By Alec Meer on October 20th, 2008 at 10:03 am.
I can’t find the source for this on Wired’s own site, so presumably it’s only in the print mag for now. Original source found (thanks, Zuffox). Mike Morhaime dropped the following uber-hint whilst chatting to the US tech mag:
“Let’s just say it’s going to be different and it’s not going to be a sequel to World of Warcraft. It will be different. We’re not trying to replace World of Warcraft with this new MMO. We’re trying to create a different massively multiplayer experience, and hopefully World of Warcraft will still be going strong when that one is released.”
Hmm. I’m still banking on it being something Eve-y or Planetside-y, possibly in the Starcraft universe. It seems hugely unlikely Blizz will move to a new IP – but it would be nice. Do spill your own theory-o-thoughts below.
20/10/2008 at 10:13 Nick says:
I’d say it won’t be anything as inaccessible (to the masses) as EVE, Blizzard just don’t do inaccessible.
Some action-slanted MMO in the Starcraft universe would be my guess.
20/10/2008 at 10:15 Ian says:
Starcraft: Ghost: Online.
;)
Man I wish that game hadn’t been binned.
20/10/2008 at 10:16 dust says:
Rock’n'roll racing universe.
20/10/2008 at 10:24 Bobsy says:
Pretty sure we already knew this. Haven’t they saying since forever that their mysterious MMO project was something new?
And I think it’s rather over-optimistic to hope for anything comparable to Eve, or even Planetside. It’s not Blizzard’s style to go so radical. They make the same game everyone else has made, only 10 times better.
20/10/2008 at 10:25 Heliocentric says:
When did Blizzard last make a new ip?
Starcraft? Wiki says that was 1998, I hope they make something new, it could be lovely but no, Starcraft mmo is it.
20/10/2008 at 10:26 Bhazor says:
Reply to Ian
It was a damn fine pair of buttocks the character designers had made. Be a shame to waste them.
20/10/2008 at 10:26 Theoban says:
Justice League Task Force: Online: 2
20/10/2008 at 10:27 Alec Meer says:
Bobsy: exactly. Which is why a super-shiny, super-mainstream take on established concepts like spaceshippery or massively multi FPS makes a lot of sense. Treading on WoW’s toes with another EQalike doesn’t.
20/10/2008 at 10:36 Little Green Man says:
You have a point there Alec, if they make another game similar to WoW they won’t get any customers as all of them will be playing WoW. However Planetside and EVE I think are just a bit too different for them to be doing it. Always can have hope though.
20/10/2008 at 10:41 alphaxion says:
Lost Vikings online… Hmm, that lone might be a little difficult to MMO-orise.
20/10/2008 at 10:46 Zuffox says:
Here, gents:
20/10/2008 at 10:46 Stromko says:
My first guess was a Diablo MMO, like Dungeon Runners but of course bigger budget and more polished. However, I’m sure they have some online plans for Diablo III, so that seems unlikely.
Making a Starcraft MMO when they’re already going to be rolling out three ‘modules’ of Starcraft II also feels unlikely to me, because I’m assuming they’re going to use the seque-trilogy to flesh out the Starcraft universe and ready it for an expansive component later that draws it all together, much as they’ve done with Warcraft. That way while they’re hyping people on the MMO, folks who can’t wait will go out and collect all the RTS games for it. Who wouldn’t try to scrape 150$ a peace out of millions of crazed fans?
On the other hand maybe they’ll have a deal where if you preorder Starcraft II: Part Three Special Awesome Expensive Edition you’ll get a spot in the Starcraft Online beta. If they want to make that move then SC:O might be out in a few years and might be what they’re announcing now. My initial thought is they wouldn’t want to compete with their own product or cross any wires in the PR campaign, but maybe the two genres are diverse enough they’ll do it anyway.
20/10/2008 at 10:49 Rekki says:
with any luck it will be a planetside’ish game now I would give blizzard more of my hard earned money to play a good fpsmmog*
*that just doesn’t roll of the tongue like mmorpg
20/10/2008 at 10:50 seraphim says:
this should be the chance for blizzard to do something different and get everyone looking in a new direction. god knows they’ve got the money to do something truly different and take a big risk. the deciding factor is whether they’re going to take the risk and aim high.
