Blizz's next mmo

[eso]

I noticed on the blizzard employment page there popped up last week a bunch of "top secret" next gen mmo job openings, let the speculation begin!

[Hotnutz]

Diablo Online......

Starcraft...... Hmmm

Sounds interesting.

[Gallo]

World of Warcraft 2. I would think that they would want to improve upon an existing success, much like Everquest did. But, who knows?

[Wilbur]

It won't be World of Warcraft 2.

Starcraft 2 is where the smart money is.

[Ziran]

The problem is that blizzard is really NOT an innovate type of company. Nobody else really figured out how to do a sci-fi MMO succesfully yet (and please DO NOT say Star Wars Galaxies) and hence there really is nobody out there to copy with greater attention to detail (ala WoW).

World of diablo would be a much more straightforward proposition and a guaranteed success, but it would compete significantly with WoW.

SCMMO is a much riskier proposition but would open a completely new market with huge upside potential.

Time will tell. I personally hope it is the SCMMO as we really need a big succesfull MMO that is something other then fantasy hack and slash.

Ziran

[Gallo]

Diablo is so much like Warcraft in terms of spells/creatures/etc. I would love to see it, but it seems to me that it would be hardly any different than a WoW2 other than by name.

It would be nice to finally see some Pally DPS though. LOL!

[Knytestorme]

While it coule be WoW2 (given any jobs offered now woudl be for shipping product no earlier than 2010 even if a framework has been coded already) I'd say those positions will be for Universe of Starcraft to be releaeed about 12 months after SC2.

I would contend that we'll never see a Diablo MMO since it already effectively is, and the culture of free battle.net service is so ingrained in diablo players that any attempt to charge would be met with utmost resistance...having said that though, a Diablo MMO along the lines of GW could be possible, but again I'd say that's how Diablo MP already is.

[Diamndzngunz]

I want Diablo. I miss diablo.

[Cripes]

World of Vikings (rofl, whatever that viking game is they made)
Diablo was more addicting than Diablo 2 to me. Ahh well, their games are of a high quality.. so anything is great :D

[Bigfish]

I would put money on the fact that, at this point, they are just developing and getting a team trained and set up to develop whatever MMO they decide to run with next. Starcraft wouldn't surprise me. Didn't they announce WoW before WC3 was released? Diablo could also be in the works. Chances are though, they don't know themselves what they are going to announce next until they get something working to the point they can say "ok, lets do a tech demo and finalize that THIS is going to be the next release."

[Djarid]

TBH I think those holding out for Diablo are in for a long wait. As has already been mentioned, WoW's success is in attracting new players to both the world and the genre. They are likely to capitalise on this for some time. Doing another MMORPG in a similar genre is going to reduce the income / effort for them, changing the theme (SC style) will perhaps net some new players but will also dilute the current WoW player base. I would put money on it being a persistent environment but with a very different play style, perhaps an MMORTS?

[wallshot]

I heard that they are trying to hire software eng's to try to figure out how to get rid of the banks. The word is that old skool diablo players will cancel their accounts 1 month out of 12 because they just don't trust "the man" to hold their loot. They are all trying to find a nice peaceful empty town with an unwatched well to pile of of their loot in...

[Jetzt Sterben]

Would be great if Blizz buys a Shadowrun licence and make the game like WoW but now as a Cyberpunk mmo :)

WoW becomes so much add on that the player lvl is raising to lvl100 i think. After this we can dream about wow2.
Starcraft 2 comes ont next. And if we look into the blizz history so must the next game be Diablo3 or maybe a complet new game :)

[Poolboy]

I want my goddamned GI JOE mmo! I've screaming it from the frakkin rooftops for years now! Somebody, somebodyyyyy.... please get the liscense and do it justice!

Yes, GI Joe was the glue of my childhood universe. So what.

[Gallo]

I want my goddamned GI JOE mmo! I've screaming it from the frakkin rooftops for years now! Somebody, somebodyyyyy.... please get the liscense and do it justice!

Yes, GI Joe was the glue of my childhood universe. So what.GI Joe I don't know about.... but He-man could DEFINITELY be an MMO. That was the glue to my childhood.

[DarkslayrX]

I want my goddamned GI JOE mmo! I've screaming it from the frakkin rooftops for years now! Somebody, somebodyyyyy.... please get the liscense and do it justice!

Yes, GI Joe was the glue of my childhood universe. So what.I can relate - that would be awesome.

