Author Topic: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?  (Read 14101 times)

Offline Soul Sojourner

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Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« on: November 15, 2009, 07:09:13 PM »
It's just as you say, 420. That's the kind of crap that happens with a lot of games these days, whether it's DLC, expansions, both, and/or future special content only available through the purchase of a later release... it seems to me that it is just better to wait. Like buying Halloween candy after Halloween. \Christmas\Easter\ :D

Bioware isn't Blizzard; They've had some good releases, but they don't have unmatched quality. I personally think more companies should take a page out of Blizzard's book.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2009, 07:11:03 PM by Soul Sojourner »

Offline Mo

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Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2009, 10:15:08 PM »
I personally think more companies should take a page out of Blizzard's book.

And do...?

Offline Soul Sojourner

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Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2009, 03:25:01 AM »
And do...?

I need to explain that?

And produce quality, test thoroughly, stop releasing unfinished games. There's no reason we should have to pay to play a game online or pay to download content that should be included in the game. It's bullshit. Plain and simple. Blizzard takes some time on their releases and it shows when they release it, other companies cut corners and skip steps to speed up release and maximize profit. Fuck that.

It's because of that that I wait so long before buying games. Sure, the price drops, but I would buy a full price game right after release if I didn't think I was going to have to buy more content for it in the future, especially content that should have been in it to begin with. Expansions are sometimes exceptions, but that obviously depends on circumstance.

Offline Meclar

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Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2009, 09:41:47 AM »
Blizzard is hardly a model for a gaming company

Offline Mo

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Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2009, 09:57:55 AM »
There's no reason we should have to pay to play a game online


Ya you do need to explain that.  All Blizzard does is make you pay to play online unless we're taking a history lesson on games they made before WoW? Which was ...WC3?

Make no mistake DA is not NWN2 or Hellgate: London.  I have not had any problems or come across any bugs.  It appears fully polished and not beta.   The downloadable content is not expensive $5 so some stuff and honestly you can totally do without them.  Personally I don't mind paying for extra content if the price is reasonable.

Which Bioware games have you purchased right away and struggled with major issues?

Offline 420

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2009, 12:34:07 PM »

Which Bioware games have you purchased right away and struggled with major issues?
I've owned/played every Blizzard game except WoW and I never ran into a single bug. I know there was a bug in Starcraft when it first came out where if you clicked in the uppermost right corner of a map it crashed the game but I never encountered it and it was fixed in one of the very few Starcraft patches. But StarCraft had a grand total of one patch when it came out. Years later they had to patch it a couple more times, once for some minor balancing and again to make it compatible with a battle.net upgrade. The same could be said for WarCraft.

Diablo 2 had a TON of patches over the years but the bug fixes were minor and nothing I ever experienced. Mostly it was game balancing and adding content.

So, yeah, Blizzard is a model game company in that their initial release of a game is very polished and contains very few, if any, minor bugs. The only other game company that has consistently released polished, bug-free games over the years is ID Software.

-420

Offline Mo

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #6 on: November 16, 2009, 01:09:29 PM »
I've owned/played every Blizzard game except WoW and I never ran into a single bug. I know there was a bug in Starcraft when it first came out where if you clicked in the uppermost right corner of a map it crashed the game but I never encountered it and it was fixed in one of the very few Starcraft patches. But StarCraft had a grand total of one patch when it came out. Years later they had to patch it a couple more times, once for some minor balancing and again to make it compatible with a battle.net upgrade. The same could be said for WarCraft.

Diablo 2 had a TON of patches over the years but the bug fixes were minor and nothing I ever experienced. Mostly it was game balancing and adding content.

So, yeah, Blizzard is a model game company in that their initial release of a game is very polished and contains very few, if any, minor bugs. The only other game company that has consistently released polished, bug-free games over the years is ID Software.

-420

You guys are talking about games that were released 10 years ago.  Back in those days games weren't released consistently in the sorry state that we see some games.  You aren't comparing apples to apples.

We'll see how Diablo 3 shapes up.  I expect it to be very well polished, we'll see how fun it is when it comes out.

Offline 420

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #7 on: November 16, 2009, 02:54:41 PM »
You guys are talking about games that were released 10 years ago.  Back in those days games weren't released consistently in the sorry state that we see some games.  You aren't comparing apples to apples.
I got one word for you: Daggerfall

Released by Bethesda in 1996 it was the buggiest, mainstream computer game title in history. Even with all the patches and the official player's guide you still had to turn on the cheat codes because your character constantly fell through the "floor" and into a void. The only way to get back onto the map was to use a cheat code.

