Project Titan 'Unlikely To Be Subscription-Based'

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This announcement from Blizzard isn't very reassuring. Going back to the drawing board this late in the game means it won't be on shelves any time soon. At least they dumped the subscription-based MMORPG idea.

Blizzard's Mike Morhaime told investors that "we're in the process of selecting a new direction for the project and re-envisioning what we want the game to be. While we can't talk about the details yet, it is unlikely to be a subscription-based MMORPG." MMOs have largely been unable to sustain a subscription model, with major launches quickly switching to free-to-play.
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wow will avoid the free to play model if blizzard wakes up and stop the god damn endless moving goal posting the end game to satisfy the higher level characters.

Blizzard needs to focus on the entire game and getting people playing all levels of content. not just making it faster for people to hit 90 to get to the end game ...

Blizzard should institute expansion limits on content... you don't finish the vanilla raids you don't get to access the burning crusade dungeons raids and professions past the level of content you have completed and so forth for every expansion this will build a competent player base that would enjoy the game and its story instead of zerging to 90 and not even seeing a single raid.

the other option for blizzard is to make the old content raids and dungeons scale to your level and gear
 
I still don't know how I feel about free-to-play systems. I feel at $15 a month is a lot less complicated and more likely less expensive than pay for this here and there all over the place. I still play WoW and I still enjoy it. From a business perspective, they can sell all the $25 mounts and $20 pets they want. I don't NEED to buy them to play the game, they're just added bonuses for people who WANT to spend the extra dough. And some of them are down right awesome so if you play the game a lot, it's a worthy investment to a committed player.

A free to play system is VERY hard to get right, and with many failures and very few (and large) successes (i.e. League of Legends), it's something I see as a very big gamble. But being a company Blizzard's size, they can actually afford a big gamble. Even still, I think people will be playing WoW for years to come and it's not going away anytime soon.
 
maxius said:
wow will avoid the free to play model if blizzard wakes up and stop the god damn endless moving goal posting the end game to satisfy the higher level characters.

Blizzard needs to focus on the entire game and getting people playing all levels of content. not just making it faster for people to hit 90 to get to the end game ...

Blizzard should institute expansion limits on content... you don't finish the vanilla raids you don't get to access the burning crusade dungeons raids and professions past the level of content you have completed and so forth for every expansion this will build a competent player base that would enjoy the game and its story instead of zerging to 90 and not even seeing a single raid.

the other option for blizzard is to make the old content raids and dungeons scale to your level and gear
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If they enabled scaling for old content, it would need to be able to be turned off.

When I was playing WoW, I would use my higher level characters to go grind for gear for my lower level characters. If they forced scaling, I am betting it would turn a lot of people off to the game.

There is no point in even having any weapons/armor/skills upgrades if the game scales to your gear/level/skills. Might as well just run around with a butter knife and rags for armor.
 
maxius said:
Blizzard needs to focus on the entire game and getting people playing all levels of content. not just making it faster for people to hit 90 to get to the end game ...

Blizzard should institute expansion limits on content... you don't finish the vanilla raids you don't get to access the burning crusade dungeons raids and professions past the level of content you have completed and so forth for every expansion this will build a competent player base that would enjoy the game and its story instead of zerging to 90 and not even seeing a single raid.
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You're missing the key point of the game - it's an MMO, and people like to play together.

When your friend is already 90 and you're thinking about starting a new character and joining them, obviously you DO want to be able to get to the point where you can run content together as fast as possible. Otherwise you're just putting up huge roadblocks to new players who want to join the game. The old content is great but no one is going to want to have to grind away at that for weeks or months before they can play with their friends in relevant content.
 
I'd rather pay 100 bucks for the game than have a running cost to play the game.


Though as long as it stays an MMO its highly unlikely I'll play this game. The only MMO I have and likely will play is Phantasy Star online because it was the shit. Can't wait for PSO2 To finally release in the US.
 
kidstechno said:
I still don't know how I feel about free-to-play systems. I feel at $15 a month is a lot less complicated and more likely less expensive than pay for this here and there all over the place. I still play WoW and I still enjoy it. From a business perspective, they can sell all the $25 mounts and $20 pets they want. I don't NEED to buy them to play the game, they're just added bonuses for people who WANT to spend the extra dough. And some of them are down right awesome so if you play the game a lot, it's a worthy investment to a committed player.
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Agreed! And my experience with Path of Exile drove this home.

