WORLD OF WARCRAFT  IN FIRST POSTITION IN 2012 LOL ! 

actually, the game is great.. but in 3 years? no.. really not.. its still going to be a nice game, but never first..

Personnaly I will plan to be playing Aion. I am enjoying it more than any other game I've played so far and that's just solo. But who knows in 3 years.

Nice to see eve on the list.

I have no doubt that game will be going strong 5 years from now..  it is just as much fun today as when I started in 2004.

The game contnues to evolve in fascinating ways, and the fact that everything important in the game is PLAYER driven means that you never know what the next year will bring.

No matter how good a game's AI is, it will never equal 20-50k people online at any given time (most of whom are trying hard to completely destroy you!).

Hats off to CCP for staying true to their original vision.

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Originally posted by Zorvan

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Originally posted by Guintu

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Originally posted by Zorvan

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Originally posted by Guintu

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Originally posted by Dana

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Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Star Trek won't be big because it's design veers too far from the appeal of the TV shows.
SWTOR won't be big because it's going to be a massively single-player game. It will be big at first, but then people will see how limited its group gameplay is. Concentratrion on story will divide players, not unite them.
 

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You do your name justice ;) hehe
Seriously though, I am curious what games you think Jon missed on there. Clearly, there will be a top 10 games. Should be fun to hear all the opinions.

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One game he missed was Stargate Worlds. 
I do hope by 2012 there is a game that beats WoW, it got boring a long time ago.

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Trust me, he didn't miss it. It ain't happening.

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And how do you know this?  The Scifi channel is in on it so it has a good chance of happening.  I think this is the game scifi channel has been talking about thats going to happen with the show.

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How do I know this? Why don't you try keeping up with current events in the Stagate Worlds section, k? And there is no "Scifi" channel anymore. It's SyFy.

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Yeah, SyFy, what's that all about? SciFi made sense, SyFy is just how a stupid person would spell it.

"We don't want the kids to think we are a channel just for stuffy geeks who insist on being grammar nazis. Let's change our name to something hipper, something that speaks to the new generation, something that says 'Hey kids, we're stupid just like you!'"

Originally posted by xaldraxius

 

 

Yeah, SyFy, what's that all about? SciFi made sense, SyFy is just how a stupid person would spell it.

"We don't want the kids to think we are a channel just for stuffy geeks who insist on being grammar nazis. Let's change our name to something hipper, something that speaks to the new generation, something that says 'Hey kids, we're stupid just like you!'"

I'd consider that nothing more than truth in advertising, since all you are likely to see on that channel is another fine SyFy original movie like "Zombie Vampire Spiders from Outer Space IV."

Apparently there is good money in stupidity... everything is getting a whack from the "dumb down" hammer these days.

It's a shame too.. scifi used to be one of the only interesting channels left on the tube.  Oh well.

Originally posted by Enkindu 

 

I'd consider that nothing more than truth in advertising, since all you are likely to see on that channel is another fine SyFy original movie like "Zombie Vampire Spiders from Outer Space IV."

Apparently there is good money in stupidity... everything is getting a whack from the "dumb down" hammer these days.

It's a shame too.. scifi used to be one of the only interesting channels left on the tube.  Oh well.

Intelligent people comprise too small a market to appeal to mass-market media like TV, movies, and MMOs.

This WoW being #1 is based on numbers, statistics, math right?

Ok so let's see if I get this, if the biggest number of people on xfire spend more hours on WoW then it has more market share then it's also logical to say that the massive amount of people that vote on mmorpg game rating represent the majority of the gamer community and their opinion of what is the best mmo around right?

With that in mind... WoW User Rating = 8.0 ---- Lineage2 User Rating = 8.1

'nuff said.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

The question is NOT if WOW will be on number one in 2012.

The question will be IF WOW will still have around 60% market share ?

http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/

I think WOW will have a 70% marketshare in 2012.

So in fact it will even be bigger than today.

Reasons?

1. Every expansion widens the gap between the MIllions (of Blizzard) and the Thousands (the others).

2. Every new Fantasy mmorpg launched is pure publicity for the already known market leader : WOW.

3.  Motion picture will bring in MILLIONS of (again) new players. MMO play after Warcraft the Movie could explode from 1% of the population playing to 2% of the population playing on line in THE video gaming world.

4. WOW engine will be certainly brought to the new Xbox console (adapted for MMO and RTS play). The WOW engine will be used in a massivley played mmo with pop up dungeons and Battlegrounds. Adapted for the console market it will dwarf everything else. So strictly it is not WOW (too small so it could fit on a console), but in numbers and Lore  it is and it will dwarf all other MMO projects.

1, 2 and 3 are already facts.

