Blizzard confirms "Titan" MMO

[Dresden]

Quoted from Blues: http://www.bluesnews.com/s/116899/blizzard-confirms-titan-mmog

Blizzard Confirms Titan MMOG

[8:51 pm ET] - Share - 3 Comments
The VGA Interviews page on Destructoid has a video interview with Frank Pearce of Blizzard, asking flat out about Titan, the project revealed in a recent document leak. He comes out and admits this is their next-gen MMOG, but says that the media shouldn't know anything about it, and that the only discussion of the project at the moment is to get word out about it in the industry to help recruit development talent.

About a week ago there was a news leak claiming a release date for Diablo 3 and the name of their previously unnamed MMO by the name of "Titan."

Any speculation as to what it could be?

 

[I.S.T.]

Quoted from Blues: http://www.bluesnews.com/s/116899/blizzard-confirms-titan-mmog

Blizzard Confirms Titan MMOG

[8:51 pm ET] - Share - 3 Comments
The VGA Interviews page on Destructoid has a video interview with Frank Pearce of Blizzard, asking flat out about Titan, the project revealed in a recent document leak. He comes out and admits this is their next-gen MMOG, but says that the media shouldn't know anything about it, and that the only discussion of the project at the moment is to get word out about it in the industry to help recruit development talent.

About a week ago there was a news leak claiming a release date for Diablo 3 and the name of their previously unnamed MMO by the name of "Titan."

Any speculation as to what it could be?

Likely a Diablo or a Starcraft MMORPG.

 

[Grall]

Blizzard has previously mentioned it involves entirely new IP, IE, not based on any existing franchise of theirs.

Too bad perhaps, I would have thoguht a Rock'n'Roll Racing MMO could have been a smash hit!

 

[green.pixel]

Interesting how the project name is the same as cancelled Halo MMO which Ensemble worked on:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/04/13/microsoft-cancelled-halo-mmo-because-of-wii/1

And this MMO may or may not be the same as the unannounced IP?
http://www.incgamers.com/News/22963/blizz-new-ip---outside-scope-of-existing-franchises

Further more:

"Remember, we have two enormous investments," said Kotick. "One in Bungie and the other in another project at Blizzard that we haven't given a lot of visibility to. Those are going to be entirely new intellectual properties.

"But with the recognition that the way to build them is take long amounts of time, lots of capable talent, an enormous amount of capital and you have to have a real roadmap for innovation and creativity. And I think that those are going to be two very good examples from the ground up original ideas."

So, are there two Blizz games, which might be the part of the same universe and thus the same IP, and one Bungie game or one Blizz and one Bungie?

 

[pcchen]

I always want to play a Hydralisk in a Starcraft MMO It's a hunter and a rogue, perfect combination!

 

[Grall]

How do you socialize in a hive mind-controlled civilization though...? You'd all be extensions of whatshername's consciousness. Doesn't seem to give lots of room for flavor text on your quest givers and so on...

 

[eastmen]

From what I understand Titan is a MMO like Planet side.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Blizzard is going to make a FPS?

Regards,
SB

 

[I.S.T.]

Blizzard is going to make a FPS?

Regards,
SB

That could actually turn out well...

 

[eastmen]

Blizzard is going to make a FPS?

Regards,
SB

Blizzard + Bungie .....

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Yeah, most people suspect it's going to be an FPS. Notice how they always avoid the term MMORPG...
Although I don't think WoW is a role playing game at all. I admit that I've seen very little from it, but that looked like an action game with a lot of upgrading systems to facilitate the constant motivation for the players. There might be some people who try to act in character, but that's clearly not the focus for Blizzard. Most people I know who play WoW do it for the cooperative dungeon crawling part, and actually leave the game once they've explored the new stuff and only subscribe again when a new expansion is released.

Which also makes for a very interesting question, is Blizzard going to stick to this general formula with new settings, gameplay mechanics and systems - or are they going to do a game that's fundamentally different?
And the economics complicate it all a lot further, a subscription based game is evidently a better return of investment, but new content isn't enough on its own to keep players attached to it. Every large scale success story in the past few years had some serious psychological elements, like Farmville and WoW, and it also shows that there are alternatives to the RPG heritage stat and loot systems. A lot of people might want something different, or something that's easier to get into (WoW's GUI is downright scary) so there are reasons to try something different. On the other hand a lot of these crazes are short lived and people move on to the next thing, but an MMO is such a big investment that it has to keep it's user base for at least 5 years or so, which means there are very big risks with this decision as well. Then again, it's obvious that Blizzard's the greatest authority on this field.

So it's going to be very interesting to see what this game is going to be like.

