(Vote): HOTS delayed to 2013 (Vote): HOTS to be released Q4 2012 (Vote): HOTS to be released Q3 2012 (Vote): HOTS Beta upcomming (Vote): Other (Specify Below)
would be even better to see a D3 release announcement, difference is that Blizz said that they would announce that any day now, so it's more likely that than HotS imo
Guys this call is mostly just monetary gains and expected earnings over the last quarter. So they may not even broach the subject. Then again, they know that tons of people will be on the call, so maybe they will!
3/9 is shaping up to be an epic day: Mass Effect 3, Taengoo's birthday, (as well as a friend of mine's), and now a potential HotS/D3 release announcement
On March 09 2012 00:37 GhandiEAGLE wrote: Guys this call is mostly just monetary gains and expected earnings over the last quarter. So they may not even broach the subject. Then again, they know that tons of people will be on the call, so maybe they will!
According to the previous thread they stated this in the previous call
•More info about HotS March 9th, that's the only concrete thing regarding the Starcraft II expansion.
On March 09 2012 00:37 GhandiEAGLE wrote: Guys this call is mostly just monetary gains and expected earnings over the last quarter. So they may not even broach the subject. Then again, they know that tons of people will be on the call, so maybe they will!
There will be a specific HOTS announcement..please read the conf call recap.
Alpha? I really hope they give us Beta now if they want to release the game in 2013 at least , Beta will probably last for 6 months or so ..
The thing i´m pissed the most is that HOTS is not that hard to do after releasing SC2 , they need to improve what they already have ( interface ) , and make a good campaign for the single player fans .. As for the multiplayer they just need to let more people play and listen to what they have to say
"The Carrier lives!" "We've decided to go into Beta by the end of this year!"
or: "HotS will be released when it's ready but we are getting closer to a product that we feel satisfied enough with to release into a Beta stage"
or: "Dustin Browder will not wear a Terran shirt during the next balance interview"
or: "Here is another HotS trailer"
or: "David Kim needs more time to practice HotS so he can dominate the early Beta again"
or: "Heart of the Swarm will not be released until 2015. BUT! Instead of making it merely an expansion, we decided to make it a whole new game with interesting new features and a new battle.net that's a bit less stressful for players. We will limit player interaction so they can focus on the game. Be excited, and be ready to pay the full price!"
Apparently Activision Blizzard stated they would probably release one other project next to D3. So that's either the WoW Pandora expansion or HotS. Given the massive subscriber drop for WoW last year, i doubt they can afford to push the WoW expansion back to 2013, they'll lose another 2 million subs.
They will announce that WOW sales have improved. That D3 is still delayed and HOTS is still being developed. Oh and B.net will now have twitter and google+ support.
I really hope they are thinking of HOTS beta... but knowing Blizzard. It'll probably be delayed just as D3 is taking forever to release... I've had the limited edition for D3 pre-ordered for a long long while now..
On March 09 2012 00:55 slicknav wrote: This is Blizzard we are talking about...HotS won't be coming out for at least another year.
and thats probably a good thing, so they can hopefully focus on bnet as well.
It is a common complaint that Blizzard always takes their time. That's why the catalogue is actually quite small but you can't point at any game and say "That was a crap game". I am happy with them taking their time and releasing another great product.
Other: Blizzard announces there will be just one expansion and after the release they will just focus on getting WoW players back and to their new MMO Titan.
If HOTS is delayed one year I don't see starcraft surviving well. We already are in decline. Sure, the metagame gets more polished but the fans and the low league players will leave. Bnet 2.0 is bullshit and the game itself can keep you hanged only for so much long.
Let's hope it's a positive announcement.
Maybe they will undo the retarded snipe change.
Still haven't met anyone that legitimately thinks it is a good change.
You should speak to people playing other races as well.
"Our upcoming expansion to the Starcraft II series, entitled "Heart of the Swarm" which will follow the exploits of the Queen of Blades, Kerrigan, as she reclaims the Zerg once again and rebuilds her power, has been delayed to Q1 2013 in order to facilitate a complete redesign of Battle.net 2.0 and address balance and game design concerns."
I dont understand. There is supposed to be Q4 conference call today or what? Because it already was in February the 9th. I dont see any signs of announcement today. Link?
On March 09 2012 01:05 ceaRshaf wrote: If HOTS is delayed one year I don't see starcraft surviving well. We already are in decline. Sure, the metagame gets more polished but the fans and the low league players will leave. Bnet 2.0 is bullshit and the game itself can keep you hanged only for so much long.
How can they delay it when they never told us a specific date? HOTS is still when it's done, and given that they said at blizzcon that it will be shown at the next blizzcon (which is in 2013) I was sure it would come out that year. I'm going for hots beta soon aka q1 2013.
I think it’ll probably be pushed back. I think it’s a mistake for a myriad of reasons, but as a company they need to make money and SC2 isn’t a big money maker for them. D3 (will be) and WoW are, which means they’ll probably be looking to release those first. It’s funny 3 years for an expansion? I’ve never heard of such a thing…lol
Well given the source says it's only HOTS related and not Blizzard in general, maybe, maybe, maybe a beta that will run from Q2/3 this year and lead up to commercial release 2013?
On March 09 2012 01:20 imPermanenCe wrote: I'm amazed at the amount of people that think HotS will see 2012.
Blizzard being Blizzard/Activision makes it a different beast. I'd be very surprised if there are as many delays for quality control as there used to be.
On March 09 2012 01:17 p1cKLes wrote: I think it’ll probably be pushed back. I think it’s a mistake for a myriad of reasons, but as a company they need to make money and SC2 isn’t a big money maker for them. D3 (will be) and WoW are, which means they’ll probably be looking to release those first. It’s funny 3 years for an expansion? I’ve never heard of such a thing…lol
Was mean to be 18 month in between each. Like anyone believed them when they said that.
On March 09 2012 01:22 Chriscras wrote: Diablo 3 release date???
Watch the conference call thread (9 februari). You will see that they announced that they will provide more information about HOTS @ 9 march. It has nothing to do with D3.
I hope for the beta, but I don't think that's possible. Let's assume the beta will take 5 months. Then they need another month before release. If they start the beta at the end of march, then they should release the game at the end of 2012, which will never happen.
I'm wondering if there will be any information about the new units. If they got cut/replaced for example. Besides that there will be the obvious delay to 2013 (I wouldn't bet on anything bevore late Q2/Q3 2013).
On March 09 2012 01:17 p1cKLes wrote: I think it’ll probably be pushed back. I think it’s a mistake for a myriad of reasons, but as a company they need to make money and SC2 isn’t a big money maker for them. D3 (will be) and WoW are, which means they’ll probably be looking to release those first. It’s funny 3 years for an expansion? I’ve never heard of such a thing…lol
Was mean to be 18 month in between each. Like anyone believed them when they said that.
I really hope they release HoTS beta soon! A lot of people are complaining that SC2 is getting stale.. although I disagree with that it will bring some new life back into the game + I really want to know what happens next in the storyline 2013 will just be too long
I really hope its not pushed to 2013. Developers have an annoying habit of taking months into the next year when they do push it. So if they push it to 2013 I wouldn't expect it until March at the very earliest.
On March 09 2012 01:46 tnud wrote: >.< So many ppl saying D3 when the source is CLEARLY saying more info about HOTS. Probably beta date
Well, thats the people who cba reading It sure will be announced aswell, but regardless HotS, i expect a 2013 delay. No way they fix battle.net or announce the beta....
I don't think it's an announcement of HOTS being delayed, Blizzard just wouldn't hype it up and say it's delayed. It's more likely to be a beta release soon / sign up.
On March 09 2012 00:36 Paraiba wrote: I'm going with "HOTS will be launched when it's ready".
Most accurate response by far. Blizzard does not use the same time scale as the rest of the world : they use their own, it's called the "when it's ready calendar" and in this calendar the definition of "soon" is vastly different from the one we use in the real world.
This is just an expansion i don't see it being pushed back to 2013 since the engine is ready and all they have to do is put in their new ideas and balance it out. Sure it may take some time but they have been working on it for the past year and a half or more.
So hopefully this is about a beta announcment. looking forward to it :D
On March 09 2012 02:14 Terant wrote: This is just an expansion i don't see it being pushed back to 2013 since the engine is ready and all they have to do is put in their new ideas and balance it out. Sure it may take some time but they have been working on it for the past year and a half or more.
So hopefully this is about a beta announcment. looking forward to it :D
The engine alone isn't the majority of work that goes into the single player content, let's not even get into the multiplayer changes and testing around that. Basically we have story writers, voice acting, cinematics, map design, map testing, unit design, etc. It's not a smal undertaking.
On March 09 2012 02:25 Mementoss wrote: If the beta isn't open to everyone who bought WoL I will be upset. What better advertising to the customer base most likely to buy it??
A Beta is not advertisment, it's a test of the games function, the point of the beta test is to work bugs out before the product goes to the general population. In the past expansion beta tests have been limited (at least with my experience having beta tested War3:TFT and WoW:Cataclysm expansions along with SC2 and Diablo 3) just like all tests starting with a small pool of players and growing out from there.
Make sure you're beta profile is setup on battle.net and you're opted into the starcraft universe betas.
On March 09 2012 01:04 canikizu wrote: Blizzard sponsors KT to push them to switch to SC2. Flash is recruited to SC2 balance team, replacing David Kim.
That would be my guess.
Flash, using his Godly powers, makes the game perfect, causing SC2 to take the world population by storm, causing a decrease in productivity the likes of which have never been seen. AI is perfected, and robots rebel. It is then revealed that Flash is actually a machine sent back in time to weaken humanity by making the perfect iteration of Starcraft, thus causing humans to become too lazy to protect themselves from Flash's robotic colleagues.
Jokes aside, I would be happy with any bit of information at this point, whether it is a trailer, a few screenshots, or even another pre-release Battle Report (lololol). Even a few cryptic words about the schedule for the Beta or release would be better than nothing.
Blizzard said long ago that they would only release 2games 2012. Witch means: obviously diablo 3 has to get out its like delayed with more than a year.
Blizzard also want to release the new wow expansion since there is one more coming out and they want to squeeze the last money out the 6th expansion before they release 'titan' which is their new mmo they are working on for those who don't know.
WoL apart from bw is possibly the most balance game in the world and due to these reasons blizzard got no real reason to hurry up with the release of HotS apart from sc2 community and some peoples hope of a even more balanced game.
