Blizzard Breaks For Independence As Kotick Plans $8.2 Billion Dollar Buyout

The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splendor by alphatel · 2013-07-26 00:48 · Score: 2, Funny

It's true that Researchers Implant False Memories in Mice but Activision has implanted Happy Memories in Gamers and erased all bad ones!

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Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 00:50 · Score: 2

Like Hell they have, I was hoping TFA was about Blizzard finally breaking free from Kotick's money-grubbing, DLC-and-franchise-all-the-games!, clutches.

Hrm. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 00:51 · Score: 0

It sounds like hiding the fact they're going down lately: https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=world+of+warcraft#q=world%20of%20warcraft&cmpt=q

And is the bitter nationalism against the French needed? What are you, British?

Re:Hrm. by firex726 · 2013-07-26 01:32 · Score: 1

WOW may be losing subscribers, but it's still insanely profitable. Lst I heard was it dipped from $200m/mth to only $150m/mth.
Somehow I doubt they are hurting.
Not to mention all the other IP they have, including some no name game called Call of Duty that I heard is becoming popular.
Re:Hrm. by tnk1 · 2013-07-26 01:51 · Score: 1

Although it should be pointed out that declining at all as opposed to growing drives down stock prices, which is much, much worse to some of these people.
That said, it is probably the signal to them to start working on something else (which they likely are already doing). Here's hoping that they can actually put something out that is at least as enjoyable. Diablo III was a bit of a misstep in a lot of ways, which is too bad.
Re:Hrm. by JavaLord · 2013-07-26 02:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

WOW may be losing subscribers, but it's still insanely profitable.

I wonder what's leading them to lose subscribers. If it's just fatigue, since the game is so old. One pattern I've noticed is as they've shortened the timeline between patches and expansions, players seem to quit more often. Once and expansion is announced, in game players (and I would assume subscriptions) drop. It seems like now it even happens in between patches. I assume it is because players feel whatever they earn will be worth less by the new patch/expansion. I wonder sometimes if they wouldn't be better served by not announcing patches so early, and having longer cycles between expansions.
Re:Hrm. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:32 · Score: 0

Fatigue is part of it. The game is old and tired, and it's approaching its tenth year. There really hasn't been any effort to renovate the game and bring it up to today's standards visually or otherwise, and it's doubtful that's actually possible with the technology they use.
There also hasn't been much in the way of innovation in how the game plays, and what they have come up with is boring, frustrating, and derivative. World of Warcraft was always a grind fest, but come on. It's a miracle that they've managed to stay relevant this long, and their strategy for accomplishing that explains why they're starting to lose players now.
As time went on from 2004 onward, the game has been progressively streamlined and dumbed down. Don't ask for a dissertation on this subject, countless other people have explained the problem better than I ever could. By pointing their crosshairs toward a lower and lower segment of the market as time goes on, they've been able to keep players coming in as older players leave, or 'die of age' so to speak. (That, or they get frustrated with the changes to the game and split.) There are diminishing returns to this, and we crossed the event horizon with the latest expansion. The release schedule is accelerating because they're desperate to keep people waiting for more, and they're desperate because the attention span and commitment level of their current base is critically low. The reason for that is because they've finally begun pushing the last of their dedicated players away. They can't aim any lower and expect to keep making money, this is about as casual as they can get without switching to a fully free model.
The quality of the content has arguably been falling since the first expansion, also.
Re:Hrm. by subanark · 2013-07-26 03:42 · Score: 1

It's not so much the game as the competition. They are getting better and better at taking pieces of the WoW market. WoW is still far ahead, and it simply can't appeal to everyone at the same time.
Wow can't play the "I've eared my gear though lots of gameplay" as well as it used too. With facebook games and the like abusing that angle for as much as it's worth the general public has wisened up to the continual formula that this proposes. So, for now they have to ease up on that approach and allow people to catch up, meaning they are primarily keeping players who like pve/pvp content for the pure challenge of it, and those that get a kick of controling the economy by buying and selling off the auction house.
Re:Hrm. by MachineShedFred · 2013-07-26 03:55 · Score: 1

It's the content. Or lack of new content.
Much of the last two expansions have been rehashed content that has already been played. In fact, one of the expansions literally WAS content that had already been played, but that they refreshed up to current max level difficulty.
Players recognize when they are being given the same crap with a different spoon, and take their money elsewhere.

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Re:Hrm. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:05 · Score: 0

It's a catch 22 for them. They can't cater to the hardcore raiders and the casuals at the same time but they try. The rapid expansion cycle I think is meant to satisfy the hardcore crowd but it's a big turn off to the casual crowd. That's when I hung up my characters. It's fun at first but after raiding a few instances the fights are insanely repetitive (the same mechanics abound through numerous expansions) especially as a Tank. Seriously, all boss fights could be distilled into three or four categories as a tank. BORING! Then you just begin to realize that the more "hardcore" you become the more the game provides diminishing returns. Then you just wake up one morning sick of spending every night raiding just to keep gear current. Oh and the community can be absolutely wonderful or awful. It's a real crap shoot with what guild/server you end up on. The community pissed me off. Just like real life, so many people looking to be carried. How hard is it to google a boss fight video? But there I was twice a week explaining the same fights to the same lazy people. If you ignore all the flash the mechanics are so simple a child could grasp them but half the morons that play WoW still stand blissfully ignorant in the fire. Then you realize other people are wasting a LOT of your time, AND you're paying for it. Then you quit for good.
Re:Hrm. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:21 · Score: 0

WOW may be losing subscribers, but it's still insanely profitable.
I wonder what's leading them to lose subscribers. If it's just fatigue, since the game is so old. One pattern I've noticed is as they've shortened the timeline between patches and expansions, players seem to quit more often. Once and expansion is announced, in game players (and I would assume subscriptions) drop. It seems like now it even happens in between patches. I assume it is because players feel whatever they earn will be worth less by the new patch/expansion. I wonder sometimes if they wouldn't be better served by not announcing patches so early, and having longer cycles between expansions.
The problem is the game offers no challenge so its easy to lose interest. Anyone can play a character without ever grouping, max their level, and have good gear. Then you can do random dungeons with LFR in which you just sit and are thrown in a group, run the dungeon, get some raid gear. Once you have decent raid gear you do LFR again for big time raids and just walk through them. Without any real effort you can see 98% of the games content.
Dailies have also become a chore since especially with the newest expansion the game is built around logging in and doing the same 50 quests every single day.
There is no sense of exploration either. Due to the games level of ease anyone can go anywhere. Plus the way the game guides you via quests everywhere you never get a sense of discovering everything since everytime you see a new area its because some guy told you to go visit his brothers farm there, pointed it out on a map and gave you directions. Everything is guided and plotted for you, it feels more like a giant guided tour instead of an adventure.
Re:Hrm. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:52 · Score: 0

It's that, and the grind is just stupid. You work for hours to get gear that you just drop cause it's soulbound and you can't auction or trade it. The econmics of the game make it painfully difficult to get to the good content and gear unless you have all day everyday to play. It's a massive time sink for people with masachistic tendencies.
Re:Hrm. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 05:11 · Score: 0

There comes a point where you just can't take it anymore.
Blizzard introduces monk class. In order to play a monk in the bit of the game that *actually matters*, you have to grind up through 89 levels of stuff that *doesn't matter* (because everything you own was just bootstrapping you to get to the endgame) alongside people who don't communicate and you will never share a sense of community with.
Some of it's fun (though I honestly don't remember which bits anymore), but for the most part it feels like a particularly abusive dayjob and this is a game that I paid for to have fun playing.
Re:Hrm. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 06:24 · Score: 0

They've been bungling WoW patches and xpacs since the merger. One poor decision after another. Greg Street (Ghostcrawler as he's known) is a chronic douchebag who isn't qualified to season fries at Wendy's.
Re:Hrm. by spire3661 · 2013-07-26 06:42 · Score: 1

Upon reflection, Lich King really was the high point of the game. Hardcores and casuals alike marching on Arthas.