20/10/2008 at 10:54 Bobsy says:
Interesting idea Alec, and I’d love nothing more than to see exactly that – a Blizzard-helmed Planetside/Eve mashup. But I still don’t see it. Both games are/were rather experimental (and Planetside in particular cannot be really considered a success), while the Everquest model was well trodden ground on which Blizzard could build.
As for a new IP, it’s incredibly unlikely. The money’s still on Starcraft because it follows the release strategy for WoW. Warcraft III was (relatively) quickly followed up by its MMO big brother, which turned out to be a very successful ploy.
20/10/2008 at 10:57 Bobsy says:
@Seraphim:
Actually it doesn’t work like that. Blizzard’s money is tied up in shareholders and all that guff, who’ve placed their confidence in the company on the strength of safe, high-quality products which turn a large profit. Blizzard’s reputation as a conservative developer/publisher actually means they’re going to continue to be conservative.
20/10/2008 at 10:59 Meat Circus says:
Pirates of the Burning Onlines.
20/10/2008 at 11:00 Meat Circus says:
I mean, if you wanted to play EVE, you could just play EVE. Also, Planetside.
20/10/2008 at 11:01 Kazz says:
alphaxion beat me to it :(
20/10/2008 at 11:02 pkt-zer0 says:
World of Starcraft, a massively multiplayer online RTS!
20/10/2008 at 11:03 Seniath says:
Didn’t they announce at Blizzcon that the MMO will be based on a brand new IP?
Indeed, yes, taken from MMO-Champion:
Blizzard’s “secret project” is confirmed to be a new MMO with a brand new universe, but we won’t hear anything about it before a while.
20/10/2008 at 11:04 yns88 says:
WORLD OF BLACKTHORNE
You heard it here first, folks!
20/10/2008 at 11:05 Lu-Tze says:
They’ll make World of Starcraft and then 5 years later Mythic will make Warhammer 40k Online. And everyone will claim they ripped off the art style and that Space Marines are just Terrans.
20/10/2008 at 11:07 Cataclysm says:
I think it will be Ninja orientated…
…Cos everyone loves Ninjas… Amirite?
Or Pirates.
20/10/2008 at 11:13 Ian says:
World of Ninjas vs. Pirates?
20/10/2008 at 11:15 Angry Internet Man says:
I think it is very likely Blizzard will do for Eve/planetside what they did for EQ. When WoW came out, fantasy MMOs were a relatively small section of the PC market, because they were (compared to today’s MMOs) complex and demanding. WoW made them much more accessible, and got millions of subscribers. I think Blizzard will do the same thing again, take an MMO type that is currently viewed as complex and difficult, polish it, make it accessible to the masses and hopefully profit.
20/10/2008 at 11:16 rocketman71 says:
Dammit, Yns88 got it first!
I was going to say Age of Blackthorne ;)
20/10/2008 at 11:34 unique_identifier says:
blindfiring your shotgun at targets behind you nets triple experience.
20/10/2008 at 11:36 Kommissar Nicko says:
I honestly find it very unlikely that EVE or Planetside would find themselves as inspiration for a Blizzard IP because if that were to be the case, you probably would have seen elements of either one in stuff they had already done, as an indication that they had learned something from them. I see almost nothing of EVE or Planetside in things that Blizzard has done so far, so there’s no good reason to assume they’ll be taking things in that direction at all.
Looking at their record, I think a Battle Chess MMO would be neat.
20/10/2008 at 11:39 NegativeZero says:
Since they’ve said it’s a new IP, let me throw this out here: World of Steamcraft. More action-oriented than WoW, probably with a bit more of a console slant (it’s a huge market and those console guys that were working on Ghost have to be up to something) set in a Steampunk world. Ideally involving a setting somewhat along the lines of Skies of Arcadia, with airships and floating islands in the sky and stuff.
I’m still personally thinking that they’ve got to be considering the Starcraft setting for a Planetside/Eve-style game though. If they don’t do it you’ve got to think that the Warhammer 40k guys would be thinking similarly. And if not them then there’s bound to be some eggheads at MS that remember that that’s basically what the original concept for Halo was.
I want a modern planetside :(
20/10/2008 at 11:42 Mogs says:
It’ll be some casual monstrosity. They are owned by Activision now. Guitar Hero Online? Kitsch Cartoony Bollocks Universe?
