In 7 years a lot has changed in the mentality of the players of MMO games, so the devs saw that the product will not be a producer of $$$ income so they decided to can it.
Blizzard, as a developer, is the company gaming companies should copy. Now before you get that look on your face, let me lay out my argument.
First off, I don't mean that everyone should copy Blizzard games or the Blizzard formula. That's been tried ad naseum and it doesn't work.
However gaming companies should follow the Blizzard model of development.
1) Have a solid original vision for the game. (Blizzard envisioned the World of Warcraft World and the idea of a theme park where everyone got to see everything in the big vast world.
2) Remain true to that vision. (Blizzard stuck to the lore and didn't stray).
3) Do things that the masses can enjoy (i.e. keep graphical content at levels that you can run on any PC, not just the PCs using the very latest graphics cards).
4) If you're going to put it in the game, make sure it works and it appeals to the crowd it is intended to appeal to. (It may not be the "best" PvP you ever saw, but WoW's vanilla PvP works for the most part and PvPers have goals to reach etc. Hey, it wasn't the best but it was fun for a while).
5) Make sure it is ready to be released before you release it. (How many other gaming companies just shove stuff out the door before its ready while Blizzard is famous for delaying releases until they have worked out the kinks).
Any gaming company can do this, but so few actually do it. This is the secret to Blizzard's success, yet the model remains uncopied. Too bad.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Video game projects get canned all the time, at all stages of development, with lots of money invested in them. Yes Titan being canned is a big deal, but the engine they would have made will be used elsewhere, the IP will be reused, the assets will be re-used, most of that 50 million is recoverable, the rest will be written off as R&D (Which is a major expenditure at all large development studios),
Its not the end of an Era, its not even the end of a chapter, its just another project which some one high up eventually looked at and said "This will do more harm to our brand than good to our bank if we release it". It happens at every big studio and it happens a lot more than people realise "Fail earlier and quicker" is a mantra of of a few studios, try new ideas and see if they work, but dont be afraid to say they dont and try more ideas.
In the end quite a few people from Blizzard played it, one former employee I spoke to would not confirm or deny what the game was about, what its premise was he would only say "Ive played it, and its ok, but a lot of people are doing a similar thing only better" and that "Its not an MMO",
If it had seen the light of day I think it would have been more like Destiny than it would have been like wow, and there is another possible reason for it getting canned
A few years ago you would answer that with at least a handful of titles in development.
I have no idea. I think we may be stuck with the games that are already out for a while. There is no doubt that change has already started. I hope the indie devs are able to make fully featured games in reasonable amounts of time.
The future of MMORPGs wil be in sandbox mmorpgs.. be it PVP sandbox games or PVE based ones..
Things are changing and people over the last year or so have been showing that by supporting many Sandbox mmopgs via kickstarter and other crowdfunding so much so that even SOE has picked up on this and are moving towards sandbox based MMORPGs..
Because Developers start realising that Themepark MMO´s are unsustainable for the longterm. It used to work by putting insane gear grinds at the endgame, to keep people hooked and addicted.
But even that is starting to wear off and people starting to burn out on it.
The only way to sustain an MMO on the longterm is to add sandbox elements into the mix, to have players create their own content.
It doesn´t have to be pure sandbox. It can be a mix of the two. As questing can still be fun to do, when there is good lore and story behind it, with a little creativity.
Tell that to SWTOR, which has only been growing since its initial dropoff in 2012, and now has over a million players in the west alone. Heck, even AoC is still as active as any Sandbox not named EVE....
The future of MMORPGs wil be in sandbox mmorpgs.. be it PVP sandbox games or PVE based ones..
Things are changing and people over the last year or so have been showing that by supporting many Sandbox mmopgs via kickstarter and other crowdfunding so much so that even SOE has picked up on this and are moving towards sandbox based MMORPGs..
Because Developers start realising that Themepark MMO´s are unsustainable for the longterm. It used to work by putting insane gear grinds at the endgame, to keep people hooked and addicted.
But even that is starting to wear off and people starting to burn out on it.
The only way to sustain an MMO on the longterm is to add sandbox elements into the mix, to have players create their own content.
It doesn´t have to be pure sandbox. It can be a mix of the two. As questing can still be fun to do, when there is good lore and story behind it, with a little creativity.
