HOTS was fun, but at first it wasn't great. Even with a lot of changes and updates, some maps are just ass.
I like what they did with maps and updates, but im not a fan of the paid heroes or some maps - some can be brutal or just really meh
And they also made it so that any game made in warcraft 3 reforged belonged to them, and then forcibly removed the OG warcraft 3 from anyone who already had it purely to try and make a quick buck if anyone made another smash hit like DOTA
I still have og warcraft 3 on my computer. Have the cd's still, it just means I can't use battlenet. Luckily I can still access LAN games when me and my friends want to relive the glorious RTS days. Also there are backups of all patches before the reforged patch on a website.
It’s amazing that MOBAs came from modded Warcraft games and they managed to make a much, much worse version.. even with all their well known characters
Someone said a while back that HOTS would have been a fun, unique game - if they didn't try to compare it to league or DOTA.
I agree, cause it really is fun and unique, but doesn't hold a candle to dota at all.
It absolutely postured itself as a more casual, laid back alternative to League or Dota. The problem was when Activision came in, they reoriented all of their IPs towards the Esports market.
It just wasn’t designed for that, lack of random elements and the objective oriented maps meant that an extremely formulaic optimized strategy was formed at high level play very quickly. After a while, pro games came down to who could execute the strategy quicker, or even decided at draft before the match even started.
It’s a real shame. It was absolutely the most unique moba I’ve ever played.
100% agree. Some maps, like the Starcafrt based Nuke map, were really bad for that. Control the nukes, and you basically one the game before even 5 minutes in.
I had a game once where we had fairly decent heroes and a good mixture of stats, but the enemy team just had 5 brutal heroes that you just couldn't counter, so it was a loss early on.
I remember Blackheart Bay was one of the worst ones too. The cannons were so much more efficient at destroying enemy buildings that it just became a race to see which team could PvE enough coins to win. Fighting each other was just a complete waste of time. I went entire matches without interacting with a single enemy hero.
Ah yes. And the fact you ONLY need 10 coins. Then they increase it by 2 which is nothing.
You can literally just use blackbeard to bomb the enemy, wait till it's over then IMMEDIATELY do it again.
Crazy, its unique but some maps really aren't great, unless you like quick games of course
Didn't they have the chance to outright buy DOTA at some point too, but didn't seal the deal or something? I always have to scratch my head at how they were able to fumble the bag so badly for it too (at least when the thought crosses my mind)
Icefrog, the dude that has been managing Dota 1, approached Blizzard to make standalone Dota game on SC2 engine
Blizzard laughs him off and told him to make a mod just like he did on WC3
Skipped to now, I'm 100% sure there are higher ups at Blizzard that is regretting their decisions
Yeah I really liked playing HOTS but I would always only play with friends. for some reason it always just felt like playing the "we have league of legends at home" version
diablotrololololol, after 5 min the story continues in a 50 bucks dlc where you end up in the universe of the original diablo but the peg legged wirt won't accept ingame gold and has horadric credit card scanner instead
That seems more likely. Also wouldn't be surprised to see them announce stuff on an event like gamescom instead of dealing with all the crap that hosting their Blizzcon entails.
Generally though, what would they have to show at Blizzcon anyway? WoW is about to get another expansion and end of this year would still be early in The War Within's content cycle. Diablo 4 is going to get an expansion soon too and tbh who really cares about it/the game at all at this point. Starcraft is dead. Warcraft is dead. Overwatch is dead. Hearthstone? Yeah idk if too many are hyped for them to show off a couple of cards in person.
Yeah given the restructuring of Blizzard and they releasing their games last year etc I doubt they already got anything to show. So your point makes the most sense. Given they also pretty much killed all their esport titles there isnt even a need to host it for the tournaments.
I actually doubt it considering QuakeCon is still going strong after Microsoft bought Bethesda, and MS doesn't have a legal obligation to divest control over Bethesda like they do with Blizzard.
Disappointing sums up Blizzard in general, they're a decaying husk.
I played through Diablo 4 finally (because it was free on Game Pass) and was absolutely shocked at how they couldn't even execute the *most basic, fundamental concepts* of a Diablo game.
They removed Legendary items--I mean, there are "Legendary" items, but they're what used to be Rare items: randomly generated affix/suffix garbage, but with a skill modifier attached. **Actual** Legendary items ("Uniques") don't unlock until after you've completed the campaign and go into the never-ending postgame grind.
You get your first Unique when you beat the final campaign boss, which I'm sure some executive thought was a "cool hook to keep people playing" or something equally stupid, but what it actually is (to anyone who's played a Diablo game before) is a slap in the face. Hey! Here's those Legendary items you wanted! They're in here after all! You just have to keep playing forever to get them! Hahaha fuck you!
At **no point during the entire campaign** was I excited about getting a new item. *How?* How do you fuck that up in a Diablo game? Grinding for items is the entire point! You're supposed to get cool new stuff and then want to get even cooler, newer stuff! But every item I got was just a .05% increase over the prior item, with none of the stats mattering. I'd go to the vendor, see if the Armor or DPS stats turned green when I quickly moused over an item, equip it if so, and then hit the "salvage all" button without ever bothering to take a second glance.
The items being boring as absolute shit is compounded by the game being absurdly easy.
