Blizzcon Begins Today

[Luur32]

Blizzcon's off to a good start, with a few big announcements on their games.

-New World of Warcraft Expansion (Cataclysm)
-New class announced for Diablo 3 (Monk)
-Havent seen anything on Starcraft 2 yet

I'll keep this updated if people show any interest

Thoughts? As an ex-WoW junkie, I'm pretty pissed at what the new expansion has. Most of the changes completely screw with the lore I used to love from the game

http://www.blizzard.com/blizzcon/

[Transbrak]

All I want is a Diablo III release date!!

Prolly 2012 knowing the track record.

[Luur32]

Still pretty uneventful. Streaming Warcraft 3 grand finals/Starcraft matches though

http://www.blizzard.com/blizzcon/video/stream-rts.xml

[jonoo24]

blizzard is relevant?

[The Highway To Hell]

The only thing I care about is the Ozzy performance.

[AxlVanHagar]

The only thing I care about is the Ozzy performance.

Here ya go , lots of vids and pics.
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=125721

It's pretty brutal though, well Ozzy is anyway. Jesus he's flat as **** here, I don't think he's capable of carrying a tune anymore if it came complete with handles. New guitar player sounds ok though I find his tone a little thin sounding. Best thing is that drummer! What a monster, nothing against Bordin but Ozzy should consider getting this guy to sit behind the kit full time. And the little 9 year old kid jamming is pretty cool so I'll give Ozzy props for that.

[Mystlyfe77]

Thoughts? As an ex-WoW junkie, I'm pretty pissed at what the new expansion has. Most of the changes completely screw with the lore I used to love from the game

Honestly, Cataclysm is better than the last two WoW expansions in terms of what they're doing to the plot. They're actually progressing it (using existing characters) rather than just killing off everyone relevant to the storyline.

[Cpt. Overkill]

Honestly, Cataclysm is better than the last two WoW expansions in terms of what they're doing to the plot. They're actually progressing it (using existing characters) rather than just killing off everyone relevant to the storyline.

I agree with this 100%.

[Apples]

blizzard is relevant?

That's my thought too, I really don't care for the direction they've taken the past decade.

Very little in the way of innovation. Lots of "safe" sequals and very little new IP.

Diablo 3 screenshots so far make me cringe. They've taken the storyline and artwork away from its roots which were immersed in darkness and gothic themes. Now it looks quite cartooney with the exaggerated weapons and bright colors. Dare I say they've WoW-ified it.

Starcraft 2 they seem to be a little bit too concerned about their profit margin. Breaking the game up across 3 titles, removing LAN play, adding in a pay-to-play Battle.net scheme. None of those are exactly fan-friendly moves.

[Mystlyfe77]

That's my thought too, I really don't care for the direction they've taken the past decade.

Very little in the way of innovation. Lots of "safe" sequals and very little new IP.

Yeah, an innovative MMO (by MMO standards) in an RTS franchise is totally a "safe sequel." :rolleyes:

And if features like destructible terrain in an RPG (Diablo III) or a map-editor that allows for first-person game play in an RTS (Starcraft 2) aren't innovative, I'm not sure what planet you're living on.



Diablo 3 screenshots so far make me cringe. They've taken the storyline and artwork away from its roots which were immersed in darkness and gothic themes. Now it looks quite cartooney with the exaggerated weapons and bright colors. Dare I say they've WoW-ified it.

That (http://hudshideout.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ss86-hires-640x480.jpg) popular (http://machinesthatgobing.com/images/diablo-iii-new-screens-1.jpg) sentiment (http://us.media.blizzard.com/1901200114/_images/screenshots/ss58.jpg) is (http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/movies/monkgameplay.xml) pretty far (http://i.d.com.com/i/dl/media/dlimage/90/31/5/90315_large.jpeg) from (http://www.cheats.ru/uploaded/d/diablo2-01145.jpg) the (http://img.brothersoft.com/screenshots/softimage/d/diablo_ii-_lord_of_destruction_patch-216435-1236156915.jpeg) truth. (http://www.blogcdn.com/news.bigdownload.com/media/2008/06/diablo2expansion-lordofdestruction.jpg)

Really, the art style hasn't changed all that much aside of updated graphics. Some greys have been replaced by deep purples, I suppose.

But ultimately the feeling comes from the elimination of the light radius game mechanic and the inclusion of backgrounds (rather than arbitrary blackness (http://www.gameogre.com/reviewdirectory/upload/Diablo%202.jpg)).



Starcraft 2 they seem to be a little bit too concerned about their profit margin. Breaking the game up across 3 titles, removing LAN play, adding in a pay-to-play Battle.net scheme. None of those are exactly fan-friendly moves.

