Former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime has partnered with a number of other Blizzard Entertainment veterans to form a new games company: Dreamhaven.
Dreamhaven will serve as a parent company providing publishing and other support services to its internal game development studios, beginning with two new ones founded alongside the company called Moonshot and Secret Door.
Moonshot is led by former Blizzard executive producer Jason Chayes, former StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm game director Dustin Browder, and former Hearthstone creative director Ben Thompson.
Meanwhile, Secret Door is being led by former Hearthstone executive producer Chris Sigaty, former Hearthstone game director Eric Dodds, and former Blizzard technical director and game director Alan Dabiri.
That's gotta be the biggest middle finger to Bobby Kotick and Activision, love it! Well played Mike! I've always had a suspicion he left Blizzard, because he couldn't stand how Activision slowly but surely squashed the love for great games, just to squeeze more profit out of the Blizzard gaming mill.
On September 23 2020 22:35 thePunGun wrote: That's gotta be the biggest middle finger to Bobby Kotick and Activision, love it! Well played Mike! I've always had a suspicion he left Blizzard, because he couldn't stand how Activision slowly but surely squashed the love for great games, just to squeeze more profit out of the Blizzard gaming mill.
“We’re almost trying to create a haven for creators who want an environment that is development friendly, values product, and player experience over short-term financial pressures,” Morhaime said. “We believe in the power of gaming to bring people together and as an escape of the unpleasant things that reality can bring. In that sense, it’s a haven as well. We like the imagery of a lighthouse as a beacon, and that inspires us because we hope that Dreamhaven can be a beacon of hope to others in the industry who share our values and philosophies. There is a better way of approaching business and game creation that can work and be sustainable and be a lot of fun and yield positive results.”
That seems to me to be PRETTY specifically targetting what Activision has done to Blizzard, and then saying "we're not going to do that."
so much for all those crazy unsubstantiated theories that Blizzard hated the job Browder did on SC2. Browder got promoted to VP and Morhaime brought him into his new company. It is clear Morhaime thinks highly of Browder.
On September 23 2020 22:35 thePunGun wrote: That's gotta be the biggest middle finger to Bobby Kotick and Activision, love it! Well played Mike! I've always had a suspicion he left Blizzard, because he couldn't stand how Activision slowly but surely squashed the love for great games, just to squeeze more profit out of the Blizzard gaming mill.
“We’re almost trying to create a haven for creators who want an environment that is development friendly, values product, and player experience over short-term financial pressures,” Morhaime said. “We believe in the power of gaming to bring people together and as an escape of the unpleasant things that reality can bring. In that sense, it’s a haven as well. We like the imagery of a lighthouse as a beacon, and that inspires us because we hope that Dreamhaven can be a beacon of hope to others in the industry who share our values and philosophies. There is a better way of approaching business and game creation that can work and be sustainable and be a lot of fun and yield positive results.”
That seems to me to be PRETTY specifically targetting what Activision has done to Blizzard, and then saying "we're not going to do that."
this is just buying into the simplistic "good cop // bad cop" narrative that publishers want consumers to believe.
its not much different from a front line level employee who has an assistant manager who they have direct contact with every day. The front line employee and assistant manager also work together onthe front lines frequently every week while the assistant managers acts like the "good cop" and pretends to be on the employee's side. Meanwhile, the "owner" or "ceo" or "general manager" is the "bad cop". In private meetings away from the front lines ...the CEO and Assistant manager both work together for the good of the company ... not the employee. The whole "good cop // bad cop" routine.. is all BS.
Activision wants you to believe that the dev studio is the "try hard little guy" that is "on your side". It is BS.
Bobby Kotick wants to be seen as "the bad cop". He is quoted as saying he "wants to take the fun out of making video games". Kotick took a part in a major hollywood movie where he is the total prick owner limiting the creative vision of an artistic genius. Again, Kotick wants to be seen as teh "bad cop". Its all a bullshit act designed to push an oversimplified narrative.
Bungie left Activision and the price of Destiny2 expansions went up. So leaving Activision is not all sunshine and rainbows.
We have as close to direct contact with modern Blizzard staff *cough Jay Allen Brack cough* and I think most people agree he says slimy corporate fuckstickery.
I have SO MUCH MORE faith in a company that Mike Morhaime is actually in control of to treat their employees better and to make better games than I do in a company like Activision that doesnt give a flying fuck about either aforementioned things.
Big companies are 100% bad cops, and we shouldn't ever pretend like they'll ever do more than pretend they have anything other than an interest in short term consumer milking at all costs.
Morhaime being rid of ATVI does not guarantee the success of his new studio. It will add a whole bunch of headaches to his day that he was able to avoid under ATVI. Morhaime is an electrical engineer//computer science guy.. he is not an accounting//law//economics guy. ATVI took away all kinds of headaches and issues from Blizzard and Morhaime.
Kotick took Activision from nothing in 1991 to the acquisition of Blizzard in 2008. His business acumen should not be underestimated.
On September 24 2020 01:29 Zambrah wrote: Big companies are 100% bad cops, and we shouldn't ever pretend like they'll ever do more than pretend they have anything other than an interest in short term consumer milking at all costs.
meh, Kotick wants to be seen as the "bad cop" so that the Dev Studios can be easily forgiven for their fuck ups.
This is a guy who wants you to hate him.
You're getting played man. Bobby Kotick is a master of image manipulation. You are only seeing what he wants you to see. Put in terms of playing poker: Kotick is brilliant at managing his "table image".
Business acumen means fuck all when it comes to games. The more "business acumen" you see in games the more shady awful monetization you see, the less quality games you see, "business acumen" doesn't mean anything when it comes to treating employees well and making quality products.
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
He is so passionate, and helped StarCraft 2 so much. Whatever he does I will follow closely. Would love to meet the man.
Blizzard was always a great company, with some clear flaws. But it seems to me that Titan killed Blizzard. After it's failure, even though they salvaged Overwatch, the company never recovered and it seems Kotick ended up pushing everyone out.
Lots of RTS talent in these studios and Mike Morhaime is a big fan of the genre. This could be the beginning of a new chapter for RTS! They're willing to take more risks, which could involve making RTS when it's not "in season" and being more experimental with the formula.
I hope they can set an industry example for putting quality games first. I'm super excited to see where this goes.
