2010 Predictions Review

I see others are reviewing their 2010 predictions.  As I said, I totally missed the boat on this last year, but it was a fun exercise.  I recommend to you other peoples predictions ahead of my own.  Nonetheless, here you go.  First up, my five predictions…

Five Predictions…

1.  Despite the obvious interest and backing they could generate, no on will announce work on a Transformers or G.I. Joe MMORPG in the coming year.   Which is probably fine, because if the movies are any indication, their ability to completely trash the IP is unparalleled.

Yeah, this was kinda off the cuff, but its true.  And I was right.  The closest we came to anything was a Transformers shooter.  Yuck.  Give me a cell-shaded 80’s style Transformers MMORPG and I would be a lifetime subber in a heartbeat. 

2.  Bethesda will finally…officially… announce their Elder Scrolls MMO.  Also, this is a hunch, but…it won’t be set in Tamriel.  I know it would make no sense not to use their established IP, but…companies don’t always do the smart thing.

Maybe?  A new Elder Scrolls game is coming – finally.  But the company will not comment on if its an MMO or not.  Which is odd.  If its a single player game – why did it take four years to announce it – five to launch it?  And just what the hell has your online division been doing for the last several years while all this has been going on?  One thing I did for sure get wrong here – this will be set in Tamriel, specifically in Skyrim.  On the flipside, if we have dragons returning, we could be watching for a cataclysm-style reboot (no I won’t capitalize that – they weren’t the first to do that).

3.  SWTOR will not be released in 2010.

Yep.  Back then there was a debate about whether TOR would drop in fall of 2010 or spring of 2011.  We now know it will be spring of 2011, and I feel, we can even confidently narror that down to April of 2011.  This has been a deep investment for Bioware, and by all the Beta accounts, the game is in balancing and polishing time right now.  So there will be no need to delay.  The sooner in their fiscal year BW launches this, the greater their return at the end of the fiscal year.  Anyway, nothing awesome about this one.  When in doubt about an MMO release, err on the side of “later.”

4.  WAR will finally announce what everyone has been waiting for – more races and classes.  I’m betting Wood Elves and Vampire Counts.

No.  WAR continues to believe that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread as is, despite evidence to the contrary.  And what would bring others into the game, is in face keeping people like me out.  Fallen Earth is starting to move in this same direction (“PvP at the expense of everything else”) and its  going to push me out of that game eventually too.

5.  EVE will finally get ambulated.  They won’t have a choice – its time to step up to the plate, or let STO own a patch of the space mmo business that they don’t have a flag already planted on.

No.  It might would have happened if STO had created more of an impact on the market.  Still, for all the banging on STO, its holding its own, and it continues to offer something other MMO’s don’t – periodic, free PvE content updates.  Still EVE is headed this way.  I’m not sure why.  Ambulation makes zero sense lore or game wise, that’s for sure.

So that’s, uh 2.5 out of 5 if you count the Elder Scrolls maybe as half correct. 

As for my Mosts:

My most anticipated release of 2010 was entirely correct.  There really wasn’t any other MMO I was looking for in 2010.  And I did dip into the year long sub so I have played it off and on all year.

My most anticipated failure will take some time to pan out.  I still think Cataclysm is the high water mark for WoW.  And I see some early reports that this might be true.  The hardcore players I know blew through all the content within a week.  And now they are bored and restless, again.  One of them started a new race/class combo – and is halfway to cap already.  One of them is asking me about EQ2X, and the other is giving up his sub in favor of Call of Duty action.  Which is why MMO’s trending toward PvP is insanity.  Why would you want to compete with juggernauts like CoD that can not only whip you ass with numbers, but can put out new games faster than you could ever dream of doing so…

My most anticipated beta didn’t hold.  I have been in the Rift beta – and I’m still trying to figure out if the NDA has been lifted or not – if you have some insight let me know, I’d love to tell you alllll about it – and would love a spot in the Star Wars beta, but those are rare as hens teeth apparently.  And there is no real evidence that the Secret World even *has* a beta yet.  I think maybe Funcom dropped their teaser trailers a weeee bit too early.

My least?

My least anticipated releases held as well.  I really have no interest if there is no RPG element.  Industry dudes:  learn it, love it – or die by it.

