I still think it'll be WoW with better graphics.

'Without giving away any details, we have some of our most experienced MMO developers, people who spent years working on the World of WarCraft team, working on this project,' he said

Hey Blizzard - you just gave away your making a WoW sequal... Best part is that you dont know it yet.

World of Starcraft perhaps?

Originally Posted by maverik-sg1
World of Starcraft perhaps?

not at all. this is actually not new news at all. simply confirmed. As blizzard has stated before (this was even before the game was code named 'Titan') - The new MMO is basted off of BRAND NEW IP and not one of its 3 game line (so no world of Diablo either)

[Edit]http://www.blizzardnewmmo.com/Game_Info

The question here is whats the point?

Unless WoW subscriptions are dropping off there no point in blizzard releasing another MMO.

Sure you may get some people playing who would not have played a fantasy set MMO, but even the laziest of students, or the geekiest of the unemployed, with incredible amounts of free time, can only play one MMO at once.

It may not look like WoW, but it'll have all the game-mechanics of WoW.

Pathetic.

Originally Posted by maverik-sg1
World of Starcraft perhaps?

Was thinking the same thing.

I find it funny that 4 of the 6 comments here are basically saying its going to be crap. Even though there is no release date, no screenshots, no preview, even no information on what its about, but you're all sure it's going to be crap.

Whats hydra then?

There's only been four bits of news on this title since the rumor mill started about a year ago, it's not WoW2, known for a few months now, it's not a known Blizz title, also known for months now, it's code-name is Titan, new to me anyway, and the most depressing news, it's supposed to be targeting casual gamers even more than WoW is now. I was personally hoping to see what Blizz could do with an EQ (pre-expansions from hell and back) style MMO but it doesn't look like it's in the cards. But it's still from Blizz, so expect the same type of graphics but hopefully with some clever new mechanics. And it's Blizz, as long as the Activision cancer hasn't spread too far it could be worthwhile.

And to add to that Artanix. Does anyone remember Blizzard releasing any crap games in their history? No not every game they make appeals to everyone but you can count on it being a solid well polished game.

Originally Posted by Neat69
The question here is whats the point?

That should be obvious

Originally Posted by jrs77
It may not look like WoW, but it'll have all the game-mechanics of WoW.

Pathetic.

It'll probably be very similar, but how is that pathetic?

They have a highly experienced team which has produced one of the most successful MMOs to date. They want to make a new MMO.

Now what makes the most sense here:
-Use the team that has years of experience and amazing success in the genre
-Use a completely unrelated team and restart the learning process

My money's on the team that knows what they're doing.

Plenty of games are produced by teams who's main experience is with a single genre/IP, and people still enjoy them. Look at literally anything made by Bioware, for example. If it ain't broke why fix it?

Yeah I think it's great. I'm not a big WoW lover but it's a brilliantly made game. It's worth remembering that the design of WoW is about 10 years old, and it's inspiration is games like EQ which are around 12 years old with designs perhaps 15 years old.

FStudios cancelled Elite 4 because they wanted to make it an MMORPG, and back then, the technology just wasn't there. Most people had crappy dial up connections and the web was new. Nowdays I bet with all the advancement in technology, and all the advancement in knowledge that Blizzard has now, they could come up with a new game that is really advanced.

Whether or not it's more fantasy elves and stuff, isn't very important to me. The important thing is how much more advanced the design is. Blizzard aren't scared to think outside the box and try new ideas. WoW may have been very EQ inspired, but they made massive changes, and since then they have been even more creative and even more brave. Things like the arena and battlegrounds had never been done before and it was pretty ambitious.

The truth is, the MMORPG genre itself is extremely new relatively, and it could go anywhere. When it first came along in the 90's. I predicted enormous virtual corporations waging war against other enormous virtual corporations, with cyber terrorism and perhaps real (virtual) terrorism, gigantic wars with thousands of players, and players owning their own entire cities. Some of this has still never happened, and some of it has only been tried once, most of it in Eve, and some of it in games like Shadowbane which didn't do very well with some other things and resulted in the game dying out. Basically what I'm saying is that the sky is almost the limit with this genre, and it still hasn't been pushed all that much yet. Blizzard are probably the best company out there to do it. They have the budget, the team, the experience, the infrastructure, and the creativity, to really try new exciting and ambitious things.

They may well just go and make another fluffy glorified kids games with big pointy eared elves and owl people, doing cute dances and gameplay involving massive grinding etc. But they may not... I'm pretty excited to see what they come up with.

