Poll: Is Activision Ruining Blizzard?

[Uszi]

I'll dig up the interview later, but they also said that they focused on balancing multiplayer first, and then looked at their multiplayer system to develop a single player campaign.

Actually, it's probably in the interview in my first post.

 

[John Funk]

That's part of the reason they're so heavily divorcing the multi from the singleplayer, isn't it? To let the singleplayer campaign feature units that are cool, but that would take too much effort to balance in multiplayer.

I'll be happy if it means I get to see my beloved Goliaths come back.

 

[SonofSeth]

You will see Goliaths, and Vultures, just not in the standard Dominion forces that are used in multiplayer.

Jimmy knows some shady characters so he can get his hands on "older" gear, but Jimmy has no place in multiplayer.

 

[Bakery]

A Terran game then a Zerg game AND THEN a Protoss game!? Released over 3 YEARS!? *cries uncontrollably* I _REALLY_ don't want to wait 3 years for a Protoss campaign... :'(

 

[Credge]

Of course, you haven't talked with the people I've talked to, so I don't blame you if you'd rather not just take my word for it. But I wouldn't be worried about Blizzard going the route of EA any time soon.

I do believe that being proud of something you made and that something being good are two entirely separate issues. A child can be proud of a drawing he made, but it doesn't make it good.

Anyway, what I'm suggesting is that a loss of quality can happen just from having entirely different people... which they do. Blizzard North is gone, an entirely different team is working on SC2 compared to SC... surely, a loss of quality in at least one area is a high probability. I do believe that what we are seeing with Diablo 3 shows a loss in game play quality. Too much is being borrowed from other games and not enough is being taken from Diablo itself. While I do think the game will be fun, I do also feel that the game will become boring after about three to four play throughs much like Titan Quest did.

Multiplayer will come full with the first release. They were very, very careful to point that out (scared of Korea probably). All the races will come with the first game, just only the Terrens will have a singleplayer campaign. you can still skirmish/multiplay with zerg/protoss.

There are other major questions that spring up with multiple releases of said game, and it all has to deal with compatibility. If I don't give a crap about the Terran campaign, will I be able to just buy SC for the skirmish/multi? What happens if I decide to get SC2 when the Zerg campaign comes about? Will I be forced to buy the Terran campaign?

Will each new campaign be treated as an expansion, forcing everybody to buy said game in order to play? Will they be done similar to the CoD and DoW series? All of this are things that need to be answered, especially before SC2 is released.

In fact, all I really care about in SC2 is the skirmish/multi. I could really care less about the campaigns. Since everything is being split up, I would much prefer it if I could pay, say $25 for the ability to play skirmish/multi. I do believe there are many, many people like me. Most living in Korea.

 

[John Funk]

I do believe that being proud of something you made and that something being good are two entirely separate issues. A child can be proud of a drawing he made, but it doesn't make it good.

Anyway, what I'm suggesting is that a loss of quality can happen just from having entirely different people... which they do. Blizzard North is gone, an entirely different team is working on SC2 compared to SC... surely, a loss of quality in at least one area is a high probability. I do believe that what we are seeing with Diablo 3 shows a loss in game play quality. Too much is being borrowed from other games and not enough is being taken from Diablo itself. While I do think the game will be fun, I do also feel that the game will become boring after about three to four play throughs much like Titan Quest did.

There are other major questions that spring up with multiple releases of said game, and it all has to deal with compatibility. If I don't give a crap about the Terran campaign, will I be able to just buy SC for the skirmish/multi? What happens if I decide to get SC2 when the Zerg campaign comes about? Will I be forced to buy the Terran campaign?

Will each new campaign be treated as an expansion, forcing everybody to buy said game in order to play? Will they be done similar to the CoD and DoW series? All of this are things that need to be answered, especially before SC2 is released.

In fact, all I really care about in SC2 is the skirmish/multi. I could really care less about the campaigns. Since everything is being split up, I would much prefer it if I could pay, say $25 for the ability to play skirmish/multi. I do believe there are many, many people like me. Most living in Korea.

While you're correct that pride in something and the quality of something are separate issues, in this case the pride comes from the Blizzard name and reputation, which in the eyes of many gamers is *synonymous* with quality. This is the sort of pride that led them to can Warcraft Adventures and StarCraft Ghost because the games would not live up to their standard - the sort of pride that keeps their games from releasing until they're satisfied with it.

