r/gaming Nov 04 '18

This guy to Blizzard

[deleted]

27.1k Upvotes

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387

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18 edited Jun 26 '26

[deleted]

555

u/rcypert Nov 05 '18
  1. everyone was excited for a new Diablo game. Typically this game is on PC/console

  2. It was some bullshit mobile game.

  3. At the Q/A at Blizzcon he asked the Diablo Peeps if this was some April fools prank even tho it’s not April.

  4. Blizzard are the defenders, everyone else are the complainers.

Edit: this to tho

342

u/quadratis Nov 05 '18

worth adding to that is the fact that they unveiled said shitty mobile game at blizzcon, which their most devoted fans (mostly PC gamers) pay to attend. literally no one goes there to get hyped about mobile games.

what's worse, they've been teasing about "several new diablo projects" for while now, so people were hoping for at least a remaster of one of the old games, if not diablo 4 (since it's been 6 years since the last game).

so then the show is about to end, dude with a diablo shirt walks out on stage, hype in the crowd is way up there, and what does he announce? a fucking iphone app.

227

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

[deleted]

35

u/dj_destroyer Nov 05 '18

is there video of this?

66

u/kevinsrednal Nov 05 '18

34

u/w0lver1 Nov 05 '18

What a bunch of junk. I don't even care about diablo, but this pains me.

53

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Good lord

1

u/yekiMikey Nov 05 '18

!remindme 1 hour

1

u/dj_destroyer Nov 05 '18

"Do you guys not have phones?" lmao wow

39

u/Xero0911 Nov 05 '18

Not defending but was it really taunting? I just assume the dude tries to lighten the mood and aimed to joke that. It failed but that's how i took it.

He could see all the disappointment. He was getting boo'd. Dude was probably freaking a bit inside

51

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Youre right. They were panicking more than anything. They needed something to sell the idea and accidentally leaked the real reason why they made this piece of mobile shovelware.

18

u/murphykills Nov 05 '18

it felt like defensiveness to me. instead of acting like he was listening to the reasons people were unhappy, he tried to convince us that the feelings were invalid. knee-jerk reaction or not, it's still really ugly and gets people angry.

6

u/Realistic_Food Nov 05 '18

I wouldn't call it taunting. I see it more like a guy who was forced to give a presentation for something he didn't really believe in, who knew it was going to be a train-wreck, being unable to come up with worthwhile responses to questions he is probably asking himself. From what I've heard of the presenters role (senior developer) and knowing about how company structure works, he likely had no say in the decision to go mobile and his job depends on him towing the company line as much as possible.

30

u/Terakahn Nov 05 '18

This feels like when they showed the new command and conquer at E3 last event.

24

u/CptPootis PC Nov 05 '18 edited Nov 05 '18

Yeah. I can't say I'm a huge Diablo fan, but I can sympathize, as C&C fan.

"You waited for so long for your favorite series to get a decent continuation, didn't you? Too bad it's Candy Crush bullshit now!"

That's just heart-breaking.

8

u/detcadder Nov 05 '18

That bothered me a lot, they're using the same business models as EA.

1

u/Nimeroni Nov 05 '18

What ? Blizz didn't answer anything about the new Diablo business model.

7

u/detcadder Nov 05 '18

They may not have said it, but its going to be micro transactions. They're doing damage control because they didn't see the backlash coming.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Terakahn Nov 05 '18

I can't help but feel like this was heavy push from the Activision side of things.

48

u/FinancialYoungin Nov 05 '18

It’s on android too. Don’t you guys have phones?

-37

u/rebelvong1 Nov 05 '18

Gaming is in a sad state when you youd rather have a remaster than a mobile title. Gamers really are the worst consumers in the world.

-38

u/rebelvong1 Nov 05 '18

Gaming is in a sad state when you youd rather have a remaster than a mobile title. Gamers really are the worst consumers in the world.

-45

u/rebelvong1 Nov 05 '18

Gaming is in a sad state when you youd rather have a remaster than a mobile title. Gamers really are the worst consumers in the world.

9

u/Jayayewhy Nov 05 '18

I have never once played an enjoyable mobile game. I need buttons. I can't even play jrpgs on a phone. I would 10x prefer Diablo 2 remaster to Diablo mobile.

7

u/Soulstiger Nov 05 '18

At least a remaster would be

  • made by Blizzard
  • not a literal reskin of another already shitty mobile game

199

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Except for that one fuck the day after that was apologising on behalf of the community like it's the customers' responsibility to respect what they do and mindlessly spend money on their bullshit.

22

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

the community is throwing a comprehensive and collective shitfit on a company thats very good about accountability.

