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https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2021-01-22/blizzard-absorbs-activision-studio-after-dismantling-classic-games-team?__twitter_impression=true
...On Oct. 15, 2020, Blizzard informed members of Team 1 that it was reorganizing the entire division, according to the people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. In the following weeks, members of the team were given opportunities to interview for jobs elsewhere within Blizzard. Those who did not find positions in the company were gradually cut. Others left for independent studios recently started by high-profile company veterans, such as Frost Giant Inc. and DreamHaven Inc., started by Blizzard co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer Mike Morhaime, whose departure widely signaled the beginning of Activision's takeover.
Team 1 was also responsible for the games Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft II. Blizzard slowed down development support of Heroes of the Storm in 2018. On the same day that Blizzard said it was reorganizing the division, it announced publicly that StarCraft II was ending all ongoing development....
Not terribly surprising given what we already knew with WC3, SC2 development stopping, devs leaving for Frostbite etc.
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Upsetting, but the writing has been on the wall for a while. When I read that Grant Davies annouced a couple of days ago that he left the BW team at the end of 2020, a lot of people speculated this was right around the corner. At least we have confirmation.
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Should be noted that the dissolution of Blizzard Team 1 happened last fall, so this isn't a very recent thing.
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Northern Ireland25033 Posts
I just hope Frost Giant can nail it.
In the absence of say, a Valve entering the RTS market, Blizzard is dead in that regard.
The company that made genre-defining classics can’t even get the resources to make competent remasters of its own properties.
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On January 23 2021 10:09 WombaT wrote:
I just hope Frost Giant can nail it.
In the absence of say, a Valve entering the RTS market, Blizzard is dead in that regard.
The company that made genre-defining classics can’t even get the resources to make competent remasters of its own properties.
Valve is making an RTS?
This is really bad news, but as far as BW is concerned, I am excited to try Shield Battery again.
As far as SC2 is concerned, this sucks for SC2 lovers. Does this mean no more blizzard sponsored SC2 events / no more patches for SC2?
I haven't played SC2 in years actually, do people feel the balance is perfect now?
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So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? 
Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon?
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United States33339 Posts
meanwhile ATVI stock at an all time high ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Big question is, are we now stuck with current balance and map pool? I would expect ESL to be quite unhappy to run the tournaments for this and next year if that is the case.
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On January 23 2021 10:38 Waxangel wrote:
meanwhile ATVI stock at an all time high ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I too feel confident WoW and CoD will make lots of money!
Also Candy Crush. Never forget about CC.
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I'm more sad about Activision throwing Vicarious Visions to the wolves and having them take over Diablo 2 remastered development. Vicarious Visions have been knocking it out of the park the last few years with their remakes of old games and there was hope they would do another Tony Hawk game after Tony Hawk 1+2 sold incredibly well.
I mean, it's great that a team with that good of a track record is working on Diablo 2 remastered, but they seemed like they were on track to do some great things and now they're stuck trying to fix up the mess at Blizzard and at the same time it sounds like none of the management who caused all of these issues at Blizzard (per that Jason Schreier story on this topic) are still around calling shots. It sounds like Blizzard is getting the Bioware treatment.
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I think this answers the question of are we going to see any future balance changes.
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On January 23 2021 10:27 TelecoM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 10:09 WombaT wrote:
I just hope Frost Giant can nail it.
In the absence of say, a Valve entering the RTS market, Blizzard is dead in that regard.
The company that made genre-defining classics can’t even get the resources to make competent remasters of its own properties. Valve is making an RTS? This is really bad news, but as far as BW is concerned, I am excited to try Shield Battery again. As far as SC2 is concerned, this sucks for SC2 lovers. Does this mean no more blizzard sponsored SC2 events / no more patches for SC2? I haven't played SC2 in years actually, do people feel the balance is perfect now?
I think they're saying Blizzard isn't going to make another RTS unless a big player like Valve decides to.
They announced they were stopping major patches for SC2 a few months ago, promising to make tweaks where necessary, but I'm pretty sure everyone back then knew there were never going to be any "necessary" tweaks. Balance isn't perfect but I'd say every race has a good shot at winning something right now, which is better than how things were back in 2019.
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On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon?
Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either.
Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined.
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My god, out of any patch to get stuck with, it had to be this one. As a zerg player, this is the worst patch in 4-5 years easily. RIP. Wish they didnt remove infested terrans and just removed rockets... And maybe a small buff to broodlords or hydras  .
Ladder protoss must be happy I guess.
I feel like in the last 2 -3 years, both protoss and terran got lots of new toys and new builds, while zerg only had things taken away, nerfed, and has now less builds than ever before.
Its not even just about balance, but about game play. Its just not that enjoyable right now to play zerg; and its coming from someone who played 40k games at masters/GM for 10 years. This is the only patch that ever made me quit playing because of how rare fun games are and how few cool builds/unit comps you can go for.
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So we began with cannon rush into void rays, so we end with cannon rush into void rays.
It's almost poetic.
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Down goes the drain for all my hopes on this game. Maybe this is also the reason why we aren't seeing any new maps when the new season is just right around the corner
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About Warcraft:Reforged:
Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors.
they fucking ruined it !!!
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On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined.
I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what..
On January 23 2021 11:11 Snakestyle11 wrote:My god, out of any patch to get stuck with, it had to be this one. As a zerg player, this is the worst patch in 4-5 years easily. RIP. Wish they didnt remove infested terrans and just removed rockets... And maybe a small buff to broodlords or hydras . Ladder protoss must be happy I guess. I feel like in the last 2 -3 years, both protoss and terran got lots of new toys and new builds, while zerg only had things taken away, nerfed, and has now less builds than ever before. Its not even just about balance, but about game play. Its just not that enjoyable right now to play zerg; and its coming from someone who played 40k games at masters/GM for 10 years. This is the only patch that ever made me quit playing because of how rare fun games are and how few cool builds/unit comps you can go for.
Like.. seriously.. I would never have imagined that the teleporting BC/proxy SB + cannon stuff would have stayed in the game when those patches came out. Like for all of the insanely strong openers P/T has, to take away OL drops on hatch tech was the single most crippling nerf ever IMO
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On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what..
It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment.
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The Blizzard that we knew is long dead. Long live Activision. Turns out the 2 in Starcraft 2 is the number of people working on it, although that's probably too high.
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Future Balance patches I think are a maybe, perhaps after Katowice we'll see the next one.
I would assume that ladder seasons & map rotations will still happen via TLMC, and that TLMC will truly become the de facto for all future SC2 ladder maps.
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Does this mean that private SC2 servers / ladders are possible now?
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Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged.
they always blame management. LOL.
Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management.
On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment.
in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion.
