Blizzard General News

[Corrderio]

It's why I'm glad I never got into it. My first IT job was just as bad in terms of crunch time. Gotta love when your only free time is the time you're asleep.

[Ragns]

It's why I'm glad I never got into it. My first IT job was just as bad in terms of crunch time. Gotta love when your only free time is the time you're asleep.

Also the feeling of arguing with your boss at 3-4 am that you need at least 6 hours of sleep and almost driving your car off a cliff because you fell asleep on the wheel.

[arus2001]

When I shifted from art to game design briefly with college, there was just a whole lot of blah I was seeing even in the early 2000's. Of course, this toxic corporate culture isn't just limited to games.

[Rulke]

Guy reacting to the Blizzard-Activision earning call where they fired 800 employees



This is pretty much why I hated every second I worked in the video game industry.

Thanks for this. This corporate driven machine is why movies also suck. Profit. Beginning and end of story.

[Madeline]

I'm reconsidering my career options and what I can even do at this point. I'm fucking 30 and there's what feels like limited time to restructure your life around corporate assholes being corporate assholes. Videos like that just make me realize how miserable it all really is.

Alas.. burdens. Trade school time maybe!

[Ksandra]

I have to say I am thankful my husband works for the company he does. They are small, but have existed for forever, and just keep on trucking.

It took a bit for the pay to get good since it's not an AA game company, but it's steady. He's been with them for 4 years now, and only had maybe 10 days in all those years where he had any insane overtime hours.


In the beginning he would lament being at a small company and tried several times applying to Blizzard. I thank my lucky stars he never got the job there, and now seems happy he's working for a small company. I just hope it stays that way.


The fans rock, too. It's one of the few things where I can read responses to their games and it's so overwhelmingly positive.

[Corrderio]

Also the feeling of arguing with your boss at 3-4 am that you need at least 6 hours of sleep and almost driving your car off a cliff because you fell asleep on the wheel.

Fucking off. But yeah fuck working weekends and having to lie on my time card to not piss off the people contracting us. So glad I don't have to go through that hell.

[6souls]

Rumor: Diablo 2 Remaster in Development with Former Destiny Dev Vicarious Visions (Warmind), Will Release Yet this Year
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultas.../#604b7fb63c50

Vicarious also had a hand in the development of Skylanders and Guitar Hero.

[Shenrien]

Oh boy I can't wait to see them fuck this one up as badly as they fucked up reforged.

[Karbuncle]

Oh they absolutely will. 0 Hype, I'll wait for the trainwreck to unfold at launch from afar.

[arus2001]

Part of me wants to see it just so the rabid D2 fanboys will finally shut the fuck up, but they're much like the XI Classic Club in that any changes that in some way benefit the player/QOL will be met with vapid derision while the goalposts will just constantly shift to try and justify why their version was superior. I mean, I liked the game back in the day, played it a lot, and even worked on a mod team for a couple years, but the shit had flaws and for some people they (cumulatively) led to eventual disinterest. I find the game virtually unplayable now, and that's even before critiquing the loot system or virtually mandatory trading requirement if playing online. It'd take a lot more than just bumping up the resolution to get me playing it, which would rankle the aforementioned purists.

But man, imagine the rage if they just redo D2 in D3's engine. That'd be a show.

[Lucavi]

I really do hope they fuck it up, just so they piss off the D2 purists. I loved me some D2, but that game still exists. I don't need another version of it. I also just love watching blizz fuck things up, so please please ruin it like you did with WC3.

[6souls]

I really do hope they fuck it up, just so they piss off the D2 purists. I loved me some D2, but that game still exists. I don't need another version of it. I also just love watching blizz fuck things up, so please please ruin it like you did with WC3.

Unless Bliz does what they did to current WC3 owners and force them to accept the changes.

[Kaisha]

Unless Bliz does what they did to current WC3 owners and force them to accept the changes.

Can't wait for a 30gb update to my 1.2gb game.

