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Blizzard Has Canceled Titan, Its Next-gen MMO 155

Posted by Soulskill from the summer-2016-now-free-on-your-calendar dept.
Ptolemarch writes: Blizzard never officially announced it, but now it's gone: Titan, the next-generation MMO that had been in development for seven years, has been canceled. Mike Morhaime said, "[W]e set out to make the most ambitious thing that you could possibly imagine. And it didn't come together. We didn't find the fun. We didn't find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that's the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no." Polygon adds an article detailing everything publicly known about Titan (which wasn't much). MMO-Champion's report mentions rumors of a new project at Blizzard called Prometheus.
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Blizzard Has Canceled Titan, Its Next-gen MMO More

Blizzard Has Canceled Titan, Its Next-gen MMO

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  • Warcraft Killed it? (Score:3)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @03:57PM (#47977319) Homepage Journal

    "We're not trying to replace World of Warcraft with this new MMO," Morhaime told Wired at the time. "We're trying to create a different massively multiplayer experience, and hopefully World of Warcraft will still be going strong when that one is released."

    So the execs didn't let the new thing cannibalize the old, but still profitable thing?
    I'm sure that'll work well for them.

    • I don't think any game they're making that killed it. I think the MMO environment and landscape killed it. We had three high profile MMO releases in the last year + change (XIV ARR, TESO, and Wildstar) as well as Destiny. There comes a point where you look at what you've been doing, and compare it with what other people are doing, and you have to ask yourself if it's really going to be worth it in the end. Blizzard recognized that their ideas weren't gelling compared to what the current markets want, an

      • FF XIV ARR has catgirls.

        No further argument is needed.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GTRacer ( 234395 )
          12-year old FFXI has catgirls. What XIV did to revolutionize the MMO landscape (aside from crashing and burning only to resurrect from its ashes) was to add catguys.

          • Unfortunately, they also added female Roegadyn at the same time. I go cry in the corner every time I see one, nyah!

      • Wait, are you implying the current crop of new MMOs are what the market wants? lol.

        They more likely canned it because it too closely resembled one of the stinkers you mentioned.

        • Well, TESO is already turning into a ghost town so that clearly wasn't what the market wanted, but I have friends still enjoying Wildstar, and I myself am still finding stuff to do in XIV ARR. (Two million subscribers is a lot to say have poor taste.) Destiny is too new to know how much staying power it'll have just yet.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

            No, they have two million players, not two million subscribers. There's a very important difference there.

            Remember that the game has a free trial now. Inflating that player count is very easy.

            Weren't they suppose to be announcing active player numbers recently? Notice how that never happened? Gee, wonder why.

            The idea that a failed MMO from 2010 could someone be a competitor in 2014 while requiring a subscription is just so laughable I don't even no where to start. And, yes, I've played 2.0. They removed eve

            • Haven't tried ArchAge myself. Heard mixed things about it from my friends who have. I may look into it, but I don't think it's going to scratch my particular itches.

              As for sub fees, the MMO demographic is aging, and for myself and my friends, $12 a month to not have to deal with broke teenagers and buy to win whales is great.

    • MMOs right now are essentially 'WoW' and 'the other ones.' Your theory sounds entirely plausible. If they were to lure too many WoW players away they may start to make other MMOs look more attractive too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      Ultima Online is still around with people still paying subscriptions. It turns that prolonged death spiral with minimal investment is more profitable than trying to replicate poorly-understood success. It would have been highly ironic if Blizzard failed to clone WoW with Titan.

      It turns out, even Blizzard doesn't understand its own success enough to replicate it.

    • Blizzard is perfectly aware WoW has a limited shelf-life, and I don't see any indication from the announcement that they canned this product because of a fear it would take resources or marketshare from WoW.

      Seems to me that it just wasn't that good...

  • Should have called it Zeus (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Zeus is the one who killed the Titans. Including his own father, who to be fair, tried to eat him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ildon ( 413912 )

      For your analogy to be correct, they'd have had to call the project Olympian. The project was not called Cronus (Zeus's father).

  • I'm happy about it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by i kan reed ( 749298 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:01PM (#47977373) Homepage Journal

    Everything blizzard has done that's been online only has just completely disinterested me. I miss their games that were designed to be games, rather than continuous profit centers.

