Ask Blizzard About Starcraft2, Diablo III, WoW, or Battle.net

Well, Blizzcon 2009 is about to get underway (look for the big news from the keynote in a few hours) and given how fast it sold out I'm sure there are still many rabid fans interested in what Blizzard might have to say that don't want to shell out the $40 for Pay-Per-View access. So, to that end we have interviews scheduled tomorrow with the teams from Starcraft2, Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Battle.net. If there is anything you wish to know about the progress or juicy details from any of these teams please leave it in the comments below. We'll try to parse through for the best questions and get you answers during our interview slots tomorrow. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply.

Comments

Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[eldavojohn]

To the World of Warcraft team, I have been playing the expansion but largely left the World of Warcraft in search of something else after frustration from reduced effort to level. This isn't a new trend, I recall experience received from quests being increased for certain level ranges. This is, of course, a tactic to entice new players. But it has by and large been a very negative turn for the game. I feel that your recruit a friend program is also quite negative to existing players as I have coworkers who can mill out two level sixties in two or three weekends if they can borrow another person's account.

Have you seen any other negative feedback about this? Has anyone complained? You sit as the largest online game, is growth really so important that game mecahnics need to be changed to entice new players?

In my honest opinion, you are selling yourselves short. The players see less quest content now because of increased experience. While they get to end content faster, they pass up a lot of areas and beautiful terrain just purely because they don't have to go there. What does the future hold as you strive to cut out content? The ability to start at level (current expansion cap - 20)?

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[debrain]

Sir:

I respectfully disagree. I think the end-game content and social aspect is most aspired after by the majority of players of World of Warcraft. In my opinion, I think Blizzard made the right decision in reducing the barrier to this end-game content and social aspect by making leveling faster and easier. Lower level content is still available for those who wish to pursue it (and comes with fulfilling achievements like Loremaster), but it is no longer an ominous, artificial, and arbitrary barrier to entry to the more desired content.

Mind you, I don't know the habits of most WoW players, but I'm confident that Blizzard isn't selling themselves short here. I'd say they're catering to the desires of their paying customers, but not necessarily overindulging them.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[idontgno]

I dunno how Blizz will answer, but achievements like Loremaster and Explorer provide alternate incentive to go back and close out content you skipped on the accelerated run to 80. Of course, as an 80 everything pre-BC is uber lol-easymode, and BC content is soloable, so it's clearly not the same, but nothing except peer pressure ("you don't raid enough") keeps you from going back to "a lot of areas and beautiful terrain".

Yes, my main has both Loremaster and Explorer. And has caught a fair bit of trollish flamage in chat for doing that before pimping out with full raid epics. It's amusing how folks think that you're not playing the game right if you're not playing the game like they play it. But, whatever.

What does the future hold as you strive to cut out content? The ability to start at level (current expansion cap - 20)?

That's the past. Death Knights, as you know, start playing open world content at about level 60. I expect future hero classes (if there are any) will have a similar mechanic, but I don't work for Blizz and have no inside line, so that's just my speculation.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[pezpunk]

i understand what you're saying but i strongly disagree. for me and my friends, the game really [i]starts[/i] at level 80. we are not the hardcore elite of the game by any means, either. blizzard has made max-level raiding accessible to anyone with a handful of friends, and that's what me and my handful are doing. it's the latest content with the richest rewards and most complex mechanics and prettiest graphics. there's a heck of a lot more story in the more modern content, as well.

the leveling process takes you through content that is over 5 years old (if you count the open beta). it's outdated graphically and mechanically. the quests are simple and mundane. old players have seen it before, and new players ... well, the sooner they see more modern content (and catch up with their friends who have been trying for years to get them into the game) the better.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Shimdaddy]

This is, of course, a tactic to entice new players.

I'm pretty sure this is only partially correct. It serves two purposes: 1) It helps people who play recruit their friends. If I'm high-level, and you don't have any characters, if Blizzard can make you get to my level faster, that means the game is more fun for both of us. 2) It helps people roll new alts. You're less locked into your character if the barrier to a new, more interesting one is lower. Blizzard has also said that the newer content is better than the old content -- the designers / artists / writers / etc. have simply gotten better at making the game. Thus, they want you to spend more time in the newer areas, as they're (generally) higher quality.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem is that ALL content until max level raids is nowdays so easy that people end up at 80 without knowing how to play their class properly. Cue drama when group/raid wipes in "easy" instance because you have newer players that have never had to actually play properly.

The chasm between good players and bad players has widened and at the same time a lot of great content has turned into trivial pile of crap for the core players - and the only reason to bother is that it's required to reach the maximum level. This is especially true at Northrend where you have to seek 3 and 5-person group quests to get anything that remotely resembles a challenge and all solo quests (95%+ of content) are so easy you could do them with a naked character.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[ubrgeek]

> The chasm between good players and bad players has widened

The bigger reason for this is "Meet at Castle Whatever for 25-man Raid. Gear check." It's impossible to learn the raids, get the equipment, etc. unless you actually get into the raids and get the equipment. I'd love to do some of the raids - I hear they're a lot of fun. But it's generally not possible with raid leaders checking to make sure I'm wearing Epic Underwear of Beelzebub. (And it better be clean, because you know mom always said to make sure you wear clean underwear in case you get hit by a Tauren.)

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Shooter28]

People can still go see that content whenever they want. This sounds more like a complaint about how hard I had it leveling and all the newbs should have it just as hard.

And yes, I do play, and I leveled a feral druid pre-patch 1.3....look up the old talents trees. In the words of every 12 year old who plays WoW, QQ More.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

If mmo-champion is correct, azeroth will be undertaking a major transformation and leveling will be changed yet again to maybe even a smaller section than what it is now.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[An ominous Cow art]

That's the past. Death Knights, as you know, start playing open world content at about level 60. I expect future hero classes (if there are any) will have a similar mechanic, but I don't work for Blizz and have no inside line, so that's just my speculation.

I have no problem with the idea of Death Knights (and any other future Hero Classes) starting out at level 55, but, please, please, when one of them selects a trade skill, let them begin with an appropriate skill level (55*5=275 maybe?), so they don't have to waste time running around the low-level zones, raising their skills to useful levels...

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[brkello]

New players don't tend to pass things up. It is largely for other people who have seen the content so many times they really don't care anymore and can get their alts to max level. It is more about retention than attracting new players.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Fross]

Having been there, since the open beta, until WotLK came out, I have to disagree with you. I found the content, quests, locations and overall experience of the first 60 levels better than TBC and WotLK (what I saw of it, which wasn't the entire thing I'll grant you. I got 5 70s in TBC, took a couple to 75, then stopped).

Saying the old content is simple and mundane is naive, the new content is *exactly the same*, find 6 of these, kill 8 of these, escort this npc... etc etc. Trying to make out that the new content is superior is disingenuous, the game's lack of ingenuity is what put off a lot of those who did leave.

This is where WoW's problem lies - they have to add new stuff to keep people interested, but they shouldn't do this at the expense of the old content. After all, that is the stuff that got the first 10 million players in, it's worth noting WoW's figures haven't massively increased since that first surge. Surely to entice new players, they would want to showcase *all* the content they have, to tell people there is so much they can play. To skip through all the old content and miss the development (and IMHO, the lore and atmosphere was FAR better projected by 1-60 than 60-80 content) is selling it short. The achievements thing does go some way to help this, but it's a difficult question - how do you keep new players interested when they are so far behind the end game, as the game is now so much bigger?

When I think of the good times I had in WoW, they are generally featured around the game pre-TBC. Scarlet Monastery, Westfall, MC and BWL runs (didn't finish Naxx!), Dire Maul King runs, opening of AQ, barrens chat, Tier 1.5 quests, helping guildies with their Onyxia chain prequests... The game seemed more cohesive then. I think it's a pity people are encouraged to skip through all that not paying attention, now.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Chris Burke]

reduced effort to level

I'm going to disagree with you on this terminology right here. Okay, sure, the total effort is reduced. But the effort per unit time is the same as always (easy), the only thing that's changed is how much time you're spending. In a game genre that is defined by sucking extra monthly fees out of you by wasting as much of your time as possible, this is actually a welcome breath of fresh air. They no longer have any real incentive to make getting to level 60 take 20 days /played, and thus they speed it up. Yay, Blizz.

Seriously, making leveling in Azeroth easier is a great thing.

First, it keeps new players from being that much further behind where everyone else is doing stuff and having fun, Northrend and level 80. They aren't missing anything by leveling faster than they would if leveling was still as slow and painful as when 60 was the level cap. Who cares if they do slightly fewer kill quests or delivery quests? The only good content they'll be missing out on is Old World 5-man instances, like they'd be doing that anyway! I leveled a character just before the first big leveling nerf, and then just like today about the only instance you have a prayer in hell of finding a group for is Scarlet Monestary.

They really aren't missing anything.

Second, it keeps all the old players who want an alt from going insane doing the same content for a 5th time in a row.

Third, it keeps everyone from just rolling a Death Knight to instantly skip Azeroth. Seriously, if you are going to complain about people skipping content, complain about DKs. Keeping the 1-60 grind as long as it used to be would just guarantee that nobody rolled any alt but a DK.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[TheTick21]

I would have never come back if not for the changes they have made to leveling. Several of my friends would never have started playing. I am positive that the number of people who dislike the accelerated leveling are in the minority.

If they made it to where you could start alts at level 80 when you've already leveled a character to 80 then I would play considerably more than I already do. Sinking that much time into a character before you can even really start to play the game is simply stupid. I don't have 8 hours a day to play. I'm glad you do.

Oh wait no, I think you're right. Please make this game even more grindy.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

When WoW came out, there was a great allure to going through the each zone and absorbing the lore.
There were also tons of new players willing to group up together to do quests and low level dungeons.

In the current state, the low level areas are deserts, devoid of social interaction, with people being forced to solo until level cap, when they can finally rejoin the rest of the players.

Blizzard made the right decision to allow people to fast track new/old players alike through this tedious phase.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[ajs]

To the World of Warcraft team, I have been playing the expansion but largely left the World of Warcraft in search of something else after frustration from reduced effort to level.

Reduced effort? Bah! When I started playing this game, it took me a few weeks of intensive play to get from 1 to max-level. These days it takes a few weeks of intensive play to get from 1 to max-level. It just so happens that max-level is now 80, and the majority of your time is spent in the 60-80 range (leveling slows at 60 and comes to a comparative stand-still at 70).

I just finished leveling my warlock, and she was a slow grind from 70 to 80, given that I did no instancing to break it up.

I think there's some nostalgia about how "hard" the game used to be. If your sense of achievement in this game came from what level you got your mount or how long it took you get to level 30, then yeah, WoW got "easier", but the same is true any time they raise the level cap (making heroic dungeons from Burning Crusade soloable for some classes, for example). But, the end-game has always been hard. It took months for the best guilds in the world to get through the Uldar hard-modes, and most have not done so yet (probably won't ever unless the go back after the level cap is raised, and even then, in some cases it might still be too challenging for most).

This game isn't easy. It has many things that only require time (leveling). It has many things that only require time and coordination (basic raiding). It has many things that only require a mastery of your class (arena). But it has some things that require massive effort and some innate skill (hard mode raiding; high-end arena). If you're not doing those things, you have no place to talk about what's hard and what isn't.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Goldberg's Pants]

One of the reasons I no longer play. And seeing bullshit like "Oh the game doesn't even BEGIN until level 80" just makes me sick and reminds me why I quit the game. People talking that sort of bollocks.

It's like they've eaten the livers of Venezuelan pygmies and are bragging about how great they taste while staring disdainfully at all those who've only eaten Belgian pygmies.

It's an elitist attitude that just reeks of "I'm better than you".

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Shooter28]

Go run heroics. The problem with your argument is that others have already done heroics, worked to 10 man, then on to 25 man raids. New players hit 80 and think they can raid immediately. It's so easy to get some badge gear and then pug some Naxx runs. Seriously, don't expect people to carry you though Trial of the Champion just because you hit 80 2 weeks ago.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry sir, but I have to disagree with your disagreement. I find that one builds the social bonds needed for an enjoyable endgame experience by struggling together through "the grind" as one reaches end game. If one does not have these bonds they are left to sit in Dalaran (or your end game location of choice) begging elitist players who power level seven characters to 80 in three hours just to let them in on an end game instance so they can get one measly purple. Usually they are just laughed at, called noobs, and generally shunned. Then they leave the game, reducing Blizzard's profit from WoW.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[pwfffff]

Either you haven't played WotLK or you somehow fail to see the difference between 'wher is mankriks wife plz' and 'HOLY SHIT MY QUESTGIVER JUMPED OFF A CLIFF'. Not to mention the various 'here's a dragon to fly around on' quests. Which old world quest let you fight in and witness huge battles in a capital city? Seriously, which game were you playing?

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[RabidMonkey]

As someone levelling their 5th toon, I can say, I love the changes. I am sick and tired of the Barrens, and anything that can get me up to the higher levels faster is going to allow me to keep playing and enjoying the game. The first 2 times I levelled, I did all the quests, got into the lore, etc, but you know what, it's no different the 3rd, 4th, 5th, xth time. If it wasn't for the L2P value of spending hours with a new class, I'd say Blizz should just allow you to start a new toon at level 58 like the DK's, so you can miss all the old world runaround.

Sure, it's annoying to know how much money I've paid for mounts, and how much time I spent on autorun in the old world, but thats the nature of things, they change. I just wish they'd change more, so that maybe levelling other toons wouldn't be the boreing grindfest it is now... cuz I'd really like to try playing a warlock.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[kalirion]

That's the past. Death Knights, as you know, start playing open world content at about level 60.

I don't play WOW, but is there an option for Death Knights to start at level 1? For example, a new player might wanna be a Death Knight, but may not want to skip all the early content.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[sopssa]

And this is good. There's not so many players on the lower end regions now (and haven't been for long time), so the leveling isn't the same fun that it used to be with more players in the area. Its frustrating to play an mmorpg game and just be alone of with 1-2 players in the area. Its great that blizzard lowered the leveling requirements, because many times I stopped playing and paying for subscription because I just felt like playing alone, and I could had done that in more fun games. But most players are in the higher end and its more fun to get there quickly.

Players still see all the content and areas, but if they want they can do it more quickly now. It doesn't really make much sense to force people to grind and shit and even more so because its damn boring now without so many other players.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[pwfffff]

Generally if you're a good player you can prove it to the raid leader and get into the raid without having exceptional gear. Most of the time though, people in bad gear have bad gear because they're bad at the game. It's prejudice in a way, yes, but if you don't have raid gear you likely don't raid experience and will also likely lack the practice required to not only keep up your DPS/HPS/TPS but also to not stand in fires and blow up the raid.

Also keep in mind that gear checks don't necessarily judge you solely on the gear you have equipped, but the quality of the enchants, gems, etc. on said equipment. Why should the raid leader bring his raid down with you and your crappy equipment if you haven't even bothered to make that equipment a little less crappy by researching and acquiring the best enchants for your class?

You should be able to find a guild around your play level fairly easily. It won't be that fun at first, as you probably ARE skilled enough to be in high end raids and your companions will fail over and over again bringing you down with them, but at the very least you will be able to leech gear and acquaint yourself with the basics of raiding.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'd like to ask the world of warcraft developers is what they like best about sucking cock.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Chyeld]

I left WoW before any of the packs hit. But I was an obsessive quest completer, I wouldn't leave a zone till I had taken care of every quest I possibly could, which meant before long I was well out leveling the content I was up against (until I finished a zone and then moved to the next, where I'd be just 'midlevel' again).

The reason I left WoW had more to do with my first few raid experiences which were in Stratholme. Here I was, in a town sized dungeon, with lore and nooks and crannies to explore, and the group I was with just wanted to rush to point A to beat Named Boss A, then point B to beat Named Boss B, and etc.

After the third go through, I realized that the way WoW had been set up, high level content was simply contrary to the idea of exploration and 'enjoying the scenery'.

I never had a problem doing 'grey' quests, or popping out of a zone now and then to do an 'appropriately leveled' quest. But raids required people. People who weren't necessarily there to do anything more than grind away till they got their next food pellet in the form of another 'epic' piece of gear.

Maybe that's changed somewhat, I've heard that some of the old 'high level' content can now be sort of soloed by a good maxed out character, and perhaps the new raid stuff isn't so focused on finding the most efficient path through without stopping to look at stuff. But given all I've heard, I doubt it.

And honestly, that's sad. One of the things that Blizzard has always done well is tell a story. Even if some can claim that the stories are lifted from other sources, it's the quality of the story teller that matters just as much as the source of the tale.

I'll always remember WoW for those pre-expansion Worgen related quests (no clue if they've been added to in the expansions), how you could find the origin of their presence in the world through the eleven zones, discover how the 'dark powers' got involved in the human zones, and then have to switch to the Horde side to find the end of the story.

It's a shame, because I know that Blizzard has to put in as much story effort into the high level content.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

not an option. The level you start at is kinda part of the story. It's neat what they did to the Death Knight. I played one just long enough to "get out." It was fun, but that's about as far as I've taken wow. I've abandoned it for Jarate practice.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Shooter28]

That's the past. Death Knights, as you know, start playing open world content at about level 60.

I don't play WOW, but is there an option for Death Knights to start at level 1? For example, a new player might wanna be a Death Knight, but may not want to skip all the early content.

No there is no option for a death knight to start at level 1. You cannot, however, be a death knight until you have leveled another character to at least 55.

So for a new player to create a Death Knight, he still has to go through 55 levels with another character, and therefore gets to see the old world content still.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[_Sprocket_]

The issue would be finding others to bond with during "the grind." The same power-leveler you're going to beg in Dalaran is the one running characters you're going to run in to out in the world of "the grind." Are you expecting them to slow down to drag you along?

It was different at one point. Years ago, the world was full of folks just starting out. Now they are minority. The other day, just for giggles, I started some lowbie characters on a new realm. I was looking forward to hitting the first instance as I have fond memories from the first time me and some friends set foot in there. And while I found it sort of fun - I realized that it was almost trivial to run as all the players knew how to run instances and the majority had Heirloom items. Anyone truely new to the game would have been simply running along in the wake of the rest of the party.

You can never go back. The game world is not the same as it was in the past. Come in to the world, and the majority of your social structure (friends, guild mates, etc.) will probably be somewhere in or near the End Game. The folks you meet along the way are likely already experienced - some of them with elitist attitudes. The best you can hope for is that some of your social structure still has time and open character slots (all my "leveling friends" alts are now at least in their 60s if not 80) to enjoy the earlier parts of the game along with you.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[MistrBlank]

Take one of your level 80's, do a bunch of easy heroic content (5 mans and 10mans). Take the badges and convert them into a chest piece and a shoulder piece for a combined 20% experience gain.

Someone equated that 10% of your character's career in XP means you effectively paid for the first 45 levels of experience once that character hits 80.

AND that Heirloom gear can be carted over to your next toon for levelling. Getting a cloth shoulder, chest and a staff for spellpower effectively means you can level 3 classes with ease, 4 if you want to play a caster druid.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Like2Byte]

I feel that your recruit a friend program is also quite negative to existing players as I have coworkers who can mill out two level sixties in two or three weekends if they can borrow another person's account.

I know two guys who churned out two level 60 toons in less than three days. We were all quite impressed. They played non-stop for 36 hours straight, took an 8-hour ESS (Eat, Sleep, S***) break then were back at it till they reached 60. It was on the Sin'Jin server (Guild: KEK) Bridezilla was the toon (I think that was the name - little fuzzy 7 months on).

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[idontgno]

This.

Well, asides from the inflammatory tone.

There was a bit of novelty in the quest structure of some of the lore-ish questlines, and the "Angrathar/Battle of the Undercity" chain you mention is a premier example. To a lesser extent, the "Argent Vanguard/Argent Pinnacle" chains.

The common mechanical factor is, I think, phasing. This capability seems to have taken the chains off of the quest writers, and they've broken out with some memorable quest lines.

That said, there were some memorable and affecting quest lines in the old content as well.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand what you mean, but your statement that

all solo quests (95%+ of content) are so easy you could do them with a naked character

is simply not true, and you know it. Don't exaggerate too much. It doesn't strengthen your argument.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. The first question is a waste of time from someone who feels slighted when someone else gets something he did not have.

Things evolve and change. Deal with it.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Fross]

TBC had flying around quests (bombing runs, exploratory), even the original game had temporary mounts early on, and there were several that took place during large battles. The basic mechanics are still the same. You may think they are basic tenets of MMOs, you may or may not be right. But if you're willing to buy the same thing over and over again with a different coloured shell...

I think Penny Arcade summed it up pretty well:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20081114.jpg

If you really think the differences you mentioned are significant changes, well... good for you, have fun, I suppose.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[warrior389]

This is the same thing that would happen in the real world if we were all immortal. It is why life has meaning. Characters should die when they get old. Items that are bound to that character will disappear. There could be a memorial wall for important characters.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[vitaflo]

I think the appropriate comic for this is here:

http://www.crispygamer.com/comics/ding/ding-2008-05-29.aspx

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Ozeroc]

I'm sure if I'm still playing by the time I hit 80 I'd suck at raids because I'm one of those 'loner' players who just likes to quest. I can't chain myself to my system for x amount of time to complete instances, let alone raids. I won't even get started on dealing with A-holes and punks. I plan to stop playing when Diablo III comes out... WoW's fun, but it's not my idea of socializing. I do that outside. :-) Oz

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[bckrispi]

I just started playing in April. But I don't see what you're describing with finding groups to run the 5 mans. In both classic and BC content, I've never had a problem finding a group to run an instance - with one set of exceptions: instances that are in the "nerf" zone, lv 58-60 (classic) or 68-72 (BC).

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[adamjgp]

Just view it as switching professions when you get to level 55. If you haven't changed professions before, I'll let you in on a secret. You go back to skill 1.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Hoi Polloi]

The main social activity on my server is struggling to get into instances, especially BC ones. I'd trade all the pretty new mounts and gimmickry for them to fix that.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[_Sprocket_]

Characters should die when they get old. Items that are bound to that character will disappear. There could be a memorial wall for important characters.

I'm not sure people would be excited to play Logan's Run Online.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[melikamp]

Hmmm I think I feel much the same! Why won't they make all drops completely random, except for a basic category bias whereas archers tend to drop drop bows, kobold miners drop hammers, etc. Aside from one-time-quest-drops, why should be bosses privileged? They already have a quest progression (like in Stockades) where at a higher level you are invited to revisit a dungeon to get yet another quest: that should suffice for a reason to run an instance multiple times.

But then, of course, people will concentrate on volume-killing for farming items. Instead of running end-game instances, they will be running 5-cold-mage parties in killing fields somewhere ad infinitum, killing, I can only assume, boars. There are various ways to fix this as well. One way is by creating items on kill and making younger spawns to have shit for items, and making drops progressively better as the mob gets older. This, actually, could be quite interesting, as the balance could shift towards lone hunters who seek out rare and elite mobs. Running instances would still be OK for drops (guaranteed flat drop rate), but totally comparable with farming Outlands with a friend or two.

Another (imho, positive) consequence of making all drops random is the increased appreciation for crafted items.

To make a long story short, I am done with WoW for reason outlined by the parent. I would play MMO that rewards solo players with all possible items, given enough time.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[An ominous Cow art]

My only time switching skills before was at a very low level, so the drop back to 1 didn't matter much. I wasn't thrilled to have to spend the time running around raising Mining and Herbalism on my level 60 Death Knight, though. And I didn't want to level out of the BC level ranges until my skills were high enough to use them in Hellfire, etc. I suppose the non-gathering professions have it relatively easy; you can buy the materials needed to raise your skill on the AH.

Picking the low-level herbs did allow me to ship them off to one of my other alts, who was working on leveling the Inscription skill, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[mopower70]

And I disagree with you. Blizzard has alienated a large number of us "casual" players who do not have three and four hours a night to spend running end-game content. They have obviously recognized this problem with the last patch allowing the extension of resets so content can be cleared at a much more casual pace. I've been playing for almost 2 years and I've probably seen less than 20% of the game content. My first character hit L60 and got MC attuned a week before TBC came out. I've still never been to MC. Determined to not let that happen again, I spent most of TBC leveling my main to L70 and trying to get my other toons there as well. I wasn't even close when WotLK came out. It's now a race to get everyone up to L80 before the next XPac. And when I do, I'll have a stable of characters - only one of which has every run a pre-TBC dungeon, and none of which have run any TBC dungeons at all. And forget playing both races. Were it not for the TBC quests for Alliance, I wouldn't even know what the major Horde cities look like. I've paid for a whole bunch of content I will never get a chance to see or experience. And that kinda sucks.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[SL Baur]

I don't play WOW, but is there an option for Death Knights to start at level 1?

No and there's no way to skip any of the starting area. By the time you're done you're at least level 58ish, have a decent set of blues and can go through the Dark Portal to start questing in Outlands. You know all of the flight points in the old world.

The real downside, as others have pointed out, is that your professions all start out at zero (except for first aid).

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[SL Baur]

And honestly, that's sad. One of the things that Blizzard has always done well is tell a story. Even if some can claim that the stories are lifted from other sources, it's the quality of the story teller that matters just as much as the source of the tale.

There are plusses and minuses. I've heard of folks who have soloed Onyxia and Kara. I can't remember where I found it (maybe it was elitistjerks) but there's a forum somewhere devoted to the topic of undermanning raids. It seems to be full of people who missed the old content and wanted to see it.