20/10/2008 at 11:48 Gap Gen says:
World of Needlecraft?
20/10/2008 at 11:55 qrter says:
A platformer MMO, about a bearded carpenter called Marco and his brother Louie.
20/10/2008 at 12:03 Meat Circus says:
World of Monetized Content & Unnecessary Expansion Packs: Online
20/10/2008 at 12:09 Comstar says:
Well whatever it is, we can all agree the background won’t have any originality. It will also be very very polished and cost 100+ million.
20/10/2008 at 12:13 IIshin says:
Shattered Universe Online, the game that was scrapped all the way back, will be brought back. I wish they would do something like that. Something like fallout in mmo, kindof like Urban Dead with graphics.
20/10/2008 at 12:14 TooNu says:
Knowing Blizzard it will go like this:
It will be something new for them, so FPS. It will more than likely go into space because space is the new DnD. It will take years and years to develop. Upon release it will get 98% review score from Ross Atherton and Kieron. After a few months the space demon summoner will get buffed because it is broken, much crying will happen. Rob Pardo will hate the space demon summoner and thus it will feel the nerf bat upon every patch day there after. The first expansion will come out and ruin the great original game. Nothing will happen for 2 years then a crap free content expansion will come out and be crap. The next expansion will come out shortly after and signal the end days of another Bliz MMO.
Bliz will mention something about a “new game that is completly different”.
20/10/2008 at 12:15 TooNu says:
Oh, and by the time it comes out there will be a whole new generation of children to focus the new game on, so don’t be suprised if it is “well made yet lacking something” yes we know this as, gameplay.
20/10/2008 at 12:21 Surgeon says:
Hopefully they’ll make an MMOFPS, and in turn, kick start the MMOFPS revolution.
Down with all this point and click nonsense.
Twitch skills for the win!
20/10/2008 at 12:24 Meat Circus says:
Nah, I’m going to go with the “It will be a big pile of monetized watery Actard gamepiss. Only lowest common denominator proles and those devoid of any dignity at all will touch this fucker with a shitty stick” angle.
20/10/2008 at 12:28 StalinsGhost says:
I would LOVE to see a Starcraft MMOFPS, though part of me wonders if that’s really that likely. Blizzard have never really released an FPS, let alone an MMOFPS; though I suppose before WoW, they’d not done an MMORPG. Also, Blizz are already working on new installments for its main three licenses already – including Starcraft. It could make sense that they’d like to try somthing new maybe?
20/10/2008 at 12:30 Malagate says:
To quote Negative Zero: “Ideally involving a setting somewhat along the lines of Skies of Arcadia, with airships and floating islands in the sky and stuff.”
Airships and floating islands…so just like those found in World of Warcraft then? Also you don’t get much more steampunk than the robotic things those gnomes ride around on, whatever they are (is not a WoW player, just watched my friend play it 3 times).
I will hope against hope that it will be a mmog that places more emphasis on survival and exploration than others. That is to say, a mmog where eating, drinking, finding shelter and adapting to new environments/weather conditions is a big part of the game. If it’s already been done, I would be interested to know about it…
20/10/2008 at 12:31 Seniath says:
(Oblig Over 9000 joke)
- Vegeta, what does the scouter say about this thread’s cynicism?
- It’s over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND!
20/10/2008 at 12:43 Arnulf says:
Allright!
I’ll bank everything I’ve got on a Tabula Rasa styled Starcraft MMO!
It will be ready in 2015.
There.
20/10/2008 at 12:46 Dante says:
It’ll almost certainly be an MMO based on a previous IP with gameplay that is essentially a polished version of someone else’s successful ideas.
Blizzard don’t really do originality.
20/10/2008 at 12:47 Arnulf says:
Ah yes! I forgot, cetero censeo… Games Workshop still did the wrong thing with choosing Warhammer Fantasy over 40k, or Necromunda, or even Space Hulk. They did miss a huge chance there.
20/10/2008 at 12:51 Kieron Gillen says:
Arnwulf: Someone buys a licence of their game and it’s GW’s fault?
KG
20/10/2008 at 12:55 YogSo says:
If it is an Starcraft MMO, then it surely will be called Space of Starcratf, and not ‘World’ of Starcraft :P
20/10/2008 at 13:07 Dan says:
You’ve obviously not played the beta of Lich King. There’s more new ideas and more innovations in MMO gameplay in there than in any new MMO released this year.
