Project "Titan": chronology

News On the transfer and reboot of the project " Titanium ", The next big online game from Blizzard , thundered with thunder among a clear sky. For a year now, beta tests have been going on (from the words of the director Robe Pardo ). For the past two months, everyone discussed the recent leak – that one, with mythology and travel travel. We counted the days before BlizzCon 2013 And they looked hopefully at the apocryphic “Blizzard calendar”, where 2014 was on the opposite of Titan.

Of course, Blizzard is known for often tolerate releases, or even cancel them if they are considered necessary. But no one expected that the studio would return the project to the most serious refinement, which has been working on seven years! Now, with the probable release date “Not earlier than 2016”, the Titan project has prospects to become a ten -year -old long -term construction.

Let's remember how it all began, and restore the chronology of news events about the Titan. The first hints of the new MMO date back to 2005 ..

The period of thin hints

So, imagine: September 2005. World of Warcraft Another “that” – it is clean and fresh, not spoiled by any additions. For nine months from the release, the number of subscribers reached four million, and these are unprofitably huge numbers. CNN takes comments at Paul Sams , operating vice president Blizzard. Talking about future plans, he declares: “We will not exclude the possibility of creating new whole worlds … they will be mmog or not, I will not say. But Wow was waiting for success, and it would be strange not to try to repeat it ".

► Figure Mark Brunet, one of the artists working on the project. Like the picture at the beginning of the article, this drawing is one of the “candidates” for a possible art from Project Titan. However, not a single official and even “leaked” image from the game is still.

It was a foggy promise of future happiness. In 2006, hints became a little thicker. The next happened at the end of August, at the very time when journalists around the world stared at The Burning Crusade And they doubted whether the statements of flights in all of the outcome were real. The same Paul Sams in one of the interviews announced that Blizzard was working on three non -anons of projects. Well, of course, it was the first Diablo 3 , second – Starcraft 2 , And the third … Yes, it seems, this is our "Titan".

Everything was finally confirmed at the end of April 2007, when Blizzard opened vacancies regarding the "new generation". The company needed a programmer of engine, tools and the main technical artist. The general consensus was achieved: Blizzard really makes the heir to Wow. It remained only to find out what it was: Wow 2 , World of Starcraft (the most likely assumption) or World of Diablo.

The first confessions

It's time to recognize the obvious. Leading developer Blizzard Jeffrey Kaplan (he Tigole ) In an interview, he admitted that the company is still working on the new MMO. This spurred conversations and fortune telling about which of the three main universes will be devoted to the game. It was in August 2007.

Closer to the end of the year, a representative of Blizzard spoke on Wow forums, nicknamed DrySc (Later – Bashiok ), and literally said the following: “This is a non -anced MMO of the next generation. And we are not talking about adding to WOW ". Important clarification.

► Another “suspicious” model of clearly gaming origin, which can PlayOJO Casino be related to the “titanium”. The artist is Renod Galand, and he also works on Titan.

Almost all of 2008 we sat without news. Everyone was waiting Wrath of the Lich-King. And already in the fall, when the second addition was on the way, the developers began to share information. It was on BlizzCon. Jeff Kaplan admitted that he also works on a new project. Chapter Blizzard Mike Morheim , When the journalists put him to the wall Wired , finally announced the first reliable information: “The game will be different and will not be a continuation of World of Warcraft. She will be different. We are not trying to replace it with wow ".

So it's not wow 2. This option disappears. Two more!

That is, as a "completely new game"?

The beginning of 2009 was indicated by the transition of the head of the Wow project, Jeff Kaplan, to the new MMO. This news was already alarming then, and now, looking back, it can be called almost tragic: after all, it is from the third addition Cataclysm , which was already created without the participation of Jeffrey Kaplan, many counts the start of the sunset of World of Warcraft.

► Another model from the same artist. Some alien.

May 12, 2009 a company representative under the name Zarhym officially announced that the game will not be connected with Wow, nor with Starcraft, or Diablo. “We have already said that this is a completely new trademark, which means that the history of the world, artistic style and gameplay are developed from scratch. This is a very difficult process, but we have fed in it, which is confirmed by our track record. ".

Eh, zarhym … he would have known then how everything would turn out. But, in any case, from that moment on the new MMO everyone knows that they know nothing. Only it is known only what it will not.

Meanwhile, Blizzard is under control Activision (a step that not all players liked). In mid -September, the new boss Robert Kotik announced that the mysterious game will be focused on a “wider audience”, no matter what it means.

Two days after the interview, the news comes that Blizzard is licensing the "city" engine CITYENGINE from Procedural Inc. Engine that allows you to quickly build a wide variety of cities in one fell swoop? It was clearly not bought for Starcraft and not for Diablo.

► Using the CITYENGINE procedural engine, you can quickly simulate modern cities and medieval locks.

And at BlizzCon 2010, players received the first report on the state of development: there are fifty people in the team (by the way, pay attention – almost twice as much as now!), and the game goes from prototyping to pre-production.

And again – almost a year without news. But then a real bomb flies!

This is a "titanium"!

In October 2010, during BlizzCon, Rob Pardo announced that the news about fresh MMO should not wait for at least a year.