The newest content has some great story lines. The quests for attunement to Sons of Hodir is epic. There's another quest line where you get enslaved and have to run errands for your "master". The starting zone for Death Knights has an interesting story, which includes one quest where you have to kill villagers who run away at the sight of you and bravely kill women and children who are cowering in terror.

I'm leveling a priest now and doing pretty much what you did - do every quest in a zone before moving on. There's a lot of stuff I've never done before.

I'll always remember WoW for those pre-expansion Worgen related quests (no clue if they've been added to in the expansions)

The latest rumor flying around (I guess we'll be finding out shortly how true it is) is that Worgen will be added as a playable Alliance race in the next expansion.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[LandDolphin]

Blizzard has alienated a large number of us "casual" players who do not have three and four hours a night to spend running end-game content.

Didn't Blizzard just change it so that you can extent a saved isntance past the 1 week reset timer? Wasn't this done so that "casual" players, who coudl not complete it within a week, could take as long as they needed to go from start to end so that they could enjoy all of th eend game content in their own time?

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[ottothecow]

I think you are right, that part of WoW is gone forever. The only time that experiance will return is when blizzard EOLs WoW and stops releasing expansions in preparation ofr WoW2 or world of starcraft or whatever.

I sold my account about 1.75yrs ago and stopped playing about 2yrs ago...sorry blizzard! but while I hate playing with people who clearly ebayed themselves a 60 (or 70, 80...90?), how am I going to turn down an opportunity to turn my playtime into an extra $300+ in my pocket for a mediocre account (it was a 70 shadow priest with some kara gear and the best 39 pvp frost mage in the battlegroup).

I just didn't like playing anymore. I had a blast in the low level BGs but 70 pvp was awful since it was just a series of stun, fear, silence, repeat (hint: people don't like losing control of their characters...it is much more frustrating than simply dying). At 39, I got to pvp with people who had clearly played through the game and were good with teamwork and stuff...there were too many idiots at 70 but I eventually realized that I was playing wow as if it were some FPS with BGs being different servers so...I stopped playing and started playing FPS games again.

I loved the initial experience of WoW when leveling my first char but that experiance is gone now and won't come back since the level cap is now incredibly far away from where you start. The only problem is that if I play something else, I just compare it to wow--I tried playing the free Runes of Magic and said "If I want to play another MMO that is identical to wow...I can afford $15 a month for the real thing" but now I am realizing that a game like that might be the only way to get that experience of a game without a full max-level population...

Also, I always thought it would be fun to see a wow-BG game...give people some basic gear options (like the low level BG rewards and a few other items to allow a wider build selection) and let them spec out characters with the proper number of talent points...I always liked the 30-39 and 40-49 ranges for class balance and ability to compete without twinking...and let it run like a normal online game.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[SL Baur]

TBC had flying around quests (bombing runs, exploratory),

Yeah. I revisited the bombing run in the hills near the Dark Portal many times before I got to level 70 and could fly on my own. Once I became friends with the Ogres in Ogri'La, I discovered my all-time favorite quest "Bomb Them Again!" http://thottbot.com/q11023

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[SL Baur]

I would have never come back if not for the changes they have made to leveling. Several of my friends would never have started playing. I am positive that the number of people who dislike the accelerated leveling are in the minority.

A very vocal minority, same as with all the current whining by the twinks who get to level x9 and stay there, spending most of their time ganking n00bs in battlegrounds who were just passing through.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[LandDolphin]

I beleive that to be fairly true. On my first character I started (Started after TBC), I leveld up and did not have add-on's liek questhelper to help speed me through the content. After reaching 80 and raiding, I wanted to level up a different quest. This time, I was able to fly through the grind of leveling to get the 80 I wanted, so that I could paly the game I wanted.

You can still take time levelign up if you want to. Most of the quests are designed to play solo & all of the dungeons in Vanilla can b edone with a three man team at appropriate levels.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two games built into World of Warcraft. There's the game that you play when you're leveling from 1 - $levelcap, and there's the game you play at $levelcap.

The leveling game has a fixed psychological reward schedule, you generally have a good idea of when you're going to get your next yellow flashy treat just for pushing buttons long enough. If some other task is too hard for you to do, you can wait a little while until you've received another level or another weapon or another cape, and then come back and do it handily. Once you've "won" this game, your "reward" is getting to play the other game.

The $levelcap game requires you to become more efficient at pushing the buttons your character has been issued. Sure, you can get another weapon to marginally increase the tolerance of your button-pushing, but it really comes down to pushing the buttons in better orders and with better timing, often synchronized in reaction to some sort of temporary state change in the thing you're trying to beat. The psychological rewards become spread out more temporally, and they are on an increasingly inconsistent schedule -- it's gone from being dog training to being a slot machine.

Unfortunately, the procedures you learned in the first game don't necessarily help you too much with the second. People who want to play the second *have* to "win" the first, as well as team up with 4 to 24 other people who also have. People who just want to play the first can do it at their convenience repeatedly (of course, they could also be getting roughly the same game without a subscription fee by playing Dragon Warrior or Fallout3).

So basically what I'm saying is that your question is irrelevant.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[kitsunewarlock]

I don't think diligence should be rewarded in a game. Don't say "effort". Effort is trying something. Diligence is doing something. I can't "try" to become level X0. Its not something that is beyond my skills (nor anyones, given enough time).

The only reason people think it difficult is because its lonely (if your new as most friends you meet leveling with either level much faster, much slower or quit before you hit X0) and boring (assuming you use services like WoWiki and Thottbot to complete your quests or you've done them before). Higher level should not always equate to "fun". I've had amazing Dungeons and Dragons adventures at level 3 (the characters started at level 3 for that matter). I've had horrible adventures at level 6, 10, 15 and even 20-30. Same goes for WoW. I have some amazing memories from being level 15 and many more awful memories of being level 70. The epic wonder and mystery is severely diminished at that level, and there's far too many players to feel epic enough yourself to explain why. Personally I wish we could do away with levels, but experiments have shown players don't like that and the worlds tend to come out over-expansive and quite bland.

But in the end its about competition. WoW is about whose armor is shinier and who gets higher numbers doing various tasks. And while you can try to ignore the number-crunching max-level jerks who refuse to acknowledge you because you want to use [insert current worst weapon spec for rogues] or [insert worst talent tree for hunters], it gets difficult as they tend to have the best argument: we want new content. We can't get to new content without beating better bosses. Better bosses require better gear.

In the end it also comes down to "if you've played more, your better". That kind of elitest attitude stinks up WoW like a post-game men's high school locker room. If your level 15, people will assume your new at the game or levelling a second or third character. Those are your two options: your either a vet or your new. Your something or your nothing. But that's complete and utter crap. Yes, in the "real world" (lets say "the office"), you can assume the new guy (i.e. first day on the job) might be a little green. But you won't refuse to talk to him until he's completed his first project. You won't refuse to listen to his suggestions. And although you might give a smirky "that's a bad idea" or "we've tried that" response, you still responded. Which is more than I can say for most level X0 players in WoW to a newer player trying to get the hang of the game.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[pezpunk]

i don't know what expansion you played because it wasn't wotlk.

quests are unquestionably more interesting than "go kill 8 spiders". in wotlk, you constantly get to drive vehicles, bomb things from the air, elad a charge up a hill, or take part in quests that truly matter in the world and even change the face of the zone (through phasing). you take part in meaningful battles with zone-wide consequences. you see huge chunks of lore unfurl before your eyes ...

speaking of which, did you even do the Wrathgate thing? best thing in WoW ever. look it up on youtube if you missed it.

70-80 unquestionably puts you more in the middle of the lore situation than anything previous. Arthas shows up at least once per zone to threaten you with the wrath of doom or whatever ... hell, in icecrown you actually get to BE Arthas for a while!

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Chris Burke]

You may have lucked out on server choice then. They do vary. The last few alts I've ran through azeroth on a couple different servers were barren wastelands for instancing outside of SM and maybe ZF. It got a little better in outland -- now there's so many Death Knights running around the place it isn't bad at all.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[_Sprocket_]

Also, I always thought it would be fun to see a wow-BG game...give people some basic gear options (like the low level BG rewards and a few other items to allow a wider build selection) and let them spec out characters with the proper number of talent points...I always liked the 30-39 and 40-49 ranges for class balance and ability to compete without twinking...and let it run like a normal online game.

I always thought the arenas should have run in a similar manner - a pool of gear you set up before entering that's junk outside the arena. It would be interesting to do BGs in a similar manner.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[ottothecow]

I actually recall there being some arena tournaments arranged that sounded like that (maybe it was a big LAN that did it or someone using the open test servers that let you get a standard setup).

It was something like you got an arena set and got to choose your skills. There were some builds that wouldn't work because they relied on different stats than the arena sets provided but it sounded like a good idea.

I just looked up my old characters that were sold (guy renamed them before changing emails so I knew the names)...idiot leveled my twink out of 30-39 to level 52 and only replaced 2 items since everything I had was almost as good as it gets (I wasn't willing to shell out for like...staff of jordan but I had good enchants and my main was max tailoring and able to do things like red mageweave pants with non-epic spellthread). Poor little blood elf is now an abandoned level 52 character as neither it nor the main have been played since Armory started having the stats page

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[oulee09]

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Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[fractoid]

There's not so many players on the lower end regions now (and haven't been for long time), so the leveling isn't the same fun that it used to be with more players in the area. Its frustrating to play an mmorpg game and just be alone of with 1-2 players in the area.

This is exactly the problem. A friend of mine started playing just before Wrath came out, and he had to solo literally 90% of the way to the level cap. He found it really frustrating that he had such a long grind to get to the actual MMO part of the game. Another friend's quit the game because every time he hits level cap (he doesn't play much) they release a new expansion and he's soloing again instead of playing with friends.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[fractoid]

I've paid for a whole bunch of content I will never get a chance to see or experience. And that kinda sucks.

No, you've been the victim of severe alt-itis. You're the WoW equivalent of that guy with six different degrees who'll never get a job because if he does he'll have to start paying off his million-dollar student fees (dunno if it works like that in the States but in Australia the government will foot the bill for our tertiary education and then add 5% or something onto our tax bill for the next 20 years to repay it.)

Pick one of your characters to be your 'main'. Level it to the level cap and gear it up, at least with 5-man and badge gear. You can do this by playing 1-2 hours a couple of nights a week. Pick another one on the opposite faction. Do the same. There, you've seen 90% of what the game has to offer.

I've paid for a whole bunch of content I will never get a chance to see or experience. And that kinda sucks.

Don't be stupid. You've paid for 2 years' access to WoW. Whether you chose to experience that content when it was available, or not, is immaterial. It's like complaining that you can't watch the ball game and Top Gear even though 'you've paid for it' because they're on at the same time.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[fractoid]

Decent? The Death Knight starting gear is roughly on par with Blackwing Lair gear. That's why the 50-59 battlegrounds are pointless to play, 50% of each game is DKs with three times as many hit points as other classes, running around and two-shotting the non-DKs.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[fractoid]

killing, I can only assume, boars

They're all boars. They may look different, or have different abilities, but they are all boars.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Meski]

Some of the reduced effort to level is good, that which applies to characters after your first. Make it hard once, sure, but once you've done the hard metres[1] once, leveling is just learning to play your class. And making you walk instead of ride/fly once you've done it once is dumb.

[1] :)

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Meski]

Why is it hard to get into instances? Lack of players on your realm?

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[idontgno]

That was my impression, too. A brand-new DK, just exiting the starting area and initial quest chains, starts out with a set of "rare" quality gear that could only have been exceeded in the pre-Burning Crusade era by dedicated 40-man raiders. And that, just barely.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Hoi Polloi]

Completely the opposite. You get the "no more instances can be started" (or some such msg) rejection when trying to enter. It means that the server is running as many instances as it can handle.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[vikstar]

I agree completely. I too stopped playing when we hit 60 and started raiding. I had the advantage of playing with 2 other friends, so the 5 player instances were done with 3 of us, and were quite challenging and very satisfying. Especially because we took the time to read the quests, and we even did a little humorous role-playing (D&D vets).

My first raid experience was crap, and the others weren't much better. It was just a case of the raid leader telling us exactly what the boss will do, what other creatures will spawn, and how we had to kill it. Well, how's that for a spoiler? Then we just followed the plan, how completely fucking boring. Don't get me wrong, I like team tactics etc, but to fill that void I play counter-strike.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Meski]

What realm is that on?

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Veggiesama]

In short, other people are the reason why playing online sucks.

This is why I'm eagerly looking into playing Dungeons & Dragons Online again. Besides moving to a free-to-play-but-pay-for-more subscription model, you can also hire NPC henchmen to accompany you through the dungeons.

With a henchman, you can probably solo most dungeons on Normal mode. With two other friends, you can hire 3 henchmen (6 total characters), which lets you take on the entire dungeon by yourself (possibly on Hard mode, too). I think you'd still need people for Elite mode, but once you get Elite, you are no longer wowed by the "new-ness" factor anyway, so you're probably doing it for the challenge and rewards.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Eggplant62]

I jumped into WoW back in '05, the summer after its release. I had to experiment with 1 toon at the start and used it for the first few weeks to learn the basics. From there, I threw that one away and created a druid and made him my main. At that time, I was working a pretty decent schedule and could get in 2-3 hours of time most evenings to run. However, I barely made a level in 3 or 4 days, and because I didn't know anyone but 1 or 2 other friends IRL who were into the game, and those 1 or 2 other people already had their toons dozens of levels ahead of mine and played on a completely different schedule, the grind for me on that original main druid, even to level 40, was the longest, most boring game experience of my life.

Meanwhile, I got up with a couple people who were in guilds and who were kind enough to help out by inviting me to their guild and loaned some gold to get mount and some decent armor. I don't know where I'd be today without those people. However, after a time, I was only playing 1-2 hours a night. Work was busier and I was getting more hours. By that time, I had created a couple more toons and leveled those up, while the main got to see MC and some of the other end game content.

But with BC came the first changes that made leveling a bit easier. The breaks that Blizz put in the leveling system really did me well. Soon, all 3 of these toons were 70 and I was at least seeing some good content there.

By the time WotLK came out, I had a new job working 12h shifts staggered 3 and 4 days running per week, and that didn't give me much time at all to play. My guild was raiding on the days I'd spent all day on a 12h shift and had to look forward to (not) pulling another 2 or 3 more 12h shifts on the subsequent days. By the time I was off a 12h shift, the last thing I was interested in was staring at a laptop screen for another 3 or 4 hours trying to get through a raid, all the while fighting to not fall asleep with my finger on the W key and wiping the whole raid. Issuing a game that became easier to level was a godsend to me.

Now I'm back on a more normal 8x5 work schedule. I get in 2 or 3 hours a night again. My 3 mains are almost all 80, and I've managed to get a DK up to 80 to boot. With all of these toons, I'm seeing a variety of content in Northrend. Heck, the youngest toons are seeing stuff that the older ones didn't.

Thanks, Blizz, for having the sense to remove the long grind. I know what that grind was like -- it hurt! I don't feel in any way robbed that some players weren't required to fight up the same long sets of quest lines I had to. I'm glad that some of the stuff that I ground those first toons through could be skipped while leveling my younger toons. I'd already experienced it once, so I really didn't miss it.

I'm just glad that Blizz gave everyone a fair shake at getting somewhere at least close to end game content. And my guild has benefitted, too, for it. Because if they need dps, I can switch to my dps toon. If they need heals, I can drag out a healer. If they need a tank, I have one of those, too. It's a win-win all the way around from my perspective after Blizz cut out the long grind.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

This happened to me too in TBC i levelled to 70 started running karazhan and found people rushing thru the instance to kill the 15 bosses. after the first raid and after we killed the first boss i decided to backtrack all the way to the start read the books on the library. i read all the text from the butler in the house. and every quest in side that place. after that i am the guy that stops after running a dungeon to see if he missed something lorewise. when we did huge raids i would make sure beforehand to learn the location of points of interest in a raid. for example book locations quest giver. so far it have worked on every raid and dungeon i been into.

Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft

[Deosyne]

I'd venture a guess that it would be the same answer as anything else involving what they like: CASH.

Diablo III

[Anonymous Coward]

Who do I have to blow to get early access?

Re:Diablo III

[sys.stdout.write]

Keith Lee.

NEXT QUESTION

Re:Diablo III

[sys.stdout.write]

I fail to see how this post relates to blowing Keith Lee.

Re:Diablo III

[An ominous Cow art]

"Blow Keith Lee" (whoever he is) would be the level 20 talent ability in the Maj'kal tree, of course.

Re:Diablo III

[Mursk]

"travel to their own pocket dimension in hell" maybe?

Re:Diablo III

[sznupi]

Well, you wanted next/more questions, right?

Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls?

[Raindance]

When I play wow, I probably play too much. I'd like to use some built-in functionality to gently put limits on my playtime and remind me how much I've played in a week. At first I had high hopes that the Parental Controls function could help me.

Unfortunately, though the rest of wow's interface is great, its parental controls are not only a crime against all that is beautiful and elegant, but pretty useless in the real world. There's no way to set "able to play X hours per week" or "able to play Y hours per weekday, Z hours per weekend". One must set a hard-coded block schedule, click okay, then hope you've predicted your exact needs. And there's no in-game warning when you're coming up against a limit-- you're simply disconnected when it hits.

Please, please, please tell me there are plans afoot to fix this tool and perhaps remake it into a more general method for account owners to manage playtime better? Extra kudos if it could include a Netflix-style option to put your account on vacation for a variable length of time...

Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[eldavojohn]

Assuming Diablo/Starcraft are going to be on this, what are you doing to fix, improve, update, solidify Battle.net? Last I heard, we can't use Starcraft II on a LAN so how are you going to ensure us that Battle.net is valid replacement in terms of speed, security and reliability? Will Battle.net be completely redone from what it was in the Diablo days?

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without LAN, how are we going to play with 2 computers at the same time behind a NAT router? With original Starcraft, you can't go on battle.net with more than one computer behind the same NAT router. If I want to play a 4v4 game at a LAN party, I will now need to connect 8 computers behind a single NAT router to battle.net. (Or, if I wanted to participate as 2 players on opposite teams in a 3v3 game, I will still need to connect 2 computers to battle.net from behind a NAT router). Whenever I tried this on the original Starcraft, it dropped one of the players.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Hatta]

If I bring my PC to my cousin's house for a LAN party (who lives way out in the country, and only has dial up) are we going to be able to have a full speed, low latency network game of Starcraft II?

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[jellomizer]

In others words. I want to bitch and moan about a feature that I will probably never use. Just because I think if we had such a feature I will have so many friends over because I have a good lan infrastructure.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Mgns]

I can't belive you people still ask this question.

You will have to log on to battlenet to show your game is not pirated.

After that the gameplay will be resolved directly between the computers currently playing.

Was that clear enough? Give it a rest already

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

I reiterate this. Ask them why they're being stupid and removing a vital feature (LAN play).

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Rogerborg]

Followup: since every nerd who's currently pissing and moaning about LAN play is going to buy Starcraft II anyway, why would you care?

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

anon to preserve moderation...

I can not tell you how many hundreds of hours I spent playing starcraft at lan parties throughout college. Its a very important feature. While it is less important now that I require sleep, live 2 states away from my friends, and have a full time career and wife, I just can't see supporting blizzard anymore if that option was taken away.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Randwulf]

Not true. While I haven't done much in the way of "pissing and moaning", I fully intend to boycott Starcraft II over the LAN play issue. I know others who feel the same.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[pwfffff]

Wow, I can't believe you went to a college that had network infrastructure and yet no internet connection. How strange.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, the campus had network infrastructure. but my friends house in the middle of nowhere, the one partway between school and my job (the two were 70 miles apart, bastards wouldn't let me transfer because I was the only one that could do the job) where I could crash on the couch any time I needed to? At best we could get 28k out of the dialup on a good day. but he had a 40 port 100mb hub and more space in his kitchen dedicated to spare computer parts than to food.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[pwfffff]

Well aren't you lucky that the authentication will work perfectly well over a slow connection as it is not latency dependent. All the game data will still travel over the LAN, you know.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[GeorgeAWithersJr]

Without LAN, how are we going to play with 2 computers at the same time behind a NAT router? With original Starcraft, you can't go on battle.net with more than one computer behind the same NAT router. [snip].

I'll second this. The *ONLY* way I've ever played Starcraft as a bonding father/son/son moment playing on a local LAN with 3 computers. I have no interest in anonymous play and it seems this usage will be unavailable. We own three copies of the same so this is not about needing the same license represented multiple times but, as the parent comment noted, the NAT issues forbade multiple Battle.net access anyway.

Please, Blizzard, consider not everyone is simply attempting to play an online game against anonymous and distant players. It seems the WoW phenomenon has colored your world-view that this is inappropriate. In the past I've thought it's a triumph that, along side a traditional game like chess, I can challenge my children with the online/LAN Starcraft.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[HeronBlademaster]

You will have to log on to battlenet to show your game is not pirated.

After that the gameplay will be resolved directly between the computers currently playing.

Has Blizzard actually said it will work the way you describe? Starcraft I apparently does, but you still can't play with two computers behind the same NAT, so what gives you the impression that Starcraft II will be any different?

It's things like this that just show we need LAN capability. If I'm at my parents' cabin, where there is no internet connection, and we bring our laptops, it's stupid for Blizzard to say "too bad, you can't play Starcraft II together because we can't babysit you every time you start the game unless you have an internet connection." As long as I am unable to play LAN games without an internet connection, Blizzard has lost a sale to me. (And no, I'm not going to pirate it either.)

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[HeronBlademaster]

In others words. I want to bitch and moan about a feature that I will probably never use.

Speak for yourself. The only way I ever play Starcraft or Diablo II with other people is on a LAN. Taking that away literally takes away most of the reason I'd buy Starcraft II in the first place.

Don't project your lack of "real life" friends onto everyone else. (I know that's rude, but that's how you're coming across.)

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[HeronBlademaster]

Not all of us have phones that can do this, and not all of us that do want to pay the data rates (one cent per KB? Please.) Besides, if you're on a desert island (or in the middle of the desert) what gives you the idea that you'll have a signal on your phone?

You don't need to crash on a desert island to find yourself in a situation where you'd want networked play without access to an internet connection. Some that others have mentioned:

- Staying in a hotel with friends, with either no internet or really expensive internet.
- Long layover in an airport.
- Visiting family/friends in a somewhat remote connection, where only dialup is available.
- On vacation, for example at a cabin near a lake. Spend the day waterskiing, spend the evening playing Starcraft. The cabin is either rented or only occupied part of the year, so it's a waste of money paying for an internet connection there.

But you're forgetting the best part: Starcraft I won't let you play on Battle.net with someone else that's behind the same router as you. Nobody has given any indication that Starcraft II will be any different.

In other words: No more LAN parties. Weren't LAN parties pivotal in Starcraft's success? Why would they shoot themselves in the foot like that?

I reiterate: As long as LAN play (without an internet connection available) is not included with the game, Blizzard has lost my purchase of Starcraft II. (And no, I'm not going to pirate it either.)

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[HeronBlademaster]

I have the same intention, and most of my friends do too.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[YenTheFirst]

Followup: since every nerd who's currently pissing and moaning about LAN play is going to buy Starcraft II anyway, why would you care?

I'm not going to buy "Starcraft II" anyway. I've introduced many people to "Starcraft" , using LAN play and spawn copies, some (but not all) of whom have gone on to purchase the full game.

If it doesn't have LAN play, I won't purchase (or pirate!) it.

Yes, I realize that someone will probably hack a bnetd, or offline LAN play, or whatever. I don't see why I should be paying 40+ USD for a software product that will require (illegitimate) 3rd party modifications to work the way I want.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[HeronBlademaster]

He didn't say anything about having a network infrastructure. A cobbled together ad-hoc network running on a couple of 4- or 8-port switches - the staple of most LAN parties - is not a "network infrastructure".

He also didn't say he was on-campus for those LAN parties.

In my case, I did both of these things during college, and only occasionally was I on the university network. It seems you're trying to ignore plausible explanations for your parent post's comments, just so you can splatter him with sarcasm.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[EaglemanBSA]

Seconded. I haven't actually said anything about up 'til now but I'm not going to buy a game I have to log in to their specific server to play. The fun is in the LAN parties where it takes no time to set up and play a bunch of people at once.

If they're going to be Microsoft-esque in making sure my copy is genuine, I'll just go play something else. There are plenty of games out there that can be just as fun without the bullshit.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[daoine_sidhe]

Yeah, that's right, just keep your fucking mouths shut and keep hitting the feeder bar folks. After all, this is a fucking Q&A where, presumably, your question actually has a chance of being answered and possibly, just possibly, influencing a decision...why would you want to waste an opportunity like that with a valid question you fucking sheep? Just buy what you're told to buy and go about your business... Side note: I bitch to everyone I know who plays games about this, I tell them it's a deal-breaker for me and that I won't be buying it. And yes, I mean it. Now go fuck yourself you smug prick.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[VickiM]

I'm not buying Starcraft II and I'm pissing and moaning. I wonder about the Diablo III implications. If I can't play Diablo III with my sister over LAN, I probably won't bother. To be brutally honest, I hope a LANless Starcraft II fails so they get the picture and allow LAN for Diablo III.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[WagonWheelsRX8]

I am also one of those who feel this way. I will not pirate it, I just won't buy it...and I've bought pretty much every game Blizzard has created since Warcraft I (except WoW...I just didn't have the time to commit to it otherwise I'd have bought it as well). There is apparently a large number of people 'pissing and moaning' about the LAN play issue, even if only half of them stated they wouldn't buy it and bought it anyway, that's still a significant number of people. I think most of the people that say they won't buy it are serious though...this is one of those times when you've got to stand up for yourself and say 'we won't take it anymore'.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Rogerborg]

That would have been more persuasive if I couldn't hear you typing "starcraft II pre orders" into a Google tab.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[emkyooess]

You, sir, are incorrect. I will buy it (and D3) if they're released with LAN, but not a moment before LAN play is in them. It's bad enough I have a bitch of a time playing Warcraft 3 multiplayer with my friends because it lacks direct IP play. Being forced to use VPNs is annoying.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[poetmatt]

really? what planet do you live on. What do you think We have no plans to allow lan play implies? They never said once that it's just for verification. They quite clearly are saying "you're going to have to get online to play". Opening ports to players after being online, even in a lan environment, is basically something that can be easily defined as unsuccessful by many developers.

