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I figure this a good opportunity. It's been a while since we've had a real discussion thread

I think Blizzard is in a pretty interesting position at the moment.

World of Warcraft's popularity is slowly fading. They manage to reinvigorate interest temporarily with new expansions, but my overall impression is that it's losing effectiveness as time goes on. I predict that the current 'Legion' expansion was a last spurt of sorts. There'll be a few more expansions, but whatever comes after this will no longer draw the same high numbers, and for even shorter times. Mind you, I don't play the game, so perhaps my view is incorrect.

With the release of Legacy of the Void, Starcraft 2 has entered its support phase. Arguably the game currently experiences more communication and proper support than ever before, so I think that's been working out well. Blizzard has decided to start adding in the much requested voice packs, skin packs, etc. But it's likely all a bit too late. This all should have happened many years ago already. The playerbase isn't really all that impressive anymore, so they're probably not earning much from it. Still, it's very pleasant to see, and I've started playing the game for the first time in nearly 2 years. The game even seems to be experiencing some newfound interest among more casual players due to the new Co-op modes...
With that said, Starcraft's story is virtually finished. At the very least this chapter of the game is completely over, all major loose ends have been tied into a knot.

I lack perspective on the Diablo franchise to make any predictions, but last I heard the hopes of a Diablo 4 were answered with a Diablo remaster instead? So I guess Diablo's fate is undecided as well? if anyone has inputs on Diablo's future, I'll try to summarize and add them in.

Blizzard's new 'cashcows' are all a little bit barebone games: Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone and Overwatch.
While each of them is a really solid game in their own rights, the former two lack the potential for the proper story and world-building Blizzard is known for. Overwatch has great potential, and probably already has terrabytes of assets from project Titan available for immediate use, but Blizz seems to be using it sparingly. For now OW's story elements are limited to one-liner dialogs, map secrets and separate short movies on YT.

I'm pretty sure among these Hearthstone makes the biggest bank, or at least will carry on making bank the longest as it's the most accessible game of the bunch. I think Overwatch's longevity may not be that long, judging from the pace at which new stuff gets introduced into the game. In the past year HotS received 16 new heroes, 2.5 new maps, and and like 50 new skins. Overwatch has received... 1 new map and 2 new heroes and maybe a handful of skins?

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Essentially, with all it's well-known franchises wrapping up one way or another, what's Blizzard's next move?
With the exception of one rumor, there isn't much news of Blizzard even working on anything major at the moment. No new IP's in sight, nor sequels for the existing big ones (Other than probably a few more WoW expansions).

Do you think they will try to close the curtains on the current major IP's? Are they tired of them? Can we expect an influx of brand-new franchises like Overwatch? More games built from the core of the cancelled project Titan?
Or could a Warcraft 4 / Starcraft 3 be on the way after all?
The RTS genre is in a bit of tough spot right now. It seems as if even Blizzard feels a bit uncertain about whether investing money here would net them any profits.
Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm rely heavily on the influence of these existing franchises. If the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo IP's don't last, they'll have issues expanding HS and HotS too.

I believe there's potential for a Starcraft 3, but not with any of the current main characters. At most Valerian Mengsk and Matt Horner in their later years. Starcraft is my favorite among Blizzard's IP's, so I'll be very happy to see more of that.
There's also always been an interest in a new Warcraft RTS game, but considering how much time has passed already, it appears Blizzard seems somewhat reluctant to touch on this subject at all. Perhaps they feel it might cannibalize WoW's profits?

I've discussed this a bit with a friend of mine as well. We agree there's a very large possibility Blizzard will build upon Overwatch by introducing a single player campaign. Either as a standalone game or as an expansion to the current game. It just seems like it makes the most sense. Blizzard surely had a grand story in mind for OW, but it can't be expressed properly in a 5v5 team game. It is probably the most viable path, and I'd like to see it a lot, personally. There's already some news of Blizzard working on a unannounced project that utilizes a robust first-person engine, though it can't really be considered anything more than a rumor.

What do you think Blizzard has in store for us in the foreseeable future?

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Additionally notable perhaps is the retirement of Chris Metzen. For better of for worse Metzen has always been knee-deep in the creation process of almost every Blizzard Game. His name is almost as iconic as the IP's themselves. Does his retirement further decrease the chance of our beloved IP's returning?

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TL;DR - Blizzard's older franchises are seemingly ending. What now?

Can't say I really enjoy or ever got into the whole Warcraft universe, and in general I never found a Blizzard game that appealed to me, personally.

Not a hater - by no means. I have tried Heroes of the Storm - was fun for a few days. But they just never made a game that really got me excited.