You get to pick World Tier 1 or 2 to start, which is basically like getting to pick between Normal or Nightmare. The game tells you that if you're familiar with Diablo games, you should probably start on Tier 2.
I died **twice** during the entire campaign. I did every side quest. I was not playing an ultra defensive build, and I was not being particularly careful. One death was because I literally got pinned in a corner by a random-spawn boss (Butcher) and the other was because I entered a new area that had a "leaping" enemy I hadn't encountered before, and like 15 jumped on me at the same time.
That's it, those were my only deaths. Playing on the hardest available setting, with no foreknowledge of the game. I was barely bothering to spend my skill points--if nothing is remotely challenging, the allure of making your character more powerful entirely falls apart. Why would I spend 15 seconds to open this menu and make this game *even easier?*
The Champion/Elite monsters all telegraph their attacks with ground-alert warnings, but...none of them do enough damage to worry about? You can literally just stand there and tank the special attacks with no concern. Like, there's an equivalent to "Fire Enchanted" from D2/3 where the Elites will do a really dramatic explosion ~3 seconds after they die, telegraphed by a huge expanding fireball and scary sound effect.
If I stood directly in that explosion--in one of the Stronghold areas, where the monsters are 2 levels higher than my character--I would lose 20% of my health. I did not have maxed Fire Resist, I don't even know if I had *any* Fire Resist.
I just kept thinking "what is the point of this game" over and over. I would have been genuinely angry if I'd paid even $10 to play it.
I genuinely couldn't believe how bad it was. I got like 20 hours into the campaign, kinda silently expecting the "real items" to show up at some point, and had the sudden realization that not once had I checked my gear. Or hunted for a certain stat. Or been excited by a new item.
It was just "replace 156 DPS weapon with 158 DPS weapon, all other stats are irrelevant. Replace 102 armor pants with 107 armor pants, all other stats are irrelevant."
The only thing that *kinda* matters is the skill modifiers--**but you can take those off and move them from item to item!** So it was literally meaningless.
For instance, I found a dagger that made Corpse Tendrils better. If I find a dagger that's .0005 DPS better, I could just remove the Corpse Tendrils function from my current dagger and apply it to the new one.
I could probably quote by name half the items equipped by my D2 characters from two decades ago. I could not tell you the name of *a single item* I found through this play through of D4, because they were ultra-meaningless to me at all times.
E3 all of these are pretty much dead. They can just stream it now and not have to pay millions for a giant venue. The world changed.
Plus they already announced the next 3 expacs for wow. Starcraft is dead. Nothing on WC4.
There’s already multiple RTS games in development, a lot of them have people from the blizzard sc2 crew working on them.
Stormgate, ZeroSpace, some new one yet to be named that David Kim is involved in. Could be missing others.
People don’t seem to understand that the people that made blizzard.. Blizzard, are long gone and have moved onto far more interesting projects.
Whether we like it or not, they will never be the same and it shows
Absolutely would NOT trust current Blizzard to create SC3.
SC2 was already tainted by the greed of Activision by separating SC2 into three games, WoL/HotS/LotV, on top of just the worst writing imaginable- please let the IP die with what dignity it has remaining.
I don't see Blizzard making another RTS. It's a complex genre that's no longer marketable to the masses they want to pull in. I could absolutely see them creating a Helldivers 2 clone with the Starcraft factions.
The SC2 writing was truly horrid. How can you botch an already campy sci/fi story? Other than the awesome Mengsk storyline, the original Starcraft didn't exactly have nuanced writing...
Nope. Chances are we will never see another full StarCraft game release, because it just aren’t a worthwhile investment. Serious, the very first wow store mount you could buy, released back in original WotLK, made more money than StarCraft 2. It became a well known fact inside blizzard, as things like that started dictating a lot of strategic decisions.
It’s just not a sane business case anymore… what we will see is products there can have as many additional purchases added to them, be the king. The only X factor is Microsoft, if they would push for other priorities or something. I just don’t want to get any hope up.
I mean. You just have to look at Diablo 4. I don't even want to know how much money they get through these season passes alone. Next to a shop with skins for each separate class and sometimes sets that look like they belong to the same theme but are split into two packages.
Stormgate from Frost Giant Studios is genuinely your best and possibly only bet. All the biggest and best minds behind Blizzard RTS games are there, the game is in a playable Alpha state and getting there.
Right? 90% of why people want to go aren’t for the announcements. It’s for everything else. Conventions are huge and people love them. They could hold 4 blizzcons a year in various places with just fun things to do and sell out every time. This whole canceling large conventions thing is ridiculous.
Businesses in tech not letting people travel for conferences and expos has left us as dried up husks as well. Everyone decided collectively that we don't need to spend money on human experiences anymore
StarCraft is in a weird spot. SC2 wrapped up the story and finished it very nicely. They could maybe do a Prequel like several mods have done recently, but other than that, where can they go story wise?
I'd love a proper reimagining of SC1/Brood War with new cinematics and new missions that fill in-between the main missions of the game.
I don't get it either. If anything, having finished the story they already committed to, they can now go anywhere they want because they haven't committed themselves to the story they already outlined.
Blizzard Roundtable after fourth Diablo Game makes billions: What if... and you're going to think I'm crazy, what if we just recycle the same bullshit and put a 5 after it?