Many times, legitimate purchasers of games never ever intend to get online for verification. A simple example of this was the above stated lan party. At a lan party, the total bandwidth per user (to the net) is equiavlent to dialup at best. Note: *AT BEST*, not at worst. You want to see how bad it is? Ever tried to watch 20 or 30 pc's just trying to get steam into offline mode (which is a simple verification) at a lan, who fry about 4 hotel-supplied enterprise routers in the process? I've seen it. Every single time, including when they add "please get steam into offline mode before leaving for the lan" because not everyone thinks of it.

You think it's going to be better if it's just verification? Think again. Many lans deliberately do not have an outside internet connection for lots of reasons (virus risks are only internal, legal liability), etc. Likewise, never underestimate the sound of a thousand pings of programs that people forgot are trying to connect to the internet while playing over lan. It's like it's own little unblockable DDOS on the routers, which are made to handle traffic flow *up to a point*.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[wickedskaman]

I'm a big Starcraft fan... I bought two copies of the original because I used the first one so much. I turned other people onto the game. Most notably, I rarely used Battle.net and have had many a skirmish over LAN. In fact, we still get together and play Starcraft in person over LAN to this day. Therefore, my need to buy Starcraft II as been reduced significantly. I will simply borrow a friend's when he is done with the campaigns because I know it will be used little after that.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself. I would buy it if it had single player and LAN play. Since it doesn't--I expect I'll be looking for a pirate version and appropriate mods to run on a private bnetd. That's the perverse part about it--by treating me like a criminal...I can promise blizzard I will feel no guilt whatsoever in acting like one. Since they make no provisions to refund my money if they go out of business, I'll do the easier thing and make no provisions to pay them.

Just 'cause I canceled my subscription to WoW 2 years ago doesn't mean I don't still play and get updates... And I'm not waiting for Vivendi to kill them off and cut off my access to what promises to be a decent game.

If Blizz placed the complete source to bnetd under escrow with a guarantee that it would be released to the community in the event of their liquidation or acquisition--I might consider paying for an online only game.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Followup: since every nerd who's currently pissing and moaning about LAN play is going to buy Starcraft II anyway, why would you care?

I'm not, flat out. Deal breaker.

I was really excited when I heard about SCII and D3.

Then I heard no LAN play.

Blizzard is now out a several hundred bucks because me and my friends will not be purchasing the new games.

There are 8 computers in this house for a very good reason, and taking LAN support out of your games only ensures they wont get purchased here.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[ImYourVirus]

Uh yeah buddy whats your proof, sounds like you're full of shit to me. People would not still be talking about this had it been resolved. Point and case.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll speak as a gamer that was interested in Starcraft 2 because I liked the first one, and I think I used the LAN feature once in my years of owning the game. I was on the fence until I heard they aren't supporting LAN play. I'm not going to buy Starcraft 2, because I don't think Blizzard should dictate the way I use their software(as they did with Bnetd and Warden, and others to come).

Blizzard is pursuing a business strategy that has been successful for them, and it's allowed the company to saddle many users with many controls and caveats. Why stop now? Because Blizzard will seek more and more power by adding more and more restrictions until the customers say "Enough!" It's human nature for those who have power to seek more of it, and I refuse to bow to their will.

I, for one, will be bereft of their products, but secure in the knowledge that I am not complicit in their path to corruption. And my life will be better for it.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[steelclash84]

AFAIK, you only have to initially make the request to blizzard's server for authentication. After that, it will attempt to find the fastest route to your computers, and the fastest route would be through your local pipes.

Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements?

[mlievore]

Really, I live in the County where noting is available but dial-up (and Satellite). So how I'm I going to play on Battle.Net muilt-player That's was (and still is) my favorite way to play starcraft you can only play single-player for so long. I just don't blizzard thought this all the way through. In their broadband filled neighborhoods. Oh, one more thing don't even bother to suggest satellite internet cause that's not broadband even if they say it is. Cause there is no possible way to play games on that.

StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, why why why is there no LAN play?

I understand the desire to have a method of preventing piracy. But, if I get a group of 10 buddies in a room, and we want to go nuts with this game, ALL of us using the Internet to access a server is just plain dumb.

It's great if we want to setup a 'virtual LAN' party. But REAL face to face ones suffer as a result.

Why not make it require AUTH to open LAN play, then everything else is local? Anything is better than forcing everyone to use battleNet.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[FlyingBishop]

Well, to get more to the point, what answer do they have for our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else who would like to play a quiet LAN game when internet access is limited or nonexistent.

Also, what kind of ports are required, given that a lot of college students are behind restrictive campus firewalls.

For a final question on this LAN issue, will the game be playable at all if your battle.net account is banned? This is probably a fitting punishment for hacking and the like, but false positives are inevitable, and I don't really want to put down $50 for something if, on a whim, Blizzard can revoke my license.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, very yes. Starcraft II LAN PLAY and LINUX SUPPORT. Priority 1 and 2, respectively.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Kryptal]

Do you expect an increase or decrease of pirating due to the choice to remove LAN play?

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[rodrigoandrade]

That's easy.

So Blizzard can have their cake and eat it too. Make sure everyone buys a copy AND pay Battle.net monthly fees.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[slodan]

Why not make it require AUTH to open LAN play, then everything else is local?

This is how battlenet works right now for Warcraft III. Battlenet is used to join the game, but after the game starts, there is no communication between any client and battlenet.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[wizardforce]

unfortunately I suspect that SCII is in such an unfinished state that Blizzard decided to cut testing out LAN play in favour of Battlenet in order to get SCII out the door in an otherwise finished state ASAP rather than let it become SC Ghost all over again. The question is, why? SC fans have been waiting a decade and change for SCII or *something* expanding on the SC storyline so what is a few months extra testing out LAN for the release?
 
Anyway to bring this back on topic, to the SCII team: is there any possibility of WINE support in the next three chapters of SCII in order to run the games on alternative platforms such as LInux/BSD etc?

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not make it require AUTH to open LAN play, then everything else is local? Anything is better than forcing everyone to use battleNet.

That's basically what battleNet is, as long as it's over a local network. It only sets up the game over the internet, then play happens between computers. So, if the computers are local, so are the games.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[denobug]

I second that question. As a follow-up to that question, what can be done to setup a dedicated server for the LAN game, assuming Blizzard had in mind more than 8 players at a time. That would be the most likely reason why Blizzard wanted to go with B-net route in the first place.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck .. where in the phrase "have your cake and eat it too" shows any sort of temporal positioning ??

The word AND denotes that the events are at the same TIME. either way is valid you idiot

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[egr]

Personally I think the amount of pirating depends solely on the game popularity. Try to find some game on the pirates sites with top ratings from game critics, or the ones you hear most about. And then try to find something unknown and forgotten. I believe all those Blizzard games will be pirated to hell, LAN or not.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

For the sake of our troops, how about you just put in LAN play.

-Sarah Kerr^H^H^H^HPalin

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[jittles]

I don't think it's acceptable to require auth for LAN play. As someone posted above, it's possible you'll want to ad-hoc somewhere that internet isn't available. Or, what if you lose network connection due to an issue with your ISP? What if the authentication server goes down? What if the authentication server is down for maintenance?

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

I ate your mom. then I had her too! And then she had you.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Emrys01]

Initially I had every intention of buying StarCraft 2. Without LAN support I absolutely will not. I'm not going to shell out $100+ for two or more copies of the game so that I can play with my sons, who are young to get Battle.net accounts anyway. If this is a ploy to get more sales and money, they're going to get less of both (from me at any rate).

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[pwfffff]

Ah, Slashdot. Where the unreasonable, panicky, FUD post is +5, and the simple explanation as to why the parent is an idiot sits at +0.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[pwfffff]

It's also completely unacceptable for them not to include a can of bear mace. What if you were attacked while playing Starcraft? What if a bear came through your window, attracted by the sounds of tasty Terrans? What if you decide to play at a zoo and a bear escapes? HUH? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?!?!!11

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[mrrudge]

I would think that Blizzard have got 'connecting computers together, even over the Internet' pretty down by now. They're pretty well known for getting their shit together before launching a product, too.

Starcraft II does a internet validity check, then handles everything else over the local network. The only thing wrong with the LAN play is one thousand screaming voices who unfortunately don't know what they're talking about.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Dad?

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[drakaan]

Since the presence of a bear isn't (as far as I'm aware), something that Blizzard would be likely to control, I fail to see the point of your response.

Let's say that bnet is having problems, or your local ISP is having problems, or mice chewed through your phone/cable/fiber. None of those are things that Blizzard has control of, right?

Right. However, the design choice to require multiplayer games to connect to a server on the internet *is* something Blizzard has control of.

You may disagree on whether that's an appropriate choice (and you apparently do), but it remains a choice that Blizzard appears ready to make. It affects the ability of users to play a long-awaited sequel to a hugely popular game in a way that they can currently play it.

I've bought 4 copies of StarCraft over the past 8 years, and I haven't regretted a thing (other than that I failed to make a copy of the first disc I bought, since it became worthless when my youngest son scratched it all to hell).

That same son routinely *begs* me to play with him, and plays the SC campaign levels on a regular basis, too.

Taking away my ability to do straight PC-to-PC multiplayer makes me much more likely to just wait around until they decide to add it before I shell out for two copies, regardless of how good it is. I definitely wouldn't buy more than one copy until LAN support was present.

Oh, and I'd probably use siege tanks on the bear...or maybe a zergling rush...not sure.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

Mod parent up. These are all interesting questions related to the LAN play issue.

(Or even more mundane - I don't want to be unable to play single player just because battle.net is down, or unreachable, or even because I was [hypothetically] misbehaving online.)

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

If that's the question to Blizzard, we already know the answer: They claim it will reduce piracy.

Really, though, that's wishful thinking. As my sibling post by egr points out, games are going to get pirated based on their popularity rather than their alleged pirate-ability. I'd wager that if single player requires authentication to play, then within days of release (if not sooner), the pirated copies will all be able to play single player without authentication. That's just how these things go.

Publishers' estimates about piracy - in terms of lost sales - are based on guesswork and wishful thinking. Unfortunately I think there's no way to show them they're being morons unless nobody buys it and nobody pirates it.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

Anyway to bring this back on topic, to the SCII team: is there any possibility of WINE support in the next three chapters of SCII in order to run the games on alternative platforms such as LInux/BSD etc?

Do you mean a bundled version of WINE that would theoretically be included with SCII? Most of us who are familiar with WINE on Linux are willing to do the little footwork necessary to get games running on our own installs of WINE, and I'm sure there will be plenty of people out there patching WINE so that SCII works out-of-the-box as much as possible.

From that standpoint, Blizzard doesn't have much incentive to do it themselves.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[wizardforce]

have you ever actually played SC on WINE? most of the menus don't render properly if at all, game speed takes a dive [more than it should], patches and lacking msstcorefonts causes the game to crash when connecting to Bnet without fiddling around [it's annoying nothing more] to me it seems that if these are so easy to fix for us nerds then it shouldnt be all that difficult for blizzard to streamline the process for newer *nix users who have a fair chance of being gamers as well. frankly, when some indie game developers are capable of creating a WINE compatible version or at least providing the needed dlls then there isn't a good reason other than sloth why Blizzard couldnt do so as well.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

Then why can't two people behind the same router play a game on battle.net where one of them is hosting? (With very little effort you'll find plenty of posts here on slashdot indicating that if you have two players behind a router, connected to battle.net, and they try to start a Starcraft game that way, one of them can't connect.) I could elaborate on the apparent technical reasons (public vs private IP addresses, for example) but I don't think it's necessary.

My point is, it's a little more complicated than you're making it out to be, and Blizzard has given exactly zero indication that Starcraft II will be any different.

More to the point, if I have 8 guys at my place trying to start a pseudo-LAN game via Battle.net, can Blizzard make it work without making me reconfigure my router? (Assume that a single person playing via Battle.net works fine with that router configuration.) The answer is probably "no", or at least "yes, if X, Y, and Z are true" which is bound to fail for a large portion of gamers. Furthermore, if each client thinks all the other clients have the same external IP address, presumably with different ports (the only way to make this work using the same external IP address), the router has to do a bunch of additional work mapping ports on its external IP to machines on its internal network, whereas a real LAN game would just spit the packets for each internal IP address in the appropriate direction with little effort.

But I can give a better real-world example. At my university, all computers on the network had a unique external IP address assigned to them for all traffic leaving the network (the mapping was handled by the externally-facing routers; our computers only knew about the 10.x.x.x internal address). So, with Blizzard's current plans, if I and my roommate wanted to start a LAN game of Starcraft II, we'd have to do it through Battle.net - but Battle.net would see a unique IP address for each client, and would have no way to know they're on the same LAN. The game clients themselves would have no way of knowing that they're in the same room, either.

That means once we get the game started, the game is not really local - if I'm hosting, my computer sends packets bound for my roommate's computer - which is connected to the same physical switch - all the way to the edge of the network, to the externally-facing routers. They shouldn't go further than that, but why force packets to go all the way across campus when they shouldn't have to go further than the switch handling our two wall sockets?

You might argue that this additional latency is negligible, and you have a valid point. However, I'm sure I could dig up hundreds of hardcore gamers who would insist that the extra latency is noticeable.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[iknowcss]

You know what? Seriously, if Blizzard isn't going to include LAN play in SC2, I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to pirate it just to spite them. In fact, I'm going to pirate a version that hackers have put together that includes LAN play or some kind of feature to specify what "Battle.net" server the game uses. So I can set up my own Battle.net server. I will donate my hard earned money to pay hackers to hack SC2 to shreds just so that I can play the game as it should be played.

Fuck you Blizzard. Seriously, fuck you. LAN play is what makes StarCraft a great game. If you're going to turn corporate stingy motherfuckers on us, then we are going to turn on you.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

No no, I understand your point. I'm just saying that as long as nerds are willing to do the footwork themselves, which is currently the case, Blizzard has no incentive to do it themselves - and plenty of incentives to not do it themselves.

It's not really fair to compare indie game developers who provide WINE-compatible games to Blizzard. Indie games are generally orders of magnitude smaller than titles like Starcraft II, and if the indie developer knows he's going cross-platform he'll probably do the graphics in OpenGL. Blizzard, on the other hand, might be doing SCII graphics with DirectX, which I'll get to in a minute.

Officially providing a WINE-run version of SCII means they'd be taking on burdens like:

- Supporting not just bugs in SCII, but bugs in WINE that affect SCII adversely.
- Supporting complex areas in WINE like the DirectX-to-OpenGL wrapper code, which is probably fairly hairy.
- Specifically looking for developers proficient with WINE.
- Supporting their version of WINE on dozens of distributions, on both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. That means lots and lots and lots of QA boxes, and lots and lots and lots of QA people, not to mention the IT overhead of this stuff.
- Testing game patches extensively on not just the Windows version of the game but on the WINE version.
- Heaven help us if a bugfix in a SCII is different for the WINE version than for the SCII version - divergent codebases with only minor differences are bad news. ... and there are probably a dozen more reasons they wouldn't want to do it themselves.

I agree that they could do it, but I can't in good conscience call the reason they don't "sloth".

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

er, that last bullet point should read "... different for the WINE version than for the Windows version".

Need caffeine.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

The difference is, Blizzard didn't include bear mace in their first iteration of the game, and bear mace was not integral to the success of the first game.

LAN play, on the other hand, was key to Starcraft I's success.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

Exactly! What happened to the days of multiplayer-only spawn installs? Starcraft and Diablo II both included this feature, and both games had LAN play (one could argue that LAN play was vital to Starcraft's success, though not really for Diablo II).

Blizzard, you used to be cool. Now you're just a money-grubbing corporate behemoth. If you were trying to lose our respect, congratulations, you did it very well.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to be unable to play single player just because battle.net is down, or unreachable, or even because I was [hypothetically] misbehaving online

Or a broken internet connection / ISP issues.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

I did mention "unreachable", you know.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[donweel]

Code Weavers cross over games is based on wine but may produce results. http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/ I see Stracraft is only Bronze. WoW is silver but goes bronze on Lich King, I could see lag in Dalaran as a real problem. Dalaran sucks for me even with a normal install on Osx.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

uhh... have you ever had cake before? it's typically used in celebrations with many people eating the cake, not just the person the celebration is for. the expression is for the grandiose idea that you can actually have the whole cake to eat for yourself.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[brkello]

Ugh, think of the troops arguments are stupid when politicians use them too. I don't think our success in Iraq or Afghanistan hinges on Blizzard adding LAN support to the game. And there are plenty of other games they can play that do support LAN. So if this is really a horrible move, Blizzard will feel it in their pocketbooks.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[ufoolme]

+1 Auth online then full lan.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[daver00]

People pirating the game will come up with a LAN enabling patch, as they did with demigod. As usual this will mean pirated copies can play LAN, and the legitimate ones will be locked out.

What I don't understand is that Blizzard must surely know how huge Stacraft is in Korea, and basically because of LAN play. Do they not want SC2 to have that kind of success?

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[adolf]

It's easier than that.

You connect to battle.net and start a game; your roommate (on the same NATted LAN) does the same.

Your battle.net client knows that it is 10.0.0.1. Your roommate's client knows that it is 10.0.0.2. You're both on the same LAN; the same unmanaged switch, even. Meanwhile, Blizzard sees you both as 12.64.123.5.

With me so far?

You start a game. Your roommate joins.

Then, you, 10.0.0.1, issue a cryptographic challenge (determined and distributed by Blizzard) to 10.0.0.2. If it hits and matches, you get a local game authenticated by Battle.net and get to be all low-latency and LOLz.

If it the challenge isn't met, then it's only because those particular 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2 addresses can't talk to eachother some reason (ranging from your personal firewalls being gorfed, or being on independent 10.x.x.x subnets on opposite sides of the globe, or whatever). And then, simply, you still get to play through Blizzard's servers...because that's the best you'll be able to do in a world of firewalls and NAT, anyway.

I'm sure, however, that it doesn't work this way. But it should. (And if I had my wits about me, I'd be talking to a patent attorney right now instead of writing about it on Slashdot.)

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

Then, you, 10.0.0.1, issue a cryptographic challenge (determined and distributed by Blizzard) to 10.0.0.2. If it hits and matches, you get a local game authenticated by Battle.net and get to be all low-latency and LOLz.

You're probably not going to believe me, but this idea occurred to me while I was writing my post earlier (minus the cryptography and "LOLz"). I discarded it because of privacy and network traffic concerns (which, admittedly, encryption can mitigate to a degree).

Specifically, imagine I'm on Corporate Network A, and I'm playing with someone on University Network B. My internal address on A is 10.1.1.1, the other guy's internal address (on B) is 10.2.2.2.

When the game starts, my client probes my network for 10.2.2.2. Let's say that 10.2.2.2 exists - it's the company's Windows Domain Controller or something. Sure, the server is going to reject the connection, since it (hopefully?) isn't running StarCraft II. But will it show up in logs? Network admins might not appreciate their machines being probed on seemingly random ports by employee's machines (even if gaming is allowed on the company network).

Now, I know, that's probably a non-issue, but in my haste to write out the earlier post, the suggestion of probing wrong machines was enough to get the idea rejected from my "what to write next" queue.

So... um... I don't really know where I'm going with this, I'm pretty much just babbling now... My gut tells me to hit "Cancel" and walk away, but I put some vague amount of thought into this post, so I'm going to post it anyway.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[adolf]

Naw, I believe you just fine. The patent is yours. Please think of me in your future. (I prefer German hotrods, hookers, and blow, in that order, for whatever it's worth.)

I really don't see it as a problem:

Admin: Why does your box hit our DNS server on port 3324 every evening around six?
User: Well, that's just what Starcraft does. Sometimes I wind down with a round or two with Steve over there when we're done for the day.
Admin: Oh. Yeah, I've seen similar stuff at home.
User: *nod*
Admin: Did you win?

On a gaming-allowed network, I submit that things are loose enough for this to be a non-issue -- LAN games poke at all kinds of things, almost as a rule, to simplify hooking up with the guy across the room. Meanwhile, with a heavily-locked-down-and-monitored network, not so much leniency would be expected -- but then, one probably shouldn't be playing Starcraft with company resources if one isn't permitted to do so.

I, the network admin at our small shop where I personally know all of my users, probably won't even notice. The admins at the couple of fortune-500 clients that we have probably would notice, but then, games aren't allowed on their networks anyway.

*shrug*

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

what answer do they have for our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan

Go home?

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[ultracool]

I also would like plain LAN play for Diablo III. Where I live, internet is still fairly expensive and the data caps are not liberal. I want to be able to play the game with my friends at home without needing a net connection. I loved Diablo II for the LAN play. If Diablo III will have no LAN play, I won't buy it and would encourage others to boycott it also.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[calmofthestorm]

works fine for me.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[u-235-sentinel]

Anyway to bring this back on topic, to the SCII team: is there any possibility of WINE support in the next three chapters of SCII in order to run the games on alternative platforms such as LInux/BSD etc?

Do you mean a bundled version of WINE that would theoretically be included with SCII? Most of us who are familiar with WINE on Linux are willing to do the little footwork necessary to get games running on our own installs of WINE, and I'm sure there will be plenty of people out there patching WINE so that SCII works out-of-the-box as much as possible.

From that standpoint, Blizzard doesn't have much incentive to do it themselves.

Still it's a good question. I'm curious if they would consider the growing linux population and add a linux client to the game? After all, considering the netbook market is pushing linux even further into the limelight. Why not?

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[HeronBlademaster]

Netbooks have weird resolutions (i.e. 1024x600) that are too small to play games on, and their graphics chips are... inadequate... for gaming purposes; furthermore, their processors generally aren't high-powered enough for new games.

Granted, Blizzard historically supports relatively ancient computers with their games, but they've got to draw the line somewhere, and making a linux client is going to require a lot more motivation than netbook owners.

It all comes down to money. If it costs them $300k in developer time, plus $30k/year in dev time for patches, they're not going to do it unless they're quite sure they're going to sell more than 10,000 copies (initially) and more than 1,000 copies per year after that.

Chicken and egg it may be, and Blizzard can certainly afford to eat the cost if they have to, but really, there isn't much real demand for a Linux client. How many of you would buy it if there were a Linux client, but won't otherwise? My guess is, very very few.

Personally, I'll buy Diablo III either way, even though I would be ecstatic if there were a Linux client; I play enough other games that I basically have to run Windows anyway, so Linux support is just a perk, not a necessity.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're confusing Blizzard with EA, when have you ever seen Blizzard slash functionality to rush a product out the door? That's one thing Blizzard DOES NOT do, if they say a game is coming out in the summer 09, expect a year delay for polishing/finalizing. I've had the privilege to tag along with press events at Blizzard HQ and BlizzCon, let me just say that the multiplayer game is polished and ready for Beta - they are waiting on BattleNet 2.0 before release.

While I've heard them say there is no LAN play, at BlizzCon they covered part of BattleNet and discussed 'Guest' functionality. While this may not be LAN play, and that doesn't negate any of the arguments made above; there's a possibility that you'll be able to have LAN style play. I'm not sure if this will require a single user to be logged into BattleNet or not, but from everything that Blizzard has done in the past - I have no doubt that they will either a) release LAN with the shipping product or b) have a fanfuckingtastic reason behind why they cut it out and offer an alternative solution that the majority of users behind a firewall (read: college students).

We can only hope, but the only thing holding SCII back is BNET and Single Player. Multilayer is good to go, save a few memory issues/Zerg mid-game buffs that will all be hammered out in beta.

Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY

[retro.sufi]

The community can take care of WINE, what we really want is a native gnu.linux client. The game is getting a MAC port so why is gnu.linux so difficult? I would buy it if it were released for gnu.linux otherwise I don't see myself forking out the license fee for an OS that can barely run itself. To top it off there has been a petition online for a while now with over 17000 signatures and still rising. http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?strcrft2. If they are still not doing it well then I would say we should accept that and added Blizzard to the linux games black list of some sort. + for Blizzard if they make the effort otherwise - as usual for them being lazy and they could join the rest of the lot down there.

What were you thinking....

