I believe The Secret World could be the best mmo next year. I believe that Guild Wars 2 will be the best looking mmo next year. I believe The Old Republic will be average at best.
I would put SW TOR maybe at 5. It'll have a huge launch just cause of the IP, but really everything I've seen, the game is 6/10 at best (and that was before Huttball). Everything else looks good though. WoW's real threat is GW2.. that game just keeps looking better and better and better.
Oh, right. I also agree with what was said about GW2 having an easier time capturing the eastern market. GW1 was quite popular in Korea, as it's PvP tournament history proves.
I feel a little weird about admitting this, but my most anticipated game of 2012 isn't even an MMO (which is the genre I spend 95% of my time playing), though I do plan on playing TOR and GW2. For me, it's Curt Schilling's "Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning." The various game-play videos and presentations/panels I've seen on YouTube have really captured my imagination, which is a rare occurrence for me these days.
I feel a little weird about admitting this, but my most anticipated game of 2012 isn't even an MMO (which is the genre I spend 95% of my time playing), though I do plan on playing TOR and GW2. For me, it's Curt Schilling's "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning." The various game-play videos and presentations/panels I've seen on YouTube have really captured my imagination, which is a rare occurrence for me these days.
Now that is what I am talking about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is going to blow people away and it will be more fun than any of the mmos mentioned.
How many more heretics need be crushed by my cult? THE MMO DOISEN'T NEED A POWERHOUSE OF QUALITY AS WE HAVE! If WoW gets repalced after death by an MMO that reaches its subscribers & monetary gain the MMO part of the industry will be set back by a large chunk.
All this begging for a new king is foolish at best; and treason as a consumer at worst. To state that you want a NEW king with a new set of standards for MMO's is nothing short of consumer treason. Why? Because you betray yourself as a consumer, you’re fellow consumers, and your own wallet. Stop crying out for a new king and start yelling for the throne to remain empty. We need no king.
It is best for the industry the MMO throne remains an dusty empty seat never to be filled.
All this begging for a new king is foolish at best; and treason as a consumer at worst. To state that you want a NEW king with a new set of standards for MMO's is nothing short of consumer treason. Why? Because you betray yourself as a consumer, you’re fellow consumers, and your own wallet. Stop crying out for a new king and start yelling for the throne to remain empty. We need no king.
? The way I read it was that a whole lot of new MMO's will be doing well, and not that there would be one new king.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
1) A fulfilling experience without quests, and without resorting to making the players make their own fun. The quest experience in MMORPGs was a direct answer to the void of MMO spaces that offered little beyond grinding for solo players. It is perhaps over-iterated at this point, but GW2 offers a bold departure---No quests! Still fun! Lots to do! How fulfilling exactly will it be to "wander the land exploring, and stumbling upon dynamic events"? I wonder. RIFT promised that rifts were the most amazing thing ever, but actually they are pretty formulaic, and after a week I started taking pains to avoid them just so I could get on with my day. Will GW2's dynamic content be the same?
2) World vs. world vs world PVP. Interesting. Will it matter? Will it be epic, or merely instanced? What is the purpose of doing cross-server PVP this way? What if your opponent servers are low-population? Is there a queue? It seems a risk.
3) Underwater combat. They've spent a surprising amount of time on this. They've clearly invested a lot of development effort into it. Why? It's never been a forte of MMO play. Historically underwater combat is buggy, annoying, difficult to manage, and less fun than standing on the ground. So why develop this to the extent they have? Nobody I know enjoys it. Let's assume that they've made it more fun than it's ever been before---will that matter to players? Or will they continue to avoid underwater combat in droves simply because dealing with the Z-axis is annoying?
SWTOR is taking a mild risk---that simply adding voiceovers will be enough to spice up MMO play. GW2 is taking a much greater risk by radically changing so many systems at once. I applaud them, but I know from experience that, as George R. R. Martin would put it, "words are wind." We'll have to try GW2 to see if ArenaNet's ideas are worth the effort spent talking them up.