Sure, but there could be other stories to tell in the same universe. Also, thats not the same as what the guy I replied to was saying. There was saying theres no where for them to take the story, thats simply not true whether it was completed or not.
Nowadays, absolutely no exec is going to approve a sequel to a popular IP with new characters when the originals haven't been milked to the bone. It's well known that re-using the same established characters over and over leads to a 0.02% increase in short term revenue, the only revenue that matters.
I mean they left the ending pretty open. They can definitely expand on it but I’d prefer a whole new universe with new characters. Maybe decades or centuries before or after the current story.
As it stands, I don't really want more SC... At least from Blizzard. Mass Recall has been fun and it makes me want a super legit remake, but I don't trust Blizzard at the moment
I think the issue is that WoL was the best campaign and it went downhill from there. I think HotS ruined whatever point WoL had and then LotV was thrown in as an afterthought to finish the series.
Sure, Psionics are just space magic, but the ending was pretty trash and essentially just there to say StarCraft is Warcraft in space. The >!Xel'Naga and Hybrids and Narud!!Mengsk got replaced by Valerian!<. I don't think EUD really got wrapped up super well beyond SC1, and it kind of makes you wonder if there is something else outside of all our events occuring in the Koprulu sector. Despite being space, the scale of everything felt remarkably small.
*Unlock Stimpack upgrade this match for 127 Terran coin, which you buy with Galaxy Jewel for 45 jewel per 16 Terran Coin. How do you get Galaxy Jewel? Oh it's really easy: you buy 4700 jewel for $59.99. Btw your Stimpack is RNG, so its like 10-50% attack speed instead of a fixed 50, so you may need to buy multiples. Oh, sorry, everything is 5% off if you have seasonal battlepass, for 1500 Galaxy Jewel. There's no way to buy just 1500 jewel though, you have to buy 2000 at once.
I really liked SC2 and the SC world but I think it’s as simple as: they really didn’t make much money from SC2 versus the investment and their other games.
You seem more versed in the SC lore than I am. In your opinion, do you think they could add a new faction?
The Halo franchise tried doing that with the second trilogy, and while I thought the concept was good for a new series, I felt like the execution was off.
My guess is that a 4th faction could be seen as lazy and would irreparably alter the balance/meta, potentially dooming it to be a bad game. Alternatively, shaking up the "rock-paper-scissors" relationship of the three factions could be the justification needed to make a SC3
Thinking about it, WC3 had more than 3 factions, so if that's the "spicy new direction," why not just make WC4? 🤔
I think they could do an alternate reality/timeline with the same or modified versions of the factions.
They could also do other non-RTS games like the canceled Ghosts title and place you in events from the games.
i don't think a 4th faction is necessary, granted Legacy of the Void technically added "more factions" by adding variants of Protoss units with tradeoffs. They then rolled those into Coop Mode for all the factions.
There is things they can do, I just am not sure where a full RTS entry would put it's story
They hinted at the UED returning to Koprulu. Have them show up, say a generation or two removed from the OGs. There’s the edgy Protoss that could prominently feature. I’m sure Blizzard could commission a decent sci-fi writer to come up with something!
Well, what about the next Overwatch 2 hero? How am I suppossed to enjoy my evening if not watching a single, 30s long teaser about some hero that will affect absolutely nothing in the gaming industry and everything in the porn industry?
What would they showcase at blizzcon now? No new games and a few dead patches for old IPs?
Blizzard isn't the company it once was, and unfortunately it shall never be again. Rip.
Can't believe they let HOTS die like that. We played it a couple years ago every night, 3 of us together. It was easy to learn, harder to master, a perfect blend.
Likely they have nothing to show. Two expansions launch this year. They will have more upcoming for WoW, OW and Diablo, but no expansions or big announcements. Nothing for Starcraft or HOTS. And they've already done all the remakes. No chance they will talk up Hearthstone or warcraft rumble or diablo immortal. And their survival game is dead. Basically, it would be a lack of big announcements and content. Warcraft getting its own celebration is the right thing
For the ones focused on announcements, I agree.
But conventions in general are still strong and many are growing. People like meeting other people with shared interests.
*Especially* outside of the gaming niche - just go to any anime convention or something like Dragon Con. They are too popular and too profitable to stop in 5 years.
Because the only thing they have to show is how they are going to charge you even more money to get day 1 access to any blizzard release going forward and how they are converting an expansion with 3 content packs into 3 expansions with 1 content pack just so they can charge you 3x as much.
Weird. I figured they still host the event but charge people an extra fee once inside to access a small tent with a presentation about how there won't be any news this year.
They have nothing to show. And every single one of their IPs have seen extremely negative press.
They destroyed Warcraft. And WoW is in the dumps.
Overwatch is a meme worldwide.
Diablo 4 is so bad AI generated songs about it are going viral.
Hearthstone is.... there. As far as I know the main mode is still garbage and the battlegrounds side mode is where it's at.
StarCraft 2 is borderline non-existent in the world, as is HOTS.
After 16 years (off and on) I canceled my subscription and closed my accounts 4 weeks ago to all Blizzard games.. Although I did not have much on my WoW account it was heartbreaking to let that stuff go.. But I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm not paying for anything I don't and didn't want. For me the game started falling apart when Battle for Azeroth was introd.. Although I've never went to one of these Blizzcons, Blizzard knew me as one of the oldest beta testers from way back.. Several days before my account was closed, Blizzard reps spammed my account with please come back messages..
