Highlights from the call and Fourth Quarter 2011 financial results include:

• No release date announcement. Big shocker.

• Diablo 3 has been delayed to Q2: "The company's first quarter 2012 outlook does not incorporate a new release from Blizzard Entertainment."
  
  Well, I guess we finally have our answer. "Early 2012" actually means "Mid 2012".

• WOW has 10.2 Million Subscribers as of 12/31/11. (During their last conference call, they announced 10.3 million.)

• Calendar year 2012 outlook anticipates two releases from Blizzard Entertainment. Looks like SC2 HOTS has been delayed to 2013.

• There are approximately 50M monthly active users across Battle.net, CoD multiplayer, CoD Elite, and Skylanders WebWorld.

By the way, with all of the new people joining this call (potentially thousands of anxious fans, especially because direct links were advertised on Reddit and various Diablo forums), this is why it's so important for Blizzard to state ahead of time that the release date announcement WILL NOT be revealed at their upcoming conference call. When they don't do that, they're just trolling their customers.

Blizzard "Community Managers" (which is a form of PR) and Support staff frequently state that there are upcoming surprises, surprises planned, and surprise announcements. Because of this, people will grow even more suspicious when they say "Oh yeah.. this upcoming event is no big deal. You should really just go to your favorite site for the highlights of the call." It's like anticipating a surprise birthday party while your friends and family try to act nonchalant.

The reason they should notify their customers ahead of time is because, one of these days, an angry fan is going to raise a question during the open Q&A period for all of Activision Blizzard's employees and investors to hear: "Hey, Mike.. why is Bashiok such a troll?" Except, it will probably be worse.

"Early 2012"

Just to be clear, "Early 2012" means Q1. Blizzard even confirmed that this was their "internal definition." Bashiok never recanted his statement, he re-confirmed it.

There's a big difference between making a typo/mistake and the mistake of accidentally revealing something.

If someone were to accidentally leak Titan MMO game details, and they were to tweet "That was a mistake," it doesn't make it any less true that the game details were real.

Bashiok: Sorry I wasn't intending to imply anything by writing first quarter, just an honest mistake. Our official target is still "early 2012". Not sure if it makes too much difference one way or the other, but I don't want people to nitpick a mistake. :)

As Bashiok said, it doesn't make any difference one way or the other.. whether he writes it as Q1 or "Early 2012", it means the same thing.

Just a mistake on my part. Q1 is definitely more literal, so I suppose I should correct it.

Here, Bashiok confirms that Q1 is definitely more literal or accurate than saying "Early 2012".

If it was a typo or a mistake, then it would have meant that "Early 2012" means Q1-Q2 or "included Q2."

And moments ago, Bashiok just RE-re-confirmed that "Early 2012" always meant Q1, but now they just changed it this week to Q2 instead.

We've only ever said "early 2012". And we just decided we'd need until Q2 this week. Seems like the conference call was as good a place as any to announce that.

It's been delayed again; from Q1 to Q2.

When Will It Be Announced?

So, apparently, Blizzard was indeed intending on announcing the release date this week just as predicted. It was probably no coincidence that all of those Battle.net changes (5+ hour outages) were taking place and you didn't see the results. They truly were preparing for the release date announcement this week.

It's also no coincidence that the Battle.net Balance and PayPal features were implemented on Monday, which I had said would logically be accompanying the Release Date announcement.

To recap, for a couple months I have been predicting a 80% chance of a release date announcement right before the Q4 call. This was based on Blizzard's "promise" that their game would be coming out in Q1. However, I had also said that if an announcement was not made on the Monday, that the chances diminish substantially, and it means that the game will be delayed to Q2 (if still not announced before the call.) This week was really their only last option.

Maybe the new delay was related to the various Battle.net Balance problems they were having?

I'm currently waiting for the call recording to go live so that I can listen to it again. Mike Morhaime possibly mentioned that the release date schedule for the Diablo 3 release would be announced in the coming weeks.

The thing is, they can't make the announcement within the next 2-3 weeks. I mean they COULD, but if they did, it would imply that they actually KNOW the release date right now. Meaning that Q2 was planned before this week and they could have still made the announcement this week.

Plus, for such a major finance related item, it doesn't make any sense to announce it immediately after a major investor call rather than before. This means that the release date announcement has to be made late February or in March. Given a minimum of 2 months lead time for all of their past titles, this means that the game will be coming out in May at the earliest.

But, as I said, if they do announce within the next 2-3 weeks, then it means they actually know the real release date TODAY. And that would be very bad, considering that they could have announced it this week and it would have benefited them more greatly, especially from an investor perspective, while also avoiding many negative incidents (such as the forum outrage and angry frustration over the past 3 blog articles.) And, if THAT happens, it means that the decision "this week" was more personally motivated rather than business. :)

I've received a couple more Path of Exile keys, and I'll be giving away one tomorrow here at 12:00PM PST.

And speaking of tomorrow,

The Activision Blizzard investor call will be taking place at 1:30PM PST.

If you want to skip the call and just find out if they're going to be making a release date announcement (which they shouldn't be), all you need to do is keep refreshing this page as 1:30PM approaches. They'll typically post their results on this page about 5 minutes before the call starts.

Just open the HTML file ("... Fourth Quarter 2011 Net Revenus and Earnings"), and if it's in there (for some bizarre reason) it will be in the Business Highlights up near the top. Also, checkout the "Company Outlook" section right below for anything about future games.

I'm expecting to be disappointed though.

* UPDATE:

And, here's the key!

FR9QU-DY7B4-EBDFH-3____

Jumbled Letters: X 3 L C

For a better part of the day, users have been unable to access their Battle.net User accounts. The reason for this was because of standard maintenance over the past 5 hours.

And it wasn't just maintenance. They have finally integrated the new Battle.net Balance system and brought it online today. EU will be next tonight.

Unfortunately, the new changes are still broken. The US Account Page links to the European Battle.Net Balance FAQ instead of the US one and the Battle.net Balance instruction page still has the incorrect URL.

So far, there has been no official announcement about this new major feature addition.

The first time the "new" Battle.net Balance feature was announced was December 9, 2011. When Blizzard revealed the new feature they said that it would be "Coming Soon" and rolling out within the weeks ahead (end of December). It has finally been implemented, but 10 weeks later.

* UPDATE: It's been about 1 hour now, and still no official announcement. I guess they're waiting for it to be rolled out in all regions first.

* UPDATE: 4:30PM now.. most of the managers will be heading home now so there's little hope of an announcement today. That just leaves the next few days.

* UPDATE: Finally! An announcement over two hours after the changes went live.

Took Long Enough

A short while ago, Supererogatory finally published a piece about my older post on Swingin' Ape Studios and the other games they were working on (including exclusive information that I had obtained from Steve Ranck, who was the President and Technical Director at SAS.) I'm surprised he hadn't discovered it back in December. :)

As you know, I've been drawing a lot of parallels about Blizzard's old abandoned games and how they might be revisiting these ideas for their Next Gen MMO.

With that in mind, there was also a tweet about Blizzard's other cancelled project Raiko (which I had also mentioned as one of their cancelled games previously.) Apparently, though, I wasn't aware that Blizzard had outsourced the game to Flextech Productions.

According to Ron Seifried from Flextech, it was a role-played game based on Japanese Samurai.

Video Production Coordinator & 3D Modeler
Blizzard Entertainment
April 1996 – April 1998 (2 years 1 month)

I co-owned Flextech Productions, a company that was financed by Blizzard Entertainment to develop a role-playing game based on Japanese Samurai. This small operation was one of only three pilot companies that Blizzard deemed worthy enough to co-develop an computer game, at a time when resources were limited and time was short. From the days leading up to E3 ’97, we created a prototype that literally wowed our prospective investors, including volumetric lighting and multi-view angles that were years ahead of its time. I also managed finances and coordinated work schedules for development of PC role playing game and managed the video production facility.

Interestingly, Blizzard had brought Stan Sakai onboard to work on the new Next Gen MMO (lore & story.) And wouldn't you know it.. he has a wealth of experience with Japanese Samurai lore. :)

People in the World of Titan

I was going to wait until mid-March to post this, but since we're on the subject of Titan, I figured I might as well do it now.

For a while, I've had a belief that the Next Gen MMO would have a much deeper focus on it's people. I'm not just talking about character customization, but rather the NPCs within the game itself. I've been imagining more of a modern world filled with people, human villains and human heroes rather than the typically mass array of fantastical creatures and fictional aliens.

So, I've been following Brian Schwab (Senior AI/Gameplay Engineer II at Blizzard). He's given a few lectures of AI, but they have always been very careful never to say what game he has been working on at Blizzard. It's in fact the Next Gen MMO and he's their Senior AI programmer. That's why I've been so interested in his lectures; because he talks about his working experiences and he's careful not to reveal ongoing projects.

