It used to be Square Enix,they built the games they wanted,not what they could afford or to try and rip off gamer's.
They spent more on FFVII than some of the newer games that developers felt they overspent.Square was willing to go in massive debt because they believed in their games to recover the losses.
Now a days there is no way in hell to prove who is best because NONE of them are giving us their best effort.
I am quite certain that 90% of the dev teams out there could make a real quality game if given the time and money,but it is not about quality,it is ONLY about business.Point is i am sure we could have a lot of "BEST" games but nobody is willing to risk a quality effort,they are looking to build games cheap now and design them in a way they will run for pennies a day.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
He seems to be a contrarian... You know, anything that's popular or well-known must be bad.
Companies don't make games, people do. Like any form of art just because they did or didn't do it right once doesn't mean the next one will or wont be great. One hit wonders is a music term but games have this same problem.
Look at Blizzard. Almost all of the original talent has moved on to other companies. Their games have shown the change in people and not everyone that was part of blizzard when it was great went on to continue being a great developer. Blizzard still has money which solves a lot of problems but you can't always buy the people who will work together and make you a great game.
Haha what? Bethesda gets disqualified for how bad Oblivion was and how poorly they treated PC and PS3 gamers with Skyrim.
As for Funcom, never have I seen a company lie more in pre release than they did with Age of Conan. Drunken Brawling?
I just followed OP's request and used my own criteria. Skyrim was the weakest one indeed (I prefer Daggerfall and Morrowind), but still it had truckloads of gameplay in it, and while the modding community put in a huge chunk too, in the end it was Bethesda who made the games, so all those gaming years of mine since Arena, is because of them.
AoC - Yep, I was there all the way along again, my criteria was to have fun in the game - which I had. True, I'm a Howard addict, if that counts. Was AoC bugged at launch? Yes. NPC's got muted after you defeated Strom? Yeah, they did. So what? I still loved to stroll around Hyboria, enjoying the vista, the stories, etc.
OP asked who do we think the best (not in the industry, nor best at all), and based my own criteria... Funcom and Cryptic. Will there be a stoning as well?
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Originally posted by goldtoof Valve They haven't made a bad game yet
Blizzard would be close but - diablo3 Bethseda would be close but - battlespire
D3 wasn't bad. It was and is a huge commercial success.
Yes, it was tuned too difficult at release, but they've since rectified that. And while I was not a fan of the RMAH, it seems that they were in line with what other's are thinking. See DOTA2, Team Fortress, and now Sony with EQNL, same concept as the RMAH except instead of taking 15% from sales, Sony will take 60%.
There's no ARPG contending with D3 currently. Torchlight 2 is meh, PoE is a joke, Grim Dawn is in Alpha. And D3 will have an expac soon which will likely see widespread success again.
I vote 'None of the Above'. A few are adequate...occasionally. There is no longer any developer whose games I will buy based on their name and reputation.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
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Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Michael bay films are a huge commercial success, doesn't make them good.
It wasn't to difficult. If anything it was too easy, forcing you to play through on noob level first. It was GRINDY, grinding like hell for cash to spend on the auction house, but that's not the same as difficult.
Dota2, team fortress and eqn are both free to play and multiplayer games. D3 had a higher box price than most games, is essentialy single player and greedily built the entire game around the auction house.
Torchlight 2 is a vastly superior arpg to diablo 3. So good blizzard are ripping it off with the expansion. Nephalim rifts = phase beast challenges Adventure mode = map works.
Best in MMOs: Blizzard. I personally am very "meh, whatever" on the entire Warcraft franchise, but I must give them their props in context to the question at hand. They're pretty solid.
Best in games: Bethesda. The Elder Scrolls franchise still has me hooked, and the transition to the online world with ESO will be a great test for them.
On a personal note, why I didn't say SoE: they start strong, and finish weak. To stay with my analogy of a girlfriend / relationship, SoE is like an abusive ex. They hurt you, you leave; you go back, hoping they won't hurt you again, but they do. You give it another try, things look great for a few weeks, then BAM - you're curled up in a corner, crying over and over "when will I learn...when will I learn".
D3's big problem was itemization being so awful. TL2's big problem is the exploitable AI, potion spam and pacing. It felt more like playing smash TV than it did an aRPG. PoE has a load of problems too.
I think D3 is the best of a bunch but it isn't a strong bunch and I don't have a strong opinion on it.
If we are going outside of MMORPG I like the guy who said Valve. I almost always like their games. Firaxis is pretty good too.
Originally posted by goldtoof Valve They haven't made a bad game yet
Blizzard would be close but - diablo3 Bethseda would be close but - battlespire
D3 wasn't bad. It was and is a huge commercial success.
Yes, it was tuned too difficult at release, but they've since rectified that. And while I was not a fan of the RMAH, it seems that they were in line with what other's are thinking. See DOTA2, Team Fortress, and now Sony with EQNL, same concept as the RMAH except instead of taking 15% from sales, Sony will take 60%.
There's no ARPG contending with D3 currently. Torchlight 2 is meh, PoE is a joke, Grim Dawn is in Alpha. And D3 will have an expac soon which will likely see widespread success again.