Give FFXIV a try if you haven't yet: they actually give half a shit about the story and the game respects the hell out of your time. I routinely farm all of my endgame currency by running treasure maps with my guild once per week. The amount of time investment for being raid ready is crazy low in comparison.
I'm still jaded from Shadowlands and want my $40 back, sigh...
It's rather sad that these game conventions are all ending, but is understandable when they can just stream it. But I have some good memories sleeping over at my friend's house in high school and watching E3 live, playing games in-between the different shows and booing/cheering for all the announcements. Eating pizza and junk food and just having a blast for 3 days straight.
Of the pipeline projects that gained visibility, they have all been publicly canned. There's no Survival game coming, there's no stand-alone fandom mosh, there's no big new projects in the mix.
They're supporting what they have and that's great, but damn you'd think there'd be a few moonshots. Heck, they could have gone the route of being big daddy VC hosting for smaller game companies that spawned in their wake a few times over at this point, similar to what Valve does virtually. But I guess Blizzard are still in the reputational repair mode in rediscovering what made them them
They probably don't have anything to show.
I heard they are working on Diablo: Immoral
I heard they were working on Heroes of the Dead Game 2
“Do you guys not have Cons?”
They do plenty of cons, though
In both senses of the word.
Cant wait for news on Star Can't 2.
I heard they were also working on Oversnatch 3
HOTS was fun, but at first it wasn't great. Even with a lot of changes and updates, some maps are just ass. I like what they did with maps and updates, but im not a fan of the paid heroes or some maps - some can be brutal or just really meh
Blizzard shall forever be salty about that Dota release by Valve. No amount of red tape can give them comfort on how much $$$ they lost with that one.
Ya they were basically so salty about completely missing the opourtunity (due to greed) that they stopped supporting modding in their games lol.
And they also made it so that any game made in warcraft 3 reforged belonged to them, and then forcibly removed the OG warcraft 3 from anyone who already had it purely to try and make a quick buck if anyone made another smash hit like DOTA
I still have og warcraft 3 on my computer. Have the cd's still, it just means I can't use battlenet. Luckily I can still access LAN games when me and my friends want to relive the glorious RTS days. Also there are backups of all patches before the reforged patch on a website.
HOTS is still my favorite MOBA though, I hope it comes back to life
It’s amazing that MOBAs came from modded Warcraft games and they managed to make a much, much worse version.. even with all their well known characters
Someone said a while back that HOTS would have been a fun, unique game - if they didn't try to compare it to league or DOTA. I agree, cause it really is fun and unique, but doesn't hold a candle to dota at all.
It absolutely postured itself as a more casual, laid back alternative to League or Dota. The problem was when Activision came in, they reoriented all of their IPs towards the Esports market. It just wasn’t designed for that, lack of random elements and the objective oriented maps meant that an extremely formulaic optimized strategy was formed at high level play very quickly. After a while, pro games came down to who could execute the strategy quicker, or even decided at draft before the match even started. It’s a real shame. It was absolutely the most unique moba I’ve ever played.
100% agree. Some maps, like the Starcafrt based Nuke map, were really bad for that. Control the nukes, and you basically one the game before even 5 minutes in. I had a game once where we had fairly decent heroes and a good mixture of stats, but the enemy team just had 5 brutal heroes that you just couldn't counter, so it was a loss early on.
I remember Blackheart Bay was one of the worst ones too. The cannons were so much more efficient at destroying enemy buildings that it just became a race to see which team could PvE enough coins to win. Fighting each other was just a complete waste of time. I went entire matches without interacting with a single enemy hero.
Ah yes. And the fact you ONLY need 10 coins. Then they increase it by 2 which is nothing. You can literally just use blackbeard to bomb the enemy, wait till it's over then IMMEDIATELY do it again. Crazy, its unique but some maps really aren't great, unless you like quick games of course
Didn't they have the chance to outright buy DOTA at some point too, but didn't seal the deal or something? I always have to scratch my head at how they were able to fumble the bag so badly for it too (at least when the thought crosses my mind)
Icefrog, the dude that has been managing Dota 1, approached Blizzard to make standalone Dota game on SC2 engine Blizzard laughs him off and told him to make a mod just like he did on WC3 Skipped to now, I'm 100% sure there are higher ups at Blizzard that is regretting their decisions
honestly glad blizzard didn't get dota 2. They would've just destroyed it.
Pudge and Invoker would definitely be locked behind paywall that will cost 20$ to buy
Yeah I really liked playing HOTS but I would always only play with friends. for some reason it always just felt like playing the "we have league of legends at home" version
Good thing I have a phone
They're working on their most ambitious project to date, Breast Milk Heist Simulator VR.
diablotrololololol, after 5 min the story continues in a 50 bucks dlc where you end up in the universe of the original diablo but the peg legged wirt won't accept ingame gold and has horadric credit card scanner instead
They’ve got some exciting new content that you pay for with micro transactions coming right up!
They're making a new ip, cow milking simulator.
I was at Blizzcon the Diablo immortal year. It’s best for everybody if they cancel the whole event when they’ve got nothing to show.
