Originally posted by sanders01

Originally posted by Wizardry

Does the OP believe everything he reads from a developer?? i mean what developer on this planet would tell you truth when in marketing mode?they 100% of the time ALWAYS hype up their game and tell the people what they want to hear,it is always marketing BS.

This SC2 is actually the same over the head view garbage they do with Diablo and the overall quality of the engine is horrible.They are doing there usual rehash of old ideas and old game engines and trying to convince the dummies out there,they are getting something new and unique,neither is true.

If Blizzard wa so sure of their ability and their game,they would have made SC2 years ago and not canceled it at least once,probably twice.I mean the SC:Ghost was already being made,and they purchased that company,so why did it disband?They only got brave enough,once the cash rolled in from WOW,to even consider a rehash of the older SC.If anyone of sane mind thinks WOW was HARDCORE,,rflmao,they need to give their head a shake,WOW is anything but,it was designed for the younger immature crowd.Blizzard actually designs their games for the EXACT opposite of what they are claiming,very funny how pathetic their marketing ploys are,yet even more amazing is how many buy into their BS.

There is no longer 10 million brand new clueless gamers clammouring to get into the MMO crave,Blizzard must now try their marketing BS on more intelligent gamers and have a MUCH smaller crowd to try and fool.Their cheap designs,cheap game engines ,have very little chance of fooling people ever again.Once the masses leave WOW,Blizzard will once again be a struggling entity amongst the gaming community.There is always a very young crowd looking for simplistic,cheap games like Diablo,but there is far too many choices for that age group ,to hope Blizzard can lock them all up under their wing.Besides that Diablo type games are now old school,we have moved beyond that phase.

Good thing they enticed Activision to partnership,they will need them down the road.If the rumors were correct about WOW's cost,then they must have a VERY inept loose ship for spending money,that game should have cost them VERY little to develope.They had the know how from former SOE staff,they had the template to copy[EQ],all they had to do is roll with it.

The same will happen with SC2,they already have the template or game,i am sure you will be getting the left overs already designed by the developer Blizzard bought out  the rights to SC:Ghost.Blizzard will be trying to sell the public a rehashed older game as something new..bah.

Sounds like a hate with no evidence. As for SC2 being 'rehased', why fix something that isn't broken?

Because it's boring to play the same or similar game with a different coat of graphics.  Gaming companies can't afford to sit on their laurels.  Not only do you lose money that way, but you get a bad reputation which loses even more money due to shrinking brand loyalty.

Edit:  I used to be a big Blizzard fan before the release of WoW.  After WoW, I was still a fan, but was very disappointed that a casual game had such a huge focus on hardcores getting the best rewards and exculsive content.  Now, after reading that article, I have absolutely no respect for this company anymore.  What a dispicable way to design games.

If they really did get it, they would put lan play in SC2.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

I think everyone knows Blizzard is great at making games that cater to the least common denominator. They have the MMORPG with the largest paid subscription base by far. None of the others even come close.

The reason most of us post and read the forums here at MMORPG.com is because we want something else.

Otherwise, I'd just happily play WoW and not bother with the forums here.

They (Blizzard) have a horrible sense of timing in regards as to when to introduce their "learning curve" via patches (right before WOTLK was released) when in regards to changing game mechanics entirely.

Yes yes, I know the arguements, had plenty of them before I retired my 'lock (which was at 78 when I got tired of the bulkiness that was introduced with their new dot system) and although it might have changed since then.... when you spend 1 week of raiding (4 days of sunwell, 1 of black temple- 70 cap pre expansion) to clear all the good stuff to farm bosses, and then they change the hitpoint value and difficulty "for the non hardcore" so you can clear both zones IN 4 HOURS!!, they are still falling under the same problem every other developing company does.... you trivialize old content.