On September 24 2020 01:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Morhaime being rid of ATVI does not guarantee the success of his new studio. It will add a whole bunch of headaches to his day that he was able to avoid under ATVI. Morhaime is an electrical engineer//computer science guy.. he is not an accounting//law//economics guy. ATVI took away all kinds of headaches and issues from Blizzard and Morhaime.
Kotick took Activision from nothing in 1991 to the acquisition of Blizzard in 2008. His business acumen should not be underestimated.
You're getting played man. Bobby Kotick is a master of image manipulation. You are only seeing what he wants you to see. Put in terms of playing poker: Kotick is brilliant at managing his "table image".
Kotick is a cancer in this industry, this guy has done nothing for gaming as a whole for the last 15 years than leech the money out of the playerbase of ATVI's big gaming franchises. How can you justify his 10 million slarary increase each year for the last 2 freakin years? This guy does NOT deserve a f****in salary of 40 million dollars. All the while you hear reports of Blizzard employees being underpaid and some can't even afford the coffee in the company cafeteria, let alone their own apartment. I know I'm repeating myself here, but this guy is a fuckin leech he made 40 million and also fired 800+ people (who actually contributed to creating the games we once loved) the same year. That's a guy, who has no shame and no moral compass!
This is so weird for me i thought he was retiring from Blizzard? So i assume he was either forced out or he genuinely quit himself? Doesn't scream good news for Blizzard this, not from a competition point of view but more so due to if Mike bailed on Blzzard to set up a gaming company so quickly, he must hate the direction and underlying issues in Blizzard right now, ouch!
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
On the other hand, game development has become much more tools- and process-driven than it was in the past. In the days you're talking about, teams were building engines from scratch. Now you have so much infrastructure in game development that naturally invites people of all roles in game-making to collaborate, it does remove some of the chaos of development.
All this talent would have potentially seen how process could be deployed at larger scales during their tenure at Activision, too.
I've worked in software development for a long time (mostly web / distributed systems) and I have also spent a fair amount of casual time learning about large-scale game development from folks who've been doing it for a while. IMO game development is diverging a lot from other kinds of software development, and it's becoming a lot more of its own thing.
I think creative projects in general will always have a lot of dynamism to them, but I suspect that many--not all, but many--of the variables that used to contribute to messed-up gamedev projects in the past are being controlled for better than they used to be.
I'm excited to see where this goes. Also, I got a good chuckle out of "Proteans and Xarg."
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
On the other hand, game development has become much more tools- and process-driven than it was in the past. In the days you're talking about, teams were building engines from scratch. Now you have so much infrastructure in game development that naturally invites people of all roles in game-making to collaborate, it does remove some of the chaos of development.
All this talent would have potentially seen how process could be deployed at larger scales during their tenure at Activision, too.
I've worked in software development for a long time (mostly web / distributed systems) and I have also spent a fair amount of casual time learning about large-scale game development from folks who've been doing it for a while. IMO game development is diverging a lot from other kinds of software development, and it's becoming a lot more of its own thing.
I think creative projects in general will always have a lot of dynamism to them, but I suspect that many--not all, but many--of the variables that used to contribute to messed-up gamedev projects in the past are being controlled for better than they used to be.
I'm excited to see where this goes. Also, I got a good chuckle out of "Proteans and Xarg."
you make a lot of good points, however, doesn't Blizzard still build its own engines?
There are some things people are missing and/or have a bit wrong in my opinion.
Blizz has underpaid and overworked their employees for a long time, not just since Activision buy out. (Others pointed this out) but they do't give a proper reason why they can get away with it. Those in the game industry saw Blizz as a huge checkmark on their resume. Blizz knew it, and used it that way. You go there knowing full well the consequences of that choice. Very few are paid their actual worth.
Kotick IS a prick, he doesn't just act like one to be the 'bad cop'. Ask anyone that has had any interaction with him in any way, business or otherwise.
The difference in the Blizz model did change after his arrival...from yah, we will work you to the bone for virtually nothing, but gd they made good products. Now their oversight is a joke...at best.
Also, long crunch times are nothing new to the industry. The last game I worked on (now a good number of years ago) was a 12 month crunch period...and at the end was madatory 7 days, 12 hours a day for several months. Think productivity stayed the same, or got better? Nope. People found ways to blow 4 hours a day or more. Hell at the start of that part, the entire programming staff said F you, and walked out. The uppiddy ups then told the rest of us to go home and take a 4 day weekend before returning to hell.
“We’re not in a hurry to go out and get funding because the most important thing is to make sure we retain control over the company’s decision making,” Morhaime said. “When we do go out and seek investment, we want to be aligned in terms of vision and values.”
This is an interesting quote. Regretting selling Blizzard to Activision perhaps? I'm excited to see what they come up with.
Seeing a lot of folks draw some pretty wild conclusions about what this retroactively meant about blizzard and/or activision. Running a big company with a household brand name, thousands of employees, and huge budgets that depend on your success to keep the machine rolling is a whole different world of experience and responsibility than running a small indie studio with your friends and colleagues. Doesn't matter whether its Activision, EA, Microsoft, or any other major name behind it.
Excited to see what this crew gets up to, but also not holding my breath for any 'spiritual successors' to early Blizzard IPs. If I had to wager, I'd expect something cool and new from these studios, and I can't wait to find out what it will be!
“We’re not in a hurry to go out and get funding because the most important thing is to make sure we retain control over the company’s decision making,” Morhaime said. “When we do go out and seek investment, we want to be aligned in terms of vision and values.”
This is an interesting quote. Regretting selling Blizzard to Activision perhaps? I'm excited to see what they come up with.
Morhaime didn't own Blizzard in 2008 when Blizzard was acquired by Activision.
Blizzard was acquired by Davidson and Associates in 1994 for ~$6-7 million USD. Davidson was acquired by CUC International who created Vivendi Games to house Blizzard and their other acquisition Sierra Online.
“We’re not in a hurry to go out and get funding because the most important thing is to make sure we retain control over the company’s decision making,” Morhaime said. “When we do go out and seek investment, we want to be aligned in terms of vision and values.”
This is an interesting quote. Regretting selling Blizzard to Activision perhaps? I'm excited to see what they come up with.
Morhaime didn't own Blizzard in 2008 when Blizzard was acquired by Activision.
Blizzard was acquired by Davidson and Associates in 1994 for ~$6-7 million USD. Davidson was acquired by CUC International who created Vivendi Games to house Blizzard and their other acquisition Sierra Online.
