Blizzcon 2018

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

ArenCordial

Senior member
Sep 18, 2012
214
15
81
I think a lot of this outcry could have easily been avoided if they dropped a Diablo 4 title card at the end of Blizzcon like Bethesda did with ESVI. Everyone knows ESVI isn't going to be out for yearsm same with D4 but having Blizzard make comments throughout the year to get Diablo fans excited then little a month before the con pull back and try to temper those expectations wasn't ever going to work. At this point all Blizzard ended up doing was pissing off diehard fans and giving the Path of Exile guys a reason to open some bottles of champagne because that gravy train isn't ending anytime soon with how Blizzard has been going.


But whatever, Blizzard is going down the drains real hard.

People have been saying this for years but still I think you are right. Another con and again the thing I'm most excited about it another remaster of an old game. The only Blizzard game I still play now is WoW and frankly that's only because of the years long friendships I've made there. BfA sucks, the class design is terrible and frankly I'm at the point I don't want to log on because I'm not having any fun actually playing. Maybe they turn it around with some patches but at this point I think it will be another expansion before they even give class design a serious attempt.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
184
106
Except it does make sense, and you tried shoehorning the rest of the announcements as a rebuttal to someone that was just talking about the mobile game?

It makes financial sense for Blizzard. And before you go pulling something as you push out your next reply, remember that first & foremost they are a business. I hate micro-transactions, I only do light gaming on my phone, so I will likely try this game and then uninstall it, and then move on with my life because there are always other games to play. But this will make them a ton of money. And that's all there is to it.

I can agree that the announcement at Blizzcon was tonedeaf at best, and the reality is closer to slapping their most ardent fans in the face. But what Anubis said is correct.

I am not against the very existence of mobile gaming. I don't like it. But I don't want to see it gone just because I don't like it. I'm saying this because perhaps I should have said this in my previous post to clarify. Heck, I don't even have anything against the principle / practice of profit to begin with.

I know they're a business. But mobile gaming is played in short bursts, it's for quick gaming, it's fast-food action. It's the land of Angry Birds, Bejeweled and Mario Run styled games. Now, the Diablo / action RPG genre is a grinding type of game that requires weeks, or a month+ to fully gear up a single character. Which audience, really, is a Diablo Mobile game aimed at? Some guy with a smart phone looking at his phone screen for 3 straight hours on a plane? And THAT is going to work? Leveling up your Sorc while walking your dog for 20 minutes? Trying to finish bounties before lunch break ends? If that's the case then I am actually, genuinely surprised. I just do not picture a "Mobile" type game being that sort of game to start with. And, of course, that's where my take on all this stems from.

I would not have been 'against' something that actually FITS the Mobile gaming industry ("fitting", here, again according to how I myself perceive mobile gaming). Something along the lines of... a Diablo-themed Cards game (maybe in the veins of Heartstone, but with a Diablo Universe setup), a... Pinball game themed around Diablo, a Tetris-styled game with Diablo spices thrown in (say in the style of that Street Fighter-themed Tetris-like game which I can't recall the name of right now; which on a side note I played a bit of and had actual fun with... wouldn't mind playing that on a mobile device for about 10 minutes). I just cannot imagine the point of playing a - what appears to be - full-fledged, full featured D3 clone on the Mobile platform if that means most people playing it won't play it for more than 1 hour (if even that). Now, of course, I can bet that there's going to be MTXs in the form of experience boosts to speed up leveling, etc.