At this upcoming 2012 GDC (March 5-9), Brian is giving a presentation on Psychology in Game AI.

Less A More I: Using Psychology in Game AI
Tuesday 1:45- 2:45 Room 2006, West Hall, 2nd Fl

When dealing with game AI characters, psychology can’t help but come into play. Players process what they see and experience through a filter of expectations. We expect human-like game characters to exhibit human-like traits. A by-product of the quest to improve AI decisions, however, is that characters can begin to “feel” robotic and sterile. This session will begin by showing various psychological biases that we as game players bring to the experience. We will then show how characters can be imbued with simple affects to exploit these expectations in order to seem more “alive” and believable.

In earlier (2011) presentations, he talks about simple AI behavior and how you need to find a gentle balance so that it's not too challenging for players.

But now, he's focusing on human and human-like characters along with life-life behaviors. While this is no confirmation, it's interesting how he will be discussing this particular aspect of AI given that it's something that Blizzard has not done in any of their games yet (it's only life-like behavior via animation, but never AI) and it's not something that he spends his free time on. If it was an area of AI that he was currently working on exhaustively within Blizzard, though, then he would have a wealth of practical information and real world challenges to share.

Learning about a developer or artist's background and experience is a great way to get an idea about gameplay. For example, the Next Gen MMO team is comprised of many employees with scifi backgrounds such as Ghost and the Halo MMO. The artists themselves have done a lot with with scifi, post apocalyptic, and ancient city designs and concept art. And, a couple key writers have worked on scifi stories, secret societies, or historical civilizations (17th century Japan being one of them.)

This all makes me think that life-life NPC behaviors are planned for Titan. Nothing fancy, mind you.. something that has been proven successful (Blizzard won't experiment) like Skyrim, where the world's inhabitants have daily routines, jobs, reactions, emotions, and better communication options.

And, I'm thinking there will be a lot more people and humanoids (aliens) in the game, rather than just mobs of monsters, with a lot more interpersonal communication going on.

Shared Stash Changes

One of our readers asked me to comment on the reduction of the shared-stash size from 5 pages down to 3. Rather than leaving a comment, I'll just make a post about it (because it might get a little long.)

First, I want to address what Bashiok told his customers was the "reason" for this change.

found it necessary to ensure we could handle what we anticipate will be a large amount of data very quickly after release.

We obviously have room to grow if our projections are incorrect, or we just find that we eventually have the space.

He is giving users the impression that they don't have the server performance or infrastructure to handle the MASSIVE number of items that players will collect.

This is total bullshit and couldn't be farther from the truth. They've used this excuse in the past (the most immediate one to come to mind is the justification of the upcoming WoW Item Squish.)

Apparently, their databases are significantly limited and cannot scale. So I guess each character database entry can contain 500,000 fields, but 500,500 is just way too much for their databases to handle? I wish they would just be more open with their real reasons, rather than assuming their customers are idiots. (Sadly, most will believe him.)

In World of Warcraft, I had 15 guild banks with full bank tabs available on all of them. Even that wasn't enough for the number of items I had collected. And they weren't just hoarded items, either.. I was constantly selling these items and using the guild banks for crafting purposes or temporary storage of valuable AH items. In many cases, I was using them for long term storage for hundreds of Ruby Glasses (on different realms) to be sold when the prices increased.

The 5 slots in the Diablo 3 beta were not nearly enough for my needs. Even for a casual player, it was pretty limited considering that Diablo 3 is a loot centric game and Blizzard has kept pushing the loot quantity aspects of the game and reminding us of just how important massive storage will be.

Blizzard claims that they don't want players to mule, but this is exactly what was going to happen even before these changes. With the new limitation, there are going to be even more mule characters.. but aren't we limited to 10 characters per region? It's going to be brutal.

The real reason for this change has nothing to do with infrastructure or technology limitations, but rather they want players constantly "doing something" with the items. Eventually, when you don't have space for it, you'll either break it down (into gold or crafting mats) or you'll sell it. Even if you break it down into gold, eventually the gold sinks won't be enough, and you'll want to sell it. Whatever the case may be, Blizzard wants to you SELL IT and it will directly or indirectly end up on the RMAH.

Gold can only be sold on the Real Money Auction House. And it doesn't matter if you only sell items on the Gold Auction House, because someone will buy it and re-sell it on the RMAH anyways. These are all things they've learned from Diablo II.. when players run out of space, they sell it for gold, mule it (and then eventually sell it), trade it, or sell for cash on the blackmarket.

The reason for this change is simply to push RMAH use.

.. And These Changes Allow For Other Forms of Monetization

Bashiok claims that this is just temporary, so players should fully expect Blizzard to increase the number of slots shortly after their "testing" is completed. But I think that's a lie to cover up their intention to leave it as three. I think the extra slots will be made available at some point in the future. Wouldn't it be terrible and incomprehensible if Blizzard were to somehow monetize the slot size upgrades?

From a business and gaming perspective, you can disguise this activity by creating special "runes" or "item upgrades" that drop with extremely low drop chances. When you use these rare items, they will increase your bag or stash size. Because they are so valuable, players will sell these items on the RMAH. :)

Blizzard might also do this with gold-collecting pets when they make a return. Originally, Blizzard just gave these support pets to players for virtually nothing.. but when they make a return, they might be rare drops. When this happens, players lucky enough to get them will sell them on the RMAH.

In essence, you'll be spending cash to obtain an in-game service (the pets help you collect more gold.)

The beauty of this is that there will be guaranteed buyers for both the pets and "Stash-Size Increasing Runes". Hardcore RMAH users will especially be interested in purchasing all of these services or upgrades.

So, Blizzard.. if you haven't already considered this, but end up doing it, please make sure you name one of the Stash/Bag Size Upgrade items after me. :) Some players might not like it, but it's a great approach to monetizing services and upgrades within the game and very clever from a business perspective. If not, just be boring as usual and increase the shared stash pages in your next expansion pack. Too much monetization of the game can ruin your image, and most players will just be very happy to see the 5 slots back in the game.

Diablo 3 Item Duping Is Un-Possible

Over this past week, there have been Battle.net forum posts about item duping in the Diablo 3 beta. Truth is, it's actually been around for a while now in the beta but not too many users knew about it until recently.

Previously, hacking and duping was thought to be impossible in Diablo 3. Forum users, fanboys, and even gaming sites or blogs have frequently stated (sometimes as "a fact") that duping would be impossible in Diablo 3. Blizzard has said it would be impossible due to the game being online only, but it's mostly the users on the official forums who say it's impossible.. and they're never corrected.

Back in August, I had wrote all about this.

The Diablo 3 Retail will absolutely still have cheating, speed hacking, botting, and item duping tricks. Most of the item duplication you won't even know about. It will take years to finally close all of the gaps, the economy won't be anywhere where it should be (you'll never even know it though), and even then after years of patches, certain groups will still be duping items without Blizzard's knowledge. It still even happens in WoW, you just don't know about it since the "hacks" aren't shared publicly.

Two days ago, I had said to expect a new Battle.net Terms of Use to roll out soon, and once the new contract was live, users (who even signed the older one) would be presented with a new TOU that contains D3 / PayPal / RMAH related revisions.

It just went live earlier this morning.

The new Battle.net Terms of Use are actually dated "Last Revised December 10, 2011", however the official US link to the TOU (as of today) is still showing the old May 25, 2010 contract.

Interestingly, this TOU was updated on December 10, but it has only gone live just recently for others to see. It wasn't posted online for a good month and apparently Blizzard has been sitting on this new contract since December 10. On December 9, by the way, Blizzard first revealed the "Battle.net Balance" system and stated that it would be rolled out within a few weeks (it's been over 8 weeks now.)

You should see this information hit fan sites and the larger blogs later today or tomorrow.

As I had said in the earlier post, the sudden appearance of the old Terms of Use was just a prelude to a new TOU for users to sign.

Omega, Blizzard's Forum MVP, however stated that this was not the case at all. He reassured users that this was actually just an old feature, and the recent appearance was nothing more than Blizzard simply resetting the "has already read" checkbox to remind some users to review it again...

Daeity 1, Omega 0. :)

New Knowledge Base Articles Too

Some users are reporting that they were able to visit their eBalance Purchase page briefly, but that feature has now been removed and disabled. (Original US link, EU link.)

There are also new Support articles live that contain a wealth of new information. These are the US links, but EU users can search for Battle.net Balance or PayPal to see the new KB articles.

One was last updated January 20, with the others just yesterday afternoon ("Updated: 1/30/12 2:37 PM".)

Battle.net Balance Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Syncing PayPal with Battle.net

Adding Funds to Battle.net Balance

Changes to the Terms of Use

Here's what a cursory glance revealed. If I missed anything important, please let me know and I'll add it.

