5 ms·

The blizzard you know is completely dead. No one from their classic games is around. No one who made Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, etc is around. Those games wer

The blizzard you know is completely dead. No one from their classic games is around. No one who made Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, etc is around. Those games were made as a labor of love.

weird-eye-issue 3y ago
"No one" is not accurate. But you are almost entirely correct, yes
eigenket 3y ago
Its not quite true that none of those people are still around - a bunch of them work for Frostgiant & are working on Stormate.
- oblio 3y ago
  He didn't mean they died, he meant that they no longer work for Activision Blizzard.
solardev 3y ago
I just played Diablo 4 season 3 (which launched a couple days ago) for a bit, and sadly I have to agree. It's such an empty, soulless game. Reminds me of Starfield, regurgitated sameness. Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, etc. are all so much better, and made by tiny studios (though sometimes backed by Tencent, like with PoE). With the AAAs focusing only on safe sequels, maybe LLMs taking over would be a good thing, lol. At least maybe we'll get better writing and game design that way. Even ChatGPT has more passion than Blizzard now...
- oblio 3y ago
  > With the AAAs focusing only on safe sequels, maybe LLMs taking over would be a good thing, lol. I have bad news for you :-) The trend with more automation is for more sameness, not less, unfortunately.
  - solardev 3y ago
    I dunno, I've personally seen ChatGPT produce better writing and more interesting game mechanics compared to D4. But I guess it's not that different from having young blood with good ideas overridden by profit hungry management who just want to milk the IP. I don't think it's so much AI vs human but how risk-averse the bean counters are. D4 felt stagnant an hour in...
    - oblio 3y ago
      It's novel. Give it 5-10 years for the "sameness"-y to kick in.
      - solardev 3y ago
        I don't think this is necessarily the case for fiction, where creativity is more important than perfect accuracy (ie hallucinations could be a good thing). LLMs have access to more training material than a human writer could reasonably read in a lifetime, and have a large statistical model of "drama" that's way more nuanced than your typical side NPC. I don't see this as an either/or situation where they'll replace the lead writers of a title and create the entire narrative. But they can surely (already) make far more interesting characters and side quests than your standard "help kill these goblins for 3gp" filler or fetch quest. Working together with writers, instead of outright replacing them, will hopefully create better overall experiences for gamers.
        mmcdermott 3y ago
        I wonder whether LLMs will turn out to have a sort of uncanny valley of their own when it comes to producing creative works from incomprehensibly vast training sets. Will LLM novels, for example, be an unlimited spigot of things we enjoy or will we look at it and get the uneasy feeling that it isn't human and decide we would rather deal with the unevenness of human creation because it is human?
        solardev 3y ago
- asylteltine 3y ago
  I really liked the universe and characters which is why heroes of the storm was so cool. But of course they killed that off. Their classic games aren’t just about the gameplay it’s the universe too.
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    What do you mean "killed off", there seems to have been an update last week ? https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/heroes-of-the-storm/24056177/heroes-of-the-storm-ptr-patch-notes-january-17-2024 https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/heroes-of-the-storm/24056177... (Now I will be the first to point out that online-only games have no future, but this one at least still has a present.)
yreg 3y ago
Where has it gone south? Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, WoW, Overwatch, and perhaps even Hearthstone were all such great games at some point. It seemed like Blizzard knew how to make games that were both delightful and profitable.
bpicolo 3y ago
Metzen is actually back on WoW as of recently.
bhdlr 3y ago
WoW is coming back I think! Metzen is back and the classic wow team seems to know what they're doing and are developing in good faith. SoD is the best thing to happen to WoW in years imo

The blizzard you know is completely dead. No one from their classic games is around. No one who made Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, etc is around. Those games were made as a labor of love.

weird-eye-issue 3y ago

"No one" is not accurate. But you are almost entirely correct, yes

eigenket 3y ago

Its not quite true that none of those people are still around - a bunch of them work for Frostgiant & are working on Stormate.

oblio 3y ago
He didn't mean they died, he meant that they no longer work for Activision Blizzard.

solardev 3y ago

I just played Diablo 4 season 3 (which launched a couple days ago) for a bit, and sadly I have to agree. It's such an empty, soulless game. Reminds me of Starfield, regurgitated sameness. Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, etc. are all so much better, and made by tiny studios (though sometimes backed by Tencent, like with PoE). With the AAAs focusing only on safe sequels, maybe LLMs taking over would be a good thing, lol. At least maybe we'll get better writing and game design that way. Even ChatGPT has more passion than Blizzard now...

oblio 3y ago
> With the AAAs focusing only on safe sequels, maybe LLMs taking over would be a good thing, lol. I have bad news for you :-) The trend with more automation is for more sameness, not less, unfortunately.
- solardev 3y ago
  I dunno, I've personally seen ChatGPT produce better writing and more interesting game mechanics compared to D4. But I guess it's not that different from having young blood with good ideas overridden by profit hungry management who just want to milk the IP. I don't think it's so much AI vs human but how risk-averse the bean counters are. D4 felt stagnant an hour in...
  - oblio 3y ago
    It's novel. Give it 5-10 years for the "sameness"-y to kick in.
    - solardev 3y ago
      I don't think this is necessarily the case for fiction, where creativity is more important than perfect accuracy (ie hallucinations could be a good thing). LLMs have access to more training material than a human writer could reasonably read in a lifetime, and have a large statistical model of "drama" that's way more nuanced than your typical side NPC. I don't see this as an either/or situation where they'll replace the lead writers of a title and create the entire narrative. But they can surely (already) make far more interesting characters and side quests than your standard "help kill these goblins for 3gp" filler or fetch quest. Working together with writers, instead of outright replacing them, will hopefully create better overall experiences for gamers.
      - mmcdermott 3y ago
        I wonder whether LLMs will turn out to have a sort of uncanny valley of their own when it comes to producing creative works from incomprehensibly vast training sets. Will LLM novels, for example, be an unlimited spigot of things we enjoy or will we look at it and get the uneasy feeling that it isn't human and decide we would rather deal with the unevenness of human creation because it is human?
        solardev 3y ago
asylteltine 3y ago
I really liked the universe and characters which is why heroes of the storm was so cool. But of course they killed that off. Their classic games aren’t just about the gameplay it’s the universe too.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  What do you mean "killed off", there seems to have been an update last week ? https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/heroes-of-the-storm/24056177/heroes-of-the-storm-ptr-patch-notes-january-17-2024 https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/heroes-of-the-storm/24056177... (Now I will be the first to point out that online-only games have no future, but this one at least still has a present.)

yreg 3y ago

Where has it gone south? Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, WoW, Overwatch, and perhaps even Hearthstone were all such great games at some point. It seemed like Blizzard knew how to make games that were both delightful and profitable.

bpicolo 3y ago

Metzen is actually back on WoW as of recently.

bhdlr 3y ago

WoW is coming back I think! Metzen is back and the classic wow team seems to know what they're doing and are developing in good faith. SoD is the best thing to happen to WoW in years imo