Except Rift didn't rule anything WoW is still dominating it.

Originally posted by Otakun

Originally posted by Deathofsage

Rift's strongest legs have been Cataclysm being so terrible. Still with no real numbers (practically no company, including Blizzard, releases these) and people complaining that there's just no endgame content and (big surprise here) the grind is the same, the endgame is the same, with less content. PVP sucks possibly worse...

 

Actually, Trion has claimed their numbers already:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110840-Trion-Claims-Rift-Stole-WoW-Subscribers

 

Those are actually accounts. Not subs. Yeah, some people probably switched. I personally have an account with Rift, but I couldn't stand it, so I'm not subscribed. I'm sure many MMO fans have accounts, without subs. WoW is still WAY ahead as far as actual subs. 

I apologize for my cynicism, but so far this year?  Been pretty terrible in my eyes.  Relatively nothing good has happened to the MMO genre as a whole.  To be honest, I really don't see things getting much better either.  The success of Rift really has only hurt the genre in my opinion, it just lets developers and investors know they can keep on pumping out unoriginal games and the masses will eat it up.  Two games I was wholeheartedly looking forward to, Xsyon and Earthrise were both huge flops, I still have no news about TOR or GW2 release dates, and have absolutely no new info/release target dates on several other MMO's I am waiting on.  Pretty meh six months for MMMOs.  Also to me, E3 was rather a let down as far as MMO's go.

Originally posted by Alot

Originally posted by findarat
It is kinda funny how SWTOR and GW2 are in a stand off on release dates.  I thought GW2 was further out from release than SWTOR.
 

Well, you are correct. It is very likely that SW:ToR will release this year and that GW2 will release Q1 next year.

Maybe. TOR have missed a release date but I wouldn't put too mucgh fate jut in that. GW2 actually looks more ready in demos and vids so far, even though that neither means that it is more finnished in whole or that it actually will release earlier.

TOR is of course in beta, but ANET have announce a short beta. And I am willing to bet that ANET big surprise at Gamescon will be announcing the beta.

I wouldn't be surprised if both games launched in november (I on the the other hand would be surprised if both launched Q1 either).

Both companies needs to release a game in great shape and they know it.

Originally posted by Gemma

Except Rift didn't rule anything WoW is still dominating it.

Wow did loose half a million subs this year (Source: Morhaime) while Rift gained whatever the ammount of players it have so it depends on how you see it. 2011 is so far not Wows best year while it surely is Rifts best.

Diablo 3 is about the only game out of all this that I actually care about.

Although it's been so long since I played Diablo 2 that the series has lost it's mystique for sure...

jordan air max oakland raiders $34–39 wOw! SIGN ME UP!

Seriously, I think it would be a mistake for GW2 to come after TOR.  I know personally if I'm subbing and deep into TOR I'm much less likely to pay the box fee for GW2.   But if can play GW2 casually until TOR comes out I think it would be more likely to continue playing it. 

And BTW, does Rift really have legs liek people are saying?  I quit my sub last month and my server was ghost town.  Heard they had free transfers, has that improved it for most?

Imo RIFT sucess is grossly overstated for unknown reasons to me.
They offer trials etc like cheap dirt and spin as much positives as they can even doing a headline of not having sold 1 million games in thrice the time every other aaa mmo had as a big positive.
Rift goes the way every other mmo b4 has gone failing to get the critical mass to attract players after the launch fever calms down and in some months people will make jokes about Rift success as wow killer and not beeing in Azeroth anymore.

I dont know why so many people have so much of an interest to talk this game big, maybe so many wish it would have been a good mmo as there is a need for the next good mmo for sure.

In that case think TSW, think SWTOR, think GW2, think Archeage (and think means hope for desperatly^^).

I believe people don't give Rift and Trion enough credit.. Their first major patch, River of Souls, was impressive looking.

Now they are relasing MORE content with 1.3... Waves of Madness.

I was in WoW since closed beta.. They didn't even push content like this out at this rate.

I give credit where it is due - Trion blatantly went after the WoW market, trying to do what WoW did, which was take existing ideas and make them better. And personally, I think they did very, very well. No, it's not a WoW killer, and no one in their right mind ever though it should be. But it had great implementation, good performance, and has thus far done the best job of annoying the gorilla, at the very least.

