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Blizzard to restore Classics: Diablo 2 Resurrected September 23rd!

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Posts

  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    Here's the thing about investors and traders: they have a ton of money, are good at thinking on their feet, and absolutely zero grasp of the concept of a long-term plan.

  • PhazonRebornPhazonReborn Registered User regular
    Sorry if this has already been asked: Is this basically just the remastered base game, not the Frozen Throne content added?

  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    Sorry if this has already been asked: Is this basically just the remastered base game, not the Frozen Throne content added?

    It will have both.

  • PhazonRebornPhazonReborn Registered User regular
    Donnicton wrote: »
    Sorry if this has already been asked: Is this basically just the remastered base game, not the Frozen Throne content added?

    It will have both.

    Thanks.

    I'd buy this again just to experience the campaigns. It's been so long.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    So, one of the things going on here is really not that insidious. The thing to remember is that the stock price is based on predictions of future performance. Those assumptions are baked in to the price people are buying the stock at. If a company makes less the predicted then those assumptions were wrong and so the market corrects downward. Because the previous stock price was based on the predictions that it didn't meet. This doesn't really mean that the people buying and selling the stock here think the company is a failure or something. It just means the company is not worth as much at the end of the year as they assumed it would be.

    That doesn't mean investors aren't annoyed that it made less money then they wanted but the stock price falling is not a reflection of those feelings but just of the base fact that the company is worth less at the end of the year then they assumed it would be.

  • CarnarvonCarnarvon Registered User regular
    edited February 2019
    Lilnoobs wrote: »
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    Well, Bloomberg is the source so everything is spun as business positive. But it's pretty crazy to think that 2% lower than expected forecasts can cause such an uproar, it's insane. The markets are driven by insanity.

    The thing to remember is that 2.5% is roughly $180 million dollars. That's 3 million $60 boxes that they thought they'd sell but didn't. If you invest in a high-risk business, you typically expect to triple your money; you also get paid last after paying debts wages, and investors, so that $180m comes straight out of Activision's pockets.

    Blizzard signed their name in blood when they sold out to Activision, and this is the kind of shit that happens when two people agree to a shitty deal. They should have moved to the Games as a Service model YEARS before they did. The Quadruple-A titles Blizz wants to make once every seven years haven't been profitable since Mass Effect 1.

    Carnarvon on
  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    respectfully you can take your games as a service model and do something unpleasant with it and your orifices. i would literally kill people if it meant devs put some soul into anything near the caliber of warcraft 3. like a warcraft 4 with some of the kind of content they have for sc2 like war chests would be awesome. part of the problem with sc2 was that they did it over 3 titles and like 5 years, and it's writing was overall weaker than sc1 (IMO). That and most people cant play games at 400 apm so cant really get the most out of everything.

  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    So, i've honestly not kept up with Overwatch etc - is there a good breakdown of the issues here? Someone able to summarize? It's a topic i'd like to read more on - both the abandoning balance and ignoring feedback parts (The predatory lootboxes i'm interested in too, but i feel i've seen more articles on why those are shitty?)

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  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    the abandoning balance and ignoring feedback is probably most directed at WoW and specifically its latest expansion. Im personally not sure how hearthstone is doing these days, as it just got boring and samey even with new expansions, but i guess the model is kind of like loot boxes. If you look at activision as a whole, destiny 2 and the new call of duty tick a lot of the complaint boxes.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Carnarvon wrote: »
    Lilnoobs wrote: »
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    Well, Bloomberg is the source so everything is spun as business positive. But it's pretty crazy to think that 2% lower than expected forecasts can cause such an uproar, it's insane. The markets are driven by insanity.

    The thing to remember is that 2.5% is roughly $180 million dollars. That's 3 million $60 boxes that they thought they'd sell but didn't. If you invest in a high-risk business, you typically expect to triple your money; you also get paid last after paying debts wages, and investors, so that $180m comes straight out of Activision's pockets.

    Blizzard signed their name in blood when they sold out to Activision, and this is the kind of shit that happens when two people agree to a shitty deal. They should have moved to the Games as a Service model YEARS before they did. The Quadruple-A titles Blizz wants to make once every seven years haven't been profitable since Mass Effect 1.