On March 09 2012 00:30 Noocta wrote: Dem american date. I thought " Anouncement of a October announcement, really ? "
why does america have that stupid date system? or fahrenheit? or inches? why not dd/mm/yy, celsius and metres like everybody else?
Because many Americans believe that making sense means that we are being taken over by aliens or something. You should see the rhetoric here about people ONLY speaking English. Its disgusting.
However with the date system......I think ours makes more sense but whatevs :/
Hots beta will be delayed to Q4 of 2013 , D3 release date will be Q3 2012 (they will change the date in the next week to Q4 2020) WoW will go f2p allowing you to buy all from levels , gold , custom skins , armor and anything you can imagine for real money making blizzard filthy rich.
oh and they will release the first of 25 DLC packs for WoL wich give you new units and each one cost 25 dollars.
On March 09 2012 00:30 Noocta wrote: Dem american date. I thought " Anouncement of a October announcement, really ? "
why does america have that stupid date system? or fahrenheit? or inches? why not dd/mm/yy, celsius and metres like everybody else?
Because many Americans believe that making sense means that we are being taken over by aliens or something. You should see the rhetoric here about people ONLY speaking English. Its disgusting.
However with the date system......I think ours makes more sense but whatevs :/
On March 09 2012 01:04 canikizu wrote: Blizzard sponsors KT to push them to switch to SC2. Flash is recruited to SC2 balance team, replacing David Kim.
That would be my guess.
It is then revealed that Flash is actually a machine sent back in time to weaken humanity by making the perfect iteration of Starcraft, thus causing humans to become too lazy to protect themselves from Flash's robotic colleagues.
I'm pretty sure that would be in direct violation of the 0th Law of Robotics. I would know :p
My bet is on beta announcement, release is so far away and from Blizzard always inaccurate before it is a month before release so not much point for them to talk about that.
On March 09 2012 00:30 Noocta wrote: Dem american date. I thought " Anouncement of a October announcement, really ? "
why does america have that stupid date system? or fahrenheit? or inches? why not dd/mm/yy, celsius and metres like everybody else?
Because many Americans believe that making sense means that we are being taken over by aliens or something. You should see the rhetoric here about people ONLY speaking English. Its disgusting.
However with the date system......I think ours makes more sense but whatevs :/
From a reliable source, Activision Italy has revealed to Italy's biggest retailers Diablo III release date as April 17th. Gamestop in the UK now have the date down as 17 April for both the CE and Standard edition, and Amazon in Italy has also updated their page with the new date. Perhaps Amazon in Italy were privy to the information that has been `leaked' and has since updated the page to reflect the new date.
Jay Wilson replied to a question on his twitter account today. A user asking on a scale of 1 to 10, how close we are to a big announcement? Jay replied with "9"
We have implemented changes which will greatly improve the game experience and final release will live up to the highest expectations. We expect launch to be a big opportunity for Blizzard. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.
It'll be fine. We'll have some info real soon on skills and runes, a new patch, and we'll be cookin' on the road to Releaseville. Can't we just enjoy eachothers company?
We've only ever said "early 2012". And we just decided we'd need until Q2 this week. Seems like the conference call was as good a place as any to announce that.
On March 09 2012 02:40 TriO wrote: It's Diablo 3 im certain.
From a reliable source, Activision Italy has revealed to Italy's biggest retailers Diablo III release date as April 17th. Gamestop in the UK now have the date down as 17 April for both the CE and Standard edition, and Amazon in Italy has also updated their page with the new date. Perhaps Amazon in Italy were privy to the information that has been `leaked' and has since updated the page to reflect the new date.
On March 09 2012 01:19 Aquila- wrote: They will announce that in order to be able to play Daybreak next ladder season, you will have to purchase it for $4.99 on the Blizzard marketplace.
lots of funny ideas, but this is my favourite so far. That, and Browder will stop discussing balance while wearing a Terran t-shirt
On March 09 2012 02:41 Osmoses wrote: They're scrapping Bnet 2.0. They're replacing it with a bunch of monkeys trapped inside a barrel.
You heard it here first.
That's actually not that far-fetched.
Apparently, quite a few job openings for Battle.net and related jobs have recently popped up on the Blizzard jobs page. Dunno if it was due to the recent layoffs, but there are definitely more B.net job openings now compared to last summer.
People saying 'why would they hype a delay?' - did they hype this? it seems like they mentioned this on a business phonecall and we're the ones hyping it up? Or am i confused?
If I remember correctly, Activision earning's call said that HotS was comming this year. They would be hard pressed to delay it after saying it was comming this year in the earnings call. My bet is for a beta and a delay, if any, would come after D3 is out.
Some realllyyyy pessimistic people on these forums nowadays O_O
It's an expansion, not a new game (less work). They're already well past their initial estimate for release. They already said 'months, not years' for beta something like 6 months ago. Why would they plan a announcement for a delay?
It's far more likely that it's a beta announcement than anything else.
did blizzard specifically say HOTS? cause im more than certain theyre announcing the release date of d3. many sources have it as april 17th, which fits well in q2
Well HotS is supposed to be a FULL Zerg based campaign right? so the only thing missing would be the multiplayer, which we already have on WoL. If they make the campaign equal length to WoL it is very close to a 'full' game IMO.
On March 09 2012 02:32 Phays wrote: Blizzard said long ago that they would only release 2games 2012. Witch means: obviously diablo 3 has to get out its like delayed with more than a year.
Blizzard also want to release the new wow expansion since there is one more coming out and they want to squeeze the last money out the 6th expansion before they release 'titan' which is their new mmo they are working on for those who don't know.
WoL apart from bw is possibly the most balance game in the world and due to these reasons blizzard got no real reason to hurry up with the release of HotS apart from sc2 community and some peoples hope of a even more balanced game.
Afterall, their true goldmine is wow.
I think you are correct in this analysis. At the same time it has not been blown up by the cms as a big announcement.
I would say that Diablo hitting the shelves april 17 could be correct. The last expansion for WoW is going to be alot easier to make for them since they have so much experience with developing in that game.
The developers of Starcraft 2 has confirmed that several of the changes in HotS is graphical improvements and as far as I know that is going to make it difficult because of compatibility-issues with different graphic cards. At the same time, some of the new units they presented at Blizcon was rather rough and hard to balance. Even more: They are doing a lot to improve the user-generation of content. Blizzard DOTA might very well be an announcement. But the reason Blizzard DOTA seemed to become so much more expensive was among other things problems with the editor. I am pretty sure HOTS will not make it in 2012.
Im retarded apparently, can annyone link me source where Blizzard announced that they will announced anything March 9th... because link that you provided before was to a conference call that was taking place month ago February 9th. So its a mistake and someone doesnt know that February 9th is not 3/9...
On March 09 2012 03:05 Bulkers wrote: Im retarded apparently, can annyone link me source where Blizzard announced that they will announced anything March 9th... because link that you provided before was to a conference call that was taking place month ago February 9th. So its a mistake and someone doesnt know that February 9th is not 3/9...
Summary from the call that relates to Starcraft II and Esports:
* No date or estimate when HotS will be released, It might be released during 2013, might be released today or just cancelled altogether. The usual.
* More info about HotS March 9th, that's the only concrete thing regarding the Starcraft II expansion. * Blizzard will take a more active role in Esports during 2012 (Might refer to the their newly created tournament)
The link is correct.
EDIT: God damn this thread proves which ppl read and who don't
Summary: The announcement is HotS related! The announcement will happen tomorrow! (the 9th of march) -_-
On March 09 2012 03:05 Bulkers wrote: Im retarded apparently, can annyone link me source where Blizzard announced that they will announced anything March 9th... because link that you provided before was to a conference call that was taking place month ago February 9th. So its a mistake and someone doesnt know that February 9th is not 3/9...
"If you want reliable information go to the billing-department" The link is to a call with Blizzards economic sugardaddy Activision. If they are announcing new information on 9/3-2012 you can be pretty sure they will announce something or the stock-markets will loose more confidence in them, which would be a catastrophy for Activision.
I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
On March 09 2012 03:17 Samba wrote: Didn´t Blizzard Italy leak an email that said D3 is getting released on the 17. April?! Should be this if you ask me.
Wow if true, that's pretty fast from having no release date to having a release date in 1 month? I'm too busy playing mass effect 3 right now for diablo 3 in april!
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
Yeh except they worked on WoL much longer than on HotS? Do you actually think WoL didn't even take 2 years to develop? ...
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
Yeh except they worked on WoL much longer than on HotS? Do you actually think WoL didn't even take 2 years to develop? ...
Well they're heading for 2 and 1/2 years + for HotS. Maybe I exaggerated but that's fucking ridiculous no matter how you look at it.
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
I think Half Live Episode 3 takes that one with style. Blizzard only releases when games are done, because they can.
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
Yeh except they worked on WoL much longer than on HotS? Do you actually think WoL didn't even take 2 years to develop? ...
It took them a while for sure... it's blizzard we're talking about here. Knowing them they probably announced it when they hit 80% complete =P
AGAIN PEOPLE! It's HOTS related, stop thinking it'll be D3 release date..
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
Yeh except they worked on WoL much longer than on HotS? Do you actually think WoL didn't even take 2 years to develop? ...
Well they're heading for 2 and 1/2 years + for HotS. Maybe I exaggerated but that's fucking ridiculous no matter how you look at it.
I would rather they do an amazing job than rush something out the door for a quick buck. When Mass Effect 3 was delayed, I was excited, not disappointed.
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
Actually they're probably the most efficient. They dump so much time and money into their games, that 15 years later people still dedicate their lives to those games.
i'm tired oƒ waiting for shit. iƒ blizz will try to explain that they aren't even close to finish (they crossed the 18 months now by far) i'm honestly don't interested in sc2 anymore.
hope they'll have something to release on their event <3
If they are going to announce something at all, it would be the diablo 3 release date, since they have been hinting for a while now that they are announcing it soon.
On March 09 2012 03:56 Blennd wrote: Title should be changed to "HotS 3/9 announcement." Too many non-readers in the thread.
The announcement isn't just about HotS. It'll also contain information about Diablo3, WoW:Mists of Pandadudes and, most likely, Blizzard DotA. Iirc, Blizzard said they planned to push "two big name titles" this year, which could be any of the four.
