2010 MMORPG Predictions
Following suit with the traditional raft of new year blogging articles, here’s my rundown of MMORPG predictions for 2010.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Cataclysm will out sell WotLK and become the best selling PC game expansion ever. It will release around May or June to huge critical acclaim and attract millions of players back to WoW.
Mortal Online
MO will prove to be a relative success and receive a niché yet strong and avid following. Blogs and forums will be rife with comparisons between MO and Darkfall and the usual arguments of casual vs hardcore. It will lack polish and be full of bugs yet offer a freedom of play which appeals to many.
Allods Online
AO will prove to be the sleeper hit of 2010, generating a lot of interest and initial players using it’s F2P model. The F2P model will result in some particularly powerful and required items being sold which sparks huge debate over whether or not it’s a successful and fair business model.
Star Trek Online
Will launch to mediocre reviews and a heathly number of initial purchases which then steeply declines after one month. Everyone will criticise the ability to only PVE as the Federation and Cryptic will promise other factions in future expansions.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Won’t be released until 2011.
Global Agenda
GA will receive some positive, although not glowing, reviews and build a healthy base of subscribers as gamers enjoying playing something different. It will be hailed as the MMOFPS that Tabula Rasa should’ve been.
Dust 514
Dust will launch in November and sell well as there will be no other new MMOs coming out at that time. It will receive high praise for it’s interactivity with the EVE Online universe and initially spark a lot of interest from current EVE subscribers. By mid 2011 however, it will be all but forgotten.
Fallout MMORPG
A Fallout MMORPG will be officially announced and the gaming community will go ape-shit over it.
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You’re playing it safe, aren’t you?
Hehe yeah… although I prefer to think of it as being as “accurate” as possible
There’s also going to be a TES Online (Morrowind, Oblivion, Etc.), Bethesda already purchased the domain name a year ago or so.
Awesome!
I don’t think the WoW expansion will come out until the October/November time frame
That’s what I thought originally but I think they’d be crazy to delay it that long… never know though.
[...] predictions for next year, so I am putting this sentence in as a place to link to them as their posts show [...]
Wondering why you’d think DUST 514 will get a lot of interest from the EVE crowd? I’m going to go out on a limb and guesstimate that EVE has attracted a high majority of PC Elitists who therefore do not own a console to play DUST 514 on, nor will they be willing to purchase one for a single game.
Forgotten by next year? That’s entirely possible since shooters is one of the heaviest markets on the console platforms. CCP will have to come out of the gate with a fun and compelling shooter to get initial box sales and then keep up the momentum otherwise players will eagerly jump ship and onto the next new shiny shooter that comes down the pike a few months later.
I do hope Allods doesn’t make that item shop mistake, but I’m betting they will. Runes of Magic certainly did, which was unfortunate.
Hmm, I dunno… I think even EVE gamers are still gamers and will like it for the connection to EVE. Not sure if it would really appeal to die hard FPSers? That’s the problem I guess, who’s their target market?
What about Age of Conan? Do you think that their expansion will generate any long term interest or revival?
I think it’s almost too late for AoC. I mean, 2 years without an expansion and going the way it’s going? I dunno. It would have to be a pretty amazing addition to the game.
Already going ape-shit over fallout mmorpg
Join the club
Hello Gordon.
Even if I’m ok with your opinion on the fact that EvE players will “accept” Dust, I don’t agree with your predictions on the fact that by mid 2011 however, it will be all but forgotten. What makes you think this? The EvE Lore is there and I know a lot of people (PC or Console gamers) that didn’t went after the trial for X reasons (to complicated, to deep, etc) but these gamers are fans of the lore and the “soul” of EvE. Dust will make me buy a console I think (And I’ve played EvE for years now, and I’m a big PC addict). CCP can make a revolution with that merging concept.
For Scott :
EvE players will accept and like Dust because they’re intelligent. They’ll understand the great potentiality of this soft interacted with theirs. Economy, diplomacy etc. This might bring our gamers experience to another level: way more global, more interactive. It might be fun for all of us, console or PC players.
Sorry for my written skills, English is not my mother tongue. :p
I think if I wrote the predictions again today, I might say something different about Dust and agree that it looks like it will be around for a long time. When I wrote the article I had no idea they were going to bring out planetary stuff with Tyrannis