Blizzard cancels Titan after 7 years in development
I honestly can't say I'm surprised. People are MMO'd out and there's no way this would have lived up to the hype machine that would have built up around it. I'm not sure WoW's success will ever be recreated.
Blizzard has officially canceled development on its mysterious next-generation massively multiplayer game Titan. The company confirmed the news to Polygon in a recent interview.
This revelation comes after at least seven years in development and word last year that the developer was going back to the drawing board to reevaluate the project.
Speaking to Polygon, Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime reiterated that the company has technically never officially announced Titan, though it hasn't been shy to talk about the game over the past seven years. "We had created World of Warcraft, and we felt really confident that we knew how to make MMOs," Morhaime said. "So we 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," Morhaime continued. "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."
So that's it then. I either play League and sit in Gold forever, play BF4 and spam airburst or go back to WoW and cry myself to sleep at night.
Maybe I should hang up the gaming gloves until Star Citizen comes out.
I'm glad that Blizzard still has the power and sense to say, "This isn't working, we need to stop."
As for hanging up the gloves, well that depends on what you look for in a game. If you NEED player interaction then yes, you're probably up shit creek. I mean, there are other games floating around out there that do have relatively healthy communities. Lets take a look real quick:
WoW: Still WoW. I mean, honestly, WoW is still a good game depending on what you're looking for. PvE content is still solid. PvP is still solid (if it is your thing). Questing keeps getting better. Etc. WoW is WoW.
SW:TOR: SW:TOR still has a solid player base, but the free to play systems are retarded in that game, class balance is still garbage, and they are going through a pretty hard content gap right now.
TESO: There actually seems to be more players now then when the game launched (ironically). Part of it is likely because they fixed a lot of the weird server instancing shit that was going on. Small fixes, QOL changes, content updates, etc. They seem to be trying, just have to decide if the game play style is something you're cool with. I still think PvE in that game isn't particularly good due to the way groups interact with each other.
Wildstar: Game is good. Population is not. Easily the best PvE content to be in any MMO though. Shame that Carbine is having a rough go at getting all the issues in the game ironed out.
FF XIV: Still a decent game. Still has problems. Still Japanese as fuck in the design choices.
I think that covers most of the "big" MMO's out there, ignoring shit like EVE, Archage, RIFT, etc. Dota 2 is always an option for a MOBA (and I personally prefer it to LoL), Heroes of the Storm should be getting about to the point where the number of player invites should grow, but it isn't really...like a traditional MOBA. You have shit like Hearthstone, Magic, SolForge, etc for CCGs. And there are a ton of odd little multiplayer games out there that can be exceptionally fun in the right mood or with the right people (like Natural Selection and Chivalry).
Of course, there are also 100's of great single player games floating around out there.
But, as I said, depending on preferences and what you want out of the time you spend gaming, you're probably up shit creek.
Kudos to Blizzard for recognizing that something will be garbage when other companies do not.
Exactly.
AAA studios seem unable to do things for cheap. Destiny cost 500M to make and Angry Joe ripped the game a new one. Production value was prioritized over everything else. How can you spend 500M on a game that has no narrative to speak of, repeated environments and such a ridiculously uninspired loot system?
Blizzard would have spent this much just to fail again. They might even have thought they were invincible and impervious to fan rage until Diablo 3. Well that backfired quickly.
Agreed. I really think this was the best move for Blizz. Whatever people are looking for in an MMO these days, my guess is that it isn't 7 year old concepts and artwork. I don't think there was any way this ended well for them if they released the game.
His channel has been disappointing content wise lately. Compared to Total Biscuit whom, even while he undergoes chemoterapy, was able to churn out regular content updates.
But as rare as Angry Joe's reviews have become, they are still always a pleasure to watch, regardless of the score. They're long but it allows him to extrapolate which further enhances his point of views when backed with video evidence.
Also, this trend of cutting content at launch to sell season or expansion passes is incredibly off putting, so it's good to have some journalists speak out. Angry Joe, Total Biscuit and the Forbes gaming editor are three journalists who continuously speak out for the consumer. I don't know how effective they are at affecting change, though.
