Ask Blizzard About Starcraft2, Diablo III, WoW, or Battle.net 520
Well, Blizzcon 2009 is about to get underway (look for the big news from the keynote in a few hours) and given how fast it sold out I'm sure there are still many rabid fans interested in what Blizzard might have to say that don't want to shell out the $40 for Pay-Per-View access. So, to that end we have interviews scheduled tomorrow with the teams from Starcraft2, Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Battle.net. If there is anything you wish to know about the progress or juicy details from any of these teams please leave it in the comments below. We'll try to parse through for the best questions and get you answers during our interview slots tomorrow. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply.
Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you seen any other negative feedback about this? Has anyone complained? You sit as the largest online game, is growth really so important that game mecahnics need to be changed to entice new players?
In my honest opinion, you are selling yourselves short. The players see less quest content now because of increased experience. While they get to end content faster, they pass up a lot of areas and beautiful terrain just purely because they don't have to go there. What does the future hold as you strive to cut out content? The ability to start at level (current expansion cap - 20)?
Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft (Score:4, Insightful)
Sir:
I respectfully disagree. I think the end-game content and social aspect is most aspired after by the majority of players of World of Warcraft. In my opinion, I think Blizzard made the right decision in reducing the barrier to this end-game content and social aspect by making leveling faster and easier. Lower level content is still available for those who wish to pursue it (and comes with fulfilling achievements like Loremaster), but it is no longer an ominous, artificial, and arbitrary barrier to entry to the more desired content.
Mind you, I don't know the habits of most WoW players, but I'm confident that Blizzard isn't selling themselves short here. I'd say they're catering to the desires of their paying customers, but not necessarily overindulging them.
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I dunno how Blizz will answer, but achievements like Loremaster and Explorer provide alternate incentive to go back and close out content you skipped on the accelerated run to 80. Of course, as an 80 everything pre-BC is uber lol-easymode, and BC content is soloable, so it's clearly not the same, but nothing except peer pressure ("you don't raid enough") keeps you from going back to "a lot of areas and beautiful terrain".
Yes, my main has both Loremaster and Explorer. And has caught a fair bit of trollish fl
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That's the past. Death Knights, as you know, start playing open world content at about level 60. I expect future hero classes (if there are any) will have a similar mechanic, but I don't work for Blizz and have no inside line, so that's just my speculation.
I have no problem with the idea of Death Knights (and any other future Hero Classes) starting out at level 55, but, please, please, when one of them selects a trade skill, let them begin with an appropriate skill level (55*5=275 maybe?), so they don't have to waste time running around the low-level zones, raising their skills to useful levels...
Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft (Score:5, Insightful)
I left WoW before any of the packs hit. But I was an obsessive quest completer, I wouldn't leave a zone till I had taken care of every quest I possibly could, which meant before long I was well out leveling the content I was up against (until I finished a zone and then moved to the next, where I'd be just 'midlevel' again).
The reason I left WoW had more to do with my first few raid experiences which were in Stratholme. Here I was, in a town sized dungeon, with lore and nooks and crannies to explore, and the group I was with just wanted to rush to point A to beat Named Boss A, then point B to beat Named Boss B, and etc.
After the third go through, I realized that the way WoW had been set up, high level content was simply contrary to the idea of exploration and 'enjoying the scenery'.
I never had a problem doing 'grey' quests, or popping out of a zone now and then to do an 'appropriately leveled' quest. But raids required people. People who weren't necessarily there to do anything more than grind away till they got their next food pellet in the form of another 'epic' piece of gear.
Maybe that's changed somewhat, I've heard that some of the old 'high level' content can now be sort of soloed by a good maxed out character, and perhaps the new raid stuff isn't so focused on finding the most efficient path through without stopping to look at stuff. But given all I've heard, I doubt it.
And honestly, that's sad. One of the things that Blizzard has always done well is tell a story. Even if some can claim that the stories are lifted from other sources, it's the quality of the story teller that matters just as much as the source of the tale.
