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On March 01 2016 08:15 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2016 07:42 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 06:24 Spyridon wrote:On March 01 2016 05:49 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 01:52 Spyridon wrote:On February 29 2016 16:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On February 29 2016 14:52 Spyridon wrote: Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams. Much of the teams are shared. Even David Kim was announced to have been working on Heroes. SC2 and Heroes are both worked on by "Team 1". Team 1 is the team that works on all of the Blizzard RTS-style games (WC/SC/Heroes).
That's exactly the reason why so many people are upset. It's not like Blizz doesn't have the manpower, or the quality of designers available, or the funds to do it. They simply have not chosen to and put other games as a higher priority. Which is alarming since this is pretty much the first time Blizzard has treated a game this way. It's in the state it's in by choice.
Which, btw, is also part of the reason people suspect they might just be working on another RTS. i don't think both Sigaty and Browder are lying or intentionally misleading Blizzard followers. ATVI is not funding another RTS because it generates too little revenue. LotV won't even make $0.1 Billion and the entire SC franchise since JUly 2010 has contributed less than 1.5% to ATVI's revenue stream. Sigaty said nothing will step on SC2's toes or enter its market-space for 10 years. i don't think he is hiding anything. he was careful about how he expressed himself to make sure he as not misleading the questioner. "Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams" its not a "popular belief" unless you're prepared to say Browder is outright lying. Browder stated teh Team-1 consists of 80 people and the Heroes team consists of 140 people. His tweets came within a week of each other. If you think he is bullshitting or intentionally misleading people with "slippery language" then call him out on it... and see what happens. here is the info i have based on sources i trust. The SC2 quote of 80 The Heroes quote of 140+ if you have sources to back your points you should include them. It's not "intentionally lying or misleading followers". It's called PR. It's why only certain members of the Blizz teams have authority to mention things like that. BTW, look at how many years it's been. If they announce a game at Blizzcon this year it would be released at the 10 year mark. Just because they have 80 people working on SC2, and 140 working on Heroes, doesn't mean those 80 people are not working on Heroes as well. Team 1 is the team that worked on BOTH SC2 and Heroes. Blizzard teams are NOT exclusive outside of lead positions. Notice how he NEVER stated that those people work "exclusively" on said game? I'm at work right now, but the development being with team 1 is public knowledge. Just doing a quick google of a source: http://heroes.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/heroes-of-the-storm-developer-qa-part-2-jan-22-2014-transcriptAn example quote: Kaeo– I am fortunate enough to have been here for 12 years. A little bit over 12 years at Blizzard now. Started out like a lot of people in our development teams have — in Quality Assurance (QA) sharing testing Warcraft III originally. Tech Support, just testing all the Warcraft in their early days. Also was the recruiter for Blizzard for a long time, the World of Warcraft team, the Cinematics Team, eventually I transitioned into production and I have been doing that for a little over 9 years on Blizzard almost, exclusively on Team 1 — which is the Heroes of the Storm Team and previously the StarCraft. You can also find other posts on Google about how Team 1 has separate sub teams, including an eSports team, that is also mentioned to been utilized by both SC2 and Heroes. Nowhere do they ever mention anything other than Team 1 is the team to work on both games. Blizzard - Team 1 = RTS-style games. Team 2 = WoW. Team 3 = Diablo. Team 4 = Titan/Overwatch. Team 5 = Hearthstone. Some other quotes regarding other RTS: Blizzard has revealed its RTS team may indeed revisit the Warcraft franchise once the last chapter in the StarCraft II story is complete. Speaking to IGN at Gamescom, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void producer Tim Morten admitted that while the potential is certainly there for StarCraft III focusing on all-new characters, it's not the only option available to them. "It’s very rewarding for us to hear that there’s demand out there for more RTS content in the Warcraft universe so once we’re done with Void I think we’ll get together as a team and talk about what would inspire us to work on next. There’s no question, though, that we’ll consider Warcraft, StarCraft, or even new ideas. Anything is possible." I think the individual esports team is very small insignficant compared to the actual esports team headed up by Kim Phan. Jimmy has already disputed that point with Tim Morten with this interview: http://www.pcgamesn.com/starcraft-ii/starcraft-2-the-next-ten-years"I can’t answer that because honestly we don’t know. Is it possible we work on something that steps on the toes of StarCraft? Yes, but there’s no intention to do that today, which is why I think it’s so critical and important how we treat it and how we continue to improve it and make things better - that matters. I think [StarCraft] absolutely stands as an amazing experience to both celebrate the people that get to that level of skill and quality and also to be able to watch and see that. While it’s possible we would [replace that], I don’t see it happening." Tim Morten is just a producer who just joined the company, the quoted interview is from a Blizzard lifer whose the EXECUTIVE producer The primary point of my post was that Team 1 is in charge of both games, and developers are split between the two games. The fact that they may be working on something on the side is a related point, but not the main point. Considering games are typically developed 1-2 years before they are even announced, it completely fits within the timeline. Either way, as it stands right now, Team 1 is split between SC2 and Heroes, with all the majority of SC development being put in to the mission pack coming out in a few months, and Heroes is getting a hell of a lot more development in the eSports, balancing, and multiplayer departments. The prospect of another RTS in development is just another potential thing that may slow down SC2 development even more. Een Kim Phan has mentioned working on Heroes multiple times. All this talk about "no other games stepping on SC2"... What do you think is happening as we speak when they are putting Heroes development ahead of SC2 and sharing a development team with them? Even by Browders own words Heroes has nearly double the size on their dev team. I completely understand they want to keep up the momentum of Heroes, but the way their treating SC2 is a first for the company. The game is suffering and needs that attention for multiplayer development. But their developing it for mission packs, and focusing their heaviest multiplayer efforts elsewhere. They mean an RTS stepping on SC2. Heroes is a completely different game. It's like what SC2 did when it came out, all the WC3 and foreign BW pros jumped ship for the new game. Also... Heroes needs all the development it can get. The game is incredibly unbalanced, doesn't have a proper drafting screen, lack of bans, there's no actual ranked play, you cant even target anything to see how much health it has. It's a huge mess I disagree, the multiplayer is always welcome for improvements, but you also what content to get people to check back in to SC2, specifically casuals. In a game like Dota or League, you can add a champion or a hero and it gets casuals flocking back to try it out. You can't really do that with units in SC. But if you had new content like Co-Op missions, and mission packs, you have more people checking back and paying attention to the game. It also gives them sustainable income to keep the team back on. I'm sure there's stuff they want to do down the pipeline but it can't be something that only appeals to one part of the fanbase. GRANTED, it's an important one. I guess it's a weird balance, you need to keep the dedicated people who are going to be playing your games for many years happy, as well as attracting old fans to check back in once in a while for a cool patch (which is what SC2 has been lacking because of my previous point of them holding back to put stuff on the back of the box) Things like coop missions didn't really bring people back to the game, because the core issues that people had with the game are still there. None of my friends bothered with LotV multiplayer, only 1 of them actually purchased it solely for the campaign, he tried coop two matches and then was done because it was more of the same. Of course more missions will bring in some cash flow. But the major problem with SC2 isn't the missions, it's the multiplayer. That's akin to a fighting game that stopped adding to the multiplayer aspect in favor of Vs CPU content. It doesn't make sense. The multiplayer is the true attraction of fighting games the same as RTS. To halt development on the primary attraction, especially when it has issues, in favor of vs CPU development, is not a typical thing for Blizzard to do. They never give up on their games in the past until their in a successful place. But in this case, multiplayer is in a dire need, but they choose to ignore it. Even with things like coop and archon, they aren't really doing anything substantial to bring new players in to the game at all. It's one of the biggest issues I've mentioned. That means rather than finding ways to improve the games, their simply minimizing losses. Why would casual players stay if they come back and see it's more of the same, and has all the same issues that made them quit? Sure, new modes are nice, but they aren't useful unless the core mechanics and gameplay are brought to a place where they can enjoy it to. Once they enjoy the actual gameplay again? Then new modes would help a lot! But if players already don't enjoy the core of the game itself, modes aren't going to help that... Development-wise, their making a very strong point that they feel their development time is better spent elsewhere. I, for one, wish it was spent on SC2's multiplayer. I feel of all Blizzards library, it's the game that needs assistance most right now. But instead of assistance, it's got some of the weakest development from Blizzards part... We have people in our school's Starcraft club whose main attraction to SC2 is coop.
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On March 01 2016 09:56 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2016 08:26 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 08:15 Spyridon wrote:On March 01 2016 07:42 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 06:24 Spyridon wrote:On March 01 2016 05:49 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 01:52 Spyridon wrote:On February 29 2016 16:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On February 29 2016 14:52 Spyridon wrote: Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams. Much of the teams are shared. Even David Kim was announced to have been working on Heroes. SC2 and Heroes are both worked on by "Team 1". Team 1 is the team that works on all of the Blizzard RTS-style games (WC/SC/Heroes).
That's exactly the reason why so many people are upset. It's not like Blizz doesn't have the manpower, or the quality of designers available, or the funds to do it. They simply have not chosen to and put other games as a higher priority. Which is alarming since this is pretty much the first time Blizzard has treated a game this way. It's in the state it's in by choice.