• A brand new section all about the new PayPal/RMAH system:
  

  6. Storing Value on the Account.
  
  A. The Account can be loaded with funds that can only be used to purchase goods and services on Battle.net. The Account is not a credit line, overdraft protection or deposit account. Unless otherwise required by law or permitted by this Agreement, all balances on the Account are non-refundable and may not be redeemed for cash. The Account does not expire, and you will not be charged fees for any reason. Funds which are loaded onto an Account do not accrue interest, and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
  
  B. To load value onto the Account, go to https://us.battle.net/account/management/ebalance-purchase.html and follow the instructions provided to you on the page. All Account transactions are governed by the Terms of Sale, which can be viewed at https://us.battle.net/account/management/transaction-history.html. The minimum amount that can be loaded to an Account is $1.00, and the maximum daily Account balance is limited to $200.00. Blizzard reserves the right to change the maximum and minimum amounts at any time. You may load different currencies onto the Account (e.g., US Dollars, Mexican Pesos, Chilean Pesos, Argentinian Dollars) in order to engage in transactions on the Diablo III Real Money Auction Houses that use those currencies. The value loaded onto the Account shall be determined by converting the value of each of the various currencies that you have loaded onto the Account to US Dollars using the currency conversion formulas posted on http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-forex.html. All amounts loaded onto the Account are held and denominated in U.S. currency. Blizzard will not send you a statement of itemized transactions on the Account. In order to check the balance loaded on the Account, or review recent transactions on the Account, to go https://us.battle.net/account/management/transaction-history.html and follow the instructions on the page.
  
  C. Funds loaded onto the Account are used like cash for purchases on Battle.net, and you are responsible for all transactions made by someone using the Account. If you suspect that the Account has been compromised, you should contact Blizzard Customer Service at http://www.battle.net/support. The balance on the Account will only be protected from the point that Blizzard issues a message to you indicating that Blizzard has received your notice that the Account may have been compromised. From that point forward, Blizzard will take actions to freeze the remaining balance on the Account, and will unfreeze the Account once Blizzard has returned the control of the Account back to you.
  
  D. If Blizzard believes that the Account contains funds acquired illegally, either by means of compromising other Accounts or otherwise, Blizzard may remove those funds, suspend your access to the Diablo III Real Money Auction House, terminate the Account, and/or exercise any additional legal remedies available.
  
  E. If you agree to purchase goods or services from Blizzard and thereafter default upon your obligation to pay for such a purchase, you hereby agree that Blizzard shall have the right to freeze any funds currently loaded onto the Account and/or to remove and use those funds to fulfill your payment obligations in full or in part.

• The "9. Ownership" section has been expanded to include the RMAH:
  

  C. Virtual Items. Blizzard owns, has licensed, or otherwise has rights to all of the content that appears in the Service or the Games. You agree that you have no right or title in or to any such content, including without limitation the virtual goods or currency appearing or originating in any Game, or any other attributes associated with the Account or stored on the Service. Blizzard does not recognize any purported transfers of virtual property executed outside of a Game, or the purported sale, gift or trade in the "real world" of anything that appears or originates in a Game, unless such transfer is made using a marketplace administered by Blizzard, including without limitation the Diablo III Real Money Auction Houses.

• The whole section "7. The Blizzard Online Store" has been cut out of the TOU.

• The "Account Suspension/Cancelation" section has been expanded to include "a Game-specific Terms of Use", rather than just the Battle.net TOU and other agreements.

• A new entry in the "General" section has been added to let you know Blizzard will be collecting a bunch of information from your PC:
  

  E. Collection of Non-Personal Data. Blizzard shall have the right to obtain data that cannot be used to identify you from your connection to the Service without any further notice to you. Certain Games playable on the Service include a tool that will allow your computer system to forward information to Blizzard in the event that the Game crashes. This tool will collect system and driver data from your computer system during the crash, and forward a report containing that data to Blizzard.

• The "Massive Inc" in-game advertisements section, that was originally created for Starcraft 2, has been completely removed and replaced with a more general "expect there to be advertising in the game."
  

  16. DISCLOSURES; THIRD PARTY FEATURES.
  
  A. Advertising. Blizzard’s Games and the Service may incorporate third party technology that enables advertising on Battle.net and/or in certain Games playable on Battle.net, which may be downloaded temporarily to your personal computer and replaced during online game play. As part of this process, Blizzard and/or its authorized third party advertisers may collect standard information that is sent when your personal computer connects to the Internet including your Internet protocol (IP) address.

The Interesting Bits From All Of This

• Blizzard and it's third party advertisers may collect "standard information" from your computer system. They were very ambiguous about this.. they did not specifically state "non-personally identifying information" like Warden and they stated that their advertisers may collect information from your PC when it's connected to the Internet. This could pretty much mean anything at all and at any time, including personally identifying details.


• Users worldwide will soon be able to use PayPal to purchase anything you want from the Blizzard Store, and it's no longer just limited to WOW Subscriptions.


• There seems to be a PayPal / Battle.net location check, like what I was predicting months ago.


• The Battle.net Balance maximum limit is $500.00 USD.


• You can add funds in increments of $10.00, $20.00, $50.00 or $100.00. Or, users can select "Other Amount". According to the Terms of Use, a minimum amount of $1.00 must be loaded and there is a maximum daily balance of $200.00 permitted.
  


• If Blizzard suspects that you cheated in any way to acquire your Battle.net Balance funds, they can remove all of your Battle.net Balance and suspend your access to D3 or your Battle.net account. There are a few other sections that also discuss the non-refundable conditions for your Battle.net Balance credits.


• If a prepaid credit card is declined, there's a $1.00 temporary hold of funds for each transaction attempt.


• Regional stuff: ".. you will be able to add value to your Battle.net Balance using your local currency (in EU, for example, players will be able to use Euros, GBP, and RUB). In certain regions where game realms and servers are shared by players in multiple countries, you will be given the option to choose one single currency. However, please note that Battle.net Balances for different currencies are tracked separately and cannot be used interchangeably. For example, you cannot use Battle.net Balance purchased using U.S. dollars in a non-USD-based auction house, and you are not able to transfer Battle.net Balance purchased in one currency to or from Battle.net Balance purchased with a different currency."


• Right now, you can't transfer B.Net Balance as a gift to others, but they plan on adding that feature in the future.


• Battle.net Balance cannot be used as an automated payment method for recurring WOW subscriptions.


• This TOU was revised specifically for Diablo 3, but you can expect another revision to happen as the SC2 Marketplace gets closer to completion.


• If you're a regular reader here, you'll know that I had been anticipating these changes this week since they were needed as a precursor to the release date announcement. Once the announcement is made (Monday, Feb 6 being the most probable at this time), the Battle.net Balance system will be fully implemented with the D3 Digital Pre-Download being made available sometime afterwords. After this is done, it will also be followed by new posts and official announcements about the PayPal and B.Net Balance system with instructions on how players can setup their accounts and start using it right away. All that remains now is if the actual release date will be 2 months from the announcement (traditions), or a condensed timeframe (which has been discussed in the past.)

On a final note.. boo-yah.

* UPDATE:

The "Battle.net Balance" and "PayPal Syncing" Knowledge Base Articles have just been removed by Blizzard. :)

I'm not sure if this is just temporary, or if they weren't supposed to reveal these Knowledge Base articles until the announcement (or later this week). If you didn't catch them earlier, you can still see their Google cache.

Go to Google.com and type:

"cache:http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/syncing-paypal-with-battlenet"
or
"cache:http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/adding-funds-to-battlenet-balance-3100032"

* UPDATE:

The "Syncing PayPal with Battle.Net" article is back up, and it's now showing an "Updated: Jan 31, 2012".

The "Battle.net Balance" article has been down for several hours now. It's possible that the Battle.net Balance article wasn't supposed to be put up until another announcement (front page post) took place first. Obviously, right now players can't even add money to their Battle.net Balance accounts so the support article is useless.

If you try to sign-in to the Battle.net website, you might have noticed that a new "Terms of Use" contract appears. You have the "option" of signing it if you want to access your Battle.net account and play your games. (The TOU pop seems to be region specific, yesterday Renvex saw it, but no one else received it or could confirm.)

The Battle.net contract itself is actually a really old one (May 26, 2010), but this extra page has been added to the Battle.net signin system because Blizzard plans on rolling out a new contract shortly.

The current TOU even has Blizzard's old Starcraft 2 in-game advertising partner (Massive Inc.) still in the contract.. even though they went defunct years ago.

When the new contract rolls out, you can expect to sign another brand new contract. Whenever a new contract or update is made, you'll need to sign the new one (just like what you have been doing within the games themselves.)