If you'd like, I can compile a list of games that were released around the time of Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo 2 so we can compare. However, I think most people remember Blizzard games because they weren't released with game breaking bugs and they needed very few (if any) patches.

-420

EDIT: (Some quotes from Wikipedia)

Quote
Daggerfall had numerous software bugs in its initial release, to the point that the game started being called "Buggerfall" by some. The biggest of said bugs was that it was theoretically impossible to complete the main story in the original retail version. Even after numerous patches, including a special patch that adds extra items released by CompUSA, many issues were still left unsolved.

Quote
One bug caused players running up stairs to fall through the terrain into a featureless black space.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2009, 02:57:41 PM by 420 »

Offline Mo

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2009, 03:43:08 PM »
Ok well that's pretty bad.

But back in those days there basically was no Internet as we know it today.  I can't even remember how patches were released or even if they could be released at all.

Most of my PC gaming experiences back then came from Blizzard, Westwood, ID, 3D Realms, Origin, Maxis, Microsoft.

I really don't remember any games that were broken like that from any of the above studios.

Offline Meclar

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2009, 05:05:40 PM »
Diablo has a shit load of bugs they have NEVER fixed.  Dungeon layouts with no exits.  The graphic bug that causes streams of lightning to disappear.  Blizzard has never done anything to prevent cheating with third party programs in Diablo.  There's an exploit with the black deaths to reduce your over all health and become immune to stun lock.  The flash spell has one side completely exposed.  You can block the transition areas with town portals.  Missing tiles and those weird warped ones. Oh when you make a new character in one game and then move it to another you permanently lose the beginning dex bonus.  If there are too many items on the ground in a game they disappear as more are created so if you want to clear an entire game you have to pick the gold to keep from losing items that might drop.

Every other game I've played has had bugs but nothing as bad as Diablo.
I don't have a problem with bugs and glitches it's the price, service and response to those glitches.

Offline Soul Sojourner

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2009, 05:53:26 PM »

Ya you do need to explain that.  All Blizzard does is make you pay to play online unless we're taking a history lesson on games they made before WoW? Which was ...WC3?

Make no mistake DA is not NWN2 or Hellgate: London.  I have not had any problems or come across any bugs.  It appears fully polished and not beta.   The downloadable content is not expensive $5 so some stuff and honestly you can totally do without them.  Personally I don't mind paying for extra content if the price is reasonable.

Which Bioware games have you purchased right away and struggled with major issues?
Before WoW? I think you mean ONLY WoW. I've never played on a non-free battle.net. WoW is an MMORPG and thus I understand the reasoning behind pay to play, but I don't like it and don't like MMORPG's. WoW, quite frankly, is the only game of theirs I don't like, and it's not even the fault of the game, but rather the style and genre of said game. WoW is the only game they have that I've ever had to pay to play online, and didn't want to anyway.

I am sometimes upset with what they did to Warcraft in transforming it into an MMORPG. The three main titles of Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo can now all be categorized under different genres. Whereas in the past, it used to be RTS, RTS, Action-RPG. Now it's RTS, MMORPG, Action RPG. I can understand wanting to make one RTS style game branch off into something else. Whether that was part of their reasoning to do so or not, it makes sense in that regard.

This is where you're getting off track. That comment had nothing to do with Dragon Age specifically, it was a general statement about games that have been getting released lately (as in the past couple of years) and why I am waiting to buy games rather than buying them right when they're released. It's got nothing to do with buggy or broken games, but rather, games that come out unfinished with the later release of content that should have been in the game originally.

Paying for DLC is generally bullshit. If a company releases a game that is crammed full of content and features, tons of maps to use and so forth and then they release some DLC for players to buy later down the road. Cool. But if there's limited maps and content in the original game, and then they release more as DLC for players to buy... that's bullshit and should have been in the fucking game to begin with. Many companies have been doing that in the past few years and it's crap.

So far, all of the games I've played from Blizzard where they've added content later on... have always added the content for free. I've honestly never respected any gaming company more than Blizzard for their quality, service, and dedication.