On March 09 2012 04:03 1sz2sz3sz wrote: Itll be them announcing the Mists of Pandaria beta for WoW, its already shown up on some people battle.nets with the box art.
yeah, that's why the source for this news said "more information about HotS", because it's actually about WoW
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
Actually they're probably the most efficient. They dump so much time and money into their games, that 15 years later people still dedicate their lives to those games.
I'm sorry but a 1 man programmer team with some imagination could make a good campaign that's polished in like 1 year when they have everything already done at their disposal such as the engine and most units.
The only logical reason for an expansion taking this long to make is marketing because they want hype to build after a long time I suppose. I don't think that works well for expansions vs the original game but honestly there's just no other excuse for Blizzard.
They probably had most of the story written for all 3 games when they made WoL. Unit ideas were probably on the board as well even if they came up with some new ones since then. Level design and voice acting is just not something that should take that long. Cinematics were probably in the works as soon as WoL released and while they take longer it's not a good excuse IMO.
Testing is done as they go; it's not like they make all levels and then have them test it all at once so that's not a good reason either.
Blizzard is either very inefficient or doing it on purpose. Sad either way for us.
On March 09 2012 04:03 1sz2sz3sz wrote: Itll be them announcing the Mists of Pandaria beta for WoW, its already shown up on some people battle.nets with the box art.
yeah, that's why the source for this news said "more information about HotS", because it's actually about WoW
Because the news will probably be "WoW-MoP and D3 coming out, HotS and BDotA pushed back to next year."
Still has news about HotS but it's not about it coming out but about it being pushed back. Please keep in mind, this is just a GUESS and explaining how something "about HotS" can actually be about another game instead.
On March 09 2012 03:56 Blennd wrote: Title should be changed to "HotS 3/9 announcement." Too many non-readers in the thread.
The announcement isn't just about HotS. It'll also contain information about Diablo3, WoW:Mists of Pandadudes and, most likely, Blizzard DotA. Iirc, Blizzard said they planned to push "two big name titles" this year, which could be any of the four.
How can you even consider Blizzard's DotA to be a big title? It's a custom within a custom that's based off another custom within another game. You would be advertising "buy Starcraft II to play DotA", ... like seriously stupid.
Diablo 3 and MoP will most likely be the two titles that are being pushed for 2012. Since we all know Diablo 3 is being released in Q2 and Cataclysm received its last major content patch not so long ago.
I wouldn't mind a date for Diablo III, so I can plan my summer vacation accordingly! I guess they could be pushing HOTS back as well, or saying something about MoP.
My thoughts are that they're going to show the units again, as well as give a beta date. Reason being, they didn't get a great reception at Blizzcon when they got votes on the new units, they probably went back to the drawing board and changed a few things. At least that's my hope.
On March 09 2012 03:56 Blennd wrote: Title should be changed to "HotS 3/9 announcement." Too many non-readers in the thread.
The announcement isn't just about HotS. It'll also contain information about Diablo3, WoW:Mists of Pandadudes and, most likely, Blizzard DotA. Iirc, Blizzard said they planned to push "two big name titles" this year, which could be any of the four.
Source that the announcement will be about anything other than HotS?
On March 09 2012 03:19 Kurr wrote: I love how it takes Blizzard longer to make a freaking expansion with the engine they use to make the levels and units long completed as they do to make the original game.
They have to be the least efficient company in video game history.
Actually they're probably the most efficient. They dump so much time and money into their games, that 15 years later people still dedicate their lives to those games.
I'm sorry but a 1 man programmer team with some imagination could make a good campaign that's polished in like 1 year when they have everything already done at their disposal such as the engine and most units.
The only logical reason for an expansion taking this long to make is marketing because they want hype to build after a long time I suppose. I don't think that works well for expansions vs the original game but honestly there's just no other excuse for Blizzard.
They probably had most of the story written for all 3 games when they made WoL. Unit ideas were probably on the board as well even if they came up with some new ones since then. Level design and voice acting is just not something that should take that long. Cinematics were probably in the works as soon as WoL released and while they take longer it's not a good excuse IMO.
Testing is done as they go; it's not like they make all levels and then have them test it all at once so that's not a good reason either.
Blizzard is either very inefficient or doing it on purpose. Sad either way for us.
I shoudln't post to a stupid post like this but I will anyway. They improved the engine for one, most of the art will be completely new in HOTS, cutscenes, dialouge.. new units, mobs don't build themselves. There is little reason to assume that "Hype" is the reason as a more sensible expansion timing is six months after a release, not 2 years after.
Im going to call this right now: HOTS will actually be World of StarCraft: Heart of the Swarm. (1st patch will be to buff ghosts, so it will also be Stracraft Ghost, but multiplayer!)
World of Warcraft is going free to play - The reason why I say that is that loads of competing MMORPGs have switched to a free-to-play model, i.e. Aion, EverQuest, LOTRO, DCUO, STO etc. Now I've played Aion since it recently went F2P in Europe and I have to say it is actually a brilliant game that I'm surprised hasn't made a huge dent in WoW's subscriber base. Why pay for WoW if you can just play a game like Aion or DC Universe Online or Lord of the Rings Online for free.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm will be delayed until Q1 2013.
Diablo III will launch Q3 2012. Permanent internet connection requirement has been removed because of fears that competitors (i.e. Torchlight II) would destroy Diablo III in sales.
On March 09 2012 04:44 Mordanis wrote: Im going to call this right now: HOTS will actually be World of StarCraft: Heart of the Swarm. (1st patch will be to buff ghosts, so it will also be Stracraft Ghost, but multiplayer!)
World of Warcraft is going free to play - The reason why I say that is that loads of competing MMORPGs have switched to a free-to-play model, i.e. Aion, EverQuest, LOTRO, DCUO, STO etc. Now I've played Aion since it recently went F2P in Europe and I have to say it is actually a brilliant game that I'm surprised hasn't made a huge dent in WoW's subscriber base. Why pay for WoW if you can just play a game like Aion or DC Universe Online or Lord of the Rings Online for free.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm will be delayed untl Q1 2013, and will include a permanent internet connection requirement, going along the lines of Ubisoft with their DRM.
World of Warcraft is going free to play - The reason why I say that is that loads of competing MMORPGs have switched to a free-to-play model, i.e. Aion, EverQuest, LOTRO, DCUO, STO etc. Now I've played Aion since it recently went F2P in Europe and I have to say it is actually a brilliant game that I'm surprised hasn't made a huge dent in WoW's subscriber base. Why pay for WoW if you can just play a game like Aion or DC Universe Online or Lord of the Rings Online for free.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm will be delayed untl Q1 2013, and will include a permanent internet connection requirement, going along the lines of Ubisoft with their DRM.
Diablo III will launch Q3 2012
Im 99% sure that none of that will happen. :p
There is no way WoW will go free to play. There are still over 9 million people who pay for a subscription, it would be stupid for them to change it now
World of Warcraft is going free to play - The reason why I say that is that loads of competing MMORPGs have switched to a free-to-play model, i.e. Aion, EverQuest, LOTRO, DCUO, STO etc. Now I've played Aion since it recently went F2P in Europe and I have to say it is actually a brilliant game that I'm surprised hasn't made a huge dent in WoW's subscriber base. Why pay for WoW if you can just play a game like Aion or DC Universe Online or Lord of the Rings Online for free.
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm will be delayed untl Q1 2013, and will include a permanent internet connection requirement, going along the lines of Ubisoft with their DRM.
Diablo III will launch Q3 2012
Im 99% sure that none of that will happen. :p
There is no way WoW will go free to play. There are still over 9 million people who pay for a subscription, it would be stupid for them to change it now
Make it F2P and you could probably add another 9 million people. Change some stuff up for micro transactions and you have yourself a brand new money cow to be milked for the next 5-10 years.
People playing WoW will pay for anything. New hats, gear, mounts, items, levels, characters.. the list could go on and on.
Then release titan with a new subscription model and everyone migrates to the new shiny game.
On March 09 2012 05:04 CounterOrder wrote: You guys are insane for wanting to see HOTS beta without even seeing what the new units are like yet. I mean i hope those units changed alot...
I doubt there will be a beta, probably just information on it like new units and what not. Would blow my mind if they announced a beta date time. Also there will be patches during beta, a lot more then during release to try and balance the best it can during beta
WoW is never going f2p, the servers just cost too much to even attempt micro transactions. they're not doing bad by any means, they're doing very good, but just declining
On March 09 2012 05:10 KiLL_ORdeR wrote: It will either be a release date for D3 of WoW:MoP, unless i'm missing something. What information makes op assume it's a HotS release?
its probably just about D3 release date the game is done pretty sure from what ive heard they prob just need to do major overloading to test teh servers so maybe open beta soon
I think it's going to be that they realized they fucked up with the units they proposed, they're going back to the drawing board, hots delayed. My guess at least.
On March 09 2012 00:37 GhandiEAGLE wrote: Guys this call is mostly just monetary gains and expected earnings over the last quarter. So they may not even broach the subject. Then again, they know that tons of people will be on the call, so maybe they will!
They already had a quarterly earnings call for 2011Q4...why would they have another one again? This is the HotS announcement they announced in their last earnings call.
Im expecting a delay. Theres been too much concern regarding the poor UI since the initial release of Wings. That stuff isnt fixed over night-although its been two years-and will need some strong consideration incase they want to botch this expansions release. I know if they dont get off their ass and get something dome ill be quitting for dota2 and cs:go.
Whatever it is it wont be related to wow since they will have a press tour around March 19, in fact they updated the battle.net profile accounts yesterday with the box art of Diablo 3 and a World of warcraft MOP beta. This has lead many people to believe that the next wow expansion will be release shortly after the press release.
On March 09 2012 00:37 GhandiEAGLE wrote: Guys this call is mostly just monetary gains and expected earnings over the last quarter. So they may not even broach the subject. Then again, they know that tons of people will be on the call, so maybe they will!
They did the Q4 conference call on Feb 9th. They won't have another one until the second month of next quarter (which is May).
On March 09 2012 04:44 Mordanis wrote: Im going to call this right now: HOTS will actually be World of StarCraft: Heart of the Swarm. (1st patch will be to buff ghosts, so it will also be Stracraft Ghost, but multiplayer!)
