I remember a year ago (?) that Blizzard let go their Titan level designer. I don't know of MMOs that have levels (areas not people) but I do know that fps console games do. I think that is what Titan was aimed at, a pc/console game hybrid, a fps mmo that editors at this site have clamored for. Investors looked at the console market and saw a console/pc Titan selling like World of Warcraft but with the numbers that console games produce. Big, big bucks.
What has changed is that investors are losing faith in the console market. The "new thing" is the mobile market. That is why Blizzard mentioned that this was a major technological shift. You bet moving from consoles to mobile phones is a big change!!!
My gut feeling is that Titan will join Starcraft Ghost on the dustbin of history.
My gut feeling is that Titan will join Starcraft Ghost on the dustbin of history.
could turn out to be the case. either way, titan has been talked about for far too long. At this point, its release should be imminent, and here we are talking about it taking a big step back. Blizz is in more trouble then people can see, or what ti admit at this point. blizz better be hoping EQN fails hard. I, personally don't think it will.
My guess is that they really need the manpower for these other projects for a few months so expect something big coming from non-Titan projects soon. The 70 are the ones that likely do all of the 3D modeling, animations, quest implementation, etc. so maybe another huge WoW expansion needs to be brought up to speed.
I remember a year ago (?) that Blizzard let go their Titan level designer. I don't know of MMOs that have levels (areas not people) but I do know that fps console games do. I think that is what Titan was aimed at, a pc/console game hybrid, a fps mmo that editors at this site have clamored for. Investors looked at the console market and saw a console/pc Titan selling like World of Warcraft but with the numbers that console games produce. Big, big bucks.
What has changed is that investors are losing faith in the console market. The "new thing" is the mobile market. That is why Blizzard mentioned that this was a major technological shift. You bet moving from consoles to mobile phones is a big change!!!
My gut feeling is that Titan will join Starcraft Ghost on the dustbin of history.
My gut feeling is that Titan will join Starcraft Ghost on the dustbin of history.
could turn out to be the case. either way, titan has been talked about for far too long. At this point, its release should be imminent, and here we are talking about it taking a big step back. Blizz is in more trouble then people can see, or what ti admit at this point. blizz better be hoping EQN fails hard. I, personally don't think it will.
EQN won't fail because its based on EQ .. but even better its a sandbox so imagine EQ & UO combined with amazing high end graphics which no PC can run faster than 20fps .. I mean lets be honest, Titan never had a chance .
Blizzard is still undoubtedly one of the top dogs in the gaming industry and they can afford this kind of delay easily, besides only a better game can come out of all this.
Originally posted by Vlacke Blizzard is still undoubtedly one of the top dogs in the gaming industry and they can afford this kind of delay easily, besides only a better game can come out of all this.
I wonder if some of their shareholders who have a vested interest in the company share your views on this.
Originally posted by Vlacke Blizzard is still undoubtedly one of the top dogs in the gaming industry and they can afford this kind of delay easily, besides only a better game can come out of all this.
I wonder if some of their shareholders who have a vested interest in the company share your views on this.
Share holders should know a lick or two about a company before they invest in it. This is just typical Blizzard in every respect. Nearly every game they made went through this period, even if it was publicized or not by the masses.
This includes World of Warcraft, as they completely remade the entire game from their original creation. You can even read stuff like this, and look at the screen shots from the late 2000's and early 2001 (video) to see the difference. The graphics were different, the artstyle roughly different, and Elwynn Forest / Westfall / Stranglevale were all complete different as well (even the combat was different and more WCIII like). Heck, Elwynn had an entire village of a few dozen houses as opposed to just two houses were Goldshire is right now.
Point is, if one invested into this company, they knew they way they operated. How slow they were to release games. How they were willing to cancel a game they themselves didn't feel like it lived up to their own expectations. Indeed, one would have to be a fool to want such a company to rush a product out with what we've seen of other developers, and with how Blizzard itself operates.