Tell that to SWTOR, which has only been growing since its initial dropoff in 2012, and now has over a million players in the west alone. Heck, even AoC is still as active as any Sandbox not named EVE....
If a log in tomorow for 1min as F2P I will be the 1 000 001 player lol, Sry to burst your bubble but SWTOR is hyper niche game for super big StarWars fans.
The future of MMORPGs wil be in sandbox mmorpgs.. be it PVP sandbox games or PVE based ones..
Things are changing and people over the last year or so have been showing that by supporting many Sandbox mmopgs via kickstarter and other crowdfunding so much so that even SOE has picked up on this and are moving towards sandbox based MMORPGs..
Because Developers start realising that Themepark MMO´s are unsustainable for the longterm. It used to work by putting insane gear grinds at the endgame, to keep people hooked and addicted.
But even that is starting to wear off and people starting to burn out on it.
The only way to sustain an MMO on the longterm is to add sandbox elements into the mix, to have players create their own content.
It doesn´t have to be pure sandbox. It can be a mix of the two. As questing can still be fun to do, when there is good lore and story behind it, with a little creativity.
Tell that to SWTOR, which has only been growing since its initial dropoff in 2012, and now has over a million players in the west alone. Heck, even AoC is still as active as any Sandbox not named EVE....
If a log in tomorow for 1min as F2P I will be the 1 000 001 player lol, Sry to burst your bubble but SWTOR is hyper niche game for super big StarWars fans.
And if I login tomorrow and play for 120 hours straight as F2P, I will be the 1 000 002 player "lol". Put your straw man away....
The 2nd most played MMO in the west being called a "hyperniche game"...now 'ive heard everything lmao
respect for Blizzard , they know none can make something success and new in MMO game industry
MMO genre today is everything, but not mmo what should to be .Only old 5+ years mmo games are still great & enjoyable .
MMOs from 2009 or so were kind of the low point for the industry. What came out back then is so uneventful I can't even remember them. War-Hammer? Lord of the Rings Online? Age of Conan? AION? These were some of the most lack luster games ever produced. By comparison 2014 games such as ESO and ArchAge are much better than those 5 year old MMOs.
You have to go back 10+ years to get to the really good old school stuff. Talking about Star Wars Galaxies and Lineage II now those were good games. Even Eq2 and Vanguard were still decent up to 2006.
The future of MMOs? More crap really. As our society moves to teach children to take standardized tests rather than creatively problem solve, our TV, games, cars, phones and even our stores are moving in the same direction. Instant gratification is the rule. MMOs are using the same psychology as commercials: you have 30 seconds to sell your product. Games are a business model now. Technology is moving so fast that the line between a game being up-to-date internally and released-on-time is quite treacherous. If they could hammer away at a game for 10 years and have it come out like new then they probably would. But they can't. Not saying the companies should not make a profit but often times its more about the bottom line than the passion to create. And that, my friends, is exactly what we are missing from games today; Passion.
Originally posted by SteamRanger It might mean that Blizzard is basically a lazy development company who have never really had an original idea. They have always relied on improving other people's ideas to produce content. That's why then never really come up with anything completely new.
Really? are people this tard? "Blizzard is lazy and NEVER had an original idea"?
FFS... Kids nowadays are so stupid....
Name one??? that isnt making a MMO a lobby based game cause we already have lobby based games pre WoW
I agree with a shift to a variety of niche focused mmos, unfortunately developers or publishers and players do not get this approach. Everywhere I go I constantly see the "but the majority" argument thrown around. MMOs can and should focus on different types of players and not strictly on the most mass appeal possible.