Which, btw, is also part of the reason people suspect they might just be working on another RTS. i don't think both Sigaty and Browder are lying or intentionally misleading Blizzard followers. ATVI is not funding another RTS because it generates too little revenue. LotV won't even make $0.1 Billion and the entire SC franchise since JUly 2010 has contributed less than 1.5% to ATVI's revenue stream. Sigaty said nothing will step on SC2's toes or enter its market-space for 10 years. i don't think he is hiding anything. he was careful about how he expressed himself to make sure he as not misleading the questioner. "Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams" its not a "popular belief" unless you're prepared to say Browder is outright lying. Browder stated teh Team-1 consists of 80 people and the Heroes team consists of 140 people. His tweets came within a week of each other. If you think he is bullshitting or intentionally misleading people with "slippery language" then call him out on it... and see what happens. here is the info i have based on sources i trust. The SC2 quote of 80 https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/697180199473934338The Heroes quote of 140+ https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/694939451701612544if you have sources to back your points you should include them. It's not "intentionally lying or misleading followers". It's called PR. It's why only certain members of the Blizz teams have authority to mention things like that. BTW, look at how many years it's been. If they announce a game at Blizzcon this year it would be released at the 10 year mark. Just because they have 80 people working on SC2, and 140 working on Heroes, doesn't mean those 80 people are not working on Heroes as well. Team 1 is the team that worked on BOTH SC2 and Heroes. Blizzard teams are NOT exclusive outside of lead positions. Notice how he NEVER stated that those people work "exclusively" on said game? I'm at work right now, but the development being with team 1 is public knowledge. Just doing a quick google of a source: http://heroes.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/heroes-of-the-storm-developer-qa-part-2-jan-22-2014-transcriptAn example quote: Kaeo– I am fortunate enough to have been here for 12 years. A little bit over 12 years at Blizzard now. Started out like a lot of people in our development teams have — in Quality Assurance (QA) sharing testing Warcraft III originally. Tech Support, just testing all the Warcraft in their early days. Also was the recruiter for Blizzard for a long time, the World of Warcraft team, the Cinematics Team, eventually I transitioned into production and I have been doing that for a little over 9 years on Blizzard almost, exclusively on Team 1 — which is the Heroes of the Storm Team and previously the StarCraft. You can also find other posts on Google about how Team 1 has separate sub teams, including an eSports team, that is also mentioned to been utilized by both SC2 and Heroes. Nowhere do they ever mention anything other than Team 1 is the team to work on both games. Blizzard - Team 1 = RTS-style games. Team 2 = WoW. Team 3 = Diablo. Team 4 = Titan/Overwatch. Team 5 = Hearthstone. Some other quotes regarding other RTS: Blizzard has revealed its RTS team may indeed revisit the Warcraft franchise once the last chapter in the StarCraft II story is complete. Speaking to IGN at Gamescom, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void producer Tim Morten admitted that while the potential is certainly there for StarCraft III focusing on all-new characters, it's not the only option available to them. "It’s very rewarding for us to hear that there’s demand out there for more RTS content in the Warcraft universe so once we’re done with Void I think we’ll get together as a team and talk about what would inspire us to work on next. There’s no question, though, that we’ll consider Warcraft, StarCraft, or even new ideas. Anything is possible." I think the individual esports team is very small insignficant compared to the actual esports team headed up by Kim Phan. Jimmy has already disputed that point with Tim Morten with this interview: http://www.pcgamesn.com/starcraft-ii/starcraft-2-the-next-ten-years"I can’t answer that because honestly we don’t know. Is it possible we work on something that steps on the toes of StarCraft? Yes, but there’s no intention to do that today, which is why I think it’s so critical and important how we treat it and how we continue to improve it and make things better - that matters. I think [StarCraft] absolutely stands as an amazing experience to both celebrate the people that get to that level of skill and quality and also to be able to watch and see that. While it’s possible we would [replace that], I don’t see it happening." Tim Morten is just a producer who just joined the company, the quoted interview is from a Blizzard lifer whose the EXECUTIVE producer The primary point of my post was that Team 1 is in charge of both games, and developers are split between the two games. The fact that they may be working on something on the side is a related point, but not the main point. Considering games are typically developed 1-2 years before they are even announced, it completely fits within the timeline. Either way, as it stands right now, Team 1 is split between SC2 and Heroes, with all the majority of SC development being put in to the mission pack coming out in a few months, and Heroes is getting a hell of a lot more development in the eSports, balancing, and multiplayer departments. The prospect of another RTS in development is just another potential thing that may slow down SC2 development even more. Een Kim Phan has mentioned working on Heroes multiple times. All this talk about "no other games stepping on SC2"... What do you think is happening as we speak when they are putting Heroes development ahead of SC2 and sharing a development team with them? Even by Browders own words Heroes has nearly double the size on their dev team. I completely understand they want to keep up the momentum of Heroes, but the way their treating SC2 is a first for the company. The game is suffering and needs that attention for multiplayer development. But their developing it for mission packs, and focusing their heaviest multiplayer efforts elsewhere. They mean an RTS stepping on SC2. Heroes is a completely different game. It's like what SC2 did when it came out, all the WC3 and foreign BW pros jumped ship for the new game. Also... Heroes needs all the development it can get. The game is incredibly unbalanced, doesn't have a proper drafting screen, lack of bans, there's no actual ranked play, you cant even target anything to see how much health it has. It's a huge mess I disagree, the multiplayer is always welcome for improvements, but you also what content to get people to check back in to SC2, specifically casuals. In a game like Dota or League, you can add a champion or a hero and it gets casuals flocking back to try it out. You can't really do that with units in SC. But if you had new content like Co-Op missions, and mission packs, you have more people checking back and paying attention to the game. It also gives them sustainable income to keep the team back on. I'm sure there's stuff they want to do down the pipeline but it can't be something that only appeals to one part of the fanbase. GRANTED, it's an important one. I guess it's a weird balance, you need to keep the dedicated people who are going to be playing your games for many years happy, as well as attracting old fans to check back in once in a while for a cool patch (which is what SC2 has been lacking because of my previous point of them holding back to put stuff on the back of the box) Things like coop missions didn't really bring people back to the game, because the core issues that people had with the game are still there. None of my friends bothered with LotV multiplayer, only 1 of them actually purchased it solely for the campaign, he tried coop two matches and then was done because it was more of the same. Of course more missions will bring in some cash flow. But the major problem with SC2 isn't the missions, it's the multiplayer. That's akin to a fighting game that stopped adding to the multiplayer aspect in favor of Vs CPU content. It doesn't make sense. The multiplayer is the true attraction of fighting games the same as RTS. To halt development on the primary attraction, especially when it has issues, in favor of vs CPU development, is not a typical thing for Blizzard to do. They never give up on their games in the past until their in a successful place. But in this case, multiplayer is in a dire need, but they choose to ignore it. Even with things like coop and archon, they aren't really doing anything substantial to bring new players in to the game at all. It's one of the biggest issues I've mentioned. That means rather than finding ways to improve the games, their simply minimizing losses. Why would casual players stay if they come back and see it's more of the same, and has all the same issues that made them quit? Sure, new modes are nice, but they aren't useful unless the core mechanics and gameplay are brought to a place where they can enjoy it to. Once they enjoy the actual gameplay again? Then new modes would help a lot! But if players already don't enjoy the core of the game itself, modes aren't going to help that... Development-wise, their making a very strong point that they feel their development time is better spent elsewhere. I, for one, wish it was spent on SC2's multiplayer. I feel of all Blizzards library, it's the game that needs assistance most right now. But instead of assistance, it's got some of the weakest development from Blizzards part... you don't know that. Blizzard said said it's very popular and that people have been playing it a "TON". If their investing resources in releasing new content for it and balancing it, surely they're getting some return out of it. It's something to do with their friends that isnt as stressful as 1v1 ladder. There are a bunch of people who wont touch 1v1 ladder because of the stress, which goes into your point where most casuals play the campaign and quit. That's why they're doing more campaign shit. It goes back to how barely anyone actually did WC3 ladder compared to Arcade and Campaign. And I have no idea how you think SC2 needs the most development when looking at HOTS/Hearthstone's ladder problems and lacking features. Like I said, the missing stuff from HOTS is just embarassing at this point. They're working on multiplayer improvements, (like the ladder changes), they're just super slow. Even looking at how many people are on the other teams, everything they do is just slow even if the team in question has double or triple the resources of a team you THINK they're pouring everything into. We can see how popular it is with our own eyes. Their balancing work has been extremely minor since LotV release, to say the least. A single designer (not even one familiar with coding) could have done all the changes presented to us with the SC editor. Some of the things you list for HotS are actually intentional design decisions, and some aren't even true. Your opinion on the games balance isn't shared by the pro community for the game, and is definitely not any more questionable than any other moba. Not sure what your problem with the draft interface is, and the game does have ranked play, and you can see how much HP a target has without having to select them first. Either you haven't played the game since alpha, or your just lying. On the eSports scene, Blizz is still developing HotS, they have had loads of new tournaments, over 2m payout last year, and the game is still growing, and although they haven't gave us numbers, it's obviously still highly profitable if their pumping out content at the rate they are. They are also scaling up the amount of tournaments and payouts this year, and putting a lot of effort in to the next HotD. They have even more tournaments planned for this year than last year, and even more investment in tournament rewards. You see a hell of a lot more growth in the HotS scene than you do in the SC2 scene right now. Just because this site is more focused on SC2 doesn't mean Heroes isn't doing well elsewhere. You may not like Hearthstone either, but it has the most momentum out of all Blizzards games right now. It's profitable, its competitive in tournaments, and it's bringing in loads of new players. They announced at the end of the year the Hearthstones profitability hit an all time high in Q4 of last year. Look up their financial results, and the insane amount of popularity and activity the game has. Then look at SC2. Right now it's not even as popular as D3 and D3 was known for its horrendous release. Do you see them scaling up the scene with more eSports support than earlier years? Look at their financial report at the end of the year, do you see any plans laid out for the series like they did with every other of their series'? The reason their super slow is because the team dedicated to it is extremely small (by Browders own words about half the side) as well as both games are Team 1 games, so the resources are being shared by SC2 and Heroes. Heroes is releasing damn sure more than double the content & balance updates than SC2 is getting right now. It's damn sure more popular overall than SC2 right now, and it's numbers are actually going up rather than down (in both tournament scene and populairty, just look at Twitch performance). And it's obviously more profitable, Blizzard put the development where the money is. And where is the SC2 development? In mission packs, not the multiplayer. The multiplayer and eSports development is being focused on other games. rather than investing more in sc2 tournament payouts, their investing their funds in to Heroes tournament payouts. Does that really not send u any sort of message?
i thought the message from the all important Tim Morten who was yapping away during a slow news day at IGN ...was that they're making another RTS game? LOL.
Kim and Browder have already directly refuted that only a "small team" is working on SC2. Browder through 2 tweets directly answering how many work on SC2 and Kim during a weekly update stating the "small team small resources" people are spewing it incorrect.
have you ever made software for a large scale user base? the # of people who actually code is small. the testing, server admin, business analysts, customer feedback specialists etc.. can be 50 to 100 while 2 employees are code-monkeys. i can name dozens of software projects that work like exactly this way.
and of course you're forgetting the legend of bob fitch. does that mean there were only 5 guys working on SC1 and Brood War because 1 guy made the engine?
because 1 guy can "code a solution" does not mean there were 4 people working on SC1 and Brood War. same applies with ur 1 guy screwing with the MOD Kit to make the changes to LotV. Fire off a tweet to Day9. How many guys at Artillery are actually laying down code?