Avid reader of George R.R. Martin I see, that explains your extreme pessimism.
From what I saw, Guild War 2 can actually have a lack of excited content and in general content for people to do. Their content is based on X numbers, and from X numbers only X people can generate the fun content. Further speculation suggests that GW2 is actually lacking content. It's nice and shinny, but the reason soo many themepark mmogs go into a themepark direct only path is because of the variations in content gaps. So to prove a point 105 ppl join a 50 event content dynamic event. the content should last for 10 minutes, instead it last for 2 minutes. The content does not scale based on player participation or aniticipation, it remains the same. Players who do not get their own mob cannot fill the content killing. Players who cannot find items to collect to contribute content, really can't contribute or particpate actively in that content. I find reason to say that GW2 is lacking therefore of content. When you branch off the themepark mmog, you will need to anticipate large scale and small scale, allowing your dynamics to scale depending on active user generation. What they did is mcdonalds, what they claim is subway.
You can lie to yourself all you want, there WILL be content gaps for dynamic events unless every square inch of the server will hold a dynamic event 24/7 which wouldn't make them soo randomly dynamic would it? Ultimately anything based on the themepark path of quests, grinding rinse and repeat dungeons and their arena competitive pvp will holdvast content gaps. Their free for all chaos pvp will also embelish content gaps. It solely depends on X number of players, and if that number burst X content then fails. You can count box sales all you want, but you only feed them money, and to patch up content is a lame excuse when that content should already be inside the game, but to add or improve upon content is not a lame excuse. $50 for a game, and I better damn well get my money, not empty words. I would gladly pay $500 for GW2 if it delivered 1/10th of what I wanted. For now, I'll be content to strip away the hype and shinny new gloss and look at it for what it really is. It is a filler for my downtime.
Why do I want to buy and play GW2? Because I want to fill my downtime content with that style of game. Even if it lacks in content areas, I'll buy it because I want to. All the other mmogs, well GL same problem no solutions.
Not only is your comment completely baseless and 100% false, you also decide to call it a "downtime" MMO which is a direct insult to anyone actualy following the game. You obviously did not do any proper research.
Dynamic Events DO SCALE on the ammount of people participating, so your whole explanation falls short. I played the demo myself many times and there is absolutely NO sign of contentgaps whatsoever. We have seen maps FULLY PACKED with Dynamic Events and secondary objectives.
From what I saw, Guild War 2 can actually have a lack of excited content and in general content for people to do. Their content is based on X numbers, and from X numbers only X people can generate the fun content. Further speculation suggests that GW2 is actually lacking content. It's nice and shinny, but the reason soo many themepark mmogs go into a themepark direct only path is because of the variations in content gaps. So to prove a point 105 ppl join a 50 event content dynamic event. the content should last for 10 minutes, instead it last for 2 minutes. The content does not scale based on player participation or aniticipation, it remains the same. Players who do not get their own mob cannot fill the content killing. Players who cannot find items to collect to contribute content, really can't contribute or particpate actively in that content. I find reason to say that GW2 is lacking therefore of content. When you branch off the themepark mmog, you will need to anticipate large scale and small scale, allowing your dynamics to scale depending on active user generation. What they did is mcdonalds, what they claim is subway.
You can lie to yourself all you want, there WILL be content gaps for dynamic events unless every square inch of the server will hold a dynamic event 24/7 which wouldn't make them soo randomly dynamic would it? Ultimately anything based on the themepark path of quests, grinding rinse and repeat dungeons and their arena competitive pvp will holdvast content gaps. Their free for all chaos pvp will also embelish content gaps. It solely depends on X number of players, and if that number burst X content then fails. You can count box sales all you want, but you only feed them money, and to patch up content is a lame excuse when that content should already be inside the game, but to add or improve upon content is not a lame excuse. $50 for a game, and I better damn well get my money, not empty words. I would gladly pay $500 for GW2 if it delivered 1/10th of what I wanted. For now, I'll be content to strip away the hype and shinny new gloss and look at it for what it really is. It is a filler for my downtime.