They seriously better have something solid to say, and ACTUALLY cover the issues at hand. Instead of their usual "Before the end of time" crap. Three years for an expansion? When the purpose of cutting the game into three parts was to get them out faster...starting to look more and more apparent as just a ploy for more money. Sorry Blizz but the quality lately, not sure if it allows you to do whatever you want anymore when it comes to keeping your community involved and well informed.
On March 09 2012 05:20 Integra wrote: Whatever it is it wont be related to wow since they will have a press tour around March 19, in fact they updated the battle.net profile accounts yesterday with the box art of Diablo 3 and a World of warcraft MOP beta. This has lead many people to believe that the next wow expansion will be release shortly after the press release.
On March 09 2012 05:20 Integra wrote: Whatever it is it wont be related to wow since they will have a press tour around March 19, in fact they updated the battle.net profile accounts yesterday with the box art of Diablo 3 and a World of warcraft MOP beta. This has lead many people to believe that the next wow expansion will be release shortly after the press release.
MOP Beta before HotS beta? Very disappointing and good indicator that HotS is going to be pushed. Damn them, damn them all
I kinda expected MoP beta before HotS beta, but it is not unreasonable for blizzard to have two betas running with some overlap, there was overlap for Cata beta and WoL beta after all.
On March 09 2012 05:20 Integra wrote: Whatever it is it wont be related to wow since they will have a press tour around March 19, in fact they updated the battle.net profile accounts yesterday with the box art of Diablo 3 and a World of warcraft MOP beta. This has lead many people to believe that the next wow expansion will be release shortly after the press release.
I don't see a particular reason for it to be pushed into 2013, I mean there's still 9 almost 10 full months left to 2012. Unless they're making a massive overhaul to the game I can't see how adding some units, upgrades, and some mechanics for single player can take THAT long.
The SC2 beta took around a year, right? That means that the beta should be coming up sometime within the next few months or so, because the expansion pack is basically gonna throw most of the metagame we've developed so far out the window, so the beta will have to last a significant amount of time. Besides, they should at least have the ability to open up a relatively balanced beta, as it seemed like they had a good idea of where they were going, what they were doing and what they wanted at Blizzcon a while ago. Also, some stupidly imbalanced shit actually existed at the start of the SC2 beta, so they should also be reaching a point in balance where HotS can be put into beta because of that as well.
On March 09 2012 05:20 Integra wrote: Whatever it is it wont be related to wow since they will have a press tour around March 19, in fact they updated the battle.net profile accounts yesterday with the box art of Diablo 3 and a World of warcraft MOP beta. This has lead many people to believe that the next wow expansion will be release shortly after the press release.
D3 has to be released soon as it's so close and has been in beta for months now. Notice how the "when it's done" approach was applied to D3 and they've been tweaking it forever. They are saying they are close to release now though, and are saying "very soon!" instead of just "when it's done."
WoW has to be released on a timeline more for financial reasons. Thus the beta is right around the corner. There's no "when it's done" philosophy for WoW. They have strict time lines for their major revenue generator.
HotS is a "when it's done" title. There's no real rush for them to release it.
Remember that the wording Blizz used was "AT LEAST TWO" major titles. This was a way of assuring that a WoW title will be released this year (along with D3) while leaving the possibly for HotS. They wouldn't have said "AT LEAST" if they didn't mean that. So there's a distinct possibility HotS could come this year, but there's no rush (like there is for WoW) and the game isn't basically done and being polished (like D3).
HotS could be released this year if they are able to get it to a point they think is acceptable. Otherwise it will be later. Just look at the Dev times for SC2 and D3 compared to anything WoW related to see that the development philosophies are just different.
I'm happy that its D3 instead of anything else. SC2 makes me angry sometimes, as much as I love it. With D3, there's just none of that. Its all gravy, baby.
On March 09 2012 05:40 Mohdoo wrote: I'm happy that its D3 instead of anything else. SC2 makes me angry sometimes, as much as I love it. With D3, there's just none of that. Its all gravy, baby.
Yeah I've had beta for ages really want to get past the skeleton king already. :/
I'd imagine it'd be the release of a product this year, since Acti-Blizz reported a 5.5% drop in non-GAAP revenues this year and they won't be able to revive that through Call of Duty Elite or another CoD game on its own; they'll need something from Blizzard's end to help out.
They are not about to release HoTS when the first bnet championships is going to be played on WoL. It would take too much attention away from bnet championships.
On March 09 2012 06:29 papaz wrote: There is no way HoTS is coming out before 2013.
They are not about to release HoTS when the first bnet championships is going to be played on WoL. It would take too much attention away from bnet championships.
That's actually a really good point. It would be ridiculous for them to release it before their event which they're super hyping, never thought of that.
On March 09 2012 06:29 papaz wrote: There is no way HoTS is coming out before 2013.
They are not about to release HoTS when the first bnet championships is going to be played on WoL. It would take too much attention away from bnet championships.
That's actually a really good point. It would be ridiculous for them to release it before their event which they're super hyping, never thought of that.
blizzard patches the game days before the finals, they obviously dont care about letting the game be before tournament finals.
other than that, i'm not sure why hots will take so long to make.
On March 09 2012 06:38 paintfive wrote: slowly losing interest in playing sc2. please release HotS beta.
Can you share why is it that you are losing interest in the game? Were you a long time BW player, or maybe WC3? Do you play custom games? Do you follow the competitive scene? Also what about HOTS will make you go back except the new features and units, and if so would you grow tired of it after another year/two?
Hots will be delayed so much... I don't believe in Blizzard, that they can come out with multiple product releases within a single year. They will try their best to make the most amount of profit.
-> been Blizzard customer for the last 16 years, rage at them sometimes but still buys their games in the end.
On March 09 2012 06:29 papaz wrote: There is no way HoTS is coming out before 2013.
They are not about to release HoTS when the first bnet championships is going to be played on WoL. It would take too much attention away from bnet championships.
That's actually a really good point. It would be ridiculous for them to release it before their event which they're super hyping, never thought of that.
If you think of it it makes perfect sense. They would be having there tournament as a sort of final tournament for WoL and send it off and then welcome in the HotS era.
On March 09 2012 05:16 sleepingdog wrote: Other: "bunker buildtime will change in HotS"
"Players will now have the ability to choose the duration of time it takes to construct a bunker on any loading screen involving one or more terran players."
On March 09 2012 07:34 FidoDido wrote: Hots will be delayed so much... I don't believe in Blizzard, that they can come out with multiple product releases within a single year. They will try their best to make the most amount of profit.
-> been Blizzard customer for the last 16 years, rage at them sometimes but still buys their games in the end.
I would say that its 50-50 that they have all 3 of there major releases in same year. We already know about D3 and Wow the question over whether they will go 3 for 3 though is still up in the air.
Other: I think it will be an update on the Blizzard World Championship, or whatever it is called. We were told that more info would come soon, so guessing that this is it.
On March 09 2012 01:12 Klonere wrote: "Our upcoming expansion to the Starcraft II series, entitled "Heart of the Swarm" which will follow the exploits of the Queen of Blades, Kerrigan, as she reclaims the Zerg once again and rebuilds her power, has been delayed to Q1 2013 in order to facilitate a complete redesign of Battle.net 2.0 and address balance and game design concerns."
On March 09 2012 07:26 mobbeh wrote: It'll be Diablo 3 release date and possibly Beta for the WoW expansion
I wouldn't be surprised if the new WoW expansion had something to do with it - did they specifically say it was going to be about SC2?
I mean if you look at the Bnet forums and whatnot, Blizzard is where it wanted to be in terms of "what needs to happen before we can put out the next expansion" - which I believe was trying to be released this coming summer...They're on what they called the last patch of Cata now, and all the talent trees have been built + released, stat changes announced, etc...
Will blizzardDOTA be a part of Hots? that might be something that they would announce because there is a massive ARTS/MOBA/DOTA community out there that could attract people tp sc2 via BDota if it was a part of hots.
On March 09 2012 07:26 mobbeh wrote: It'll be Diablo 3 release date and possibly Beta for the WoW expansion
I wouldn't be surprised if the new WoW expansion had something to do with it - did they specifically say it was going to be about SC2?
I mean if you look at the Bnet forums and whatnot, Blizzard is where it wanted to be in terms of "what needs to happen before we can put out the next expansion" - which I believe was trying to be released this coming summer...They're on what they called the last patch of Cata now, and all the talent trees have been built + released, stat changes announced, etc...
HOTS probably bumped back to 2013 anyways.
I wish people would read the OP's link. This is about HOTS, blizzard said "information on HOTS march 9'th". How does that equal diablo 3 release date or beta for WoW expansion? lol...
Half the posts in this thread are people thinking its about everything and don't think sc2 will be mentioned when that's the main thing if not the only thing -_-.
On March 09 2012 07:12 PopcornColonel wrote: I'm hoping for a delay, not gonna lie... I think WoL still has time.
But WoL is getting so boring..... T.T
If WoL is boring, what game isn't then? Starcraft 2 is, besides SC BW, one of the best games ever made. People whine about it being imbalanced etc, but actually you will never find a game that is more balanced then sc2 (again: besides BW).
Blizzard hopefully has a master plan with their hole battle.net system. If we are lucky, they already know how to improve battle.net in favour of the customers, but keep the improvements behind locked doors to release them with the two add ons. Honestly, we should'nt cry about moneymaking and milking their cow ... we will buy the expansions either way.
On March 09 2012 07:26 mobbeh wrote: It'll be Diablo 3 release date and possibly Beta for the WoW expansion
I wouldn't be surprised if the new WoW expansion had something to do with it - did they specifically say it was going to be about SC2?
I mean if you look at the Bnet forums and whatnot, Blizzard is where it wanted to be in terms of "what needs to happen before we can put out the next expansion" - which I believe was trying to be released this coming summer...They're on what they called the last patch of Cata now, and all the talent trees have been built + released, stat changes announced, etc...
HOTS probably bumped back to 2013 anyways.
I wish people would read the OP's link. This is about HOTS, blizzard said "information on HOTS march 9'th". How does that equal diablo 3 release date or beta for WoW expansion? lol...
Half the posts in this thread are people thinking its about everything and don't think sc2 will be mentioned when that's the main thing if not the only thing -_-.
lol, whups, I didn't read the entire OP on the other link, I just kinda speed skimmed it. Didn't see anything here about it being 100% HOTS related so I already had what I wanted to post in my head. :p
On March 09 2012 08:24 Mohdoo wrote: Can someone please tell me when this announcement is supposed to happen? Today? Tomorrow? I'm not finding any info about it.
