Blizzards cancelled MMO's

[Lord Pebbleton]

They were very smart not to go with it.

For starters, they would compete with themselves if they released and managed two MMOs. And secondly, the golden age of MMO has fallen out of fashion super fast, so they would have two massive things to keep afloat, and not just WoW.

I would not like to see a MMO in the Starcraft world because the story pretty much ended with Legacy of the Void. Basing an entire multiplayer game around an excuse for conflict is a terrible premise.

I would not like to see a Diablo MMO because Diablo 3, while a good game, gave me MMO vibes sometimes, and those were the times I enjoyed it less.

I would not care for an Overwatch MMO because I never played it.

[jellmoo]

I think the MMO genre in the manner of WoW is pretty much done. No other MMO has had anywhere near the same level of success, dpesite using some of the most lucrative IPs out there. There's just too much cost involved, with a playerbase whose tastes have changed dramatically since WoW came out and dominated the market.

The closest I can see are games like Destiny, Anthem or The Division. Of the Blizzard IPs, I think that Starcraft fits this category the best and is the most easily adapted to it. But even then, they would have to do something rather unique and interesting and not just rely on the Blizzard name. That didn't work for Anthem.

[letssee]

i disagree with people saying the mmo genre is dead. i think the mmos today are dead, but the genre itself i dont think so, i dont believe it has even reached its potential yet, and im not talking about a VR mmo or anything, im talking about a good old fasioned third person mmo game except next gen, the majority of poeple are just waiting for the next great mmo to come along (might never happen) but yea.

[GreenJesus]

Why isn't there a WoW 2 option? lol.

Also, Overwatch MMO was Titan and Blizzard said it wasn't fun so they cancelled it. I'll take their word for it. If Blizzard invested probably tens of millions maybe hundreds of millions into a game and just cancelled it it must have been REALLY bad.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Really any of their IPs have established enough world space, villians, and heros to make a decent MMO that people would be attached to much like WoW worked. The only problem is we would probably end up with a pile of trash that is designed to collect as much money in the first 3 months before its abandon-wared. So tons of super high dollar collector additions, tons of pre-order pets, mounts, tools, and stuff. Then monthly fee with a "deal" to get people into 6 month bundles. Finally a massive shop that makes the game easier to play/level/etc so people soak it up to be "first".

[Kathranis]

Titan was billed as something of a sci-fi MMO right?

There's not a ton of concrete info, but from what has been revealed/leaked, the setting and aesthetic were Overwatch-esque, and it was an FPS. In fact, most of the OW launch roster originated from class and NPC concepts for Project Titan, as did some of the maps.

It was a futuristic setting following an alien invasion, with mythological places like Atlantis and El Dorado reappearing. The basic setup was actually broadly similar to that MMO The Secret World, with secret societies vying for control of these ancient sites and the relics within.

They mentioned at Blizzcon that Overwatch was the name of one of the factions in the game. IIRC they were going to have three player factions, seemingly with different appearances for each class depending on faction, since leaked concept art includes some "terrorist" variants. The Junkers were also an enemy faction, inspired by Mad Max.

Prototype classes included Ranger (Soldier 76), Jumper (Tracer), Reaper (Reaper), Juggernaut (Reinhardt), Engineer (Torbjorn), Assassin (Hanzo/Genji), and Archon (Mercy).

One of the core concepts was a super hero-style double life system. Players would moonlight as members of these secret societies, being dispatched on missions around the world, which is where PvE and PvP would take place. Then they would have their secret identity where they'd have a day job (professions), home (player housing), social features, etc.

They did lots of prototypes, but apparently it never came together in a way that was fun. Metzen himself said the team "got squirrely" and it seemed to lack a strong direction to hold everything together. Supposedly everyone was just kind of working on what they thought was cool, pushing their own ideas, and sometimes undermining other people's work to make sure their stuff took priority. Allegedly the PvP component was the only prototype that went anywhere.


After Project Titan was cancelled, the team was broken up, most of the staff got reassigned, and a skeleton crew was left to pitch a new project, dubbed Project Prometheus.

For Prometheus, like OP said, they spent six weeks developing three pitch decks, two weeks each.

First was a StarCraft MMO that had a "settlers traveling the frontiers of space" vibe, which birthed the character McCree, based on an old Terran Prospector illustration Metzen did for the original StarCraft.

Second was Crossworlds, the brainchild of Metzen. Sci-fi MMO set on a galactic hub world.