Ask Greg Black how many people at EALA actually laid down code? it was never more than 4 guys. does this mean EALA had 10 employees? umm no.
ATVI is going to pull the plug on RTS in the next year though. There will still be the WCS and Blizzcon and so forth, but they're not going to be devoting huge resources to further enhance SC2 beyond 2017. As I've said it made less than 1.5% of ATVI's revenue in the past 6 years and the probability of LotV making even $0.1 Billion is zero.
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On March 01 2016 10:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2016 09:56 Spyridon wrote:On March 01 2016 08:26 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 08:15 Spyridon wrote:On March 01 2016 07:42 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 06:24 Spyridon wrote:On March 01 2016 05:49 lestye wrote:On March 01 2016 01:52 Spyridon wrote:On February 29 2016 16:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On February 29 2016 14:52 Spyridon wrote: Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams. Much of the teams are shared. Even David Kim was announced to have been working on Heroes. SC2 and Heroes are both worked on by "Team 1". Team 1 is the team that works on all of the Blizzard RTS-style games (WC/SC/Heroes).
That's exactly the reason why so many people are upset. It's not like Blizz doesn't have the manpower, or the quality of designers available, or the funds to do it. They simply have not chosen to and put other games as a higher priority. Which is alarming since this is pretty much the first time Blizzard has treated a game this way. It's in the state it's in by choice.
Which, btw, is also part of the reason people suspect they might just be working on another RTS. i don't think both Sigaty and Browder are lying or intentionally misleading Blizzard followers. ATVI is not funding another RTS because it generates too little revenue. LotV won't even make $0.1 Billion and the entire SC franchise since JUly 2010 has contributed less than 1.5% to ATVI's revenue stream. Sigaty said nothing will step on SC2's toes or enter its market-space for 10 years. i don't think he is hiding anything. he was careful about how he expressed himself to make sure he as not misleading the questioner. "Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams" its not a "popular belief" unless you're prepared to say Browder is outright lying. Browder stated teh Team-1 consists of 80 people and the Heroes team consists of 140 people. His tweets came within a week of each other. If you think he is bullshitting or intentionally misleading people with "slippery language" then call him out on it... and see what happens. here is the info i have based on sources i trust. The SC2 quote of 80 https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/697180199473934338The Heroes quote of 140+ https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/694939451701612544if you have sources to back your points you should include them. It's not "intentionally lying or misleading followers". It's called PR. It's why only certain members of the Blizz teams have authority to mention things like that. BTW, look at how many years it's been. If they announce a game at Blizzcon this year it would be released at the 10 year mark. Just because they have 80 people working on SC2, and 140 working on Heroes, doesn't mean those 80 people are not working on Heroes as well. Team 1 is the team that worked on BOTH SC2 and Heroes. Blizzard teams are NOT exclusive outside of lead positions. Notice how he NEVER stated that those people work "exclusively" on said game? I'm at work right now, but the development being with team 1 is public knowledge. Just doing a quick google of a source: http://heroes.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/heroes-of-the-storm-developer-qa-part-2-jan-22-2014-transcriptAn example quote: Kaeo– I am fortunate enough to have been here for 12 years. A little bit over 12 years at Blizzard now. Started out like a lot of people in our development teams have — in Quality Assurance (QA) sharing testing Warcraft III originally. Tech Support, just testing all the Warcraft in their early days. Also was the recruiter for Blizzard for a long time, the World of Warcraft team, the Cinematics Team, eventually I transitioned into production and I have been doing that for a little over 9 years on Blizzard almost, exclusively on Team 1 — which is the Heroes of the Storm Team and previously the StarCraft. You can also find other posts on Google about how Team 1 has separate sub teams, including an eSports team, that is also mentioned to been utilized by both SC2 and Heroes. Nowhere do they ever mention anything other than Team 1 is the team to work on both games. Blizzard - Team 1 = RTS-style games. Team 2 = WoW. Team 3 = Diablo. Team 4 = Titan/Overwatch. Team 5 = Hearthstone. Some other quotes regarding other RTS: Blizzard has revealed its RTS team may indeed revisit the Warcraft franchise once the last chapter in the StarCraft II story is complete. Speaking to IGN at Gamescom, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void producer Tim Morten admitted that while the potential is certainly there for StarCraft III focusing on all-new characters, it's not the only option available to them. "It’s very rewarding for us to hear that there’s demand out there for more RTS content in the Warcraft universe so once we’re done with Void I think we’ll get together as a team and talk about what would inspire us to work on next. There’s no question, though, that we’ll consider Warcraft, StarCraft, or even new ideas. Anything is possible." I think the individual esports team is very small insignficant compared to the actual esports team headed up by Kim Phan. Jimmy has already disputed that point with Tim Morten with this interview: http://www.pcgamesn.com/starcraft-ii/starcraft-2-the-next-ten-years"I can’t answer that because honestly we don’t know. Is it possible we work on something that steps on the toes of StarCraft? Yes, but there’s no intention to do that today, which is why I think it’s so critical and important how we treat it and how we continue to improve it and make things better - that matters. I think [StarCraft] absolutely stands as an amazing experience to both celebrate the people that get to that level of skill and quality and also to be able to watch and see that. While it’s possible we would [replace that], I don’t see it happening." Tim Morten is just a producer who just joined the company, the quoted interview is from a Blizzard lifer whose the EXECUTIVE producer The primary point of my post was that Team 1 is in charge of both games, and developers are split between the two games. The fact that they may be working on something on the side is a related point, but not the main point. Considering games are typically developed 1-2 years before they are even announced, it completely fits within the timeline. Either way, as it stands right now, Team 1 is split between SC2 and Heroes, with all the majority of SC development being put in to the mission pack coming out in a few months, and Heroes is getting a hell of a lot more development in the eSports, balancing, and multiplayer departments. The prospect of another RTS in development is just another potential thing that may slow down SC2 development even more. Een Kim Phan has mentioned working on Heroes multiple times. All this talk about "no other games stepping on SC2"... What do you think is happening as we speak when they are putting Heroes development ahead of SC2 and sharing a development team with them? Even by Browders own words Heroes has nearly double the size on their dev team. I completely understand they want to keep up the momentum of Heroes, but the way their treating SC2 is a first for the company. The game is suffering and needs that attention for multiplayer development. But their developing it for mission packs, and focusing their heaviest multiplayer efforts elsewhere. They mean an RTS stepping on SC2. Heroes is a completely different game. It's like what SC2 did when it came out, all the WC3 and foreign BW pros jumped ship for the new game. Also... Heroes needs all the development it can get. The game is incredibly unbalanced, doesn't have a proper drafting screen, lack of bans, there's no actual ranked play, you cant even target anything to see how much health it has. It's a huge mess I disagree, the multiplayer is always welcome for improvements, but you also what content to get people to check back in to SC2, specifically casuals. In a game like Dota or League, you can add a champion or a hero and it gets casuals flocking back to try it out. You can't really do that with units in SC. But if you had new content like Co-Op missions, and mission packs, you have more people checking back and paying attention to the game. It also gives them sustainable income to keep the team back on. I'm sure there's stuff they want to do down the pipeline but it can't be something that only appeals to one part of the fanbase. GRANTED, it's an important one. I guess it's a weird balance, you need to keep the dedicated people who are going to be playing your games for many years happy, as well as attracting old fans to check back in once in a while for a cool patch (which is what SC2 has been lacking because of my previous point of them holding back to put stuff on the back of the box) Things like coop missions didn't really bring people back to the game, because the core issues that people had with the game are still there. None of my friends bothered with LotV multiplayer, only 1 of them actually purchased it solely for the campaign, he tried coop two matches and then was done because it was more of the same. Of course more missions will bring in some cash flow. But the major problem with SC2 isn't the missions, it's the multiplayer. That's akin to a fighting game that stopped adding to the multiplayer aspect in favor of Vs CPU content. It doesn't make sense. The multiplayer is the true attraction of fighting games the same as RTS. To halt development on the primary attraction, especially when it has issues, in favor of vs CPU development, is not a typical thing for Blizzard to do. They never give up on their games in the past until their in a successful place. But in this case, multiplayer is in a dire need, but they choose to ignore it. Even with things like coop and archon, they aren't really doing anything substantial to bring new players in to the game at all. It's one of the biggest issues I've mentioned. That means rather than finding ways to improve the games, their simply minimizing losses. Why would casual players stay if they come back and see it's more of the same, and has all the same issues that made them quit? Sure, new modes are nice, but they aren't useful unless the core mechanics and gameplay are brought to a place where they can enjoy it to. Once they enjoy the actual gameplay again? Then new modes would help a lot! But if players already don't enjoy the core of the game itself, modes aren't going to help that... Development-wise, their making a very strong point that they feel their development time is better spent elsewhere. I, for one, wish it was spent on SC2's multiplayer. I feel of all Blizzards library, it's the game that needs assistance most right now. But instead of assistance, it's got some of the weakest development from Blizzards part... you don't know that. Blizzard said said it's very popular and that people have been playing it a "TON". If their investing resources in releasing new content for it and balancing it, surely they're getting some return out of it. It's something to do with their friends that isnt as stressful as 1v1 ladder. There are a bunch of people who wont touch 1v1 ladder because of the stress, which goes into your point where most casuals play the campaign and quit. That's why they're doing more campaign shit. It goes back to how barely anyone actually did WC3 ladder compared to Arcade and Campaign. And I have no idea how you think SC2 needs the most development when looking at HOTS/Hearthstone's ladder problems and lacking features. Like I said, the missing stuff from HOTS is just embarassing at this point. They're working on multiplayer improvements, (like the ladder changes), they're just super slow. Even looking at how many people are on the other teams, everything they do is just slow even if the team in question has double or triple the resources of a team you THINK they're pouring everything into. We can see how popular it is with our own eyes. Their balancing work has been extremely minor since LotV release, to say the least. A single designer (not even one familiar with coding) could have done all the changes presented to us with the SC editor. Some of the things you list for HotS are actually intentional design decisions, and some aren't even true. Your opinion