[Megathread] Titan Speculation

[mvaliz]

And why not? It's not like these game designers (or other game designers, for that matter) can make only the one type of game in their lifetime. Many of them have already worked on multiple different genres.

No. It's not.

Gotta back this up.

When Tigole and co. made WoW - their primary game development experience was from RTS games and PLAYING Everquest 1.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that Titan is going to be a carbon-gameplay cut of WoW... TBH I seriously doubt it would merely because of sooooo many fantasy-based hack n' slash MMOs out there ATM.

I still believe my pet theory is that it was a sci-fi FPSMMO - and they saw Destiny revealed a week ago, said "AWWW DAMNIT!" and went back to the drawing board...

[Buu]

by the time titan is released, blizzard would have been bought by EA.

No, Titan isn't coming out this year. Because you know, for an acquisition EA must still exist, and I seriously doubt they will last much more.

And from now on my prediction about Titan is that it'll be Diablo 4:

A TECHNICAL SKELETON crew, producing a crappy game, due to lack of manpower; most of the money spent in 3rd-part graphical and cinematic teams;a long chain of "resets" until Activision get infuriated again with the terror it's causing on their investors; finally a pushed precocious released of the nth version of the game in the start of the next decade.

Of course they can also stop to jaywilson that new MMO...

[Al816]

Meh I was hoping for a next year release and now they reset it :'(

[unholytestament]

Gotta back this up.

When Tigole and co. made WoW - their primary game development experience was from RTS games and PLAYING Everquest 1.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that Titan is going to be a carbon-gameplay cut of WoW... TBH I seriously doubt it would merely because of sooooo many fantasy-based hack n' slash MMOs out there ATM.

I still believe my pet theory is that it was a sci-fi FPSMMO - and they saw Destiny revealed a week ago, said "AWWW DAMNIT!" and went back to the drawing board...

I would not mind an MMO with shooter elements, I just don't want it to be first person...

I also doubt Destiny had any impact on this.

[Gsara]

by the time titan is released, blizzard would have been bought by EA.

EA cant afford to by Blizzard.

[Belize]

CLEARLY, due to popular demand, they're redoing Titan to be JUST LIKE WoW except backwards. You will be able to be a boss from any raid, and wait for adventurers to come and try to take your loot. Raids will open on the same time schedule as they did in WoW, therefore the first raid open will be MC.

[unholytestament]

CLEARLY, due to popular demand, they're redoing Titan to be JUST LIKE WoW except backwards. You will be able to be a boss from any raid, and wait for adventurers to come and try to take your loot. Raids will open on the same time schedule as they did in WoW, therefore the first raid open will be MC.

Seems legit.

Although playing as a raid boss against a big bunch of heroes does sound like a cool idea.

[Gsara]

Gotta back this up.

When Tigole and co. made WoW - their primary game development experience was from RTS games and PLAYING Everquest 1.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that Titan is going to be a carbon-gameplay cut of WoW... TBH I seriously doubt it would merely because of sooooo many fantasy-based hack n' slash MMOs out there ATM.

I still believe my pet theory is that it was a sci-fi FPSMMO - and they saw Destiny revealed a week ago, said "AWWW DAMNIT!" and went back to the drawing board...

Tigole had nothing to do with making world of warcraft until after CB. He was still leading his EQ raid guild the first 3 years of development. It was during late alpha that a lot of us were mass invited over from EQ to do late alpha/closed beta testing. Tigole, along with my eq GM at the time Furor(Fires of Heaven) along with other former EQ players were hired by Blizzard shortly into the closed beta.

The reset for "Titan" is basically all about an engine rework since Blizzard builds all of their own game engines.

[Belize]

Seems legit.

Although playing as a raid boss against a big bunch of heroes does sound like a cool idea.

How exciting it would be to have to do your attacks in a predictable manner. "Cast 'Smash' every 30sec on the main tank. 'Shadow Bolt Volley' every 45 seconds or every time a player dies"


EXCITEMENT!

[Gsara]

How exciting it would be to have to do your attacks in a predictable manner. "Cast 'Smash' every 30sec on the main tank. 'Shadow Bolt Volley' every 45 seconds or every time a player dies"


EXCITEMENT!