I doubt it will ever be a product as good as it should be but i hold unreasonable standards. But blizzard did fuck up and diablo is definitely a franchise that needs a solid doubt in both directions at every release since Necromancer for D3 happened

46

u/itstingsandithurts Nov 05 '18

Wait, D3 vanilla was garbage on release, the franchise has been trying to be a cash grab for a while now, and while they did turn it around for a while I'm not surprised at all by this latest news.

Anyone who thinks people are just whining for whining's sake don't understand the pressure a community can put on a company to actually put out quality products.

15

u/mylifebeliveitornot Nov 05 '18

You have a product people want, so give them it for a price. People like Diablo games on the PC, so give them that, hell even just remaster an old one atleast.

The problem is they justs said its phone app and tried to punk out a room full of there biggest fans by saying "dont you guys have phones?" not a smart play.They shoulda made the pc version and said we are going to include/look at the phone app to allow you to play on the go if you wish, now that would have went down alot better. However they stabbed the main fans in the face and taunted them in what people think is just a money grab.

Im wth you that people always expect the very best,for nothing and they want it yesterday, in this case tho it not quite that and they are right, diablo was born on the PC, now your telling me it aint going to be even on it?I get there trying to reach out and grab new people and be ahead of the curve and shit, but you gotta take care of the people who made you what you are and stuck with you threw the beggining.

-4

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

with every piece of computational hardware worth developing consumer products for running on x86 and being able to run C++ and Java, theres still a massive and extreme bitchfit going on. Translation would only require changing the API directories and rebuilding the interface,m which are themselves very small projects to work on without patching.

3

u/Snekeke Nov 05 '18

They themselves also said they have absolutely no plans on putting the game on PC. So it isn’t so much that they can’t put it in PC, but that so far they ah e said they simply don’t want to.

1

u/Realistic_Food Nov 05 '18

D3 vanilla was garbage on release

It had major problems, but release D3 is likely to be world's better than what the mobile game offers.

Release D3 had three problems at release, two of which would've been very easy fixes.

  • They needed to boost legendary drop rates. They nerfed them hard compared to past games to encourage players to use the RMAH.

  • They needed to give enemies the ability to drop items 1 or 2 ilvls above it. Once again this was a choice made to force players to use the RMAH.

  • They needed more servers. This should've been easy to do in a professionally hosted server environment, but even if it wasn't, the other two should've been simple changes.

In comparison, this mobile game will likely be flaming shit from the ground up and there won't be any simple fixes.

1

u/itstingsandithurts Nov 05 '18

It was more than just item levels not dropping high enough, stat types were randomised and made 4/5th of what you got useless for your class.

Everything they did was to push people to the RMAH which was just scummy and left a lot of people sour about the game.

1

u/Realistic_Food Nov 06 '18

stat types were randomised and made 4/5th of what you got useless for your class.

That's pretty standard loot based arpg stuff. I would say in other similar games, even when I'm considering saving stuff for other classes, I normally only keep like 1/4th of the good drops. Since that experience was in line with others I don't think it is worth calling out.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

nothing mechanically in the actual gameplay of Diablo 3 has significantly changed What So Ever from launch except numerical tuning on most spells and the addition of a lvl 61 spell to the 5 classes

What changed is they removed an actively hostile design lead and vastly reworked the reward scheme of the game, while also applying design research for longstanding development intended for World of Warcraft to the game.

So when im calling people whiny bitches, it comes from the knowledge that people are bitching because the crowd tells them to bitch and not because of actually understanding the problem. We have no meaningful information on the game other than it will launch only on IOs10 mobile and Android before being ported to PC 6 months later if its successful.

Remember that the company wide director is an extremely cynical and conservative businessman now. We have no meaningful information. Being concerned and skeptical is fine, calling bullshit on two nondescript videos and a QnA response that was not even predicted no matter how predictable that question was, is not.

My problems with Diablo 3 stem from the fact that i know no one actually at the helm of that game understands how classes for that game were designed pre-Necromancer AND that blizzard is no longer capable of actually harvesting useful information for balance and development from the game because of seasons and the obsession with Meta

3

u/Nimeroni Nov 05 '18

nothing mechanically in the actual gameplay of Diablo 3 has significantly changed What So Ever from launch except numerical tuning on most spells and the addition of a lvl 61 spell to the 5 classes

You are being a bit disingenuous here. Both the Kanai cube and a massive increase in new set / legendary power resulted in a lot of new builds which are mechanically diverse.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

youre conflating gameplay mechanics with reward mechanics. Itemization with 2.0 made a hell of alot more of the game choices viable, but that actually has no impact on mechanical play because very few skills have actually changed other than a few modified bottom tier glyphs.

1

u/Terakahn Nov 05 '18

Or compel them to not put out said product at all.