I'll always remember WoW for those pre-expansion Worgen related quests (no clue if they've been added to in the expansions), how you could find the origin of their presence in the world through the eleven zones, discover how the 'dark powers' got involved in the human zones, and then have to switch to the Horde side to find the end of the story.
It's a shame, because I know that Blizzard has to put in as much story effort into the high level content.
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Hmmm I think I feel much the same! Why won't they make all drops completely random, except for a basic category bias whereas archers tend to drop drop bows, kobold miners drop hammers, etc. Aside from one-time-quest-drops, why should be bosses privileged? They already have a quest progression (like in Stockades) where at a higher level you are invited to revisit a dungeon to get yet another quest: that should suffice for a reason to run an instance multiple times.
But then, of course, people will concentra
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i understand what you're saying but i strongly disagree. for me and my friends, the game really [i]starts[/i] at level 80. we are not the hardcore elite of the game by any means, either. blizzard has made max-level raiding accessible to anyone with a handful of friends, and that's what me and my handful are doing. it's the latest content with the richest rewards and most complex mechanics and prettiest graphics. there's a heck of a lot more story in the more modern content, as well.
the leveling process
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Having been there, since the open beta, until WotLK came out, I have to disagree with you. I found the content, quests, locations and overall experience of the first 60 levels better than TBC and WotLK (what I saw of it, which wasn't the entire thing I'll grant you. I got 5 70s in TBC, took a couple to 75, then stopped).
Saying the old content is simple and mundane is naive, the new content is *exactly the same*, find 6 of these, kill 8 of these, escort this npc... etc etc. Trying to make out that the new
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i don't know what expansion you played because it wasn't wotlk.
quests are unquestionably more interesting than "go kill 8 spiders". in wotlk, you constantly get to drive vehicles, bomb things from the air, elad a charge up a hill, or take part in quests that truly matter in the world and even change the face of the zone (through phasing). you take part in meaningful battles with zone-wide consequences. you see huge chunks of lore unfurl before your eyes ...
speaking of which, did you even do the Wrathgate
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This is, of course, a tactic to entice new players.
I'm pretty sure this is only partially correct. It serves two purposes: 1) It helps people who play recruit their friends. If I'm high-level, and you don't have any characters, if Blizzard can make you get to my level faster, that means the game is more fun for both of us. 2) It helps people roll new alts. You're less locked into your character if the barrier to a new, more interesting one is lower. Blizzard has also said that the newer content is better than the old content -- the designers / artists
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reduced effort to level
I'm going to disagree with you on this terminology right here. Okay, sure, the total effort is reduced. But the effort per unit time is the same as always (easy), the only thing that's changed is how much time you're spending. In a game genre that is defined by sucking extra monthly fees out of you by wasting as much of your time as possible, this is actually a welcome breath of fresh air. They no longer have any real incentive to make getting to level 60 take 20 days /played, and
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I would have never come back if not for the changes they have made to leveling. Several of my friends would never have started playing. I am positive that the number of people who dislike the accelerated leveling are in the minority.
If they made it to where you could start alts at level 80 when you've already leveled a character to 80 then I would play considerably more than I already do. Sinking that much time into a character before you can even really start to play the game is simply stupid. I don't have
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As someone levelling their 5th toon, I can say, I love the changes. I am sick and tired of the Barrens, and anything that can get me up to the higher levels faster is going to allow me to keep playing and enjoying the game. The first 2 times I levelled, I did all the quests, got into the lore, etc, but you know what, it's no different the 3rd, 4th, 5th, xth time. If it wasn't for the L2P value of spending hours with a new class, I'd say Blizz should just allow you to start a new toon at level 58 like the
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The bigger reason for this is "Meet at Castle Whatever for 25-man Raid. Gear check." It's impossible to learn the raids, get the equipment, etc. unless you actually get into the raids and get the equipment. I'd love to do some of the raids - I hear they're a lot of fun. But it's generally not possible with raid leaders checking to make sure I'm wearing Epic Underwear of Beelzebub. (And it better be clean, because you know mom always said to
Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I play wow, I probably play too much. I'd like to use some built-in functionality to gently put limits on my playtime and remind me how much I've played in a week. At first I had high hopes that the Parental Controls function could help me.
