What Blizzard does well

[Valiance]

Starcraft is balanced if you're incredibly quick. Some matchups are much easier than others (ie: PvZ is easier as the Protoss.), But at a professional level, yes, it's balanced.

Warcraft 3 is horrifically imbalanced. Look at pro win/loss ratios. Here's how it works:

Orc > Undead
Elf > Orc
Human > Elf
Undead > Human (debatable)

Orc is like 65% win vs UD...It's just funny.

Now, even then, it's balanced enough for people to compete (mostly).

WoW, I can't believe you even brought into the discussion. I don't even need to say how bad balance is in this game. They even know it's terrible, and change things around ridiculously every couple patches. And they change things based upon complaints by bad bad bad players trying to 1v1.

I refuse to actually talk about specifics, other than permanent stealth being very powerful in an MMO.

I could rant about it forever.

 

[Howlingwolf214]

Blizzard do a variety of things well, but mainly they're good at setting their quality standards very high.

Also they are good at making the Riflemen in Warcraft 3 say things like "This... Is... My... BOOMSTICK!!"

 

[John Funk]

Making games? They do that pretty well.

And WoW is a lot more balanced than people give it credit for, I think. They're essentially trying to manage 30 different classes (taking talent trees into consideration). Other developers have failed harder with less - in games that are JUST PvE content, even.

 

[coldfrog]

Making games? They do that pretty well.

And WoW is a lot more balanced than people give it credit for, I think. They're essentially trying to manage 30 different classes (taking talent trees into consideration). Other developers have failed harder with less - in games that are JUST PvE content, even.

It seems to me that, one on one, WoW tends to be unbalanced, but you most see the balance in group PvP. Where most clothies are easily taken down by rogues (as I've noticed anyway) when there is a group the strengths and weaknesses of each class come together much more nicely.

Additionally, I wouldn't say that someone who thinks WoW is expensive is a cheapskate, but they actually just haven't done the math.

WoW = 70 or 80 dollars for the base game and 2 expansions (I think the first two together might be down to 30), then 15 dollars MAX a month. If you only get the first two games, it's only 30 or 40 dollars, which should last you for a while if you play in moderation. But lets assume you get the whole package.

After 6 months, you've paid 170 dollars. That is less than the price of 3 games for the xbox or PS3. After a year of play, that's 260 dollars, which is just over the price of 4 games. It keeps going down from there, but essentially if you buy around 4 games a year, you can afford world of warcraft. Additionally, the multi-month package gets you even cheaper monthly fees, making it even more worth the money.

Whether you'll WANT to play it for a year is up to you, but you cannot deny the content is there to make it worth your time if you enjoy it.

 

[Zenn3k]

Blizzard is really good at: Making Money

Even if it means enslaving 8 million people worldwide into farming for gold.

 

[lukey94]

every single world of war craft expansion.

theres 2

and I think what they did so well was in Warcraft 3:TFT's World Editor they gave us so much to do

 

[lukey94]

Blizzard is pretty good. I like Diablo myself. But WoW is just too exspenive. I'm shocked that peope can afford to play that. Don't they care about stuff? Like booze?

honnestly 15 bucks a month for the ammount of content and hours of game play you will get, is worth it, just imagine people pay 5 bucks a month for Rune Scape

Runescape...lol

i rest my case

Runescape...ROFLMAOWKSOMDBIC.

No wait! Wait, I can one up that.

MapleStory.


Yeah. Very little will top that amount of lol.

exept your sociol life.
OH SHIT!
lol im sorry i just couldnt resist.

With the economy the way it is, I laugh at anyone able to afford any kind of regular social life. Laaaaaugh. Hell thats why I figure its monday and and WoW is packed to its ears...on the European servers at that.

I dont think that the economy would cause alot of people to be playing on a Monday, yesterday near enough the whole south-east of Britain was closed, schools, shopping centres and roads and airports. The snow was coming in from the rest of Europe

 

[samsprinkle]

Blizzard is pretty good. I like Diablo myself. But WoW is just too exspenive. I'm shocked that peope can afford to play that. Don't they care about stuff? Like booze?