    Blizzard never sold out to Activison. Strap in, everyone, this is a twisted road we now embark on.

    Blizzard sold to a company called Davidson and Associates in 1994 (before they were even known as Blizzard), who in turn sold themselves to a company called CUC International (Under the CUC Software label) in 1996. CUC, in turn, merged with Hospitality Franchise Systems in 1997 to create Cendant, who in turn were bought by french company Havas in 1998, who were either already owned or were quickly bought out by Vivendi in that same year.

    Fast foward to 2007 when Activison merged with Vivendi Games to make Activision-Blizzard.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited February 2019
    Jasconius wrote: »
    Donnicton wrote: »
    Apogee wrote: »
    This is a dumb question, but I'v never been able to figure out the answer: as someone who didn't play the WoW expansions past BC, what happened with Warlords of Dreanor? I know the general plotline, but what happened with the time-travel retcon stuff? Did they use that opportunity to re-make the universe that the players are in, and everything else is 'some other timeline'? Or was the retcon timeline the 'other universe'?

    I'm so confused.

    They dropped it almost entirely. They used it as an excuse to bring alternate-Gul'Dan into Legion as an early antagonist, and there's a brief followup regarding it during the quest line to recruit the Mag'Har, but beyond that it has no other relevance to future content.

    i was trying to answer this question in my own head and I couldn't come up with anything other than "wait... what actually DID happen in that expansion?"

    yeah... I think that's pretty much it. A completely isolated universe that I guess Gul'dan escaped from, along with the concept of garrisons

    There's some speculation for the future
    That we'll be seeing Yrel again as a villain. They've been really riding the "Light can be bad too" thing on a couple major points and the Mag'har allied race story line shows that after we left the Alt-Draenei basically went nuts and started conquering/brain washing everyone

    Styrofoam Sammich on
    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • CarnarvonCarnarvon Registered User regular
    Carnarvon wrote: »
    Lilnoobs wrote: »
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    Well, Bloomberg is the source so everything is spun as business positive. But it's pretty crazy to think that 2% lower than expected forecasts can cause such an uproar, it's insane. The markets are driven by insanity.

    The thing to remember is that 2.5% is roughly $180 million dollars. That's 3 million $60 boxes that they thought they'd sell but didn't. If you invest in a high-risk business, you typically expect to triple your money; you also get paid last after paying debts wages, and investors, so that $180m comes straight out of Activision's pockets.

    Blizzard signed their name in blood when they sold out to Activision, and this is the kind of shit that happens when two people agree to a shitty deal. They should have moved to the Games as a Service model YEARS before they did. The Quadruple-A titles Blizz wants to make once every seven years haven't been profitable since Mass Effect 1.

    Blizzard never sold out to Activison. Strap in, everyone, this is a twisted road we now embark on.

    Blizzard sold to a company called Davidson and Associates in 1994 (before they were even known as Blizzard), who in turn sold themselves to a company called CUC International (Under the CUC Software label) in 1996. CUC, in turn, merged with Hospitality Franchise Systems in 1997 to create Cendant, who in turn were bought by french company Havas in 1998, who were either already owned or were quickly bought out by Vivendi in that same year.

    Fast foward to 2007 when Activison merged with Vivendi Games to make Activision-Blizzard.

    Vivendi, that's what I was thinking of. I hadn't heard of any of that other stuff, that's pretty interesting, Looking at their release dates, I guess they needed the money to publish Warcraft 2.

    Here's a bigger question: When are we getting Blackthorne 2?

  • NogginNoggin Registered User regular
    Enigmedic wrote: »
    the abandoning balance and ignoring feedback is probably most directed at WoW and specifically its latest expansion. Im personally not sure how hearthstone is doing these days, as it just got boring and samey even with new expansions, but i guess the model is kind of like loot boxes. If you look at activision as a whole, destiny 2 and the new call of duty tick a lot of the complaint boxes.

