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Blizzard Speaks out about Warcraft 3: Reforged

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Archian

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Blizzard Speaks out about Warcraft 3 Reforged

During Activision Blizzard's Q4 2019 Earnings Call, J. Allen Brack, President of Blizzard Entertainment answered a question regarding the negative press on Warcraft 3 Reforged.

Anthony Duplisea said: arrow2.png

[...] And then relatedly also on Warcraft, there's been some negative press on Warcraft 3 Reforge lately. Can you tell us what you're doing to address that? Thanks.
blizz.gif J. Allen Brack said: blizzarrow.gif

[...] Concerning Warcraft III Reforged, honestly, it's been a bit of hurry. Our community has come to expect really amazing things from us, and we've heard from them that we did not achieve that bar. But we stand behind our games and have consistently shown that not only do we support them, but we continue to build on them even after launch. And we're committed to doing that here as well. And so we're going to continue to update the depth of the game and we'll continue to update the community with our plans going forward. Thanks for the question.
 
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"Thanks for the question"
Ye right, if there were no consequences he would strangle him with his own hands :)

At this point blizz is obliged to do something with reforged (or pretend to) because shareholders noticed they made very bad game...
 
You know, I was working with some web projects (startup) and whole situation with reforged looks like the management, who was responsible for the project planning and launching did it in the "Startup" way - Release half-baked product in production and then support it and polish it with pressure of irritated clients.
Not good approach I think.
 
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Bla bla bla...

When are they going to give us back the Classic game to those of us who haven't bought Reforged?

A week ago I could play Classic and now, thanks to the new "Reforged" patch I can not even pass the menu...

15 years ago I paid for RoC and its expansion TFT and my computer can't play them now...

Are they going to give any solution?
 
When are they going to give us back the Classic game to those of us who haven't bought Reforged?

If you ask this question directly to Blizzard they will surely ignore this. Like what I keep saying over and over in every news thread like this they're definitely not going to bring back the classic (I mean it's super obvious). The obvious reason why they butchered the classic is because DRM is now in place.

I hate Reforged too, even the Reforged classic, but as of the recent patch maybe it's time to choose now which version do you prefer, do you want to stay classic or do you want to play Reforged patches.
 
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deepstrasz

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If you ask this question directly to Blizzard they will surely ignore this. Like what I keep saying over and over every news like this they're definitely not going to bring back the classic (I mean it's super obvious). The obvious reason why they butchered the classic is because DRM is now in place.
There are two options, probably. Stick with Reforged for new content (natives, models etc.) or have a GoG version of the Classic which will not be updated officially but possibly by the community.
 
Stick with Reforged for new content (natives, models etc.) or have a GoG version of the Classic which will not be updated officially but possibly by the community.

The only downside of picking 'GOG' option is that they might change alot in the future especially in custom games (like what happened during the transition of patch 1.27b to patch 1.28 where they introduced widescreen support which left the old maps with UI mods 'kind of' broken - specifically the missing UI Tile 05 and UI Tile 06 since those were'nt present in the previous versions).
 

deepstrasz

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The only downside of picking 'GOG' option is that they might change alot in the future especially in custom games (like what happened during the transition of patch 1.27b to patch 1.28 where they introduced widescreen support which left the old maps with UI mods 'kind of' broken - specifically the missing UI Tile 05 and UI Tile 06 since those were'nt present in the previous versions).
It's difficult. Maybe, the GoG version will be the initial version or the one up to the completion of the Founding of Durotar and the whole lot of the Tavern heroes (1.27 or lower?).
 
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Bla bla bla...

When are they going to give us back the Classic game to those of us who haven't bought Reforged?

A week ago I could play Classic and now, thanks to the new "Reforged" patch I can not even pass the menu...

15 years ago I paid for RoC and its expansion TFT and my computer can't play them now...

Are they going to give any solution?

I'll be honest. They'll not bring back classic WC3. WC3 classic is right now part of WC3:R and that probably won't be changed...
 

Jumbo

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I still believe Reforged can become a good product. The problem is that they promised a lot of improvements and delivered a version of Warcraft 3 that is worse than what we already had - whilst shutting that old version down at the same time. People are right, no hysteria whatsoever, to be angry.