Well alright. Regrets being sold to Activision. Passive voice, not the actor and beholden the whims of others- same regret.
i think everyone from blizzard community especially the fans would jump on board to ensure that dreamhaven is successful. but in order for them to release games that are as engaging as the previous blizzard games will take alot of hard work and creativity.
This is amazing news, looking forward to what they will be working on there!
In regards to ATVI its not only about firing people and paying low wages, workplace environment is really important. Obviously I don't know how the atmosphere and situation is at Blizzard right now but maybe all the old Blizzard people leaving is and indication.
I have never worked in games but I can tell you from my own experience that often what makes a work feel rewarding and fun is not what you are doing but why you are doing it. If all your meetings and the perspective of the company is about "but how can we earn more money from this product" instead of "how can we make this product the best on the market" then its sucks the passion out of most people.
Blizzard was originally about making great games, support the games and then make new games. Especially their inclination to work on games for years but then not releasing it because it didn't reach the bar says a lot about this.
At an company making any product the first question should be how do we make the best product we can. If you make something amazing it will sell, compared to making games catering to a specific trend or the as many f the biggest publishers do: Only make games that can earn record amounts of money through microtransactions, if the game doesn't have microtransations, add it, if it doesn't fit into the game, change the game, if you cant change the game start working on a new game. All so that we can earn ALL the money and not for making a good fun game.
On September 24 2020 16:37 neverlose9999 wrote: Why is he not bringing David Kim with him? I believe Dustin Browder can make a super game with DK
David Kim is the lead systems designer of Diablo 4 and probably happy with his current job. He probably also has one of those none-compete clauses in his contract, which is sadly still very common in the gaming industry. So if he were to leave Blizzard, he couldn't join another gaming company for quite some time.
it'll be interesting to see how Bungie, Pardo and Morhaime do without ATVI. So far, Bungie hasn't made any new games and they've raised the price of Destiny 2 expansions. They've also monetized their levelling system. You can pay $1 in Silver to gain 1 level with your character in Destiny2. All this monietization strategy after they left the evil ATVI corporation
So far between Pardo, Morhaime and Bungie we have zero new games.
On September 24 2020 16:37 neverlose9999 wrote: Why is he not bringing David Kim with him? I believe Dustin Browder can make a super game with DK
2 year non competition clauses in contracts perhaps? that's why guys like Pardo and Browder "disappear" for two years and then reappear with a new job making video games.
Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
The fault was that Bill Roper should have never been put into position as CEO. Sad thing right before they went under Hellgate: London was becoming very good.
gl hf to the new company. It sounds like a hobby project for retirees, but ok, I confess I'm curious if there is a game coming out eventually, or, how long it lasts before financing becomes an issue and the next round of acquisitions kick in? Maybe they'll be integrated in Blizzard within a few years. Or the other way around.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
i had an absolute, unmitigated , unbelievable total fucking blast playing SC2 in 2010. two friends and i organized $100 USD tourneys and got 1200 entrants every week. Once you got past RO32 ...you could cut the tension with a knife. great times.
it also allowed me to flesh out my PHP skills and my SQL Server skills. again, great times.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
I'm assuming (hoping) it's just trolls.
i like Browder. he did a great job on RA2 and SC2. Morhaime agrees with me. His exec team promoted Browder to VP. When Morhaime started a new company he brought Browder with him.
On JUly 27th, 2010 .. SC2 was a far far better shape than other RTS games like C&C4 and RA3. SC2 was great in 2010. I recall taking public transit in a Canadian suburb and the teenie-boppers talking SC2 strats. Man ... what a great year 2010 was for SC2.
I wonder if there was a bidding war between Pardo and Morhaime for Browder's services?
@Kotic/Atvi: If Atvi was such a nice parent company devs wouldn't leave. Morhaime basically gave up his very high profile job as Blizz CEO and now decided to start a new small company. If 26 of 27 members of this studio are Blizz members it shows that they couldn't do what they wanted to as part of Blizzard. Apparently like Bungie they thought that they'd be better off independently.
I also think that Blizz created their best games when they were smaller, so I'm happy to see some of their leading members choose to develop smaller projects more independently. It's not like the Blizz games in the last years were terrible or unsuccessful by any stretch, but they certainly were more mainstream and didn't really appeal to me.
To be entirely fair I play games differently now than 15 years ago when I played diablo 2 and warcraft 3.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
i had an absolute, unmitigated , unbelievable total fucking blast playing SC2 in 2010. two friends and i organized $100 USD tourneys and got 1200 entrants every week. Once you got past RO32 ...you could cut the tension with a knife. great times.
it also allowed me to flesh out my PHP skills and my SQL Server skills. again, great times.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
I'm assuming (hoping) it's just trolls.
i like Browder. he did a great job on RA2 and SC2. Morhaime agrees with me. His exec team promoted Browder to VP. When Morhaime started a new company he brought Browder with him.
On JUly 27th, 2010 .. SC2 was a far far better shape than other RTS games like C&C4 and RA3. SC2 was great in 2010. I recall taking public transit in a Canadian suburb and the teenie-boppers talking SC2 strats. Man ... what a great year 2010 was for SC2.
I wonder if there was a bidding war between Pardo and Morhaime for Browder's services?
It did lack a lot, although I’m not sure how much that was due to Bnet 2.0 as a platform being pushed vs specifically the SC devs. Most of my release gripes were in that domain anyway!
Aside from personal taste it’s a very polished game that runs well on anything down to a calculator and the units are very responsive and fun to use.
Probably what I miss most playing other RTS games is that responsiveness and microability of units, sometimes that’s the intent of the competitors but sometimes they just don’t do it as well as Blizz’s 3 main RTS games.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
This is sad, but true. I remember when the game was still in early beta. I had a friend who was working with the devs as a consultant and I gave him that exact feedback after play testing for a bit -- that the game needed clans, social features, etc. He said the devs told him I was wrong, that SC players are loners and didn't want to be social. Thanks devs.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
This is sad, but true. I remember when the game was still in early beta. I had a friend who was working with the devs as a consultant and I gave him that exact feedback after play testing for a bit -- that the game needed clans, social features, etc. He said the devs told him I was wrong, that SC players are loners and didn't want to be social. Thanks devs.
To be fair to him, I think they hired one of the guys who worked on xbox live to work on the "social features" for SC2, and obviously he did not understand how PC gamers congregated in social communities far more often than console players did. If they did, then he'd probably be deferring to him as far as designing those aspects are concerned, since he's there to design the game itself and not the supporting social systems or what have you, which is where you end up with responses like that.