    I haven’t played WoW in a long while, so from my experience those were more about Hearthstone. The players will find a broken interaction within hours, but it will plague the ladder for the next year. Meanwhile, they insist on keeping the classic set in the “standard” bracket, which just causes more balance problems and/or makes the game stale.

    But my post wasn’t meant to be directed solely at Blizzard, nor any one game in particular. The sad part is, to varying degrees, the listed issues apply to multiple games across multiple companies.

    Battletag: Noggin#1936
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited February 2019
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    So, i've honestly not kept up with Overwatch etc - is there a good breakdown of the issues here? Someone able to summarize? It's a topic i'd like to read more on - both the abandoning balance and ignoring feedback parts (The predatory lootboxes i'm interested in too, but i feel i've seen more articles on why those are shitty?)

    Blizzard developers' method of balance patches is to sledgehammer the offending character or situation so they don't have to revisit them for a while. You see it in Hearthstone. They don't nerf cards, they kill them. In Overwatch, they either buff up characters to be absolute monsters, or tear them down to be unusable.

    Whether they do it out of laziness, or if they do it to get old players picking the game back up again via new metas, I do not know. They always preview balance patches on the Public Test Region Server, but those changes always move to the real thing despite outcries. Someone here said they are using it as a hype machine instead of a real focus test environment.

    Hearthstone does a wierd thing where they will create monster cards and monster arechtypes, and deliberately not touch it until the next set sells countermeasures to keep people buying cards. If those new cards don't do the job, they will nerf the offending deck out of existence. I certainly gave up on Hearthstone because the devs could not find a win condition for Rogue that did not offend them, yet those same win conditions were fine for other other classes.

    1186.png

    Overwatch has my loyalty. It scratches an itch I cannot find in FPS games. I was in South Korea when it was released. Its demands for teamwork and communication are unlike anything I've ever seen and it deserves to be studied by military and leadership courses. Brigitte and Tracer's Pulse Bomb nerf are the only times the game has offended me (Bastion did not need that buff). They recently sledgehammer nerfed armor in general just to kill the mechanically lazy GOATS comp (3 Tank 3 Healer) before Overwatch League returns. I hope OW survives Activision's nonsense. My love for Overwatch reminds me that I probably don't play enough Rocket League.

    EDIT - Edited to make thoughts less random.

    Cantido on
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  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    I kinda think overwatch will die just like every other FPS. It doesnt come out with enough meaningful content to keep people playing it, and a game that requires depending on randos in a competitive setting ALWAYS leads to a toxic play environment. Like a new hero is nice every now and then, but there arent enough different things to do. it's why there is a new battlefield, call of duty, etc every year. they need to come out with a lot of new things for people. and the fps crowd jumps from game to game really quick. save for like eastern europe and counterstrike.

  • autono-wally, erotibot300autono-wally, erotibot300 love machine Registered User regular
    Overwatch today is very different from overwatch on release.

    But yeah, it seems they're doing hardly anything for it other than occasionally a hero or map. What's the rest of the team that made the game doing? Are they secretly creating a new game mode? Or are they really just running everything basically on maintenance?

    kFJhXwE.jpgkFJhXwE.jpg
  • The WolfmanThe Wolfman Registered User regular
    It feels like the only time Overwatch becomes briefly relevant is whenever a new character is created. But nobody gives a shit about the actual game or gameplay. Instead the news is just "Look at these people who are now dressing up as this character! Oh and by the way here's a tiny asterix at the end of their bio that says they're gay/trans, hooray". And then after that 10 second blip, the game slinks back into the crowd until the next character announcement.

    "The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
  • EspantaPajaroEspantaPajaro Registered User regular
    It feels like the only time Overwatch becomes briefly relevant is whenever a new character is created. But nobody gives a shit about the actual game or gameplay. Instead the news is just "Look at these people who are now dressing up as this character! Oh and by the way here's a tiny asterix at the end of their bio that says they're gay/trans, hooray". And then after that 10 second blip, the game slinks back into the crowd until the next character announcement.

    Which is really weird for blizzard games as usually they are always being talked about .