One other thing, when someone wonders what's the point. The point is that these kinds of games take many years to make. So if a competitor comes up with another game out of the blue, and for whatever reason, they just do enough things right, that it becomes "the next big thing" that everyone wants to play, and it starts eating away at WoW's fanbase, it would be far too late to react to. Blizzard may be on top now, but the only way for them to stay on top, is to keep developing new stuff, that ensures they remain the best. And resting on their laurels with a 10 year old concept (WoW), is not a safe thing to do. Investing their squillions of $ in to a brand new concept with the most advanced design ever, and potentially making a game better than any other company could even dream of making, is one way to ensure that they are going to be the leading force in MMORPG's for the next decade or so. I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Perhaps Blizzard is digging into the past... A "Lost Vikings" MMO perhaps?

Yeah I doubt that too.

Blizzard is, according to Activision, expected to release two games by the end of 2012. No release date has been set on any current Blizzard projects, however.

hhmm... this gives me hope that Diablo III will finally be getting released.

I would assume that Diablo III be released first and then followed by Titan/Starcraft : Ghost. I was kinda expecting Diablo III earlier but they released Starcraft II first instead. Anyways, that's only my guess.:D

Personally I would love to see a futuristic ground based MMO. I know EQ is very popular but its all space based. I want to see guns and lasers, not swords and axes.
By the codename of this though it doest sound futuristic, it sounds more historical, but who knows, that might just be a trick to codename with titan.
I am looking forward to it though, I love following development of games, even though most of the time I end up being disappointed by the final result

@ sausages : so true !

@ DriftCarl: If Blizzard is not making it, you might want to look at Bioware's SW: the old republic . I am just wondering if it will be a Star wars WoW as Bioware said that they take WoW as an example or if they meant that they were taking WoW lessons as a building brick to make a far more bigger/complex/??? MMO game.
I hope for Bioware it is the second path they are following as if Titan is what Blizzard say (new experience with new core design choices not possible with WoW design) , it might counter any new WoW clones.
Anyway, I am looking forward to playing both of these games :) .

Originally Posted by Artanix
I find it funny that 4 of the 6 comments here are basically saying its going to be crap. Even though there is no release date, no screenshots, no preview, even no information on what its about, but you're all sure it's going to be crap.

Here's the funny part imho. People are saying it will be crap and generally think it will suck because they are used to blizzard/actiloser treating their customers like crap, ignoring requests and keeping their player base at arm's length. They cant even answer the phone if you call the up......funny ya? They think it will be crap because of how things have gone with nearly every title that this company has put out. They are only looking out for themselves and have the lowest of concern for what their players see and report back as issues.

Sure they create the content, but the customer's pay to play it, yet it's all up to them and how they want it done, no matter that their customer's are paying their bills, but they don't care. People say this will be crap because it will be crap. Only crap can come from crap. I played wow from launch and quit at Catasuck release. I wouldn't play another game from this company if they paid me to do it.

Not to mention, if they do such a bang up job, why are people leaving Wow left and right? Because it's crap now and has been for a good bit. You dont have to agree with me, just my own observation and experience.

They make crap and expect you to pay to deal with them and their poor attitudes and service levels. The only ones that will fall for that are the xbox live crowd, so welcome to the sock hop in junior high.

I think Blizzard will go totally out of the box with this and break the mold. They already have a fat cash cow with WOW so they can afford to take some risks with Titan. I bet they will either put it on a console or they will put it on Facebook or something like that to expand the potential audience.

There is a nice set of info about Titan over at www.titanwatch.net for anyone who's interested.

The game will not be in the high fantasy setting. Why would Blizzard want to canabalize their own WOW customer base. It makes more sense to go with a sci-fi theme or post-apocalyptic. My money is on post-apocalyptic because I think that will allow them to tap into a much larger audience. If they can tell a great story about the destruction of earth and the struggle of the survivors they can pull in a TON of people who would never give a high fantasy game like WOW a second look.

Then it comes down to gameplay. They need to provide a broad range of gameplay styles to target the widest audience possible. There needs to be a huge social component to the game to attract people who are not interested in fighting bad guys or PvP type stuff.

Blizzard stopped being a great company producing quality material ever since their merger wth the cancer known as Activision. Now all they produce is c r a p. R.I.P. WOW, cancelled my sub and playing Rift till SWTOR is released. As to whether or not Titan will be anything special, hard to say but the direction that Bizz is moving now, it'll prob be another FAIL geared to people who just want to mash buttons, put no thinking in the game, expect to be handed things and be able to one-two shot kill things. Once upon a time, WOW was great and took major effort to level and earn achievements and feel like you achieved something through effort. Today, I'm able to lvl my toon to 85 in 2 weeks without breaking a sweat... How the mighty have fallen...