-Tera has a lot of great unknowns with the end game and political system. Combat looks like great fun, but quest hub content could be bland even with great combat system. I'd be cautious of the hype here.

-TSW has potential (I especially like the settings/themes) but Funcom is always an unknown. Between AO, AoC was either a good, smooth launch? Skill deck system and 3 faction look interesting, but combat looks dull from videos I've seen.

-Archeage looks promising too, but combat looks very 2004 standard as well as questing - but will the sandbox elements make up for that? I don't know - for me, I don't care if I can build a forest/castle or hang glide if I am forced to grind levels in a quest hub "kill 10 rats" with tab targetting.

They kind of seem to be throwing in just about every system in every other MMO - rifts, naval combat, keep/castle sieging... would be cool if they pull it off but maybe biting off a lot more than they can chew like DF did?

-GW2 has a great deal of potential, real game changer potentially, but will the lack of PvE end-game and focus on PvP eSport + open world be enough to keep players playing long term? B2P model will help, as they don't have to worry about sub numbers, but I feel it's kind of a "ok you have to unlearn everything you have learned since 2004" and some players may not appreciate that.

I look forward to GW2 and what I feel are many UO post-Trammel split qualities. So that got my vote.

Firefall, others are just too unknown at this point.

When everyone has played all of the above for starters, then played it for longer than a month, then we can see.

6 months ago SWTOR would win this hands-down and that's with beta footage/press plays.

I'll be lucky to be playing Archage in 2013, so forget about a 2012 release for that. I voted for it anyways :)

Don't know: I want to say Rift because they will keep putting out record fast patches, but you have all these other games just completely out there when it comes to concepts. Who knows if they will even work in a mmorpg genre brainwashed by the convinience of the WoW model.

I'm going with GW2 and then planetside 2 as a runner up.

GW2 because its by a company with experience + money + solid reputation and at the same time not following a WoW type game that so many companies are doing.

I don't know that I can vote for any of these..

TSW, look who it's made by.. I had some bad experiences there..and it's another instanced game like AoC.

TERA.. looks to be the most polished and potentially fun, but it's eastern themed.. and that's not what I'm into.

GW2.. It doesn't look interesting to me, the graphics and animations seem out of place, takes away from immersion for me.

WoW?  Seriously, it's just an expansion, eastern themed, and not new in any way.

ArchAge.. As some have said, will not be released this year in the west.  And again, eastern themed.

None of them are really that interesting to me.  The closest is Archage because I'm a long time sandbox fan and there are some very cool hyrbid elements that are going to evolve the core sandbox mechanics.  A great engine, that's actually being used well in a MMO environment, meaningful PvP, social aspects, housing, player built cities, land and sea battles...a lot of it is a sandbox gamers dream.  Not all of it, but a lot of it.

If they do a good job westernizing the game, then perhaps I can look forward to it.  If it were to release as it is today, I'm not interested at all.  Plus, it's not going to launch this year anyways.  So, I guess I'm just very dissatisfied with the selection of upcoming games.  I'll probably be playing Diablo 3, Skyrim, and Battlefield 3 for a while. 

I voted GW2.. s if it pulls off some of the stuff it claims well it could be revolutionary. I will keep my fingers crossed, However Hope for the best, while prepare for the worst that way there will be less dissappointment if it doesnt deliver.

We have a Korean Sandbox MMO with no projected NA release...  We have an MMO made by Funcom, who gave us the remarkable Age of Conan... I will no doubt love GW2 for casual gameplay.  But, like GW1, it's not likely I'll be able to make it a primary MMO.  Tera has interest, yet...    I don't know..   Wildstar doesn't have any release-date projection as far as I can see...   And I don't like cartoon graphics...  WoW?   That's a laugh.   No matter how many times my friends try to get me involved I give up before level 15...

Neverwinter looks like it might be intersting.    But, in my experience, DnD rules never really seem to work-out for computer games unless they're pure turn-based.   MechWarrior Online, if they do a good job with the 'feel' of combat...  I could see playing Mechwarrior Online for some laughs...   Maybe they'd even make it interesting for the long-term...

But I'll have to go "I don't know..."   The last good story/PvE/social/crafting MMO that I played was LOTRO.   There've a been a few near-misses from some indie's/small developers, like Fallen Earth...   Rift is borderline...   Somewhat fun, but all the rifts all over all the time get tedious...   But at least Rift did get you into a bit of socializing and coopertive play...

 Ugh... The current state of the MMO market just depresses me...     But the AAA guys have all sucked butt for years...    I've played the heck out of the good ones (at least good for me) and I just can't go back...  Yet everything I've tried in the past six months has been pure crap, with SWTOR being the biggest piece of crap of all...