Why do I want to buy and play GW2? Because I want to fill my downtime content with that style of game. Even if it lacks in content areas, I'll buy it because I want to. All the other mmogs, well GL same problem no solutions.
Not only is your comment completely baseless and 100% false, you also decide to call it a "downtime" MMO which is a direct insult to anyone actualy following the game. You obviously did not do any proper research.
Dynamic Events DO SCALE on the ammount of people participating, so your whole explanation falls short. I played the demo myself many times and there is absolutely NO sign of contentgaps whatsoever. We have seen maps FULLY PACKED with Dynamic Events and secondary objectives.
This. DE scaling is one of the whole points of the system. Also, almost all DE examples that we have seen involve multiple ways to contribute, whether by fighting directly or fulfilling other objectives (dousing burning houses with water, etc.) In short, there will always be enough for any amount of players to do to participate and receive rewards.
1) A fulfilling experience without quests, and without resorting to making the players make their own fun. The quest experience in MMORPGs was a direct answer to the void of MMO spaces that offered little beyond grinding for solo players. It is perhaps over-iterated at this point, but GW2 offers a bold departure---No quests! Still fun! Lots to do! How fulfilling exactly will it be to "wander the land exploring, and stumbling upon dynamic events"? I wonder. RIFT promised that rifts were the most amazing thing ever, but actually they are pretty formulaic, and after a week I started taking pains to avoid them just so I could get on with my day. Will GW2's dynamic content be the same?
2) World vs. world vs world PVP. Interesting. Will it matter? Will it be epic, or merely instanced? What is the purpose of doing cross-server PVP this way? What if your opponent servers are low-population? Is there a queue? It seems a risk.
3) Underwater combat. They've spent a surprising amount of time on this. They've clearly invested a lot of development effort into it. Why? It's never been a forte of MMO play. Historically underwater combat is buggy, annoying, difficult to manage, and less fun than standing on the ground. So why develop this to the extent they have? Nobody I know enjoys it. Let's assume that they've made it more fun than it's ever been before---will that matter to players? Or will they continue to avoid underwater combat in droves simply because dealing with the Z-axis is annoying?
SWTOR is taking a mild risk---that simply adding voiceovers will be enough to spice up MMO play. GW2 is taking a much greater risk by radically changing so many systems at once. I applaud them, but I know from experience that, as George R. R. Martin would put it, "words are wind." We'll have to try GW2 to see if ArenaNet's ideas are worth the effort spent talking them up.
Avid reader of George R.R. Martin I see, that explains your extreme pessimism.
What you call extreme pessimism I call measured optimism. I'm hopeful, but not expectant.
I feel a little weird about admitting this, but my most anticipated game of 2012 isn't even an MMO (which is the genre I spend 95% of my time playing), though I do plan on playing TOR and GW2. For me, it's Curt Schilling's "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning." The various game-play videos and presentations/panels I've seen on YouTube have really captured my imagination, which is a rare occurrence for me these days.
Now that is what I am talking about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is going to blow people away and it will be more fun than any of the mmos mentioned.
Well the name is pretty uninspired, but I've been encouraged to watch for this title from others as well, so I plan on doing just that. I'm also just kind of oddly curious about what sort of creature an ex-professional ball player might turn loose.
All this begging for a new king is foolish at best; and treason as a consumer at worst. To state that you want a NEW king with a new set of standards for MMO's is nothing short of consumer treason. Why? Because you betray yourself as a consumer, you’re fellow consumers, and your own wallet. Stop crying out for a new king and start yelling for the throne to remain empty. We need no king.
Nah. I think most of us are wanting a respresentative democracy instead of an oligarchy.
I doubt anyone believes that there will ever be a new king after the present one is ousted. Even if they did, it wouldn't happen because the market conditions that allowed WoW to dominate the way it has simply no longer exist. Someone else may take top spot for a while, but it will be temporary.
