While speaking on the 2011 DICE Summit keynote panel Wednesday, Blizzard's Mike Morhaime was questioned about the company's unannounced MMOG. Without revealing specifics, he told the audience that the game will be "new and fresh."
Previously a leaked product slate revealed the MMOG's name to be "Titan" with a projected release date of Q4 2013. Shortly after the leaked document caught the media's attention, Blizzard's Frank Pearce was immediately grilled about the project just after the Video Game Awards back in December. According to Pierce, the media wasn't supposed to know anything about the project as of yet--despite the rumors of its existence over the past few years.
"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 project," he said in a brief interview.
Now two months later, Morhaime found himself having to answer questions about the mystery "Titan" MMOG, and seemingly hinted that a social element--beyond playing with total strangers like most MMORPGs-- may be incorporated into the upcoming MMOG.
"Without giving away any details, we have some of our most experienced MMO developers, people who spent years working on the World of WarCraft team, working on this project," Morhaime said.
"We're really trying to leverage all the lessons we learned through the years," he added. "Some of which we were able to address in World of WarCraft and others that maybe because of the design decisions we've made, you just can't address. So we're kind of taking a step back with all that knowledge to make something that's completely new and fresh. We're not trying to make a WoW sequel."
According to Morhaime, the upcoming MMOG and World of Warcraft will actually co-exist. He then went on to talk about playing with friends, making new friends in a MMOG, and the unique experiences while playing in guilds.
Previously Morhaime mentioned that he was playing Words With Friends on the iPhone, and expressed how fun it was to play against people he actually knew. That said, various sources have heard that social gaming may be an important factor in the future.
Additionally, French website NoFrag reports that the MMOG will actually be split into two distinct sections: one dedicated to social interaction and one dedicated to combat. Overall the game is rumored to be focused heavily on first-person shooter combat. Morhaime himself has even said in previous reports that the MMOG will be an entirely new property. That means any thoughts of Titan serving as a StarCraft MMORPG are out the door.
"To break the mold, sometimes you have to start over," Morhaime told the audience.