While pitching classes for Crossworld, the lead class designer Geoff Goodman told Jeff Kaplan he wished they could do a game with 50 classes, but instead of like 12 abilities they'd each have three or four. But that would be impossible because they'd need to create 50 armor sets and unique weapons, etc.

That inspired Kaplan to come up with the third pitch, a hero-based shooter where instead of having classes there were just a ton of predetermined characters with unique kits comprised of a weapon and a few abilities. He repurposed concept artwork from Titan to design a dozen or so characters, then asked the team to go home and brainstorm heroes of their own. The next day they brought in dozens of possible heroes. Everyone got super excited and decided this was the idea they should pitch.

They pitched it to the board, and Kotick was apparently so stricken by the "hero lineup" poster that he stood up and gave them the okay, but due to the cancellation of Titan, required that they produce a fun prototype within six months before they'd get a full greenlight.

And so Titan became Prometheus, then Overwatch. Even though concepts were reused from Titan, the game engine and assets were built from the ground up.

[Zenfoldor]

Diablo MMO please. I'll buy it at a high price.

[letssee]

As you should.

So...what are those MMOs and what is your point here? What MMO do you play right now?

Also: Where is the Diablo MMO option?

i dont play any mmo at the moment, i didnt put the diablo mmo option because it was never considered as far as we know, the mmos i put on the poll were all worked on by blizzard except for the overwatch mmo (not titan)

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There's not a ton of concrete info, but from what has been revealed/leaked, the setting and aesthetic were Overwatch-esque, and it was an FPS. In fact, most of the OW launch roster originated from class and NPC concepts for Project Titan, as did some of the maps.

It was a futuristic setting following an alien invasion, with mythological places like Atlantis and El Dorado reappearing. The basic setup was actually broadly similar to that MMO The Secret World, with secret societies vying for control of these ancient sites and the relics within.

They mentioned at Blizzcon that Overwatch was the name of one of the factions in the game. IIRC they were going to have three player factions, seemingly with different appearances for each class depending on faction, since leaked concept art includes some "terrorist" variants. The Junkers were also an enemy faction, inspired by Mad Max.

Prototype classes included Ranger (Soldier 76), Jumper (Tracer), Reaper (Reaper), Juggernaut (Reinhardt), Engineer (Torbjorn), Assassin (Hanzo/Genji), and Archon (Mercy).

One of the core concepts was a super hero-style double life system. Players would moonlight as members of these secret societies, being dispatched on missions around the world, which is where PvE and PvP would take place. Then they would have their secret identity where they'd have a day job (professions), home (player housing), social features, etc.

They did lots of prototypes, but apparently it never came together in a way that was fun. Metzen himself said the team "got squirrely" and it seemed to lack a strong direction to hold everything together. Supposedly everyone was just kind of working on what they thought was cool, pushing their own ideas, and sometimes undermining other people's work to make sure their stuff took priority. Allegedly the PvP component was the only prototype that went anywhere.


After Project Titan was cancelled, the team was broken up, most of the staff got reassigned, and a skeleton crew was left to pitch a new project, dubbed Project Prometheus.

For Prometheus, like OP said, they spent six weeks developing three pitch decks, two weeks each.

First was a StarCraft MMO that had a "settlers traveling the frontiers of space" vibe, which birthed the character McCree, based on an old Terran Prospector illustration Metzen did for the original StarCraft.

Second was Crossworlds, the brainchild of Metzen. Sci-fi MMO set on a galactic hub world.

While pitching classes for Crossworld, the lead class designer Geoff Goodman told Jeff Kaplan he wished they could do a game with 50 classes, but instead of like 12 abilities they'd each have three or four. But that would be impossible because they'd need to create 50 armor sets and unique weapons, etc.

That inspired Kaplan to come up with the third pitch, a hero-based shooter where instead of having classes there were just a ton of predetermined characters with unique kits comprised of a weapon and a few abilities. He repurposed concept artwork from Titan to design a dozen or so characters, then asked the team to go home and brainstorm heroes of their own. The next day they brought in dozens of possible heroes. Everyone got super excited and decided this was the idea they should pitch.

They pitched it to the board, and Kotick was apparently so stricken by the "hero lineup" poster that he stood up and gave them the okay, but due to the cancellation of Titan, required that they produce a fun prototype within six months before they'd get a full greenlight.

And so Titan became Prometheus, then Overwatch. Even though concepts were reused from Titan, the game engine and assets were built from the ground up.

this is exactly correct,
and here are some of the titan/overwatch concept art


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Why isn't there a WoW 2 option? lol.