Blizzard needs to do a few things in my opinion:
-Apologize for rushing release and allowing people to play the real Classic with battlenet support (but not further patches probably).
-give a good explanation for the new amendments to the user agreement for the World Editor.
-fix unit portraits (even a basic unit like the footman has a bugged portrait).
-improve the campaigns to live up to the Reforged epicness that was promised - the cutscenes are not necessarily important but more utilisation of the new graphics should be prioritised.
-add a campaign difficulty called brutal which is VERY hard compared to the Hard difficulty. A small addition that will make a huge impact on people's eagerness to replay the campaigns.
-polish unit animations - many are fine but some still look weird - skating movement I'm looking at you.
 
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I don't know if this was worth a front page thread, honestly. It was a brief PR response in an investor call that had absolutely no new information. Something to just inspire a quick burst of confidence in the investors while getting off the subject as soon as possible. There's nothing we know now that we didn't know before this.
 
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While I personally don't take anything they say seriously anymore, this might actually be some good news on a small level.

They basically said they are going to patch up the game, and not leave it as it is and forget it ever existed.

I personally hope that they'll re-add Custom Campaigns(though I don't think this will happen before may, ~3 months after release) and fix as many bugs as possible and optimize performance as much as possible. And possibly change the main menu not to be black and white, I mean, I don't really care how the main menu looks, but black and white, come on! So according to my calculations, the game should be at it's final stage in jun, maybe.

I know the game will still take some 25GBs of unneeded memory and purists are still gonna be unsatisfied and unhappy, but it's pretty much all we can hope for at this point.
 

Shar Dundred

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Our community has come to expect really amazing things from us, and we've heard from them that we did not achieve that bar.
I mean, I get it, they are not confessing that they screwed up by releasing the game way too
soon but continuously choosing words that give the impression that community had way too high
expectations and the negative reception is nothing else but that...
Terrible choice marketingwise imo. Like, it is not even good PR.
Yes, people tend to forget things quickly these days, but still... Bad choice or words.
 
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Well president of Blizzard is trying to soften this heavy rage against Blizzard, and tries to pretend nothing really happened that is serious. It was just another bad week at work, nothing more. They will try to upgrade game once. Maybe, maybe not. Again, not big deal for him. he is paid well, his wallet is not hurt for now.

Terrible choice marketingwise imo.
They have marketing ?

Yes, people tend to forget things quickly these days
You nailed it in center sir! Today people forget everything, because global mentality is ,,moment reality show" what happens while it is fresh, like regular news. After few days, or week, it is getting old, now people are searching for new ,,news" to complain about as this is getting boring.
I have two examples which I experienced myself:

1.You know, in 2015. dean of my university had 6 criminal charges (for nepotism, frauds, illegally hiring his friends, some money laundering and such). And normally, he was still doing duties of dean alongside his son whose he hired illegally. Then believe or not, but I came to his office and asked him about news reporting constantly about his criminal activities. He offered me drink, told me to sit down, like businessman. Then he told me that this is all set up, some of professors set him up, he is not guilty of anything (yeah right, being in charge for 8 years already).
Just few days after, he got TWO MORE criminal charges. I found him in stairs accidentally, and asked him about news reporting it. Now you wont believe me what he told me in face ,,THIS WILL BE FORGOTTEN, IT IS NOTHING" and start yelling at me because I asked him something happened few days ago. Later that year he got finally replaced, and in 2019, while being my professor he was arrested and sentenced for six months in jail for something! I cant say for sure if it is related.

2. I was on practice work in school, as I am schoolteacher from april to june last year. One day I should replace some teacher as she could not get to work for some reason, but nobody has told me that. They presumed that they will find me in morning to tell me to move to that classroom that day. But, my classroom did not have first class, so I did not came either. She did not come, i did not come. Kids of that classroom are left without supervision, without custody. They were left alone in school! They could get hurt or get out of school or something like that. It was pure luck that nothing happened. They called her immediately on mobile phone. She told them ,,I did not tell him because I presumed that he will be here at first class, and I presumed that someone else will tell him" They decided that obviously it was her mistake. Day after, when I asked my superior about this, you wont believe me again what answer I got: ,,This is already forgotten, it happened yesterday". Yeah, you heard right. heavy violation of school rules and laws, kids are left alone, and next days he says to me that it is already being forgotten.