Ugh! I'm not sure if I was looking forward to Titan or not. Years later, I still can't focus on WoW beyond lvl 5! It sucked and it still sucks! The basic problem with MMOs is that they're all the same. Wildstar tried to mix it up a little, but not really. SWTOR couldn't keep my interest either and I am a SW fan. Look, I am eager to see what City of Titans brings up as the game continues with development. MMOs now are either Dugneons and Dragon's based (yes people it's all the same), have horrible game play (Final Fantasy) where the player has to stand there wait for plays to execute after some ridiculous charge period or whatever, or are shooters (sheesh don't we have enough of those. Destiny!!). Once again, CoH is under appreciated. That game allowed users to have so much control over the makeup and appearance of their characters. Even thought the game is set in a superhero setting, you were allowed to make whatever kind of character you chose. Secondly, the team play in a game like that was amazing. The execution of abilities and power sets were numerous. Yes, that game like them all began to fade with items like the architect thing that people begin to farm like mad. The point is step outside of shooters and Dungeons (or atleast keep it as an option), and game play needs to be fast paced and teamwork apparent (controllers and defenders in CoH were primarily team archetypes...oh do I miss my controller), lastly please let players have control over their characters (DON'T FORCE ME TO WEAR ARMOR...I HATE THAT!). GW2 has some nice qualities and I pick it up from time to time, but even it needs to allow for more customization (ugh dumb power sets and tasteless armor skins). I've never been much of a PvPer, but I understand how well PvP worked in CoH....at least initially. I'll give an example of how GW2 could allow for more customization. Let's take an elementalist (my fav). Why not give players more control over which powers they use. Perhaps, I want an all ice toon. Why can't I do that? Secondly, perhaps I like powers from dagger and staff. Why can't I pick and choose. I think stepping out of the box is what the entire industry needs. MMOs attract more than guys between 15-30 now. Encourage innovation, customization, and interaction with other players. That's my two cents (more of rant really)! LOL
I think if Blizzard believed that AAA MMOs were going to continue to be the cash cows of the future, they would still be investing in Titan. Even if they had problems with the tech or had to rework the gameplay to fit in with assumptions about how future gamers want to play (F2P, Sandbox, action combat), it would make sense to keep plugging away.
But they must think that they can get more bang for the buck out of other genres like TCG's or MOBA's and that the current MMO market is too flooded.
What will be interesting is what they do with WOW. Will they continue to let it slowly decline over the next 5-6 years, milking it for all it's worth? Will they come up with a WOW 2.0, with new gameplay features? Or will they plot some middle course, major changes to the game and a graphics overhaul but otherwise leaving characters and past content intact? So far, it looks like they chose the first course of action but maybe now that they cancelled Titan and freed up some resources they will try to breathe some life back into WOW.
The original games had a good world model - lots of factions, races, classes, lore, zones etc i.e. lots of *variety* and lots of depth - but often very clunky mechanics, interface etc.
WoW came along and *kept* a lot of the world model while fixing the clunkiness.
Then dozens of games came along after which copied the mechanics part but dropped the world part.
The magic formula is a good world plus good mechanics - both at once.
The next stage would be to take the WoW world - lore, races, factions etc - and make a new version that was more open like Skyrim or Morrowind.
What is funny is that elemental changes in Themepark MMOs formed a predictable outcome, once the most visible player behaviors grew entrenched.
If a game spends $300 Million (SWTOR) developing content that 75% of players blow through without ever really engaging it, then that game has wasted 75% of $300 million. That 75% is now waiting at the far end of your blown $300 million multi-year labor of love screaming for more content... the very stuff they bypassed. So you cobble together a way to make existing content harder and run them through that obstacle course (ESO) while scrambling to put together something, anything, that is new to keep those players from migrating... only to learn that mob behavior is just like a swarm of locusts. Once the food is gone they move en masse, and all your effort comes to naught.
But our game will be different. How many times was that said, only to see those same players blow through the believed exceptional game once more?
Businessmen, investors, do not waste time on illusions any more than they tolerate delusions. It just won't happen.
So as a result you get crowdsourcing where the money is coming primarily from believers. And because crowdsourcing is low budget you skimp on crafting content and devise ways for the players to create their own drama, make their own entertainment the same way kids used to do roleplaying Cowboys and Indians.
I got you. No you didn't. Did too. The drama is always generated by the players, even here on the forums.
So the future will be something like Chris Roberts' model. You build a little solo campaign that leads into an MMO where players make the content. You just have to provide all the tools, provide instruments to persuade them into behaviors constructive toward your profit margin and dissuade them from behaviors destructive toward your profit margin.
And let them run with the ball: people are reliable sources of drama.
I feel that decisions like this is why Blizzard is the best mmo company in the world. They aren't afraid to make the tough decisions. People complain about WoW, but I challenge anyone to tell me of a current mmo that's better in substance and depth. I too get burned out with WoW, but I always go back because Blizzard introduces something new that wins my curiosity over.
Personally I think Blizzard did not think releasing a new mmo that would compete / compared to WoW in terms of successfulness was a good idea. Topped off with the Activision / Bungie deal with Destiny. Almost a year after the deal was made, Titan was rebooted. Titan from what I read seemed to be more mmo / sandbox version of what Destiny is looking to be. So it would make sense for Activision to not want a new title competing with something that they heavily invested in for years to come.