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Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
Maybe fans of mmorpgs that follow mmorpg news? Oh and MAYBE they talk about that news on an mmorpg dedicated site. Just a guess.
There was no established information on this game for gods sakes...it wasn't even in Alpha...This was just a decision to remake the project cause it probably had outdated ideas and innovations cause they thought of "Titan" in 2007!
This isn't that big of news...seriously...if the game was a month from release and then this happened I would understand all the interest. The only real interest lies in the fact that its Blizzard and people want to bash on them to no end for whatever personal reasons or to speculate about a game that had NO INFORMATION released on it whatsoever.
big devs like blizzard had access to ps4 and xbox1 devkits for close to year by now, this wasnt even secret
titan was clearly different game than wow, that was confirmed multiple times and why would they start another similar game, there is no 20+ mln market for that
so no they didnt decide to start over because of new consoles or because wow was failing
i suppose game engine got outdated, new upcomming mmorpgs are far superior to current ones and all that painted clear picture for them
noone will ever know, but some of those speculations are borderline retarded
Originally posted by William12 Didn't D3 sell MILLIONS of copies and was one of the most sold PC games ever ? how is that a failure ? If you can't write unbiased articles do not write them at all.
Keep in mind a lot of those D3 copies were infact from the 'year subscription of wow' deal as well. D3 was bought in for the hype. I can sell millions of people a turd. Sure I sold it to a million people, but in the end its still a turd, and your money is mine and you are stuck with it even if you don't use it for anything.
They already stated that only a million of the 13 million copies sold was due to the WoW deal. Not only did it sell well at launch, but it continues to sell well, and has out sold every single PC game out there (including GW2) except for the SC2 xpac quarter after quarter. Not to mention that the game, over a year after release, still gets a million unique logins a day, and 3 million unique a week. You can claim that it sold well, and continues to sell well because its purchasers are "blind blizzard sheep"...but the fact that THAT many ppl still play it, this long into its life, says something about how much its been improved.That, in and of itself....is the type of "failure" every company out there would love to have lol
my guess about titan delay is, there was only an Idea to begin with called Titan, and it wasn't really pushed back, they are finally starting on the project.
but they created the rumor a while back that the project was in production to create hype.
One of the many keystones to WoW's success - as well as one of it's many criticisms - was its graphical style. Most importantly, it's amazingly light on computer systems, which tremendously enhanced player accessibility. You have to believe Blizzard wanted to do something similar with Titan. Accessibility to millions of PC users is an absolute must for them.
Now, while WoW has done a great job keep its graphics up to date over the years, the recent wave of absolutely gorgeous - and yet also lightweight - MMOs (games like GW2, Tera, TSO, Age of Wushu) has caused WoW to show its age in my opinion. Newer technologies seem to allow for both stunning beauty AND accessibility for lower performance computers. It's no longer mandatory to make huge compromises like WoW did by going with a super stylized look.
What does that have to do with Titan?
I suspect they were taking a similarly stylized approach with Titan. Their art design, world design, and programming scheme was probably built upon the foundation of an advanced, modernized WoW type engine. Now, they probably see more potential in the new technologies and graphic systems displayed by other games than their own. This is just one problem that is bound to arise in a game that spends years upon years in development. It's like you began development for the playstation 1, but now the playstation 3 is out. Time to rewrite code for a whole new engine, redesign models and worlds to better suit the new engine, reprogram and rerender those models and worlds.
I don't know much about game development, but I'd imagine it's a tiered process. I'd imagine that many peoples' work depends upon the work of others. So until some of the new foundations are laid out, there isn't really anything for everyone else to do. In the mean time, it's better those employees go work one something else than sit around and do nothing or get laid off.
That's good news to me. Hopefully, Blizz can see we're tired of thempark, questing/gear grinding and want more sanboxish games like we had with Ultima Online and Asheron's Call.
I'm guessing one overarching factor sent it back to the drawing board: Titan has been in development for years and its tech is already old.