My least wanted game death, fortunately did not come to pass.  If anything, it got alot of love this year.  With Pirates of the Burning Sea going free to play, it  got a new lease on life.  I’m ashamed to say I haven’t even gotten a chance to play it yet.  I guess I need to give it some love as well.  Expect a PotBS post or three later this month.  In fact, nothing really got a plug pulled on it this year did it?  Even Alganon managed to chug along despire the hellstorm it went through.

And finally my most watched game of last year was Heroes of Telara, which got a rename as Rift.  And it was indeed my most watched game of 2010.  And I really want to tell you about it.  Alot. 

So in about a week, I’ll lay out 5 new predictions, and a new set of most and least.  We’ll see how 2011 pans out m’kay?

Last Gasp for SWG, PotBS?

Is it just coincidence that Star Wars: Galaxies and Pirates of the Burning Sea are both offering up a full month of free time right now?  Or is something else lurking behind the emails sitting in my inbox offering me more free time than Sony is usually want to give for teaser sessions?

Is this SW:G final stand?

SWG is, overtly, rolling out some new PvP content that they want people on board for – but all the extra items and goodies they are offering with the free time highlight player housing – something more of an investment (and PvE nature) than PvP is.  In other words, they want the full spectrum of players on board.  Free play lasts until March 1st.

PotBS is highlighting their server merges (down to 2 from 5).  Trust me, I know from first hand experience how desperate the player base was for this.  My mid 20’s privateer regularly got invited to fleet battles with 40-50th level players, because they couldn’t fill their quota, and one more ship, even a small one, might be enough to tip the balance.  Interestingly, there is no word in the email of economy changes and updates, which are the core of whats wrong in Pirates.  Free play lasts until March 5th there.

On the one hand, this makes sense.  For those disappointed with Star Trek Online, and there are some, they need a fix.  Offering them a SWG, with its similiar high profile IP makes sense, as does offering up Pirates, a game that admitedly, offers game mechanics very similar to that offered on STO.  Covering this month gives them a chance to hook the disaffected, and perhaps those disaffected will stick around and bring in some of those that will not stay around past the free month of STO.

Beneath the surface though, lies the fiscal reality of Sony.  Sony is only just now getting back onto its feet after a year of losing money.   Giving a free month now means they can track how many people will stick around past the free time for the last month of their fiscal year, which ends March 31st.  If the free time doesn’t boost numbers by a certain amount – will that mean that they get chopped?

For me personally, I’m not sure a return to Pirates is in order.  The underlying frustration with the economy is not solved by more players – at least, not in the short term.  The only way to acquire ships abover level 25 or so is to join one of the pre-existing guilds, and even finding new ships below that is dicey.  Meaning that playing anything other than a pirate (with their ability to capture vessels) is frustrating.  With a larger player base things might turn over (it takes *alot* of players to build a ship, especially the high level ones), but not unless those players are sticking around long enough to build their economic empires.

Star Wars, on the other hand, is intriguing.  I really only stopped playing SWG because I wanted to participate in the launch of WAR, and I’d really like to give it another shot.  Crafting and economics were fun, space combat was good.  Population was – sparse and irritating.  But I’m sure the server mergers have helped.  I seem to remember somewhere though that since I didn’t transfer the characters, I’m going to have to start from scratch.  Only one way to find out…

NEW YEARS PREDICTIONS

Sorry, I guess somehow I didn’t realize I was supposed to do this since I had a blog – and I apologize for totally missing the boat last January.  So here’s five predictions and a few tidbits from me to  you about the year to come:

Five Predictions…

1.  Despite the obvious interest and backing they could generate, no on will announce work on a Transformers or G.I. Joe MMORPG in the coming year.   Which is probably fine, because if the movies are any indication, their ability to completely trash the IP is unparalleled.

2.  Bethesda will finally…officially… announce their Elder Scrolls MMO.  Also, this is a hunch, but…it won’t be set in Tamriel.  I know it would make no sense not to use their established IP, but…companies don’t always do the smart thing.

3.  SWTOR will not be released in 2010.

4.  WAR will finally announce what everyone has been waiting for – more races and classes.  I’m betting Wood Elves and Vampire Counts.

5.  EVE will finally get ambulated.  They won’t have a choice – its time to step up to the plate, or let STO own a patch of the space mmo business that they don’t have a flag already planted on.

My most….

Anticipated Release:       Star Trek Online

I’ll know in about two weeks if it was worth the sleepless nights I’m enduring right now.  And honestly, some of my anticipation is the happiness of again having a game with real life friends playing along right beside me.  The last time I had  that was, outside of a random few nights in Vanguard, World of Warcraft.  How this will stack up with my online community in EVE will be interesting.  I have no beef with Cryptic myself – I’m enjoying Champions, so I’m hopeful that the game will be halfway decent.

