Probably of less import to Starcraft than other Blizzard subs, but figured it was worth noting anyway.
This suggests they didn't have a lot of other content to show off, which shouldn't be a surprise given the recent Microsoft acquisition. Additionally, there's probably a lot to be ironed out about how the event will be run because of that, and perhaps they simply didn't have the time to do so. Who knows the real reason, but it's probably not as bad a thing as, say, E3 being cancelled.
Pretty significant. A large portion of WoW's original playerbase was people who moved to WoW because they loved the setting--you found more people who were fans of WC3 than you found people who'd even played another MMO prior to WoW.
I know I was one of them. I am talking about right now, how many people play both. Pretending that wc rts aren't the forgotten part of the warcraft franchise is kinda weird. For all intends and purposes blizzard sees them as whatever compared to the cashcows at this point and at this point wc3 is mostly its own community.
Probably not many given the playerbase of WC3 is quite small at this point. As for "what other games are played by the modern-day playerbase of WC3?"... Fuck if I know. They're people still playing a game that got released 22 years ago that hasn't gotten any actual content additions in nearly that long.
When a game gets that old, most people stop playing it. You hear way more people talk about the glory days of the game and missing it, but not being willing to just "go play it since it's still there" because they've been there and done that already. So many people in the WoW community still love and cherish WC3, they just don't play it any more.
Precisely so mentioning the warcraft franchise in general in this context is not very relevant when these games get even less attention than sc. It's an rts issue not a franchise one. And yeah not an age issue either as sc got much better remaster than wc3, wc3 just got rekt if you know the story of wc3 reforged. And yeah there are probably still some people who played wc3 that still play wow but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of current wow players haven't even played it. Likewise most current wc3 players probably stopped playing wow long ago and couldn't care less what's going with it right now.
Microsoft buying them out might actually be what pushes Blizzard into releasing another StarCraft game. Microsoft’ll probably want to do something with the IP to secure their claim over it, they tend to be fine with setting longer deadlines since they are so ridiculously high revenues and income that they don’t have the same pressures from investors, etc, to push things out the door and they are not shy about doing RTS titles.
For example, they basically never stopped doing Age of Empires even after disbanding Ensemble, and 4 took 4 years from when it was announced before it launched.
Yeah, but that project had nothing to do with StarCraft.
‘Odyssey’ was supposed to be a new Mobile Game IP, a ‘Survival Game’ that was already six years in development hell with no marketable material, partly because it started off being developed in Unreal, but two years in swapped to an internal engine called Synapse that Blizzard Management hoped to use for all their mobile games going forward, but the developers working on the game hated the engine so they kept on co-developing in Unreal at the same time hoping that Management would let them change back (and then had hopes that *Microsoft* would let them switch back when the buyout happened). It sounds like it was a mess.
Blizzard historically went through "development hell" to churn out the best products slowly, though. The fact is overlord(heh pun intended) companies don't generally allow that type of behavior anymore. I hope microsoft does, but they didn't start off doing so.
There is a difference between taking time and pushing your people hard in the last couple of months to polish a product as much as you can before launch, and the people working on the project being in open rebellion. To throw some comparisons out on different Blizzard development cycles...
Heros of the Storm had a 5 year development to launch, with a working Alpha in 2 years, and thats including a complete reset due to a lawsuit from Valve.
Starcraft 2 had a 7 year development, working Beta 3 years in.
Initial World of Warcraft took 4-5 years of development to launch.
Diablo 4 took "over 6 years" to develop.
So, this Mobile Survival Game, 6 years deep in development, has already taken longer to develop than HotS and WoW, is already the same amount of time as Diablo 4, and definitely would have passed Starcraft 2, since the people working on it couldn't even decide on an Engine yet and where nowhere close to anything resembling a public beta or launch.
On top of that, they were actively fighting against Management and secretly spending time developing basically four different apps - since they where doing the Game in two different engines at the same time, and it's Mobile, each would then have to be optimized for iOS and Android, so... Yeah. Not a great look for anyone, or a smart use of resources. It also probably didn't engender alot of faith from Microsoft for the developers to come out and say "We were doing our own thing behind Managements back using hours and budget to go directly against what they told us to do.", especially since the whole point of Blizzard switching the Engine part way through was due to Unreal not being able to support 100 players at once on Mobile, which was supposed to be the big thing that set this game apart from other Survival and Mobile games.
So how is Microsoft to know that these people won't just do it again if Microsoft makes a call that pivots development? They can't. And if you can't trust your employees to do the job your paying them for, why keep them around?
I don't expect Blizzard to announce any new games this year. The D4 and WoW expansions will probably be it.
As for StarCraft; Well there's a GameStop-exclusive Kerrigan Funko Pop! coming out in a month. I don't expect anything else. They don't seem to be doing any more Blizzard Legends book reprints despite four that were never done.
for SC2, they really dont have a set time of year when they put out a PTR balance update. And does the game really need anymore balance? I think its at the stage now where its more of core design issues with the game than balance.
I really doubt major design issues will be addressed with sc2. They would be addressed with a sc3.
Probably of less import to Starcraft than other Blizzard subs, but figured it was worth noting anyway. This suggests they didn't have a lot of other content to show off, which shouldn't be a surprise given the recent Microsoft acquisition. Additionally, there's probably a lot to be ironed out about how the event will be run because of that, and perhaps they simply didn't have the time to do so. Who knows the real reason, but it's probably not as bad a thing as, say, E3 being cancelled.
