>The mood across the whole company is bad. Starcraft 2 is dead. Diablo 3 is dead. Overwatch -despite most of the fucking office saying sacrificing our casual audience to chase esports money was a BAD FUCKING IDEA- is shock of shocks dying. hearthstone is being described as 'in a death spiral' we've had 4 projects cancelled in 3 months and Ions team doesn't want to hear it but Battle for Azeroth is an unmitigated disaster.
>Anyone who hasn't worked there for at least 15 years got a none negotiable pay cut or the choice to walk. Josh Allen went fucking berserk. All because papa activision wants to save money
>People begged Morheim to stay. Now the sentiment is that he smelled which way the wind was blowing.
>So many people are positions they are unqualified for. This isn’t an insult it’s a fact. There are people 2 years into new positions asking their underlings what to do constantly. The brain drain has effective company structure severely.
>No matter how people tear their hair out and yell the higher ups still think trying to make an esport out of every game is going to strike it rich eventually. This foolsgold wishful thinking horseshit has cost them millions.
>Massive crunch on projects like Diablo 4. People sleeping under desks. Grown men and women weeping openly as births and a few deaths are missed. A graphics artist has been put on paid leave after being caught self harming on his break.
>2019 has really felt like things are stretched thin and reaching a breaking point.
>A plan to basically hire university students as scabs under a ‘get your foot in the door!’ scheme that may as well be called the ‘its free exposure!’ scheme.
>There was a punch up in the office after websites like massively reported on female employees having to log their ovulation cycles.
>Chris Metzen came in for the first time in a long time, he had major surgery on his back or something of the like and that’s why Thrall disappeared for Legion, and he left the office looking 5 years older and just depressed.
>Many artists let go and work outsourced to companies like Thai asset producer XPEC to lower production costs.
OVERWATCH 2
>Overwatch 2 is now in full production as a "it will fix it release". Its just left 4 dead with robots, played the flashback seasonal event? its that for 60 dollars and exclusive cosmetics
>In one of the strangest sights I’ve seen a person of colour I wont place the race of gender to for their employments sake walked off in disgust at 4 flabby white dudes getting real excited to “finally develop a game with no white men in it”. Obviously the media message right now is we bow to outrage culture lest it turn its eye of sauron in our direction but people don’t talk like that behind closed doors. They didn’t used to at least. It was about making the game the consumer would love and enjoy not chasing woke brownie points.
>The game is set before and after the “Winston Home Invasion”. The memes about Overwatch being entirely backstory was strongly taken to heart.
>Tracers girlfriend will die and over time she will learn to heal after developing a romance with Widowmaker who has her own journey as the Talon brainwashing wears off.
>The McRee age plot hole is being retconned into him being one of 3 clones of soldier 76 in a metal gear solid reference, one is found murdered as a ‘story seed’ for future content.
>Reaper is Gay
>A third faction is being added to balance out a lot of the “why would these characters work together just because they hate the other guys” stuff
>Leader is a “Techromancer” that brings the dead to life using nanites
>Her Ult brings back dead players as bots to attack their own team for the remainder of their respawn time
>Loot boxes replaced with direct time locked purchases in a weekly rotation selection and strict seasonal ‘buy it or its gone’ sales.
>Couch co-op is happening as this was extremely popular with Diablo 3.
>Don’t expect a massive engine upgrade as a version for the switch is in the works
DIABLO 4
>Diablo 4 went into sudden urgent production with the reaction to Diablo immortal, from shareholders you dumb fucks not consumers your opinions mean literally nothing to them and many higher ups only show a distaste for you as a necessary evil they have to deal with
>It’s a first person game made in the overwatch engine. Its an absolute mess they intend to “replace the vaccum in our ecosystem left by destiny” and they want to essentially be the first “fantasy schlooter”
>It is not going well. Gameplay wise they can’t get the loot to drop properly and Anthems public response has terrified them.