If they had announced this exact "Diablo 3" Mobile game... but... along side a follow up announcement of a 'proper PC Diablo' related content update (or D4) then of course, it would have been alright. Most people like me would have shut up since we'd have had what we wished for since at least the past 3 years or so. I didn't want something as big as a new Diablo game during the time when D3 itself worked well enough and was still rather recent. For about a period of 3 years it was alright and I don't recall seeing the 'community' asking for an actual full sequel since the past five years. We've mostly been ok with D3 "as is" for a good chunk of time post-release. But now, at this point in time, D3 is just absolutely boring and extremely repetitive. It's not because D2 is still being played today that we should be "ok" with D3 for another 10 years. Not all games are 'viable' for the mass for that long, but Blizzard seem to rely on that just because WoW has been going on since the times when the Dinosaurs walked the Earth. And they imagine that just because they're Blizzard, that all their games don't actually 'required' sequels because... man, they're Blizzard and their games are perfect.

We, the gamers, absolutely don't know what we'd like to play. They do. We have to agree with them.

We, D3 players (or rather I should say, Diablo 'Fans', since not everyone even liked D3 to start with) haven't received a single new ITEM in the game since... heck I can't even recall (maybe more than a year since the last Unique was added to the loot pool). Not even an item for crying out loud. Of course, much less a new Class. On the D3 forums many say that they would be very content with "just" a new Class, that's it. Asking for a new Act?! Perish the thought! We'd all be entitled little nerds then wouldn't we. I mean I still enjoy doing the same bounties in my lovely Act 5 since the past 2 years and I want MORE of it - unchanged please! Imagine if they were to release Act 6?! Man, Diablo 3 then would suck!

Anyway, this Diablo 3 game is too big for the platform(s) it's made for, and too ambitious for the audience who play games on that type of platform. Diablo, was, NEVER designed with "Let's grind for my Barb on my bus ride to work this morning for about 15 minutes". If I had been a gamer on mobile I would have probably bought something like Super Diablo Kart on my new iPhone, sure. But c'mon, who the hell can possibly take this mobile "D3" seriously?!

Oh and someone mentioned the mobile scene is big in China. Ok, why do we have to satisfy China again? I could understand 'returning the favor' to Japan thanks to all the things they brought to gaming for us here in Amercia (you know, things like the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros., Zelda, and the likes). But... China? K so mobile gaming is big over there. Alright so... let them help thesmselves with it? Aren't they actually producing everything that's made on Earth? Well then, let them make their own Blizzard knockoff company, let them give themselves jobs for their gaming industry artists over there and let them make their own action RPG for their own mobile gaming scene.

Why is it that Blizzard has to the be the one serving something to Mr. China on a silver platter while leaving their long-time, long-lasting fans in America, Europe and many other countries around the world in the dust with the Diablo franchise?

Now, my final thoughts:

If, they ARE actually working on something big something "proper" for PC. If, in fact, they are working on none other than Diablo 4, or at least some sort of a very ambitious remake (or reboot) of Diablo (or Diablo 2 specifically) then the big problem is that they did NOT announce it at THIS BlizzCon. Because JUST announcing that they're bringing the "Diablo franchise" over to Mobile platforms and nothing else makes this BlizzCon one of the worst moment in video gaming history for Diablo fans (and for many PC gamers in general who happened to have very fond memories of at least D2, and maybe even D3 at this point). The attention is focused on THAT announcement, since there's nothing else for us Diablo fans to sink our teeth into. So, obviously, we bitch about it because we all have our valid, personal reasons and opinions to hate it as much as we can. Which is clearly the case with me. But I'm fine if some people out there happen to actually want something like that on their iPhone. I just absolutely despise their decision and I would find it even more baffling that for this BlizzCon they would have - for some reasons - decided to hold back on another would-be announcement for one of those supposed "other" Diablo projects, and thought that the one single announcement of this franchise going Mobile was a GOOD IDEA.

I'm pissed off not because I like to hate for the sake of hatred in this case. But because of the actual genuine love I have for the Diablo universe. Many people never consider in the slightest that - at least sometimes - when a gamer 'bitches' about something, it's because they LOVE the franchise and hate the latest decision / direction it's taking.
 