Anticipated Failure:  Cataclysm

You can smell it in the air already.  Big, successful companies start dying when they start drinking their own koolaid, and believing in their own invulnerability, buying into their own hype.  WoW believes it can’t be killed.  It believes it has too many people and too much control over the market to fall.  And so they are going to do something that is guarenteed to alienate people – making changes to old favorites – and they believe that it can’t hurt them – that they will carry on and grow even bigger from it.  They are wrong.  This will be WoW’s “jumping the shark” moment.

Desired Beta Spot:  The Secret World

It just looks awesome.  And its either that or World of Darkness, but I’m not a huge fan of WoD.  Anyway, it looks good, and I’m hoping to get in.

My least…

Anticipated Release:  Everything that’s not an MMORPG

There is a growing trend of releasing shooters online and calling them MMO’s – which they technically are – but covering them and treating them and in some cases even trying to call and designate them as RPG’s.   Stargate, The Agency, Jumpgate, That…criminal one who’s name I can’t remember.  I have no interest in any of these.  By the current market definition, Modern Warfare 2 is an MMO.  Something about that just isn’t right.

Wanted Game Death:  Pirates of the Burning Sea

I don’t want it, but I’m pretty sure its going to happen.  Which is sad – the combat by ship is solid, proof of that comes from its reincarnation in Star Trek Online.  The avatar combat is fun and the builds are myriad.  But…the economy is a horrific mess.  It is literally impossible to build most of the ships with one character – even with one account.  And there is…very little else to build.  The supply bundle and unrest system though is amazing – I’m surprised EVE hasn’t done something similar yet – and I hope it shows up elsewhere.   Not to mention the raw material sludgefest that you need a chart or six to untangle.  Anyway, the bottom line is that SOE will need to clear some cap space to bring in its new games, ands it already proven its willingness to ditch titles with the loss of Matrix Online this year.  Sad but true.

And award for the game that will interest me the most and make me watch the most this year…

Heroes of Telara

Van Canegham has had a hand in breaking  new ground in the RPG industry not once.  Not twice.  But three times.  So we can be reasonably assured that he sees or is working himself on something very new and intriquing with his backers at Trion.

Anyway, that’s my 2010 stuff, such as it is.

Late Nights

So last night, RL wasn’t too kind to me.  In fact, it was pretty crappy.  So I was glad to see my brother’s name on the cell phone, calling for some Pirate Time ™.  But as you know by now – not in EVE.  We only play pirates in the age of sail.  So out came the card and in went the PotBS subscription again.  I had every intention of doing a full on Station Pass, and probably still will next month with some birthday cash, but…truth is, I never was able to find a groove in EQ2, and I had my hands full with EVE, so two games should be enough to hold me for now.

We had fun, clearing out the quests in New Orleans and getting back in the groove of things.  Find a ship is getting to be the hard part.  Theres only so many level 25-30 missions you can tackle with a level 17 fall back ship.  My brother being 8 levels ahead of me helps, but even he has a frigate a good bit below his level.  And even 8 levels up, I’m still usually the boarding ships (for any number of reasons, but mostly because grenades rules).  Last night I sat toe to toe in my Hermes fallback trying desperately to get my crew ratio high enough to board the Cerberus next to me.  It wasn’t pretty.

We closed up our session when I glitched out – again, for the umpteenth time.  It has something to do with bumping the coastline I think, but…oosh, it does not make me happy.  But then RL hit me again, so I trumped downstairs at half past midnight with a bottle of rum and a fierce desire to mine asteroids.

And apparently I should drink while I mine more often.  In what seemed like no time, I was awash in tritanium.  I’m really starting to wonder if I shouldn’t make go ahead and make that push to battleship.  Meanwhile, the corp continues to flounder on the shores of 0.0, desperate to get in.  Our CEO told us yesterday, among other things, that he was not worried about our numbers, because once we got our 0.0 space, we would have “literally hundreds of applications.”  I can’t really argue, because I haven’t been there yet, but as usual I’m skeptical.  Besides, what percentage of those are going to be spies!

I’ll post again tonight with screen shots that will answer the poll (as of this writing, we have a 6 way tie in the voting).  I had intended to bring them with me to work, but forgot them at home this morning.  You can blame me if you want, but I blame the rum.