Here's all I'd want in a D2 upgrade:
- 3d props instead of billboard sprites
- Somehow manage to source the original 3d character/enemy models and just render those in realtime instead, but no frame interpolation. Keep the same jerkyness as the rendered-out sprite sheets
- Proper widescreen support, but maintain 4:3 fog of war
- Remappable controls so I can give my left-click a break from time to time
- Controller support (even if it's less efficient than mouse for obv reasons)

That is all.

[arus2001]

For me to even have a passing interest, the following would have to happen on the gameplay end:

- Individual loot.
- Auto-loot Gold.
- Significant stash space increase/shared across characters on your account/HD.
- Charms going into their own inventory.
- Potions having their own inventory.
- Keys/Scrolls getting the virtual inventory treatment.
- Ammo removed and Throwing Weapons simply being infinite.
- Significant skill rebalancing, possibly even removing synergies outright.
- Respecs permanently available, no questing or mat grinds required.
- Crafting and Runeword improvements, including in-game resources and basically idiot-proofing item creation.
- Gambling overhauls so it's actually a useful gold sink.
- Revamp the loot drop system so you're not getting shitty A1 Normal items in A5 Hell.
- Drop rates tailored around playing solo and not trading.
- Remove the stupid lock on opening the Cow level if you kill the King.
- Include some kind of randomized map system similar to D3's normal rifts so it's not just Baal runs or whatever ad infinitum.
- Toggle to lock Hostility upon game creation.
- Consider dropping stat requirements on gear and just make them solely level reliant. STR/DEX to wear whatever then the rest into VIT is hardly a good system.
- Remove the stamina bar.
- No cross-class skills granted by items, period.
- Sorceress' teleport skill gets a 5s cooldown.
- Immunities removed. High resistances can remain.
- Allow the stacking of "overhead" effects like shrines and curses.
- Running no longer reduces your defense to 0.
- Magic needs to be subject to Hit Rating if HR is not removed.
- Defensive "locks" from blocking/dodging removed.
- Weapon power also needs to be a factor for magic proficiency so casters have to care for the slots as much as melee do early on.
- The universal +skill affix needs to be much more rare. Specific class trees or individual skills themselves should be more the focus. Would argue this was far more broken than trifecta ever was in D3.
- Fuck rubberbanding/teleporting monsters. No running into the edge of the world.
- Nothing can attack from off-screen.
- Revive in town with your gear. No corpse runs. Wouldn't argue against EXP loss removal, either.
- Kill the concept of rushes entirely and just make an "Adventure Mode" that unlocks every difficulty after achieving a minimum character level once you've beaten the game for the first time. 25 for NM, 50 for Hell.

...and likely more I'm forgetting off the top of my head. Rest assured, however, I just "killed the game" by even implying any of the above need to happen.

[D44kpunk]

ah another remake for BG to shit on, if it's not the piece of garbage that is FF7 they don't want to hear about it.

never change everyone, please.

[Roranora]

For me to even have a passing interest, the following would have to happen on the gameplay end:

- Individual loot.
- Auto-loot Gold.
- Significant stash space increase/shared across characters on your account/HD.
- Charms going into their own inventory.
- Potions having their own inventory.
- Keys/Scrolls getting the virtual inventory treatment.
- Ammo removed and Throwing Weapons simply being infinite.
- Significant skill rebalancing, possibly even removing synergies outright.
- Respecs permanently available, no questing or mat grinds required.
- Crafting and Runeword improvements, including in-game resources and basically idiot-proofing item creation.
- Gambling overhauls so it's actually a useful gold sink.
- Revamp the loot drop system so you're not getting shitty A1 Normal items in A5 Hell.
- Drop rates tailored around playing solo and not trading.
- Remove the stupid lock on opening the Cow level if you kill the King.
- Include some kind of randomized map system similar to D3's normal rifts so it's not just Baal runs or whatever ad infinitum.
- Toggle to lock Hostility upon game creation.
- Consider dropping stat requirements on gear and just make them solely level reliant. STR/DEX to wear whatever then the rest into VIT is hardly a good system.
- Remove the stamina bar.
- No cross-class skills granted by items, period.
- Sorceress' teleport skill gets a 5s cooldown.
- Immunities removed. High resistances can remain.
- Allow the stacking of "overhead" effects like shrines and curses.
- Running no longer reduces your defense to 0.
- Magic needs to be subject to Hit Rating if HR is not removed.
- Defensive "locks" from blocking/dodging removed.
- Weapon power also needs to be a factor for magic proficiency so casters have to care for the slots as much as melee do early on.
- The universal +skill affix needs to be much more rare. Specific class trees or individual skills themselves should be more the focus. Would argue this was far more broken than trifecta ever was in D3.
- Fuck rubberbanding/teleporting monsters. No running into the edge of the world.
- Nothing can attack from off-screen.
- Revive in town with your gear. No corpse runs. Wouldn't argue against EXP loss removal, either.
- Kill the concept of rushes entirely and just make an "Adventure Mode" that unlocks every difficulty after achieving a minimum character level once you've beaten the game for the first time. 25 for NM, 50 for Hell.