NTMBK

Lifer
Nov 14, 2011
10,208
4,940
136
Grindy RPGs have been a big thing on portable systems since, like, the 90s. Kids have been grinding Pokémon on the go for a very long time. Lots of other JRPGs have gone handheld on either 3DS or Vita. Putting it on a handheld device just makes it easier to grind on the sofa while you're watching TV with your boyfriend.
 

CalebRockeT

Golden Member
Jul 14, 2003
1,143
13
81
Putting it on a handheld device just makes it easier to grind on the sofa while you're watching TV with your boyfriend.

Ease of handheld grinding while on the sofa with a SO isn't high on my list of priorities. That said, it doesn't offend me that they're making something I have zero interest in that will likely make them a lot of money. Good for them.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
Lack of concrete details on anything Diablo other than the mobile experiment and the Switch version seems to be the basis for them getting the audience wide roasting.
 

Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
The memes have been rolling out non-stop and Blizzard is heavily modding the comments on Youtube videos and their forums (which is normal, but they are deleting at a higher-than-normal rate lately). Entire threads are being deleted and bans are being handed out left and right to anyone who says anything negative about the Q&A panel. Not to mention they are really touchy when someone mentions red shirt guy.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,443
2,084
126
Exactly.
How old do you think the average D2 player is ?

Bliz really did it this time. Publishing exclusively on mobile AND announcing it as "the next diablo" shows they are out of touch with the expectations of the playerbase. THAT is why people are unhappy.
If you add the one-sided "moderation" of them deleting anything hurtful to their marketing only further proves that they view the playerbase as cash cows and not fans.

It doesnt take a genius. Or maybe it does and im a genius.

Diablo ... ON MOBILE
crowd: booooo
So, you want this on pc as well?
crowd: yeeeee!
Ok i hereby announce we'll start the port

Crowd goes ape crazy

Thank you pls pay me one million dollars i solved the D4 fiasco
 

Bubbleawsome

Diamond Member
Apr 14, 2013
4,833
1,204
146
Didn’t they try to charge money to see the stream this year too?

Blizzard is seriously becoming a senile old man of a company.
 

TidusZ

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2007
1,765
2
81
$50 USD for the stream... extremely greedy. Not surprising after they charge $20 for the necromancer 5 years after D3's release
 

Majes

Golden Member
Apr 8, 2008
1,164
148
106
Blizzard has screwed up every thing they've done with Diablo since Lord of Destruction released. It's clear they don't have any talent in the ARPG genre and it's probably a good thing that they are outsourcing the mobile game.

They should have bought up Path of Exile before Tencent did to force them to make Diablo 4.

Also... they should spend some more money on public relations. The mobile announcement fiasco was something very easy to predict and avoid. I honestly couldn't believe they made those guys go out there to announce it.
 

evident

Lifer
Apr 5, 2005
11,894
496
126
diablo 3 is a totally botched game since the beginning w/ the real money auction house and tons of other gameplay issues. Haven't picked it up since they fixed it but i really have no desire too. So many other games deserve the small amount of free time i have. too little, too late as far as i'm concerned and it is the worst game blizzard ever put out by an order of magnitude. I'm really not surprised that the team managing diablo screwed it up again w/ this mobile announcement.
 

Majes

Golden Member
Apr 8, 2008
1,164
148
106
diablo 3 is a totally botched game since the beginning w/ the real money auction house and tons of other gameplay issues. Haven't picked it up since they fixed it but i really have no desire too. So many other games deserve the small amount of free time i have. too little, too late as far as i'm concerned and it is the worst game blizzard ever put out by an order of magnitude. I'm really not surprised that the team managing diablo screwed it up again w/ this mobile announcement.

I'm actually of the opinion that the real money auction house was great.
 

DeathReborn

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 2005
2,743
734
136
The AH was a good idea BADLY handled/managed.

