[Megathread] Titan Speculation

[unholytestament]

I think this is not a clue to him being on Titan... this is more a clue to Warcraft IV.

If only...

[Edge-]

Or you know, the most logical thing...he likes Warhammer?

[Svifnymr]

Or you know, the most logical thing...he likes Warhammer?

or possibly warhammers. Maybe the new game will be all about people with giant hammers.

[Vespian]

It's a bit silly that a moderator merged the threat about that Wilson guy and Titan, since it was glaringly obvious, that not a single soul could automatically conclude that this was about Titan, in fact, the reference to 'unannounced' should have made that pretty clear, since Titan was 'announced', and since it most likely isn't about Titan, proof supplied by Enjeh, I imagine that that mod should reverse the process.

Just in case anyone thinks I sound agitated. I am. Everyone gets to make all these Megathreads these days even if the OP is a completely utter bullcrap post (like that fire...thingy topic), but as soon as something not related to a megathread gets posted it's merged with one. GAAH.

I mean, seriously:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ad-Fire-Emblem

Look at that. A mod should have shot that down the second it left off. It's 3 bloody lines of text. No structure, not enough text to be called informative. It doesn't tell us what the game is, it doesn't tell us who made it. It doesn't tell us anything. No screens, no info, just some random guy making a topic called Megathread about a game he used to like. Mods, get to work.

Megathread, sure, make it mega, in the first post. Take a look at the GW2 megathread if you want examples.

Another one:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...d-Dark-Souls-2

Break it apart. Please.

Alright folks, back on topic again.

[Ealyssa]

I bet people will blame him when it turns out Titan is a more casual MMO than WoW - even if it was supposed to appeal to a wider audience from day 1.

Wider than the widest MMO in history ? Do not compute, sry.

[Celista]

I bet people will blame him when it turns out Titan is a more casual MMO than WoW - even if it was supposed to appeal to a wider audience from day 1.

Doubt this will happen, wow is almost as casual as it gets (for an MMO). UNLESS Titan turns out to be WoW2 with updated graphics and player housing or something.

I suspect Titan may be an mmo designed to appeal to either the Starcraft or Diablo crowd. Since they already buy Blizzard games, the next step is to develop an MMO that appeals to them, gets them to pay that monthly sub fee that Diablo/Starcraft lacks.

[Edge-]

Wider than the widest MMO in history ? Do not compute, sry.

Subscription only MMO in history*

There are a number of F2P MMO's with global playerbases that are greater than WoW.

[Mormolyce]

A Diablo MMO would not be a new IP. Unless you consider WoW a new IP to Warcraft, which is so far from the concept of a different IP that I don't even know what to say. In fact, Warcraft traditionally didn't have any RPG elements, they were partially added via Hero units in Warcraft III, so a Diablo MMO would be more closely related to Diablo than WoW is to Warcraft.

The only possibility in which Diablo universe + MMO = new IP makes any sense is if it's such a weird spinoff that it's totally unlike Diablo. Like... a Cow Level MMO? An MMO set in the treasure goblin dimension?

Personally I don't think the Diablo universe has sufficient depth to make a decent MMO.

---------- Post added 2013-01-22 at 02:47 AM ----------

He mentioned Warhammer. THQ resently started selling out IP's and Warhammer is one of them. Could be something to do with that.

He did NOT mention Warhammer. It's in his bio on Twitter that he likes Warhammer. For god's sake.

---------- Post added 2013-01-22 at 02:49 AM ----------

Subscription only MMO in history*

There are a number of F2P MMO's with global playerbases that are greater than WoW.

Like what?


http://mmodata.blogspot.com.au/

Not saying you're wrong but I'd like to see a source on that.

[Edge-]

Old news so not really accurate, and it's not really counting active accounts, but: http://news.mmosite.com/content/2007...155255,1.shtml

I'll have to dig them up when I have more time, but that blog is good for baseline estimates and little more. Not to mention it only tracks games with subscription options, so it's not going to track F2P only games, or accurately track a game like Aion which has a subscription in the East, but is F2P in the West.