For the next contract before the Diablo release, you should see some new regional and user-specific security restrictions added especially for Blizzard's new region free game(s). I've been predicting these changes for a while now, including changes like this to Battle.net and a new "authentication system to intelligently track your login locations" which has recently been added.

You'll be happy to know, though, that this new Battle.net License page is tethered to the release date announcement.

When the release date is announced, it will be accompanied by D3 costs and availability, Digital Download information, and most importantly both the Battle.net Balance service and the PayPal RMAH integration will be finally available within your account. Users can configure and setup their payment systems in preparation for the future release. (The Release Date announcement should, logically, come before the B.Net Balance/PayPal integration though.)

It needs some major updates for D3 because in it's current state, for example, Blizzard expressly prohibits the buying and selling of gold or items in Diablo 3. :)

Virtual Items. Blizzard owns, has licensed, or otherwise has rights to all of the content that appears in the Service or the Games. You agree that you have no right or title in or to any such content, including without limitation the virtual goods or currency appearing or originating in any Game, or any other attributes associated with the Account or stored on the Service. Blizzard does not recognize any purported transfers of virtual property executed outside of a Game, or the purported sale, gift or trade in the "real world" of anything that appears or originates in a Game, unless otherwise expressly authorized by Blizzard in writing. Accordingly, you may not sell in-game items or currency for "real" money, or exchange those items or currency for value outside of a Game, without Blizzard's written permission.

The new contract will have all of the new updates for Diablo 3. Some of it might even contain spoilers since it will reveal information about the service or features that we currently don't know about. Possibly even changes for future games (like in-game ads.)

So, when the License goes live, not only will the new Battle.net features be live, but also new information about the services will be announced (like the RMAH region information we have all been waiting for.)

Interestingly, the contract currently forbids "Data Mining." Blizzard forbids you from obtaining or attempting to obtain any information about the Service (Battle.net). But everyone who reads these TOUs are actually data mining them for information. That makes reading or learning information from these TOU's against their policy. Apparently, my Battle.net account is at risk of deletion or suspension because I data mine information from the TOU. :)

Other than that, I've been told that forum threads discussing the appearance of this new Battle.net TOU page are being deleted by Blizzard for some reason. If any of you have more information on that development, let me know.

* UPDATE (01/30/12):

Users are beginning to experience some of the transparent changes made to Battle.net. Previously, users were able to change their address and country in their Battle.net settings.. but not anymore. In order to change your country, you now need to call technical support and you need to provide proof of your new address.

However, with the coming changes to Battle.net and the inclusion of Battle.net Balance and the Diablo III Auction House, it has become more important again for us to ensure that players are performing transactions in their local currency (where possible) and that this data is correct.

This was one of the many Battle.net changes for the RMAH that I have been anticipating for a while.

Looks like they're gearing up for the Battle.net Balance/PayPal announcement, and maybe something else right before it. *fingers crossed*

Yesterday, one of our readers raised a good point about Blizzard cannibalizing their own games, especially if they plan on releasing 3 games in one year (which would indeed be quite unusual.) I figured I would make a post about it, because it's an interesting topic.

Basically, there's only a fear of cannibalizing World of Warcraft players.

There's little concern about taking players away from Starcraft or Diablo. If WOW steals away players from D3, it doesn't matter because D3 players already bought the game, but WOW has a subscription fee which provides Blizzard continued revenue. The same with SC2; if WOW were to somehow steal away SC2 players, who cares.. they already bought the game.

This can also apply to Titan, especially if it uses a new revenue model (both RMAH and Product Placement/Advertising combined.)

WOW is a subscription based game which constantly generates revenue. Diablo and Starcraft are not, they are only one-time costs (excluding DLC of course) so those players are of no consequence.

To help even better explain: World of Warcraft PROFIT needs to be protected from cannibalization, not the PLAYERS. :)

So, what Blizzard needs to do is create new systems or methods where players will still contribute to subscription fees, but they will also one-time purchase their other Blizzard titles.

This is why the WOW Annual Pass was such a great idea. It locks players into a 12-month purchase plan, but they will still be getting the Diablo 3 game. It comes with a beta invite to MOP, so even though they might play Diablo 3 for a few months, they're still guaranteed to return to WOW when MOP releases (and probably 'coincidentally' close to when the WOW Annual Pass expires.)

Blizzard wants players to use Diablo 3 for the RMAH, and start building up Battle.net Balance Credit, and use that to purchase other Blizzard titles and monthly WOW subscription purchases.

Because the RMAH system is so critical (especially for their future), it's the reason why HOTS nor MOP will be released before Diablo 3. They want players to start building up B.Net Bucks and get comfortable with the new credit system.

Diablo 3 actually complements MOP very well (it won't cannibalize players) because it's a "free game" (or a one-time cost), and since there's no subscription, there's no rush to play it and players will use D3 to pay for their WOW subscription.

Blizzard will also find other new or clever ways of motivating you to use your B.Net Bucks or ensure you buy WOW:

• Release MOP 6+ months after D3, say, when most WOW players and Diablo fans already own D3.
• If they can roll out the D3 RMAH, and then the SC2 Arcade, users from both the Diablo and Starcraft franchises will be selling virtual items on those systems and building up Battle.net Credit to purchase other titles or subscriptions.
• This is also why it's so important to increase their game catalog. (Talked about in other posts about Activision games in Battle.net.) If the RMAH and Arcade are highly successful, they'll need to increase their Blizzard Store merchandise, features, and titles. I think they're going to wait and see what happens with the RMAH first though.
• Blizzard may drop prices if B.Net Credits are used to purchase games or subscriptions for friends and family members. You might not be able to get a SC2 gamer playing WOW, but you can at least get them to buy gifts for their friends. And, perhaps you can receive bonuses yourself (appeal to our selfishness) if you invite friends.. like, special banners or aesthetics in D3 or SC2. WOW already does something like this for friend invites (power leveling, mounts, free subscription time, etc.)
• The B.Net Credit will be much easier to setup than the PayPal system. There will more restrictions and punishment in place for using the PayPal system (e.g. hefty cash out charges to encourage you to use the B.Net Balance system instead.)
• When Diablo 3 is released (or right before), make WOW as undesirable as possible. Implement changes that piss off players, don't make any updates, make them bored, etc. The intention is to get them playing Diablo 3, but then make MOP extremely desirable again when it comes out (very positive changes and an overpowered Monk class until after Christmas, etc.)
• For the above, this will probably be around the time too that Blizzard removes the 10-character restriction from realms. Removing that restriction is a great way to bring players back.
• Make certain WOW virtual items (specialty pets or aesthetic changes) only available via B.Net Balance credits.
• Make certain payment methods more difficult, region locked, or restricted to control which methods players are more statistically probable to use. Hard to see buttons, missing instructions or support, etc.
• Special events where users can save money using B.Net Credits for purchases. For example, you can save 5-15% on the MOP or HOTS pre-download if you purchase using B.Net Credits earned through Diablo 3.

Ah, here we go. Blizzard is going to be releasing three games this year (D3, HOTS & MOP.)

And you thought I was crazy yesterday for suggesting that Blizzard was going to release 3 games this year. :)

What's nice about this quote, is that it's not from Bashiok or Zahrym (which would immediately discredit what they're saying): "we're set on channelling that into the three games we have coming out this year."

As you noticed, he didn't say "plan on coming out" but rather they're going to channel their energy into the three games that they DO having coming out this year. :)

I'm going to cautiously downgrade this to "Blizzard is 'planning' on releasing 3 games this year" though. But, it could be like what I was saying earlier; they're getting all of the bad stuff (Blizzcon 2012 cancellation) out of the way first, and they'll have a surprise announcement on (or just before) the Feb 9 2012 Quarterly Shareholders meeting.

* UPDATE:

A double confirmation!

Rafal6613 pointed out a VGA backstage interview video with Blizzard that didn't make any rounds on the internet and went largely unnoticed.

In it, Mike Morhaime says "We've got 3 titles coming out next year." That should make investors quite happy this year.



* UPDATE:

Within 24 hours, Blizzard deleted the forum thread I linked. It was a very short thread, and very tame, so there weren't any policy violations that would have warranted a deletion (if anything, it would have been locked.)

The image on the left is from the EU Battle.net post, and the image on the right is from the US Battle.net post. (Thanks qmk and rpgguy.)

Since the cache from the original US post is gone, and Blizzard had made modifications to their website to prevent archiving (e.g. change detection websites, archive.org, etc.), I don't have a copy of the original US one. Luckily, some individuals copied and pasted the original post which confirm that these changes did indeed happen within the US post.

So.. notice something missing?

"Download the digital version via Battle.net for free when the game launches early next year" has instead been replaced with "Download the digital version via Battle.net for free when the game launches."