Free to play, with microtransactions for cooler spell and armor/weapon effects.

I haven't spent anything on the game yet, because the idea of purchasing the "ice helm effect" and placing it on my helm is extremely lame. I would have much rather paid them 60 bucks (and i would have--the game is worth it imo) and had all these unique effects already in the game and on certain items. Then when i get the helm i've been searching for and put it on, i can say "damn this helm looks badass!" vs. "i just bought this and put it on my helm so now it looks badass."
 
kidstechno said:
I still don't know how I feel about free-to-play systems. I feel at $15 a month is a lot less complicated and more likely less expensive than pay for this here and there all over the place. I still play WoW and I still enjoy it. From a business perspective, they can sell all the $25 mounts and $20 pets they want. I don't NEED to buy them to play the game, they're just added bonuses for people who WANT to spend the extra dough. And some of them are down right awesome so if you play the game a lot, it's a worthy investment to a committed player.

A free to play system is VERY hard to get right, and with many failures and very few (and large) successes (i.e. League of Legends), it's something I see as a very big gamble. But being a company Blizzard's size, they can actually afford a big gamble. Even still, I think people will be playing WoW for years to come and it's not going away anytime soon.
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chockomonkey said:
Agreed! And my experience with Path of Exile drove this home.

Free to play, with microtransactions for cooler spell and armor/weapon effects.

I haven't spent anything on the game yet, because the idea of purchasing the "ice helm effect" and placing it on my helm is extremely lame. I would have much rather paid them 60 bucks (and i would have--the game is worth it imo) and had all these unique effects already in the game and on certain items. Then when i get the helm i've been searching for and put it on, i can say "damn this helm looks badass!" vs. "i just bought this and put it on my helm so now it looks badass."
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I completely agree with the both of you on this. I think the F2P model makes them more money in the long run. I would prefer just to pay a sub each month. I absolutely refuse to buy crap in a game past the initial purchase or sub (well I've only ever played 2 MMO's to have a sub). My son plays on my phone sometimes with all these F2P games and wants stuff out of them. I know he doesn't understand the value of money right now so it's difficult, but I earnestly try to explain to him all that virtual stuff is completely worthless and adds no value at all. I just don't understand throwing money away at intangible things like that. At least with my sub, I'm getting entertainment.
 
Who cares, the blizzard of today are nothing like the blizzard of yesteryear. By gamers for investors is the new blizzard motto.
 
I hate games that are play time based, as opposed to skill based.

both free to pay and subscription games seem to be play time based.

i want to pick up a game and enjoy playing with other people, without having to level a character or buy additional upgrades.
 
Give me a sub game any day of the week and twice on Sunday. F2P games have just turned into gambling games. "Hey, spend just $5 for a chance to get an item you want." And since you have no clue what the odds are, it is even worse than just playing the lottery. Or they charge $40 for a mount that is just a recolor of something that was already in the game and so cost basically nothing to make.

Just give me a game that I pay $15 a month to play and has no item shop at all.
 
It's really hard to argue with a company that has made billions and has one of the best track records in the industry, but .........

Many top game devs have come forward and have said that the free to play model is not something that will really work in the future.

Also, if you've watched the Blizzard dev videos on Hearthstone, one guy said and I'm pretty sure this is Blizzards over all attitude, he basically said that the day of spending millions of dollars to make video games is gone. Simple and Social are the big winners. At least that's what I took away from his comments.

Mom's and busy Dads and tweeners and silly girls want simple social games. I kinda feel that game companies are moving away from complicated heavy MMO's and those are the only things I really enjoy. I don't want simple shit handed to me.

We are 13/13 HM in WoW and my item level is 549 if that tells you anything
 
The problem here is the seasoned MMO players wants a subscription based model for all the obvious reasons. I think it's a better approach to.

However, we have to admit that it's not the best approach if you are aiming to attract as many players as possible, especially the casual crowd (not implying casual is bad btw). If Titan is going to be a casual MMO, it has to be F2P.
 
