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Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

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Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#111

Post by patates »

Gud wrote: post #77
llmthrow102 wrote: post #14

They've also now launched the Warcraft 3 "remaster" twice, and it's still in a worse state than it was 20 years ago. First they did less than half the job, cut budget, and launched missing major features from the original project, with only some terrible new models to show that look decent up close, but bad from the overhead RTS view. Then they did a relaunch where they did lazy AI upscaling of old models and icons t…

Frankly, as an avid AoE 2(now DE) player, I wish they hadn’t. AoE2 is slowly losing its uniqueness with each update. The new matchmaking sucks, can no longer select which map to play on ranked, pathing is broken in new ways. Don’t get me wrong, the new civilisations are nice, just kind of hoped they wouldn’t have done a total revamp.

It feels like the movement in the community is also slowing down. One of the most popular streamers T90 for example, has had less and less views through the last years, a reversal of a long trend upwards.

They also added easier ways to do things which were giving competitive edge to the players who could efficiently do them the hard-way, perhaps reducing the motivation to train further for the top players (why train to do hard tricks if they could be automated by the game later).

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#112

Post by 0dayz »

Etherlord87 wrote: post #104
0dayz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, it started waaay before that. * The sexual misconduct most likely happened way before it came out publicly as all the sleezebags stayed until it was public * real id debacle * Diablo 3 * shutting down blizzard north, despite working on d3 * spending 10 years on trying to make starcraft 2, when the rts genre was in a major slump * x years on the project titan, only to get cancelled * spent years trying to create…

Starcraft 2 murdered RTS genre, it was and is so good, that nothing comes close. I have no idea why you put it on the list. Activision Blizzard was 2008. Shutting Blizzard North was 2005. So indeed it seems it was rotting before official Vivaldi-Activision merger. I think, just like with Starcraft, you misread the situation with "hype of the genre was gone" about moba. I think Blizzard was very good at creating extre…

The problem was the timing, Starcraft 2 mechanics wise is fine even if they made some really whimsical balance changes that plagued the esport scene until it was almost pulled off life support (similar to how Overwatch couldn't balance itself to the point where the developers gave up).

If like HotS and Diablo 3 it came out much earlier it would've kept the RTS genre most likely alive (only revived interest in AoE 2 started to get the ball rolling for RTS again).

Not only that but Blizzard had since WC3 tried to create their own MOBA and stalled time and time again, they announced Blizzard All-star while announcing SC2, only for HotS to be announce after Dota 2 had left beta & LoL was already moving away from static MOBA design to the more "skill based" design they currently got.

Especially if the rumor that icefrog (last dev of Dota) approached Blizzard and Blizzard said no, it's the most obvious act of stupidity Blizzard did.

By the time HotS was out it was dead in the water because it had no competing feature setting it apart from the competition:

* if you wanted micromanaged static MOBA: Dota 2

* If you wanted a 3rd person shooter MOBA: Smite

* If you wanted a "skill based" dynamic and more casual MOBA: LoL

HotS tried to mimic LoL which meant an already watered down MOBA being further watered down.

Hearthstone is a good example of how Blizzard's games could have looked have they timed their releases better and stopped with "fold it 3000 times", since you can only do this if the game's budget is a typical 90s game budget or you've got alternative income sources & isn't publicly owned i.e. Valve.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#113

Post by 0dayz »

Fokamul wrote: post #96
0dayz wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, it started waaay before that. * The sexual misconduct most likely happened way before it came out publicly as all the sleezebags stayed until it was public * real id debacle * Diablo 3 * shutting down blizzard north, despite working on d3 * spending 10 years on trying to make starcraft 2, when the rts genre was in a major slump * x years on the project titan, only to get cancelled * spent years trying to create…

* Releasing Diablo II Resurrected and striping multiplayer option to host own server, because some modder, made a patch to play with old D2 Lod version on modded server in Alpha version. Years later they patched stripped multiplayer back and now modders are working on D2R multiplayer modded servers, Blizzard people are so smart...

To be fair this list is only mostly during or at the time when Blizzard was still semi-independent i.e. not merged with Activision yet.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#114

Post by patates »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #56
cocacola1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But shortly after release, Chinese players found a poster hanging in the apartment that serves as the games’ setting that said “Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron”. > Almost 10,000 negative reviews soon flooded the game’s review page. The developer, Red Candle Games, posted an apology saying it was “purely an accident” that the poster was left in the game. 10,000 negative reviews is wild for something so banal. I can…

> 10,000 negative reviews is wild for something so banal. I can't imagine defending a politician over what might be the mildest insult ever conceived. Imagine the poster unironically showed Trump dressed up to resemble Abraham Lincoln, and praised him as the great leader of USA. Or some such. Imagine what would happen in the reviews then.

I strongly dislike Trump (let's keep it at that), but that is a good point. If I had discovered something like this in a game, I'd probably uninstall, perhaps mention that in my review if I have other things to say and move on. Many people would obviously do differently.

However, if someone discovered something like this in a game that I own and called everyone to add bad reviews and others have been at work bashing the product... I'd probably say "meh" and not do anything.

I find a line between these and while it's clear for me, I cannot put into words exactly why. Am I counting on the actions of others? Not sure.

