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Classic vs Modern Blizzard games; your preferences?

Definitely classic. There was something about their games they lost somewhere between WOTLK and Cataclysm.
They still make decent games but nothing of their newer games has drawn me in like classic WoW or WC3
 
classic Blizzard is prime jordan while modern Blizzard is like 35-year old dwayne wade.

still a super star, but not quite the same thing
 
I doubt any game will ever surpass Diablo 2: LoD for me. From 2000-2010 I didn't play much else besides HL1 mods and D2. The game being full of cheats and duping was a bummer but hardcore mode was very insular and created some really great communities. Also some forums like Amazon Basin gave you opportunities to play with purists if that was your jam. Their post-launch support was pretty solid with new content and complete item economy shake-ups through 1.09 which was 2003~ and then 1.10 hit and introduced the ladder system and power creep to a ridiculous level that was somehow still very fun. The game became more about efficiency of play rather than trying to push challenging content.

The lore was light but I always loved how willing Blizzard North was to get gruesome to the point of camp, like Baal flaying Tal Rasha and stretching his face out over his own as a mask.
 
Classic, easily. Diablo 1 and 2's art-style and gameplay are still unmatched.
 
Classic Blizzard for Vanilla WoW mostly. I liked WC3 and played Starcraft, but the thousands of hours I pumped into WoW are the most memorable.
 
Classic outside of Overwatch and WoW (ish if you count WoTLK WoW and prior new blizzard).

Broodwar > Starcraft 2.
Diablo 2 > Diablo 3.
Warcraft 3 is great.
 
Both for me. The story in the classic game is way better than all the new stuff(Starcraft 2 is awful compared to 1 and Brood War). I enjoyed the single player content more in the old games. But it makes sense that the single player content would suffer in the new games with all the focus on multiplayer.

But i prefer Diablo 3 over Diablo 1 and 2. And some of the new games like Overwatch, HS and HotS makes the new Blizzard better to me.

The only thing i really miss is Warcraft RTS...
 
LucidMomentum said:
Mechanically / Gameplay wise? Modern Blizzard.

Story / Character wise? Mostly classic Blizzard. Dat Overwatch though.
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This is a good answer I think. Games like WoW and Diablo 3 (now, not vanilla) only continue to get better mechanically.

But creatively, with things like lore, music and characters, classic Blizzard wins out.
 
Classic.
The aesthetics of "modern" Blizzard games instantly turn me off. Amongst what they made, I love Diablo 1 & 2 the most.
 
Nothing says my love than being the only guy at eB games the morning the frozen throne got released because nobody was open at midnight... and I called off of work too


Also modern blizzard is cartoon design and world of war craft aesthetics
 
Loved classic WoW, Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2. But also loving Overwatch at the moment. I'd say classic based on the merits of those three titles.
 
Classics definitely. No game has captured my imagination like Diablo II. I'm still waiting for a true Diablo II successor. I want deep character creation not some switch any skill whenever I want garbage with each skill having fire, ice, lightning and frost versions. How unoriginal and boring.
 
Depends.

For overall world-building, atmosphere, artstyle, music, writing and general "coolness", definitely classic Blizzard. Warcraft 2, Starcraft and Diablo had a way of sparking your imagination like no other as a kid. I still remember reading Starcraft's manual over and over again. Good times.

For gameplay, I'll say it's a case-by-case thing. None of Blizzard's modern games have managed to grab me, except one: Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 was shit at first, but it turned out so good in the end that it's now probably my most played game ever. It has nothing on D1 and D2's worlds. The music is mostly forgettable, the visuals are eh, the writing and story are abysmal - damn you, Chris Metzen -, but damn is the gameplay fine. They really did a bang-up job of taking the essence of D1 and D2's combat and distilling it into the purest form of dumb fun. Absolutely love it.

I'm sad that we probably won't ever get a second expansion, and Diablo 4 is so far away. Diablo 3 has been an extremely beneficial case study for Blizzard I think, and if they've learned from even half of their mistakes on D3, Diablo 4 will be absolutely phenomenal.

I hope we get some kind of tease at Blizzcon.
 