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Good-bye
Re:Hrm. by Tharkkun · 2013-07-26 07:16 · Score: 1

WOW may be losing subscribers, but it's still insanely profitable. I wonder what's leading them to lose subscribers. If it's just fatigue, since the game is so old. One pattern I've noticed is as they've shortened the timeline between patches and expansions, players seem to quit more often. Once and expansion is announced, in game players (and I would assume subscriptions) drop. It seems like now it even happens in between patches. I assume it is because players feel whatever they earn will be worth less by the new patch/expansion. I wonder sometimes if they wouldn't be better served by not announcing patches so early, and having longer cycles between expansions.
It's just old. Some people have been playing WoW longer than an average marriage lasts.
Re:Hrm. by subanark · 2013-07-26 07:39 · Score: 1

Aside from the game being too easy at the beginning, the end game "content" can be done at various difficulty levels... kind of like many other games. Heroic difficulty raids are hard enough that even after 3 1/2 months of the content being out, only 2% of players who actually seriously try that content have managed to clear it, and that is including the fact that you get better gear to make it easier as time goes on. The first players to defeat everything this current content took just under a month to do so (and not for lack of gear, but for lack of hours in a day).
Re:Hrm. by ShakaUVM · 2013-07-26 07:49 · Score: 1

>It's not so much the game as the competition
Eh, what competition? The same reason that I quit WoW (due to being dumbed down) has been copied by its competitors, which makes me utterly uninterested in playing them. I sometimes long for someone to do something along the lines of the original vision for Ultima Online. (Not how UO turned out, but the original vision.)
The only MMORPG I've enjoyed recently is The Secret World, which allows for a much more interesting customization of characters, and no monthlies.
Re:Hrm. by subanark · 2013-07-26 08:38 · Score: 1

Your playing a different MMO, one that appeals to what you want more. If there weren't alternatives, there would be a higher chance that you wouldn't quit, or if you did you would return.
Re:Hrm. by Rakarra · 2013-07-26 10:30 · Score: 1

Upon reflection, Lich King really was the high point of the game. Hardcores and casuals alike marching on Arthas.
I think Lich King dealt the game a blow that it never recovered from. For the first time, five-mans were -easy- (and boring). The initial raid was drop-dead easy (and had no hard mode). It set expectations in a lot of peoples' minds that everything should have been easy. Fortunately one of their worst raids (Naxx 10/25) they followed up with possibly their best (Ulduar). Cataclysm reintroduced challenging 5-man heroics (as it should have been all along) but halfway through the expansion Blizzard reversed course again and nerfed the 5-mans so they were easy, and introduced new five-mans that, once again, you had to sleep through for them to be challenging and it's been that way ever since. Fortunately, if you activated hard-modes raids were still difficult. There was challenge to be had, but only in raiding and pvp. The old world has all the challenge taken out of it so leveling a new character is sadly boring. 5-mans are super-easy. LFRs aren't too challenging, but they're not really supposed to be so that's fine.
But worst of all... during Lich King it was a -full year- from the release of the last major content patch until the release of the next expansion. That killed quite a few guilds.
My personal feeling? I miss the challenge of the 1-60 experience, and 5-man heroics, but despite that I think the game is the strongest now than it's been since BC, maybe even since vanilla. I think Mists really hit the right balance in giving you things to do at max level besides raiding.
Re:Hrm. by ShakaUVM · 2013-07-26 19:38 · Score: 1

No, since quitting WoW in 2007, I have played hardly any MMORPGs at all.
It has left a massively bitter taste in my mouth which has ruined the entire genre for me.
All the WoW clones and F2P crap do nothing to try to lure me back.
Re:Hrm. by Meski · 2013-07-28 00:32 · Score: 1

Driving down stock prices is not worse if you're looking to do a buyout.
Re:Hrm. by Meski · 2013-07-28 00:37 · Score: 1

Expansions are probably a bigger killer than patches. A patch, well, you can start playing the new raid content with existing gear. That's not possible with expansions. Major changes in class gameplay doesn't please people either.
Re:Hrm. by Meski · 2013-07-28 00:41 · Score: 1

You micro-nap thru LFR's as well? It's kind of alarming to me when I've done that and topped the healing charts.
Re:Hrm. by Meski · 2013-07-28 00:49 · Score: 1

The problem is the game offers no challenge so its easy to lose interest. Anyone can play a character without ever grouping, max their level, and have good gear. Then you can do random dungeons with LFR in which you just sit and are thrown in a group, run the dungeon, get some raid gear. Once you have decent raid gear you do LFR again for big time raids and just walk through them. Without any real effort you can see 98% of the games content.
With just a little effort, you can skip the heroic dungeon stage, and go straight from levelling to LFR. Do world bosses for a while, get the gear from that, make a bit of crafted epic. If you're a healer, there's no way I'd go thru heroic 5 man LFG. Its a totally thankless thing to do.
Re:Hrm. by X0563511 · 2013-07-29 02:07 · Score: 1

You should give Guild Wars 2 a try. It does many things differently (for the better), is not free to play, and yet is not a subscription either (you pay once).

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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Re:Hrm. by dywolf · 2013-07-29 02:47 · Score: 1

next content patch (5.4) provides another desired emotional salve: finally getting to smack Garrosh upside the head.

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Re:Hrm. by dywolf · 2013-07-29 02:51 · Score: 1

you mean the first tier of Lich King being Naxx? while ignoring the 3 tiers that followed it, 2 of which were vitally important lorewise and very ambitious and unique?
or are you disappointed that Dragon Soul used a lot of WotLK locations because it made sense lorewise? you say these things about small portions of the content, myopically ignoring the rest of the expansion, or the reasons for it. all i hear is a rehashed version of "vanilla was the best part of wow, everything after was dumb".

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Re:Hrm. by tnk1 · 2013-07-29 03:38 · Score: 1

Interesting point, but dangerous if they are actually doing that on purpose. As much as we know business people get away with that stuff sometimes, if shareholders get a whiff that they are depressing their stock price, there will be hell to pay.
Re:Hrm. by ShakaUVM · 2013-07-29 10:34 · Score: 1

I tried it. Wasn't especially impressed with the lack of options in building a character. Combat was very repetitive.
Beautiful though.
Re:Hrm. by X0563511 · 2013-07-30 06:10 · Score: 1

How long did you try? I assume you got to play with traits, and noticed that different weapons conferred different skills to the various classes.
As well, the engineer might be up your alley as well as they can (as some of their skills) equip "kits" which give you whole other sets of skills.
I'm running around with a freaking flamethrower!
Another one to look at is the elementalist. The skills you have to work with change based on what element you have active, and what weapon(s) you have equipped.

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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 00:52 · Score: 0

Is that so, then how do you explain Diablo III?

Corporation Culture by schneidafunk · 2013-07-26 00:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

This may be the wrong crowd, but this exactly the kind of move that is to be expected of a CEO who's main job is making money for shareholders. It's not surprising at all, except the heavy bias of TFA.

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Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 00:53 · Score: 0

Blizzard is quite frankly riding sequels down the drain (when was the last time they developed new IP?), the CoD games are getting more and more expensive for worse returns. The only other thing they do is that Skylanders Spyro thing with the RFID toys, but I don't recall those making profit yet.

Kotick won't do a better job than Vivendi would, because he's married to the idea of 'if it works, don't change it', so you have endless rehashes of the same garbage with more and more nickel and dime DLC.

Re:Minimal growth prospects by Tyr07 · 2013-07-26 00:58 · Score: 2

CoD...one track mind..sounds like a console gamer!
No no, I jest.
Blizzard itself has made a lot of great games, and I keep looking forward to their next sequel.
Starcraft, Starcraft 2. Amazing.
Heart of the swarm? Amazing.
World of Warcraft? I'm personally tired of it, yet, amazing.
Warcraft 1-2-3, great games.
Diablo 1/2, amazing. Enjoyed d3 but..eh.
They're not perfect, but their PC marketed games have done very well and have been good.
Why complain about good?
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:05 · Score: 2, Informative

All of it is old, that's my point. The only titles in that that were developed in the last ten years were Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 parts 1 and 2. Diablo 3 is not a good game and the auction house killed it, SC2 is alright but nothing outstanding, and heart of the swarm was straight up just a small expansion pack. More importantly, it's all derivative sequels - Blizzard hasn't put new ideas into a game in a very long time, and are content to milk old ones. That's why they have no growth prospects and no future.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by MysteriousPreacher · 2013-07-26 01:41 · Score: 2

WoW was initially released in the last 10 years, and I'd argue their expansions have been pretty good in adding new mechanics and content. I'd concede that WoW as a platform is no spring chicken.
Agreed as well on the D3 business. Requiring a persistent Internet connection, and having RMT, ensure that D2 is the last installment I'll buy. Feeling a bit burnt by Blizzard, so when I'm finally done with WoW I'm thinking it's the last title I'll play.

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-- Using the preview button since 2005
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:16 · Score: 1

That's the point. The only post-merger game on that list is Diablo 3. All the rest were already complete or at least 14 months into development before Activision entered the picture.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Endo13 · 2013-07-26 02:24 · Score: 1

You realize that according to the list you just posted, the only good game Blizzard has released in 9 years is Starcraft 2.. right?
And from what I've read, most SC2 players would agree that it's not as good as the first one. Most veteran WoW players would agree that WoW's done nothing but get worse since Vanilla or TBC at the latest.
It's not a good track record for Blizzard in recent history, and their latest "milestone" has been one of their worst.

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Re:Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:49 · Score: 0

WoW was great when the dungeons were relevant. Getting the paladin's epic mount was a pain in the ass once TBC came out and no one ran the required dungeons any more. Had to buy runs and work my ass off but I finally earned it. Then they made it a summon spell so now you get the horse at level 40 for free and it's speed scales with your riding rank. This killed all enthusiasm I had for the game and canceled my subscription same day. Shit that I worked hard for and earned was now just being handed out for free. Instead of fixing the dungeons and giving high level people a reason to go there other than just to help low levels they removed all reason for anyone to ever go to said dungeons.
All the work you had to do
And a retelling of the events
And now today you get effectively both the slow and fast mount for free and all you have to do is buy training.
This is a good chunk of why WoW sucks today and why so many people leave with each patch.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Bengie · 2013-07-26 04:02 · Score: 1

Their new MMORPG that they have been working on for years and doing massive hiring for, is entirely new IP.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:03 · Score: 0

And from what I've read, most SC2 players would agree that it's not as good as the first one.
The only ones who say that are SC1 veterans that can't or don't want to learn how to play SC2 purely because it's not a simple graphical update to the gameplay systems they're used to. Any SC player being honest with themselves will agree SC2 is better, if for no other reason than the unit pathing for all units being vastly improved.
That being said, Blizzard is no less a money-grubbing company than Activision. It's just that unlike Activision, Blizzard had traditionally used an Apple-like approach of telling the players what they want rather than asking. Activision simplifies the whole thing by blatantly charging ridiculous prices for P.O.S. and not caring whether or not the players want it.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Digital+Vomit · 2013-07-26 04:16 · Score: 0

This killed all enthusiasm I had for the game and canceled my subscription same day. Shit that I worked hard for and earned was now just being handed out for free.

