Blizzard Co-Founder Opens New Game Company, Dreamhaven,

Just because I needed to beat gortex to the punch posting a video game thread

www.ign.com...

Blizzard co-founder and ex-CEO Mike Morhaime has announced Dreamhaven, a new games company with two internal development studios, each of which is working on a new game, and is headed by other Blizzard veterans.



Moonshot’s studio head is Jason Chayes (Blizzard executive producer who worked on Hearthstone, and lead producer on StarCraft 2). He’s joined by Dustin Browder (game director on StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, and Command and Conquer), and Ben Thompson (creative director on Hearthstone), as well as a group of other seasoned developers.

Secret Door’s studio head is Chris Sigaty (executive producer on Hearthstone, StarCraft 2, and Heroes of the Storm, and lead producer on the original Warcraft 3). He’s joined by Eric Dodds (first game director on Hearthstone) and Alan Dabiri (game director on Heroes of the Storm) and a team of other veteran developers.

I have to admit, I used to be a sucker for Blizzard games pre-WoW. The first Warcraft was the first game I ever went to a computer store to get. I remember just reading through the manual over and over again the whole drive home.

I spent way too much time playing StarCraft and diablo, then got dangerously addicted to diablo 2.

Sadly, it looks like the veterans they've rounded up aren't from that era, but hopefully they can come together to produce some quality games, Blizzard sure hasn't for almost 15 years now.

a reply to: dug88

It's good to see a new studio of talented Devs open up , Respawn Entertainmen proved there is life after corporate BS , hopefully they'll follow in the footsteps of West and Zampella.
Looking forward to seeing what they're developing , surely one of them has to be an RTS.

Video games need to find themselves again.

Too much soulless corporate pandering going on in the triple AAA market right now. All the good stuff has gone indy for the most part.

a reply to: dug88

love to see where that goes. There are never too many game developers... just too damn many cookie cutter - closed currency - pay to win/look better/get stuff non payers wont get, type games. So many games that picked up were the real great games left off to try and suck in some of their money while selling pixels to rake in yet more money.

Off the top of my head... Path of Exile.

What saddens me is... more main stream companies are also using this to get more money from players. Free to play doesn't actually mean a quality game, especially when the goods they're selling are crazy expensive for bottom tier junk.

It's insane. Buying one item now costs more than a monthly online subscription paid up front for 3 months! insane!

...and not only are they a diablo knock off but they're really not that good.

a reply to: ketsuko

Corporations equal loot box's and ruined franchise, look at what they did to the best Star Wars game we NEVER will get to play, then the corporate lawyers are pure - something unmentionable - a team of fan's was recreating the now ancient Star Wars the old Republic as a first person shooter/RPG but got shut down just before they were about to release there free fan made game (and it looked absolutely beautiful).


Disney used the Lucasarts studio's name on the cease and desist order in spite of the fact the old game still retails on steam and this remake was only going to make it more popular as you would need it installed on your system to play the remake, were is the logic?.

Instead we got SW Battlefield 2 (fair but incredibly short on the rail's single player campaign and essentially a quake clone in the star wars universe as a multiplayer game), a mediocre Lara Croft rip off with Light Sabres in the form of Jedi Fallen Order with another ugly main protagonist and no or very little RPG element still a good story if not really wide or expansive enough to portray the star wars universe and to stop it competing they have put a stop to development of a fan made remake of the another old star wars game which was a star fighter game because in there minds it may have interfered with sales of there new space fighter game star wars squadron's.

Loot box's to feed the soulless corporate industry, tricking often children into gambling putting up real world money for an unknown quantity that may be the only way for them to win a game etc.

Indies for the most part are free of this crap, there games are cheaper and while they may often lack the spit and polish a studio with hundreds of staff can sometimes produce there games also often have more love in them.

So yes absolutely I agree with you.

I wonder though Zenimax Media was already up to all that crap in there online games if there takeover by Microsoft will impact there good's or is it more about Microsoft wanting to get back in on the loot box action in an indirect manner, they now own the elder scroll's, fallout and a few other franchise some good, some crap and some ruined or left in limbo, it was probably as has already been said to bolster there Xbox platform especially since they seem to have parted ways with the developer behind some of the best Halo games.

Like any industry a monopoly is never good for the consumer, small(er) independent game producers are an essential and it is good to see a professional quality new studio as yet untainted by the corporate greed founded by a man whom was once behind one of the most legendary game studios out there, I expect they will turn out some excellent work.

a reply to: StallionDuck

honestly, I would like to see a game where if you die, your stuff sits there unprotected, and it can be ganked by whomever killed you. you want to buy stuff, sure, but just because you buy it doesn't mean you get to keep it. Also, when you die, you lose half your levels. That way you're starting buck naked by a bank, and if you don't have stuff, you don't have stuff. Teach people to clan up more, and protect each other. Also, don't go suiciding on high level creatures, make sure you got a plan.

My two cents.