Classic. Modern blizz doesn't know their head from their ass. Content development is about 10 times slower as well. I feel like every other day I'm reading about someone leaving blizzard. No surprise. It doesn't take 4 months to make a fps map, and it doesn't take a year to make a dungeon, raid or even any outdoor content in WoW, but here we are.

Oh and don't get me started on their balance philosophy, and their constant flipping and flopping of said philosophy.

Classic Blizzard was about fun over practically. While that had its fair share of problems in every game they ever made, it could of easily been improved upon in the context of what worked, what didn't over the course of an expansion/life span of a game. Modern blizzard doesn't give two flying fucks about fun unless people tell them in mass quantity it's not fun. They look at numbers only. If something is unperforming, they just tune numbers to be in line with everything else without factoring in if it's fun or not. If you want to get a job at blizzard guaranteed, just learn statistical analysis. You don't even have to play the shit you work on.
 
Classic.


Holy shit. I had so much fun on D2, Starcraft and Warcraft 3. Not to mention W3 made dota possible. I played WoW but that was when it already sucked. Missed the glory days but a lot of people seem to like WoW when it started.


Modern sucks so much. I just can't.
 
vocab said:
Classic. Modern blizz doesn't know their head from their ass. Content development is about 10 times slower as well. I feel like every other day I'm reading about someone leaving blizzard. No surprise.
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I was super happy to hear that David Brevik left Marvel Heroes. He wants to make other games so I'm super excited to see what he does. Marvel Heroes is fantastic but I don't want someone with talent like that getting stuck on one game for years to come.
 
Classic for me. Of those on the "modern" list the only one that really hooked me was Diablo. Cataclysm is my favourite WoW expansion but everything past Cata has been disappointing. I have Overwatch but I kind of got bored of it, I'd rather play Halo 5 Firefight. Hearthstone is a little boring for me, I'm used to CCG's with a little more complexity.

I've spent countless hours in Warcraft 2, 3, Diablo 2 and pre-Cata WoW. I still think the games Blizzard release are super high in quality it's just those games are not for me any more. They tend to be focussing more on peer vs peer and I'm just too old to get invested enough to get good at this point and I don't really have the luxury of spending days at a time gorging on games.
 
Classic Blizz for me. D2, SC and WC3 from me, not to mention vanilla WoW.

Overwatch is the only thing they have going now that makes me want to play constantly.
 
Classic for sure, Diablo 2, Starcraft BW and even Warcraft 3 are unmatched by the new blizzard to me. Their chatroom and game finding system was so great, but I thought that their launch of battle.net 2.0 was such a flub. If it ain't broke, don't fix it should have been their motto here. I still did get my money's worth out of Diablo 3 though and I'm hoping for good things with their newest diablo title. I feel like once they release the HD versions of their classic titles, I won't be touching Diablo 3 anymore though.
 
If we discount WoW (which I haven't played in 6 years) then I can far more easily point to classic Blizzard. Diablo 1 & 2, Warcraft 3, Starcraft. These games defined what pc gaming was for me growing up.

Diablo 3 is the only modern Blizzard game I've spent any significant time with and it was disappointing to me compared to 2. I haven't played Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, heroes of the storm or overwatch.
 
Classic usually, as I'm a Starcraft kid. Overwatch, however, has re-ignited my passion for FPS' with it's casual, quick-play and host of interesting characters.
 
classic

modern blizzard just makes experiences (game designers make the decisions)

classic blizzard at least made some games (players make the decisions)
 
I'll say modern Blizzard titles are more impressive. While I will always love WC1/2/3 and SC:BW, I think Diablo 3 is easily better than its predecessors at this point and WoW will forever be the MMORPG. On top of that I think Blizzard has done a bit better supporting their games in the modern era than they did back in the day. SCII has basically evolved into a completely different game from when it launched, which is something that SC or WC3 never experienced, and Diablo 3 has gone from a mediocre ARPG to probably the best one there is.
 
Classic by far.. Starcraft + Broodwar alone are better than anything they've made in the last decade.

Not the biggest Blizzard fan though.. always felt like they were a poor mans Westwood Studios.
 
