On April 13 2012 01:45 Thienan567 wrote: What I really want Blizzard to do is to make a FPS that isn't a CoD clone. Ever since MW2 I've basically ignored all the 'big' FPS franchises: Cod, Medal of Honor, Halo, etc. The last FPS that I genuinely thought was fun was Serious Sam 3 and Tribes: Ascend; and from what I've heard their predecessors were even better.
Tbh yeah blizz has been stagnating, but don't give up hope yet. Maybe if blizz makes an FPS that's fun and uses the GOOD elements of FPS, the hype around it might just be able to push the video game industry back on the right track.
Maybe.
FPS francise? Try Quake man. Starts at 4:00
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I see it more of a dumbing down due to Blizzard wanting to reach more people. Like pop music and angry birds and farmville.
WC3 was really innovative and let's face it SC2 is a dumbed down version of BW with modern mechanics.
Admittedly losing Blizzard North must have affected a bit but otherwise it all seems rather straightforward business. They did some new and quite unique stuff for a while and after all the success why drop all those names that sell. I'm not sure if there is a decline in creativity per se but for a bigger company (and even bigger syndicate behind it) working in bigger volumes (that for example an indie-game company) there is much more pressure to play it safe in all areas of the creative process.
All things said, they have worked on risky projects before(SC:Ghost , Diablo III) and have another one ahead of them in a few years(Project: Titan). Like any company careful about their image they have kept quite silent about all those failures.
Of course you can always make another story, problem is that the story progressively gets worse every time you do it, and when you have done this for a very long time you go from Hellscream to dancing pandas on a floating turtle. I am sorry If this offends people but cannot for the life of me understand that this is a serious project. I don’t even dare to think about the expansions after this one is going to be like.
Nice rant. "dancing pandas on a floating turtle" haha.
And yes I agree that Blizzard is slowly but surely going downhill and I'm mostly blaming Activision for it. The big publishers always ruin the good game studios.
For all the cited differences between SC2 and BW, what are the differences that really advanced SC2 from BW and the RTS genre overall? MBS? Smartcasting? It doesn't really seem like that many innovative features when you consider the time lapse.
I always considered SC2 to have both lost a lot of the things that made BW interesting and yet not differentiated itself enough to be considered its own game. Blizzard was too scared to change the formula too much so they weren't *that* creative with it but in the shuffle they didn't manage to keep too much of the good stuff.
lol @ panda people. Kung fu panda?? That seems kind of silly.
I don't really follow Warcraft though; I'm a StarCraft and Diablo guy. And while the cinematics from Diablo 1 and 2 and SC1/ BW were epic, SC2 cinematics still makes my heart race (and I'm really hoping that D3 is a winner too).
I certainly don't consider Blizzard a AAA developer anymore, though of course many still do solely based on the work they did 15 years ago. I've seen the quality in a lot of areas heavily decline over the years chiefly among those being their writing team, which has taken such a nosedive all the way down into the Mariana trench; if Chris Metzen isn't forgetting half the story he wrote he is retconning most everything else in previous game installments.
On April 13 2012 03:20 setzer wrote: I certainly don't consider Blizzard a AAA developer anymore, though of course many still do solely based on the work they did 15 years ago. I've seen the quality in a lot of areas heavily decline over the years chiefly among those being their writing team, which has taken such a nosedive all the way down into the Mariana trench; if Chris Metzen isn't forgetting half the story he wrote he is retconning most everything else in previous game installments.
The Rise of the Lich King story is one of the best video game stories ever told- I guess, really, the whole Warcraft universe is just awesome from a lore perspective... until cataclysm. Much like DBZ fell off after Frieza (I'm not saying I didn't like Cell and Buu, but you can see how the series pretty much should have been wrapped up after Goku went SSJ), after the Lich King was killed the rest of the story feels tacked-on. Obviously Blizzard is smart and knows the game is dying and is making it the little brother of their offerings, and appealing more to girls/kids with Pandaria.
I'm going to wait for "Titan" before I pass judgement of Blizzard's creativity. Yes, HoTS and D3 are sequels, and I expect them to be awesome. You can't blame Blizzard for expanding on their already successful and well-received marquees. However, the new game will be set in an entirely new universe... so we'll have to see.
From the rumors, it kinda sounds like "Firefly" the MMO. So that's cool.
On April 13 2012 03:20 setzer wrote: I certainly don't consider Blizzard a AAA developer anymore, though of course many still do solely based on the work they did 15 years ago. I've seen the quality in a lot of areas heavily decline over the years chiefly among those being their writing team, which has taken such a nosedive all the way down into the Mariana trench; if Chris Metzen isn't forgetting half the story he wrote he is retconning most everything else in previous game installments.
Well I think the OP has some merit. But like several other posters have stated Titan will be the true measure of the "new" Blizzard.
While I do believe that Blizzcon 2012 was put on hold so that they could push out HotS, Pandas, and D3; There is no doubt in my mind that they were thinking to the '13 Blizzcon to unveil the Titan project. I mean when could a better oppurtunity present itself for them to do so?