Hopefully they address it in further expansions (not that it matters, can't afford the time to play wow anymore). Take what the TC quoted from the Blizzard rep.. "the 1-79..." which falls under that mentality, because I still remember 60 being the cap at one time =P. Now noone wants to deal with any old world content save to just hit hotspots to grind your 20 levels, move on to BC content to hit 70, and then WOTLK to finish up your levels.

Plenty of dungeons were REALLY fun to race for server firsts, and I still fondly rememb learnign how to tank Leotheras the Blind in Serpentshrine Cavern. Let alone all the fun aoe pulls in Black Temple, or during the M'uru fight. Even learning how to control dragons for Kil'jaeden.

But who cares right? Gotta get your WOTLK content done and farm THOSE bosses...

[quote]I think everyone knows Blizzard is great at making games that cater to the least common denominator. They have the MMORPG with the largest paid subscription base by far. None of the others even come close.[/quote]

That also contradicts the original post (but I agree) but it's also because they are now the largest surviving game developer and have the largest coffer in which to draw from (which isn't a bad thing).

Before WoW, Everquest was by far a superior mmorpg (using the world system and timers made weekly boss farming WAY more fun IMO) but unfortunately, EQ was almost another generation ago.

Originally posted by Mattyb710

Google ---> How to spec my huntard? + What rotation I use for dps? -----> Mastered!

And that's how you think you get good at PvP?

Neverwinter Nights is a great MMORPG. Blizzard droped the Ball when they let somone else make NWN2.

As far as I'm concerned, Blizzard can have "it". The game is fun in some aspects but it is by no means perfect or close to it. I think they only have so many subscriptions with WoW is because of their previous games, and more advertising than any MMO ever.

eh, WoW has been going downhill the past few months playerbase wise. They're losing more subs than gaining nowadays because people are sick of the exact same thing over and over.
Sure they did everything right to begin with, and it was a great game. But every patch makes it worse (at least since Burning Crusade).

WoW will die eventually, whether it be Blizzards new MMO or another company. Only time will tell.
 

WoW is more or else much of the same as most online games. I never had the desire to or will have the desire to play. I'm not missing anything special. There are free to play clones of the game out there to play which are nothing to be amazed by either. It will be nice when it dies out and there will be something more original devolped that is alot better and worth the money.

Originally posted by Greenie

Originally posted by Jetrpg

UMM but this is simply not true and pve raids point this out just fine.

Futhermore, in bgs everyone can easily spot players that are way better than others its not even hard.

 

If PVE raids have scoreboards I didn't know and I'm not referrring to PVE raids. I"m not a big pve fan or raider, I like to see a dungeon once if it's a cool lookin dungeon, but I'm all about the pvp and group vs group pvp at that.

. As it comes to pvp in the bgs it is certainly true. Scores in the bgs are very misleading as to how good or bad a player is. If you disagree with that then you've grown up on wow and war pvp which means your opinion carries very little weight with me as I feel neither game represent decent pvp. 

Well lets see, 6 years playing daoc, 1 year of 10six, 4 years of muds (duris mainly [pvp lose loot, some classes level loss]), wow for 3 years, eve 2 years, Ac 1 year, and ao 1/2 year.(played some pvp BBS games too before all of these tho most of the pvp was very rough, but a rush then) [im leaving out many other games with pvp]

Every mmo with pvp i spend time in it, if it has good pvp then i spend more time in it. I spend some time in wow's pvp less the more the game advanced as it has gotten worse and worse.

No offense but i believe my pvp experience in rpgs trumps well anyone on this forum if not equals. The reason for this well seeing as i started playing rpgs online when they first were online and got right into the pvp , it is literally impossible to have more experience with online rpgs.

Futhermore, i never said wows pvp was great or good. I did say that if your a great player in wow people know, and you can tell who the other good , great, weak, bad, really bad, and just ok players are. The score boards DO reflect player skill they are not perfect, but if your dps and you are on the lower half of dps your bad, if your a healer and your on the lower half your bad.  Nothing is perfect but watching others or yourself fightign another person for 10 sec you should know how skilled that player is , its that simple, i always do.

