Torchlight 2 set to rock. Activision Blizzard could go bust.

[gold163]

I observed carefully as nearly every good feature of crusade, wrath, and cataclysm came almost exclusively from forum posts, with around half coming from me, personally.

Then guess what, I observed carefully as nearly every good feature of starcraft 2 came from design documents that I wrote. (They're still using my stuff in HotS, it's embarrassing to them and to me)

Then guess what, I observed carefully as a game which I did not help design, diablo 3, became a laughable failure, with absolutely no overall good design decisions.

I can clearly see the games that I helped create weren't exactly excellent or trailblazers. But the important point is that NO ONE at Blizzard is good anymore. They're all a joke. The company can't possibly die fast enough, especially given that some of the real talent has already moved on to Runic and ArenaNet, with anyone else who is good moving on after Titan or the fall of the company. It's been bled dry by parasites, and the quality of the work makes that evident.

That's nothing!

Spoiler: show

[SilentWinter]

blizzard is not that bad to be honest, it is just that a lot of diablo fanboy feel betrayed by diablo 3, if I had to see some major developer and/or publisher goes bust i would like to see other names on the list.

in other news, they won't going bust because of one bad game (which is making quite a lot of profit) and this thread doesn't belong to the TL2 section because it has nothing to do with TL2 except for the retarded "TL2 vs D3" thing

[ishikabe]

blizzard is not that bad to be honest, it is just that a lot of diablo fanboy feel betrayed by diablo 3, if I had to see some major developer and/or publisher goes bust i would like to see other names on the list.

in other news, they won't going bust because of one bad game (which is making quite a lot of profit) and this thread doesn't belong to the TL2 section because it has nothing to do with TL2 except for the retarded "TL2 vs D3" thing

would you say the fanboys have real reasons to feel betrayed?

[narbss]

You know they are paying people $5 right SilentWinter? Join the blizzard army of telemarketters-turned-damage control.

[ManiakSx4]

Goodbye

You know.. there are a lot of people working at Blizzard who have families to support. Wishing companies to fail and people to lose their jobs just because you didn't like how someone made a video game is not cool.

Why do you always have to bring morals, logic and reason to the forums? XD

Diablo 3 is a beautifully designed game that has a few balance issues......or a lot. Anyways, in 6 months after major patches and removal of real money auction house (fingers crossed) diablo is going to be a completely different game with a completely different play dynamic.

Whoever snatches up blizzard will be in good shape.

[SilentWinter]

would you say the fanboys have real reasons to feel betrayed?

i honestly can't say, i played both diablo and diablo 2 but i've never been very attached to the diablo franchise, so when D3 came out after 10 and more years i just wasn't interested in it (and i still isn't) so i never played it.
But a lot of my friends did play it and more than one of them was very fan of the series and they explain to me why they felt betrayed by it, i can see their reasons and they're not wrong, but i also can't ignore the fact that ten years are a lot in the videogame industry, business model had changed and the blizzard that make D2 is not the same that make D3, those are things you should consider when you put so much expectation in a game. Still this isn't a valid excuse for some really poor decision blizzard had made for D3.


@narbss, hush

[Tek]

blizzard is not that bad to be honest, it is just that a lot of diablo fanboy feel betrayed by diablo 3, if I had to see some major developer and/or publisher goes bust i would like to see other names on the list.

in other news, they won't going bust because of one bad game (which is making quite a lot of profit) and this thread doesn't belong to the TL2 section because it has nothing to do with TL2 except for the retarded "TL2 vs D3" thing

would you say the fanboys have real reasons to feel betrayed?

Yes, they do!
I am a Diablo fanboy, at least of Diablo 1, 2, & LOD. Even if you want to ignore the entire game. How about we just focus on Jay Wilson game director of Diablo 3. This guy had the nerve to tell us the gamers, what we loved about Diablo 1 & 2. He had the gull to say why we played the game and how we played the game. Right off the bat EVERYONE knew this guy was not a Diablo player. So we accepted his bull$hit as exactly what it was...BULL$HIT! And on faith and nostalgia awaited a game for 4 years. Four years for newcomers, over a decade for old schoolers like me. Then they come out with this monstrosity of a game and call it Diablo 3 with so many broken issues and this is just the game itself, not to mention the disaster launch with all their private upiddy (mandatory) DSM only servers for both single and on line multi-player gaming. We haven't addressed the graphics which aren't very goth but more World of Warcraftish and the story line. OMG the freakin story line, they killed CAIN, this old fart has been guiding the hero since the beginning. And they dropped a fire f#%k bomb(meteor) on his ass and killed him.

Okay I'm gonna rant...I better stop here, yes I am upset with how D3 turned out. But what really puts a "boil on my ass" to is the lack of multiplayer support and motivation. They literally require you to play online, which pretty much says "hey play with others" then they make it impossible and unbenificial to play in multi-player. You penalized in terms of shared Magic Find, monster affixes, difficulty of level, hordes, just so much $hit. Then they go and nerf runs, you can't find a good loot spot and exploit it, because if Blizz hears about it, they penalize you for being a good gamer and finding sweet spots.

