What does Blizzard mean to you?

@Scrawnto said:

@gamefreak9 said:

@Dezztroy said:

@gamefreak9: Every single thing you said had been done years before Blizzard did them. Doesn't mean their games are bad. They're not. They just never bring anything new to the genres.

go ahead and name where it has been done.

I could be wrong, but I think Supreme Commander had super units that could be hit by both ground and air attacks. Red Alert three had an air/ground transforming unit. Almost every RTS has units that only attack air or only attack ground.

I don't recall about Super units but no that transformation is not the same. Theres the viking which is both, but the phoinix makes the ENEMY units from ground to air and enables air attack only units to attack ground units. I never said only air and only ground attack, I said units that attack in a straight(vertical) line in front of them as splash, and units that attack in a horizontal line in front of them. Or for instance, an air transport that also heals is also never been done, there's usually ground units, heart of the swarm will also add a unit that Pulls units to it. The vortex is also an innovation, a stun that affects friendly and unfriendly, whilst making them invulnerable and compressing the space they take to a 2by2 block.

Strategy games.

And terrible balance when not talking about strategy games.

@Dezztroy said:

@gamefreak9 said:

@Scrawnto said:

@gamefreak9 said:

@Dezztroy said:

@gamefreak9: Every single thing you said had been done years before Blizzard did them. Doesn't mean their games are bad. They're not. They just never bring anything new to the genres.

go ahead and name where it has been done.

I could be wrong, but I think Supreme Commander had super units that could be hit by both ground and air attacks. Red Alert three had an air/ground transforming unit. Almost every RTS has units that only attack air or only attack ground.

I don't recall about Super units but no that transformation is not the same. Theres the viking which is both, but the phoinix makes the ENEMY units from ground to air and enables air attack only units to attack ground units. I never said only air and only ground attack, I said units that attack in a straight(vertical) line in front of them as splash, and units that attack in a horizontal line in front of them. Or for instance, an air transport that also heals is also never been done, there's usually ground units, heart of the swarm will also add a unit that Pulls units to it. The vortex is also an innovation, a stun that affects friendly and unfriendly, whilst making them invulnerable and compressing the space they take to a 2by2 block.

I find it hilarious that you said I was the one who didn't know what innovation is. I rest my case.

Ok try and define video game innovation for me.

@gamefreak9: Ah, your wording was a bit imprecise there, so I misunderstood you. I generally take vertical to mean perpendicular to the ground, and horizontal to mean parallel to the ground, rather than forward and to the sides as you apparently meant. And "a unit that transforms ground unit into aerial" made me think you had omitted "from a" between transforms and ground. My mistake there.

@Dezztroy: understandable.

@Scrawnto said:

@gamefreak9: Ah, your wording was a bit imprecise there, so I misunderstood you. I generally take vertical to mean perpendicular to the ground, and horizontal to mean parallel to the ground, rather than forward and to the sides as you apparently meant. And "a unit that transforms ground unit into aerial" made me think you had omitted "from a" between transforms and ground. My mistake there.

yeah my bad.

@ProfessorEss said:

Polish, optimization and long, long dev cycles.

ah yes long dev cycles... I should have included that.

They make extremely generic games extremely well.

I'll take generic and polished any day over innovative and broken.

If a developer can give me innovative and polished at the same time of course i'll take that first. In this category i don't think of Blizzard at all but since most games on the market are either generic or broken Blizzard still ranks pretty high up on my favorite developers list.

they're charismatic and very talented drug dealers

@pyrodactyl said:

they're charismatic and very talented drug dealers

I dno I heard wow was used as drug therapy!

@Ravenlight said:

@ZeForgotten said:

• Blackthrone (such a terrible game).

Fuck you, Blackthorne was awesome.

Indeed :o and Lost Vikings was great too; I have no interest in anything they've made since though...

One of the few video game companies that ruins people's lives.

10 years ago they meant Lost Vikings and Diablo (the first one). Nowadays they mostly mean games that take forever to develop, yet still manage to bore me within 15 minutes, obnoxious pop-culture references and an even more obnoxious playerbase. Oh, and studies, exams and eventually degrees ruined by excessive World of Warcraft-playing, which didn't happen to me personally, but to several of my friends.

@Svenzon said:

10 years ago they meant Lost Vikings and Diablo (the first one). Nowadays they mostly mean games that take forever to develop, yet still manage to bore me within 15 minutes, obnoxious pop-culture references and an even more obnoxious playerbase. Oh, and studies, exams and eventually degrees ruined by excessive World of Warcraft-playing, which didn't happen to me personally, but to several of my friends.

pop-culture references? like what?

@nintendoeats said:

One of the few video game companies that ruins people's lives.