on the games balance isn't shared by the pro community for the game, and is definitely not any more questionable than any other moba. Not sure what your problem with the draft interface is, and the game does have ranked play, and you can see how much HP a target has without having to select them first. Either you haven't played the game since alpha, or your just lying. On the eSports scene, Blizz is still developing HotS, they have had loads of new tournaments, over 2m payout last year, and the game is still growing, and although they haven't gave us numbers, it's obviously still highly profitable if their pumping out content at the rate they are. They are also scaling up the amount of tournaments and payouts this year, and putting a lot of effort in to the next HotD. They have even more tournaments planned for this year than last year, and even more investment in tournament rewards. You see a hell of a lot more growth in the HotS scene than you do in the SC2 scene right now. Just because this site is more focused on SC2 doesn't mean Heroes isn't doing well elsewhere. You may not like Hearthstone either, but it has the most momentum out of all Blizzards games right now. It's profitable, its competitive in tournaments, and it's bringing in loads of new players. They announced at the end of the year the Hearthstones profitability hit an all time high in Q4 of last year. Look up their financial results, and the insane amount of popularity and activity the game has. Then look at SC2. Right now it's not even as popular as D3 and D3 was known for its horrendous release. Do you see them scaling up the scene with more eSports support than earlier years? Look at their financial report at the end of the year, do you see any plans laid out for the series like they did with every other of their series'? The reason their super slow is because the team dedicated to it is extremely small (by Browders own words about half the side) as well as both games are Team 1 games, so the resources are being shared by SC2 and Heroes. Heroes is releasing damn sure more than double the content & balance updates than SC2 is getting right now. It's damn sure more popular overall than SC2 right now, and it's numbers are actually going up rather than down (in both tournament scene and populairty, just look at Twitch performance). And it's obviously more profitable, Blizzard put the development where the money is. And where is the SC2 development? In mission packs, not the multiplayer. The multiplayer and eSports development is being focused on other games. rather than investing more in sc2 tournament payouts, their investing their funds in to Heroes tournament payouts. Does that really not send u any sort of message? i thought the message from the all important Tim Morten who was yapping away during a slow news day at IGN ...was that they're making another RTS game? LOL. Kim and Browder have already directly refuted that only a "small team" is working on SC2. Browder through 2 tweets directly answering how many work on SC2 and Kim during a weekly update stating the "small team small resources" people are spewing it incorrect. have you ever made software for a large scale user base? the # of people who actually code is small. the testing, server admin, business analysts, customer feedback specialists etc.. can be 50 to 100 while 2 employees are code-monkeys. i can name dozens of software projects that work like exactly this way. and of course you're forgetting the legend of bob fitch. does that mean there were only 5 guys working on SC1 and Brood War because 1 guy made the engine? because 1 guy can "code a solution" does not mean there were 4 people working on SC1 and Brood War. same applies with ur 1 guy screwing with the MOD Kit to make the changes to LotV. Fire off a tweet to Day9. How many guys at Artillery are actually laying down code? Ask Greg Black how many people at EALA actually laid down code? it was never more than 4 guys. does this mean EALA had 10 employees? umm no. ATVI is going to pull the plug on RTS in the next year though. There will still be the WCS and Blizzcon and so forth, but they're not going to be devoting huge resources to further enhance SC2 beyond 2017. As I've said it made less than 1.5% of ATVI's revenue in the past 6 years and the probability of LotV making even $0.1 Billion is zero.
Funny how you latch on to the quote from Morten, as if there's anything wrong with the guy, I dont particularly care either way for the guy but apparently you have a prob with him.
Ironic that the things your claiming "Tim Morten said" were actually posted were from a 12 year Blizzard employee & producer. It even said that in the part I quoted. Way to show you didn't even read the link nor what was presented to you in the quote, and are just disagreeing for the sake of it.
Browder simply stated how many people are on the team of both games. He left out how many of those people were working on which game and/or both games. Both games are Team 1 games, which means the number of those developers actively working on the game right now is lower than the numbers provided - Team 1 is working on both games, as well as they can say the eSports team is working on both games. But look how much eSports investment is being dedicated to each game...
Yes I know how software development works, it's been my career for over 20 years, and I've studied game design during my whole software design career as well. Which is why I get so upset with the develoment and design of the game.
The problem isn't even the coding time, it's the amount of time spent actually developing the game. Do you really think it took a lot of time for them to come up with what they been giving us in weekly updates? Balance changes and such take very little coding, it's the decision making that takes work, and there's been very little effort on that front in general since LotV.
If LotV isn't very profitable as you say, isn't that itself an indication that the series needs some help? It used to be debatably Blizzards #1 series. Right now it could be argued (for reasons I presented earlier) that it's Blizzards weakest series atm.
Oh and BTW, after all the ridicule of Morten, the person who actually said the quote I posted (not Morten) had Browder sitting right next to him. So it's not like he doesn't have any credibility.
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Morten does not make money decisions. that does not make him good or bad it just means what he says about the future of the company does not mean much.
Sigaty already said his piece. you can ignore it if you want. Kim is also on the record as well. again you can pretend he never said it and at the end of the day you can dream up whatever background narrative you like.
Here is the bottom line: the SC franchise has represented less than 1.5% of ATVI's revenue and therefore LotV is ATVIs last investment in the RTS genre,, enjoy it while it lasts.
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On February 29 2016 14:52 Spyridon wrote: ATVI is going to pull the plug on RTS in the next year though. There will still be the WCS and Blizzcon and so forth, but they're not going to be devoting huge resources to further enhance SC2 beyond 2017. As I've said it made less than 1.5% of ATVI's revenue in the past 6 years and the probability of LotV making even $0.1 Billion is zero.
Can you post the definitive link where it states that? Six years is a long breadth, I wouldn't be too surprised, I would just like you to show your facts where your mouth is. Call of Duty releases games every year that sell millions of copies, WoW has a constant subscriber base, its easy to see why they would share so much of the space, but the thing is... As they figured out with ghost, you can't just make new games that compete with each other. They dominate the RTS genre, its obvious, and they're working on how to monetize the shit out of it.
Legacy of the Void sold over a million games within 24 hours, and have hundreds of thousands of players still playing monthly, I mean its not a whole lot compared to other stuff but this is a constant. This will not fade away, these players just like RTS and I mean, that's a pretty good share to make money off of. How many Call of Duty players really pay attention to the pro-scene(not saying it doesn't have one, it does and its huge, but the majority of their players don't really give a F who the best is.) If SC2 was a net-negative... Why would they have not killed the esports scene? They increased the prize pool this year, all-around, and constantly include MLG in their statements for the future.
I dunno man, your mind is too much of a tunnel. Strategy games(talking all of them, city-builders, turn-based, etc) have always been a mainstay in PC and won't go, especially with Activision-Blizzard at the helm, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world(behind the likes of only like nintendo and microsoft.) So Starcraft doesn't bring in millions of players every month, that isn't a problem, most games don't, and they go on living for years.
If nothing else convinces you to the livelihood of this game, just tune into GSL, and listen to Tasteless' passion. I swear him and Artosis(who is a softer judge and has gotten flak in the past for defending Blizz too much in the past) have never spoken better about the state of the game. They love it. They want it known and they say it makes them feel just like it was Brood War again. I'm sure if they were young enough, they both would no doubt be in the scene playing again in an instant. They say its improving in Korea(finally admitting it was in a state of diminishing presence) and constantly report on the size of the crowd. This is proof Starcraft will live on without Blizzard, Korea will always support the scene, and if you truly love Starcraft than that should be enough for you, because it was for them a decade ago.
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+ Show Spoiler +[QUOTE]On March 01 2016 09:56 Spyridon wrote: [QUOTE]On March 01 2016 08:26 lestye wrote: [QUOTE]On March 01 2016 08:15 Spyridon wrote: [QUOTE]On March 01 2016 07:42 lestye wrote: [QUOTE]On March 01 2016 06:24 Spyridon wrote: [QUOTE]On March 01 2016 05:49 lestye wrote: [QUOTE]On March 01 2016 01:52 Spyridon wrote: [QUOTE]On February 29 2016 16:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote: [QUOTE]On February 29 2016 14:52 Spyridon wrote: Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams. Much of the teams are shared. Even David Kim was announced to have been working on Heroes. SC2 and Heroes are both worked on by "Team 1". Team 1 is the team that works on all of the Blizzard RTS-style games (WC/SC/Heroes).
That's exactly the reason why so many people are upset. It's not like Blizz doesn't have the manpower, or the quality of designers available, or the funds to do it. They simply have not chosen to and put other games as a higher priority. Which is alarming since this is pretty much the first time Blizzard has treated a game this way. It's in the state it's in by choice.
Which, btw, is also part of the reason people suspect they might just be working on another RTS.[/QUOTE]
i don't think both Sigaty and Browder are lying or intentionally misleading Blizzard followers. ATVI is not funding another RTS because it generates too little revenue. LotV won't even make $0.1 Billion and the entire SC franchise since JUly 2010 has contributed less than 1.5% to ATVI's revenue stream.
Sigaty said nothing will step on SC2's toes or enter its market-space for 10 years. i don't think he is hiding anything. he was careful about how he expressed himself to make sure he as not misleading the questioner.
"Contrary to popular belief, SC2 and Heroes don't have completely separate teams"
its not a "popular belief" unless you're prepared to say Browder is outright lying. Browder stated teh Team-1 consists of 80 people and the Heroes team consists of 140 people. His tweets came within a week of each other. If you think he is bullshitting or intentionally misleading people with "slippery language" then call him out on it... and see what happens.
here is the info i have based on sources i trust.
The SC2 quote of 80 [url=https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/697180199473934338]https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/697180199473934338[/url]
The Heroes quote of 140+ [url=https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/694939451701612544]https://twitter.com/DustinBrowder/status/694939451701612544[/url]
if you have sources to back your points you should include them.
[/QUOTE]
It's not "intentionally lying or misleading followers". It's called PR. It's why only certain members of the Blizz teams have authority to mention things like that. BTW, look at how many years it's been. If they announce a game at Blizzcon this year it would be released at the 10 year mark.
