Blizzard, you’re making it really hard for me to like you again
My MMO demon Cortyn finally wants to enjoy Blizzard again. But Diablo Immortal and WoW Dragonflight are making it difficult right now.
On MeinMMO we have discussed Blizzard at length over the last few years. From failed game releases and broken promises at Warcraft: Reforged, to the big sexism scandal and its consequences, or ugly incidents like the Blitzchung scandal surrounding Hearthstone.
Anyone who knows me knows that Blizzard has played a big role in my life for a long time. Not only because I write a lot about their games, but also because I’ve been playing them for many years and because of that I have many friends and acquaintances that I would never have met otherwise.
The scandals have shaken me too, but I’m happy to forgive Blizzard. On the one hand, because I think that Blizzard also has a lot of developers who have nothing to do with the scandals, and on the other hand, because I like World of Warcraft and I’m looking forward to Overwatch 2.
Diablo Immortal is so evil that Blizzard itself seems corrupt
But then came Diablo Immortal. First of all, I have to say: Diablo doesn’t really interest me that much. I only played Diablo III sporadically and Diablo II many years ago only because my friends were playing it – it was never my favorite game. Diablo Immortal didn’t really bother me either – I hoped.
While there are many players who defend Diablo Immortal, praise the gameplay, or point out that you can still enjoy it without spending any money, I can’t just ignore the game. I’ve looked at countless analyzes of game systems and monetization, whether from colleagues at GameStar or analysts like Josh Strife Hayes on YouTube and I developed a very clear and also quite drastic opinion:
Diablo Immortal is not only the purest rip-off, but really tempts you to spend money. The amounts of in-game currency that you get for a purchase are structured in such a way that you just have “too little” with each purchase and therefore look to the next package.
If I can spend 20 Euros to multiply my loot by a hundred in 4-5 minutes of gameplay, if important upgrade features are completely hidden behind wagers and people can seriously put over 50,000 Euros into the game, then this “game” is above all : greedy, exploitative and cold-blooded to seduce the most vulnerable who are prone to gambling.
In my view, this is Blizzard’s biggest eyesore in recent years. Kind of an online casino hidden behind pretty gameplay. And no matter what Blizzard game I want to think about right now, whether it’s WoW, Hearthstone or Overwatch – the thought always comes to mind: Look how unscrupulously they have monetized Diablo Immortal. That’s as far as they would go.
But Diablo Immortal not only influenced me, but also those around me. More and more friends and acquaintances have become skeptical about Blizzard just because of Diablo Immortal. Where some have shrugged their shoulders at all the scandals of recent years, Diablo Immortal’s shamelessly exploitative model has achieved more. Some don’t want to spend any more money on Blizzard games at first, as if they could set an example against Diablo Immortal.
And I understand that.
WoW Dragonflight: release date but no beta – why?
When a new WoW expansion is up for pre-order, I usually pre-order it before the trailer with the Collector’s Edition rewards has even played. That’s not the case this time, and I believe it’s the first time in over a decade.
That’s not just because of Diablo Immortal, but also because Dragonflight’s release date feels wrong. I was surprised by the relatively sudden announcement that Dragonflight would be released in 2022. For a brief moment I was delighted, amazed and imagined spending “between the years” on the Dragon Islands.
But the anticipation didn’t last long, because my second thought was: “Please don’t, that’s much too early.” I’m skeptical, very skeptical.
One can certainly argue about the features of Shadowlands. I liked most of them. But some things would have needed much more time. Above all, more time to implement the feedback from the beta.
Then, over the course of Shadowlands, we learned through developer interviews that the Covid pandemic has caused more problems than we were initially willing to admit. Work was slower and schedules were delayed. Patches took long and longer and longer.
And it is against this background that I am concerned. Because Blizzard has been delaying the lost time so far. And that means that a good part of the originally planned time for Dragonflight has gone into old Shadowlands patches.
I can’t imagine that the developers of World of Warcraft “just” made up 6 months of development time in the last few months. After the relatively poor presentation of Dragonflight, in which there was practically no gameplay to be seen, I simply do not believe that there is enough time to bring out a round, complete expansion by the end of the year, which not only Blizzard’s own used to be like that meets high standards, but is also able to receive feedback from the community.
Especially if it turns out that one of the few big features – i.e. the talents, dragon riding or the new professions – is not so well received and needs a major rework, the time for this is already tight at 6 months. And the beta hasn’t even started yet.
Sure, Dragonflight will have fewer big features and maybe that’s why it will take less time. However, Dragonflight also wants to recast the foundations of World of Warcraft, bringing back talent trees and drastically overhauling crafting. I would have preferred it if the developers took 3 to 6 months more time and calculated conservatively, with the thought in the back of their minds that they might have to discard something larger again.
But the schedule already seems so tight that the developers will have almost no time for comprehensive feature feedback. Because I can hardly imagine Dragonflight being postponed “for a moment” after it had already been done with Shadowlands and Warcraft: Reforged and the legal rights of pre-orderers in most countries are better for consumers than worse.
I look forward to the changes with Dragonflight, which sound consistently good. I want to believe the devs have learned from Shadowlands’ mistakes, and at least from a feature perspective, that seems to be the case so far. But then I see the early release date and ask myself: Did you really learn? Are you really taking on board the feedback from the community? Do you even have the time for this? Or are we just racing towards a game that is only in patch 10.1 and 10.2 as it was originally intended? Is it really wise to commit to a release date before the general public has even had a look at the beta?
I really want to like Blizzard again. i really want it I want to log back into WoW and most importantly think about a good game that I enjoy spending time with friends. I don’t want to think that for some reason Dragonflight is significantly more expensive than previous addons and Diablo Immortal with its infinite cash options keeps popping up at me in the Battle.net launcher.
I really want to like you again, Blizzard. But why are you so against it?
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