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Kotaku: Here's What Blizzard's Titan Actually Was

N

Nibel

Member
In the wake of yesterday's news that Blizzard has officially cancelled Titan, we can share a bit about what the project was meant to be: a massive multiplayer PC game in which players could both maintain non-combat professions and shoot their way through death-matches on a sci-fi version of Earth.

Blizzard declined to offer any details about the game when I reached out yesterday, but over the past 24 hours, I've talked to half a dozen people who saw or played the ambitious project, all of whom spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk publicly about what they knew. They've helped paint a broad picture of what was planned for Titan in the years before the game was drastically overhauled in 2013.

[...]

All of the people who described the game to me made a lot of Team Fortress comparisons both in terms of aesthetics and gameplay.

Not only would players have been able to run their own businesses and shops, according to one source, they could maintain relationships with non-player customers and retail staff, even starting families thanks to a complicated AI system that Blizzard hoped to implement. (One source told me that Blizzard had hired a number of former Maxis staff who worked on The Sims in order to help put all this together.)

[...]

One source described an early internal presentation of Titan that showed a professional cook saying he has to go, superhero-style, putting a dish in the oven, going out on a mission, and coming back to find that dish perfectly cooked and ready to serve.

[...]

So what was Titan? For starters, according to three people I spoke with, it would have taken place on a near-future version of Earth, in a science-fiction depiction of the world where mankind has successfully fought off an alien invasion. Players would join one of three factions waging a cold war over control of the planet, and zones planned for the game ranged from the west coast of the United States to Europe, South America, and Australia, according to a source. Blizzard's plan was to make the game world huge, and to keep adding areas with expansions in the years after launch.
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Way, way more stuff at the source.

More possible details from reddit: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=131482244&postcount=99
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
So that super ancient rumor that it was The Sims Online x First/Third Person Shooter was actually true?

Edit:

"Sources described the game as an MMO split in two parts: the "real world" and the "shadow world." (Similar in some ways to 2012's The Secret World.) In the real world, you'd craft, socialize, and work; in the shadow world, you'd shoot down enemies and fight through death-match missions with traditional shooter objectives like capture the flag. "

Yeah that sounds like the Matrix-type thing from back then too.

This is a really good article. Nice work Jason.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
As soon as we heard it was cancelled I knew Kotaku would be running a story about what it was within the week.
 
O

Orayn

Member
antitrop said:
Schreier comin' through with the scoop like a boss.
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But the internet told me Kotaku was a clickbait rag that never published anything true or interesting!

JimPanzer said:
So it was Destiny?
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The premise sounds a bit more like Defiance to me. Not really sure what to make of the gameplay; the split between mundane work and sci-fi battles sounds interesting, but really hard to pull off in an entertaining way.
 
X

XANDER CAGE

Member
This sounds like it could have been really cool. I love the idea of maintaining a secret superhero-ish identity. I wonder what crossover there would have been between the "mundane" day to day work and the combat - maybe you'd be working towards combat upgrades or selling them to other players, disguised as whatever your real-world profession was?

The idea is super charming, at least.
 
G

Grisby

Member
So a small team might still be working on something eh? Sounds neat if the job stuff would have worked out.
 
SerTapTap

SerTapTap

Member
...excuse me but how does that sound remotely like Destiny? Am I reading the same article as you guys or did you get an entirely different version of Destiny with non combat professions, a shadow world, stores, literally everything in the article.
 
S

Smooth Operator

Member
Sir TapTap said:
...excuse me but how does that sound remotely like Destiny? Am I reading the same article as you guys or did you get an entirely different version of Destiny with non combat professions, a shadow world, stores, literally everything in the article.
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The answer is simple : They don't read articles.
 
J

Jules Coast

Member
The premise sounds cheesy but it's hard to get a true impression off the article alone. I'd imagine that a bunch of ideas spawned off of this and now there are smaller teams taking aspects or ideas the popped up during Titan's development and fleshing them out to hopefully become their own things. I'm optimistic of what will game/games will be announced in Titan's place.
 
R

Rymuth

Member
The goal, according to one person who worked on the game, was to construct cities that felt like living worlds, full of businesses, shops, and NPCs with schedules and behaviors based on what was happening at any given time.
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Waaaay too ambitious, imho.
 
T

The End

Member
wwm0nkey said:
Destiny doesn't have 3 factions fighting for control over earth.....

How are you guys making these Destiny connections?
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sgzmekt9ou6btyflherq.png
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I found the old rumor circa 2010: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=384436

MMORPG.com said:
Report: Blizzard's Next MMO an MMOFPS?
Posted Jan 08, 2010 by Michael Bitton

Blue's News is reporting on a rumor story originating from French gaming site NoFrag that Blizzard's next MMO may actually be an MMOFPS. The report, which has been put through The Google, states that the game would contain a social / lifestyle element a'la The Sims, alongside an FPS component where players would vie for objectives. Seems like an odd pairing.

...

UPDATE: User Artaryl offers his own translation:

Artaryl said:
Blizzard is working on a MMOFPS
Information obtained (which are from someone inside, near that project) sustain that the next MMO from Blizzard would be in part a FPS. It would be in a futuristic universe. That will be a clear change from MMORPG like World of Warcraft.

In this new MMO, each players would have 2 "life": It's first would be a sort on Sims Online, big hub with social interactions and the possibility to connect yourself to a second life. That second life would be the combat part in subjective view (third person perhaps).

We do not have more details for now. We must precise however that this project got nothing to do with the rumors on a Call of Duty MMO.
Click to expand...

Source: http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/15919/Report-Blizzards-Next-MMO-an-MMOFPS.html
Click to expand...
 
U

ultron87

Member
Nice work, Jason!

I really like this concept but don't know if it sounds like it is the best thing suited for an MMO. I can't really think of another game that has had you managing a "mundane" life while also taking part in super powered combat. I'd be really interested to see if they could make that balancing act fun while also letting people focus on just one half if they wanted to. It is extremely possible that they weren't able to do this. The problem I'd see is that putting a ton of effort to "construct cities that felt like living worlds, full of businesses, shops, and NPCs with schedules and behaviors based on what was happening at any given time" might be kind of wasted in a genre where people really quickly stop caring about the world, characters, or story and boil it down to the quickest mechanical method to achieve their goal. People probably wouldn't care about developing some relationship with an NPC or learning someone's schedule. On Day 3 of the beta there'd just be a wiki with the best customer to befriend and when the vendor shows up at a place.
 
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