Blizzard are now very, very good at making WoW, and the new expansion pretty much guarantees that their subscription base is going to continue to increase for at least another year. Hardly “the end of days”.
Oh, sorry, I forgot it’s not “cool” to defend a games company when it gets popular and starts to make lots of money by being really good at something. Let’s just get back to the cynical Blizz bashing then…
20/10/2008 at 13:08 Dan says:
That’s what I get for trying to use tags when post editing is disabled… Although I’m certain I put the /blockquote tag in the right place…
20/10/2008 at 13:12 Alec Meer says:
We’ve said it a load of times, but: post-editing dying is an unfortunate and unintended side-effect of adding the forum – as soon as we can find a way to fix it it’ll be back.
20/10/2008 at 13:34 Arnulf says:
Grmbl. Cannot login to EVE, escapes me why….
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. @Kieron: Are you telling me that GW does not have separate licences for their different worlds, dimensions, whatever? Or is someone sitting on a 40k licence and does absolutely nothing with it? Hmmm, now that I think about it, I believe I heard that a 40k MMO is in the works somewhere…
As far as the name goes, I’d go with Starcraft Universe.
20/10/2008 at 13:40 D says:
@YogSo:
while it’d make more sense, the game acronym would turn out to be SOS, which in itself isn’t the best way to generate enthusiasm about a new project.
20/10/2008 at 13:43 kyrieee says:
I just hope they make it something that isn’t a complete waste of time, like all current MMOs are
Grinding for virtual accomplishments is a waste of your life.
20/10/2008 at 13:44 Malagate says:
@ Arnulf: iirc I believe it is THQ who will be making the 40k MMO, what with THQ pretty much owning the license to make any and all 40k themed games. I would be interested to know if their specialist games are seperately licensed, at least then it could be possible for some other company to acquire a Necromunda license.
For a Starcraft mmo, you can’t go with Space of Starcraft, as that acronym is SoS, similarly Starcraft Universe is SU, and World of Starfcraft is WoS. Gotta think of the abbreviation first, then fit the words around it.
20/10/2008 at 13:45 rez says:
Call me blindly optimistic, but I’m sure that whatever Blizzard releases will be a good time and certainly worth a go.
I’m going to be disappointed if it’s not a Starcraft-based MMO, though. The idea of a game like that makes me deliriously excited.
20/10/2008 at 13:53 Arnulf says:
@Malagate: What’s wrong with SU?
20/10/2008 at 14:01 Rei Onryou says:
Considering their current plan is WoW expansion, Starcraft in 3 campaigns and DIII, it wouldn’t make sense to overshadow any of those projects with a related MMO. I’m guessing a new-IP. Mainly because it’d be the most interesting possibility.
20/10/2008 at 14:28 Malagate says:
@Arnulf, aside from sounding like Sue (“I can’t wait to get my hands on SU, hur hur hur”), SU already has over 1.4 billion hits on google and is usually associated with Universities (Student Unions). You want an abbreviation that is fairly unique and also associated with something good or cool.
WoW works for obvious reasons, but I’m struggling to think of something as punchy involving Starcraft.
20/10/2008 at 14:37 LukeE says:
I’d go with Starcraft: The F***ing Universe.
20/10/2008 at 14:37 Dante says:
@ rez You’re blindly optimistic.
Call me blindly cynical, but I’m sure whatever Blizzard make it will be about as original and interesting as a spade and still sell like bottled sex.
20/10/2008 at 14:52 Gorgeras says:
After logging out of WAR, again, after not being able to find anything interesting going on but the same dull scenarios, I’ve lost faith in the ability of any developer to make an MMO where the ‘massively-multiplayer’ component and the subscription fee it’s supposed to justify is neccessary.
I’d cancel my internet and stick with single-player games now if it wasn’t for the bag of virulent wank that is Steam, requiring a connection to play the games I have on it. I’ll send Valve my fucking Virgin Media bill.
20/10/2008 at 14:54 Ian says:
@ Dante: World of Spadecraft!
A farming/manual labour MMO is just what we need.
