Hasta La Gadget!

Bizzard Entertainment has been teasing us about its next-gen MMO, codenamed Titan, since 2007, but a decision to reset the game’s development means we’ll have to wait even longer to play it: potentially 2016 at the very earliest. Around 70-percent of the Titan dev team has been reassigned, VentureBeat reports, with the remaining 30 or so staff working on what a Blizzard spokesperson said were “some large design and technology changes to the game.”

Word of the rethink to the World of Warcraft follow-up initially leaked from a source familiar with the game’s development, though while Blizzard later confirmed the shift in staff, it pointed out that no set release date for the title had ever been publicly revealed. A roughly 2014 release window had been expected, however, thanks to a leaked roadmap that emerged back in late 2010.

That might have suggested an announcement at Blizzcon 2013, Blizzard’s own gaming event, in early November, but with the internal changes it now looks unlikely.

“We’ve always had a highly iterative development process, and the unannounced MMO is no exception. We’ve come to a point where we need to make some large design and technology changes to the game. We’re using this opportunity to shift some of our resources to assist with other projects while the core team adapts our technology and tools to accommodate these new changes. Note that we haven’t announced any dates for the MMO” Shon Damron, spokesperson, Blizzard Entertainment

Although Titan has been known about as a work-in-progress for some years, exact details on the game are still shrouded in mystery. Confirmed as an all-new title in 2008, rather than an iteration or add-on for World of Warcraft, a playable version was finalized in 2011, but still had “a long ways to go” Chief Creative Officer Rob Pardo told Curse Entertainment back in 2012.

Plotlines to Titan are also unknown, though various Blizzard execs have said they expect the game to be able to coexist with World of Warcraft since the two will be significantly different. That, of course, is assuming the game developer doesn’t axe the project altogether.

One possible cause of the team reassignment is Blizzard’s partnership with Sony, with the company announcing plans to bring Diablo III and other titles to the PlayStation 4. Although a version for PS3 had already been confirmed, the changed underlying architecture of the new console will mean more work porting it to suit the PS4 hardware.

VIA: Slashdot

Blizzard reboots Titan next-gen MMO: Reportedly reassigns 70% of team is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

At the annual EVE Online Fanfest, CCP, the publisher of EVE Online, stated that it’s going to spice things up for EVE Online players. It will soon be turning the stories of real players into professionally made comic books as well as a TV series. Players will have to submit their stories to EVE Online’s True Stories competition before the May 1st deadline. Gamers will then get to vote for their favorite stories until May 15th, when the grand finalists are chosen.

Player submissions, even if they aren’t the grand finalists, have a chance to be featured in EVE Online’s 54-page comic book, published by Dark Horse Comics, who is known for its comics like Hellboy, Sin City, and its upcoming Mass Effect comics. The top stories will have a chance of being turned into episodes of an EVE Online TV series, which will be directed by an Icelandic director said to have produced many major films.

Alongside the possibility of have a TV episode based off their stories, finalists will also be given a series of other bonuses from EVE Online as well. Players who come in 3rd-5th place will be given a 1-year free subscription to EVE Online. The 2nd place winner will receive a free 10-year subscription to EVE Online. The 1st place winner will receive a round trip for 2 to Reykjavik, Iceland, which includes airfare and hotel accommodations. He/She will have the chance to visit CCP’s headquarters and meet and talk with senior developers, and will also receive a 10-year subscription to EVE Online.

The launch of EVE Online’s own TV series and comic books is in celebration of the game’s 10th anniversary. There are also talks that a film for the game may be produced, though that’d be much farther into the future. Also in celebration of the game’s 10th anniversary, Dark Horse Comics will be producing a 184-page hardback book containing all of the stories regarding the lore of EVE Online as well as the various NPCs you encounter in-game. There will also be a new collector’s edition released giving EVE Online fans access to a variety of things, like cosmetic in-game items, physical models, and more.

[via Joystiq]

EVE Online will turn players’ stories into comics and a TV series is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week it’s been revealed that Blizzard Entertainment’s own Diablo III will be coming to the PlayStation 4 without access to the Real Money Auction House still present in the desktop PC iteration. Though this might have some odd effects on those hoping to play the game with access to weapons, armor, and everything in-between with their own real-world cash, Blizzard is presenting a firm “not a chance” as they suggest that, if they could, they’d take the whole mess out of the game entirely.

If you have a travel down our Diablo III tag portal, you find a series of stories that are just as often negative and full of disappointment as they are exciting and action-packed. This release was one of the most long-awaited in the history of gaming, with 8 years separating the second installment of the series (Diablo II in 2000) and the announcement of this title.

