Considering the internet sentiment around their two other [currently] main franchise games, D4 and OW2, I'd argue WoW is currently their best basket to put the proverbial egg in.
While Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 are... having problems (D4 is basically on life support on Twitch) and Hearthstone seems to be struggling to even further monetize or innovate (basing this off of anecdotal information like the recent layoffs, stopping work on Mercs etc.), Dragonflight has somehow pulled WoW out of, arguably, its lowest point (Shadowlands), and is generally viewed as a good expansion so far. Sure, the subscriber count is probably still pretty low after the disaster that was SL, but I think retention is very good and DF can serve as a "bridge" expansion to buying back customer trust - if expansion after it also delivers.
They may experience a resurgence if Stormgate will be successful once it releases, otherwise it's still a fairly niche genre atm that isn't exactly the kind of investment ActiBlizz would generally make.
Feature-wise, yeah, they really haven't done much. It took until last year to finally implement achievements. A large amount of games still aren't supported (or the devs didn't add whatever "epic achievement plug-in" they need to add so their game's achievements can be tracks through EGS).
There's a case to be made that Steam has perhaps a few too many features, or rather too many enabled by default and visible, leading to cluttered interfaces for most game pages, but more is always preferred to less.
Epic has already been recycling games every now and then - I go to pick up a free game and it turns out I already own it, and I definitely didn't buy it.
If they move to less big-name games, you shouldn't expect stuff like Subnautica to show up for free outside some Christmas event. The excel is actually pretty interesting to look at. Entitlements shows how many people claimed the game for free, and the EPIC UA Cost column shows if how much they paid the developer (Buyout price) was a good investment. For Celeste, for example, they overpaid, as the UA cost is really high. At least, that's what I think it means :D
The article was getting a bit too chonky so I didn't spend much talking about the mystery box, but you make a good point with POE players craving POE's loot boxes.
Compare POE's loot box to any other sort of loot box mechanic on the market. I'll pick Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone for my example. HOTS' loot boxes are only purchasable with gold, and the contents are purely cosmetic. HS loot boxes are purchasable with gold (albeit at a bad rate) or money (at a better but still bad rate) and the contents all affect gameplay.
POE's loot box has the following qualities: - A fairly restrained amount of things are contained in the box. 14-20 mtx, disregarding variations. - Duplicate protection - Mostly similar drop rates for each item. Some are slightly rarer as Chris Wilson sometimes notes in his voice-overs, but duplicate protection means you'll get them regardless.
Hearthstone's loot box (the card back) has the following qualities by comparison: - A large amount of cards (~130) in each set, and you "need" two of each for about 110 or those. - Duplicate protection per rarity tier. - Wildly differing drop rate for each rarity of card. What's more, two versions of card: Normal and Golden. What's even more, a third version, Signature, for a chunk of the cards in each set.
Heroes of the Storm's loot box: - An even more ridiculous amount of cosmetics of all varieties. - No duplicate protection. Getting a dupe converts it into 'Shards', which you can use to craft cosmetics. - Wildly differing drop rate for each rarity type, although less horrible discrepancy than Hearthstone.
I've purposefully chosen two other F2P games, with different contents to each loot box. Why are POE's loot boxes the most acceptable of the three? - While they can only be bought with money, they do not grant any gameplay-affecting loot (unlike Hearthstone) - While they can only be bought with money, their contents aren't an absolute mess of 1000 MTX that you'll grind for eternity if you want them all (unlike HOTS) - While HOTS has no duplicate protection, and Hearthstone's duplicate protection in no way increases your chance of getting those last 10 Legendaries you're missing any faster after you've already got the rest of the set collected, POE's duplicate protection transcends rarity. The order in which you get your cosmetics doesn't matter if you're looking to collect a fair few.
US law in, I believe, all but one state, allows employers to lay off employees without needing to give them an x-week notice. I can only assume they don't bother being nice and doing it anyway because of any combination of the following reasons:
The employee probably won't put in the 'regular' amount of work when they know they'll be out in two weeks.