D3 only rode the wave of success from D2. In comparison to a game like Path of Exile it fails. I personally believe this is where we will think differently because I believe that PoE is a significantly better game in every aspect. PoE has much more customization, harder content, and overall the longevity of the game easily outlasts D3. We will have to see about the upcoming expansion for D3; but for now I have to say it's only a success due to its predecessor.
I have to agree. I've seen very few people say " PoX was a joke" or even rate it as bad at all. While D3 sold huge numbers it's retention of those numbers was poor and it's reviews after the OMG IT'S NEW period were not very good.
It was a massive success for blizzard money wise but it didn't do what D1 and 2 did in the market for them. If it wasn't blizzard this game would have been swept under the rug.
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Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Blizzard, I am pretending D3 never happened. ( Still going to get expansion though, as LoD was such an improvement from D2, which was already awesome )
Black Isle, sadly they are no more.
Sierra and Lucas arts are tied, I love old school adventure games, also both dead, one actually dead and one emotionally dead.
Microprose/Firaxis, I have a million hours hours into Civ, and it is 12 hours until X-Com!
For MMO's
Turbine, not sure but I think it is the oldest still living MMO developer and there is a reason, AC2 might have bombed but I liked it, I loved AC and even though I am no longer playing I have very found memories of DDO.
Did not hate Lotro, I played until cap, enjoyed it, but left and I have not been back.
Funcom, again a long time survivor and even if AO had one of the worst launches in history and AoC was a bit short, with TSW they show they are in for the long run and they are at least willing to try to break the mold.
Even though with AO there were no mold to break really, but it is still has one of the most unique and satisfying game worlds and character building out there.
CCP has EVE, and I like it a lot, and they to have been around for ages, but until WoD they are a one hit wonder.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Mtibbs1989 If we're talking about "best" I'd simply define it by money profited off of their product(s) and to put it simply Blizzard is the one I believe holds this position. This juggernaut of a gaming company has produced some of the best games on the market even to this day. Ranging from Hack and Slash, Real-Time Strategy, and MMORPG. While they haven't quite held up to their golden days with their most recent release of Diablo 3. They're still a heavy contender when it comes to their other titles.
Ah, the popularity contest paradigm. Was Brittany Spears really the best singer for a number of years? Or was she the best marketed entertainment commodity? Of course, the OP opened it to any and all reasonings, so either of those would be argueable stances. Blizzard does know how to leverage its fan base real well.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Originally posted by Arglebargle I vote 'None of the Above'. A few are adequate...occasionally. There is no longer any developer whose games I will buy based on their name and reputation.
Sega used to be that way. Capcom too. Sadly, neither are what they used to be these days.
To bad this wasn't a poll so we could have seen a more general consensus instead of digging though teh threads. However I agree with what appears to be somewhat of the majority and go with Blizzard. The proof is in the pudding. Pretty much everything they make is a financial success and at least 3/4 of their games can be real fun. Not to mention they are one of the few dev studios that actually take their time, for the most part, to make sure their games have a high level of polish before release.
I also strongly respect Anet for them to go against the grain of pretty much every other MMO trend on the market and doing it successfully.
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Comments
At this moment, I'd say the best dev is CD Projekt RED, for the way they treat their games and customers.
As for MMO devs, ArenaNet, for a polised MMO, with a good business model, as far as I'm concerned and for also trying to do some different stuff.
It used to be Square Enix,they built the games they wanted,not what they could afford or to try and rip off gamer's.
They spent more on FFVII than some of the newer games that developers felt they overspent.Square was willing to go in massive debt because they believed in their games to recover the losses.
Now a days there is no way in hell to prove who is best because NONE of them are giving us their best effort.
I am quite certain that 90% of the dev teams out there could make a real quality game if given the time and money,but it is not about quality,it is ONLY about business.Point is i am sure we could have a lot of "BEST" games but nobody is willing to risk a quality effort,they are looking to build games cheap now and design them in a way they will run for pennies a day.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
He seems to be a contrarian... You know, anything that's popular or well-known must be bad.
You make me like charity
Skyrim on the PC might just be the buggiest single player game I have played in the past 10 years.
I'll have to vote for Blizzard too.
No, they aren't the creative force of the industry, but they constantly define genres.
Warcraft, Starcraft - Not only defined the genre, but Starcraft managed to be a national sport in South Korea. That's saying something.
You can't talk about ARPG's without Diablo.
And there's WoW.
We'll see how Hearthstone does in CCG land.
Blizzard delivers, not everyone is happy with them these days and the level of influence they have, but they still deliver.
Companies don't make games, people do. Like any form of art just because they did or didn't do it right once doesn't mean the next one will or wont be great. One hit wonders is a music term but games have this same problem.
Look at Blizzard. Almost all of the original talent has moved on to other companies. Their games have shown the change in people and not everyone that was part of blizzard when it was great went on to continue being a great developer. Blizzard still has money which solves a lot of problems but you can't always buy the people who will work together and make you a great game.
