Well so far the years been peachy for me. I'm still enjoying LOTRO and its great community. My guilds just as strong as the day I joined it and there doesn't seem to be any slowing down on my particular server. CO is a blast to me and will be replacing CoX for me. I suspect CO will be a bit less successful then LOTRO though. Maybe 60k subscribers stable? If they can manage that they will pay off there development costs and post a profit pretty quickly. Fallen earth is a blast to me as well, but its really not ready for release in my opinion. Its come a long way since beta started, especially in the last few weeks. I think they will manage 10k subscribers. Enough for them to survive since they were such a small studio. Pretty impressive what a real indy achieved.
Frankly next year I think Im going to skip out on most of the new games. Not interested in another Star Wars. Hate Final Fantasy. I wont play Aion, not because its bad though. Just not my cup of tea. STO is about the only one ill be following.
All in all though Id say it was a fairly decent normal year. Ill probably stick with CO.
I agree with most of your post but your way off as far as Aion goes imo. Aion is by far the best MMO launch this year..not because its doesnt have competition but because its a polished MMO from a great company. It has the best parts of all MMOs out there right now. Give Aion about 1-2 years and it will still be at the top. See the 1.5 update? If thats a taste of things to come, Aion will has a long road ahead of it. Of course if ncsoft doesnt listen to the players and give them what they want, Aion can quickly go downhill.... The future of MMORPGs is NCsoft in my humble opition. GW2 is going to blow the socks off this genre. Of course its only my opition but GWs is highly over-looked. Once GW2 comes out the haters will be flocking in get ingame..and the current fans can only say "I told ya so" :-)
NCsoft games have a tendecy to fall on their butts. Guild Wars went nowhere, Lineage is like 5$ in the the store. And all of NCsofts's f2p games are simple kiddy games to me. NCsoft will never compare to Blizzard or Sony because there games are not well rounded. Aion has been their big creation and all, but i was not satisfied with the beta, I dont even like the class system where there is only one type of healer, and only one type of tank, those are little things that turn me off. The game did break Beta Testing records but I have no faith that the game will ever reach number 1 over WoW.
Why is it that everyone compares all new MMOs to WoW? WoWs numbers will likely never be matched...lets get over it. A new MMO doesn't have to outdue WoW in order to be a success, it just has to be polished and fun. How can you say Aion isnt going to be successfull? I honestly, dont understand your reasoning...because you dont like it? *sigh*
As for Guild Wars, it went nowhere? Come on now...seriously? Everytime I log in the towns are packed and its how old now? Guild Wars 2 is the only game that will hurt Guild Wars 1 numbers because theres no other game like it. The fact that you dont like GWs doesnt make GWs a failure..sorry LOL.
How can 2009 be "another year of mmo disappointment?" Only one MMO has released (Darkfall) with the others dues towards the end of it? It's obviously still to early but if you look at Darkfall as a failure and AION as a success (in Asia) with 3.5 million people, that would be a wash.
One hit and one failure. 50% is a good rate on MMOs actually.
I don't think we'll ever have another year as bad as 2008 when a game like Warhammer Online wins "Best New Game of the Year" as much as a piece of trailer trash as it was.
Yeah, 2009 has really been a "status quo" sort of year for the industry. Free Realms' release was probably the one that made the most headlines. That, Darkfall's release, Eve's expansion and WAR's continued slide (which got worse as the new year rolled around) were probably the highlights of the year so far.
Thru the end of the year though there's Aion (hyped) and CitiesXL (not so hyped) releasing, plus an expansion for LOTRO may be coming (correct me). You'll also see Champions Online, Fallen Earth and Mortal Online all fail.
I think it all depends on Aion. A successful launch will finally mean there is competition for the regulars. There are so many mmo player's waiting for a new game that if a company can develop a good game it will receive a large influx of players just for being a new good game.
How can 2009 be "another year of mmo disappointment?" Only one MMO has released (Darkfall) with the others dues towards the end of it? It's obviously still to early but if you look at Darkfall as a failure and AION as a success (in Asia) with 3.5 million people, that would be a wash.
One hit and one failure. 50% is a good rate on MMOs actually.
I don't think we'll ever have another year as bad as 2008 when a game like Warhammer Online wins "Best New Game of the Year" as much as a piece of trailer trash as it was.