To avoid the employee doing something that could mess with their product.
Both these reasons show the employer having basically no trust in the employee, and is honestly extremely insulting, especially to people like Hunter C., who's been with the company for 18 whole years.
I am glad to see more and more wikis moving away from the absolute nightmare that is Fandom. Anyone familiar with Path of Exile knows the hot garbage the Fandom version of the wiki was before they moved to poewiki.net - which I believe is actually hosted by GGG themselves! I sometimes accidentally click on a Fandom-version page of a POE item I'm searching for and instantly shudder.
Hah, do I. Yes, I do! So, from UT99's soundtrack, a song I rarely see put in the big OST videos since I believe it comes from a map added much later in the game is Isotoxin. I'd suggest looking further into all the artists that worked on every UT track you can find, there's lots of good stuff to find.
Additionally, there's the soundtrack of Unreal, the predecessor to UT99. I'd describe it as... the soundtrack of UT outside of a night club. Definitely a very similar vibe, just a lot more chilled out. Here's All Hallows Sunset, for example.
Something I've found very recently that I've listened to enough it has entered "My Mix" on YouTube is the remastered version of the Deus Ex soundtrack, which was composed (and remastered) by the same folks who did UT99! Here's the song Conspiracy Theory (Versalife and Majestic 12) off the remastered album and here's the OG version of Versalife for you to choose which version you like best, although I think both are great in their own way!
As a random bonus, I've also recently found the soundtrack to Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, which I used to play like an animal in the early 2000s. It's definitely not UT's genre, but if you did play NFSHP2, you'll find it just as nostalgic. It actually works pretty well for IRL driving as well, I've found: NFSHP2 OST
Oh my god, is that the one where you'd always have to jump across roofs and pits and you had to time it perfectly or you'd fall? That was brutal to 4-6 year old me.
It's just one of those things you have to accept and then make an effort not to think about ever again :D
At the time of the Cataclysm (if that was the first time we saw his visage, it was either then or in Ulduar I reckon), I suppose it 'made sense' for his visage to be a human, the same form his children, Nefarian and Onyxia, chose. The problem arose when they showed him pre-humanity in the same form. They could have made him some elf for lore accuracy but it's likely more important for him to be recognizable at any point in the timeline, hence why he's a human-before-humans-existed.
I think we're looking at 2024 for a 'full' release of POE2. The open beta, however, could drop at the end of summer - the question is, will it be a soft launch as well? The first few years of POE1 were basically a perma-beta, and it wouldn't surprise me if they used the same model with POE2, albeit on a shorter timeframe.
Nice set of MTX, though the time slot for the first drop is rather painful for Europe. I wonder if they're in any way related (lore-wise) to what they'll be showing off for POE2. I do recall corruption being a part of the sequel's story.
I also remember Bex or Chris Wilson saying POE1's next league (also being revealed at Exilecon) will make us go "goblin mode", and I'm not sure if that should be taken literally.
It's sort of interesting to me that their approach is to fear adding mechanics to the core experience. I'm just imagining what Path of Exile would be if only one or two of their league mechanics had gone core, and... well, I don't see Blizzard's strategy to add seasonal content to the core experience maybe once a year too sustainable in the long term.
As seasons keep being released, the core experience will grow more and more stale for the regular playerbase. Adding seasonal content to the core experience helps alleviate some of the staleness.
Apologies for the late reply! I too have been having a good time in DF, more than I did in Legion (which I didn't think possible). It hits all the right spots, while Shadowlands somehow managed to bludgeon all the right spots. Although the game still is a long, long list of things to do, it no longer feels like it forces you to do all this... stuff. It's been designed to make you want to engage in all kinds of content.
The account-bound unlocks, story skips and such definitely play a big factor in this.
Starcraft II is definitely a lot more work than WC3 in most aspects; I find it too fast for PvP as well, preferring to build a nice base, some towers, maybe a tulip garden - but I can't ever get to the tulip garden cause by minute 3 there's 20 terrans knocking on my fort!