A fair bit of my ire towards Blizzard could be salved by either nuking the title altogether or it being a China/Asia exclusive combined with D1/D2 "ReForged" being announced for 2019.
 

rstrohkirch

Platinum Member
May 31, 2005
2,423
367
126
This doesn't bother me personally. Franchises and companies come and go. While I enjoyed my time playing Diablo 1, 2 and 3, I didn't feel 3 lived up to the previous title. I have no faith that even if they produce a Diablo 4 that it will be any better. I enjoy ARPG and have played a lot of them. Path of Exile is the only one that has kept my attention consistently. Blizzard isn't going to produce the type of game from that franchise that I'm looking to play.
 

Majes

Golden Member
Apr 8, 2008
1,164
148
106
This doesn't bother me personally. Franchises and companies come and go. While I enjoyed my time playing Diablo 1, 2 and 3, I didn't feel 3 lived up to the previous title. I have no faith that even if they produce a Diablo 4 that it will be any better. I enjoy ARPG and have played a lot of them. Path of Exile is the only one that has kept my attention consistently. Blizzard isn't going to produce the type of game from that franchise that I'm looking to play.

It's been quite fun to watch PoE and Diablo 3. A talented, passionate group with a vision started with nothing and built a hugely successful ARPG. The other group used poor leadership, laziness, and a lack of understanding to murder a record setting franchise.

At the rate Blizzard works... For them to to create a Diablo 4 with comparable features to PoE would take 30 years.
 

Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
Always irks me to see people talking about Diablo 3 and Path of Exile without even mentioning Grim Dawn. Several members from the original Blizzard North team formed Crate Entertainment who made Grim Dawn.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
While I would have much, much preferred an announcement of Diablo II Remastered, I was pretty sure we weren't going to get it this year after Blizzard had already announced WarCraft III Reforged earlier. Oh, and for you Virtual Ticket holders, if you're considering buying Reforged, note that you get a $10 discount on the fancy edition that contains all the cross-game extras, which makes it the same price as the normal edition. This discount only lasts until the middle of this month.

Anyway, I have no issue with the Diablo Immortal announcement. I might be a bit different than others because....

  1. They were quite clear weeks ago that they have multiple projects in a row. This doesn't guarantee us a Diablo IV or a Diablo II Remaster, but it helps note that this isn't all that the Diablo team is doing.
  2. This feels like mostly a side project that is likely predominantly helmed by NetEase for development and Blizzard for some art, story and gameplay guidance.
  3. I take this to be a sort of experiment sort of like how Nintendo made Super Mario Run to test the waters on mobile variants of their IP. By using NetEase and likely leveraging a modified version of an existing engine, they're able to do this a bit cheaper so the risk isn't as high. Based upon some backlash, that might have been a good move.
  4. A few years back, I played Gameloft's Dungeon Hunter on iOS. It was a sort of Diablo-lite experience, and it was actually kind of fun. Unfortunately, Gameloft ruined the series by stuffing it full of micro-transactions, which is a sort of two-sided tale for this... the game style can be fun, but monetization is a huge sticking point.
  5. Apparently, there are rumors that Diablo wasn't supposed to be the last presentation. I know some are mad that it was the "closer", but supposedly that has to do with the Hearthstone Arena's messed up mic forcing Overwatch -- the intended headliner -- to go next.

Didn’t they try to charge money to see the stream this year too?

Blizzard is seriously becoming a senile old man of a company.

The only change this year to the Virtual Ticket was the cost increase from $40 to $50. Each year, the Opening Ceremony and the eSports events have always been free. So, if you're talking about the Q&A panel being pay-to-watch, it has always been like that.

Now, the Diablo / action RPG genre is a grinding type of game that requires weeks, or a month+ to fully gear up a single character. Which audience, really, is a Diablo Mobile game aimed at? Some guy with a smart phone looking at his phone screen for 3 straight hours on a plane? And THAT is going to work? Leveling up your Sorc while walking your dog for 20 minutes? Trying to finish bounties before lunch break ends? If that's the case then I am actually, genuinely surprised. I just do not picture a "Mobile" type game being that sort of game to start with. And, of course, that's where my take on all this stems from.