  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    edited February 2019
    It definitely doesn't seem like the full Overwatch team is focused on ongoing development of the game. They're on a decent enough timeline of releasing new heroes/maps, but in the first year they were also regularly making new events and game modes, now not so much. It does make me wonder if they've moved on to making an expansion/sequel instead.

    Zek on
  • TelMarineTelMarine Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    So, i've honestly not kept up with Overwatch etc - is there a good breakdown of the issues here? Someone able to summarize? It's a topic i'd like to read more on - both the abandoning balance and ignoring feedback parts (The predatory lootboxes i'm interested in too, but i feel i've seen more articles on why those are shitty?)

    Blizzard developers' method of balance patches is to sledgehammer the offending character or situation so they don't have to revisit them for a while. You see it in Hearthstone. They don't nerf cards, they kill them. In Overwatch, they either buff up characters to be absolute monsters, or tear them down to be unusable.

    Whether they do it out of laziness, or if they do it to get old players picking the game back up again via new metas, I do not know. They always preview balance patches on the Public Test Region Server, but those changes always move to the real thing despite outcries. Someone here said they are using it as a hype machine instead of a real focus test environment.

    Hearthstone does a wierd thing where they will create monster cards and monster arechtypes, and deliberately not touch it until the next set sells countermeasures to keep people buying cards. If those new cards don't do the job, they will nerf the offending deck out of existence. I certainly gave up on Hearthstone because the devs could not find a win condition for Rogue that did not offend them, yet those same win conditions were fine for other other classes.

    *image*

    Overwatch has my loyalty. It scratches an itch I cannot find in FPS games. I was in South Korea when it was released. Its demands for teamwork and communication are unlike anything I've ever seen and it deserves to be studied by military and leadership courses. Brigitte and Tracer's Pulse Bomb nerf are the only times the game has offended me (Bastion did not need that buff). They recently sledgehammer nerfed armor in general just to kill the mechanically lazy GOATS comp (3 Tank 3 Healer) before Overwatch League returns. I hope OW survives Activision's nonsense. My love for Overwatch reminds me that I probably don't play enough Rocket League.

    EDIT - Edited to make thoughts less random.

    Ever since War3 Blizzard's balancing has felt like complete randomness. I remember Starcraft1 it took a lot for them to make a change and often the changes weren't so dramatic. A lot of them were cost changes to a unit/research or increasing research/build time. One of the few times they significantly changed a unit was the Terran Goliath, which were terrible. It was a big deal in Starcraft1 when the Terran Academy was changed to be 150 minerals (instead of 200) and the missile turret 75 minerals (instead of 100). In War3, they would repeatedly nerf, buff, nerf and practically every patch it was completely different. I remember they kept fucking with the Blood Mage hero. Nerfing his flame pillar move, buffing it again, then nerfing it again. Instead of letting the game grow and become stable, they kept fucking with it. They are doing/did the samething with Starcraft 2.

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  • EspantaPajaroEspantaPajaro Registered User regular
    Starcraft has the unique benefit of becoming so huge that I don’t think they were willing to take those kinds of risks. Wc3 however was never really on the same scale and I always suspected the huge sweeping changes were their way to try to get it to blow up like SC did. That just what it seemed like to me.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    It feels like the only time Overwatch becomes briefly relevant is whenever a new character is created. But nobody gives a shit about the actual game or gameplay. Instead the news is just "Look at these people who are now dressing up as this character! Oh and by the way here's a tiny asterix at the end of their bio that says they're gay/trans, hooray". And then after that 10 second blip, the game slinks back into the crowd until the next character announcement.

    Based on what?

    AFAIK it's got a solid playerbase going.

  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    It feels like the only time Overwatch becomes briefly relevant is whenever a new character is created. But nobody gives a shit about the actual game or gameplay. Instead the news is just "Look at these people who are now dressing up as this character! Oh and by the way here's a tiny asterix at the end of their bio that says they're gay/trans, hooray". And then after that 10 second blip, the game slinks back into the crowd until the next character announcement.

    Based on what?

    AFAIK it's got a solid playerbase going.

