Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
[Mod Edit]
Dominus was formally (Prime battle for Dominus) PVP centric useing the Hero Engine,hopefully way better than Bioware.
*note* This isnt trolling I meant this thread to be about making predictions that, while not probable, arent inconceivable.
I truly beleive GW2 is getting way too hyped and its going to disappoint a lot of people. "Oh you can do the older content again but on harder difficulty" Ok, that doesnt change the fact that its still OLD content, aka something Ive done before. The only reason it will sell good is due to the B2P model. But as far as retaining active players who log in? Im giving it 3 months before everyone realizes by taking away all the grind and time-sinks there will be nothing to do real fast.
I guess I don't see where doing the older content on a harder difficulty is any different than the grind and time-sinks from other games. You are still doing the same thing over and over.
Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
That's a fair assesment. I have a feeling GW2 will do a bit better than that. Maybe be rather popular for 3 months and by then SWTOR will have a huge update and people are going to flock back to that for a while. Suffice to say, I think it is likely no one MMO will sustain a large number of subs after launch and will peak with new expansions, as WoW continues on the downhill.
You missed all the real MMOs coming out. Sandbox returns to the industry so we can play MMOs they way they where indended.
Ironic that sandbox lovers tend to criticize the current MMORPG market for lacking diversity while the type of MMORPG market they have in mind may have even less diversity.
There really is no such thing as pure sandbox or pure themepark, to be truly successful today, i think an MMO needs to interweave the two.
Take a simplistic example - EVE is the best sandbox MMO, while TOR is undoubtebly a themepark. There is absolutely no reason why you EVE's boring-ass PVE missions can't have TOR-style dialogue or why TOR's terribad space combat can't have EVE's complexity. The two need not be separate. Obviously it's quite complicated to marry up the different parts of the game, but that's where the room for innovation exists.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
Since Dominus is using the same HeroEngine that SWTOR is using, I'll say that Dominus will not take over as de factor pvp game from anyone. HeroEngine has got to be one of the worst engines to be released in the last ten years.
Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
Since Dominus is using the same HeroEngine that SWTOR is using, I'll say that Dominus will not take over as de factor pvp game from anyone. HeroEngine has got to be one of the worst engines to be released in the last ten years.
I would agree if i had not taken part in an early Alpha test of the then unnamed Prime,and guess what even in early Alpha the engine blew SWTOR out of the water,Even the devs from The Repopulation have stated that Bioware only used certain tools and not Hero to it's full potential,there are over 100 dev companies working on Mo's and standard games with the engine !!
Everquest goes free to play in March. Takes the MMO market by storm, holding over 2 million players. SoE announces EQ Next to be released 2013 at Sony Fan Faire. The crowd rejoices.
War will close as final war players go tsw, planetside 2 and gw2 for THREE sided pvp Gw2 will be second biggest mmo in west (and possibly world wide) Swtor will drop a ton of subs and look in danger Rift will pick up a bit (mainly from swtor it clones wow better) Tsw will launch small be surprisingly decent if a bit buggy and actually grow a bit Wow will steadily decline but still be number 1 by a massive margin Eve will stay as is Tera will do ok in east, flop in west
I predict the following for this year...............
1 - Disgruntled SWG vets will finaly stop moping around and dribling on their T-shirts and get organised.
2 - They will form the Peoples mmorpg liberation front or "pmmorpglf" for short.
3 - Staging attacks on key mmorpg publishing houses they will start the great mmorpg war or "gmmorpgw 1" for short.
4 - In the wake of the gmmorpgw 1 all mmo's have been destroyed apart from Hello kitty online adventures wich all surviving mmorpg addicts are forced to play.
5 - The mmorpg.com forums are a strange place in the furure. It is not uncommon among the thousands of Hello Kitty leveling guides and feature reports to find threads on how people miss their favorite games like Runescape and Knight Online or 4Story.
Be on your guard gentle reader or this cautionary tale could become real!..........No seriously, I just made all that up!...........Or did I?..................No, it just came off the top of my head.........Or did it?.........
MoP will post at least as many sales as Cataclysm, WoW will increase subs for a short period, and then will go back to current levels, and continue to slowly decline.
GW2 will post huge sales (3-5 million before year's end), and receive critical acclaim. Forums will be filled with love/hate threads due to how different the game will be from current mmo models. It will become the pvpers mmo.
SWTOR will stabilize around the 700k mark. Most losses will be due to MoP and GW2. Bioware will begin earnestly fixing the problems with the game.