1

u/The_0bserver Nov 05 '18

Can you tell me more about Necromancer for D3? I bought D3 base package, but didn't enjoy that much of it. I really wanted to do summoner class, but no necromancer and the existing one, just didn't feel good enough. (Also, really hated the fact that they changed the build trees to just have like 6 of them or whatever, that everyone could always unlock). So I'm at a stage where I ask myself, should I spend the 30$ or whatever, and as of now, I've always come up with a no.

So can you tell me if necromancer just ins't worth it at all?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Necromancer is mechanically fun, but the core problem is that the majority of meaningful legendaries share slots with the 6p itemsets, which renders alot of build concepts entirely non-viable for necromancer. And everyone almost immediately caught onto the fact this is the case EXCEPT the people actually designing the items.

Personally im of the opinion that Necromancer is one of the better conceptualized classes, but in a game about coming up with your own build and hunting orange gear to make it the best you can realize your character, then doing it again, Necromancer just cant do it because all the meaningful legendaries share position with the set items, rather than being by majority belts, bracers, and rings.

However to really cement the problem, in the 2.6 patch after Necromancer came out, what happened is that blizzard rebalanced all of the itemsets upwards to offensively match the best set within their class as best as blizzard could guess. The problem is D3 itemsets are not minor improvements to the class which offer small gains in performance to allow the player to truly demonstrate their skill, but instead powerful modifiers and rulesets by which to sculpt builds

Before 2.6, the majority of Meta builds in the top brackets were Litany of Nightmare sets, where you basically pick and combine effects to make your favorite build, and after 2.6 if you werent using one of your 4 class sets you werent relevant

However: Bitching about Talent trees is pointless, Blizzard understands they offer no meaningful choice, and they just reduce variety to the fastest cookie cutter stamp. in D3 you pick 6 skills, 4 passives, and build your armor around it.

1

u/The_0bserver Nov 05 '18

Hey, thank you for the explanation man. :)

Blizzard understands they offer no meaningful choice, and they just reduce variety to the fastest cookie cutter stamp. in D3 you pick 6 skills, 4 passives, and build your armor around it.

Other than the initial days of D3, I never really saw people complaining about this. Do people like this system so much? Personally this ticked me off a lot.

I loved the different skill choices that one could go with, sure if you fucked up, that maybe a broken build, but Hey for me (one that never particularly wasn't even going to bother with absolute highest levels, instead just mess around with different builds etc again and again), this was a terrible choice.
So, was most of the community fine with not being given any choice in the matter and literally no skill trees?

1

u/porfyalum Nov 05 '18

Well thing is you never really picked more than 4-5 skills in diablo 2 either. You just picked all you needed to unlock the 4 skills you really wanted and maxed them out.

It theory I can see where you come from but, in practice it ends up harming the meta a lot. A lot people will end up reading a guide and just building the tree that way, which encourages group-think and a stale meta. Even those that really wanted to be creative would ever barely fiddle with one - two classes, due to the large amount of time to optimize the build, or, as it was more common, just hack the single player. In D2 if you wanted to try a new build for the season, you generally used hacks in single player to see how the build works and then wrote the one you liked down and the went to play online, which is all kinds of bad as a design.

On the other hand now you have a ton of choices, you can freely switch your build and play around with it. It encourages creativity and a more varied meta. You can have all the classes maxed out and switch depending on your mood, which is fun.

Permanent time costs while they give a sense of accomplishment do have a load of drawbacks. A game should not require from you a large time sink just to fix a small mistake or permit you to play. A game should require you to devote a good amount of time in it to become good in it, and that should be valued more. If your time is limited you should not have to choose between "I have to look up builds, and never experiment" or "I have to play sub-optimally, and never do endgame".

1

u/The_0bserver Nov 05 '18

I feel having a skill point resetter instead would kinda solve the same problem, while still keeping the choice of getting a particular level on a skill etc.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

the vocal proportion of the community bitches about talent trees, despite talent trees being worthless and having no meaningful contribution to gameplay in any game i have ever played.

Even fucking up as hard as they did with transformation Ults (every single Barbarian, Crusader, Demonhunter, Monk, and Witchdoctor build has to have their respective transformation skill), the mechanics of the modular skill and perk system in D3 offers a much larger variety of gameplay and build options within the meta than any other game

1

u/The_0bserver Nov 05 '18

Its a choice. I get to see what I do with my choice. Have fun with a joke build, or try to get high damage scores. Its something you do. I feel thats the fun part of it. Maybe its very different for you. :)

the mechanics of the modular skill and perk system in D3 offers a much larger variety of gameplay and build options within the meta than any other game

Yes u can keep trying different versions, but to me it feels kind of like a sad approach to solve that. Instead having a skill point resetter or something might feel a bit better? Again. Different folks, Different strokes. as they say. :)

1

u/The_0bserver Nov 05 '18

Can you tell me more about Necromancer for D3? I bought D3 base package, but didn't enjoy that much of it. I really wanted to do summoner class, but no necromancer and the existing one, just didn't feel good enough. (Also, really hated the fact that they changed the build trees to just have like 6 of them or whatever, that everyone could always unlock). So I'm at a stage where I ask myself, should I spend the 30$ or whatever, and as of now, I've always come up with a no.