[Gruturo]

When, after a LONG period of overloaded instance servers, with literally months of people complaining, in patch 3.2 not only you encouraged everybody to run as many heroics per day as they can possibly do due to easy emblems of conquest, but at the same time you pretty much forced any hardcore raider to never skip the daily heroic for at the very least 1 month. As a result, the load is now 3 times worse and people complain of being locked out of instances for 40-50 minutes even in offpeak hours, not to mention that due to the priority system, low level instances are pretty much inaccessible. This hurts the new players a lot. Those same new players whose experience you are terrified to ruin, and due to which you won't apply more restrictive anti goldspam measures, causing everyone to have to endure the constant shit in city channels.

Re:What were you thinking....

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been ongoing for at the very least 4 months with Blizzard in awareness of the issue for *8* months!

Some threads for your consideration -

FINALLY a sticky post - after 4 months of complaints
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19109959718&sid=1

*188* Page Thread - With Blizzard only coming on to flame users and say "*yawn* working on it"
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110063462&sid=1&pageNo=1

Re:What were you thinking....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the single biggest question I have for Blizzard. This "feature" has been apparent since achievements were added to the game, and hasn't really ever gone away since. I don't understand how the instance server architecture would have to be set up to make this problem so complex that Blizzard hasn't been able to come up with a solution to the problem yet.

I mean, the quick hack solution would be to just queue everyone as they tag the portal. I've spent lots of time in Blizzard queues. I know they have the technology. ;-)

And, as you say, how wildly irresponsible was it to release the 3.2 patch without a fix to this problem. Nothing sucks more than banging your head into an instance portal for an hour. A lot of people I know don't even run instances any more just because they don't want the hassle. I've seriously considered landing the daily heroic instance and auctioning it off in Trade during peak hours every day. ;-)

At least with a queue, I could sit and play Bejeweled or Peggle or fish or ... ;-)

The biggest problem with the current method is that there's no fairness. The first guy to tag the portal after an instance is freed up gets it. If 5 people are hitting the portal for an hour, some other clown can walk up to the portal and get an instance on his first try if he's lucky enough. Meanwhile, the others are still locked out until luck smiles on them.

Re:What were you thinking....

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your specific question in this? Are you asking what they plan to do about this? If that's the case, a little research would have helped.

Have you read the blue post from the 14th, which explains the progress of the instance server upgrade?

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19109959718&pageNo=1&sid=1#0

Some context would be helpful. Are you playing on one of the servers that has been upgraded, and you're still encountering instance creation issues? Or, are you playing on a server that has yet to be upgraded?

The gold spam question is relevant, though you should already know one part of their answer: Right click the spam text, click "Report Spam". (Spam isn't just their problem, it's our problem, too. As responsible players, we *should* be reporting that. Honestly, does it take that much effort?)

I think that a more relevant question is what they're doing about proactively preventing the corpse spam.

Re:What were you thinking....

[Gruturo]

My specific question is in the subject. They knowingly exacerbated a long-standing and extremely aggravating issue with a stupid decision whose consequences would have been foreseen by a 12year old.
I'm aware of that blue post. Also, I'm on a server which was very recently upgraded (EU-Lightbringer) and where the queues are still very, very much an issue for everybody.

I've been righclicking->Report Spam since the day the feature came out. I see spam, I report. At that point I can't see that particular sender anymore until I relog. 25 minutes later I log a bank alt and I see the *same* spammer still happily spewing his crap in trade. I can't be the only one who reported him, every time. Repeated occurrences of this made me lose faith in that system and I stopped bothering, I installed SpamSentry and told him to never notify me of *anything*. Recently I had to disable it due to some LUA errors I traced back to it and which cause error windows to pop on my screen in the middle of a raid boss fight, so it's spam country again. At least give us a way to fight the little bastards(like the awesome magma totem -> logoff of over 1 year ago, or some more realistically effective reporting system. Or can I have my damn "ignore anything from characters under level X unless in party/raid/bg/guild/friendlist" option?).

The corpse spam is a non-issue to me. I actually find it creative and brilliant and, moreover, it's SILENT. It causes no trade channel shit.

Re:What were you thinking....

[fractoid]

Further to this; When are you finally going to realise that you can create 5-man dungeons with graduated difficulty level and then graduate the rewards accordingly? Please! You've demonstrated that you understand the concept of tiered PvE encounters because your entire raiding system is built around this. What's so hard about changing "get gear from t7 raid until ready for t8 raid, get gear from t8 raid until ready for t9 raid etc" to "get gear from t7 raid or 5-man until ready for t8 raid or 5-man, get gear from t8 raid or 5-man until ready for t9 raid or 5-man etc"? A path of progression in raid dungeons has been established since BWL came out after MC, and yet you persist with this blinkered "progression equals solo then 5man then raid" mindset. This is why 5man dungeons become obsolete so quickly.

Diablo 3

[Wiseblood1]

How bad are you going to fuck it up and drain the soul from the franchise?

LAN

[Arthur B.]

There's been talk that Starcraft II would not support LAN. The reason I am a fan of Starcraft and want to buy Starcraft II is I spent many many hours playing it in LAN cafes. People will be doing LAN with pirated version anyway, they'll just run their own battle.net server locally and the only thing you'll achieve is piss off other consummers with a crippled product. Why oh why?

Re:LAN

[Merls the Sneaky]

It comes pre crippled as you have to buy each species campaign separately, at full game prices.

Re:LAN

[sexconker]

Yeah, Blizzard is retarded if they think they can stop it.

Blizzard is also retarded if they think people want to always be connected to Battle.net . I don't give a shit how good BNet 2.0 is, I shouldn't need to be online or connect to your servers just to play the game I bought (3. Fucking. Times).

Re:LAN

[terrence.donnelly]

Yeah, I think I've bought the game 3 or 4 times as well. What the fuck is it with Starcraft Discs and keys vanishing from my house?

Re:LAN

[sexconker]

No.
I mean I'll have to buy StarCraft II three fucking times.
Once for each campaign.

Re:LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

So by that token you feel that a ticket to "Kill Bill: Vol1" should have goton you into "Kill Bill:Vol2"

They started out as ONE movie but was cut into two ...

Think of it as StarCraft II:HUMANS ... StartCraft II: Protos ... and StartCraft II:Zerg ...

Three games you ijit

Re:LAN

[MBGMorden]

I've only bought it once, and gave up last time I tried, but Blizzard does have a neat feature now where you register your CD keys online with your account and if you loose them you can retrieve them again. Just don't loose your key AND your account password. Also make sure to associate the password with an email account that isn't likely to go anywhere. I was initially very resistant to webmail (mostly because the early UI's were slow and clumsy), but after having to switch email addresses 4 times in the last 10 years due to changes in job (or college), I finally switched to Gmail, which I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep for the foreseeable future.

Bioware has a similar "tie the cd key to an account" feature as well.

Re:LAN

[pwfffff]

Priceless...

You guys do know that in the new Battle.net account system you can add all your Blizzard game keys to their website where they're kept for all eternity along with a link to a free download of the full game, right?

Continue ranting though, change tends to freak a lot of people out. I understand.

Re:LAN

[pwfffff]

Yeah, that pisses me off. Just like how I had to pay three times to see all the LotR movies. I can't believe they cut one story in to three parts just to milk money out of me. Bastards.

Re:LAN

[Anonymous Coward]

ya because those are completely comparable, you dipshit shill of a fanboy.

Re:LAN

[pwfffff]

They are comparable, dumbass.

SC: 30 missions.
SC, Brood War: 24 missions.
SC:II, Terran edition: 30 missions.

Are you seeing a pattern here yet? Now for the analogy:

  LotR I: 178 minutes.
LotR II: 179 minutes.
LotR III: 200 minutes.

Here's a Wikipedia link that may help you understand what's going on here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy

Re:LAN

[HeronBlademaster]

It would have helped if Blizzard had bothered to tell people about this feature in a manner that would actually disseminate to the general gaming population.

It doesn't do me any good if nobody ever tells me about it. Not all of us spend all our time refreshing Blizzard's news page.

Re:LAN

[poetmatt]

Don't you realize what this does? This is a "you're fucked and you can no longer resell your game". The benefit is you no longer need cds. Their benefit is you no longer own cds.

Lets say you have 4 games on your account, and you want to sell one off? You know right of first sale, you don't play x game anymore, etc. Whoops.

Re:LAN

[MBGMorden]

I'll admit that it's a loss for those who resell games, but personally I've never done so, so it's not much of a loss for me. The convenience is a great gain.

Re:LAN

[fractoid]

By your definition City of Heroes came 'pre-crippled' because it didn't come bundled with City of Villains.

Re:LAN

[fractoid]

Lets say you have 4 games on your account, and you want to sell one off? You know right of first sale, you don't play x game anymore, etc. Whoops.

Dunno about you but where I live, a new game off the game shop shelves costs $70-$100. It has a second hand trade-in value of maybe $20-30. The same game off Steam costs $40. You do the maths.

Re:LAN

[fractoid]

There's been talk that Starcraft II would not support LAN. The reason I am a fan of Starcraft and want to buy Starcraft II is I spent many many hours playing it in LAN cafes. People will be doing LAN with pirated version anyway, they'll just run their own battle.net server locally and the only thing you'll achieve is piss off other consummers with a crippled product. Why oh why?

It's not crippled, you douche. It just doesn't have LAN-only play - when was the last time you were at a LAN with no internet access? I'm betting some time around 1999.

Re:LAN

[sourICE]

Blizzard has a secret society of gnomes that sneak into SC owner's houses at night and steal the discs.

A recent study showed that Blizzard would have made only 25% of it's recorded profits if they had not deployed the gnomes.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[sys.stdout.write]

There's no way to set "able to play X hours per week" or "able to play Y hours per weekday, Z hours per weekend".

Have you tried a girlfriend?

How do your games Help America?

[For a Free Internet]

Dear Bilzzard, how do your computer games help America's children prepare to help acquire the skills needed to fight the war against terrorism and for freedom? Do any of your games have educational content? What about a game that encourages learning terrorist languages like Arabic or Mandarin Chinese? Everyone in America needs to do their part, are you doing yours?

Re:How do your games Help America?

[cthulu_mt]

World of Warcraft taught me this:

Ni hao!

Re:How do your games Help America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn Punjab and Portuguese you twit. The real terrorists are those who are stealing your jobs!

Re:How do your games Help America?

[Yakisoba_noodle]

Sometimes, entertainment is entertainment, and the value to us all is to help us forget the atrocities of the world for a little while.

Re:How do your games Help America?

[hansraj]

It's Punjabi. Punjab is the name of a state of India, and Punjabi is the spoken language of Punjab. Also, I doubt that the majority of Indians "stealing" your job speak Punjabi.

Population of Punjab: 24 million approx.
Population of India : 1.2 billion approx.

Re:How do your games Help America?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mandarin Chinese?" i thought Bush spoke English?

Re:How do your games Help America?

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned that by watching the subbed episodes of Ranma 1/2 years ago.

Re:How do your games Help America?

[genner]

I learned that by watching the subbed episodes of Ranma 1/2 years ago.

I learend that watching the dubbed version,the writers at the time being smart enough to realize that they only needed to translate the parts that were in Japanese,

Re:How do your games Help America?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's plenty of gold farmers on WoW who can help you learn Chinese.

Re:How do your games Help America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Colbert, is that you?

Re:How do your games Help America?

[fractoid]

What about a game that encourages learning terrorist languages like Arabic or Mandarin Chinese?

When I was a kid I wanted to learn Chinese. I figured it's the most populous country on the planet (couldn't have known then that it would become such an economic powerhouse though!). What finally stopped me was finding out that there was no such language. I started trying to learn Cantonese, then I found out about Mandarin, and I gave up. I don't have time to learn those two let alone Orange, Lemon and Banana Chinese. And I'm not sure I even have the right biology to speak Formal Nectarine.

Linux support

[Sascha J.]

Obligatory question: Did you change your mind about Linux support for any of your existing or announced games? Are new, upcoming games going to be playable on Linux natively?

Re:Linux support

[walshy007]

Another good question on that topic is:

When it is known and established that there was in fact a linux client for WoW when in beta, what obstables hindered you from releasing it as an unsupported extra? was it maintained and if so what obstacles still remain to this day?

Re:Linux support

[Azaril]

I remember reading in a post on the Wow forums, that infact most of the staff actually use a linux client, but the cost/benefit ratio of support and patch testing for a linux client makes it impossible to release. At any rate, there is blue support on the forums for using WoW with wine.

Re:Linux support

[Hinhule]

Probably because there would be problems implementing warden on Linux machines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_(software)

Re:Linux support

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW works pretty much perfectly on wine. I wouldn't be surprised if that's partly intentional.

Re:Linux support

[_Sprocket_]

I remember reading in a post on the Wow forums, that infact most of the staff actually use a linux client, but the cost/benefit ratio of support and patch testing for a linux client makes it impossible to release. At any rate, there is blue support on the forums for using WoW with wine.

There is blue support in so far as they won't support it. ;) But they do recognize the use of Cedega and Wine and generally allow for it.

Re:Linux support

[_Sprocket_]

Another question in this thread:

Blizzard has noted that they allow the use of Cedega and Wine but will not provide technical support. They have worked with the Cedega developers on issues. And there's whispers that they have unofficially worked with Wine developers.

What does Blizzard get for these efforts? Are there insights to bugs / issues to the game client that aren't apparent on the supported platforms? Or is this just a fun side project that helps out a (presumably) smaller subset of fans / customers?

Re:Linux support

[_Sprocket_]

Another question:

Is Blizzard aware of how many of their customers use Linux? Do these statistics show up via Warden and/or the occasional "non-identifying system statistics" reports?

Re:Linux support

[Rebelgecko]

Warden is only barely implemented in the Mac version of World of Warcraft. On the other hand, I remember there being an issue with Warden giving false positives, which led to some Linux users running World of Warcraft in WINE a few years ago getting banned.

Re:Linux support

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a very important question which I have never seen asked.
They support Mac, which means that they already have an OpenGL version, yet they do not make the (supposedly small) amount of changes needed to make that OpenGL version work on linux as well.
It might work through wine, but it is nothing they support.
I will not buy the game if they do not support linux, as I do not see why I should pay for a game which is not guaranteed (i.e officially supported) to work on the OS I use.

Re:Linux support

[Sascha J.]

It has been asked before. I'm not sure if Slashdot already had an interview with some of their staff where this question was asked already, but I think there was.

Also, a german Starcraft fansite I read asked this question.

In both cases, Blizzard denied plans to support Linux - for the current (upcoming) roster of games at least. That's also why I added a "Did you change your mind about [...]" in my original question in this thread ;)

Re:Linux support

[Trelane]

Seconded. Since games are entirely discretionary income (and I have other, very pressing things to be doing instead), I won't buy a copy at full price unless there's a native Linux client. If there's official Codeweavers/Wine support from Blizzrd, I might buy it at an intermediate time, but if there's nothing then I'll maybe buy it when it's on the $10 shelf or so. It probably helps to send them dead tree letters, though. E-mail is cheap.

The Status Quo of Delayed Release Dates

[eldavojohn]

To the planning divisions of all teams: My coworker and I love every single one of your games. But we don't love your release dates. We'd almost appreciate it if there was no release date until you know 100% about it. Your delays vary wildly and have lead both of us to be extremely dubious even when we hear reports like Starcraft II delayed until 2010. We've taken to an X-Files approach: Trust No One. Lest you get your hopes dashed. Why are release dates given when they almost always get pushed back? Is this something you just have to do so marketing has time to hype? Is there any effort to fix these estimation problems? Why aren't you assigning a larger variance and learning from past experiences by now?

I understand this happens by and large everywhere in software development but you guys are epitome of online games. If you can't give solid release dates, no one can.

Re:The Status Quo of Delayed Release Dates

[cthulu_mt]

It'll be released when its ready. If they were cranking out new titles at an EA pace slashdotters would be howling about Vivendi/Activision ruining Blizzard.

Re:The Status Quo of Delayed Release Dates

[rehtonAesoohC]

My coworker and I love every single one of your games. But we don't love your release dates.

Ever thought about the fact that the REASON you love every single Blizzard game is because they put more emphasis on quality than they do meeting a release date? In my experience in the software development world, if you want to release software with as few bugs as possible (which Blizzard actively strives for more than any other game company I've heard of), and as fun as possible (which requires insane amounts of iterative work with development and then testing), by your logic, they may as well not give a release date until the discs go gold...

I think they have to put a release date on there because the publisher (Vivendi) requires it, but I've never seen a company take so much leeway with those release dates, and I think we're all better off for it.

Re:The Status Quo of Delayed Release Dates

[Rallion]

I just want to point out that they already do exactly what you're saying they should. They never announced a release date for SC2, but the gaming community slapped an imaginary 2009 date on there after statements to the effect that they hoped to be able to get the game out by the end of the year, but that it would be difficult.

Re:The Status Quo of Delayed Release Dates

[Feyshtey]

So... You know that Bliz has a history of delaying content (so that they are much more assured they don't release crap, like everyone else), and you still bank on every date that filters out?

Seems like it'd be far less frustrating to just assume no date for a release is accurate until you're holding the box.

Blizzard taking forever to accomplish things is frustrating, to be sure. But it's one of those universal truths you'd think everyone had reconciled themselves with by now. And the results are usually worth the wait so....

Re:The Status Quo of Delayed Release Dates

[dbet]

Best bet - just assume every release date will take 3x as long. As in, if they say 1 week, it will be 3. If they say 8 months, it will be 2 years.

Blizzard and road maintenance crews have never EVER done anything when they say they will.

Starcraft 2.

[Daveznet]

What is status on the mutalisk micro. In the last build it was not possible to stack mutalisks. But there was mention in one of the updates that the developers are trying to include this type of micro back into the game. Has there been and progress in adding stacking of units to the game or will it not be possible?

Maybe presumptuous...

[RealErmine]

Would it be a short-circuit of the next 10 years of Blizzard game evolution to just go ahead an suggest a game that is entirely Murloc based? Everyone loves those fishy little scamps anyway, so why not just bite the bullet and give gamers what they want?

Starcraft II LAN Support

[Anonymous Coward]

As a company who has shown a generally tendency toward keeping its fans happy (the return of the original voice actor for Raynor being a great, recent example of this), are you paying attention to the heavily supported petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html? I ask this because the petition brings up quite valid points about the creation of pirate battle.net servers. Surely you must realize that time and time again game companies make similar decisions regarding anti-piracy practice (think Spore DRM), and each time all it nets the company supporting it is a loss in valid customers frustrated with the lack of support and an increase in piracy. (For reference, Spore was supposed to have "unbreakable" drm to protect it, yet it was also considered the most pirated game of all time and in fact the cracked version was available up to a week before its official release.)

Re:Starcraft II LAN Support

[mqduck]

(For reference, Spore was supposed to have "unbreakable" drm to protect it, yet it was also considered the most pirated game of all time and in fact the cracked version was available up to a week before its official release.)

Personally, Spore is one of the few games I didn't pirate and actually paid for. The reason is that, in fact, it hasn't been cracked - that is, you can't access the online content, which is, in fact, everything that makes the game unique (the "massively single-player" part).

I might actually pay for Starcraft 2 as well, to be able to play on Battle.net. But that doesn't make taking out LAN play any less stupid, since there will without a doubt be a way around it.

What about spammers?

[Yvan256]

Will you do anything to protect us from being annoyed by spambots who can enter a game, write five lines of spam and leave the game in less than 2 seconds? Why can't you guys put protection against those idiots, it's easy enough to detect those kinds of patterns and block the user accounts.

And if you think making a private game in D2 protects you against those morons, they started using private messages to tell you about their crap, which is D2-related spam about items and stuff, which are also not allowed by Blizzard, which they should also be stopping from happening.

I know that Diablo II is old and playing on battle.net is free, but still, that doesn't leave a good impression when asking me if I want to play your future games.

Re:What about spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

", it's easy enough to detect those kinds of patterns and block the user accounts."

How is this easy? Humans understanding a pattern is easy, but a computer is very difficult. Unless of course false positives are acceptable.

Re:What about spammers?

[Entropius]

It's very easy to avoid D2 spambots: play using the Direct IP Connect feature.

Of course, since Blizzard is on the "use bnet or don't play" kick, then this probably won't be in D3.

Re:What about spammers?

[G2GAlone]

Or at least an add-on device that allows me to reach through the internet and slap their spamming ass silly. Spam in games is NOT COOL.

Re:What about spammers?

[An ominous Cow art]

I hope it will be - I don't care to play with random strangers. Back in the D1 and D2 days, 3-4 of my friends and I had a lot of fun playing using the direct IP feature.

Re:What about spammers?

[Yvan256]

Humans are the ones who code the detection algorithms.

"If a player enters a game, spits more than 1 line of text and quits within 5 seconds, it's a spambot, so don't echo the text they wrote so the other players won't see their garbage".

How hard is that? Heck, give the control of the parameters to the players, that way they control the timing and amount of text and the spammers don't have a fixed set of parameters to go around.

Does Censorship in China Bother You?

[eldavojohn]

To the World of Warcraft team: your work is censored in China. Is this negative or an unavoidable necessity? Does it ever bother you on a personal level that you slave over skeletons and zombies and stories involving them only to have 1/5 of the world relegated to some modified version of your work? Would you rather error on the side of cultural sensitivity? I had heard rumors that panda-like characters will never be in World of Warcraft due to them being a cherished icon of China. Is it true that real world politics play a role in what you do and don't do in your game? Do you ever feel restricted or cautious because of this? Do you ever find yourself musing on how great a scenario or character would be but then reject it because so-and-so would have a field day in court with it?

Re:Does Censorship in China Bother You?

[CorporateSuit]

Would you rather error on the side of cultural sensitivity?

Cultural sensitivity doesn't seem to be the issue, rather than avoiding the law. PK'ing Taurens could be considered offensive to the 14% of the Hindus in the world, but it's all I did when I played the game.

Re:Does Censorship in China Bother You?

[CorporateSuit]

to the 14% of the Hindus in the world

For those of you who don't speak "Stupid", that was supposed to refer to "The 14% of the world that practice Hinduism" not "14% of Hindus"

Re:Does Censorship in China Bother You?

[idontgno]

If cultural sensitivity were really at issue, Blizz wouldn't have strip-mined Norse culture and lore.

Re:Does Censorship in China Bother You?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or given every damn dwarf a Scottish accent...

Re:Does Censorship in China Bother You?

[Entropius]

You seem to be suggesting that the actions of a censorship-happy government (with no jurisdiction over Blizzard) should induce them to consider voluntary censorship for the rest of us. Huh?

When I was recently in China, they also blocked Facebook, Twitter, and (I think) Myspace. Oh, and Youtube. The Chinese government, no matter how big they are or how many people live under their dominion, is a bully. (The same has been very recently true of my own government, of course, and still is in many ways.) The rest of the world shouldn't be bending over backwards to accommodate them; if anything, we should be bending over backwards to make available tools like Tor, Freenet, and the like.

Re:Does Censorship in China Bother You?

[mqduck]

To the World of Warcraft team: your work is censored in China [slashdot.org]. Is this negative or an unavoidable necessity?

Uhm, both?

Would you rather error on the side of cultural sensitivity?

All game designers worry about cultural offenses. The difference here is that we're talking about a culture different from our own offended by things we don't expect.

Diablo 3

[thepieman]

I've heard rumors of the jumping capability, and was wondering what type of attacks you can do while in the air? Is the jump itself an attack? Do different races jump differently? Does it use up significant stamina?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

My fiance plays too, you insensitive clod.

Product announcemnt.

[Anonymous Coward]

....rabid fans interested in what Blizzard might have to say that don't want to shell out the $40 for Pay-Per-View access

Wait, folks will pay to hear a product announcement?!? Something that is done for free by other businesses.

Pay to listen to a public relations guy talk about a product? Pay to hear an advertisement?

I'm having a real hard time understanding this and I'm quite jealous that I didn't think of it. I'm also thinking of a phrase that has been attributed to PT Barnum.

Why should I buy your product?

[B5_geek]

After several instances of your company being evil towards the community bnetd & removal of LAN play on your newest titles, please give me a good reason to buy what you are selling.

Re:Why should I buy your product?

[IceDiver]

Hear, Hear!

Re:Why should I buy your product?

[monkeySauce]

After several instances of your company being evil towards the community bnetd & removal of LAN play on your newest titles, please give me a good reason to buy what you are selling.

If I were Blizzard my reply would say something about how the new battle net will be full of improvements to provide the best possible user experience and because that's is what we want for our customers, we aren't supporting LAN mode or independent game servers.

Of course I don't agree with that line of marketing BS, but the problem is how you phrased your question. "...please give me a good reason to buy...". You asked to be fed some BS. What else are they going to say?

I would rather see Blizzard answer this:

I am a big fan of Starcraft and I was really looking forward to Starcraft 2, but the removal of LAN mode is a deal breaker. If SC2 ships without a LAN mode that doesn't require any sort of Internet access to play a multiplayer game on a LAN, then I won't buy it. Period. My question is: do you care? And if so, what are you going to do about it?

Starcraft 2 three games?

[space_jake]

If my goal is to only play Starcraft 2 online, do I need to purchase all three games? Does purchasing each one unlock a new race for multiplayer or do we get everything in one box?

Re:Starcraft 2 three games?

[rehtonAesoohC]

From the FAQ on Starcraft II's website:

Will we still be able to play multiplayer matches of StarCraft II with all three races?

Yes! From the beginning, StarCraft II will be a fully featured multiplayer game, and all three races will be available for competitive play.

Re:Starcraft 2 three games?

[daid303]

More from that:

How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?

The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

If I buy StarCraft II but don't buy any of the expansion sets, will I still be able to play online?