The next time a WoW type of craze might hit is when someone develops cyberlink technology that would allow people to have a hyper-reality experience be plugging a wire into their brain. No worries though -- that won't be happening any time soon.
I'd swap the first two games on the list. I think SWTOR will blow every game, GW2 included, out of the water.
I don't think this website is at all an accurate barometer of hype levels for games. People will choose a favourite game and crank their hype vote to the top for that one, then crank the hype-meter score down for the other games on the list just so their favourite game looks even better.
People on this website want something "innovative" and they see GW2 as "innovative" and SWTOR as "not innovative" even if no one here can actually define what "innovative" actually is.
Isn't ArchAge aiming for release next year? I can see that being a huge suprise hit. Great sandbox features piled with themepark features. It looks amazing.
Also I'd put TOR above GW2 based purely on hype from all over, not just here.
Is GW2 launching in Asia? Because that will give it a BIG advantage over TOR.
I see a few people saying "im worried about the Community of GW2" but if im being real honist with you, im more worried about if GW2 does well and DOES "beat WoW" that means alot of the WoW community will come to GW2 and THAT is bad imo, dont get me wrong i know not all wow players are the same and i wont try to lable them all the same, but come on guys, even your cant say that WoW does not hold the largest community of MMORPG Dickheads that just play to fuck everyone elses fun up.
1- WoW: face it, Blizzard will keep on milking your pockets. Of course some will leave but mostly for Diablo III. Its ultimate demise will be either one of the second place games, WoW's Sequel or World of STARCRAFT in 2015 with 3 faction PvP (one can dream)
2- GW2 or SWTOR... hard to tell, both have big shoes to fill GW1 has a loyal fanbase that dream of the sequel 24/7 and Star Wars must be one of the (if not THE) biggest IP in the gaming/movie world. ultimately, second place will go to GW based on the number of players they draw away from Rift, Aion and AoC. while SWTOR will draw from WoW and LotR. Starwars fans are drawn to big IP names (Warcraft, LOTR, EQ, Sony, Apple... you know BIG names) and they are also at either end of the demographics (young and old)
3- SWTOR or GW2... well obviously there is a possibility for some F2P, but those are mostly populated by people waiting for something other than WoW to seize their attention, either because they don't like what's currently on the market or because they played it over and over... or their just Broke. And for the big playewrs, people with no money are just not interesting.
actually if you are talking only sub numbers then World of Warcraft will have MUCH MUCH lower numbers once SWTOR/GW2 hit simply by way of migration. Those same people will leave WoW to play the newest greatest. This combined with blizzards new system of standards and practices and lack of speed in churning out content for end gamers will most likely destroy the game population. Not to forget that LOTRO is releasing their expansion and DDO is as well so LOTRO should be in the 3 slot easily.
"WoW's Sequel or World of STARCRAFT in 2015 with 3 faction PvP (one can dream)"
sorry folks it's never gonna happen they said it over and over and the Titan project is actually a whole new ip not based on any others.
Finally, with their management as it is they simply don't have the drive to provide games with fast quality content and they really don't care about the majority of their players it's pretty obvious they don't when they wait until they lost 1mil subs to actually put in cosmetics for RPers after HOW many years?
1) A fulfilling experience without quests, and without resorting to making the players make their own fun. The quest experience in MMORPGs was a direct answer to the void of MMO spaces that offered little beyond grinding for solo players. It is perhaps over-iterated at this point, but GW2 offers a bold departure---No quests! Still fun! Lots to do! How fulfilling exactly will it be to "wander the land exploring, and stumbling upon dynamic events"? I wonder. RIFT promised that rifts were the most amazing thing ever, but actually they are pretty formulaic, and after a week I started taking pains to avoid them just so I could get on with my day. Will GW2's dynamic content be the same?
