Hello, everybody!
Disciple here with Overwatch Curios!
With Overwatch as a fully established title at this point, the spotlight is completely
shining on things that are coming up next, like new heroes and lore.
It's sometimes easy to forget where the game came from and how things got started
as a completely different project way back when because we are so focused on consuming
the next big thing in Overwatch Like Orisa or the Ana Nerfs.
However, It's fun to look back sometimes and think "what could have been" when
it comes to your favorite games and add in your own opinions and speculations and that's
just what we're going to do with the game Overwatch actually started out as: Project:
Titan.
Today, we're going to take a look at some things that would have made Titan amazing
because it actually sounds like it would have been really fun to play and some often wonder
what it would have been like to do so.
The game was a futuristic shooter / MMO, and the
main concept to Titan was this: you, the player, would maintain a basic or mundane job during
the day, while fighting against opposing factions at night and between work hours.
This is a concept that has never really been done before and has had a ton of speculation
circling around it.
One possibility is that the crafting system was your day job, where you use your chosen
specialty to craft weapons, armor, gadgets, etc to help out you and your faction, then
use those items when the war rages on during the off-hours of work.
Another really awesome idea was that the players took on sort of a superhero secret identity
type of style where they were mild-mannered player during the normal times, and super-soldier
when things got rough.
It would be amazing to have seen how Blizzard would have used this night / day, civilian
/ soldier rotation as a game mechanic and how the timing and systems would intermix
to make it something playable and not boring on either side of the coin.
The concern here is how would the two systems really combine to make excellent gameplay,
and how would timing and secrecy work with the concept of a dual-life scenario for the
player.
If the player were able to chose when and how they played it would make sense, but if
they were locked into one mode or the other, that could pose a problem.
As long as the two jobs synergized and the gameplay was constant and exciting, it would
have probably made a great core element to the title!
In the near-future, science-fiction vision of the world where mankind has successfully
fought off an alien invasion, Titan puts players in the aftermath presumably rebuilding and
struggling to survive.
The player would choose one of three factions waging a cold war over control of the planet
to control resources and territory.
These territories for the game ranged from the west coast of the United States to Europe,
South America, and Australia and Blizzard's plan was to make the game world huge, and
to keep adding areas with expansions in the years after launch just like they have with
their other MMO World of Warcraft.
This setting gives us a whole plethora of things that could have easily been awesome
gameplay elements like the aliens, for example, were they completely defeated or are there
still remnants around?
You can easily see that they could be the starting point to dungeons, scenarios, or
missions.
Faction warfare makes perfect sense for PvP gameplay whether it's closed instances like
battlegrounds, or open-world PvP fighting back and forth over resources and land for
your faction.
The locations around the world could support all of these things and even be used in a
control-map sort of element like many games are currently using.
Each hour, or day, or week could refresh a map showing which faction contributed the
most to an area and controls its resources, or be real0time to show where the most important
battles or locations are at that point, directing players to those locations.
Systems like this would incorporate the players day jobs by needing supplies or weapons crafted
by the faction as a whole, in which the player contributes and gets rewarded.
This would have been a very amazing feature in the game and one that keeps players active
and moving around the world vying for control.
The confirmed classes titan had were the Reaper, Jumper, Titan, Ranger, and Juggernaut, each
having its own special abilities and items.
They filled class roles just like other MMOs; Rangers were ranged DPS, Titans were tanks,
Jumpers were scouts, and so on.
You can obviously see the relation from these classes to the heroes in Overwatch because
they were all direct inspiration in one form or another to heroes like Tracer, Reaper,
Reinhardt and Genji.
There would have probably been more classes included to fill out roles like a healer or
a crowd-controller, and it would have been fun to see what kinds of abilities these classes
would have brought to the battle.
Another thought is how your day job would have directly contributed to your class choice.
Mixing and matching jobs and classes could yield interested combos or enhancements you
can't get from other combos.
Say you were an Engineer by day, and a Ranger by night.
Perhaps your ranger would have enhanced weaponry or special traps and gadgets that only come
from that combination.
It would essentially make a sub-class system fully possible and probably very interesting!
Blizzard could effectively make fewer major classes and focus more on the class/job mix
and balance that out accordingly.