Browder did an okay job with SC2, and I'm sure he's learned things over the experiences he's had. I'd be willing to see what he'd bring to the table on a new game.
To all of the above quotes about Kotick, whose business acumen is not in question (obligation to the audience is another matter and many would say wholly unrelated), frig him. Let's see what Morhaime comes up with. I thought Grey Goo was good - but there's not been a lot to keep me from SC or WC for RTS these past ... many years.
On September 25 2020 02:04 BisuDagger wrote: Do people really like Dustin Browder? The state of SC2 at release was pretty terrible. Not just how units were used or balance either. There were so many features we had to wait more then 5 years for that should have been no-brainers for BNet, lobby, custom games, social features etc.
This is sad, but true. I remember when the game was still in early beta. I had a friend who was working with the devs as a consultant and I gave him that exact feedback after play testing for a bit -- that the game needed clans, social features, etc. He said the devs told him I was wrong, that SC players are loners and didn't want to be social. Thanks devs.
To be fair to him, I think they hired one of the guys who worked on xbox live to work on the "social features" for SC2, and obviously he did not understand how PC gamers congregated in social communities far more often than console players did. If they did, then he'd probably be deferring to him as far as designing those aspects are concerned, since he's there to design the game itself and not the supporting social systems or what have you, which is where you end up with responses like that.
Browder did an okay job with SC2, and I'm sure he's learned things over the experiences he's had. I'd be willing to see what he'd bring to the table on a new game.
To add to this, the social features of SC2 at launch might have been wanting, but the actual design of the competitive game of SC2 in and of itself was amazing. The multiplayer design was more elegant in Wings of Liberty, and there were lots of compelling strategies that didn't rely on constant harassment or bandaid balance fixes. It had a very solid foundation. I don't know how much of that is on DB one way or another, but I don't actually feel like he was the one who wrecked the game. I'm willing to see what he helps put out with Dreamhaven.
A new classic style RTS What??? A new StarCraft in the making. This one will have Team Match Making lol
EDIT : They have some people from C&C on the new Team as well, so I have high hopes for this new RTS! Not that C&C was amazing, but with their minds put together something amazing will hopefully happen.
On September 25 2020 12:43 TelecoM wrote: A new classic style RTS What??? A new StarCraft in the making. This one will have Team Match Making lol
EDIT : They have some people from C&C on the new Team as well, so I have high hopes for this new RTS! Not that C&C was amazing, but with their minds put together something amazing will hopefully happen.
Is there a confirmation they are making an actual RTS game? I'd be surprised, but if they could get enough crowdfunding on kickstarter it could happen.
On September 25 2020 14:57 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Is there a confirmation they are making an actual RTS game? I'd be surprised, but if they could get enough crowdfunding on kickstarter it could happen.
I bet Mike Morhaime sits on a big enough pile of cash and has wealthy enough friends to fund a game without needing a kickstarter. But surely a kickstarter would give us some infos about the content of the game so i'm all for it
On September 25 2020 14:57 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Is there a confirmation they are making an actual RTS game? I'd be surprised, but if they could get enough crowdfunding on kickstarter it could happen.
If it is, I would expect a hero/ micro heavy RTS.
Or maybe they make their dream come true and do finally a SC:Ghost kinda game :D
On September 25 2020 14:57 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Is there a confirmation they are making an actual RTS game? I'd be surprised, but if they could get enough crowdfunding on kickstarter it could happen.
I bet Mike Morhaime sits on a big enough pile of cash and has wealthy enough friends to fund a game without needing a kickstarter. But surely a kickstarter would give us some infos about the content of the game so i'm all for it
Of course, i'm just saying the market for RTS now is small enough that it would be a good idea to kickstart it to get more buzz and try guarantee a profit from the game (if that is what they intend working on).
On September 23 2020 23:07 sneakyfox wrote: Worth pointing out that Morhaime is not starting a new Blizzard, he's making a new Activision. The two studios are the new Blizzard(s).
This is not really true.
Dreamhaven = Blizzard Secret Door = Team 1 (StarCraft dev team) Moonshot = Team 2 (WoW dev team)
Blizzard is really multiple dev studios all rolled into one. The flexibility they gain by doing this is they can cross share resources in times of desperation, but for the most part, each team develops independently.
Furthermore in the article Mike also talks about being careful about securing funding, because they want to retain control. I.E. When Blizzard was owned by Vivendi Universal, for example. ATVI slowly influenced to a point where Morhaime bailed out.
On September 25 2020 00:48 JimmyJRaynor wrote: it'll be interesting to see how Bungie, Pardo and Morhaime do without ATVI. So far, Bungie hasn't made any new games and they've raised the price of Destiny 2 expansions. They've also monetized their levelling system. You can pay $1 in Silver to gain 1 level with your character in Destiny2. All this monietization strategy after they left the evil ATVI corporation
So far between Pardo, Morhaime and Bungie we have zero new games.
I don't really get what you mean here, what critical part of the game development process do you think ATVI was contributing to Bungie that would make them unable to succed without ATVI?
ATVI were definitely giving Bungie economical support but if you think that is free you are obviously wrong since they were bothered enough to leave. It makes sense for ATVI to pay small money now in hopes of a big payout later, that big payout maybe isn't possible if they let Bungie do what they want though. I mean we need an addictive microtransactions driven game that is also sold for at least 60$ plus additional fees for getting more races/maps/skins/skills to be able to really make it worth if you ATVI right. If Bungie just want to make a good game, sold at a decent price with the likelihood of big earnings, not astronomical earning then Bungie probably needs to finance that game themselves.
Why would creative freedom without ATVI be a bad thing for any of those companies? Sure they need funding but surely you can't think it is "interesting" to see if a good studio will be able to make the games they want or see if they run bancrupt before they can make it?
How quickly memories forget. Wasn't Dustin Browder responsible for the travesty of the boring gameplay of the protoss deathball as derived from the power of the Colossus (it's so cool, lasers! war of the worlds! Splash in a line to kill infinite marines!), unfun game mechanics like forcefields, and the utter defensiveness of Zerg gameplay (Zerg having to be extremely cost inefficient in the intial stages of the game with barely any strong micro effects) and tiny tiny maps, as apparently according to Dustin Browder people don't have the attention spans to play longer than 10 mins or to appreciate longer games.