But I do have to agree, I am looking forward to Archeage very, very much. Although Richard Garriott is coming out with New Britannia.. While I'm sure it won't compete with Archage in terms of graphics, both of them are more appealing to me than Rift or WoW...

But still.. Props to Trion for what I think has been a great job with their freshman MMO.

Great article! i enjoyed reading every word of it.............for me the Old republic is the one im serious about but it was great to read about the other games upcomming.

I got to say that I didn't like the idea of Rift but gave it a run on a trial weekend. I found that I actually enjoyed it. Which is good because I'm still waiting for the stupid star wars game to be released. As for STO, I very much hope that it goes f2p. I dont feel there is enough content to make me want to pay a sub. But it is nice to at times move away from the fantasy type games. Anyway, I enjoyed the read. Thanks :)

Started playing rift after launch and so far has had an absolute rocking time. For anyone not staying in eu or uk while playing on eu servers (  south africa,aus or new zealand )  youle hav a wonderful suprise with amazingly sleek netcode. The game is stable fast en slim, with very gewd pings all round. ( sub 200ms without any extra software )  Also no other mmo has dynamic events and with hammernell coming; i would say this is the fastest growing MMO atm, content wise. The pvp is fabulous and with the soul system you can do anything with your char with 5 duel spec slots and 9 souls available right from the start.

also treasures and puzzles ingame are fabulous. :)

Rift is the success of 2011, I am not even sure we will see GW2 or SWTOR this year.

looking forward to fallout with bethe,interplay is in ruins....

elder scrolls skyrm,dream comes true,elder scrolls online !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Krellen

DCUO needs a little more credit.  Sure it is dead as could be on the PC, but the PS3 version is doing good and should get praise for moving into space that did not have an MMO.

I also think TOR releases in Nov and GW2 will be Q1 2012.

Where did you get that idea from?

As of E3, that was not the case:

Massively: Which platform -- PC or PS3 -- houses the majority of DCUO's players?

Mark Anderson: It's generally too close to say. Traditionally, we lean a little on the side of the PS3, but the difference is pretty marginal.

Originally posted by Scot

Rift is the success of 2011, I am not even sure we will see GW2 or SWTOR this year.

I'm quite sure that SW:ToR will release this year, at least quite some time before GW2.

Rift did fizzle pretty quickly. Trion is good at Spin and I'm sure the paid advertising doesn't hurt the reception they get among the gaming press.

The game has a serious lack of content and world size, clearly evidenced by a leveling curve that is very shallow and then actually dips between level 35 and 50. They are adding raid content, but most players don't do Raids, or at least don't want it to be the majority of content available to them by the end of the second month of play.

Square Enix thought Guild Leves would substitute for world size and over all content in FFXIV. How did that work out for them? Trion thinks that Rifts make up for the fact that the game world is a third the size required for a viable MMORPG and the fact that the game really needed about 4X the current content at launch. Well, Rifts bought them more time than Leves did for SE, but that's just proof of how pathetic FFXIV game design was.

BTW, what is the point of even evaluating your predictions for 2011 in June? {mod edit}

Originally posted by Kappadonna

Rift will disappear as soon as the next wave of better MMOs hit the market. As will WoW.

WoW isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

No offence to Rift fans, I played it myself for two months. However if 2011 goes down as the year "rift ruled" I'd be extreamly sad. Mainly because the game I'm holding out for is SWTOR. I can only hope that Bioware sticks to their 2011 window they kept saying at E3, if they don't I wouldn't want to be their for the fallout.

Can't blame some of these predictions for being either wrong or unproven as of right now because developers so often lie and/or stupidly make announcements about release dates.  Last year, I would've guessed TERA would launch in August of this year, that GW would've launched in September, and SWTOR would be launching in July.

As for Earthrise, I don't think that the EVE type of growth method is feasible.  I think all 200,000 people who would be willing to support a game as it grows and takes time are currently EVE subscribers, so I doubt that it will be much longer before it goes belly up.

E3 showed us nothing we didn't already know, except that the SyFy Trion MMO is 3rd person shooter.  I already knew about the TV program, they announced that when they announced the existence of Trion as a company.