PS playing wow for the pvp is just fail.

Originally posted by Jetrpg

Futhermore, i never said wows pvp was great or good. I did say that if your a good player in wow people know, and you can tell who the other good , great, weak, bad, really bad, and just ok players are. The score boards DO reflect player skill they are not perfect, but if your dps and you are on the lower half of dps your bad, if your a healer and your on the lower half your bad.  Nothing is perfect but watchign others or yourself fightign another person for 10 sec you should know how skilled that player is , its that simple, i always do.

PS playing wow for the pvp is just fail.

So what about a healer that zones into bg for wow or scenario in warhammer when 6 minutes have expired?  That's six minutes they haven't been able to build up stats for healing.

OR the dps zone in late or even say it's a lowbie dps toon and he has no healer available to him because the healer is at the other side of arathi basin with a couple high level tanks he's friends with and he's getting camped by a twinked out rogue 5 levels above him. They're going to have higher stats due to being higher level and not dying as much.

Stats can Lie, which was my point. You CANNOT use the scoreboards to accurately determine a person's worth to a scenario and  bg , or their skill.

You haveto play with them, watch them, group with them.

Originally posted by Greenie

Originally posted by Jetrpg

Futhermore, i never said wows pvp was great or good. I did say that if your a good player in wow people know, and you can tell who the other good , great, weak, bad, really bad, and just ok players are. The score boards DO reflect player skill they are not perfect, but if your dps and you are on the lower half of dps your bad, if your a healer and your on the lower half your bad.  Nothing is perfect but watchign others or yourself fightign another person for 10 sec you should know how skilled that player is , its that simple, i always do.

PS playing wow for the pvp is just fail.

 

So what about a healer that zones into bg for wow or scenario in warhammer when 6 minutes have expired?  That's six minutes they haven't been able to build up stats for healing.

OR the dps zone in late or even say it's a lowbie dps toon and he has no healer available to him because the healer is at the other side of arathi basin with a couple high level tanks he's friends with and he's getting camped by a twinked out rogue 5 levels above him. They're going to have higher stats due to being higher level and not dying as much.

Stats can Lie, which was my point. You CANNOT use the scoreboards to accurately determine a person's worth to a scenario and  bg , or their skill.

You haveto play with them, watch them, group with them.

YET IF YOU ENGUAGED THEM IN 10 SECS YOU SHOULD KNOW IF THEY ARE A GOOD PLAYER.

wow i have typed that like how many times and yes if you zone in late or anything then it will show the person killing less but also dieing less. So if you can interpret stats you still can get a good idea.  Still THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT IF YOU CAN'T TELL WHO THE GREAT PLAYERS ARE YOUR BAD.

" You CANNOT use the scoreboards to accurately determine a person's worth to a scenario and bg , or their skill."- I do and it works good enough, score boards do not need to be perfect, just good enough and war's shows enough to tell who is good and bad almost all the time.

Originally posted by Jetrpg

YET IF YOU ENGUAGED THEM IN 10 SECS YOU SHOULD KNOW IF THEY ARE A GOOD PLAYER.

wow i have typed that like how many times and yes if you zone in late or anything then it will show the person killing less but also dieing less. So if you can interpret stats you still can get a good idea.  Still THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT IF YOU CAN'T TELL WHO THE GREAT PLAYERS ARE YOUR BAD.

" You CANNOT use the scoreboards to accurately determine a person's worth to a scenario and bg , or their skill."- I do and it works good enough, score boards do not need to be perfect, just good enough and war's shows enough to tell who is good and bad almost all the time.

 

really 10 seconds?  What if their kid called for them in those 10 seconds,cat knocked over a cup of coffee, or they sneezed, or got a lag spike? Is ten seconds all you really need? WoW you must be psychic then to know that person wasn't distracted by some real life event or system failure in that 10 seconds. I guess nobody has ever screwed up and hit the wrong key either before. That ten second mistake definitely encompasses their whole pvp career and skill.