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On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion.
I don't think they are completely unprofitable. Legacy of the Void still sold 1m copies, as did Heart of the Swarm. Given how similar they are to WoL (thus not requiring development of an entire engine and stuff), I think those were good investments. But I think you all are right. For them, there are even bigger, better investments, and this is simply not enough to warrant the time/effort.
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Baltimore, USA22253 Posts
On January 23 2021 12:45 Solar424 wrote:
The Blizzard that we knew is long dead.
Long, long, LONG dead. Roper, Metzen, Morhaime, Browder, and many more.
Literally none of the people that created the games we grew up with are still there.
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Writing was definitely on the wall for this, been a long time coming, heres to hoping that all of the new studios can crank out some great games in the future.
I don't think there is a reason to despair though, tournaments and map pools and all of those things will still be around as long as there are people watching and enjoying SC2, I go on Youtube and see high profile matches get 50K views in a few days, and Brood War seems to be going strong as well with many thousands of people watching BW streams daily.
All things dwindle and die with time though, except BW I guess lol
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On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management. Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion.
It seems like you underestimate how long it takes to Create a game from scratch by a landslide
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I don't remember if we've got our annual balance update, the one that shakes balance up a lot, last year. Maybe not? So this explains it.
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This sucks.
But on the other hand.. maybe the communities will be finally able to get their hands on these games properly, since we know where we stand (no patches, no new features, etc.).
We have managed without their help for so long, so I think we will still be able to manage after the dissolution.
FIGHTING!
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On January 23 2021 14:25 EvilTeletubby wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 12:45 Solar424 wrote:
The Blizzard that we knew is long dead. Long, long, LONG dead. Roper, Metzen, Morhaime, Browder, and many more. Literally none of the people that created the games we grew up with are still there.
Exactly.
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There's nothing new in this. They already announced that they're going to do basically nothing about SC2 going forward.
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On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management.
Yes typically it is the management who dictate to those they manage what happens. Therefor, management are ultimately responsible for the outcome. That's why they get paid so much more; they carry a lot more responsibility. If you think management ought to get a free pass, I can only assume it's because you are one, and a bad one at that.
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Northern Ireland25033 Posts
On January 23 2021 11:00 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 10:27 TelecoM wrote:On January 23 2021 10:09 WombaT wrote:
I just hope Frost Giant can nail it.
In the absence of say, a Valve entering the RTS market, Blizzard is dead in that regard.
The company that made genre-defining classics can’t even get the resources to make competent remasters of its own properties. Valve is making an RTS? This is really bad news, but as far as BW is concerned, I am excited to try Shield Battery again. As far as SC2 is concerned, this sucks for SC2 lovers. Does this mean no more blizzard sponsored SC2 events / no more patches for SC2? I haven't played SC2 in years actually, do people feel the balance is perfect now? I think they're saying Blizzard isn't going to make another RTS unless a big player like Valve decides to. They announced they were stopping major patches for SC2 a few months ago, promising to make tweaks where necessary, but I'm pretty sure everyone back then knew there were never going to be any "necessary" tweaks. Balance isn't perfect but I'd say every race has a good shot at winning something right now, which is better than how things were back in 2019.
Yeah that’s what I meant. Essentially if RTS is to have a future as a big, main-streamish genre it would probably require a really big dev that make really polished games and have a loyal following that would try something different if they put it out.
So I mean now Blizzard seem to be dropping out, Valve would be a perfect hypothetical candidate, or perhaps a Riot.
This is in terms of putting out a game that could revitalise the genre and bring in new players, which Blizzard were able to do with SC2. My SC2 friend group is a pretty motley crew of RTS vets, people who liked Blizzard’s other games and folks who thought SC looked cool having seen the eSports side.
We’ll give most promising new RTS games a look as we’re now all in the RTS vets camp, but to gather those unfamiliar with the genre en masse I think a really big player in the market would have to push it
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
Kinda old news (very open secret) - this is why i haven't logged into SC2 for 3 months
On January 23 2021 19:10 sneakyfox wrote:
There's nothing new in this. They already announced that they're going to do basically nothing about SC2 going forward.
Or SC3, there is no development any more
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I do not think this is much of a problem.
Age of Empires 4 is out next year. I doubt I will play much SC2 after that.
And for people that prefer Blizzard style RTS SC2 will still be around.
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Baltimore, USA22253 Posts
On January 23 2021 22:51 lokisa wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 14:25 EvilTeletubby wrote:On January 23 2021 12:45 Solar424 wrote:
The Blizzard that we knew is long dead. Long, long, LONG dead. Roper, Metzen, Morhaime, Browder, and many more. Literally none of the people that created the games we grew up with are still there. Isnt it fascinated that Browder is part of the "Old Boys"?
Eh TBH I threw his name in to be more relevant to this forum but yeah Browder is definitely not part of the OG crew for me personally.
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Tbh Vicarious Visions knocked it out the park with their last two games - Crash remake + THPS1/2 remake, though that doesn't seem like much of a silver lining in this case :/
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I want to have faith in frost giant for another huge RTS to indulge my life into, but I am afraid it will be hero based like warcraft III and it is nothing I am interested in.
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On January 23 2021 15:42 dbRic1203 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management. On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion. It seems like you underestimate how long it takes to Create a game from scratch by a landslide
Pardo left Blizzard 7 years ago. 0 games.
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On January 23 2021 23:23 MockHamill wrote:
I do not think this is much of a problem.
Age of Empires 3 is out next year. I doubt I will play much SC2 after that.
And for people that prefer Blizzard style RTS SC2 will still be around.
Age III was released in 2005 but it never had a competitive esports scene.
The Age II community and esports is crushing it. People, including myself, have given up on other games and gone all in with it. DE a little bit ago. New civs, new campaigns, new game mode in last six months. Continued balance and bug fixes. Feels great to have left the coffin of sc2.
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On January 23 2021 23:23 MockHamill wrote:
I do not think this is much of a problem.
Age of Empires 3 is out next year. I doubt I will play much SC2 after that.
And for people that prefer Blizzard style RTS SC2 will still be around.
Comparing AOE to SC always seemed to me like comparing Deus EX to DOOM. Same "playing" genre but not alike by anything.
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On January 24 2021 01:50 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 15:42 dbRic1203 wrote:On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management. On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion. It seems like you underestimate how long it takes to Create a game from scratch by a landslide Pardo left Blizzard 7 years ago. 0 games.
Bonfire was only created in 2016 and most AAA games tend to take somewhere between the 5-7 year mark in development, SC2 itself took over 7 years to make.
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Judging by the recent track record of the "classic" team, this is actually a good decision by Activision/Blizzard.