    Starcraft 2, was probably okay, but online only DRM, changed out for online only multiplayer was still enough to sour me on the idea.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Everything blizzard has done that's been online only has just completely disinterested me. I miss their games that were designed to be games, rather than continuous profit centers.

      Thank Activision for that - Kottick is all about profit and milking. Even SC2 had milk opportunities linked to the online DRM.

      Destiny right now is surprising in how little is being milked - you'd expect it to have tons of day 1 DLC to milk more money out of you, but so far not yet. (I'm guessing the smart move is wait for it to b

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        No, you can thank Robert "the packaged goods" Kotick that sacrificed fun at the altar of profit.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          No, you can thank Robert "the packaged goods" Kotick that sacrificed fun at the altar of profit.

          That's what I said. He's into milking. Make as much money as possible. Hell, he's the main reason why Xbone and PS4 games in Canada cost $70 rather than $60.

          Welp, since there's no PC version of Destiny.....me and mine won't be playing it.

          Well, there's a lot of talk about it. And if there's money to be made releasing it for PC, you can bet it'll come out. Even if it's a completely crappy port and they charge $70 f

          • (ever notice how PC games cost as much as console games nowadays?), if they can make a buck, they'll do it.

            No, I have not noticed that on new releases. That's one of the best reasons for PC games in general is that they are the same price at release and quickly fall in price within a few months. They are often filled with more content to begin with as well. Maybe if you are only talking about the games that start on consoles then move to PC later since they try to keep the continuity the same then in rare cases it's true.

      • Welp, since there's no PC version of Destiny.....me and mine won't be playing it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kick6 ( 1081615 )
        they're not waiting long: DLCs will be about before the end of the year. Extra-cost DLCs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      Star Craft 2, at competitive level was about executing a single optimal strategy with as much polish as you could. As such, entire gameplay devolved into timed pushes instead of actual strategy.

      As to single player SC2, it was mildly entertaining with Blizzard Cinematics. Maybe they should turn into animation studio if their key (and arguably the only) strength is cut scenes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        SC2 was basically made to give competitive Starcraft players something to spend their money on. It worked really hard not to rock the boat with that crowd, but if you're not part of that crowd then all it offers is some well crafted single player missions for you to play through and then put away. You don't really have a hope of competing online against guys who have been playing since 1998.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by sinij ( 911942 )
          I have been playing since 1998, made to Diamond in Season 1 and 2 and still think that competitive SC2 game play is highly formalistic and largely a miss. As a result I did not purchase expansions.

          Watching other play, I think SC2 is actually more fun at Silver-Bronze level, where there isn't skill level to instantly identify right strategy. Anything above that level becomes a repetitive exercise in doing one thing over and over and over again.

          • Kinda reminds me of chess.

            At low/mediocre level play, people will make "bad" moves on which a top-tier professional would easily capitalize. Lower skill players don't always know the perfect strategies, so it mixes up the games and keeps things interesting. You can try some bonkers strategy, and if it doesn't quite go to plan, you're not completely hosed

            At the top tiers, it's all about sticking to formula crafted by the absolute pinnacle players, and never deviating from those formulas unless you manage t

            • Actually, the problem is that the formulas are to simple to execute.
              Meaning the only important thing is how fast you can do them.

              Basically, they planned everything to resemble how Starcraft turned out when played professionaly, and enabled and required that gameplay.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ildon ( 413912 )

        SC2 is only about timed pushes and static strategies at the lower to middle levels. At higher levels, there is a lot of thinking on your feet and directly reacting to what information you can obtain from your opponent, and actively denying them information about your strategy or even purposefully feeding them disinformation (although that gamble is usually considered dangerous/expensive).

        You can get to Diamond with a static timed strategy, but (unless there's a specific cheese or imbalance in your favor dur

  • Maybe this is what you should have done instead of the steaming steamer that is Destiny.

    • Well rumor has it that Bungie bought what was complete of Titan, did some work, and released it as Destiny.

  • It's nice to see people that care about doing it right.

    There are so many awful MMOs out lately that are little more than designers frankensteining bits from MMO A , B, C together, then tossing bits of warcraft and calling it something new.

  • Blizzard Titan / Iceberg Titanic (Score:3, Funny)

    by khr ( 708262 ) <kevinrubin@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:28PM (#47977685) Homepage

    So Blizzard sunk it like the Titanic when it hit frozen water...

