On the second day of the Lunar New Year, when people are immersed in the atmosphere of the New Year, a group of gamers have arrived in the cold winter. As Blizzard game commentator Red Rabbit said, "Everyone is welcoming the New Year, and we Blizzard players are burying our youth." ”
On November 17, 2022, Blizzard Entertainment suddenly released an announcement, announcing the end of its agency cooperation with NetEase, and the Chinese mainland servers of all its games (except the mobile game "Diablo: Immortal") will be closed on January 23, 2023. When the new partner appeared, until now there has been no response.
Stopping the server is the fate of every online game. But unlike games that have lost popularity and profitability, Blizzard games are still played by countless players, and for them, these games are even an important part of life. Business negotiations broke down, and it was the player who was injured in the end.
If a grand farewell is destined, does it need to be solemn enough? Poison Eye found several Blizzard veteran players and talked about how they spent their last day with Blizzard and the years of "love and hate" for Blizzard.
Stand-alone era
In 1998, 10-year-old Bufan first came into contact with "StarCraft", "Our small county had several computer shops (that is, later Internet cafes) at that time, it was still a local area network, there were not many things to play in Internet cafes, basically such single-player games, as well as "Warcraft", "Diablo" and so on, all played with friends in Internet cafes at that time. ”
StarCraft graphics
For domestic players, the first Blizzard games they came into contact with were nothing more than these three. It was the eve of the massive explosion of the Internet café industry, and countless pirated game discs began to flood and reach the first children who could access them.
"Come on today" is the child who grew up with these games. He started playing computer games at the age of four, and his deepest feelings were "Warcraft", "in today's terms, 'the first game for young people.'" The part he loves most about Warcraft isn't just the RTS battles, it's its powerful map editor. This feature allows players to load it with various types of gameplay, where he has shot guns, fought landlords, raced cars, and even played characters from Dragon Babu... To a large extent, this is more metaverse than many later metaverse products.
Pineapple prefers Diablo, a game series that has been with him for 20 years since his entry into the pit in 2002. Unlike other games that emphasize the experience in multiplayer battles, the Roguelike genre of Diablo is based on personal experience, "The main reason why I have been inseparable from it for so many years is to like the thrill of explosive equipment, and then constantly refine, transition, and challenge higher difficulty." ”
Diablo
When she first came into contact with the game, Pineapple was in junior high school, and after high school, her studies began to be tense, and she couldn't devote her time to the game. In college, Pineapple began to play Dota 2 with friends, which is perhaps the easiest time in life to find black friends. After work, the opportunity to find friends to hack became limited, and Dota 2 was too long and inconvenient, and he picked up Diablo again, a game that can be "played by himself" and stopped at any time.
The real promotion of Blizzard games to the whole people, and as the master of Blizzard's worldview, was 2005's World of Warcraft. As an important reason for the word "Internet addiction" to trigger discussion in China, "World of Warcraft" is the white moonlight in the hearts of too many players of that era.
The era of "Internet addiction"
Talking about the reasons why he likes World of Warcraft, Bufan feels that it can be summed up in one sentence: this is not a game, this is a world.
"Before I came into World of Warcraft, I felt like the game was about going it alone, and there wasn't much to do and compete. But World of Warcraft has a lot of new settings, such as five-player team brush quests and PVP battlefields, as well as 40-player team quests. Including the open world, pets and mount systems, which seemed to be common in later online games, they were actually experienced for the first time in World of Warcraft. Bufan recalled.
The battlefield of World of Warcraft
Around 2007, Bufan reached the full level and reached the top of a large battlefield composed of dozens of servers. He and his friends also received an invitation to the official invitational tournament, but were eventually forced to give up because they could not afford to pay for the journey. Shortly after that, Bufan quit swimming, until he went to Taiwan to start again in '09, "Until 2015, basically every time the game adjusts the full level, I will go back once to play until the full level and then retire." ”
The slightly younger Zatie only came into contact with World of Warcraft around 2012. Until now, he vividly remembers the scene when he first entered the pit. At that time, he was still in junior high school, and he asked his cousin, what is the most fun game he has played over the years? Cousin replied without hesitation, World of Warcraft. "At first, I really didn't play it much, but after a little bit of time, I felt that it was not the same as other games. It's like my second home or spiritual haven. Because people of our age have seen a lot of crossover texts, or similar movie anime, and World of Warcraft can give me this feeling of building a world out of thin air, and can give me a place in that world. ”
World of Warcraft Azeroth map
Entering the pit too late did make Zatie miss a lot of glorious times, so he could only make up lessons and go through all the plots of the Azeroth continent over and over again. Blizzard's extraordinary creativity also planted a seed in his young heart, making him choose game planning as his profession as an adult.
