tl;dr version: Anyone here like Blizzard games?

My interest in Blizzard Entertainment and their products started when I was a young boy. I started out in the early 2000s playing StarCraft: Brood War single player skirmish matches, I was about 9 years old. A couple years later I got 56k (dial-up internet) and I hit the multiplayer scene online. I would play a lot of use map settings games, and even make my own maps when I was about 10-12 years old. I loved StarCraft, I would play Brood War (and SWAT 3, another amazing game) online almost everyday after I came home from school and on the weekends. I loved it so much I even bought the Diablo Battle Chest, this was when it used to come with Diablo 1 also, but it doesn't now that Activision owns Blizzard and found a way to save money by ripping their customers off. I also bought the Warcraft III Battle Chest. I would play all of these games on Battle.net, the original Battle.net, not Battle.net 2.0, which I really hate since it's absolutely horrible compared to how amazing Battle.net 1.0 is.

Then I became a teenager and at the age of 13 and I continued playing StarCraft, Diablo, and other Blizzard games online. I never got into World of Warcraft, which came out around the time I became an teenager/advlt. I was totally interested in StarCraft: Ghost, this was before they put it on hold indefinitely. At the age of 13 I could legally join forums without my parents permission since I wasn't considered a kid/child anymore, and I gained an interest in forums. I started out with joining a Code Lyoko forum, but I eventually joined other forums, and even created my own forums. At around the age of 15, I found myself losing interest in gaming, but continued posting on forums, I still played the occasional game here and there though. It was around this time that I finally purchased the only Battle.net game I didn't have, Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition. Now I had owned every single Battle.net game, as well as other Blizzard-esque items such as Blizzard books, t-shirts, and other items. I even bought the Collector's Edition of Hellgate: London, which actually isn't a bad game, it was just way too buggy at launch.

Then StarCraft II came out last year, when I was 17 years old. I was so excited for the game at the start of it's development, but like most of fans of the serious, I was deeply concerned at the removal of Battle.net from the game, and how Blizzard replaced Battle.net with the World of Warcraft (aka: Battle.net 2.0) system. When the game came out, it had a good single player and the gameplay wasn't all that bad, but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. It was inferior to StarCraft in almost every way, especially in terms of multiplayer. Now here I am today, with Diablo III not so rapidly approaching...

I don't know about being a...Blizzardophile...but every major franchise Blizzard started I've enjoyed countless hours playing, and still play to this day.

Bottom line: Blizzard makes amazing games.

Blizzard = High Quality, is what my brains return when queried ^_^

Your posts are like life stories.

I haven't really played any Blizzard games. At least not recently.

I much prefer BioWare, Blizzard is kinda meh imho. I'm not a big fan of RTS games and they seem to focus on that genre. As for Diablo, I just don't like that series. The Lost Vikings are awesome though.

Not to mention Rock'n Roll Racing :rock:

Starcraft, Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Diablo, and Diablo II. Those are the only good Blizzard games. They ruined the custom game system with Starcraft II.

Blizzard are the best at what they do. Take concepts they love and build upon them until they are near perfection how THEY want them. Not every company does that, but what a world that could be...

Love their stuff, playing WoW as I post this.

Blizzard is an excellent company, they've made many quality games. Warcraft 3 + TFT is still one of my favourite games to date, and on the top of my favourite RTS list together with Supreme Commander. Not to mention that they've made the only mmo that kept me entertained for more than two months.

I have mixed feelings with blizzard, on one half I love there Starcraft series. But I hate the warcraft series and all of its evil spawns, can die for all I care. Its like some crazy hate love relationship.

:cold: :sadvaultboy:
That was the one thing I was looking forward to. Updated LotR maps in SC2. When I saw the way they did custom games I wanted to kill whoever made the decision.

I thought this was going to be the meteorological phenomenon, not the company. Considering the recent storms.

Well, i like blizzards too. Nothing like being in a warm house watching a strom rage on the outside. And struggling trough it to get to the warm inside is kind of fun too

There is something a bit cartoonish about the art direction in WoW and Starcraft that never appealed to me. I have never played any Blizzard games.

Didn't buy Starcraft 2 due to how Battle.net 2 was handled. The multiplayer is region-locked, which really bothers me because I used to play Starcraft 1 online with a few friends from overseas. Then there was that stuff about not even having chat lobbies. I read somewhere else that the guy heading development for the new Battle.net was a former Xbox Live dev, and he honestly did not understand what all the fuzz was about. I mean... wow.

They said they would lift the region lock in the future. This still hasn't happened to my knowledge, and to be honest I'm really past caring now. It's such an unbelievable regression. As a PC gamer, unrestricted international multiplayer is something I have taken for granted since the dawn of internet gaming.

Assume one company of 10 developers, at 2000/month. With a normal regular 4 years development cycle, that would yield 96000 just for salary. Assuming salary costs 50% (unrealistically high) of operation cost. That means total operating cost is 192000, paid in advance with no gurantee if the game could hit big enough. With 30 per copy that means a company of that size has to sell 6400 copies just to break even. If a company wants to grow, it needs to make 80% more to survive the next fiscal year.

Blizzard hit the jackpot with Diablo so they could affort holding back games to almost completely finished before releasing. They were not particularly more talented than anyone else, they were just lucky.