I wonder how many people are going to call Brack and the Blizzard source liars just because they said something those people didn't like regarding blizzard not losing editorial freedoms to activision.
Its just sad to say goodbye to anyone that has been with a company for over 10 years...but nothing lasts forever...you get familiar with the high profile names ...then its a shock when they leave..especially when there no announcement of a replacement.......
so slow patches and having things be released way too late is causing the big devs to leave. delaying shadowlands was a confirmed mistake
I was waiting to see how this would turn out on here. Gotta love how it trivializes the working conditions, moral, and opinions mentioned in the article. WoWhead: "Man this article was really hard on Blizzard, how do we make ourselves look good for Blizzard? I know! Talk about how no games have been announced (common for companies in early phases) and that others have gone defunct (also common for games that can't get funding)! Yeah that'll teach IGN!"
Equity eh? Sounds like Karl Marx is running Blizzard.
I'm just curious to see if Dreamhaven will go back to the original Blizzard philosophy of artistic expression over profits. Of course it's about making money but not at the cost of loosing it's soul. Blizzard lost it's soul to the Maw when Activision came in. Maybe if it wasn't a full buy out and just a partnership then we would have the same Blizzard but they're just a husk of their former glory...just like what EA did to Bioware. Thank God the Mass Effect Legendary Edition turned out great but it's literally a fresh coat of paint on a game of the good Bioware just like classic and TBC classic are, that's why people prefer those over retail.Blizzard seriously, next expansion drop all borrowed power systems and make it more like your classic games and you will have massive people come back to retail in waves!
In other news.. Aaron Keller is very happy where he landed.PR piece.
The way the article tries to spin things reeks of PR. It tries to say, in a good light, that veteran departures are decreasing, but the actual source says Kaplan was the last veteran whose name people would likely even recognize. So yeah, I guess they could try to say that veteran departures are decreasing, because there aren't any veterans left rofl.
You know what...?Not long ago, everyone was baying & howling for Ion's head & blood; I think we're pretty much at the stage, now, that if Ion leaves, WoW will be mortally wounded... and it'll be when - rather than if - WoW gets its' plug pulled.Be careful what you all wish for; you only have yourselves to blame if you step blindly onto a rug that will immediately get pulled from under you.My suggestion would be that NOW is the best time for the über-cynics &/or disillusioned players to start SERIOUSLY consider jumping ship; I want the game to live on... but I have no empathy for masochists who stay where they have no will to be.EDIT:Factor this in, too... if WoW goes south, Wowhead may not be that far behind, too, so the trolls will need to find a new feeding ground, something I wish many of them would have been pushed into way earlier than even now.
Developers come and go.From Square Enix to Blizzard to Creative Assembly to (Enter Developer here) over the years it feels like most create their ideal game and then build on that concept for most if not all of their future titles. The struggle to innovate and change for the better often feel like uphill battles once their games are made. Some such as Square Enix have really struggled with creating new ideas while others such as Blizzard seem to be masters at it. And yes I'm calling Blizzard a master at bringing about new ideas for games. To have their fingers in RTS games to Card games to isometric RPGs to FPS games to MMOs and have almost all successful launches is nothing short of amazing. But even Blizzard will likely one day lose their creativity that we fall in love with in their games (reforged *cough*).But as the big giants like Blizzard do inevitably lose their luster we now have a tidal wave of smaller developers using platforms such as Steam to bring us into a new era of gaming innovation and enjoyment. This ties into the decline of MMOs for me as well as we essentially have platforms with various games to play with communities/friends rather than just one title. MMOs aren't needed for those of us that enjoy the social aspect of gaming anymore. Developers also can establish smaller teams and still have massively successful titles (Valheim anyone?).But I still don't see MMOs declining anytime soon. With developer talents popping in and out its even possible we'll eventually see some great new concepts added to the game.
"There's a popular narrative among fans and media that Activision has been clamping down and exerting more influence over Blizzard design direction, but reports indicate that Blizzard continues to enjoy its own editorial independence, to the point that even talking about money is actively discouraged in some areas. A firewall of sorts has been constructed around the core game development teams, with every effort being made to protect Blizzard’s internal development culture, and game development has remained relatively untouched by layoffs over the recent years."Well....considering that WoW has gotten worse (more bugs/less polished/obvious lacking of effort) in the years....I cant trust anything else said in the article. I feel like Activision.blizzard told someone to talk to IGN and try to ease the unrest in the player base. Activision.blizzard only cares about money/profit. The CEO only wants to inflate the stock price to get super rich (because a 200 million dollar bonus in stock options wasn't enough).I've played every expansion of WoW so far. Shadowlands is the worst expansion for me, by far. There were SO many bugs. The professions had no thought put into them (different max levels?). WoD had a bad start for an expansion but overall, I think it was better than Shadowlands. Shadowlands is so incredibly alt unfriendly and grindy. The rewards for playing are pathetic. There are countless changes that have been implemented that should've been in the expansion at the very start. For a start, anima is WAY too grindy to get compared to main resources in other expansions.Shadowlands has, overall, been a GIGANTIC disappointment for me.
That's because WoW is a static product with consistent cyclical profits and development. New IPs are something that are quietly developed for years, and Blizzard takes a long time to even make a sequel, let alone new IPs.I think it's just in the nature of the games they make. WoW is a vast MMORPG when you step back and consider all of the content it has built over time. Compare it to a lot of other modern games and it's easy to see why it withstands the test of time, despite players' doom and gloom predictions every single day for the past 10+ years. Very few MMOs keep up with content at the same point in their life cycle as WoW.
It's a great time to write positive things towards the artists and those developers who have stuck around. The forums are and will forever be a crap fest because people like to be unhappy when things aren't going their way. It would be a great time to dig deep and reach out to those members instead of trying to meme or say crap like "dying game" and being a complete goon. The devs can't control everything, they especially can't control how people especially the grown and experienced individuals who stick around act.Pandemic / good expansion / bad expansion whatever some of you kids want to blame things on also need to look inside of yourselves too. Even here on wowhead, flaming the staff that work hard on posts (though you don't like those) act like complete jackrabbits. Maybe I'm falling on deaf ears, but if a moment where people stood up to do the right thing or take a second and breathe about crap instead of firing off for your own reasons and pushing agendas like the (shadow priest hijackers months ago) this all would be a much better place.People keep saying they deserve more for paying 15 a month. Go somewhere else, take a long break, quit watching corrosive streamers and go outside. The COMMUNITY needs to improve more than anything. Quit abusing crap, quit being 5 years old when things don't go your way, for the health of us all and our shared world here in Warcraft. This ENTIRE community needs to be be better.