It makes me happy that I can finally talk about this without concern.
Why could not talk before? Were you afraid that Blizzard would send ninjas to assassinate you?
Blizzard is dead, the current company has nothing in common with the company we all knew in the early 2000s.
You summed it pretty well.
Ironically, they didn't even make money in the short term either. I think they thought they could get away with not offering refunds.
Yeah that is the most important note in whole conversation above everything else ,,they could get away with not offering refunds" !!! As corporations are used to do whatever they wish these days and get away with it. But! Communities happened! Rapid fire, mass revolt, revolutions, downgrading everywhere, youtube videos and reviews.... Then inspections in some countries visited Blizzard's offices (not giving refunds is crime in some countries) and they finally gave up!
Long story short, we're glad that there's Quenching Mod that brought back Custom Campaigns. The state in Blizzard is tough right now, another PR disaster these days, employees going on strikes, WoW development halted after 9.1 actually turned into a disaster and the PR scandal. All that said, I doubt there's gonna be another patch for W3R from Blizzard.
Oh, I did not know about it, perhaps did not bother to find news... So they again had some craps there in the company?
They saw blizzard shot themselves in the foot and stab themselves in their guts so many times, that when morhaine finally left paired with the internal incompetence at the company that was brewing due to the incompetent assholes they hired in this period, the literal federal college behavior, the jealosy and hate over the old guard, followed by the wow team being assholes
because they literally to Icefrog to fuck off, the Failure and mismanagement of HOTS into a garbage e-sport to copy dota 2 out of spite and fail, Overwatch that they killed it with a garbage E-Sport title to fight Quake Champions and CSGO which failed hard, plus LoL killing Sc2 and war 3 by taking over its place as a MOBA and putting and end to RTS UNTIL Microsoft brought it back with AoE Remasters, and now the Fuckery that is getting exposed as everyone speaks.
Ahahahaah! ,,INCOMPETENT ASSHOLES! FEDERAL COLLEGE BEHAVIOR! AND FUCKERY!"
haha nice words you used!
but I do think it's important not to fall into the trap of blaming Activision too much. Not because I think Activision isn't ultimately to blame or is really bad, but because I fear we lionize Blizzard too much, when the reality is they were (as you point out) making a lot of these decisions themselves.
I agree with that. Both companies are to blame.
I think it's too simple a view of the situation to say "BIG COMPANY BAD".
But it is really like that. Corporations are like that these days. facebook, Google, Amazon and some others got punished worldwide many times over even for heavy crimes such as espionage, selling people's data and whatnot, you had protests worldwide in many companies, and what changed? Nothing. They still continue to do this because there is no properly punishment for them. When you open a small private company, after being few times punished, they close your company. But no for them! They can do unlimited times and they will pay charges unlimited times (I steal 100$, they punish me with 50$ and i still LEGALLY have 50$ in pocket) because they can. Germany has punished VW for lying over diesel emissions cheating, for one billion! And how many billions VW have? And even better question, how many billions they earned by this crime! That's right, in worst case scenario they just pay about half of what they steal. Nobody ever got arrested or put in jail for that or similar crimes! There are many cases around the world. Same with Blizzard and Activison. Why would anyone think that they are different? Especially after last year's fiasco with reforged.
Let's not assume too much about what "the community" at large needs. The communities needs are as varied as it's individuals. Maybe some people do need a pointing finger, while others simply need answers, catharsis.
Well, this is questionable. While you are completely right that various people have various needs, and it is a fact that each individual has its own taste, style of working/learning/playing game, and we are all here for our own needs, and we buy stuff for our own need. But it is also the fact that each product is designed for average needs for its target audience/customer. They collect data which include people's review, needs of what and sum it up to pull out ,,the middle line" or what majority of those people wants. Then they adapt products to them, not to individuals. That is why they can legitimately say ,,we did this because our customers want it" regardless the fact that many are individuals who need something else or do not like exact changes.
This is how democracy work. While everybody has the right to opinion, individualism, and personality, the still majority chose the president or parliament in most countries. The same goes here, decisions for this site is being made mostly to fit the vast majority of people. And site rules. We came here differently, but we all apply to same rules, regardless of what we think or not. About this exact case, let me sum it like this: For example, you do not like Reforged because of lack of 9 hours videos they promised. Ralle does not like it because there were no refunds, deepstarasz does not like it because lack of updates/communications, and I do not like it because they lied to us all time. You, Ralle, deepstarasz and me, 4 of us, one group. All four various reasons but only one common expression: we do not like Reforged! Therefore it is completely logical and regular to say that our group does not like Reforged, regardless of what the reasons are. This is common to us, and everyone will notice and adapt their communications and opinions towards that fact. Now, if you want detailed things, you will look deeper into why we do not like it, and reveal that we actually do have various reasons, but still in common that we did not like the product.
Same goes to the community as a whole, in general. While everyone has their own reasons, sometimes you can determine global basic opinion as thesis which you can use further: Community needs this, community needs that... community likes this, the community does not like that.... After all, vast majority of people are dissatisfied with Reforged as a product and how Blizzard handled it.
