Why all the hate on Blizzard?

[Seanchaidh]

Now someone might say "Well, if these 'other' MMO's actually were better than WoW, people would quit playing WoW." Let me be the first to pop that illusion for you. Most gamers have invested themselves in WoW. Not just by buying the game an dpaying monthly fees but a lot of other things (grinding up player characters, paying real money for in-game equipment, made a commitment to in-game guilds etc. etc.), and of course Blizzard is promoting this.

What? Who does that? Even if many people do that, it'd hardly constitute an investment considering that the best equipment is knocked down a peg every content patch. At that point you'd be engaging in the sunk cost fallacy.

Anyway, these problems can all be addressed by another MMO by not requiring so much up-front establishing of a character. Why is a level grind necessary at all if the only challenging content (or at least the highest quality content) is at level cap? Why do you need to invest so much time and energy to have a suitably awesome character rather than starting basically at cap with the game as it really is and not just a single player experience punctuated by the odd dungeon. If I were making a new MMO, I'd focus on eliminating that up-front grind and finding ways to make people want to keep playing and meeting people that don't depend on wasting their time in promise of +2 strength +3 agility +2 stamina +1 intellect +1 spirit and the ability to wear something new in the wrist slot. Focus on making the game worth the interest of an entire WoW guild and diminish the barriers to entry. Don't try to skate by with an unpolished copy of WoW with just a few innovations, redefine the genre.

 

[joe the janitor]

They dropped brutal legend then sued them saying they still owned them. That's why I hate blizzard. Although that was after they merged with activision.

What? No they didnt, ACTIVISION sued Double Fine you dolt, Blizzard had nothing to do with it, Activision may own them, but that doesnt mean Blizzard sued them, ugh... For a start Activision originally owned Brutal Legend then dropped it and sued EA/Double Fine when they picked it up, where the hell does Blizzard come into that?

Ok, ok. No need to call me a dolt. I was wrongly informed.

 

[Sevre]

Because some people really hate MMO games, and Blizzard made one of the most successful MMO games. Thus, they hate Blizzard because of this.

Makes sense. What about those of us who like MMOs but hate Blizzard?

 

[Internet Kraken]

Because some people really hate MMO games, and Blizzard made one of the most successful MMO games. Thus, they hate Blizzard because of this.

Makes sense. What about those of us who like MMOs but hate Blizzard?

Well then they just hate Blizzard because of other games they made. Or something like that. You would probably get a better answer from those people.

 

[Sevre]

Because some people really hate MMO games, and Blizzard made one of the most successful MMO games. Thus, they hate Blizzard because of this.

Makes sense. What about those of us who like MMOs but hate Blizzard?

Well then they just hate Blizzard because of other games they made. Or something like that. You would probably get a better answer from those people.

I'm sorry I really can't answer my own question, I love Diablo, I love MMOs, I even love Starcraft and Warcraft. Yet I hate Blizzard with a passion.

 

[Shady Dealer]

Because bandwagon hate attracts amazing amounts of stupidity.

This is pretty much it

 

[AndyFromMonday]

At the moment I'm a tad pissed at Blizzard for splitting Starcraft 2 in 3. They're just milking it, really. Then again, they might have not finished the Protoss and Zerg campaigns yet, forcing them to split the game in 3 so that we won't have to wait another 3 damn years.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Because some people really hate MMO games, and Blizzard made one of the most successful MMO games. Thus, they hate Blizzard because of this.

Makes sense. What about those of us who like MMOs but hate Blizzard?

Well then they just hate Blizzard because of other games they made. Or something like that. You would probably get a better answer from those people.

I'm sorry I really can't answer my own question, I love Diablo, I love MMOs, I even love Starcraft and Warcraft. Yet I hate Blizzard with a passion.

.....I don't know. If you like there games, why do you hate them?

 

[Sevre]

.....I don't know. If you like there games, why do you hate them?

Clearly that's what I'm asking you!

 

[Vlane]

Welcome to the internet!

I hope nobody ninja'd me.

 

[Eldarion]

They have a lot of money because they are doing something RIGHT, that in Blizzards case being the making of awesome games.

World of Warcraft = NOT an awesome game.

World of Warcraft = an addictive game.

A game which hogs a ridiculously large percentage of the total amount of MMORPG players world wide. Effectively making it a lot harder for possibly better MMORPG's to get a shot at the market.

