Activision-Blizzard Megathread (now with more Microsoft Xbox )

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
The thread all about Activision-Blizzard... Blizztavision... Actiblizzard.... Bobby Kotick's Instrument of Ushering in the Apocalypse for he is the AntiChrist mentioned in the Book of Revelations and that companies goings on.

To start off in a positive note... and by positive I mean not kowtowing (get it? Because Blizzard... China? nvm) to the Social Justice mob.

 
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Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
Used to be a huge Blizzard fanboy up until 2014, when Metzen left and the quality of the storytelling plummeted. Blizzard games weren't masterpieces, but they had heart, but after Metzen left Blizzard just stopped trying. Also their business practices got scummier and the quality of their games dropped, what with the removal of reputation storylines, and taking reputation mounts ouf of the game and selling them in the cash shop (Iron Skyreaver, Grinning Reaver, Fey Dragon, etc).

Anyway, the Blizzard I loved is dead. All of the people who made it are long gone, and they don't make the same games anymore. In it's place is just another AAA company wearing the mask of Blizzard. Also sucks to hear about what has happened to the company and employee culture there.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Activison-Blizzard announced their Fourth Quarter Financial Results and plans for 2021. Among the revelations, there will be no Overwatch 2 or Diablo 4 in 2021. Sorry. But don't worry, they are planning on releasing another Call of Duty game this year...



However they are still pursuing their goal of connecting one billion gamers to their many varied and popular franchises including Warcraft, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Starcraft, Diablo, and most important of all Sekiro Crash Bandicoot Spyro Tony Hawk Candy Crush.



Oh and for actual financials... World of Warcraft now has 29 million players, its sixth quarter of growth for that sixteen year old MMORPG and full year revenue was 24% above that in 2019, making this Activison-Blizzards most successful year yet in its thirty year history, most of that thanks to Call of Duty Warzone and Black Ops Cold War.
 

JasonSanjo

Your Overlord and Jester
Don't suppose they mentioned anything about the Diablo 2 remaster? Honestly, it's the only thing (save for an eventual Diablo 4) that I'm looking forward to from Blizzard at the moment.

I just hope it doesn't turn into another Warcraft 3 remaster debacle.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
How many years ago was Overwatch 2 announced? I see that the tradition of announcing a game several years too early and exhausting the fan hype by the time it actually releases is still alive and well. And if what Belluar said is true, then Diablo IV is in development hell.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Never trust an MMO the company charges you for upfront. They already got your money so supporting it is pure cost with no more money from their perspective.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
Never trust an MMO the company charges you for upfront. They already got your money so supporting it is pure cost with no more money from their perspective.

... Wat? Nearly all MMO's rely on additionally purchases. Practically no MMO's make all their money up front, its practically impossible and extremely rare.

Overwatch makes money through skins, not through selling copies of Overwatch.

Don't suppose they mentioned anything about the Diablo 2 remaster? Honestly, it's the only thing (save for an eventual Diablo 4) that I'm looking forward to from Blizzard at the moment.

I just hope it doesn't turn into another Warcraft 3 remaster debacle.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Diablo series is cancelled entirely.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik

Blizzcon is starting up Friday. Apparently it's a thing still this year. I never checked it out myself. Not sure how you could make a Convention out of like... One game or DLC release a year but I guess you can.

Still seems newsworthy enough To post about. 😁
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member

Blizzcon is starting up Friday. Apparently it's a thing still this year. I never checked it out myself. Not sure how you could make a Convention out of like... One game or DLC release a year but I guess you can.

Still seems newsworthy enough To post about. 😁

I went there from 2014 through 2018. It's basically Disneyland for Blizzard fans, with the rides being being demos of the new WoW expansion/new games/new heroes for HotS and Overwatch. Also sorta like anime conventions if you are into voice acting, as the panels with the voice actors were really great. Key emphasis on were great. The last two years I went, the voice director for Overwatch wasted half of the panel time talking about diversity, rather than giving the audience what they came here for: to hear the voice actors. There are also panels by the artists where they show how they make game assets and WoW zones.

At the end of the second day, there is a cosplay contest. And there is also a guest rock band so you can rave if you want. I always also too tired by the end of the second day to stick around for those, so I just drove home.

If you have guild friends who also go to Blizzcon, then that is the other half of the fun. Meeting up with them. There are food trucks that setup outside the convention hall, and there is a bar. And there is the Paris Hilton hotel right across the street that guilds and popular personalities like PreachGaming like to reserve to throw parties that anyone can walk into. Great place to meet the big names.

Also, there is the literal, actual Disneyland right across the street from the convention center, so if you want you can do that too.

There is also a Dennys (a franchise breakfast diner) a couple blocks down the street that I liked to go to and have pancakes for lunch.

If you ever decide to go to Blizzcon, don't bother trying to get into the parking garage. Just drive down the street and park in some neighborhood and spend 15-20 minutes walking to the convention center.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
Blizzcon livestream

One hour and 15 minutes into the stream and they've hardly shown off anything of substance. Lots of fluff about "be nice to each other" and patting themselves on the back over how great Blizzard is and how great people feel playing their games and... long, 20 minute long talks about Hearthstone cards. Also lots of nostalgia milking, what with the Burning Crusade classic... Hearthstone classic cards... oldschool blizzard games rerelease... Diablo 2 rerelease.

