Project Titan is pulling a Diablo 3

[Cerveza mas fina]

Apperently the game is completely rebooted and wont come out till 2016...

Another clusterfuck from modern day Blizzard.

Wonder if Sony will step up now with EQ3. Also wonder why it was canned.

[Great Rumbler]

[Stoney Mason]

What does this mean? Post some links or something. Does that mean that the console version of Diablo 3 is being delayed?

It means they were fucking up on Titan and are going back to the drawing board. It shouldn't effect the console versions of Diablo 3.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/28/4374230/blizzard-titan-next-gen-mmo

[archnemesis]

Several versions of Diablo 3 were scrapped completely. Here is a screenshot from one of the builds that didn't survive.

[Cerveza mas fina]

That scrapped version of Diablo 3 was made by Blizzard North, the guys that made d1 and d2. This version was scrapped and blizz north shut down.

[etiolate]

It was likely canned because Blizzard's concept of the MMO at the time they started on Titan is diffferent from the modern MMO. It's likely that there were too many advances by competitors and changes in the market that made Titan obsolete. Basically, what happened with Diablo 3.

I don't buy 2016 though. If it's restarting NOW then it will still be a close call to get it out by then. That's one of the issues with MMOs, their development time is so long that you need to be forward thinking enough so as not to release a game that seems 2 years behind by the time it goes gold.

[Steve Contra]

The version of D3 that Blizz North was making was never, ever going to get made. 

[Phoenix Dark]

Guess this means more 5 level WoW expansions.

Etlioet is probably right. The MMO market is significantly different now than it was when Project Titan went into production. Whether you like stuff like GW2 or not you must admit the quality of non-sub and f2p MMOs has increased significantly.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I hope they will try to make a sandbox game. Something with real freedom.

[etiolate]

The MMO market is diversifying and the MMO consumer is increasingly more demanding for content. This is why you are seeing a shift towards sandbox titles so that the devs can rely  on the players to create their own content and fulfill their own increasing demand. ANet just shifted to updating on a two week schedule. At the time Titan went into development, the average update time was probably 3-6 months.

So I imagine part of the retooling is changing the game so that it can work with current demand. Either its going more sandbox or they're structuring it to be easier to tweak and update.

[Human Snorenado]

F2P mmos are the wave of the future... preferably ones you can play on mobile devices, so they're gonna be dumbed down (truly an oxymoron when talking about mmos) and have shittier grafx

[Cerveza mas fina]

Damn youre dumb.

Good point about why sandbox is also good for devs etiolate, although I really think gamers want it as well after all these rollercoasters.

[bluemax]

Apperently the game is completely rebooted and wont come out till 2016...

Another clusterfuck from modern day Blizzard.

Wonder if Sony will step up now with EQ3. Also wonder why it was canned.

EQ3 is definitely in the works. They were hiring and recruiting for it a month ago.

[etiolate]

I believe EQ Next is getting its first reveal at SOE Live this year.

[Cerveza mas fina]

When is that? Im interested!

Wonder if it will be ps4 too.

[etiolate]

https://www.soe.com/soelive/

August 1-4.

[Phoenix Dark]

I wonder when will WoW go f2p. Maybe two years?

[Trent Dole]

Why anyone is still subbing to WoW in 2013 is beyond me. Shit looks so dated now. Is there really nobody who's stepped forward and iterated on its mechanics in a satisfactory way? Think a lot of its base has to be casual types who don't really follow the scene much or addicts who jump back in for a fix every so often/between other games.

[brob]

The one-two punch of comfort through familiarity and all of their MMO friends being in WOW probably.

[etiolate]

Why anyone is still subbing to WoW in 2013 is beyond me. Shit looks so dated now. Is there really nobody who's stepped forward and iterated on its mechanics in a satisfactory way? Think a lot of its base has to be casual types who don't really follow the scene much or addicts who jump back in for a fix every so often/between other games.

I guess this is where I point out my darling Guild Wars 2 is the fastest selling western MMO at 3 million plus in about 9 months without even hitting Asia yet. So yeah WoW has been iterated and improved upon. I don't even think GW2 was the first. Rift is pretty much WoW with faster updates and more features. SWTOR is WoW + Single player story content. (Though they had trouble with the previously mentioned demand for content.) You can say SWTOR didn't iterate much, but I do believe Rift iterated Public Events, and the class system.

What probably held back other games in the past is the psychological angle of subscriptions. Online communities were very reluctant to move on in the past, and subs made this even harder since every player was trying to constantly play to justify the extra money they were spending on the game. Subbing to two games was very demanding on the psyche. You had to justify two games being worth more money which then made them demand more time spent to justify the money. Like any online game, MMOs depend greatly upon the community to keep relevant and alive. Having fun in these games really relies on other players being there, even if you don't like all of those other people. Subs kept the community stagnant and that also helped keep the genre stagnant.

When F2P and B2P came in, communities moved more freely. Now, more risks and advancements are being made.  This is how the Asian market has worked. China's MMO market dwarfs the western market. There's a new MMO release in the east like every week. The business model is different in the east as well. Less reliant on subs and more reliant on internet cafes. Access to MMOs is greater since they're all installed on some internet cafe machine. Western MMO market is starting to heads this way despite the lack of the internet cafe culture. Without the financial guilt, communities can more easily exist upon a choice of what game they like rather than which game has the entirety of the community.

[Phoenix Dark]

I'd imagine a lot of WoW's current userbase are folks who first started playing 2-3 years ago, still have friends who play, etc; the game is relatively new to them in many ways and the social aspect remains strong. It has lost its luster for people who started playing long ago such as myself. Most of my WoW friends moved on to LoL and other f2p games. Interestingly, I don't know anyone except Etoilet who moved to GW2.

There used to be a general assumption that "WoW killers" were always quite flawed, or if a WoW got involved in one the assumption was "he'll be back in two months." Conan, Warhammer, Aeon, Rift, etc all followed that pattern. But years of repetitive gameplay and a stale world has really taken the shine off WoW, to a point where I rarely come across any diehard fans anymore. You can pretty much do all the things you did in WoW for free in other games now, so why pay monthly just to stand around in a capital city?

[etiolate]

GW series didn't ever need to steal from the WoW playerbase since it focuses on a wider variety of players. Some WoW folks hate the game for not having a trinity or raiding. Others love it for not having everything revolve around one game mode.

[Phoenix Dark]

Personally I think GW2 would be more successful/appealing if it had the trinity, but that's just me.

[Raban]

I dunno, I think Blizzard has a big opportunity with Titan. You're right, MMOs are having a bit of identity crisis now that more profitable business models have risen into light, but I think it would be foolish to assume Blizzard doesn't know that and isn't trying their hardest to figure out how to make it work.

Maybe it's just blind faith in Blizzard, but they've redefined the MMORPG genre before; it's not hard for me to believe they can do it again.