Camain

originally posted by: camain
a reply to: StallionDuck

honestly, I would like to see a game where if you die, your stuff sits there unprotected, and it can be ganked by whomever killed you. you want to buy stuff, sure, but just because you buy it doesn't mean you get to keep it. Also, when you die, you lose half your levels. That way you're starting buck naked by a bank, and if you don't have stuff, you don't have stuff. Teach people to clan up more, and protect each other. Also, don't go suiciding on high level creatures, make sure you got a plan.

My two cents.

Camain

Ahh good olde Ultima Online back in the pre-trammel days... I miss those games!

Richard Garriot said it right when he mentioned that without loss, games aren't as fun as they should be and I agree. I'd love to enjoy a 1 life - perma death - full on no protection PVT in another MMO, that actually plays well.

A lot of games have pvp/pve but that's still carebare to me. I don't like pve games overly much but if there is a choice in the game, I'll play the pve side since the pvp side just isn't the same without limitless restrictions.


You can use UO as an example. I played that game since it hit the market and I spent so many wasted life's years in that game. I would also be ashamed save that it was probably the best game ever in existence. There was nothing like it. Addicted? Oh hell yeah....


The only 'safe' space was in the city near guards but even that didn't always protect you because guards, though tough as hell, could still be killed and thieves could still evade them in some aspects. The moment you stepped out of the city, you were on your own.

GLORIOUS days.......!

PVPers (REDS) were always out there waiting. There were guilds filled with reds.

So why didn't the game end horribly this way?

Because everyone has a sense of existence and not just being. You had choices to make. Run or fight. Keep your stuff or loose it all. Granted, there was no perma death but the risk was very high. So instead of players crying non stop... People banded together and HUNTED these reds... Guilds sprung up just to hunt reds and take their loot. Soon, sides were more equal with no one having a strong footing anywhere permanently. It swathed in territories that changed often. Certain areas and paths, you did not trek down because you knew you'd probably be attacked but that also made it more fun to do it anyways....

Don't tell me what I can't do! - Yep... I died often!


But it was great! Reds even took on the persona of orcs and played the part. hell, they even made their own language and it was learned by many (it wasn't difficult... just orc speak Loose 1000 IQ and you'd get it). That made the game a true community of unique players and experiances.

Houses could be looted if you didn't lock your door. Even if you did... A thief could steal the key out of your pocket and enter later or they could simply hide and when you walked in, they'd walk right in behind you, hidden. When you left... Thieves would then loot the place clean.

Unfair?

No... Everyone had weight factors so you could only move so much so quickly. I got caught more often than I was successful!

Man the stories.... The people I've known and becomes close friends with from worlds over.

So what was the balance? Surely there were issues...

None...

After killing a few people, reds were perma red, meaning they could no longer enter a city without getting killed by guards or players.


(once you killed so many, you were perma red and could no longer enter a city without being killed on sight by guards or players). So if you did bad things, you would be penalized in ways where it could be considered fair on all sides.


Then... One day... UO changed hands and to appeal to more paying customers, those dummies decided to make a mirror land that had new rule sets meaning you couldn't pvp in the new lands.

The old lands - original lands now called Felucia, no longer breathed life. Everyone just left and went to Trammel because once you have the option, obviously you'll lean towards not loosing your things. So fel just died - people quit the game - no one played in fel except the few PVPers who now fought amongst each other and eventually, whoever didn't jump servers (because the player base was getting so thin) just quit altogether and went to Everquest which was becoming a hit at the time. Then WOW came about and the rest is history.


I don't understand though... I liked EQ, even beta'd EQ 2 but how people actually liked WOW blows my mind. I think it was just fandom from the warcraft series that made it what it was, personally because I never enjoyed playing raid MMOs.

/disclaimer
I work for Blizzard so anything I say here is not an official statement of the company. If an official statement is required then I can provide different routes to get such information.


I think you can sum up UO with item limits and drop boxes to trap and killl blood elementals. I wont deny using server lines to get away from PVP griefers was a good time though once you hit the sweet lag bubble.

I then lead a casual raid guild in EQ1 and EQ2 before finally burning out on the top world wide ranked EQ2 raid guild in it's later years. Nothing like being called at 3 am on a work night to heal a contested mob.

In Regards To Blizzard.....

In general everyone thinks they are an expert on Blizzard because of articles Kotaku drops or other similar scenarios so I realized it's just not worth trying to explain my perspective on what it is actually like working directly for Blizzard but in a larger sense working for or with Activision, all the smaller studios and King. I have had people tell me that something was happening at a specific physical location at Blizzcon only to have me say "no, Im working Blizzcon and Im literally standing where you said and its not going on" just to be called a liar. So I dont try .

A few people have sent me PM's asking specific questions and Im always willing to talk but Im just not interested in being told Im a bad person for working here.