Just because they have 80 people working on SC2, and 140 working on Heroes, doesn't mean those 80 people are not working on Heroes as well. Team 1 is the team that worked on BOTH SC2 and Heroes. Blizzard teams are NOT exclusive outside of lead positions.
Notice how he NEVER stated that those people work "exclusively" on said game?
I'm at work right now, but the development being with team 1 is public knowledge. Just doing a quick google of a source: [url=http://heroes.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/heroes-of-the-storm-developer-qa-part-2-jan-22-2014-transcript]http://heroes.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/heroes-of-the-storm-developer-qa-part-2-jan-22-2014-transcript[/url]
An example quote:
[QUOTE]Kaeo– I am fortunate enough to have been here for 12 years. A little bit over 12 years at Blizzard now. Started out like a lot of people in our development teams have — in Quality Assurance (QA) sharing testing Warcraft III originally. Tech Support, just testing all the Warcraft in their early days. Also was the recruiter for Blizzard for a long time, the World of Warcraft team, the Cinematics Team, eventually I transitioned into production and I have been doing that for a little over 9 years on Blizzard almost, exclusively on Team 1 — which is the Heroes of the Storm Team and previously the StarCraft.[/QUOTE]
You can also find other posts on Google about how Team 1 has separate sub teams, including an eSports team, that is also mentioned to been utilized by both SC2 and Heroes. Nowhere do they ever mention anything other than Team 1 is the team to work on both games.
Blizzard - Team 1 = RTS-style games. Team 2 = WoW. Team 3 = Diablo. Team 4 = Titan/Overwatch. Team 5 = Hearthstone.
Some other quotes regarding other RTS:
[QUOTE]Blizzard has revealed its RTS team may indeed revisit the Warcraft franchise once the last chapter in the StarCraft II story is complete. Speaking to IGN at Gamescom, StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void producer Tim Morten admitted that while the potential is certainly there for StarCraft III focusing on all-new characters, it's not the only option available to them.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]"It’s very rewarding for us to hear that there’s demand out there for more RTS content in the Warcraft universe so once we’re done with Void I think we’ll get together as a team and talk about what would inspire us to work on next. There’s no question, though, that we’ll consider Warcraft, StarCraft, or even new ideas. Anything is possible."[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
I think the individual esports team is very small insignficant compared to the actual esports team headed up by Kim Phan.
Jimmy has already disputed that point with Tim Morten with this interview: [url=http://www.pcgamesn.com/starcraft-ii/starcraft-2-the-next-ten-years]http://www.pcgamesn.com/starcraft-ii/starcraft-2-the-next-ten-years[/url]
[quote]"I can’t answer that because honestly we don’t know. Is it possible we work on something that steps on the toes of StarCraft? Yes, but there’s no intention to do that today, which is why I think it’s so critical and important how we treat it and how we continue to improve it and make things better - that matters. I think [StarCraft] absolutely stands as an amazing experience to both celebrate the people that get to that level of skill and quality and also to be able to watch and see that. While it’s possible we would [replace that], I don’t see it happening."[/quote]
Tim Morten is just a producer who just joined the company, the quoted interview is from a Blizzard lifer whose the EXECUTIVE producer [/QUOTE]
The primary point of my post was that Team 1 is in charge of both games, and developers are split between the two games. The fact that they may be working on something on the side is a related point, but not the main point. Considering games are typically developed 1-2 years before they are even announced, it completely fits within the timeline.
Either way, as it stands right now, Team 1 is split between SC2 and Heroes, with all the majority of SC development being put in to the mission pack coming out in a few months, and Heroes is getting a hell of a lot more development in the eSports, balancing, and multiplayer departments. The prospect of another RTS in development is just another potential thing that may slow down SC2 development even more. Een Kim Phan has mentioned working on Heroes multiple times.
All this talk about "no other games stepping on SC2"... What do you think is happening as we speak when they are putting Heroes development ahead of SC2 and sharing a development team with them? Even by Browders own words Heroes has nearly double the size on their dev team.
I completely understand they want to keep up the momentum of Heroes, but the way their treating SC2 is a first for the company. The game is suffering and needs that attention for multiplayer development. But their developing it for mission packs, and focusing their heaviest multiplayer efforts elsewhere.[/QUOTE]
They mean an RTS stepping on SC2. Heroes is a completely different game. It's like what SC2 did when it came out, all the WC3 and foreign BW pros jumped ship for the new game.
Also... Heroes needs all the development it can get. The game is incredibly unbalanced, doesn't have a proper drafting screen, lack of bans, there's no actual ranked play, you cant even target anything to see how much health it has. It's a huge mess
I disagree, the multiplayer is always welcome for improvements, but you also what content to get people to check back in to SC2, specifically casuals. In a game like Dota or League, you can add a champion or a hero and it gets casuals flocking back to try it out. You can't really do that with units in SC. But if you had new content like Co-Op missions, and mission packs, you have more people checking back and paying attention to the game. It also gives them sustainable income to keep the team back on. I'm sure there's stuff they want to do down the pipeline but it can't be something that only appeals to one part of the fanbase.
GRANTED, it's an important one. I guess it's a weird balance, you need to keep the dedicated people who are going to be playing your games for many years happy, as well as attracting old fans to check back in once in a while for a cool patch (which is what SC2 has been lacking because of my previous point of them holding back to put stuff on the back of the box)[/QUOTE] \...\\ It's been minor for a reason. They dont want to knee jerk nerf/buff something, when the community/pros can take time to figure out if it is super OP or not. It's how a metagame develops. There were times when during Brood War, people thought the game was solved and a certain race is underpowered or overpowered...until someone figures out that's not the case. That has been the case in SC2 for quite some time. Some times they were way too conservative and took WAAAAY too long to balance shit. But thats their M.O.
And no, regarding HOTS, a few weeks ago there were tons of complaints of them being incredibly slow. The last month they've been balancing every week, but that was after months of bitching about how broken the game is. https://np.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/404mev/chu8_here_this_is_my_concern/
https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/40jwiu/blizzard_we_need_more_balance_patches_more/
They've only been balancing the game weeky/biweekly for a few weeks now.
And they've been promising "grandmaster" and a new MMR system for a long time now. The abomination they're using is some weird mix of Hearthstone and SC2. We're still in "Pre-Season" no actual Season, no rewards , no grandmaster, no actual ladder. and NO you can't look at how much health someone has, you can look at their health bar and TAKE A GUESS, but you cant say "oh this guy has 200 hp" you can't say that, you can only guess "oh he's pretty low". Thats what I mean, you have no idea how much health something is by using in game tools besides yourself. and the DRAFT SCREEN IS terrible. Theres 3 pages, and most importantly YOU CAN'T DRAFT/SWAP PICKS. In tournaments THEY HAVE TO USE A WEBSITE TO DRAFT because the in-game client is so inadequate and doesn't even have bans which the competitive scene has been using for a year now.
Blizzard has put a shit ton of money in Hots pro scene, but thats just because they have so much competition. Their tournament numbers arent that good. They subsidize the entire scene. Looking at their streamer numbers, its not THAT popular as an esport, but they might be making bank/maybe its just not a fun streaming/esport to watch/maybe their investing for long-term.
I LOVE Hearthstone. I was only using it as an example because your points dont hold up when we compare it to their other games. Hearthstone is probably one of the biggest money makers, yet they havent balanced it AT ALL. Content patches, help with that, not necessarily balancing the actual game, to your point. Just because your game is popular, doesnt mean it's going to get a ridiculous amount of changes.
and I'm not sure where you're going with the Diablo comparison. Diablo is always going to be more popular because its not a 1v1 competitive game, its fun to play to friends. It sold 30 million copies for Christ's sake, its one of the biggest games ever. 3m people a month played that game, even in Vanilla.
For your last point, like I said before still stands. HOTS has the luxury of needing to add new heroes, as thats where they make money, and thats the appeal of the genre, and most importantly, the game is incredibly bare bones. Not only features but hero count alone. Their twitch performance is not good at all. Besides Blizzcon, the only time they break the top of Twitch's front page is this weekend with the Vegas event.
I guess i don't see eye-to-eye because I honestly don't know what you're expecting. HOTS is going to get content with heroes, and creative objective based maps (which no other moba is going to have). its way more imbalanced, and its easier to try to balance than SC2, so more frequent balance patches are expected. The only "content" they can add really is season map changes (which I do agree its kinda fucked that they didnt change anything in the last season), and skins, which is something they're working on in the pipeline. Thats why theyre making map packs because thats way easier income because , like you said, a lot of people like the campaign but dont play ladder.
Basically I think you're misconstruing lack of balance changes = they dont give a shit, when their weekly feedback threads clearly expresses their intention. They're being conservative because of the competitive scene, because they want to nerf/buff things in a good way that positively affects all match ups. Because it doesnt help anyone if you nerf X unit to make PvZ more balanced, but then TvP becomes even MORE imbalanced because you didnt consider the ramifications.
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On March 01 2016 15:09 lestye wrote: It's been minor for a reason. They dont want to knee jerk nerf/buff something, when the community/pros can take time to figure out if it is super OP or not. It's how a metagame develops. There were times when during Brood War, people thought the game was solved and a certain race is underpowered or overpowered...until someone figures out that's not the case. That has been the case in SC2 for quite some time. Some times they were way too conservative and took WAAAAY too long to balance shit. But thats their M.O.
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Basically I think you're misconstruing lack of balance changes = they dont give a shit, when their weekly feedback threads clearly expresses their intention. They're being conservative because of the competitive scene, because they want to nerf/buff things in a good way that positively affects all match ups. Because it doesnt help anyone if you nerf X unit to make PvZ more balanced, but then TvP becomes even MORE imbalanced because you didnt consider the ramifications.
It's more than balance changes, it's a load of issues.
Their weekly feedback changes turned from actual communication to PR last summer. Further than not many balance changes, they have put very little development effort at all. The features they mentioned in the "Future of StarCraft" at Blizzcon got pushed back until after the Nova mission packs, which is prioritizing missions over the multiplayer issues of the game, and them wanting to be paid again before delivering what they said they would.
It's also the fact that the LotV release date was pushed UP when the game needed more dev time. They rushed it out by Blizzcon when even the official Blizzard store page said it was to be released in March 2016.