As of right now, the EU post hasn't changed, and this could just be a result of those users who want to cancel their WOW Annual Pass by claiming that Blizzard did not uphold their end of the contract since they explicitly stated "Early 2012" or "Early Next Year." If that's the case; not cool.

Users are also reporting that other WOW Annual Pass verbiage has been modified to remove the "Early 2012" mentions. If you look under all of the WOW Annual Pass Support Articles, you'll see that they have modification dates of January 16 or January 17.

While I was doing some digging around for PayPal and Battle.net Balance updates a while back, I also noticed the same "Updated On: Jan 16 or Jan 17" dates. I just ignored them, though, because I couldn't view the old cache. Surprisingly, when Blizzard makes changes they are updated almost immediately by Google. Same thing with the latest WOW Annual Pass changes. Even when pages or forum threads are deleted, I see that Blizzard leaves some of them Google cached and others not, so I imagine they have some measure of control over this.

This article update might not mean anything at all, though, but we'll know for sure over the next two weeks (see my post from earlier today.)

So, you all know by now that Blizzcon 2012 has been cancelled in lieu of an eSports Tournament event "somewhere in Asia".

I'm really disappointed. Not because it was cancelled, but because I was saving up a post for September about Titan!

Right now, "professionals" have predicted that Blizzard's Next Gen MMO is going to be announced at Blizzon 2012, and that number was only going to increase substantially as the date approached (ie, analysts predicting that the Next Gen MMO would be revealed), but I really wanted to wait until the opportune time to say "NOPE", that it wasn't going to be announced. Damn.

I'm still sticking to late 2014-2015 by the way, even though everyone else is saying 2013 or 2014 at the latest right now. :)

You weren't going to miss much at Blizzcon 2012 anyways. If you have read my earlier posts, I made one last year predicting what to expect in 2012-2014. The only game they were going to announce in 2012 was Diablo 3 X1, but due to the major setbacks they have been experiencing with D3, it's understandable that it has been delayed (to 2013), and Blizzcon 2012 would have had no release announcements to speak of. It would have actually ended up just like the "Demon Hunter Blizzcon" (2010) which caused some great disappointment.

This means that there will very likely be two games revealed at Blizzcon 2013 (D3 X1 and WOW X5).

Plus, setting up Blizzcon is a very exhausting event for the team members. Sure, it's a very profitable event, but they have other stuff to worry about without having to deal with the pressure of Blizzcon. During the past Quarterly Shareholders Meeting, Thomas Tippl committed to a "minimum of 2 Blizzard titles in 2012". It really doesn't matter what CUSTOMERS are told or promised; what really matters is what the SHAREHOLDERS are promised.

I think some of the big problems they're having relate to Battle.net. Not stability or performance issues, but rather integration problems with PayPal and their new Battle.net Balance / Blizzard Store / RMAH systems. This might put their integration plans of the Activision Game Catalog into Battle.net on the back burner (e.g. using B.Net Balance to buy Activision games rather than just Blizzard titles, and selling other publisher's games to compete with Steam and even Origin which has just added 11 new publishers.)

On that note, Blizzard has recently started hiring for a ton of "Critical" positions on the Battle.net team. :)

Back To The Announcement, Though..

According to the Blizzcon 2012 cancellation announcement today, more details about the event will be revealed "in the months ahead." Meaning that they're releasing this information very early, when they could have just announced it a few months before Blizzcon. They're making this announcement early for a very good reason.

For a while now, I've been talking about keeping a very careful eye on this week and next.

If a release date announcement is made, it will be done right before the investors conference call (and on a Monday.) If it's not made before the investors call, then the game truly has been delayed until after March. If the release date announcement is not made on the Monday, then the chances of a Q1 release greatly diminish (meaning a Q2 delay off-hand comment made by Mike Morhaime is highly likely during the Q4 call.) Monday, February 6 is the most logical choice but I had said that we don't necessarily have to wait until Feb 6 and that there would be other signs of what might happen beforehand.

For example, if we don't see any new information released during this week and the week of Jan 30 - Feb 3, the probability of a release date announcement diminishes. But, if we see a lot of interesting or unexpected posts (especially about Battle.net), then there's a very good chance of an announcement.

This recent announced by Blizzard is very disappointing to everyone, but it's also surprisingly being done very early. Either this means that they have more bad information to share and they just want to rip that bandaid off now and just get it all over with (so expect more bad news during the call.) OR, they're just getting the bad news for the year out of the way first before revealing the really good news; like an imminent release date announcement, with the game coming out earlier than people were expecting. Blizzard has "promised" Q1 after all, so I'm putting my trust in Blizzard.

This just leaves us back to what I've already been saying; pay attention to the other details they release over the next 2 weeks (up to the days before the shareholders meeting.) And because they have all of this extra time now, we can even certainly expect to see 3 releases this year (instead of just 2). :)

The Blizzard Korea 2012 New Year's Videos are now up.



But, here's what the subtitles "really" say:

GREETINGS KOREAN GAMERS, MY NAME'S JAY WILSON AND I'M THE GAME DIRECTOR FOR DIABLO 3. I WAS TOLD TO SIT IN THAT DARK ROOM BECAUSE IT WAS CONSIDERED "ARTISTIC", I AM SORRY IF YOU NEEDED TO INCREASE YOUR GAMMA. I JUST SAID "2012" SO I WILL PUT THAT IN THE SUBTITLES NOW TO THROW OFF SUSPICION. I HAVE A VERY SECRET MESSAGE FOR YOU. THE GLOBAL RELEASE REALLY WAS BECAUSE OF YOUR RATINGS BOARD. WE HAVE FINALLY RESOLVED THE PROBLEM BUT GAMERS HERE ARE ASKING TOO MANY QUESTIONS. SO, I WILL TAKE SOME OLD BETA PATCH NOTES AND TURN IT INTO A REALLY LONG POST TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT WAS A LOT OF WORK AND IT TOOK 6 MONTHS TO DO. IT WILL BE A GREAT DISTRACTION. BASHIOK ALSO HAS AMBIGUOUS TROLL TWEETS PLANNED IN THE COMING WEEKS TO FURTHER ANGER AND CONFUSE OUR CUSTOMERS TO STALL FOR TIME. PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH ANYONE OUTSIDE KOREA. BTW DAEITY IS SUPER COOL AND ATTRACTIVE.

If you're interested in this sort of stuff (the videos, not the jokes), they also have a WOW Mists of Pandaria greeting here and a SC2 one here. The general Blizzard Korea video account can be found here if want to see the other older stuff.

(FYI, if you had actually thought that the subtitle translation above was real, then I am embarrassed for you. Looking in your direction, PrisonCharlie.)

UPDATE (01/21/12): The Bashiok Code

Remember yesterday I said that Bashiok was going to "FURTHER ANGER AND CONFUSE OUR CUSTOMERS"? Well, check out his latest post today.

I expect this response to further confuse and enrage, unfortunately.

He must have been reading this blog yesterday. :)

And since I was on the subject of secret hidden messages, I think he dropped his own secret message within this same post! Bashiok wrote:

Being perfectly honest about the cauldron and cube, they were removed for very 'designery' reasons which makes it difficult to explain to people playing the game.

Designery is emphasized and it's also not a real word. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that 'designery' is an anagram for 'greedy sin'. Gasp!

Seriously though.. Bashiok's posts were just embarassing. Here's the full entry:

White items will not be worth the inventory space. No one will pick them up. If people start picking them up we'll reduce the meaningless amounts of gold they already sell for even further. We can address these things if they happen.

Being perfectly honest about the cauldron and cube, they were removed for very 'designery' reasons which makes it difficult to explain to people playing the game. Players want more freedom, more choice, almost limitlessly, but a game is defined by its limitations. It's our job to define those limitations, and enforce them to create the type and feel of the game we're attempting to produce. There are a lot of good reasons, such as breaking up combat, giving very solid and safe stopping points for groups (especially strangers), as well as ensuring players are staying acquainted with the town, its inhabitants, features, and what it offers. A player may say, well that should be my choice, I should just be able to kill demons without a break for as long as I want. It's our job to make those limitations for the betterment of the enjoyment of the game, even if it's an intangible and almost psychological improvement that on the surface appears to be a nonsensical remove of freedom. I expect this response to further confuse and enrage, unfortunately.

He says that no one will pick up white items. Okay.. so, why put them in the game in the first place then, and why do they have vendor sell prices?

Then he basically says, "Well, if someone does actually pick them up for fun, we'll fuck the shit out of them so that they're not fun anymore and so that I can laugh at you."

He goes on to be "perfectly honest" about the removal of the cauldron and cube; "Yeah.. uh, they were removed for reasons that you don't need to know about.. you know, 'designery' stuff." What a cop out. I had thought they made games for their players? Instead, it was "Players want choice and freedom, but it's our job is to remove that choice and freedom."