Maybe I should hang up the gaming gloves until Star Citizen comes out.
It's so pathetic that you and I (and I'm sure many others) feel this way when we both have hundreds of games in our Steam library.
We just can't be assed to emotionally invest in game when the pay off is nowadays nearly guaranteed to disappoint, and only succeeds in wow'ing us in the rarest of times.
Our ability to binge watch TV shows and mass consume media (including video games) has made us instant-gratification whores. The days of equating grinding (40 hours for that special legendary helmet, fuck it I feel so validated and fulfilled now!) with fun are long gone. LoL and BF4 both satisfy the need to quickly jump in a game when we want to whilst allowing for a sense of progression (rankings, unlocks, etc.) Who still has the patience for anything else?
Not me.
Yesterday I bought Life is Feudal : Your Own, after hearing about it from friends who love Mount & Blade. The game was released on Steam out of the blue for me (had not heard a single thing about it). After it was described to me as a Darkfall meets Mount & Blade meets Rust/DayZ, I forked the $40 and lubed up, waiting to be immersed. Five minutes in I thought "well, that was a fucking mistake."
I was foraging for food when someone just came running out of the bushes and slashed at me with a fucking hammer and I was dead. Each time you die you lose skills. It seems in these types of game, griefing and insta-gibbing anything that moves is the only activity on the menu. The fix is to create your own server and play there on your own, but what's the point of spending 60 hours on building a fucking shack if you can't show it to your friend or share the achievement? When Life is Feudal launches as the full MMO (Life is Feudal: Your Own is the single player alpha of sort) I can't imagine the situation improving much.
So again I ask, why bother to invest?
I've started playing Ass Creed IV which is fun.
PS. Holy shit that was OT. I'm happy Titan got cancelled. There.
MMOs are horrible. I'll never play one again. My days of grinding for hours on end for a shred of reputation, or a new single piece of gear, or grinding in a raid instance for hours upon hours for a sliver of a chance at a piece of loot are over with.
This doesn't surprise me one bit about Blizzard scrapping this game. Seeing as how most new MMOs are doing anywhere from mediocre to horrible.
It's hard to feel anything, negative or postive, about this news when I hardly knew any details about the project to begin with. Blizzard have a damn good track record of making amazing games so that's about the only reason I'm feeling remotely ANYTHING about this news. Any game being scraped, especially coming from Blizzard, is shitty but even more so because it was a Blizzard IP.
Oh and I'm not a big MMO kinda guy anyways. And I'm hearing it was an MMO. No real biggie to me.
I get this from Diablo 3. Grind 20 hours to get 5% more DPS? Hell yea! This is compounded by leader boards. I'm not trying to sell the game, I am just saying there are games that still hook me. Anything that makes me think about builds or math or whatever is the main draw. I guess that's why I like Magic so much. It lets me be creative and design decks that are unique and intuitive.
Shooters and MOBA and fast paced RTS are not as enticing anymore. They don't make you think and synergize or test new strategies. Its always the same thing.
Shooters and MOBA and fast paced RTS are not as enticing anymore. They don't make you think and synergize or test new strategies. Its always the same thing.
I dunno. I've been having a kick playing Payday 2 with friends. Maybe it's just the setting of the game that sucks me in.
I have very little regard for Angry Joes reviews as I think they are pretty poor in terms of a decent review - but I do like listening to them coz he does amuse me
Oh for sure. I am not saying every other game sucks and I hate it and I wish everyone was forced to play Diablo 3 with me and tell me Im the sexiest wizard at Hogwarts.
My point was that I havent been drawn into and been completely absorbed into a shooter or RTS since I was in high school play Starcraft and Counter-Strike.
And I think those games were only fun because I was playing them with friends at an internet cafe or on battlenet together.
Diablo and WoW and Star War Galaxies. Hooked, thought about builds and items whilst not playing. WoW not so much in the end, since everything is so trimmed down and neat now, but when we had talent points it was fun to fiddle around with different builds.