"Terrible terrible damage." What terrible terrible words. For who needs to give all three races the tools to thrive on different maps styles and develop the gameplay in their preferred playstyle, if you can just give them terrible terrible damage.
Funny, hope he will not hire brainless people to make the interface. Get the guy who made war3 battlenet interface.
p.s. 2020 and you still can't queue specific matchups in sc2 interface (specific as in tvt, pvt, zvp etc.), chat is a joke and clans too. (10 years later boiz, 10 years later). If a guy was 10yo when sc2 came up and asked for this feature, he would be second year uni right now (let that sink in).
We never got to see what new rock type Browder would've come up with for LotV
I think HeroesOfTheStorm had great design as well. I actually would love to see a new RTS with Creep camps acting the way they do in that game. You kill the camp then they go attack the enemy. In sc1 you fight too long vs the interface and in wc3 you fight too long vs creeps. That's why SC2 is the best RTS, but it would be interesting to see creep camps that interact this way with the other player. The WoW PvE style mobs I also enjoy, where you have to dodge projectiles and spells. I think xp on all units is something many have thought about, similar to how it works in Civilization, but I think it would be interesting to see it on buildings instead. So lets say a Barracks build Mariners, then when they fight the Barrack gains xp and improves future Marines from the Barracks. You would pick, which upg they would get. Also 5 races is something I think would be cool to have that way there's not too many mirror matches and I think it's a better number than 4. Go make the new heroless WC4 guys. FIGHTING!!
On September 26 2020 06:18 Sigh1022 wrote: yoooo this is GREAT news. Browder was such a boss, glad to see him on board.
maybe he had good intentions, but his "terrible terrible damage" strategy didn't quite work out. Also he was kinda the lead of the sc2 team and completely ignored all the interface suggestions.
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
I think Fitch locked himself in that room, he was so frustrated with the (modified?) war2 engine they were using he said this isn't working for what you want to do let me write a whole new engine for this okay then he went and did it like a boss
On September 25 2020 23:24 Dangermousecatdog wrote: How quickly memories forget. Wasn't Dustin Browder responsible for the travesty of the boring gameplay of the protoss deathball as derived from the power of the Colossus (it's so cool, lasers! war of the worlds! Splash in a line to kill infinite marines!), unfun game mechanics like forcefields, and the utter defensiveness of Zerg gameplay (Zerg having to be extremely cost inefficient in the intial stages of the game with barely any strong micro effects) and tiny tiny maps, as apparently according to Dustin Browder people don't have the attention spans to play longer than 10 mins or to appreciate longer games.
"Terrible terrible damage." What terrible terrible words. For who needs to give all three races the tools to thrive on different maps styles and develop the gameplay in their preferred playstyle, if you can just give them terrible terrible damage.
It's really, really reductive to attribute things like this to one person. Being the lead designer on a game with a large dev team like SC2 is rarely going to mean that you directly control particular aspects of gameplay like this.
On September 25 2020 23:24 Dangermousecatdog wrote: How quickly memories forget. Wasn't Dustin Browder responsible for the travesty of the boring gameplay of the protoss deathball as derived from the power of the Colossus (it's so cool, lasers! war of the worlds! Splash in a line to kill infinite marines!), unfun game mechanics like forcefields, and the utter defensiveness of Zerg gameplay (Zerg having to be extremely cost inefficient in the intial stages of the game with barely any strong micro effects) and tiny tiny maps, as apparently according to Dustin Browder people don't have the attention spans to play longer than 10 mins or to appreciate longer games.
"Terrible terrible damage." What terrible terrible words. For who needs to give all three races the tools to thrive on different maps styles and develop the gameplay in their preferred playstyle, if you can just give them terrible terrible damage.
It's really, really reductive to attribute things like this to one person. Being the lead designer on a game with a large dev team like SC2 is rarely going to mean that you directly control particular aspects of gameplay like this.
These were things he literally said as his personal design choices or alluded to in many many interviews written or spoken. Especially colossus design, Zerg design and map size.
RA2 had a thin tight rope to walk. Keep the RA1 fans happy while advancing the game forward. Browder pulled it off. RA2 is great.
I believe he was at EA for RA2, Generals (and Zero Hour), and Battle for Middle Earth 1. I consider RA2 to have the best gameplay of the classic C&C games. Generals was controversial as an outlier in the C&C series, but I thought it had fairly robust gameplay and a thriving modding scene. BFME1 purposely simplified and streamlined a lot of stuff like base-building, but I thought it was still an enjoyable use of the setting, and Halo Wars would later use a similar system of base-building.
I'm super in for Browder being involved in RTS development. RA2 is a hell of a game. The asterisk beside this is if this studio is attempting to develop a competitive, ladder-focussed RTS, I don't know that Browder is the dude for it.
I also, at this point, would hope for something that pushes the idea of co-op commander or They Are Billions, rather than challenging BW or AoE2 as the beloved competitive RTS pvp games.
Gimme fun, co-op pve RTS. I feel like Browder would be a fantastic asset for such a thing.
...all of this, of course, assumes they make an RTS at all
it is interesting to note that "co op" campaign missions first became a thing with RA3's co-op campaign. many of the devs behind that ended up at Blizzard for SC2 a few years later. THen, a few years later.. SC2 got a co op mode. Competition between top RTS dev studio ends up producing better games.
Browder is a great example of why competition amongst studios is good. He moved up in the world... going from the #3 RTS franchise to the #1/#2 RTS game franchises.
Its kinda funny hearing fans vocally criticize Browder when its clear the men whose lives revolve around making video games speak with their actions that Browder is a top notch game designer.
RA2 had a thin tight rope to walk. Keep the RA1 fans happy while advancing the game forward. Browder pulled it off. RA2 is great.
I believe he was at EA for RA2, Generals (and Zero Hour), and Battle for Middle Earth 1. I consider RA2 to have the best gameplay of the classic C&C games. Generals was controversial as an outlier in the C&C series, but I thought it had fairly robust gameplay and a thriving modding scene. BFME1 purposely simplified and streamlined a lot of stuff like base-building, but I thought it was still an enjoyable use of the setting, and Halo Wars would later use a similar system of base-building.
just to add to your points. RA2 sold great. More importantly, RA2's long term engagement #s were great. So people didn't just buy the game and quit after the campaign was over. RA2 had long term sustainability.
Thus , by objective metrics, RA2 was a great game.