The guys had 3 chances and fucked them all up, each one worse than the previous.
No way they can waste another chance by gambling on Diablo 2 Remastered, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 actually being decent.
Shame for the recently "revived" Tony Hawk series.
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On January 24 2021 05:26 syndbg wrote:
Judging by the recent track record of the "classic" team, this is actually a good decision by Activision/Blizzard.
The guys had 3 chances and fucked them all up, each one worse than the previous.
No way they can waste another chance by gambling on Diablo 2 Remastered, Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 actually being decent.
Shame for the recently "revived" Tony Hawk series.
Team 1 was only the people managing SC2 and HotS and was merged with former 'classic' games team that handled SC:BW, WC3, D2 and their remakes. This happened already in 2018. So WoW, HS, OW and Diablo 4 are not related to team 1 in any way.
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On January 24 2021 05:04 Lexender wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2021 01:50 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On January 23 2021 15:42 dbRic1203 wrote:On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management. On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion. It seems like you underestimate how long it takes to Create a game from scratch by a landslide Pardo left Blizzard 7 years ago. 0 games. Bonfire was only created in 2016 and most AAA games tend to take somewhere between the 5-7 year mark in development, SC2 itself took over 7 years to make.
RTS is no longer an AAA genre. AAA games can cost $200 million, maybe more, to make nowadays. Niche markets need niche budgets.
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I'm not too worried about future support. Why you ask?
Because Blizzard is contracted with ESL & AfreecaTV to provide a certain amount of support for esports events through 2022. Therefore they are going to continue to provide support for things like bug fixes, balance patches & map rotations. Of course the timeliness of said support may be somewhat...questionable.
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On a second thought, Blizzard deserves all that's going for them. No support for balanced team matchmaking, forcing lots of players to LoL and CS instead. Locking regions and doing stuff only their way...
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On January 24 2021 05:04 Lexender wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2021 01:50 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On January 23 2021 15:42 dbRic1203 wrote:On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management. On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion. It seems like you underestimate how long it takes to Create a game from scratch by a landslide Pardo left Blizzard 7 years ago. 0 games. Bonfire was only created in 2016 and most AAA games tend to take somewhere between the 5-7 year mark in development, SC2 itself took over 7 years to make.
he prolly had a 2 year non-compete. everyone i know on 2 year non competes is building something a few months after leaving their previous employer.
SC2 was a side project. Employees were continually pulled off of SC2 to feed the WoW Monster.
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I mean this is hardly a surprise, isn't it? Blizzard is gonna "repurpose" those employees to other projects given they announced they are winding down the support for SC2. From business standpoint, they are not gonna waste personnel resources on something that they will no longer support.
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so are we getting a new ladder season next week?
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On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management. Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion.
Hasn´t Starcraft reached 1 Billion USD in revenue over its lifetime? I am reading conflicting information on the internet, but I think it barely has.
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in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion.
Blizzard begs to differ...like 4 years ago now...
By the end of 2017, the franchise's lifetime revenue totaled over $1 billion.
https://investor.activision.com/static-files/bbfd4b49-bf78-40bd-aefe-3467f211844b
The company has been a bit of a joke in the public for awhile now though. From the fact they were floored that nobody was happy about Diablo Immortal, to punishing people for making political statements about freedom, to saying wonderful things are coming to HotS, to then have them unceremoniously shit on it, to butchering Reforge release, etc. Diablo 4 is not going to save them. They really have seemingly learned nothing from the success of Path of Exile.
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Move on people. Just move on.
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On January 24 2021 17:51 kramvti wrote:in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion. Blizzard begs to differ...like 4 years ago now... By the end of 2017, the franchise's lifetime revenue totaled over $1 billion. https://investor.activision.com/static-files/bbfd4b49-bf78-40bd-aefe-3467f211844bThe company has been a bit of a joke in the public for awhile now though. From the fact they were floored that nobody was happy about Diablo Immortal, to punishing people for making political statements about freedom, to saying wonderful things are coming to HotS, to then have them unceremoniously shit on it, to butchering Reforge release, etc. Diablo 4 is not going to save them. They really have seemingly learned nothing from the success of Path of Exile.
What's the deal with Reforge? Poor support? I don't follow WarCraft very much.
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Extremely sad news, but I feel one aspect that many people overlook is....what is going to happen to our beloved duo, Artosis & Tasteless???
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On January 24 2021 09:20 Chris_Havoc wrote:
I'm not too worried about future support. Why you ask?
Because Blizzard is contracted with ESL & AfreecaTV to provide a certain amount of support for esports events through 2022. Therefore they are going to continue to provide support for things like bug fixes, balance patches & map rotations. Of course the timeliness of said support may be somewhat...questionable. Finally someone who has the same opinion as me. I'm not getting all this doom and gloom, clearly they will reinstall other people to keep making patches for SC1&SC2. SC2 doesn't need many features either, it's kind of a complete game nowadays so little patches from time to time (yes, even balance ones) will suffice.
I mean, what kind of content did we get in the recent years? Commanders, warchests, announcers... and.. more commanders! Plus a shitton of portraits or decals => cosmetics. Surely the game can do without this kind of content.
I like Co-Op as it is right now and I enjoyed getting every single Warchest. But this type of content doesn't elevate a game to the next level.
SC2 is 10,5 years old now, that support went on for that long is a miracle in itself! Esports being saved until the tail end of 2022 is fine too.
After that, SC2 can slowly abdictate.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On January 25 2021 00:21 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2021 09:20 Chris_Havoc wrote:
I'm not too worried about future support. Why you ask?
Because Blizzard is contracted with ESL & AfreecaTV to provide a certain amount of support for esports events through 2022. Therefore they are going to continue to provide support for things like bug fixes, balance patches & map rotations. Of course the timeliness of said support may be somewhat...questionable. Finally someone who has the same opinion as me. I'm not getting all this doom and gloom, clearly they will reinstall other people to keep making patches for SC1&SC2. SC2 doesn't need many features either, it's kind of a complete game nowadays so little patches from time to time (yes, even balance ones) will suffice. I mean, what kind of content did we get in the recent years? Commanders, warchests, announcers... and.. more commanders! Plus a shitton of portraits or decals => cosmetics. Surely the game can do without this kind of content. I like Co-Op as it is right now and I enjoyed getting every single Warchest. But this type of content doesn't elevate a game to the next level. SC2 is 10,5 years old now, that support went on for that long is a miracle in itself! Esports being saved until the tail end of 2022 is fine too. After that, SC2 can slowly abdictate.
Well, questionable.