Unfortunately, though the rest of wow's interface is great, its parental controls are not only a crime against all that is beautiful and elegant, but pretty useless in the real world. There's no way to set "able to play X hours per week" or "able to play Y hours per weekday, Z hours per weekend". One must set a hard-coded block schedule, click okay, then hope you've predicted your exact needs. And there's no in-game warning when you're coming up against a limit-- you're simply disconnected when it hits.
Please, please, please tell me there are plans afoot to fix this tool and perhaps remake it into a more general method for account owners to manage playtime better? Extra kudos if it could include a Netflix-style option to put your account on vacation for a variable length of time...
Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls (Score:5, Funny)
There's no way to set "able to play X hours per week" or "able to play Y hours per weekday, Z hours per weekend".
Have you tried a girlfriend?
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This is not always a help... My wife plays WoWC too. Sadly, she's better at the game than I am.
Re:Are there any plans to revamp Parental Controls (Score:5, Funny)
Have you tried a girlfriend?
Girlfriend? Where does that drop? I bet its off one of the 25-man hard modes, but I've never even seen one. A guildmate of mine said he heard it's going to be added in the raid after Icecrown Citadel in what will be the most evil raid instance of all, The Outside.
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I hate to break it to you, but it if takes 25 men for you to get a 'girlfriend' she's probably either not a girl or not your friend.
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Kind of like a crack or heroin dealer...they want you to keep playing.
The solution, clearly, is to switch to crack or heroin. Then, if it's taking up too much of your time or money you can go to rehab, and the game wont matter quite as much, because life will become a very interesting game where you'll gain lot of XP and have to deal with real world consequences if you screw up!!
Our "game" has a slammin hip-hop soundtrack and plenty of excessive violence; choose the "North Philadelphia" campaign for you new
Battle.net Fixes and Improvements? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Battle.net and StarCraft II (Score:5, Interesting)
WRT Battle.net and StarCraft II, would you be making it so multiplayer play is possible with zero configuration on the firewall/router? If I invite 10 of my friends for a get-together, and we want to play StarCraft II, will that be possible without having to reconfigure my router? Or to do this, will it require using technologies like UPnP so SC II can open ports for each player?
Why is there no provision for offline play? Considering the way Blizzard games run so nicely on low-end hardware, if my friends and I are stuck at the airport waiting for a connection, it means we can't just setup an ad-hoc network and play SC II (especially since many airports charge $$$ per minute of Internet) to pass the time. Or even at low end motels/hotels where WiFi isn't necessarily available (or is costly)? (To be honest, I've seen even high-end hotels charge for Internet access, too, but it seems a waste that we all have to pay good money to get access to Battle.net so we can all play together).
What about offline play for single player? Or will single player also require battle.net?
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Without LAN, how are we going to play with 2 computers at the same time behind a NAT router? With original Starcraft, you can't go on battle.net with more than one computer behind the same NAT router. If I want to play a 4v4 game at a LAN party, I will now need to connect 8 computers behind a single NAT router to battle.net. (Or, if I wanted to participate as 2 players on opposite teams in a 3v3 game, I will still need to connect 2 computers to battle.net from behind a NAT router). Whenever I tried this on
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If I bring my PC to my cousin's house for a LAN party (who lives way out in the country, and only has dial up) are we going to be able to have a full speed, low latency network game of Starcraft II?
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Re:Battle.net Fixes and Improvements? (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're going to be Microsoft-esque in making sure my copy is genuine, I'll just go play something else. There are plenty of games out there that can be just as fun without the bullshit.
StarCraft II - LAN PLAY (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, why why why is there no LAN play?
I understand the desire to have a method of preventing piracy. But, if I get a group of 10 buddies in a room, and we want to go nuts with this game, ALL of us using the Internet to access a server is just plain dumb.
It's great if we want to setup a 'virtual LAN' party. But REAL face to face ones suffer as a result.
Why not make it require AUTH to open LAN play, then everything else is local? Anything is better than forcing everyone to use battleNet.
Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, to get more to the point, what answer do they have for our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else who would like to play a quiet LAN game when internet access is limited or nonexistent.