>3 classes at launch, 5 planned as part of paid seasonal paid content updates.
>Game involves siding with the demons as, after a millennia of peace, the angels are now an authoritarian, all controlling regime who once again want to purge sanctuary.
>They tagline being workshopped is “Let out your inner demons” as the ‘ult’ mechanic from overwatch is basically a demonic themed power up for each character
>The final boss is a holy/light infused angel Diablo called Diabael Primus. I hope to god the name changes
>Ending cutscene shows all 4 games have been a set up, Diablo was a good guy all along finding the strongest nephelim to prepare for an invasion from “The Void”.
>Expected to launch spring 2021 on Project Scarlett, PS5,
battle.net and activisions in the works subscription based game streaming service running on microsofts infastructure.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT
>FFXIV is no longer allowed to be mentioned in the offices "we don't allow negativity in the dojo" is a fucking daily mantra now
>They keep saying "its natural ebb and flow, we can weather this storm" as WoW currently has dipped below 1 million subscribers when our biggest competition just announced they finally broke 1 million at E3, but not in the dojo shhh!
>Lootcrates were planned but after Belgium were hastily reworked into an ingame reward coming in 8.2 or later.
>Level Squish being tested for 9.0
>Response to Sylvanas is stronger than expect but general sentiment is that players will come around by the end of the expansion.
>However negative response to Christie Golden and the Void Lords story seeding has more people worried. BFA
is a turning point where we exhaust the rts lore and move onto new content and our reaction from our ‘core heavy users’ is not looking positive.
>Next Expansion lowers cap to 60 and level scales everything like the Elder Scrolls Online
>Vulpera and Mechagnome are the next Alliance races.
>Alliance race unlocks will now come to the cash shop as a paid unlock after its expansion ends, starting with the Legion allied races in 8.3 and the bfa races in 9.0 and so on
>There are two tabled competitors for 10.0 and reaction to the end of BfA is going to heavily impact the final decision on which makes the cut.
>The Classic team honestly look like the happiest employees at the company, but there is a growing one sided animosity between the two teams. A “they think they can just replace us?!” paranoia.
>Classic is going to dictate who is in charge of 10.0. If the money says one team is clearly the more profitable they get the reigns.
>BC and Wrath servers are in the works as part of the “classic trilogy”
STARCRAFT
>RTS as a genre is considered dead. They tried to make it an esport but its just not Brood War.
>Shooter was planned to be a story with a live service element
>Tycus Findlay survived the end of Wings of Liberty after Raynor shot him and left him in the Zerg Hive.
>Taken and partially rebuilt as a cyborg by “The Composer” a shadowy beneficiary Findlay led 4 man black ops missions during the events of Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void
>Planned ending of the retail campaign had Tycus in Raynors Bar years after the end with a new enemy from
outside the galaxy invading enmasse –something comparable to Halo 4’s prometheans but more geigeresque and codenamed “the boilersuit men” and findlays communicator would show the Composers sigil and end with a voice over of “hell, its about damn time” to lead into the first season of paid expansion dlc
>Was constructed as part of the “Every game is now a live service” company wide mission statement.
>Intended to “Out gears gears”
>Rpg elements such as upgrading more as a cyborg at the cost of humanity and losing dialogue options or intergrating zerg bioweapons into your suit which came with its own ‘micro adjutant ai’ companion
>Its dead after the last paid season pass box for starcraft 2 flopped and Diablo 4 got heavy pushing as a loot shooter instead.
HEARTHSTONE
>New project lead not popular with team, lots of butting heads at the roundtable meetings
>Userdrop off is staggering. No Blizzard game in history has fallen off this fast or this far
>Lots of worries about lootbox bills counting hearthstone packs as gambling. Rumblings in the halls that theres a experimental ‘buy dust, pay more to get more and save more’ system with legendaries now exclusive to paid adventures.
>Its not the esport they wanted it to be
>There was plans for a hearthstone VR but its been mothballed