TERA will be as well received as Aion was, and considered a failure in the Western markets by western gamers.
TSW will have massive launch problems, but FunCom will recover and stabilize around 300k subs (mostly due to interesting setting).
D3 will post a huge number of sales, Blizzard will count annual pass WoW folks as D3 purchases. The RMT AH will prove to be succesful and will bring gaming down a dangerous path. We will hear of folks making a decent living off the RMT AH. Even though D3 isn't a mmo, it will be compared to the rest because of mmo-esque features. Forum hate for Blizzard will continue.
Rift will remain relevant and continue along with their fanbase.
TSW - Bugs and incomplete content will have players raging and from there it will be an uphill strugle for Funcom. It wont be as bad as AoC, but still a rather bad launch.
SWTOR - Steady decline in subs till the first ex-pack comes out, then everybody re-subs for a month or two.
GW2 - 2 mill sales at launch, 3 mill first year. Will be seen as the first game to truly evolve the mmo-genre in many years. A lot of hardcore mmo-players will write the game off as being too lite, too easy and designed for casual players. Perhaps they'll stay around for WvW, we'll see. The game will fail to take off as an e-sport to the extent Arenanet hope.
Tera - Will fail to make an impact with subs below 200k and go f2p.
GW2 will inspire absolutely legendary forum wars as nobody is quite sure whether it is a success or not. Haters will swear blind that nobody who bought it actually enjoys it and still plays. Fanbois will swear blind that it has the greatest satisfaction and retention ever. Lack of a subscription model ensures that neither side can be proved correct. Pass the popcorn.
Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
Since Dominus is using the same HeroEngine that SWTOR is using, I'll say that Dominus will not take over as de factor pvp game from anyone. HeroEngine has got to be one of the worst engines to be released in the last ten years.
I would agree if i had not taken part in an early Alpha test of the then unnamed Prime,and guess what even in early Alpha the engine blew SWTOR out of the water,Even the devs from The Repopulation have stated that Bioware only used certain tools and not Hero to it's full potential,there are over 100 dev companies working on Mo's and standard games with the engine !!
That is rediculous. I was there too and the Alpha didn't "blow SWTOR out of the water". You are comparing a completed game with 1000 times the art assets and objects on screen with an alpha test. I would like to further to explain how stupid your comment was but I'm not going to break the NDA.
Will change the face of mmo forever and will be looked upon as the biggest fail ever and developper will now stop (hopefully) making copy/past of the teampark trend we get served since Everquest and World of warcraft, up to 200 millions fail will maybe bring back creativity. After a lot of patch the game finaly become a niche for hardcore SW fan and the last supporter of the thempark mmo as we know it since eq, wow.
TSW
Well made and loved by their creator but at the same time a very unusual game that won't please that much people even tho it will be a high quality produce, will still get a particulary loyal fan base and become a niche for years to come, overall the game do well and sustain on it's own.
TERA
Will do initialy well and fall flat after some months, overshadowed by others product, dev will adapt and the game become a F2P and a very well working one at that as well as a refuge for Lineage 2
GW2
Good game, show people that u can have fun with something different and not hardcore, people will learn to relax and enjoy a game without all the work we are used to in regular mmo, will of course not please some self proclamed hardcore who will get back to waiting for the holy graal again.
WOW
Less player base and not being the game everyone look upon finaly after so many years will do the game wonderfull, wow get a little closer back to his root, is more fun than ever, its not giant we used to know and its nice like that
D3
Will do better than everyone tough, will be a refuge for a lot of holy graal of mmo seeker and a home for people bored with the mmo genre, we get back to the roots of fun, every player even on hardcore mmo will come and pass some times on D3 to relax and have some quick fun.
My guess for this year
The fail of SWTOR would be god send for the little mmo world and probably the end of the trend we are used to since eq and wow, i call a year of diversity, a year of quality and finaly some originality and a breath of fresh air. It will also be the year of the niche with a lot of quality title appealing to a whole lot of different kind of people, everyone will be happy, well all but sadly the sandbox lover, dreaming of a very distant archeage, maybe some hope of announcement for a eastern version by the end of the year hopefully.
Wow lover will still have wow even more fun than before and swtor as an added bonus, lineage 2 fan and more hardcore pvp people will have tera, and GW 2 will finaly fit a missing hole in the mmo genre today and appeal the mass, TSW will be a niche dream for a lot of people who think different.