On September 29 2020 21:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote: it is interesting to note that "co op" campaign missions first became a thing with RA3's co-op campaign. many of the devs behind that ended up at Blizzard for SC2 a few years later. THen, a few years later.. SC2 got a co op mode. Competition between top RTS dev studio ends up producing better games.
Browder is a great example of why competition amongst studios is good. He moved up in the world... going from the #3 RTS franchise to the #1/#2 RTS game franchises.
Its kinda funny hearing fans vocally criticize Browder when its clear the men whose lives revolve around making video games speak with their actions that Browder is a top notch game designer.
RA2 had a thin tight rope to walk. Keep the RA1 fans happy while advancing the game forward. Browder pulled it off. RA2 is great.
I believe he was at EA for RA2, Generals (and Zero Hour), and Battle for Middle Earth 1. I consider RA2 to have the best gameplay of the classic C&C games. Generals was controversial as an outlier in the C&C series, but I thought it had fairly robust gameplay and a thriving modding scene. BFME1 purposely simplified and streamlined a lot of stuff like base-building, but I thought it was still an enjoyable use of the setting, and Halo Wars would later use a similar system of base-building.
just to add to your points. RA2 sold great. More importantly, RA2's long term engagement #s were great. So people didn't just buy the game and quit after the campaign was over. RA2 had long term sustainability.
Thus , by objective metrics, RA2 was a great game.
The idea that a dev has different views than players isn't new. Browder produces notably bad products.
To address the comparitive ease of balancing in C&C RA2 vs that of other competitive RTS games (SC1&2, WC3, AoE2), I would say RA2 is still easier to balance.
At its core, the "racial diversity" of C&C RA2 has two factions (Soviet and Ally). Each sub-faction of the two factions has a unique unit or structure, which seeks to imbalance some aspect of the game into their favour and force some alteration by the opponent if used. It's also quite simplistic from an economical standpoint, so there's no need to even consider things that arise from multi-resource RTS games.
In contrast to RA2, a game like Age of Empires 2 has one race (humans), but each civilization has a number of different numerical modifiers, tech tree options and limitations, as well as unique units. Add to that the multiple resources of AoE2 (wood, stone, food, gold), and it becomes quite apparent that the depth of balance is far greater.
SC and others mentioned above have very distinctive races and are multi-resource. They're more likely to be on the upper end of difficulty than the lower end, in terms of balance.
Browder did decent work at Blizzard for a better wage than many of his colleagues. He achieved his status in the industry through his work and has been rewarded with a ticket off of what is beginning to look like a sinking ship. Wouldn't anybody take it?
On September 30 2020 05:27 dUTtrOACh wrote: To address the comparitive ease of balancing in C&C RA2 vs that of other competitive RTS games (SC1&2, WC3, AoE2), I would say RA2 is still easier to balance.
At its core, the "racial diversity" of C&C RA2 has two factions (Soviet and Ally). Each sub-faction of the two factions has a unique unit or structure, which seeks to imbalance some aspect of the game into their favour and force some alteration by the opponent if used. It's also quite simplistic from an economical standpoint, so there's no need to even consider things that arise from multi-resource RTS games.
In contrast to RA2, a game like Age of Empires 2 has one race (humans), but each civilization has a number of different numerical modifiers, tech tree options and limitations, as well as unique units. Add to that the multiple resources of AoE2 (wood, stone, food, gold), and it becomes quite apparent that the depth of balance is far greater.
SC and others mentioned above have very distinctive races and are multi-resource. They're more likely to be on the upper end of difficulty than the lower end, in terms of balance.
Browder did decent work at Blizzard for a better wage than many of his colleagues. He achieved his status in the industry through his work and has been rewarded with a ticket off of what is beginning to look like a sinking ship. Wouldn't anybody take it?
and EA put far fewer resources into balancing games after release than Blizzard. Game balancing was essentially out of Browder's hands a few months after the game was released. And Browder knew EA wouldn't put many resources into game balancing.
RA2 came out about the same time as SC64. SC64 featured a 200 mineral academy and fast spawning zerglings. So game balancing was a very different animal in 2000 than it is today.
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
I think Fitch locked himself in that room, he was so frustrated with the (modified?) war2 engine they were using he said this isn't working for what you want to do let me write a whole new engine for this okay then he went and did it like a boss
They went from remaking games from scratch and scrapping games that looked pretty good (Warcraft adventures & SC : Ghost) to releasing Diablo mobile games and a War3 remake that averaged 0.6/10 in user reviews on metacritic.
Splitting off from blizzard is a damn good move at this time IMO.
Also on Browder possibly making new RTS games : Beggars can't be choosers with the RTS market how it is nowdays.
On September 30 2020 05:27 dUTtrOACh wrote: To address the comparitive ease of balancing in C&C RA2 vs that of other competitive RTS games (SC1&2, WC3, AoE2), I would say RA2 is still easier to balance.
At its core, the "racial diversity" of C&C RA2 has two factions (Soviet and Ally). Each sub-faction of the two factions has a unique unit or structure, which seeks to imbalance some aspect of the game into their favour and force some alteration by the opponent if used. It's also quite simplistic from an economical standpoint, so there's no need to even consider things that arise from multi-resource RTS games.
In contrast to RA2, a game like Age of Empires 2 has one race (humans), but each civilization has a number of different numerical modifiers, tech tree options and limitations, as well as unique units. Add to that the multiple resources of AoE2 (wood, stone, food, gold), and it becomes quite apparent that the depth of balance is far greater.
SC and others mentioned above have very distinctive races and are multi-resource. They're more likely to be on the upper end of difficulty than the lower end, in terms of balance.
Browder did decent work at Blizzard for a better wage than many of his colleagues. He achieved his status in the industry through his work and has been rewarded with a ticket off of what is beginning to look like a sinking ship. Wouldn't anybody take it?
and EA put far fewer resources into balancing games after release than Blizzard. Game balancing was essentially out of Browder's hands a few months after the game was released. And Browder knew EA wouldn't put many resources into game balancing.
RA2 came out about the same time as SC64. SC64 featured a 200 mineral academy and fast spawning zerglings. So game balancing was a very different animal in 2000 than it is today.
Well, you can't patch a cartridge on a console with no online capability.
After-the-fact balance not being a concern back then meant that the games definitely needed to feel balanced (and finished, for that matter) before release. The difficulty of that task is directly proportionate to the complexity of the variables involved. RA2 has less variables to consider than the examples I mentioned above. I'm sure there are games that were easier to balance.