20/10/2008 at 15:13 Gap Gen says:
Who is Keron and why does he say “Skaven”? Is he trying to be like Kieron?
20/10/2008 at 15:16 Internet Gentleman says:
Well spotted sir!
20/10/2008 at 15:23 Gap Gen says:
Oh, wait, it says Kieron now. I’m confused. Is Kieron pretending to be Kieron? Or has Keron just bought a better disguise?
20/10/2008 at 15:25 Dante says:
@ Gorgeras
You do know you can set steam to offline mode, right?
20/10/2008 at 15:26 perilisk says:
Hmmm… maybe it will be a massively multiplayer RTS.
20/10/2008 at 15:39 Gorgeras says:
Dante.
Shazam. Now to suggest the unpopular idea of YouTube and QVC online shopping removal to the family. But for any kind of online game, it’s ‘fuck off’ for good until there’s a developer that knows how to do it properly. My time on WAR runs out in eight days and I won’t be subscribing. I might try it again in january but if the ‘War is nowhere’ thing hasn’t changed by then, Mythic has failed just as Blizzard did.
20/10/2008 at 15:40 elias says:
Yeah, a Starcraft MMORTS wouldn’t be that surprising. Though it would step on the toes of Starcraft 2 a little. Hmm… Starcraft-themed Puzzle Pirates-alike? : )
20/10/2008 at 15:46 Pags says:
Universe of Warcraft.
20/10/2008 at 15:50 Delphiki says:
cant it just be a WOW for consoles?
“So let’s just say it’s going to be different and it’s not going to be a sequel to World of Warcraft. It will be different”
same game, different platform
20/10/2008 at 15:53 Larington says:
Hmm, I could speculate, I could suggest maybe they’re going to dethrone the other super hero MMOs. Hmmm. I could suggest that maybe it’ll be planetside-esque. Hmmm. But I’d rather just have information that I can interpret without making random guesses. Hmmmmm.
20/10/2008 at 15:56 Jesucristo says:
Heliocentric, Blizzard and “New” are contrary words.
20/10/2008 at 16:10 The Hammer says:
If the new MMO is Starcraft, then I demand a Warcraft 4!
20/10/2008 at 16:18 Bonedancer says:
Ah, the old lack-of-originality complaint. “I have seen or heard of something sort of like this thing, therefore this thing is a rip-off and anyone who likes it is stupid.”
It’s rubbish. Tolkien ripped off a bunch of hairy Northern European tribesmen. Gary Gygax (provably) ripped off Tolkien. Warhammer – and a thousand other games and novels – ripped off Gygax. Blizzard ripped off all of the above and added in their own little quirks. WAR ripped off Blizzard. Blizzard will doubtless rip off the good bits from WAR as soon as they get round to it.
And you know what? THAT IS OKAY. These people are making games; the purpose of games – from the player’s perspective at least – is to have fun. If the games are fun, it doesn’t matter where the ideas came from. If something isn’t fun, it doesn’t matter how startlingly original it is.
Now for someone to point out I ripped this argument off “DarthVadorr666″ on some forum somewhere. :D
20/10/2008 at 16:37 Pags says:
@Bonedancer: no-one would ever dare suggest such a thing; DarthVador666 is an idiot.
20/10/2008 at 16:46 scout says:
How are they even going to make a new MMO when they’re tied up making a WoW expansion every year and they have enough singleplayer projects with D3 and SC2 to keep them busy until 2012 (by which time Warcraft 4 will be overdue)? If they really had the spare development capacity they wouldn’t have paused SC2 to finish D3.
For my guess at the content I’d go for a super-mainstream social-networking/puzzle-game/casual-game/exploration MMO.
20/10/2008 at 16:52 Cataclysm says:
“Arnulf says:
@Malagate: What’s wrong with SU”
Soviet Union?
20/10/2008 at 16:54 kenoxite says:
+1 to Tabula Rasa thingy.
They use to stand on the shoulder of dwarves after all. To crush them. And consolidate a new standard in the process.
20/10/2008 at 16:56 Cataclysm says:
@Gorgeras
I can’t understand some peoples negativity towards WAR.
I’m loving it so far and had a few ORvR events already, including one yesterday with 20ish Destruction players taking 2 keeps, where we were fighting with 20ish Order folks.