Offline 420

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #11 on: November 16, 2009, 09:07:03 PM »
But back in those days there basically was no Internet as we know it today.  I can't even remember how patches were released or even if they could be released at all.
Throbble and I started on the internet around 1990. Mosaic was the only "browser" and there wasn't much in the way of graphics and sound but you could access Usenet and various other text-based sites that helped distribute patches.

-420

Offline Mo

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #12 on: November 16, 2009, 10:44:08 PM »
Well Bioware are certainly not known for releasing games that HeLL seems to have trouble with.  If anything Bioware has (I never played Mass Effect or Knights) given way more for the price of entry.  BG2? I think I played that game through 200 hours + expansions.  Well worth the $60 or so price.  NWN? Ya well I played that game through 4 years, well worth the $80 all the titles cost.

From what I've heard Dragon Age offers a shit load of side quests with a superior main campaign which should take upwards of 100 hours.  I can't imagine it being longer than BG2 but we'll see.

The DLC so far is an extra NPC - woopie, fancy armor - who cares, and a side quest - I would imagine something like Watcher's Keep from Throne of Bhaal, which was freaking awesome???

So get off your sorry ass and buy the fucking Special Edition tomorrow or I'm gonna open a can of woopass on you.

Offline Soul Sojourner

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2009, 03:03:14 AM »
I'm actually pretty broke. I'm limited to one game every two or three paychecks. (which is about all the extra spending money I have, and will soon have to get Christmas gifts, so probably no more games for awhile either.) By game, I mean a game that's greatly reduced in price from a newly released game. I just bought Resident Evil 5 last night, it's probably the last one I'll get until after Christmas. Got it for $37 from Newegg; free shipping. :D

I'll probably wait until it's around 37 or less on Newegg, it's already dropped in price once since it's release on there. Though I might wait longer, if there are rumored expansions or any such thing by the time I'm ready to buy (as I like to buy that type of stuff in future "goty" type editions.) Plus I have other games on my list that were released first.

NWN and BG2 are terrible examples. You're using expansions as your key argument for paying for extra content, the problem with that is I'm not making an argument against expansions. I think expansions are great. It's only when the initial game is half finished and the expansions finish what the game should have been, or when there's DLC that you must pay for that should have been a part of the game initially. In most cases, it's DLC that should be a part of the original release, or should have been free content added in a patch down the road. Or how about when you buy an FPS with a tiny selection of maps for multiplayer, and have to buy more later to get the selection you should have had to begin with.

If the extra content isn't a big deal, why wasn't it included in the regular release?

I don't look at it the same way you do. If there's not much to the extras, then they should just be included. However, if there's a lot of content in the extras, but the initial release is a full enough game already (not unfinished), then it should be DLC or expansion, etc. It's when the content is substantial that there is good reason for it; just so long as the initial release is a finished game.

I don't have anything against limited editions or other special editions, however. I think that it's a good marketing strategy and adds a bonus for hardcore fans. Especially when they come with physical products that are exclusive to that edition. Although I find it lame when a single game has multiple special editions... that's going a bit far (with the exception of expansion(s)+original type of editions).

You made a topic about Blizzard, but are still talking about Dragon Age and Bioware. What you're not understanding is that my statement did not directly target either. Unless you're referring to "Bioware isn't Blizzard." In that case, you quoted the wrong statement in your initial post: "I personally think more companies should take a page out of Blizzard's book." Anything else was your assumption. "Bioware isn't Blizzard" isn't demeaning Bioware, it's praising Blizzard. If that's the explanation you really wanted, then there you have it.

Offline 420

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #14 on: November 20, 2009, 09:15:00 PM »
From what I've heard Dragon Age offers a shit load of side quests with a superior main campaign which should take upwards of 100 hours.  I can't imagine it being longer than BG2 but we'll see.
But, Baldur's Gate (1 and 2) were multiplayer.

-420

Offline Tyrael

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2009, 07:04:19 PM »
I got Dragon Age too, im a lvl 6 rogue :o so far the game is pretty fun, too bad theres no online ><, they made that nwn2 failure online and not this game!?

Btw blizzard is no different from other companies, they just want the money, all they did was host diablo 2 for free after that its all pay to play and they keep releasing WoW expansions like cookies that you have to buy for extra money.

I played Mass Effect and KotOR and had no problems with bugs or anything and they were both really good.

