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General: The Top 10 MMOs of 2012 - Revisited
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
Back in 2009, our own Jon Wood took a look at the ten games he thought would be dominating the market in 2012. This week, we take a look at Jon's list and find out whether his predictions are on track or a bust.
Back in 2009, our own Jon Wood took a look deep into his crystal ball to find out what games he believed would be dominating the market in 2012. Surprisingly enough, there's a lot of stuff in that original List which could still wind up true next year. But as all prophets do, Jon took a few guesses that just didn't pan out. In this week's List let's go through his original "Ten Games" and see what was a hit and what was a big ol' miss. Of course 2012 is still four months away and all, but something tells me that number six and and a few others just won't be happening anytime soon. I'd also be willing to replace a few with games such as Lord of the Rings Online (Freemium), The Secret World, Rift and TERA as of today. But that's for another List next week! So grab your pop-corn, dive right in, and get ready to argue "what went wrong?" in the comments below!
Read the rest of Bill Murphy's The List: Top 10 MMOs of 2012 - Revisited.
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Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
About GW2, you can't live up to that hype... afterall, its still an MMO and not a holy grail.
Nevertheless, it will be the best MMO released since 2004... without any doubt.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The secret world is going to be a sleeper hit, mark my words...
The article is a review of the list that was made in 2009 based on how things look today.
The original list, as was mentioned and linked in the post, is from 2009.
As usual it was a brain dead decision to leave Lotro out. Let's face it, more than half the choices were big losers. Oh well figuring out the future is a hard subject to start with, but ignoring all the red flags with some of these games was not.
Guild Wars 1, Campaign 4 (and beyond) -- had it ever been completed and released -- would have been a contender for the top 10, imo. The game was (and still is) enormously popular. It's a pity that ArenaNet discontinued it in favor of developing a more conventional sort of MMO (GW2).
Oh, I believe GW2 will be good, but I still think that the fundamental concepts and structure of GW1 had a lot of life left to them (I, for one, loved GW1's heavy instancing, skill system, low level cap, henchman/Heroes, etc.).
Hopefully, some other developer will recognize that potential and pick up the ball that ArenaNet has dropped. Too many of the MMOs currenly out there and/or now in development look very same-ish to me. GW1 was truly in a class by itself.
Actually by the end of 2012 Jon Wood will probably be right for the top 4, but the rest is just a mile off the mark. FF XIV will probably be up to scratch by then and will get a console release. SW:TOR is going to be a huge hit for Bioware...there is just so much game there now. GW2, yes, it has massive hype, but it is likely to be a huge hit. I think WoW will have slipped from number one by the end of 2012, but it will still probably have a core fand base and may be free 2 play to keep players while Blizzard move onto Titan.
Where is World War II Online? It has been going strong for 10 yrs now and hasn't skipped a beat with upgrades, updates and new players trying & buying everyday.
The community is strong (albeit, a niche market) and dedicated and no where else does a game convey the feelings of real war than during big battles both in the air and on the ground.
A shame it wasn't added....
Again, this was the 2009 list and 'where did we go wrong?'. Next week they're making a new prediction for 2012 top 10.
Waiting for Guild Wars 2, and maybe SWTOR until that time...
Dr. McCoy: "Ah come on, to err is human."
Spock: "Indeed, it is, Doctor."
I would not have known much better. We all assumed games like STO and FF14 would go better.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
No way GW2 can live up to the hype for anyone other than those who are creating the hype.
For average gamers caught up in the wave of fanboism, they will enjoy it, but not worship it as the second coming of christ like the zealots who preach about it.
I just hope that SWTOR, GW2 and whatever else is release in the coming twelve months help to push the MMO genre into a new wave of innovation. For these titles tweak, rather than innovate and I'm so desperate for something completely different right now.
I'd put EQ or EQ2 in before many of those titles. I hope Mr Murphy isn't going to ignore them completely.
Sadly I'd say Rift will be in the top ten of the next year...even if it is pants.
GW2 will surpass WoW and I think ToR will flop. I don't think it'll be a mighty flop but I don't believe it's going to get anywhere near the greatness that would be hoped for. I can't help but feel 'meh' about it.