2) World vs. world vs world PVP. Interesting. Will it matter? Will it be epic, or merely instanced? What is the purpose of doing cross-server PVP this way? What if your opponent servers are low-population? Is there a queue? It seems a risk.
3) Underwater combat. They've spent a surprising amount of time on this. They've clearly invested a lot of development effort into it. Why? It's never been a forte of MMO play. Historically underwater combat is buggy, annoying, difficult to manage, and less fun than standing on the ground. So why develop this to the extent they have? Nobody I know enjoys it. Let's assume that they've made it more fun than it's ever been before---will that matter to players? Or will they continue to avoid underwater combat in droves simply because dealing with the Z-axis is annoying?
SWTOR is taking a mild risk---that simply adding voiceovers will be enough to spice up MMO play. GW2 is taking a much greater risk by radically changing so many systems at once. I applaud them, but I know from experience that, as George R. R. Martin would put it, "words are wind." We'll have to try GW2 to see if ArenaNet's ideas are worth the effort spent talking them up.
1) Unlike rifts, DEs are the open world content, we know there's going to be 1500-1600 of them at least. You no longer have a situation where you were planning on questing, but a rift got in your way so you had to deal with it.
So instead of looking at DEs like they're random things, imagine a world where any traditional leveling type quest any other game offers is instead done by a DE. At the very least they're more immediate, you don't have to pick it up or turn it in, you can jump in late or leave early and still get partial credit based on how much you participated. The events scale up with more players and are purely cooperative. There's no spawn tagging or needing everybody to collect 10 objects off the ground. They've actually built the game from the ground up to make PVE griefing impossible.
Unlike rifts or PQs where people do them and scatter to do something else, the events chain together so people will just naturally fall into mobs (not saying groups because they don't have to group) of 5-10 people just following a chain. The events run on cycles and the game automatically scales you down in power when you do one so that nobody can grief them. The beauty of this is that it lets you repeat any content in the entire open world of the game. Group with anybody from your friends list no matter how badly you've outleveled them.
To me, that they change the world is the least interesting aspect of them, though I do love that they can be failed. You can do things with DEs that you can't easily do with quests, like have the event fail when bandits burn enough hay bales.
TL:DR Immediate, visual, repeatable, failable, community building instead of isolating. They're a truly amazing concept. (edit: rereading it, this is a bad explanation. Please watch this if you haven't. It's long, but an excellent comprehensive explanation with a Q&A http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic )
2) Unlike having 3 factions all on the same server, doing cross server first and foremost makes the PVP much larger. If a server has 1000 people who want to PVP, instead of dividing them up into 333 vs 333 vs 333, GW2's PVP is 1000 vs 1000 vs 1000.
There is no queue, and no limit to the number of people who can participate. The matches last for 2 weeks and take place across 4 huge zones (one for each server that can be invaded, as well as a central one to fight over). Part of the central one has been leaked and it looks like it will be enormous.
At the end of the two weeks, servers are pitted against new servers based on W/L record and active population. Instead of fighting the same people all the time, you fight them for a while and then get to experience new players with new tactics. Reseeding the servers makes the fights more balanced. If your server wins, you get matched up with other winning servers and the next match will be harder. Also the W/L record gives you something concrete to fight over. They're no longer like BGs where if you lose so what just start another one. I can see some serious call to arms going on in the cities, trying to get people to come turn things around. No queue and no player limit, remember. Epic.
3) Part of it really is the introduction of an underwater breathing mask that is automatically equipped when you go in the water. It's a small change but with huge consequences. It's leading them to try giving people underwater weapons they automatically switch to, underwater versions of skills (fire magic that boils water or vertical nets), underwater races with towns. Enemies who use different skills whether they're underwater. Skills that mess with the Z axis. Even a whole concept of danger level related to depth. The further down you go, the tougher it is.
