Blizzard on Cancelled MMO: "We Failed Horrifically"

[Kryos]

Remember this?

[Kazgrel]

So, here is the real truth - Blizzard had started to improperly use our money long time ago - may be even from day one.

Uh..."our" money? If you're referring to any money you used to purchase a product from them, be it a box copy of a game, WoW sub/services, whatever...it's their money at that point to do whatever the fuck they want.

I'm far from a fan of their current products (especially WoW at this point), but damn, I don't even pretend to be remotely close to that entitlement.

[Kryos]

Yeah, the video holds absolutely no info about Titan. Sad, I wanted to know what was their plan.

Project Titan 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.

The main concept was this: you, the player, would maintain a mundane job—butchering, engineering, entrepreneurship—during the day, while waging clandestine warfare against opposing factions at night (or between work hours).

One potential scenario, described to me by a person who saw the game, might have gone something like this: You're working for a corporation, helping run a shop, when you're called for a mission by your faction, so you run into an elevator, switch outfits superhero-style, and go off to fight enemies with a group of friends or allies. Or you can just ignore the combat and keep doing your job, which could mean anything from tinkering with vehicles as a mechanic to running your own business as an entrepreneur.

Players would be able to select from classes with names like Reaper, Jumper, Titan, Ranger, and Juggernaut, each of which had its own special combat abilities and items, according to a source. Jumpers, for example, would be agile scouts with a teleport ability and the ability to quickly leap in and out of combat. Titans were tanks, while Rangers were snipers with cloaking and other abilities (think Nova from StarCraft II and the ill-fated StarCraft Ghost).

All of the people who described the game to me made a lot of Team Fortress comparisons both in terms of aesthetics and gameplay. Three people who saw the game have compared the aesthetics to Team Fortress 2, with one source describing it as a cross between StarCraft II's in-game cinematics and Pixar's The Incredibles. Your perspective would switch between first- and third-person based on whether you were heading into combat or hanging out in a city, according to two sources—not unlike Bungie's Destiny.

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. Blizzard's goal was to make both courses fun, interesting, and viable, so players could pick for themselves which way they wanted to go through the game.

Multiplayer games have had non-combat professions and tasks before, but from the sounds of it, Blizzard's take was more ambitious and interesting than anything we've seen in the past. 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.)

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. One ambitious planned system would have NPCs recognize players based on their previous interactions—for example, a shopkeeper might have interacted with you differently if you were a frequent customer.

[MoanaLisa]

Relax, I wasn't hyping it up or being overly optimistic, I was just wondering. It's obvious there moving towards other games. FPS/Moba are both hot gaming topics at the moment and blizzard created both hots and over watch, so I already knew another MMO is probably not coming. Over watch is cool though so I wouldn't mind shifting eventually.

Mike Morhaime: "I wouldn't say no to ever doing an MMO again. But I can say that right now, that's not where we want to be spending our time."

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/23/683...ext-gen-mmo-pc

I think that it will be a very long time before they broach this again. This is from 18 months ago and there's nothing in the MMO market to suggest that a brand new MMO at this time would be anything nearly as successful as what they are doing now: smaller games, smaller budgets, big returns when taken as a whole.

I'm sure Titan was a great idea when they started on it in 2007. Seven years later, they still hadn't solved problems and anyone who observes the genre market closely can see that MMO's as a group in 2014 were not the hot ticket they were in the mid-to-late 2000's. The decision to call it off, however difficult, was probably smart since they had a new engine out of the deal along with a lot of other stuff they could cannibalize for Overwatch and future titles.

[Taeldorian]

Mike Morhaime: "I wouldn't say no to ever doing an MMO again. But I can say that right now, that's not where we want to be spending our time."

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/23/683...ext-gen-mmo-pc

I think that it will be a very long time before they broach this again. This is from 18 months ago and there's nothing in the MMO market to suggest that a brand new MMO at this time would be anything nearly as successful as what they are doing now: smaller games, smaller budgets, big returns when taken as a whole.

