Ghostcrawler's Cataclysm Post Mortem

[honeypot2011]

Subject matter has gone slightly off the ghostcrawler track but...as for wow2 or a new game..

2007: First rumors

In 2007, users on a Blizzard internet forum speculated that the game was in development after the company published job listings for character and environment artists to work on a "Next-Gen MMO" that was "Top Secret." A Blizzard community representative confirmed that the postings were for an unannounced game that was not an expansion for world of warcraft activision blizzard CEO bobby kotick said at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference that the new game would not be a competitor or clone of World of Warcraft. Chief Operating Officer paul sams expanded on the limited information in 2008 when he told videogaming247.com that Blizzard's next-generation MMO would be "something that's cool, and new, and different" as well as a "challenging endeavour. CEO mike morhaime confirmed that it was a new game and not a sequel to any existing franchises in a 2008 interview with wired magazine.

2010: "Titan" title leak & developer recruitment

A confidential project schedule was released without the company's consent in November 2010. It showed a project titled "Titan" with a release date in the fourth quarter of 2013. Blizzard China's general manager either resigned or was terminated after the leak. At the 2010 ,spike video game awards Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce told gaming blog destructoid that the studio had begun talking about the title as a recruitment tool. He said: "It's our next-gen MMO, and we've only started talking about it in a limited fashion because we want to leverage the fact that we're working on something like that for the purpose of recruiting--getting some of the best talent in the industry on that."

2011: More details & full production

CEO Morhaime spoke of the game in broad terms during a panel discussion at the 2011 .D.I.C.E. summit He said that the company had its most experienced MMO developers working on the project. He explained that they were using lessons from the years of working on World of Warcraft, and he also emphasized the significance of players gaming with people they know as opposed to strangers. Morhaime believes that World of Warcraft and Titan, upon its release, will be able to co-exist on the market.

2012: Speculation & Details

In an interview with Gamsutra in March 2011, COO Sams, revealed that the game was playable and laid out a vision for the project to "still be growing strong" in 10, 15 or 20 years, having "set a new mark in the industry."

An article in Venturebeat suggested that the game might be discussed at blizzcon in October 2011. The rumor was quashed by a Blizzard representative. However, towards the end of the event, rob pardo did give a short status update on how the development is going, stating that there were 90 developers on the project, with it being close to entering into full production mode, expected to commence in 2012.

EDIT: just on a personal note,could the fact that it was discussed at the 2011 DICE summit,mean the use of an adapted frostbite engine?..it is a great engine graphics wise,but how it would adapt to an mmo would probably be in lower detail,and could this also mean an mmo with realtime combat?...just my thoughts,proabably no link between dice and blizzard anyway..but i suppose we shall just have to wait and see