So yah...I hope anything Morhaime does is successful because any studio being successful is good for the gaming industry .

a reply to: dug88

If you liked Diablo 2 somebody modded Grim dawn, and made a full remaster of d2 for it. Looks amazing. It's contains everything the original had. Even the unique items. Check it out. Wc2 was my first PC game I fell in love with. My very first pc purchase was Starcraft battle chest. I did the same thing reading all of the books on the way home from media play. Remember that store?

a reply to: opethPA

I always wanted to work for blizzard ever since I was 11 years old. What happened? They dropped the ball. I'm still jealous you get to work for them. You're not a bad person.

a reply to: Rekrul

I can't play games like that any more. I wasn't kidding when i said dangerously addicted. I tried path of exile but it was too loot festy. I've been sticking to the metroidvania/dark souls type games these days. Super metroid's always been my favourite game since pretty much it came out and me and my cousin took turns playing through it the first time. Hollow Knight and Dark Souls are close seconds but nothing beats Super Metroid. Rhe only other game that's come close to that sense of fear and dread i felt going through maridia the first time and feeling completely lost, trapped and overwhelmed is going through deepnest in Hollow Knight the first time.

Luckily, there's plenty of great indies in that department and Hollow Knight 2's coming anybday now...i'm gonna beat gortex to the thread on that # too.

The loot driven arpgs though are too much for me these days...not enough time, too much digital crack.

a reply to: dug88

My little sister loves metroid. I'm more of a castlevania type of guy. I hear you on that though. Those arpgs are like digital crack. D3 put a sour taste in my mouth, and I haven't played one since. I used to play path of exile before it was finished. You a console or pc gamer?

Actually, there is a game like that. It’s called Rust. You can get it on steam.a reply to: camain

originally posted by: willzilla
Actually, there is a game like that. It’s called Rust. You can get it on steam.a reply to: camain

Yeah there are a lot of sandbox, "open world" type games out there now days. There are so many of them that just popped up all at once and pretty much the same as the other in most ways - sans the theme or age.

Empyrion is the same (minus the serious level loss but you can alter this in the settings). Ark, Empyrion, Rust and a trillion other's like it.

I guess survival sandbox games are where it's at. I really like the concept and the abilities to affect everything, even terrain. I love the building aspects and the survival. The only problem is... When I play Empyrion to feed my sci fi hunger, then go to another with a medieval feel - It's like I'm playing the same game just with a different theme. It gets old.

I do like multiple genres of games so I usually pick one or two of each kind of game and stick with them until something else replaces them.

Even with all the new tech and new games... I for some reason feel like the game industry just isn't trying anymore. There's nothing out there that really pulls me in... especially when I have all this free time on my hands... lol My luck.

Blizzard has done some great work, so many hours of my life playing those games.

I would play Diablo on battlenet until I heard birds chirping the next morning, then go to sleep and still hear that haunting theme music in my head, arg!

I like a few sandbox games too, like dont starve, also play prison architect ocassionaly, but most the FPS just got dull for me, like Stallion said, they all start feeling like the same game with a different shirt on. Ive checked out rust, but it looks better as a multiplayer. Lately Ive been into Red Dead 2 since its NOT sci fi or fantasy, and the hunting and fishing is relaxing

"join the army they said!" "See the world they said!" Blizzard always made me laugh, thats for sure

a reply to: Aliquandro

We may have crossed paths at one point on battle.net. I just have to say one thing though. Once I saw metzen, and samwise' artwork and storylines I fell in love with blizzard right away. They've strayed from the path. They should have never gotten rid of blizzard north. Back in the 90s when I was 12 years old I applied for a job on their website. They actually emailed me back asking me for a resume. They told me to keep it up, and they were looking forward to having me on their team once I got old enough. Good guys.

a reply to: Rekrul

Yes the graphics were amazing! I had the honor to work as an artist for a small local developer years ago, best job I ever had!

The problem was when you are working on a small project with huge potential based on Tolkiens work it doesn't stay small for long. Short story is Sony/Universal got wind of it and bought out our publisher to get the rights to the game, then proceeded to make the entire thing sh!t, and still are creating giant piles to this day.

My job was literally just drawing tiling dirt/grass/terrain as well as lots of plant sprites, and I'd do it again if they didn't require game artists to do everything now, its why most games seem stiff to me.

a reply to: Aliquandro

That's what I went to college for too. Damn that sucks. Glad I got out of the business before I got canned. What kind of medium did you use? Hand drawn, photoshop, illustrator? Did you use a digital draw tablet? I would have quit right away if they asked me to just draw that stuff. I'm a character designer.

This is probably the longest video game thread I've seen on this website.

a reply to: Rekrul

I had tons of digital images I used in photoshop5.5 to make realistic style tiles. Mostly images i took but really anything I could my hands on (stains, cracks, bark, dirt). My main asset file for making tiles was a PSD with like 40+ layers. I had a good wacom tablet, every artist had the engine installed on their PC and a dev xbox attached to test our work out on before checking it in.

It was like being an interior/exterior designer for an entire world, it was very fun. When they finally locked down the art assets I went straight to playability testing and helping with integration (making sure there were no dupe bugs), mostly making sure levels were hard enough and player wasn't getting stuck in collision spheres or falling thru the "carpet"

We had artists that would do some modelling as well as textures, and some that would animate and model. I actually had a blast doing some placeholder voice files for gandalf and some of the fellowship before we had the voice actor files in place.

The engine our game used was written for us specifically, and was like a plugin for Alias, which is honestly the most confusing program ever, sorta why i lost interest in the modelling part, I really just like to paint, especially if i can get my hands dirty