For example - hwo do you want to handle ladder? Once Blizzard stops delivering new ladder maps? This game also doesn't have a LAN support, so either there are servers on or off. There are at least 2 very good reasons for doom and gloom with this news. Third being the fact, that Blizzard is the sole reason the scene is semi-vital. And I don't see any Ubik to save it once Blizzard steps away.
Edit> I don't expect Blizz to turn off the servers any time soon, but I can see how they stop supporting the ladder once they step away from the e-sport scene. Or - they slow it down.
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On January 25 2021 02:28 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2021 00:21 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote:On January 24 2021 09:20 Chris_Havoc wrote:
I'm not too worried about future support. Why you ask?
Because Blizzard is contracted with ESL & AfreecaTV to provide a certain amount of support for esports events through 2022. Therefore they are going to continue to provide support for things like bug fixes, balance patches & map rotations. Of course the timeliness of said support may be somewhat...questionable. Finally someone who has the same opinion as me. I'm not getting all this doom and gloom, clearly they will reinstall other people to keep making patches for SC1&SC2. SC2 doesn't need many features either, it's kind of a complete game nowadays so little patches from time to time (yes, even balance ones) will suffice. I mean, what kind of content did we get in the recent years? Commanders, warchests, announcers... and.. more commanders! Plus a shitton of portraits or decals => cosmetics. Surely the game can do without this kind of content. I like Co-Op as it is right now and I enjoyed getting every single Warchest. But this type of content doesn't elevate a game to the next level. SC2 is 10,5 years old now, that support went on for that long is a miracle in itself! Esports being saved until the tail end of 2022 is fine too. After that, SC2 can slowly abdictate. Well, questionable. For example - hwo do you want to handle ladder? Once Blizzard stops delivering new ladder maps? This game also doesn't have a LAN support, so either there are servers on or off. There are at least 2 very good reasons for doom and gloom with this news. Third being the fact, that Blizzard is the sole reason the scene is semi-vital. And I don't see any Ubik to save it once Blizzard steps away. Edit> I don't expect Blizz to turn off the servers any time soon, but I can see how they stop supporting the ladder once they step away from the e-sport scene. Or - they slow it down.
I'd be curious how portable w3champions would be to sc2. WC3: Reforged released without a ladder so the community has stepped in to make the game what it should have been. The wc3 team recently added dedicated host bots throughout the world that allow for "fair" cross region play.
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On January 25 2021 02:28 deacon.frost wrote:Well, questionable.
For example - hwo do you want to handle ladder? Once Blizzard stops delivering new ladder maps? This game also doesn't have a LAN support, so either there are servers on or off. There are at least 2 very good reasons for doom and gloom with this news. Third being the fact, that Blizzard is the sole reason the scene is semi-vital. And I don't see any Ubik to save it once Blizzard steps away.
Edit> I don't expect Blizz to turn off the servers any time soon, but I can see how they stop supporting the ladder once they step away from the e-sport scene. Or - they slow it down. Are you serious with this post? Do you REALLY think Blizazrd will stop having ingame ladders? Stop maintaining the servers?
Even 20+ year old Blizzard games still work out of the box, why would this change for SC2???
Even 5 years from now, you will be able to log into SC2 and play it like you can today.
As much as Blizzard fucks up things, stuff like this is 100% certain. Ladder maps and maintenance patches can easily be done by a small group of people.
Holy shit man, this doesn't mean SC2 is going to get turned off soon...
The only problem I see right now is for SC:R. That game still needs a lot of attention until it can reach a stable state where mini patches from time to time suffice.
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Mexico2170 Posts
This explains why Sc2 has been broken FOR MORE THAN A MONTH. And it still kinda broken.
And I mean all the issues with people being unable to play ladder, or co-op, or watch replays, or see their match history. It was broken for so long because there's no oe working on it anymore.
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On January 25 2021 06:08 [Phantom] wrote:
This explains why Sc2 has been broken FOR MORE THAN A MONTH. And it still kinda broken.
And I mean all the issues with people being unable to play ladder, or co-op, or watch replays, or see their match history. It was broken for so long because there's no oe working on it anymore.
Those problems have been fixed for a couple weeks now
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On January 25 2021 03:58 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2021 02:28 deacon.frost wrote:Well, questionable.
For example - hwo do you want to handle ladder? Once Blizzard stops delivering new ladder maps? This game also doesn't have a LAN support, so either there are servers on or off. There are at least 2 very good reasons for doom and gloom with this news. Third being the fact, that Blizzard is the sole reason the scene is semi-vital. And I don't see any Ubik to save it once Blizzard steps away.
Edit> I don't expect Blizz to turn off the servers any time soon, but I can see how they stop supporting the ladder once they step away from the e-sport scene. Or - they slow it down. Are you serious with this post? Do you REALLY think Blizazrd will stop having ingame ladders? Stop maintaining the servers? Even 20+ year old Blizzard games still work out of the box, why would this change for SC2??? Even 5 years from now, you will be able to log into SC2 and play it like you can today. As much as Blizzard fucks up things, stuff like this is 100% certain. Ladder maps and maintenance patches can easily be done by a small group of people. Holy shit man, this doesn't mean SC2 is going to get turned off soon... The only problem I see right now is for SC:R. That game still needs a lot of attention until it can reach a stable state where mini patches from time to time suffice.
You can say that about anything in the current game, that it can be done by a small group of people. Yet, Blizzard stopped developing. So yeah, I actually believe they will leave the ladder in a stale state without any map updates thus screwing the community.
When they turn off the servers is a question to debate. As I said I am not expecting it any time soon, but the issue is there's no other option while BW has other options.
It is not 100 % certain. As much as Blizzard and certainity I lost all hopes to this new Blizzard.
Several years ago you would be 100 % certain that they won't lure Diablo fans to the Blizzcon for them to admire a mobile game. And yet it happen. Do I need to continue?
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On January 25 2021 06:16 deacon.frost wrote:
You can say that about anything in the current game, that it can be done by a small group of people. Yet, Blizzard stopped developing.
No they didn't. They will just not develop any further new content. Who cares, the game has enough content there is. Fixing stuff here and there is all they need to do.
On January 25 2021 06:16 deacon.frost wrote:
So yeah, I actually believe they will leave the ladder in a stale state without any map updates thus screwing the community. Nah they would never do that. It takes almost no effort to maintain the ladder.
On January 25 2021 06:16 deacon.frost wrote:
When they turn off the servers is a question to debate. As I said I am not expecting it any time soon, but the issue is there's no other option while BW has other options. If you really think this then you have no idea. 25 year old games didn't have their servers turned off, why would they do that with SC2??!