I think this was predictable (as was their restart with the project), at least enough that I made the call about it multiple times on Blue's News going back a year plus. That being said, it's good news in the sense at least they realized they needed to change before it was too late (hopefully).
 
Yeah the simple minded social blitzkrieg is where companies are trying to focus now. Easy projects, massive potential. Also doesn't help that EA makes a majority of their profits now with DLC.
 
But with the proliferation of casual craptastic games that leaves a gap for which something like Dark Souls 2 can fill.

Casual Gamers are short term Pick it up and drop it type of gamers. A long term strategy like they have with WOW likely will not work with that demographic. Surely someone at blizzard can see this. They might get 20 million people to play the game but if they offer it for free a huge chunk of that 20 million will only play it a short time and likely spend less than 60 bucks....the cost of a normal game. Once Candy Crush 2 drops(insert new casual fad) their casual fan base is gone.

while us more serious gamers will put thousands of hours into a game if its well made and has some depth to it.....Quality vs Quantity.

Though it is possible blizzard knows more than I do. Maybe Candy Crush made more money then we know.
 
Ocean said:
I hate games that are play time based, as opposed to skill based.

both free to pay and subscription games seem to be play time based.

i want to pick up a game and enjoy playing with other people, without having to level a character or buy additional upgrades.
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So, not an RPG?
 
maxius said:
Blizzard needs to focus on the entire game and getting people playing all levels of content. not just making it faster for people to hit 90 to get to the end game ...
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TO me blizzards two mistakes were making the game so top heavy and ignoring problems they felt were not worth fixing.(population issues.) Like all MMO companies before them they eventually made the game top top heavy focusing on the 1%.

The problem with some of your ideas is how long it might take a player to reach the end, to join friends in "new content". Anyways I am not sure if we will ever have another MMO which is a much fun as Vanilla. Now a days every strat comes out quickly after world first kill so you can rarely feel as if you conquered the boss on your own. I think it would have been worthwhile for them to have focused on making the game fun at every level. Heck in MOP they are throwing away content designed this expansion!

What I liked about Classic Wow. It only required about 5-10 hours weekly to progress at a rate to get server firsts. Sure when new content was released you played 5 hours nightly for two weeks, but after that you could settle into a more sustainable pace or raiding once a week. Players who wanted to play more could focus on optional content.(World PVP, BGs, rep grinds, mounts etc) The current expansion seems high on required content and low on optional. It also promoted more teamwork than other expansions.

They are also paying for all there bad choices. A new player who purchased wow today would be overwhelmed and owned at every pvp encounter. This makes it unfun for new players to play. Experienced players just have too much of an advantage. They are likely to have a smooth UI, functional macros, superior gear, superior knowledge, Guild lvls, resources, friends, Alts, advanced trade-skills, consumables... Why would someone new pick up the game?

Only way blizzard was able to sustain itself was to break into new markets and whore itself out offering pay for power leveling options. Get a friend to play and you get a mount, level quickly etc... They then sold themselves to get players to grind for heirlooms and guildlevels. After it was done, it was no wonder players were so faitgued they quit, and the game being so top heavy ...very few new players to replace them. Everyone play as many alts as you can! Now they are trying to force people to stop playing alts.

In the end eventually all MMOs become top heavy. The time invested to get to where you want to be is so long no one in their right mind considers it worthwhile. Blizzard had a long run compared to previous games. Normally they reach this point at 3-5 years.
 
Free to play games tend to be absolutely terrible; I guess I can hope that Titan breaks the mold.
 
AoC, Vanguard, SW:ToR, Warhammer, etc were all lacking "top heavy" content, which is why they all kinda missed the mark. You need both.
 
They don't need to charge subs. Just slap a real money auction house in the game and the fans will love you for it. They did such a jaw dropping, amazing job with Diablo 3 I can hardly wait for titan.

The sky is the limit for the new Blizzard!
 
Ponder said:
Anyways I am not sure if we will ever have another MMO which is a much fun as Vanilla.
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Have to agree...it was a blast...although I think they waited too long to bring out the first expansion, which kind of exacerbated later problems.
 
I don't play those so-called "free to play", which is basically "pay to win", either.
 
maxius said:
wow will avoid the free to play model if blizzard wakes up and stop the god damn endless moving goal posting the end game to satisfy the higher level characters.