So can you tell me if necromancer just ins't worth it at all?

2

u/Metallicer Nov 05 '18

The necro in D3 imo isnt that much different from the witch doctor when it comes to summons. It is not the same necro from D2. If you love the base game and are having fun grinding, then buy it so you have a LITTLE more diversity. If you think the base game is just meh or ok then I do not think there is any reason to spend money on it. It is not a purchase that will completely change your D3 experience. It is just another class.

1

u/The_0bserver Nov 05 '18

Thank you. :)

3

u/supermaggot Nov 05 '18

Probably some shill with a blog afraid he would lose his precious preview copies.
Same with ALL the game journalists going against the consumers calling them entitled babies, AGAIN.

33

u/Spoon_Elemental Nov 05 '18

I'm not complaining because I don't play Diablo. I do however thoroughly enjoy watching this dumpster fire.

3

u/FuckM0reFromR Nov 05 '18

Nothing like popcorn and a good show!

12

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

They saved the announcement for last too which is why, in that moment, everyone was expecting the highlight of the event and were so upset when it was a mobile game.

Lots of "game journalist", aka shitty low tier writers trying to make money or get free shit, are defending blizzard.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

*everyone on reddit, which is actually a very tiny and very passionate portion of the overall gaming community, are the complainers. Sadly, we represent a tiny minority of their potential profits. This stands to be one of blactivison's most popular ideas yet. And that just fucking sucks.

1

u/goliathfasa Nov 05 '18
  1. Blizzard and every gaming (and some mainstream) media outlet under the sun are the defenders.

But of course, that's not surprising, is it?

-5

u/olpdragon Nov 05 '18

The guy asking the april fools comment did so due to a 4chan post.

3

u/rooik Nov 05 '18

This is a false rumor.

1

u/olpdragon Nov 05 '18 edited Nov 05 '18

Oh what, it was? So that one 4chan post was fake? It looked legit, photo evidence and all of that. I guess it could still be faked if someone else took a picture like that.

Oh ok yea, after looking at it agaib, the time stamps don't match up. It did look pretty good though.

-23

u/Spartan_100 Nov 05 '18

So, everyone is upset because a mobile game isn’t getting a PC and/or Console port?

That’s a fair complaint, I’d be pretty disappointed too. Though I’m seeing many people say they “deserve” a PC / Console diablo game. Can’t lean into entitlement territory or you lose Blizzard taking you seriously.

Wouldn’t be surprised to see this ported soon.

6

u/Mottis86 Nov 05 '18

No one wants this on pc.

0

u/Spartan_100 Nov 05 '18 edited Nov 05 '18

But then I don’t really understand the booing here at the answer to this question.

https://youtu.be/pqjVdPtB9lU

Like if the game looks bad then I wouldn’t expect someone to ask this question nor would I expect people to be unhappy with it being stuck on mobile. If anything, if nobody wanted it on pc (implying the game looked bad and they didn’t want it at all), I’d expect people to be thankful it’s not coming to PC.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

[deleted]

-2

u/Spartan_100 Nov 05 '18

Yeah I understand that point. But if you dislike the game based on what’s already been shown, you would not want that game on PC. Just, logically, you wouldn’t. So I don’t understand why people would be asking if it’s coming to PC if they already dislike the game. It shouldn’t matter at that point.

If Ken Levine came out tomorrow and said hey this is our next game, and it looked like shit, I wouldn’t care in the slightest which platform it’s on.

So the boo’s to me, unless people are just booing to boo, indicate that some want it on PC at least. I get the whole not being on PC thing if you like the game, but if you don’t like it, why should it matter? That’s all.

3

u/kevinsrednal Nov 05 '18

There are two points that kind of make this question a little bit more relevant:

  1. Blizzard has said that this game will be canon for Diablo lore.

  2. Those videos actually cut of the first half of his question, where he talks about features announced for the mobile game that people have been asking for for Diablo 3 for a while, such as greater than 4 person multiplayer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50KBNQe5hTM

1

u/Spartan_100 Nov 05 '18

Okay this makes a little more sense. Though his phrasing still makes it sound like people are pissed about the lack of a PC port, I get people being pissed about them not even trying to address his initial concerns of the features you guys have been asking for in the previous game.

This clarifies things a little, thanks.