I haven't mentioned it in the article, but one of the Stormgate devs did a recent interview and discussed the issue of supply. I'm paraphrasing here, but basically, they did consider having unlimited supply at first, but then opted for it due to the additional base-building shenenigans that interesting supply buildings give. Examples mentioned were stuff like the Night Elves' Moon Well, where its optimal positioning around your bases & expansion changes depending on which phase of the game you find yourself in.
Thus I'd expect supply to still have gimmicks for every faction - much like Starcraft 2's depots could be shoved into the ground, or Orc Burrows allowed up to 4 peons to both be 'safe' and deal some damage. I'll be more curious to see what the supply cap is though - Starcraft 2's felt needlessly high while WC3's felt rather low when Frostwyrms (a dead, stomach-less beast) ate 7 damn supply.
RTS has indeed been in a weird spot since Starcraft II finished its run. It was regarded as the unofficial national sport of South Korea and by now, all these years later, I'd have expected the country to pivot to a new RTS that is actually getting some support. Perhaps Stormgate could be that, although it's not as fast as SC and thus may feel like a downgrade for e-sports purposes.
The RTS community has dwindled the past two-ish decades, I think, mainly because of speed. Lots of former RTSers have moved to "unreal"-time strategy games, turn-based stuff like Civilization, and the current generation of young gamers prefer games with shorter matches that don't focus on micro as much as an RTS does. I hope the genre sees a rebirth but really, the main reason big studios haven't really put money into developing new RTS titles is because what our youngest demographic plays dictates which games are being made, and RTS is not on the list.
Still, I have hope that Stormgate's gameplay will be more accessible to a wider audience, much like Warcraft III, while also pleasing hardcore fans of the genre with a high skill ceiling - an almost impossible task!
Considering the internet sentiment around their two other [currently] main franchise games, D4 and OW2, I'd argue WoW is currently their best basket to put the proverbial egg in.
While Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 are... having problems (D4 is basically on life support on Twitch) and Hearthstone seems to be struggling to even further monetize or innovate (basing this off of anecdotal information like the recent layoffs, stopping work on Mercs etc.), Dragonflight has somehow pulled WoW out of, arguably, its lowest point (Shadowlands), and is generally viewed as a good expansion so far. Sure, the subscriber count is probably still pretty low after the disaster that was SL, but I think retention is very good and DF can serve as a "bridge" expansion to buying back customer trust - if expansion after it also delivers.
They may experience a resurgence if Stormgate will be successful once it releases, otherwise it's still a fairly niche genre atm that isn't exactly the kind of investment ActiBlizz would generally make.
Feature-wise, yeah, they really haven't done much. It took until last year to finally implement achievements. A large amount of games still aren't supported (or the devs didn't add whatever "epic achievement plug-in" they need to add so their game's achievements can be tracks through EGS).
There's a case to be made that Steam has perhaps a few too many features, or rather too many enabled by default and visible, leading to cluttered interfaces for most game pages, but more is always preferred to less.
Epic has already been recycling games every now and then - I go to pick up a free game and it turns out I already own it, and I definitely didn't buy it.
There's actually a pretty cool excel photo that came out... I think during the Epic vs. Apple trial? Not sure. Anyway, it shows how much Epic has paid for a bunch of the games they gave for free: https://www.thefpsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/epic-games-store-free-games-cost-breakdown-2019.jpg
If they move to less big-name games, you shouldn't expect stuff like Subnautica to show up for free outside some Christmas event. The excel is actually pretty interesting to look at. Entitlements shows how many people claimed the game for free, and the EPIC UA Cost column shows if how much they paid the developer (Buyout price) was a good investment. For Celeste, for example, they overpaid, as the UA cost is really high. At least, that's what I think it means :D
The article was getting a bit too chonky so I didn't spend much talking about the mystery box, but you make a good point with POE players craving POE's loot boxes.
