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Blizzard's Unannounced 'Titan' MMO Rebooted, Development Team Reduced
An anonymous reader writes "VentureBeat reports that the next-gen MMO Blizzard Entertainment has been hinting at since 2007, codenamed 'Titan,' is getting restarted with a drastically reduced development team. It was originally being built by a 100-person 'dream team' of developers that had their roots in other popular Blizzard games. Many people were expecting an announcement about Titan at this year's Blizzcon, but now that looks unlikely. 'Blizzard's development teams aren't known for their speed. The publisher often cancels projects that have been in the works for years if it believes that those games don't meet its standard of quality.' VentureBeat's sources say the game is now looking at a 2016 release at the earliest."
I see no big problem with Titan being delayed. The longer a game takes to develop is generally a good thing. And the last thing Blizzard wants is a chunk of its WOW players to come to a sub par game, then leave for something else that is new.
I whole heartedly disagree with this statement. There is a sweet spot of time spent for game development. My guess on that is 18-36 months. Once game development hits 3 years, the graphics engine on which it is built is old enough to be noticeable compared to the newer content. Now, not everybody cares about that, but why does it matter so much? Because the original timeline was already within that time frame. That means the game is getting grossly overdue. Grossly overdue games are in that state because the devs cannot get it to a releasable state.
Most recent example in my head. TOR. You may have heard of that incredibly expensive, overdue boondoggle that EA put out. I bought it. Was excited to play it. Until I played it. There are many problems with that game. I won't even blame the devs for them, because IMO it's fundamental flaws in the game's design.
Duke Nukem is another. Or the recent Blizzard offering, Diablo 3. Look, once a computer program (any program really) goes too far over schedule there is something wrong with it. Titan being delayed and large scale developer changes means that game is fatally flawed and they're probably looking to push it to any functional state possible so they can sell a crappy ass game to as many unsuspecting fools as possible.
I know its cool to hate on D3, but it wasn't actually a *bad* game. I got about 50 hours out of it, which works out to be about $1.20 AU per hour. Cheap entertainment. Sure, nothing like as much as I spent on D2, but I don't have the free time these days either.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Overall, DIII is a badly engineered game. It focuses way too much on a long tail of revenue. If they had not insisted on always online and a Real Money Auction House, the game would have been a better playable game.
Good-bye
It was a perfectly serviceable KOTOR 3 single-player game. Then you got to level 50 and you were done. Not quite a replacement for WOW though.
StarCraft 2 took 12 years and was great.
Diablo 3 also took 12 years to release, and it most certainly wasn't great.
But Maaa! Everyone else has a