Now someone might say "Well, if these 'other' MMO's actually were better than WoW, people would quit playing WoW." Let me be the first to pop that illusion for you. Most gamers have invested themselves in WoW. Not just by buying the game an dpaying monthly fees but a lot of other things (grinding up player characters, paying real money for in-game equipment, made a commitment to in-game guilds etc. etc.), and of course Blizzard is promoting this.

But if you really look at WoW, it isn't that great a game. The graphics could certainly be better and more realistic, the gameplay is repetitive and unecessarily time consuming etc.

There is so much more that could be done with the MMO format, but because the majority of MMO players are all WoW-junkies that simply won't abandon it to check up on something that could be a lot better, the evolution of the MMO format is quickly becoming stagnant.

Personally I hold a grudge against most companies and people who practice something that's counterproductive towards progress...

Clearly just a hater.

World of warcraft IS awesome. It is a HUGE world, has a great PVP system and a more than decent RP to keep you interested in questing.

The classes are balanced(most of the time) and are constantly being tweaked and updated aloing with the world itself. The world of warcraft doesn't hinder progress, it spends patch after patch to constantly improve itself(that IS progress). WoW clearly is evolving as an MMO.

The monthly fee is necessary for such a huge world to keep getting better and to keep all those servers up for the 11 million people who play.

Also, people being "invested" in WoW the way you say is a lot of crap.

Paying real money for in game equipment is against the in game rules, against the user agreement and just generally something blizzard makes abundantly clear it is against.

You don't need a guild to have fun with the game either, they are easy to get into and out of if you do wanna go into a guild and they constantly change anyway. The people in the guilds don't stay just out of commitment to the guild but because they like the game. Because WoW is awesome.

OT=People hate what is popular, its a huge bandwagon of idiots who all think they are special for spouting hate on the biggest MMO out there. No different from anti-Halo trolls really.

Whatever, me and 11 million others all like playing WoW despite the haters and are having fun thank you very much.

FOR THE HORDE!!!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

People hate things because they have an opinion. And like things for the same reason.

If someone here wants to hate Blizzard, cool. Equally if they want to like it.

What I don't understand is why it matters so much what other people think to the OP and most of the first page?

If I think Blizzard are godawful scum, it's not to do with being "on the internet", or "edgy" or "cool" or "full of hate", it's just because that's the way I feel.

Seriously, if strong feelings were purely due to the internet we wouldn't have had half the wars we've had.

That being said, the cheapest way to feel "cool" is to fit into the crowds, and as WoW has a massive concentration of douchebags, why do you think people hate Blizzard?

 

[Ryuk2]

I grew up with Blizzard games, but WoW is the only game of them I like. I'm neutral about them, they have alienated a lot of people. What those people's are going to do after they finish school? Their parents wont pay for their game forever.
..now to go and get some arena points...

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Clearly just a hater.

And you're clearly just a fanboy.

I don't hate World of Warcraft. I just think that it is a mediocre game. And everything would be fine if it stopped at that but it doesn't because it has given Blizzard a sickening monopoly on the MMORPG market in general.

World of warcraft IS awesome. It is a HUGE world, has a great PVP system and a more than decent RP to keep you interested in questing.

No, YOU THINK it is awesome. Which is your prerogative of course, but the same way that you just rant about me being a "hater" I could just as easily refer to you as a buttfucked fanboy. But that wouldn't further the discussion very much, so how about meeting the arguments instead of calling out on possible motivations behind said arguments?

Great, now that we got that behind us:

Yeah, it's a pretty big world. But with current technology it's not that hard to make these days. The importance is how much content said game world has, and some areas in WoW are pretty desolate of interesting content if you ask me. As for the roleplaying aspects, that's just a load of crap. There is barely any roleplaying at all in WoW, which makes you wonder why they even bother calling it an "mmoRPG" in the first place.

And no, "dedicated roleplaying servers" doesn't count, because the roleplaying aspects are still not an integrated part of the gameplay just because some people decide to create an RP-server.

The classes are balanced(most of the time) and are constantly being tweaked and updated aloing with the world itself. The world of warcraft doesn't hinder progress, it spends patch after patch to constantly improve itself(that IS progress). WoW clearly is evolving as an MMO.

And that makes it different from other MMO's how, exactly?

But really, there's only so much you can do with patches. It won't really revamp the game engine or the gameplay that much.

Besides, I wasn't talking about the possible evolution of WoW specifically, I was talking about the lack of evolution to the MMORPG-format in general, and Blizzard bear a part for keeping the format stagnant.

The monthly fee is necessary for such a huge world to keep getting better and to keep all those servers up for the 11 million people who play.

I haven't said much about the monthly fee.

Also, people being "invested" in WoW the way you say is a lot of crap.