Also (I made the same mistake) click on the link in the OP and it will tell you all the info about it lol
On March 09 2012 07:12 PopcornColonel wrote: I'm hoping for a delay, not gonna lie... I think WoL still has time.
But WoL is getting so boring..... T.T
If WoL is boring, what game isn't then? Starcraft 2 is, besides SC BW, one of the best games ever made. People whine about it being imbalanced etc, but actually you will never find a game that is more balanced then sc2 (again: besides BW).
people see wol like sc vanilla and want a bw variant(make it better), asap. i'm in the same boat but from what i've seen in regards to hots @ last blizzcon, i'm not too excited.
Hope it's more ambitious bnet features, don't mind if they delay it I enjoy the game as-is even if I think there's some stuff in HoTS that will help give some options to the races.
They mentioned more than one time, that all shown units weren't final. Maybe not even one of the unit makes it into the final version. Maybe all. I personally think, some of the stranger units, protoss morph thing and the "anti-zergling-runby-tower", won't make it into the final release. I would find it better, if they surprise me with other units. I hope blizzard used the shown units only to gather informations about which feature was more acclaimed and which not. Also some animations looked so forced.
I'm actually okay with Blizzard releasing it in a year if they don't rush it and make it really great in terms of balancing the new units and completely rethink the concept of Battle.net 2.0. WoL is flawed in so many ways and I just want them to take their time, come out with the beta a good bit before the release and listen to what we as a community want.
It seems a bit far-fetched but oh well, one can only hope.
if HotS gets pushed to 2013, I seriously wonder what Blizzard's HotS development time has been spent on
the engine is there, story line should have been well in-place by the time WoL got released, balancing the game is a very delicate process but even if Blizzard delays the game trying to perfect balance they still won't get it right because they don't have top level progamers as their testers
Well I know we all hope that it's going to be heart of the swarm beta announced, but why would they hype up a bad announcement, such as HOTS being delayed?
On March 09 2012 10:16 udgnim wrote: if HotS gets pushed to 2013, I seriously wonder what Blizzard's HotS development time has been spent on
the engine is there, story line should have been well in-place by the time WoL got released, balancing the game is a very delicate process but even if Blizzard delays the game trying to perfect balance they still won't get it right because they don't have top level progamers as their testers
I highly doubt they would put a hold on HOTS for the sake of balance, they have all beta to do that. My hope is that if it is delayed, its because they are revamping the lackluster UI which I think everyone would be grateful if that was their main focus.
For something like Diablo, I want them to take their time. It's frustrating to wait, but I want a good game. I want the same of HotS, but I feel like a beta sooner than later will be better. Even if there are big changes from the start of beta from release, that's good. They need a beta to figure out what works and what doesn't. They won't be able to do it all by themselves.
I think ATVI is looking really hard at the response to NetEase's conference call (NetEase is the company that distributes WoW in china.) I found a passable report revolving on that here:
The fact that cataclysm's subscriber numbers is a subject of some concern is probably going to weigh heavily on the release schedule for d3, HoTS, and Pandaria, and I'd be somewhat confused if it didn't accelerate them. If I had to pick and choose one I'd say D3 though; I don't have anything to contradict the notion that D3's auction house monetization might be a good hook for investors.
On March 09 2012 10:16 udgnim wrote: if HotS gets pushed to 2013, I seriously wonder what Blizzard's HotS development time has been spent on
the engine is there, story line should have been well in-place by the time WoL got released, balancing the game is a very delicate process but even if Blizzard delays the game trying to perfect balance they still won't get it right because they don't have top level progamers as their testers
it certainly sounds like alot of work getting SP right, they have to design the maps, decide on its balance decide on achievments test it on all the settings to make sure no bugs apear
any small changes to one unit to fix a different map could ruin a different map then they have any new challenges they want to roll out ui updates or new features but it probably is mainly balance giving big tweaks to units deciding on the abilitys cost build time and such they want to get it as balanced as possible before getting to beta, if they can weed out most of the imbalance before entering beta then thats good since Beta is really best for fine tuning stuff by palying it for tens of thousands of games, and if i had to bet very few progamers will put many games into HoTS theyll probably put enough games in to get a feel of the new units but thats all they wouldnt want to put heavy time figuring out a HoTS strat since 99% chance of that strat being useless by the time the game is legit released
So this was a dud?
why do people keep posting stuff like this?
in america its still the 8th, your a day ahead Blizz has always run on PST time
well i heard (from a source) that the beta is coming out around april but i dunno... we have to see but meh we will find out if my sources are correct but i hope the beta is out in april time for zerg to become op!
Uhm... Blizzard said they were going to launch 2 titles this year (2012)
We already know diablo is coming out very shortly and based on previous iterations of world of warcraft, it will be out before october. No way HOTS is being launched in 2012. I would say summer 2013 at the EARLIEST. More likely christmas 2013.
One thing to remember is that sc2 and diablo have a ton of overlap in players (moreso than wow and diablo) so it would be counter productive for them to release sc2 within at least 9-12 months of d3. My prediction: Hots is coming October 2013.
On March 09 2012 00:37 GhandiEAGLE wrote: Guys this call is mostly just monetary gains and expected earnings over the last quarter. So they may not even broach the subject. Then again, they know that tons of people will be on the call, so maybe they will!
Wrong lmao... that call was last month. You don't keep up with blizzard much do you?
edit: Personally, I believe that Blizzard would not announce a conference for a game to be pushed back. They would just release a statement as they always have. An announcement can only be something good from blizzard in my opinion.
On March 09 2012 00:37 GhandiEAGLE wrote: Guys this call is mostly just monetary gains and expected earnings over the last quarter. So they may not even broach the subject. Then again, they know that tons of people will be on the call, so maybe they will!
Wrong lmao... that call was last month. You don't keep up with blizzard much do you?
edit: Personally, I believe that Blizzard would not announce a conference for a game to be pushed back. They would just release a statement as they always have. An announcement can only be something good from blizzard in my opinion.
has to be something good since a date was set, if they were expecting to do another update soon on things like release date or other general things theyd say more is available in the next X amount of weeks or well be releasing more information soon or soemthing but saying that "well be saying something on march 9th" means something is ready NOW theres something big planned long ago to be ready NOW like maybe its a showcase of teh new UI or some more demos or the beta, it makes me think that they went to some guys and siad "heres your deadline we want to announce this on the 9th make it happen"
This is not an announcement, but a summary of the earlier conference call about Activision Blizzard Announces Record Fourth Quarter and Calendar Year 2011 Earnings ( HINT CHECK THE TITLE OF THE SOURCE OF THE ARTICLE AT):http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=647732 It's a summarization of the conference call, Nothing else.
This is not an announcement, but a summary of the earlier conference call about Activision Blizzard Announces Record Fourth Quarter and Calendar Year 2011 Earnings ( HINT CHECK THE TITLE OF THE SOURCE OF THE ARTICLE AT):http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=647732 It's a summarization of the conference call, Nothing else.
More info about HotS March 9th, that's the only concrete thing regarding the Starcraft II expansion.....
This is from the link. I swear people need to click the links and see for themselves.
This is not an announcement, but a summary of the earlier conference call about Activision Blizzard Announces Record Fourth Quarter and Calendar Year 2011 Earnings ( HINT CHECK THE TITLE OF THE SOURCE OF THE ARTICLE AT):http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=647732 It's a summarization of the conference call, Nothing else.
This is not an announcement, but a summary of the earlier conference call about Activision Blizzard Announces Record Fourth Quarter and Calendar Year 2011 Earnings ( HINT CHECK THE TITLE OF THE SOURCE OF THE ARTICLE AT):http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=647732 It's a summarization of the conference call, Nothing else.
More info about HotS March 9th, that's the only concrete thing regarding the Starcraft II expansion.....
This is from the link. I swear people need to click the links and see for themselves.
yeah lol its annoying, its on like every page to explaining how we know xD
On March 09 2012 14:38 Trevoc wrote: fingers crossed for diablo 3, but yeah I agree that it will probably be hots pushed back. They really do need to cancel Blizzcon to fix this :\
what part of "Hots info" do you people fail to understand....
i dont get it with all you d3 and wow fans/players....
it was pretty clear in the source that this info is regarding hots.
To be quite honest I REALLY REALLY HOPE they push back the exp another 3months- half year and fix Battle.Net 0.2 to something it should be instead of what it is now...
Why would they need to delay the expansion to work on an improved battle.net (it's mostly independent of each other) and why would any of you be thrilled if the announcement was a delay for a game that is already late as of right now. (it's been 1.5 years since release, normal expansion timing)
Blizzcon was in October and it's March now, so by my count that's almost five months since they last released any information about HotS pretty much. There is actually no reason why they should not keep like a blog of multiplayer design concepts they're working on, to engage the community and for improved feedback; a game like Starcraft 2 is community driven, so it annoys me Blizzard prefers to work in total silence sometimes. We're expected to play and enjoy it - and a lot of people have their career dependent on HotS' success - yet we have almost no input on it.
One thing I loved about WoW when I still followed it some years back was that Ghostcrawler, the lead class designer, would post on the battle.net forums a lot and give a great deal of transparency to how class development of the game functioned. I wish Blizzard was more open with Starcraft 2 as well. But I guess today's their chance to wow us with their progress, if it does turn out they're going to do another preview of HotS. (of which there is no confirmation, for all we know they're just setting a release date, not giving information about the game itself)
On March 09 2012 12:00 ETisME wrote: I am so not looking forward to this... If Hots is delayed to 2013, I would be so very sad
Well then prepared to be sad.
They can't release HoTS before the bnet championsips which is played on WoL.
They want everyone to play WoL all the way up to bnet championships, else the tournament would be overshadowed by statements like "player X would have never won if this was HoTS since he can't use that strat".
Bnet championships is a good tournament to say GG to WoL and welcome to HoTS, but you can bet on that they won't release HoTS before that.
On March 09 2012 16:46 Grumbels wrote: Why would they need to delay the expansion to work on an improved battle.net (it's mostly independent of each other) and why would any of you be thrilled if the announcement was a delay for a game that is already late as of right now. (it's been 1.5 years since release, normal expansion timing)
Blizzcon was in October and it's March now, so by my count that's almost five months since they last released any information about HotS pretty much. There is actually no reason why they should not keep like a blog of multiplayer design concepts they're working on, to engage the community and for improved feedback; a game like Starcraft 2 is community driven, so it annoys me Blizzard prefers to work in total silence sometimes. We're expected to play and enjoy it - and a lot of people have their career dependent on HotS' success - yet we have almost no input on it.