These guys aren't some noob game developers, planning your tech for the future is pretty fundamental to making games as most games have a long development process. So really I doubt this is it.
Also some other game beating them to market is also unlikely. Taking something somebody else did and making it better is pretty much what they excel at.
To the comment about D3 being a success, D3 was a financial success. It sold a lot on the coattails of diablo 2, and many of the people who bought it were let down. With a metascore of 3.8(out of 10) from player review it is not a success if you define success based on whether or not people think the game is good.
I don't think it was the tech, or another game, I think Blizzard just wasn't happy with it and/or it wasn't getting good feedback from internal review, and the changes required to fix some of the problems were likely underlying design issues that required big changes.
Originally posted by Arakazi Unlike some people on here I haven't a clue what Titan is or anything about the game.
Blizzard has put out some information on what it isn't. Other than that I don't think anyone knows what it *is*. Mostly it is just speculation. The excitement comes from the love of WoW. Honestly the game could be total crap and it would still sell tons of boxes.
Tts also only going to be on consoles and in addition to that, its not a fully shared world with other players. I sure it will have a nice crowd, but I am not sure it will be much of the MMORPG community.
I think it was due to the change in the market. When WoW came out MMOs were not the giants and everyone game they are today. People for the most part now know what a mmo is what they like about them. So I forsee a much more in depth system with their next game instead of a simple friendly WoW.
Comments
My gut feeling is that Titan will join Starcraft Ghost on the dustbin of history.
could turn out to be the case. either way, titan has been talked about for far too long. At this point, its release should be imminent, and here we are talking about it taking a big step back. Blizz is in more trouble then people can see, or what ti admit at this point. blizz better be hoping EQN fails hard. I, personally don't think it will.
Keeps coming to my mind as this news develops.
MMORPG Gamers/Developers need a reality check!
One hit wonder? Seriously?
/facepalm
Maybe fans of mmorpgs that follow mmorpg news? Oh and MAYBE they talk about that news on an mmorpg dedicated site. Just a guess.
EQN won't fail because its based on EQ .. but even better its a sandbox so imagine EQ & UO combined with amazing high end graphics which no PC can run faster than 20fps .. I mean lets be honest, Titan never had a chance .
Let wow officially die out, then let the blizz hate die out, then get everyone psyched for titans release.
The release will be a cash grab because the market for a long running cash cow like wow is no longer realistic or sustainable.
This is an amusing thread,very little in the way of reasoned or logical speculation and lots of wishful thinking based on personal prejudice.
But given how little there is too work with this topic is ripe for the above.
I wonder if some of their shareholders who have a vested interest in the company share your views on this.
Share holders should know a lick or two about a company before they invest in it. This is just typical Blizzard in every respect. Nearly every game they made went through this period, even if it was publicized or not by the masses.
This includes World of Warcraft, as they completely remade the entire game from their original creation. You can even read stuff like this, and look at the screen shots from the late 2000's and early 2001 (video) to see the difference. The graphics were different, the artstyle roughly different, and Elwynn Forest / Westfall / Stranglevale were all complete different as well (even the combat was different and more WCIII like). Heck, Elwynn had an entire village of a few dozen houses as opposed to just two houses were Goldshire is right now.
Point is, if one invested into this company, they knew they way they operated. How slow they were to release games. How they were willing to cancel a game they themselves didn't feel like it lived up to their own expectations. Indeed, one would have to be a fool to want such a company to rush a product out with what we've seen of other developers, and with how Blizzard itself operates.
There was no established information on this game for gods sakes...it wasn't even in Alpha...This was just a decision to remake the project cause it probably had outdated ideas and innovations cause they thought of "Titan" in 2007!
This isn't that big of news...seriously...if the game was a month from release and then this happened I would understand all the interest. The only real interest lies in the fact that its Blizzard and people want to bash on them to no end for whatever personal reasons or to speculate about a game that had NO INFORMATION released on it whatsoever.
That's it, end of story.