[Mormolyce]

Old news so not really accurate, and it's not really counting active accounts, but: http://news.mmosite.com/content/2007...155255,1.shtml

I'll have to dig them up when I have more time, but that blog is good for baseline estimates and little more. Not to mention it only tracks games with subscription options, so it's not going to track F2P only games, or accurately track a game like Aion which has a subscription in the East, but is F2P in the West.

Well without direct access to the relevant MMO's player data we don't have anything other than baseline estimates.

Apparently Maplestory claims to have 92 million users worldwide, which I find a little hard to believe (unless people create a lot of alt accounts or something? No idea how Maplestory works). Even so this article from 2009 claims they had 5.9 million accounts just buying items from their store. Kind of amazing since I know hardly anyone who plays Maplestory! Must be super popular in Asia.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/05...de-4-year-ann/

[Zeek Daniels]

Well without direct access to the relevant MMO's player data we don't have anything other than baseline estimates.

Apparently Maplestory claims to have 92 million users worldwide, which I find a little hard to believe (unless people create a lot of alt accounts or something? No idea how Maplestory works). Even so this article from 2009 claims they had 5.9 million accounts just buying items from their store. Kind of amazing since I know hardly anyone who plays Maplestory! Must be super popular in Asia.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/05...de-4-year-ann/

WoW also claims 10mil subs but it also includes ppl with multiple accounts in that number.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I don't see a full subscription MMO model as viable any longer. They need to find a more flexible payment model. It doesn't have to be F2P (although that certainly makes it more accessible) but I won't be shelving over 15 Euros a month for an MMO anymore.

By the way, League of Legends is the most popular PC Game on the market currently and has many times the active players of WoW.

People often forget 2 things about WoW when comparing it with other games.

1. WoW is the only big subscription based MMO left. Other MMOs may easily have more players but generate less revenue.

2. WoW really "only" has about 5 Mio. players in NA and EU...the truly profitable markets. Compare that to 3 Mio. GW2 players or 2 Mio. SWTOR players gives you a little perspective. WoW is still the biggest MMO but it's not the behemoth some people seem to think it is.

[Wilian]

I don't see why sub mode would be dead yet, if only developers would dare to make games that had long lasting appeal.

[Edge-]

Well without direct access to the relevant MMO's player data we don't have anything other than baseline estimates.

Apparently Maplestory claims to have 92 million users worldwide, which I find a little hard to believe (unless people create a lot of alt accounts or something? No idea how Maplestory works). Even so this article from 2009 claims they had 5.9 million accounts just buying items from their store. Kind of amazing since I know hardly anyone who plays Maplestory! Must be super popular in Asia.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/05...de-4-year-ann/

Yeah, it's going to be impossible to get concrete numbers out of anyone, as subscription based MMO's have and continue to count "fringe" accounts as active, WoW counts Chinese accounts the same as Western (they use different payment models), and there's no way to count "unique" accounts in the case of people who own multiple accounts.

Most of these games that exceed 10 million + active users are Asian, with heavy followings in China and Korea. They're not quite as popular in the West, but they have a presence here.

I don't see why sub mode would be dead yet, if only developers would dare to make games that had long lasting appeal.

That's the thing, it's damn hard to make a game good enough to justify a subscription nowadays. They have to provide something that no other existing game does, and then the rest of the game has to be damn good as well. That's touch, especially when competing with a game like WoW which has so much inertia going in its favor that I doubt we'll see anything really "dent" it too much and rather see it slowly decrease in size over time.

Subscription model isn't officially "dead", but for all intents and purposes it is. It's an extremely difficult model to make viable on a large scale (not counting the niche games like Perpetuum or Darkfall) and see profits that aren't outpaced by a F2P/freemium model.

