Titan project "reset", delayed until 2016

[Osmeric]

Why did they even anounce this

They announced it internally, since it affects where people are in the company. This information leaked out, and then they had to make a statement. It wasn't publicly announced first.

[Deleted]

I think was a very smart move from Blizz, the market in 2006 is very diferent from the market today, and right now we have a ton of mmo's in the market for every taste and some with enough quality to break people's curiosity and make them switch to other titles when they think the current game they play is not in their standards.

D3 was one of those games who suffered with the amount of dev time, and more mmo's are coming and promissing franshises, WoW is doing good but the shift to more casual gameplay bite it hard, only core gamers and devoters stay in the games, the rest enjoy it but are volatile clients who wander from game to game, Blizz are not dumb, how can a company who generate a billion dollar revenue per year with a single IP be dumb?

I think they are going to wait and see how the market gonna go with the upcoming mmo's and then decide how Titan going to fit in the market, times are changing.

[zingar]

LF new game until 2016.....any suggestions :[

/Sad nerd today.

really? my backlog consists of about 200 games and people need more? o0

---------- Post added 2013-05-29 at 11:11 PM ----------

Blizzard has long forgotten how to make new games. Its not shocking at all it was delayed. WoW has been on the decline and with the 1 year subs expired from the D3 promo they have no way of skewing or stabilizing the subscription numbers. D3 was terrible and lets be real, most only played SC2 for the story...multiplayer was dull and too similar to SC1 which was a decade old, absolutely nothing innovative. They couldn't even balance it well, there was always one race that was the flavor of each patch because it was just that much better then the other two.

starcraft multiplayer dull? really? just because its old it doesnt mean anything. heck take a loot at sports or even chess
theyre hundreds of years old yet still played to this day
and badly balanced? everyone i know its kind of surprised by how well balanced HoTS especially considering how new it is

[Duster505]

I think if you were intelligent you could ask your question, yet think much more laterally. I am not saying you are stupid or anything like that but let's have a think about this:

Who cares as you say?

Many people care. This is the top game maker in the world (or in top3) and they have a new MMO coming out? They made the best MMO of all time and A NEW MMO IS COMING WITH 8-10 YEARS OF DEV?? Well, then I forgive you Blizz for Wow falling into the bucket of mediocrity for the past 3 years.

Yet, the game is not ready, and seemingly a) they don't know where to take it b) they are not sure the vision they had of it is such a good idea c) it might never come out d) they decided they need to make wow 2 after all, which is the theory I believe in.

Anyways to answer your Q. A lot of people care and the reason they announce this is because their stock is dropping and their huge cash cow is in freefall. By announcing this game which-we-dont-know-what-it-even-is is to be shelved and for the Wow team and DIII to get reinforcements, and one can only imagine this means their best guys back on it, some 6 months ahead of Blizzcon and announcement of next expansion, well this will have a big impact. Expect something massive for next expansion. Something to breathe new life into the game. Then everyone will say, AHA this is why they went to Wow again and this is going to be amazing. And this will snowball and they get a few million back.

It's a smart move. And welcomed by many that frankly, didn't want to see too many franchises. The fact they have a major motion picture coming at some point for Wow means they are not even close to letting it die soon and even though it is in freefall as I said (and I really believe it is) they have created such a rich, beautiful world that it would be a crime and a business/money making suicide to let it go like that.

This is all good news for Wow players.

Gonna be interesting to see the old devs go back and think they can take over again..... You obviously think its gonna be great. I think its gonna be one big piss contest that ends in a total mess. We have already seen the PVP mess in MOP with new leading dev jumping in and wanting to change the world... The real life world that is... Just goes to show that if you dont have a real vision and knowledge of your game... you are not gonna puff up some amazing stuff in few months or even years...

Basicly - they could put up one more PR show and make it look that its gonna be great... but it wont last and quite frankly.... Blizzard simply can not take many more negative and lackluster games or expansions after last 2 years. They need one that really sticks but is not just hype. PPL were hoping Titan was gonna be that game.. but obviously not.