[ScytheNoire]

good money is on a StarCraft MMO

WarCraft III lead to World of Warcraft
StarCraft II will lead to StarCraft MMO

they are going to set up the story for the MMO with StarCraft II, which is part of the reason it has taken them so long to bring out StarCraft II, because they are working on the StarCraft MMO at the same time, although the StarCraft MMO probably won't hit until into 2010.
expect Korea's productivity to drop off significantly after 2010.

[Gallo]

expect Korea's productivity to drop off significantly after 2010.

QFT. Those Koreans are serious about their starcraft.

[Arelia]

It'd be really nice if they came up with a completely new concept that wasn't based on an existing franchise, but it seems to me that Blizzard likes money too much to do that. Whatever they make, it's pretty much a given that their product will be nicely polished and playable, even if it's unoriginal garbage underneath. They're good at Quality Control.

Fingers crossed for innovation, but I aint expecting any.

[Bigfish]

It'd be really nice if they came up with a completely new concept that wasn't based on an existing franchise, but it seems to me that Blizzard likes money too much to do that. Whatever they make, it's pretty much a given that their product will be nicely polished and playable, even if it's unoriginal garbage underneath. They're good at Quality Control.

Fingers crossed for innovation, but I aint expecting any.Blizz doesn't really seem like much of a risk taker. They really like to bet on "the sure thing".

[eso]

on the topic, everyone signed up for the hello kitty mmo closed beta right? Sanriotown.com, got my @hellokitty.com email and a beta account. woot!

[junx]

I have been saying for a while, and hoping even longer, that their next MMO will be based on the canned Starcraft: Ghost. Something like Planetside(never played but aware of it) or one of the other FPS-MMORPGs that failed to deliver. There's a huge player base of "twitch-gamers" gamers out there playing FPS games for free, and it is something they could bring to consoles to capitalize on the Halo crowd if the controls are simple enough.

[Zanjii]

I have been saying for a while, and hoping even longer, that their next MMO will be based on the canned Starcraft: Ghost. Something like Planetside(never played but aware of it) or one of the other FPS-MMORPGs that failed to deliver. There's a huge player base of "twitch-gamers" gamers out there playing FPS games for free, and it is something they could bring to consoles to capitalize on the Halo crowd if the controls are simple enough.While I am a huge fan of the idea, I'll bet you three internets that game isn't going to come from Blizzard. I hated what SOE ended up doing to Planetside, that game looked like exactly what I had been hoping until it turned out it wasn't, and I'd really want a quality replacement some time soon. That said, and has been noted quite a few times here, Blizzard isn't in the "breaking new ground" business. They come in after the early settlers, take a look around and combines everything done up until now in the right way, and spicy it up with quality control and does it properly.

My money is on Starcraft as well, although I'd call it VERY optimistic to think it'll hit anything but early beta by 2010.

[Hotnutz]

I miss my hammerdin. And in memory of him I give u this cool video :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vXjNxXjio

[flyingman]

Its Blizz Activision now so you can look just past Bliz. I dont see Starcraft MMO until they milk Starcraft 2. Maybe a FPS MMO because of Call of Duty or Quake or Super Hero's that fall around Spider man/Xman.

But if I had put my money somewhere I go for Diablo and I think it would be great game to do but would love to see cool MMO FPS

[Yanamana]

Nobody else really figured out how to do a sci-fi MMO succesfully yet (and please DO NOT say Star Wars Galaxies) and hence there really is nobody out there to copy with greater attention to detail (ala WoW).

Ziran

www.anarchyonline.com

Its old now, but when it came out it had almost as large a population base as everquest.

[Gurblash]

Played AO for 3 years. Have a 220 MA, 220 Doc and a 220 Fixer. Game is now free up till lvl 200 but you are restricted to 'Vanilla AO' gear and zones. No access to expansion zones/gear. And its very easy to multibox on.

Really enjoyed the game. Only problem is the gfx are getting dated and the bugs and rubberbanding was still rampant when I quit playing last year. Plus the content was meh

[Gallo]

My first MMO was Star Wars Galaxies right out of college. I played for about 9 months and quit right before the whole Jedi thing wrecked the game. I thought it was pretty fun for my first MMO. Looking back, I know that there were a lot of flaws. Also, MAN were there a lot of whiners on their forums. It was funnier to watch than WoW General.

[Atorifan]

This is my first MMO, and I played a little of WC2 and 3 (which I hated). Where is the room for WoW2? I'm not lore oriented at all, it's just a vehicle for entertainment. Call the mob a purgoop and it plans on turning the world into cottage cheese, I'll still kill it if it's fun. But how much room is there in the WCverse to make a WoW2, elder gods being the main focus? Or will it just be WoW with shiny new mobs and new jacked in 'lore' for profit?