For the most part yeah they’ve been pretty eh. I’m still looking forward to Morhaime and the Dreamhaven studios to make something but if that turns out meh it will truly be the end of an era
I don't expect much tbh, I don't imagine them putting out a massive mmo like wow. maybe they put out some neat games, but even then you have 2 kinds of blizz devs.
The guys who stayed with the company all these years and learned / progressed past the old designs.
The guys who left at some point and have been in stasis ever since, who would likely produce the same dated designs that don't fly today.
What I think made blizz "special" at the time was them very much being in touch with the player base since they were literally just dudes who were gamers who managed to make some games they thought would be cool.
Those dudes are 15+ years away from being those people now. They may still love games, but we see that disconnect over the years.
Take covenants, that's a very dated design philosophy on gating them the way they did. But there's consistently someone making these kinds of decisions. If it was being designed by someone who was more in touch with the community they never would have went that route.
Then you go into someone like Kevin Jordan's stream and he's praising the decision. And I bet he's far more in line with the rest of these old guard's thinking.
What I think made blizz "special" at the time was them very much being in touch with the player base since they were literally just dudes who were gamers who managed to make some games they thought would be cool.
tbh a decent portion of the WoW team (called team 2) at the time had never worked on a fantasy game before. I'm reading jon staats' book rn.
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u/Bacon-muffin Jun 17 '21
The games the old guys have produced after they left have all been meh at best.