Yes. This will work similarly to Warcraft III and the original StarCraft, which maintained separate online gaming lobbies and ladders for expansion set players and players with the base Warcraft III or StarCraft.

So yes. But you still need to buy the expansions to play multiplayer once the expansion is released. Because the 'old' lobbies will be empty.

Re:Starcraft 2 three games?

[TheSambassador]

They're basically stating that each game will be an "expansion pack." From the FAQ:

The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

Annnnnnd

This will work similarly to Warcraft III and the original StarCraft, which maintained separate online gaming lobbies and ladders for expansion set players and players with the base Warcraft III or StarCraft.

I've been defending Blizzard's no LAN support decision, but this is getting ridiculous.

Re:Starcraft 2 three games?

[space_jake]

Ouch :(

Re:Starcraft 2 three games?

[HeronBlademaster]

I've been defending Blizzard's no LAN support decision, but this is getting ridiculous.

What do you suggest they do (besides release all three as one game, or release the two expansions for free)?

(Just playing devil's advocate here.)

Re:Starcraft 2 three games?

[PrimaryConsult]

In original StarCraft w/ BW, you can still pick to use the non-expansion battle.net. They will probably do the same with SC2, so if you want to play with friends using a different expansion level, simply have everyone pick the same one. No LAN sucks for many reasons but not this particular one.

Re:Starcraft 2 three games?

[TheSambassador]

When the trilogy was first announced, I had been under the impression that they were going to release all 3 games, but they'd be standalone and I'd get to pick which one I wanted to buy/play. Maybe I'd misunderstood, or I'd extrapolated that out of facts that weren't there, but now it seems even more like a blatant "we're GOING to make you play lots of money for these games" than it did back then.

Based on my past experience with "expansion sets," I also wonder if each new chapter in the trilogy is going to be full priced. Starcraft 2's site says :

The StarCraft II Trilogy will consist of the base StarCraft II game and two expansion sets. Pricing on these games hasn't been determined at this early stage; however, we've always charged an appropriate price for the content the player receives, and we will continue to release high-quality games that offer great value.

I won't go into the current price of video games at this point, and I'm sure that I'll enjoy Starcraft 2 quite a bit when it finally ships, but I'm starting to sway away from the "Blizzard is amazing and can do no wrong" crowd and towards the "Activision merging thingy means more attempts to get our money" crowd. They've even said that they're looking into monetizing some Battle.net features. I just really, really hope they don't turn into EA.

Sell Out

[Richard.Tao]

With the Mountain Dew game fuel, charging money for direct TV view of blizzcon, WoW being used to advertise Toyota trucks... I wonder: did you guys sell out on your own accord, or did it have to do with the merger with Activision?

Re:Sell Out

[cthulu_mt]

charging money for direct TV view of blizzcon

Because I'm sure that camera crews and equipment have absolutely no cost.

Re:Sell Out

[poormanjoe]

Because I'm sure that camera crews and equipment have absolutely no cost.

The cost would be a fixed cost, not an exponential cost, and therefor could be absorbed by Blizzard.

Re:Sell Out

[An ominous Cow art]

And I'm sure their cost is a drop in the ocean compared to what Blizzard rakes in from monthly WoW fees.

Re:Sell Out

[Entropius]

You're right -- they DO have no cost.

If you let the fans do it, people will show up with high-quality amateur videorecording equipment (which is surprisingly compact these days: see Panasonic GH1) and cover your convention and stick it all over the Internet free of charge. Sure, their coverage might not be sanitized in exactly the way you want it to be, but it *will* be done.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Timex]

This is not always a help... My wife plays WoWC too. Sadly, she's better at the game than I am.

How long for Starcraft 2's "expansion packs"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The original starcraft 2 development has taken basically forever. How long will it be before we get to finish the story with zerg and protoss in single player? Will it be on par with the current delayed Terran schedule or will it be faster now that the assets have mostly been created for the game?

MY QUESTION

[sexconker]

Why the hell did you let the WC3 / WoW art team work on SC2?

ZERGLINGS ARE FELHOUNDS.
It looks retarded and smacks of WoW!
This is not a good thing.
Make them look like zerglings again. PLEASE.

STRUCTURES ARE PLUMP AND UGLY.
It looks retarded and cartoony!
Structures need EMPTY SPACE. Right now every structure is a block, a blob, or similar. Why do the Terran structures, which have extending legs and such, not have any space between the main structure and the extending legs? Look at the previous designs in the original SC.
The structures look like singular objects, when they should look like complex buildings made of many different parts. They look like a singular painted blob.

Re:MY QUESTION

[space_jake]

Funny, I always thought that Felhounds looked like Zerglings.

Re:MY QUESTION

[brkello]

This is an awful question. The art has already been decided. You crying isn't going to change it.

I also find it confusing when people complain that too much dev resources are wasted on WoW when they could be on SC2, then everyone complains that too many of the people who do WoW are working on SC2.

Blizzard does a fantastic job of making good looking games that don't kill your PC. If it is too colorful for you, just put some sort of gray translucent cover over your monitor so it can look manly and realistic to you. It's the gameplay that matters. It isn't like zerglings are now puffy pink ponies of doom.

Re:MY QUESTION

[pcolaman]

Response: Because you touch yourself at night.

Re:MY QUESTION

[sexconker]

I bitched about it ages ago when it could have been changed.
Nobody did anything.

They just WoWed it up, and it looks terrible.

Re:MY QUESTION

[sexconker]

Funny, you're wrong.
Look at the original zerglings, then the felhounds, then the SC II zerglings.

One of these things is not like the other.
(Here's a Galvatron-sized hint: It's the original zerglings.)

Re:MY QUESTION

[sexconker]

Ok.
Just so long as I know.
I hope no one else is upset about this, because I sure as fuck am not gonna stop.

Re:MY QUESTION

[pcolaman]

I honestly think it looks great, and I think most other people agree. I'm surprised you complained about the art direction in SC2 and not in D3 (even though I think the art in D3 also looks great).

Re:MY QUESTION

[sexconker]

I was never into Diablo, so I can't compare to the originals.

The only thing people are bitching about for Diablo is the colors. And while I agree it looks better desaturated (not necessarily to the degree those fan videos & screenshots adjusted it), I'm willing to be it's a million times more playable when you can actually see.

Re:MY QUESTION

[pcolaman]

I don't know a URL off the top of my head, but there were interviews with the creators of the first two Diablo games where they actually said that the desaturated look in the original two games was due to technological limitations at the time, rather than an art style. They also indicated that what D3 looks like is closer to what they wanted to do, but at the time the tech just wouldn't make it look good.

Re:MY QUESTION

[sexconker]

Even if that's true, George Lucas.

(Yes, that's a complete sentence.)

Re:MY QUESTION

[pcolaman]

Can't argue with that logic, carry on.

Battle.net and StarCraft II

[tlhIngan]

WRT Battle.net and StarCraft II, would you be making it so multiplayer play is possible with zero configuration on the firewall/router? If I invite 10 of my friends for a get-together, and we want to play StarCraft II, will that be possible without having to reconfigure my router? Or to do this, will it require using technologies like UPnP so SC II can open ports for each player?

Why is there no provision for offline play? Considering the way Blizzard games run so nicely on low-end hardware, if my friends and I are stuck at the airport waiting for a connection, it means we can't just setup an ad-hoc network and play SC II (especially since many airports charge $$$ per minute of Internet) to pass the time. Or even at low end motels/hotels where WiFi isn't necessarily available (or is costly)? (To be honest, I've seen even high-end hotels charge for Internet access, too, but it seems a waste that we all have to pay good money to get access to Battle.net so we can all play together).

What about offline play for single player? Or will single player also require battle.net?

Re:Battle.net and StarCraft II

[cpricejones]

Surely the devs know that a work around for this will be created so that people can use a mod ... LAN play is essential for tournaments.

Re:Battle.net and StarCraft II

[BikeHelmet]

You make some very valid points, which I'm also curious about. I had heard that LAN connections are still available, but you have to use Battle.net as a lobby. Rather throws a snag in your scenarios... and throws a snag in mine. During the Winter, when snow is coming down, it's not uncommon for my internet to cut out.

I also have another question regarding LAN - most games that support LAN utterly fail when mixing LAN with WAN. I had an online friend from Texas that wanted to play Supreme Commander with a real-life buddy and me. Unfortunately, only one computer from an IP can connect. Since then we've observed the same behaviour in just about every modern LAN-supporting game we've tried. Mixing LAN with WAN is a no go - which means huge bandwidth concerns if multiple people have to send data out/in (to each other) over the same modem.

Just imagine having a LAN party, but one of your friends moved away to go to university somewhere. He wants to connect in over the internet, but can't, because the game can't mix connections. :/ Really annoying.

Re:Battle.net and StarCraft II

[Hunter-Killer]

I've found Hamachi to be a good way to integrate LAN/WAN players.

Linux

[emanem]

Q1) Given the massive success of WoW on Linux (through wine) are you considering a Linux port of your main incoming titles?
Q2) If no Q1, will you at least consider wine as a release platform for your incoming titles?
Q3) Given the current situation with incresing Linux distribution/usage, what are your future plans for Linux OS?
Q4) Is it so hard to develope the same engine on both D3D and OpenGL?
Q5) Are there any particular effects you couldn't be able to easily implement in OpenGL version (eg. fancy shadows in WoW)? If yes, why?
Q6) Would you reccomend to a young ISV to use OpenGL or better both D3D and OpenGL to create a multi-platform game?

Cheers, Ema! ;-)

Re:Linux

[Paxton]

WoW does support OpenGL. It runs on my Mac just fine.

I would kill (undead rogues, I hate those guys) for a port of the original SC and WoW to Linux. I don't understand why this hasn't already happened.

Re:Linux

[walshy007]

While I'm not from blizzard, I can answer some questions for you

Q4) Is it so hard to develope the same engine on both D3D and OpenGL?

The WoW engine already does opengl, as does warcraft 3 and as will starcraft 2, and diablo 3.

Q6) Would you reccomend to a young ISV to use OpenGL or better both D3D and OpenGL to create a multi-platform game?

Unless you count the xbox360 and windows as 'multi platform' you more or less have to use opengl for multi platform games, it runs on anything with 3d hardware, and some things without (slowly of course). If blizzard did not have an opengl backend also, they would not have any mac ports even.

Re:Linux

[poetmatt]

what?

wow on linux runs quite well with wine. Blizz just doesn't want to officially support it, as that means putting devs on it(linux) as opposed to being lazy/not spending a penny and leaving the work to wine devs.

Re:Linux

[emanem]

Yes I know, when I played WoW (from Feb 2005 to Feb 2009) I always played on Ubuntu with OpenGL, but the windows version doesn't support the fancy shadows...that's why I've asked for this as well...
Btw, with the same Config.WTF the Linux version has always been faster than windows...at least for me...
Cheers,

Re:Linux

[emanem]

This is why I've posted 6 related questions (if you notice from Q1-->Q6 is the natural evolution of some kind of dev-like questions).
Being a dev which has done some research on GP/GPU for 5th univ year thesis on OpenGL (both win32 and Linux), and that I'm generically interested in wine (I've recompiled and was profiling my own build), I can uderstand my 6 questions are a bit naive but I think those could be of general interest for the community (both non experienced devs and curious people).
Cheers,

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wondering, do you have any numbers you can attach to this "massive success" claim in Q1? I'd strongly doubt even 10,000 of their 11 million subscribers use Linux, but then again Linux people do tend to flock to whatever games their can play on their inferior platform, no matter how terrible the game is, so if it turned out to be the case that many of the 11 million subscribers are in fact Linux users, I wouldn't really be surprised.

And... you do know WoW supports both OpenGL and D3D right?

Re:Linux

[SL Baur]

Yes I know, when I played WoW (from Feb 2005 to Feb 2009) I always played on Ubuntu with OpenGL, but the windows version doesn't support the fancy shadows...that's why I've asked for this as well...

Now is really the time for you restart your account and log in. Blizzard is doing an online census.

The number of people they see logging in from Linux boxes is going to mean more than any questions we can ask in an interview (and we asked about Linux support the last time we had this opportunity).

Re:Linux

[emanem]

Mate, do you have any link to it?
Honestly I don't want to spend money for other 3/6 months, as seen as I'm personally enjoying SF4 (balanced PvP game...).
My account is still valid (it expired 8th of Aug). Can I be eligible to vote for Linux?
Naturally I'd buy a new PC to play SC2, but only on Linux (with or hopefully without wine).
Cheers,

Re:Linux

[emanem]

Hope not to duplicate this.
Mate, can I vote with my account? I'm not subscribed anymore but the account is valid.
I'd surely vote for Linux!
Cheers,

Re:Linux

[SL Baur]

Mate, can I vote with my account? I'm not subscribed anymore but the account is valid.

They are not going to delete the account or the characters.

It appears they are counting the kinds of systems that are in use (not surprising now that the mmo-champion report has been confirmed). I've gotten messages at login saying that they have started collecting "non-personal" system data when you login, ie. a census.

I figure they are counting two things. 1) They are counting system type MSW, Mac OS X, other; 2) Machine configuration (as in graphics card & core memory).

The only way you can "vote" in something like that is to login.

You're a Linux guy who has already given up, so you have already voted ... :-(

Re:Linux

[emanem]

Mate, the point is that I've played for 4 years (with a pause of 3 months in 2005, 2 months in 2008).
Honestly I find the game boring and time-consuming, as seen as I'm interested in PvP part and the game is definitely not balanced, plus all the defects we know.
I've enjoyed playing with friends for some years, but now I'm fed up with endless games whose only scope is to improve a virtual char.
I had fun playing countless Arathi Basins, with my rank 12 mage or my rank 11 rogue, but now if I want to play a videogame, I don't want to spend more than 20 minutes per match, without having to worry to keep up-to-date (read need to acquire better gear) my virtual alter ego.
Indeed, I'm waiting for proper PvP games, like SCII, or games where I can stop and play for 20 minutes, then play again, without having to mess around with my RL, which, imho, is a lot better to deal with than a virtual world.
That's why I'm playing Street Fighter IV on my PS3. A match lasts for 2 minutes max, it's ranked and I can decide if I want to stop or play another.
I'll look forward to SCII, because as far as I'm concerned 20 minutes for the average game are ok.
I haven't given up on Linux or Blizzard, just on WoW. And frankly, is a lot better.
Get out of the Matrix!
Cheers,

Starcraft II

[rehtonAesoohC]

They have stated that there will be three separate game releases, one for Terrans, one for Zerg, and the final for Protoss. Because of this split, will the game length suffer? Given the fact that both Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War were entirely single games that encompassed three storylines, the game took a significantly longer amount of time to complete fully. How can Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty take as long as the original game 's three chapters to complete while remaining fresh and fun throughout?

Will each game be treated as an entirely separate entity in terms of publication, IE, you pay the same $50 for each game, or will it be treated as episodic content where you have to purchase the first game in order to play the second and third, and the second and third installments are significantly less expensive?

Re:Starcraft II

[offrdbandit]

Spoiler Alert! Protoss win.

Re:Starcraft II

[space_jake]

Ramming speed!

Re:Starcraft II

[Avalain]

In Starcraft they had three storylines that played out over 10 missions each, for a total of 30 missions. In Starcraft II they are going to have one storyline that is 30 missions long, for a total of 30 missions (ok, this may not be exactly 30 and you will be able to skip over some missions, etc). Basically, you will be getting approximately the same number of missions in SCII that you had in SCI. Add to this the ability to replay missions for achievements and secondary goals and the game length shouldn't really suffer that much.

As for keeping the game fresh and fun throughout, well, I guess we'll just have to see. It sounds like they are trying hard to come up with interesting missions with some fun twists to it. Plus, you won't have 5 learning missions, 5 good missions, 5 learning-new-race missions, 5 good missions, etc.

Still, my favorite race is the Protoss and it SUCKS to think that I'm going to have to wait years before I can play them single player.

Re:Starcraft II

[rehtonAesoohC]

See, but it's not just about the mission totals...

Maybe it's just me, but having 10 missions per race was perfect for me, because by the time I got to the end of the campaign, I ended up being sick of playing that particular race and was ready to move on to the next one. I am worried that by the time I get up to the 20th mission, I'm going to be ready to be done with the Terran campaign, and itching to try out the Zerg. You get to see all these cool units and abilities used, and the cool thing about Starcraft was that you could look forward to being able to create that mad awesome Protoss Carrier (or a fleet!).

Now we're going to have to sit around for another two years just waiting for the Zerg and Protoss campaigns to be released.

Re:Starcraft II

[Avalain]

Well, my point about the mission totals was really only to discuss your question on if game length is going to suffer or not.

I tend to be rather ADD with the original SC and want to switch races after only 5 or 6 missions. So I agree with you completely on wanting to play the Zerg and Protoss right away. However, I'm trying to be optimistic about the whole thing and so I'm hoping that the 30 terran missions are going to be so awesome that I won't feel like I'm trapped.

Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, please bring Diablo III to consoles (at least XBox360) with local multiplayer support (preferably 4-player). For PC enthusiasts or those who say it can't be done, please see:

Champions of Norrath (PS2)
Champions: Return to Arms (PS2)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Series
Sacred 2 (360 and PS3)

Also take note of the user interfaces...I think that Champions:RTA had the best UI for this type of game on a console. It would be nice to be able to have at least partial inventory access without interrupting other local players.

It's such great fun to share a couch with a few friends and explore dungeons and compete for loot.

Re:Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[Ammin]

Please god no. That is all.

Re:Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to killing hookers and let the adults talk.

Re:Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[pcolaman]

My question is, will you please ignore the AC parent and not ever bring these games to consoles? Mmkay thanks goodbye.

Re:Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

They already tried that with Starcraft (on the N64) and Diablo (on the PS1) and they had to water them down in order for them to work. Are you really sure that's what you want?

Re:Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand this type of response which I have seen several times. It seems like a lot of PC gamers are totally against DIII coming to consoles. Have you played CoN or Sacred 2?

My perception is that PC gamers are afraid that the game will be "dumbed down" for consoles. I think the complexity of Sacred 2 exceeds that of Diablo II and the controls map quite comfortably to the controller. S2 uses a "chord" system for the attacks and spells so the player can have 12 different attacks or attack sequences available at all times. Additionally, there are 4 buttons that can be assigned to different potions. Enemies are targeted by facing them. Ranged spells can be directed to a specific location using a targeting reticle that appears on the ground when the spell is selected.

Re:Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[Entropius]

Just get a computer.

A computer that can run modern games is cheaper than an xbox, after all.

Re:Will we see Diablo III on consoles?

[mqduck]

Blizzard, please DON'T port Diablo 3 to consoles unless you're willing to let it be its gameplay be worse than the PC version. In other words, don't cripple the PC version because you're going to make a console version.

Instant messaging across networks

[awfulshot]

There was mention of being able to IM across games, to anyone on battle.net. Is there any possibility of being able to message friends on other instant message networks gtalk/aim/steam?

Support for older games?

[Anonymous Coward]

After Battle.net 2 goes live, are there any plans to update older games (Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, or even older games such as Starcraft and Warcraft 2) to use the new battle.net, or are they going to remain as they are?

Starcraft II LAN Petition

[Sycon]

As a company with a history of working hard to please its customers (the return of Raynor's original voice actor being a great example), are you paying attention to the petition to bring back LAN support at http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html? I ask because the petition brings forth a number of valid points, chief among them the fact that pirate battle.net servers will be created no matter what precautions you take. This is a point that has been proven time and time again by other companies seeking to use DRM. Take Spore for example: Spore arguably had the most powerful and restrictive DRM available and was intended to be "un-pirateable", yet it went down as the most largely pirated game in history and the pirated version was even available before the game had officially been released.

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[CorporateSuit]

They are not saying the BNet thing is to combat piracy. They're saying that they want to create a similar community in Starcraft 2 that they had in WoW. In other words, they want to make Starcraft 2 a polished chatroom with guns. If the troglodytes keep to themselves in packs of 6-12 with their "LAN Parties" and "After-hours office network games" and their "Internet Cafe Contests" then they are removing themselves from this community. You're thinking small, obviously, when Blizzard is thinking 'If we make an apple big enough, it will begin to taste like an orange.'

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[Sycon]

While they may fall behind that mask, in an interview Blizzard stated that piracy was the major factor behind the decision: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizzard-Responds-to-Fans-039-Request-for-LAN-Support-in-StarCraft-II-115627.shtml

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[edschurr]

[P]irate battle.net servers will be created no matter what precautions you take. This is a point that has been proven time and time again by other companies seeking to use DRM.

And this is a fallacy made time and time again regarding DRM—that DRM needs to prevent absolutely all piracy ever to be useful for a company.

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[CorporateSuit]

Every argument he makes against piracy is community-centric -- perhaps community is not the cover, but piracy is. Blizzard is not your standard company that's been hamstrung by pirates. They're an overbloated behemoth who's fed himself fat on the communal attractiveness that led to the runaway success of WoW. They're saying "Starcraft 2" and their telling their investors and Vivendi and pocketbooks "World of Warcraft 2". They're not stupid -- to that point. They've properly identified the goose that's laid them billions of dollars in golden eggs, and Starcraft 1 wasn't that goose, WoW was. From a gamer's standpoint, "Turning Diablo and Starcraft into WoW" could be viewed as franchise murder. From an investor's/corporate standpoint, the words sound like they've got 2 billion-dollar products lined up! How do you get this point across to gamers? You DON'T! You say "Piracy! Arggh! Stop those pirates!" when Blizzard knows fully well that fighting piracy doesn't make money -- but as soon as marketing says it, the reason is never questioned, only complained about.

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[HeronBlademaster]

They are not saying the BNet thing is to combat piracy.

Actually they've specifically referred to it as, in part, a safeguard against piracy.

Apart from that, yeah, they're trying make it into a "community", but IMNSHO that's a stupid reason to take out LAN support.

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[Sycon]

You're right, all it would have to do is block some piracy. But it doesn't. EA Games finally stepped away from their DRM-heavy approach after they realized that the more they tried to push DRM, the higher rates of piracy they experienced.

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[CorporateSuit]

But their argument of it being "Anti-piracy" is contradictive, in this sense. Their exact words are:

Pirated servers splinter the community instead of consolidating all players who love to play the game. Battle.net will bring players together in skirmishes, ladder play, custom games, and allow everyone the opportunity to share a common experience.

Which is ridiculous, because BNet doesn't prevent pirated servers. It supposedly prevents pirated games. See the logical fallacy in their argument? Want to take the red pill yet?

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[HeronBlademaster]

I didn't say it's a good argument. I'm just saying they have, in fact, played the "OMG PIRACY" card.

I agree - their argument is hogwash.

Re:Starcraft II LAN Petition

[Hatta]

If the troglodytes keep to themselves in packs of 6-12 with their "LAN Parties" and "After-hours office network games" and their "Internet Cafe Contests" then they are removing themselves from this community.

If we don't buy the game because of the lack of LAN support, we're also removing ourselves from this community. There's only one question that needs to be answered. Does Blizzard want my money or not?

What are the plans to combat rampant cheating?

[antifoidulus]

I used to be an avid Warcraft II player both in single player and online, and I also dabbled in a little bit of Warcraft III, but ultimately quit both after encountering rampant and flagrant cheating online. The cheaters didn't even attempt to hide what they were doing, level 16 grunts in WC II and teammates telling me they had the map hack in WC III made it pretty obvious. (To that end, I turned against the teammate who told me he had map hacks and spent all my resources attacking his stuff and then got beat by the other team). While I get beat more often then not, playing against cheaters makes the game 0 fun, and it seemed that Blizzard was either unable or unwilling to do anything about it. What are the anti-cheating technologies that you are employing in Starcraft II and do you think they will make a difference?

Re:What are the plans to combat rampant cheating?

[Prien715]

I've never had any problems in WC3 with cheating. There used to be a lot, but I've been playing solid for the past 2 weeks and have not noticed a single person.

I have been accused of "cheating" on occasion, since I love using recon on my enemies...but I do it through the in-game mechanisms.

(If you get bored, I'm AgnosticPope on BNet (West/East, but mostly play West, if ya wanna play.)

Re:What are the plans to combat rampant cheating?

[Flaming_cows]

As an operator of a site dedicated to producing cheats, I would like to know what Blizzard is going to do to encourage cheating. The site I administrate (EdgeofNowhere, formerly Blizzhackers until Blizzard deployed some lawyers) has over one hundred and fifty thousand registered users, and I believe this represents a demographic that Blizzard should not ignore. Diablo II was great for that, but it's starting to run out of steam; can we expect Diablo III to be just as fun to hack?

Re:What are the plans to combat rampant cheating?

[Deanalator]

To the same effect, will there ever be a place in your games for gamers that enjoy writing third party tools and scripts?

I learned skills like packet analysis, reverse engineering, live memory edits etc from the days of diablo 2 hacking (~2001). Then, you started banning all of us. I am now a professional security researcher that does not play blizzard games.

I started playing WoW for a bit because I heard great things about there being an API, but when I looked into it, it was so restrictive that it was completely useless. Then you look at the glider community. Hundreds of people devoted and obsessed, designing a sophisticated AI for WoW, and every day they are hunted down and banned.

WoW has the concept of realms, that have been well defined to separate people that enjoy different types of game play. Why not create some realms for people who enjoy things like automation, reverse engineering, and hell, even being able to purchase things with real money? I love the games, but hate the hacker phobia. If we had our own realms, we would not need to bother the hardcore dice rollers that like to live in the illusion, and who think that we only hack to satisfy some deep insecurities.