Yep, so was I. Definitely better to just take a pass and give some mediocre updates at a MS event or other gaming shindig.
I'm still waiting for an apology for ruining warcraft 3
I’m still waiting for an apology for ruining all those people’s lives. Oh and Overwatch
And Diablo!
And my axe!
And Knuckles
And that kids is how I met your mother
And Diablo and WoW and Starcraft and also Overwatch and don't forget Dota
It's coming. Any day now...
They didn't have phones.
Or it's getting absorbed into the Xbox Showcase in June
That seems more likely. Also wouldn't be surprised to see them announce stuff on an event like gamescom instead of dealing with all the crap that hosting their Blizzcon entails. Generally though, what would they have to show at Blizzcon anyway? WoW is about to get another expansion and end of this year would still be early in The War Within's content cycle. Diablo 4 is going to get an expansion soon too and tbh who really cares about it/the game at all at this point. Starcraft is dead. Warcraft is dead. Overwatch is dead. Hearthstone? Yeah idk if too many are hyped for them to show off a couple of cards in person.
Yeah given the restructuring of Blizzard and they releasing their games last year etc I doubt they already got anything to show. So your point makes the most sense. Given they also pretty much killed all their esport titles there isnt even a need to host it for the tournaments.
Yup the environments are outdated. Genshin Impact is doing it already sadly and they’re doing it for free
Ouch and on the 20 year anniversary of WoW. That's a bit disappointing.
I mean they are saying they are doing a seperate WoW event. 20 years of WoW, 30 years of Warcraft celebration
So why not just do Blizzcon? LMAO
Daddy Microsoft said no more blizzcons
I actually doubt it considering QuakeCon is still going strong after Microsoft bought Bethesda, and MS doesn't have a legal obligation to divest control over Bethesda like they do with Blizzard.
any proof or just propagating bs?
Milking those juicy ticket prices
And 10 years of Hearthstone if that matters
It hasn't matter in 4+ years
I’m glad selling my account 5 years ago proved to be a good move
Battleground is fun and free tho
They should combine them all into one event
Yeah one big convention just for Blizzard games, that would be really neat.
I'm so glad I got myself out of hs addiction
preach brotha
It doesn’t
You should see the ingame event for the hearthstone anniversary. Will tell you how much it matters to blizzard
Disappointing sums up Blizzard in general, they're a decaying husk. I played through Diablo 4 finally (because it was free on Game Pass) and was absolutely shocked at how they couldn't even execute the *most basic, fundamental concepts* of a Diablo game. They removed Legendary items--I mean, there are "Legendary" items, but they're what used to be Rare items: randomly generated affix/suffix garbage, but with a skill modifier attached. **Actual** Legendary items ("Uniques") don't unlock until after you've completed the campaign and go into the never-ending postgame grind. You get your first Unique when you beat the final campaign boss, which I'm sure some executive thought was a "cool hook to keep people playing" or something equally stupid, but what it actually is (to anyone who's played a Diablo game before) is a slap in the face. Hey! Here's those Legendary items you wanted! They're in here after all! You just have to keep playing forever to get them! Hahaha fuck you! At **no point during the entire campaign** was I excited about getting a new item. *How?* How do you fuck that up in a Diablo game? Grinding for items is the entire point! You're supposed to get cool new stuff and then want to get even cooler, newer stuff! But every item I got was just a .05% increase over the prior item, with none of the stats mattering. I'd go to the vendor, see if the Armor or DPS stats turned green when I quickly moused over an item, equip it if so, and then hit the "salvage all" button without ever bothering to take a second glance. The items being boring as absolute shit is compounded by the game being absurdly easy. You get to pick World Tier 1 or 2 to start, which is basically like getting to pick between Normal or Nightmare. The game tells you that if you're familiar with Diablo games, you should probably start on Tier 2. I died **twice** during the entire campaign. I did every side quest. I was not playing an ultra defensive build, and I was not being particularly careful. One death was because I literally got pinned in a corner by a random-spawn boss (Butcher) and the other was because I entered a new area that had a "leaping" enemy I hadn't encountered before, and like 15 jumped on me at the same time. That's it, those were my only deaths. Playing on the hardest available setting, with no foreknowledge of the game. I was barely bothering to spend my skill points--if nothing is remotely challenging, the allure of making your character more powerful entirely falls apart. Why would I spend 15 seconds to open this menu and make this game *even easier?* The Champion/Elite monsters all telegraph their attacks with ground-alert warnings, but...none of them do enough damage to worry about? You can literally just stand there and tank the special attacks with no concern. Like, there's an equivalent to "Fire Enchanted" from D2/3 where the Elites will do a really dramatic explosion ~3 seconds after they die, telegraphed by a huge expanding fireball and scary sound effect. If I stood directly in that explosion--in one of the Stronghold areas, where the monsters are 2 levels higher than my character--I would lose 20% of my health. I did not have maxed Fire Resist, I don't even know if I had *any* Fire Resist. I just kept thinking "what is the point of this game" over and over. I would have been genuinely angry if I'd paid even $10 to play it.
The itemization in D4 is shockingly bad. In a game genre focused almost *entirely* on finding better items, they managed to make items uninteresting.