They've said that in other games underwater combat has always felt tacked on. So part of it is probably just an attempt to try to make it a full part of the game. ArenaNet is not afraid to take risks with this game, whether it be DEs or more active combat or deemphasizing the holy trinity. Underwater combat can be considered another such risk. It might not pan out. We'll have to wait and see. If people don't like it, then they took a chance and they'll know not to put as much effort into expansion content. Hopefully I've managed to convey that they're making it a whole underwater experience, not just above ground combat but with a Z axis.
I apologize for the length, but those are some good questions and I tried to give them the respect they deserve.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Pretty easy to make a list when the criteria for ranking isn't given. I can only think of two non-subjective metrics of success. The main one is total subscribers. I'll be shocked if WoW doesn't keep the number one spot for at least a few more years. The other one is number of new subscribers added next year. Some reasonable criteria needs to be used for that though, such as subscribing and being an active player for at least 3 months. If you are going by that then I could see ranking TOR and GW2 above WoW, but it sure would be nice if you told us what you used instead of making us guess.
Comments
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
I believe The Secret World could be the best mmo next year. I believe that Guild Wars 2 will be the best looking mmo next year. I believe The Old Republic will be average at best.
I would put SW TOR maybe at 5. It'll have a huge launch just cause of the IP, but really everything I've seen, the game is 6/10 at best (and that was before Huttball). Everything else looks good though. WoW's real threat is GW2.. that game just keeps looking better and better and better.
Oh, right. I also agree with what was said about GW2 having an easier time capturing the eastern market. GW1 was quite popular in Korea, as it's PvP tournament history proves.
I feel a little weird about admitting this, but my most anticipated game of 2012 isn't even an MMO (which is the genre I spend 95% of my time playing), though I do plan on playing TOR and GW2. For me, it's Curt Schilling's "Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning." The various game-play videos and presentations/panels I've seen on YouTube have really captured my imagination, which is a rare occurrence for me these days.
Now that is what I am talking about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is going to blow people away and it will be more fun than any of the mmos mentioned.
How many more heretics need be crushed by my cult? THE MMO DOISEN'T NEED A POWERHOUSE OF QUALITY AS WE HAVE! If WoW gets repalced after death by an MMO that reaches its subscribers & monetary gain the MMO part of the industry will be set back by a large chunk.
All this begging for a new king is foolish at best; and treason as a consumer at worst. To state that you want a NEW king with a new set of standards for MMO's is nothing short of consumer treason. Why? Because you betray yourself as a consumer, you’re fellow consumers, and your own wallet. Stop crying out for a new king and start yelling for the throne to remain empty. We need no king.
It is best for the industry the MMO throne remains an dusty empty seat never to be filled.
? The way I read it was that a whole lot of new MMO's will be doing well, and not that there would be one new king.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Avid reader of George R.R. Martin I see, that explains your extreme pessimism.
WoW is no longer a mmorpg. Its a social networking platform or a internet religion even.
Millions don't care whats happening in the world of mmos they are happy with their little characters, chit chatting with friends.
So WOW will be number one for much longer than any of you would like it to be.
1. WoW
2. SWTOR
3. GW2
4. RIFT
5. EvE
6. LotRO
7. Aion
8. TSW
9. AoC
10. Insert random f2p convert.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Not only is your comment completely baseless and 100% false, you also decide to call it a "downtime" MMO which is a direct insult to anyone actualy following the game. You obviously did not do any proper research.
Dynamic Events DO SCALE on the ammount of people participating, so your whole explanation falls short. I played the demo myself many times and there is absolutely NO sign of contentgaps whatsoever. We have seen maps FULLY PACKED with Dynamic Events and secondary objectives.
This. DE scaling is one of the whole points of the system. Also, almost all DE examples that we have seen involve multiple ways to contribute, whether by fighting directly or fulfilling other objectives (dousing burning houses with water, etc.) In short, there will always be enough for any amount of players to do to participate and receive rewards.
What you call extreme pessimism I call measured optimism. I'm hopeful, but not expectant.