Their solutions are tweaks to things people are complaining about at the time, rather than decisions made to repair the overall design and make sure the issues are fixed for good. For example, medivac tank drops have been debated lately even on their end. These mechanics shouldnt be implemented "because they sound cool" or "to give them mobility". It should have an overall design reason that meshes with the race! It should be part of the race for a specific reason, it should have its place in the synergy with other units, and other units should have synergy with it, it's timings should be specific for a reason, etc. But it's really not, and the fact that they are debating if they shohuld keep it or not, shows that they don't really have a solid design direction to back it up. Whether to keep it or not should be a simple decision based upon their design goals. Do they even have any design goals? Look thru the design posts on this site and you can find dozens examples of unclear design.
None of that is fixed. Very few if any new players are being encouraged to play the game. The developments not focused on growth and is rather focused on minimizing losses. Their content their giving us is for a quick cash grab from vs CPU players when multiplayers suffering.
Regarding your last paragraph, if they really were worried about any of that, half of the changes LotV made shouldn't have been made, and if they were going to do changes like that, then they shouldnt have pushed up the release date to where they didn't have time to sufficiently balance the game around those changes. They reverted changes they were working on for longer than 3 months, and made major balance changes under a month and a half before release, and the beta wasn't even up for 1/3 that time. The metagame didnt even settle after their changes and they deemed the game as "release ready".
Can you even look at the final beta patches and say there wasn't any "knee jerk nerfs or buffs"?? Can you really say the competitive scene is happy with the way they have been handling LotV? Can you say they are really keeping their old fans happy, or new players happy?
The only player base I see that is actually happy are the ones looking forward to the Nova mission pack, and that's only one person I know. In general, people don't even really care about SC2 anymore. Even though my friends didnt play they still followed the pro scene for many years, and now they even gave up on that.
For the last few years I've basically watched a game series I love get turned to shit. Seen some potential improvement last summer during beta for the first time in years, invested in the game again, and then they switched it up and turned the game in to something different. I've seen public reception as well as pro reception plummet. And I've gotten upset that it hasn't gotten the treatment that EVERY other Blizzard game has gotten when it was down. They have repaired and resolved issues with every other one of their series', and SC2 needs that treatment VERY badly right now, and they aren't giving it. Their development is in areas that aren't even the main focus of the game - SC2 at it's core is known for it's multilplayer, and multiplayer is taking a back seat to mission development. They push back multiplayer features until their priorities of single player content are completed. I've seen the design because more convoluted and lack direction more than ever. I've seen one of the lead designers specifically state that they intentionally chose inferior design for PR reasons. Their priorities are screwed. The designers offer us more PR than actual design work. They blame us in the community for all of their failings.
I could even go on further, but there's no need. The point is, there's dozens of reasons why I'm upset, and why the community in general is upset with the game, or has decided to completely disregard the game. Their development on the game is appalling. I would not feel right recommending this game to any of my friends in the current state. Even if I had a friend who ONLY enjoyed RTS games, I would not recommend this game right now. My only feelings I've had with SC2 since last summer have been frustration with the development team, frustration with the changes they say their going to do and decide not to, and upset at the changes they actually decide to put live that the majority of the player base don't even want. I don't really have anything good to say about the game or the design team in its current state. If their okay with the games reception suffering as well as the competitive scene in decline, who am I to argue? Just go according to plan and spend developers time on Mission packs, because that will make everything all better, right?
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On March 02 2016 01:38 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2016 15:09 lestye wrote: It's been minor for a reason. They dont want to knee jerk nerf/buff something, when the community/pros can take time to figure out if it is super OP or not. It's how a metagame develops. There were times when during Brood War, people thought the game was solved and a certain race is underpowered or overpowered...until someone figures out that's not the case. That has been the case in SC2 for quite some time. Some times they were way too conservative and took WAAAAY too long to balance shit. But thats their M.O.
.....
Basically I think you're misconstruing lack of balance changes = they dont give a shit, when their weekly feedback threads clearly expresses their intention. They're being conservative because of the competitive scene, because they want to nerf/buff things in a good way that positively affects all match ups. Because it doesnt help anyone if you nerf X unit to make PvZ more balanced, but then TvP becomes even MORE imbalanced because you didnt consider the ramifications.
It's more than balance changes, it's a load of issues. Their weekly feedback changes turned from actual communication to PR last summer. Further than not many balance changes, they have put very little development effort at all. The features they mentioned in the "Future of StarCraft" at Blizzcon got pushed back until after the Nova mission packs, which is prioritizing missions over the multiplayer issues of the game, and them wanting to be paid again before delivering what they said they would. It's also the fact that the LotV release date was pushed UP when the game needed more dev time. They rushed it out by Blizzcon when even the official Blizzard store page said it was to be released in March 2016. Their solutions are tweaks to things people are complaining about at the time, rather than decisions made to repair the overall design and make sure the issues are fixed for good. For example, medivac tank drops have been debated lately even on their end. These mechanics shouldnt be implemented "because they sound cool" or "to give them mobility". It should have an overall design reason that meshes with the race! It should be part of the race for a specific reason, it should have its place in the synergy with other units, and other units should have synergy with it, it's timings should be specific for a reason, etc. But it's really not, and the fact that they are debating if they shohuld keep it or not, shows that they don't really have a solid design direction to back it up. Whether to keep it or not should be a simple decision based upon their design goals. Do they even have any design goals? Look thru the design posts on this site and you can find dozens examples of unclear design. None of that is fixed. Very few if any new players are being encouraged to play the game. The developments not focused on growth and is rather focused on minimizing losses. Their content their giving us is for a quick cash grab from vs CPU players when multiplayers suffering. Regarding your last paragraph, if they really were worried about any of that, half of the changes LotV made shouldn't have been made, and if they were going to do changes like that, then they shouldnt have pushed up the release date to where they didn't have time to sufficiently balance the game around those changes. They reverted changes they were working on for longer than 3 months, and made major balance changes under a month and a half before release, and the beta wasn't even up for 1/3 that time. The metagame didnt even settle after their changes and they deemed the game as "release ready". Can you even look at the final beta patches and say there wasn't any "knee jerk nerfs or buffs"?? Can you really say the competitive scene is happy with the way they have been handling LotV? Can you say they are really keeping their old fans happy, or new players happy? The only player base I see that is actually happy are the ones looking forward to the Nova mission pack, and that's only one person I know. In general, people don't even really care about SC2 anymore. Even though my friends didnt play they still followed the pro scene for many years, and now they even gave up on that. For the last few years I've basically watched a game series I love get turned to shit. Seen some potential improvement last summer during beta for the first time in years, invested in the game again, and then they switched it up and turned the game in to something different. I've seen public reception as well as pro reception plummet. And I've gotten upset that it hasn't gotten the treatment that EVERY other Blizzard game has gotten when it was down. They have repaired and resolved issues with every other one of their series', and SC2 needs that treatment VERY badly right now, and they aren't giving it. Their development is in areas that aren't even the main focus of the game - SC2 at it's core is known for it's multilplayer, and multiplayer is taking a back seat to mission development. They push back multiplayer features until their priorities of single player content are completed. I've seen the design because more convoluted and lack direction more than ever. I've seen one of the lead designers specifically state that they intentionally chose inferior design for PR reasons. Their priorities are screwed. The designers offer us more PR than actual design work. They blame us in the community for all of their failings. I could even go on further, but there's no need. The point is, there's dozens of reasons why I'm upset, and why the community in general is upset with the game, or has decided to completely disregard the game. Their development on the game is appalling. I would not feel right recommending this game to any of my friends in the current state. Even if I had a friend who ONLY enjoyed RTS games, I would not recommend this game right now. My only feelings I've had with SC2 since last summer have been frustration with the development team, frustration with the changes they say their going to do and decide not to, and upset at the changes they actually decide to put live that the majority of the player base don't even want. I don't really have anything good to say about the game or the design team in its current state. If their okay with the games reception suffering as well as the competitive scene in decline, who am I to argue? Just go according to plan and spend developers time on Mission packs, because that will make everything all better, right?
.... That date is what they ALWAYS give as a CONSERVATIVE estimate since they're TAKING MONEY. I highly doubt they rushed it out just to compete with the biggest game of the year, Fallout 4.
How can you even say the features they promised in the "Future of Starcraft" was pushed back when they said at the event it was shit they had on the horizon/in the future?
There's a reason why shit like tank medivacs isn't fixed...it's because the community is split. You're pointing at it saying "WHY ISNT THIS FIXED? IT DOESNT MESH WITH THE RACE!!!" when half the community doesnt see anything to be fixed because it adds interesting gameplay and WANT to keep it in. By snipping that part of the game and taking it away, that's not necessarily a fix in a lot of people's eyes. That's why they're conservative with those changes.
You're being really outrageous by overexaggerating any perceived problems with multiplayer atm.
You're acting as if every pro on the planet is making the consensus that its the worst iteration of Starcraft, when that couldnt be further from the truth. The game isn't in a dystopia imbalance and design.
I'm very confused where you're coming from saying it needs it BADLY. We know they're playing with an idea on how to balance stuff, but they're being very conservative not wanting to rush out changes. It's not a thing where they don't want to balance RIGHT NOW because every one is working on the map packs. and they're saying "fuck multiplayer"..its that they're not sure what the best path is to balance. You even said yourself it wouldnt take that long in the editor to implement the changes.
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Bot edit.
User was banned for this post.
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I think overall the developpers have lost track of what they want SC2 to be (there was originally no clear direction other than making "cool" units, selling units & terrible damage, + making a game that is easier to play for RTS newcomers or casuals), don't understand the game on a deep level like most players who are say Master & over, and can't rely on pro feedback to fight making accurate/honest criticism/analysis because they are making a living playing the game as it is.
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Russian Federation421 Posts
On March 01 2016 10:19 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2016 10:12 NonY wrote:I think it'd be possible to make a more strategy-based RTS, but why? I don't think there's any magic to discover in a game that doesn't have the demanding mechanics of SC but isn't turn-based. Maybe I'm the unimaginative naysayer that'll be proven wrong but I just don't get it. BW, and because it's more fun interesting exciting and you learn more things playing it. Just my opinion. BW has far more demanding mechanics than SC II. There are multiple control limitations. What was acceptable 20 years ago is a bad design now, a game with such controls would never be popular even with modern graphics. BW is not what people ask for when they mention "strategy-based RTS".