Even in starcraft 2, don't you think bot on bot tournaments would be freaking awesome? Think about AI assisted gaming. Why not let the computer to the grunt work of the statistical modeling, and let the human do the actual hard stuff?

Re:What are the plans to combat rampant cheating?

[sourICE]

The anti-cheating technologies in SC2 will be up to you if the friends list and Battle.Net2 works as they have planned. They plan on implementing a friends list like steam or wow has and it will even be integrated with some in-game features(wow friends list, creating raids outside of wow, etc.).

This means, if somebody is a hacker you will most likely be able to add them to a blacklist and just never play with them again. The alternative method is to make new friends and just don't play with people that are not on your friends list and that you do not know and trust. Hackers only ruin your game if you force yourself to keep playing with them.

Here is a link to some information about BNet2 from IGN:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017149p1.html

Re:What are the plans to combat rampant cheating?

[RazorSharp]

"What are the anti-cheating technologies that you are employing in Starcraft II?"

You serious? If that was public information then I doubt it would work.

Also, Blizzard has no problem permanently banning CD-keys of confirmed cheaters. Although any safe can be cracked, I've always been impressed with Blizzard's attempts to keep it fair. I've been playing Starcraft lately to warm up for SC2 and maybe it's because I play on limited resource maps where people are seeking a challenge, but it's rare that an opponent does something that makes me think, "no way." Back in the nineties/early 2000's, when I was really big into SC, there were a lot of maphackers but joining a good clan was an easy way to avoid them (and immature dickheads in general).

Question about New Hires & College Grads

[eldavojohn]

In regards to server and mechanics development: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Are there any paradigms in the game development professional world that game and graphics courses in college don't seem to cover? When a new developer starts, what are the basic things you teach them first? Do you ever have to take time unlearning things that are pervasive in say, web development? Are there any patterns or architectural paradigms that hold importance above all else in online games?

In regards to the artists of graphics and world design and modeling: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Is the "art" aspects of your games something that can be learned or do you have a few talented visionaries driving the group? I've been impressed with the mood in Diablo and the beautiful scenery in certain areas of World of Warcraft. Is that a single person at work or a large group adding a little brush stroke to the whole painting?

Re:Question about New Hires & College Grads

[Monkeedude1212]

I like the questions, but just so you know, Blizzard (to my knowledge) doesn't hire game developers right from college - they require QUITE a portfolio, recommending 4 years experience and your name shipped on 2 or more titles.

no LAN no $$$.

[Anonymous Coward]

no LAN game function, and no money from me.

Re:no LAN no $$$.

[gobbligook]

me either

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should try a little self control. It's because of pathetic impulse control-less morons like you that the government constantly steps in to protect the dumbest, lowest common denominator and children are turning into delinquents left and right - that is, parents washing their hands of actual parenting and expecting someone else to do it for them. Man up and take charge of your life.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT WAS MERELY A SETBACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Kael'Thas be playable in D3? And can we get a little Kael'thas action going in Starcraft 2 as well? Maybe like the one zerg unit that was hidden in the trees in that one mission in Warcraft 3?

KY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Blizzard,

My anus hurts. Would you recommend KY or Astroglide before the next patch?

Thanks!

--Death Knight

Re:KY?

[PFactor]

Us Warlocks can now give you back the advice you gave us at the start of WOTLK: if you don't like your class anymore, REROLL a different one and quit QQing.

Re:KY?

[Xanthvar]

Amen to that brother.. welcome to the world of Warlocks..
We were nerfed every major patch from inception until WotLK came out. Then, they didn't need to nerf us, but cause we were just plain under powered.

It's kind of refreshing to be looking forward to a patch, because it seems things actually get better for us, not worse.

Diablo III

[Hojima]

Why did you use a Witch-Doctor to replace the necromancer? I can think of a million other ways to replace him. If you really want to be original, try to make a class that doesn't have a common English name. Call them Maj'kan and give them their own culture. Say that they were priests from the remnants of a civilization that was destroyed by the prime evils, and that they trained to travel to hell itself to bring them back. Then they can have the ability to summon stitched-together demons and they can even augment themselves with the corpses of demons. Also, they can have the ability to travel to their own pocket dimension in hell (an ability that is truly unique to the game). Even the barbarian could have been replaced with a Shaolin-monk type culture that bashes away just like the current barb. And the sorceress has not been replaced, only renamed. We're not buying that one.

Key to success of Blizzard games

[debrain]

I'm wondering why you (the developer teams) think so many Blizzard games stand out from the crowd, from World of Warcraft to Diablo I & II, and Warcraft. Why do you think the Blizzard games have been better (or at least more popular) than so many alternatives?

Thanks.

Re:Key to success of Blizzard games

[Anonymous Coward]

I am wondering why you (the poster) think that so many of your Slashdot posts stand out from the crowd, from funny to insightful and interesting. Why do you think your posts have been better (or at least more popular) than so many alternatives?

Thanks.

Re:Key to success of Blizzard games

[mqduck]

Now that's a softball question if I've ever heard one.

Diablo 3 balance

[Shadow of Eternity]

Are spellcasters/magical classes still going to dominate everyone else in multiplayer or what?

Will 2 or more players behind nat work now?

[TheSunborn]

Have you fixed battle.net so that 2(or more) players behind nat can play together (Very importent now that you removed lan play), and play against other players in a 2 vs 2?

The Starcraft/battle.net that is online now can't do this.

How will removing LAN encourage more sales?

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

What actual hard data does Blizzard have that led them to make such an about-face on LAN from Starcraft to Starcraft II? The ability with the original Starcraft to create a "spawn copy" that allowed friends to play for free in a LAN game was (IMO) a big driver of sales. Why remove such a successful feature? In what universe does removing popular features from your product and pissing off a large base of your fans somehow result in more sales?

Re:How will removing LAN encourage more sales?

[bigmaddog]

This seems to follow the typical entertainment industry fallacy of "people who enjoy our product without paying (typically through piracy, though not in this case) would buy it instead if we made free enjoyment harder." The question Blizzard was deciding here was whether the person playing the spawned copy of Starcraft was a potential customer or added value to the actual customers, and they chose to believe that it was a potential customer. Of course everyone should pay. Shareholder value and all that. I'd be surprised if there was "hard data" behind this decision if it were made on that basis.

Conversely, they may have merely decided that they don't need the trouble of including this feature to stand out amongst their competition, having a strong brand and all that.

Re:How will removing LAN encourage more sales?

[BassMan449]

I know in my case that spawned copy is what drove me to buy the game. The first time I played Starcraft was a LAN using a friend's spawned copy. I thought the game was so great I went out and bought a copy. Not only that, but over the years I've actually bought 3 copies now (I have a bad habit of losing CD's).

Re:How will removing LAN encourage more sales?

[LordNor]

I will second this... I purchased both WarCraft II and StarCraft (+expansion) because of the Spawn function. After I purchased it and did the same with another group of friends, many of them went on to purchase the product. I would see this as free marketing! You could even add a feature to allow the person with the spawned copy to easily upgrade to the full version with ease. (A discount would help as well.) I would see this increasing your sales greatly.

Re:How will removing LAN encourage more sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget: This is the world where only 4% of console owners won't buy a new xbox 360 after the previous one broke, even with a 54% failure rate.

Starcraft 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got one: Why, exactly, is StarCraft 2 going to be 3 seperate games? If each game were only 20-30 bucks, it would be understandable, but you're looking at charging at around 150 bucks for the entire experience. You can't fool me, I know that a few months after the third Starcraft 2 game is released there will be an expansion for another 50 bucks. Is Battle.net really that expensive for you guys? The money you rake in for WoW monthly subscriptions seems to enable you to roll in the money.

Speaking of WoW monthly subscriptions, where does that money go? I reactived my WoW account last month, and instances have been tricky to get into, and on the forums you guys claim to have only fixed 40% of the realms with this problem. What's the weekly maintenance and monthly fee being used for? Is there only one guy working on this problem?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Girlfriend? This is slashdot you insensitive clod!

Battle.net

[Khashishi]

This is relevant to the removal of LAN. Will there be any network overhead (ie, latency) associated with connecting over Battle.net for players who all share the same LAN?

WoW content changes with class changes

[obi1one]

It seems strange to me that you couple content additions (new dungeons, quests etc) with character balancing in your patches. Content takes a long time to develop, with the time between 3.0 and Ulduar having been what, 6-7 months? By coupling character balancing changes with the content changes, yu end up waiting 6-7 months to balance over and under powered classes, when many of the changes involve modifying a coefficient, a base dmg/healing/whatever amount, or a cooldown. I can understand that some balancing requires development, but there seems to be a clear divide in most cases between the work required to add content and the work required to add new talents or spells. Couldnt you do seperate patch iterations for class balance and content addition? If you did that, wouldnt it allow you to react more quickly to imbalances without causing the feeling that too many changes occured at once that was felt in a previous patch?

Re:WoW content changes with class changes

[space_jake]

Even on those long PTR cycles with content and class changes they fiddle with the coefficients and cooldowns a lot. Class balance isn't an exact science it needs to be tested and even after the initial wave of QQ if something gets too powerful Blizzard takes months to decide on changing something. If it was whoops that 30% damage increase was implemented as 300% it'd be changed a week later (if not hotfixed the next day).

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[i_liek_turtles]

Blizzard for President!

Diablo III on consoles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Diablo III be developed for the PS3 and XBOX360? The game seems perfectly suited to console play from a controller/mechanics standpoint.

Pay By Day subscription

[Hossicle]

I am a busy gamer and don't get a lot of time to play games. I am ok with the upfront cost but I can't justify subscriptions that don't get used.

For WOW and other future subscription games: Have you considered an alternate subscription model that might allow for a "pay by day"? For example If I log in I get charged $2 up to a monthly max of $20 (someting greater than 15 to make the flat rate subscription appealing). I would be happy paying somewhere between $2 and $20 on my terms to experience WoW, but the flat rate made me quit.

PS: I am a stock holder too...make me some money! go go go!

WoW question

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could, I'd like to see some discussion brough up about aesthetic wow issues, namely crafting, social charachter interactions, and charachter animations. My question would be as follows.

For nearly 5 years, crafting professions have been focused on functional gear for players. Its about time that players who have item creation professions be allowed to make gear that is simply for looks. Ornate armor, formal dresses/suits that fit with racial and ethnic flavors. When can we look forward to more ultra-casual finery for crafting professions, and if not, what are the issues that are holding it up and how can it be circumvented?

the other question, minorly important, would be

When can we expect to see the 'dance engine' put into game that was discussed many many months ago?

Expansions?

[Monkeedude1212]

Starcraft And Diablo 2 were instant hits and it wasn't long before they each had their respective expansion packs enabling much more content and extended gameplay. Given all the hype that's been built up over Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, its almost definite that they too will be top sellers. Assuming each new release retains that same captivating gameplay as its predecessors, are there any plans for expansion packs onto these?

Re:Expansions?

[Avalain]

Starcraft And Diablo 2 were instant hits and it wasn't long before they each had their respective expansion packs enabling much more content and extended gameplay. Given all the hype that's been built up over Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, its almost definite that they too will be top sellers. Assuming each new release retains that same captivating gameplay as its predecessors, are there any plans for expansion packs onto these?

They already announced that Starcraft 2 is going to be broken into 3 releases - the initial game and 2 expansions. The first game will only have Terrans in the single player, with the first expansion adding on the Zerg missions and the second adding the protoss.

Single Player

[PktLoss]

I love playing games with friends in person, have a few people over and play.

Online, this has less draw for me. In a FPS I get my ass kicked. In WoW I gave up, I was spending more time LFG than actually going through dungeons. When my ideal gaming session is less than an hour, upper levels just got impossible if I didn't want to grind slowly through random encounters and skip quests.

Diablo 3 seems to have a heavy focus on the multi-player, Starcraft 2 campaigns look great, but all eyes (and in fact the release date) seem to be set on how Battle.net is doing.

Is single player dead? or at least dead at blizzard.

Re:Single Player

[fgaliegue]

Dumb start, but...+1.

However, my concern is over Diablo 3, not WoW, which I don't (want to, for that matter) play.

I am a huge fan of d2x. I've been playing it for ages. But I found out, especially in the latest patches, that unless you had top notch equipment, which is very hard (TOO HARD) to come across in a legit way, you just couldn't beat hell difficulty in single player.

I HATE battle.net. I hated it because of cheaters (but the "diabolic" extension helped me kick them out, fortunately), I hated it because of Blizzard's stance over bnetd, but I hated it even more with the latest patches for the following reasons:

* some epic monsters only showed up online,
* some epic items only could be spawned online as well.

WHY?? Why did Blizzard do that (on all three hatreds)? Has Blizzard learned? That is, will D3 be as interesting "offline" (LANs included) as D1 and D2X (before patch 1.09) were?

MOD QUESTION UP!!!

[denzacar]

If ANY question needs to be answered in this interview - then it is the "LAN crippling issue".

Preferably, answer would be something along the lines of "We fucked up, LAN will not be crippled, we are sorry, it will never happen again."

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Chris Burke]

Have you tried a girlfriend?

Girlfriend? Where does that drop? I bet its off one of the 25-man hard modes, but I've never even seen one. A guildmate of mine said he heard it's going to be added in the raid after Icecrown Citadel in what will be the most evil raid instance of all, The Outside.

WC2!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Warcraft II : Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal.

Hi-res. XP.

Auction house in D3

[Twillerror]

Are you considering allowing D3 users to trade object using Battle NEt out side of a game?

Re:WoW Auction House

[Anonymous Coward]

I post single enchanting mats on the auction house. They sell for more than a stack of 20, and sell faster. Most people don't need a full stack, only a few for an enchant. If you want to blame someone, blame the morons that undercut by more than a few silver.

Instead of complaining that people buy up all the stuff on the AH and price it for more, then undercut them and make a profit. Either they will buy your stuff or someone else will, in any case you win.

WoW Expansions

[jadin]

Why does every expansion make previous content so worthless? Do you honestly think that people won't buy expansions if the current content is still fun? In my opinion your expansions add enough to justify the purchases, there is no reason to force them down our throats.

For example with wrath of the lich king there was plenty of new content added to justify purchasing it, without making the entire area of burning crusade worthless except for grinding from levels 58 to 68. There was a ton of great raids and dungeons that are now obsolete that could easily be updated to have a level 80 heroic mode. I realize that most players were probably bored with all of BC content by the time that wrath came out, but give us the option of skipping them, rather than deciding for everyone.

WoW would easily have one of the largest content available for an MMO, except a good 75% of it has out lived it's usefulness. For example wrath added 13 dungeons. So now a level 80 char has 13 dungeons to run. However, if all dungeons were available with a level 80 heroic mode, there would be 48 to choose from!

Re:WoW Expansions

[Anonymous Coward]

Approach the lower lvl dungeons with a different mindset. I have totally enjoyed 2-manning MC....There used to be a guild that would set up BC dungeon runs every Saturday night, get on vent, have a few drinks, get a few achievements that you skipped while leveling.....it was always a blast!

Re:WoW Expansions

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . and now inaccessible unless you put someone in the instance in the afternoon, and sit there for 6 hours until your group is ready to start.
We need separate instance servers for the Olde World content, a way to make an appointment, a queue, or a way to pay real world dollars to rent a Molten Core for the night.
Question for Blizzard: Are you working on a better way to make the instances available?

WoW - Further Internet Integration

[BobMcD]

Do you have any plans for integrating World of Warcraft with the internet? People have speculated for ages about the ability to access the Auction House, receive and send in-game mail, schedule raids/events, and even chat with players in the game from a web-based console, or even a mobile phone. What sorts of challenges are keeping you from exploring this more fully than we have already seen with the experiments on the Armory?

Re:WoW - Further Internet Integration

[brkello]

I'm pretty sure WoW is already integrated with the internet ;)

Re:WoW - Further Internet Integration

[idontgno]

I generally don't bother with this, but if you log into the Armory with your WoW or Bnet account (whichever your current WoW authentication is), you can at least view a character's calendar (the raids/events schedule thing you speak of), but I suspect Armory and other web-based (or non-WoW-client) access to server-side data is read-only on purpose, and permanently. Just guessin'.

Re:WoW - Further Internet Integration

[mqduck]

Do you have any plans for integrating World of Warcraft with the internet? People have speculated for ages about the ability to access the Auction House, receive and send in-game mail, schedule raids/events, and even chat with players in the game from a web-based console, or even a mobile phone.

Hint: Internet != World Wide Web

Re:WoW - Further Internet Integration

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't. WoW nerds won't be able to work at work unless they don't have internet.

Re:WoW - Further Internet Integration

[Anonymous Coward]

What sorts of challenges are keeping you from exploring this more fully than we have already seen with the experiments on the Armory?

Spam.

Also: spam. In addition to that there is the spam problem.

Most seriously, though, all joking aside, this would be a spam nightmare.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what the best parental control would be......a parent that actually pays attention to what their kids do. If a parent is putting their children in front of a internet connected PC for endless hours a day, week, month unattended, then WOW playtime really should be the least of their concerns.

If you as an adult need the game to enforce limits on your playtime, then you might just have a problem. If your just wanting a gentle reminder, then look into mods, someone most likely has written one to do just that. Barring that, there's always alarm clocks.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Lectoid]

What about a simple egg timer next to your computer, or any digital timer.

B.net Future Plans

[Bensam123]

Everyone is up in arms against the LAN play decision, as well as the decision to split the original game into three parts and rightly so, my opinion aside. My friends both offline and online as well as me have hypothsized that this move isn't only fueled by the desire to eliminate pirates, but to eventually turn B.Net into a premium service for which players will have to pay to use. Will B.Net always operate for free as long as a person purchases Blizzard games? Or will it eventually become a premium service, one of which you'll be limited and restricted to the point which you can rationalize the 15 dollars a month to pay for it's premium services?

what exactly has the activision merger done?

[poetmatt]

Blizzard,

the Lan question has been covered. I think a short summary is that your entire gaming customer group at large is incredibly angry at the online only requirement (and how that screws up lan gaming), so I will not get into that or the ensuing boycott that I (and every lan party I know and/or have been a part of) are boycotting your products now.

My question is: in what ways has the activision merger done anything good for the company? All I have seen so far is basically the equivalent of extremely bad policy moves and basically squeezing your gamers for money, more than you used to.

Now that almost every game requires online activation, online play, etc, why are you complicit in essentially creating your own form of DRM for your products in that they won't even work without Blizzard servers?

Re:what exactly has the activision merger done?

[WagonWheelsRX8]

This is a good question...I'd like to see how large a motivating factor money was in the recent decisions made by Blizzard. Yes, I understand a company's purpose is to make money, and I'm all for a company making money, but the impression I'm getting lately from Blizzards is 'Pay More to Get Less' which as a potential paying customer is probably not the best way to encourage me to part with my $$$ for your product.

Re:what exactly has the activision merger done?

[mqduck]

Not that I don't agree, but your entire post is a series of accusations dressed up as a question.

Re:what exactly has the activision merger done?

[poetmatt]

"in what ways has the activision merger done anything good for the company?" is pretty straightforward, even with the rest there.

"why are you creating DRM for your games?" is also direct and relevant. Both are things that I watn to see answered.

Re:what exactly has the activision merger done?

[mqduck]

But the answer to both is obvious. The merger did them good because it made them money, and they're creating DRM because they want to deter pirates.

Starcraft 2 Beta

[dunezone]

Rumors have been going around about the Starcraft 2 Beta. Will there be a beta and if so when will it open to those that opted into the Beta through BNET 2.0?

Re:Starcraft 2 Beta

[HeronBlademaster]

http://www.starcraft2.com/beta-faq.xml

WoW - Character Fluidity

[BobMcD]

Given the recent trends with character creation, cross-realm transfers, and the accelerated leveling experience, are there any plans to make characters even more fluid than they presently are? Have you considered the possibility of allowing all classes to start at an advanced level, rather than just the Heroes? Are you considering the possibility of allowing a character 'trade-in' where you could 'retire' a character of a certain level in exchange for one of another class, race, etc?

Ozzie

[Shooter28]

Can we get Ozzie as a boss encounter or some other NPC type added for kicks.

Anything new?

[brkello]

Blizzard,
You are well known for taking an established genre, polishing the heck out of it, and making great games that people love to play. Do you have plans to get in to any other type of genres other than RTSs, MMOs, or dungeon crawlers?

Alt Leveling

[CFBMoo1]

When am I going to see zones other then max level zones more populated like I did in vanilla WoW?

When will it actually be more fun and not quick to level alts?

When will I be able to have an easier time finding mid levels in zones for group quests instead of having to rely on higher levels to power me through after a few days of searching for enough people my level to do something only never to find anyone because they're blazing through with heirlooms, RaF, and now BG XP?

When will it not feel as lonely as it did when I was playing Age of Conan in their single player zones and I'm out in the main world of the game leveling alts?

Persistent world / user generated content

[atdt1991]

The most exciting new MMOs on the scene seem to be making noises about having more persistent worlds. Players or guilds have (instanced) housing, people can modify their gear in visual ways such as changing the color or style, and there are world-changing events - some universal (like the AQ gate), some personal (Wrathgate/death knight intro). MMOs like the new Star Wars have split up the quests so they are entirely unique per class.

Some of your most ardent supporters have come up with fully-fleshed ideas for personal housing based on current in-game graphic assets and expansion of the professions.

Do you have plans to compete with these new contenders on the level of personally-unique, class-unique, or guild-unique content?

WoW - Spectator Mode

[BobMcD]

Are you still considering allowing a 'Spectator Mode' in WoW? This feature would be specifically interesting in Arenas and Raids, and doesn't seem to be too technologically complex to implement. What's holding you back?

Re:WoW - Spectator Mode

[blindd0t]

Perhaps less wipes means less repairs, and would have an economic impact? I do wish this was available to me for learning the fights in raids when I first started the game a few months ago.

Re:WoW - Spectator Mode

[Anonymous Coward]

Spectator Mode would improve the social too, when someone has to step out because a 5, 10, or 25 man is oversubscribed, but if you don't oversubscribe you risk not filling. The 6th wheel could enjoy the event, learn from it, offer advice, and participate on the chat and voice channels. This could be a recruitment tool, too.
The main social impediment in WoW, at this time, is the need for exact numbers of similarly geared characters for a dungeon or raid.
There are other games with mechanisms to include a variable number of characters, and characters of varying skill in an outing, but WoW hasn't implemented anything like this yet.
The current WoW situation encourages a division of the population, with uber-geared groups cherry picking the best from guilds, and the left-behinds struggling to catch up but falling farther behind.

Devaluing the effort the existing capped characters have already put in in order to level, by making that easier for the newer players is only reducing the amount of fun someone can have during that stage, and when they then get to a top level on an older server, they are out of game play (and fun) sooner because they can't find a good raiding environment. The net effect is a burst of increased numbers of customers followed by a greater loss of customers who won't pay to not have fun.

So here is my question: Has anyone at Blizzard been working on a way to include more poorly geared or lower level characters in a raid event so that their presence adds value for the uber-geared group? As in, better a beginner than an empty space? Could this be done by having raids with npc assistance (say 10 raiders + 5 npc assistants), wherein replacing the npc with a (lesser geared or lower level) player would improve the group performance?

Re:WoW - Spectator Mode

[Vernes]

I want this as well. Watching if a group fails or succeeds is an entertaining event. Specially if it's too high level for you. And in result, you'll want to level even faster. It's like adverticing :P

The Answer To Every Question

[BabyDuckHat]

Money.

Class Balance

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that the effort on Class Balance has taken away from any unique skills a specific class should have. I would like to see more class seperation to allow for a need for groups to have the diversafication in order to be the most effect. This would increase the grouping / raiding experience and challenge. Having 4 tanking classes and 3 healing classes looks like an over-blending of the classes. Is this the path that Bliz is going to follow or are they going to reconcider the individual strenghts to specific classes?

Will we be able to play vs computer matches

[Anonymous Coward]

From the FAQ concerning multiplayer matches:

Will we still be able to play multiplayer matches of StarCraft II with all three races?

        Yes! From the beginning, StarCraft II will be a fully featured multiplayer game, and all three races will be available for competitive play.

My question is, will we be able to play matches versus the computer and if so, with all three races? Will that require being online?

Sometimes I like to play a quick skirmish against the computer. Sorry if this has been answered already. I did not notice it in the FAQ.

Thanks.

Re:Will we be able to play vs computer matches

[HeronBlademaster]

Yes, there's a skirmish mode, with a difficulty setting.

http://gaming.do.co.za/articles/news/gamescom_live_starcraft_ii_blog.htm

No word on whether you'll have to be online.

to WOW devs:

[gearloos]

More Monkeys! We need more Monkeys. Not the kind that steel my cheese either-- I can't tell you how many times I've been just in the middle of a fight with Hogger on my Mail-AH-alt and said "Ya know, I could use a Monkey right now".

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[moxley]

Kind of like a crack or heroin dealer...they want you to keep playing.

The solution, clearly, is to switch to crack or heroin. Then, if it's taking up too much of your time or money you can go to rehab, and the game wont matter quite as much, because life will become a very interesting game where you'll gain lot of XP and have to deal with real world consequences if you screw up!!

Our "game" has a slammin hip-hop soundtrack and plenty of excessive violence; choose the "North Philadelphia" campaign for you newcomers, you'll get into to the action fast that way!