Blizzard needs to focus on the entire game and getting people playing all levels of content. not just making it faster for people to hit 90 to get to the end game ...

Blizzard should institute expansion limits on content... you don't finish the vanilla raids you don't get to access the burning crusade dungeons raids and professions past the level of content you have completed and so forth for every expansion this will build a competent player base that would enjoy the game and its story instead of zerging to 90 and not even seeing a single raid.

the other option for blizzard is to make the old content raids and dungeons scale to your level and gear
Click to expand...

Those are such bad ideas. Honestly, expansion limits would only piss people off. If I am a late comer, and I pay for an expansion pack, I want to be able to play that content when I get to it. I don't want to have to farm my way through every single tidbit of the old content. Honestly, I hate leveling enough as it is.

And scaling would be nice, but it would also take away resources from current content. They would have to balance it for all levels of content rather than just for when it was properly active. Does it suck that the content really is not played and is not valid? Yeah, I hate the fact that it is outdated, but in all honesty, MMO's have to progress in their content. If they don't people get bored and move on.

On top of that, you have the balancing of everything as the game progresses, it is easier to not worry about that and just move on.

Then there is the fact that you can honestly have content overload. The more people a piece of content requires, the harder it becomes to find people to play it. The more skill, or higher level gear makes it that much harder to find people to play it. Then there is the fact that some people like PVE, some like PVP and some like both, decreasing the number of people available to play content, and making it easier to do content overload.
 
This game is most likely dead then. That is unless this game has some major new vision the company wanted to follow, like the original star craft and its related delays.
 
Gods-bloody-damnit! World of Warcraft reached and has maintained monumental success with a single subscription service (the sale of additional items on the Blizz Pet Shop I disagree with, but I will recognize they are MUCH better than most other MMOs in this regard in terms of frequency, price etc... and should point out they were hugely profitable before they started selling in-game items for out of game money; I think it is a major negative change when they began to do so). I don't want to see them infected with the "We think we can get more money than $15 out of a player per month" bug that has swept across the industry over the past few years.

The subscription is the only truly equal payment plan for a virtual world or MMO. You pay for your ticket to the sandbox or themepark every month, and everything is included. If you want to collect every single cosmetic outfit, that's included with your price of purchase. If you want to raid, PVP, spend most of the time talking with friends etc... how you spend your time is up to you and the entire game world is open to you without a surcharge on your particular play style. Just about every single MMORPG that deviates from this subscription plan means changing to a less equitable experience for the player.

I'm so fucking tired of watching MMO developers look over to the worst of the "Korean item shop grinders" and say "Gee, some of their players will pay $50, 100, 500 etc... a month for a 'free to play' game, if we just nickle and dime them at every turn! Make it a complex enough system and the 'frog boils slowly' enough! ". Its even worse when companies who have failing MMOs turn to these monetization schemes without fixing their product. I've quit games solely because of this financial system - Star Trek Online is/was great fun, aside from Perfect World Online's fucktastic money-draining pay-to-win excuse for a monetization strategy. The Secret World still charges a fuckload for clothing, and they used to do so along side a full $15/month subscription! Hell, very few of them (if any) even continue to offer a subscription which, if paid, the subscriber continues to "get it all", alongside the free to play option. Instead, even the subscribers end up getting a piddly stipend and discount, but still have to go to the Item Mall to purchase certain game content, meaning they're getting less for their subscription fee than the used to get!

There have been a handful of games that have decent "Buy to Play" systems, but even the best of them like Guild Wars 2 still seeem to make cardinal mistakes in my mind such as putting exclusive content on the real money store, cosmetic or otherwise (ie Why should roleplayers have to pay extra to get the clothing/costumes they wish? Nobody is stupid enough to insist that raiders have to pay for consumable raid access keys to open the dungeon every week, for instance. Putting a surcharge on content is unfair to all those who enjoy that particular content). I don't mind if a Buy To Play game sold convenience, or even one time "unlocks" of content (ie Age of Empires Online was great in this regard. You paid a reasonable, one time fee for a Premium civilization, for instance). If they want to sell XP boosters and whatnot, that's fine so long as the game is not made annoying or grindy as such to push you towards those purchases - they should be things you purchase to enhance your experience because you're already having fun, not because you are frustrated and need to pay out to become less so.