...and likely more I'm forgetting off the top of my head. Rest assured, however, I just "killed the game" by even implying any of the above need to happen.

5sec Teleport gtfo

Path of Diablo did it right. You put the cooldown on the Enigma's Teleport and keep Sorceress' Teleport unchanged.

In fact PoD had a lot of these QoL fixes; simply adding the Charms inventory helps so much as well as rescaling drop rates of all mid- and high runes.

[arus2001]

It's more about making it so the Sorc isn't the de facto MF class with their ability to skip everything between town and their target. I know some folks hate the concept of balance in this type of game, but boss running exponentially faster than anyone else is beaucoup broken.

[Karbuncle]

For me to even have a passing interest, the following would have to happen on the gameplay end:

- Individual loot.
- Auto-loot Gold.
- Significant stash space increase/shared across characters on your account/HD.
- Charms going into their own inventory.
- Potions having their own inventory.
- Keys getting the virtual inventory treatment.
- Significant skill rebalancing,
- Respecs permanently available, no questing or mat grinds required.
- Crafting and Runeword improvements, including in-game resources and basically idiot-proofing item creation.
- Gambling overhauls so it's actually a useful gold sink.
- Revamp the loot drop system so you're not getting shitty A1 Normal items in A5 Hell.
- Drop rates tailored around playing solo and not trading.
- Remove the stupid lock on opening the Cow level if you kill the King.
- Include some kind of randomized map system similar to D3's normal rifts so it's not just Baal runs or whatever ad infinitum.
- Toggle to lock Hostility upon game creation.
- Remove the stamina bar.
- Allow the stacking of "overhead" effects like shrines and curses.
- Running no longer reduces your defense to 0.
- Defensive "locks" from blocking/dodging removed.
- Fuck rubberbanding/teleporting monsters. No running into the edge of the world.
- Nothing can attack from off-screen.
- Kill the concept of rushes entirely and just make an "Adventure Mode" that unlocks every difficulty after achieving a minimum character level once you've beaten the game for the first time. 25 for NM, 50 for Hell.

These I can get behind, mainly the QOL stuff and rebalancing of some useless skills. The other stuff I deleted? Well you may as well just make Diablo 4 at that point.

Side note about Sorc Teleport, I feel the charm of these older games is the sort of untamed nature when it came to balance, I don't think they should change too much in that area.

[Roranora]

It's more about making it so the Sorc isn't the de facto MF class with their ability to skip everything between town and their target. I know some folks hate the concept of balance in this type of game, but boss running exponentially faster than anyone else is beaucoup broken.

eh, running act bosses or super uniques was well usurped by other content in this same mod. i brought it up as a good example of d2 tweaks, and they didn't have to completely neuter a class to do it. they had great discussion considering balance and multiple iterations of changes to Teleport/Enigma/Sorc, and getting people away from endless Meph/Baal was more critical than changing a fundamental component to a favorite class

personally i only play(ed) HC and Sorceress viability is significantly hampered if one can't even tele twice consecutively