Well the name is pretty uninspired, but I've been encouraged to watch for this title from others as well, so I plan on doing just that. I'm also just kind of oddly curious about what sort of creature an ex-professional ball player might turn loose.
With the exception of TERA I have no intention of playing any of the top 10.
And this list is for 2012???
Nah. I think most of us are wanting a respresentative democracy instead of an oligarchy.
I doubt anyone believes that there will ever be a new king after the present one is ousted. Even if they did, it wouldn't happen because the market conditions that allowed WoW to dominate the way it has simply no longer exist. Someone else may take top spot for a while, but it will be temporary.
The next time a WoW type of craze might hit is when someone develops cyberlink technology that would allow people to have a hyper-reality experience be plugging a wire into their brain. No worries though -- that won't be happening any time soon.
Personally, could never get into LOTRO. Doesn't seem to be much hype for it, either.
Anyways, I like the list. Really, anything outside the top 5 is just a crap shoot.
I'd swap the first two games on the list. I think SWTOR will blow every game, GW2 included, out of the water.
I don't think this website is at all an accurate barometer of hype levels for games. People will choose a favourite game and crank their hype vote to the top for that one, then crank the hype-meter score down for the other games on the list just so their favourite game looks even better.
People on this website want something "innovative" and they see GW2 as "innovative" and SWTOR as "not innovative" even if no one here can actually define what "innovative" actually is.
Isn't ArchAge aiming for release next year? I can see that being a huge suprise hit. Great sandbox features piled with themepark features. It looks amazing.
Also I'd put TOR above GW2 based purely on hype from all over, not just here.
Is GW2 launching in Asia? Because that will give it a BIG advantage over TOR.
In the west i see it being: (Top 3 only)
SW:TOR
GW2
WoW
Overall I'd go:
WoW
GW2
SW:TOR
I see a few people saying "im worried about the Community of GW2" but if im being real honist with you, im more worried about if GW2 does well and DOES "beat WoW" that means alot of the WoW community will come to GW2 and THAT is bad imo, dont get me wrong i know not all wow players are the same and i wont try to lable them all the same, but come on guys, even your cant say that WoW does not hold the largest community of MMORPG Dickheads that just play to fuck everyone elses fun up.
1- WoW: face it, Blizzard will keep on milking your pockets. Of course some will leave but mostly for Diablo III. Its ultimate demise will be either one of the second place games, WoW's Sequel or World of STARCRAFT in 2015 with 3 faction PvP (one can dream)
2- GW2 or SWTOR... hard to tell, both have big shoes to fill GW1 has a loyal fanbase that dream of the sequel 24/7 and Star Wars must be one of the (if not THE) biggest IP in the gaming/movie world. ultimately, second place will go to GW based on the number of players they draw away from Rift, Aion and AoC. while SWTOR will draw from WoW and LotR. Starwars fans are drawn to big IP names (Warcraft, LOTR, EQ, Sony, Apple... you know BIG names) and they are also at either end of the demographics (young and old)
3- SWTOR or GW2... well obviously there is a possibility for some F2P, but those are mostly populated by people waiting for something other than WoW to seize their attention, either because they don't like what's currently on the market or because they played it over and over... or their just Broke. And for the big playewrs, people with no money are just not interesting.
actually if you are talking only sub numbers then World of Warcraft will have MUCH MUCH lower numbers once SWTOR/GW2 hit simply by way of migration. Those same people will leave WoW to play the newest greatest. This combined with blizzards new system of standards and practices and lack of speed in churning out content for end gamers will most likely destroy the game population. Not to forget that LOTRO is releasing their expansion and DDO is as well so LOTRO should be in the 3 slot easily.
"WoW's Sequel or World of STARCRAFT in 2015 with 3 faction PvP (one can dream)"
sorry folks it's never gonna happen they said it over and over and the Titan project is actually a whole new ip not based on any others.
Finally, with their management as it is they simply don't have the drive to provide games with fast quality content and they really don't care about the majority of their players it's pretty obvious they don't when they wait until they lost 1mil subs to actually put in cosmetics for RPers after HOW many years?
