Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard's New Top Secret MMO

Posted Sep 17, 2008 by Indelible

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Earlier today, the Blizzard Entertainment website updated its Job section to include mention of a, "Top Secret MMO."

As soon as fan sites saw the hints, the speculation mill churned up and some obvious and not so obvious ideas of what the next MMO out of Blizzard may be.

Starcraft MMO

We may be witnessing the first stages of a new Starcraft MMO based on the previous approach Blizzard took with World of Warcraft. Blizzard used Warcraft III and the expansion to tidy up the lore and certain plot lines so that the game could be adapted to fit an MMO environment and this could be what they are doing with the single player Starcraft II campaign. Rob Pardo revelealed back in August that Blizzard planned to return to the shelved Starcraft: Ghost so this could be a sign that we may get a console-based MMO.

Diablo MMO

At the end of Lords of Destruction, the award winning expansion to Diablo II, the gates of Hell were left wide open for demons to walk the Earth and so a Heaven vs. Hell no-holds-barred fight to the death isn't too far fetched an idea, surely? Diablo has been a franchise that has been untouched for almost as long as Starcraft was before the announcement of Starcraft II so we may see a Diablo relaunch in the MMO genre.

A Brand New Franchise

Some of you may remember that a couple of years ago, Blizzard hinted at a brand new IP to go along side their current titles. It is possible the new MMO may have nothing to do with Starcraft or Diablo and Mr. Metzen may be hard at work right now creating the base for another award-winning franchise to add to Blizzards diversity. Perhaps a new IP that is specifically designed for the MMO genre and not adapted from an existing genre is what Blizzard are planning?

Whatever it is, we should know by now that they are very careful with the way they handle publicity so the fact that these hints occurred on Hallowe'en may be full of purpose. After all, some of us have suspected that they have been working on a new MMO for a while so why did the Irvine-based game gods wait until now to start dropping the teasers?

We'll just have to wait and see...

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  • Quezacolt said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    *drool slowly spills out of mouth*

    Hope it's a Starcraft MMO. Might get interesting. Heck, all of these are interesting. XD

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  • firetwuck said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    yep, SC MMO would be great. Ghost would be great on any of the new gaming consoles too.

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  • magicdiablo said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    I could def see a diablo MMO, if that is true It would be bad-ass. I would be first in line to grab that one. Considering that they are making Starcraft 2 why not go with the other big seller.

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  • raamoz said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    if they are going to make another MMO i hope it won't be related to starcraft or diablo. i want something new. even though i'm not sure if i would even consider buying it. since there are already a lot of MMO's coming out in the upcoming new years. ill wait and see

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  • Sicka said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    it better be a diablo mmo ffs

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  • Indelible said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    The MMO genre is going to be interesting. It's still young but I suspect we may see the same sort of delivery as with consoles, for example. X amount of companies create X amount of MMOS for release in a single year; One MMO prevails and draws in the most players and that MMO goes on to live a long and healthy life whilst the other MMOs fail and turn out like Star Wars Galaxies. % yearsof complete silence from the major developers and then suddenly, the whole process repeats and I think that is what we are seeing atm.

    There are pospects of a new Star Wars MMO (BioWare and Lucas Arts), Star Trek MMO (Perpetual), Top Secret MMO (Blizzard), Unnamed MMO (Bethesda)... the list of major developers planning MMOs for release in the next 2-3 years is endless.

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  • asp said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    I would definitely play a Diablo MMO. Used to play Diablo way too much to not at least try it. Not too fond of futuristic MMO's so a Starcraft based one I might skip. I think it'll be hard to Blizzard to look at the current market which is like 90%+ fantasy based and make a futuristic MMO.

    A brand new franchise would be very interesting, I'm sure they're in such a strong position that they could probably create yet another great piece of IP. I would probably be more inclined to play one based on some new fantasy lore than a Starcraft one.