On January 25 2021 06:16 deacon.frost wrote:
It is not 100 % certain. As much as Blizzard and certainity I lost all hopes to this new Blizzard. Yes it is... you'd know if you actually followed Blizzard.On January 25 2021 06:16 deacon.frost wrote:
Several years ago you would be 100 % certain that they won't lure Diablo fans to the Blizzcon for them to admire a mobile game. And yet it happen. Do I need to continue? Again, what kind of conclusion is this ? Them fucking up a release or misjudging what their playerbase wanted has nothing to do with the fact that Blizzard always keeps all of their productes, no matter how old, receiving support.
Look at Diablo 3, that game is in maintenance mode for a while now and they still mix up new ladder content and some other changes here and there, albeit seldomly.
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On January 25 2021 02:28 deacon.frost wrote:
hwo do you want to handle ladder? Once Blizzard stops delivering new ladder maps?
You clearly need a dev team to do that. And they stoped making maps for like 5-6 years now? They are all community designed. Blizzard just picked the ones they liked (and failed every time). So i actually glad they finally got their hands off this game. I really hope they gonna stop making balance patches as well. The meta is gonna settle at last! Wohoo! Just keep the servers up and that's it. Thanks and bb, blizz.
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On January 25 2021 03:58 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2021 02:28 deacon.frost wrote:Well, questionable.
For example - hwo do you want to handle ladder? Once Blizzard stops delivering new ladder maps? This game also doesn't have a LAN support, so either there are servers on or off. There are at least 2 very good reasons for doom and gloom with this news. Third being the fact, that Blizzard is the sole reason the scene is semi-vital. And I don't see any Ubik to save it once Blizzard steps away.
Edit> I don't expect Blizz to turn off the servers any time soon, but I can see how they stop supporting the ladder once they step away from the e-sport scene. Or - they slow it down. Are you serious with this post? Do you REALLY think Blizazrd will stop having ingame ladders? Stop maintaining the servers? Even 20+ year old Blizzard games still work out of the box, why would this change for SC2??? Even 5 years from now, you will be able to log into SC2 and play it like you can today. As much as Blizzard fucks up things, stuff like this is 100% certain. Ladder maps and maintenance patches can easily be done by a small group of people. Holy shit man, this doesn't mean SC2 is going to get turned off soon... The only problem I see right now is for SC:R. That game still needs a lot of attention until it can reach a stable state where mini patches from time to time suffice.
WC3 Classic edition does not work out of the box anymore. Additionally ladder and profiles for WC3 have been gone since they moved it to bnet2.0. It has been almost a full year now that WC3 ladder is down. So yes it is possible to happen to SC2 as well in the far future. They will decide SC2 isn't really making us any money, let's make a new project and call it Starcraft 2 Rejuvenation and then a year later SC2 will be gutted and broken.
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On January 25 2021 15:03 cha0 wrote:WC3 Classic edition does not work out of the box anymore. Additionally ladder and profiles for WC3 have been gone since they moved it to bnet2.0. It has been almost a full year now that WC3 ladder is down. So yes it is possible to happen to SC2 as well in the far future. They will decide SC2 isn't really making us any money, let's make a new project and call it Starcraft 2 Rejuvenation and then a year later SC2 will be gutted and broken. Stop trolling, the only reason WC3:R replaced the original one was that Blizzard thought that the original one was now obsolete. They didn't know that the game would be broken for so long.
Btw, they didn't remove the old WC3, they just removed the installation files so every WC3 original installation is now a WC3:R with old gfx-mode only.
SC2 won't be remade any time soon, it is still a modern game.
The amount of stupidity on these boards baffles me sometimes.
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It could be nice if the new studio did an interview at Blizzconline, but that is probably too much to ask for SC/HotS/WC3:R. This would probably ease the fears a little. Especially, if someone in team 1 joined the studio and it isn't just bunch of people keeping the servers running, but someone that knows the engine and internal tools in some extend so that they should be able to run everything as expected.
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On January 25 2021 06:08 [Phantom] wrote:
This explains why Sc2 has been broken FOR MORE THAN A MONTH. And it still kinda broken.
And I mean all the issues with people being unable to play ladder, or co-op, or watch replays, or see their match history. It was broken for so long because there's no oe working on it anymore.
This was for a few days but it was fixed over a week ago.
Looking at Heroes, which they kinda completely stopped caring about, it still goes on with ladder, minor patches and so on. That's why I am not worried at all about SC2
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it's just a shame the game ended on this crappy patch there is now. 2018 blizzcon sc2 was peak sc2.
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On January 25 2021 20:02 gargona wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2021 19:59 Harris1st wrote:On January 25 2021 06:08 [Phantom] wrote:
This explains why Sc2 has been broken FOR MORE THAN A MONTH. And it still kinda broken.
And I mean all the issues with people being unable to play ladder, or co-op, or watch replays, or see their match history. It was broken for so long because there's no oe working on it anymore. This was for a few days but it was fixed over a week ago. Looking at Heroes, which they kinda completely stopped caring about, it still goes on with ladder, minor patches and so on. That's why I am not worried at all about SC2 Adding new heroes, new events, balance patches="stopped caring about"? What? What else are they supposed to do? Revamp the system every couple of month?
My point exactly. They pulled all esports funding and pulled like 90% of the dev team/ support team and it is still going strong. Haven't played in a while so I don't know where balance is
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Northern Ireland25033 Posts
On January 25 2021 16:38 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2021 15:03 cha0 wrote:WC3 Classic edition does not work out of the box anymore. Additionally ladder and profiles for WC3 have been gone since they moved it to bnet2.0. It has been almost a full year now that WC3 ladder is down. So yes it is possible to happen to SC2 as well in the far future. They will decide SC2 isn't really making us any money, let's make a new project and call it Starcraft 2 Rejuvenation and then a year later SC2 will be gutted and broken. Stop trolling, the only reason WC3:R replaced the original one was that Blizzard thought that the original one was now obsolete. They didn't know that the game would be broken for so long. Btw, they didn't remove the old WC3, they just removed the installation files so every WC3 original installation is now a WC3:R with old gfx-mode only. SC2 won't be remade any time soon, it is still a modern game. The amount of stupidity on these boards baffles me sometimes.
They did break the original WC3, in many ways. You weren’t prompted for an update or anything so if you’re so much logged into Bnet your game gets wiped.
Not an issue that affected me but many folks had all their custom maps overwritten, and if they had no backups those are gone forever.
I personally can’t play my WC3 copies that I still have, apparently my CD key is registered and support won’t let me deregister it. Quite a personal situation in which I appear to have also fucked up, but I only attempted to register my keys with Bnet 2.0 because the game wouldn’t fucking work otherwise.
Will Blizzard fuck SC2? Who knows? If you’d asked me 5 years ago if an SC Remaster wouldn’t have 2v2 ladder or if WC3 remaster would have no ladder and be super lacking features from the original, I’d have said no, it’s Blizzard of course that won’t happen.