Do you have plans for a PvP MMO?

[HerculesMO]

I have heard rumblings of a 'new title' in the works in the MMO space for you guys, but I am curious to see if there's a tilt towards a more PvP oriented MMO, instead of WOW which is decidedly PvE with the greatest content available for raiding, quests, etc. Since WOW has a big issue with regards to 'gear' and the ability in combat, I wonder if you are settling or thinking about your next MMO with player skill in mind, at least with a greater emphasis than 'gear' like WOW has.

Thanks!

... team/club licensing? ...

[ninjagin]

I've been playing Blizzard games with a small group of friends, the same five people, for years -- from SC to WC, WC2 to WC3, D1 and D2, and WoW. Every time you release a new version or expansion in one of these titles, we're all psyched to play it and have to go out and buy our own copy of each so that we can play together. I understand that you're makin' the shekels and everything, but have you considered club licensing models that would permit us to install from the same copy and buy and register our license as a group, with a modest discount? If we want to have someone new join the group, perhaps we can increase our pool accordingly? We want to stay licensed, but after we've already spent thousands of dollars on your products, we're looking for ways to make the costs less burdensome as we stick with your titles. What say you?

... oh yeah, and what's up with not having offline LAN play?

WoW and Realms

[Prien715]

WoW is the only game I can't play with all my friends. Because some are are on realm A, some are on realm B, and some are in realm C. And while I can create 3 different characters to play with each of them, I could not tackle a dungeon with all of them. If I was playing Warcraft 3, Guild Wars, or any number of first person shooters, this wouldn't a problem -- and I don't pay a subscription to any of them.

Are there any plans (aside from the current "Paid Character Transfer") to enhance cross-realm gameplay? Or is this low on your priority list and are never going to do it (like allowing flying mounts in pre-BC areas)?

(And yes: I realize I'm in the minority by having met most of my friends who play WoW IRL...rather than the reverse)

Re:WoW and Realms

[jsegal205]

Flying mounts are not in Pre-BC world because the worlds were not made to handle flying, ie. bad ceiling configuration.

Re:WoW and Realms

[blindd0t]

Also, it would seriously suck to have levelled and geared players of the opposing faction drop in from mid-air and gank newbies in starting zones. >

Re:WoW and Realms

[Sycon]

I really wouldn't say you're in the minority because you met you friends IRL... The only reason I even got into MMOs is because my family members played, and since then I've tried to stick to games my friends play as well. Its more common in my experience to find people who play WoW because their friends play than who chose to play in and of themselves.

Re:WoW and Realms

[Anonymous Coward]

This is by far the best question here... And i only read never post! /. make this happen! ask this question! mostly because of the PRE BC flying mounts!

Thanks.

Re:WoW and Realms

[Alarindris]

aside from the current "Paid Character Transfer"

What more do you want? Portals to different realms? Sorry, stupid question, it's a non-issue.

Re:WoW and Realms

[brkello]

There is no way to single shard WoW. It is too complex of a game and there are too many players. If you and your buddies really all want to play together you can all decide what server to play on and do paid character transfers. I know that sucks, but just allowing people to transfer wherever whenever will cause balance issues. Sometimes they do have low population servers and will offer free transfers from high populations server to them. But that is your only other option. I don't see them changing that because it really doesn't make sense to do it any other way (unless someone really can see a better way...I just can't).

Re:WoW and Realms

[mqduck]

Has Blizzard ever tried to justify requiring payment to transfer characters to a different server?

Re:WoW and Realms

[SL Baur]

Not any more! (Or at least when the next expansion hits).

Re:WoW and Realms

[Blakey Rat]

It's to prevent people from doing it 10 times a week. Well, at least it's partially for that.

Re:WoW and Realms

[Idiomatick]

(like allowing flying mounts in pre-BC areas)? -- Available next expansion.

Re:WoW and Realms

[mqduck]

How in the world is charing for it the only or best way to limit how often it's done?

Re:WoW and Realms

[Brownstar]

The solution I've found to play with friends is to use the Public Test realms when they are up.

Now, obviously this isn't a perfect solution.

1. It only works when the PTR is up.
2. You have to co-ordinate ahead of time with all of your friends to do it.
3. You don't get to transfer anything back to your main.
4. Still doesn't help if you and your friends play different factions.

Re:WoW and Realms

[Anonymous Coward]

They've announced cross-server instances. It was one of the changes introduced at Blizzcon last weekend. Probably in patch 3.3 (Icecrown raid)

They've not said much about how it will work, though, so YMMV.

Re:WoW and Realms

[elseedy]

One of the featured planned for the next major content patch (3.3) is the ability to form groups across multiple realms. It's unclear at this point whether it will be through the LFG tool and if it will be limited to realms in your battlegroup, but it's a definite improvement. Additionally, the friends tool is being overhauled to include all battle.net accounts, allowing chat between any accounts, regardless of which server they're on or which game they're playing.

Also, the next expansion is going to update Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor so as to allow flying mounts.

entice new players? Doubt it.

[Feyshtey]

Its an assumption that the intent of easing the level curve is to entice new players. I happen to disagree.

One of the staying powers of WoW is and always has been it's replayability. Hitting cap level has never been some amazing feat. Once you do, you're pretty much required to either join a guild committed to instances/raiding in order to further advance, or concede that such activities are not right for you. In the latter case you either quit the game or start an alt.

WoW's numbers have begun to plateau. I doubt there are millions of people quitting and millions more signing up. Instead I'd guess that there are many people playing alts, as evidenced by the 5million DK's running everywhere (who can't exist unless the account owner has achieved 55 on another character at a bare minimum).

Blizzard recognizes that once you've done the same quests 5 times your ambition to do so again wanes. So they drop the difficulty curve. They ease people in. Add to that the increased level cap, making the mark for doing the 'fun end-game stuff' further out, and they might be helping those who want to try a new group role in the end-game get there with a little less investment early. Or maybe maybe ease the burden for those returning to the game from a break to start a new character and catch up to their friends.

In the end I don't see any of this as some catastrophy for the game. It is certainly financially sound for Blizzard to encourage past, present and future players to sign up. It seems to me that the only people really pissed about it are the people who have either no alts or very few of low level who feel that their advancement has somehow been cheapened. And I can see their case to a certain degree. But it's the old "In my day, I walked to school in the snow, uphill both ways" argument. Yeah? Sounds like that sucked. Why would I want to? More importantly, why would I want to again.

Re:entice new players? Doubt it.

[Tony Hoyle]

They drop the difficulty and increase the target.

ie. the new expansion pushes the target to 85. That's a whole 25 extra levels from the old WoW game.. it's a hard slog for someone not prepared to devote 8 hours a day to it, so they try to ease it a bit.

Unfortunately it doesn't quite remove the "Holy shit.. 85 levels before I can play properly? Screw that" that new players experience.

Re:entice new players? Doubt it.

[Feyshtey]

As someone else in this topic pointed out, they havent changed the difficulty at all. They've only reduced the time required to get through the leveling curve. All the encounters are the same. The gear is the same. The rewards (barring xp) are the same.

Another very important distinction is that they changed the leveling curve more to accomodate replayability moreso than ease the experience for a first time player. If you've never done the quests before, nor read the storylines, nor seen the gameworld, playing in and of itself should be enjoyable to you. It's the people who have already done it repeatedly that would be more and more discouraged to do so again. And again.. and again...

New players should not be discouraged to play. They have not just 60 levels of new experiences before them, but rather 85! While the replayabilty for people who've already done that is not as time-consuming.

And to touch on it again, there's never been some IQ minimum required to reach cap level in WoW. Compariatively it doesn't even require any exceptional commitment of time when set next to many (most) of the other MMO's on the market.

Rune words in D3?

[junglebeast]

I think the coolest feature from D2 was finding runes and forging runewords with them using the horadric cube. Runewords are much more magical and interesting than the usual "crafting" mechanic whereby a character sews his own clothing, knits himself a hat, or whatever. My question, is there any possibility of rune words coming back?

Dumb Question

[Petersko]

The WoW market will sort it out. If the price is too high, others will undercut it, or people will just go get what they need on their own. If it's high, but sells anyway, then it was priced appropriately.

Just because you can't find what you want for a price you like doesn't mean the prices are artificially high.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Chyeld]

I hate to break it to you, but it if takes 25 men for you to get a 'girlfriend' she's probably either not a girl or not your friend.

Saving them game during a mission

[Anonymous Coward]

Will we be able to save the game during missions?

I played Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and was disappointed that I could not save games during the mission. I do not know if the StarCraft missions are going to be long or short, but regardless of mission length sometimes things come up in real life that require a speedy departure from the PC.

Thanks.

Re:WoW Auction House

[pixelpusher220]

as someone who makes pretty decent use of the AH (and Auctioneer), personally I think it works great. And by decent use I'm talking 30 minutes a day. As for amassing bundles of gold, I think you're off base. I *might* make 1000g a week in profit when including money made from quests and dailies on my main toon as well.

Yes I buy under-priced stacks and sell them individually. You know what? that's called a free market. I take the 'risk' of spending for goods in bulk because I think I can sell them individually for more.

As for buying out the market, that only works when there isn't enough of a supply. Try buying out the market for silk cloth...it just ain't gonna happen. If there's a small enough supply that 1000g can buy it all up, guess what, it's not the buyer that's making the price artificially high but the original seller making prices artificially low. Buy buying in bulk and reselling individual items helps more people get goods at lower over all prices rather than just you buying the one under-priced stack.

If you need multiple stacks of something that isn't in abundance...sucks to be you (and everyone else) go farm it.

A Slashdot feature request

[roguegramma]

What if the editor who decides which stories get published also could set how many max positive points a post could have?

Then instead of 50 posts in this topic with 5 points we'd get 10 posts with 50 points, and these could be considered the best questions to ask blizzard, duplicates excluded.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[cecille]

Actually, Blizz would be better off if people played less per month. Fewer people on the servers, but they're all still paying the same monthly fee.

Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but I tried your mom.

A Question WIth No Answer Except One

[Petersko]

"After several instances of your company being evil towards the community bnetd & removal of LAN play on your newest titles, please give me a good reason to buy what you are selling.."

Since they clearly aren't going to budge on either position, there's only one reason to buy what they're selling. It's because you think that the entertainment you get is worth the money you spend, and is good enough to overcome your objections. What other reason could there possibly be?

In other words, what kind of answer are you after?

Re:A Question WIth No Answer Except One

[CorporateSuit]

In other words, what kind of answer are you after?

They're cutting the entire staff's wages to minimum, and then they're donating all profits from WoW to orphans.

Re:A Question WIth No Answer Except One

[idontgno]

I suspect the question is rhetorical, just like yours seems to be.

Hmmm... would it be bad form for someone to "Whoosh!" me for pointing out rhetorical questions? It would be, on the surface, appropriate, just non-customary.

What will Diablo 3 take from WoW

[subanark]

WoW borrowed quite a few successful features from Diablo 2, talent trees, equipment with random suffixes, gem, ect... Some of these features were streamlined, like the talent tree (not every talent has 20 maximum points you can invest).
What features (if any) that worked well for WoW will be incorporated into Diablo 3, and how will these be modified to better adjust to Diablo's different play style?

Re:What will Diablo 3 take from WoW

[brkello]

I hope an AH where people can trade items outside of the actual game.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not unreasonable to use a method other than sheer will to deal with addictive behavior. He didn't say he didn't have a problem. His request seems like a reasonable one, and you seem like a troll.

Fuck you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me back bnetd.org

Art

[Anonymous Coward]

To the Diablo developers.

Can you please keep the Diablo art as genuine to the originals as possible? I'm worried about this WOWish/generic Xbox game look.

~Anonymous

P.S. I can't use this yet.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

I always just use the FuBar_LoginTimerFu addon that keeps track of time played across all characters I play on the same server.

So far

[Scraps232]

Can you tell us anything about what Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) is now working on? Last year, rumors of a game based around new Blizzard intellectual property popped up. Update?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Miseph]

What he and 24 other men do with some chick is really none of my business. It's also none of my business what the 15-20 men who can't possibly find something to do with her, or likely even touch her, are doing in that group.

Wow Crafting system

[Sheen]

Are you ever going to make the crafting-system in WoW more advanced i.e Ultima Online, Darkfall ?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Richy_T]

He did. But then the block schedule kicked in and by the time he got reconnected, she was gone.

To WoW R&D

[hesaigo999ca]

I am hoping that blizzard will be able to read this. I find that maybe the game market will change in the very near future, and that WoW is going to be lagging behind real soon, Star Wars will be coming out and everyone will want to migrate unless blizzard offers even newer stuff, not just making things easier on their players.

My question is this, is there any possibility that blizzard might be able to add an bigger element to the REAL guilds for the classes.
If we have a thieves guild in each city, that has both alliance and horde members, there could be a new element to the game that could evolve, such as introducing languages.

ie- I am an alliance thief, I am able to communicate in thieves language (or duid speak etc...) and this allows me to communicate with horde thief. This could open up the economy even more, also you would have to do a whole slew of quests for the thieves guild
in order to be able to get the speak thieves guild skill...and it must be kep up with ever ongoing maintenance quests. You don't just do a few quests for the thieves guild and say its over...they expect you to keep up the work over a period of time...so min 5 quests per month to keep your thieves skills of else you start back at start for getting new thieves skills..which could also include new skills...like pickpocket etc...

I know (being a programmer) that you already have this capability programmed in the game, my question to you, is do you thank you could evolve a little more the class play and interaction within its class to expand on the game. quests, skills, spells, gear and even economy can now evolve.

The economy would evolve that now the alliance thief has an item he can now sell to the orc horde thief, who can sell it to his buddy that needs that item.... this would make the game that much more interesting and alot more like the REAL D&D game ...!

One word: Firewall

[sarkeizen]

Not to whine but without LAN what are you doing about firewall traversal? Plenty of wireless, LAN and mobile networks block assloads of ports and perform overzealous packet inspection. I work for an educational institution and we do this to differing degrees. One place where we do it the most is on the wireless network. So since in this situation how easy is it going to be to set up a game using only battle.net.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Ow shit, you're right... quickly! Change it to pornography!

What's it like...

[tsm_sf]

What does it feel like to design a game that can actually destroy lives? Is there any guilt? Is this taken into consideration at design meetings? Do you have a shrine to Skinner set up in the break room?

Ok ok, that's a little tongue in cheek... how about "how do the occasional news reports of people ruining themselves playing WoW affect life at Blizzard?"

World of Warcraft Client/Server relationship

[Aelyew]

Good, bad or indifferent I have accumulated over 2 years of continuous playing time on my assorted toons. I am normally a PvE-er and spend most of my time raiding or grinding to prep for raids. I also try to set aside some time to attempt to experience as much of Azeroth as I can from as many perspectives as I can, so that I am in a good position to offer suggestions and determine solid strategies to defeat new content. The elements which bother me time and time again seem to be technical in nature rather than content related. When things get bogged down and you have to wait 10 seconds for loot to actually get picked up, or spend 10 seconds trying to harvest a node, pick up an herb or grab an item for a daily quest and then discover that someone already beat you to it, but your client didn't even show them until you thought you had successfully looted it are infuriating. Presumably this is because of queueing up responses between the client and the server and getting confirmation of ownership of items.

Most of these items are far from game-changing and it would remove a huge chunk of annoyance factor if the model were altered even if that permitted some duplication of these items. If multiple people all reach for a half empty glass of wine in Dalaran at close to the same time, let them all get it. Same goes for an herb or a mine. It should simplify the transaction required between client and server and I realize that it would be a substantial change from a code perspective, but I think it would be a pleasant and welcome change to your player base. Is this something that you would consider? I'm sure I speak for many players that would happily transfer more load from the game to the client if that would mean a more responsive environment.

WoW pvp imbalance

[farker haiku]

I have a 55 hour work week, a wife and 2 kids, so here is a heartfelt thank you for the BoA items that grant additional experience. That said, I don't have time to play my main and level a lot of characters. For example, it took me almost a year to get to level 70 during BC when I started. Since the expansion, I've gained level 80 and have downed several 10 and 25 man hard mode encounters in Ulduar.

However, the melee imbalances in 2v2 arenas are such that I'm about to stop trying pvp at all. It's not worth the opportunity cost for me to level a plate wearer to 80, gear him up and l2faceroll. Is there something planned to prevent my only level 80 character (a warlock) from being every rogue's bitch in 2v2 arena? I'd happily trade my ability to completely dominate every paladin that comes across my path for the ability to live through a Cloak of Shadows duration. I recently dueled a s4 + s5 gladiator (ret paladin) and won 10 out of 10. Conversely, I recently lost to a level 80 rogue that was wearing a full compliment of greens and a quest blue. The fact that I was in mostly furious gear (with 2 piece t8.5 for the set bonus) did nothing to help me. I understand that duels are not meant to be balanced, but I chose that example because the same situation exists for me in 2v2 arenas when it's healer + rogue vs healer + me.

If pvp balancing issues for warlocks are out of the picture, are there any plans to provide pvp only servers (much like the tournament realms), where I can just create a level 80 character to do arenas and BGs with? I'd love to do arenas with my brother or a coworker, but in both cases our comp is completely impractical in even the mid level 2s bracket.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Your fiance is pretty insensitive, too.
You'll see when you find out that Hawtelvixen is John Conner, 49, 150 stones and balding.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[idontgno]

That is one healer-heavy raid.

'course, with the diseases that raid boss spawns, you probably need lots of healing.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[geekoid]

If you raid the outside and get a girlfriend to drop, marry her~

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

If your girlfriend needs a 25 man to finish..

She probably drops a lot.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[G33kGuy]

You could try Xfire, it logs your hours to an online account, and I'm pretty sure you can make it private if you want to. It logs hours played that day, that week and total. www.xfire.com

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[V!NCENT]

You know what the best parental control would be......a parent that actually pays attention to what their kids do. If a parent is putting their children in front of a internet connected PC for endless hours a day, week, month unattended, then WOW playtime really should be the least of their concerns.

I am sorry but I fail to see why that would be wrong. Not only do kids learn a shitload from Wikipedia and whatnot, they also socialise through IM and network sites, instead of sitting in their rooms doing absolutely nothing. Sorry to break it down to you, but the times have changed. They will only find themselves being shut out by their classmates who do IM all day.

It's not longer: "Hey wanna play after school?" but instead "Hey, meet you at msn/counter-strike.

Seriously; let your kids spend all the time they want behind their computers and also get them to play a team sport so they stay healthy. That way they will learn a lot faster and also develop a lot more social skills.

I'm sorry to break it down to you but this is the year 2009 and not 1983 :/

Economy of Diablo

[Chardish]

In Diablo II, gold was a worthless commodity. Because the only way to get quality items was from either monster drops or gambling (which would often costs millions of gold to find something salable), the standard unit of economic trade became a unique ring.

This was bad for the economy in general: unlike World of Warcraft's Auction House, it was impossible for players who weren't competitive traders to participate in the economy. In addition, the design of the game in general made trading difficult (having to start a game to initiate a trade, muling, etc.)

What changes are you making to Diablo in order to make the economy of Diablo III more vibrant and accessible?

Re:Economy of Diablo

[Idiomatick]

No, I liked that. How much more interesting of a market for players. Rather than simply a number value ascribed to everything we had barter. It much better fit the grunge feel of Diablo. It is a game about a few heroes not a civilization like in WoW. I'd be very saddened to lose the barter system.

Re:Economy of Diablo

[RazorSharp]

I don't think he's implying that the barter system would be lost, just that gold wouldn't be so worthless. Gold ended up being just for repairs, but once you got so far into the game, no one was short on it. There is plenty of bartering in WoW, with gold and items. I'd like D3 to be similar.

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-09-16/

Re:Economy of Diablo

[Idiomatick]

There is no bartering in WoW. In my 3years of play i think i've traded items for items once.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[HeronBlademaster]

I agree that self-control is needed more in today's society, but you're being unnecessarily rude. The GP at least recognizes that he plays too much - most people who spend too much time playing video games won't even admit that.

IMO asking for improved time controls like this is a very good step towards improving one's self-control.

Self-control doesn't come all at once. You need baby steps. Give yourself the chance to make incremental improvements. It works better that way.

Queue System for Instances

[LuvlyOvipositor]

If you are going to take your time getting your hardware upgraded, can we at the very least get a temporary queue system for instances?

I have been trying for the past few weeks to finish an alchemy quest (elixir mastery), and 90% of the time I can not get an instance due. This is a combination of too many people and low priority on old-world instances. A simple queue system would help solve this problem, so that the people that wait there the longest get the instance first, as opposed to whoever spams the entrance the most.

Dynamic Battle.net?

[Anonymous Coward]

When first introduced, battle.net was an amazing step forward for online gameplaying. As it was the first of its kind, or course it was a static set of, honestly, very limited functionality. However, while War3's bnet was an improvement over the original, I don't think anyone could say that it represented much of a step forward for online gameplay. My guess is, much like the current plans for SC2's bnet, the intent was to do much more with War3 in that regard. My question then:
 

 

Will the underlying functionality of the SC2 implementation of battle.net be dynamically updatable, thus allowing substantial improvements to be made outside the already strained development cycle of the game itself?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Zertan]

Have you tried a girlfriend?

What if she plays too?

The triple-release=single-player sales?

[phorm]

It seems to me that since they plan on releasing the game episodes in a per-race manner, but allowing multiplayer play for all three races, that they expect single-player play to drive game sales.

If not, people would only be buying a single episode, and playing in multiplayer (which means little-to-no sales of the other two releases).

Unless they plan on adding extra multiplayer goodies to the subsequent "episode", then the real driver to buy anything after the first one would have to be a nice, solid single player-experience and plot-line.

DO you know that you are a

[geekoid]

game company that sells a products and not actually our master?

Seriously, stop telling us how we can play the games we purchase.
I guarantee you you would be pissed if you had to prove to the auto manufactures you owned your car every time you started it.

APIs and Specifications

[Eirenarch]

Are Blizzard going to release any APIs for developers to plug their programs in the game. For example a scorebot. Are they going to provide any Battle.net APIs like a web service to pull profile info. Are they gonna release the replay format so the developers can create statistical software and similar stuff. Do they plan to do anything for third party developers?

Re:APIs and Specifications

[Eirenarch]

This is for StarCraft II and Diablo 3.

SC2 pro leagues, commentary

[cpricejones]

This may be putting the cart before the horse or even before the money to buy the hay that feeds the horse. What are the plans for professional leagues for SC2? Assuming the game is as successful as the original, when can we expect the first professional seasons?

And for the local tournaments or friendly games: what are you doing to implement multiplayer observation and commentary into SC2? Will Bnet provide "arenas" for many, many observers led by single commentators for live game viewing?

Diablo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Will there be DRM / internet connection required to intall and/or play? If so, don't count on my purchase. I'm not a pirate, I don't mind paying $50 for a great game. I enjoy single player gameplay. I use linux for most stuff on my computer and I dual-boot windowsXP just for the games. I have windowsXP isolated from the internet for very obvious and good reasons. If your games ran on Linux, I'd probably feel different about the whole thing. Hope this helps you help me with a better gaming experience on my PC.

Secrets and Mysteries in Diablo 3...

[Braintrust]

Dear Blizzard,

You have the chance to do some really extraordinary things with Diablo 3. Hiring Leonard Boyarsky as lead world designer, seemed to this long-time crpg fan a potential masterstroke. Although neither Diablo games have ever been fully accepted as "true" crpgs by many, they are undeniably fun games in their own right. Many of us still play them both on occasion.

The one thing I, and I would think many other long-time fans of Diablo would like to see... I would like to still be discovering new secrets and mysteries the game holds for years after release.

WoW is many hundreds of times larger geographically than Diablo 2; it's much easier to build very large worlds in 3D. What are your plans/ideas for taking Diablo 3 to the next level in this regard?

You can play older crpgs many times without even seeing the entire game world. Mr. Boyarsky has already helped design such deeply realized games before. (Fallout(s). Arcanum. Etc.)

You have the chance with D3 to put a lot more "rpg" into the Diablo franchise... any plans on doing so?

I would love to be discovering new areas, new quests, and new adventures, 5 years after D3 is released.

Is this the direction you are planning to go?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Rebelgecko]

Just type /played, write down your overall time, and in another week see how many more hours/days of playtime you have. There might be a mod that does this for you, but I haven't been able to find one.

The financial investments made by your customers.

[DigitalEntropy]

Blizzard,

I've dropped more money into Blizzard than I care to admit. Year after year, you boast record profits from your largest titles. Each expansion for WoW costs as much as the original game itself, and with your adjustments to the original game content and the accelerated leveling mechanics the value of the original WoW, and the Burning Crusade, has all but been obliterated. Yet, the prices barely reflect this. On top of this, you are projecting SC2 to be an incomplete game, deliverable in 3 bite-size episodes at (probably more than) $50 a piece.

I'm personally sick and tired of having my wallet emptied by your new corporate strategies and board of directors for incomplete games. There was a time when Blizzard would not release an incomplete game--when years after the initial delivery dates would pass without event while the team worked tirelessly to perfect it and deliver a whole product, with a whole story, self-contained, and independent from any further expansion or episode.

It seems obvious that WoW was the changing point for Blizzard. Was it the lure of money-money-money that made Blizzard change how it treats is loyal fan-base? Why do you repeatedly rake your customers over the coals of investment, while actively depreciating their previous infusions of capital?

