<insert kneejerk negative reaction because the topic says Deus Ex or Fallout>

BobBob wrote on May 1, 2010, 05:11:
Or they got offered more money.

Well this whole thing is over Activision not paying them, so I'd say they offered them more than $0.

"Nothing" is not a valid amount and "never" is not a valid schedule.

If Cataclysm were to come out at the end of spring or early summer I could see that, but its sounding like fall or winter is more likely and that's a long time without any new content.

Keep in mind they'll surely be doing events as buildup for the release. That would keep people busy and not require the amount of fine tuning of a dungeon.

I think it is Blizzards responsibility to provide exciting and fresh content for all of their players.

I think I should have a Mercedes, but that doesn't mean it's the best use of my money. No matter what they come out with, people will still finish it quickly, and it's a far better investment for them to be finishing Cataclysm sooner, as it will last all players longer than a single raid.

Would it be so hard for Blizzard to devote a special team to focus for content for hardcore gamers?

That's what the entire raid design team is.

I don't get why people are shocked that they're redoing the old world. They haven't said "no" to that proposition since before any expansions were released, and the old world was solely what was populated. Then after two expansions the old world has been abandoned completely, which everyone complains about to the point of wanting them to shave off the first 55 levels.

There are literally over half a dozen unimplemented zones on the map and even after Cataclysm's release there are multiple unused instance gates. Saying that they would never using the old world again is just naive. They've even been hinting at using Gilneas for months. If you didn't see this coming from a mile away you weren't paying attention.

Basically, the meat of the expansion is 5 levels, a new proffesion, and rated battlegrounds.

The meat of the expansion is really that they're redoing the levelling system in the old world. They aren't just editing the map, they're doing new quests in every zone, even the ones they don't significantly alter. That's likely the bulk of the work. One of the things they really pushed was that the levelling process among the zones will be more fluid, you won't be scrounging around the continents looking for quests. They've also said they're going to make use of the phasing technology everyone praised in Northrend levelling. This is honestly the major thing that interests me, along with Goblins and the Warlock changes.

All three of those have been in-game since release. They obviously had it planned out to be implemented in the future, so why did they blatantly lie to us about revisiting the old world?

It's pretty silly to have never believed that they would never implement Grim Batol or Uldum. Especially when they revealed Grim Batol as the new home of Deathwing in one of their newest book releases.

This comment was edited on Aug 25, 2009, 07:04.

i suppose my biggest problem with this concept is the obvious idea that it is about "maximizing profits" at the direct expense of the games.. i.e. "well we could make a really deep game with an epic story, or we can split it up into 3 games and make 3x the money!"

Mass Effect was a shallow game to you?

But please, tell us again how nothing will change just because EA paid 600 million dollars for you.

Change how?

Make no mistake. This marks the end of Bioware as we know it.

How?

You can please some of the people some of the time, but you will never please all of the people all of the time. That, in a nutshell, sums up WOW... and most of your comments.

Pretty much. There isn't a single thing they could focus on or give that people won't bitch about them not giving something else or focusing on their personal pet part of the game. Not to mention those people who simply don't want to share their toys, or the people who bitch about how simple content is that they don't even use.

Are you for real with this post?

Yes, the amount of stuff you are asking for - multiple dungeons in content patches every 1-2 months - is impossible to do without breaking the game to unplayability. You can't just throw money at things and they magically appear.

Polish does not equal content though

You're welcome to all of the multitude of MMO's out there with a ton of stuff to do that you can't actually do because they're unplayable from bugs.

No it isn't. Raiders don't ask for multi-day clears and painfully long raid nights. Raiders ask for challenge and content. As in when you clear one instance, there will be another to do.

You're contradicting yourself. How are you going to get a challenge without multi-day clears and painfully long raid nights? How are you going to get content fast enough when you will blaze through it? How in the world would they discern between "time spent" and "skill"? Your ideas of the "perfect raids" don't make any sense.

You want a challenge that takes very little time, shuts out casual players, and another dungeon the minute you're done with it. That makes no sense.

