Gamespy had an article where Blizzard's Next Gen MMO was mentioned again. (Anything we can scrape together, right?)

In it, they discuss WoW's basic formula and if there were any major changes planned for Mists of Pandaria. An interesting connection between Titan and World of Warcraft is implied.

"We have some awesome ideas, and we're developing a next-generation MMO here at Blizzard, so we're experimenting with a lot of different ideas there," said lead quest designer Dave Kosak. "I can't say any more about that, but I'll tell you that we're not going to significantly change up WoW at any point in the future. I think there's an expectation when you play WoW. Honestly, I think our combat game is really fun. When you get a quest to kill ten things, that lets you be your class, and you know exactly what to do, which means that you can concentrate on the story, concentrate on the atmosphere, concentrate on chatting with your friends. You can really be in the world."

A while back I had believed that Titan would be very similar to WoW, but much more improved, dumbed down for larger audiences, better NPC AI, and more action packed. I think this is the first team they ever said something like this (ie, "using WOW" rather than "it won't compete with WOW.) Basically, they take WOW and now they're experimenting with different ideas and ways to do things to create a new game.

Most of the original Titan team came from scifi driven backgrounds, including Halo and the old Starcraft Ghost team. But, now they're trickling in WOW developers to continue work on the project.

I'm reminded of Blizzard's "Decision Gun".. maybe it was used for Titan too? :)

Now, it's been a while since I talked about the subject, but if I recall, the WOW Engine was used as alpha testing for Titan.. or possibly Warcraft 4, I can't remember (heck, maybe both.)

There have been some fun rumors that the Next Gen MMO will be a giant new DOTA type game. I'm not sure if I agree with that.. I think there will be facets of shorter action games (like MMOFPS matches) within it, but I am most certain that eSports are planned for Titan (which is also the reason why I think it will be more action packed.) Blizzard has been updating all of their eSports Job Postings too.. they used to all be "Starcraft 2" specific but now they just mention eSports initiatives for Blizzard titles in general. :)

Meaning that eSports is planned for their other future games.

Diablo 3 is one potential too, but not for a long time. Some employees are "all for" a PVP Arena (with RM wages), but the game will be primarily PVE to start out. If there's a lot of PVP integration by the time Diablo 3 X1 comes out, things will look more and more likely for larger PVP battles and arenas. I can see a larger push for competitive PVP especially if JW is moved to head up another project, as unfortunate as that would be.

I wanted to talk about the latest "huge" Mass Effect 3 leak for a moment (it's something that was allegedly leaked by a disgruntled ex-employee on 4chan.) :)

The overwhelming consensus is that it's a fake. But, I don't want to discuss the legitimacy of the leak, or the holes in the post, but rather the individual who posted it and potential intent that can come with these kinds of leaks.

So, imagine for a moment that this was real information and it truly was an internal leak.

This is a person who wants to be anonymous, but they revealed all of these details about themselves:

"After speaking with a close friend who is an attorney"
"virtual lightning [sic] technician"
"has been working for BioWare for over 8 years now"
"sole creator of the lighting partitions of all of BioWare's engines and engine plugins"
"I am no longer a part of the companies in question"
"in my career, which spans 19 years"

If this information was real, they practically screamed at their former employer exactly who they were. An individual trying to be anonymous would never post any details like this about themselves so publicly along with a legitimate leak.

However, this demonstrates a perfect example of detecting whether someone is trying to frame a current or past employee.

A current/ex-employee, who doesn't like another current/ex-employee, could easily post a completely legitimate internal leak, but then sprinkle in minor indications of their target's "true" identity. These are almost always personal attacks.. some are made in haste thinking that it might just cause trouble for them, or others do it in an attempt to disgrace or hurt them (e.g. ability to get a new job.)

It's one thing to keep in mind with all of these anonymous leaks. Even if it's real, it's very difficult to guess the identity of the poster. And from the employer's perspective, it doesn't matter what evidence they see on the surface since it doesn't tell them anything at all. Even if all of the clues in the written leak identify a single person ("Oh, that's Bob.. he was our only lighting technician"), it's completely useless to them and cannot be used to determine their identity. It could be a current employee for all they know.

No matter what a person might say, it's something that the employer would still need to fully investigate themselves, with undeniable proof of the leak's origin, and the true identity of the culprit. If they don't have access to any evidence (say that they don't want to waste the time/money to subpoena 4chan for their records), they can't jump to any conclusions about the poster's identity no matter what the leak says or hints at. If, however, the post was (foolishly) made from within their own network, then the evidence identifying the culprit would be quite accurate and staggering.

Anyways, I just thought that it was interesting because as humans tend to jump the gun and we sometimes make false assumptions on different matters (without knowing the full truth). If this was a real leak, I wouldn't be surprised rumors would be circulating around the BioWare offices about "how the leak came from Bob", even if it didn't.

I'll have that other Mass Effect post up as soon as I can (it will be a short one too). I tend to get sidetracked by these interesting things. :)

This just in! Zenimax filed for a trademark called "DAWNGUARD" and it appears to be an expansion/DLC for Skyrim.

Shacknews: "Dawnguard trademark filed by Zenimax"

Kotaku: "‘Dawnguard’ Trademark Filed, May Point to Skyrim Expansion"

VG247: "Bethesda files Dawnguard trademark, could be for anything"

Nowgamer: "Skyrim DLC: 'Dawnguard' Bethesda Trademark Hints At Elder Scrolls Content"

.. etc. etc. etc.

It's making the rounds on the internet now. This is just like "In-Game Ads Planned for Titan" happening all over again. /sigh

(In case you didn't know, I already broke the Dawnguard news a month ago. And the Titan In-Game ads I revealed 2 months before it made the news.)