One thing I loved about WoW when I still followed it some years back was that Ghostcrawler, the lead class designer, would post on the battle.net forums a lot and give a great deal of transparency to how class development of the game functioned. I wish Blizzard was more open with Starcraft 2 as well. But I guess today's their chance to wow us with their progress, if it does turn out they're going to do another preview of HotS. (of which there is no confirmation, for all we know they're just setting a release date, not giving information about the game itself)
blizz gets so much flack for stuff from alpha they scrapped like lurkers and tempest the last thing there gonna do is release info on what there considering since they would get 90% of posts being how terrible it is or how dumb it is or how dumb something got scrapped or something isnt getting scrapped yada yada yada and noone would actually be able to give truly constructive feedback since they can only look at it on beta then someone willkeep updating a HoTS map based on teh blog and people say "wll we ahve this custom which is basically beta so why not jsut realease bate"
After midnight and no update. I remember my friends and I used to check smashdojo every night at midnight for that night's new Brawl update. I didn't expect it to come right at midnight but that would have been awesome if it did.
On March 09 2012 16:46 Grumbels wrote: Why would they need to delay the expansion to work on an improved battle.net (it's mostly independent of each other) and why would any of you be thrilled if the announcement was a delay for a game that is already late as of right now. (it's been 1.5 years since release, normal expansion timing)
Blizzcon was in October and it's March now, so by my count that's almost five months since they last released any information about HotS pretty much. There is actually no reason why they should not keep like a blog of multiplayer design concepts they're working on, to engage the community and for improved feedback; a game like Starcraft 2 is community driven, so it annoys me Blizzard prefers to work in total silence sometimes. We're expected to play and enjoy it - and a lot of people have their career dependent on HotS' success - yet we have almost no input on it.
One thing I loved about WoW when I still followed it some years back was that Ghostcrawler, the lead class designer, would post on the battle.net forums a lot and give a great deal of transparency to how class development of the game functioned. I wish Blizzard was more open with Starcraft 2 as well. But I guess today's their chance to wow us with their progress, if it does turn out they're going to do another preview of HotS. (of which there is no confirmation, for all we know they're just setting a release date, not giving information about the game itself)
blizz gets so much flack for stuff from alpha they scrapped like lurkers and tempest the last thing there gonna do is release info on what there considering since they would get 90% of posts being how terrible it is or how dumb it is or how dumb something got scrapped or something isnt getting scrapped yada yada yada and noone would actually be able to give truly constructive feedback since they can only look at it on beta then someone willkeep updating a HoTS map based on teh blog and people say "wll we ahve this custom which is basically beta so why not jsut realease bate"
its jsut alot of flak they dont need to deal with
People are not all this dumb and unreasonable. Yes, I know that after Blizzcon there were countless posts of "nothing I have seen so far of HotS has convinced me it won't be an utter failure and do anything to revive the contemptuous parody of brood war that WoL is", but some are going to whine anyway.
I don't understand why everyone gets so angry when blizzard delays their games. I'd rather have them take an extra few months or year and recieve a well polished, quality game rather than them releasing an unfinished buggy pile of crap which was the same as they released the previous year like activision does with call of duty and many other games/companies do these days.
By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
They going to announce the New Starcraft MaSter Map and Achievment !
--edit--
I Really hope that HotS doesnt come out this year. WoL is still fine and the games are entertaining, i dont see why ppl would prefer starting from scrap again...
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
Huh, thats in a way encouraging - here's to hoping they don't hire another Xbox Live dev to replace the old one.
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
Huh, thats in a way encouraging - here's to hoping they don't hire another Xbox Live dev to replace the old one.
UI developers are one of the most sought after people in the game industry, there are few and finding good ones is even harder. Blizzard really must not have been satisfied to let those go.
TBH I really hope its that hots is being delayed until late 2k13. WOL is going quite swimmingly. There's a few balance things that need to be sorted out (tvp lategame), but overall its really fun to watch and play.
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
Huh, thats in a way encouraging - here's to hoping they don't hire another Xbox Live dev to replace the old one.
UI developers are one of the most sought after people in the game industry, there are few and finding good ones is even harder. Blizzard really must not have been satisfied to let those go.
I mean, they are even looking for a lead designer for Battle.Net. This is the guy that is suppose to have the overall plan for Battle.Net like goals and vision with what they want to achieve with Battle.Net as a service and what is needed and what to work on. Imagine if Blizzard would kick Dustin Browder during the development of Starcraft II. This is what has happened with the Battle.Net team.
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
Huh, thats in a way encouraging - here's to hoping they don't hire another Xbox Live dev to replace the old one.
Exactly how I see it - hit the big BNet Reset button guys, this ones going nowhere.
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
Huh, thats in a way encouraging - here's to hoping they don't hire another Xbox Live dev to replace the old one.
UI developers are one of the most sought after people in the game industry, there are few and finding good ones is even harder. Blizzard really must not have been satisfied to let those go.
They really should not be satisfied. It looks good, but still lacks features.
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
Huh, thats in a way encouraging - here's to hoping they don't hire another Xbox Live dev to replace the old one.
UI developers are one of the most sought after people in the game industry, there are few and finding good ones is even harder. Blizzard really must not have been satisfied to let those go.
I mean, they are even looking for a lead designer for Battle.Net. This is the guy that is suppose to have the overall plan for Battle.Net like goals and vision with what they want to achieve with Battle.Net as a service and what is needed and what to work on. Imagine if Blizzard would kick Dustin Browder during the development of Starcraft II. This is what has happened with the Battle.Net team.
To be honest, I don't think Blizzard likes the negativity around battle.net 2.0 at all after they hyped it up so much and now try to get actual good people. That's my guess at least.
On March 09 2012 18:00 Pandemona wrote: Pretty sure there just going to Announce some BETAs and stuff, maybe an Open D3 beta or the start dates of HOTS beta
Wait wait wait... So, who said that they going to announce anything today? Doesn't the link from the first page direct you to some of their buisseness annual summary or whatever? Earnings? Profits? Kotick's lube cream usement?
Can someone link to an actual quote, that they will announce whatever today?
On March 09 2012 17:19 Talic_Zealot wrote: By the way guys, completely different teams of people are working on the game itself and B.Net. It is very likely that the latter has been concentrating on the various features for D3, such as the Real Money Auction House, and will be for some time.
The Battle.Net team hasn't done squat since Blizzard fired most of them during the great "cleanup". Practically every key position regarding Battle.Net is now vacant and needs urgent replacement according to:Blizzards job directory
Oh cool. I mean poor guys that got fired. But they really released a mess in regards to BNET 2.0. Hopefully this means that a BNET rehaul is in the works.
E: Oh and my guess is that it will be probably a HOTS Beta. Lasting one year leading to 2013 release.
Wait wait wait... So, who said that they going to announce anything today? Doesn't the link from the first page direct you to some of their buisseness annual summary or whatever? Earnings? Profits? Kotick's lube cream use?
On March 09 2012 18:15 kudlaty_true wrote: Wait wait wait... So, who said that they going to announce anything today? Doesn't the link from the first page direct you to some of their buisseness annual summary or whatever? Earnings? Profits? Kotick's lube cream usement?
Can someone link to an actual quote, that they will announce whatever today?
Read the thread that is linked... Says there that blizzard said march 9'th more hots info lol. Read it, the summary of starcraft 2 and esports don't even have to scroll down
Surprised there isn't more options for Diablo 3 in the poll (personally? Couldnt' care less - don't really like the beta) - I figure the answer is obvious here though - if you log in to ANY battlenet account now, it says the beta is coming soon, so it's going open for everyone.
On March 09 2012 18:22 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Surprised there isn't more options for Diablo 3 in the poll (personally? Couldnt' care less - don't really like the beta) - I figure the answer is obvious here though - if you log in to ANY battlenet account now, it says the beta is coming soon, so it's going open for everyone.
Very unlikely to be Starcraft news.
omg i'm posting a screen shot since nobody is reading the op
On March 09 2012 18:22 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Surprised there isn't more options for Diablo 3 in the poll (personally? Couldnt' care less - don't really like the beta) - I figure the answer is obvious here though - if you log in to ANY battlenet account now, it says the beta is coming soon, so it's going open for everyone.
Very unlikely to be Starcraft news.
omg i'm posting a screen shot since nobody is reading the op
Aww cmon man why did you have to do it ruining everybody's fun trying to guess whats going to happen.
Guaranteed new units update(maybe some scrapped or added) or beta date/release
would be awesome if some blizz guy was to make the official announcement on the iem stage. then again, today the main stage is exclusively showing lol. so i guess our best bet is to check blizz's sc2 blog. having been disaapointed by the blizzard announcements numerous times now, im gonna say that the new info is gonna be sth like new screenshots, wallpapers or a hots battle report (if we're lucky).
On March 09 2012 20:15 Garmer wrote: at what hour it's the announcement?
in 4 hours and 35 minutes it will be 8:00 am in USA, that is probably the earliest possible, but we can expect the announcement to be significantly later than that.
On March 09 2012 19:17 Ribbon wrote: They wouldn't hype bad news.
My prediction: HotS Beta to start in 2-3 months, and to run for a several more months in prep for a Q1 2013 or maybe a Q4 2012 release.
I find this quite likely.
They said the will release AT LEAST 2 games in 2012, well no doubt those are going to be D3 and Pandaria. They still could aim for a Q4 Release of HotS. Having it released around christmas for sure could be something they aim for.
But yeah, they would announce something for today and in the end just say "yeah so just you know, no HotS this year. cya"
On March 09 2012 20:15 Garmer wrote: at what hour it's the announcement?
in 4 hours and 35 minutes it will be 8:00 am in USA, that is probably the earliest possible, but we can expect the announcement to be significantly later than that.
On March 09 2012 20:15 Garmer wrote: at what hour it's the announcement?
in 4 hours and 35 minutes it will be 8:00 am in USA, that is probably the earliest possible, but we can expect the announcement to be significantly later than that.
On March 09 2012 20:15 Garmer wrote: at what hour it's the announcement?
in 4 hours and 35 minutes it will be 8:00 am in USA, that is probably the earliest possible, but we can expect the announcement to be significantly later than that.