Well, looks like Suzie has done nothing here but parrot a bunch of melodramatic nonsense that she read on these very forums. Par for the course with this site.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
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.
I think the world of mmo's is changing, I have played them since the 90's, they have changed the players have changed the way we play games watch television has changed,
I see the traditional mmo/rpg being a thing of the past and replaced with some watered down quick leveling game not much meat on the bones, we already have content locusts that float from game to game, developers can't seem to make games that large amounts of people will play for any length of time. I used to love to play my mmo's for years not three to four months, but I think those times are slipping away, sad to say.
Comments
want 7 free days of playing? Try this
http://www.swtor.com/r/ZptVnY
Blizzard, as a developer, is the company gaming companies should copy. Now before you get that look on your face, let me lay out my argument.
First off, I don't mean that everyone should copy Blizzard games or the Blizzard formula. That's been tried ad naseum and it doesn't work.
However gaming companies should follow the Blizzard model of development.
1) Have a solid original vision for the game. (Blizzard envisioned the World of Warcraft World and the idea of a theme park where everyone got to see everything in the big vast world.
2) Remain true to that vision. (Blizzard stuck to the lore and didn't stray).
3) Do things that the masses can enjoy (i.e. keep graphical content at levels that you can run on any PC, not just the PCs using the very latest graphics cards).
4) If you're going to put it in the game, make sure it works and it appeals to the crowd it is intended to appeal to. (It may not be the "best" PvP you ever saw, but WoW's vanilla PvP works for the most part and PvPers have goals to reach etc. Hey, it wasn't the best but it was fun for a while).
5) Make sure it is ready to be released before you release it. (How many other gaming companies just shove stuff out the door before its ready while Blizzard is famous for delaying releases until they have worked out the kinks).
Any gaming company can do this, but so few actually do it. This is the secret to Blizzard's success, yet the model remains uncopied. Too bad.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Video game projects get canned all the time, at all stages of development, with lots of money invested in them. Yes Titan being canned is a big deal, but the engine they would have made will be used elsewhere, the IP will be reused, the assets will be re-used, most of that 50 million is recoverable, the rest will be written off as R&D (Which is a major expenditure at all large development studios),
Its not the end of an Era, its not even the end of a chapter, its just another project which some one high up eventually looked at and said "This will do more harm to our brand than good to our bank if we release it". It happens at every big studio and it happens a lot more than people realise "Fail earlier and quicker" is a mantra of of a few studios, try new ideas and see if they work, but dont be afraid to say they dont and try more ideas.
In the end quite a few people from Blizzard played it, one former employee I spoke to would not confirm or deny what the game was about, what its premise was he would only say "Ive played it, and its ok, but a lot of people are doing a similar thing only better" and that "Its not an MMO",
If it had seen the light of day I think it would have been more like Destiny than it would have been like wow, and there is another possible reason for it getting canned
I have no idea. I think we may be stuck with the games that are already out for a while. There is no doubt that change has already started. I hope the indie devs are able to make fully featured games in reasonable amounts of time.
Tell that to SWTOR, which has only been growing since its initial dropoff in 2012, and now has over a million players in the west alone. Heck, even AoC is still as active as any Sandbox not named EVE....
If a log in tomorow for 1min as F2P I will be the 1 000 001 player lol, Sry to burst your bubble but SWTOR is hyper niche game for super big StarWars fans.
And if I login tomorrow and play for 120 hours straight as F2P, I will be the 1 000 002 player "lol". Put your straw man away....
The 2nd most played MMO in the west being called a "hyper niche game"...now 'ive heard everything lmao
MMOs from 2009 or so were kind of the low point for the industry. What came out back then is so uneventful I can't even remember them. War-Hammer? Lord of the Rings Online? Age of Conan? AION? These were some of the most lack luster games ever produced. By comparison 2014 games such as ESO and ArchAge are much better than those 5 year old MMOs.
You have to go back 10+ years to get to the really good old school stuff. Talking about Star Wars Galaxies and Lineage II now those were good games. Even Eq2 and Vanguard were still decent up to 2006.
