The Digital Continuum: Blizzard's mysterious MMO Part 2

Horror MMO please.

Vampires!

I've always wanted an mmorpg based on White Wolf's world of Vampires: The Masquerade.

Or maybe it's a setting full of these mythical creatures?
Vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts! - And those are the classes we can play!
- And we get to kill legendary do-gooders and monster-hunters like Van Hellsing and ... Buffy... and ... Ghostbusters?... and Scooby-doo?

I'm going to go out on a limb here & say it'll steer well clear of "niche" genres & will be a "WoW for kids" kind of mass appeal MMO, something aimed at the very young audiences.

Look at Fusion Fall & Free Realms, both having pretty incredible growth (albeit free to play), but it's a market I bet Blizzard are looking to exploit.

I've always been a fantasy fan over everything else, but if they do a fantasy title, I do hope it's a "Dark Fantasy". And I mean that in ever sense.

Otherwise a Steampunk, or Fantasy/Sci-Fi hybrid would be awesome.

The writer was slightly incorrect about ToR's release though, try 1 year, not a few years. :)

I think the next IP will be a steampunk game. The big downside to many MMOs is the lack of identifiable elitism. WoW has a style that in PvP or PvE the players avatar is visually identifiable as having attained a certain level of gameplay. I know some may not like big spiky shoulderpads but they combine competition for getting them, epeen from having them, something for players to aim for and a fashion statement all in one. Star Wars and Star Trek have very muted styles and avatars. Sure the Sith lords all looked different but they all wore the same or very similar robes. Star Trek has uniforms an set star ship classes so there is little epeen there.

It's easy to walk around a big city in WoW and be able to gauge a player by their avatar. You can tell their level of gameplay, their class and their race really easily. A steampunk game could carry over that kind of extremism; thinks like cyborg body parts, the latest gun, the new vehichle etc. It would be easy to make these kind of stereotypical references and then blend fantasy and sci fi archetypes into the game so you could have elves beside robots along with chaos magicians (see ABC Warriors) and psychics.

Thinking about it if you took ABC Warriors and Nemesis the Warlock and add in Judge Dredd and the cursed earth for the mutants/Strontinium Dogs you would wind up with a very cool steampunk universe just at the time when Star Wars, Star Trek and the various superhero games are floundering trying to make an endgame that satisfies continual challenge and an easily identifiable epeen scale.

Add in Blizzards trademark over-the-top art style and a dash of Simon Bisley, Joe Madeura and you will have something that will appeal to the everyman gamer. That is where Blizzard have won so far, appealing to a broad majority and being accessible. Warhammer has gone down the gritty PvP route and LoTR online has gone down the heavy PvE route both are doing well but have nothing like Blizzards 10 million subscribers.

As for cannibalising WoW. I don't think that will matter as I would expect Blizzard to offer a subscription service that covers all their games under Battle net and really challenge the opposition with all 4 franchises as one huge juggernaut of gaming.

Gummy Bear MMO.

You heard it here first.

If they know what's good for them it will be anything BUT PvP based....Planetside, deserted.....Shadowbane, closed....Warhammer, epic fail.....Darkfall, small scale, low budget limited niche market.....Eve, zomg sleep inducingly slow...WoW arena participation down 65%+ from last season....the only thing a PvP centric game brings to the table is a plate of warm fail with a side of slipping stock prices.

I was hoping for a SC MMO of some type with ground and space combat on the same engine. I really thought all the new flying mechanics and vehicle combat in WoW were test beds (much like the first set of pvp towers in the EPLs were a test bed for some of the new BG mechanics) for that but it might not be so.

While I love all three current Blizz IPs (enough to read the novels), I have to disagree with your intro. Blizzard settings are horribly generic, and Starcraft did not take inspiration from several different sources; it is nothing but Warhammer 40k...

What about some kind of Blizzard FREE REALMS game!??
You know to get more casual ppl.

Post-apocalyptic zombie infested cyber-steam-punk science fantasy fiction with FPS elements and TF2 styled pvp. Ruwitme?

One of the main reasons WOW is popular is they also got alot of girls playing it. Some of the darker settings may be too niche for the broad client base that Blizzard would want.

My guess is they will go for a multi worlds idea, Dreamscape, The Net or time travel. This way they can have unlimited settings and genres. Mass appeal getting the Adults, Kids and Second Life players

Bring on the Steampunk or Cyberpunk I say. They are two very under-served markets right now.

If they ripped off Iron Kingdoms / Warmachine completely I wouldn't complain - it would be an amazing setting for an MMO. But I'm guessing that is still too fantasy-oriented and might overlap too much with WoW. Take out the fantasy races (elves, dwarves, goblins, etc..) maybe.

If they go with steampunk I doubt it would be straight-up Victorian steampunk though - probably there would be some other twists to it.

How about a steampunk + gothic horror hybrid?

In any case I hope they keep WoW as their "mass-appeal" money-making game and take the opportunity to experiment with some less mainstream ideas on this one.