WoW will be in the top 10 for a while yet. It'll never be fully my cup of tea, and you might just argue that it damaged the genre, but there's no denying it was well made and is well managed.
The Secret World? I don't know really. It's a dark horse and could either be a hugely phenomenal success or a bigger flop than Vanguard.
Let me see, my list for 2012? (adding it now to compare with Mr Murphy next week)
10. EVE
9. TERA
8. EQ2 (new expansion and all)
7. Archeage (so many people crying out for something new that this has to grab enough people to be there or there abouts)
6. LotRO
5. The Secret World
4. Rift
3. ToR (even if it is a virtual flop it'll have huge sales)
2. WoW
1. GW2
.
I have no doubt that Guild Wars 2 will be popular at launch. I have my doubts about how popular it will be a year after launch. Looking at how NCSoft miss-handled the Aion launch, I can see the launch of Guild Wars 2 being totally mis-handled. As many of us have seen over the years, a bad launch can really hurt a game in the end.
As for Guild Wars 1, I love it. I actually like many of it's features including instancing, limited skill bar, and arena based PvP (the way it should be as I see it). I don't see the lack of jumping as enough of an issue to be bothered with. I consider the lack of open-PvP to be a very nice feature. I wish they had chosen to continue making new chapters.
Speaking of that.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/new-eu-director-pr-ncsoft-t12014.html?t=12014&highlight=Public+relations
"MMO giant NCsoft appoints new EU Director of PR; games industry maven Cat Channon
After a worldwide search, NCsoft West is pleased to announce the appointment of Cat Channon as Director of PR. Channon brings a wealth of experience to the role, having served as Vivendi Universal Games’s Head of Public Relations during the launch of World of Warcraft, as well as senior roles at Eurogamer, Future Publishing, BAM! Entertainment, and Take-Two Interactive, covering all European territories. She will be based in the NCsoft Brighton office and will head up the European PR team."
"Veronique Lallier, EU MD for NCsoft West, said: “We’re thrilled to get Cat on board. We were looking for a connected, media-savvy professional to drive PR for our upcoming games, pushing Guild Wars 2 and our future announcements; with Cat’s experience and contacts across the U.K. and Europe, we know we have the right match.” "
Funny, they said the exact same thing about GW1 before it came out.
Oh yeah, I know, this time it'll be different...
Guild Wars 2 is not going to come out of the gate and in the first year have a larger player base than World of Warcraft. It just isn't going to happen.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
And now... a source please.
ncsoft has a retard policy not to localize their games beyond translation. This is why Aion crapped the bed (well did well given the fact it launched against nothing)
Gw2 is a western game and I do not think we will see a problem. Also as far as major publisher go with MMOs Ncsoft soft works pretty well.
Bill, the phrase you were looking for was "bona fide"... but bonified did make me smile.
I think your analysis is pretty much on the money, though I hope you have a flame-retardent suit for "daring" to suggest that GW2 will find it hard to live up to the hype. That will irk some people!
I'm really looking forward to trying both GW2 and SW:TOR (I know, right, how dare I not have a favorite!) but I'm not swallowing the hype on either of them.
As other have said, there was no way of knowing (til Beta at least) that FFXIV and STO would plummet so horribly. It really is a shame, on both fronts, fans of the IPs deserved better.
Looking forward to your own list next week!
I think Stradden's original list was a good one; back in '09 that Top Ten would have looked about right, though I seem to remember having heard of Archeage back then too. I don't know what I would have bumped from the list to make room for it though.
You can't believe any game hype coming out of Funcom. Just look at the hype and what was promissed about AoC and what you ended up getting. It might turn out okay, but there is really no point in listening to the company's executives or watching game previews, since what actually makes it into the game could be completely different.
No they didn't.
pretty good list, somethings right somethings wrong, but overall ok list. people are saying GW2 will surpass WoW or beat it down, NO that will not happen in 2012, yes it will take quite a few players from WoW, but will not bring it down im sorry.
madnessman
C
The irony level of this post is off the meter. Heck, it flat out broke my irony meter.