Blizzard: Six "Proven Property" Titles by 2014

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]Gulli[/nom]What's all this blabber about "rushing"? 5 out of these 6 "titles" are expansion packs. They're only releasing 1 full game.[/citation]
I was sort of thinking the same thing. I'm not a huge Starcraft fan myself, but a lot of my friends are and they don't like the fact that each campaign is being sold as a seperate game. So instead of paying $50-$60 to play a full game, someone is paying between $150-$180 to see the whole thing.

And this talk of doing a WoW expansion at "least" once a year? I get the feeling that essentially they plan on making any new raid content a new expansion.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]iam2thecrowe[/nom]I want a new Warcraft, not WOW, proper Warcraft! Just use the starcraft engine and make a new Warcraft! Is it too much to ask?[/citation]
I'm not so sure there will be a new Warcraft ever. I think the way Blizzard treated the franchise with WoW has driven off the hardcore fanbase, of which I was one of.

With their tendency for retconning the story as well as trying to appease the WoW customer who doesn't care about the story, Warcraft overall is in a little bit of trouble. I don't mean WoW itself. Even with the loss of nearly 1 million subscribers, they still have a little over 11 million, although the Q3 numbers will be interesting to hear to see if the slide continues.

But the Warcraft comics were cancelled because of low sales, and a lot of the story content that was cut from WoW played out in the comics instead. There was suppose to be 3 novels that dealt with the events that happened prior to Cataclysm, but so far only the Shattering has been released with no word on the second two novels. The Shattering didn't do all that well sales wise so maybe they canceled the second two. I know at this point halfway into Cataclysm, those novels are sort of pointless anyway.

But the fact that merchandie associated with Warcraft isn't doing well at all, that signifies that the loyal franchise fan has been driven away and I'm not so sure that bodes well for a Warcraft 4.

 

[HMRkingpin]

I don't like WoW, but I used to play the hell out of Warcraft 2 battle.net edition when I was like 12 or 13. My first online gaming experience... have been into online gaming ever since 😛

 

[Gnug315]

You might want to take a gander at Blizzard's leaked release plan http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/10/leaked-blizzard-roadmap-shows-release-dates-for-pretty-much-everything/

 

[jalek]

At least they don't have to come up with anything new, though Diablo's been in production how many years? They naturally have less "rush" anyway since they aren't chasing bleeding edge graphics.

Annual expansions with each required to reach the next is marketing brilliance. Companies like Sony have been selling "rollup" expansions for the EQ franchise so you can skip a few and not have to drop hundreds to catch up.

 

[cats_Paw]

After playing diablo 1, starcraft:broodwar and diablo 2 from Blizzard, i cant stand starcraft 2. Everyone has his/her reasons for possitive or negative against the Approach that blizzard has had since the activision union.
I do know im not gonna buy Diablo3, and my reasons for those who care:
-Console version is the main version.
-Graphics look like years old games.
-Skills have been lowered in numbers from diablo 2.
-Characters have been "mutated" from realistic badasses (Nacromancers, Sorcerers, barbarians, amazons, assasins) to kinda... "i want to be epic badass"? (Demon Hunter, Witch Doctor,...Da Fuck is this?).
-Sound cover seems like its lost its atmospheric idea and is now a bit dull.

Well, its just me 😀.

 

[doorspawn]

Adding to cats_paw:

- Real-life money auction-house to make the economy even less about how good a player you are and more about how much financial aid you give to $$ard.
- Online-only solo.
- No LAN.
- Guaranteed to be yet more aggressive monetization (eg: realID)

 

[spookyman]

Hmm when Diablo Online coming?

 

[zak_mckraken]

You mean when is Diablo Online NOT coming?! Either, the answer is : I don't know.