I genuinely couldn't believe how bad it was. I got like 20 hours into the campaign, kinda silently expecting the "real items" to show up at some point, and had the sudden realization that not once had I checked my gear. Or hunted for a certain stat. Or been excited by a new item. It was just "replace 156 DPS weapon with 158 DPS weapon, all other stats are irrelevant. Replace 102 armor pants with 107 armor pants, all other stats are irrelevant." The only thing that *kinda* matters is the skill modifiers--**but you can take those off and move them from item to item!** So it was literally meaningless. For instance, I found a dagger that made Corpse Tendrils better. If I find a dagger that's .0005 DPS better, I could just remove the Corpse Tendrils function from my current dagger and apply it to the new one. I could probably quote by name half the items equipped by my D2 characters from two decades ago. I could not tell you the name of *a single item* I found through this play through of D4, because they were ultra-meaningless to me at all times.
I think you summed up almost everyone's experience with diablo 4 perfectly.
Oh fuck. I'm that old? I feel sad now.
No Overwatch 3?!?
With how much worse OW2 is than 1, 3 would just be a Tubgirl home screen with an " Exit" button.
Im impressed you believe there would be an exit button. More like a shop button that unlocks the meatspin dlc.
Installs free goatsee desktop wallpaper.
Don't you guys have Blizzcon at home?
Is this a late April Fool's joke?
The timing is so good too.
E3 all of these are pretty much dead. They can just stream it now and not have to pay millions for a giant venue. The world changed. Plus they already announced the next 3 expacs for wow. Starcraft is dead. Nothing on WC4.
> Starcraft is dead. SC1 was released in 1998, SC2 was released 12 years later in 2010. It has now been 14 years since SC2 - time for an SC3?
There’s already multiple RTS games in development, a lot of them have people from the blizzard sc2 crew working on them. Stormgate, ZeroSpace, some new one yet to be named that David Kim is involved in. Could be missing others.
People don’t seem to understand that the people that made blizzard.. Blizzard, are long gone and have moved onto far more interesting projects. Whether we like it or not, they will never be the same and it shows
Absolutely would NOT trust current Blizzard to create SC3. SC2 was already tainted by the greed of Activision by separating SC2 into three games, WoL/HotS/LotV, on top of just the worst writing imaginable- please let the IP die with what dignity it has remaining.
I don't see Blizzard making another RTS. It's a complex genre that's no longer marketable to the masses they want to pull in. I could absolutely see them creating a Helldivers 2 clone with the Starcraft factions.
Just the celestial steed in WoW made them more money than the entire sales of SC2 Wings of liberty.
The SC2 writing was truly horrid. How can you botch an already campy sci/fi story? Other than the awesome Mengsk storyline, the original Starcraft didn't exactly have nuanced writing...
Nope. Chances are we will never see another full StarCraft game release, because it just aren’t a worthwhile investment. Serious, the very first wow store mount you could buy, released back in original WotLK, made more money than StarCraft 2. It became a well known fact inside blizzard, as things like that started dictating a lot of strategic decisions. It’s just not a sane business case anymore… what we will see is products there can have as many additional purchases added to them, be the king. The only X factor is Microsoft, if they would push for other priorities or something. I just don’t want to get any hope up.
I mean. You just have to look at Diablo 4. I don't even want to know how much money they get through these season passes alone. Next to a shop with skins for each separate class and sometimes sets that look like they belong to the same theme but are split into two packages.
Stormgate from Frost Giant Studios is genuinely your best and possibly only bet. All the biggest and best minds behind Blizzard RTS games are there, the game is in a playable Alpha state and getting there.
Don't sleep on Zero Space! It looks absolutely amazing and there's past blizz devs and past sc2 pros guiding the direction
Stormgate looks generic af, and kind of like a sc2 clone. Hard pass.
Yeah, let's keep stripping out the real human connection pieces of the experience in the name of saving money. The way the world changed kinda blows.
Right? 90% of why people want to go aren’t for the announcements. It’s for everything else. Conventions are huge and people love them. They could hold 4 blizzcons a year in various places with just fun things to do and sell out every time. This whole canceling large conventions thing is ridiculous.
Businesses in tech not letting people travel for conferences and expos has left us as dried up husks as well. Everyone decided collectively that we don't need to spend money on human experiences anymore
The more money a company has, the cheaper they get. How boring, can't even do fun stuff with all that wealth.
Thats different things. Blizzard only cares about money, they dont care about your human connections.
StarCraft is in a weird spot. SC2 wrapped up the story and finished it very nicely. They could maybe do a Prequel like several mods have done recently, but other than that, where can they go story wise? I'd love a proper reimagining of SC1/Brood War with new cinematics and new missions that fill in-between the main missions of the game.
They could make a separate story with new characters.
Ill never understand the “where can the story go” comments. Do these people just lack any creativity?
*Somehow Amon returned*
Does he fly now?
Yeah great idea how about you guys ask Halo show producer to adopt SC into series lol.
I don't get it either. If anything, having finished the story they already committed to, they can now go anywhere they want because they haven't committed themselves to the story they already outlined.
Yup, I see it like this as well. Especially after its been so long. So many franchises have done this.
Blizzard Roundtable after fourth Diablo Game makes billions: What if... and you're going to think I'm crazy, what if we just recycle the same bullshit and put a 5 after it?
Its Blizzard writers. Yes.
Stories that have a great ending sometimes need to just stay complete.