Other games have done the class / sub-class before to lots of success and it would be
a huge departure from WoW's ever-growing class list.
This also brings to mind the possibilities of a massive web of talents and abilities
that the player could unlock over time by combining the various classes and jobs, or
even having a system similar to the popular Final Fantasy MMOs where you only have one
character or hero, but you can swap jobs and classes at will as long as you have them unlocked.
That would be amazing and something completely different for Blizzard and Blizzard fans alike!
There was a plan in in Titan to have a robust AI-driven NPC system that enabled the player
to maintain relationships with NPC customers and staff, as the player ran their own business
and shops.
The idea seems like a mix between a traditional MMO NPC system, and something much more complex
like a game of The Sims, where you can develop friendships, romantic relationships, and even
start families with NPCs in the game.
This kind of depth takes the idea that the day job system being secondary to the combat
or a seemingly minor element to the game and putting it right in the front alongside all
of the other major systems like combat and territory control.
This kind of complex system could have offered a massive number of options and elements in
an MMO that we have never actually experienced before.
Everything from creating a shop and hiring employees to run it while you're out waging
faction war, to creating lasting relationships with people who may fight (and die) along
side you possibly being permanently removed from the game, changing your heroes complete
outlook.
It would even give the player a much more emotional attachment to the NPCs and their
character if they are involved in building these kinds of relationships.
In the Sims, many players grow attached to their characters and when the characters succeed,
fail, fall in love, break up, and eventually die, the players have reactions you wouldn't
normally see if some random class character died or some NPC has a problem and needs you
to kill 10 lizards to solve it.
This system could even have it's own set of quests, missions, and progression separate
from the combat, that players could work on and complete.
The amazing possibilities of combining these two major systems, combat-oriented gunplay,
and real-life scenario building are nearly endless and extremely exciting!
To go along with both of these systems, Blizzard wanted to create cities and locations that
felt alive, full of shops, busy streets, and NPCs that had lives, going about their business
and having behaviors that felt real.
This would create an ever-changing stage on which to play and get away from the normal
sight of NPCs just kind of standing there all the time waiting for an adventurer to
happen by and accept a quest.
This would have been a massive undertaking, but if accomplished would have set a new standard
in NPC interaction and life-like environments.
You'd be able to walk around these living, breathing cities during the day, with shops
business hours, NPCs that would be around at certain times and away at others, as well
as things like quests and tasks that would have to be done during certain times in the
game world.
This would also create a system for your business or shop to open and close, recieve customers
and shipments, just like a real business.
To be honest, the day/job - dynamic NPC - living cities concept could make a great game in
itself, but BLizzard had bigger plans for titan and this was just ONE of the systems
in place to captivate fans and really bring immersion to a whole new level.
Speaking of bigger plans, it's reported that the investments blizzard made into Titan
ranged anywhere between $50 Million to $150 million and included massive teams of people
from within blizzard, in the gaming industry, and even outside of the gaming industry to
provide the needed talent for the ambitious project.
They were practically redesigning the MMO, and needed a huge number of resources to actually
make it happen.
The amazing and seriously awesome plans blizzard had come up with for Titan would surely require
some of the best in the world and the game would have to make it truely unbelieveable
to compete in today's MMO market where Free to Play and less-expensive titles dominate
the landscape.
This is why Blizzard invested so much time, money, and talent into the project although
it ultimately failed.
Even though we got Overwatch, which is a massively successful title, it still super exciting
to think about what Titan actually had in store for us and how it would have changed
the MMO gaming scene for better or worse.
Although titan failed in the end, it doesn't change the fact that there were quite a few
things that looked seriously awesome about the game, to the point where based on what
we know about it we can safely say that it definitely could have been an awesome game
to play, although it might not have been a successful product if it released.
If anyone could have given new life to the aging MMO market, it would have been blizzard,
and, who knows, maybe one day we may see a similarly ambitious title with interesting
new systems come along from Blizzard or another company will to break the mold.
Alright guys, that's all I've got for you for now.
I hope you enjoyed the video and if so, leave a like and subscribe!
Let me know what you think about all the amazing systems and ideas of Titan and what you feel
would have made the game amazing!
Thanks for watching, see you in the next one!
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