Blizzard timeline celebrates 20 years of history
As part of its 20th anniversary celebrations, Blizzard has whipped up a timeline documenting the history of the company and its games. From platformer Blackthorne to cpmic book fighting game Justice League Task Force, it's all there.
As part of its 20th anniversary celebrations, Blizzard has whipped up a timeline documenting the history of the company and its games. From platformer Blackthorne to comic book fighting game Justice League Task Force, it's all there. Oh, and that StarCraft, Diablo, and Warcraft jazz and whatnot.
The timeline is a fine stroll down memory lane, though a little light on details. And if you've ever been uncertain about how exactly Blizzard became part of Activision, the many steps are laid out.
It is a little too clean, though, with nary a mention of cancelled projects like sneaky shooter StarCraft Ghost and comic adventure game WarCraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. While we can surely trust Blizzard's decisions to kill them, it'd be nice to see something of these projects which did once excite fans so.
-
Shacknews
replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Blizzard timeline celebrates 20 years of history.
As part of its 20th anniversary celebrations, Blizzard has whipped up a timeline documenting the history of the company and its games. From platformer Blackthorne to cpmic book fighting game Justice League Task Force, it's all there.-
When I think back on all the great games Blizzard put out up to The Frozen Throne, and then what they put out now; I just get really depressed.
-
StarCraft II would like a word with you.
-
-
Umm.. no.
Look at how long Warcraft 3 has lasted. Even now, there are many websites which bring out new maps; Tower Defence, RPG, Aos, Puzzle, etc etc. Thousands of people download new maps all the time for Warcraft 3.
Look at Starcraft 2; it's already losing it's popularity due to League of Legends.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/06/03/team-solomid-believes-league-of-legends-will-soon-replace-starcraft-ii-in-esports-hierarchy/2/
-
-
-
Really, from what I understand, Starcraft II is still gaining in popularity.
-
-
-
Can you define what is different or is it just an emotional reason?
-
Yes to both.
Story sucks monkey balls now (in all their recent games), especially the dialogue. It feels cliche and not very interesting. I will admit that gameplay is excellent, but I look for more than that in a game. If you're a multiplayer only/don't care about story kinda gamer, than you're probably just fine with modern Blizzard.
As far as emotional goes, I feel that ever since the family split (read departure of Blizzard North) that something is missing from their games, something that helped define the feel of Blizzard games.
-
-
-
I got dragged kicking and screaming through Firelands for long enough to get three guildies that fucking staff. All I can say is FUCK firelands. I'm never going back. :(
-
[deleted]
-
I just spent about 100 times more time in there than I ever wanted to. Tanking, healing, and DPSing across six guys. Never did get my fucking staff done though. :(
-
-
-
Cataclysm definitely managed to have the least interesting, most monotonous, most disjointed leveling experience. They acknowledged that eventually, but as I don't care even a little bit for MoP, I won't get the chance to see if they fix it.
-
[deleted]
-
Even without any leveling stuff you'd finish the zones halfway through and could skip two or three of them entirely.
-
sounds like it was packed with content to me. Though I only played to 83 and got to the desert place and nearly threw my computer through the window. I HATE desert areas in games. SO MUCH. I opted instead just to quit WoW forever, I was so so so burnt out anyway.
-
the exception to the rule being Serious Sam. That game 0wns.
-
The questing was all extremely linear and super easy. SUPER easy. The only way it was even possible to die was if you were alt-tabbed or something. They were trying to tell some kind of story, and admittedly there were a few cool quest events across the expansion, but the fact that it was so easy that it barely qualified as a game really turned me off. It was like getting a prize just for showing up.
-
-
Thinking back, some of the vanilla content wasn't really a cakewalk. Do you remember the first time you went through Duskwood? Some of those zones were very fun because they did present a real danger of getting eaten alive by a wolf or spider out of nowhere 5 levels above you.
-
Oh, it was pretty rough all over the place. There were tons of elites, huge camps of monsters, patrols, etc. And back in those days, you really didn't have the offensive or defensive power that you have now; you could easily swing at a regular monster for 30 seconds before killing it, and not have any multi-target damage to speak of.
Granted, the combat was very slow and didn't involve pressing many buttons, but if I had to choose between that and having tons of situational buttons that I never have to use outside of an instance, I'll take the slower pace and a sense of danger. A video game over an interactive movie, in other words.-
Exactly. I miss the days of actually having to watch where you were going. Added to the immersion and made things interesting. I remember trying to find clever ways of pulling one or two and/or moving around a group of enemies without aggro'ing every last one of them on top of me. Actually having to formulate a plan of attack vs spamming one button for 5 seconds while yawning in the later expacs.
-
I don't think it added to the immersion so much as it *made it a video game*.
It was definitely fun though. I don't know what they're thinking these days. Blizzard is trying to be the Disneyland of video games or something.
-
-
-
-
It was easy in the sense that you'd never get hung up and unable to move forward anywhere, but it was much harder than Cata. Parts of BC and definitely WoW 1.0 were challenging. It got significantly easier in Wrath, and easier still in Cata. I really think the only way you could actively die while paying attention was if you accidentally aggro'ed some kind of quest mob. It's weird, because these days every class has a giant arsenal of "oh shit" buttons and power burst buttons that you never ever have to use while questing because nothing does any damage and everything flops over dead in five seconds or less.
My impression is that they're trying to make their story feel "epic", but if they're shooting for some kind of theme park ride then the single player action games are always going to have them beat.
-
-
-
[deleted]
-
NOW you tell me :p j/k I was pretty burned out so that was 95% of it. I figured at the time there must be another way.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