But in the nearly 9 years since the birth of World of Warcraft, Blizzard has not given players too many surprises, and the main action has focused on launching game sequels and new expansions.
The Age of "Fragments"
In 2014, Hearthstone was born, and Blizzard once again became the leader of a single category.
As a CCG card game, it continues Blizzard's world view, while the gameplay is far more relaxed and casual than Blizzard's other games, which also makes it a long-term "Blizzard Family Bucket" popularity and income. In Newzoo's list of the most popular PC games last May, Hearthstone still ranked No. 4.
Not to mention that Hearthstone can achieve account interconnection between mobile and PC, which provides convenience for too many players. In the sentence that shocked the world, "Don't you have a mobile phone?" "Before it came out, Hearthstone was Blizzard's only answer on mobile.
Hearthstone
Although the gameplay is casual, the card building in Hearthstone Classic still takes a lot of time and effort to understand and adjust. This situation has been further alleviated by the 2019 "Tavern Wargame" mode update, in which players no longer need to build their own decks, just click to start.
Therefore, it is also a new model that the outside world calls "Hearthstone". "Come on Today" also picked up Hearthstone again because of this model, and regarded the recording of Hearthstone anchors as the most preferred "electronic squeeze."
When the first generation of domestic game audiences gradually entered the society and opened their busy real life, the time and energy to play with the computer became less and less, and sliding into the embrace of mobile games was full of helpless inevitability.
Pineapple, who is addicted to "Diablo", will later choose to play the Switch version, and finally simply accepted the countless voices of "Diablo: Immortal", "One is because I still like the experience of Roguelike games, and the other is that I really have feelings for this IP, it has become a habit in my life, as long as it comes out with new products, I definitely want to play it for the first time," After a pause, Pineapple added, "But I still won't give it krypton gold, I can understand that the game Krypton Gold can become stronger and better after it, but I can't accept that even part of the game content cannot be unlocked without Krypton Gold. ”
Diablo: Immortal expansion
After playing "World of Warcraft" for ten years, he no longer had the freedom to indulge freely after starting a family, "At that time, as soon as the nostalgic costume opened, I called my former brother to play together. Although it is just a pure play atmosphere, but at the beginning I was still very addicted, took leave to fight at home, even if I was scolded by my wife, I would always play, because this quarrel had several times. Later, after playing for most of the year, everyone was scolded by their wives a lot, and they stopped playing again. ”
Although it failed to keep up with the times, Blizzard still created its final glory in game production. Overwatch, launched in 2016, once again opened up new possibilities for the FPS category. Station B UP master "Blood Eclipse Dark" is a veteran Overwatch player, his original character Soldier 76, played a total of 1811 hours. Before the launch of Overwatch, "Blood Erosion Dark" liked to play CS, and later tried new games such as PUBG and Apex, but these could not replace the place of "Overwatch" in his heart, "I don't know why, I just can't get tired of playing." It's like you have a wronged relationship, although you are sometimes angry, you still want to spend money on him. ”
From the explosion in the summer of 2016 to the rapid decay after that, there are too many angles to analyze the reasons why "Overwatch" is "cold". For Dark Blood, he can understand that many of these bad game experiences are not accepted, but for him, sometimes after sleeping and waking up the next day, his mentality can still be adjusted. Through this game, he also made a lot of real-life friends.
Blizzard memories are different for each player, but since that day, the worldline has begun to close.
End the Blizzard era
This sudden suspension announcement was not without warning. Previously, Activision Blizzard and NetEase both mentioned the renewal of the contract in their financial reports, and the information revealed was not optimistic. But none of this attracted enough attention at the player level, and it was not until the announcement that NetEase interpreted as a "surprise attack" was released afterwards that most players realized the seriousness of the situation.
"I can guess that everyone reacts differently to this incident, some people will be disappointed, some people will be shocked, some people will be sad, and even hated." But for me, I really had every mood at that moment, a complexity that is hard to describe. ”
And the darkness of blood erosion is in a state of confusion, "My brain is racing fast, and there are many doubts, such as whether there will be a turning point after so many years of cooperation?" Will there already be other companies in the negotiation after that? What happens to the property in my account and so many people's accounts? I don't have an answer. With the dark of blood erosion with a fetish for collecting, the account has almost all the skins of Overwatch, and what he enjoyed the most in the past was that he could "pick a dress in the closet to wear" according to today's mood before each match. And after this day, whether he can see his wardrobe again becomes unknown.