Money wise i still say it will be Blizzard year yet again, BNET will become a more and more used interface and the blizzard hub of success, with D3, a wow expansion and a SC2 expansion, Bnet will win the year
2012 should be a banner year for MMO's. There are more varied and interesting well-funded MMO's coming out in a single 12 month span than have ever come before. 2 or more of these games are going to deliver. Here are the games listed in order of success.
1. Planetside 2- Releasing in end of 2012(or possibly early 2013) PS2 will come out of the gate modestly and then explode due to word of mouth. Once news of the game reaches the ears of the average FPS gamers they will descend upon the game to see what it offers. Many will instantly fall in love with the massive battles and loads of customization. The F2P League of Legends style payment model will make SOE boatloads of cash. By the end of 2013 PS2 will be one of the most widely played games in the world which will spawn a generation of MMOFPS clones. Most of which suck.
2. GW2- This is going to be a smash success but will surprisingly not be the biggest hit of 2012. 3-5 million box sales by Xmas with a slow but steady growth from there. Since its not P2P retention is mostly irrelevant. It wont be everything the hype suggests but it will still mostly deliver and be a great new experience which is sorely needed in the genre.
3. TSW- The Secret World will launch in surprisingly good shape but to modest numbers. The average MMO gamer wont know what to make of the modern day/sci-fi/horror setting and be initially turned off. Slowly people will get bored of other MMO's and give it a try and find it surprisingly fun and refreshing. The game grows slowly and at the end of 2012 has a healthy 500k subs. Because of the lack of competition in the moden day sci-fi genre TSW carves out a lucrative little corner of the MMO world and becomes an EVE like niche game which is quite profitable and recieves high acclaim.
4. SWTOR- The behemoth is the last of a generation of MMO's which has simply gone out of style in the themebox heavy era of the nextgen. Early 2012 is an absolute disaster for the game as subs drop dramactically after March's 1.2 patch which is still more of the same. Still, because of the Star Wars IP and Biowares name the game trudges along through a slew of big releases in 2012. By the summer of 2012 Bioware fires its current Lead Dev and hires someone with a better vision for the game. SWTOR goes in a different direction and moves to reinvent itself as a themebox which is the new rage in the genre. Space Combat and exploration becomes a primary focus as well as randomly generated Planets and planet content which is actually quite innovative. At the end of 2012 SWTOR is struggling with disapointing 400k subs but by the end of 2013 SWTOR resembles the game everyone was hoping it could be and has around 1 million subs again. Bioware learns from its mistakes with SWTOR and works on a Mass Effect MMO which greatly resembles SWTOR in its late 2013 format.
5. Dominus- This game from a small indie developer releases with barely a whimper. Without a great hype machine or even a moderately sized advertising campaign only the most informed and aware of MMO gamers are aware it was even released. It also doesnt help Dominus is the first MMO since SWTOR which uses the Hero Engine. Because of SWTOR's Hero engine problems many assume dominus is DOA (if they even knew of the game to begin with) ...........However....Dominus actually turns out to be a good game and the only true Sandbox/PvP game released in 2012. It doesnt take long for the sandbox crowd to catch onto Dominus and as word of mouth spreads the game finds a nice following of 250k.
6. TERA- Much like AION and every other Korean game since time began, TERA fails to find a following in the West. It survives through early 2013 but goes F2P and eventually closes servers by 2014 in North America.
2013 and Beyond-
Archage releases in early 2013 and does better than TERA but not by much.
EQnext releases in late 2013 and is a bit too last generation but still does well because there are fewer themeparks to compete with. It becomes the De facto Themepark until Titan releases in 2015.
Titan- Releases in 2015 and goes gangbusters due to being well-made and having a massive following because its a Blizzard title.
5. Dominus- This game from a small indie developer releases with barely a whimper. Without a great hype machine or even a moderately sized advertising campaign only the most informed and aware of MMO gamers are aware it was even released. It also doesnt help Dominus is the first MMO since SWTOR which uses the Hero Engine. Because of SWTOR's Hero engine problems many assume dominus is DOA (if they even knew of the game to begin with) ...........However....Dominus actually turns out to be a good game and the only true Sandbox/PvP game released in 2012. It doesnt take long for the sandbox crowd to catch onto Dominus and as word of mouth spreads the game finds a nice following of 250k.
I was over at their site for the first time a couple of weeks back... looks promising. Btw, Sanya Weathers, the original DAOC community manager is the community manager for Dominus.
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“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
Someone does not know much about GW2 it seems....anyway...
GW2 will get about 2-3 Million Subs in the first 6 months and then stay at the top of the Food Chain for 5+ Years.
Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
Since Dominus is using the same HeroEngine that SWTOR is using, I'll say that Dominus will not take over as de factor pvp game from anyone. HeroEngine has got to be one of the worst engines to be released in the last ten years.
I would agree if i had not taken part in an early Alpha test of the then unnamed Prime,and guess what even in early Alpha the engine blew SWTOR out of the water,Even the devs from The Repopulation have stated that Bioware only used certain tools and not Hero to it's full potential,there are over 100 dev companies working on Mo's and standard games with the engine !!
Ouch, so what does that say about Bioware? I do like the guys who are Dominus, I'd been watching their videos when I go over and remember. They seem like nice guys. If they can make HeroEngine work a lot better then Bioware, then I'll give it a try.
Just post some things you think are going to happen in the MMO world this year. -Guild Wars 2 will be popular for a month, then forgotten about - The Secret World will be exactly like Age of Conan -SWTOR will retain 500,000+ subs -Dominus will take over as the de facto PvP game from GW2 - Mortal Online will finally die
Someone does not know much about GW2 it seems....anyway...
GW2 will get about 2-3 Million Subs in the first 6 months and then stay at the top of the Food Chain for 5+ Years.
That's wishful thinking on my part.
Its also rediculous. GW2 is B2P and does not have subs.
Comments
This is more wishful thinking than a prediction.
The Repopulation,Firefly Universe,Salem,(Dawntide i know this one is a long shot !!)
Check this out
http://sandboxer.org/
Dominus was formally (Prime battle for Dominus) PVP centric useing the Hero Engine,hopefully way better than Bioware.
http://www.dominusthegame.com/
I guess I don't see where doing the older content on a harder difficulty is any different than the grind and time-sinks from other games. You are still doing the same thing over and over.
That's a fair assesment. I have a feeling GW2 will do a bit better than that. Maybe be rather popular for 3 months and by then SWTOR will have a huge update and people are going to flock back to that for a while. Suffice to say, I think it is likely no one MMO will sustain a large number of subs after launch and will peak with new expansions, as WoW continues on the downhill.
There really is no such thing as pure sandbox or pure themepark, to be truly successful today, i think an MMO needs to interweave the two.
Take a simplistic example - EVE is the best sandbox MMO, while TOR is undoubtebly a themepark. There is absolutely no reason why you EVE's boring-ass PVE missions can't have TOR-style dialogue or why TOR's terribad space combat can't have EVE's complexity. The two need not be separate. Obviously it's quite complicated to marry up the different parts of the game, but that's where the room for innovation exists.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Since Dominus is using the same HeroEngine that SWTOR is using, I'll say that Dominus will not take over as de factor pvp game from anyone.
HeroEngine has got to be one of the worst engines to be released in the last ten years.
I would agree if i had not taken part in an early Alpha test of the then unnamed Prime,and guess what even in early Alpha the engine blew SWTOR out of the water,Even the devs from The Repopulation have stated that Bioware only used certain tools and not Hero to it's full potential,there are over 100 dev companies working on Mo's and standard games with the engine !!
Everquest goes free to play in March. Takes the MMO market by storm, holding over 2 million players. SoE announces EQ Next to be released 2013 at Sony Fan Faire. The crowd rejoices.
Pandas are pandas, and I will make a monk.
Those are my only predictions.
Gw2 will be second biggest mmo in west (and possibly world wide)
Swtor will drop a ton of subs and look in danger
Rift will pick up a bit (mainly from swtor it clones wow better)
Tsw will launch small be surprisingly decent if a bit buggy and actually grow a bit
Wow will steadily decline but still be number 1 by a massive margin
Eve will stay as is
Tera will do ok in east, flop in west
Planetside 2 will be awesome, then 3 months in Sony will make a bunch of game breaking changes
Guild Wars 2 becomes self aware on December 21 and eradicates the human race.
I predict the following for this year...............
1 - Disgruntled SWG vets will finaly stop moping around and dribling on their T-shirts and get organised.
2 - They will form the Peoples mmorpg liberation front or "pmmorpglf" for short.
3 - Staging attacks on key mmorpg publishing houses they will start the great mmorpg war or "gmmorpgw 1" for short.
4 - In the wake of the gmmorpgw 1 all mmo's have been destroyed apart from Hello kitty online adventures wich all surviving mmorpg addicts are forced to play.
5 - The mmorpg.com forums are a strange place in the furure. It is not uncommon among the thousands of Hello Kitty leveling guides and feature reports to find threads on how people miss their favorite games like Runescape and Knight Online or 4Story.