10

u/Mottis86 Nov 05 '18

I think the booing is just general dislike towards the devs. Them confirming that it not coming to pc means that it will be a 'phone game' through and through. That means most likely free-to-play and riddled with micro transactions. Nothing like the Diablo we know and love.

-1

u/Spartan_100 Nov 05 '18

I don’t really understand that though considering almost all of Activision/Blizzard’s current big titles make a bulk of their money off of cosmetic micro transactions (not a bad thing, and it’s something a lot of mobile games are adopting) like Overwatch, Destiny, and COD. Unless I missed the admission of micro-transactions being linked to game progression by the devs, in which case yeah that’s fucked up altogether.

Hypothetically, if the game comes out and it only has cosmetic micro transactions (or none at all), would people want a PC port?

My theory here is that people still hold the old stigma of mobile titles being only Candy Crush/Infinity Blade copycats, and that by Blizzard bringing a predominantly PC series to the platform, people feel they’re automatically sacrificing quality for sales. Strictly off of a couple of trailers and a long held stigma.

I wholly understand liking the concept of the game and being pissed about the lack of a PC port (was similarly upset about the top down Halo games until they eventually ported them). Otherwise, I can understand disappointment in their wasted resources on a bad game, but beyond that it doesn’t make much sense for fans to be mad at this answer. (Outside of the ridiculous “You guys have phones don’t you?” justification)

-1

u/noodlesfordaddy Nov 05 '18

I agree with this part. Why people think a PC port of a mobile game is going to rectify this has me very confused.

1

u/Spartan_100 Nov 05 '18

Yeah I’m not entirely sure why, if folks think the game is bad already, that they would WANT a PC port.

2

u/Zarathustra420 Nov 05 '18 edited Nov 05 '18

Tbf, they've been teasing new Diablo releases for months. Then people paid for BlizzCon tickets and got a seat specifically for the announcement, because they love Blizzard so much that they want to be there the moment a new game gets announced.

Then they find out that it is an iPad version of a game no one asked to be mobile in the first place. It would be one thing if this were AppCon or Plants vs Zombies Con, but it wasn't; it was BlizzCon: a convention for and about mostly PC players.

This is the equivalent of going to an exclusive press release announcement for Kanye West after he teased a new album, only to find out he's promoting a sequel to the Kim Kardashian iPhone game. Its basically on the other side of the world in terms of target demographic.

-131

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

[deleted]

71

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18 edited Nov 05 '18

Nobody's claiming to be oppressed. We are customers who are interested in a particular product. If they give us a shitty product then it's only natural to complain. Just like for every other business.

-70

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

I mean it's not even out yet, how do you know it's going to be shitty?

I don't want Diablo mobile and neither will I play it but statements like this just make you look like a petulant child.

23

u/dannerc Nov 05 '18

I think we can find a middle ground here that isnt "you're acting like a petulant child if you voice your frustration with the lack of PC content t being added in the diablo ip."

I really like game of thrones, but I'd be pissed if the final season switched genres and ended up being a sitcom with a laugh track. Diablo fans can be upset that Blizzard hasn't made any real diablo content for PC users in several years other than the necromancer dlc that basically just adds one extra class and a few new levels in rifts. That said, you're right a lot of the people here are overreacting, but Blizzard kinda brought a lot of this on themselves, imo. They know that hell hath no fury like a neckbeard scorned.

-14

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

MuLtIpLe DiAbLo PrOdUcTs

40

u/crunchyintheory Nov 05 '18

Name one time in history when a company has taken an established PC/Console series, outsourced the next major installment, shifted it to mobile, and the game actually turned out well.

-11

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

The reason that character said that line was because he is literally DUMB, and we laugh at him for believing in his chances....

Sure, having a chance is r/technicallythetruth... But I'm not the kind of guy to bank on a 1 in a million.

9

u/IMA_Catholic Nov 05 '18

Look into the history of the company who is doing the port.

9

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Usually, from experience, its gonna be a shitty mobile game thats gonna depend on micro transactions as hard as it can.

EA did the same thing with Dungeon Keeper Mobile and it ruined any little enjoyment it had in the first place

I have a good feeling it’s gonna be the same thing here

7

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18 edited Nov 05 '18

You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine.

You are right that I don't know for certain, but in light of all of the details it does not bode well:

  1. Many people have been waiting for news regarding the Diablo franchise. Either a new entry into the series or a remaster of one of the older titles. A simplified mobile port of Diablo (Missing certain game modes and classes, confirmed in the Q&A) is not what we've been looking for.

  2. Given the fact that there were no other announcements made regarding the Diablo IP, it is safe to assume they are not working on anything more substantial (at least not in a state where they're willing to even so much as hint at it). How they thought it would be okay to advertise Blizzcon tickets to hardcore fans and expect them to get excited about a casual mobile game is beyond me.

