blizzard-next-gen-mmo posts

Many folks thought that Blizzard might reveal the details about their next MMO at BlizzCon 2009. Unfortunately, Blizzard "only" announced the next World of Warcraft expansion pack. However Blizzard's Rob Pardo gave some tiny hints about their process for making their next MMO in chatting today on the DirectTV BlizzCon pay-per-view broadcast.

Pardo, the head of Blizzard's game design, stated that they started their process on the next MMO by having meetings on what ideas the team might have for the game. He admitted that they discussed ideas like StarCraft-like MMO or a Diablo-like MMO as well as ideas like an MMO RTS game or an MMO FPS game. Eventually Pardo said that as a result of these meetings they leaned toward ideas that everyone involved agreed would be best for their next MMO. Pardo said that they are now past the technology and art stage and are now developing actual game prototypes for the MMO. Naturally there's no word on when Blizzard will reveal any concrete details for the game, much less a release date.

Several months ago it was reported that Blizzard's next MMO game would definately not be a sequel to their hit game World of Warcraft. Lots of folks thought that the next-gen MMO title might use another Blizzard property (Starcraft or Diablo) as its basis. Now word comes down that isn't the case at all.

In a post on the World of Warcraft message boards, Blizzard community manager Zarhym states flat out, "We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it's a shell of a game thus far. We've already stated it'll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It's an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this." If this is indeed true it would be Blizzard's first game based on a totally original IP since the original StarCraft was released way back in 1998.

If you were disappointed to learn that Blizzard wasn't planning to attend E3 this year, you don't have to worry. Blizzard has just announced that they will indeed be holding a new edition of their BlizzCon fan event in 2009. As with previous editions, BlizzCon 2009 will be held once again at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. The event will be held on August 21-21.

This year's event will be bigger simply because it will take up four halls of the convention center compared to just three last year. You can expect lots of major news and reveals about Blizzard's upcoming games like StarCraft II, Diablo III and new additions to World of Warcraft. Perhaps we may get the first details on Blizzard's next MMO project. Pricing for the event has yet to be announced. Last year BlizzCon tickets sold for $100 each and quickly sold out.

It's perhaps one of the most anticipated MMO games and there is almost no info about it. It's Blizzard's next generation MMO game which the World of Warcraft developer has been hiring for for a while now. Otherwise the company has not revealed any info about it other than it won't be a World of Warcraft sequel.

However that doesn't mean it won't be using World of Warcraft team members. Today our sister site WoW Insider posted up word (via Blizzard's forums) that Jeff Kaplan, the game director for the MMO, is leaving his work on the game. He's just moving offices, however, as he will stay with Blizzard to work on their unannounced MMO project. There's no word yet on what Kaplan's title or responsiblities will be on the new project but it's clear that Blizzard wants people it knows to be involved in the game's development.