I'm sure Titan was a great idea when they started on it in 2007. Seven years later, they still hadn't solved problems and anyone who observes the genre market closely can see that MMO's as a group in 2014 were not the hot ticket they were in the mid-to-late 2000's. The decision to call it off, however difficult, was probably smart since they had a new engine out of the deal along with a lot of other stuff they could cannibalize for Overwatch and future titles.

Ah, interesting. I don't think I've seen that blue post until now. I guess that means it's most likely still being thrown around, but currently it's not an option, as you already stated smaller games, smaller budgets, larger returns. I'm assuming that we'll most likely see what they decide to do when WoW actually does end, but for now it seems their main focus is joining in on the games that are currently hot on the market like FPS. I'd say that's a pretty good decision, though.

[daem]

It's for the good in most cases. My favorite band is Tool. I've been waiting for 10 years for their next album. I was 21 years old when 10,000 Days was released and now I'm 31.

This cut me deep

OT it's a humbling video, but it does raise the concerns about the WoW team being on the backburner for the last four or five years. It certainly felt like it. Overwatch is their new baby, the ten year old is old enough to watch over itself now.

[MoanaLisa]

It's an interesting article with Morhaime and Metzen about Titan's cancellation. I pulled the quote from the article. The expectations originally for WoW were rather conservative and it's subsequent success took everyone by surprise. It's not difficult to imagine that the feeling going in to Titan was 'if we could do that by accident, think what we could do if we planned it out'. MMO's are a little bit like writing a large symphony for an orchestra. Sometimes it works, other times not and for reasons that are not always clear at the time. It's the nature of art and game design is very much an art and not a science.

[Deleted]

People keep wanting to believe this kind of nonsense. Clearly a lot of people move around between their various teams.

A distinct group of people on the forums really, really want to find a guy, let's call him Bob, who is single handedly responsible for everything they dislike in some or all of Blizzard's games. There is no Bob in reality, Blizzard has heaps of designers and a complex collaborative design process.

But they desperately need a Bob because then when they see something they don't like they can say "God damnit, Bob. Why doesn't Blizzard just fire Bob?".

that bob is called tom chilton, and to some extend mike morhaime, but they will never fire him fo course.
the company could use a new ceo though.

[Xilurm]

But Square released FF XIV in 2010. It failed and they re-released it while basically remaking it 3 years ago. And it's doing perfectly fine. However that's Square.

If Blizzard was to make another MMO they would have the bonus of simply being "Blizzard"

[Deleted]

Futhermore, I'm confused how they say they're not used to failing, considering how badly WoW is doing.

Sorry, I know this was pages and pages ago but it really makes me laugh. Even if the 5m subscribers WoW has now was the most it had ever had it would still be the most popular MMO in the history of mankind! You can call WoW many things, but a failure it is not. Not even now.

[Tharkkun]

But Square released FF XIV in 2010. It failed and they re-released it while basically remaking it 3 years ago. And it's doing perfectly fine. However that's Square.

If Blizzard was to make another MMO they would have the bonus of simply being "Blizzard"

I don't think players are as loyal as they were 15 years ago. If Blizzard puts out a MMO that is crap they will lose a big fan base. Look at Diablo. Even though D3 was great, it didn't live up to the hype of the fan base so you have tons of people saying it crashed/burned and sucks. Even though it's outselling every game in it's genre.

I won't buy a single thing that EA publishes again. BF3 and ME3 cemented my hatred. Blizzard could land in that boat also if they make decisions that piss me off. Not that 1 customer matters but still.

[Vintersol]

Seriously... the nerdrage in the first posts is amazing. o.o

Sorry, I know this was pages and pages ago but it really makes me laugh. Even if the 5m subscribers WoW has now was the most it had ever had it would still be the most popular MMO in the history of mankind! You can call WoW many things, but a failure it is not. Not even now.

