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[Column] General: Titan Seemed Made For All & That Was its Downfall
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Hearing the news that Blizzard had canceled the MMO project it had codenamed Titan after seven years of development, I can’t say I was surprised. What I really was was curious just what the game was planned to be. Leaks emerged soon afterward, and if they are to be believed, Titan might have been a game that offered something for every type of player. Yet the ambitiousness of the project could also be why it ultimately failed before ever being fully realized.
Read more of Christina Gonzalez's The Social Hub: Titan Seemed Made For All - and That Was its Downfall.
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The AAA Western MMORPG is pretty much dead going forward in terms of new big games this point... Why make them when they are so expensive, run so much risk, and have such an asshat target customer base? Why bother when you can make something a lot lot cheaper and make so much more money?
This is probably for the best though, because with the departure of the profiteer vultures we might see a rise in more of the passionate inspired development that fuelled the great niche games of before.
Ofc, the indie/ small devs can still carry on screwing the pooch with the same mindset we have seen dominate for the last decade, but hopefully they will see the opportunity and grab it.
My god that sounded dreadful. Glad they cancelled that pile.
Sims + FPS = wtf.
Sorry no, I don't want a day job as a butcher and then get called into missions during my lunchbreak. Who thought of this? No wonder they "didn't find the fun" it's sounds abjectly despair inducing.
They probably saw Destiny and the Division and were like, meh ours is like that except we added a really lame daytime job function. I bet they were planning on making job related goods sellable via real life currency.
Is the link to the article busted?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
"but you could also choose to live a virtual life within the game’s world and be a tradesperson or be “Uncle Owen” if you wanted."
I think part of the problem may have been that running around collecting ingredients for alchemy in a cool fantasy or sci fi world involves running around in a cool fantasy or sci fi world. Playing a chemist in a near future world probably isn't escapist enough. Similarly although players from the country might prefer escaping into Coruscant players from big cities might prefer escaping to a fantasy forest or Tatooine
So the crafting aspect should have been part of the shadow world too imo. They could keep the real world as the player housing with a portal to the shadow world for both crafting and combat.
Then you could craft floating beds made out of air elementals from the planes of Karth and a robot maid from parts dropped by the battle droids of Ezerbijan etc.
Kind of like a more near-future version of Planescape's Sigil.
The game’s near-future Earth, post fought-off alien invasion, would’ve been the setting for a struggle between several corporations, all battling behind the scenes for power. Thee would’ve been the game’s factions, and players could work at their jobs in the ‘real world’ and, when contacted, head into a shadow world where they could fight on behalf of their side and more. Players in the real world could work, craft, be in business for themselves, develop relationships with NPCs, and develop a full, Sims and Fable-like part of the game where starting a family and living those decisions out were options.
Take my money!
I'd have to agree, the more I read that report the more I was put off by what they where hoping to deliver to us.
A mundane day job that if I wanted to I could ignore the missions and keep plodding through, wow that sounds sooo exciting, if that's what was coming down the pipe after 7 yrs then they made the right choice in calling time.
If Titan is as described this could have potentially been a massive flop, at best a niche game, it is veering too far off the beaten track, trying to be too different to feel comfortable to gamers, and we all know how gamers enjoy huge change in their MMO's!!
A shame really, I wasn't exactly keeping this title on my radar, but I would have liked to see if they could replicate the same success as WoW.
Yeah I kind of agree, who did think of this? I say let those people who want to be butchers be butchers but do we really have to make accountant avatars and then get assigned missions?
Well, I guess we don't as the game isn't happening.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
This pretty much sums it up. MMOs are by far the most ambitious, costly, time consuming, & challenging games you can possibly make currently. And developers are seeing time, and time again, that the payoff just isn't worth it anymore. So why put most (if not all) of your company's resources on making a game that will likely turn up lackluster profits (or just straight up fail). There are plenty other types of games that can be made cheaper, easier, and more reliably profitable.
As for the whole indie MMO thing. I think there are multiple facets to this issue.