Also, what kind of ports are required, given that a lot of college students are behind restrictive campus firewalls.
For a final question on this LAN issue, will the game be playable at all if your battle.net account is banned? This is probably a fitting punishment for hacking and the like, but false positives are inevitable, and I don't really want to put down $50 for something if, on a whim, Blizzard can revoke my license.
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So Blizzard can have their cake and eat it too. Make sure everyone buys a copy AND pay Battle.net monthly fees.
Re:StarCraft II - LAN PLAY (Score:4, Interesting)
unfortunately I suspect that SCII is in such an unfinished state that Blizzard decided to cut testing out LAN play in favour of Battlenet in order to get SCII out the door in an otherwise finished state ASAP rather than let it become SC Ghost all over again. The question is, why? SC fans have been waiting a decade and change for SCII or *something* expanding on the SC storyline so what is a few months extra testing out LAN for the release?
Anyway to bring this back on topic, to the SCII team: is there any possibility of WINE support in the next three chapters of SCII in order to run the games on alternative platforms such as LInux/BSD etc?
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Then why can't two people behind the same router play a game on battle.net where one of them is hosting? (With very little effort you'll find plenty of posts here on slashdot indicating that if you have two players behind a router, connected to battle.net, and they try to start a Starcraft game that way, one of them can't connect.) I could elaborate on the apparent technical reasons (public vs private IP addresses, for example) but I don't think it's necessary.
My point is, it's a little more complicated t
What were you thinking.... (Score:5, Interesting)
When, after a LONG period of overloaded instance servers, with literally months of people complaining, in patch 3.2 not only you encouraged everybody to run as many heroics per day as they can possibly do due to easy emblems of conquest, but at the same time you pretty much forced any hardcore raider to never skip the daily heroic for at the very least 1 month. As a result, the load is now 3 times worse and people complain of being locked out of instances for 40-50 minutes even in offpeak hours, not to mention that due to the priority system, low level instances are pretty much inaccessible. This hurts the new players a lot. Those same new players whose experience you are terrified to ruin, and due to which you won't apply more restrictive anti goldspam measures, causing everyone to have to endure the constant shit in city channels.
LAN (Score:5, Insightful)
There's been talk that Starcraft II would not support LAN. The reason I am a fan of Starcraft and want to buy Starcraft II is I spent many many hours playing it in LAN cafes. People will be doing LAN with pirated version anyway, they'll just run their own battle.net server locally and the only thing you'll achieve is piss off other consummers with a crippled product. Why oh why?
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It comes pre crippled as you have to buy each species campaign separately, at full game prices.
Re:LAN (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, Blizzard is retarded if they think they can stop it.
Blizzard is also retarded if they think people want to always be connected to Battle.net . I don't give a shit how good BNet 2.0 is, I shouldn't need to be online or connect to your servers just to play the game I bought (3. Fucking. Times).
MOD QUESTION UP!!! (Score:2)
If ANY question needs to be answered in this interview - then it is the "LAN crippling issue".
Preferably, answer would be something along the lines of "We fucked up, LAN will not be crippled, we are sorry, it will never happen again."
How do your games Help America? (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Bilzzard, how do your computer games help America's children prepare to help acquire the skills needed to fight the war against terrorism and for freedom? Do any of your games have educational content? What about a game that encourages learning terrorist languages like Arabic or Mandarin Chinese? Everyone in America needs to do their part, are you doing yours?
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Ni hao!
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It's Punjabi. Punjab is the name of a state of India, and Punjabi is the spoken language of Punjab. Also, I doubt that the majority of Indians "stealing" your job speak Punjabi.
Population of Punjab: 24 million approx.
Population of India : 1.2 billion approx.
Linux support (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux support (Score:5, Interesting)
Another good question on that topic is:
When it is known and established that there was in fact a linux client for WoW when in beta, what obstables hindered you from releasing it as an unsupported extra? was it maintained and if so what obstacles still remain to this day?