I don't understand this point of view. I treasure the time and effort I put into earning my paladin's charger, playing the game with friends. I actually feel sorry for the players who didn't get to experience that.
If you're angry that "kids today have it easier", then you're playing the game for the wrong reasons. This sort of "right-wing" thinking is just going to keep you miserable. If you played it for the adventure and the experience, you won't feel bad if a year down the road someone else gets the same reward for a far lower cost.

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Re:Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:59 · Score: 0

That's the point. The only post-merger game on that list is Diablo 3. All the rest were already complete or at least 14 months into development before Activision entered the picture.
Diablo 3 was not a post merger game. It had been in development at Blizzard for years before the Activision acquisition. Both by its original team at Blizzard North and by Blizzard itself when they took over shortly after Blizzard North's 2005 shutdown.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 05:08 · Score: 0

I see that point, but it still doesn't really seem fair. If you have to work hard for something that's given as a reward, and then they come along and give it away to noobs? That kind of sucks. I'm still playing, and I came in about 3 years ago. At the time people were complaining about things I was getting that they had to work for. I thought it sucked then (for them). Now that I've experienced it myself. I can confirm that indeed it does suck. It takes away from the game. Imagine if you went to work for years making $10 /hr and over time you worked hard proved yourself and work your way up to $18/hr. Then they hire some kid you have to teach, and they pay him $25/hr to start. Would that piss you off?
Re:Minimal growth prospects by BinarySolo · 2013-07-26 05:22 · Score: 1

You mean the one that they basically decided to start over from scratch a few months ago? http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/report-blizzard-to-overhaul-project-titan-launch-it-in-2016-at-the-earliest/
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Tharkkun · 2013-07-26 07:20 · Score: 1

WoW was great when the dungeons were relevant. Getting the paladin's epic mount was a pain in the ass once TBC came out and no one ran the required dungeons any more. Had to buy runs and work my ass off but I finally earned it. Then they made it a summon spell so now you get the horse at level 40 for free and it's speed scales with your riding rank. This killed all enthusiasm I had for the game and canceled my subscription same day. Shit that I worked hard for and earned was now just being handed out for free. Instead of fixing the dungeons and giving high level people a reason to go there other than just to help low levels they removed all reason for anyone to ever go to said dungeons.
All the work you had to do And a retelling of the events
And now today you get effectively both the slow and fast mount for free and all you have to do is buy training.
This is a good chunk of why WoW sucks today and why so many people leave with each patch.
It's a progression MMO. The timeline changes each time a new expansion comes out. Prior content becomes obselete much like any game on the market.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Tharkkun · 2013-07-26 07:22 · Score: 1

You mean the one that they basically decided to start over from scratch a few months ago? http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/report-blizzard-to-overhaul-project-titan-launch-it-in-2016-at-the-earliest/

I'm sure as most people have alluded to Titan was probably built around a subscription based game. Blizzard is re-working it on a F2P model. By the time Titan is released I would all subscription games will have converted to some form of F2P.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Totenglocke · 2013-07-26 19:24 · Score: 1

Yes, but DRM didn't appear in Blizzard games until after the merger. That is why I went from buying every Blizzard game at launch to not buying anything from them anymore. I refuse to be punished by a company for buying their product.

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"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 21:52 · Score: 0

First I would like to point out that I'm a different anonymous coward than the one above. Part of the reason wow sucks these days, its that all of the old content, is easy as hell to play through, but you still have to play through it all to get to any of the good stuff. The game actually blocks you off from playing anything above 'your level' story wise, and game reward wise. Any content is ridiculously easy to play through. You don't even have to watch the screen or pay attention to what is going on around you.
All the story along the way is drolled out on the most boring way possible, black text on dusty brown scrolls. later on you get to earn the ability to start repeating the same scripted encounters in groups. I still don't know why I killed so many monkeys and why so much beer had to be puked all over the place, or what any of that had to do with a giant rabid rabbit, but whatever.. pandas.
Wow just isn't that interesting, it doesn't even feel like there is a point to any of it.
Re:Minimal growth prospects by Tyr07 · 2013-07-29 14:56 · Score: 1

Take that billions of dollars! You have no future!

"Blactivision" by mwvdlee · 2013-07-26 00:54 · Score: 5, Funny

Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?)

Because it's fucking stupid. It's fupid.

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Re:"Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:05 · Score: 3, Funny
Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?)
Because it's fucking stupid. It's fupid.
Years from now we'll see:
fupid adjective , fupid, fupid-dest, fupider
adjective
1. Being fucking stupid
2. really dumb
3. lacking in intelligence
4. What the fuck are you thinking!
Re:"Blactivision" by wbr1 · 2013-07-26 01:06 · Score: 3, Informative

I beg to differ, it is stucking. It may even be jacktarded.

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Silence is a state of mime.
Re:"Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:08 · Score: 0

Blaxploitation video games would be huge. Think of "Theme from Shaft" going on in the background....
Re:"Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:33 · Score: 0

I myself was always partial to "Activizzard".
Re:"Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:43 · Score: 0

Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?)
Because it's fucking stupid. It's fupid.
True, but the concept of a Blizzard/Activision merger was fupid in the first place, so it sort of fits.
Re:"Blactivision" by tnk1 · 2013-07-26 01:54 · Score: 1

I think Actilizzard sounds better.
Re:"Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:25 · Score: 0

I spent too long trying to work out what "Fits" was a portmanteu of...
Re: "Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:26 · Score: 0

"Activizzard" is something a Sharknadoe would do! Or fight against?
Re:"Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:36 · Score: 0

This is the parallel form of slupid, from slow and stupid.
Re:"Blactivision" by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:46 · Score: 0

Sounds like a blaxploitation movie, like Blacula or Blackenstein (both real movies).
It's like the African American division of Blizzard. Blactivision. /shudder
Re: "Blactivision" by ajegwu · 2013-07-26 07:38 · Score: 1

I prefer Blizactard.

Vivendi has a fine to pay. by Raven42rac · 2013-07-26 00:54 · Score: 1

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-25/vivendi-loses-956-million-verdict-to-liberty-media.html

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There is fun in making Video Games? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 00:55 · Score: 0

No more and no less than any other job. Even clowns don't get to have fun all the time, comedy is serious business.

Moniker catching on? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 00:56 · Score: 1

'Blacktivision' sounds like a throwback reference to a racist mentality dating back centuries. Similar to how 'behind the eight-ball' and similar phrases have fallen out of favour. Get ready to downmod a hundred trolls.

As for Blizzard, perhaps if this works we can have a return to the heyday of RTS and WOW. Waitasec...

Re:Moniker catching on? by h4rr4r · 2013-07-26 01:33 · Score: 2

Yet, jerry-rigged is still somehow acceptable. I am not suggesting we should go back to using racist phrases, just we should abandon them equally.
Re:Moniker catching on? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:40 · Score: 0

Wait, 'jerry-rigged' is racist? What a gyp!
Re: Moniker catching on? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:04 · Score: 1

Neither is behind the eight ball racists. It's a pool reference. But people prefer to make up their own stories for things and then cop an attitude. So nothing new here.
Re:Moniker catching on? by h4rr4r · 2013-07-26 02:04 · Score: 2

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jerry-rigged
Those are two different terms. Jury-rigged is nautical in origin. Jerry-rigged is a racist term first used in ww1 or ww2 by british soldiers. It started in ww1 as jerry-built.
Re:Moniker catching on? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:26 · Score: 0

Are not most Germans and British people the same race?
Re:Moniker catching on? by h4rr4r · 2013-07-26 02:50 · Score: 1

Not if you ask them.
The older set might find that insulting and the younger would likely pretend to be offended for the humor value of it.
I am guessing you are not white, or are an american fi you are. For non-american whites and even in america in places with strong ethnic neighborhoods white is not a singular group. Where I live there are still polish, italian and irish neighborhoods. This means you will often hear the use of the words Polack, Wop, and Mick used in either a joking or serious manner.
Re:Moniker catching on? by prattle · 2013-07-26 02:57 · Score: 2

Jerry-rigged is a racist term first used in ww1 or ww2 by british soldiers. It started in ww1 as jerry-built.
This struck me as odd, seeing as the Brits seem to venerate German engineering, so I went digging. All the sites I read said that it pre-dates WW1 and has nothing to do with Germans.
Do you have a reference which says otherwise?

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Re:Moniker catching on? by h4rr4r · 2013-07-26 03:07 · Score: 1

Upon doing more investigation it does appear the term predates what I had thought. I guess whoever taught me this gypped me.
Re:Moniker catching on? by Deflagro · 2013-07-26 03:25 · Score: 1

It's "jury-rigged" and is a nautical term based on Latin etymology. Jerry-build is the other one though.