Now I mean, who knows? The issue for me isn’t Blizzard dropping SC2 any time soon, much more that if/when they do the community don’t have the ability to build and maintain that infrastructure themselves.
Which is a real problem with how games are made these days across the board. I quite like when a company curates the game so there’s one unified ladder and general experience, instead of a fragmented playerbase playing different tweaks of the game, but the rather large downside is if said company stops curating it then nobody else can.
Hopefully best case is when Blizz does step back they either let a partner like ESL keep running the game, or just open it up to the community.
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Blizzard died 15 years ago. It's sad, but there is nothing we can do about it. Management could not resist the unprecedented cashflows they forecast if they transformed into a WoW-centric company, and chose the path of profit over everything else. At that point, they sacrificed the company's culture of creativity and fun (which is why all the respected talent quit and formed their own studios). Blizzard is not a rewarding or happy place to work, now. And the merger forfeited the last measure of control they had over their own destiny. The games we love are just "assets" to be exploited for profit. Development teams will be shrank and outsourced until Blizzard becomes the next Electronic Arts.
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seems like you are raging over the truth tbh
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You can do some very basic math to understand how little it costs to service pre-existing assets, and how much it costs to let great teams take their time to create great games.
You don't have to take my word for it. Do your own research, and find out about the destruction of their development model and the exodus of all the good talent from Blizzard. This story has been told before.
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No, they don't.
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Your posts are not smart enough to deserve any more time.
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Is it possible they can outsource maintenance of both SC1 and SC2 to another company?
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On January 26 2021 18:12 Dante08 wrote:
Is it possible they can outsource maintenance of both SC1 and SC2 to another company?
It is possible. Similarily it is possible to do other things but not real to expect them to be done. In other words - yeah, but no.
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Northern Ireland25033 Posts
Why is this thread attracting so many new users/the same user with multiple accounts?
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On January 27 2021 00:31 WombaT wrote:
Why is this thread attracting so many new users/the same user with multiple accounts?
Same idiot who apparently has a lot of idiotic things to say. Just ignore it, giving it attention makes it worse.
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On January 27 2021 00:31 WombaT wrote:
Why is this thread attracting so many new users/the same user with multiple accounts?
It's probably TelecoM. 
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On January 26 2021 18:12 Dante08 wrote:
Is it possible they can outsource maintenance of both SC1 and SC2 to another company?
I think this is unlikely. One of Blizzard's oldest brand-enriching practices is to create their own branded gaming community in which they continue to support old games, both through servers and patches, and acknowledge the fans they have made over the years, even ones that don't buy any of their new games. Blizzcon would not exist without this ethos. So, I think if Acti-Bliz started outsourcing these types of jobs, it would mean the real end of any remaining identity as a game development company.
It is troubling that Blizzard cannot even manage a remake of it's own game (D2), but there may be some good reasons for that. One of them is that Blizzard North was never fully integrated into the main office, and the D2 assets were lost before the game was released, so VV might actually produce a better game than the internal remaster team could have. A silver lining of this is that the "reforged" fiasco didn't happen to Diablo, and it sounds like they will try harder to avoid the mistakes of that release. I'm not super excited about it because everyone that created that masterpiece is gone, along with their best code, but it might end up being the best way to experience the game in the long future when operating systems and graphics are even less compatible with old software than they are now.
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Now that RTS is officially dead to Blizzard...anyone wanna be my Rome II multiplayer partner? XD
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On January 23 2021 11:00 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 10:27 TelecoM wrote:On January 23 2021 10:09 WombaT wrote:
I just hope Frost Giant can nail it.
In the absence of say, a Valve entering the RTS market, Blizzard is dead in that regard.
The company that made genre-defining classics can’t even get the resources to make competent remasters of its own properties. Valve is making an RTS? This is really bad news, but as far as BW is concerned, I am excited to try Shield Battery again. As far as SC2 is concerned, this sucks for SC2 lovers. Does this mean no more blizzard sponsored SC2 events / no more patches for SC2? I haven't played SC2 in years actually, do people feel the balance is perfect now? I think they're saying Blizzard isn't going to make another RTS unless a big player like Valve decides to. They announced they were stopping major patches for SC2 a few months ago, promising to make tweaks where necessary, but I'm pretty sure everyone back then knew there were never going to be any "necessary" tweaks. Balance isn't perfect but I'd say every race has a good shot at winning something right now, which is better than how things were back in 2019.
Microsoft is making AoE4. Aren't they a big player? In fact, their market cap is 2nd only to Apple. I would call that huge.
User was banned for this post.
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On January 24 2021 17:51 kramvti wrote:
in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion.
Blizzard begs to differ...like 4 years ago now...
By the end of 2017, the franchise's lifetime revenue totaled over $1 billion.
https://investor.activision.com/static-files/bbfd4b49-bf78-40bd-aefe-3467f211844b
Where in this source does it state SC's lifetime revenue totalled over $1 billion?
SC2:WoL sold 1.5 million in a day and 3 million in a month. That was the biggest revenue that the SC franchise ever produced. SC1 sold most of its copies after it was deeply discounted many years after its March 1998 release.
the SC franchise is no where near a billion in revenue.
please stop relying on Wikipedia. Their "source" for this info never says SC hit a billion. We can get deep into the weeds on this issue if you like. The #s just don't add up.
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On January 28 2021 07:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2021 17:51 kramvti wrote:
in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion.
Blizzard begs to differ...like 4 years ago now...
By the end of 2017, the franchise's lifetime revenue totaled over $1 billion.
https://investor.activision.com/static-files/bbfd4b49-bf78-40bd-aefe-3467f211844b
Where in this source does it state SC's lifetime revenue totalled over $1 billion? SC2:WoL sold 1.5 million in a day and 3 million in a month. That was the biggest revenue that the SC franchise ever produced. SC1 sold most of its copies after it was deeply discounted many years after its March 1998 release. the SC franchise is no where near a billion in revenue. please stop relying on Wikipedia. Their "source" for this info never says SC hit a billion. We can get deep into the weeds on this issue if you like. The #s just don't add up.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/LPCobJo.png)
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There are 13 franchises shown in that graphic. As an example. Heroes of the Storm is not a billion dollar franchise. Neither is Starcraft.
SC's #s don't come close to adding up to a billion.
Just off the top of my head... i'd say
WoW, Diablo, OW, Skylanders, CoD, Candy Crush, Guitar Hero, and Crash Bandicoot are the 8, billion dollar franchises. The Starcraft franchise comes no where close to bringing in the kinds of #s these 8 franchises brought in.