On April 13 2012 03:53 Little Rage Box wrote: Well I think the OP has some merit. But like several other posters have stated Titan will be the true measure of the "new" Blizzard.
While I do believe that Blizzcon 2012 was put on hold so that they could push out HotS, Pandas, and D3; There is no doubt in my mind that they were thinking to the '13 Blizzcon to unveil the Titan project. I mean when could a better oppurtunity present itself for them to do so?
Yep project Titan is definitely going to be the true measurement of Blizzard. I wonder if they can actually "recreate" the MMO gender though. To me MMO seems to be the most stagnated out of all gaming genders.
To me they all seems to WOW wannabes with some minor variation (not EVE-online to be fair). PVE grinding, item gathering and so-so PVP seems to be a core piece in every MMO. If they really could make groundbreaking MMO it be interesting for sure.
On April 13 2012 03:53 Little Rage Box wrote: Well I think the OP has some merit. But like several other posters have stated Titan will be the true measure of the "new" Blizzard.
While I do believe that Blizzcon 2012 was put on hold so that they could push out HotS, Pandas, and D3; There is no doubt in my mind that they were thinking to the '13 Blizzcon to unveil the Titan project. I mean when could a better oppurtunity present itself for them to do so?
Yep project Titan is definitely going to be the true measurement of Blizzard. I wonder if they can actually "recreate" the MMO gender though. To me MMO seems to be the most stagnated out of all gaming genders.
To me they all seems to WOW wannabes with some minor variation (not EVE-online to be fair). PVE grinding, item gathering and so-so PVP seems to be a core piece in every MMO. If they really could make groundbreaking MMO it be interesting for sure.
My only concern is whether it is actually POSSIBLE for a new innovative MMO to emerge... if it is possible to innovate MMO's further then its only a matter of time before someone does it
On April 13 2012 02:14 Arolis wrote: To say that Blizzard has lost creativity and using Warcraft and Starcraft as examples seems strange to me. These 2 franchises are some of the most unoriginal ideas in the history of video games having been ripped off of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. Even the system of RTS stems from this tabletop Army vs. Army game. Blizzard made almost no changes to the setting and general feel of the races at first. They've altered their path significantly from the original source inspiration in later games.
Mechanically I think they're still leading the industry in some significant ways. Every MMO gets compared to WoW. We'll see how their new talent system works out in MoP. They certainly haven't been afraid to constantly try out new mechanics with WoW in the past. As much as people bash Blizzard for not supporting E-sports enough, no other company has been trying to make Starcraft 2 clones. This is something unprecedented for a commercially successful Blizzard game. This may speak to the market of PC games or the RTS genre both having declined in recent years. But I think it also speaks to the fact that nearly all large gaming companies don't want to or don't know how to invest game development into E-sports or competitive gaming. Like it or not, Blizzard is at the forefront of developing the E-sports market which could speak to the creative challenge that that presents.
So I guess my conclusion is that they face different creative challenges than they did in an earlier era of gaming. The well of unoriginal IPs to draw from may last another 5-10 years. Once that's over they'll be met with a different set of challenges.
Well with warcraft you can't really blame them for being similar to warhammer I mean, games workshop did hire them after all to make a warhammer rts game, but then later fired them so Blizzard made it into warcraft. Starcraft however is a ripoff to the point that it makes me disgusted to think that THEY are wants to sue valve for dota 2! I mean really!?
I never found WoW very creative either, i've played it for years though but since the first beta i've always felt like they stole every good thing from any other mmo before WoW and mixed them together into one.
These days the "creativity" they put in WoW feels shifted towards "how do we keep these idiots playing forever" instead of "how are we going to make this the best game ever?"
On April 13 2012 03:53 Little Rage Box wrote: Well I think the OP has some merit. But like several other posters have stated Titan will be the true measure of the "new" Blizzard.
While I do believe that Blizzcon 2012 was put on hold so that they could push out HotS, Pandas, and D3; There is no doubt in my mind that they were thinking to the '13 Blizzcon to unveil the Titan project. I mean when could a better oppurtunity present itself for them to do so?
Yep project Titan is definitely going to be the true measurement of Blizzard. I wonder if they can actually "recreate" the MMO gender though. To me MMO seems to be the most stagnated out of all gaming genders.
To me they all seems to WOW wannabes with some minor variation (not EVE-online to be fair). PVE grinding, item gathering and so-so PVP seems to be a core piece in every MMO. If they really could make groundbreaking MMO it be interesting for sure.
My only concern is whether it is actually POSSIBLE for a new innovative MMO to emerge... if it is possible to innovate MMO's further then its only a matter of time before someone does it
Personally i'm looking forward to GW2, and see if they are able to set the new standard.
We didn't have much games or ideas at that time, so creativity played a big role also had a large impact on gamers. But now, there're just too many games and options from different studios.
EPT