Which server did you play it on? Karak Hirn is RPS guild Dest server and Tor Anroc is RPS guild Order server. Check us out :)
(Sorry about the off topic)
20/10/2008 at 17:15 Gorgeras says:
Burlokk, RP server, destruction side.
It isn’t ‘negativity’.
When someone sees the world as Black and White, we know immediately they are a reactionary idiot with delusions of a golden age, usually the decade just before their birth like the 40s or 50s and they are invariably a Daily Mail reader.
But change the words to Positive and Negative, they are suddenly an open-minded consensus-seeker with a glass half-full. In reality, they are simply the counter-point idiot to the reactionary; so open-minded their brains are falling out.
The world is not Positive or Negative, people are not positive or negative. It is not ‘negative’ to criticise anything nor ‘positive’ to praise it.
What little pathetic guild-led, 20-something participant world-RvR there is(I wouldn’t sully the principle of real ‘open-mechanics’ by calling it open-RvR, even the open-RvR servers are not open-mechanic), is awful. It is nothing like the fights there were in the open beta. Something went hideously wrong between then and now.
Scenarios either need removing or pre-conditions based on world-RvR objectives before they can be entered. I’ll play TF2 if I want laggy anti-social mini-games. I’m expected to pay a subscription for a game not providing any kind of experience where the ‘massively-multiplayer’ component is unneccessary. It’s WoW all over again.
20/10/2008 at 17:18 Nahual says:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/06/16/
20/10/2008 at 18:32 DigitalSignalX says:
The speculation will be endless, but it seems like a very safe bet that since they have a huge fantasy MMO, their next logical step is a huge science fiction MMO. Eve, Dues Ex, Planetscape, or even Fallout 3 ish? Time and continued hints will tell.
20/10/2008 at 18:39 Dante says:
@ Bonedancer
You’re way off base, I’m not talking about who did Orcs first, I honestly couldn’t give a fuck.
Blizzard’s entire business model appears to revolve around letting everyone else innovate, then releasing a slightly more polished version and going home with ten times the cash. There’s something about that that will always chime badly with me.
20/10/2008 at 20:33 Erlam says:
“Making a Starcraft MMO when they’re already going to be rolling out three ‘modules’ of Starcraft II also feels unlikely to me…”
Actually, that makes it all the more likely. They already have the concept art to build off of, and the team can be splintered off into the new IP.
I really, really hope it’s a Starcraft based MMO-FPS. I would be in heaven.
20/10/2008 at 22:20 Mark says:
World of Lost Vikings. I’m calling it now.
Or, better yet, World of Rock & Roll Racing.
20/10/2008 at 22:54 ack says:
My guess is something inspired by don Quijote, ’cause of the windmills y’ know.
(the first one to figure out what I’m getting at might not eventually be treated to a quite organic cookie)
20/10/2008 at 23:11 Valentin Galea says:
Rock & Roll Racing – The MMO!
21/10/2008 at 00:00 Erlam says:
Rock and Roll Racing – The MMO would probably kill me with happiness. I would die from loving it that much.
21/10/2008 at 03:09 Rufust Firefly says:
It’s going to be Lost Vikings: the MMO. Puzzle Pirates can’t hog all of the puzzle-solving mmorpergers out there.
21/10/2008 at 09:13 kf76 says:
cowboys and indians
21/10/2008 at 09:32 Koopa says:
Lost Vikings Online would be awesome. Would propably be the best co-op game ever!
21/10/2008 at 10:05 mister k says:
“Blizzard’s entire business model appears to revolve around letting everyone else innovate, then releasing a slightly more polished version and going home with ten times the cash. There’s something about that that will always chime badly with me.”
I dunno, I think their rts introduced a LOT of new elements that other games rip off today. They were still rts games, but it’s a little harsh to tar them with that brush.
And lets face it, while wow couldn’t exist without everquest (which couldn’t exist without ultima which couldn’t exist without mud, to skip a few steps), it took a formula and made a pretty amazing experience. Yes, I, as many others, have tired of it, it doesn’t stop what they’ve done being an impressive work that others are now using.
I couldn’t guess about what blizzard are going to do next, but I’m pretty sure it will actually be awesome. Bear in mind that if you bought wow, and played it for three months and got bored, you would have paid thirty pounds for more hours of gaming than most other games you can experience….