Of course you have to add a few long 5sec+ cast times on abilities so people can use a dodge button.

[Planetarism]

How exciting it would be to have to do your attacks in a predictable manner. "Cast 'Smash' every 30sec on the main tank. 'Shadow Bolt Volley' every 45 seconds or every time a player dies"

EXCITEMENT!

The absolute lack of imagination or conceptual design capacity here is just stunning. Never occured to you that PvE themepark raid bosses cast their abilities in a mostly predictable, robotic fashion not because they're a 'boss/against heroes' but simply because like all other mobs, they're an AI-controlled entity ???

& thus that the minute a game reverses roles & lets players be a giant monster against several 'heroes' working in teamwork, this 'boss' would have as much freedom of action/spells as you have now as a player character in WoW? In fact, obviously, it would now be the 'heroes' attacking player bosses that'd have scripted attack priorities to repeatedly follow..

[Fahrenheit]

The absolute lack of imagination or conceptual design capacity here is just stunning. Never occured to you that PvE themepark raid bosses cast their abilities in a mostly predictable, robotic fashion not because they're a 'boss/against heroes' but simply because like all other mobs, they're an AI-controlled entity ???

& thus that the minute a game reverses roles & lets players be a giant monster against several 'heroes' working in teamwork, this 'boss' would have as much freedom of action/spells as you have now as a player character in WoW? In fact, obviously, it would now be the 'heroes' attacking player bosses that'd have scripted attack priorities to repeatedly follow..

I couldn't even fathom how much balancing would go into player controled bosses. I mean if you had a low level boss in WoW controlled by competent player they'd wipe the floor with the best WoW raiders the world has to offer. There would have to be some serious restrictions on the player control boss.

I digress though, this is all based on WoWs systems, which obviously weren't designed from the ground up with this in mind.

[unholytestament]

I couldn't even fathom how much balancing would go into player controled bosses. I mean if you had a low level boss in WoW controlled by competent player they'd wipe the floor with the best WoW raiders the world has to offer. There would have to be some serious restrictions on the player control boss.

I digress though, this is all based on WoWs systems, which obviously weren't designed from the ground up with this in mind.

I believe both Planeterism and I were operating under the assumption that the boss would be player controlled and the heroes would not.

[Planetarism]

I believe both Planeterism and I were operating under the assumption that the boss would be player controlled and the heroes would not.

Indeed.

But it's a good idea though! Very intriguing.. After all, Dungeon Keeper & the like, have pit players in traditional, 'outnumbered by forces of good' 'evil boss' roles against CPU-controlled 'heroes'. & the traditional format is like all themeparks, wow etc, player heroes vs 1 evil AI boss. So that's 1) Player Boss vs AI Heroes, & 2) Player Heroes vs AI Boss.

We've had the attempts at world immersion via both AI-controlled 'evil' and AI-controlled protagonists, too.. especially since Cataclysm. This represents 3) AI Heroes vs AI Boss.

But what of the 1 other obvious possibility here, 4) Player Boss vs Player Heroes, which actually ended up in the 'outnumbered but massively buffed up' being slaughtered usually, in Wintergrasp ??? Yes, a game where there is actual PvP, specifically by diving headfirst into the glaringly risky business of pitting a single powerful player-controlled boss entity, against many players.

How refreshing? Yet a balancing nightmare at first glance. Is it solvable? Is it not possible to keep this player boss's powers within reach of the player heroes' combined might, while at the same time not managing to nerf him into sterile lack of immersive 'evil boss' credibility?? Is it possible, even within WoW's time-honored headache-inducing 'cc/disables' combat structure, to let such a 'thematically' (but, if design balance succeeds, not -mathematically-) imbalanced battle play out in a fun way, without the boss either needing to 'get lucky' & wipe raiders quickly in 1-2 blows or get to abuse some insane boss spells that are only meant for AI use, not player controlling the boss..(abuse too obvious..), otherwise the heroes are the ones who get lucky and just continuously slap cc on him till dead, as the outnumbered in Wintergrasp would experience, sadly?