Yeah, 2009 has really been a "status quo" sort of year for the industry. Free Realms' release was probably the one that made the most headlines. That, Darkfall's release, Eve's expansion and WAR's continued slide (which got worse as the new year rolled around) were probably the highlights of the year so far.
Thru the end of the year though there's Aion (hyped) and CitiesXL (not so hyped) releasing, plus an expansion for LOTRO may be coming (correct me). You'll also see Champions Online, Fallen Earth and Mortal Online all fail.
I think what LOTRO is getting is a patch with a new book, ive heard Mirkwod content. It could be an xpac but im pretty sure i heard patched content.
The main games of the year, Aion, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate Evo, Champions online, etc. haven't been released yet. Therefore the jury is still out on 2009.
I think everybody can agree it is pretty much do the combination of carebears and crybabies. Carebears do not want to risk losing their phat loot that they worked so hard to get (while reading some guide and fighting a crappy AI that does the same thing each time because they already cried about how unfair RNG was). Some games provide alternate paths to cater to both the PVP and the PVE player. Crybabies on the other hand want everybody to have an equal chance of beating everybody else, regardless of gear - class - abilities - etc, etc, etc. They want to win, and if they do not - they cry about it.
Do not think it is really all that subjective at all.
Crybabies will always be an issue with PvP. Just let them complain until they get tied and either shut up or leave.
Mythic's mistake with Warhammer (one of many) was to try to make PvP acceptable to PvE players. by taking all the pain out of it. Which makes it boring and meaningless to PvP fans.
Problem is there's too many sadists to match up to the masochists. Not many people enjoy being the victim. I bet even the most hard core pvper would get tired of dying and losing all his gear if he always faced 100 to 1 odds. Must be a crybaby eh?
I used to be big on MMO PVP.
Asheron's Call was my favourite, not for the glitching people used to cast faster... but for the fact that I could
A) Actually use the environment to dodge and block missile/magic attacks
Gang up with 5 level 10's and take out a level 50.
C) Could predict what items I was likely to drop, highest value items were most likely to drop.
As opposed to WoW where just 5 levels makes a semi-competent opponent near invincible. The environment can't be used to dodge or block attacks and there is no risk involved. PVP ends up being some gnome rogue jumping through you to break casting... that shouldn't be a strategy.
Now I'm not so big on PVP. I would probably play WoW on a normal server if I was to start back up again. I don't care about being the leet dude or what armour other people have. I don't want to spend hours gaining something only to be lost again. I play to relax now, not for competition. My angry teenage days are over. I have real life commitments.
Would I be interested in galactic conquest PVP like EVE? Where the risk is losing your entire empire and investment? Certainly. Do I have the time? no.
Comments
Well so far the years been peachy for me. I'm still enjoying LOTRO and its great community. My guilds just as strong as the day I joined it and there doesn't seem to be any slowing down on my particular server. CO is a blast to me and will be replacing CoX for me. I suspect CO will be a bit less successful then LOTRO though. Maybe 60k subscribers stable? If they can manage that they will pay off there development costs and post a profit pretty quickly. Fallen earth is a blast to me as well, but its really not ready for release in my opinion. Its come a long way since beta started, especially in the last few weeks. I think they will manage 10k subscribers. Enough for them to survive since they were such a small studio. Pretty impressive what a real indy achieved.
Frankly next year I think Im going to skip out on most of the new games. Not interested in another Star Wars. Hate Final Fantasy. I wont play Aion, not because its bad though. Just not my cup of tea. STO is about the only one ill be following.
All in all though Id say it was a fairly decent normal year. Ill probably stick with CO.
The year has been pretty good so Far have gotten one Eve expansion with the next mini expansion coming out on the 20th.
Ryzom went back to P2p and has been recieveing decent patches since.
Darkfall released and has added another sandboxish MMO for me to look out for later on in the year after issues get settled with it.
Fallen Earth is in OB and seem Decent and we may see Earthrise also this year.
DDO and TCoS went F2p so I have new free games to casually play when I get bored.
Aion and Champions Online seem solid from the reviews I read.
Seems good overall but im not as critical as you guys.