The one and only thing of note thus far is that they say that they are working on new games, and will announce them when they are ready... but we already knew that Blizzard had an incubation unit for the last... what? 10 years?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
The one and only thing of note thus far is that they say that they are working on new games, and will announce them when they are ready... but we already knew that Blizzard had an incubation unit for the last... what? 10 years?
So wait, their big announcement was that they, a game company, make games and will release said games at some point in the future?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Is it sad that seeing a female character in a Diablo game, I immediately wonder how she'll get corrupted at the end/next game?

Now that I think about it, somebody at Blizzard must have a massive corruption fetish for how often it happens to all their female characters (twice to Kerrigan!) and pretty often as well to the males.
 

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
Is it sad that seeing a female character in a Diablo game, I immediately wonder how she'll get corrupted at the end/next game?

Now that I think about it, somebody at Blizzard must have a massive corruption fetish for how often it happens to all their female characters (twice to Kerrigan!) and pretty often as well to the males.
Well, there is a precedence for both players and NPC characters...

The Warrior, retroactively renamed as Prince Aidan (King Leoric's eldest and Prince Albrecht's older brother) made the dumbass decision of shoving Diablo's soulstone into his head, and he became possessed/the Dark Wanderer. He was eventually given a funeral by the Diablo II heroes in the Chaos Sanctuary by having his post-possession corpse thrown into the fires of Hell, after Diablo was defeated.

The Rogue, Moreina, came back unstable and full of mental anguish, and that resulted in her going "Yes, turning into an evil, blue-skinned necormantic babe under you, Mistress Andariel, sounds like a grand ol' idea!", corrupting her fellow rogues, and taking up the moniker of Blood Raven. She took an arrow to the knee head and died in the Monastery Graveyard, and she's likely in Hell right now.

The Sorcerer, Jazreth, went mad and either came to the conclusion he was Horazon reborn or was possessed by said Horazon, calling himself the Summoner. In the Arcane Sanctuary, he was killed by the Diablo II heroes and his soul/Horazon's soul was pulled down to Hell.

Adria was retroactively made evil in Diablo III (leading a cult pre-Tristram with Maghda), despite being just a curious, Gothic-looking witch in the first game. She pledged allegiance to Diablo, got knocked up by Possessed Aidan, and eventually gave birth to and betrayed her daughter, Leah. She ascended to demonhood before being killed.

Gillian was "saved" by Adria -- she went east with her, and ended up raising Leah. The pretty barmaid went nuts over time, ending up prematurely aging and in a mental asylum.

Wirt was killed. You steal his leg and gold. Little shit.

Griswold was turned into a zombie.

The rest of the Tristram villagefolk were murdered by demons. You find their corpses.

Cain survived 1 and 2 until dying in 3.

The Diablo II heroes and NPCs got better endings. Mostly.

Warriv ended up with constant bad-luck for over two two decades. On his desperate return to Tristram/New Tristram, he was killed by the Goatmen ravaging the countryside. You find his corpse and journal as a random encounter in Diablo 3.

Cassia, the Amazon, became the paranoid, new Amazon captain of her home islands: she has relentlessly trained every Amazon under her watch for a future demon invasion.

Nothing known about the Assassin.

The Barbarian was from Harrogath, which was destroyed when the Worldstone went kaboom and after it suffered from Baal's invasion, which likely killed a lot of his friends and family. Originally, the Barbarian in Diablo 3 was supposed to be the same as he in Diablo II, but this was dropped after they introduced male/female character options (because having the female character being the same as the male in 2 would've caused a little issue or two.

So, bitter, homeless, and a wanderer.

Nothing known about the Druid, but 4 and Immortal might expand on things.

The Necromancer, Xul, apparently took two apprentices: one of them, a male, is the one you mean in the desert of Act 2 in Diablo 3. He became a highly-revered master after II.

The other apprentice was a spoiled brat called Lethes: he and the heroes in Diablo Immortal kill her, after the crazy bitch wants to reshape the world with a shard of the Worldstone.

Nothing on the Paladin, but with numerous Orders being either corrupted, killed, or twisted into other forms (like the Templars and Crusaders), it's likely all his friends and family are gone or crazy.

Isendria, the Sorceress, was killed after she tried to help people with a drought. Her spell went awry, and it ended up killing a lot of people. An Assassin, tasked with keeping an eye on her because her superiors were paranoid old men, promptly struck. They fought, and she was eventually killed after a neck-and-neck battle. Given this is Diablo, it wouldn't surprise me if her killer was her comrade Assassin, from above.

She trained the (female) Wizard, Li Ming, who suspected something like this happened to her mentor.

Her ghost can be found in the Pandemonium Fortress in Reaper of Souls. She's basically begging for death at this point, as Malthael is... well, a complete dick who upturned the natural order of life and death.

And this all isn't counting everyone who was killed, possessed, risen from the dead as puppets, corrupted, or just outright damned through the series' quests and stories.

Sanctuary is a place that pretty much punishes the heroes as a last laugh, after they "win". Blizzard can be dicks like that. ;)
 

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