Well, OF COURSE your response is going to further confuse and enrage. If I kept contradicting myself and I told my customers that they're too stupid to understand our "internal reasons", that I was going to screw them over one day, and I continued to insult their intelligence, of course they're going to be a little cross.

Based on the limited amount of information available on Titan and Blizzard's history, I can make some educated predictions on what the game will probably be like. As of today, Blizzard hasn't released any details about the game whatsoever.. but there are tidbits of information collected from resumes, Tweets, and job positions. What I'd like to do is "sticky" these posts, so that years from now when the game comes out, you can go back and compare. Plus, I can show a chronology of expectations for the game as new information is made available.

Expectations: What It Will and Won't Be

Blizzard Will Be Playing It Safe

• There's a lot of hype around what Blizzard means by "Next Gen MMO". The imagination can run wild with this title, with gamers hyping up a brand new approach to gaming. But really, all they mean is a game for Next Generation consoles and systems with improved graphics.

• Most of the team members developing Titan all come from heavy console gaming development backgrounds. Blizzard also really wants to break into the console market, so it's highly likely that Titan is being developed for the PC, X720 & PS4.

• Even though high quality graphics are being created, the job requirements for some of the Next Gen MMO artists include converting high-poly sculpted characters into lower poly game models, and to develop graphically appealing but lower resolution images for older PCs. They want the game to run on as many systems as possible, just like what they've done for their other games.

• Blizzard might experiment internally, but they play it safe when it comes to the finished product. Even Bashiok has admitted that Blizzard does not innovate; they copy, improve and refine. Blizzard will not take chances, and they will only create games that they know will be successful. So, they pay attention to the success of their competitors and they create competing games. They'll take a really great game, and then improve it even more.

• Activision and Blizzard will not compete with their own games. Activision won't release a fantasy MMORPG, just like Blizzard will not create a warfare FPS shooter. They will try not to cannibalize players from one game until it's popularity wanes. For example, during the height of Starcraft 2 popularity, there will never be a World of Starcraft. WOS would only be a possibility once SC2 dies down.

It Won't Be Groundbreaking or Innovative

• I wanted to have this up at the top before you read any further. Your imagination can be your own worst enemy, so I want to make sure you're firmly planted on level ground before you jump to conclusions about how amazing Titan will be.

• Don't get too excited. Titan will be fun, but it won't be groundbreaking or innovative. Much like the gameplay and graphics, the lore and storyline will also be repetitive and contain derivative works.

• Blizzard is not hiring a brand new team of professional writers, scientists, and psychologists to create the greatest fiction ever written. They're not even looking for new writers, and they used internal writers for Titan who have been around for a really long time (the ones who have written lore and stories for Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft.)

• Your mind will not be blown. It will have cool new graphics though, and it will be fun to play.

It Won't Be A "Fallout" MMO

• Although there are a lot of indications that this will be a post-apocalyptic title, it's not going to be. Titan will include many post-apocalyptic environments, but it will never be strictly a post-apocalyptic game. It's the same reason why there will never be a Fallout MMO. Future Fallout installments will probably have multiplayer features, but it can never work successfully as a MMORPG due to the issues of content consumption.

• Players constantly need new environments and new colorful stimuli to remain interested in a game. The Fallout series works very well as a single player game, but MMOs require frequent injection of brand new content to prevent players from growing bored. In Fallout, the environment, players, and buildings are pretty much the same wherever you go and it can grow repetitive and tiring. So, they introduced virtual environments, alien space craft, national parks, canyons, and underwater locations to keep things fresh.

• SWTOR has many different planets to explore with wide varieties of environments. How successful would SWTOR be if the entire game were to take place only on Tatooine? It would be a huge planet to explore, but it would only consist of desert environments and repetitive buildings. This is what a Fallout MMO would be like. An Elder Scrolls MMO would be much more sustainable and longer lasting than a Fallout MMO would. Blizzard knows this very well, and have learned quite a bit from World of Warcraft player behavior.

It Will Have Lots of Unusual Environments

• Because of the constant need for novel content and new stimulation, Titan will be a lot like World of Warcraft in that there will be a very large variety of environments (as well as other activities, like crafting and minigames, to keep players busy.)

• Since Blizzard is planning on In-Game advertising within Titan, that can give you an idea of the type of environmentals as well where the most emphasis will be. And yes, Blizzard said In-Game ads within the world (not in chat channels) that enhance gameplay. For example, Blizzard was originally planning on putting in-game ads into Starcraft, but they can't do it for Diablo or World of Warcraft. And because in-game ads are so important, it means that this world will have a modern or near-future look. So, your main character's home environment will be modern or "real world", and from there they can travel (somehow) to all of the other environments.

• Jeff Kaplan said that the Next Gen MMO would be "sci-fi, near-future, post-apocalyptic, and historical" combined. Cameron Dayton hinted that Titan would include Atlantis and Teotihuacan, and that Stan Sakai (16th and 17th century Japan) would be involved in some lore aspects of Titan.

• These are strong indications that Titan will take place on Earth (or a version of Earth), with a real world setting, and players are able to travel to historical or ancient civilizations. That leaves open possibilities for time travel, parallel dimensions, or a telepresence (Surrogates / Avatar) based storyline. Or possibly, it's a dystopian future with several events taking place worldwide and you can explore ancient and buried civilizations, but it all takes place during the same time.

• It won't be a strictly sci-fi game, though, and it won't compete with Starcraft. There may be a lot of environments or assets borrowed from the Starcraft Ghost game though.

It Will And Won't Be A WoW Clone

• It will have a lot of similarities to World of Warcraft, including Blizzard's artistic style, but they need to make the game distinct from WoW to maintain long term interest.

• Many of the first employees working on Titan were part of the Console Development Team (ie, the SAS group.) Titan will be a lot like WoW in some aspects, but because the game is also being developed for consoles, and they're bringing in game ideas from Ghost (and other iterations), you can expect the gameplay to be quite different. The issues of content consumption also apply to gameplay after all.. it's not just content that needs to be new and exciting, but also the gameplay. You can expect gameplay to be much more faster, "in your face", and action oriented.

• Although players could adapt to a new WoW style game quite easily, it also become boring and repetitive too quickly. Plus, with consoles, gameplay needs to be different to adapt to the new controls.

• The User Interface, for one, will be drastically different than World of Warcraft. It will most likely be closer to Diablo 3 in comparison; designed to work well on both PCs and consoles, streamlined, more simplified, smaller in size, not as many options or keys that are typically expected on a PC, etc. The interface, combat nor movement will need to be mouse driven (think Skyrim UI) either, so combat will be much faster than WoW.

• This also limits the number of skills, abilities, or "spells" within Titan. There will be a much shorter list of skills and talents within the game, with more emphasis probably placed on loot or collecting "something". Loot could easily be replaced by pets, creatures, or anything else for example. Since a lot of skills will be cut out of the game, many of them will be saved up for future expansion packs.

It Will Be Colorful and Target WoW Demographics

• Blizzard's merchandising plans for Titan include Comic Books, Books/Novels, Action Figures, Short Movies, and Apparel. This can be hard to do with a brand new franchise, unless the characters are quite memorable and colorful. Cameron Dayton has also confirmed that the game will have major Heroes and Villains.

• If the game was targeting children or older moms, it would have been more reflected in their merchandising options. The merchandise they selected for Titan are the same that they have for World of Warcraft player demographics. The more "general appeal" most likely refers to accessibility on consoles, but they are still targeting the same demographics as WoW players but with possibly a slightly younger age in mind (so they are expanding their targeted market by just a little bit). This won't necessarily cannibalize WoW players, for example, since they're targeting the demographics but not the specific players.. they want the same age groups, but not the ones who only play fantasy RPGs.

• It won't be a casual game, but it will have casual mini-games within the world. It will have Blizzard's artistic style, and they want the game to run on older machines. Titan will probably be a lot more dumbed down and easy compared to WoW, with combat being much faster and more engaging. Because the combat is slightly faster, you might define some elements of the game as FPS, but, it will still be a looting, collecting, and achievement based MMORPG and it won't be a MMOFPS. A MMOFPS is currently unproven, and Blizzard won't risk the chance of releasing one. Plus, it's too limited in scope, and Blizzard needs several addictive gameplay elements that exist within familiar RPGs.