1) Unlike rifts, DEs are the open world content, we know there's going to be 1500-1600 of them at least. You no longer have a situation where you were planning on questing, but a rift got in your way so you had to deal with it.
So instead of looking at DEs like they're random things, imagine a world where any traditional leveling type quest any other game offers is instead done by a DE. At the very least they're more immediate, you don't have to pick it up or turn it in, you can jump in late or leave early and still get partial credit based on how much you participated. The events scale up with more players and are purely cooperative. There's no spawn tagging or needing everybody to collect 10 objects off the ground. They've actually built the game from the ground up to make PVE griefing impossible.
Unlike rifts or PQs where people do them and scatter to do something else, the events chain together so people will just naturally fall into mobs (not saying groups because they don't have to group) of 5-10 people just following a chain. The events run on cycles and the game automatically scales you down in power when you do one so that nobody can grief them. The beauty of this is that it lets you repeat any content in the entire open world of the game. Group with anybody from your friends list no matter how badly you've outleveled them.
To me, that they change the world is the least interesting aspect of them, though I do love that they can be failed. You can do things with DEs that you can't easily do with quests, like have the event fail when bandits burn enough hay bales.
TL:DR Immediate, visual, repeatable, failable, community building instead of isolating. They're a truly amazing concept. (edit: rereading it, this is a bad explanation. Please watch this if you haven't. It's long, but an excellent comprehensive explanation with a Q&A http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic )
2) Unlike having 3 factions all on the same server, doing cross server first and foremost makes the PVP much larger. If a server has 1000 people who want to PVP, instead of dividing them up into 333 vs 333 vs 333, GW2's PVP is 1000 vs 1000 vs 1000.
There is no queue, and no limit to the number of people who can participate. The matches last for 2 weeks and take place across 4 huge zones (one for each server that can be invaded, as well as a central one to fight over). Part of the central one has been leaked and it looks like it will be enormous.
At the end of the two weeks, servers are pitted against new servers based on W/L record and active population. Instead of fighting the same people all the time, you fight them for a while and then get to experience new players with new tactics. Reseeding the servers makes the fights more balanced. If your server wins, you get matched up with other winning servers and the next match will be harder. Also the W/L record gives you something concrete to fight over. They're no longer like BGs where if you lose so what just start another one. I can see some serious call to arms going on in the cities, trying to get people to come turn things around. No queue and no player limit, remember. Epic.
3) Part of it really is the introduction of an underwater breathing mask that is automatically equipped when you go in the water. It's a small change but with huge consequences. It's leading them to try giving people underwater weapons they automatically switch to, underwater versions of skills (fire magic that boils water or vertical nets), underwater races with towns. Enemies who use different skills whether they're underwater. Skills that mess with the Z axis. Even a whole concept of danger level related to depth. The further down you go, the tougher it is.
They've said that in other games underwater combat has always felt tacked on. So part of it is probably just an attempt to try to make it a full part of the game. ArenaNet is not afraid to take risks with this game, whether it be DEs or more active combat or deemphasizing the holy trinity. Underwater combat can be considered another such risk. It might not pan out. We'll have to wait and see. If people don't like it, then they took a chance and they'll know not to put as much effort into expansion content. Hopefully I've managed to convey that they're making it a whole underwater experience, not just above ground combat but with a Z axis.
I apologize for the length, but those are some good questions and I tried to give them the respect they deserve.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Pretty easy to make a list when the criteria for ranking isn't given. I can only think of two non-subjective metrics of success. The main one is total subscribers. I'll be shocked if WoW doesn't keep the number one spot for at least a few more years. The other one is number of new subscribers added next year. Some reasonable criteria needs to be used for that though, such as subscribing and being an active player for at least 3 months. If you are going by that then I could see ranking TOR and GW2 above WoW, but it sure would be nice if you told us what you used instead of making us guess.