However, after months of convincing from my friends, I finally bought Overwatch, and I really enjoy it! Sure, it takes too long to find matches, but I can live with that, as each game session is super short once you've actually found a match.

What I mean to say with this is that Overwatch is the first Blizzard game that I find interesting.

And I'm quite sure I'm not the only gamer out there who feels like this.

So honestly, I'd gladly see many of Blizzard's old IPs die, so that they can focus on new game ideas like Overwatch. I have the feeling their old IPs are starting to limit what the company can do.

I'm personally not that huge of a fan of warcraft either, but that has more to do with gameplay reasons. I can appreciate its lore at least, though I think there's better fantasy out there, WC lore is special in it's holywood-esque accessibility combined with relative depth.
Ultimately my issues stems from what I consider to be game identity issues in Warcraft 3.
WC3 portrayed itself as an RTS, but played nothing like it. It felt like an RPG with light RTS elements. I think for this reason I also found that little Rehgar bonus campaign to be by far the most fun part of the game. It's the one portion that accepted what it truly was and did everything right to make it fun.


I don't know when you've tried the game, but it has changed a lot over the year. There have been tons of hero releases, redesigns, etc. Blizzard's approach to the game in general has changed. There's been something akin to an influx of pseudo-carry heroes. They don't qualify as a carry's, but they're clearly playmakers. I'm not a fan of the new approach personally, because the time to kill has gone down a lot, but I'm clearly in the minority. If lack of play-making potential was your issue with the game, consider giving it another go. It may click better nowadays.


This seems really strange... Are you some sort of really high MMR or something?
Finding matches is super fast for me, I don't even have time to open my lootboxes
I've only tried QM though...


OW is fun for me, but personally I always need a story hook to really get invested in a game. I'm hoping Blizzard will eventually introduce this in some form. I'm pretty sure the universe is a lot more fleshed out than they've let on so far.


I'm a little frustrated that I find myself agreeing with this a little. I ultimately at least don't care too much about Diablo, because the gameplay just doesn't work for me in the least, and I haven't managed to get invested in the story much. I'm torn on Warcraft, because I like the lore and I think it still has potential to spawn products that I'll love.
I'd like to see Starcraft persevere, because I love the setting and lore, and I believe its name carries a lot of prestige. Yet... I'm not certain it does anymore. Blizz dropped the ball on SC2 for the longest time, and I have to question how much respect the name still commands. While SC2 isn't the esports top dog anymore, do most people even look at the game in a positive light at this point? Old Broodwar never lost its magic, and is even experiencing a renaissance of sort at this very moment, quite perplexing...

Regardless though, I don't think it's in Blizzard's best interest to just dump the old IP's if they don't have some new things to replace them with. Overwatch is one new game, but at this time there's nothing else to fill the holes. Perhaps they believe the OW universe has the potential to spawn a wide variety of disconnected games?

I find the silence to be a bit... discomforting? There's no comfirmed future for anything, thus these games which I appreciate greatly, are all at risk of disappearing without a sign. The thought makes me sad
Neglected to death...

I played the game when it initially released. I actually had no issue with the game whatsoever. I just found out that I don't particularly enjoy MOBA games. They're great for when you're with a group of friends, but as I have moved more and more towards "casual" games, I find that I more often than not play to get a break from work rather than sit down and play for e.g. 2 hours straight in the evening with friends. This, I think, is why the game - and every other MOBA game - loses it appeal for me.

This has more to do with my play-style than the game


I should probably have clarified this point. The last shooter game I played was Blac Ops 3, and it has the fastest match-making ever! I never have to wait more than 5 seconds to get matched. Coming to Overwatch, it feels like forever if you have to wait e.g. 30 or 60 seconds for a match to start. When playing alone, it's usually rather quick (about 15-20 seconds), but when playing with my 2-3 Overwatch-friends, it can take a while to find a match (a while being upwards of 60+ seconds).

This is in Quick Matches, by the way. And yes, I know I'm just "spoiled" from playing Black Ops 3 with it's extremely fast match-making.

Although, a good point to note here is that Overwatch's matchmaking seems to be more "fair" in that it finds players that are actually closer to your skill level.



I love the fantasy genre. I love lores and in-depth stories. But just not in games. I know I'm the odd one out here, as most gamers enjoy the story in games. I can read / listen to fantasy book after book and not get bored, but when I play games, I just want to play the games. I don't CARE about the story behind the mission the NPC is sending me out on. I don't care about why these two races ended up hating each other. And in the same way; I don't really care much for the story of OW.

I CERTAINLY do understand why others care, though. As I said; I love stories myself. Just not in games.
So for that reason, OW is just perfect. It has a little bit of story, but not enough to make me frustrated with the game.