While I'm thinking of it, why has nobody even considered raising the price of subscription and keeping it all inclusive, if the developers and publishers are continually whining about needing more money? I'd much rather see someone raise the monthly sub a dollar or three if its absolutely necessary - I can kind of understand that given inflation etc... however, they don't want to do that, they want huge amounts of money per month for games that often just aren't worth it. When did it stop be about making a great experience people want to play for a reasonable price? It is VOLUME of happy, paying players that makes you wealthy. The reason WoW did so well. Yet these fools keep making sub-par games and saying they should be profiting more...inexcusable!

Ultimately, I've always hated watching Activision's tendrils become more apparent in Blizzard and if Titan ends up some sort of nickle-and-diming mess, that will be sickening. The subscription, at least as an option that unlocks ALL content without additional expense, is the best plan for a persistent virtual world; the only one that ensures developers get paid and players are equitably treated. However, the unending greed of the industry covets the ideas of being able to act as a constantly increasing money-leech beyond what a reasonable player would pay monthly for a game, and that is un-fucking-acceptable. Hell, I'm probably going to play Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn simply because they are having a subscription option and respect players, new and old - a rarity in today's market. There are some great looking MMO properties out there, from Titan, to Elder Scrolls Online, to Wild Star, but I hope their monetization schemes aren't more of this sludge.
 
Blizz is a perfect example of a company that has fallen from the pinnacle of creativity and success and now is driven by corporate fear, greed and bureaucracy. Basically Blizz has become what 38 Studios was and it is probably impossible for them to return to greatness.

Sorry, Blizz is already dead but the head doesn't know it yet.
 
Ocean said:
I hate games that are play time based, as opposed to skill based.

both free to pay and subscription games seem to be play time based.

i want to pick up a game and enjoy playing with other people, without having to level a character or buy additional upgrades.
Click to expand...

That's called a twitch fps.
 
Games with monthly subscriptions fail because they all follow WoW's pricing structure at $15/month. I don't see why they can't make the MMO $5/month and have a few microtransactions for novelty stuff. The problem without a monthly fee, is that nearly everything else in the game and all new content gets monetized to the point that you're playing a walking billboard simulator where everything has a price tag.
 
I absolutely loved WoW for the longest time.
It just got old because its a grind.
You grind for XP and materials to up skill trees, abilities and crafting.
I don't mind it as much since WoW had pretty good XP and drop rates, plus I'm a casual gamer so the rest system was just fantastic for me.
What killed it for me was playing a rogue and warlock and getting my skill tree revamped and shuffled so often it made the equipment I just spent 3 weeks farming/ building worthless.
For $15 a month the game started to feel more like a job than something to enjoy.
Apparently my friends all felt the same way because we all quite within 6 months of each other.
 
I became filthy rich in Wow then realized I had nothing to do with that money

After they buffed healers in pvp there was nothing to keep me in the game besides its charm and good memories
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
Blizz is a perfect example of a company that has fallen from the pinnacle of creativity and success and now is driven by corporate fear, greed and bureaucracy. Basically Blizz has become what 38 Studios was and it is probably impossible for them to return to greatness.

Sorry, Blizz is already dead but the head doesn't know it yet.
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They've brought us years of awesome games.. only Diablo 3 was a flop so far... there's still a chance they can be saved.
 
Titan's development, before being scrapped, took it through a time of evolution for both the MMO Market and Blizzard. Blizzard has learned a lot about MMO's, and so have other companies out there. F2P has become a major player, not just in various Asian markets, but also in the US and Europe. Titan was most likely originally based off of early World of Warcraft, such as Vanilla and BC, and maybe a bit of WotLK (since WotLK was released in 2008, and Titan was being speculated on in 2007).

I actually have respect for a company that is willing to say, they need to rebuild it. Sure there are exceptions (Duke Nukem Forever) to such philosephy's, but they most likely had to take it back to the drawing table in a lot of aspects. They most likely felt they needed to redo the game engine. The market evolved and they needed to make sure that the game was built to fit in such a market. And just plain evolution of ideas. Honestly, they have been working on it for over 5 years, they either needed to reboot, or scrap it completely. I'd rather a reboot.
 
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