21/10/2008 at 10:20 Kanakotka says:
I don’t ever see how anyone could do a good version of EvE… i mean, earth and beyond was great for what it was, but… then again, i only got to play it around a week before it went down. Shame on that.
However, there is HUGE, HUGE opportunity left after Neocron’s wake. Steampunk and Cyberpunk wave their hands and scream agitatedly. They want their own properly done MMO.
Then, there’s the space flyin’ shooting stuff and so on thing that EvE couldn’t do right, or jumpgate for that matter. I’m a little meh about the next jumpgate, knowing how the developers have done with their other products and lazing off on them… i just hope they can take their time with this one and polish it, and we’ll see what it is.
21/10/2008 at 10:24 Kanakotka says:
And everyone who says that blizzard merely takes ideas and polishes them must be in some manner retarded. They do take ideas, of course. Everyone does. Point to me a game developer that you claim doesn’t, and i’ll show you a game where they have taken their ideas from.
Blizzard just does things… right way around, they’re like this gigantic diamond cutter that can cut raw diamonds into beautiful gems, but that’s not just all they do, they encrust their own to make it even more pretty. Look at WoW Talent system for instance. Everyone else has tried to copy that, and everyone else has failed. I’d dare to say Blizzard is about the best game developer there is in these days, even rivaling GOD-games(well, which has gone down under, probably).
21/10/2008 at 14:41 Nemolom says:
I agree to everything Kanakotka says. Polish is not just some kind of generic formula anyone can apply to a game. If it was then we’d obviously see more of it. We certainly haven’t seen it in any of the MMOs that have been released since WoW. Blizzard appears to have a superb understanding not only of what they want and need to achieve, but their skill in execution is also unsurpassed. I would not be surprised (and not disappointed) if they present a new IP now. The time for it is right, and they should have the economy to “risk” it. Not that anyone would perceive it as a risk, Blizzard’s portfolio taken into consideration. Personally I think there’s much interesting untested ground in the direction of more casual MMOs – more related to Planetside, Quake Wars and CoH than WoW.
30/10/2008 at 17:26 Mark says:
Since it will be a new IP, I’m thinking science-fiction universe, but I am also thinking more story-evolved. One of the big trends in MMO’s is moving away from the endless little quests to something with a bigger longer story. Star Wars talks endlessly about the storyline, FF talks endlessly about the storyline, Wow doesn’t have one. Oh, they have a story, but as your normal player running around in Hellfire Ramparts, you are not much involved in a story. Blizzard is changing things with the WotLK expansion though. I think its needed for anyone except the hardcore pvp’ers who can spend months endlessly fighting other players.
With the experience Blizzard has received in learning how to work things (and the money they have), I suspect they will do something that will far exceed the current crop.
22/12/2008 at 00:12 Jake says:
I’m hoping for a new IP. While World of Starcraft (Or whatever), would be cool, can anyone imagine playing as a Zerg character? I just don’t think it would work. And with regards to an EVE style game, I think the whole trading, political thing would be too complex to appeal to a mass market. Ideally, I’d like a polished Planetside style thing. With dropships. And stompy robots.
26/03/2009 at 14:10 CogDissident says:
Who knows, they could use an old IP that people forgot blizzard owns.
Blackthorn: Prince of persia with shotguns
Lost Vikings: Puzzles and fart jokes
26/03/2009 at 20:31 Severian says:
RPSO: Rock Paper Shotgun Online.
There are only 4 classes, but you get to review games, live in a big mansion with lots of sexy babes (or “birds,” if you will), smoke cigars and mock the plebs.
29/05/2010 at 14:18 Vijay_UK says:
Whatever it is, it will be a money maker – Blizz really do focus on quality of product. They will probably use the WoW model which has been so successful, and I doubt it will be StarCraft MMO.
Whatever this MMO will be, it will certainly be worth waiting for.
My initial guess was that it might be Diablo, but with Diablo III coming through eventually with it’s probable online content I am not so sure it will be Diablo either (not more dungeons!).
Blizz might just play safe and keep with it’s fantasy element it knows so well, and that works as an MMO. Sci-fi is something that doesn’t seem to work, I might be wrong.
10/06/2010 at 13:38 croon says:
They’re already making a WH40K MMO, it will probably be out before any new MMO from Blizzard.