Oh and Kotick is talking about one Blizzard and one Bungie game, how they are investing in these two studios to develop completely new IP.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Forgot to add the issue of microtransactions - WoW doesn't support it, but all the Facebook games and some others are free to play and make their piles of money from that. Activision may want to try to tap into that source of income as well.

 

[aaronspink]

Oh and Kotick is talking about one Blizzard and one Bungie game, how they are investing in these two studios to develop completely new IP.

WoW generates insane revenue right now but that too will eventually come to an end, so it is just good business to divert some money into future potential cash cows.

 

[aaronspink]

From what I understand Titan is a MMO like Planet side.

The market could actually use a new game like Planetside. It really was a fun game and considering that all the FPS have started to go to mini versions of planetside for their multiplayer...

 

[Kaotik]

WoW generates insane revenue right now but that too will eventually come to an end, so it is just good business to divert some money into future potential cash cows.

Eventually perhaps - but when exactly? The WoW playerbase has been growing for 6 years now and keeps doing so.

 

[eastmen]

Eventually perhaps - but when exactly? The WoW playerbase has been growing for 6 years now and keeps doing so.

Ultima online peaked at 250k users back in 2000 (big for the time )they still consistantly get 100-150k users a month playing the game some 13 years after release .


Wow might never go away but the growth curve will start to fall off. Players will eventualy get burnt out of the game and blizzard will need to go ever larger with content. At some point the subscriber base will contract and then stabilize . When it happens I dunno but I think after catacylsm its going to happen. mabye later in 2011 when some big mmorpgs come out like sw tor , guild wars 2 and other stuff.

Laa-Yosh Forgot to add the issue of microtransactions - WoW doesn't support it, but all the Facebook games and some others are free to play and make their piles of money from that. Activision may want to try to tap into that source of income as well.

Wow supports macro transactions which are bigger micro transactions. Look at hte last time they did a mount for charity. They charged $15 for it and kept half the cost while giving the other half to charity.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Wasn't aware of that... but the approach I've been talking about is to have a lot of microtransactions. A lot. Look how much money Farmville has been making...

 

[Grall]

Afaik, the mount was always all profit lining Booby Kootie's pocket. The charity thing they did was selling the Pandaren monk companion pet for about one and a half or two months for ten bucks, and giving half to charity. Then the rest of the year it was no charity whatsoever and still ten bucks asking price. This year they've repeated themselves with a moonkin hatchling companion.

50% to charity for a limited time sure beats nothing to charity, but I can't help feeling it's effing greedy to keep half the cash when you're advertising you're doing something charitable. And to make it a limited time only.

We WoW players already paid for the artist(s) who designed, painted and animated that thing. IMO they should have made 100% proceeds go to charity in perpetuity.

 

[cjo]

Afaik, the mount was always all profit lining Booby Kootie's pocket. The charity thing they did was selling the Pandaren monk companion pet for about one and a half or two months for ten bucks, and giving half to charity. Then the rest of the year it was no charity whatsoever and still ten bucks asking price. This year they've repeated themselves with a moonkin hatchling companion.

50% to charity for a limited time sure beats nothing to charity, but I can't help feeling it's effing greedy to keep half the cash when you're advertising you're doing something charitable. And to make it a limited time only.

We WoW players already paid for the artist(s) who designed, painted and animated that thing. IMO they should have made 100% proceeds go to charity in perpetuity.

Apparently Blizzard did'nt have time to make a companion for the 6th anniversary event - they only had enough time to make lil ragnaros and the moonkin, which they make £10 and £5 from respectively.

 

[eastmen]

Wasn't aware of that... but the approach I've been talking about is to have a lot of microtransactions. A lot. Look how much money Farmville has been making...

I've played fronterville cause my gf is addictied to it and its made from thos ewho make farmville.

The problem is that its not really all that micro. They try to get you to do macro transactions. For example they have horse shoes which are almost impossible to get inside of the game. But you need them to build special houses and items. So they will sell you 20 horseshoes for 10 bucks. But when your looking at that $10 transaction they have options all the way up to $50 bucks.

They also make it so not only do you need to spend money but you need to drag friends into it. When they first hit they were popular , i remember mafia wars and other things , but it seems more and more there is a larger back lash against these apps. I don't know if the trend will be continued growth for them.


I also don't know the longeivity of these vs traditional mmorpgs. How long will eq2 last as free to play or lotro ? Ultima online is 13 years old with the $10 a month payment system. EQ1 is 11 years old , eq2 was what 7 years with the monthly sub plan.

I'm not aware of any big mmorpg that has sucessful microtransactions that have lasted nearly as long.


Original ultima online was meant to be a microtransaction fest , paying per hour played instead of monthly and paying to acess more content along with that fee. They scraped it and it seems 13 years later they made the right choice.