[Tauren]

diablo 2 like combat. the pvp was so fun and took skill and had few stuns or cc

---------- Post added 2013-06-02 at 04:21 AM ----------

Tigole had nothing to do with making world of warcraft until after CB. He was still leading his EQ raid guild the first 3 years of development. It was during late alpha that a lot of us were mass invited over from EQ to do late alpha/closed beta testing. Tigole, along with my eq GM at the time Furor(Fires of Heaven) along with other former EQ players were hired by Blizzard shortly into the closed beta.

The reset for "Titan" is basically all about an engine rework since Blizzard builds all of their own game engines.

why where they even hired in the first place? they sound like players not actual game developers

[vizzle]

The absolute lack of imagination or conceptual design capacity here is just stunning. Never occured to you that PvE themepark raid bosses cast their abilities in a mostly predictable, robotic fashion not because they're a 'boss/against heroes' but simply because like all other mobs, they're an AI-controlled entity ???

So you think bosses cast abilities in a predictable fashion not because of design choice but because of technical limitation?

Guess you've never heard of /random.

[bbr]

Well, whatever they end up doing - I'm not planning to pay a monthly fee for it.

F2p or bust.

I might try a beta or such,. but like many others, I just lack "time" to really spend on video games - it just means I can't really justify paying for it with a monthly fee.

[Planetarism]

So you think bosses cast abilities in a predictable fashion not because of design choice but because of technical limitation?

Guess you've never heard of /random.

Ah, no, seems you've extrapolated an incorrect assumption out of my saying '..but simply because, like all other mobs, they're an AI-controlled entity..' ;p

I'm aware in computing today it's definitely possible to have an NPC cast a stupendous selection of different spells, all w/ different dynamic variables, and/or also randomize entirely what it does. As far as server & database load taken up, especially if, a large number of mobs all made these attacks in real-time, well I'm sure some developer could still very manageably setup an infrastructure to handle it.

No, the reason they don't do this, in skinnerbox themeparks, is indeed a design choice, & probably slightly influenced by server load concerns as well ^. It's a shame, because by making mobs' behavior predictable and robotic, we lose immersion. However, devs believe this is a worthy sacrifice, to allow players to win through skill, memory, adept prediction of a boss's moves, etc, as opposed to winning through luck at random streaks of good or bad abilities and/or wild dynamic 'realistic' spell & behavior interactions.

Another big reason why they do it this way is if mobs in general were smarter & more realistically vicious/wanting to survive, as opposed to overall just transparently being there to feed us XP & loot (and the feeling of victory), the majority of themepark players would complain. They don't tolerate the cost of having chaos & unpredictability, disruption, and some frustration not unlike that experienced in PvP sometimes, in exchange of a more breathing, living-like world, where immersion is enthralling, suspension of disbelief does not make one cringe, & the gameplay styles/various paths available for players to viably enjoy the game aren't limited to scripted content, immensely increasing replay value.

The question then becomes, how do you marry this together? How do you let themeparkers have some room to enjoy their sheltered (I say this word without prejudice as I myself have need for such sometimes) gameplay safe from both abusive PvP & 'annoying' disruption from rogue*, strategic NPC behavior, while still not boring them to death after too much static content to consume & discard? How, in the same game environment, can you also juggle letting sandboxers enjoy their freedom of immersive gameplay choices, without also overwhelming a surprising majority of them with a vast, blank, empty canvas offering too little direction, too much confusion?

[tenzing21]

Reading these rumors on the net about what Titan is, I have come to believe it is indeed WoW 2.0, and had elements of the Starcraft and Diablo series, ie Titans were responsible for many of the major story lines in those franchises. Once they acquired IGN's assests, they were finally able to rush forward with technological and game-play adjustments they knew the upcoming market needed.

I once thought they were unloading Titan, now I'm 100% sure it'll be unveiled at Blizzcon this year.

Yes I know they keep saying it's a new IP etc etc, but they are not contractually bound to give away their plan, and any cursory search yields the same result, the WoW team is working on it, and it's an MMO. WoW 2.0, if you ask me.

[Mothhive]

I once thought they were unloading Titan, now I'm 100% sure it'll be unveiled at Blizzcon this year.

I'm guessing you missed the news recently that they basically restarted the project from scratch, cut the team working on it to 1/3 of what it was, and don't expect to release until 2016.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/28/bl...ect-exclusive/

Yeah, it won't be at Blizzcon this year.