You can interpret stats all you want. In WAR Bright wizards do tons of dps on the charts, but most of them suck because they're spamming ae's on the tanks. They're not assisting tanks, choosing soft targets. Healers healing the BW to keep them alive from backlash are getting inflated numbers on healing, but that doesn't help the tank or dps in the back lines that is dying because they can't get a heal. Those charts you covet so much can lie and usually do.

From this highlighted quote I am willing to bet you were a complete zerger in daoc who didn't run with a tight group that was successful more often than not against equal or better numbers.

Originally posted by heerobya

And here is the proof, straight from Blizzard-

http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002570p1.html?_cmpid=ign18

"StarCraft II's Design Philosophies
Blizzard on catering to the hardcore, making the game accessible and bringing eSports to the masses.
by Cam Shea, IGN AU
 

Australia, July 10, 2009 - Blizzard has an interesting challenge on its hands for the game design of StarCraft II. On one hand, the original has proven to be one of the most popular and long running multiplayer videogames of all time: not only is it still played today, but it's an institution in South Korea, where the game's popularity and its level of coverage essentially make it a national sport. On the other hand - and against this weight of expectation for a balanced, deep game that will thrive in the pro circuits - Blizzard is also looking for a blockbuster hit: a game that will go beyond the hardcore and enter the mainstream.

Of course, the company has proven time and again that it has what it takes to do just that, and that making a game that will appeal to the hardcore, as well as be accessible for mainstream players is not a diametrically opposed challenge, but part of the same process. Indeed, strangely enough, mainstream appeal is born out of making a game for the hardcore.

"This is sort of a Blizzard core design philosophy," Dustin Browder, StarCraft II's lead game designer told us. "We always cater to the hardcore community. Always. From minute one we focus on them, and then we try to make it more accessible after that... A lot of other companies say 'casual first because they're the biggest numbers… and then someday we'll deal with those hardcore guys if we get time to get to them...,' but we say 'look, at the end of the day, everybody has the chance to become a hardcore person if only you'll let them'."
 

Part of transitioning players from more casual fans to fanatics is about building the right learning curve; the classic 'easy to learn, hard to master' philosophy of Blizzard. "WoW has a real advantage over us in the sense that they have that 1-79 experience with questing, which is pretty easy to do and not too hardcore," Dustin says, "and then it gets pretty hardcore with raids and PVP arena, but at that point, how comfortable are you with this character?" The goal for StarCraft II, then, is to have stages for players to progress through.

Dustin maps it out: "Try your campaign, cool. Okay, try your skirmish – you can get some achievements playing skirmish for a few games. How about these challenges that you can play? Each of these challenges is about five to ten minutes, and each one of them teaches you a core bit of RTS StarCraft II strategy. Why don't you try those out? We've got some achievements for you there too. Hey, you know what? You should go online. There's this casual league online – you should click on that and see what happens there. It's a casual league, there's no rush maps, the game speed is set a little bit slower, why don't you try that for a couple of weeks? Hey, you know what might be fun? Maybe you should play a 2v2, just one. So if we can sort of step it out for them it'll be great. If they just play the campaign then click on 'play [online] game', then, oh God, it's going to be horrible.""
 

""Making a game that can ease in newcomers and provide a fun experience for casual players, as well as sate the appetites of pro gamers, isn't the whole story though. There's also eSports. How to promote StarCraft II as a spectator sport outside South Korea? How to introduce people to the complexities and minor details of pro play? Can it even work as a spectator support in the West? Dustin isn't certain, but the team is committed to doing everything it can to try and make it happen. That's why the studio is producing the Battle Reports, to "give people a window," that isn't too hardcore – quite a different approach to the Shoutcast community where a high level of knowledge is assumed. "If we can put out stuff that says 'hey guys – competitive gaming – fun to watch! Check this shit out!'," Dustin says, "I think it might get more breadth.""