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On March 02 2016 02:30 Ingvar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2016 10:19 ProMeTheus112 wrote:On March 01 2016 10:12 NonY wrote:I think it'd be possible to make a more strategy-based RTS, but why? I don't think there's any magic to discover in a game that doesn't have the demanding mechanics of SC but isn't turn-based. Maybe I'm the unimaginative naysayer that'll be proven wrong but I just don't get it. BW, and because it's more fun interesting exciting and you learn more things playing it. Just my opinion. BW has far more demanding mechanics than SC II. There are multiple control limitations. What was acceptable 20 years ago is a bad design now, a game with such controls would never be popular even with modern graphics. BW is not what people ask for when they mention "strategy-based RTS". I replied BW as an example of a RTS that has more strategy than SC2, and why would people want more strategy in a RTS. I agree with you that the control limitations of BW would have no place in a new modern RTS (no automine, no MBS, and surely 12 unit selection limit too). However, despite being mechanically more demanding (not only for lack of these features but also for the mechanics of combat and overall more things going on on the map), BW also has deeper strategy.
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On February 27 2016 22:40 mammuluk wrote:
2) The Second Issue: Brood War’s come back At point 1) I wrote about SC2, from point 2) we are gonna discuss the possible competitors. Let’s start we an apparently unbelievable option, which is actually really concrete: one of the strongest Starcraft 2 competitors could be its predecessor! In Korea we can already see a certain approach, Starleague is regularly active, a lot of players leave sc2 and come back to play with their “first love” and often the Team Liquid’s Streaming column show us that Brood War streamings really can defeat Legacy’s ones: a title from 1998 which can compete with a game realeased on last November, pretty impressive. But the fact is that, out of Asia the first sc seems be apreciated only by most nostalgic purist. That’s why it’s hard to imagine a global rebirth of BW. Then we could make another distinction about this option: BW’s reproduction could happen with a new HD graphic too, some time ago an Arcade mod that reproduced BW (called Starbow, if I’m not wrong) had a good success (also with some dedicated tournaments). This choice could cause other problems too, based on the fact that lots of people actually love BW for what it is and for everything it is. And another doubt could just be if it is worth a move to renew SC by recreating an almost 20 yars old game. It is fascinating to me, but could potential “new” players apreciate that?
In my opinion A new Brood War is not totally impossible, but probably doesn’t answer to the necessity of the community (and not even of Blizzard).
i play Broodwar a lot atm, i think i have a very good grasp on it's foreign scene and playerbase, so let me explain a couple of things to you regarding broodwar's playerbase. The average player is not some sort of elitist, nostalgic purist. This game takes a lot of dedication and motivation to get decent in it( even for players who have played bw on a high level before) just being nostalgic wouldn't help.
I'd say the average player appreciates it's strategical depths, taxing macro and micro mechanics and some of the play patterns that are unique to BW and not seen in similar games.
- Starbow didn't reproduce BW and it didnt aim to do so. it came closer to BW in certain gaming aspects, yet the appeal for us to play it isn't the greatest.
- ultimativly, im not sure what you mean by phrases like: "what this community needs" We all want a game we genuinly enjoy and we are happy to invite everybody who wants to give sc:bw a try. If you meant to say "what the community needs" is a game with some big commercial and sponsor interest, no it's not going to be BW or a HD Release of it,simple because esports works on the assumption that the "esport" aspect is going to sell more of your product (be it an old fashioned box, or a skin for your MOBA of choice) and some HD doesn't warrant the necessary sales.
Then again, i don't think this community "needs" a game that is going to be the next big esport thing.
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Ultimately, regardless of how deep that strategy is, you need mechanical skill to actually get to that level of strategy. For better or worse.
And that's how he feels about SC TWO, which is super care-bear is comparison.
Think about what people would think of SC1
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Thank you Spyridon, your voicing my exact feelings about the game. I only watch LotV when Maru is playing, just because im a huge fanboy, and even then I am annoyed with the game. I'd better just not watch anymore either. Such a shame to lose interest in my favourite game.
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I think Starcraft 3 with more races would be the best option. One of the problems with Starcraft is that there are only 6 matchups in 1v1. I personally prefer team games and always play random just to increase the variety.
Adding in 3 races would increase the number of 1v1 matchups from 6 to 21.
Also, I think more emphasis should be put on team games. The most popular games like CS-GO, League and Dota are all team games. People just like to play with their friends, so overly emphasizing 1v1 hurt Starcraft. I remember the day we started to play Dota on game nights was because we had 5 people. 6v6 vs bots or 3v3 with a bot thrown in made for a crappy game compared to all of us on the same team in Dota.
If you could play 6v6 with 6 different races then the number of matchups goes to 85,078.
EDIT: Having too many units per race can be bit confusing. For a new player to jump in and play fewer units is preferred for their race. in Dota you get 4 spells for you hero. You do not expect to understand the 400 abilities that the other heroes might have, but at least you know what you can do. For the same reason I think that more races with fewer units each would be desirable.
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+ Show Spoiler +On March 01 2016 15:01 Jako473 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 29 2016 14:52 Spyridon wrote: ATVI is going to pull the plug on RTS in the next year though. There will still be the WCS and Blizzcon and so forth, but they're not going to be devoting huge resources to further enhance SC2 beyond 2017. As I've said it made less than 1.5% of ATVI's revenue in the past 6 years and the probability of LotV making even $0.1 Billion is zero. Can you post the definitive link where it states that? Six years is a long breadth, I wouldn't be too surprised, I would just like you to show your facts where your mouth is. Call of Duty releases games every year that sell millions of copies, WoW has a constant subscriber base, its easy to see why they would share so much of the space, but the thing is... As they figured out with ghost, you can't just make new games that compete with each other. They dominate the RTS genre, its obvious, and they're working on how to monetize the shit out of it. Legacy of the Void sold over a million games within 24 hours, and have hundreds of thousands of players still playing monthly, I mean its not a whole lot compared to other stuff but this is a constant. This will not fade away, these players just like RTS and I mean, that's a pretty good share to make money off of. How many Call of Duty players really pay attention to the pro-scene(not saying it doesn't have one, it does and its huge, but the majority of their players don't really give a F who the best is.) If SC2 was a net-negative... Why would they have not killed the esports scene? They increased the prize pool this year, all-around, and constantly include MLG in their statements for the future. I dunno man, your mind is too much of a tunnel. Strategy games(talking all of them, city-builders, turn-based, etc) have always been a mainstay in PC and won't go, especially with Activision-Blizzard at the helm, one of the biggest gaming companies in the world(behind the likes of only like nintendo and microsoft.) So Starcraft doesn't bring in millions of players every month, that isn't a problem, most games don't, and they go on living for years. If nothing else convinces you to the livelihood of this game, just tune into GSL, and listen to Tasteless' passion. I swear him and Artosis(who is a softer judge and has gotten flak in the past for defending Blizz too much in the past) have never spoken better about the state of the game. They love it. They want it known and they say it makes them feel just like it was Brood War again. I'm sure if they were young enough, they both would no doubt be in the scene playing again in an instant. They say its improving in Korea(finally admitting it was in a state of diminishing presence) and constantly report on the size of the crowd. This is proof Starcraft will live on without Blizzard, Korea will always support the scene, and if you truly love Starcraft than that should be enough for you, because it was for them a decade ago.
the game is a lot of fun. i think its great. that does not mean it does well financially. Relative to ATVI's other big properties the SC franchise makes a tiny fraction of cash. as i've stated before in the past 6 years including the WoL July 2010 release SC contributed less than 1.5% towards ATVI revenues.
me thinking the game is great.. GSL being really cool ... is not a replacement for the 100s of millions or even billions of dollars ATVI demands in order to continue their investment.
selling 1 million copies does not even translate into $0.05 Billion. That money unit is not a mistake. its how ATVI measures its revenue.. in billions.
and Starcraft2 is far and away the biggest money maker in the entire genre. No other RTS title has come close. Most of Brood War's 9 million sold occurred after the game had been heavily discounted and you could buy it at retail in the $20 Battle Chest with the base game and expansion combined. Keep in mind retail gobbles up a big piece of that $20.
This only ends one way.. and its with ATVI pulling the plug.
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On March 02 2016 01:58 lestye wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2016 01:38 Spyridon wrote:On March 01 2016 15:09 lestye wrote: It's been minor for a reason. They dont want to knee jerk nerf/buff something, when the community/pros can take time to figure out if it is super OP or not. It's how a metagame develops. There were times when during Brood War, people thought the game was solved and a certain race is underpowered or overpowered...until someone figures out that's not the case. That has been the case in SC2 for quite some time. Some times they were way too conservative and took WAAAAY too long to balance shit. But thats their M.O.
.....
Basically I think you're misconstruing lack of balance changes = they dont give a shit, when their weekly feedback threads clearly expresses their intention. They're being conservative because of the competitive scene, because they want to nerf/buff things in a good way that positively affects all match ups. Because it doesnt help anyone if you nerf X unit to make PvZ more balanced, but then TvP becomes even MORE imbalanced because you didnt consider the ramifications.