Sometimes I think I should go backward and explore games like DAoC... Maybe get back into Eve Online... Perhaps Vanguard...      Because right now, I can't think of anything released relatively recently is better than any of those...

Originally posted by BadSpock

-Archeage looks promising too, but combat looks very 2004 standard as well as questing - but will the sandbox elements make up for that? I don't know - for me, I don't care if I can build a forest/castle or hang glide if I am forced to grind levels in a quest hub "kill 10 rats" with tab targetting.

They kind of seem to be throwing in just about every system in every other MMO - rifts, naval combat, keep/castle sieging... would be cool if they pull it off but maybe biting off a lot more than they can chew like DF did?

Mentioning AA in the same context of DF? Really?

AA has something that DF will never have = Jake Song ( not to mention piles and piles of cash: "The budget of the game is 25 million dollars. 15 million of investments from GigaMedia and 10 million from [XL Games'] budget." ~http://archeagesource.com/topic/26-all-that-we-know-about-archeage/ <--a legit source that cites another legit source, http://www.aaportal.net ).

Another thing about all that $$$ is that $30 million stretches much farther in S.Korea than it does in the West. The salaries of quality game developers over there is about half of what game devs are paid here in the West, at least according to this poster (no citation where he/she is getting the info., but the point they make seems legit based upon other things I've read about S.Korea's economy). He/she also rightfully points out that S.Korean game devs likely work more hours for less pay than their Western counterparts. I'll just put the relevant section of their post, though like I said, there is no explanation for where the info. comes from:

XLGames (Jake Songs new company) started with $300m won (30million us)for the initial budget of the development of ArcheAge, but has gotten export contracts for ArcheAge in several countries. Now he sits on top of $600m won+ extra funds/credits he can choose to utilize. With this much funding they decided to upgrade Archeage to Cry Engine 3.

That's right ArcheAge has a huge budget.

Remember, $300m is like $600m ~ $1200m if spent on game developers in korea. They get nearly half the salary compared to western developers while they work atleast twice more hours with no extra payments.

Being in that kind of position is Aventurine's wetdream....

Oh, and did I mention Jake Song...? Because, seriously, he's mutha*)$)ing Jake Song, yo!.... and I'd be SHOCKED if one of the major creative talents behind one of the most important MMO's ever (for Korea and the whole world) isn't making sure the first major title of his new company is a smashing success.

Now, with all that being said, I didn't pick AA because, as others have pointed out, we probably won't see it until 2013 here in the West (that's if we're *lucky*). So, I guess if I have to pick a title from the OP's choices, it will be GW2 and/or TSW. I'd like to see Tera do well too, if only to show devs that MMORPG's can deviate from the "norm" as far as combat systems go, but having played Aion and seeing how similar the quest system is in both games (i.e., bland), I think Tera will have a real uphill battle.

That's not to say AA's questing doesn't look bland because, frankly, it does. But all of the other features you allude to are what that game is going to be about, at least to those who are playing it as a sandbox. I've read beta testers who explain you can actually make real progress in the game crafting, building, farming, gathering, etc. (and I don't mean the kind of minimal progress you saw in Aion from crafting either). If that's really true is yet to be seen, but for me, the stars are aligning for AA to be a breakout title for the resurgence of sandbox titles (as long as they can find a Western publisher, which seems probable given the game's development with a "western audience" in mind).

Shouldn't  this poll be named "Which MMOG of 2012 has the Best Hype"

Honestly thats like selecting the oscars for movies from the previews before the movies are even out.

Darkfall 2.0 if it's released.

If all those games came out on the same day and I had to choose one...

voted archeage, even if the localization wont happen till 2013, ill be playing the korean version this year

Voted AA! If it ever gets to the west.

Couple others I will probably play but not counting on them being anything new, yes that includes GW2. I think making a PvP game and removing the healing class is very bad for the game.

TSW I will play to see how deep the world goes.

a tie between GW2 and MoP, with TSW right on their backs

I voted TSW. But you know you missed SW:TOR on that list. It's release was too close to 2012 to be counted in 2011 as determined by everyone on these forums, so you have to include it as a 2012 launch. Not that many on these forums would vote for it, but it still should be in contention.

as a tester of tera and gw2

tera is 100 times better than gw2

ArchAge is by far the best game ever not just 2012 but will we see it anytime soon?

TERA, GW2 are also good games but they are still themeparks that look like closed circles compared to how open and what you can do in ArchAge.

Guild Wars 2 has my vote. I'm sick with the MMO genre for a few years espacially with my bad experience/expectations/deception with SWTOR and all the  WOW clones.

Its gotta be ArcheAge. That game has more features than SWTOR, GW2, and TSW combined and thats just from beta videos. Not to mention they have full disclosure and everything we see is in game and being played by testers.

When you look at the player freedom in that game, it just puts everything else to shame.