Be on your guard gentle reader or this cautionary tale could become real!..........No seriously, I just made all that up!...........Or did I?..................No, it just came off the top of my head.........Or did it?.........
Let's see.
MoP will post at least as many sales as Cataclysm, WoW will increase subs for a short period, and then will go back to current levels, and continue to slowly decline.
GW2 will post huge sales (3-5 million before year's end), and receive critical acclaim. Forums will be filled with love/hate threads due to how different the game will be from current mmo models. It will become the pvpers mmo.
SWTOR will stabilize around the 700k mark. Most losses will be due to MoP and GW2. Bioware will begin earnestly fixing the problems with the game.
TERA will be as well received as Aion was, and considered a failure in the Western markets by western gamers.
TSW will have massive launch problems, but FunCom will recover and stabilize around 300k subs (mostly due to interesting setting).
D3 will post a huge number of sales, Blizzard will count annual pass WoW folks as D3 purchases. The RMT AH will prove to be succesful and will bring gaming down a dangerous path. We will hear of folks making a decent living off the RMT AH. Even though D3 isn't a mmo, it will be compared to the rest because of mmo-esque features. Forum hate for Blizzard will continue.
Rift will remain relevant and continue along with their fanbase.
December 21, 2012, world will end :P
TSW - Bugs and incomplete content will have players raging and from there it will be an uphill strugle for Funcom. It wont be as bad as AoC, but still a rather bad launch.
SWTOR - Steady decline in subs till the first ex-pack comes out, then everybody re-subs for a month or two.
GW2 - 2 mill sales at launch, 3 mill first year. Will be seen as the first game to truly evolve the mmo-genre in many years. A lot of hardcore mmo-players will write the game off as being too lite, too easy and designed for casual players. Perhaps they'll stay around for WvW, we'll see. The game will fail to take off as an e-sport to the extent Arenanet hope.
Tera - Will fail to make an impact with subs below 200k and go f2p.
Archeage - Nowhere to be seen, but youtube.
2012?
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
-Pete Townsend
WoW will keep being WoW although with a few less subs around 8 million
TSW will have around 500k subs
Tera will have around 300k subs
SWTOR will have around 700k subs
GW2 will sell 3 million copies
All of these at the end of 2012.
That is rediculous. I was there too and the Alpha didn't "blow SWTOR out of the water". You are comparing a completed game with 1000 times the art assets and objects on screen with an alpha test. I would like to further to explain how stupid your comment was but I'm not going to break the NDA.
SWTOR
Will change the face of mmo forever and will be looked upon as the biggest fail ever and developper will now stop (hopefully) making copy/past of the teampark trend we get served since Everquest and World of warcraft, up to 200 millions fail will maybe bring back creativity. After a lot of patch the game finaly become a niche for hardcore SW fan and the last supporter of the thempark mmo as we know it since eq, wow.
TSW
Well made and loved by their creator but at the same time a very unusual game that won't please that much people even tho it will be a high quality produce, will still get a particulary loyal fan base and become a niche for years to come, overall the game do well and sustain on it's own.
TERA
Will do initialy well and fall flat after some months, overshadowed by others product, dev will adapt and the game become a F2P and a very well working one at that as well as a refuge for Lineage 2
GW2
Good game, show people that u can have fun with something different and not hardcore, people will learn to relax and enjoy a game without all the work we are used to in regular mmo, will of course not please some self proclamed hardcore who will get back to waiting for the holy graal again.
WOW
Less player base and not being the game everyone look upon finaly after so many years will do the game wonderfull, wow get a little closer back to his root, is more fun than ever, its not giant we used to know and its nice like that
D3
Will do better than everyone tough, will be a refuge for a lot of holy graal of mmo seeker and a home for people bored with the mmo genre, we get back to the roots of fun, every player even on hardcore mmo will come and pass some times on D3 to relax and have some quick fun.
My guess for this year
The fail of SWTOR would be god send for the little mmo world and probably the end of the trend we are used to since eq and wow, i call a year of diversity, a year of quality and finaly some originality and a breath of fresh air. It will also be the year of the niche with a lot of quality title appealing to a whole lot of different kind of people, everyone will be happy, well all but sadly the sandbox lover, dreaming of a very distant archeage, maybe some hope of announcement for a eastern version by the end of the year hopefully.