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  • Indelible said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    I feel that the MMO genre is far to saturated to consider handle fantasy title, at least in the next 2-3 years. Blizzard especially would suffer from a problem that would be generic to every fantasy title; they themselves already having an existing and very successful fantasy MMO out. Unless this new title is planned to succeed WoW then I don't think it would be in their best interests to consider a fantasy MMO to run along side Warcraft. In order to maximise profit, they need to touch on a genre that isn't saturated and Science Fiction would seem like the logical step to take.

    Personally, I don't think the Hallowe'en announcement (-ish) is a mistake. I think it IS a Diablo MMo they are working on and I think it will be released (possibly) a year after the expansion that takes the World of Warcraft level cap to 100. The lore in Warcraft needs replenishing and with talk of Warcraft 4 already being spouted It looks like Diablo could be on the way... of course, this is all based on my own personal desires :-P

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  • Kody said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    There's also World of Darkness from CCP Whitewolf, The Secret World from Funcom, The Agency from SoE, the Marvel Comics MMO from Cryptic, Guild Wars 2 from ArenaNet, etc. All of those will be either late 2008 or some time in 2009 at the earliest, so the next few years are going to have some huge new games coming out.

    Oh Stargate Worlds as well, that will be in the later half of 2008.

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  • Kody said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    You should buy Hellgate: London. >:)

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  • Ulkterna said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    Not to strike out on the misspelling in This section but

    Whatever it is, we should know by now that they are very careful with they way they handle publicity so the fact that these hints occured on Hallowe'en may be full of purpose. After all, some of us have suspected that they have been working on a new MMO for a while so why did the Irvine-based game gods wait until now to start dropping the teasers?

    First occured is spelt wrong it should be Occurred secondly, Hallowe'en is spelt wrong, Should be Halloween, as for the grammer mis-postion in the section it shouldn't be Whatever it is, we should know by now that they are very careful with ''''''they'''''' way they handle?

    Should be the way they are handling :) Please fix it :)

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  • helraider said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    fully agreed with Keikun17, if blizzard makes a game it's more than probably something which will leave us with mouths wide opened and drool spilling from our lips

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  • Indelible said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    I've fixed, "occured," and, "they," but I will not be changing hallowe'en as it is accurate :-) Appolgies for the other two however. I've been typing all day :s

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  • BlasterShot said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    GIVE ME MY DIABLO MMO!!

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  • Ravendarqhart said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    SC doesn't lend itself well to the MMO format since its such a large scale concept. The coolness of SC is controlling huge fleets. Most SC players wouldn't be interested in going from commanding entire starfleets to owning just a single ship.

    Diablo would be interesting, especially if they allow players to play both Heaven and Hell factions like WoW does with Alliance and Horde.

    I would love to see a brand new title however. I didn't get into Blizzard games until WoW, so I'd love to get in on the ground floor of a new Blizzard concept.

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  • Indelible said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    I don't agree with this entirely. Starcraft is an RTS like Warcraft originally was and looked what happend with WoW. I know that the Starcraft fanbase is far more refined than the Warcraft fanbase but there are still a hell of a lot of people who play that game for the lore and not the multiplayer (as odd as that may sound).

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  • souliisoul said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    who cares about misspelling and grammar, we all understand the person and that's what counts!

    let's focus on giving good quality feedback and not turn into primary school teacher.

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  • Bearnaked said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    i hope it is a Diablo MMO..

    Id love to play diablo 2 the way that WoW plays. It would be awesome

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  • gridironmage said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    Just throwing this out there,

    They already have a hugly sucessful MMO and i see no reason why they would want to undermine WoW... That being said... What about WoW 2? upgraded engine and a fresh start?

    If they do another MMO i don't think that it will be Diablo it just too similar...

    If they follow the original Game plan... We will get SC2 then around the time of an expansion live beta will start for a Starcraft MMO. Thats just they way i see it flowing assuming they follow the WoW timeframe... Of course what i said could be replaced with Diablo 3 i just don't see the evidence of that especially since most of the Diablo folks are doing Hellgate: London.

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  • ForeShadow said 
    Wed, Oct 31 2007 3:26 PM ()

    World of the Lost Vikings

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