The future of MMOs? More crap really. As our society moves to teach children to take standardized tests rather than creatively problem solve, our TV, games, cars, phones and even our stores are moving in the same direction. Instant gratification is the rule. MMOs are using the same psychology as commercials: you have 30 seconds to sell your product. Games are a business model now. Technology is moving so fast that the line between a game being up-to-date internally and released-on-time is quite treacherous. If they could hammer away at a game for 10 years and have it come out like new then they probably would. But they can't. Not saying the companies should not make a profit but often times its more about the bottom line than the passion to create. And that, my friends, is exactly what we are missing from games today; Passion.
Name one??? that isnt making a MMO a lobby based game cause we already have lobby based games pre WoW
Citadel of Sorcery
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
I think if Blizzard believed that AAA MMOs were going to continue to be the cash cows of the future, they would still be investing in Titan. Even if they had problems with the tech or had to rework the gameplay to fit in with assumptions about how future gamers want to play (F2P, Sandbox, action combat), it would make sense to keep plugging away.
But they must think that they can get more bang for the buck out of other genres like TCG's or MOBA's and that the current MMO market is too flooded.
What will be interesting is what they do with WOW. Will they continue to let it slowly decline over the next 5-6 years, milking it for all it's worth? Will they come up with a WOW 2.0, with new gameplay features? Or will they plot some middle course, major changes to the game and a graphics overhaul but otherwise leaving characters and past content intact? So far, it looks like they chose the first course of action but maybe now that they cancelled Titan and freed up some resources they will try to breathe some life back into WOW.
The original games had a good world model - lots of factions, races, classes, lore, zones etc i.e. lots of *variety* and lots of depth - but often very clunky mechanics, interface etc.
WoW came along and *kept* a lot of the world model while fixing the clunkiness.
Then dozens of games came along after which copied the mechanics part but dropped the world part.
The magic formula is a good world plus good mechanics - both at once.
The next stage would be to take the WoW world - lore, races, factions etc - and make a new version that was more open like Skyrim or Morrowind.
What is funny is that elemental changes in Themepark MMOs formed a predictable outcome, once the most visible player behaviors grew entrenched.
If a game spends $300 Million (SWTOR) developing content that 75% of players blow through without ever really engaging it, then that game has wasted 75% of $300 million. That 75% is now waiting at the far end of your blown $300 million multi-year labor of love screaming for more content... the very stuff they bypassed. So you cobble together a way to make existing content harder and run them through that obstacle course (ESO) while scrambling to put together something, anything, that is new to keep those players from migrating... only to learn that mob behavior is just like a swarm of locusts. Once the food is gone they move en masse, and all your effort comes to naught.
But our game will be different. How many times was that said, only to see those same players blow through the believed exceptional game once more?
Businessmen, investors, do not waste time on illusions any more than they tolerate delusions. It just won't happen.
So as a result you get crowdsourcing where the money is coming primarily from believers. And because crowdsourcing is low budget you skimp on crafting content and devise ways for the players to create their own drama, make their own entertainment the same way kids used to do roleplaying Cowboys and Indians.
I got you. No you didn't. Did too. The drama is always generated by the players, even here on the forums.
So the future will be something like Chris Roberts' model. You build a little solo campaign that leads into an MMO where players make the content. You just have to provide all the tools, provide instruments to persuade them into behaviors constructive toward your profit margin and dissuade them from behaviors destructive toward your profit margin.
And let them run with the ball: people are reliable sources of drama.
To dream, perhaps to be.
Doesn't mean much.
Personally I think Blizzard did not think releasing a new mmo that would compete / compared to WoW in terms of successfulness was a good idea. Topped off with the Activision / Bungie deal with Destiny. Almost a year after the deal was made, Titan was rebooted. Titan from what I read seemed to be more mmo / sandbox version of what Destiny is looking to be. So it would make sense for Activision to not want a new title competing with something that they heavily invested in for years to come.
Well, looks like Suzie has done nothing here but parrot a bunch of melodramatic nonsense that she read on these very forums. Par for the course with this site.
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.
I think the world of mmo's is changing, I have played them since the 90's, they have changed the players have changed the way we play games watch television has changed,
I see the traditional mmo/rpg being a thing of the past and replaced with some watered down quick leveling game not much meat on the bones, we already have content locusts that float from game to game, developers can't seem to make games that large amounts of people will play for any length of time. I used to love to play my mmo's for years not three to four months, but I think those times are slipping away, sad to say.