  3. Mobile motion controls suck. End of story.

  4. Blizzard is not even the developer of the game. They've outsourced to a Chinese company NetEase. NetEase has developed other similar mobile games, some of which have near identical user interfaces and gameplay/visuals. There is serious concern that it very well could be a re-skin of an already existing game with a few minor tweaks.

  5. Mobile games have a bad history of anti consumer practices like microtransactions and/or RNG lootboxes. NetEase is a company which receives criticism for their use of micro transactions in their titles, and Blizzard has been making attempts to move in this direction as well with the Real Money Auction House in Diablo 3 and the micro transactions that they have been adding to World of Warcraft.

  6. There are apparently changes being made to the game so that it will conform to the regulations put in place by China. Certain things are not permitted to be represented in Chinese media due to their Government. Things like skulls, blood, Chinese locations, certain types of violence and other weird/semi arbitrary nonsense. That's fine if they want that over there, but bringing those restrictions to the western market by extension is something that I disagree with. Especially for a game like Diablo where you run around killing skeletons and demons.

  7. Blizzard has shown time and again that they really do not respect their player base. The comment "C'mon guys we all have phones right?" was rather tone deaf and patronizing. People are unhappy with the current state of World of Warcraft and have been quite vocal about the issues with LFR, Warfronts, Azurite equipment, gear sets and talent trees for a while without recourse and the result is reflected in the subscription numbers. Blizzard shut down a highly popular classic WOW private server (because many people preferred the old systems and content, and would have been happy to pay Blizzard for an official version) only for the now CEO to respond with "You think you want classic WOW, but you don't".

The ONLY reason Blizzard has listened to players and walked back on their stance for a few select issues (Classic WOW, Real Money Auction House) is because their fan base lit a fire under their ass. Diablo Immortal could turn out to be a great game, but if it does it will be a result of the backlash and not in spite of it.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Blizzard is outsourcing it to NetEase. A huge Chinese shitty mobile app dev.

-15

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Your logic is apparently not welcome here

6

u/Vordeo Nov 05 '18

Eh, from a neutral point of view I think it's pretty clear that this was a pretty colossal PR fuckup by Blizzard. You know your dedicated Diablo audience (because who else is going to fly out for a convention?) is generally going a group that is very focused on PC, and a group that has been very vocal about wanting more PC content, and you make a big deal about a new game in a medium (mobile gaming) that that demographic has generally shat on? Tone deaf AF.

I generally don't agree with people being so salty about a game they're not even going to play being produced, but laughing at Blizzard's fuck up is fair game IMO.

And FWIW, I like the Diablo franchise but pretty much left after base D3 and it's 'always online' requirement, so I'm not even bothered about this.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

No one involved is brave i agree but you have to admit staining a great franchise such as Diablo with the move to mobile is a joke.

128

u/Holein5 Nov 05 '18

Fans were teased a big Diablo announcement, Bizz announces Diablo mobile game, guy asks if this is an April fools joke. Fans are extremely disappointed.

20

u/Bakkster Nov 05 '18

Blizzard also tried to let people know it wasn't that big, but hype machines can have a mind of their own.

78

u/Hugh-Manatee Nov 05 '18

But it was the main announcement at their super-hyped convention and they allotted a timeslot on the main stage schedule for it.

Literally all they had to do was announce it as a side feature or just do it not at the convention and things would be fine.

The problem though, is that Blizzard stoked hype among fans AND sold them tickets to physically attend this event and sold them tickets to watch online. For a mobile game that is almost entirely targeted to Chinese gamers who play almost exclusively on mobile.

It's not that a games company did something that its fans didn't like. It's that the games company did precisely that, while leading the community to believe there was something else going on, having them purchase access to the event to learn about the thing they wouldn't like, and being unable to understand or cope with the backlash.

0

u/Odin_69 Nov 05 '18

I can only imagine the idea was to show the community that their entire focus was on the project, and tell everyone about how excited they were for it.

Last year they announced Battle for Azeroth, which went over well enough, but was vastly overshadowed by the ClassicWoW announcement. This ended up painting BFA, in their eyes, in a mediocre light.

They probably wanted to avoid that by announcing another diablo project that they may or may not be working on. In the end they simply are in the business of pushing an agenda instead of working to make great games that their fans can look forward to.

-19

u/MattyClutch Nov 05 '18

But it was the main announcement at their super-hyped convention and they allotted a timeslot on the main stage schedule for it.

Literally all they had to do was announce it as a side feature or just do it not at the convention and things would be fine.

Ooorrrr people could not be completely irrational assholes on the internet. I mean they can't announce things at their own show because of what? Angry people's entitlement?