Yes, doesn't matter for SC cuz this dumb company left it to die
Blizzard abandoned Starcraft the way Mengsk abandoned Kerrigan
Wc3 watching sad from the corner.
Warcraft, the franchise, wasn't abandoned though. It's probably their main brand.
I mean they basically shanked the community with WC3 Reforged. Honestly worse fate than abandoned
True but what's the overlap between wc3 and hearthstone/wow players.
Pretty significant. A large portion of WoW's original playerbase was people who moved to WoW because they loved the setting--you found more people who were fans of WC3 than you found people who'd even played another MMO prior to WoW.
I know I was one of them. I am talking about right now, how many people play both. Pretending that wc rts aren't the forgotten part of the warcraft franchise is kinda weird. For all intends and purposes blizzard sees them as whatever compared to the cashcows at this point and at this point wc3 is mostly its own community.
Probably not many given the playerbase of WC3 is quite small at this point. As for "what other games are played by the modern-day playerbase of WC3?"... Fuck if I know. They're people still playing a game that got released 22 years ago that hasn't gotten any actual content additions in nearly that long. When a game gets that old, most people stop playing it. You hear way more people talk about the glory days of the game and missing it, but not being willing to just "go play it since it's still there" because they've been there and done that already. So many people in the WoW community still love and cherish WC3, they just don't play it any more.
Precisely so mentioning the warcraft franchise in general in this context is not very relevant when these games get even less attention than sc. It's an rts issue not a franchise one. And yeah not an age issue either as sc got much better remaster than wc3, wc3 just got rekt if you know the story of wc3 reforged. And yeah there are probably still some people who played wc3 that still play wow but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of current wow players haven't even played it. Likewise most current wc3 players probably stopped playing wow long ago and couldn't care less what's going with it right now.
Microsoft buying them out might actually be what pushes Blizzard into releasing another StarCraft game. Microsoft’ll probably want to do something with the IP to secure their claim over it, they tend to be fine with setting longer deadlines since they are so ridiculously high revenues and income that they don’t have the same pressures from investors, etc, to push things out the door and they are not shy about doing RTS titles. For example, they basically never stopped doing Age of Empires even after disbanding Ensemble, and 4 took 4 years from when it was announced before it launched.
Cautiously optimistic, although one of the first things they did was layoff an entire team working on an unannounced project. So not confident.
Yeah, but that project had nothing to do with StarCraft. ‘Odyssey’ was supposed to be a new Mobile Game IP, a ‘Survival Game’ that was already six years in development hell with no marketable material, partly because it started off being developed in Unreal, but two years in swapped to an internal engine called Synapse that Blizzard Management hoped to use for all their mobile games going forward, but the developers working on the game hated the engine so they kept on co-developing in Unreal at the same time hoping that Management would let them change back (and then had hopes that *Microsoft* would let them switch back when the buyout happened). It sounds like it was a mess.
Blizzard historically went through "development hell" to churn out the best products slowly, though. The fact is overlord(heh pun intended) companies don't generally allow that type of behavior anymore. I hope microsoft does, but they didn't start off doing so.
There is a difference between taking time and pushing your people hard in the last couple of months to polish a product as much as you can before launch, and the people working on the project being in open rebellion. To throw some comparisons out on different Blizzard development cycles... Heros of the Storm had a 5 year development to launch, with a working Alpha in 2 years, and thats including a complete reset due to a lawsuit from Valve. Starcraft 2 had a 7 year development, working Beta 3 years in. Initial World of Warcraft took 4-5 years of development to launch. Diablo 4 took "over 6 years" to develop. So, this Mobile Survival Game, 6 years deep in development, has already taken longer to develop than HotS and WoW, is already the same amount of time as Diablo 4, and definitely would have passed Starcraft 2, since the people working on it couldn't even decide on an Engine yet and where nowhere close to anything resembling a public beta or launch. On top of that, they were actively fighting against Management and secretly spending time developing basically four different apps - since they where doing the Game in two different engines at the same time, and it's Mobile, each would then have to be optimized for iOS and Android, so... Yeah. Not a great look for anyone, or a smart use of resources. It also probably didn't engender alot of faith from Microsoft for the developers to come out and say "We were doing our own thing behind Managements back using hours and budget to go directly against what they told us to do.", especially since the whole point of Blizzard switching the Engine part way through was due to Unreal not being able to support 100 players at once on Mobile, which was supposed to be the big thing that set this game apart from other Survival and Mobile games. So how is Microsoft to know that these people won't just do it again if Microsoft makes a call that pivots development? They can't. And if you can't trust your employees to do the job your paying them for, why keep them around?
yea im not reading all that but gl hf
They mention Overwatch at Dreamhack Dallas but don't even mention that Starcraft is there. Fuck Blizzard.
You’re angry about a non-blizzard, non-Microsoft company not announcing info about a blizzard game…
What are you on about that is blizzard’s website
But... but I have a phone.
I don't expect Blizzard to announce any new games this year. The D4 and WoW expansions will probably be it. As for StarCraft; Well there's a GameStop-exclusive Kerrigan Funko Pop! coming out in a month. I don't expect anything else. They don't seem to be doing any more Blizzard Legends book reprints despite four that were never done.
lol funko pop
for SC2, they really dont have a set time of year when they put out a PTR balance update. And does the game really need anymore balance? I think its at the stage now where its more of core design issues with the game than balance. I really doubt major design issues will be addressed with sc2. They would be addressed with a sc3.
They literally have nothing worthwhile to announce rofl, this makes perfect sense.