Though Diablo III was first announced in 2008, it was only actually released to the public on May 15th, 2012. That’s one massive amount of time for a game to be in development, especially with the 5-minutes-of-fame atmosphere we’re in now. Then there’s the bits and pieces that Blizzard has had to change right from the outset. Today’s big kicker is the announcement from former Diablo 3 Game Director Jay Wilson.

“Most of the auction house’s use is with in-game virtual gold.”

Speaking with Joystiq this week about Diablo III’s real money action house, he suggested that the feature has “really hurt the game.” According to Wilson, over 50 percent of the players that play regularly use the auction house, while most of the auction house’s use is with in-game virtual gold rather than with real cash.

Because of this gold use, not necessarily the real money, motivation to collect gold and broken items (otherwise useless, able to be sold in the game to virtual vendors for gold), have become far more popular goals for users. There’s simply not as much junk everywhere anymore – Diablo II continues to be a massive mess of item drops and coins.

“I think we would turn it off if we could, [but it’s] not as easy as that.” – Wilson

Citing the near-impossible task of figuring out how much of the Diablo III user population wants the auction house to stick around or be kicked to the curb, Wilson was clear on one point: they are looking for a “solution.” A solution to what, exactly, we might never know.

Diablo III’s next big “oops” is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It seems like SimCity is just full of bad news. SimCity has received a lot of negative feedback for its ridiculous Always-On DRM feature. At first, EA stated that the Always-On DRM was added mainly because of security issues, but now its saying that it was added because the developers envisioned SimCity as “always-connected”. Lucy Bradshaw, the General Manager of EA’s Maxis label, stated that they had designed SimCity “with multiplayer in mind”. By having the always-connected feature, they were able to create essentially an MMO.

Bradshaw explained that they envisioned a game where cities would constantly be up to date. Players would be able to help each other out with supplies and services, send gifts to each other, promote trading in the Global Marketplace, and more. Simply, they wanted players to always be connected to each other. Even if players wanted to play alone, Bradshaw stated that they’d eventually want to play with other players.

Now here’s the part where everyone gets pissed off. Bradshaw says, “So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision.” Essentially, SimCity could have operated with both an online multiplayer mode, as well as a single-player mode that many of the series’s fans asked for. Bradshaw justifies her case by saying that there are “thousands” of people who love SimCity’s always-connected feature, a statement that has been debunked by thousands and thousands of other fans.

Obviously Bradshaw’s statement drew in a huge list of angry SimCity gamers. Many came out to call Bradshaw and the SimCity developers liars. They commented on how the “always up-to-date” trading services sometimes take up to an hour to update, and how even online saving is unreliable, with many players losing multiple cities due to an error in the cloud-based servers. The SimCity launch was a massive failure due to the Always-On DRM, and EA has experienced continuous PR damage since then. This may be the last nail in the coffin for the SimCity series.

[via EA]

EA lied about SimCity not being offline-capable is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Elder Scrolls Online is set to launch sometime this year, and there are some players who understandably skeptical that the game can satisfy series fans. Just the same, there are some players who think that the this is finally the multiplayer game so many Elder Scrolls fans have been asking about for years. Regardless of which camp you fall in – skeptic or believer – ZeniMax Online Studios has issued a call for for beta testers, so you can net a chance to test out a pre-release build of the game.

The beta is of the closed variety, which means that you’ll need to sign a non-disclosure agreement to participate. There isn’t any word on when the beta will officially kick off, which means that it might be a little while before players find out if they were accepted. While you won’t know if you got in right away, there is a little sidebar that pops up on the side of the application that gives you an idea of your chances of being accepted as you fill in information. You probably shouldn’t take that assessment as truth, but it’s a nice feature to have anyway.

Today also saw the release of a new cinematic trailer for the Elder Scrolls Online, this one coming in at nearly six minutes long. Being a cinematic, the trailer naturally doesn’t show any gameplay, but instead a massive battle scene. The battle is certainly impressive, but at this point, we have a feeling that fans are craving more gameplay footage. In any case, have a look at the latest Elder Scrolls Online trailer below.

If you’re interested in signing up for the closed beta, you can head over to the Elder Scrolls Online official site to do so. Keep in mind that there are a lot of people looking to sign up, so you may not be able to submit your application right away. Did any of sign up for the Elder Scrolls Online beta today?

[via Eurogamer]

Elder Scrolls Online closed beta registration opens as new trailer drops is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.