Blizzard Delays Titan MMO

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
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I saw on MMO Champion's Twitter that Blizzard has pushed Titan back to at least 2016, which includes an overhaul:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content...l-2016-Titan-project-reset-delayed-until-2016
Titan project "reset", delayed until 2016
Venturebeat broke the news earlier today that Titan has been "reset" and will be delayed until at least 2016. The decision was announced to employees a couple of days ago and sources close to the project gave us more details on the subject:

Blizzard felt that Titan wasn't going in the right direction and decided to make significant technological and design changes to the game. This happened in the past with Starcraft and Warcraft 3.
A smaller dev team will be in charge of redesigning the project and about 60 or 70 developers are being moved to other teams (WoW, Blizzard All-Stars, Diablo 3 expansion, Battle.net)

Blizzard didn't officially comment on the subject yet, hopefully this is a step in the right direction and Titan won't have the same fate as Starcraft: Ghost.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,107
1,260
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Too bad they didn't do the same thing prior to releasing the Diablo 3 failure, it might have managed to salvage that pile of fail from turning out so poorly.

edit, also :

Jay Wilson'd


They moved him onto Titan, took him all of a few months to deep-six it. LOL!
 
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Anteaus

Platinum Member
Oct 28, 2010
2,448
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They weren't in much of a hurry with Titan anyway. They had said in the past that it was a completely different type of MMO and wouldn't compete directly with WoW or its derivatives. I can only imagine what kind of craziness it was before the reset.
 

MichaelBarg

Member
Oct 30, 2012
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I'll happily wait for a good game instead of a bad one. Even taking into account the Diablo 3 misfire, Blizzard has been well served by not releasing until the game is good and ready. If it really turns out to be an authentically new kind of MMO as they are talking about it could easily have a few dead-end ideas before getting it right.
 

Anteaus

Platinum Member
Oct 28, 2010
2,448
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But what IS Titan? Do we know anything at all but that it will be an MMO?

Not really. All blizzard announced a while back was that it was an MMO, that it wasn't based on any known IP, and that it would be different enough from WOW and others like it that it wouldn't compete directly.

If anyone is hoping for a MMO based on Diablo or Starcraft I wouldn't hold your breath. That was one area they were explicit. Of course anything can happen between now and 2016, but unless they state otherwise I'm going to assume they still mean to do something completely new.
 

maniacalpha1-1

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2010
3,562
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Wait, am I confusing this with something else or did I not recently hear that it would be based on different periods of world history? If that WAS Titan, is that even preserved?
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I'll happily wait for a good game instead of a bad one. Even taking into account the Diablo 3 misfire, Blizzard has been well served by not releasing until the game is good and ready. If it really turns out to be an authentically new kind of MMO as they are talking about it could easily have a few dead-end ideas before getting it right.

I don't know. I wonder if Blizzard is a bit too full of themselves after the massive success of World of Warcraft. They essentially entered a genre that was fairly stagnant, and took it to incredible new heights that no one would have expected. So, the reason why I say that is that Blizzard seems to be willing to use their typical "When it's done" mantra in areas where that might be a really bad idea. For example, Blizzard turned Blizzard All-Stars from a custom StarCraft II map (that was playable in the Starter Edition) into a full-fledged game. The problem is that supposedly, (if my memory serves me correctly) this game won't even be out until next year. They're entering into a community that already has a huge presence in League of Legends and another large contender coming with Valve's Defense of the Ancients II.

Now, Titan does have a bit of an advantage in that the MMO marketplace is slightly stagnant, but I'm also going to clarify that by saying that it's the paid MMO marketplace that's stagnant. Free-to-Play games are doing fairly well, and that's what Titan is rumored to be. So, will Titan have a place in three or more years? That's a pretty big gamble, but I do think that having Blizzard's name on the title will definitely gather a lot of interest.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
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Interesting decision, it must be very costly and time-consuming to re-design a game from square one and also reorganize teams to work for it (especially for Blizzard considering the general scope of their games and the market they're going for to nourish their company's thirst).

Not to mention that designing another MMO that's going to compete directly with their own WoW... which is something else I don't quite understand fully, I.E. why competing against WoW with Titan? They're pretty much asking their WoW consumers to move on to Titan, that's like another Blizzard team working on another Action hack 'n slash RPG to compete directly against Diablo III. That or maybe I'm just not seeing the bigger picture here (and if so please enlighten me, I'm genuinely asking here).

Anyway, ultimately I think that their decision has something to do with the upcoming consoles generation. It's of course possible that originally their Titan project was to become a PC exclusive (and then perhaps later on end up on consoles after being ported to them) and that recently they just decided to go "reset mode" on it so as to work from the XBOX One's and/or PS4's hardware first, and then end up with a multi-platform release from day one (along with a PC version).

If, however, it really is just about art direction, technology/engine, game-play features and so on, without having anything to do with consoles or the future market(s) they want to target with that game then I applaud them for taking the risk to do so (but of course they actually do have the money and resources to pretty much reset their own games like that, not all devs out there can go "hey let's restart this guys!" without a hitch, especially not a financial one).
 
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Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
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I'm wondering if Blizzard will even be around in 2016. Well, I guess they will be. Diablo 3 has proven even when Blizzard "fails" they make incredible profits.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
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I'm wondering if Blizzard will even be around in 2016. Well, I guess they will be. Diablo 3 has proven even when Blizzard "fails" they make incredible profits.

if..they are something like 75-85% of activision profits.
 

TidusZ

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2007
1,765
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I'm wondering if Blizzard will even be around in 2016. Well, I guess they will be. Diablo 3 has proven even when Blizzard "fails" they make incredible profits.

Well tbh it was their first huge failure and many didn't see it coming. I preordered D3 without hesitation, but the old blizzard is dead and they can't be counted on not to release garbage anymore.

It only took jay Wilson a few months to destroy years of work on Titan. Why does this man still have a job
 

imaheadcase

Diamond Member
May 9, 2005
3,850
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I suspect the delay is because of WOW subs dropping off fast they want a MMO that has lasting power as it was. When they first announced it wow was still doing ok, well financially it still is, but playerbase wise not so good.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
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Long ways out but I'm curious to see it; it might take the company behind WoW to really break this segment of games (MMOs) out of the WoW mold. Or maybe it won't even be an MMORPG, who knows.
 

Joeydubbs

Senior member
Jun 11, 2008
214
2
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Give the masses what they want...World of StarCraft (or more likely StarCraft Universe). Or take the nuclear option and make WoW2. WoW is almost 10 years old...time to move on :)

This timeframe will give them 1 (maybe 2) more WoW expacs before they would be competing with each other
 

Nintendesert

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2010
7,761
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I don't know of any MMO sequels that have surpassed or even remotely gotten close to the success of the original. Blizzard wouldn't do a WoW2.

Whatever they were trying to do with Titan is probably completely tossed now. That's a lot of developers being moved to different projects.
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,202
4,401
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What ever the reason, you have to admit that this does not bode well for their new game. I bet their completely new and innovative just wasn't fun to play. So, they made the decision to scrap it and make a more traditional game, and considering the timing of this announcement, probably design it for the next gen consoles.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
It doesn't bode anything for the game. Both WC3 and WoW had scrapping/redesign phases and if Morhaime hadn't sold the company out, D3 probably wouldn't have been released as soon as it was.
 

Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
18,811
197
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My personal opinion on the issue, Titan is going to be free to play.

There are so many FTP games on steam why would anyone buy WOW and all of the expansions?

My step-son plays a lot of MMO games. He left WOW to play guild wards 2.