But you can expect alot of new talked about features and content in the Blizzcon hype - Probably with annual pass and promise of early beta access like few months later.... but if that is gonna turn WOW or even put some believe back in what BLizzard is doing with their games.... I doubt it.

[Methusula]

Im sure somewhere in the 32 pages of this thread someone already said this, but aside from the fact that this could be good for the new mmo, it could also breathe life back into WoW. Not only will there be more dev attention, but there are likely a lot of players who will reinvest in the game(referring to time, energy and enthusiasm).

[quras]

Blizzard has become really shady over the past few years. The most recent events.


Promising stuff on the box of a WoW expansion that never made it into the game.
Waiting until 2 days after Christmas to state team pvp for D3 was delayed for an untold amount of time, they waited until the Christmas sale rush to drop that news.
Waiting after Blizzcon tickets sold out to state Titan was being delayed. I am sure a lot of people only bought tickets because they assumed Titan would be shown.
The whole dailies fiasco on MoP at the start.

Countless D3 blunders, duping, gold exploits. Unfairly making peoples gear BoA just for the fact they bought gems on the day people found the gold bug, even if they didn't dupe gold themselves. The horrible release, the terrible update frequencies, the horrible communication, question avoidance about itemization.

The complete gutting of D3 around 8months before release. Hell, the entire way D3 has been handled has been one shady thing after another.

So much truth there ^ it's probably hard for some to read and take it.

[I stand in fire]

While I am sad to hear about Titan's delay, I trust Blizzard's judgement.

[Osmeric]

Gonna be interesting to see the old devs go back and think they can take over again..... You obviously think its gonna be great. I think its gonna be one big piss contest that ends in a total mess.

Or maybe the "B Team" that took over for Cataclysm and MoP is being demoted, and the old top devs are being brought back to get the ship back onto course. No "piss contest", just a change in leadership.

Two expansions in a row they've had problems with casual engagement. Maybe the people who pleased the casuals in Wrath are the ones to fix it.

[Celista]

Or maybe the "B Team" that took over for Cataclysm and MoP is being demoted, and the old top devs are being brought back to get the ship back onto course. No "piss contest", just a change in leadership.

Two expansions in a row they've had problems with casual engagement. Maybe the people who pleased the casuals in Wrath are the ones to fix it.

Problems with casual engagement or problems with emotional involvement? Deathwing encounter/buildup should have been epic, and a good deal of the playerbase was like "who the hell is Deathwing?" last expansion. People push through content to down bosses that they care about. MoP is the most casual friendly expansion ever yet we lose 1.3 mil subs in one quarter? I'd be interested in knowing why we are losing subs even if they are "mostly from the East" and not a design flaw.

[Nearmyth]

I just hope this means better content for WoW (if some of the team is moving to WoW). I am very curious to see what Titan is... or was, though.

[Deleted]

The big change of direction was made FOR Wrath. Wrath was the huge change of direction, from progression oriented, to "everyone has the right to see all content", and the super easy modes and so on. Incidentially, it was during Wrath that the game stopped growing. What has happened since Wrath is basically a number of not very successful steps to undo whatever changes broke the magic, but since Blizzard has taken a long time to realize exactly WHAT it was that they broke with the Wrath change of course, the broken has not yet been unbroken, and because psychology isn't a simple on-off switch, they may never be able to get the community to fall back into love with WoW after falling out of love over along period of time. It'a like a relationship between lovers, and one starts being bad, and eventually the other part breaks up ("You're not the same game I once fell in love with. Sorry but I don't love you anymore"), and even though the first part (Blizzard, in this case) may start getting their s**t together, the two may not get back together anyway because too much time has passed and the other has already moved on.

[Osmeric]

The big change of direction was made FOR Wrath. Wrath was the huge change of direction, from progression oriented, to "everyone has the right to see all content", and the super easy modes and so on. Incidentially, it was during Wrath that the game stopped growing. What has happened since Wrath is basically a number of not very successful steps to undo whatever changes broke the magic,

You're repeating the Big Hardcore Lie here. If lower difficulty were the problem, then ramping it back up again should have fixed it. But it didn't; the decline got worse. The theory that "Wrath was too easy" was disconfirmed by the experience in Cataclysm, and by the raid numbers for Cataclysm and MoP.