Wow lover will still have wow even more fun than before and swtor as an added bonus, lineage 2 fan and more hardcore pvp people will have tera, and GW 2 will finaly fit a missing hole in the mmo genre today and appeal the mass, TSW will be a niche dream for a lot of people who think different.
Money wise i still say it will be Blizzard year yet again, BNET will become a more and more used interface and the blizzard hub of success, with D3, a wow expansion and a SC2 expansion, Bnet will win the year
2012 should be a banner year for MMO's. There are more varied and interesting well-funded MMO's coming out in a single 12 month span than have ever come before. 2 or more of these games are going to deliver. Here are the games listed in order of success.
1. Planetside 2- Releasing in end of 2012(or possibly early 2013) PS2 will come out of the gate modestly and then explode due to word of mouth. Once news of the game reaches the ears of the average FPS gamers they will descend upon the game to see what it offers. Many will instantly fall in love with the massive battles and loads of customization. The F2P League of Legends style payment model will make SOE boatloads of cash. By the end of 2013 PS2 will be one of the most widely played games in the world which will spawn a generation of MMOFPS clones. Most of which suck.
2. GW2- This is going to be a smash success but will surprisingly not be the biggest hit of 2012. 3-5 million box sales by Xmas with a slow but steady growth from there. Since its not P2P retention is mostly irrelevant. It wont be everything the hype suggests but it will still mostly deliver and be a great new experience which is sorely needed in the genre.
3. TSW- The Secret World will launch in surprisingly good shape but to modest numbers. The average MMO gamer wont know what to make of the modern day/sci-fi/horror setting and be initially turned off. Slowly people will get bored of other MMO's and give it a try and find it surprisingly fun and refreshing. The game grows slowly and at the end of 2012 has a healthy 500k subs. Because of the lack of competition in the moden day sci-fi genre TSW carves out a lucrative little corner of the MMO world and becomes an EVE like niche game which is quite profitable and recieves high acclaim.
4. SWTOR- The behemoth is the last of a generation of MMO's which has simply gone out of style in the themebox heavy era of the nextgen. Early 2012 is an absolute disaster for the game as subs drop dramactically after March's 1.2 patch which is still more of the same. Still, because of the Star Wars IP and Biowares name the game trudges along through a slew of big releases in 2012. By the summer of 2012 Bioware fires its current Lead Dev and hires someone with a better vision for the game. SWTOR goes in a different direction and moves to reinvent itself as a themebox which is the new rage in the genre. Space Combat and exploration becomes a primary focus as well as randomly generated Planets and planet content which is actually quite innovative. At the end of 2012 SWTOR is struggling with disapointing 400k subs but by the end of 2013 SWTOR resembles the game everyone was hoping it could be and has around 1 million subs again. Bioware learns from its mistakes with SWTOR and works on a Mass Effect MMO which greatly resembles SWTOR in its late 2013 format.
5. Dominus- This game from a small indie developer releases with barely a whimper. Without a great hype machine or even a moderately sized advertising campaign only the most informed and aware of MMO gamers are aware it was even released. It also doesnt help Dominus is the first MMO since SWTOR which uses the Hero Engine. Because of SWTOR's Hero engine problems many assume dominus is DOA (if they even knew of the game to begin with) ...........However....Dominus actually turns out to be a good game and the only true Sandbox/PvP game released in 2012. It doesnt take long for the sandbox crowd to catch onto Dominus and as word of mouth spreads the game finds a nice following of 250k.
6. TERA- Much like AION and every other Korean game since time began, TERA fails to find a following in the West. It survives through early 2013 but goes F2P and eventually closes servers by 2014 in North America.
2013 and Beyond-
Archage releases in early 2013 and does better than TERA but not by much.
EQnext releases in late 2013 and is a bit too last generation but still does well because there are fewer themeparks to compete with. It becomes the De facto Themepark until Titan releases in 2015.
Titan- Releases in 2015 and goes gangbusters due to being well-made and having a massive following because its a Blizzard title.
I was over at their site for the first time a couple of weeks back... looks promising. Btw, Sanya Weathers, the original DAOC community manager is the community manager for Dominus.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Someone does not know much about GW2 it seems....anyway...
GW2 will get about 2-3 Million Subs in the first 6 months and then stay at the top of the Food Chain for 5+ Years.
That's wishful thinking on my part.
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
Ouch, so what does that say about Bioware? I do like the guys who are Dominus, I'd been watching their videos when I go over and remember. They seem like nice guys. If they can make HeroEngine work a lot better then Bioware, then I'll give it a try.
Its also rediculous. GW2 is B2P and does not have subs.