Success? Absolutely. Is it because of awesome content? No. It's like McDonalds. Success? Yes, is the food great? Not even close. WoW has the advantage because it's old and many people are creatures of habit. Massive time investment you won't give up etc. Any other game with the same concept fails because it's not WoW with such an old playerbase.

[Ethenil]

So I guess it was a....

titanic mistake.


Yeah!

[hrugner]

Project Titan 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.

The main concept was this: you, the player, would maintain a mundane job—butchering, engineering, entrepreneurship—during the day, while waging clandestine warfare against opposing factions at night (or between work hours).

One potential scenario, described to me by a person who saw the game, might have gone something like this: You're working for a corporation, helping run a shop, when you're called for a mission by your faction, so you run into an elevator, switch outfits superhero-style, and go off to fight enemies with a group of friends or allies. Or you can just ignore the combat and keep doing your job, which could mean anything from tinkering with vehicles as a mechanic to running your own business as an entrepreneur.

Players would be able to select from classes with names like Reaper, Jumper, Titan, Ranger, and Juggernaut, each of which had its own special combat abilities and items, according to a source. Jumpers, for example, would be agile scouts with a teleport ability and the ability to quickly leap in and out of combat. Titans were tanks, while Rangers were snipers with cloaking and other abilities (think Nova from StarCraft II and the ill-fated StarCraft Ghost).

All of the people who described the game to me made a lot of Team Fortress comparisons both in terms of aesthetics and gameplay. Three people who saw the game have compared the aesthetics to Team Fortress 2, with one source describing it as a cross between StarCraft II's in-game cinematics and Pixar's The Incredibles. Your perspective would switch between first- and third-person based on whether you were heading into combat or hanging out in a city, according to two sources—not unlike Bungie's Destiny.

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. Blizzard's goal was to make both courses fun, interesting, and viable, so players could pick for themselves which way they wanted to go through the game.

Multiplayer games have had non-combat professions and tasks before, but from the sounds of it, Blizzard's take was more ambitious and interesting than anything we've seen in the past. 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.)

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. One ambitious planned system would have NPCs recognize players based on their previous interactions—for example, a shopkeeper might have interacted with you differently if you were a frequent customer.

That sounds interesting and fun. I guess they couldn't figure out how to get the levels of both under control enough for Blizzards aesthetic.

but it would be cool to have a source on this.

[caervek]

So, they are human. They do make mistakes.

Of course they do, WoD was one of them :P

[-Etna-]

Ouch! Why the instant hostility?

Welcome to MMO-Champ.

On topic: At least we got something cool out of it. Been enjoying Overwatch. Goodbye TF2! (For me at least.)

[Deleted]

Gotta say I'm still devastated that Project Titan got cancelled but I get why it was.

[Deleted]

Sorry, I know this was pages and pages ago but it really makes me laugh. Even if the 5m subscribers WoW has now was the most it had ever had it would still be the most popular MMO in the history of mankind! You can call WoW many things, but a failure it is not. Not even now.

I'm not saying WoW's a failure but people need to stop calling that it's clearly NOT a failure just by looking at the current subscribers compared to other MMO's. Sure 5m is more than other MMO's have ever had, but they lost that same amount in less than a year. If they had 20m subscribers last year, would they still not be failing because they clearly have more subs than their competitors?

Let's say they have 12m still in their peak and you would put a disastrous team at that moment on it. They lose 10m subs but still have the most compared to most other MMO's. So it can't be a failure right? Right?! Please, dat logic. And again not saying WoW is totally failing atm but some people's arguments... God.

[Orangetai420]

if you support nost leave the thread now and go bitch in the nost thread like the others, stop spewing your cancer here.

You've already ruined this website in such a short period of time

You act as if the mmo-c community wasn't already shit. Nothing has changed.

[Bosen]

I'm surprised that the team couldn't figure it out. I wonder if previous successes and importance within the company got in their own way of collaborating as a team in the ways they did when originally developing WoW.