No it isn't. Just because it might not apply to you specifically, it does apply to many others. Clearly you haven't seen the worst of WoW-addiction if you don't believe me.

Paying real money for in game equipment is against the in game rules, against the user agreement and just generally something blizzard makes abundantly clear it is against.

Don't be naive. You and me both know that there is a real market for in-game equipment and characters.

You don't need a guild to have fun with the game either, they are easy to get into and out of if you do wanna go into a guild and they constantly change anyway. The people in the guilds don't stay just out of commitment to the guild but because they like the game.

It depends on the guilds. Some are a lot more commite than others. Haven't you come into contact with any of these before? Do you even play WoW?

Because WoW is awesome.

Are you on Blizzards payroll or something? XD

OT=People hate what is popular, its a huge bandwagon of idiots who all think they are special for spouting hate on the biggest MMO out there. No different from anti-Halo trolls really.

There is no such bandwagon. There is however a fanboy bandwagon were the "clingy, complaining dipshits" toss all manner of foul laungage and ignorant statements towards anyone who dares voice their opinions and said opinions don't prais the name of whatever the fanboys are worshipping.

I don't hate WoW. Hate is a very strong word so stop abusing it. I just dislike WoW. I find it to be boring. But it's okay, it wouldn't be the first game. The problem I have is with Blizzard and their monopoly on the MMORPG market. And I have explained why. Now would you care to comment on these statements instead of yelling "hater!" at me and announce your prided fanboyism, or are you just gonna keep blowing hot air?

Whatever, me and 11 million others all like playing WoW despite the haters and are having fun thank you very much.

And I for one am glad for you. Even if I don't find myself very entertained by WoW, I can certainly appriciate that others are entertained by it.

But you might wanna try giving a few other MMORPG's a chance as well, when you can. Blizzard are already rich as dragons, they won't suffer just because you try something else out as well, and furthering the MMORPG format by doing so...

 

[Eldarion]

snip

I apologize if my post in some way came off as an attack, calling you a hater was uncalled for. You are right that me thinking WoW is my opinion, I honestly didn't mean to post that as if it was fact.

I am in no way trying to say that you not liking WoW is in any way wrong its just that I don't agree that your stereotype of us WoW players being a bunch of addicted anti social twats who are only in the game because we have invested so much.

If such a steryotype exists it is greatly exaggerated.

I do play WoW and I think there is allot of interesting content(and I haven't even been to Northrend yet) there is enough PvP in the many battlegrounds and world PvV in Outlands to satisfy just about anyone the dungeons are all varied and interesting so that you are alwase doing something different while questing and the background story that you explore as you go that greatly kept me interested in questing.

I am having fun with it anyway. No other MMO gives me a perfect warlock class.

I can cast fear on you, corrupt your body with dark energy, assault your mind with curse of agony, lite you on fire, send a giant axe wielding demon after you, while also chasing you as an even bigger super demon that has a super aura of death and all at the same time The warlock class is epic enough all by itself to keep me playing.

Also, as awesome as I think WoW is I am not a complete fanboy.

I don't think that WoW has a monopoly, there are a number of other MMO's out there.

Guildwars has better PvP(I thought so when I was playing).

Dungeons and dragons online is one I just started playing and so far I like it better.

There are a number of new MMO's coming outs soon, like that star wars one. That has an interesting premise.

But WoW is possibly the best generic MMO out there, I don't really think it deserves hate for giving so many people what they want.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

snip

That's more like it. : )

I don't think that the over generalising view of all WoW players holds true either. But with that being said, I can't help but to acknowledge the fact that WoW has had it's tendencies to keep a lot of people compleely plastered in front of their computer screens, for good or ill.

Now im not gonna start ranting about the pro's and con's of spending a lot of time in front of a computer (I feel that's something up to each and everyone to decide on their own), but occasionally trying out other games than WoW wouldn't be such a bad thing, and I think many WoW players already do that, but perhaps not on an equally serious level as they do with WoW.

I can't stress this enough, that my main concerns is for the MMORPG format, and how Blizzards huge success have influenced this format. Because, let's face it, when you set a standard you tend to cement a certain way of thinking.

For instance, I was a little interested in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, but once it got released I realized that it was mostly just a WoW clone.

I think it's kind of sad when even the game developers think about "which class should be the tanker class" when they are designing an MMORPG. It all sounds so horribly standardized.

I mean, just think about it, the very premise of an MMORPG involves connecting up to thousands of people playing in the same gaming world. There are so many unexplored possibilities with this format, wouldn't it be extremely boring if the only way this format was used, was as another sort of WoW-clone?