I agree with you to a certain extent.

Here's how I see what Blizzard has been doing for the past few years, and where I believe they'll go in the future:
Naturally, Blizzard is a business. And as a business, they have to (want to) stay extremely profitable.
World of Warcraft (and Warcraft / Starcraft too) made Blizzard popular among hardcore gamers. Great. But you know what brings in even more cash? Being popular among not only hardcore, but also "midcore" or even "casual" pc-gamers (casual pc gamers and casual mobile gamers are not the same thing, mind you).

This was something Blizzard realized some years ago, and just look at what has happened since;
2014: They launch Hearthstone, which was - at the time at least - arguably the most casual and "easy-to-get-into-as-someone-who-never-played-card-games-before" card / deck building game. That's what I call casual. Sure, hardcore Blizzard fans played the game. But that's not the same as targeting a hardcore audience. When I talk about who they target, I mean "who they targeted who aren't already a Blizzard-fanboy and plays every single Blizzard game". Because those are the players that matter in the end, if they want to become more profitable.

2015: They launch Heores of the Storm - a very casual version of MOBA games like LoL and Dota 2. They basically scraped all the complicated parts of LoL and Dota 2 out, allowing for an easy and non-complicated experience for first-time MOBA players. Again; they target a casual audience of people who never played MOBA's before (or people who were just pissed at LoL and Dota 2 :p).

2016: Overwatch launches as a very casual 6 vs. 6 multiplayer first-person shooter. If you compare it to a game like Battlefield, it becomes immediately clear that Overwatch is targeting a more casual audience with it's extremely short play-sessions. You might argue that Overwatch has become a huge e-sports game, and isn't e-sport hardcore? Yes, e-sport players are what I'd define as hardcore. But again; that doesn't say much about who they are really targeting. They know they need to make the game super accessible and easy to get into to drag as broad an audience of people into the game as possible. Those who really love the game will start playing competitively. But most will just stick to Quick Matches or at least never really rank on competitive.

For better or for worse, Blizzard has stopped focusing their attention on their hardcore WoW-time players. Sure, they still bring updates to WoW and related games, but it's not their main focus anymore. At least not the way I see it.


So how do I predict the future of Blizzard? More "casually" (or at leaset mid-core)-oriented games. And this ties perfectly into why I think it'll be for the better if Blizzard slowly starts killing off it's old IPs. Many of them don't really have a broad enough appeal - they're too "hardcore", so to say. At some point they'll have to just admit that they're making different games nowadays.

However, as I said in the beginning, I don't believe they'll just kill off World of Warcraft or any of their other old games. As long as they're profitable, they'll keep working on them. But at some point it'll become difficult for them to keep arguing to their board of directors / shareholders that keeping old, less profitable, games alive is better than focusing on new and more casual titles.

They found out that they can make more money by appealing to a broader audience.
Does this make Blizzard a "bad" corporate company? Not really. They still make great games, and most people who play their games, love them. They're just changing with the times

I hope that Blizz will do another MMO, but that's just a dream. If I had to bet, I'd bet on them making a survival game - these are very popular and the company already "conquered" many other genres, all the way down to cards.

Whoah there, Satan! Calm down!
Ain't no survival game out there that's even finished, and I think people are already getting a bit sick of them. I can't imagine it working in Blizz' favor to take on a project like that. It'd probably ruin their image somewhat too. Survival games are considered kinda lowbrow.

You know how they do stuff, when Blizz makes a survival game, it will be THE survival game. Not these amateurish forever-in-early-access midgets

I don't think they want to focus on single player, though. Could of course be a multiplayer survival game, but I still think they'd more likely go the 4-player co-op survival route if they had to go down one of those paths.

I doubt it will be single player, too - maybe something like recent Conan, or ARK. I was just wondering what popular genre there is left for them to try, and this came to my mind first.

I'm actually curious if they wouldn't be willing to try making a 3D Lost Vikings game, as a sort of small-budget side-project.
They certainly like referring to it in their other games, and TLV did make it into Heroes of the Storm. Obviously they still hold it close to their hearts.
With the Launch of Yooka-Laylee coming soon, I could see a small wave of old-school adventure/platformers streaming in, it's a good opportunity. I think it could be pretty cool.

Heh, I had to google The Lost Vikings (my first Blizzard game was Warcraft 3); are they doing "small" things at all? IMO they'll either try to make something big out of it, or do something else.

Hearthstone. It grew big, but it was a very small project initially.



http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Design ... evelopment

Good to know, it's hard to think of them as "small" in any way. Then it's as good guess as survival...or something third that they'll actually do In fact, they likely already had a team or two working on thing(s) that will be either revealed in year or two, or killed.