Compare POE's loot box to any other sort of loot box mechanic on the market. I'll pick Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone for my example. HOTS' loot boxes are only purchasable with gold, and the contents are purely cosmetic. HS loot boxes are purchasable with gold (albeit at a bad rate) or money (at a better but still bad rate) and the contents all affect gameplay.
POE's loot box has the following qualities:
- A fairly restrained amount of things are contained in the box. 14-20 mtx, disregarding variations.
- Duplicate protection
- Mostly similar drop rates for each item. Some are slightly rarer as Chris Wilson sometimes notes in his voice-overs, but duplicate protection means you'll get them regardless.
Hearthstone's loot box (the card back) has the following qualities by comparison:
- A large amount of cards (~130) in each set, and you "need" two of each for about 110 or those.
- Duplicate protection per rarity tier.
- Wildly differing drop rate for each rarity of card. What's more, two versions of card: Normal and Golden. What's even more, a third version, Signature, for a chunk of the cards in each set.
Heroes of the Storm's loot box:
- An even more ridiculous amount of cosmetics of all varieties.
- No duplicate protection. Getting a dupe converts it into 'Shards', which you can use to craft cosmetics.
- Wildly differing drop rate for each rarity type, although less horrible discrepancy than Hearthstone.
I've purposefully chosen two other F2P games, with different contents to each loot box. Why are POE's loot boxes the most acceptable of the three?
- While they can only be bought with money, they do not grant any gameplay-affecting loot (unlike Hearthstone)
- While they can only be bought with money, their contents aren't an absolute mess of 1000 MTX that you'll grind for eternity if you want them all (unlike HOTS)
- While HOTS has no duplicate protection, and Hearthstone's duplicate protection in no way increases your chance of getting those last 10 Legendaries you're missing any faster after you've already got the rest of the set collected, POE's duplicate protection transcends rarity. The order in which you get your cosmetics doesn't matter if you're looking to collect a fair few.
US law in, I believe, all but one state, allows employers to lay off employees without needing to give them an x-week notice. I can only assume they don't bother being nice and doing it anyway because of any combination of the following reasons:
Both these reasons show the employer having basically no trust in the employee, and is honestly extremely insulting, especially to people like Hunter C., who's been with the company for 18 whole years.
I am glad to see more and more wikis moving away from the absolute nightmare that is Fandom. Anyone familiar with Path of Exile knows the hot garbage the Fandom version of the wiki was before they moved to poewiki.net - which I believe is actually hosted by GGG themselves! I sometimes accidentally click on a Fandom-version page of a POE item I'm searching for and instantly shudder.
To quote one of my favorite shows: What we know is a drop, what we don't is an ocean.
Hah, do I. Yes, I do! So, from UT99's soundtrack, a song I rarely see put in the big OST videos since I believe it comes from a map added much later in the game is Isotoxin. I'd suggest looking further into all the artists that worked on every UT track you can find, there's lots of good stuff to find.
Additionally, there's the soundtrack of Unreal, the predecessor to UT99. I'd describe it as... the soundtrack of UT outside of a night club. Definitely a very similar vibe, just a lot more chilled out. Here's All Hallows Sunset, for example.
Something I've found very recently that I've listened to enough it has entered "My Mix" on YouTube is the remastered version of the Deus Ex soundtrack, which was composed (and remastered) by the same folks who did UT99! Here's the song Conspiracy Theory (Versalife and Majestic 12) off the remastered album and here's the OG version of Versalife for you to choose which version you like best, although I think both are great in their own way!
As a random bonus, I've also recently found the soundtrack to Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2, which I used to play like an animal in the early 2000s. It's definitely not UT's genre, but if you did play NFSHP2, you'll find it just as nostalgic. It actually works pretty well for IRL driving as well, I've found: NFSHP2 OST
It is a thing!
1v1 me!
Oh my god, is that the one where you'd always have to jump across roofs and pits and you had to time it perfectly or you'd fall? That was brutal to 4-6 year old me.