While many members of both the SC1 and old Blizzard North teams are gone, to say that they're "entirely different" isn't entirely true. From what I saw - and played - on the Blizzcon show floor, you couldn't be more mistaken in saying not just that Diablo 3 shows a loss of quality, but that it doesn't take enough from the past Diablo games. It played exactly like Diablo 2, only - for the limited time available, mind you - better.

Of course they haven't announced exact price plans for the SC2 games, but they have said that you'll get the full multiplayer experience with just one - you won't need all three. If it wasn't split up into a trilogy, you'd be - by your own admission - paying full price for the game anyway, just for the multiplayer ... so I don't see what's changed there.

Ask anyone here in the office, and they'll tell you that before Blizzcon, I had the utmost respect for Blizzard and their development teams. I came out of Anaheim with even *more* respect for their dedication, vision, and talent than I'd gone in with. Sure, everyone who's predicting disaster or lamenting the end of an era is entitled to their opinion, but speaking as someone who's actually gotten a chance to look at these things up close ... I can't help but feel that they're happily mistaken

 

[Ickabod]

I'm a bliz fanboy so I'll get that right out of the way.

I think they said that they won't be charging for Battlenet, but I could be wrong. Also the reason to split up Starcraft is so obvious it hurts, THEY ARE MAKING A STARCRAFT MMO!!! And besides you knew they were going to make an expansion anyway so that would have been two games, now it's 3 games, as long as it kicks ass who cares.

And if you don't think a Starcraft MMO is in the works, a couple things to consider..
1) They are working on an unknown MMO (that is fact they admitted a year ago.
2) They have made BILLIONS off of WoW, do you really think that anyone would look at the potential to do what they did with Warcraft to Starcraft and say, "no it's ok, we'll pass."
3) Warcraft 3 was the big set up for WoW in terms of story, geography, and lore and it came out right before WoW (well within a reasonable amount of time) Same thing appears to be shaping up here.
4) It was a couple months before the purchase/merger that the head of Activision commented that it would take a ton of money (I think he said 500 million dollars) to make a game on the level of WoW. Shortly afterwards they buy Blizzard and enter the MMO market.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Of course, you haven't talked with the people I've talked to, so I don't blame you if you'd rather not just take my word for it. But I wouldn't be worried about Blizzard going the route of EA any time soon.

I do believe that being proud of something you made and that something being good are two entirely separate issues. A child can be proud of a drawing he made, but it doesn't make it good.

Anyway, what I'm suggesting is that a loss of quality can happen just from having entirely different people... which they do. Blizzard North is gone, an entirely different team is working on SC2 compared to SC... surely, a loss of quality in at least one area is a high probability. I do believe that what we are seeing with Diablo 3 shows a loss in game play quality. Too much is being borrowed from other games and not enough is being taken from Diablo itself. While I do think the game will be fun, I do also feel that the game will become boring after about three to four play throughs much like Titan Quest did.

Multiplayer will come full with the first release. They were very, very careful to point that out (scared of Korea probably). All the races will come with the first game, just only the Terrens will have a singleplayer campaign. you can still skirmish/multiplay with zerg/protoss.

There are other major questions that spring up with multiple releases of said game, and it all has to deal with compatibility. If I don't give a crap about the Terran campaign, will I be able to just buy SC for the skirmish/multi? What happens if I decide to get SC2 when the Zerg campaign comes about? Will I be forced to buy the Terran campaign?

Will each new campaign be treated as an expansion, forcing everybody to buy said game in order to play? Will they be done similar to the CoD and DoW series? All of this are things that need to be answered, especially before SC2 is released.

In fact, all I really care about in SC2 is the skirmish/multi. I could really care less about the campaigns. Since everything is being split up, I would much prefer it if I could pay, say $25 for the ability to play skirmish/multi. I do believe there are many, many people like me. Most living in Korea.

Multiplayer will come full in the firest release. Your questions are answered. The races will all be FULL in each installment, they just won't have a singleplayer campaign moment. They will be fully implemented in skirmish and multiplayer.

Now to reference the other post, I fail to see how making a three part SC game leads to Universe of Starcraft Online. I also don't know if Blizzard could HANDLE running two MMO's at the same time, the work load invovled in running WoW is massive.

 

[SonofSeth]

Now to reference the other post, I fail to see how making a three part SC game leads to Universe of Starcraft Online. I also don't know if Blizzard could HANDLE running two MMO's at the same time, the work load invovled in running WoW is massive.

Logic has no control over my enthusiasm at mere thought about Starcraft Universe. I suspect I'm not the only one.

Besides, at this rate, it would be years and years from release.

 

[Zrahni]

Bnet will be free they already stated that just can't be arsed to find it right now.