AoC - Yep, I was there all the way along
again, my criteria was to have fun in the game - which I had. True, I'm a Howard addict, if that counts. Was AoC bugged at launch? Yes. NPC's got muted after you defeated Strom? Yeah, they did. So what? I still loved to stroll around Hyboria, enjoying the vista, the stories, etc.
OP asked who do we think the best (not in the industry, nor best at all), and based my own criteria... Funcom and Cryptic. Will there be a stoning as well?
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
They haven't made a bad game yet
Blizzard would be close but - diablo3
Bethseda would be close but - battlespire
That's what happens when you make a huge open world.
D3 wasn't bad. It was and is a huge commercial success.
Yes, it was tuned too difficult at release, but they've since rectified that. And while I was not a fan of the RMAH, it seems that they were in line with what other's are thinking. See DOTA2, Team Fortress, and now Sony with EQNL, same concept as the RMAH except instead of taking 15% from sales, Sony will take 60%.
There's no ARPG contending with D3 currently. Torchlight 2 is meh, PoE is a joke, Grim Dawn is in Alpha. And D3 will have an expac soon which will likely see widespread success again.
I vote 'None of the Above'. A few are adequate...occasionally. There is no longer any developer whose games I will buy based on their name and reputation.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
It wasn't to difficult. If anything it was too easy, forcing you to play through on noob level first. It was GRINDY, grinding like hell for cash to spend on the auction house, but that's not the same as difficult.
Dota2, team fortress and eqn are both free to play and multiplayer games. D3 had a higher box price than most games, is essentialy single player and greedily built the entire game around the auction house.
Torchlight 2 is a vastly superior arpg to diablo 3. So good blizzard are ripping it off with the expansion.
Nephalim rifts = phase beast challenges
Adventure mode = map works.
Best in MMOs: Blizzard. I personally am very "meh, whatever" on the entire Warcraft franchise, but I must give them their props in context to the question at hand. They're pretty solid.
Best in games: Bethesda. The Elder Scrolls franchise still has me hooked, and the transition to the online world with ESO will be a great test for them.
On a personal note, why I didn't say SoE: they start strong, and finish weak. To stay with my analogy of a girlfriend / relationship, SoE is like an abusive ex. They hurt you, you leave; you go back, hoping they won't hurt you again, but they do. You give it another try, things look great for a few weeks, then BAM - you're curled up in a corner, crying over and over "when will I learn...when will I learn".
aRPG just isn't a great genre to begin with~.
D3's big problem was itemization being so awful.
TL2's big problem is the exploitable AI, potion spam and pacing. It felt more like playing smash TV than it did an aRPG.
PoE has a load of problems too.
I think D3 is the best of a bunch but it isn't a strong bunch and I don't have a strong opinion on it.
If we are going outside of MMORPG I like the guy who said Valve. I almost always like their games. Firaxis is pretty good too.
I have to agree. I've seen very few people say " PoX was a joke" or even rate it as bad at all. While D3 sold huge numbers it's retention of those numbers was poor and it's reviews after the OMG IT'S NEW period were not very good.
It was a massive success for blizzard money wise but it didn't do what D1 and 2 did in the market for them. If it wasn't blizzard this game would have been swept under the rug.
SOE had Station Exchange 7 years before D3 -- SOE allowed selling characters, gear, gold
http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/02/07/soe-whitepaper-on-station-exchange/
EQ2 fan sites
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Of all times, across all genres?
In no real order.
Blizzard, I am pretending D3 never happened. ( Still going to get expansion though, as LoD was such an improvement from D2, which was already awesome )
Black Isle, sadly they are no more.
Sierra and Lucas arts are tied, I love old school adventure games, also both dead, one actually dead and one emotionally dead.
Microprose/Firaxis, I have a million hours hours into Civ, and it is 12 hours until X-Com!
For MMO's
Turbine, not sure but I think it is the oldest still living MMO developer and there is a reason, AC2 might have bombed but I liked it, I loved AC and even though I am no longer playing I have very found memories of DDO.
Did not hate Lotro, I played until cap, enjoyed it, but left and I have not been back.
Funcom, again a long time survivor and even if AO had one of the worst launches in history and AoC was a bit short, with TSW they show they are in for the long run and they are at least willing to try to break the mold.
Even though with AO there were no mold to break really, but it is still has one of the most unique and satisfying game worlds and character building out there.
CCP has EVE, and I like it a lot, and they to have been around for ages, but until WoD they are a one hit wonder.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah, the popularity contest paradigm. Was Brittany Spears really the best singer for a number of years? Or was she the best marketed entertainment commodity? Of course, the OP opened it to any and all reasonings, so either of those would be argueable stances. Blizzard does know how to leverage its fan base real well.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Sega used to be that way. Capcom too. Sadly, neither are what they used to be these days.
To bad this wasn't a poll so we could have seen a more general consensus instead of digging though teh threads. However I agree with what appears to be somewhat of the majority and go with Blizzard. The proof is in the pudding. Pretty much everything they make is a financial success and at least 3/4 of their games can be real fun. Not to mention they are one of the few dev studios that actually take their time, for the most part, to make sure their games have a high level of polish before release.
I also strongly respect Anet for them to go against the grain of pretty much every other MMO trend on the market and doing it successfully.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.