Starcraft LAN Details

[imunfair]

I see a lot of questions about Starcraft2 LAN play, but none that ask the salient question - even though you are designing it to use battle.net, are you providing a way to connect multiplayer games when an internet connection is unavailable, or (god forbid) battle.net goes down? I've played WoW for a while and know there are times when battle.net subscriptions couldn't sign on to some services while pure WoW subscriptions could.

Also I think there is something to be said for being able to set up an ad-hoc network with friends to game and not having to worry about getting it connected to the internet.

As a note to some of the other questions about battle.net LAN game speed, from what I understand battle.net is only involved in the authentication and matchmaking, after that point all the traffic goes between the clients, so the stress on an outgoing internet connection wouldn't be very big even if you had 20 people in a room on the same residential connection. (assuming they were all gaming with someone on the LAN)

Real World Gold Auction

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Blizzard:
Have you considered selling gold yourself? That would remove the gold seller spam, the complaints about gold farmers, the overhead of detecting gold farming bots, and it would improve your revenue.

Or have you considered a real world auction for gold wherein someone could reduce their subscription fee by auctioning their gold to someone with money who wants gold and is willing to pay dollars for it?
There would, of course, be a transaction fee. The House always wins.

Puzzle Pirates does this with a secondary currency (doubloons), which you can buy with your primary currency (Pieces of Eight, known as poe) in an auction interface, or with real world cash so you can sell them at auction for the primary currency.
Linden manages the auction of their in game money with a Currency Exchange. The value of the Linden dollar can vary based on supply and demand, but seems to have stabilized.

New single & multi-player content in each rele

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

Unless they plan on adding extra multiplayer goodies to the subsequent "episode", then the real driver to buy anything after the first one would have to be a nice, solid single player-experience and plot-line.

From the official Starcraft II FAQ:

How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?

The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

However, they are definitely not neglecting single-player. Here's the latest news on all the work they're putting into single-player, and here's a video with a glimpse of the campaign.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Max Romantschuk]

My wife wipes the floor with me in Guitar Hero. Kind of humiliating, actually... ;)

Did you consider this?

[Haffner]

In removing LAN from Starcraft II, did you consider that you would lose the faction of players who are only interested in LAN to pirated copies? If there is no LAN, and they don't care for single player, and they dont/cant use the internet (or just only need LAN) what is going to get these players to buy the game? It seems like you will be losing more than you gain with this strategy. As a blizzard games player since 99, it saddens me to see (misguided) financial decisions affect great games.

Put back in LAN support...

[Anonymous Coward]

Put back in LAN support you money grubbing asshats.

WoW's impact on Blizzard's development efforts

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys have said in the past that WoW will not interfere with development efforts, but the facts remain: Since WoW has been released, you guys have had no final releases from your other franchises. It's been over a _decade_ since the original starcraft release.

Do you guys think this is acceptable? Is this the pace we can expect to continue with releases from Blizzard?

Also, I have found WoW to be too demanding of time and energy when compared to any other games (Maybe this is just MMORPGs in general). Do you guys plan on returning to a more casual gameplay approach? For example, games where you aren't required to play 4+ hours every day to get anything done?

D3 and SC2 are great returns to a more casual approach to gaming, but I am beginning to wonder about how you guys are seeing the play model for your games evolve.

Other Classes?

[Tybalt_Capulet]

On your website you have three classes available to look at in Diablo 3.

A spell caster, a Barbarian, and a Necromancer.

Their names are different, the Wizard, Barbarian, and a Witch Doctor.

Will you be releasing any other playable characters before the game's release? How many characters will be playable?

Will any of them be new? Or are you going to take the assassin and call it the thief like you've done with the other three?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[genner]

Have you tried a girlfriend?

Girlfriend? Where does that drop? I bet its off one of the 25-man hard modes, but I've never even seen one. A guildmate of mine said he heard it's going to be added in the raid after Icecrown Citadel in what will be the most evil raid instance of all, The Outside.

Girlfirends are an rare epic world drop. Most people don't bother given the low drop rate on our server.

How will you react to hacked in lan play?

[Anonymous Cowar]

Dear Blizzard, as has been mentioned several times above, what will you do if you are faced with a situation like EA had with Spore where the users came out and actively pirated the game to prove a point rather than simply allow the game company to "prevent piracy"? I have seen several places where people are actively looking forward to a pirated and modified/hacked version of SCII that allows lan play. How will you react to that and will you listen to your fan base (your real one and not just the ones who buy your product regardless of what you leave out) when they decide to actively make their voices heard?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[genner]

Kind of like a crack or heroin dealer...they want you to keep playing.

The solution, clearly, is to switch to crack or heroin. Then, if it's taking up too much of your time or money you can go to rehab, and the game wont matter quite as much, because life will become a very interesting game where you'll gain lot of XP and have to deal with real world consequences if you screw up!!

Our "game" has a slammin hip-hop soundtrack and plenty of excessive violence; choose the "North Philadelphia" campaign for you newcomers, you'll get into to the action fast that way!

That only works until you realise how awesome the game is when your high.

Starcraft 2 Multiplayer for Servicemen?

[blueminder]

I have several people in my family that are servicemen in the US Military that have been looking forward to StarCraft 2. It is a pretty common sight for them to bring laptops while they are on subs (often for months at a time) for them to pass time playing networked games against each other. Since LAN support has been taken out, is there any legal way for those in service to be able to play the game, or will they just be casualties to your anti-piracy efforts?

Re:Starcraft 2 Multiplayer for Servicemen?

[d3jake]

Excellent question. An unintended consequence I'm sure. It would be interesting if Blizzard somehow was able to loosen the rules a bit for those that serve the country in which they operate.

WoW 3.2.0+

[Anonymous Coward]

As a current player/addict/guild leader I want to ask a similar question to the 1st poster to this thread. I am seeing a huge portion of my guild feeling burned out and leaving the game after working hard for the past few months doing hard modes etc.. to obtain gear that is now obtainable and beaten through completing heroic dungeons/dailys. I have been around since the beta and have quit and come back a couple of times now myself. I am just curious It seems from my perspective that in your pursuit of new players and making it easier to level and obtain gear you are loosing your core, more experienced and seasoned player base. It is quite sad because I can remember when the game was more bring the player not the class.. to where now seems like little skill is required but at the same time is rewarded and it is more a bring the gear not the player. Please elaborate on if this will be the continued direction of the game?

Clans in Diablo III?

[Ihmhi]

I ran a clan in Diablo II: LOD called Light & Night with a good friend of mine for a year. Diablo II didn't have clan support (although it was noted in some fan site that it may have been planned for LOD but was scrapped). Are we going to get clan support for Diablo III?

I've heard people (on the BNET forums) make vehement arguments against this for some reason. They assume clanning means that I'm asking fort big 40 person Diablo raids or something - that's definitely not the case. I want to be able to roll in-game with some of my close buddies under a clan tag - simple as that. Have a simple officer/leader system and clan chat, that's all I'd care about.

I'm going to be making a clan in D3 with two buddies as co-leaders either way, so really it's just a matter of whether or not Blizzard is going to make it easy on me or whether we're going to have to go with names like CLAN_Charname. Please don't make us resort to that.

Gates of Ahn'Qiraj and other world events

[dmleach]

The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj was world event that took place in World of Warcraft in late 2005 and early 2006. Access to new content was locked away from players until a number of goals were achieved, including a long chain of quests that culminated in the piecing together of a staff that could open the gate.

Everything I know about Ahn'Qiraj comes from what I've read, since I didn't start playing the game until 2008. Based on descriptions and forum postings the event appears to have been widely enjoyed. Starting earlier this year, new servers that are added to the game come with the gate already open, so there won't be any more opportunities for players to take part in the war effort.

In retrospect, what is Blizzard's impression of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj and are there any plans to create similar realm-wide events in the future?

Diablo III - Map generation

[18_Rabbit]

One of the features of Diablo that made it more replayable than Diablo 2 was the generation of random(ish) maps....will this be included in D3?

WoW 3.2.0+ Question #2

[Anonymous Coward]

The new change to allow players to be both horde and alliance on pvp servers is complete and utter bullshit! What dumb-ass came up with this idea? The game has always been separated into 2 factions.. this WAS great, now you engage in combat with the enemy faction and then suddenly get endless tells from there multiple level 1+ alts cursing you out.. You made it so it was difficult/impossible to even speak to the opposing faction up to now.. Now its a huge circle jerk this one change more then any other destroys the game-play. Why didn't you do this to the RP servers.. They enjoy licking each others assholes and hitting each other with nerf swords. Why PVP servers?

Undead Paladins?

[sqmagellan]

I understand that, originally, races were chosen for certain classes based on lore. While Tauren Paladins would be a Godsend for tanking, why ignore the previously-Human-but-not-so-much-anymore Undead when it comes to Pallies? Holymen just want to rock out!

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[SL Baur]

My wife plays. There are a lot of (real) women players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urNyg1ftMIU&feature=channel_page

diablo II and Starcraft 2 lan/no internet

[Coraon]

Hello Blizzard, This is in regard to the companies latest trend to require a connection to the internet even for face to face play. My friends and I as a sort of tradition always go and buy all of our copies of the latest blizzard release on release day, go back to one persons house and play though them via LAN, however I understand this will no longer be possible, how then do you recommend all 6 of us play your games using only a light high speed internet connection at the same house?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[brkello]

Eek, the first time I read that, I read it as "Girlfriend? What does that drop?" Of course, they drop babies....which just adds to the grind.

Dedicated Hosting

[Anonymous Coward]

Although the LAN option was, in my opinion, the BEST solution to the problem of multiple people behind a router trying to play with multiple other people behind a different router, I'm willing to hear how Blizzard has fixed Battle.net so that this is possible without LAN. My only guess is that the new Battle.net will be doing dedicated hosting for games so that the ugly world of port forwarding UDP ports 6112-6119 are a thing of the past. Although I'll still miss LAN play (since it did not rely on an external and possible service - the Internet, and Battle.net), I'd be willing to accept this solution.

So, games run on dedicated servers on the new Battle.net, right?

trailer

[themib]

The new trailer says "New Character Progression: Path of the Titans" What does this mean, and how will it be implemented?

WC3 / DOTA inspired questions

[chrysrobyn]

I didn't enjoy multiplayer WC3 until I found DOTA in 2004, and then it got worlds better when banlisting and ping addons started showing up. What will Blizzard be doing to support such features in SC2?

Will Battle.Net 2 under SC2 support filtering opponents by latency? Reputation for leaving / lagging / griefing / feeding (some reputation classes may be more interesting for third party maps)? A minimum number of games played (I realize I'm a below average player and experts may create new accounts to stomp my kind, so I'll only play someone whose account has played more than 30 games)? Region labeling (country flags would be awesome)? Ladder scores for third party maps (I know scoring a 5v5 DOTA would be hard, but it would make games far more interesting)?

By the way, if I don't have SC2 preordered, I'll certainly be there on opening day.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want to get a girlfriend from the 25-man raids. Trust me.. nothing but heartache.

How about SC3?

[A Friendly Troll]

Will SC3 finally introduce some of the modern (read: 21st century) RTS concepts, such as directional weapons, cover, suppression, flanking, and the ability to be considered a good player even if you can't do 250 CPM?

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Achoi77]

It's a rare drop, sure. The catch is that you have to have your profession skill up a certain level before it's even visible. My engineering is at 450 and I saw it drop once, but I lost the roll to my guildmate, who chose Herbalism and has skill level of 450 for picking flowers. :-(

$7+ for 1000 Gold

[Anonymous Coward]

While reading the questions I saw an ad on slashdot for $7+ for 1000 WoW Gold! What are you going to do to stop this from going on... couldn't make a rule that if you receive more gold or gear value than you've looted then your name turns brown publicly. That would at least tell me who to ignore duel requests from... They can always earn their green name back.

Dances in WoW

[Indiana Joe]

We were promised new dances in Wrath of the Lich King. Are there still plans to include them, or have they been postponed indefinitely?

WoW - Cataclysm and professions

[SL Baur]

You have now announced a new secondary profession Archaeology (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for making it a secondary profession. I enjoy cooking & fishing a lot), but what about raising the level cap on primary professions? The progression goes 20 - 35 - 50 - 65 and logically the next one comes at 80. You can certainly make every available recipe/design/pattern grey at whatever skill level corresponds to the new level 85 cap.

People are going to complain no matter what you do, but can you please consider a mechanism so that crafting doesn't become obsoleted after you reach level 80 even if we cannot max out the profession until the next ** 2 expansion and a level 90 cap?

Bind on Guild equipment

[Xanthvar]

One of the biggest gripes that I have seen in the game, as far as raiding guilds go, is the amount of time and effort you have to get your main tanks geared up. It is nowhere near as bad as it used to be in the MC days, but you still have spend more time on them (as they often need multiple set for fire/frost/nature resistance gear), while other positions generally don't need as much.

The most aggravating scenario would be that you finally get your tank geared up and they leave for greener pastures, putting the guild back at square one trying to get the main (or off) tank geared back up for the fight.

Would there be a way to have bind on guild gear, where if the person leaves, the items revert back to the guild, so they can be distributed to the next tank. That way the guild's investment in equipping the person in question wouldn't be lost.

I realize there would be issues to be resolved, such as how you would keep a person from deleting the item(s) in question, and ensuring that there is enough gear that still binds to the person, so they aren't naked if/when they decide to leave the guild for something else, as well as a way to retrieve the gear if the person just quits playing the game all together.

I believe this would be one way to reduce some of the frustration of some of the requirements for end game instances, as well as a way to let a growing guild continue to grow, rather than just be a gear farm for other guilds.

Further Thoughts

[Prien715]

I don't mean put everyone on one realm because I realize this is impossible. Possible thoughts:

* Cross-realm communication: Maybe just IMing and not mail as this'll screw up the in-game economy. And no, it's not that hard; AOL managed to do it for many more people over a decade ago...and they're AOL;)

* Instances: If I want to enter an instance with a bunch of friends from different realms, this shouldn't be hard. I'm already cut off from the rest of the world. If I leave the dungeon, I'm back on my server.

* PvP: Already partially implemented with battlegroups, but it would be nice to be able to enter a friend's battle group "on demand".

* Free cross-realm transfer: Maybe it takes time, but I have a feeling the reason all the realms are so crowded is everyone wants to play with their friends and are on their friend's realm. And each friend has 5 more friends. If you could log onto a no population realm without penalty and just play without having to leave permanently, I have a feeling some people might stay and server balance may be a non-issue.

Ideas on how to do this

[Prien715]

I responded to your thoughts above. Basically, certain parts of the game are cut off anyway, and it'd be possible for friends to run a dungeon together, for example, without killing the in-game economy.

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Chris Burke]

I hate to break it to you, but it if takes 25 men for you to get a 'girlfriend' she's probably either not a girl or not your friend.

That explains it -- hard to find a Girlfriend when your parties are always sausage fests!

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Bluesman]

Eh, at least you have a clean floor. I wish my wife would mop.

Re:Starcraft2

[d3jake]

Many players are used to playing the original Starcraft on old hardware, as the game is rather old. From the media that has been released on the main Starcraft2 web site the game will look gorgeous on higher end machines. I doubt that the minimum specifications have been released for the game, but what has been done to ensure that faithful players that may not have the money to upgrade to a monolith machine will still be able to play with frame rates above .5? Where is the balance between improving Starcraft's graphics to modern day standards and making sure that faithful players won't be left in the dust?

Dear Blizzard

[kaoshin]

How do you feel now that you will be starting world war 3 with korea by removing LAN play from starcraft II? Thanks.

Phasing feature in WoW:C expansion.

[antdude]

Phasing idea sounds awesome and complex, but how will this work with low levels players vs. the high level ones? Will they be able to see and interact each other in in a shared area like Stormwind, Kalimdor, etc.? Or will they be kept separated?

additional instances and the loss of faith

[Marsala]

Over the past couple of months, WoW has suffered from the "additional instances" problem caused by the instance servers basically becoming resource starved due to the number of people trying to launch instances. A "temporary fix" was put in place back after WotLK launch to prevent the instance lag and crashes that would trap players in dead/crashed instances, but it turned out to be not so "temporary" as here we are 8 months later, it's still in place, and the population in certain battlegroups has grown enough to cause the "additional instances can't be launched" message to become a common sight for many players. Despite knowing that this day would come, when the problem first started showing up in June Blizzard told people who complained about it "working as intended", and indeed avoided doing anything other than explaining how the instance caps works up until mid July. The current solution appears to be hardware reconfiguration of database servers, but even that is a stop gap measure as it only opens up a few more slots... people on "patched" servers are still seeing this error message during "peak hours".

The entire situation has been a failure of capacity planning/engineering and managing customer relations, and while I can't speak for everyone else affected by it, personally I've lost a lot faith in Blizzard's overall competence at a time when you guys are apparently moving to a subscription model where customers will be heavily reliant on your competence to play their purchased games.

What steps are you guys taking to make sure that this isn't repeated in the future? Have you addressed the instance capacity issue in the expansion by creating a high availability system for the instance servers? Have your customer support policies been modified in any way to provide players with more information on service failures in a timely (ie, less than 3 months) manner? Have your program managers at least learned that they should pay attention to their developers when they say stuff like, "This could end up biting us in the ass in 6 months. I'd like to take some time and a team and improve this code..."?

In short: why should I, as a customer, trust you with a subscription payment ever again?

New IP / Franchises

[PyroMosh]

Blizzard effectively has only three franchises. (Lost Vikings, and other older franchises seem long since abandoned).

Warcraft: which has morphed completly into WoW in much the same way that Apple Computer morphed into "The iPod Company".
Diablo: which will soon be getting a sequel. It looks like a great modern refresh, but not much more than that. Evolutionary, but solidly rooted in the past.
Starcraft: Also with a highly anticipated sequel on the way, which again seems more evolutionary than revolutionary.

I'm not saying that more of a good thing can't be a good thing. It's been a decade since we had a Starcraft release. It's not exactly a done-to-death franchise...

But at the same time, I want to know what else Blizzard has in it. Do you have any plans to visit new worlds, new stories, or new kinds of gameplay?

The project I was looking forward to myself the most was Starcraft: Ghost. Then as time went on, it seemed to progress from a StarCraft universe centered tactical rouge-like shooter/stealth game into some kind of online multiplayer, take the focus off of storyline atrocity... I understand why it was canceled.

But that kind of new direction, even with existing IP is what some of us get excited about.

What do you plan on doing that's new? Not just a refreshed version of what you've already done? I don't mean this as a slight. I recognize the quality and workmanship that goes into all of your games, even the ones I don't personally care for. I'll even be first in line to pick up (all three editions of) StarCraft 2. I'd just really love to see what can happen when you take the company's considerable talent in new directions again. Particularly with a game with a rich single-player experience.

battle.net costs in diablo 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Battle.net remain free as it was for Diablo II in Diablo III?

Regulating user-made premium content

[Hunter-Killer]

Shacknews reports that StarCraft II will support non-free user-made maps and mods. Depending on how this is implemented, mapmakers may find their works offered for free via other distribution channels. As some iPhone app writers have discovered, it's also possible to be undercut by a free cloned or superficially changed version of their map. How does Blizzard intend to enforce author rights?

Flying in an expansion

[Snaller]

Will you (fuckers) ever make an expansion where WE CAN FLY FROM THE START!

Must have my flying mount - now I have to rush through all the stuff again to get it as fast as possible.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo 3 question:

I'm willing to bet that most copies of Warcraft 3 sold today are for the sole purpose of playing DotA http://www.dota-allstars.com/
You are basically trying to emulate Diablo style gameplay with an RTS. I'm sure that Blizzard is aware of DOTA. My question is more of a suggestion,
but incorporating this type of game play into a map, or a section of a map (an arena in a town) I think would be a great idea. Given the popularity of DOTA,
I'm sure this would be much welcomed. I for one would really enjoy this, vs. just crawling through dungeons constantly. It would also give more
purpose to crawling through dungeons and finding items to build up my character to compete on these maps/ sections of maps.

Or at least make it such that the community can develop this. Thanks.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[rexplode]

This is a really good idea. I got into Warcraft 3 just for DotA. After playing the hell out Diablo 1 and 2 I'm a bit hesitant to get back into it, because I feel that despite awesome new features, there won't be radically new gameplay. The idea about motivating dungeon runs for competitive game play is very compelling. I hope they at least allow the community to develop something for Diablo 3...

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it would work out as a sub town, but as a separate map/world would be great. I think, ideally, if Blizzard brought this idea in, Diablo would join the other blizzard games (SC, WC3) with a very extended shelf life. I am also a bit weary of simply crawling a dungeon without competitive purpose. This would also stimulate teams/clans to form.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Blehk]

I completely agree. I'd be more than interested in developing a player vs player oriented gametype, or 'map'. Also, I think that this would let you do something other than the typical dungeon crawl. Of course, if Blizzard decided to take on such a venture, it would be amazing to include arena-type or battlegrounds-type rewards! Think of the playtime that you could acquire!

Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls

[Quothz]

What he and 24 other men do with some chick is really none of my business. It's also none of my business what the 15-20 men who can't possibly find something to do with her, or likely even touch her, are doing in that group.

Response A: Well, they're Polish. One guy to hold the lightbu^M^M^M girl, the other twenty-four to turn the bed.

B: You'd think making a naughty video would be simple, but you've clearly never tried it in a union shop.

C: Man, those bra hooks are something else to get open, aren't they?

Battle.net 'Fixes' and 'Improvements'

[ImYourVirus]

I understand me and my roommate at the time could never play sc at the same time on our home's cable line because of that problem, it sucked, one at a time or not at all, lan play sure no problems, but with sc2 with no lan support sounds rediculous, and just to cut back on piracy? Even dumber, because if people want it they *will* find a way and leave the rest of us screwed, even the legit people that are going to buy it get screwed, the people that wouldn't buy it anyways, well who cares about them :P I mean they can just go play on a pvpgn server anyways so still no loss there, which may be the end result of you not including lan support is to run a pvpgn server locally which is still a hassle for the lazy people and shouldn't be necessary.

You may think you're thwarting piracy is this stupid move, but really you're just hassling people who should have this from the get go with no workarounds...

Like my dad says if a crook wants something bad enough, it doesn't matter how many locks or what kinds of locks you put on there, if they want it they are going to take it by any means

Regarding WoW PvE Balance philosophy

[mkautz]

PvE balance, in terms of the DPS of pures has been in a bit of a state of flux recently. As people are progressing through the harder content, raid makeup is starting to shift toward a more melee-heavy composition. To complete harder content, people don't stack casters, they stack rogues and death knights at the expense of casters. Mages in particular are having a hard time finding a consistent place in raids outside of gimmicks that favor them heavily (Hodir). While parses show classes like mages, shadow priests and elemental shaman being considerably behind their melee counterparts, Greg Street has stated that he sees casters as in a good spot. Some of the top theorycrafters in the world like Lhivera, Manly and others have shown that Casters are weak and are going to continue to lose ground to rogues and the like (Except: Warlocks). For the other pure caster, mages, this is a very large issues but addressing Fire specifically, the Systems design team seems to think they are in a good spot, yet they are 10%+ behind on competitive parses. --- Enough background material, My question then is this: Where is the PvE balancing point for DPS? Do you balance based on the best players' performance or do you balance based on the average player performance. If you do infact balance against the best, do you take into account almost all the major top end guilds parses clearly pointing out that casters are struggling.

Why am I here

[sqldr]

The big one. Why am I here? Also, what created the universe, and is there a god?

concise answer please!

ta :-)

Re:Why am I here

[ma1wrbu5tr]

42

Mana-dependent character classes

[InverseParadox]

In the original Diablo, only one of the three classes was strictly mana-dependent: the Sorcerer. The Warrior and the Rogue were dependent on other factors (primarily Health, and in the Rogue's case arrows), and could get away with paying little or no attention to mana.

In Diablo II, every single class was mana-dependent; all of them relied heavily on their active abilities, and all of those required mana. Ignoring mana would inevitably get you killed in fairly short order.

Warcraft III's heroes also tended to be mana-dependent (or so, at least, the "games built on top of War3" such as DotA seem to indicate), though perhaps not to the same extent, since those heroes were far from the only means of doing things in the game.

World of Warcraft has moved away from this somewhat, in that the (very differently designed) Warrior and Rogue now rely on Rage and Energy respectively, but it's still by and large a very mana-dependent game; ignoring mana will still get you very dead. For many classes this makes sense (Mage, Priest, Warlock, Shaman, Druid), but for others it doesn't necessarily fit as well; it's arguably also odd that intuitively mana-dependent classes so far outnumber ones which would not be.

Will Diablo III have any non-mana-dependent classes?

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

WoW pricing

[ma1wrbu5tr]

I could manage the $15 a month for a few hours of enjoyment back when I had side jobs coming out of my ears.
Now that things have taken a downturn, I have canceled my subscription and moved on to G**dW*s; which costs a little
more initially, but has no monthly subscription costs. Any plans on changing the fees all around? How about a tier
based system? $15 per month is an awful lot for something I only play for about 2-8 hours per month.

I know also, that for some of my friends at work, at least, WoW has become something they are frustrated with due
to instance availability, technical issues, ever increasing in-game SPAM and high costs.

Is WoW stuck in a rut? Or is Blizzard ready to step up and keep it in the #1 spot?

Do I spend my next free cash on the sequel for what I'm currently playing, or do I give WoW another shot?