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Probably because there would be problems implementing warden on Linux machines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_(software) [wikipedia.org]
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Another question in this thread:
Blizzard has noted that they allow the use of Cedega and Wine but will not provide technical support. They have worked with the Cedega developers on issues. And there's whispers that they have unofficially worked with Wine developers.
What does Blizzard get for these efforts? Are there insights to bugs / issues to the game client that aren't apparent on the supported platforms? Or is this just a fun side project that helps out a (presumably) smaller subset of fans / custom
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Another question:
Is Blizzard aware of how many of their customers use Linux? Do these statistics show up via Warden and/or the occasional "non-identifying system statistics" reports?
The Status Quo of Delayed Release Dates (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand this happens by and large everywhere in software development but you guys are epitome of online games. If you can't give solid release dates, no one can.
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My coworker and I love every single one of your games. But we don't love your release dates.
Ever thought about the fact that the REASON you love every single Blizzard game is because they put more emphasis on quality than they do meeting a release date? In my experience in the software development world, if you want to release software with as few bugs as possible (which Blizzard actively strives for more than any other game company I've heard of), and as fun as possible (which requires insane amounts of iterative work with development and then testing), by your logic, they may as well not give a
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I just want to point out that they already do exactly what you're saying they should. They never announced a release date for SC2, but the gaming community slapped an imaginary 2009 date on there after statements to the effect that they hoped to be able to get the game out by the end of the year, but that it would be difficult.
Maybe presumptuous... (Score:2)
Starcraft II LAN Support (Score:2, Insightful)
As a company who has shown a generally tendency toward keeping its fans happy (the return of the original voice actor for Raynor being a great, recent example of this), are you paying attention to the heavily supported petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html? I ask this because the petition brings up quite valid points about the creation of pirate battle.net servers. Surely you must realize that time and time again game companies make similar decisions regarding anti-piracy practice (
What about spammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Will you do anything to protect us from being annoyed by spambots who can enter a game, write five lines of spam and leave the game in less than 2 seconds? Why can't you guys put protection against those idiots, it's easy enough to detect those kinds of patterns and block the user accounts.
And if you think making a private game in D2 protects you against those morons, they started using private messages to tell you about their crap, which is D2-related spam about items and stuff, which are also not allowed by Blizzard, which they should also be stopping from happening.
I know that Diablo II is old and playing on battle.net is free, but still, that doesn't leave a good impression when asking me if I want to play your future games.
Does Censorship in China Bother You? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should I buy your product? (Score:3, Insightful)
After several instances of your company being evil towards the community bnetd & removal of LAN play on your newest titles, please give me a good reason to buy what you are selling.
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Hear, Hear!
A Question WIth No Answer Except One (Score:4, Interesting)
Since they clearly aren't going to budge on either position, there's only one reason to buy what they're selling. It's because you think that the entertainment you get is worth the money you spend, and is good enough to overcome your objections. What other reason could there possibly be?
In other words, what kind of answer are you after?
Starcraft 2 three games? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Starcraft 2 three games? (Score:4, Informative)
Will we still be able to play multiplayer matches of StarCraft II with all three races?
Yes! From the beginning, StarCraft II will be a fully featured multiplayer game, and all three races will be available for competitive play.
Sell Out (Score:2, Interesting)
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charging money for direct TV view of blizzcon
Because I'm sure that camera crews and equipment have absolutely no cost.
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And I'm sure their cost is a drop in the ocean compared to what Blizzard rakes in from monthly WoW fees.
Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Q2) If no Q1, will you at least consider wine as a release platform for your incoming titles?
Q3) Given the current situation with incresing Linux distribution/usage, what are your future plans for Linux OS?
Q4) Is it so hard to develope the same engine on both D3D and OpenGL?
Q5) Are there any particular effects you couldn't be able to easily implement in OpenGL version (eg. fancy sha
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While I'm not from blizzard, I can answer some questions for you
Q4) Is it so hard to develope the same engine on both D3D and OpenGL?
The WoW engine already does opengl, as does warcraft 3 and as will starcraft 2, and diablo 3.
Q6) Would you reccomend to a young ISV to use OpenGL or better both D3D and OpenGL to create a multi-platform game?