  • What where they copying? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:53PM (#47977957)

    Blizzard does great games.

    But every new game they put out has been an iteratively improved copy of a lower-tech game with great gameplay put out by someone else.

    Dialbo is Nethack (and variants). Warcraft was Dune 2 (and arguably goes back to Empire). World of Warcraft was EQ (which came from DikuMUD).

    Now, they made significant improvements to them. All 3 of them have lineages that go back to pure text games, and they where addictive as hell even as text games.

    Blizzard has the ability to take such a game, and amp it up hugely -- well polished, with lots of iterative design evidence. I haven't seen reason to believe that they are great at creating new types of games, however.

    • Yeah, I would 100% concur with that analysis.

      Blizzard was know for polish, polish, polish. But with the fiasco over Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and the continued "dumbing down" of WoW they only care about 1 thing now: Profits.

      • Re:What where they copying? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by torkus ( 1133985 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @05:14PM (#47978141)

        I used to be a WoW fanatic even back before the first expansion. It was grueling in some ways until you discovered some of the shortcuts, easier ways, and ultimately found a good guild. You had to actually pay attention to learn...and typically were rewarded with a good experience if you have a group reasonably adept at the same.

        Then all the easy-way-out things came along. Forget tricky shortcuts or easier ways to level or learning the pattern of mining nodes to run...now you could just throw gold at most of the problems and grind the others. I stuck around for 2 expansions if memory serves, left, came back a while, left again, came back to play a few hours killing time and realized it just wasn't fun anymore. Everything had to be equal like between squabbling children. Seemed like they painted an I-WIN button over the grind button.

        Buy hey...keep paying! Buy this, buy that...etc. No thanks. Somewhere along the way I shrugged off the MMO world and found better games to play in RL (and no, not sports). I'll stick to hard but short-lived games games like the old 8-bit days (or kill some time with candy crush) and call it a day if I get bored.

        • I left shortly after the first expansion. I briefly checked out the Panda expansion and left again. You summed it up perfectly!

          > Seemed like they painted an I-WIN button over the grind button.

          With the removal of lockpicking, and dumbing down poisons they really nerfed the whole feel of Rogues, etc.

        • I have been a Warcraft fan from day one, when my small, young and eager hands got hold of a copy of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. Back then I didn't have so many games to choose from, so I guess I played it at least three times (Demon/Water Elemental spam 4 teh win!). Warcraft 2 I played at least two times, and Warcraft 3 three times again.

          Yet I never touched World of Warcraft, at all. I was intrigued at first, but when I started hearing about how the MMO mechanics work, my interest faded fast. I much prefer e

          • I can understand the "floaty" feel. If you want a more "tangible" world I would suggest game:

            * Terraria

            Yes, it is 2D but the gameplay smeggin rocks! The mechanics are ton of fun once you get over the initial dying. A progression of exploration, items, and challenging boss monsters.

            You can play single player or multiplayer.

            If you need help, I can suggest reddit.com/r/Terraria

        • It is always amusing hearing stories about how the 'game became too easy' from WoW players:)

          I was a hardcore EQ player. When WoW came out we all laughed at it. It was like a mmorpg with training wheels. We kinda stopped laughing after WoW eventually sucked a lot of our userbase away.... but I digress.

          I guess 'easy' and 'hard' are very relative concepts. EQ you could literally sit (camp) at a spot, clearing the mobs around that single spot, for 3 actual real days. Trying to get 1 rare drop, out of 16 ra

    • you forgot that Starcraft was WH40k
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Never.
        Creation is never taken out of nothing.

        It's always in some way derivative.

        Otherwise it wouldn't be interesting to make or to partake in.

        It would require a crazy person to design something not founded on some principle of entertainment they already knew.
        Incidently, some of the most outrageous entertainment, especially truly random humor, is based on drug experiences.

    • Calling Diablo a roguelike is actually kinda silly.

      Even the first one, which was probably the most roguelike of them (except no permanent death without the ability to load existed) was primarily just an Action RPG with some roguelike elements.

      But, yeah.

      They are more like apple has been since 2000.
      Taking stuff from various sources and refining them until you have a product which has got a neat package och nothing being entirely wrong.