    Also, I don't go to Overwatch for new content anymore than I do for Rocket League. Competitive online scenes change slowly. New characters are excellent, but the gameplay loop I seek remains the same.

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  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited February 2019
    It feels like the only time Overwatch becomes briefly relevant is whenever a new character is created. But nobody gives a shit about the actual game or gameplay. Instead the news is just "Look at these people who are now dressing up as this character! Oh and by the way here's a tiny asterix at the end of their bio that says they're gay/trans, hooray". And then after that 10 second blip, the game slinks back into the crowd until the next character announcement.

    the people who play overwatch are really into overwatch, and do care about OWL. That's OK and normal and probably healthy

    there's also something to be said for Overwatch being pretty much the only arcade style team shooter on the market anymore, sandwiched by Battle Royale spam on the left and CS:GO on the right

    Jasconius on
  • -Loki--Loki- Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining. Registered User regular
    Overwatch is really the only arena based arcade FPS you can get a match in anymore. So people who like that more old school gameplay end up there because playing anything else you sit in a waiting queue for twenty minutes to get one 5 minute game.

  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    RIP to SMNC

    you will be remembered*

    *probably not

  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    Man, “arena-based arcade FPS” is literally my jam... and I bounced off Overwatch hard. It continues to be the one Blizzard game I regret buying at launch.

    Hell, I’m more okay with the SC2 expansions that came out that I never started than it. At least I got a WoW pet from those.

    I mean, I guess I got Tracer for free in HOTS, so that’s something... but I don’t actually play her.

    I guess the whole thing ended up feeling a bit... hollow? Like they tried just applying “Blizzard Polish” to a genre but didn’t do anything interesting with it. And that didn’t go far enough to actually land with me.

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  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    PMAvers wrote: »
    Man, “arena-based arcade FPS” is literally my jam... and I bounced off Overwatch hard. It continues to be the one Blizzard game I regret buying at launch.

    Hell, I’m more okay with the SC2 expansions that came out that I never started than it. At least I got a WoW pet from those.

    I mean, I guess I got Tracer for free in HOTS, so that’s something... but I don’t actually play her.

    I guess the whole thing ended up feeling a bit... hollow? Like they tried just applying “Blizzard Polish” to a genre but didn’t do anything interesting with it. And that didn’t go far enough to actually land with me.

    I mean "thing that already exists, but super polished" is basically Blizzard's MO.

  • -Loki--Loki- Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining. Registered User regular
    Yeah I wasn’t saying Overwatch is for everyone, but if you want to play an arcade style arena shooter, it’s your only real hope these days. The rest of the populated games are either Battle Royale, Battlefield style or more realism focused.

  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    edited February 2019
    Jasconius wrote: »
    RIP to SMNC

    you will be remembered*

    *probably not

    Ehhh, speaking as someone who alpha tested for that:
    Good riddance.

    I liked the game a whole lot, but there was no way it was going to succeed given the way the devs treated feedback. It died hard for a reason, and it really didn't surprise me when it happened. "This is how League of Legends does it!" is not a good game design strategy. Or the whole arguments i had with one dev about the changes they made to one character and why this WAS terrible for game health (let's maybe not give a character with map-wide full heal a safe, no-risk way to charge this!)

    (Also frankly i'm pretty sure it would have jumped all the way into crazy loot boxes etc - it already was towards the end of it's lifespan).

    To swing this back to the blizzard discussion - What do you think the chances of another arcade shooter stealing Overwatch's lunch is? It seems like a tricky proposition at best, currently.

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  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    I mean, it's always possible.

    Look at what position PUBG was in before Fortnite and now Apex Legends came in and drop-kicked it.

    I figure if another game in the vein came out, and it turned out to be:

    1) Really good right out the gate, it can't look like it's in early access or anything
    2) Have communicative devs, who clearly explain their road-map for the future and what they're working on
    3) Free to play, so people didn't need to drop $60 just to get in
    4) Maybe have cross-platform play? That's something OW definitely doesn't do, and could push people over by being able to actually play with their friends no matter what they have. (Well, maybe not PS4. But if they could get Sony on board...)