 

Now read those highlighted parts again, and then you'll know exactly why WoW is so huge and every major MMO released since then has not been able to retain any more then a few hundred thousands subs.

I don't think Blizzard's marketing team would typically agree with those highlighted statements lol...  It's actually very contradicting in a sense that no company forces to cator their product or service to a small destintive market.  Normally, most companies (especially corperations) would cator to specific target makets, but at a broad-span, and they would definitely not want to reduce their market vision as a whole.

The fact is, if Blizzard did infact primarily focus on their "Hardcore" player-base from the start, they would have never reached the amount of subscriptions they have today.  You can't engineer a product that way, especially an online game where you are trying to capture as many potential players as you can.  Based on my experience (I've played WoW since beta, and within several guilds), most players are your typical casuals who get home from school or work, and want to spend an hour or two either raiding, PvPing, questing, etc.  They sometimes even just want to get online and start chatting with their guild-mates, making WoW a sort-of "social IM client" as well.

The MANY changes they made to the game along the way have definitely made life easier for their subscribers, this in itself contradicts the highlighted statements above.  You have to understand that Blizzard really wants to be involved in the "eSport" aspect of the online gaming genre, they did very well with the original StarCraft.  However, they will bring in developers & directors into interviews yelping these eSport statements all day long.  This doesn't necessarily make their games "eSports" automatically.  One of the recent issues is that StarCraft 2 has had some negative feedback by Blizzard's highest competitive market, South Korea / Taiwan.  Apparently the game is coming along quite nicely, however there is one major concern, there is no LAN support available.  So how does this game suppose to remain "hardcore" and truely competitive as an eSport when it cannot be hosted at LAN tournaments around the world? 

---

Originally posted by Lorenz0

I don't think Blizzard's marketing team would typically agree with those highlighted statements lol...  It's actually very contradicting in a sense that no company forces to cator their product or service to a small destintive market.  Normally, most companies (especially corperations) would cator to specific target makets, but at a broad-span, and they would definitely not want to reduce their market vision as a whole.

---

I think that, as a matter of fact, Blizzard's CEO also agrees with that point of view. In an Eurogamer interview not-too-long-ago Rob Pardo states almost word-for-word the same thing: "One of the ways we do that is that we build for the depth first - for the hardcore first." Come to think of it, maybe it is just the kind of advertisement Blizzard wants for their games: these are the games for the hardcore where you can become one. I think it is fairly basic human need to feel yourself better than the rest and providing your game with road to grandeur for a single player or a collective of players is likely the thing to hook them for ages.

---

Originally posted by Lorenz0

The fact is, if Blizzard did infact primarily focus on their "Hardcore" player-base from the start, they would have never reached the amount of subscriptions they have today.  You can't engineer a product that way, especially an online game where you are trying to capture as many potential players as you can.  Based on my experience (I've played WoW since beta, and within several guilds), most players are your typical casuals who get home from school or work, and want to spend an hour or two either raiding, PvPing, questing, etc.  They sometimes even just want to get online and start chatting with their guild-mates, making WoW a sort-of "social IM client" as well.

---

Its pathetic to see guys saying that needing internet to play lan is something really hard and killing a game.Its 2009 and i dont believe there is any civilized place which will host a lan tournament or party and not being able to have internet for less than 40E.Even if there is no telephone line there are wireless internet usb cards.There is no excuse to not have access to internet these days. 

Actually, the hackers will have no problem dissecting the game and offer LAN gameplay. People getting their hands on pirated copies won't be able to connect to battle.net naturally. The legit players will be the only ones without LAN, while the ones pirating will play in a LAN without any problem.

The LAN gameplay was definitely not cut due to piracy, but to promote Battle.net in a manner that xbox service works.