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Re:Moniker catching on? by MachineShedFred · 2013-07-26 03:58 · Score: 1

Nationalism != Racism

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Re:Moniker catching on? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:22 · Score: 0

It seems you're a bit confused as to what nationalism is. Please read up.
Re:Moniker catching on? by magic+maverick+ · 2013-07-26 06:07 · Score: 1

They might not be equivalent, but they are both stupid and outdated ideas. What's the point of nations? Nations and countries are as artificial and deserving of being abolished as the idea of race.
Fuck your country. Fuck all countries. And fuck nationalism.

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Re:Moniker catching on? by OutOnARock · 2013-07-26 06:20 · Score: 1

jury....jerry...sounds like a fupid discussion to me :)

The fuck did I just read? by 0xdeadbeef · 2013-07-26 00:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

That exceeded the standard threshold for painfully aspergian jokes and obnoxious editorializing in an article write-up.

You have one job, Unkown Lamer, one job!

Re:The fuck did I just read? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 06:51 · Score: 0

Seriously, this is the worst summary I have seen in years (which says a LOT) and whichever editor let this doozy get through should be fired.

different goals by jsepeta · 2013-07-26 01:00 · Score: 2, Informative

I thought his goal was to make games that weren't any fun to _play_. After a couple of hundred hours milling in WoW, I just gave up. Beautiful scenery, ok music, shitty combat system, horrible $160 annual fee for playing online plus $50 for new game options. No fucking thanks.

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Re:different goals by intermodal · 2013-07-26 01:17 · Score: 5, Interesting

The two go hand in hand. I've worked in a couple game development houses, and found that the good games we released were all titles we had fun making. Of course, there were fun games to make that we were flops as well, but literally every game that wasn't fun to make, indeed, felt like work to make, felt like work to play.
A fun game will always be fun to make. If your dev teams ever, EVER reach the point of, "Fuck this shit, I hate my job, kill me now," I promise you the game will be utter garbage.

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Re:different goals by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:27 · Score: 0

Game development is a creative art, as such the feelings of a game's creator(s) will bleed through into the game. Games happen to be in a unique position where the positive members of the team can make up for the negative members by checking their work or cheering them up. It's why any project I go into I try to be like a friend to my fellow developers, I'd rather let them vent their issues on me then do so in a project where multiple people are spending ridiculous amounts of time to produce.
Re:different goals by MachineShedFred · 2013-07-26 04:01 · Score: 1

Wholeheartedly agree. Especially in light of Shadowrun Returns launching yesterday, where it's $40 to get the engine and the campaign made by the game producer, and all the tools and editors necessary to make and share your own campaigns on Steam Workshop.
A great game based in a fantastic universe with over 20 years of development behind it. Funded by Kickstarter.

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A bit of change is needed by stewsters · 2013-07-26 01:01 · Score: 1, Insightful

Blizzard's WOW numbers are tanking hard, Diablo 3 preorders where through the roof, but most people abandoned it after playing it once. Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm single player was pretty good, but perhaps a bit expensive for an expansion. They need to do something big if they want to stay relevant.

They need to take some risks.

Re:A bit of change is needed by Bill_the_Engineer · 2013-07-26 01:20 · Score: 2

Were Diablo 3 preorders inflated by Blizzard giving away copies to longtime players of WoW? That's how I got mine.

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Re:A bit of change is needed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:46 · Score: 1

Surely you mean "Starcraft 2: Heart of the useless tutorial"? It's the most outrageous game design I've seen, nobody is going to be able to purchase this *expansion* alone, yet you are forced to waste countless levels on stupid "Hey, did you know that if you click here with your mouse your unit will actually move there" levels?. Or how about fucking retarded Sarah, queen of zergs, assassin of millions and unable to kill herself a single foe at the end, plus "fully converting into zerg"-yet-maintaining-useless-feelings-for-humans-who-detest-her. Yeah, really coherent storyline, a special ops who's done many missions in the past of infiltration and to confuse the enemy, hears through the radio "your love is dead" and suddenly believes it.
Plus the story destroyed every single hint of surprise and left no cliffhanger. There's nothing in the end which makes you want to buy the third expansion, unlike the first which left so many things open that you wanted to know more. Unless the cliffhanger is "how are they going to fuck it up next".
Fucking waste of money.
Re:A bit of change is needed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:16 · Score: 1

but you got it by being locked into a year of wow. Their perogative was to keep wow numbers inflated, and it worked, around 4-6 million subs locked in for 12 months.
Re:A bit of change is needed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:38 · Score: 0

The penalty for not remaining on wow for a year was so mild that I wouldn't exactly call it being "locked in".
Re:A bit of change is needed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:14 · Score: 0

I thoroughly enjoyed heart of the swarm. But I played it through the first time on very hard and didn't find it too challenging. 30-40 hours total gameplay.
Re:A bit of change is needed by TheNastyInThePasty · 2013-07-26 06:13 · Score: 1

It doesn't matter if you can purchase the expansion alone. What matters is if you buy both (and eventually all 3) games together and decide "Those alien dudes look pretty cool, I'm going to play that first". It's about not forcing people to play the campaigns in order.

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Re:A bit of change is needed by Rakarra · 2013-07-26 10:39 · Score: 1

but you got it by being locked into a year of wow. Their perogative was to keep wow numbers inflated, and it worked, around 4-6 million subs locked in for 12 months.
Yeah well I was going to pay for a year's worth of wow anyway, so why -wouldn't- I want get a free Diablo 3 out of it?
Re:A bit of change is needed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-28 00:36 · Score: 0

The reason people left Diablo3 was because it was complete shit.
Worse than FFXIV was, an absolute embarrassment to test some new stupid DRM system.
Not even hackers want to bother cracking it because nobody even wants it.
Of course, it was still a success because "it sold". Fuck that mentality.
That is like saying your brown shit-shaped car sold because it was a funny novelty for a year.
Still left with a literally and figuratively shit car. " I guess if the insides were hollow, it could make a neat caravan." would be like trying to defend Diablo3.
They don't need to change, they need to go back to what made them good in the first place, they need to unchange!
Re:A bit of change is needed by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-28 22:55 · Score: 0

Relevant? They would still be relevant even if their profits were halved.
Re:A bit of change is needed by dywolf · 2013-07-29 03:17 · Score: 1

continuing the storyline is all thats needed to stay relevent. the lore is what i like most. i rarely grind content into burnout though simply because it does get boring killing the same guy every week. but that's how ive played even since EQ. but the story continues to evolve and continues to entertain. people place too much importance on the sub numbers.
EQ never topped 1 million players (IIRC), so when WoW shot to new records every month people were in awe. at first. then after a bit it came to be expected to remain insanely high. When numbers started slipping before the first expansion all of a sudden people started this "its cause the game sucks" mantra, and its been repeated every time since. like if it does stay at the size of the population of a medium sized country its somehow a failure.
fact is, no game, no media property period, will ever only go up in popularity. even at 7 milion players you're talking 35 million a month in revenue. they have cash out the ears, enough to finance their own projects, and the rest of activisions if they were to dip into it.

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Well Then by TemperedAlchemist · 2013-07-26 01:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

I've been involved with Blizzard since the early days when they weren't so popular despite being so young. Before WoW, before Warcraft 3. I'm sure there were many people who can go back further, but ever since Starcraft, I've been more than a hardcore fan: I've been a modder. I've probably spent more time on b.net than a person does sleeping in the same time period.

It kills me to say this, but Blizzard took a turn for the worst ever since Activision acquired them. And oh yeah, that's the problem: Blizzard turns a profit and that's all they seem to care about these days: monetizing and milking the hell out of their franchises. At the expense of the games they're producing. It's a business strategy of money now and let's not worry about the later.

Well now later has come, and Diablo 3 is complete and utter crap, Starcraft 2 is borderline crap, WoW has turned into little more than a glorified cash cow, and their new big thing was a trading card game (whoo?). They were riding on their popularity and fan base, but now it's just... Ugh. They've shifted over the pro gaming scene, but us modders and level designers have been left in the dark (once again).

Not only is their EULA damn near totalitarian (they own everything you make with your editor, including characters, plots, etc... At least that's what it says), but the editor is a pile of crap that seems to have been coded by interns.

As for the actual game itself. Well, it's about three years old at this point and with a GTX Titan and a 4770K Haswell processor you'll still only be pulling around 30-40 FPS with max settings (1280x720, no AA/AS). That's freaking ridiculous and shows just how badly coded the game is.

I'm moving onto bigger and better things. This French company is quite smart to get rid of the sinking ship.

Re:Well Then by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2013-07-26 01:17 · Score: 3, Funny

I've been involved with Blizzard since the early days when they weren't so popular despite being so young.
Wow, so Slashdot has hipsters.
Or slipsters, as MojoKid might call them.

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Re:Well Then by TemperedAlchemist · 2013-07-26 01:20 · Score: 1

Only 90's kids will understand.
Re:Well Then by Hatta · 2013-07-26 01:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

Exactly. Blizzard breaking free from Activision would be much more welcome news than Activision breaking free from Vivendi.

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Re:Well Then by mooingyak · 2013-07-26 01:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

I've been involved with Blizzard since the early days when they weren't so popular despite being so young.
Wow, so Slashdot has hipsters.
Or slipsters, as MojoKid might call them.
Wannabe hipster. "Early days" is apparently:

Before WoW, before Warcraft 3.
Maybe I'm just getting old, but that really doesn't feel like that long ago to me.