Modern

My first Blizzard game was Warcraft III and I've played WoW since Vanilla, but their games are more fun and fit in better with my life these days.
 
World of Warcraft vanilla is my favorite game of all time. And Brood War was huge for me growing up. But Overwatch is up there and so is World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria which is tied with WOTLK as my favorite expansion. But I think Burning Crusade is my least favorite that I actively played(I stopped during Cataclysm and most of Warlords)

I couldn't pick a certain decade over another. And you also have to keep in mind so much of what makes such a multiplayer focused developers output so interesting is where you're at at the time.
 
I really love both "eras" as someone said, modern Blizzard has mastered gameplay and fun factor, and Overwatch is the most recent example, Hearthstone is a game that I am even afraid of thinking how many hours I have spent on it, its presentation and gameplay are just fantastic.

But when I think of story or characters I can only think of classic Blizzard, there is nothing currently that has to me the appeal of Arthas story, or Kerrigan ascending to Queen, even when I play Hearthstone or Heroes of the Storm I just think of the characters as if the new stories never happened.

EDIT: Their trailers from old and new are just as amazing as always, every new tráiler of CGI they output is like christmas to me.
 
f0lken said:
I really love both "eras" as someone said, modern Blizzard has mastered gameplay and fun factor, and Overwatch is the most recent example, Hearthstone is a game that I am even afraid of thinking how many hours I have spent on it, its presentation and gameplay are just fantastic.

But when I think of story or characters I can only think of classic Blizzard, there is nothing currently that has to me the appeal of Arthas story, or Kerrigan ascending to Queen, even when I play Hearthstone or Heroes of the Storm I just think of the characters as if the new stories never happened.
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Depends on what you look into, but I thought Garrosh Hellscream's storyline from WOTLK through Cataclysm was as good if not better than Arthas and Illidan's. But then they threw that all away.
 
Classic. Their games were far more interesting and had more depth than modern Blizzard. Plus I have always preferred their RTS games than anything else. But Starcraft 2, while good, can't be compared to Warcraft 3 or Brood War.
 
Classic, not even close.

I haven't cared for any modern take on older Blizzard games (Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, modern WoW, etc) but I do think Overwatch and Hearthstone are pretty great.
 
I firmly believe their games today play better than their games of old. Especially Diablo 1/2 compared to 3, and say, WoW today versus at launch. I kinda lost interest in RTS games over the years, so I don't have any strong opinions there, but my nostalgia for Warcraft 2 would cloud all of that anyway.

That said, I think they did atmosphere better back in the day. Diablo 1's aesthetic design in every area was just so particular and special. It all comes screaming back every time I listen to the Tristram theme. Same with Warcraft.
 
I say classic.

All modern Blizzard games seem to get a final pass of polish that, while nice, makes them seem less unique.
 
Data West said:
Depends on what you look into, but I thought Garrosh Hellscream's storyline from WOTLK through Cataclysm was as good if not better than Arthas and Illidan's. But then they threw that all away.
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Yup, his story was super B, but as you said they threw that away, which is what maybe keeps driving me to the old stories, when plots seemed set in stone and streamlined
 
The world could always use more RTSs, sorry Overwatch. With the WoW movie and Legion relying so much on classic Warcraft lore I hope they're going to remaster Warcraft 1-3 or at least fix 1 and 2 for windows. Something for poor neglected Diablo too please. Lets hope Blizzcon doesn't disappoint.
 
Fallout-NL said:
The hell it is. Are you crazy?

/edit: well maybe if you consider them in the strictest sense of those words, but Diablo 1 and 2 certainly executed and presented their story/lore much better.
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"YOU MUST CLEANSE THE DEN OF EVIL!..."

Modern Blizzard is a little less creative (Starcraft 2's storyline is basically just retelling Warcraft 3 for example) but their classic games weren't exactly shining examples of storytelling. Diablo/Starcarft/Warcraft 1-3 are a cobbled mismash of various fantasy/sci-fi novel and movie tropes.

Diablo 3's story may be modestly worse than Diablo 2, but you're essentially comparing two cheesy B-movies.
 
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