You do realize they've sad that if you buy Starcraft II, you won't have to pay-to-play. It was something one b.net dev said about considering monetizing b.net that was overblown and never actually became part of the plan.

Secondly, each game is going to have roughly 30 missions, or roughly the same amount as each of the previous Starcraft releases have had. They didn't want to gimp each campaign (which would really hurt some of the cool innovative single-player features), and there was no way they were going to be able to complete a 90-mission game anytime soon.

And, while I won't embrace the lack of LAN-support, they have reasons for it.

We build such an integrated experience, and we are in the process of building such an integrated experience, there's a lot of stuff simply doesn't work without Battle Net. And it's all very, you know, technical and bizarre, but like right now our score screens are handed down from Battle.Net. And we do this so that games like Defense of the Ancients can have their own custom score screen.

So our game has no concept of a score screen, only Battle.Net knows about the score screens. In regular Battle.Net you don't get a score screen. That's so strange. But it all does make sense if you're thinking about it supporting a mod community. So for us then to have LAN support a score screen would cause us to reduplicate all of that work all over again. And that's a bunch of work we'd kind of rather not do. So there's a bunch of things that would be a little bit more challenging if they decide to duplicate it. I think it might be a little bit more challenging than they imagine, because it was more challenging that we thought it should be. But you know, I'm sure they'll do it.

Taken from this article (which also contains quotes about not paying-to-play). (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/17/dustin-browder-page-5/)

[Tank9088]

I am seriously considering going back to WoW. I stopped playing before WotLK came out and I was a level 70. Is it worth it to go back? I guess I'm really asking is WotLK any good? Also, I was hoping for an Emerald Dream/Nightmare expansion.

[Apples]

Yeah, an innovative MMO (by MMO standards) in an RTS franchise is totally a "safe sequel." :rolleyes:


I'm not going to get into all of your points but nothing in WoW is innovative. They surveyed the MMO landscape, took the best features from that generation of games, polished them up (quite well, mind you), and slapped on a Warcraft theme.

People were doing MMO raids, questing, tradeskills, and PVP before the Warcraft name was ever in the genre. You can say they polished it up and did it better than the competition, but that's about it.

It's the classic Halo effect. Super popular game bursts onto the scene and suddenly everyone gains selective memory. Super popular title is now the sun in the sky and the innovator of all great things. :rolleyes:




And I realize my sentiment is not the most popular. Most people don't have the same perspective because they weren't into games long enough to remember old Blizzard. The old Blizzard of the 90's that basically defined entire genres and captivated people with sweeping new franchises. That was innovation. Not bumping up the sequal number and tacking on relatively incremental improvements.

To further my point consider this: Every Blizzard title since 1996 has contained the words "Diablo" "Starcraft" or "Warcraft."

[Mystlyfe77]

I'm not going to get into all of your points but nothing in WoW is innovative. They surveyed the MMO landscape, took the best features from that generation of games, polished them up (quite well, mind you), and slapped on a Warcraft theme.

People were doing MMO raids, questing, tradeskills, and PVP before the Warcraft name was ever in the genre. You can say they polished it up and did it better than the competition, but that's about it.

It's the classic Halo effect. Super popular game bursts onto the scene and suddenly everyone gains selective memory. Super popular title is now the sun in the sky and the innovator of all great things. :rolleyes:

I'm not saying that World of Warcraft is the most trailblazing MMO in history, but compared to an average MMO release, it is far more innovative.

This is especially true when you consider some of the improvements Blizzard has made since launch. New and innovative PvP systems (such as the arena system and, to a lesser degree, the battlegrounds). In general, it's one of the few games to have both a highly successful PvP and PvE system that operate together relatively well. Everquest has always been more about the PvE and DAoC (and it's Warhammer-themed cousin) are more about the PvP.

I do agree that Halo gets all sorts of praise it doesn't deserve though.



And I realize my sentiment is not the most popular. Most people don't have the same perspective because they weren't into games long enough to remember old Blizzard. The old Blizzard of the 90's that basically defined entire genres and captivated people with sweeping new franchises. That was innovation. Not bumping up the sequal number and tacking on relatively incremental improvements.

To further my point consider this: Every Blizzard title since 1996 has contained the words "Diablo" "Starcraft" or "Warcraft."

While I agree that I would like to see a new IP from Blizzard, it's not like they've ever been a company that had a huge number of original IPs. Early on they did some ports, The Lost Vikings, Blackthorne, and some Superman games, but they've never had more than a few active IPs that they developed themselves.
I've been a fan of the company since the mid-90s (Warcraft II and Diablo, to be precise) and remember them helping to really forge the RTS genre (along with the Command & Conquer franchise).

Ultimately, they didn't actually create the RTS genre, either. They just made some of the classic and genre-defining titles. That's exactly what they're doing with the MMO-genre with WoW, too.