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Re:Well Then by alen · 2013-07-26 02:18 · Score: 1

yeah, because in the old days the games were really months late because they loved to make sure it was perfect. and not as a marketing stunt to hype the game for months
Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:27 · Score: 0

SUPEROUMAN, is that you?
Re:Well Then by cHiphead · 2013-07-26 02:28 · Score: 1

Blackthorne got me started on Blizzard, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans got me stuck on Blizzard. Playing Warcraft 2 on Kali.net was the best gaming I ever experienced. I even had my animated gif filled Warcraft 2 strategy guide site published in one of those early internet yellow pages books, which seemed awesome at the time but is hilariously awkward in retrospect.
Battle.net was and still is annoying crap that really is just a way to chain you to them. I have never paid to play WoW and have passed on Diablo 3. Heart of the Swarm was a monumentally terrible story line that only worked to setup essentially the exact same outcome from Warcraft 3 with Chaos. Perhaps Starcraft 3 will be mixing SC and WC universes together. So far, SC is just a lazy reworking of WC with 'surprises' that tend to bewilder any expectations of competence.
Fortunately I'm older now and don't really give a shit, but it's my own children that are going to have to deal with this nonsense now.

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Re:Well Then by Talderas · 2013-07-26 02:58 · Score: 1

If Blizzard were to seek independence from Activision then it would just become the vassal of Activision's liege.
Hasn't Crusader Kings 2 told you anything?

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Re:Well Then by TemperedAlchemist · 2013-07-26 03:08 · Score: 1

But that's the industry standard back then. Limited resources and with a small team, you can only do so much. The technology can only do so much.
Now? Completely different story. Blizzard had the resources to do the game right, but they didn't. They could have implemented features that were standard for games five years ago, but they didn't. SC2 is a poorly designed game riding on the coattails of its predecessor (same design formula, just tweaked in BAD ways).
Well okay it wasn't all bad. There were some good additions. I particularly liked the Protoss Colossus and chrono boost was pretty cool. The Zerg got a bit weird, but I can't expect them to stay the same. Vikings were a cool addition too.
But even with some good stuff, the game is just being broken by a patchy framework. The engine is third rate, at best. Its computational speed is terrible for what it does (very little optimization). The actual game area is ill-conceived and resistant to adaptation. I, for the life of me (nor any of my modding friends), cannot figure out how to make something underground without some sort of gimmick (which I'm guessing is how they did it in the hype for level design). This comes with a myriad of other problems, like how regions can only be built out of squares, circles, or diamonds instead of being able to be defined parametrically (or in Cartesian terms, for all I care) -- this leaves a vast number of shapes (not to mention dynamics) completely out of the question. Triggers still run at 12 Hz (compared to the 11.9 Hz we could get them to run in SC1)...
And I could go on and on.
Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:21 · Score: 0

How can you call sc2 a crap? Any game I tried ever since looked just lame and could not play them for more then 5 minutes while constantly thinking I could be playing a game in sc2 instead.
Re:Well Then by Endo13 · 2013-07-26 03:23 · Score: 1

All true, except they started going downhill even before the merger. They did this to themselves. Activision may have accelerated it, but Blizzard certainly started their own downfall.

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Re:Well Then by Hatta · 2013-07-26 04:05 · Score: 1

Actually, I missed that one somehow. And I'm a big fan of turn based strategy. And it's officially supported on Linux. Thanks for the recommendation!

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Re:Well Then by mooingyak · 2013-07-26 04:17 · Score: 1

So far, SC is just a lazy reworking of WC with 'surprises' that tend to bewilder any expectations of competence.
Can't agree with you there. In WC2 at least (never played 1), the Orcs and the Humans had units that were fairly analogous to each other. There were differences, but they weren't massive, and if I picked a human unit and asked what the equivalent orc unit was, there's an obvious answer that shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the game.
SC on the other hand set up each side as completely distinct units. The human, zerg, and protoss units are all dissimilar from each other and you need to take different approaches depending on which one you're playing. WC3 (which came out AFTER SC) comes much closer to this concept. If there's a rehash going on, it's not in that direct.

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Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:18 · Score: 0

Only 90's kids will understand.
I like how you call yourself a "modder" but complain that the updated, MORE POWERFUL SC2 editor is "a pile of crap." People are able to make actually unique gameplay (as in, not reusing Starcraft's typical isometric view RTS gameplay) with it. I haven't checked the custom maps in a long time but I remember someone was making a third-person shooter using it. Mapping != modding.
But I guess "only 70s/80s kids will understand." :P
Re:Well Then by MachineShedFred · 2013-07-26 04:22 · Score: 1

You aren't wrong. That means he learned about them about Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, which was a good 5+ years after their first breakout hit of Warcraft.

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Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:25 · Score: 0

The engine is third rate, at best. Its computational speed is terrible for what it does (very little optimization).
So when will your "amazing" 100% custom-coded game engine be released that blows this "third rate" engine out of the water?
Re:Well Then by Goghit · 2013-07-26 04:45 · Score: 1

Still have the original Warcraft running in a DOS box. Apparently I need to patch the sound files so the Orcs say "Get of my lawn" instead of "Zug Zug".
Re:Well Then by Talderas · 2013-07-26 05:20 · Score: 1

It's a grand strategy game but it's not turn based. Everything progresses for all "players" at the same speed though you have a variable speed control. Make sure you understand succession laws and exhibit foresight on marrying off your children so as to accumulate titles or claims to titles in order to expand your domain.

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"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Re:Well Then by afidel · 2013-07-26 05:25 · Score: 1

Yeah really, I remember playing Lost Vikings (before they became Blizzard), Blackthorn (first game as Blizzard), and the reviewer demo for Warcraft (one of the voices for the orcs said "give good reviews please" if you clicked on him a few times =)
Those are early days =)

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Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 05:32 · Score: 0

Oh, am I on your lawn? Sorry about that.
Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 06:52 · Score: 0

Here here. I miss the days when you could summon hordes of spiders to assault your enemies, or when the enemy castles are so ridiculously powerful you wall off, (because you know, you could build walls, and had to build roads to connect your buildings) line it with spearmen (orcs too, none of this troll nonsense) and bring out 13 warlocks and send wave after wave of demons to crush those puny humans. Didn't miss being able to select no more than 4 units though.
Also, a there are 3 vikings who are crying feeling they are forever lost. Fortunately a shotgun toting prince with explosive robot bees might be able to help them out. He'll just race on over in his monster truck to some rock n' roll music...
Re:Well Then by jandrese · 2013-07-26 06:55 · Score: 1

I've not tried Heart of the Swarm, but I did get Wings of Liberty. Ultimately, WoL was a disappointment for me because there wasn't enough change from Brood War in the end. Also, it's not available on Steam which is annoying.

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Re:Well Then by AvitarX · 2013-07-26 08:18 · Score: 1

Blizzard (as a super Nintendo developer) was one of the first game companies to make me a fan of said company, as things with their name were generally awesome (Micro Prose too). I spent countless hours playing Rock n Roll racing with my friends, it wasn't the first game I played with that, but it was the first one that for some reason kept us up all night long trying to get better.
I don't even know if there are companies I feel that way about anymore, /MAYBE/ Nintendo, but since I lost my Wii I haven't played any of their stuff.
BioWare maybe?
Sega? as long as it's not Sonic.
There's games I like, and I'm not trying to whine about the good old day, but the days of seeing a name consistently in the flash screen and being able to equate it with quality are done, If there are teams like this still working, they are being buried too deep in the credits, giving the recognition to larger entities that churn lots of crap. It's a shame, I used to be able to look and see a game that was interested, and if the names were right know it was good, now I need to wade through reviews (or if I'm lucky Yahtzee has a critique).

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Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 08:46 · Score: 0

I've been involved with Blizzard since the early days when they weren't so popular despite being so young. Before WoW, before Warcraft 3. I'm sure there were many people who can go back further, but ever since Starcraft,
That's just lovely that is - I'm only 29 years old and in 2 sentences you make me feel like an old fart...
"...before Warcraft 3"?!
"... ever since Starcraft..."
Are you even old enough to drink yet?!
Re:Well Then by TemperedAlchemist · 2013-07-26 11:26 · Score: 1

Well I use the term modding because the line is pretty blurred at the level I worked with, I actively used modding tools, and mostly, for the understanding of a nonmapper audience :p
Re:Well Then by Gr8Apes · 2013-07-26 12:21 · Score: 1

It made me chuckle. Warcraft3? I largely stopped playing computer games before then. :)

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Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 21:12 · Score: 0

Well I have stayed current with the custom maps, and none of those 3rd person shooters went anywhere because of issues with the editor and the game engine.
Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 21:22 · Score: 0

I've been a fan since the lost vikings. People seem to forget all the issues the older blizzard games had, and how long they patched/maintained/fixed them... however, old blizard never really made any big changes to the games. They worked on them untill they where done, then put out maintainance patches forever to polish the hell out of it.
New blizzard rushes out products that aren't quite finished. They still patch and maintain them long term but are more willing to work on them incrementally and has discovered the joys of charging for each iteration as an expansion pack.
HoTS was fun, and IS a huge improvment over WoL which was also great, however HoTS could have been so much more. Once LoTV comes out, and has been polished up and patched a bunch, those who waited will have a decent game in the 'starcraft 2 battle chest'. To buy all three along the way, and get them when new will cost a lot more, but you will get to play the game as it evolves to the final state.
With this news tho.... who knows what that state will be. Judging from diablo 3 it doesn't look good though.
Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 21:29 · Score: 0

before battle.net I played with my buddy down the street by doing a direct house to house phone call with a brand new, state of the art 28800b modem, "mind boggling fast!!"
Re:Well Then by degeneratemonkey · 2013-07-27 03:02 · Score: 1

Hear hear! Blackthorne was when I fell in love with Blizzard. That and Rock n Roll Racing on the SNES.
Re:Well Then by Anonymous Coward · 2013-08-01 05:06 · Score: 0

I've been involved with Blizzard since
in the same way that I've "been involved with" multi-national corporations and high-tech global strategies (I eat fast food and buy consumer electronics).
your CV must be an amazing read with all the outside-box thinking and paradigm shifting huh.