Hell, I bet you Pitfall has brought in more money than Starcraft.
Also, notice how careful the wording is on this issue. Its not "games we've developed" .. it is "IP we own".
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
1) You may not be talking about the same 1 bUSD
2) You have no idea how much some warchests brought in
3) I really think you are talking about different 1b USD
Edit> #1 and #3 apply to the two posts above me)
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Best of luck to them all. I don't know what else to say as this seems par for the course with Actiblizz chasing constant growth for shareholders at the cost of devs and suppor for the games that made Blizz dearly loved.
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On January 24 2021 01:50 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 15:42 dbRic1203 wrote:On January 23 2021 14:08 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Members of Team 1 met to discuss what had gone wrong. Internal Blizzard documents reviewed by Bloomberg pinpointed the game’s failures on poor planning, miscommunication and a rushed release due to financial pressure from management, among other factors. For example, Blizzard announced the game in November 2018 and began taking pre-orders for 2019 without informing most of the development team beforehand, according to several people who worked on Warcraft III: Reforged. they always blame management. LOL. Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, and a host of other big leaders like Sigaty and Browder have moved on and formed dev studios Bonfire and Dreamhaven. Its been years.... and I have yet to see one single game come from any of these guys. And, these are some extremely talented, brilliant, prolly genius level men. NOT ONE GAME. As brilliant as these guys are ....they need pressure from management. On January 23 2021 12:41 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 12:17 Woosixion wrote:On January 23 2021 11:03 StasisField wrote:On January 23 2021 10:31 Woosixion wrote:So with sc2 dev stopping, does this mean this patch of starcraft is going to be the one used for the rest of eternity? Does this mean we should be expecting a sc3 announcement soon? Pretty much. They announced a while back that SC2 would no longer have any major patches. I doubt we get any minor balances patches either. Don't expect an SC3. I remember hearing in an interview with the Frost Giant team (I think it was them, anyway) that Blizzard had pitched RTS games to Activision but Activision declined. I can't understand why they would not jump at opportunity to make a few billion dollars with SC3.. like.. they've got the market cornered on RTS every single RTS player in the world would buy it no matter what.. It probably just isn't as profitable as other ventures. I also doubt we'd see billions of dollars from SC3. I'm sure it'd be very successful for an RTS game but there are markets they could target for an even higher possible return on their investment. in 20+ years of existence the Starcraft franchise has yet to crack $1 Billion. It seems like you underestimate how long it takes to Create a game from scratch by a landslide Pardo left Blizzard 7 years ago. 0 games.
SC was pure dumb luck. Everything else was cannon fodder. I am not surprised they haven't released anything.
Also based off the numbers of what SC, BW, SC2, SC: hots, SC: lotv while I don't think they hit 1 billion yet. I think it is relatively closed just based off how many copies are sold without including anything else. it's probably just over 750,000,000.
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On January 29 2021 06:40 StarStruck wrote:
SC was pure dumb luck. Everything else was cannon fodder. I am not surprised they haven't released anything.
ya think? i think it was very ambitious to create a 3 diverse race RTS game. How many other game developers had done that before March 1998? I think SC was the first to try it.
Had Blizzard not devoted the resources to patching the game over and over again for years then you might say it was "dumb luck". However, Blizzard took the unprecedented step of continuously balancing the game long after its release. That is not luck. You might say it was "dumb iteration" or "dumb massive amounts of trial and error". From 1999 to 2002, Blizzard didn't leave anything up to "luck".
I think making SC was brilliant and ballsy. A work of pure genius. An aspect of genius .... is rare nerve. Part of genius is the willingness to stand up in front of an entire industry and say "fuck you... this is very different ... and its also the best way to make a great game".
Along the same lines, Pacman really isn't that great of a game. Ms Pacman, Lock'n'Chase and LadyBug are all 1000X better dot eating maze games. However, Pacman was first and Pacman created the genre.
On January 29 2021 06:40 StarStruck wrote:
Also based off the numbers of what SC, BW, SC2, SC: hots, SC: lotv while I don't think they hit 1 billion yet. I think it is relatively closed just based off how many copies are sold without including anything else. it's probably just over 750,000,000.
you are prolly right about it being $750M. HotS was 1 million day 1. LotV and HotS sold over 1 million copies in the first few days of release. So that is ~$100M right there.
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On January 29 2021 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2021 06:40 StarStruck wrote:
SC was pure dumb luck. Everything else was cannon fodder. I am not surprised they haven't released anything.
ya think? i think it was very ambitious to create a 3 diverse race RTS game. How many other game developers had done that before March 1998? I think SC was the first to try it. Had Blizzard not devoted the resources to patching the game over and over again for years then you might say it was "dumb luck". However, Blizzard took the unprecedented step of continuously balancing the game long after its release. That is not luck. You might say it was "dumb iteration" or "dumb massive amounts of trial and error". From 1999 to 2002, Blizzard didn't leave anything up to "luck". I think making SC was brilliant and ballsy. A work of pure genius. An aspect of genius .... is rare nerve. Part of genius is the willingness to stand up in front of an entire industry and say "fuck you... this is very different ... and its also the best way to make a great game". Along the same lines, Pacman really isn't that great of a game. Ms Pacman, Lock'n'Chase and LadyBug are all 1000X better dot eating maze games. However, Pacman was first and Pacman created the genre.
You just describe SC as a long term brillant result of dedication and willingness, then quote a one time game with no support nor dev what so ever. What even is your point here?
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On January 29 2021 07:45 AbouSV wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2021 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On January 29 2021 06:40 StarStruck wrote:
SC was pure dumb luck. Everything else was cannon fodder. I am not surprised they haven't released anything.
ya think? i think it was very ambitious to create a 3 diverse race RTS game. How many other game developers had done that before March 1998? I think SC was the first to try it. Had Blizzard not devoted the resources to patching the game over and over again for years then you might say it was "dumb luck". However, Blizzard took the unprecedented step of continuously balancing the game long after its release. That is not luck. You might say it was "dumb iteration" or "dumb massive amounts of trial and error". From 1999 to 2002, Blizzard didn't leave anything up to "luck". I think making SC was brilliant and ballsy. A work of pure genius. An aspect of genius .... is rare nerve. Part of genius is the willingness to stand up in front of an entire industry and say "fuck you... this is very different ... and its also the best way to make a great game". Along the same lines, Pacman really isn't that great of a game. Ms Pacman, Lock'n'Chase and LadyBug are all 1000X better dot eating maze games. However, Pacman was first and Pacman created the genre. You just describe SC as a long term brillant result of dedication and willingness, then quote a one time game with no support nor dev what so ever. What even is your point here?
my point is that Pacman was innovative and SC was innovative. Both games took balls of steel to make because no one was doing anything close to what Blizzard and Namco were doing at the time. Both games were the prime movers of their respective genres.