It's a pint a week.

Anyone who says 'WoW is expensive' is quite clearly a cheapskate.

So. I just have better stuff to spend my hardearned money on. I buy a game and it's done. not I buy the SAME game every 4 months and then expansion packs that cost a full cost every year. I may be a cheapskate about this, but that's just rediculous.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

what blizzard does well is:
generate fanboys,
delay releases
release very good games (for the most part)
suck money out of people
rehash the same three franchises and yet have it still be very good.
Seriously, I only Nintendo rehashes old franchises more, but at least blizzard does produce quality stuff.

 

[Zeke the Freak]

semi-quality, WoW sucks. I think SC2 is gonna disappoint me.

 

[Cowabungaa]

2000!?!
I could have sworn the tau were around in the 1990's.
But what ever you say man.
doesnt matter though. They are both really good games. Both may be guilty of minor plagerism (from each other? and Alien) but, as i said before, have tons of originallity...
oh wait...
no... no they dont lol. Well we can say WH40k did because it came befor the "scifi era" but I have reasons to beleive that SC was following the crowd lol. But who cares. I do love me a good seige tank spam.

Tau Army Codex was published on the 6th of October 2001.

I know. you told me lol.
well i guess SC has a protoss going for it, originallity wise.

When I first saw the Tau in a DoW demo a few months ago, I didn't think of the Protoss, but (and I wonder why no one thought of this) rather the Eredar and Draenei, who appeared first in Warcraft 3 wich launched in 2002 áfter the Tau.

 

[LiL'Tic]

they make good games, you have to realize they didnt just pull Wow or starcraft out of their hats one day, they work for years to refine these game before putting them on the marker

 

[Calax]

I just love how bashing WoW on message boards is such a cliche. Despite how people feel, it is wildly successful. I haven't played much of the older MMO's (one week of DAOC, one week of Galaxies when it first came out, 2 years of city of heroes...) but the thing about blizzard is that they made it so that you didn't have to sink MASSIVE amounts of time to get to a certain point. Yes you do have to dump time if you want to go to raids, but for the most part you can jump on for an hour and either knock out some daily quests, or hit a dungeon up for some loot/reputation. It's also easier to level, and the penalties for death are minimalistic at best. EQ, DAoC, and COH all had experience penalties that would lead to you loosing exp or having your xp halved for a certain amount of time. WoW just knocks your durability, and while leveling this means nothing because you replace your gear so fast.

I think WoW has had an effect on blizzard that is both positive and negative at the same time, on the positive side, it gives them enough money to be as eccentric as they want to about developing games because they have a continuous cash flow. But WoW has shown that the reverence that they always seemed to have for their stories has been slashed somewhat, and they are willing to sell out powerful characters (who could literally sink continents) so that the players could slaughter them.

 

[Prower]

I'm sorry but why are you even concerned, there are only so many spins on "flesh monster" you can have before they start to look alike ...

It is nice when people try new things but im afraid now very few fantsy* concepts havent been done before... and even if you do come up with one, it is very hard to make a game untill one thing resembles another.

However the thing that irritates me is when people complain at MMO's having WOW copy & paste* interfaces, "learned interface skills", new cars dont have joysticks because some one else thought it was a good idea to have a Wheel your computer has a mouse... people use those because they work!

 

[Phenakist]

but the thing about blizzard is that they made it so that you didn't have to sink MASSIVE amounts of time to get to a certain point. Yes you do have to dump time if you want to go to raids, but for the most part you can jump on for an hour and either knock out some daily quests, or hit a dungeon up for some loot/reputation. It's also easier to level, and the penalties for death are minimalistic at best. EQ, DAoC, and COH all had experience penalties that would lead to you loosing exp or having your xp halved for a certain amount of time. WoW just knocks your durability, and while leveling this means nothing because you replace your gear so fast.