Since when is Vivendi the villain? by crashcy · 2013-07-26 01:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

Call me when Blizzard breaks free of Kotick/Activision and actually starts making good games again.

Re:Since when is Vivendi the villain? by Hsien-Ko · 2013-07-26 01:14 · Score: 2

*cough*Sierra*cough*
Re:Since when is Vivendi the villain? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:04 · Score: 0

Since 2005, when they dropped support of the video game Tribes: Vengeance only 6 months after its release. Also, they blocked the release of a patch that had already been produced, which would have fixed many parts of the gameplay.
Oh yeah, and they held the license to the Tribes series for no reason for half a decade. Now someone competent has it and Tribes: Ascend is actually doing really well. Because the devs actually care about making a good game. Vivendi fails to realize that in order to make a lot of profit, you need good games.
That being said, I don't expect better from DeVry graduates.
Re:Since when is Vivendi the villain? by Nemyst · 2013-07-26 02:26 · Score: 1

Funny you say that. Hi-Rez has recently dropped support for Tribes: Ascend, barely a year after it came out, in order to focus on their newer games.
Re:Since when is Vivendi the villain? by crashcy · 2013-07-26 03:07 · Score: 1

Ok, suggesting Vivendi aren't villains was a mistake, but the headline beginning "Blizzard Breaks For Independence" gave me a brief moment of hope they were overthrowing the Evil Emperor Kotick. When Blizzard and Activision separate, then there will be cause for celebration.
Re:Since when is Vivendi the villain? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:23 · Score: 0

I loved Tribes, I was really depressed when Vivendi cut Sierra down. Regarding Devry grads, the ones I've met are the best electrical engineers I've known. Also, there aren't any Devrys in France, they're an American-only instituition.
Re:Since when is Vivendi the villain? by cb1780 · 2013-07-26 04:48 · Score: 1

Well Blizzard was acquired by Vivendi in 1998, which also happened to be the last year that Blizzard release an original IP. Coincidence? Maybe..

Blactivision? by idbeholda · 2013-07-26 01:05 · Score: 1

Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW1ZDIXiuS4

Haters gonna hate by smartr · 2013-07-26 01:08 · Score: 2

Yikes, what did Activision Blizzard ever do to the OP? In breaking from the mega-corporate-ownership chain going from something like GE-???-Vivendi-Activision, Activision is now its own independent megacorporation not owned by a debt ridden parent that was demanding massive dividends to support its drug addiction. http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/25/activision-buys-back-majority-stake-from-vivendi-for-5-83-billion/ This is good news... If all posts were this venomous, all PS3 / XBONE / WiiU posts would sound like an expletive filled angry drunk rant by a person with turrets syndrome.

Re:Haters gonna hate by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:44 · Score: 0

What is turrets syndrome, and can it be aquired by playing too many tower defense games?
Re:Haters gonna hate by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:56 · Score: 0

What is turrets syndrome, and can it be aquired by playing too many tower defense games?
No it's a side effect of playing Portal 1/2. Sufferers begin to experience strange feelings of empathy and positivity for the turrets even though they're actively trying to kill you, probably due to their adorable personalities. Extreme sufferers begin to exemplify Rule 34.
Re:Haters gonna hate by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:33 · Score: 0

Turrets syndrome is when smartr's acne zits sprout out of his forehead and start spraying pus at anyone who gets too close.
Re:Haters gonna hate by Rakarra · 2013-07-26 10:47 · Score: 1

This is good news... If all posts were this venomous, all PS3 / XBONE / WiiU posts would sound like an expletive filled angry drunk rant by a person with turrets syndrome
Oh, so you DO read online gaming websites. :-)

Do or die, Activision by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think that the move to buyout the company also has do with Vivendi trying to force Activision to issue a $3 Billion dividend. Vivendi is a majority owner of Activision. Vivendi will get $2 Billion out of the deal, and if it works well enough, may force additional dividends in the future until Activision is rung dry and some or all of Vivendi's enormous debt is paid down. The buyout is a matter of survival for Activision.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/22/vivendi-activision-idUSL6N0FS0OQ20130722

Iis this a trend by anchor_tag · 2013-07-26 01:23 · Score: 1

towards private companies that are not publicly traded? Also how much of the "rent seeking" actions of Blizzard in the last 8 or 10 years is due to them being public or owned by a larger firm?

Why we don't use "Blactivision"... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:35 · Score: 0

[...] Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?) [...]

Since CEO Bobby Kotick has made "comments regarding exploiting game franchises", perhaps people are worried about "Blactivisionsploitation".

Re:Why we don't use "Blactivision"... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:34 · Score: 0

I think you should be more worried about puppies turning into bombs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuHqUpleIfA

Good news.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:35 · Score: 1

This is good news, however may not end up being good.

Fact of the matter is, WOW started to go downhill after Activision bought Blizzard. Burning Crusades was an amazing expansion. Every expansion after BC has sucked because Activision\Vivendi screwed it up by fucking up the dev team that came out with BC.

Mists of Pandaria is such a failure it is sickening. Why? because the current dev leads are clueless.

Re:Good news.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:33 · Score: 0

Blizzard as a whole would be a greatly improved company if they'd invest in good technology and programming, ditch the vomit-inducing Warcraft 3 art style instead of exporting facets of it into franchises where it doesn't belong, and hire competent writers instead of having Metzen tell the same awful story over and over again.
They've sucked for a long time. I get that they command a lot of customer loyalty but it's hard to deny that hope was fading even before Burning Crusade. My expectations for Diablo 3 were extremely low given how the company started to operate after World of Warcraft debuted, and even then I was disappointed. Starcraft 2 is only okay, and hugely overpriced. When total nobodies working on a by-comparison shoestring budget can push out much better visuals and overall performance in Path of Exile than an established and massively profitable company like Blizzard can in Diablo 3, there's a serious problem. (Starcraft 2 isn't exempt either. Its visuals looked dated at launch while its performance left a lot to be desired. Duplo marines, assemble!) When those kinds of resources can only seem to produce poor technology that's a major indicator that the company is losing its competitive edge. Meanwhile the constant recycling of themes, stories, and visual styles is the creative equivalent of Blizzard crapping where it eats. This is made worse by the fact that they seem to be selectively recycling the worst of what they make.
I get a bit nostalgic when I see a company like this pass its prime, even if I was never really that attached. Blizzard is way over the hill and with Kotick at the wheel, Activision will be picking their bones soon enough.
Re:Good news.... by tnk1 · 2013-07-26 03:13 · Score: 1

The last expansion I played was BC, and it definitely had it's high points, but it also had it's low points, like the insane attunements to get into places like Tempest Keep, Hyjal and Black Temple. And worse than that, they nerfed all the requirements as they went along, so the ridiculous amount of work that I needed to get my guild through in order to even attempt the bosses all went to waste. Needless to say, I was less than pleased with that development. I can understand a barrier to entry to make hardcore guilds feel like they could do something better than everyone else, but the rewards were not there, and the actual challenges were actually more tedious and organizational than anything else.
There are people who I know who are still playing who indicate that the game has improved for the less "hardcore" player, and even hardcore players are benefiting from some of the changes. It is my perspective that WoW has evolved well, considering their audience, but has definitely started to fade out. Which is not all that surprising given how long it has been on top. I'm sort of waiting to see if MMOs themselves take a dive after WoW or if someone will come up with a new MMO that can pick up where WoW will eventually leave off.
Personally, I stopped playing MMOs as soon as my work responsibilities caused me to have not as much time to be anything more than casual, but I still love the idea of adventuring in a huge world, and I'd love some way to still be able to experience that without the usual MMO grind.

To me it's always been Actiblizzard by tepples · 2013-07-26 01:44 · Score: 2

I thought previous Slashdot comments had settled on "Actiblizzard" or "Actiblizz" for short. In any case, I won't use a nickname that brings ethnic tension into a discussion where it doesn't belong, especially considering the stereotypes already present in the Warcraft universe.

Re:To me it's always been Actiblizzard by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 07:46 · Score: 0

Actiblizzard is better because it's funnier. Blactivision is too much activison anyway. Bilzztivision would get around that but ... lame.
Ethnic tension? You mean some jacktarded loser had nothing to add to the discussion and so claimed offense and injected race as the reason.
Don't respond to offended people; don't feed the trolls.
Re:To me it's always been Actiblizzard by Your.Master · 2013-07-27 06:49 · Score: 1

Blactivision is troll-feed though.
Just search the comments in this thread. The trolls ate it up.
Fortunately, it's also not a good portmanteau. Although I think most portmanteaus of names are stupid.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by nucrash · 2013-07-26 01:58 · Score: 4, Interesting

Seconded. I was hoping Blizzard was going to dump Activision and go back to developing new IP instead of rehashing the same 3 ideas over and over again.