The game appears to be designed as short zones, which are meant to be done faster. However, as long as you can play offline and simply navigate away from the game and have it save your state, I don't see it as an issue. As noted above, I've already played ARPGs on the phone years ago, and they played fine. Of course, they aren't a simple puzzle game where you play it with a single hand while walking your dog, but not all games need to be that.

We, D3 players (or rather I should say, Diablo 'Fans', since not everyone even liked D3 to start with) haven't received a single new ITEM in the game since... heck I can't even recall (maybe more than a year since the last Unique was added to the loot pool). Not even an item for crying out loud. Of course, much less a new Class. On the D3 forums many say that they would be very content with "just" a new Class, that's it. Asking for a new Act?! Perish the thought! We'd all be entitled little nerds then wouldn't we.

When I first read this part, "entitled" was the exact word that came to mind. Tell me... why should Blizzard keep adding items to Diablo III, which I would assume is likely the second lowest monetary property right above StarCraft II. Although, it could actually be the worst depending on how well the StarCraft II in-game purchases do since Diablo III only has in-game purchases in China. Anyway, the point is that while it would be nice to get more items from Blizzard, that time can be spent working on new entries into the franchise... things that actually make the company money.

I don't see an issue with adding new classes as that is something that we pay for, but Blizzard's possible reluctance (that could be one of the projects in the works) could relate to wanting to transition to Diablo IV sooner than later or relate to how well the Necromancer Pack sold.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bubbleawsome

sweenish

Diamond Member
May 21, 2013
3,656
60
91
Someone asked about microtrans in the q&a it will not be a major feature

Also they reiterated they have more then one diablo project in the works (Soon tm)
People are seeming to forget this.

Flip side is that Blizzard made a point of saying "multiple projects" and then showed the worst possible one to die-hard fans.

I'm not trying to defend Blizzard, just pointing out how idiotic it is for people to get as bent out of shape as they have. Like Zenoth. They're acting like Wyatt Cheng personally killed their dog. Why? It's whatever, it's a game I may not play. When Hearthstone got announced, I literally didn't care because I knew I'd never play it.

Same here. I'll try it (I pre-registered and everything), but it likely won't stick, and it won't be the thing that scratches the itch while I wait for a proper mainline sequel. I've got a backlog I can move through. I'm not sworn to play Diablo exclusively until a sequel comes out. All of this hate is plain stupid. Go to Grim Dawn, PoE, Titan Quest (it got a new expansion very recently), or whatever else floats your boat.

I mean, I'm finally getting close to finishing Witcher 1. Blizzard's announcement doesn't affect that. If I never see a proper and good Diablo sequel, I will be a bit sad, but I play so many other things.

Someone else mentioned micro transactions and how they're not a "main" feature. What does that even mean? The fact is they exist. A grind is very well structured around their existence. I'm pretty sure Blizzard tried claiming that the RMAH wasn't a "main" feature either. Maybe I don't see a store page every five minutes, but the game is built knowing they exist. That affects gameplay.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
While it seems like Diablo Immortal got the most furor this year, I'd like to talk about something else... WoW Classic.

I've been playing WoW since the day after it release and during the beta before that. I did enjoy the original game, but it's worth noting two things...

1. Vanilla WoW was really my first big MMO experience. My Internet was always bad at home and that severely limited by ability to do MMOs. This is important as it means that I didn't have a lot to go on in regard to past experiences.
2. I am very willing to admit that while Vanilla WoW was a better game in some ways, it was also really bad in others.

Now, I think what I'd really like to touch on is point #2, and that being the major reasoning behind my belief that making WoW Classic a near perfect recreation of Vanilla is a bad idea. I want to be very clear in that there are two concepts that I believe WoW Classic should try to adhere to, and the current design does do this... community and speed. I won't go into community as I believe we all understand the reasoning behind that, but I'd like to talk about the latter one. Speed has to do with the rate of progression through content, and it's a tough balance. You don't want to make it so hard that the player feels like they accomplish very little, but if you trivialize it, then the content doesn't feel meaningful. I'd argue that leveling content in current WoW is the latter.