I'm sorry but lol much? are you taking into account the amount of time you have to put in to get to the level 70/80 for raids?, I played WoW for a few weeks, playing it quite alot getting next to nowhere on the grand scheme of things, i mean the first main point people consider is your first mount, and getting to the right level for that takes ages and that isn't including making money for equipment along the way. And most of the quests were "go to X and kill/collect X amount of X" or pathetic delivery quests, it wasn't exactly fun which is the whole point of playing a game is it not?

 

[Calax]

but the thing about blizzard is that they made it so that you didn't have to sink MASSIVE amounts of time to get to a certain point. Yes you do have to dump time if you want to go to raids, but for the most part you can jump on for an hour and either knock out some daily quests, or hit a dungeon up for some loot/reputation. It's also easier to level, and the penalties for death are minimalistic at best. EQ, DAoC, and COH all had experience penalties that would lead to you loosing exp or having your xp halved for a certain amount of time. WoW just knocks your durability, and while leveling this means nothing because you replace your gear so fast.

I'm sorry but lol much? are you taking into account the amount of time you have to put in to get to the level 70/80 for raids?, I played WoW for a few weeks, playing it quite alot getting next to nowhere on the grand scheme of things, i mean the first main point people consider is your first mount, and getting to the right level for that takes ages and that isn't including making money for equipment along the way. And most of the quests were "go to X and kill/collect X amount of X" or pathetic delivery quests, it wasn't exactly fun which is the whole point of playing a game is it not?

I don't know, I've only put in like 20 hours on my paladin and she's already 30, and I'm notoriously slow when it comes to leveling.
And to get into level 80 raids you don't need much in the way of gear.

Sure the quests repeat themselves but that's a small price to pay for the sheer fun of slaughtering your way through an army of undead as Arthas in Icecrown.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

Diablo!!!!!!!!!

3!!!!!!

I think they just set such an excellent universe that gives fantasy adventure a new meaning.

They just make everything PERFECT. Nothing is out of place and everything contributes to the game and world.

Oh and they don't have constant sequels to milk their franchises. Every single one had its place.

 

[boyitsme95]

RTS. The jewel incrusted RTS that is not an MMO! Please Billzard, give me Warcraft IV! Low and behold we gets its fourth...expansion to World of Warcraft. On a related note, I don't think World of Warcraft is that bad. Just not an RTS.

Daiblo also. Those games are the bees knees!

 

[Phenakist]

but the thing about blizzard is that they made it so that you didn't have to sink MASSIVE amounts of time to get to a certain point. Yes you do have to dump time if you want to go to raids, but for the most part you can jump on for an hour and either knock out some daily quests, or hit a dungeon up for some loot/reputation. It's also easier to level, and the penalties for death are minimalistic at best. EQ, DAoC, and COH all had experience penalties that would lead to you loosing exp or having your xp halved for a certain amount of time. WoW just knocks your durability, and while leveling this means nothing because you replace your gear so fast.

I'm sorry but lol much? are you taking into account the amount of time you have to put in to get to the level 70/80 for raids?, I played WoW for a few weeks, playing it quite alot getting next to nowhere on the grand scheme of things, i mean the first main point people consider is your first mount, and getting to the right level for that takes ages and that isn't including making money for equipment along the way. And most of the quests were "go to X and kill/collect X amount of X" or pathetic delivery quests, it wasn't exactly fun which is the whole point of playing a game is it not?

I don't know, I've only put in like 20 hours on my paladin and she's already 30, and I'm notoriously slow when it comes to leveling.
And to get into level 80 raids you don't need much in the way of gear.

Sure the quests repeat themselves but that's a small price to pay for the sheer fun of slaughtering your way through an army of undead as Arthas in Icecrown.

Ok, 20 hours of grind to get 3/8 of the way to your ultimate goal with the levelling getting more tedious as you go along? I don't think that sound very appealing to anyone, I understand it's all about having a seemingly unlimited amount of things to do but giving up so much time for a game that doesn't get properly good until you put in about a weeks worth of game play is stupid, you know I'm right. and how long would a weeks worth of game play take to rack up? a few months? so think about that from the price point of view aswell