Blizzard has fallen

[ZenfoldorVGI]

sethnintendo said:

@ZenfoldorVGI

I don't think he was being "elitist" when he was describing his SC2 experience.  I have only played a little of the beta myself so I can't comment on it entirely.  If he feels it has been dumb downed from SC1/BW then that is his opinion.  He has even provided that he has climbed up to 2nd highest league for his backup.  Perhaps Blizzard did dumb down SC2 for the masses.  I know for fact that they semi screwed over the Zerg even though I was able to beat a few horrible people in the beta with them.  Anyways, you don't care about RTS as your previous post indicated. So lets talk about WoW.  A lot of vetern WoW players will agree that they dumbed down WoW for the masses.  Who can blame them though, I suppose you want more people to pay to play the game.  There is still skill involved but not too much as it once required (although in pvp if you don't know what the hell you are doing you can easily get your ass kicked unless you are facing a superior class compared to yours).

WoW has been so much a cash cow and has occupied Blizzard's time that they barely could even support their other two franchises/take forever to release (SC and Diablo).  A company as great as Blizzard was (and I suppose still is) should be able to have more than three franchises.  What happened to Blackthorne, Lost Vikings, Rock n Roll Racing besides them releasing GBA ports of SNES games?  They have 3 franchises now (Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo).  Sure they are great but they should be able to do something else for a change.  I think Blizzard could make a bad ass turned based strategy game.  Sure not too many people love that genre but if they could make something like Advance Wars (but better); I am sure it would sell. 

Well, it would be hard to make a better SRPG than Fire Emblem, but to each his own. I'm not saying that the ONLY important game is WoW(and PVP/high end PVE in WoW IS massively skill based). I'm saying that WoW is the best game in that genre yet to be released. So is Diablo II in that genre, and probably Starcraft in RTS if I've heard correctly. Those are games that changed and mainstreamed those genres by making them accessable. Complaining about accessability like it is a bad thing and calling people "noobs" is about as elitist as you can get, and saying it isn't elitist because you hear it a million times a day just means you spend a lot of time conversing with other elitist PC or console gamers.

Blizzard has always made games that are highly acessable as far as PC requirements and accessability to new players. That is how they differ from the lesser and now mostly dead PC exclusive developers, and that is why their games are so successful. However, their games also have great depth in end game. This is still true, and for example, end game PVP in WoW is massively in depth and a good player will completely own a group of "n00bs" as us PC gamers call them, lol.

To say that WoW has no depth, is to say that being a n00b in WoW is insignificant, which if you've ever PUG'd or PVPd in a terrible arena team, you know is a laughable assertion. WoW is accessable, but it certainly is also very deep. It is just streamlined. Its accessability is its biggest strength, and the reason it is so successful. It is also the reason they have balanced the classes and the end game so well. Adding unneeded variables(see DAoC) can kill your ability to ever balance your classes, or end game. WoW also gets a bad rap as casual because it isn't punishing, IE(loose your gear after it breaks, after you die, lose exp/levels after you die). However, those "punishment" tropes are NOT popular. They cause a MMO to be inaccessable and thus aren't, nor ever were needed. WoW is MMO done correctly, and that is an amazing feat.