When I was playing the WoW Classic demo, I saw people making remarks like "I can actually die! This is great!". I can understand wanting difficulty in the game, but I'd argue that WoW Classic's difficulty is an artificial level of difficulty based upon poor game design. The biggest issue in Vanilla WoW is that the itemization is awful to the point where low-level gear is incredibly underpowered and high-level gear had awkward stat allocations such as Spirit on Rogue gear. (Now, to be fair, Spirit did affect out-of-combat health regen and was arguably useful for warriors given how bad their downtime was, but not in small amounts.) I did the Gnoll Paw quest at Sentinel Hill, and it literally took about an hour in a group due to low drop rates, few single pull spawns, and bad gear.

During the presentation on WoW Classic, Blizzard was pretty upfront about what they considered for the remake and what they were adamant about leaving out. They also discussed the idea of content releases, and how they would gate content to make releases more natural. The one thing that came to mind is that BWL and ZG were part of the second content release, which makes sense as they were released after Molten Core and Onyxia. However, the biggest problem that I see is that ZG served two purposes: it was a smaller raid, which lowered the barrier of entry, and it also provided an avenue for raid groups to get better gear for MC. In the same vein, one later addition that wasn't discussed was the class blue/epic sets. These sets were also a great help in bridging the gap between level 60 dungeons (UBRS, Strat, and Scholo) and raids (MC and Onyxia).

Blizzard also stated that they would be leaving the 16 debuff limit in the game. I'm rather mixed on this and it seems that Blizzard was as well, but to me, while I agree that it affects gameplay, it isn't a natural or apparent system for the players. In fact, I didn't even know it existed until I was told by a raid leader that I couldn't use a specific sword (I think it was from Stratholme) because it had a bleed effect.

I don't want to ramble on for too long about this, but I think you can sum up my opinion in one remark... Vanilla WoW was not perfect, and I think WoW Classic is a decent chance at providing a game that still has the community that we seek but fixes a lot of the poor itemization problems that plagued Vanilla. If done right, I don't think this would seriously hurt the difficulty of the original game, but I do think it would be slightly easier.
 

TidusZ

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2007
1,765
2
81
While it seems like Diablo Immortal got the most furor this year, I'd like to talk about something else... WoW Classic.

I've been playing WoW since the day after it release and during the beta before that. I did enjoy the original game, but it's worth noting two things...

1. Vanilla WoW was really my first big MMO experience. My Internet was always bad at home and that severely limited by ability to do MMOs. This is important as it means that I didn't have a lot to go on in regard to past experiences.
2. I am very willing to admit that while Vanilla WoW was a better game in some ways, it was also really bad in others.

Now, I think what I'd really like to touch on is point #2, and that being the major reasoning behind my belief that making WoW Classic a near perfect recreation of Vanilla is a bad idea. I want to be very clear in that there are two concepts that I believe WoW Classic should try to adhere to, and the current design does do this... community and speed. I won't go into community as I believe we all understand the reasoning behind that, but I'd like to talk about the latter one. Speed has to do with the rate of progression through content, and it's a tough balance. You don't want to make it so hard that the player feels like they accomplish very little, but if you trivialize it, then the content doesn't feel meaningful. I'd argue that leveling content in current WoW is the latter.

When I was playing the WoW Classic demo, I saw people making remarks like "I can actually die! This is great!". I can understand wanting difficulty in the game, but I'd argue that WoW Classic's difficulty is an artificial level of difficulty based upon poor game design. The biggest issue in Vanilla WoW is that the itemization is awful to the point where low-level gear is incredibly underpowered and high-level gear had awkward stat allocations such as Spirit on Rogue gear. (Now, to be fair, Spirit did affect out-of-combat health regen and was arguably useful for warriors given how bad their downtime was, but not in small amounts.) I did the Gnoll Paw quest at Sentinel Hill, and it literally took about an hour in a group due to low drop rates, few single pull spawns, and bad gear.