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  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Battlegrounds, coincidentally, was also fantastically in need of polish: it ran badly on Xbox as a preview title (having played it at least once after each patch, it's "better", though I'm told it's still not good enough with its PS4 release either), but even on PC the game was practically an academic example in bad optimization and a lackluster interface. Though both titles have gotten progressive improvements.

    (Also rife with cheating, but that's not entirely a polish issue, I suppose.)

  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    PMAvers wrote: »
    I mean, it's always possible.

    Look at what position PUBG was in before Fortnite and now Apex Legends came in and drop-kicked it.

    I figure if another game in the vein came out, and it turned out to be:

    1) Really good right out the gate, it can't look like it's in early access or anything
    2) Have communicative devs, who clearly explain their road-map for the future and what they're working on
    3) Free to play, so people didn't need to drop $60 just to get in
    4) Maybe have cross-platform play? That's something OW definitely doesn't do, and could push people over by being able to actually play with their friends no matter what they have. (Well, maybe not PS4. But if they could get Sony on board...)

    Blizzard isn't the PUBG in this scenario though, they're the ones with the most polished game in a well established market. Plus BR is all the rage now which is why so many devs are taking a stab at it, whereas nobody really wants to get into fast paced arena shooters at the moment.

  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    I love Overwatch, but I also loved TF2 and haven't touched that in...forever.

    I also really liked PUBG but it ran like hot garbage. Apex Legends sort of strikes a cord for me pretty well.

  • ApogeeApogee Lancks In Every Game Ever Registered User regular
    edited February 2019
    TelMarine wrote: »
    Cantido wrote: »
    Noggin wrote: »
    Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. fell by a similar amount Wednesday after forecasting sales this quarter that were $100 million below Wall Street forecasts. The results were a reminder that video games are still a hit-driven business, rising and falling based on unpredictable consumers.

    This part sucks. It’s never the company’s fault for abandoning balance, ignoring dedicated fan feedback, predatory loot boxes, oversaturation, or any other dumb thing... and totally reasonable to expect players to stay interested and invested in one game/series for several years as it gradually costs the player more but rewards less.

    I feel for all the workers who will suffer because execs got 2 yachts instead of 3.

    So, i've honestly not kept up with Overwatch etc - is there a good breakdown of the issues here? Someone able to summarize? It's a topic i'd like to read more on - both the abandoning balance and ignoring feedback parts (The predatory lootboxes i'm interested in too, but i feel i've seen more articles on why those are shitty?)

    Blizzard developers' method of balance patches is to sledgehammer the offending character or situation so they don't have to revisit them for a while. You see it in Hearthstone. They don't nerf cards, they kill them. In Overwatch, they either buff up characters to be absolute monsters, or tear them down to be unusable.

    Whether they do it out of laziness, or if they do it to get old players picking the game back up again via new metas, I do not know. They always preview balance patches on the Public Test Region Server, but those changes always move to the real thing despite outcries. Someone here said they are using it as a hype machine instead of a real focus test environment.

    Hearthstone does a wierd thing where they will create monster cards and monster arechtypes, and deliberately not touch it until the next set sells countermeasures to keep people buying cards. If those new cards don't do the job, they will nerf the offending deck out of existence. I certainly gave up on Hearthstone because the devs could not find a win condition for Rogue that did not offend them, yet those same win conditions were fine for other other classes.

    *image*

    Overwatch has my loyalty. It scratches an itch I cannot find in FPS games. I was in South Korea when it was released. Its demands for teamwork and communication are unlike anything I've ever seen and it deserves to be studied by military and leadership courses. Brigitte and Tracer's Pulse Bomb nerf are the only times the game has offended me (Bastion did not need that buff). They recently sledgehammer nerfed armor in general just to kill the mechanically lazy GOATS comp (3 Tank 3 Healer) before Overwatch League returns. I hope OW survives Activision's nonsense. My love for Overwatch reminds me that I probably don't play enough Rocket League.

    EDIT - Edited to make thoughts less random.