It Will Compete With X Company

• Blizzard won't compete with their own games, but they do intend on stealing market from their competitors. They will take a successful franchise, but then improve upon it using proven and successful gameplay methodologies. They won't branch out into every game genre, of course, they'll stick with something they're familiar with. For example, they won't try to compete with sports or racing titles, but they will try to compete with Fallout, Mass Effect, Halo, Pokemon, and possibly The Sims. I can understand a big push into Pokemon territory, for example, like what Activision has been doing with Spyro and the pet changes to WoW. They also hired employees from Ensemble Studios (who were working on the Halo MMO also nicknamed "Titan"). So, many of the ideas or designs from the Halo MMO will probably be carried through to Blizzard's Titan. (The Halo MMO rumor has already been talked about to death, so there's no point in speculating on that.)

• There's no way they can steal all of their competitor's markets. So, they'll use pieces from each successful franchise to build something new, to attract as many people as possible, improve upon it, and use proven systems to create an addictive game (like loot-centric gambling gameplay).

• Since Blizzard won't compete with any Activision Blizzard titles, you can also know what Titan won't be. For example, it won't be a modern shooter like COD, but there might be fast paced combat in historical or other unusual locations. Activision already has Spyro, so it won't be a MMO targeting children. It won't be a horror title like Doom 3. It will have scifi RPG elements, though, because that won't compete with Starcraft's RTS style gameplay.

There Will Be PVP and Expansion Packs

• The game is going to have various interfaces for both single player and multiplayer combat and participation. The UI Artist's responsibility also includes creating a "world class UI system that is movie quality (but still highly usable)."

• You might assume that because the career page I linked above includes "various interfaces in single player, in multiplayer, and on our websites for our current, and future products and expansions" that the game is going to be single player.. but remember, this is a MMO. You will always be connected, and they basically mean your primary interface when you're playing with yourself versus interfaces when you're grouped with other individuals. For example, World of Warcraft has a "single player" interface that's customizable. When you're in a Raid or Party, you also get a special "multiplayer interface" for easier group management and communication.

• A faster combat system within the game also opens up Titan to possible e-Sports options with small or large scale battles.

• Much like WoW, Titan will also have "icons, stats, inventory screens, in-game HUD elements", and expansion packs.

• Regarding future expansion packs, I wanted to point out something interesting in the Next-Gen MMO careers page: "Blizzard Entertainment is looking for an outstanding professional to build and manage a world-class art outsourcing program for a team focused on next-generation massively multiplayer online (MMO) games."
  
  This is the standard introductory paragraph in many of their hiring posts. You'll see that they wrote "next-generation MMO games." Plural, not singular, and not a typo.
  
  This means that the Next-Gen MMO team will be working on more than one game. This could either mean follow up expansion packs (which really shouldn't be called "a game"), or it means that they're developing a Next-Gen MMO engine for future (other franchise) games. Having an in-house engine with modular design and graphics expandability would be quite awesome for cutting down development time on future games. This could be where that "Titan As A Development Platform" opinion came from. But, Blizzard wouldn't be making this available to third parties, it would be for their own internal games.

It Will Have A Fixed World

• Cameron has already confirmed that the lore, philosophy, world, heroes and villains have been created. Since they also have merchandising planned for the game, you can assume that this is a fixed world. It won't be a craftable world or created by players like in Second Life. The world and environments have already been created, just like WoW.

• However, the Blizzard team has learned many lessons from World of Warcraft and Diablo 3, especially in the areas of content consumption. There's a very strong possibility that Titan will have randomly generated content. Not so much in the "overworld" but rather within dungeons. To a lesser extent, Titan might also take a different approach to loot and adopt a "global loot table" approach like what Diablo 3 has done. Automatically creating new content within Dungeons, having random encounters, and randomized loot ensures fresh adventures for players and significantly reduces future development time. It also plays an excellent role in internal security protection and discouraging server emulation.

And Other Uncategorized Stuff

• I think a lot of the systems within Titan will depend a lot on the success of Diablo 3. Read this post for more information. For example, it's really hard to determine if Blizzard will be making this a subscription based game, or if they intend on using a Real Money Auction House. Things are looking very likely, though, for a non-subscription (free to play) based game because they're planning on in-game advertisements for revenue and their finance team is focused on the business analysis and visioning for the D3 Auction House. It's highly probable that it will be a F2P game using multiple revenue models, including paid services, RMAH, a player or crafting marketplace, microtransactions, DLC, and/or in-game advertising.

• What Blizzard originally intended for World of Warcraft, they might do instead with Titan: smaller expansion packs, shorter development and delivery time, and DLC packs that expand the game.

• Very unlikely, but I thought I would throw it out there. Next Gen MMO as an on-demand streaming game service? The problem with streaming video games is that it's currently unproven and not very reliable. If the game could be streamed, it would certainly open up the game to many platforms without the porting development time needed. Unfortunately, the Next Gen MMO positions are looking for artists to convert high poly graphics to low poly, and this wouldn't be an issue for streaming gameplay. If Blizzard starts testing out streaming gameplay at Blizzcon 2012 or 2013, though, it might be a possibility for future games.

"Team 3"

Most gamers believe that "Team 3" was the group working on Diablo 3 back in 2007. But D3 was still being worked on dating back to 2005 (and from 2000 by Blizzard North) and there was never any official statement linking D3 to "Team 3". Most users, including myself, believed it was called "Team 3" because of Diablo "3" and the timing of "Team 3" and the Diablo 3 announcement.

When speaking to Gamasutra in 2007, Frank Pearce had this to say:

"Our global headcount is 2,700," said Pearce, "And most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing."

When pressed for details regarding the new project, Pearce was cagey. "Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I can’t give you any hints, but it’s totally awesome."

Gamasutra was able to confirm that, in spite of Rob Pardo's comments at Hollywood and Games that they weren't giving up on StarCraft Ghost, this Blizzard project remains something different.

Diablo 3 wasn't a new project though, it was just an old unannounced on-and-off project. Swingin' Ape Studios was the third division of Blizzard and later renamed to Blizzard Console. Blizzard North was the old team responsible for Diablo 1 and 2, and they were the team working on Diablo 3 from 2000-2005.

The phrase "Team 3" was not revealed publicly until just a few months before the Next Gen MMO was revealed too. Also, coincidentally, "Team 3" had 40 employees which was also the number of SAS employees that remained with Blizzard. SAS had become a separate team, they had 40 employees, and they were Blizzard's 3rd division.. "Team 3" maybe?

They were specifically working on Next Gen Console games too, and were in a state of flux at this time (2007) trying out new things. Rob Pardo did confirm, after all, that they had not given up on Starcraft Ghost and there were about 40 employees working on it.

Now, there's very strong evidence to support that "Team 3" was also the Project Hydra team, but there are also hints that "Team 3" could have been the group from SAS and they were continuing work on something "totally awesome" that might have evolved from Ghost. At the time, there was never any official confirmation of who "Team 3" really was, but today it just refers to the Diablo 3 team. I thought I would mention this, because their team and project names have been known to change when they take different directions. For example, Cataclysm was rumored to be called "Project South Seas", then it was changed to "Project Worldbreaker", and then finally "Project Cerberus". SC2 was rumored as "Project Alpha" and then "Project Medusa".

Kaplan Connects Titan with SAS

In 2008, during Kaplan's infamous "Blizzard's new MMO is going to be sci-fi, near-future, post-apocalyptic or historical? All of those combined!" speech, Kaplan talked about the SAS crew while on the subject of the Next Gen MMO, broader audiences, and Consoles:

"So I don't think 'World of Warcraft' would really work that well on the console, but that's not to say that other MMOs couldn't. And we have a pretty savvy group of console developers -- a lot of the guys we inherited from Swingin' Ape really know what they're doing on next-gen consoles. So we might have a few tricks up our sleeves in that regard."

A History Of Blizzard Repeating History

Have you ever noticed that Blizzard tends to repeat the past, or bring things back from the past?

They're bringing back in-game advertising (planned for Titan, but they had originally wanted it in SC2 because they didn't have any games that could support it.) They're getting back into Next-Gen Console gaming. They're reintroducing Real ID, but in a different non-offensive flavor. They frequently reuse assets from older or abandoned games (e.g. WOW or SC Ghost assets used in SC2). They reintroduce classes or races previously planned for older WOW expansion packs (e.g. Pandaren planned for TBC instead of Draenei.)

I had always wondered why they bought Swingin' Ape Studios so quickly, especially when the SC Ghost project wasn't doing too well, Metal Arms didn't sell very well, and SAS only had the console game Metal Arms under their belts. There must have been something else about the company that impressed them.

Diablo, for example, was being developed by Condor Games. Blizzard was so impressed by their game and creativity that half way through the development of the game, Davidson acquire Condor Games and they renamed it to Blizzard North. They were still very new to project management during this time, but they recognized just how valuable Diablo was going to be.

In SAS's case, Blizzard outsourced the SC: Ghost Console project to them. Perhaps there was something more within the company that Blizzard wanted, like other video games or ideas they were working on, much like they had done with Condor Games. :)

It's possible that a very early version of Titan was around at one point, but it was put on the back shelf due to the immense popularity and new resource requirements of World of Warcraft. It would have been an early prototype but with very ambitious plans. It's possible that Titan isn't a very new idea, and it's something that has been sitting on a shelf for a lot longer than people might think.