Is Blizzard HQ on east coast or west coast?
Irvine, CA - so west coast.
currently 3:30 am at blizzard HQ. I would guess the announcement will come around the middle of the work day so around noon pst. That would give 8 1/2 hours o.o
I am too lazy to go through all of this and read to see if someone posted it. But if you follow blizzard quarterly reports you would know that WoW : MoP press tour is in 10 days, and the above mentioned SC2 HotS stuff being talked about today.
But it is a concrete FACT that blizzard is only releasing two games this year ( 2012 ) and those games with be Diablo 3 and WoW : MoP.
Sc2 HotS will not come out till 2013. Silly topic is silly.
If you want facts for above statements, go dig around on mmo-champion around feb 8-11th and you will find all the above informaiton
But it is a concrete FACT that blizzard is only releasing two games this year ( 2012 ) and those games with be Diablo 3 and WoW : MoP.
I personally dont think we'll see HotS in 2012, and it'll be for sure D3 and MoP, but i've watched that conference call, and the only one that said something about how many games _will_ be released was the Activision Blizzard CFO, and his exact wording was "[... ]at least two [...]"
So yeah, there has nothing like a "FACT" been stated.
But it is a concrete FACT that blizzard is only releasing two games this year ( 2012 ) and those games with be Diablo 3 and WoW : MoP.
I personally dont think we'll see HotS in 2012, and it'll be for sure D3 and MoP, but i've watched that conference call, and the only one that said something about how many games _will_ be released was the Activision Blizzard CFO, and his exact wording was "[... ]at least two [...]"
So yeah, there has nothing like a "FACT" been stated.
We will agree to disagree, since blizzard only has 3 products on the table, Diablo3, WoW : MoP, and Sc2 HotS, we can trust blizz will release Diablo 3 by quarter 2 as they have promised since it has already been "delayed" twice. MoP beta will be announced on March 19th with a logical release date of Nov / Dec to follow suit with the other expansions.
This leaves absolutely no room for them to full release a third title in any proper manner without "competing" with themselves, at best we will see a HotS beta sometime between may and july. Open beta will kind of be a lmao to me since the game is balanced around higher levels of play, with the obvious exclusions, so I see no need for them to do any elongated testing of the gameplay outside of a very closed beta.
I don't think that pandaria will be out this year.. so, I voted for the beta, 'cause after blizzconn david kim has said: "the beta will come out in a few months".. end everyone here understand the "months" signature for blizzard.
1-2 months for the beta, 3-4 months for testing and we'll have hots out on august-september.
On March 09 2012 20:52 AngryPenguin wrote: I don't think that pandaria will be out this year.. so, I voted for the beta, 'cause after blizzconn david kim has said: "the beta will come out in a few months".. end everyone here understand the "months" signature for blizzard.
1-2 months for the beta, 3-4 months for testing and we'll have hots out on august-september.
The reason Pandaria is more likely is because blizzard has stated they will not add anymore content to the game until MoP. Which would mean the current 4.3 patch would last for far over a year which is beyond unheard and would cost them a far greater subscription drop then they have had thus far.
As well beta's don't really count as a "release" they are basically saying they will launch two titles so expect both WoW and diablo3
But it is a concrete FACT that blizzard is only releasing two games this year ( 2012 ) and those games with be Diablo 3 and WoW : MoP.
I personally dont think we'll see HotS in 2012, and it'll be for sure D3 and MoP, but i've watched that conference call, and the only one that said something about how many games _will_ be released was the Activision Blizzard CFO, and his exact wording was "[... ]at least two [...]"
So yeah, there has nothing like a "FACT" been stated.
We will agree to disagree, since blizzard only has 3 products on the table, Diablo3, WoW : MoP, and Sc2 HotS, we can trust blizz will release Diablo 3 by quarter 2 as they have promised since it has already been "delayed" twice. MoP beta will be announced on March 19th with a logical release date of Nov / Dec to follow suit with the other expansions.
This leaves absolutely no room for them to full release a third title in any proper manner without "competing" with themselves, at best we will see a HotS beta sometime between may and july. Open beta will kind of be a lmao to me since the game is balanced around higher levels of play, with the obvious exclusions, so I see no need for them to do any elongated testing of the gameplay outside of a very closed beta.
I understand your reasoning, and like i initially said i also find it highly likely that it'll be only those two games.
As for some points though:
I dont see MoP and HotS immediately compete with each other. Sure they wouldnt release it in the same month, but likewise i dont think Padaria will come out in Nov/Dec, or at least i cant imagine them doing it. They said they want to shorten the time between expansions, the former end-game content has been cleared since dec 20th. They will announce beta on the 19th, and i imagine it will start shortly thereafter. Beta most likely will run for 4-5 months like it has always been, which would indicate a release in september.
Agree with your point on HotS-beta-testing, still it'll probably start sometimes in the late summer this year i imagine with a aimed release for Q1/2013, which i guess, could be pushed for christmas'12. Of course, all this discussion is kind of irrelevant without todays information, so lets wait and see.
I understand your reasoning, and like i initially said i also find it highly likely that it'll be only those two games.
As for some points though:
I dont see MoP and HotS immediately compete with each other. Sure they wouldnt release it in the same month, but likewise i dont think Padaria will come out in Nov/Dec, or at least i cant imagine them doing it.
They said they want to shorten the time between expansions, the former end-game content has been cleared since dec 20th. They will announce beta on the 19th, and i imagine it will start shortly thereafter. Beta most likely will run for 4-5 months like it has always been, which would indicate a release in september.
Agree with your point on HotS-beta-testing, still it'll probably start sometimes in the late summer this year i imagine with a aimed release for Q1/2013, which i guess, could be pushed for christmas'12. Of course, all this discussion is kind of irrelevant without todays information, so lets wait and see.
Not saying they will compete with each other but a september release from a marketing standpoint makes limited sense in regards to a different amount of things most notable back to school. As well following suit with the other 3 expansions which came out between november - early january.
Makes sense but with new 35% debuff slowly being added they have plenty of time to slowly add in 5% every 4-5 weeks to allow a greater majority of players to see the content, which they seem obsessed with currently
I understand your reasoning, and like i initially said i also find it highly likely that it'll be only those two games.
As for some points though:
I dont see MoP and HotS immediately compete with each other. Sure they wouldnt release it in the same month, but likewise i dont think Padaria will come out in Nov/Dec, or at least i cant imagine them doing it.
They said they want to shorten the time between expansions, the former end-game content has been cleared since dec 20th. They will announce beta on the 19th, and i imagine it will start shortly thereafter. Beta most likely will run for 4-5 months like it has always been, which would indicate a release in september.
Agree with your point on HotS-beta-testing, still it'll probably start sometimes in the late summer this year i imagine with a aimed release for Q1/2013, which i guess, could be pushed for christmas'12. Of course, all this discussion is kind of irrelevant without todays information, so lets wait and see.
Not saying they will compete with each other but a september release from a marketing standpoint makes limited sense in regards to a different amount of things most notable back to school. As well following suit with the other 3 expansions which came out between november - early january.
Makes sense but with new 35% debuff slowly being added they have plenty of time to slowly add in 5% every 4-5 weeks to allow a greater majority of players to see the content, which they seem obsessed with currently
and of course your last point is 100% agreeable
I guess most of my MoP-optimism is some left over residue from my high-end world-rank raiding. With every addon there was basically the "no no, they wont let us wait for THAT long to release the new expansion". Well, experience should dictate that they probably very well can do. :X
On March 09 2012 20:35 yurta wrote: I am too lazy to go through all of this and read to see if someone posted it. But if you follow blizzard quarterly reports you would know that WoW : MoP press tour is in 10 days, and the above mentioned SC2 HotS stuff being talked about today.
But it is a concrete FACT that blizzard is only releasing two games this year ( 2012 ) and those games with be Diablo 3 and WoW : MoP.
Sc2 HotS will not come out till 2013. Silly topic is silly.
If you want facts for above statements, go dig around on mmo-champion around feb 8-11th and you will find all the above informaiton
wrong.
it isa concrete fact that blizzard will release at least 2 titles this year
On March 09 2012 21:33 Parcelleus wrote: I hope HOTS comes in 2015.
It will take that long to balance SC2.
I really hope they balance SC2 before throwing more units in to the mix.
Dawn of War became a balancing mess with so many expansions and less focus on balance.
It kinda sux actually that in 2012 there is really only SC2 for RTS that has a large player base as I think we need more RTS's to choose from.
Why would you want them to spend 5 years on balancing a game before adding new units and new abilities, which will require 5 more years to balance? I would rather have them release all their expansions now, and have it be balanced in 5 years, rather than waiting 15 years for the full product.
On March 09 2012 21:33 Parcelleus wrote: I hope HOTS comes in 2015.
It will take that long to balance SC2.
I really hope they balance SC2 before throwing more units in to the mix.
Dawn of War became a balancing mess with so many expansions and less focus on balance.
It kinda sux actually that in 2012 there is really only SC2 for RTS that has a large player base as I think we need more RTS's to choose from.
Why would you want them to spend 5 years on balancing a game before adding new units and new abilities, which will require 5 more years to balance? I would rather have them release all their expansions now, and have it be balanced in 5 years, rather than waiting 15 years for the full product.
Indeed what is the point in waiting for SC2 to be balanced and then release expansion that changes the game so much..? Though I understand it that it gives them time to re-think those silly units again.. In the other hand.. I want upgrades to Battle.net (Which we probably won't get)
The point is spreading out expansion to make more money, I doubt it has anything to do with money. (I want upgrades to the actual gameplay which is about seven bazillion times more important than battle.net.)
HOTS and LoV to be released simultaneously this year, with a revamped battle net with clan support, ingame statistics, replay sharing and a fix of unit clumping, with 40 missions for each race, with the story guest-written by Ridley Scott. And with LAN.
On March 09 2012 20:15 Garmer wrote: at what hour it's the announcement?
in 4 hours and 35 minutes it will be 8:00 am in USA, that is probably the earliest possible, but we can expect the announcement to be significantly later than that.
Is Blizzard HQ on east coast or west coast?
Irvine, CA - so west coast.
currently 3:30 am at blizzard HQ. I would guess the announcement will come around the middle of the work day so around noon pst. That would give 8 1/2 hours o.o
Most likely will be around 1:30 pm like the last one.