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Place something witty here

Activision's fault or Blizzard's own? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 01:59 · Score: 0

A lot act like Blizzard was all good and then Activision came and corrupted it.
And that they are old time Blizzard gamers/modders/whatevers from the old age before the corruption came, and they know, if Blizzard is independent again, they will rise again.

Well, the world did not start on your birth date you know. Before then there was a time when Activision was a lot of good, a time when old timers (as in, older than you) played Pitfall and H.E.R.O and you name it from that great company.

Face it, maybe the decline you people feel Blizzard is showing comes from the inside, just like it did with Activision in earlier times. I do not see Blizzard going back to the good old times. As usual, someone new will rise and take the spotlight (and maybe they have already started).

Re:Activision's fault or Blizzard's own? by tnk1 · 2013-07-26 03:22 · Score: 1

Blizz could turn it around, but you are right, they've accumulated corporate garbage in their structure and that is like the stuff that accumulates in the brain when someone develops Alzheimer's. It's hard to get rid of, and even if you still have the same abilities at the outset, it is eventually going to destroy you despite being a genius.
Best thing that could happen is that their creative team hooks up with a leaner business team and drops out of Blizzard. One should keep an eye on the people and the structure, and less on a name. Blizzard as a brand is just that, a name. With effort, they could get back the same creativity they had before, but then some of the top creative people would have to stop collecting their fat paychecks as big company execs and get back to making games.
Re:Activision's fault or Blizzard's own? by Endo13 · 2013-07-26 03:50 · Score: 1

Best thing that could happen is that their creative team hooks up with a leaner business team and drops out of Blizzard.
That's already happened, and not just once.
That's why Blizzard has done nothing but go downhill the last decade, why they haven't released anything actually new, and why even their rehashes range from not that good to utter shite.
The first time it happened was while WoW was still in development. Yes, even as good as it was, WoW could have been better. That first time around, the people who left started ArenaNet. And despite having significantly less development time, the first Guild Wars was more polished than WoW ever was. Not sure where the rest of the top devs they lost have gone.

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Re:Activision's fault or Blizzard's own? by yuhong · 2013-07-26 12:31 · Score: 1

Looks like Activision was almost bankrupt back in 1990:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/business/bobby-kotick-of-activision-drawing-praise-and-wrath.html
Re:Activision's fault or Blizzard's own? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 22:06 · Score: 0

Some of the Diablo guys went off and made torchlight.

with wow on the decline by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:02 · Score: 0

as is other sub-based games...

now is surely a great time to overpay for the company... ?!?!

casual games are in.. the pc-based mmo's are a dying breed.. they will continue to exist but not near the scale they once did.

be very smart for the parent company to sell it now... ;p but are they smart enough to do it?

Re:with wow on the decline by Zephyn · 2013-07-26 02:40 · Score: 1

Down to 7.7 million at the end of the second quarter according to Eurogamer this morning.
Re:with wow on the decline by Endo13 · 2013-07-26 03:58 · Score: 1

Wow. They're losing subs even faster than I thought they would.

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Does Icahn know about the buyout? by asticia · 2013-07-26 02:06 · Score: 1

Does Icahn know about the buyout already?

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There is no light without darkness.

Analogy by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:13 · Score: 0

Since this wasn't Blizzard breaking free of their bonds like I originally thought, there was an analogy I was looking for here.

I consider this similar to when a Sith Apprentice has to kill his Master in order to become one himself. There's no real good here.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:24 · Score: 0

They've been doing that since well before the Activision merger.

And [not] free it from the clutches of Vivendi by kiehlster · 2013-07-26 02:30 · Score: 3, Informative

Apparently we're getting the TL;DR of the TL;DR. The real truth is this:

Following the close of these two transactions, Vivendi will retain about 12% of Activision Blizzard and will no longer be the majority shareholder. [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/07/26/activision-buys-majority-vivendi-stock/2588675/]

This is only a partial buy-out. While they would lose the majority reign over A/B, they'd still have a 12% say in everything they do.

Re:And [not] free it from the clutches of Vivendi by medv4380 · 2013-07-26 04:01 · Score: 2

The alternative was Vivendi using it's leverage to change the board to force Activision to take out a Mega Loan and pay out a huge dividend. 8.2 Billion is also close to the 8.5 billion that the Mega Loan would have given share holders, which would have given Vivendi about 5 billion. This gives Vivendi most of the money, and gets rid of most of it's stock in the company that now has a lot more debt since they only have about half that as Cash on Hand(4.6B). I'm curious with what they are going to do to get the 8.2 billion, but I don't want to wade through the financial lingo to find out.
Re:And [not] free it from the clutches of Vivendi by barc0001 · 2013-07-26 04:50 · Score: 1

There's 1.12 billion shares of Activision. These two deals alone acquire control of 601 million of them, or 53.6% of all outstanding shares. If I have 53% control of a company, you know how much leverage your 12% gives you? Absolutely none.
Re:And [not] free it from the clutches of Vivendi by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 08:47 · Score: 0

Three words for you:
Minority Shareholder Lawsuit.

If Barrack Obama ran a game company... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:31 · Score: 0

If Barrack Obama ran a game company... It would be called "Blactivision".

If Al Sharpton ran a game company... it would be called "Blactivisionsploitation".

Re:There is fun in making Video Games? by sunderland56 · 2013-07-26 02:40 · Score: 1

Working in development/management/sales/etc, yeah.

But working in QA for a video game is a *lot* more interesting than working in QA for Microsoft Word, for instance.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Calydor · 2013-07-26 02:40 · Score: 5, Funny

What Diablo III? There were only two games released in that series, though I really wish they'd make a third sometime.

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Three billion dollars cash on hand by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:49 · Score: 0

If that isn't a sign of the "greatest recession of all time" I don't know what is. A video game company with three billion dollars of cash on hand has got to be the best joke I've heard all day.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Apharmd · 2013-07-26 03:07 · Score: 0

Friend, I think you are lost. You probably want this site.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by binarylarry · 2013-07-26 03:09 · Score: 1

Someone should create a petition for Blizzard to make Diablo 3.

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Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:13 · Score: 0

It is called torchlight 2.
Made by the exact same devs that made diablo 1 and 2 before leaving actibliz.

I will never forgive them for what they have done by jonwil · 2013-07-26 03:20 · Score: 1, Insightful

This is the same mob who killed Sierra. And they nearly killed Ghostbusters: The Video Game. And not forgetting the bnetd lawsuits.

I refuse to purchase any of their product (not that it matters, all the games they make are crap anyway)

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:32 · Score: 0

Diablo3 is actually a really fun game for the first 500 hours. It gets tedious, but that's the point of a treasure grinding game.

Or are you still butthurt over the initial user experience the first month after launch last year? Shit takes time to get figured out and some things, like server capacity, can only be figured out after launch. For most people Diablo3 only sucked because someone told them it sucked. And that person that told them it sucked? He got his opinion the same way. Everyone that bitched about Diablo3 did so only because they didn't understand what they bought.

Diablo3 is not a game that you will want to play forever, it is maybe a 30 hour game from start to finish and a complete grind fest after that, exactly the same as Diablo2. If you get bored of repetition then the game sucks pretty quick, but no more so than Diablo2. After grinding a few hundred hours, in my case over 700, the game gets old and genuinely better games like Skyrim, Fallout, or Starcraft2 reclaim their appeal.

Continuing to hate Diablo3 because the first month sucked and a bunch of bloggers called it crap is about the most pathetic excuse to avoid a game that I've ever heard. Go play it some time, it's actually a lot of fun if you give it a chance instead of prejudicially taking the word of others.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Laxori666 · 2013-07-26 03:42 · Score: 1

Diablo 2 had much more replay value. On multiple occasions over the years I've gotten together with a friend or two to replay D2 just for the heck of it. I have absolutely zero motivation to do anything of the sort whatsoever for Diablo 3. Why is that?

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:49 · Score: 0

No, it's called Path of Exile

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:52 · Score: 0

Why is that?

Probably because you played Diablo 2 with your friends when you were younger and so it has attained a "glory days" style nostalgia in your mind whereas Diablo 3 dug out a very "real world" type disillusioned feeling. It most likely is a much less rational set of reasons than you want it to be.

Video Games Quote by Cutting_Crew · 2013-07-26 03:58 · Score: 1

"The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games"

Why would you want to take the fun out of making video games? Did he not get the memo that happy employees means better products, better team spirit, better morale in the office etc etc etc ?

Re:Video Games Quote by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 05:30 · Score: 0

Some people think work has to suck or it's not work.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by poetmatt · 2013-07-26 04:01 · Score: 1

500 hours?

It's fun until Inferno. Then it gets pain in the ass ridiculous. I'm saying this as someone who got a DH into act 4 inferno. That's when it becomes a deliberate grind and has no association with the fun of games like Diablo. The game is positively and entirely crap after that. it makes you realize how much the game is just "level up = win" even if the levels in inferno roughly translate to gear. Even D2 wasn't like that. There are fairly valid reasons for people to hate D3, and most of it is because it was designed with the intention of making it into a WOW-style grind, which is completely unacceptable. They have literally killed the franchise by having done this.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 04:09 · Score: 0

For me, it's because I didn't need to ask Blizzard for permission to play Diablo 2.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by iroll · 2013-07-26 04:53 · Score: 1

What?! When was that? The mid 90s? And even their signature franchises (warcraft, diablo) are pretty derivative in their origins... it took several iterations of rehashing to make them more original!