The only old IP that I can see them reviving is Warcraft. They dropped the ball on starcraft IMO when they decided to stay out of marketing and e-sports. In contrast Riot and Valve heavily invested in marketing LoL- and Dota e-sports and we all know how that went. Throw in a million dollar starcraft tournament back in 2010 and who knows where starcraft would have been today.

Like you guys mentioned their focus for the past 7 or so years has been on a casual audience and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Though it breaks my heart I highly doubt I'm wrong.

Here's some Blizzard news:
Source: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-w ... ing-in-may

Google translation of full korean article:

I suppose this Starcraft remaster and Diablo remaster announced during Blizzcon could have been keeping them busy. I'm not sure how many people work on the titles, but afaik remastering old games can be a very difficult task. The source code in those days was often (partially) lost, and usually a horrible mess.

Maybe a Warcraft2/3 remaster will be next ?

Well, that's interesting.

I never played StarCraft myself, but still an interesting move. It'll most likely get a lot of attention. Since, you know... it's Blizzard, lol.

There is a slight chance that it's fake news. It wouldn't be the first time, but I vaguely remember Blizzard discussing this during one of the Blizzcons, so I guess we knew it should've been coming at some point.
The news source also strikes me as fairly believable.

Guess we'll see next week or so.

If it's real, I hope it get some awesome new cinematics. I imagine they won't mess with the visuals too much beyond adding some clarity and increasing the resolution, but cool new Blizzard CG is always welcome :o

Yeah, they can't afford to fark it up, so they will probably only make minor changes. At least that's my "prediction", which is based on a nearly zero knowledge of the game, by the way :p Just going off of my gut-feeling.

Now that's something to be excited about, if executed correctly it's going to be massive.

Something is definitely coming now...

- Starcraft Anthology Digital download on Battle.net is SOLD OUT.
- GSL finals next week will feature Broodwar showmatch
- Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime will be present for an announcement.

It's happening! And dayum, it looks crispy :o


Website: https://starcraft.com/en-us/

Apparantly next week old SC1 + BW will be going free to play for everyone. Additionally old SCBW will be multiplayer compatible with the remastered version, so everyone can play together.

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On a sidenote, the GSL Code S finals are also in 90 minutes! Don't forget to watch!

Teamliquid thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-tou ... and-finals
Twitch stream: https://www.twitch.tv/gsl
AfreecaTV stream: http://afreeca.tv/36840697

Aha, so you were right! :p

What's the pricing for this remastered version? Any info on that?

I believe there is no news yet on the Price.
Since the original Battle chest combi was sold for $20, my personal guess would be $30 bucks, but blizzard doesn't really follow normal pricing conventions :|

I don't think they can go too high with it though. I'd put $40 as the upper cap.

Blizzcon is this week, which means we finally get to find out what Blizzard's next move is
https://go.twitch.tv/starcraft

Also the SC2 Blizzcon Quarter-Finals are up soon~ish

SO here's what I've caught so far

StarCraft 2:
- All multiplayer modes going free to play on November 14th!
- Wings of Liberty campaign becomes completely free
- Heart of the Swarm campaign is free IF you already own Wings of Liberty (Legacy of the Void campaign will have a price drop)
- Access to ALL competitive ladders for free
- Access to all co-op commanders up to level 5 <<< PvE co-op missions with overpowered campaign units for stupid fun
- Raynor, Kerrigan and Artanis commanders are totally free and without limitations
- New Mira Han commander
- New Matt Horner commander

https://www.starcraft2.com/en-us/



World of Warcraft:
- Official vanilla servers
- Battle for Azeroth expansion (Some Lord of the Rings shit going on right here)




Overwatch:
- New short "Honor and Glory" about Reinhardt
- New hero Moira
- New Blizzard World map





Heroes of the Storm:
- Dragons of the Nexus
- New Hero Alexstrasza
- New Hero Hanzo
- New camera -> less zoomed in
- Total stealth hero overhauls
- Tower setup overhaul and mercenary changes
- Voice chat and matchmaking improvements




Hearthstone:
- Kobolds and Catacombs expansion



Diablo:
- Had you going there, didn't I!
- You get nothing lol.

Blizzard finally bringing an official Vanilla server is surprising. Not that I play WoW or ever has. But still.

(・へ・)..

Diablo pretty much died for me when they released Diablo 3. Started playing Path of Exile and don't see myself quitting for a new Diablo game ever again so meh.

Diablo 2 was my jam though. So much time spent in that game.

Diablo 3 had a pretty major overhaul at one point that turned the game around quite a bit from what I've heard. They completely did away with that auction house and just revamped the game entirely. It's much more fun now apparently.