On March 09 2012 22:33 Obbalord wrote: how u guys are so sure there will be an announcement today? Did they REALLY say 9. march at the conference call or is this again some kind of rumor ?
I'm honest, I was on listening when Mike talked at the Investor call, and I DID NOT hear anything about march the 9th.
I'm not sure if I missed any detail there, but I have the impression people are getting self-hyped needlessly, only to get angry and mad thereafter.
On March 09 2012 22:30 Doctorasul wrote: HOTS and LoV to be released simultaneously this year, with a revamped battle net with clan support, ingame statistics, replay sharing and a fix of unit clumping, with 40 missions for each race, with the story guest-written by Ridley Scott. And with LAN.
On March 09 2012 22:33 Obbalord wrote: how u guys are so sure there will be an announcement today? Did they REALLY say 9. march at the conference call or is this again some kind of rumor ?
Refer to page 20 post 3 and you will see it plainly laid out for you from the announcement of the quarter4 phone call
On March 09 2012 18:22 Cabinet Sanchez wrote: Surprised there isn't more options for Diablo 3 in the poll (personally? Couldnt' care less - don't really like the beta) - I figure the answer is obvious here though - if you log in to ANY battlenet account now, it says the beta is coming soon, so it's going open for everyone.
Very unlikely to be Starcraft news.
omg i'm posting a screen shot since nobody is reading the op
On March 09 2012 22:30 Doctorasul wrote: HOTS and LoV to be released simultaneously this year, with a revamped battle net with clan support, ingame statistics, replay sharing and a fix of unit clumping, with 40 missions for each race, with the story guest-written by Ridley Scott. And with LAN.
On March 09 2012 22:30 Doctorasul wrote: HOTS and LoV to be released simultaneously this year, with a revamped battle net with clan support, ingame statistics, replay sharing and a fix of unit clumping, with 40 missions for each race, with the story guest-written by Ridley Scott. And with LAN.
On March 09 2012 22:47 Sbrubbles wrote: I'm guessing HotS is gonna come out Q4 this year, with Diablo 3 coming out before August and the WoW expansion next year.
D3 = april - june MoP beta = march - april MoP release = november - december HotS beta = august - september HotS release = early 2012
WoW expansion cannot be postponed till next year because they have openly stated they want to move onto Pandaria as soon as possible and will not be releasing anymore content for Cataclysm which means 12 months of patch 4.3 is pretty much impossible from marketing subscription standpoint.
On March 09 2012 22:47 Sbrubbles wrote: I'm guessing HotS is gonna come out Q4 this year, with Diablo 3 coming out before August and the WoW expansion next year.
WoW expansions have always been released every other year. Why would that change now?
My guess is HotS will be released withen a week and they will announce Diablo 3 is available for free on their website. Also, they will announce that clouds are made of marshmallows and they are sending a check of 500 dollars to every individual who has bought a blizzard product in the past 10 years. That's just me though.
On March 09 2012 22:57 Tewks44 wrote: My guess is HotS will be released withen a week and they will announce Diablo 3 is available for free on their website. Also, they will announce that clouds are made of marshmallows and they are sending a check of 500 dollars to every individual who has bought a blizzard product in the past 10 years. That's just me though.
Blizzard owes it to the community and to themselves to release in 2013. Everyone clamoring for more, faster, harder has never figured out how to make love to a woman slowly. It elongates the pleasure for both parties. WOL deserves at least one more year before totally changing the game up.
On March 09 2012 23:18 suspiria wrote: Blizzard owes it to the community and to themselves to release in 2013. Everyone clamoring for more, faster, harder has never figured out how to make love to a woman slowly. It elongates the pleasure for both parties. WOL deserves at least one more year before totally changing the game up.
HOTS doesn't just change the gameplay. It will also mean upgrades for Battle.net and the Galaxy Editor, which I deeply desire.
I find it weird that the 3/9 date isn't mentioned in the summary pdf but the WOW expansion is: (http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACTI/1727826512x0x541608/d4938540-d45e-4b5b-87a9-f605bd542852/ATVI_C4Q11_Slides.pdf)
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria • New expansion set debuted at BlizzCon • Global press event in March, new information coming 3/19
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm • Campaign centering on iconic Kerrigan; new multiplayer units • eSports in 2011 drew huge audiences -- Blizzard to take more active role in 2012
On March 09 2012 23:18 suspiria wrote: Blizzard owes it to the community and to themselves to release in 2013. Everyone clamoring for more, faster, harder has never figured out how to make love to a woman slowly. It elongates the pleasure for both parties. WOL deserves at least one more year before totally changing the game up.
On March 09 2012 23:18 suspiria wrote: Blizzard owes it to the community and to themselves to release in 2013. Everyone clamoring for more, faster, harder has never figured out how to make love to a woman slowly. It elongates the pleasure for both parties. WOL deserves at least one more year before totally changing the game up.
Developing a game is NOT like making love to a beautiful woman.
If I recall the conference correctly, they never mentioned this date related to SC2 at all, just for the WoW tour. They said more information will be released in the coming weeks for diablo and months for hots.
On March 09 2012 23:42 FLeK0 wrote: If I recall the conference correctly, they never mentioned this date related to SC2 at all, just for the WoW tour. They said more information will be released in the coming weeks for diablo and months for hots.
On March 09 2012 23:42 FLeK0 wrote: If I recall the conference correctly, they never mentioned this date related to SC2 at all, just for the WoW tour. They said more information will be released in the coming weeks for diablo and months for hots.
lol i love people who come on and just try to dismiss the entire thread and sound official.
On March 09 2012 23:18 suspiria wrote: Blizzard owes it to the community and to themselves to release in 2013. Everyone clamoring for more, faster, harder has never figured out how to make love to a woman slowly. It elongates the pleasure for both parties. WOL deserves at least one more year before totally changing the game up.
wow. um, well... okay. sure man.
i'll think of that next time i boot up my game. someone has made slow sensual love to my copy of starcraft and given me the dirty seconds.
On March 09 2012 23:42 FLeK0 wrote: If I recall the conference correctly, they never mentioned this date related to SC2 at all, just for the WoW tour. They said more information will be released in the coming weeks for diablo and months for hots.
lol i love people who come on and just try to dismiss the entire thread and sound official.
no sir, they said HOTS specifically
More like i love people who come to a thread without reading any of the pages with all the pscreens of the "on 9/3 there will be more information on HOTS released" lol
so the "prove" of this happening today is a screenshot of another teamliquid thread of someone who mentioned there will be infos on 9th march about hots. Thats the only source right now? Jeez.
Dont get your hopes up. How many of you really listened the conference call and heard "infos about hots on 9. march" ?
On March 10 2012 00:01 Obbalord wrote: so the "prove" of this happening today is a screenshot of another teamliquid thread of someone who mentioned there will be infos on 9th march about hots. Thats the only source right now? Jeez.
Dont get your hopes up. How many of you really listened the conference call and heard "infos about hots on 9. march" ?
On March 10 2012 00:01 Obbalord wrote: so the "prove" of this happening today is a screenshot of another teamliquid thread of someone who mentioned there will be infos on 9th march about hots. Thats the only source right now? Jeez.
Dont get your hopes up. How many of you really listened the conference call and heard "infos about hots on 9. march" ?
The screenshot is from the conference call...page 20 of this thread post number 3..
On March 10 2012 00:01 Obbalord wrote: so the "prove" of this happening today is a screenshot of another teamliquid thread of someone who mentioned there will be infos on 9th march about hots. Thats the only source right now? Jeez.
Dont get your hopes up. How many of you really listened the conference call and heard "infos about hots on 9. march" ?
Um...the date is from the Activision earnings call earlier this year. It is information for their share holders, who they would not lie to, because that would be a horrible idea.
On March 10 2012 00:01 Obbalord wrote: so the "prove" of this happening today is a screenshot of another teamliquid thread of someone who mentioned there will be infos on 9th march about hots. Thats the only source right now? Jeez.
Dont get your hopes up. How many of you really listened the conference call and heard "infos about hots on 9. march" ?
The screenshot is from the conference call...page 20 of this thread post number 3..
That was written by who opened the other thread when the call happened. I just went through it again quickly. Mike talks about their upcoming games around the 38 minute mark, and as I remembered, hots news are promised for 'the coming months', not exactly in a month, and no precise date was given for anything besides the WoW tour they announced and CoD DLC releases . It might have been mentioned at another point that I missed when this was live, and I'm too lazy to listen to the whole thing again, but I doubt that this thing is happening, no other news sites have mentioned it either.
THERE WONT BE AN ANNOUNCEMENT, they never said that hots news are coming on 9. march. The screenshot is based on another teamliquid thread from _ONE_ guy who just called 9. march without any reason/justification. Why is this thread still open anyway.
I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. That link mentions a call for FEBRUARY 9th. Which happened, and gave us next to no news. There is no call today, March 9th.
It's not on the Calendar so it's safe to say that this is BS since they aren't going to warn investors 2 seconds before it starts or anything like that.
On March 10 2012 00:31 tnud wrote: If someone can be so nice to listen to 40:35+ http://investor.activision.com/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=108428 "We will share more news about HotS in the coming Month(s??)" Is this what this entire thread is about? lol
Yeah, I listened to the call and there is no 9th March date mentioned afaik, only 19th March for MOP.
On March 10 2012 00:31 tnud wrote: If someone can be so nice to listen to 40:35+ http://investor.activision.com/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=108428 "We will share more news about HotS in the coming Month(s??)" Is this what this entire thread is about? lol
Yeah, I listened to the call and there is no 9th March date mentioned afaik, only 19th March for MOP.
How the hell could I had missed this T_T I swear I heard them say "march 9" That's what you get for sitting up during middle the night tired as hell trying to listen to business talk. I just requested a 2 week ban for myself as punishment since it was my post this crap was based around.
On March 10 2012 00:31 tnud wrote: If someone can be so nice to listen to 40:35+ http://investor.activision.com/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=108428 "We will share more news about HotS in the coming Month(s??)" Is this what this entire thread is about? lol
Yeah, I listened to the call and there is no 9th March date mentioned afaik, only 19th March for MOP.
How the hell could I had missed this T_T I swear I heard them say "march 9" That's what you get for sitting up during middle the night tired as hell trying to listen to business talk. I just requested a 2 week ban for myself as punishment since it was my post this crap was based around.
EPT
2013 will just be too long 
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