Originally posted by DiTH

Its pathetic to see guys saying that needing internet to play lan is something really hard and killing a game.Its 2009 and i dont believe there is any civilized place which will host a lan tournament or party and not being able to have internet for less than 40E.Even if there is no telephone line there are wireless internet usb cards.There is no excuse to not have access to internet these days. 

Well, it all depends on whether you consider Diablo or Starcraft a single player or a mulitplayer game. For me Diablo was a multiplayer game but starcraft was a single player one, that's just the way I was gaming. In this regard, I don't care if there won't be any LAN support, but I would certainly mind if the game was unplayable because it couldn't connect to the internet.

By the way, I buy games from Steam service, but I tend to buy only those that I enjoy playing online most of the time. I avoid buying single player games, since I want to game on my laptop when I'm not at home (traveling).

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by DiTH

Its pathetic to see guys saying that needing internet to play lan is something really hard and killing a game.Its 2009 and i dont believe there is any civilized place which will host a lan tournament or party and not being able to have internet for less than 40E.Even if there is no telephone line there are wireless internet usb cards.There is no excuse to not have access to internet these days. 

Well, it all depends on whether you consider Diablo or Starcraft a single player or a mulitplayer game. For me Diablo was a multiplayer game but starcraft was a single player one, that's just the way I was gaming. In this regard, I don't care if there won't be any LAN support, but I would certainly mind if the game was unplayable because it couldn't connect to the internet.

By the way, I buy games from Steam service, but I tend to buy only those that I enjoy playing online most of the time. I avoid buying single player games, since I want to game on my laptop when I'm not at home (traveling).

If you want to play single player campaign and custom games or watch replays u dont need to login in battle.net.Also when a game is created on battle.net and the host is in your LAN you play lagfree like you would playing on LAN.Its the exact same thing.You only need something like a 56k Internet connection to login in battle.net,create the game everyone from your LAN to join and your playing exactly as you would on LAN.

If internet is the key to battle piracy, then Microsoft is doing something very wrong with their operating systems and office suite.

The only thing that those pirates need to do is to disable whatever check the game is making with the battle net servers and enable LAN support. If the game doesn't check for the battle.net, how will Blizzard manage to detect the pirated copy?

People pirating will lose the internet part of the game, but that was always a given.

Edit: Oh, and WAN is a LAN, just without cables. So no, you won't be able to play through WAN alone, you still need the internet connection.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Xasapis

Actually, the hackers will have no problem dissecting the game and offer LAN gameplay. People getting their hands on pirated copies won't be able to connect to battle.net naturally. The legit players will be the only ones without LAN, while the ones pirating will play in a LAN without any problem.

The LAN gameplay was definitely not cut due to piracy, but to promote Battle.net in a manner that xbox service works.

 

Of course it was left out purely for pricay reasons.

And they use the latest tools to rectify the problem: the internet.

Simple.

By making it only through Battle.net they motivate everyone to play there (with their achievements) and who wants to play on a personal server anyway (look at WOW) in the long run.

BTW. I am not even interested in SC2. But I find the Battle.net solution the ONLY good solution to play co-op games in 2009. It also is a very good controlling technique against hacks (see D2, which I WILL play).

Portable? LAN, WAN's everywhere. Who uses cables anyway ?

And you can always play solo .... without the on line achievement status.

All in all a perfect soution to motivate everyone to buy a legal copy, without resorting to ridiculous one time protection codes and CD inserts.

And X .... we WERE talking about hardcore. The EAXCT same group that copies EVERYTHING they can lay their hands on.

 

people liked lan because they could burn the SC disk and play with their friends (since you cannot play online with a burned disk). It isnt about playing with strangers over the internet like MMORPGs. It's about playing with friends in the same house as you who might not have the game.

P.S. Me and everyone else i know uses cables.

EDIT: tbh i dont care much about the lan being removed, it;ll just force me to look online for a something to give me that option again, or i'll have to have multiple copies. Either one i can live with.