During the presentation on WoW Classic, Blizzard was pretty upfront about what they considered for the remake and what they were adamant about leaving out. They also discussed the idea of content releases, and how they would gate content to make releases more natural. The one thing that came to mind is that BWL and ZG were part of the second content release, which makes sense as they were released after Molten Core and Onyxia. However, the biggest problem that I see is that ZG served two purposes: it was a smaller raid, which lowered the barrier of entry, and it also provided an avenue for raid groups to get better gear for MC. In the same vein, one later addition that wasn't discussed was the class blue/epic sets. These sets were also a great help in bridging the gap between level 60 dungeons (UBRS, Strat, and Scholo) and raids (MC and Onyxia).

Blizzard also stated that they would be leaving the 16 debuff limit in the game. I'm rather mixed on this and it seems that Blizzard was as well, but to me, while I agree that it affects gameplay, it isn't a natural or apparent system for the players. In fact, I didn't even know it existed until I was told by a raid leader that I couldn't use a specific sword (I think it was from Stratholme) because it had a bleed effect.

I don't want to ramble on for too long about this, but I think you can sum up my opinion in one remark... Vanilla WoW was not perfect, and I think WoW Classic is a decent chance at providing a game that still has the community that we seek but fixes a lot of the poor itemization problems that plagued Vanilla. If done right, I don't think this would seriously hurt the difficulty of the original game, but I do think it would be slightly easier.

WoW classic is the thing I'm most excited with from Blizz atm (WC3 reforged custom games are a close second). I'm slightly disappointed about keeping the 16 debuff limit. They'd have to tune bosses around it, but they're already going to have to do that if we're starting off with 1.12 class balance, since everyone will be more powerful from that. I'm overall impressed with how they are releasing the content, not just raids but events and pvp stuff.

The question they didn't answer was about addons. It sounds like they are still figuring out the balance between addons being too powerful or too basic. I always thought that modern addons would trivialize a lot of vanilla fights (decursing a debuff quickly was the "hard" part of like half the fights early on in vanilla).

All in all, I hope it's really popular so that blizzard continues to take it seriously like they are so far. It is looking good right now, unlike diablo the past 18 years.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
All in all, I hope it's really popular so that blizzard continues to take it seriously like they are so far. It is looking good right now, unlike diablo the past 18 years.

I guess what I'm trying to stress is the idea that you can make a game that's as fun as Vanilla WoW was while not giving us exactly what Vanilla WoW was. Blizzard can take what they've learned over the years and tweak things while still trying to preserve the aspect of community, grouping, and the slower pace. Now, you could argue that better items would increase the pace, and I think you'd be correct. However, I don't think it would be too bad. I'd still want to see multi-mob pulls that would likely overwhelm a player -- even with better gear. I'd still want to see those group quests that you could maybe only solo while cheesing through something like Hunter kiting.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
3,785
136
The crowd was clearly displeased and the Q&A was hostile. Someone legit asked if it was an out of season April fool's joke.as well as asking about a a PC release which got booed when the answer was no.

I think their decline started after WoW became a success that was even beyond their wildest dreams. After being able to extract guaranteed $15/month from 10 million players, and doing it for a decade, I'm pretty sure the company will change as a whole. That's where gold farming, and selling virtual items for real money really ramped up. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere the demands of keeping up with WoW meant they had to pull resources from other projects?

Then micro transactions gaming, ahem, League of Legends happened, and soon after mobile gaming.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
Until Blizzard publicly announces something is coming, there is no faith of the audience getting access to it. We've got a list of "we know they're working on it" products that will never be played.