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Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 05:06 · Score: 0

It is called torchlight 2. Made by the exact same devs that made diablo 1 and 2 before leaving actibliz.

No. When Blizzard North imploded some of the key members of the team accepted invitations to join Blizzard down south.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by KingMotley · 2013-07-26 05:35 · Score: 1

I found the exact opposite. I found diablo 3 to be the best only when you finally hit inferno. Granted, I played before they added the power levels, so it was constantly stuck on power level 4, and found the game to actually be fairly challenging. I finished inferno just before they added the power levels and I wouldn't change a thing, but there are a lot of really bad players in the game that simply don't know what they are doing, and I got tired of carrying them everywhere.

When they added the power levels (and alternate levels), I quickly got bored with it. Power level 10 was doable solo, but it just took too long to kill stuff, but I'm sure with the new gear that drops and the spawnable bosses it got a lot easier. The only whining I ever heard was either directly (or indirectly) by players who didn't know how to play, didn't want to learn, and it was just too hard. I can't count the number of times that someone would say ... is impossible to complete, and not only would I take them through it, but I would bring them and 2 other worthless players with me, they would die in 10 seconds, and I'd have to complete it solo with mobs (and bosses) designed for 4 players.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 05:39 · Score: 0

What Diablo III? There were only two games released in that series, though I really wish they'd make a third sometime.

They did, it's called "torchlight 2" and available on steam.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 06:18 · Score: 0

Easiest way to solve server capacity for a single player game? Don't force the game to require a server for no reason at all.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by spire3661 · 2013-07-26 06:40 · Score: 1

Dude, the ENTIRE game was balanced around the RMAH. Thats not gameplay, thats a slot machine.

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Good-bye

I prefer calling them by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 07:36 · Score: 0

Blizactard

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 08:03 · Score: 0

They did, it was the expansion for the second one.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Rakarra · 2013-07-26 10:03 · Score: 1

The notion that griping about Diablo 3 is all due to the first week's disaster is truly myopic. I soldiered through that, as stupid as the whole Blizzard-caused situation was, and had a fine time for awhile in the game. It has its good points, but it also has its truly negative points.

On the plus side? I love the skill system, and combat in general is quite fun. The health orb system is kindof goofy, but I got used to it. The skills are generally well-thought-out.

On the negative side? The item system sucks. The items are uninspired and uninteresting, and for an item hunt game, that's a real killer. At higher levels you find the difficulty has been tuned so you need high-quality items from the auction house. Forget finding them yourself, you'll spend hours and hours grinding on the earlier stages trying to find gear to survive on later stages when a quick trip to the auction house is what you need. So instead you'll just grind for gold to spend on the AC and that's a far less interesting and rewarding way of getting items than most games have. The auction house hurt and seriously damaged the Diablo 3 endgame, and it's not just bitter bloggers saying that, that's an admission from the Diablo 3 lead developers themselves. It was an experiment that ultimately didn't pan out. It is, however, a response to combat a very real problem from Diablo 2 -- the black market.

I'd contrast the item system to D2's more-available sets and uniques (the real strength of the game) and crafted items. Items with character, not just "yet another blue/yellow item with randomly-generated stats that perfectly match the stats I need." Hunting for items was fun in Diablo2. In Diablo 3 you end up just selling most things for gold so you can afford the prices on the auction house.

D2's primitive quest system wasn't exactly great, but Diablo 3 goes overboard with its story-driven quest interface. It's too WoW-like, and I speak as someone who still spends most of his gaming time in World of Warcraft.

The skill system is fun, but having quick, easy respecs lets you try out everything about a class on one character. What need have I to create a second monk when I can do everything with my first monk? I'd contrast that to rolling new characters in Diablo 2 to try all the various different builds people managed to make work, but in D2 I did get really sick of seeing Act 1 Normal so much. I used a trainer program to get my new single-player characters to level 20 or so quickly so the real game can begin, but shit, you can't do that in D3 thanks to its ridonculous online-only requirement. So you have to play the lower levels on normal whenever you make a new character, but the designers killed the replay value anyway, so I guess that doesn't matter as much.

Diablo 3 has a lot of good stuff in it, so it's frustrating when some of the truly major flaws just make the game not-that-interesting. I'm hoping that these issues (especially the item problems) can be addressed in the expansion. Diablo2 went through a lot of changes in the 8+ years that Blizzard was actively retuning and fixing it, maybe Diablo3 will get the same.

Who is Vivendi? by manu0601 · 2013-07-26 14:39 · Score: 1

For whoever is interested in what kind of company Vivendi is: they started with water distribution monopoly in many France cities. That is a good cash cow, as if you cut expenses on water distribution infrastructure maintenance, it is not obvious before many years. And of course your customers have no choice and will accept your price.

All that money had to be invested somewhere, this is why Vivendi started purchasing many media companies, in France and abroad. Universal was one major Vinvendi acquisition.

Now time are changing, and a lot of french cities go back to water handled as a public service by public servants. Most of the time it is quite effective at cutting costs.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by hobarrera · 2013-07-26 18:26 · Score: 1

Diablo3 is actually a really fun game for the first 500 hours. It gets tedious, but that's the point of a treasure grinding game.

Or are you still butthurt over the initial user experience the first month after launch last year? Shit takes time to get figured out and some things, like server capacity, can only be figured out after launch.

There would have been no need to figure out lots of that stuf it they hadn't stuff D3 with that crappy DRM.

For most people Diablo3 only sucked because someone told them it sucked. And that person that told them it sucked? He got his opinion the same way. Everyone that bitched about Diablo3 did so only because they didn't understand what they bought.

Diablo3 is not a game that you will want to play forever, it is maybe a 30 hour game from start to finish and a complete grind fest after that, exactly the same as Diablo2. If you get bored of repetition then the game sucks pretty quick, but no more so than Diablo2. After grinding a few hundred hours, in my case over 700, the game gets old and genuinely better games like Skyrim, Fallout, or Starcraft2 reclaim their appeal.

Continuing to hate Diablo3 because the first month sucked and a bunch of bloggers called it crap is about the most pathetic excuse to avoid a game that I've ever heard. Go play it some time, it's actually a lot of fun if you give it a chance instead of prejudicially taking the word of others.

Diablo 3 is a "click to level up" game, no challenge or anything alike. The only difficult part is getting the really hard-to-get items, which is really a matter of time, unlike D2, where you actually had to know what you were doing.

Also, I can't LAN D3.

Bite me Kotick by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 06:18 · Score: 0

Kotick has to be the most evil man in gaming today. If he's not number 1, he's in the top 3. This man needs to learn how to say "May I help you please" and flip hamburgers. He has no business in ANY area of the gaming business. I don't think he should even be allowed to work at Gamestop as counter help. Other than that, have a nice day. :)

Sorry my computer logged me out, I'm not anonymous by Nov8tr · 2013-07-27 06:19 · Score: 0

Kotick has to be the most evil man in gaming today. If he's not number 1, he's in the top 3. This man needs to learn how to say "May I help you please" and flip hamburgers. He has no business in ANY area of the gaming business. I don't think he should even be allowed to work at Gamestop as counter help. Other than that, have a nice day. :)

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Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Meski · 2013-07-28 00:27 · Score: 1

It was fun to play a few times, but the technique used to increase the difficulty levels didn't appeal much to me (add an extra 'feature' to the monsters per level) The 'one life' difficulty level idea struck me as interesting though. Occurs to me I probably left some dollar credits in that game, should try and sell em.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-28 22:53 · Score: 0

You mean torchlight II?

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by dywolf · 2013-07-29 02:43 · Score: 1

D2 had replayability because it wasnt the same game every single time. the maps and onsters were randomly generated every single game, which believe it or not does a LOT to the replayability of the game.

the only random thing in D3 is items, and that's irrelevent because most of it stays on the ground anyway.

what is the point in "unidentified" items when there is no identification mechanic, or rather its been so reduced that you just right click to open you useless vendor trash? its like they included it just to have it.

in fact the entire game is extremely dumbed down and streamlined. no skill customizing or choosing. in D2, 1 point per level, spend it how you wish, and oh by the way, different skills interact in different ways. want a melee sorceress? you can do that. want a minion druid? you can do that. want a bow barbarian? you can do that.

in D3, you get predefined spells at certain points. the "customization" from runes is a lie. the spells are all generic clones of each other, and they largely break down into 4 categories: Direct Damage, DOT, AE, and CC. the customization is really just two things: what you want a spell to look like (graphical effect) and what button you want it on (1, 2, 3, or 4).

And that's jsut the game play side of things. the RMAH i could care less about, it takes far tol long a time investment (grind wise) to get anything remotely decent and worth selling (its a lottery basically), and you have to remember there are others who will spend far more time than you doing it, and, as is always the way with virtual items with no physical value or limt and infinite availibility, more than willing to undercut you however much is needed to make a "sale".

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

Re:The Achievement of the Glorious Gamer in Splend by dywolf · 2013-07-29 02:44 · Score: 1

Its because new game in D2 = new maps/monsters.
In D3 new game = kill the same monsters after turning the same corners. no thought, no exploration. just beeline to the exit switch.

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

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