However, on November 30, Blizzard has the largest information leak in the history of the company. It is all the more amazing that it is only one sheet with a chronological table. However, this table is the quarterly strategic “Saldon plans” for five years in advance!

After long Battle project lists.Net, Starcraft, Diablo and Wow, at the very bottom of the table, on the contrary to the mark “Fourth Quarter of 2014” only one word. And this word Titan.

► In order not to destroy, but to build, you need a very cunning plan.

Not everyone, by the way, believed in the reliability of the leak. But she came from China, and immediately there were heads flew – on the third day, Blizzard took off the head of the Chinese unit. In addition, the table successfully withstood the test of time – almost everything that was in it confirmed.

So, now we know the code name of the project – "Titan". Some began to talk about the meaning of the word "titanium", but the audience agreed that it was just an internal name. Blizzard loves mythological code names for games – the same Diablo 3, for example, was known as the project " Hydra ", And Starcraft 2 was" Jellyfish ".

While everything goes well

In February 2011, Mark Morheim agreed to make a couple more hints about the new game. Compared to previous news, his information was simply generous. So…

• The project has experienced developers who have made wow for years.
• The lessons of the past were taken into account-including those that could not be corrected in WOW due to the inability to change the core of game mechanics.
• With all this knowledge, Blizzard does something new and fresh and in no case is a continuation of WOW (“to shift mold, sometimes you need to start all over again”).
• WoW and the new MMO will coexist.
• The game will definitely have a system of friends and guilds.

In March 2011, the operating director Paul Sams said the new MMO is already playable. “We are very confident in this product, it is amazing! He boasted. – We are already playing it, and it's great. We believe that this product is more than everything that we did before. We are full of great hopes. I think this product will have a very long life cycle, approximately like Wow ". As you can see, Paul Sams managed to say a lot and at the same time nothing.

The first bad news

In 2011, World of Warcraft Mir suffered the first serious losses on subscribers after Cataclysm complement. The trouble does not come alone, and soon vague, but bad rumors went about the Titan project.

The first cold shower came from an investment company Sterne Agee – famous, authoritative and very old (founded in 1901). Her analysts called the virtual world from Blizzard the new casual MMO, which caused surprise the game press. However, their forecasts regarding Activision shares were, in general, favorable.

► Model author – Josh Sing. Please note that although artists are different, the style of drawings and models is very similar.

In the fall on BlizzCon 2011, players learned that the team increased to ninety people (three times more than now) and the development entered the full -scale stage. According to the developers, the announcement will be a surprise for everyone, but it should not be waiting for BlizzCon 2012. The game is very large and will only be released on PC – although Blizzard is ready to consider the issue with consoles later. Mark Morheim admitted to dislike for the new-fangled “conditionally-free” model, and this most likely should be understood so that the “titanium” would spread by subscription.

However, shortly after BlizzCon, in November, a discouraging news came: one of the main designers Titan was fired from Blizzard John Stiatas , Creator of a pirate bay and Black Mountain in Azerot. He worked in the company for ten years.

At the end of February 2012, mass dismissals were held at Blizzard. Six hundred people lost their work. In personal handling at the forum, Mike Morheim tried to calm the players, saying that we are not talking about developers' teams, but only about reduction in units that are not directly related to the creation of games.

Sudden turn

In May 2012, the new MMO appeared on official slides in front of investors. It was called “Nonannated MMO” (by the way, Blizzard has never called her the word “Titan”).

► And this drawing, although associated on the Internet with the Titan project, is actually nothing to do with it. There is no evidence that its author is Nicholas Bovier ("Sparth"), at least somehow connected with Blizzard.

In September, Rob Pardo said that the team has more than a hundred people and the game for four years as in a full development.

On April of April 2013 (not the first of April!) Blizzard may have had a large leakage. Website Titanfocus published detailed information about the game from his sources. There was a lot of information.

• The history of the world is based on the history of the Earth with a share of science fiction.
• From Wow there will be not only Easter ladies, but, perhaps, entire characters.
• Time travel is expected.
• A variety of weapons – from magic to guns.
• Roman, northern and Greek myths (here's the “Titan”).
• E -sports orientation.
• Houses belonging to clans.
• The first "family" beta test should begin in the first quarter of 2014.
• The name of the project has changed repeatedly (this is where the alarming news).
• The first teaser is worth waiting for BlizzCon 2013.

No matter how unpleasant this leak is for Blizzard, she resurrected the public's forgotten interest in the Titan project. And, perhaps, it was she who began to take a closer look at the project to be careful for the development of the company to develop the project.

In any case, the least of all the players expected that less than two months after this leakage of the Titan project would be at risk. But what happened. The game is redone again. Two -thirds of the team dispersed other projects. The release date has moved far into the future.

And the voices of the doubters became louder that Blizzard could repeat the success of World of Warcraft.

* * *

Despite the fact that now Blizzard is still making a lot of money on World of Warcraft, the decline trend continues. New difficult solutions are coming. There is a struggle for leadership and for subscribers.

Whether the Titan will survive? However, now, when players leave WoW millions, this is not as important as the answer to the question: whether the Blizzard legacy will survive? And will it not turn out that the company, which no one could overthrow from the throne of subscribing MMO, will overthrow itself?

See.