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Yet you spent 3 paragraphs talking about everything else, that could not even remotely apply to PacMan, that's confusing.
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On January 29 2021 08:21 AbouSV wrote:
Yet you spent 3 paragraphs talking about everything else, that could not even remotely apply to PacMan, that's confusing.
good point, without the historical knowledge of what was going on around 1980 in the video game industry my post can be confusing.
For added context, Gallery Shooters were the main genre. Gallery shooters include stuff like Space Invaders, Galaxian, Galaga, etc. Shooting things in general. Other forms of combat like Missile Command and Asteroids. Auto Racing and sports games had a niche as well.
nothing remotely close to Pacman existed in 1979-1981. Namco was deviating way off the beaten path.
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On January 29 2021 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2021 06:40 StarStruck wrote:
SC was pure dumb luck. Everything else was cannon fodder. I am not surprised they haven't released anything.
ya think? i think it was very ambitious to create a 3 diverse race RTS game. How many other game developers had done that before March 1998? I think SC was the first to try it. Had Blizzard not devoted the resources to patching the game over and over again for years then you might say it was "dumb luck". However, Blizzard took the unprecedented step of continuously balancing the game long after its release. That is not luck. You might say it was "dumb iteration" or "dumb massive amounts of trial and error". From 1999 to 2002, Blizzard didn't leave anything up to "luck". I think making SC was brilliant and ballsy. A work of pure genius. An aspect of genius .... is rare nerve. Part of genius is the willingness to stand up in front of an entire industry and say "fuck you... this is very different ... and its also the best way to make a great game". Along the same lines, Pacman really isn't that great of a game. Ms Pacman, Lock'n'Chase and LadyBug are all 1000X better dot eating maze games. However, Pacman was first and Pacman created the genre. Show nested quote +On January 29 2021 06:40 StarStruck wrote:
Also based off the numbers of what SC, BW, SC2, SC: hots, SC: lotv while I don't think they hit 1 billion yet. I think it is relatively closed just based off how many copies are sold without including anything else. it's probably just over 750,000,000. you are prolly right about it being $750M. HotS was 1 million day 1. LotV and HotS sold over 1 million copies in the first few days of release. So that is ~$100M right there.
you do realize the devs even said it was pure dumb luck right? i mean you remember the alpha and vanilla SC/Brood War came in at around 350M. Close based off sales but yeah just under 1 bil.
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On January 29 2021 09:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2021 08:21 AbouSV wrote:
Yet you spent 3 paragraphs talking about everything else, that could not even remotely apply to PacMan, that's confusing. good point, without the historical knowledge of what was going on around 1980 in the video game industry my post can be confusing. For added context, Gallery Shooters were the main genre. Gallery shooters include stuff like Space Invaders, Galaxian, Galaga, etc. Shooting things in general. Other forms of combat like Missile Command and Asteroids. Auto Racing and sports games had a niche as well. nothing remotely close to Pacman existed in 1979-1981. Namco was deviating way off the beaten path.
You can be as haughty as you want about how much better that others (me?) you know all the details about the video game industry from 79 to 81, but please re-read your three paragraph I mentioned. You just keep going the exact opposite way.
Where in all you said about pacman is the "dedication", "support", "iteration", "trial and error", "unprecedented step of continuously balancing the game long after its release" (all your terms) you described SC2 with?
So SC2 = pacmac because their innovative for their respective time. Sure, why not. Everything else has nothing to do with each other.
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I'm going to add to this point about game design because it wasn't only the devs who said they got lucky based off the games development. Trail and Error is such a lazy response because it's part of game development process and lacks substance especially when we are talking about vanilla SC:BW.
This is coming from someone who grew up with the scene fyi.
It was very community driven. Case in point there were a lot of points in vanilla SC and Brood War where the patches were so sporadic that things had to grow organically. It game pro players and foreigner players to figure shit out which really opened the doors for new openings/timings/builds even on maps like Lost Temple which was played for the longest fucking time as a go to ladder/tournament map.
Every map designer and person apart of the hardcore community deserves a pat on the back and we build our own places to play like: gamei, fish, iccup, wgtour, pgtour, Star League, OGN, MBC Game, Pro League etc. Without shit like that the game wouldn't have gotten to where it is today.
I used to be a hardcore WC2 fan. No different than I used to be hardcore vanilla SC and eventually BW. Remember the vanilla SCers versus the Brood War foreign players? Good times.
Looking back at things SC2 never really did grow on me and I could give you a whole list of reasons as to why or what they could have tried and maybe the result would have been different. Could of should of didn't. Regardless when Activision bought Blizzard I think a lot of people saw this coming. it was just a question of when and I'm sorry but every release after SC2 other than maybe Hearthstone has been mediocre at best.
It's what happens when a small studio gets gobbled up by the big boys all the time. Building a great game let alone getting the financial backing especially for a real-time strategy game which makes a very small fraction of the gaming industry, which could potentially be the single digits. I can understand why Activision said not a fucking chance. I mean Blizzard really fucking blew because they don't know what the hell they are doing when it comes to running a League.
This is why sometimes it is best for the community to let drive things rather than trying to do what Riot did with League.
If they really wanted to do what Riot did then smart money would have been to invest and hire an executive who has experience in running something like Star League or hire a commissioner from a professional international sports organization.
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On January 24 2021 03:16 LTCM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 23:23 MockHamill wrote:
I do not think this is much of a problem.
Age of Empires 3 is out next year. I doubt I will play much SC2 after that.
And for people that prefer Blizzard style RTS SC2 will still be around.
Age III was released in 2005 but it never had a competitive esports scene. The Age II community and esports is crushing it. People, including myself, have given up on other games and gone all in with it. DE a little bit ago. New civs, new campaigns, new game mode in last six months. Continued balance and bug fixes. Feels great to have left the coffin of sc2.
This. AoE 2 DE is amazing RTS.
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On February 11 2021 22:10 KaiserJohan wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2021 03:16 LTCM wrote:On January 23 2021 23:23 MockHamill wrote:
I do not think this is much of a problem.
Age of Empires 3 is out next year. I doubt I will play much SC2 after that.
And for people that prefer Blizzard style RTS SC2 will still be around.
Age III was released in 2005 but it never had a competitive esports scene. The Age II community and esports is crushing it. People, including myself, have given up on other games and gone all in with it. DE a little bit ago. New civs, new campaigns, new game mode in last six months. Continued balance and bug fixes. Feels great to have left the coffin of sc2. This. AoE 2 DE is amazing RTS.
Then why is the game not growing?
User was banned for this post.
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