It's more than balance changes, it's a load of issues. Their weekly feedback changes turned from actual communication to PR last summer. Further than not many balance changes, they have put very little development effort at all. The features they mentioned in the "Future of StarCraft" at Blizzcon got pushed back until after the Nova mission packs, which is prioritizing missions over the multiplayer issues of the game, and them wanting to be paid again before delivering what they said they would. It's also the fact that the LotV release date was pushed UP when the game needed more dev time. They rushed it out by Blizzcon when even the official Blizzard store page said it was to be released in March 2016. Their solutions are tweaks to things people are complaining about at the time, rather than decisions made to repair the overall design and make sure the issues are fixed for good. For example, medivac tank drops have been debated lately even on their end. These mechanics shouldnt be implemented "because they sound cool" or "to give them mobility". It should have an overall design reason that meshes with the race! It should be part of the race for a specific reason, it should have its place in the synergy with other units, and other units should have synergy with it, it's timings should be specific for a reason, etc. But it's really not, and the fact that they are debating if they shohuld keep it or not, shows that they don't really have a solid design direction to back it up. Whether to keep it or not should be a simple decision based upon their design goals. Do they even have any design goals? Look thru the design posts on this site and you can find dozens examples of unclear design. None of that is fixed. Very few if any new players are being encouraged to play the game. The developments not focused on growth and is rather focused on minimizing losses. Their content their giving us is for a quick cash grab from vs CPU players when multiplayers suffering. Regarding your last paragraph, if they really were worried about any of that, half of the changes LotV made shouldn't have been made, and if they were going to do changes like that, then they shouldnt have pushed up the release date to where they didn't have time to sufficiently balance the game around those changes. They reverted changes they were working on for longer than 3 months, and made major balance changes under a month and a half before release, and the beta wasn't even up for 1/3 that time. The metagame didnt even settle after their changes and they deemed the game as "release ready". Can you even look at the final beta patches and say there wasn't any "knee jerk nerfs or buffs"?? Can you really say the competitive scene is happy with the way they have been handling LotV? Can you say they are really keeping their old fans happy, or new players happy? The only player base I see that is actually happy are the ones looking forward to the Nova mission pack, and that's only one person I know. In general, people don't even really care about SC2 anymore. Even though my friends didnt play they still followed the pro scene for many years, and now they even gave up on that. For the last few years I've basically watched a game series I love get turned to shit. Seen some potential improvement last summer during beta for the first time in years, invested in the game again, and then they switched it up and turned the game in to something different. I've seen public reception as well as pro reception plummet. And I've gotten upset that it hasn't gotten the treatment that EVERY other Blizzard game has gotten when it was down. They have repaired and resolved issues with every other one of their series', and SC2 needs that treatment VERY badly right now, and they aren't giving it. Their development is in areas that aren't even the main focus of the game - SC2 at it's core is known for it's multilplayer, and multiplayer is taking a back seat to mission development. They push back multiplayer features until their priorities of single player content are completed. I've seen the design because more convoluted and lack direction more than ever. I've seen one of the lead designers specifically state that they intentionally chose inferior design for PR reasons. Their priorities are screwed. The designers offer us more PR than actual design work. They blame us in the community for all of their failings. I could even go on further, but there's no need. The point is, there's dozens of reasons why I'm upset, and why the community in general is upset with the game, or has decided to completely disregard the game. Their development on the game is appalling. I would not feel right recommending this game to any of my friends in the current state. Even if I had a friend who ONLY enjoyed RTS games, I would not recommend this game right now. My only feelings I've had with SC2 since last summer have been frustration with the development team, frustration with the changes they say their going to do and decide not to, and upset at the changes they actually decide to put live that the majority of the player base don't even want. I don't really have anything good to say about the game or the design team in its current state. If their okay with the games reception suffering as well as the competitive scene in decline, who am I to argue? Just go according to plan and spend developers time on Mission packs, because that will make everything all better, right? .... That date is what they ALWAYS give as a CONSERVATIVE estimate since they're TAKING MONEY. I highly doubt they rushed it out just to compete with the biggest game of the year, Fallout 4. How can you even say the features they promised in the "Future of Starcraft" was pushed back when they said at the event it was shit they had on the horizon/in the future? There's a reason why shit like tank medivacs isn't fixed...it's because the community is split. You're pointing at it saying "WHY ISNT THIS FIXED? IT DOESNT MESH WITH THE RACE!!!" when half the community doesnt see anything to be fixed because it adds interesting gameplay and WANT to keep it in. By snipping that part of the game and taking it away, that's not necessarily a fix in a lot of people's eyes. That's why they're conservative with those changes. You're being really outrageous by overexaggerating any perceived problems with multiplayer atm. You're acting as if every pro on the planet is making the consensus that its the worst iteration of Starcraft, when that couldnt be further from the truth. The game isn't in a dystopia imbalance and design. I'm very confused where you're coming from saying it needs it BADLY. We know they're playing with an idea on how to balance stuff, but they're being very conservative not wanting to rush out changes. It's not a thing where they don't want to balance RIGHT NOW because every one is working on the map packs. and they're saying "fuck multiplayer"..its that they're not sure what the best path is to balance. You even said yourself it wouldnt take that long in the editor to implement the changes.
Their dates have not been conservative for the wow expansion or over watch. Also they did many other actions around the time of release date that made it suspicious. For 3 weeks straight in community updates they said they were happy with the direction, they felt it was the best choice, went on about pros agreeing. Then when it becomes clear they will also need to rebalance unit cost, on the same week the "release date announcement date" announcement they say their going to revert (effectively giving up months of beta work, ignoring polls stating overwhelming support, and bait and switching players like myself who preordered for access when they stated they were moving forward with the direction they been going.
This is all besides the fact that they also stated lotv beta was going to be far longer than any of their other betas. Which would have been true with March release. Their beta realistically went the same amount of months as hots beta.
About future of Starcraft, they stated they'd add it to lotv soon after release, and then a month or so back switched it up to being pushed after mission packs release. It's misleading us in order to support their marketing. No way I'm paying them more when they didn't even deliver what they promised on my last purchase.
About medi tanks, if they had a clear direction or design goal it would be a simple decision - does it support the intended design. But instead they just think of ppl "like it". This shows their concerned with trying to not piss ppl off more than making this a well designed game. People wouldn't be bitching if the design made sense. Their not making changes based on design their making changes based on or, and it fails in the end for the success of the game.
I don't think I'm being outrageous or exaggerating. I could specifically explain all of my issues, but it involves multitudes of problems that had led to frustration and getting completely fed up with the dev team. It would take pages and pages to fully explain the discontent as well as the questionable decisions the dev team made, and their obvious PR lies.
If I'm so wrong, can you name a single time in sc2s life that it was doing worse than this? Even in the infamous end of WoL days it was way better off. And we are under 6 months in an expansion, there should still be a surge. But there's not.
If they were conservative with their changes years ago they wouldn't be in this position now. Hell, if they were conservative with their choice of release date or decision to revert months of beta testing, they wouldn't be here either.
Or even if they had a vision or direction for the game we would be fine. You can't repair design without design goals and a vision. Changes shouldn't be done without them supporting that vision. But the changes they implement don't follow any direction or visuon, they follow PR.
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On February 29 2016 02:19 HoZBlooddrop wrote: ho letto il thread anche sul forum di bnet, bellissima iniziativa!
anyway i think that lotv is much better than lotv but it might be a bit late and it didint fix some of the structural problems of sc2
Sono contento che tu abbia apprezzato. Grazie per aver preso parte.
On February 29 2016 14:48 Demosthenes13 wrote: As an Italian American I would like to say you did a great job translating, Thanks for the good read!
Thanks a lot ^^ And thank you everybody for this discussion, I see that people really care about these issues like me or even more.
On March 02 2016 02:44 Cele wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2016 22:40 mammuluk wrote:
2) The Second Issue: Brood War’s come back At point 1) I wrote about SC2, from point 2) we are gonna discuss the possible competitors. Let’s start we an apparently unbelievable option, which is actually really concrete: one of the strongest Starcraft 2 competitors could be its predecessor! In Korea we can already see a certain approach, Starleague is regularly active, a lot of players leave sc2 and come back to play with their “first love” and often the Team Liquid’s Streaming column show us that Brood War streamings really can defeat Legacy’s ones: a title from 1998 which can compete with a game realeased on last November, pretty impressive. But the fact is that, out of Asia the first sc seems be apreciated only by most nostalgic purist. That’s why it’s hard to imagine a global rebirth of BW. Then we could make another distinction about this option: BW’s reproduction could happen with a new HD graphic too, some time ago an Arcade mod that reproduced BW (called Starbow, if I’m not wrong) had a good success (also with some dedicated tournaments). This choice could cause other problems too, based on the fact that lots of people actually love BW for what it is and for everything it is. And another doubt could just be if it is worth a move to renew SC by recreating an almost 20 yars old game. It is fascinating to me, but could potential “new” players apreciate that?
In my opinion A new Brood War is not totally impossible, but probably doesn’t answer to the necessity of the community (and not even of Blizzard). i play Broodwar a lot atm, i think i have a very good grasp on it's foreign scene and playerbase, so let me explain a couple of things to you regarding broodwar's playerbase. The average player is not some sort of elitist, nostalgic purist. This game takes a lot of dedication and motivation to get decent in it( even for players who have played bw on a high level before) just being nostalgic wouldn't help. I'd say the average player appreciates it's strategical depths, taxing macro and micro mechanics and some of the play patterns that are unique to BW and not seen in similar games. - Starbow didn't reproduce BW and it didnt aim to do so. it came closer to BW in certain gaming aspects, yet the appeal for us to play it isn't the greatest. - ultimativly, im not sure what you mean by phrases like: "what this community needs" We all want a game we genuinly enjoy and we are happy to invite everybody who wants to give sc:bw a try. If you meant to say "what the community needs" is a game with some big commercial and sponsor interest, no it's not going to be BW or a HD Release of it,simple because esports works on the assumption that the "esport" aspect is going to sell more of your product (be it an old fashioned box, or a skin for your MOBA of choice) and some HD doesn't warrant the necessary sales. Then again, i don't think this community "needs" a game that is going to be the next big esport thing.
- I'm not a starbow expert, but I meant that there was a period in which lots of people enjoyed it, especially because it recalled the first starcraft in a certain way.
- This is not very easy to explain: When I played SC2 (and the same with AoE and other leggendary games that will alwaysremain beautiful memories of my life) in the wol period/first hots period it was just an emotion, it just had something really special for me. And, I mean, now I have this feeling no more. The game seems to be less fascinating and more stressing..."I don't feel it". So I think that we could need a refreshing chapter in sc's history. Also the Totalbiscuit's twit expresses a similar disappoint. I don't wanna say that LotV is a bad game, I only think that now sc doesn't have the magic that made me become a big fan. Probably if you think I could wish a big "commercial" game is because I also love the e-sport dimension and, you know, without an audience it will just disappear (Blizzard is not a beneficence organization...). We often have to consider also money problems, that's why brood war often seem an elite of "nostalgic purists": nostalgic 'cause they play a kind of vintage game and purists because they just do this for their passion without considering money/audience/sponsors and this is really well played.
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