Now we have an ecosystem of very political communities online that expand into social media, games, news and even travel, and they are getting bigger. Would harsh reactions make everything better or worse? I don't know the answer but I follow my gut feeling and just ignore them.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#115

Post by vanderZwan »

yreg wrote: post #86
bilekas wrote: post #52

Blizzard seem to be burning a lot of bridges and goodwill they've built up over the years. It's incredible what GoG is trying to do, for a profit of course but all the same. The idea of not being able to purchase older titles in a legitimate way only encourages piracy, yet if it will squeeze an extra few pennies out for shareholders, it seems like the right move. The games industry really seems to be turning into the…

How does pulling old games from stores squeeze an extra few pennies out?

If Blizzard gets a percentage of Warcraft I and II sales on GoG, then inducing last minute panic buys on GoG could be beneficial to them

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#116

Post by slfnflctd »

wongarsu wrote: post #97
donatj wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget their handling of Overwatch. Overwatch launched, for pay, I believe at $39.99 USD. It was very fun very micro-transactions are optional and purely cosmetic game. I bought it day one. Then they saw the success of PUBG and Fortnite's season passes and decided "we want some of that" and launched Overwatch 2 going so far as locking entire characters behind micro-transactions. The day they launched Overwatch…

Don't forget they nearly killed Overwatch by barely supporting Overwatch 1 while they worked on Overwatch 2. But when they finally released Overwatch 2 there were barely any changes from Overwatch 1, except for the season pass system and a switch from 6v6 to 5v5. Apparently most of the development time was spent on single-player content that was first delayed and then cut entirely

I was really looking forward to the single-player/PvE content. The gamers in my household are all fairly low skill (myself included), and one of our favorite original Overwatch events was Junkenstein's Revenge-- more of that kind of thing was huge on our anticipation list.

When they not only killed the original Overwatch but also suddenly decided to abandon the PvE component, it was a double whammy which resulted in us instantly abandoning what had been a regular staple of our gaming time. We moved on to other things such as Deep Rock Galactic and haven't looked back.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#117

Post by SmallDeadGuy »

yreg wrote: post #86
bilekas wrote: post #52

Blizzard seem to be burning a lot of bridges and goodwill they've built up over the years. It's incredible what GoG is trying to do, for a profit of course but all the same. The idea of not being able to purchase older titles in a legitimate way only encourages piracy, yet if it will squeeze an extra few pennies out for shareholders, it seems like the right move. The games industry really seems to be turning into the…

How does pulling old games from stores squeeze an extra few pennies out?

They've released a Warcraft Battle Chest which includes remasters of those games at three times the price (but also includes Warcraft 3), hoping to capture those old game sales into a more expensive offering. Awful for consumers to not just have both options, but shareholders > consumers for public companies unfortunately.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#118

Post by ben_w »

thayne wrote: post #58
cocacola1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But shortly after release, Chinese players found a poster hanging in the apartment that serves as the games’ setting that said “Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron”. > Almost 10,000 negative reviews soon flooded the game’s review page. The developer, Red Candle Games, posted an apology saying it was “purely an accident” that the poster was left in the game. 10,000 negative reviews is wild for something so banal. I can…

I'm doubtful most of those reviews were real.

Only my belief that the Chinese government does propaganda would make me doubt any of it.

One thousand British people downvoting something that mocks, say, Boris Johnson seems very plausible, even those Johnson is unpopular and the UK population is less than a tenth the size of China.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#119

Post by TeMPOraL »

patates wrote: post #114
TeMPOraL wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 10,000 negative reviews is wild for something so banal. I can't imagine defending a politician over what might be the mildest insult ever conceived. Imagine the poster unironically showed Trump dressed up to resemble Abraham Lincoln, and praised him as the great leader of USA. Or some such. Imagine what would happen in the reviews then.

I strongly dislike Trump (let's keep it at that), but that is a good point. If I had discovered something like this in a game, I'd probably uninstall, perhaps mention that in my review if I have other things to say and move on. Many people would obviously do differently. However, if someone discovered something like this in a game that I own and called everyone to add bad reviews and others have been at work bashing…

FWIW, the point I'm making isn't that this is reasonable behavior. Only that it's to be expected.

Myself, if I saw a game insulting something or someone I'm emotionally attached to, I'd probably roll my eyes and continue or uninstall, depending on how my mood is ruined. I might think less of whoever put the insult there (or allowed it to stay), too. But many, many others would, unfortunately, voice their disdain more directly.

I picked Trump as an example because, whatever you think about him, it should be easy for us in the West to imagine people going overboard in defending/dissing him too, because that has been, and is, repeatedly happening in plain sight for many years now. In this sense, it's the same reaction as 'cocacola1 is failing to understand.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#120

Post by valenceelectron »

llmthrow102 wrote: post #14

They've also now launched the Warcraft 3 "remaster" twice, and it's still in a worse state than it was 20 years ago. First they did less than half the job, cut budget, and launched missing major features from the original project, with only some terrible new models to show that look decent up close, but bad from the overhead RTS view. Then they did a relaunch where they did lazy AI upscaling of old models and icons t…

They added insult to injury to the 2.0 upgrade by releasing promo material (supposedly screenshots) [0] that looked exactly like what fans wanted from them. Turned out, those were fake and they quickly removed most of them and what they actually did was a bad AI upscale instead.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/warcraft3/comments/1gr3win/how_to_m... They had images like that on their website but removed them later.

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