I (like any gamer) could mention hundreds of new ways of gaming that would fit perfectly for the MMO format. For instance, why have so few MMO's actually explored the "ROLE PLAYING"-bit of the word "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game"?

Speaking as someone who play traditional RPG's frequently (yes the pen and paper kind where you just sit around a table and fantasize with a bunch of fellow players), I have to say that there are huge parts of this aspect alone to explore. But so far, most MMORPG's are just about "dressing up" as a digital Orc, Elf or Dwarf and teaming up with a few people, beating the crap out of the enviroment in the game world or just beating the crap out of other players "dress up" digital selves.

Actually trying to characterize your digital avatar is rarely of any importance to the gameplay.

Of course, now you and many others might think: "Well the reason for that is because it's too much of a hassle to keep in character all the time", and if I hadn't any experience with traditional RPG's I might have agreed with you. But I promise you that once you get into it, it will come to you just as natural as doing anything else, and it's quite fun too.

And gameplay concerning keeping in character is just one among hundreds of things that could be done in MMORPG's. And many of these things have already been done in primitive MUD's ("Multi User Dungeons" which are basically text based MMORPG's without graphics), so It looks like normal video gaming has fallen behind or simply stopped when all MMORPG's are mostly about beating the crap out of digital dragons or other people's digital avatars.

If an MMORPG were released that primarily awarded you with XP for the players abilities in acting and keeping in character rather than for killing monsters, I'd be all over it in a heartbeat. That would be a true ROLE PLAYING game. : )

 

[G1eet]

I've never seen too much Blizzard hate...

Maybe you're confusing them with Bungie.

Stracraft is indisputably one of the best, if not the best, RTS game of all time and is one of the most widely played tournament games in the world.

I personally dispute that Starcraft is one of the best RTS games. It bored me within a week back in the late 90's when I bought it.

But you've gotta concede that it's one of the most widely played. It's a national sport in South Korea, god bless them.

 

[John Funk]

You got me. Knowing a bunch of the guys at Blizzard myself, I always scratch my head in befuddlement when people start accusing them of screwing people over for cash. Yes, they're a company. Yes, they have families to feed and bills to pay. But every time I've spoken with the people I know at Blizzard, I'm almost always impressed by how much the drive to make a damn good game seems to be the bottom line, and how much pride they take in that directive. They've earned serious brownie points by me by cutting their losses and refusing to release games that aren't up to standard even when development had largely proceeded (see Warcraft Adventures, StarCraft Ghost).

People who hate MMOs hate WoW. People who like Blizzard hate WoW. People who like MMOs hate WoW.
It's like how Disney is uber rich selling that crap merchandise they spew on about on Disney Channel. Jonas, Hillary Duff, seeing any connections here? Rich company not = talented company.

That's a narrowminded way of looking at it. There are 12 million people who love WoW. As someone who plays lots and lots of MMOGs, I do think that WoW is the pinnacle of modern MMO development as far as a well-rounded game that covers all the bases. Can you conclusively say that they're all wrong? I doubt you can.

heres something that bugged the hell out of me about blizzard... how many expansions have they made for wow??

and they are only just now working on the sequals to the highest quality games they have?? bullshit

and i say highest quality because, well they have been pumping out expansions for WOW for years, they have improved ALOT of things, starcraft and diablo were one shot awesomeness

Well it's not only the MMO hate...but paying attention only to the WoW is just f-ing retartded...I mean they dellayed so many projects and cancelled others...I just can't forgive them

Blizzard started work on StarCraft II after shipping WC3: Frozen Throne in 2001. (This was their RTS team). Diablo III has been under construction in some form or another since... 2002 or 2003, I want to say? First at Blizzard North, then after Roper et al left to found Flagship, at the main branch in their own Diablo team.

They have not been "ignoring" SC2 or D3; they've been actively working on them the entire time that the WoW team has been working on that game. Blizzard is a very large studio; they have at LEAST four teams (WoW, RTS, Diablo, Next Gen MMO) all working on their own games. The reason we only now just found out about D3 and SC2 is because they were only now judged to be good enough to be presentable.

Canceled projects like StarCraft Ghost? They canceled it because they didn't think it would be good enough and live up to their standards? I fail to see how wanting to preserve the image of excellence that comes along with their name by not releasing a below-standard game (when they could have just released it, it would have sold millions and easily recouped all the investment ... but tarnished their name) is anything but admirable.

 

[Skratt]

EA & Sony are a much better companies to hate, but that is soo 90's