They can sit back and wait til the next generation of MMO comes out, and then copy/polish the shit out of that.. until then, they are sitting on the most successful MMO in the industry.
Titan has been cancelled.
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Yea, I supposed they don't think sandbox Minecraftesque MMOs are ready for general use yet.
Even if Microsoft spends 2.5 billion $ purchasing Minecraft and thinks they can make it back by next year.
Selix
Lord Nagafen Raider
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To expand on what I said before scrapping Titan probably had to do with the total lack of need for it along with whatever development issues it had. When Titan was first proposed it made perfect sense given the obvious expectation that someone would come along and de-throne WoW eventually like every other game with competitors. If Blizzard didn't already have a new game in development when WoW was dethrone then it was going to be 4-7 years behind and that is a lot of revenue and brand to lose in that time.
So here you are looking at 7 years of development for Titan and running through your mind is "Well on one hand here is WoW which countless companies have tried hundreds of innovations to de-throne... and failed. And here is my new product, Titan, which everyone expects to improve on WoW in ways no one else has managed to figure out and to regain the top MMO position." You look at the fact that you are still in the top MMO position. You look at whatever issues/improvements you see with Titan that have failed in every competitor to WoW thus far.
You look at all this together and wonder why you don't just push out a dozen more expansions instead.
I think there is something interesting to be said on the fact that WoW hasn't be de-throned. Many mmo's have been made in many different flavors both with and without polish, with and without successful launches, with and without hype, with different pay models and themes. Some copied Wow entirely, or partially or barely at all. Some were grindy, PvP, quest oriented etc. We have all debated what the next WoW killer would look like to death and seen some mmo released that contained of the features we thought would be it.
Yet all have failed or be a niche success. Was WoW just ........... lucky?
So here you are looking at 7 years of development for Titan and running through your mind is "Well on one hand here is WoW which countless companies have tried hundreds of innovations to de-throne... and failed. And here is my new product, Titan, which everyone expects to improve on WoW in ways no one else has managed to figure out and to regain the top MMO position." You look at the fact that you are still in the top MMO position. You look at whatever issues/improvements you see with Titan that have failed in every competitor to WoW thus far.
You look at all this together and wonder why you don't just push out a dozen more expansions instead.
I think there is something interesting to be said on the fact that WoW hasn't be de-throned. Many mmo's have been made in many different flavors both with and without polish, with and without successful launches, with and without hype, with different pay models and themes. Some copied Wow entirely, or partially or barely at all. Some were grindy, PvP, quest oriented etc. We have all debated what the next WoW killer would look like to death and seen some mmo released that contained of the features we thought would be it.
Yet all have failed or be a niche success. Was WoW just ........... lucky?
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Yep I'm with the rest of you, and so far everyone is about right... From what I know the comment above and excuse me I'm stupid lol about Destiny was closer than you know, but mostly for the first Titan. It was a a post apocalyptic Diablo meets the future think guns but medieval armor open world mmo with all the current "in things" what is it called, like Destiny, Defiance, Borderlands style game play but it had melee weapons and stuff too, loot would fall on the ground ala Diablo games etc. My experiences were only with the original alpha on the original idea... I don't know much about the last year or so. But to me I think they "saw" what that game ultimate becomes, produces (monetarily) and maybe got scared off???
Just a guess. /sad
Just a guess. /sad
This doesn't make sense. He was part of Vanilla - WotLK development. When the game saw the most growth/success. You make it sound like he is the Brad McQuaid of Blizzard
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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It is very difficult to draw someone away from an MMORPG that they're already entrenched in. So if a game just copies or slightly modifies the WoW formula what is the point for someone who is already familiar with WoW's mechanics, the gameplay and the community? The answer is there is no reason. WoW was different enough from EQ/DAoC/AC when it came out that it could draw away that audience. But also remember back when WoW came out Blizzard was a juggernaut known for putting out nothing but quality. They hooked people on the MMO genre who would have otherwise never have played an MMO in their life. It wasn't exactly luck but if WoW came outafterthe MMO bubble burst (ie: MMO was a well known and well established genre in the casual gamer group) it wouldn't have been nearly as successful. So they got people who knew nothing about MMOs, got them hooked and never let them go. I don't really know how many avid WoW players became MMO fans or if they're simply WoW fans.
Not to mention WoW is the best MMO to be put out in the history of the genre.
Vitality
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Minecraft 2 - Win 9 Exclusive - 1000 player persistent worlds - space stations - Apocalyptic server wipe events and ladders every 4 months. Hardcore servers.
Box price $300 - I'd buy it.
I bet they thought 7 years ago WoW would be finished and be in maintenance mode and they would need to release a new MMO. WoW is still running strong so why compete with your own product?
Selix
Lord Nagafen Raider
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There's definitely room for nextgen MMOs and a large audience to capture and/or recapture. My guess is it's more along the lines that Titan wasn't up to Blizzard standards. They probably had the same problem .38S did in their game probably was just boring.
I'm sure a lot of the resources from Titan can be enveloped into WOW/D3/etc, and some of the writing can be modified and used. The big question is what's next?
I wonder how much were actually on the team since last years "scrap it and go back to the drawing board" approach. AFAIK that is where much of the Heroes of the Storm team got their crew. Which I believe is about 100 people are on that game now.
Vitality
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