This is our global mentality. That is why Blizzard and others can do this. Temper will cool down and nothing will happen. No punishments, no reminders, nothing. Just another new ,,start".
 
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Crimes? Punishment? Come on, dont overdo it...
Speaking about general corporations as whole.
But speaking about Blizzard and game industry, it is sufficient as MasterBlaster said. Just do not buy their games.
EDIT: What facebook did is considered crime. Same as google did when masses protested in streets as their employees were bullied.
 
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This is total useless information, they're obviously just trying to win back the trust of their investors. Anyone who has ever invested in stocks know that this is what they all do when shit is going down, always expecting positive results in the future.

I do however think the game will slowly recover, but the most critical subject as of now is the EULA. It is a complete mockery to map creators and of course totally unacceptable. You simply do not treat people who are bringing more players to your game like utter shit, period. If anything they should be rewarded for choosing to share their creativity on your platform instead of somewhere else.
 

deepstrasz

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I know the game will still take some 25GBs of unneeded memory and purists are still gonna be unsatisfied and unhappy, but it's pretty much all we can hope for at this point.
Such discrimination.
While I personally don't take anything they say seriously anymore, this might actually be some good news on a small level.
Contradict yourself much?
 

Ardenaso

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yep. They should have postponed the release instead of pushing half baked game(((
They even haven't used some new assets - Icecrown citadel and Hearthglen Abbay at all(

  • No model for Khadgar and Lothar
  • No model for Royal Guard (seriously?)
  • No model for other 3 Archmagi even though their names are already established
  • Kul Tiran invaders using Lordaeron flags and banners
  • Theramore banners using Lordaeron insignia
  • No model for Blood/High Elf Castle (it even has the Alliance Lion crest wtf)
  • No model for Sen'jin
  • No model for Zar'jira
  • No model for Khanzo, Haomarush, Gen'juros
  • Thok'feroth and Mazrigos using Far Seer models (they should be Warlocks or Necrolytes or WC2 Death Knights)
  • Human Captains in Silvermoon
 
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J. Allen Brack said:
[...] Our community has come to expect really amazing things from us, and we've heard from them that we did not achieve that bar.

Another non-apology from Brack, conveniently avoiding responsibility and pushing the blame onto the community. I don't think expecting a working product is setting the bar too high.
 
  • No model for Khadgar and Lothar
  • No model for Royal Guard (seriously?)
  • No model for other 3 Archmagi even though their names are already established
  • Kul Tiran invaders using Lordaeron flags and banners
  • Theramore banners using Lordaeron insignia
  • No model for Blood/High Elf Castle (it even has the Alliance Lion crest wtf)
  • No model for Sen'jin
  • No model for Zar'jira
  • No model for Khanzo, Haomarush, Gen'juros
  • Thok'feroth and Mazrigos using Far Seer models (they should be Warlocks or Necrolytes or WC2 Death Knights)
  • Human Captains in Silvermoon

Yep, you know, they could have made High/Blood elf castle using assets of Arcane Observatory - It would take less than a day to use town hall/keep/castle animations and replace the mesh with an arcane observatory.

But I suppose that on the internal meeting some manager said: "hey no, we should "preserve true spirit" and spent the budget on overwatch 2"

Also, I opened a few models in Reteras model studio and noticed that portrait models are excessive.
For instance portrait of Lord Garitos contains Weapon and horse, and guts and skeletons. Why?
Reusable textures for creeps are duplicated few times (in example if few Neutral hostile models use the same texture for any element - this texture appears to be in both folders of these units)

I believe that if they had optimized models and textures - they would save at least 0.5--1 Gb of disk space.
 
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Chaosy

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They have been updating it for the last two years, so I'll trust them on that one.
At least in terms of making it playable, too early to say if they will make patches for another ten years.

Reforged is basically what they have been doing in the prior patches. Most of them arrived with some amount of bugs and issues (I did not see most of them personally since I do not play ladder, I just code for fun). But eventually, most of them got fixed.
 
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“Custom Games are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Blizzard. Without limiting the foregoing, you hereby assign to Blizzard all of your rights, title, and interest in and to all Custom Games, including but not limited to any copyrights in the content of any Custom Games. […] To the extent you are prohibited from transferring or assigning your moral rights to Blizzard by applicable laws, to the utmost extent legally permitted, you waive any moral rights or similar rights you may have in all such Custom Games, without any remuneration.”