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
I think Fitch locked himself in that room, he was so frustrated with the (modified?) war2 engine they were using he said this isn't working for what you want to do let me write a whole new engine for this okay then he went and did it like a boss
They went from remaking games from scratch and scrapping games that looked pretty good (Warcraft adventures & SC : Ghost) to releasing Diablo mobile games and a War3 remake that averaged 0.6/10 in user reviews on metacritic.
Splitting off from blizzard is a damn good move at this time IMO.
Also on Browder possibly making new RTS games : Beggars can't be choosers with the RTS market how it is nowdays.
And nothing good happend ever? Or do you just post your negative opinions?
There's nothing 'negative' about my post it's just noting the decline of a once great company.Or are you denying that they have declined in quality standards the past 5 years? The 0.6/10 metacritic user rating for the War3 rehash is a total miscalculation by the reviewers?
A fresh start could mean fresh ideas and better games than what is currently being released by Acti-Blizzard.My opinion.If you want more of what Blizzard has dished up lately go at it.
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
I think Fitch locked himself in that room, he was so frustrated with the (modified?) war2 engine they were using he said this isn't working for what you want to do let me write a whole new engine for this okay then he went and did it like a boss
They went from remaking games from scratch and scrapping games that looked pretty good (Warcraft adventures & SC : Ghost) to releasing Diablo mobile games and a War3 remake that averaged 0.6/10 in user reviews on metacritic.
Splitting off from blizzard is a damn good move at this time IMO.
Also on Browder possibly making new RTS games : Beggars can't be choosers with the RTS market how it is nowdays.
And nothing good happend ever? Or do you just post your negative opinions?
There's nothing 'negative' about my post it's just noting the decline of a once great company.Or are you denying that they have declined in quality standards the past 5 years? The 0.6/10 metacritic user rating for the War3 rehash is a total miscalculation by the reviewers?
A fresh start could mean fresh ideas and better games than what is currently being released by Acti-Blizzard.My opinion.If you want more of what Blizzard has dished up lately go at it.
It’s very bad, it’s not 0.6/10 bad. If it’s indicative of a wider trend well that remains to be seen. Certainly not a promising sign in and of itself, but despite none of them really being to my personal tastes genre wise the likes of Hearthstone, Overwatch, HoTS are all rather well-made, polished games.
There aren’t many devs pumping out genre-defining classics with any consistency these days, partly because well, most genres are pretty defined and it’s progressively harder to hit much above solid polish.
On September 30 2020 05:27 dUTtrOACh wrote: To address the comparitive ease of balancing in C&C RA2 vs that of other competitive RTS games (SC1&2, WC3, AoE2), I would say RA2 is still easier to balance.
At its core, the "racial diversity" of C&C RA2 has two factions (Soviet and Ally). Each sub-faction of the two factions has a unique unit or structure, which seeks to imbalance some aspect of the game into their favour and force some alteration by the opponent if used. It's also quite simplistic from an economical standpoint, so there's no need to even consider things that arise from multi-resource RTS games.
In contrast to RA2, a game like Age of Empires 2 has one race (humans), but each civilization has a number of different numerical modifiers, tech tree options and limitations, as well as unique units. Add to that the multiple resources of AoE2 (wood, stone, food, gold), and it becomes quite apparent that the depth of balance is far greater.
SC and others mentioned above have very distinctive races and are multi-resource. They're more likely to be on the upper end of difficulty than the lower end, in terms of balance.
Browder did decent work at Blizzard for a better wage than many of his colleagues. He achieved his status in the industry through his work and has been rewarded with a ticket off of what is beginning to look like a sinking ship. Wouldn't anybody take it?
and EA put far fewer resources into balancing games after release than Blizzard. Game balancing was essentially out of Browder's hands a few months after the game was released. And Browder knew EA wouldn't put many resources into game balancing.
RA2 came out about the same time as SC64. SC64 featured a 200 mineral academy and fast spawning zerglings. So game balancing was a very different animal in 2000 than it is today.
Well, you can't patch a cartridge on a console with no online capability.
After-the-fact balance not being a concern back then meant that the games definitely needed to feel balanced (and finished, for that matter) before release. The difficulty of that task is directly proportionate to the complexity of the variables involved. RA2 has less variables to consider than the examples I mentioned above. I'm sure there are games that were easier to balance.
my point is that even by the time that cartridge code "went gold" the cost of an academy still was not settled. balance patches occurred back then. the patching process was much slower. the feedback loop was disjointed relative to today.
On October 01 2020 23:12 WombaT wrote: There aren’t many devs pumping out genre-defining classics with any consistency these days, partly because well, most genres are pretty defined and it’s progressively harder to hit much above solid polish.
this is a fascinating perspective...
there will always be new genres emerging. because overall video game revenue (consoles and PC) is not growing at the pace it did in the 80s and 90s it is harder to find those new genres.
On September 30 2020 05:27 dUTtrOACh wrote: To address the comparitive ease of balancing in C&C RA2 vs that of other competitive RTS games (SC1&2, WC3, AoE2), I would say RA2 is still easier to balance.
At its core, the "racial diversity" of C&C RA2 has two factions (Soviet and Ally). Each sub-faction of the two factions has a unique unit or structure, which seeks to imbalance some aspect of the game into their favour and force some alteration by the opponent if used. It's also quite simplistic from an economical standpoint, so there's no need to even consider things that arise from multi-resource RTS games.
In contrast to RA2, a game like Age of Empires 2 has one race (humans), but each civilization has a number of different numerical modifiers, tech tree options and limitations, as well as unique units. Add to that the multiple resources of AoE2 (wood, stone, food, gold), and it becomes quite apparent that the depth of balance is far greater.
SC and others mentioned above have very distinctive races and are multi-resource. They're more likely to be on the upper end of difficulty than the lower end, in terms of balance.
Browder did decent work at Blizzard for a better wage than many of his colleagues. He achieved his status in the industry through his work and has been rewarded with a ticket off of what is beginning to look like a sinking ship. Wouldn't anybody take it?
and EA put far fewer resources into balancing games after release than Blizzard. Game balancing was essentially out of Browder's hands a few months after the game was released. And Browder knew EA wouldn't put many resources into game balancing.
RA2 came out about the same time as SC64. SC64 featured a 200 mineral academy and fast spawning zerglings. So game balancing was a very different animal in 2000 than it is today.