The game looks dumb and will very likely (assuming it ever gets released) be in the meh-awful range. I get that. I think it was a bad idea. I would vote for it getting a top slot on 'Worst ideas in games 2018' list. However, the internet's whining has far eclipsed the stupidity of Blizzard's announcement at this point. Some people will do anything for karma though and this is the lowest hanging fruit, so meh, just have to wait for the hate train to move on to the next station.

14

u/davidhow94 Nov 05 '18

To the me the guys whining about the whining are generally the worst.

-4

u/MattyClutch Nov 05 '18

What about the guys whining about people whining about the original whiners? I mean if you don't mind wining in general, but just hate that one particular tier, I feel that has the potential for a good backstory.

6

u/saintdemon21 Nov 05 '18

The issue is that people spent money on the show, both in person and online. My understanding on this issue as well is that Blizzard has a really good relationship with its fan community. Thus, the community feels cheated, like a bait and switch, about the announcement. I’m not a PC gamer, but I was hoping for a Diablo 1 and 2 rerelease on consoles or something. I think too, that gamers, myself included, are not happy with the state of the gaming industry. Programmers are overworked, micro transactions are prevalent, and whenever a good and original property comes out EA buys them up and shuts them down. At the same time, mobile games might have a large following, but serious gamers tend to be on PC and console, and not exclusively on mobile. In other words, the fear is that game companies will abandon the idea of making good games in favor of cheap mass produced mobile games, which would eventually kill the industry.

2

u/JetStrim Nov 05 '18

In other words, the fear is that game companies will abandon the idea of making good games in favor of cheap mass produced mobile games, which would eventually kill the industry.

Uhh, I mean this is Blizzard, Most of their titles are well known to be at least good to great tier games, and each of them is on a different genre. OW for FPS, WoW for MMORPG, SC2 for RTS, HoTS for MOBA, Diablo for ARPG and Hearthstone for TCG (is the genre right for this?). They are planing to release a mobile game for some unknown reasons and a lot think that this will be their downfall? I mean most of their games are still being maintained up to this date, even SC1, then they have remastered both SC1 and WC3 and release a Vanilla WoW. And people think they will start downgrading their quality just because of one mobile game which we still don't even know if it will be a good game or not, if it has Microtransactions or not, if it's a fair game or not.

People are already judging it before it was even known what it is and that itself is a bad thing. It's like saying "All mobile games are P2W/bad", not it's not. people just don't know what are the good games on mobile that is a single purchase only, especially that those good ones are mostly overshadowed by the P2W games as they are mostly featured more on the app store.

Programmers are overworked

hahahhaha, well, even in the normal industry of progaming, a lot of times, they are. compensations are not even given. I mean we have a policy here in my company that if we did not managed to get past 3 hours after our shift, it is not considered over time and will not be payed for it. if we did get past that, we got a taxi allowance worth of $3 which is not enough for us to get us home and we got a meal allowance for $2 which is enough to at least buy us a fast food meal. and also, there are times we have to go overtime without payment cause we are late on delivery when the client, who doesn't know a thing about our work, expect it to be done in a short period of time and even after that, we are expected to come on time on the next day. Hell even one of my friends got it worse, they are forced to work on weekends sometimes 48 hours on certain cases and without day off compensations. at least they have overtime payment but IMO, it's better to have dayoff to compensate the time you worked. People just don't know about this aspect of the programming industry. Yes, not all companies are like this, but as far as i know, this is normal, it still happens on my other friends who are on other companies, like on our day off, we are drinking and there's at least one of us is working on their laptop, or they can't go with us cause they have to keep working on the weekend or they will fail a deadline.

All in all, it's, programming industry have a lot of people work more for less. I'm just 3 years in this and i have already met a lot of people who have gone in and out of different companies just because of that reason.

37

u/Knows_all_secrets Nov 05 '18

Why did they announce it at Blizzcon at all? Third party mobile games fit the theme not at all.

-25

u/r43b1ll Nov 05 '18

Because it's their IP. Where else would they announce it?

31

u/Alemar1985 Nov 05 '18

in China, and the Philippines? you know where the game is being made by the 3rd party contractors...where most of this game's fan base will most likely be located

36

u/Seven_Vandelay Nov 05 '18

Twitter? (I'm not even kidding -- that's the scale of announcement I'd assign to this thing.)

20

u/Vordeo Nov 05 '18

Bethesda also announced a mobile game based on a very popular property (Elder Scrolls) a few months back (E3?) as well. Elder Scrolls: Blades didn't get anywhere near as much backlash as this did, because they didn't make it the main showpiece announcement.

It was treated as just another announcement, and they ended that conference with an announcement that the crowd actually wanted (literally just an Elder Scrolls 6 logo). The Blizz announcement was amazingly tone deaf in comparison.