Unless you count the xbox360 and windows as 'multi platform' you more or less have to use opengl for multi platform games, it runs on anything with 3d hardware, and some things without (slowly of course). If blizzard did not have an opengl backend also, they would not have any mac ports even.
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what?
wow on linux runs quite well with wine. Blizz just doesn't want to officially support it, as that means putting devs on it(linux) as opposed to being lazy/not spending a penny and leaving the work to wine devs.
Starcraft II (Score:5, Interesting)
Will each game be treated as an entirely separate entity in terms of publication, IE, you pay the same $50 for each game, or will it be treated as episodic content where you have to purchase the first game in order to play the second and third, and the second and third installments are significantly less expensive?
Will we see Diablo III on consoles? (Score:2, Interesting)
Please, please bring Diablo III to consoles (at least XBox360) with local multiplayer support (preferably 4-player). For PC enthusiasts or those who say it can't be done, please see:
Champions of Norrath (PS2)
Champions: Return to Arms (PS2)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Series
Sacred 2 (360 and PS3)
Also take note of the user interfaces...I think that Champions:RTA had the best UI for this type of game on a console. It would be nice to be able to have at least partial inventory access without interrupting other loc
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Starcraft II LAN Petition (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the plans to combat rampant cheating? (Score:5, Interesting)
Question about New Hires & College Grads (Score:5, Interesting)
In regards to the artists of graphics and world design and modeling: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Is the "art" aspects of your games something that can be learned or do you have a few talented visionaries driving the group? I've been impressed with the mood in Diablo and the beautiful scenery in certain areas of World of Warcraft. Is that a single person at work or a large group adding a little brush stroke to the whole painting?
Key to success of Blizzard games (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm wondering why you (the developer teams) think so many Blizzard games stand out from the crowd, from World of Warcraft to Diablo I & II, and Warcraft. Why do you think the Blizzard games have been better (or at least more popular) than so many alternatives?
Thanks.
Diablo 3 balance (Score:2)
Are spellcasters/magical classes still going to dominate everyone else in multiplayer or what?
Will 2 or more players behind nat work now? (Score:2)
Have you fixed battle.net so that 2(or more) players behind nat can play together (Very importent now that you removed lan play), and play against other players in a 2 vs 2?
The Starcraft/battle.net that is online now can't do this.
How will removing LAN encourage more sales? (Score:5, Interesting)
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This seems to follow the typical entertainment industry fallacy of "people who enjoy our product without paying (typically through piracy, though not in this case) would buy it instead if we made free enjoyment harder." The question Blizzard was deciding here was whether the person playing the spawned copy of Starcraft was a potential customer or added value to the actual customers, and they chose to believe that it was a potential customer. Of course everyone should pay. Shareholder value and all that. I'd
Battle.net (Score:2)
This is relevant to the removal of LAN. Will there be any network overhead (ie, latency) associated with connecting over Battle.net for players who all share the same LAN?
Expansions? (Score:2)
Starcraft And Diablo 2 were instant hits and it wasn't long before they each had their respective expansion packs enabling much more content and extended gameplay. Given all the hype that's been built up over Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, its almost definite that they too will be top sellers. Assuming each new release retains that same captivating gameplay as its predecessors, are there any plans for expansion packs onto these?
Single Player (Score:5, Interesting)
I love playing games with friends in person, have a few people over and play.
Online, this has less draw for me. In a FPS I get my ass kicked. In WoW I gave up, I was spending more time LFG than actually going through dungeons. When my ideal gaming session is less than an hour, upper levels just got impossible if I didn't want to grind slowly through random encounters and skip quests.
Diablo 3 seems to have a heavy focus on the multi-player, Starcraft 2 campaigns look great, but all eyes (and in fact the release date) seem to be set on how Battle.net is doing.
Is single player dead? or at least dead at blizzard.
Auction house in D3 (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you considering allowing D3 users to trade object using Battle NEt out side of a game?
WoW Expansions (Score:2)
Why does every expansion make previous content so worthless? Do you honestly think that people won't buy expansions if the current content is still fun? In my opinion your expansions add enough to justify the purchases, there is no reason to force them down our throats.