In order to know more about Titan or predict it's future, it's important to understand it's past.

Nomad and Guerrilla

Swingin' Ape Studios was secretly working on a next-gen console game called Guerrilla. The demo was a post-apocalyptic themed game, which eventually evolved into something more military ("FarCry") themed. This game was demonstrated to Blizzard before they were contracted for the SC Ghost project. I wonder if they showed the post-apocalyptic version along with their ideas for the future of the game, or they were showed the FarCry version that EA had wanted? :)

Whichever the case, the engine was adapted for the SC Ghost game. In a way, SC Ghost could be a precursor to Titan. (I won't be surprised if Titan contains scifi assets from the old Ghost project.)

Right after StarCraft, Blizzard also started working on their own post-apocalyptic scifi (squad based) RPG entitled Nomad. Blizzard had put a lot of work into the game, but they decided to work on WOW instead because they just weren't ready for Nomad at the time.

Nomad was mentioned again in 2008 (along with other cancelled projects). The cancelled Shattered Nations was also a post-apocalyptic scifi themed game by Blizzard, and some people have suspected that Nomad might have mutated into MMO form.



SAS's Metal Arms

If Titan has a past history with Guerrilla and SAS, there might also be a connection to Metal Arms. For example, since many of the current employees working on Titan came from SAS and they worked on MA, they might have adopted some of the ideas from MA or what was planned for Metal Arms 2. (If you read the SAS post, Metal Arms was originally the story of a bounty hunter traveling to many different planets, with one inhabited entirely with various types of robots.)

For example, a lot of robots or a "Control Tether" feature borrowed from MA. Glitch was able to "possess" other robots, gain their abilities and control them. (Sort of like an Avatar-like or mind control game, something that's missing from a lot of games these days.)

I haven't been able to find too much online, but here are some examples where Steve Ranck commented on future work:

SAS_Steve [Source]

We (the developers) would love to work on a sequel. Glitch on next-gen would be really fun to work on. Vivendi owns the property, though.

SAS_Steve [Source]

BinfordKid, we're sitting on a huge amount of AMAZING story that's just waiting for a sequel.

I often wonder if "Project Titan" name was chosen as an internal joke to the Next Gen MMO team's previous work on Metal Arms. There were infamous Titans in Metal Arms (dangerous robots), and Project Titan might have originated some MA after all (e.g. MA -> Guerrilla -> SC Ghost -> Titan).

Heck, for all we know, it could have been borrowed from Blizzard's scrapped "Path of the Titans" too. In Path of the Titans, the player could join various cults and investigate history. :)

If there is a connection between SAS, their old IP, and Titan, we might see a lot of their ideas or innovations being inherited. This is why I'm interested in old game ideas or early game concepts. So, if you discover any old sources or mentions about "SAS/Blizzard games in development" from really old magazines, for example, let me know.

A while back I had a thought; what if the Titan IP wasn't actually new? It would be "new" for players who hadn't seen it outside Blizzard, but what if the Titan IP or ideas were actually very old or acquired from another company?

It was something I was going to recommend to Mynsc one day: "Hey, you should investigate companies that Blizzard acquired to see if they bought any IP along with it!" I did a quick glance over acquired IPs at the time, though, and I couldn't find anything interesting so there was really no point and I just forgot about it.

Fast forward a couple months, and I had found a puzzle piece that actually connected Titan to earlier game concepts. This connection to SAS is what led me to create that post about Swingin' Ape Studios (henceforth referred to as SAS) and their other "secret" projects. If you haven't read it already, I recommend that you do.

Why Acquire A Company?

You see, the thing with gaming developers, publishers, or any business for that matter, is that they all go through the same patterns and they all end up the same. Every large and aging business eventually dies, or it's absorbed into another company or conglomerate. As businesses become successful in what they do, they become complacent and they stop evolving or changing with the times. One day, it's too late for them to adapt, and a younger start-up steps in and steals their market.

Blockbuster is a perfect example. They thought that physical media rentals (VHS, DVD, BluRay) would be around forever and jumped into digital delivery far too late (and they did it the wrong way). Every successful business right now will eventually be acquired by a younger company or go bankrupt.. they'll join the ranks of once-big-names like Acclaim, Atari, Hercules, 3DFX, Epyx, Commodore, Marvel, etc.

In order to stay alive, the trick is to change, evolve, or stay fresh. And the only way do that is either to replace the management team or acquire younger businesses that can bring in fresh ideas or new approaches. The smart businesses do this anyways.. sometimes these "old man companies" buy out younger businesses to purely eliminate competition or for short term goals.

The SAS/Blizzard Next-Gen Team

To kick things off, let's start out with the information that got me interested in SAS in the first place.

John Lafleur is a programmer on Blizzard's Next Gen MMO, and he previously worked on Metal Arms as well as other secret projects within SAS. To view his older resume entries, go here and here.

So, Swingin' Ape Studios was previously working on an "Unannounced Next Generation Console" game that started in April 2003, as well as an "Unannounced PS2 Title" that started in September 2003.

It appears that the "Unannounced PS2 Title" was in fact Starcraft: Ghost but they expanded development to the XBOX and GameCube as well. They were still working on another secret project, though, entitled the "Unannounced Next Generation Console" game.

After SAS was acquired by Blizzard Entertainment, they also acquired this Next Generation Console game and it was something that continued development. John was technical director for Starcraft Ghost and he was also made technical director for the other Unannounced Next Gen game. Eventually, when the team was broken up (due to continued SC Ghost problems), he was relocated to World of Warcraft for a short period of time, and then immediately to the Next Gen MMO as soon as the project started. :)

John still lists the "Unannounced Title" (where he was "Technical Director") in his resume, even though it's not in development anymore. And he's now the "Lead Engine Programmer" for the current Next Gen MMO.

Nathan Miller also worked for SAS on the SC Ghost project (which was console exclusive), and he was one of the first individuals to be moved into the Titan team as well (he was actually hired back from Blizzard after a 1 year absence to specifically work on the Next Gen MMO). :)

In 2005, Blizzard had several positions up for their "Next Gen Console team". But then in August 2006, the employees of the console division were redeployed onto other projects within the company (e.g. when Nathan moved to WOW before leaving Blizzard 3 months later) and SC Ghost was pretty much cancelled.

Now, you would assume that this Unannounced Next Gen Console game was probably just the Ghost project, but John makes a clear distinction between Ghost and the other "Unannounced Project". Ghost was already announced by then too. Plus, SAS started work on the Next Gen Console game in April 2003 which was long before Blizzard even talked to them about SC Ghost.

Whatever this project was, it didn't have anything to do with Blizzard, and Blizzard didn't know anything about the secret project until they started their Ghost relationship. After that, SAS was suddenly acquired, along with some of the employees, their IPs and game ideas.

If the project was eventually abandoned, or if it is still being worked on within Blizzard, there's at least evidence showing that there was/is another project being worked on. It might be Titan or it might not be. (It's not an Action RPG or RTS though. The SAS team focused on Next Gen/Console 3D games similar to WoW or Ghost.)

In March 2006, Blizzard decided to re-evaluate SC Ghost as a Next-Gen (PS3 / XBOX360) title instead. Previously, it was being designed for the PS2 and XBOX platforms. This was around the time that they had all of the new postings for the Next Gen Console game before Ghost ended in August 2006.

Financial Investments

As you're aware, the first hints of Blizzard's Next Gen MMO were from mid 2007 job postings.

But in June 2006, a full year before it's existence was made known, Vivendi (the owner of Activision Blizzard) published a presentation for their investors which detailed future Blizzard franchises and plans for growth.

In this document, they state that Blizzard has three core franchises that were born on PC, but they are investing heavily into "new executions" across multiple franchises. They make note of their investment into SAS, as well as a curious investment into a "Next Gen PC" game.

Blizzard’s three core franchises were born on PC but are rich in character and naturally extendable

* We are investing heavily right now in developing new executions across multiple franchises
* Purchased and integrated Swingin’ Ape as core of next gen console strategy
* Put investments in place for numerous future Blizzard products

"Product Development Investment Per Game":

"Over €50MM MMORPG" (Most likely WOW and Expansion Packs)
"Over €10-13MM Next Gen Console" (Early development costs for SC Ghost)
"Over €10MM Next Gen PC" (Early development costs of a Next Gen MMO)

Strange that at the same time they were investing into future franchises, they acquired SAS, set aside funding for a future Next Gen MMO title, and said that SAS was a part of this future strategy. They also indicated Subscription and Transaction-based business models for these games.