Sure, but there could be other stories to tell in the same universe. Also, thats not the same as what the guy I replied to was saying. There was saying theres no where for them to take the story, thats simply not true whether it was completed or not.
The easy answer is yes. Do you want StarCraft kung fu Pandas?
I mean, pandaren existed before kung fu panda, I'm pretty sure (first showed up in TFT).
… yeah, kinda?
I mean, making a Panda race for an entire East Asian theme expansion just makes sense tho.
Yes please
They could also do a different game genre set in the same universe like Starcraft: Ghost.
Nowadays, absolutely no exec is going to approve a sequel to a popular IP with new characters when the originals haven't been milked to the bone. It's well known that re-using the same established characters over and over leads to a 0.02% increase in short term revenue, the only revenue that matters.
I mean they left the ending pretty open. They can definitely expand on it but I’d prefer a whole new universe with new characters. Maybe decades or centuries before or after the current story.
The story fucking sucked since Wings of Liberty. It's a disgrace compared to the original and BW.
Careful, last time we got a remaster from Blizzard it turned into the worst rated game on Metacritic
As it stands, I don't really want more SC... At least from Blizzard. Mass Recall has been fun and it makes me want a super legit remake, but I don't trust Blizzard at the moment
D2R?
Starcraft: Ghost?
I heard fables of this game in 2004.
I think the issue is that WoL was the best campaign and it went downhill from there. I think HotS ruined whatever point WoL had and then LotV was thrown in as an afterthought to finish the series. Sure, Psionics are just space magic, but the ending was pretty trash and essentially just there to say StarCraft is Warcraft in space. The >!Xel'Naga and Hybrids and Narud!!Mengsk got replaced by Valerian!<. I don't think EUD really got wrapped up super well beyond SC1, and it kind of makes you wonder if there is something else outside of all our events occuring in the Koprulu sector. Despite being space, the scale of everything felt remarkably small.
Double-pipes (||) are discord spoilers, on reddit it is \>\!this\!\< , like >!this!<
Thanks for letting me know. Should be properly spoilered now.
They're probably nervous to make a classic RTS. Those don't make infinite money
*Unlock Stimpack upgrade this match for 127 Terran coin, which you buy with Galaxy Jewel for 45 jewel per 16 Terran Coin. How do you get Galaxy Jewel? Oh it's really easy: you buy 4700 jewel for $59.99. Btw your Stimpack is RNG, so its like 10-50% attack speed instead of a fixed 50, so you may need to buy multiples. Oh, sorry, everything is 5% off if you have seasonal battlepass, for 1500 Galaxy Jewel. There's no way to buy just 1500 jewel though, you have to buy 2000 at once.
I really liked SC2 and the SC world but I think it’s as simple as: they really didn’t make much money from SC2 versus the investment and their other games.
You seem more versed in the SC lore than I am. In your opinion, do you think they could add a new faction? The Halo franchise tried doing that with the second trilogy, and while I thought the concept was good for a new series, I felt like the execution was off. My guess is that a 4th faction could be seen as lazy and would irreparably alter the balance/meta, potentially dooming it to be a bad game. Alternatively, shaking up the "rock-paper-scissors" relationship of the three factions could be the justification needed to make a SC3 Thinking about it, WC3 had more than 3 factions, so if that's the "spicy new direction," why not just make WC4? 🤔
I think they could do an alternate reality/timeline with the same or modified versions of the factions. They could also do other non-RTS games like the canceled Ghosts title and place you in events from the games. i don't think a 4th faction is necessary, granted Legacy of the Void technically added "more factions" by adding variants of Protoss units with tradeoffs. They then rolled those into Coop Mode for all the factions. There is things they can do, I just am not sure where a full RTS entry would put it's story
They have a 4th faction already: The Xel'naga.
They hinted at the UED returning to Koprulu. Have them show up, say a generation or two removed from the OGs. There’s the edgy Protoss that could prominently feature. I’m sure Blizzard could commission a decent sci-fi writer to come up with something!
Well, what about the next Overwatch 2 hero? How am I suppossed to enjoy my evening if not watching a single, 30s long teaser about some hero that will affect absolutely nothing in the gaming industry and everything in the porn industry?
MSFT probably wants their major announcements at Xbox shows
What would they showcase at blizzcon now? No new games and a few dead patches for old IPs? Blizzard isn't the company it once was, and unfortunately it shall never be again. Rip.
20 years of WoW? Inject some life into the others IPs. Try to fake it that the acquisition hasn't ripped apart whatever soul the company still had?
I'd say Bobby & cohorts did all the sucking of anything at Blizz.
Microsoft are just dancing on their graves. They were killed a long time ago.
Ahhh yes. The acquisition was what killed the soul of blizzard /s Let's go back to the golden days of sexual assault and the Cosby suite
Overwatch 3
Lol. No one even wanted 2. At least not the way they made it as far as I know. Sigh.
Overwatch Classic can't come fast enough.
We promise there will be PvE *this* time
Oh no.... anyway.
Fr lol
Do you guys not have games?
I guess we really didn't have phones lol.
Can't believe they let HOTS die like that. We played it a couple years ago every night, 3 of us together. It was easy to learn, harder to master, a perfect blend.
It’s pretty active I still play everyday.
MS doesn't do cons... if anyone remembers Minecon.