It's just one of those things you have to accept and then make an effort not to think about ever again :D
At the time of the Cataclysm (if that was the first time we saw his visage, it was either then or in Ulduar I reckon), I suppose it 'made sense' for his visage to be a human, the same form his children, Nefarian and Onyxia, chose. The problem arose when they showed him pre-humanity in the same form. They could have made him some elf for lore accuracy but it's likely more important for him to be recognizable at any point in the timeline, hence why he's a human-before-humans-existed.
I think we're looking at 2024 for a 'full' release of POE2. The open beta, however, could drop at the end of summer - the question is, will it be a soft launch as well? The first few years of POE1 were basically a perma-beta, and it wouldn't surprise me if they used the same model with POE2, albeit on a shorter timeframe.
Nice set of MTX, though the time slot for the first drop is rather painful for Europe. I wonder if they're in any way related (lore-wise) to what they'll be showing off for POE2. I do recall corruption being a part of the sequel's story.
I also remember Bex or Chris Wilson saying POE1's next league (also being revealed at Exilecon) will make us go "goblin mode", and I'm not sure if that should be taken literally.
It's sort of interesting to me that their approach is to fear adding mechanics to the core experience. I'm just imagining what Path of Exile would be if only one or two of their league mechanics had gone core, and... well, I don't see Blizzard's strategy to add seasonal content to the core experience maybe once a year too sustainable in the long term.
As seasons keep being released, the core experience will grow more and more stale for the regular playerbase. Adding seasonal content to the core experience helps alleviate some of the staleness.
Apologies for the late reply! I too have been having a good time in DF, more than I did in Legion (which I didn't think possible). It hits all the right spots, while Shadowlands somehow managed to bludgeon all the right spots. Although the game still is a long, long list of things to do, it no longer feels like it forces you to do all this... stuff. It's been designed to make you want to engage in all kinds of content.
The account-bound unlocks, story skips and such definitely play a big factor in this.
Starcraft II is definitely a lot more work than WC3 in most aspects; I find it too fast for PvP as well, preferring to build a nice base, some towers, maybe a tulip garden - but I can't ever get to the tulip garden cause by minute 3 there's 20 terrans knocking on my fort!
I haven't mentioned it in the article, but one of the Stormgate devs did a recent interview and discussed the issue of supply. I'm paraphrasing here, but basically, they did consider having unlimited supply at first, but then opted for it due to the additional base-building shenenigans that interesting supply buildings give. Examples mentioned were stuff like the Night Elves' Moon Well, where its optimal positioning around your bases & expansion changes depending on which phase of the game you find yourself in.
Thus I'd expect supply to still have gimmicks for every faction - much like Starcraft 2's depots could be shoved into the ground, or Orc Burrows allowed up to 4 peons to both be 'safe' and deal some damage. I'll be more curious to see what the supply cap is though - Starcraft 2's felt needlessly high while WC3's felt rather low when Frostwyrms (a dead, stomach-less beast) ate 7 damn supply.
RTS has indeed been in a weird spot since Starcraft II finished its run. It was regarded as the unofficial national sport of South Korea and by now, all these years later, I'd have expected the country to pivot to a new RTS that is actually getting some support. Perhaps Stormgate could be that, although it's not as fast as SC and thus may feel like a downgrade for e-sports purposes.
The RTS community has dwindled the past two-ish decades, I think, mainly because of speed. Lots of former RTSers have moved to "unreal"-time strategy games, turn-based stuff like Civilization, and the current generation of young gamers prefer games with shorter matches that don't focus on micro as much as an RTS does. I hope the genre sees a rebirth but really, the main reason big studios haven't really put money into developing new RTS titles is because what our youngest demographic plays dictates which games are being made, and RTS is not on the list.
Still, I have hope that Stormgate's gameplay will be more accessible to a wider audience, much like Warcraft III, while also pleasing hardcore fans of the genre with a high skill ceiling - an almost impossible task!
Can't say that'd surprise me!