    Ever since War3 Blizzard's balancing has felt like complete randomness. I remember Starcraft1 it took a lot for them to make a change and often the changes weren't so dramatic. A lot of them were cost changes to a unit/research or increasing research/build time. One of the few times they significantly changed a unit was the Terran Goliath, which were terrible. It was a big deal in Starcraft1 when the Terran Academy was changed to be 150 minerals (instead of 200) and the missile turret 75 minerals (instead of 100). In War3, they would repeatedly nerf, buff, nerf and practically every patch it was completely different. I remember they kept fucking with the Blood Mage hero. Nerfing his flame pillar move, buffing it again, then nerfing it again. Instead of letting the game grow and become stable, they kept fucking with it. They are doing/did the samething with Starcraft 2.

    I remember when my girlfriend played through War3 campaign and tried to learn online matches with me, whereupon I realized just how goddamn arcane and complicated the rock-paper-scissors model of balance War3 was. More like rock-paper-gunpowder-magic-bricks-scissors-except-on-Tuesdays. It worked well, but memorizing the list of.. off the top of my head, five armour types and six damage types and the myriad ways they interacted was pretty intense.

    Quick, a footman vs a necromancer! Who has advantage? Well, the footman has heavy armour, which takes double damage from the magic damage of the necro's AA, although not double damage from *spell* magic, because that's different. Oh, and the necro is 'unarmoured', which means he takes... no extra damage from the footman's normal damage. Except for his armour stat, which may take him take less damage from everyone.

    Simple!

    Apogee on
    8R7BtLw.png
  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Overwatch is a really good arena based shooter, and one of the best over-the-top arcade style shooters I've ever played. And it was utterly brilliant when it came out 2 years ago.

    Unfortunately for them, the market in 2019 is asking for Battle Royale games. If Blizzard wanted to keep Overwatch relevant in 2019, they needed to have announced their own Battle Royale mode for Overwatch. Like that needed to happen 4 months ago at BlizzCon.

    They have basically ceded the market to their competitors by failing to act in a timely manner. Even if Overwatch still holds up really well as an arena shooter (which it does), that's not what people are asking for right now.

  • VladimerVladimer Registered User regular
    Also Apex Legends kind of beat them to that creative punch last week.

  • LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    An announcement would have gone a long way to keeping Overwatch in people's minds. All they had to say at BlizzCon is "We are developing our own Blizzard-style take on the Battle Royale game mode. It won't be ready for another 6 months to a year, but when it comes out it's gonna be awesome."

    That's all they had to do, and then people would be hyped for an Overwatch BR. As such, since they failed to make any sort of significant announcement at all about the future of Overwatch, people played Ashe for a bit and then promptly forgot about the game.

  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    An announcement would have gone a long way to keeping Overwatch in people's minds. All they had to say at BlizzCon is "We are developing our own Blizzard-style take on the Battle Royale game mode. It won't be ready for another 6 months to a year, but when it comes out it's gonna be awesome."

    That's all they had to do, and then people would be hyped for an Overwatch BR. As such, since they failed to make any sort of significant announcement at all about the future of Overwatch, people played Ashe for a bit and then promptly forgot about the game.

    Failing to make announcements that would have kept crowd's attention was the signature theme of Blizzcon 2018 anyway so I'm sure even if they were working on it they wouldn't have mentioned it.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    Overwatch is a really good arena based shooter, and one of the best over-the-top arcade style shooters I've ever played. And it was utterly brilliant when it came out 2 years ago.

    Unfortunately for them, the market in 2019 is asking for Battle Royale games. If Blizzard wanted to keep Overwatch relevant in 2019, they needed to have announced their own Battle Royale mode for Overwatch. Like that needed to happen 4 months ago at BlizzCon.

    They have basically ceded the market to their competitors by failing to act in a timely manner. Even if Overwatch still holds up really well as an arena shooter (which it does), that's not what people are asking for right now.

    How is Overwatch not still relevant in 2019?

    Like, the entire tone of this is that Overwatch has ... what, somehow failed or something? I don't understand this framing people keep dropping.

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