I unexpectedly got my cable and internet back today (Sunday I posted it would be 6-9 more days). I'm going to play for a few days without blogging ... second.
First I wanted to post about the Controversial Blizzard News.
There were two little bits of controversy from Blizzcon. First, Starcraft 2 is going to be broken into three games, each with their own full single-player campaign. Second, Diablo III may charge for DLC.
This is upsetting a lot of people.
Now, normally I would write this long thoughtful post about the pros and cons of Blizzard's moves, and eventually say that I thought Blizzard was making a good move. But I want to play Warhammer tonight for the first time in nine days, so I'll abbreviate :
So Blizzard is going to provide us with much more content than in the past? They are guaranteeing two expansions to Starcraft 2 instead of one? Oh, and instead of one Diablo game, and one expansion, they are going to give us continuing DLC?
When I read posts complaining about this news, in the words of Chili Palmer, "I couldn't believe my f***ing ears."
You really don't want more content from Blizzard? Really? Do you really want to wait seven more years after Starcraft 2 for the next Blizzard RTS? Do you want to wait for one Diablo III expansion, and then wait six more years for any drop of new Diablo content?
F*** that. If that's really how you feel then I find it hard to believe you were every really a fan of Diablo, Warcraft, or Starcraft, or even the genres in which they exist.
I do not want to wait four or six years for new games and new content from Blizzard and I'm happy -- Very Happy -- that Blizzard seems to be moving away from that.
Posts
21 hours ago
3 comments:
Well I think it is quite sad actually, because lets face it, the only reason Blizzard is doing all of this is to take more money from us.
Sure starcraft2 will have two expansions but these will feature the two other races solo campain that you should get with the full game.
I won't even speak about DLC, reminds me of those crappy F2p games that let you buy powerful weapons and such. That just spoils games in my opinion!
My own reaction was a sarcastic jaunt portraying certain people as Greenskins greedy for meaty Dwarf limbs...so I might be insane.
But in my mind Blizzard's plans are to mete out unique content over a longer term, by focusing on one portion at a time. This is just against the expected curve of providing all content upfront (albeit with a narrower focus). Perhaps, in time, we'll find out it's not this bad but for now is just sounds like a greedy company seeking new ways to make cash at the expense of players.
As for DLC - have they announced a pricing structure? Because the standard DLC style approach is always to spread a higher charge, with greater margins, over a period of time to prevent consumers noticing the final tally. It works on lots of products and the individual pieces invariably are of lower quality or middling quantity.
I think anyone reacting negatively has a right to be concerned.
I'm more understanding of the Starcraft 2 announcement. If anyone wants one third of the planned campaign for each race and no more, they can bugger the flick off. I'll be annoyed if the Terran campaign winds up being 20 odd missions, but so long as the campaign does have a full game's worth of content to it, great.
It's more than a little bullcrap to say that Blizzard should just randomly pull out their arse the time required to build three full products worth of content and charge you less for it. Of course if you want less content, be my guest, I'll happily ignore you.
DLC on the other hand, I have a very dim view on. What could be a way to deliver good content at a constant rate tends to become a way to overcharge customers. True you can choose not to buy it, but then, I could choose not to buy the game, so if we're counting it as a feature it has to stand as a compliment to the game.
Obviously it'll depend far more on what the actual pricing scheme winds up as. But I'll tentatively assume it'll be as bad, imho, as every other instance I've heard of DLC.
Post a Comment