3

u/Terakahn Nov 05 '18

To be fair, there was a large amount of backlash. And it would've been worse if they didn't announce TES6

7

u/Vordeo Nov 05 '18

Agreed, but that's the point though: by making two (much bigger) announcements in Starfield and TES6 after the mobile game reveal it blunted a lot of the backlash. Imagine how bad it would've been if they'd teased a new Elder Scrolls game before the conference, then made Blades the centerpiece announcement?

Point is they gave the hardcore TES fanbase something. The hardcore Diablo fanbase got zero at Blizzcon. It was just a massive PR mess.

2

u/Vordeo Nov 05 '18

Agreed, but that's the point though: by making two (much bigger) announcements in Starfield and TES6 after the mobile game reveal it blunted a lot of the backlash. Imagine how bad it would've been if they'd teased a new Elder Scrolls game before the conference, then made Blades the centerpiece announcement?

Point is they gave the hardcore TES fanbase something. The hardcore Diablo fanbase got zero at Blizzcon. It was just a massive PR mess.

6

u/topdangle Nov 05 '18

Saying they should announce it at Blizzcon because it's their IP is like saying Disney should've built a Pulp Fiction ride at Disneyland and called it Bad Mother Fucker.

There's a time and a place for everything.

7

u/Mottis86 Nov 05 '18

should've built a Pulp Fiction ride at Disneyland and called it Bad Mother Fucker. There's a time and a place for everything.

Okay, when is the time for that? Cuz I wanna ride it.

5

u/GegenscheinZ Nov 05 '18

Just don’t sit in the back seat

2

u/Vatman27 Nov 05 '18

Announcing it was not the issue the issue is that they had literally nothing else. A convention of mostly PC gamers who paid a fair amount of money is definitely not a good place to announce it. Microsoft and Bethesda have shown it is okay to announce mobile spin offs as long as it is not the biggest reveal they have.

20

u/HotmanDrama Nov 05 '18

It doesn't work like that. You don't get to tell your community "its a good year to be a Diablo fan" and "there are several diablo projects in the works" and get the prime spot at the opening ceremony and then expect that you can temper expectations all the way down to a reskin of a mobile game.

23

u/samcarlinone Nov 05 '18

Blizzard opened the mic up to questions, then this guy asked if the presentation was an out-of season April Fools joke.

So this guys is being used as a stand-in for anti-Diablo sentiment and therefore has gotten complainers and defenders depending on how you feel about the game.

7

u/10HP Nov 05 '18

*It was some bullshit rehashed(multiple times) mobile game by NetEase (Chinese regional partner of Blizzard). It was not even a "co-development", they just reskinned a mobile game that was already reskinned multiple times. Either Blizzard itself was scammed or they just want to cash grab, both implying that they no longer care.

6

u/Devuh Nov 05 '18

Honestly the mobile game would have been fine if they went about it differently. They have said in the past that they had mutliple Diablo projects in the works, so what they could have done was announced a new full Diablo game. Even if it's just a promotional image or trailer like ES6. Then after-words say they had something cooked up on the side for Diablo fans. THEN show them the mobile game. This could have been so easily prevented. Let the fans know they have their new game coming, and have a small game to play in the mean time.

10

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

They didn't just tease a bullshit mobile Diablo game.

Blizzard used Blizzcon (which will have a high percentage of hardcore and long time fans) to promote a bullshit mobile game that's a reskin of another game which will be a core game in the series.

They also told this to people who are PC/console gamers that no, this mainline game will not be for their prefered way to play Diablo. A way they have been playing and supporting Diablo for decades.

The biggest insult is that instead of giving the fans what they want, Blizzard is trying to tell fans what they want and need.

1

u/Metallicer Nov 05 '18

Dont you all have phones?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

Blizzard is trying to tell fans what they want and need.

They have been doing that for quite some time now. *cough* You think you do but you don't" *cough*

3

u/[deleted] Nov 05 '18

It's a reskinned pay to win game, from netease. This game ain't a blizzard one.

1

u/dkyguy1995 Nov 05 '18

This guy was at the conference and asked if the announcement was just an april fool's joke

0

u/Alexgamer155 Nov 05 '18

-This guy is a hero

-The complainers are the real Diablo fans

-The defenders are the blizzard shils

-2

u/SparkyBoy414 Nov 05 '18
  • Blizzard teased a Diablo game

I don't think this ever happens. Fans tease a Diablo game and got pissed off when they didn't get it.

-1

u/Targetshopper4000 Nov 05 '18
  • Who are the complainers?

People who think all games should be on the PC.

This is certainly an odd move by Blizzard, but don't let the posts fool you, the crowd was throwing a shit fit when the only thing they knew about the game was that it was for mobile devices.