As the news gradually fermented, players gradually understood: due to the difficulty of obtaining the version number of the imported game, even if the next home is found, it is expected that it will take a long time for the national server to return. At that time, whether the player data can be completely preserved and perfectly grafted is not guaranteed. What's more, this must be based on the premise that there are indeed companies willing to "take over".
Zatie's mood gradually changed from complicated to relieved, "Whether I held it on the altar before or fell off the altar later, these are all part of my life, and Blizzard is destined to be a strong stroke in my entire life game experience." ”
But for "Come on Today", he just wants to say "Blizzard is good to die". From the decline in game development capabilities to the failure of esports operations, the anger against Blizzard accumulated over the years made him still play Blizzard games, but his good impression of this company has long been exhausted, "Hearthstone is gone, I will start Yu-Gi-Oh, I originally had a replacement." will not choose to go to the outer server to play, mainly because Blizzard is too disgusting, in the future, watch the anchor play, as a cloud player. ”
As the time draws closer and closer to the closing date, Blizzard's series of operations increasingly ignite the anger of national server players, gradually leading the public sentiment of regret at the beginning to disdain. On January 17, Blizzard issued another announcement, claiming that it proposed to extend the game service for six months based on the existing cooperation terms, but NetEase refused. In NetEase's reply, Blizzard's appeal was described as "giving and taking, riding a donkey to find a horse, and divorce without leaving one", which was supported by the vast majority of players.
"StarCraft" commentator Huang Xudong was even more blunt in publicly criticizing this announcement, "The public relations that pretend to die are much better than this public relations, which is simply a disaster in the public relations industry, and the brother who wrote this announcement will not be able to find a job in this industry." He doesn't understand the players at all, he doesn't understand the industry, he doesn't understand what we're thinking. ”
On January 20, Hearthstone officially announced the rules of the 2023 Hearthstone tournament, which proudly wrote, "Chinese mainland players cannot participate in the event, if we find a Chinese partner during the event, we will re-evaluate the eligibility to participate." ”
The doors of Hearthstone's tavern are closed
You know, many e-sports events organized by games that have not been able to obtain the national server version have not banned Chinese players from participating. And such an announcement leaked before the national server was stopped, which further intensified the anger of all Blizzard players.
"Arrogance" and "not treating players as people" have become Blizzard's hard-to-wash labels, and after the national service is suspended, players who originally had the idea of continuing the frontier may also stop.
Last day
The day of closing the service still came as scheduled. Countless players have written their youth stories with Blizzard Games in various communities, perhaps no longer regretting the game, but leaving a memorial for their youth.
The Dark of Blood Eclipse made a whole life, released the video "I did a white thing for my game account", and received 443,000 views on station B. On the last day of the stoppage, he played "Overwatch" live until the service.
When the announcement was first made in November, Blood Erosion Dark hadn't been on the game for a long time, "because I couldn't accept the fact that as long as I didn't play the game, it was as if nothing had happened." Later, I couldn't help it, he still went online to play. Until three days before the suspension of the service, he reported the plug-in he encountered in the game, and the next day the plug-in was still banned, "Everything is in order, I heard that the NetEase team cut only ten people left, but they are still doing things even at this time, and there is really no real sense of closing the service." ”
Silent crying is the saddest. The release of "Overwatch: Return" is not even less than four months, and before the national server players have had the opportunity to experience the PVE mode, everything came to an abrupt end, "In fact, we Overwatch players experienced it once, just when Overwatch stopped serving, that day everyone welcomed "Overwatch: Return" with both sadness and longing. Now that I think about it, it was like an advance dress rehearsal. ”
In the NGA's Azeroth Council Chamber, a message "Where would you choose to go offline in World of Warcraft?" , received 1801 floor replies. Players posted their last photos with the continent of Azeroth, and behind each picture seemed to be a silent sigh.
Zatie chose to let his characters of different races go offline in the most suitable location for this race, and took photos, "It may sound like a middle two, but I feel that if I am such a character in this world, I will sleep in this world where I should go." ”
On the last day of the shutdown, #Hearthstone # four words appeared on Weibo hot search for the first time in nine years, Hearthstone section became the most popular section in the live broadcast platform for a while, each anchor finally logged in to his account to open a game, and when he was halfway through, he faced the two big words "close" that suddenly appeared.
Underneath is a row of small print: "Unable to log in through the Blizzard Battle.net service." Please wait a few minutes and try again. "This may be the last time Blizzard will break its word.
May the wind guide your way, and when the wind comes, the road is not yet visible.