For example with wrath of the lich king there was plenty of new content added to justify purchasing it, without making the entire area of burning crusade worthless except for grinding from levels 58 to 68. There was a ton of great raids and d
WoW - Further Internet Integration (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you have any plans for integrating World of Warcraft with the internet? People have speculated for ages about the ability to access the Auction House, receive and send in-game mail, schedule raids/events, and even chat with players in the game from a web-based console, or even a mobile phone. What sorts of challenges are keeping you from exploring this more fully than we have already seen with the experiments on the Armory?
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what exactly has the activision merger done? (Score:2)
Blizzard,
the Lan question has been covered. I think a short summary is that your entire gaming customer group at large is incredibly angry at the online only requirement (and how that screws up lan gaming), so I will not get into that or the ensuing boycott that I (and every lan party I know and/or have been a part of) are boycotting your products now.
My question is: in what ways has the activision merger done anything good for the company? All I have seen so far is basically the equivalent of extremely bad
Starcraft 2 Beta (Score:2)
WoW - Character Fluidity (Score:2)
Given the recent trends with character creation, cross-realm transfers, and the accelerated leveling experience, are there any plans to make characters even more fluid than they presently are? Have you considered the possibility of allowing all classes to start at an advanced level, rather than just the Heroes? Are you considering the possibility of allowing a character 'trade-in' where you could 'retire' a character of a certain level in exchange for one of another class, race, etc?
Anything new? (Score:2)
You are well known for taking an established genre, polishing the heck out of it, and making great games that people love to play. Do you have plans to get in to any other type of genres other than RTSs, MMOs, or dungeon crawlers?
WoW - Spectator Mode (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you still considering allowing a 'Spectator Mode' in WoW? This feature would be specifically interesting in Arenas and Raids, and doesn't seem to be too technologically complex to implement. What's holding you back?
The Answer To Every Question (Score:2)
WoW and Realms (Score:5, Interesting)
WoW is the only game I can't play with all my friends. Because some are are on realm A, some are on realm B, and some are in realm C. And while I can create 3 different characters to play with each of them, I could not tackle a dungeon with all of them. If I was playing Warcraft 3, Guild Wars, or any number of first person shooters, this wouldn't a problem -- and I don't pay a subscription to any of them.
Are there any plans (aside from the current "Paid Character Transfer") to enhance cross-realm gameplay? Or is this low on your priority list and are never going to do it (like allowing flying mounts in pre-BC areas)?
(And yes: I realize I'm in the minority by having met most of my friends who play WoW IRL...rather than the reverse)
Economy of Diablo (Score:5, Insightful)
In Diablo II, gold was a worthless commodity. Because the only way to get quality items was from either monster drops or gambling (which would often costs millions of gold to find something salable), the standard unit of economic trade became a unique ring.
This was bad for the economy in general: unlike World of Warcraft's Auction House, it was impossible for players who weren't competitive traders to participate in the economy. In addition, the design of the game in general made trading difficult (having to start a game to initiate a trade, muling, etc.)
What changes are you making to Diablo in order to make the economy of Diablo III more vibrant and accessible?
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NEXT QUESTION
Diablo III (Score:3, Interesting)
Why did you use a Witch-Doctor to replace the necromancer? I can think of a million other ways to replace him. If you really want to be original, try to make a class that doesn't have a common English name. Call them Maj'kan and give them their own culture. Say that they were priests from the remnants of a civilization that was destroyed by the prime evils, and that they trained to travel to hell itself to bring them back. Then they can have the ability to summon stitched-together demons and they can even a
Re:Diablo III (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Diablo III (Score:4, Funny)
"Blow Keith Lee" (whoever he is) would be the level 20 talent ability in the Maj'kal tree, of course.
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I also find it confusing when people complain that too much dev resources are wasted on WoW when they could be on SC2, then everyone complains that too many of the people who do WoW are working on SC2.
Blizzard does a fantastic job of making good looking games that don't kill your PC. If it is too colorful for you, just put some sort of gray translucent cover over your monitor so it can look manly and realis
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