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Blizzard Cancels Next-Gen MMO Titan
- Thread starter Deadly Cyclone
- Start date
That Wont Fit In There
Member
You da real mvp
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Blizzard shouldn't forsake their current consumer base by consolizing the combat to risk getting another consumer base that doesn't have the investment that the 10 year one has.
Orthogonal
Member
That is a very interesting theory. We'll never know.
They scrapped plenty of project before when it's not to their standard quality. They started StarCraft back from scratch after deleting their first version that was near release, they canned the first Diablo 3 iteration and they cancelled StarCraft Ghost after years in development as well.
That kind of super-ambitious project often winds up dissolving into ideas that get used in other games. Valve, for example, was planning to release something called "Prospero" shortly after Half-Life. It was a very high concept pseudo-MMO of sorts, but it never materialized and wound up further inspiring some of the story and aesthetics of Half-Life, as well as some features of Steam.
yankeeforever2
Member
7 years of MMO development is insane though, the amount of money they spent on this is way more than any of those.
Hard to even guess the amount of money spent when we don't know what was going on for those seven years. I doubt a large number of people were working on it full time for most of that.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
That's a lot of dough down the drain.
Willing to be some concepts make it into the next few WoW x-pacs, though.
Willing to be some concepts make it into the next few WoW x-pacs, though.
The subscriber base for WoW is what, about 7m at the moment?
Even assuming some kind of discounting, even at an average sub price of $10 they're generating $70m a month.
I've no idea what the infrastructure & other costs are, but $50m over 7 years on those numbers isn't huge (especially since the dev time took them through the peak of WoW subs, which hit 12.5m in 2010).
Finaika
Member
I thought the first Diablo 3 iteration was higher quality?
Well, nobody knows because it was never released, but it was a troubled development that involved the departure of some major members of the team, and apparently they spent a lot of time spinning their wheels on ideas that never wound up being fully implemented.
ShiroAmakusa
Member
You completely misjudge the information flow at Blizzard. Almost every employee knew/knows exactly about Titan's goals, designs, and most important of all, the ambition behind the project (and it was goddamn uber-ambitious). All these things have been shared with any employee in good standing with the company, and at least one year seniority, at Show & Tell events.
Security is very tight and Blizz doesn't take leaks lightly. I don't know about about legal actions beyond contract terminations but Blizz' Internal Affairs was/is a force you didn't want to mess with. Leaks used to happen all the time nevertheless and several people lost their job because of it. The few Titan leaks I was able to spot on the web mingle with the huge load of rumours about said project, making it impossible for non-employees to tell apart facts from guesses.
On topic, I'm not surprised Titan died but I'll be damned if some ideas won't find their way into a different project eventually.
oldschoolpinball
Member
did this mean now wow gets bigger and faster since the team isnt working on titan anymore?
At most from what Morhaime and Metzen have said in the past it was just some very small development teams seeing what they could come up with. I very much doubt they'd have any hard working prototypes or such, and most likely just art/sound design.
I believe he is talking about the visuals leaked from original Diablo 3, which had far higher
they mostly got moved to other projects like a year ago
That's very true. It still hurts, though
Blizz North made my favourite childhood games.
Those textures don't look better to me. You can say what you want about the art direction, but literally all we have are those leaked shots, anyone saying that looks better is basing their opinion on nothing at all.
Well, technically we are basing our opinion on something, the leaked shots. But yes, the quality is somewhat lower and I shouldn't have said it was higher quality. Art direction-wise it looks far better than (imo) what current Diablo 3 offers. Sanctuary just looks amazingly awesome in that.
BloodMoney
Banned
"Otay"
SargerusBR
I love Pokken!
Huh...Nothing at all?
ChosenPredator
Banned
okay well the least they can do is release some of the concept art/videos they've work on..to show it off to us
I don't think Hearthstone was a case of them being dead set on making a tablet game, it was just a great idea that happened to be easily adapted to a touch interface.
scytheavatar
Member
IMHO it's a lot easier to believe it precisely because of their claim that Titan was supposed to re-revolutionize mmos. Every MMO post WoW claim that and only Eve Online came close to achieving that. Blizzard obviously came to the conclusion that re-revolutionize mmos post WoW is impossible and they are better off putting their time and effort on other genres like what they are doing for Hearthstone/HotS.
viveks86
Gold Member
Oh that's good to know
Starbuck2907
Member
They did say in a fairly recent interview that Ghost might appear in some fashion again someday.
Might.
Might.
AusRoachman
Member
I have no interest in MMOS but i would love to know what the concept was, was it scifi, fantasy , something else.
Here is hoping some old concepts leak out
I always had this vision in my head that it was scifi purely because of the codename, but then i doubt acti would be so big on destiny if blizzard were also doing it.
Here is hoping some old concepts leak out
I always had this vision in my head that it was scifi purely because of the codename, but then i doubt acti would be so big on destiny if blizzard were also doing it.It's okay. Activision could always use an extra Call of Duty DLC studio.
Yeah if anything Blizzard output has risen during this time period with all the support, expansions, and ports.
I think that the continued expansions for WoW are showcases of Blizzard learning those lessons and developing on top of them. I think it lowers the risk of marketing an entirely new IP you have a base to grow from and as new expansions come out for WoW they will probably see an uptick in subs in the west. For them to come out with a entirely new IP I would be disappointing if it was just an MMO not more in the brand.
Also another thing they don't mention how many people play WoW in China afaik they don't do subs in the region so that has to be a money generator for them still.
I think the Starcraft lore is in the shitter right now so they to fix that before starting an MMO.
There's been no word on that yet. He's Vice President now, though. If any other major new projects are in the works then part of me thinks he'll be on that as opposed to an existing game.
But who knows. Furor came back to WoW last year, so it would be sweet to see Kaplan back also.
Yes Hello Games will shake in fear ... what ?
BreezyLimbo
Banned
True words. Blizzard has learned alot in these past 10 years; tending, amongst others, a singular game. Rose tinted glasses will blind many, however it remains that WoW is better than it ever was before. And they make strides to upgrade the game as it progresses-Starting with Cata, models started receiving alot more care, textures have become even better in the new areas. Pandaria brought upon upgraded systems with even better models than before. Now that WoD is coming, it is an overhaul and replacing of older models as well as many technical upgrades.
As time would have it, there is a reason WoW is one of the few truly successful MMOs. I rank the newest FF14 up there with it-They've done a wonderful job with it. Wildstar came, and then blinked in the night star it's last light; Archeage is upon us, and yet already we have learned throughout the ages what will happen to it; Guild Wars came and contested, one of the few MMOs with a sequel incompatible to it's forebear, and it suffered for it.
If Blizzard says they cancelled Titan because they couldn't find that magic in making a new, huge MMO, I believe them. Personally, I always thought that working on another MMO was bad luck for them.
I'm excited to see what Blizzard has cooked up for the future. Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm are very nice treats that have shaped up extremely well this past year, and Warlords of Draenor has content that makes me excited. Now that the shadow of the Titan is no longer looming over them, maybe they can freely continue to do what they do best-Supporting their games.
Companies that have a constant, high volume source of income do stuff like this all the time, because they can afford to. Valve cancels projects all the time.