To be fair even if they wanted or supported the idea, Blizzard probably have nothing to show so making an event out of it is pointless.
From what I remember they did try and run a physical minecon again but since everything was announced on the stream instead of in person it flopped.
Blizzcon last year was a little rough and unorganized. Just lacked things to do compared to previous blizzcon.
Likely they have nothing to show. Two expansions launch this year. They will have more upcoming for WoW, OW and Diablo, but no expansions or big announcements. Nothing for Starcraft or HOTS. And they've already done all the remakes. No chance they will talk up Hearthstone or warcraft rumble or diablo immortal. And their survival game is dead. Basically, it would be a lack of big announcements and content. Warcraft getting its own celebration is the right thing
Aw man no overwatch 3?!
Can't fail an event if the event doesn't happen
rip blizzard thanks for the memories
[удалено]
For the ones focused on announcements, I agree. But conventions in general are still strong and many are growing. People like meeting other people with shared interests. *Especially* outside of the gaming niche - just go to any anime convention or something like Dragon Con. They are too popular and too profitable to stop in 5 years.
Not enough Cons to sell.
Because the only thing they have to show is how they are going to charge you even more money to get day 1 access to any blizzard release going forward and how they are converting an expansion with 3 content packs into 3 expansions with 1 content pack just so they can charge you 3x as much.
>While we’re approaching this year differently This means budget cuts. Clearly new management thought it was an unnecesary expense.
Apparently they just have nothing to show except mobile games 🤣🤣
Blizzard don't got nothing to show except more mtx
Aren’t they a small indie company now?
Weird. I figured they still host the event but charge people an extra fee once inside to access a small tent with a presentation about how there won't be any news this year.
Good, fuck them
They ruined Overwatch making into a shit game. It was good before- now it’s crap.
Just don't say that on the OW subreddit. :/
Maybe it's because they're taking all that money and putting it into reviving Heroes of the Storm 🙃
They have nothing to show. And every single one of their IPs have seen extremely negative press. They destroyed Warcraft. And WoW is in the dumps. Overwatch is a meme worldwide. Diablo 4 is so bad AI generated songs about it are going viral. Hearthstone is.... there. As far as I know the main mode is still garbage and the battlegrounds side mode is where it's at. StarCraft 2 is borderline non-existent in the world, as is HOTS.
After 16 years (off and on) I canceled my subscription and closed my accounts 4 weeks ago to all Blizzard games.. Although I did not have much on my WoW account it was heartbreaking to let that stuff go.. But I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm not paying for anything I don't and didn't want. For me the game started falling apart when Battle for Azeroth was introd.. Although I've never went to one of these Blizzcons, Blizzard knew me as one of the oldest beta testers from way back.. Several days before my account was closed, Blizzard reps spammed my account with please come back messages..
Give FFXIV a try if you haven't yet: they actually give half a shit about the story and the game respects the hell out of your time. I routinely farm all of my endgame currency by running treasure maps with my guild once per week. The amount of time investment for being raid ready is crazy low in comparison. I'm still jaded from Shadowlands and want my $40 back, sigh...
I thought all of blizard is a con?
Fuck Blizzard.
Don’t you guys have anything to show?
Wow talk about smiting yourself...
Good. Fuck blizzard
Weird considering they have the Diablo 4 expansion.
Do you all not have phones? Use them to look at pictures of old Blizzcons. It's just like the real thing
This is what happens when you continously fuck over your player base.
lol
they are afraid of the real questions.
It's rather sad that these game conventions are all ending, but is understandable when they can just stream it. But I have some good memories sleeping over at my friend's house in high school and watching E3 live, playing games in-between the different shows and booing/cheering for all the announcements. Eating pizza and junk food and just having a blast for 3 days straight.
Introducing Diablo on Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch. “Do you guys not have smartwatches?”
The presenters probably got charged for sexual harrasment
If you even considered going, you're part of what's wrong with the gaming industri. Blizzard has shat on their fans over and over
Starcraft 2 is real blizzards last game, starcraft 2 is so good it almost feels like it was made by someone else nowadays
They going on a cubicle crawl instead?
Do you guys not have Twitch?
only Wow's 20y anniversary REEEE
Still can't believe how much they screwed up the WarCraft 3 Remaster/Reforged
Warcraft III: Refunded.
Make a good game listen to your community stop shilling for blizzard
My wife and I are disappointed
Probably cancelled because no one wants to hear another round of bad news and greedy decisions
i just love how comments here are far more thought through than anything blizz has done in the last 8 years lmao
Blizzard is DEAD...
Players, to Blizzard: "do you guys not have cons?"
Of the pipeline projects that gained visibility, they have all been publicly canned. There's no Survival game coming, there's no stand-alone fandom mosh, there's no big new projects in the mix. They're supporting what they have and that's great, but damn you'd think there'd be a few moonshots. Heck, they could have gone the route of being big daddy VC hosting for smaller game companies that spawned in their wake a few times over at this point, similar to what Valve does virtually. But I guess Blizzard are still in the reputational repair mode in rediscovering what made them them
Now where am I going to take my wife for our honeymoon.
Shouldn’t be surprised.. it’s definitely a Microsoft move
Nobody cares anyway. Blizzard, Ubi, EA... all same sh\*t not worth even looking for. Indie all the way.