Playing: EvE, Ryzom
NCsoft games have a tendecy to fall on their butts. Guild Wars went nowhere, Lineage is like 5$ in the the store. And all of NCsofts's f2p games are simple kiddy games to me. NCsoft will never compare to Blizzard or Sony because there games are not well rounded. Aion has been their big creation and all, but i was not satisfied with the beta, I dont even like the class system where there is only one type of healer, and only one type of tank, those are little things that turn me off. The game did break Beta Testing records but I have no faith that the game will ever reach number 1 over WoW.
Why is it that everyone compares all new MMOs to WoW? WoWs numbers will likely never be matched...lets get over it. A new MMO doesn't have to outdue WoW in order to be a success, it just has to be polished and fun. How can you say Aion isnt going to be successfull? I honestly, dont understand your reasoning...because you dont like it? *sigh*
As for Guild Wars, it went nowhere? Come on now...seriously? Everytime I log in the towns are packed and its how old now? Guild Wars 2 is the only game that will hurt Guild Wars 1 numbers because theres no other game like it. The fact that you dont like GWs doesnt make GWs a failure..sorry LOL.
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
Yeah, 2009 has really been a "status quo" sort of year for the industry. Free Realms' release was probably the one that made the most headlines. That, Darkfall's release, Eve's expansion and WAR's continued slide (which got worse as the new year rolled around) were probably the highlights of the year so far.
Thru the end of the year though there's Aion (hyped) and CitiesXL (not so hyped) releasing, plus an expansion for LOTRO may be coming (correct me). You'll also see Champions Online, Fallen Earth and Mortal Online all fail.
I think it all depends on Aion. A successful launch will finally mean there is competition for the regulars. There are so many mmo player's waiting for a new game that if a company can develop a good game it will receive a large influx of players just for being a new good game.
Yeah, 2009 has really been a "status quo" sort of year for the industry. Free Realms' release was probably the one that made the most headlines. That, Darkfall's release, Eve's expansion and WAR's continued slide (which got worse as the new year rolled around) were probably the highlights of the year so far.
Thru the end of the year though there's Aion (hyped) and CitiesXL (not so hyped) releasing, plus an expansion for LOTRO may be coming (correct me). You'll also see Champions Online, Fallen Earth and Mortal Online all fail.
I think what LOTRO is getting is a patch with a new book, ive heard Mirkwod content. It could be an xpac but im pretty sure i heard patched content.
I think everybody can agree it is pretty much do the combination of carebears and crybabies. Carebears do not want to risk losing their phat loot that they worked so hard to get (while reading some guide and fighting a crappy AI that does the same thing each time because they already cried about how unfair RNG was). Some games provide alternate paths to cater to both the PVP and the PVE player. Crybabies on the other hand want everybody to have an equal chance of beating everybody else, regardless of gear - class - abilities - etc, etc, etc. They want to win, and if they do not - they cry about it.
Do not think it is really all that subjective at all.
Crybabies will always be an issue with PvP. Just let them complain until they get tied and either shut up or leave.
Mythic's mistake with Warhammer (one of many) was to try to make PvP acceptable to PvE players. by taking all the pain out of it. Which makes it boring and meaningless to PvP fans.
Problem is there's too many sadists to match up to the masochists. Not many people enjoy being the victim. I bet even the most hard core pvper would get tired of dying and losing all his gear if he always faced 100 to 1 odds. Must be a crybaby eh?
I used to be big on MMO PVP.
Asheron's Call was my favourite, not for the glitching people used to cast faster... but for the fact that I could
A) Actually use the environment to dodge and block missile/magic attacks
C) Could predict what items I was likely to drop, highest value items were most likely to drop.
As opposed to WoW where just 5 levels makes a semi-competent opponent near invincible. The environment can't be used to dodge or block attacks and there is no risk involved. PVP ends up being some gnome rogue jumping through you to break casting... that shouldn't be a strategy.
Now I'm not so big on PVP. I would probably play WoW on a normal server if I was to start back up again. I don't care about being the leet dude or what armour other people have. I don't want to spend hours gaining something only to be lost again. I play to relax now, not for competition. My angry teenage days are over. I have real life commitments.
Would I be interested in galactic conquest PVP like EVE? Where the risk is losing your entire empire and investment? Certainly. Do I have the time? no.