it is still horrible, which means that 10 mans can't ever provide the same challenge as 25 man because you can't be sure the buff is available.

In Cata this is further consolidated so that most buffs are brought by a minimum of 3 classes/specs. Sure it's homonegisation, but it serves to make the rest of the game more interesting and being able to provide more of a challenge. So it's good homogenisation.

We are basically looking at this from two different points that are too far removed from each other to ever meet on the middle.