Don't forget to mention this whole on line DSm thing is to avoid scammers, bots, third party programs. yet all you see is bots. All you hear about is bots. Damnit, I just fell for this $hit, point is I am not happy with D3.

[Amtemn]

Meh... Diablo 3 could have fared MUCH worse. Don't get me wrong, I don't like most of the design choices (like the RMAH, my god...), but at least you can look at the game and say "oh yah, that's Diablo". In Dungeon Siege 3, they completely removed anything about it (aside from loot) that made it anything like the previous games. Worse still, Fallout 3, when compared to it's predecessors (turning an isometric story heavy turn based RPG into a FPS-RPG Elder Scrolls style game). I liked Fallout 3, but it's a far cry from the first 2 games...

Diablo 3 is not fun in it's current state, but it can be fixed. We will see how Blizzard cares about their fanbase by the changes we see them implement with D3. If they don't change it much, and it still sucks, then I won't by another Blizzard product again. That's how I feel, personally... =P

[Cogzwell]

I have gripes with Blizzard....

But I don't want the people who work their too lose their jobs, and I believe as developers they may be redeemable.... But still, if Microsoft bought Blizzactivision.... that would mean hell for a lot of Blizzard fans because it may encourage Blizzard to become a console developer, given I'm not convinced by this rumor.

[Fhaarkas]

How the hell is this thread still going?

Title (Translated) - Vivendi will probably sell Actiblizzard.
Latest Update - They backed off the plan.

Spoiler: show

Go out and play some frisbees!

[hawkn]

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/world- ... situation/

I'm sure they are looking at selling Activision, but it really depends on what Blizz is going to do with Titan.

[Fhaarkas]

I'm sure they are looking at selling Activision, but it really depends on what Blizz is going to do with Titan.

Sorry still groggy. Yeah I hope they get sold a few years down the line. I hope they'll split off Activision and Vivendi and just be an indie dev. I wish the industry never have to put up with the Koticks of this world. Scums of the earth the lot of them.

[AirMage]

Burn in fire fucking blizzard!

[Arlian]

Burn in fire fucking blizzard!

Just glad to see you're not hyper-aggressive.

[boot]

RMAH and RealID are management ideas, not designer ideas.
As long as they're under the same management, you can't expect them to change.
May as well call it cattle net because that's what it is.

Spoiler: show

[Jackalhead]

Burn in fire fucking blizzard!

[JediFreeman]

Just a friendly reminder to keep things civil, folks.

[Cameroo]

If Vivendi Universal is actually suffering financial difficulty’s, then their accountants don't know how to balance a check book, or they're cooking their books. Blizzard Entertainment (according to the last bit of information released), had 10 million active WoW accounts. So through WoW subs only, they generate 149 million dollars (US) a month (1.8 billion a year). Now add on the games sold every year, expansions, and the cash shop. That is just for one game folks, Vivendi, Activision and Blizzard make other games, some very successful. Diablo 3 made roughly 390 million in its first 2 weeks.

As pointed out, if they are having problems, then it is from bad management or accounting.

Well, Vivendi is a lot more then just Activision and Blizzard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi

From what I understand about the whole issue is that it could be some of their other holdings such as Universal studios and the like dragging their finances down and causing them to need more capital fast to keep them afloat and investors happy. But with WoW's subscriptions dipping, it could make it a less attractive acquisition to a lot of big name companies. I doubt WoW is going anywhere any time soon. And I doubt Blizzard is either for that matter.

But it takes a ton of money to run a company here also. Especially ones as big as Activision and Blizzard. I don't even pretend to know how much money goes into their advertising, testing, convention appearances, human resources, development of new tools, and rental of property for their business. But I bet it's a lot more then most people think. Then once thats paid off, you still of course need to think about the money that's given back to the publisher and investors.

My hope is that Blizzard could put enough capital aside and become a seperate entity from Vivendi here. But, I don't see it happening for a long, long time if it ever does.

[Alois]

Deleted by user.

[Arlian]

Meh the moral thing about families failing is a joke. Families don't fail cause parent's get laid off. There are plenty of jobs out their families fail cause parents are too haughty to be willing to work lower paying jobs. So they break up, as for if anyone would buy out blizzard i'd say no to microsoft, or such. It would have to be someone as equally snobbish as themselves possibly apple but i don't know even if apple could match up to them. Benefiting clientel based on the size of their wallets thought but virtually property,... maybe thats equally as snobbish.

Haughty is one thing. Being laid off is some seriously scary shit. For most families, if the parent get's laid off, there goes the major source of income (or only). Mortgates don't pay for themselves, Johnny's teeth don't just straighten themselves, and creditors don't repossess cars.

So, your statement about the moral thing being a joke is a joke. At least, it's supposed to be. No one's laughing.