And, really, the numbers can't add up for your theory. The game has shed close to 4 million active accounts since the peak. There were nowhere close to 4 million hardcore players. And if you look at actual progression numbers, even Wrath was too hard for most players.

[johnnysd]

Problems with casual engagement or problems with emotional involvement? Deathwing encounter/buildup should have been epic, and a good deal of the playerbase was like "who the hell is Deathwing?" last expansion. People push through content to down bosses that they care about. MoP is the most casual friendly expansion ever yet we lose 1.3 mil subs in one quarter? I'd be interested in knowing why we are losing subs even if they are "mostly from the East" and not a design flaw.

Here's what I believe. The last two expansions DID NOT cater to the casuals they really only catered to hard core players.

The secret to appealing to both hardcore and casual players is actually a oxymoron. The pace of the game needs to be SLOWER not faster. That is how you keep people interested.

WOW became ALL about endgame, but vanilla and BC were really not about end game. They were about the journey. And that journey took a really really ling time. I think it took me like 9 months to get to level 60 in vanilla. It took me a couple weeks to max a panda.

I always thought that WOW was brilliant because everything was designed around time. It took a long time to do anything. You were out in the world using transportation that could take 10 minutes from place to place. And some quests could take weeks alone just to finish. But the world felt real and super large. It was a home and we spent a very very long time in it with very little advancement but the journey was fun. It was rewarding.

Not its just a race. Take 2 days to max level again (why even bother) grind mindless dailies for a month and then endlessly grind raids and LFR for purple loot. SNOOZE.

If you want to fix WOW, bring back the journey and increase the duration of that journey. That will bring casuals back. Not faster leveling and easier end game talent.

[anyaka21]

With that kind of news, I wonder what was wrong?

[AK_47]

Glad they took that decision. Much wiser than delivering a half made game that needs patches and only feels like a real game after a year.

We don't even know what it is anyway, so it's not like we'll be impatient for anything.

Now that they took this decision, give us Starcraft: Ghost ! (we can always find something to complain about )

[Eleveneleven]

Well they clearly had no idea what they were doing so now I have no confidence that they're gonna deliver something "next gen" or the next big thing. Sounds like they completely lack direction now (unless it's SC). I swear this company has gone to heck just like Square when they became Squeenix. The only game they seem to get right anymore is SC which bums me out because it's more niche than their other titles.

[Zaqwert]

The problem with increasing the difficulty is people get very used to EZ mode and get lazy.

Had Wrath not been so easy nobody would have minded early Cata being hard, however once people had EZ mode given to them trying to take it back makes them freak out.

[killidan]

I'm still not sure why they needed a reset.

Almost everyone thinks it is because the Titan gameplay fundamentals or the engine Titan was based on were not good enough. Someone on these forums also suggested that Titan, rumored to be an MMOFPS, would be in direct competition with Activision/Destiny's MMOFPS. It Destiny's MMOFPS/HaloMMO seemed like a much better game, then I can see Blizzard getting the shaft from Activision. If that is the case, then Titan may evolve into a different genre, perhaps another MMORPG to come out as WoW2 while WoW slowly winds down.

Lot of questions and no answers...

[Pallamouna]

Here my opinion.
How many years passed,since we saw that paper says about titan at 2014?Do u thing Blizz as company is stupid?U thing the only reason for the dealy is what they say?Well atm wow is the ONLY game u need to pay for play.Rift was the one with wow and become f2p.Even if Blizz say about the loss of china subs(really what u expect about china players?they play every f2p game and when a new one comes they abandon the old one,the majority of them, something the Eu or Usa players didnt do) wow still have millions players they PAY evry month.So make the wow f2p and release Titan fast that will be a loss for Blizz.Coz im sure wow will become f2p coz all of us or the most of us we will go to Titan.Also new generation mmos and other games like wot or war thunder are f2p(hmmm not exactly).
Blizz makes lot of money from wow so they dont need to rush for Titan.And ofc a not rush means better game with not to many bugs mistakes and patches every 2 days.

[skatblast]

just release a few vanilla servers already.