The worst game ive ever played in terms of bug fest and errors was Vanguard: Saga of Heroes... i really regret buying that game :o and it was way too hardcore for all the bugs it had.

Offline Meclar

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2009, 07:55:10 PM »
In order to cover the cost of production of the consoles companies use licenses to make money. Hence we began paying for "extra" content.  With DLC the cost is reduced by eliminating marketing and packaging costs.

Offline Soul Sojourner

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2009, 11:58:57 PM »
I got Dragon Age too, im a lvl 6 rogue :o so far the game is pretty fun, too bad theres no online ><, they made that nwn2 failure online and not this game!?

Btw blizzard is no different from other companies, they just want the money, all they did was host diablo 2 for free after that its all pay to play and they keep releasing WoW expansions like cookies that you have to buy for extra money.

I played Mass Effect and KotOR and had no problems with bugs or anything and they were both really good.

The worst game ive ever played in terms of bug fest and errors was Vanguard: Saga of Heroes... i really regret buying that game :o and it was way too hardcore for all the bugs it had.
Wrong topic.

Let me correct that statement: All they did was host Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft II, Warcraft III,  and Starcraft for free, after that it's all pay to play.

Good job, Tyr. I knew you had it in you. So... that leaves WoW only pay to play, right? Thought so.

This topic isn't about bugs.

Offline Tyrael

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #18 on: November 22, 2009, 11:28:07 AM »
Those still were old games, and that was the point i was trying to make :p

Nowadays blizzard wants to get money from everything they can like every other company

Offline 420

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #19 on: November 22, 2009, 01:21:04 PM »

This topic isn't about bugs.
Actually, we are considering the quality of games at release by different companies. That topic definitely includes bugs.

-420

Offline Mo

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #20 on: November 22, 2009, 03:06:57 PM »
Actually, we are considering the quality of games at release by different companies. That topic definitely includes bugs.

-420

Ok fine.  Can someone please rename this topic accordingly please?

Offline Soul Sojourner

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #21 on: November 22, 2009, 03:56:31 PM »
LOL I think we should just close the topic. It was originally created as a reply to my opinion of a gaming company.

It's all a matter of opinion and preference, in which case, it would be more efficient to wait for the release of Diablo III and consider it to be the deciding factor as to whether or not Blizzard deserves the high praise that *I* give it. After all, it was I who gave it praise. However, people are confusing "more" with "all" and seem to believe that I am suggesting that no company is better, or that there are no companies that produce a similar level quality and service. This is not the case. I like and respect a lot of gaming companies, not just Blizzard. I simply hold the most respect for Blizzard, but that doesn't mean that I think they are the best, I've just always had good experiences with the quality of their games and their service. I like way too many games to single out a personal favorite gaming company.

And no, it had nothing to do with bugs. The discussion turned into one about bugs, but that was not an initial point I was making. What I was talking about when making that comment was games being released with less content and less to them overall, and then companies turning around and flipping out DLC or expansions that make the game what it should have been initially. WoW is hardly an example of one of these games, Tyr. There is so much shit, the only way to keep adding on would be via expansions or enormous patches/downloads. If the expansions contain enough content to be worth purchasing then so be it. However, if there's such a small amount added in an expansion that it would have been better suited to a free patch then that's bullshit and Blizzard deserves a kick in the ass for it just like any other company.

As many people don't think Blizzard's older games are valid testaments to their quality and service, and I don't think either 420 or I consider WoW a valid argument against their quality and service, let's let Diablo III decide the praise Blizzard deserves by seeing what they do with it. Either way, that game will definitely decide how much respect I hold for them, in the same way I lost a lot of respect for Rockstar when they released the ever-disappointing GTA IV.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2009, 03:59:04 PM by Soul Sojourner »

Offline 420

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #22 on: November 22, 2009, 04:33:24 PM »
As many people don't think Blizzard's older games are valid testaments to their quality and service, and I don't think either 420 or I consider WoW a valid argument against their quality and service, let's let Diablo III decide the praise Blizzard deserves by seeing what they do with it.
We'll be able to check out Blizzard's current quality much sooner with StarCraft 2.

-420

Offline Soul Sojourner

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Re: Is Blizzard the model gaming company?
« Reply #23 on: November 23, 2009, 03:41:40 AM »
We'll be able to check out Blizzard's current quality much sooner with StarCraft 2.

-420
True. I completely spaced that out; I'm pretty excited about D3.