#20 - May 12, 2009, 8:55 p.m.
Q u o t e:
So it's looking more and more like blizzard is spreading out achievements and making changes to the game so that achievements/goals take longer.
It's difficult to believe you'd have this view if you had played extensively at level 60. The content has become nothing but more accessible over the years for a wider range of players.
Q u o t e:
Children's Week was a classic example of this followed by making WG quests weekly.
I don't see how either of these aspects act as examples for your claim. Children's Week is an optional, fun holiday event. Now, if you want a flying mount that's faster than what the overwhelming majority of players have, sure, you might have to remain vigilant and committed to the holiday achievements. Even at that, we're talking mere hours of commitment for most each holiday.
With regard to Wintergrasp dailies, there are a couple of reasons why we're implementing this on the 3.1.2 test realms: 1) Lake Wintergrasp is seeing an overabundance of players resulting in poor realm performance during peak play times; and 2) doing Lake Wintergrasp once or twice a day to get all of the dailies done is becoming a more convenient, efficient way of obtaining honor than signing up for battlegrounds. The change to make quests there weekly is being implemented in the hopes it will better stagger the participation in that zone throughout the week, as there are no quick or easy solutions to address realm instability that is due simply to having far too many people in the same zone at the same time; and we hope to see more players queuing up for battlegrounds. We're working on other ways of improving battleground participation as well right now.
Q u o t e:
Rumor is they will not be making any more expansions for WoW.
Rumors are fascinating, given that they don't need a shred of evidence in support of their basis to spread like a wild fire. In fact, in the past we've provided nothing but evidence -- vague though it may be -- that would contradict such a rumor.
Q u o t e:
I've heard that they are focusing on other projects. If this is true you can expect more of this, and less customer service/content. At this point they can just sit back and add some new arena/pvp gear every4-6 months and that's it.
This a common misconception. Such a misconception requires nothing but assumptions and misinformation to hold water. We have completely independent art and development teams for each project on which Blizzard Entertainment is working. Sure, people switch positions and may move to other projects from time to time. This is common practice in any company, whether or not the company develops games. But if a position is vacated, it is filled. You may have seen earlier this year that Jeff Kaplan, former game director for World of Warcraft, announced he would be leaving his position to begin work on the new, unannounced MMO. Tom Chilton stepped up to fill his role on the World of Warcraft development team. We're never short on talent and our teams are constantly growing. There's absolutely no reason or evidence to support the theory that we've shifted focus away from the Warcraft franchise. I'm surrounded by employees in this building working hard every day that can attest to this, were they not too busy working on a prioritized list of new content for this game to speak directly. :)
Q u o t e:
People are saying that there is another MMO in the works at Blizzard. Seriously, if there was, they would be advertising it already.
Games take years to develop from concept to release. Diablo III was in the works for years before being announced. StarCraft II was announced two years ago and isn't even in Beta yet.
We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it's a shell of a game thus far. We've already stated it'll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It's an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this.
Q u o t e:
Remember Blizzard said they would be releasing SC2 last Christmas about a month after WotLK. Now there is not even a date for SC2. If they can go from pre-orders saying its coming out, to not even having a release date on it, it kinda makes u wonder if that wasn't a cash grab last Christmas. And did anyone get ther $ back for SC2 pre order?
Given that I'm a community manager for World of Warcraft, the latest news for StarCraft II can sometimes slip past me. That said, I can't find a single announcement we made about StarCraft II hitting shelves in the winter of 2008. I'm quite confident such an announcement doesn't exist, but you're free to provide evidence (released by Blizzard Entertainment, mind you) to correct me.
Q u o t e:
Bottom line, something is starting to really stink around here and I don't think its the Undead.
What stinks is that a lot of information is out there that may prove your points in this thread invalid, even had I not responded, but rumors and assumptions can so much more easily be used to form unfortunate opinions of how we operate and where we're headed.