@ Verno
-None of hard modes were in Naxx.
-Blizzard in no way would be able to hire a massive load more developers on a game that is several years old and still turn a profit. No one would. No one does. No one accomplishes anything near what they have done even with relative resources. Even all the large development teams who have worked on MMO's have not come close to how polished WoW is.
-If people are complaining because it's a generic fantasy MMO, they shouldn't be playing something that markets itself as a generic fantasy MMO, maybe?

@Endo
-Yes, all it does is require more time. And guess what: that's what raiders ask for. They want stuff that takes them more time to do. Whereas casuals want stuff that takes them less time to do. And Blizzard has no reason whatsoever to make fully different dungeons for each of the two groups. It's a waste of time and resources.
-There is no reason for a developer to develop content that people cannot access, simply for the sake of them not accessing it. That's just dumb.

The complaints about casuals being able to access content can be summed up as "I don't want to share my toys".

This comment was edited on May 20, 2009, 17:47.

I don't see how people can complain about hard modes. It is literally the only way to make dungeons difficult enough for the hardcore players without shutting out millions of players from story content.

Think of a game with no daily grinding, but "finishing" the game was shut off to you unless you could find two dozen people to sit and bang your heads against content several nights a week. What is the point of that? The only point I can see is that a few people get to feel better than other people in a video game. Why would Blizzard have a vested interest in spending the vast majority of their work time and money on those people? Their money doesn't spend any better than anyone else's. They've proven they aren't even any more loyal than other customers.


Most of what people complain about, the only solutions they would be happy with, no game company on earth has enough money to create and still turn a profit. Lots of armor at every single level with different textures and models? A dozen different levels of raids, all of them different from one another? Patches packed with content every single month? Zones the size of continents?

You'll use that armor for two levels then pitch it, or complain it doesn't match. You'll complain that it takes too long to make content patches or complain that they aren't varied enough. You'll complain that a dungeon is too easy or too hard or too equal to your level.

Who are we kidding here? Most people who complain are just burnt out on the game after playing it for years. It loses its shine. There's nothing more to do because they've created years of stuff that you've already done because you've spent years playing it.

This comment was edited on May 20, 2009, 14:11.

I don't remember reading in the TOS anyplace that if someone at Blizzard fucks up and gives you an item godlike powers in the game that you can be banned for using it.

Using exploits are a violation of part 2 of the ToS, which mentions "exploits".

You'd have to be pretty stupid to believe that using a god-mode item isn't an exploit.

Actually, they're a good news source.

They're only a good source if you want the view of Middle Easterners, or news from the Middle East that isn't covered by western media. You're kidding yourself if you think that they are a "good" source for news that could otherwise be obtained from the AP.

someone has to show what a shitty fuck up the whole thing has been.

American journalists seem to be doing quite a good job of that without any help.

For anyone who doesn't want to read the whole thread, a timeline.

It pretty much goes the same for any Blues News thread.

"All the whining that's fit to bitch!"

I think Ion Storm / Harvey killed the license, with the rather lacklustre Invisible War, which sold VERY poorly.

It's a shame, I think Warren had plans for at least two more games in the Deus Ex universe

To tell you the truth, I think a lot of misconceptions killed the Deus Ex universe. I still believe that Deus Ex was a beautiful mistake, in which its unintentional design spawned a fanbase willing to push the limit, and reveal the true potential of a game design theory in which you do not limit the player.

I personally feel about Specter and Harvey the same way I feel about Tim Cain, and many other designers. They have the passion, they have the concept that pushes the limits, but the implementation always ends up with many shortcomings. They are the kind of people that open the windows, not design the house that stands against a hurricane. With the current crowding of the games market, we're becoming much more critical as consumers, and those shortcomings are highlighted.
There was nothing wrong with the initial idea of DX:IW, it was the implementation that restricted it. Like attempting to focus a light and the focus dulling the color.

I'm sorry, but you could throw a tomato at a wall and it would spell out a better story than Doom. There is no possible way that the story for this movie could be anything but better than the game's.
Doom became popular because it was violent, not because it had a rich plot.


This comment was edited on Dec 14, 16:30.

This would be the game written by Garth Ennis, folks.

CD CHECKING IS PUT IN BY THE PUBLISHER, NOT THE DEVELOPER.

Valve has nothing at all to do with the CD check on the retail version. At all. Nor is Valve allowed to intentionally subvert it without Vivendi's consent.