Or makes them!(People making a living off of SC 2)

Also, the people saying the service is poor and the games lack any depth or growth/innovation clearly have very limited experience with blizzard products. Though I guess I'll grant you that a large amount of the innovation comes from what the players find they can do within the game.

@IAmNotBatman said:

Not as much as they think.

Blizzard is probably the only company I can think of that has never made a truly bad game. Maybe their games aren't always "innovative", but being constantly innovative is overrated anyway. They don't try to reinvent the wheel, they typically just improve or build upon existing well established tropes, and that's fine.

You personally may not like some or even all of the games they've made, but it's pretty well established that they've never developed a game that has been panned or roundly disliked, and they've been around a long time and made a fair number of games. Try to think of another company that you can say that of.

Diablo 2 came to mind.

@pyrodactyl said:

they're charismatic and very talented drug dealers

i laughed and then a split second later i knew this to be true.

I'm indifferent about Blizzard (they make really awesome trailers, I guess), but I like blizzards.

Not much.

They release the same game 12 years later and get away with it because it's so damn polished and well-executed, which basically extends to everything they have done since like Warcraft II.

@ArbitraryWater said:

They release the same game 12 years later and get away with it because it's so damn polished and well-executed, which basically extends to everything they have done since like Warcraft II.

if it was the same game there would not still be a sc1 scene.

I think people tend to forget that Blizzard was in on the ground floor with the RTS genre. They were not the first of course but they had one of the first that closely resembles them the way they do today. Also how many games did you see that were like Diablo before that came out? I can't think of a single one. I can't defend the mmo thing except to say that they took a mostly unproven model and turned it into a world spanning phenomenon.

I will agree they are not the best innovators and hardly come up with anything original and continue to iterate on their past successes. But guess what? They do a damn good job of making some of the best games in their respective genres and you would be lying if you said any of their current games aren't some of the most well built out there.

People just like to be dismissive and derogatory because they are so successful and maybe also because they're under the Activision banner. It's not just a matter of not caring for the games.

After their new Heart of the Swarm announcements the other day, I'd say the best developer there is.

Games i don't care about.

Games I don't care about.

first things that come to mind are

Warcraft - Warhammer

Starcraft - Warhammer 40k

Diablo - Dungeons and Dragons

It's not really a bad thing, it's just what I think about when I think about Blizzard games

@Ravenlight said:

@ZeForgotten said:

• Blackthrone (such a terrible game).

Fuck you, Blackthorne was awesome.

Indeed :o and Lost Vikings was great too; I have no interest in anything they've made since though...

Blizzard literally gave me YEARS of entertainment. Or stole years of my life? Erm...

Blizzard is a succubus.

• Grade A developers
• Chopping Wood!
• Extreme polish
• Yes sire!
• Awesome CG & story to match
• As you wish!
• It's done when we say it's done

After their new Heart of the Swarm announcements the other day, I'd say the best developer there is.

Constantly taking forever to make games & obsessively caught in an endless amount of updates for nerfing/boosting the MMO they make.

They've been dead to me since WoW began.

Too much time spent playing Diablo 2 in high school.

To me? Not a lot. I've never played WoW, never played Starcraft and never played Diablo. In fact, the only game of theirs I have played is Blackthorne.

So I guess the Blizzard of today is practically a blank canvas to me.

I'm interested to pick up Diablo III though, as I loved Torchlight.

It's an attack from a Final Fantasy game.

Insanely high quality.

Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne

Nothing anymore. They are leading the charge for the "games are a service" idea, and slowly monetizing every aspect of their titles. When Titan hits, Battle.Net will be a paid service.

Snow...and Warcraft. Warcraft and snow. That's about it.

@WrathOfBanja said:

They've been dead to me since WoW began.

aw come on... you need to be a little more forgiving :p.

@DrDarkStryfe said:

Nothing anymore. They are leading the charge for the "games are a service" idea, and slowly monetizing every aspect of their titles. When Titan hits, Battle.Net will be a paid service.

Um, i'm guessing your refering to the RMAH? that's about it... other companies have found more ways to monetize services, like League of Legends.

1. Need to go to the store and get supplies because we are not gonna go outside at any point int he next 4 days.
2. A very thick yet extremely delicious shake from DQ.

A company that finds something successful and does iterate on the formula. Also a company that people buy games from no matter what.

Hope.

@Sammo21 said:

A company that finds something successful and does iterate on the formula. Also a company that people buy games from no matter what.

What company doesn't? Also I put emphasis on Successful! Don't pick a game you like, pick a game that did REALLY well.

@Dezztroy said:

Complete lack of innovation.

RIght, WoW and Warcraft 3 never did anything to spark their respective markets.

Dairy Queen