Well, you can't patch a cartridge on a console with no online capability.
After-the-fact balance not being a concern back then meant that the games definitely needed to feel balanced (and finished, for that matter) before release. The difficulty of that task is directly proportionate to the complexity of the variables involved. RA2 has less variables to consider than the examples I mentioned above. I'm sure there are games that were easier to balance.
my point is that even by the time that cartridge code "went gold" the cost of an academy still was not settled. balance patches occurred back then. the patching process was much slower. the feedback loop was disjointed relative to today.
On October 01 2020 23:12 WombaT wrote: There aren’t many devs pumping out genre-defining classics with any consistency these days, partly because well, most genres are pretty defined and it’s progressively harder to hit much above solid polish.
this is a fascinating perspective...
there will always be new genres emerging. because overall video game revenue (consoles and PC) is not growing at the pace it did in the 80s and 90s it is harder to find those new genres.
There is that too, just with the passage of time it gets harder to put novel twists on things. Doesn’t preclude making very good games mind. Just with Blizz I mean if they dip their toes into RTS again (especially one intended to be played competitively) its hard to really see them doing anything wow-inducing. Best case scenario you’d get something recognisable in systems and quality to a WC3 or the two SC games.
Last dev I can really think who did something both novel and with long-lived success was From with their Soulslike games
On September 24 2020 01:44 Zambrah wrote: Dev teams wouldnt fuck up so much if they weren't made to work way too long hours to hit asinine deadlines.
before ATVI , Blizzard had all kinds of crazy messed up deadlines and processes. Its part of what inspired the name "Blizzard" because the place was total chaos.
i seem to recall Bob Fitch getting locked in a room for 6 weeks to build the engine for SC1. Software projects go awry all the time. My best customer has a service called "Project Rescue". She sends me on these crazy assignments working on projects that have failed 3+ times and have been going on for 5+ years. That is the way the entire industry is. Its not like video games are some special case.
"we were no where near the home stretch". crunch lasted 8 months.
I love doing the hermit coder 24/7 thing. its a blast. its also clear Bob Fitch loved it as well. When the project is a success... you gain legend status.
In conclusion, Blizzard had all kinds of issues before ATVI took over. Bungie also jettisoned ATVI and kept their Destiny franchise. Has Destiny2 gotten much better without ATVI? I'd say its a little bit better. But its not some dramatic night-and-day improvement.
I think Fitch locked himself in that room, he was so frustrated with the (modified?) war2 engine they were using he said this isn't working for what you want to do let me write a whole new engine for this okay then he went and did it like a boss
They went from remaking games from scratch and scrapping games that looked pretty good (Warcraft adventures & SC : Ghost) to releasing Diablo mobile games and a War3 remake that averaged 0.6/10 in user reviews on metacritic.
Splitting off from blizzard is a damn good move at this time IMO.
Also on Browder possibly making new RTS games : Beggars can't be choosers with the RTS market how it is nowdays.
And nothing good happend ever? Or do you just post your negative opinions?
There's nothing 'negative' about my post it's just noting the decline of a once great company.Or are you denying that they have declined in quality standards the past 5 years? The 0.6/10 metacritic user rating for the War3 rehash is a total miscalculation by the reviewers?
A fresh start could mean fresh ideas and better games than what is currently being released by Acti-Blizzard.My opinion.If you want more of what Blizzard has dished up lately go at it.
Are Metacritic User objective?
When you can't even run a tournament because the game constantly disconnects people, seems pretty right to me. Blizzard released this game in that state, remember that.
But the first major tournament for Reforged post-launch has finished under a cloud, with the tournament beset with regular disconnects that forced matches to be restarted. And the problems only got worse as the tournament went on, with a potential upset win in the quarter finals against one of the world’s best Warcraft 3 players denied – twice – thanks to desync bugs.
It wasn’t just Moon and ThorZain that had suffered from desyncs, though. Apart from the two drops on the main stage, six separate matches across the group stages and playoffs also had to be restarted, some of which was captured on the main WC3 stream.
Nobody can claim that the War3 rehash was a success, sorry.And not interested in getting into some long arguments about it with someone who just posts one sentence rebuttals.I'm pointing out that Blizzard put out this, when 20 years ago they cancelled games that actually looked good.No quality control anymore, they don't care.OK?
On September 24 2020 00:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so much for all those crazy unsubstantiated theories that Blizzard hated the job Browder did on SC2. Browder got promoted to VP and Morhaime brought him into his new company. It is clear Morhaime thinks highly of Browder.
Yeah, because Blizzard doubled down on all his ideas in HOTS and LOTV... oh wait. No they didn't.
On September 24 2020 00:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: so much for all those crazy unsubstantiated theories that Blizzard hated the job Browder did on SC2. Browder got promoted to VP and Morhaime brought him into his new company. It is clear Morhaime thinks highly of Browder.
Yeah, because Blizzard doubled down on all his ideas in HOTS and LOTV... oh wait. No they didn't.
Did someone say constructible rocks?
They never touched terrible terrible damage, which imo was one of the larger issues of Sc2. Overall Browder has a fairly good career though with the exception of Heroes ots maybe.
And if Morhaime thought that Browder was bad he wouldn't have hired him for his new company. Just because the design directions changed a bit doesn't mean they don't respect Browder or the base game.
On May 28 2021 16:39 Harris1st wrote: Unreal Engine 5? For RTS? Wow
Are there even any RTS in UE3/ UE4?
I mean there are barely any RTS in the last decade anyways. Couldn't immediately find what engine iron harvest is running on, but most RTS apparently run on studio engines.
Immortal: Gates of Pyre is developed on the UE4 afaik. Naturally Unreal was built for shooters, but like Unity you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. Fundamentally what changes between RTS and FPS are mainly controls and number of units, so if they can get performance running and a decent ai the rest isn't that hard mechanically.
On May 28 2021 16:39 Harris1st wrote: Unreal Engine 5? For RTS? Wow
Are there even any RTS in UE3/ UE4?
I mean there are barely any RTS in the last decade anyways. Couldn't immediately find what engine iron harvest is running on, but most RTS apparently run on studio engines.
Immortal: Gates of Pyre is developed on the UE4 afaik. Naturally Unreal was built for shooters, but like Unity you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. Fundamentally what changes between RTS and FPS are mainly controls and number of units, so if they can get performance running and a decent ai the rest isn't that hard.
pretty sure iron harvest is running on unity engine.
EPT
