It's easy to look back on the year that was. Many different writers are recapping the year 2009. It takes a special kind of writer though to skip ahead into the future and recap the year ahead. In his usual tongue in cheek style, MMORPG.com columnist Scott Jennings looks into the future to recap the year 2010.

As an industry pundit, I've always had one simple rule - if you don't want to go wrong in predicting the future, predict stuff that's already happened. Unfortunately, that's going to be difficult for 2010, since... um.... the past year has been pretty wackily crazy.

So really, there's only one thing I can do to salvage this - the old standby of bad Star Trek episodes. Time travel. Thankfully, I have an iPhone. They can do anything.

QUANTUM CARRIER WAVE CONNECTION TO apps.google.com/docs/2011....
CONNECTING...
CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.

Welcome to my end of the year recap for 2010. Let's get right to it, shall we?

Read 2010 A Year in Review.

 Always a pleasure to read an article by Scott Jennings.  Only thing missed out (that I can think of right now) are the few thousand people, who will complain all over the WoW forums about the changes, introduced in Cataclysm :P

 Good read, it will be interesting to see how close your 2010 predictions really are

Well if your predictions are true that would mean we would only be getting FFXIV, DCUO and The Agency in 2010 ? FFXIV will be great but overall I'm not sure 2010 will be any different from 2009.

Heh, I want a follow up on this in a year... 

Was quite an entertaining article. Looking forward to see what reality will be :)

A little more research might be in order, as STO will be single-server, like Champions Online. The population imblance will evident throughout the game.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

A little more research might be in order, as STO will be single-server, like Champions Online. The population imblance will evident throughout the game.

nvm

Look, I-phones that are able to time travel I can wrap my mind around. STO having 500,000 subscribers? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! <gasp> <deep breath> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Talk about fantasy land...

Originally posted by brostyn

Look, I-phones that are able to time travel I can wrap my mind around. STO having 500,000 subscribers? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! <gasp> <deep breath> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

Talk about fantasy land...

I hope he meant 50,000.

Originally posted by demonic87

Originally posted by brostyn

Look, I-phones that are able to time travel I can wrap my mind around. STO having 500,000 subscribers? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! <gasp> <deep breath> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

Talk about fantasy land...

 

I hope he meant 50,000.

Maybe he really did mean 500,000.  There are enough hardcore Trekkies out there to make it real.  Now if they could only get some more servers....

Haha fun read, I chuckled all the way through it.

Lul, TOR beta not starting till October?  I'm looking at Jan-Feb. (2010)

Cataclysm releases, breaks some records, fails to break others

Silly Lum, Blizzard doesn't "release" things anymore.   When you're as rich as them, delays are the new release! 

Personally, I think they're crippled by success, afraid to roll something like a stealth FPS based on the Starcraft universe or a major revision to existing zones in an already ridiculously successful product for fear that something goes wrong and there goes Blizzard's rep for doing no wrong.

The Old Republic enters beta, Internet explodes

Either that or interest in MMORPGs will have completely imploded.  Really, a Bioware MMORPG seems to be as sure of a bet as a Blizzard one, but I fear that too many derivative MMORPGs have killed a lot of interest in the platform to the point where being an MMORPG isn't all that special anymore (I said, on MMORPG.com's forums).

Linden Lab sells Second Life

Better that than the more likely possibility that they go out of business after being simultanously sued by copyright holders and their own customers.  Really, this is the most likely reason nobody would dare buy them.  They don't want that kind of legal liability.  Besides, Sony already has a Second Life of their own.

Final Fantasy comes to consoles, yet again

We'll definitely be seeing a Square-Enix MMORPG soon, although not necessarily Final Fantasy.

Batman doesn't need subscription fees

Wasn't DC Universe's F2P model already announced?

Lt. Worf, set phasers on "grind"

I hope it does stabilize at 500k customers, or more.  Contrary to the idiots earlier in this thread think, it certainly has a chance to garner at least that many thanks to the Star Trek license.  Millions will try the game.  How many will stay?   Tough to say.

I hope it does reasonably well - Crypic Studios needs it.   I half suspect that Vivindi/Activision is going to put Cryptic Studios to slaughter like they did Pandemic.  I doubt they'd allow Star Trek Online to reach perfection - they'd be lucky if they even got the month extension Lum is forecasting.  Activision is reaching truly old school EA-levels of mismanagement.

* All Points Bulletin, a technologically innovative open-world modern crime MMO which would ordinarily be much higher profile a release, but had the misfortune of releasing into the teeth of Catacylsm in December. Whoops.
* Jumpgate: Evolution, which released in June to little fanfare and about 100,000 subscribers
* Mortal Online, a hardcore PvP game released in March which attracted the roving attention of hardcore PvP guilds for about three months, who all proclaim it the next big thing in message boards before leaving complaining about a patch in May.

Fairly likely bets given previous examples.  APB might pull a surprise upset, though, since it's a relatively new genre they're exploring.

 That was actually fairly entertaining :P do a follow up at the end of next year to see how close you got it, my bet is atleast 50% of it will be true. :)

 Some of predictions are complete bullshit, especially the deal with Second Life and STO's 500K subscribers. But it was funny to read

Who ever wrote this is out of their mind or just plain stupid.

Linden Labs will NEVER sell Second Life. They make millions of dollars every freaking day. Ever since Phil Linden stepped down, they have changed their focus on making even more money, screwing over its content creators (the users) in order to get it ready for big name brand companies.  Selling something that make millions of dollars everyday is just retarded. 

STO looks fucking awful, no way it will hit 500k.  They'll be lucky if they get 300k.

Originally posted by Odela

STO looks fucking awful, no way it will hit 500k.  They'll be lucky if they get 300k.

I still have not made up my mind yet but from the way things keep looking they will be lucky to have more folks playing than champoins online.

My prediction (can't believe you didn't pick this one yourself, Scott)

Blizzard announces their new MMO, and their homepage crashes and burns from the amount of hits.... followed by the US internet infrastructure.

Hehe.

edit: spelling