Do you like Diablo 3?

[Cyborg]

That's cool. I'm buying it for the single player. I look forward to seeing what happens next, maybe jump on multiplayer for a couple games and realize that I can't beat anybody and that will probably be it. I'm hoping it's reasonably priced.

[zespri]

Did not want to start a new thread, but just came a cross this piece of news:

World of Warcraft apocalypses:  http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/10/07/reports-entire-cities-dead-on-certain-realms

I've believed that give all the battle.net experience Blizz should be close to bullet-proof security-wise. Now I'm not so sure. I think that what happened is th that over last few years the company changed key people in many areas, and what we perceive as blizzard has little to do with what blizzard as it used to be even 5 years ago.

My patience with them starts wearing thin. I think I'm not going to get heart of the swarm and what not.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Did not want to start a new thread, but just came a cross this piece of news:

World of Warcraft apocalypses:  http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/10/07/reports-entire-cities-dead-on-certain-realms

I've believed that give all the battle.net experience Blizz should be close to bullet-proof security-wise. Now I'm not so sure. I think that what happened is th that over last few years the company changed key people in many areas, and what we perceive as blizzard has little to do with what blizzard as it used to be even 5 years ago.

My patience with them starts wearing thin. I think I'm not going to get heart of the swarm and what not.

I decided that I'm just going to watch YouTube vids because my only interest in Starcraft II is its story. And I'm never going to be competitive.

[chemical_art]

The problem with WoW i find is that each expansion gives more of the same...

there is nothing earth shattering. Even the devs know this which is why they dropped from 10 level expansions to 5 level expansions. For cata they claimed it was time was devoted to improve the main land for the base games, which i decided was an OK reason.

For the pandas though? I don't even know, since I haven't kept tract for over a year now. But it was another 5 level increase, for more of the same grind for a dungeon which you can only do weekly, a dead pvp universe due to randomly summoned guards, etc.

The game feels to...controlled...for lack of a better world. There is no "I'm going to hunt some weaker players to loot!" in pvp, for example. And this is on the worlds were pvp is supposed to be encouraged. My best memories of WoW were on the mainland where I engaged with pointless, intense, and completely random pvp battles with other players for nothing more then bragging rights.

[Mánagarmr]

Every expansion of WoW appeals to the current customers. There's never anything new to lure old players (and new) back to the game.

[keith.lamothe]

Every expansion of WoW appeals to the current customers. There's never anything new to lure old players (and new) back to the game.

That's a fairly sweeping statement   Both WotLK and Cata brought me back for a little while.

[Wingflier]

KEITH, I never would have mistook you for a WoW player in my wildest dreams.

*Puts on expensive glasses*

"Well let's see here,

Yes - your business resume says you've developed and played thousands of hours of AI War, Master of Orion, Dwarf Fortress and WORLD OF WARCRAFT?!"

YOU'RE FIRED GET OUT OF HEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[keith.lamothe]

It's a fun game   Eventually got tired of it, but I think that goes for nearly any game.

Got a fair number of design ideas from it; mostly of the "do not do this" variety, but that's valuable too.

[chemical_art]

Every expansion of WoW appeals to the current customers. There's never anything new to lure old players (and new) back to the game.

That's a fairly sweeping statement   Both WotLK and Cata brought me back for a little while.

The issue is that the business model is regressive at this point.

You aren't really luring new players, and less and less players are coming back after falling off due to that stage's of the game's emphasis on weekly dungeons.

The first run from lvl 1 - 60 is amazing on how rapidly new things are learned. You can access a new group of dungeons every week if you play on any regular basis during this time.

After 60 the time to access a new wave of dungeons falls off pretty quickly, and during cata it was just getting tedious playing the same dungeons for a month.

[keith.lamothe]

The issue is that the business model is regressive at this point.

Perhaps.  I think it's a case of "what would be the best game design?" taking a back seat to "what would give the best mix of investment risk and reward?".  Even if they keep tapering off on subscriptions by 1 or 2 million per year they'll still have made several swimming pools full of gold coins after 3 or 4 years before getting into the realm of needing to shut it off.  I don't know how much longer they're actually wanting to keep WoW as it is as a going product.  I'm sure they have other things they want to do.  Like many (former and current) WoW players.

[yllamana]

It's just too hard to tell what exactly their problems are from the outside. Everyone agrees they need "faster content releases" and Blizzard themselves have been saying that since not so long after the game came out. Cataclysm was missing an entire raid tier and a half and it still had a very long lag time between its last patch and the next expansion.

The game has certainly made huge strides forwards in the quality of its releases. At the same time, it has lots of problems. It's hard to say why it has those problems, though - the PvP balance took a real nosedive in Cataclysm, for instance, but Blizzard's sort of suggested they're paralysed by not wanting to change things any more than is absolutely necessary because people really dislike frequent class balance changes. Without working there it's not really possible to know what they actually think of the problems or what those problems are caused by.

It's funny - my friends got really into Guild Wars 2 and I picked it up and loved it. There are so many cool things in that game, but at the same time it was really released a bit too early and has significant problems in just about every aspect of the game. I ended up checking out the Mists of Pandaria pre-release stuff when it rolled around... and found Guild Wars 2 had made me a WoW fangirl and reminded me why WoW is the success it is - for everything it does wrong, it does so much right that other MMOs don't, even down to simple things like the way monsters move around.

Er, anyway. I have absolutely no idea what would have caused the Rapture. I haven't seen any details anywhere. I wouldn't really want to speculate on what the cause was or if it was new or old without some evidence one way or the other.

[zespri]

Space Rangers HD: Revolution

Thank you.  If I see it come out in English, auto-buy.  Even if it's just a new story line with everything else the same.

It's getting released 15th march on steam.

[keith.lamothe]

Space Rangers HD: Revolution

Thank you.  If I see it come out in English, auto-buy.  Even if it's just a new story line with everything else the same.

It's getting released 15th march on steam.

This could be perilous for my current project's timeline.

[madcow]

Clearly you just need to pull 24 hour shifts to get it all done before the 15th, and naturally preemptively fix bugs/suggestions before anybody can report it.

Neve heard of space rangers so I'll check this out.

To be in topic to a blizzard game. Anybody tried heart of the swarm out? I'm tempted to grab this for the single player, so curious how the campaign is.

Doubt I would touch multiplayer with a ten foot pole though

[Mick]

SC2 multiplayer is not as scary as everyone thinks.