One the one hand, yes we need developers willing to try different things. However; we ALSO need to see gamers developing a different mentality when it comes to these games. Not only have expectations for MMOs become absurd, but we've gotten to the point where an MMO is marked 'failure' as soon as it has anything we don't like. Which is almost guaranteed, given the amount of variety (of features) these games need in order to survive.
Titan's demise, was nothing more than Blizzard realizing what I highlighted in green above. Then deciding that they'd rather keep making Hearthstones. Dumbed down versions of simpler games, with mass appeal; Guaranteed profit for a small fraction of the cost.
Im surprised and saddened to see that the OP is half indicating that TSW is big. I wish that was the case, but unfortuantely Funcom is very close to 0, with a yearly result fo only 1.6 million dollars for al their games.
Blizzards attempt with Titan just show the extreme lack of imagination and innovation in the business. Somehow the Game Designers just cant get things right and the end result will naturally be that projects either dont make money (Funcom) or get cancelled (Blizzard).
I really hate to do this and you CANNOT qoute me on this but... We need HIVELEADERs MMO suggestions !!
first thanks for sharing your thoughts, christina.
second i would like to ask: doesn't have anyone a problem with the time of the cancellation? lets see. since 7 years there is a rumor that blizzard is working on the next 'big thing'. for sure we know it since they confirmed 'titan' as working titel 6 years ago. in 2013 blizzard announced that they will make a development reboot with titan to take it in another direction, because the 'needs' of the players shifted and the old wow-concept doesn't work anymore. at this time they were 5 years into development, normally mmorpgs are done and released in this timeframe. and how many money was spend so far on this project? if it wouldn't be blizzard i would say it is a good choice, but since it is blizzard and its very likely they could make a huge profit with a new mmorpg (even it is a mediocre one), why not finish what they started? and what changed in one year that made them dump their project? why this long development time? sorry to say, but all this smells a bit funny. guess there is more than we know of.
People keep asking for innovation, more immersive gameplay and better AI for NPCs but when a company tries to do it they get a lot of complaints.
Really goes to show you that big MMO developers should never make big sandbox MMOs.
The "second job" seemed like it was going to be more like the crafting in SWG but you set up an open world shop and even NPCs world buy from you.So, really not sure what people are complaining about.
Can't wait for the inevitable flood of complaints over the innovative sandbox features in EQN. But, then, I also don't see people finding the time to complain about that because they will be too busy complaining about cartoony graphics or action combat.
Of course a MMO could be for everyone bcs if it is a Virtual World you can offer as many Slots for gaming niches as you want.
Only no one has done this in an intuitive and reasonable way thus far....
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Gawd, I just finished reading the leaked descriptions of Titan. It sounded really tedious. Probably best that they canceled it. TF2 + TSW + The Sims ? Ugh. Is Blizzard okay? (Losing WoW subs, original Diablo 3, and now this...)
I agree that Titan's death really underscores the decline in MMOs. What a crap year 2014 has been, for me, at least. None of TESO, WS, or AA got me hooked, and nothing ahead (H1Z1, The Repop, EQN) carries much interest either. I hope one of these space MMOs makes it - I have long felt that something has wonderfully deep as EVE but very inclusive of the PvE crowd could be a nice success.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
www.Immortals-mmo.co.uk
Trying to go for everyone, again, may have just been the project’s ultimate undoing.
Possible. The time for one to rule them all is long past. New MMOs will have to find their type of gamers and ignore all the haters and whiners who only find out, it is not for them. There has been a time where one game was enough for most (never played WoW, I enjoyed EQ2 at that time). This time is gone. Every game out to get them all will fail at that.
all AAA companies try to go for every audience.
this is why I dont bother with AAA MMO's anymore.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. - Mark Twain
It is an ambitious vision and high-quality standards that brought them to the place they have now in the market. I believe it is that lack of vision and ambition that will cost them that same place in the market in the long run, a bit like we see right now with Apple, slowly declining now that its master visionary is no more.