Future Predictions

KrimBlade

Where do you think the MMORPG world will be one year from now.  What game do you feel is going to be the best and most played?  One of the up comming releases or a game that is already released.  Please post why you make your choice.

I feel Dark & Light will be on top.  It has beautiful graphics and unique character design.  I have watched a few vidios and the combat looks good, but of course you can't decide that until you play it.  The PvP has a similarity to WoW's A/H system, where you can attack anywhere as long as the two players are on opposing sides.  Also I read that D&L will have castle sieges like L2 (which I enjoy very much).

I talked to some beta players and they said the quests are both interesting and rewarding, but again, I won't make any assumptions until I play it myself.  Also D&L features the largest MMORPG world yet with endless areas to explore.

All in all, if NPCube plays their cards right, D&L could be a legend in the making.

Anofalye

I dont know for the next year.

 

But the first game to have:

 

- Appealing, nice and self sufficient solo system.

- Nice addictive, self rewarding, grouping system

- Some raiding, PvP, tradeskill is a strong asset, even in any limited form...as long as it dont affect the 2 above systems.

 

That game, will wreck the market if they figure those 2 main systems enought to appeal to casuals and hardcores(casuals lands been immune to hardcore uberness, level caps that bring you of the level limit is just the first feature to do so nicely).

 

Such a game would completely wreck the others MMORPGs share and lead the way for the next decade!  Do not underestimate how important solo or grouping are.  Peoples are simples.  They like the simples stuff to work, on a casual and on an hardcore way.  Have those 2 basics, and you wreck the market, completely.  Others high concerns points I see raisen over, over and over again may have some appeal, but if those 2 basics are not well done, you are wasting your efforts.  Before you start thinking of building the upper levels of the tower, the base must be builded.

 

CoH was pretty close to doing it.  However CoH failed at balancing a grouping system without shafting the soloing system.  CoH also fail at making it appealing to hardcores, but casuals where quite happy with the game if you exclude the accolades.  Very close to doing it...and if they would have, today it would be over a million subscriptions and growing for years...but they fail...not by much however.

KrimBlade

I must say that was very well said.

terstax

I feel like Tabula Rasa has the chance to be the standard bearer, but for some reason won't be the game with the highest player count. People still have a thing for the fantasy genre (why is anyone's guess) but it will be interesting watching it all unfold.

ste2000

D&L like Vanguard, will never have the same amount of players as, let's say, Wow.
They are aimed to CORE players which are a minority in the community right now.

The MMO market will move closer to GW type of games, which appeal at a broader audiance.
These are Off-line concept adapted to MMO market.
Will we see lots of game like this in the near future (Age of Conan next?)

Anofalye

A game that appeal only to casuals like Ste suggest is not destined to rule the market anymore then a game that appeal to core only.

 

Peoples want to play with...their RL friends.  And some of those friends are casuals, some are hardcores...a game need to appeal to ALL of them.

 

WoW get the support of Afterlife and FoH(and heavy reputation), which help them more then you will think, as many hardcore give it a try while the casuals where able to group with their hardcore friends.  However, to win the market high share, you need ALL gameplays to be happy in the game, this is the real challenge.  Now that 95% of the hardcores left WoW you will see it disintegrate faster then any other MMORPG...casuals will remain for sometimes, but not having a big part of their friends is weighting a lot on them, just like it was weighting on those hardcores playing old EQ for longer until they get tired to never be with RL friends.  In fact, I am surprised that WoW didnt already disintegrate...*boggle*  but I was surprised they never reach the ''millionS'' subscribers as well...

nethervoid

"CoH was pretty close to doing it."

No.  CoH was a shell.  It had about 2 months worth of content.  That's why it died.

carebear

I think Gods and Heroes has alot of potential. Did you see on the front page they're putting out a lot of cool information this week? Go check out the boards, they've got a community manager guy there and he sounds really helpful and eager to answer our questions too.

Thorongil

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Originally posted by Anofalye
Now that 95% of the hardcores left WoW you will see it disintegrate faster then any other MMORPG.

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That's a rather wild, silly, amusing, and interesting assertion without any facts to back it up.

Proof please?

pcorajr

I agree with one of the above posters, you will see a lot of GW like games come out and start dominating the market.

Back in the UO EQ days you had nothing else but EQ and UO with another few mmo that never took off. Today you got a LOT of MMO coming out.

People have many choices now and developers need to offer more and more content for the casual player because they are the ones that make up the majority of the community.