jdreyer wrote on Jul 4, 2014, 00:59:
They also lambasted Blizzard for their stupid always online and auction house. I still can't believe D3 sold 6m copies. Consumers can be such idiots sometimes.

Maybe because it's a good game? And when they removed the real money auction house and released the expansion, they proved that they can fix their games and listen to their audience. And most people of this online generation don't give a shit if a game is online. The kind of "everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot" attitude is childish and ignorant.

Bob wrote on Jul 4, 2014, 07:21:

Rob Pardo wrote:
The game industry is such an exciting place right now with PC gaming thriving, the new consoles, mobile games, and virtual reality becoming an actual reality. It’s like having an empty quest log and going into a new zone for the first time.

Maybe he is going to work for Oculus?

Some people don't want to work for Facebook!

talked to a friend of mine today who works at blizzard. there's more to this story than just him looking for greener pastures.

JAGUART wrote on Jul 3, 2014, 23:05:
I hope he receives some lovely parting gifts.

Being the lead designer of World of Warcraft, I doubt he needs anything.

Rob Pardo wrote:
The game industry is such an exciting place right now with PC gaming thriving, the new consoles, mobile games, and virtual reality becoming an actual reality. It’s like having an empty quest log and going into a new zone for the first time.

Maybe he is going to work for Oculus?

I wish him all the best. RIP Blizzard North.

@nin
9/11

That cracked me up.

jdreyer wrote on Jul 4, 2014, 00:57:
1. HGL was released in an incredibly buggy state. It should have been held.

HGL was a code desaster. They tried to do some agile software developement (which is nice when done right), but suffered from a horrendous lack of project oversight. Everyone worked on something, there was no scrum master coordinating all these small, individual goals. HGL suffered from feature creep, from lack of project oversight. There was nothing much to fix, only to bandaid the worst mistakes.

Some community patches for HGL are bandaiding very nicely, but like the big community patches for games like Gothic 3, they cannot make a better game, because the core game, the core mechanics were broken by design.

jdreyer wrote on Jul 4, 2014, 00:57:
2. They tried using a nickel-and-dime approach while also charging full price for the game. Even in the era we live in today, that's roundly railed against, but back then it was beyond the pale.

They were one of the first "lifetime subs" weren't they?

Ah, here we go...on Sept 11th, no less.

ShakaUVM wrote on Jul 3, 2014, 22:11:
"The Blizzard community is ultimately the reason why we come to work every day"

LOL. If this was true, they'd have all quit by now. The Blizzard community is a cesspit.

They also lambasted Blizzard for their stupid always online and auction house. I still can't believe D3 sold 6m copies. Consumers can be such idiots sometimes.

Agent.X7 wrote on Jul 3, 2014, 21:35:
Huh, how was CJ not on ignore? Fixed.

Although Redmask said it a bit better, CJ's main points stand, showing Roper out of touch and tone deaf in a couple of ways:

1. HGL was released in an incredibly buggy state. It should have been held.

2. They tried using a nickel-and-dime approach while also charging full price for the game. Even in the era we live in today, that's roundly railed against, but back then it was beyond the pale.

Maybe I'd except him on a team working under some other people, but his name is certainly not a selling point.

I hope he receives some lovely parting gifts.

ShakaUVM wrote on Jul 3, 2014, 22:11:
"The Blizzard community is ultimately the reason why we come to work every day"

LOL. If this was true, they'd have all quit by now. The Blizzard community is a cesspit.

He meant their money is the reason.

"The Blizzard community is ultimately the reason why we come to work every day"

LOL. If this was true, they'd have all quit by now. The Blizzard community is a cesspit.

Wallshadows wrote on Jul 3, 2014, 20:24:
Just don't give Bill Roper the memo and leave him at Disney.

Bill Who?

I had a great time playing HGL, I never understood what all the whining was about.

When he said "CoD and Halo are more original" then, well... you should have just stopped.

Huh, how was CJ not on ignore? Fixed.

CJ_Parker wrote on Jul 3, 2014, 20:55:
No it wasn't. Bunch of crap focusing only on the story premise

Yeah it was. It was a game, not just a setting. The core game was strong, they just fucked up the execution and had a retarded business model. If it wasn't for the sub model that game would probably be more fondly remembered today. I had a ton of issues with it but you could see it just needed a better project manager and a lot of polish, the potential was there. Roper is a good designer, hes just a shitty manager. The same thing happens to many other devs in the industry. I'm not just going to write off everything he touches because of his biggest mistake, that's just childish spite and ignores the good work he did for Blizzard previously.

Edit : oops, misread. Carry on!

Redmask wrote on Jul 3, 2014, 20:31:
Hellgate London was a colossal failure but it was also incredibly ambitious...

No it wasn't. A stupid demon invasion was just about THE most unoriginal and clichéd setting/premise that dumbfuck could have chosen. Even the CoD or Halo sequels you mentioned at least try to bring something original to the table with each iteration and if you'd look at these games with an open mind you'd have to admit that they succeed at least at that. They at least have Hollywood B movie stories to capture a gamer's attention for the short while they last.

HGL, however, was a failure on all levels. A totally lame (non-existent) story/setting/premise and a gameplay model that was solely aimed at milking the players instead of actually being fun and/or rewarding. Honestly. Dumbest piece of shit game ev4r.
Fuck Roper. If you want to find actual talent in the game dev world then look at a gig like CD Projekt for example but please never mention Roper and talent in the same sentence again, kthx.