[Wilian]

I wouldn't really consider it as damn hard thing to make, it would just require experiementing (For example, reworking how entire leveling works) and real balls to try to do something different with proper production values. Everyone just pushes stubbornly into the same vacuum so of course they're all competing from ever diminishing sub base.

[Belize]

I can't help but think that it'd be a good idea for Blizzard to make an MMOFPS. I mean you get to compete against PS2, and might reap some of the console gamers at the same time.

---------- Post added 2013-01-22 at 03:44 AM ----------

It's a bit silly that a moderator merged the threat about that Wilson guy and Titan, since it was glaringly obvious, that not a single soul could automatically conclude that this was about Titan, in fact, the reference to 'unannounced' should have made that pretty clear, since Titan was 'announced', and since it most likely isn't about Titan, proof supplied by Enjeh, I imagine that that mod should reverse the process.

Just in case anyone thinks I sound agitated. I am. Everyone gets to make all these Megathreads these days even if the OP is a completely utter bullcrap post (like that fire...thingy topic), but as soon as something not related to a megathread gets posted it's merged with one. GAAH.

I mean, seriously:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ad-Fire-Emblem

Look at that. A mod should have shot that down the second it left off. It's 3 bloody lines of text. No structure, not enough text to be called informative. It doesn't tell us what the game is, it doesn't tell us who made it. It doesn't tell us anything. No screens, no info, just some random guy making a topic called Megathread about a game he used to like. Mods, get to work.

Megathread, sure, make it mega, in the first post. Take a look at the GW2 megathread if you want examples.

Another one:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...d-Dark-Souls-2

Break it apart. Please.

Alright folks, back on topic again.

Newsflash brosky, you're not a mod, so chill your hormones. It's not the first time I see you do this. Next time, apply to be one, but until then, I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing. We're not in the White House making political statements here. It's a bloody internet board. Please don't call them out in EVERY thread, only to bump the GW2 one.

[Mormolyce]

Yeah, I don't see a full subscription MMO model as viable any longer.

A lot of people like to say this as if they're somehow an authority on the matter from reading some articles on sites like this. Are you Blizzard's accountant? Bioware's? Do you know how much profit they make compared to a F2P MMO? Or a semi-F2P MMO? With or without a cash shop?

You can't tell anything from sub numbers. Let's say a WoW sub makes $15x12 = $180 a year (maybe less because not all subs re-sub every month, maybe more due to pet store, paid character services etc). So in a F2P model you'd have to convince every sub to spend $180 every year in your stores to get the same revenue from that sub. More likely an in game store based MMO makes considerably less. And probably those "play to win" games forum denizens despise so much make a lot more per sub than non-play to win, where a lot of people might choose to buy literally nothing from the stores as it's all cosmetic/unnecessary.

So if I were to offer you 100 WoW subs making you ~$180 p.a. or 100 GW2 subs which make on average $50 p.a. (made-up number), which would you prefer?

It's a lot easier to sell a million of something that's free than a million of something that costs money every month. But on the other hand it's a lot harder to make a profit off something free.

There is absolutely no way to tell from simple sub numbers, forum QQ, MMO rivalry or fan speculation whether sub based MMOs are more or less viable than they used to be, and whether they will continue to be into the future. Only people privy to game companies' ledgers have an informed view on that subject.

[Belize]

I hope this new game will have a RMAH.

And some irony detectiun skillz

-.- I see what you did there...

[Zeek Daniels]

It's a lot easier to sell a million of something that's free than a million of something that costs money every month. But on the other hand it's a lot harder to make a profit off something free.

Cant be that hard since so many companies are doing it. Sub games that have gone F2P have seen profit increases. So i dont see what the big deal is.

[Mormolyce]

Cant be that hard since so many companies are doing it. Sub games that have gone F2P have seen profit increases. So i dont see what the big deal is.

And your source on all this is?

What it really boils down to is a lot of players would love to get something for free, so they want to believe that all games will be F2P in the future.