Also, Overwatch MMO was Titan and Blizzard said it wasn't fun so they cancelled it. I'll take their word for it. If Blizzard invested probably tens of millions maybe hundreds of millions into a game and just cancelled it it must have been REALLY bad.

i think they would attempt one of those instead of wow 2, also what i mean with overwatch mmo is not titan but rather overwatch that is today taht will eventually evolve into an mmo, overatch was only a small part of titan not the actual game, but now they have a base game to start with and tahts overwatch 1. Jeff kapalan stated so many times that he believes and sees and wants overwatch to evolve into different game mediums and that overwatch right now is basically where warcraft 1 was all those years ago, implying that eventually an mmo could come.

[Lorianus]

Isnt Diablo 4 in its basic form World of Diablo with a big map+mounts+always online multiplayer+persistent worldserver ?.

[letssee]

Isnt Diablo 4 in its basic form World of Diablo with a big map+mounts+always online multiplayer+persistent worldserver ?.

wouldnt really call it an mmo, but yea its more online than before i guess

[letssee]

Diablo MMO was what I wanted back in...oh...2000? Turned out the MMO they worked on was WoW.

But yeah...Titan....proof that even Blizzard can fail and creating the next Juggernaut is just not that simple.

i dont think the neext big mmo ( hopefully it comes) will be from blizzarrd, they are too changed for it to happen. Even if jeff kaplans team, basically the overwatch team, the og guys behind vanilla tbc and wotlk would make it, activiison would ruin it somehow

[Alatie]

Soloable mmo, without the horde, maybe with a sc setting. With no cash shop.

A solo massively multiplayer online game?

[Ashleyxoxo]

i dont think the neext big mmo ( hopefully it comes) will be from blizzarrd, they are too changed for it to happen. Even if jeff kaplans team, basically the overwatch team, the og guys behind vanilla tbc and wotlk would make it, activiison would ruin it somehow

Yeah, Blizzard can do no wrong, it’s always Activision.

[AeneasBK]

And so Titan became Prometheus, then Overwatch. Even though concepts were reused from Titan, the game engine and assets were built from the ground up.

Thanks, that was a pretty comprehensive reply

[crakerjack]

I would have played it. I was totally on board with an mmorpg FPS. Had envisions of a Starcraft FPS mmorpg. While I don’t mind Overwatch, I would have preferred an mmorpg FPS though.

[letssee]

Well..whatever "ruins it" means

I think Titan was their shot at the next big MMO...and it didn't work out. If they can fail with their best ppl taking a shot..all bets are off

what i mean with ruins it is the monetization aspects

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Yeah, Blizzard can do no wrong, it’s always Activision.

obvisoly blizzzard can do wrong, theyre half the problem, but when talking about jeff kapalans team, i think they can objectively way less wrong than ions team

[Trumpcat]

The time for the reinvented MMO hasn't come. Blizzard tried with their best talent and enormous resource. So I'm for neither of the cancelled projects.

[Cracked]

I haven't lost hope in MMOs, I lost all hope in Blizzard.

[cparle87]

I think that there was a golden opportunity for Blizzzard to push Warcraft into a Starcraft MMO. I love the idea that the humans and orcs were fighting, and at the end of the expansion, all holy hell rains down on them in the form of the Zerg, or the Protoss. It's then that the humans and orcs realize that everything they were fighting over was trivial in comparison, and they would then work together to combat the new powers that were revealed. They become the Terran, and push to modernize as quickly as possible.

Dude, you pretty much recited the Reign of Chaos cinematic. "We never paid any heed to the ancient prophecies. *footman and grunt fight* Like fools, we clung to old hatreds and fought as we had for generations. *huge ass infernal lands, roars, and kills them both* We stand now, upon the brink of destruction..."

[letssee]

Well...in that case any game or product on earth is "ruined" - who does anything to lose money? I mean...do you work for free? And if you do work for a salary, will you say no when your boss offers you a raise?

This monetization aspect is so ridiculous. Especially in the light of people claiming how games are getting worse to make more money. I mean...to make money, somebody has to buy it and it it makes more money (aka more ppl buying it) while being shit - that says more about people than about a company.

obviouslty its a business, but when it comes to the cost of gameplay then u start noticing things and disliking things. so if wow all of a sudden told you to pay 50dollars for sub, would u do it? after all they are trying to make money right

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The time for the reinvented MMO hasn't come. Blizzard tried with their best talent and enormous resource. So I'm for neither of the cancelled projects.

do u think itll ever come ?