Can't see that this has been brought up in any of the updates or news on Hive for the last year, but might have missed it.

It's like they don't want people to keep the game alive with custom maps.
 
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  • No model for Khadgar and Lothar
  • No model for Royal Guard (seriously?)
  • No model for other 3 Archmagi even though their names are already established
  • Kul Tiran invaders using Lordaeron flags and banners
  • Theramore banners using Lordaeron insignia
  • No model for Blood/High Elf Castle (it even has the Alliance Lion crest wtf)
  • No model for Sen'jin
  • No model for Zar'jira
  • No model for Khanzo, Haomarush, Gen'juros
  • Thok'feroth and Mazrigos using Far Seer models (they should be Warlocks or Necrolytes or WC2 Death Knights)
  • Human Captains in Silvermoon
This, especially this:
Human Captains in Silvermoon
From what I've seen on youtube that chapter was done sooooo porely. I don't get it. They already have a blood elf Liutentant, couldn't they just give them a High Elf skin? The Archer also doesn't have a blood elf skin, even though all other high elves do, though Blood Elf Swormen is unused even in TfT Blood Elf Campaign.
Not even mention that both Thalorian and Anastarian are basically dumb mute creeps that just stand in front of the Sunwell like golems.
The Sunwell itself also looks terrible and lazy. They could of at least put in on a plateau with the walls, and not make it look like a lake. And they've added sooo many doodads for Tomb of Sargeras, Capital City, Icecrown citadel, that are all barely used, if at all, and they couldn't add the Sunwell, pure and Corrupted. Genial!!!
 
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If a "major PR desaster" causes a single question, which is easily handwaved away, you know where priorities lie.

Now of course earning calls are a place where hard numbers are spoken out, but if reforged would have been a project that promised big chunks of money in the first place, the questions about it would be different ones
 

Ardenaso

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This, especially this:
From what I've seen on youtube that chapter was done sooooo porely. I don't get it. They already have a blood elf Liutentant, couldn't they just give them a High Elf skin? The Archer also doesn't have a blood elf skin, even though all other high elves do, though Blood Elf Swormen is unused even in TfT Blood Elf Campaign.
Not even mention that both Thalorian and Anastarian are basically dumb mute creeps that just stand in front of the Sunwell like golems.
The Sunwell itself also looks terrible and lazy. They could of at least put in on a plateau with the walls, and not make it look like a lake. And they've added sooo many doodads for Tomb of Sargeras, Capital City, Icecrown citadel, that are all barely used, if at all, and they couldn't add the Sunwell, pure and Corrupted. Genial!!!

Wait, they actually used the Lordaeron doodads? I thought it's still copy-paste.

Also, no High/Blood Elf Ballista model too. Kek
 
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Wait, they actually used the Lordaeron doodads? I thought it's still copy-paste.

Also, no High/Blood Elf Ballista model too. Kek
Check A New Power in Lordaeron.
From what I've seen, yes, it's basically a copy past, with some Lordaeron doodads added, though hardly noticeable.
 
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They should never have announced a pre-order at blizzcon. A preordered product can't be delayed more than 12 months from star date of the preorder campaign ( should have been released even earlier than february).Basically forced to release it early.
 
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If a "major PR desaster" causes a single question, which is easily handwaved away, you know where priorities lie.
Remember that the question was asked by a shareholder, i.e. someone who doesn't give a flying f... about the game and is only interested in the PR drama due to it maybe potentially somehow having some impact on company finances. In that context, one question was all that was needed.

if reforged would have been a project that promised big chunks of money in the first place, the questions about it would be different ones
Not really. If Reforged was a big project, Activision would have to say more about it in their opening segment (for instance tell the investors whether it sold well or not), but the question would be pretty much the same - i.e. "what are you doing to fix this mess" basically. And maybe we'd get another question about how Blizzard plans to recoup financial losses. That's it - no matter how huge Reforged was, no shareholder would ask about specific gamer complaints or game features. They don't care.

A preordered product can't be delayed more than 12 months from star date of the preorder campaign ( should have been released even earlier than february)
The only law that is there is one that forces companies to provide an estimated release date upon starting preorders - I believe this comes from our German friends. There's no law that forces companies to keep that estimated date or prevents them from delaying the game.
 
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