    • Masters of OrionCraft? :)

  • Good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @05:11PM (#47978111) Journal

    Forget MMOs for a while and work on some good single-player games.

    MMOs are played-out. The biggest problem with them is you have to engage with other gamers and that's never a good thing.

  • It isn't the first time for Blizzard (Score:4, Informative)

    by locopuyo ( 1433631 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @06:44PM (#47978891) Homepage
    This isn't the first time Blizzard has scrapped a project. They did it with StarCraft Ghost as well. They even officially announced and released videos for that game.

    • And with Lord of the Clans.

      Both those games where outsourced though.
      They were both failed experiments of trying to hire others do stuff under their banner and realizing that they made crappier stuff.

      This is the first in-house game which was canned.
      Well, that have gone far enough to have even rumors about.

    • The first time it was officially announced that Ghost was canceled was yesterday in the article linked to in this slashdot topic. Previously it had been on hold indefinitely with the last official statement coming in 2008. So sometime in the past six years it was cancelled without much fanfare. Of course, it had been considered vaporware for some time before the 2008 announcement.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rakarra ( 112805 )

        The first time it was officially announced that Ghost was canceled was yesterday in the article linked to in this slashdot topic. Previously it had been on hold indefinitely with the last official statement coming in 2008. So sometime in the past six years it was cancelled without much fanfare. Of course, it had been considered vaporware for some time before the 2008 announcement.

        At least with Starcraft: Ghost, they had playable demos at Blizzcon.

  • ...when's Diablo 4 meant to arrive?!

  • The bulk of the cost is still the assets (terrain/npcs/scripted behaviors/testing - all the specific data needed for the game) - bug staff needed for that and farming it out/managing it.

    Working on the engine and server/client to be able demonstrate/prove the advanced features (whatever they were) could be likely (and for a median hardware target) would be only a fraction of the complete development cost (and of the subsequent marketing/royalties/operational costs which can be as much as the development cos

  • When a project like that gets cancelled, where does all the material go? Does someone just do a rm -rf ./project, or does it just get rebranded into something else?

    • Re:Where does it go? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @08:24PM (#47979471)

      I can tell you from my own experience, having had a nearly-complete game cancelled on me once during my career.

      Game source material tends to be highly game-specific, and even more so for MMOs. It's saved forever in archives, of course, in case someone wants to pilfer something, but as technology marches on and tools are updated, it becomes harder to keep the game in a working state - especially for MMOs, who have extremely complex building and deployment requirements.

      In terms of game code (not engine code, which is designed to be reusable, of course), there are two basic approaches to starting a new game. If you're working on a sequel or have a similar game in the company library, you can branch an existing game and start stripping it down - this let's you start with a working game, and then you can swap out systems on the fly with whatever needs to change. If the game is distinct enough and wouldn't benefit from this techinque, you can start clean, working on top of whatever shared engine and libraries you have, but still may copy over specific subsystems, or use them as a starting point for new systems. This obviously occurs if it's your first game, but also if it's the first game within a new genre that wouldn't benefit from the copy-and-modify approach. For instance, when I worked on a turn-based strategy game and most of the company's previous games were 3rd person adventure games, it would have been pointless to start from one of those games' source code.

      For artwork, it really depends. Sounds, textures, and music are easily reused in many cases. Models and animations are a bit more of a question mark. Animations typically are matched to a specific rig and a specific set of game code that utilizes them. More often than not, all the game art tends to be too game-specific to be re-used for anything but a direct sequel, and often by then the assets aren't appropriate for the current state-of-the-art technology.

      So, in short, it's archived away somewhere and most likely, only parts of the source code will be reused as a launching point for a new product. Most of the art assets will probably never be reused, unless they're fairly generic environmental textures, sound effects, or music that happen to match a new product's genre and style.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rakarra ( 112805 )

        As far as I can tell, there are generally two things that can be rescued from a cancelled game:

        1) The game engine, if it was unique to the game. Of course if you're using someone else's engine this point doesn't apply.
        2) Story lines, either the overall story line, or minor subplots. Works best if this is a part of a franchise, otherwise your mileage may vary for what can be salvaged.

        Art is such a mixed bag. If you can immediately yank something to put into a game in a similar genre, great, though the longer

  • I was really interested in reading about this blizzard that cancelled an entire planet...

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