MMORPG Gamers/Developers need a reality check!
you guys are seriously living under rocks,
big devs like blizzard had access to ps4 and xbox1 devkits for close to year by now, this wasnt even secret
titan was clearly different game than wow, that was confirmed multiple times and why would they start another similar game, there is no 20+ mln market for that
so no they didnt decide to start over because of new consoles or because wow was failing
i suppose game engine got outdated, new upcomming mmorpgs are far superior to current ones and all that painted clear picture for them
noone will ever know, but some of those speculations are borderline retarded
you are all wrong.
Blizz is going back to the drawing board to make Titan compatible with the Oculous Rift. That's right bitches it's either going VR or it's gonna bomb.
They already stated that only a million of the 13 million copies sold was due to the WoW deal. Not only did it sell well at launch, but it continues to sell well, and has out sold every single PC game out there (including GW2) except for the SC2 xpac quarter after quarter. Not to mention that the game, over a year after release, still gets a million unique logins a day, and 3 million unique a week. You can claim that it sold well, and continues to sell well because its purchasers are "blind blizzard sheep"...but the fact that THAT many ppl still play it, this long into its life, says something about how much its been improved.That, in and of itself....is the type of "failure" every company out there would love to have lol
my guess about titan delay is, there was only an Idea to begin with called Titan, and it wasn't really pushed back, they are finally starting on the project.
but they created the rumor a while back that the project was in production to create hype.
One of the many keystones to WoW's success - as well as one of it's many criticisms - was its graphical style. Most importantly, it's amazingly light on computer systems, which tremendously enhanced player accessibility. You have to believe Blizzard wanted to do something similar with Titan. Accessibility to millions of PC users is an absolute must for them.
Now, while WoW has done a great job keep its graphics up to date over the years, the recent wave of absolutely gorgeous - and yet also lightweight - MMOs (games like GW2, Tera, TSO, Age of Wushu) has caused WoW to show its age in my opinion. Newer technologies seem to allow for both stunning beauty AND accessibility for lower performance computers. It's no longer mandatory to make huge compromises like WoW did by going with a super stylized look.
What does that have to do with Titan?
I suspect they were taking a similarly stylized approach with Titan. Their art design, world design, and programming scheme was probably built upon the foundation of an advanced, modernized WoW type engine. Now, they probably see more potential in the new technologies and graphic systems displayed by other games than their own. This is just one problem that is bound to arise in a game that spends years upon years in development. It's like you began development for the playstation 1, but now the playstation 3 is out. Time to rewrite code for a whole new engine, redesign models and worlds to better suit the new engine, reprogram and rerender those models and worlds.
I don't know much about game development, but I'd imagine it's a tiered process. I'd imagine that many peoples' work depends upon the work of others. So until some of the new foundations are laid out, there isn't really anything for everyone else to do. In the mean time, it's better those employees go work one something else than sit around and do nothing or get laid off.
At least that's my speculation.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
so..... like pretty much every thread on these forums?
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Corpus Callosum
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These guys aren't some noob game developers, planning your tech for the future is pretty fundamental to making games as most games have a long development process. So really I doubt this is it.
Also some other game beating them to market is also unlikely. Taking something somebody else did and making it better is pretty much what they excel at.
To the comment about D3 being a success, D3 was a financial success. It sold a lot on the coattails of diablo 2, and many of the people who bought it were let down. With a metascore of 3.8(out of 10) from player review it is not a success if you define success based on whether or not people think the game is good.
I don't think it was the tech, or another game, I think Blizzard just wasn't happy with it and/or it wasn't getting good feedback from internal review, and the changes required to fix some of the problems were likely underlying design issues that required big changes.
Blizzard has put out some information on what it isn't. Other than that I don't think anyone knows what it *is*. Mostly it is just speculation. The excitement comes from the love of WoW. Honestly the game could be total crap and it would still sell tons of boxes.
Tts also only going to be on consoles and in addition to that, its not a fully shared world with other players. I sure it will have a nice crowd, but I am not sure it will be much of the MMORPG community.