Point 4 is already planned if you would look through the news this year (and yes Pardo's denials are far too weak).

So we are talking about the Top 10 ( most subs, positive press, strong playerbase ) premium ( 12,5 - 15€ per month ) western ( played in the western countries ) mmorpgs in 2012, hmm ...

My list would be

1. WoW

2. EVE Online

3. Aion

4. LOTRO

5. Final Fantasy XIV

6. Guild Wars 2

7. Champions Online

8. World of Darkness

9. Star Trek Online

10. One of the upcomming sci-fi sandboxes :

 Fallen Earh or Earthrise

Originally posted by Zorndorf

The question is NOT if WOW will be on number one in 2012.

The question will be IF WOW will still have around 60% market share ?

http://www.xfire.com/genre/mmo/massively_multiplayer_online/

I think WOW will have a 70% marketshare in 2012.

So in fact it will even be bigger than today.

Reasons?

1. Every expansion widens the gap between the MIllions (of Blizzard) and the Thousands (the others).

2. Every new Fantasy mmorpg launched is pure publicity for the already known market leader : WOW.

3.  Motion picture will bring in MILLIONS of (again) new players. MMO play after Warcraft the Movie could explode from 1% of the population playing to 2% of the population playing on line in THE video gaming world.

4. WOW engine will be certainly brought to the new Xbox console (adapted for MMO and RTS play). The WOW engine will be used in a massivley played mmo with pop up dungeons and Battlegrounds. Adapted for the console market it will dwarf everything else. So strictly it is not WOW (too small so it could fit on a console), but in numbers and Lore  it is and it will dwarf all other MMO projects.

1, 2 and 3 are already facts.

Point 4 is already planned if you would look through the news this year (and yes Pardo's denials are far too weak).

WoW will still be number one in 2012, but they will have lost marketshare. You can already clearly see now that WoW is leveling out in subsciption numbers, they are stagnating, slowly, but surely.

Originally posted by CyberWiz

 

WoW will still be number one in 2012, but they will have lost marketshare. You can already clearly see now that WoW is leveling out in subsciption numbers, they are stagnating, slowly, but surely.

 

Even though they make leveling faster, max level gets farther away (psychologically, at least) with each expansion, and lowbie areas are relatively barren. Even when you don't HAVE to group to level fast, a lot of people play these games to group and that's not a good option if you're not playing in primetime. I think a new system is needed to encourage the leveling of alts. I don't think heirloom items are the answer.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by CyberWiz

 

WoW will still be number one in 2012, but they will have lost marketshare. You can already clearly see now that WoW is leveling out in subsciption numbers, they are stagnating, slowly, but surely.

 

Even though they make leveling faster, max level gets farther away (psychologically, at least) with each expansion, and lowbie areas are relatively barren. Even when you don't HAVE to group to level fast, a lot of people play these games to group and that's not a good option if you're not playing in primetime. I think a new system is needed to encourage the leveling of alts. I don't think heirloom items are the answer.

thats what blizzard is working on. From the very little info given they will only be addin 5 new levels per expac as well as retooling the lower levels.

Originally posted by Spaceweed10

Originally posted by Dana

Jon breaks out his crystal ball and peers three years down the road. Which 10 games will dominate the market then?

This week, I dug deep into the old closet to pull out my trusty crystal ball. Gazing deep into its smoky depths, I asked a simple question: What MMOs will round out the Top 10 three years from now? Being a cantankerous old coot of a crystal ball, it told me that I needed to be more specific. Was it to base the list on subscriber numbers? Overall profitability? Random lottery? In the end we decided to look for a Top 10 list that took many factors into account, with subscribers, profitability, critical acclaim and fan support topping the list.

When I was putting this list together, there were a number of games that cropped up as possibilities that, for whatever reasons, I decided not to include in my top ten. The next Blizzard MMO, for example is left off because there’s a good chance it won’t yet have launched. It’s tough enough to define the Top 10 Games of 2009, let alone three years from now. Many quality titles didn’t make the list, but were kept firmly in mind. They include: The Secret World, The Agency, Copernicus, Lord of the Rings Online, Global Agenda and Fallen Earth.

Read more here.

 

And that is why this genre is now a dead duck.

Sad to say, I agree.

2012 is still three years away...and a lot can happen in three years.

So I want to make a prediction of my own for 2012.  I think the order of games in your list may be more or less correct, but I think the overall quantity of MMO players will decrease by 1/3 to 2/3 of what they are now.

That is to say, WoW may be king, I predict it will lose 4-10 million subscribers between now and 2012.  The other games may have significant playerbases, but the definition of significant will change.  I think the days of million-subscriber games will be more or less gone by 2012.  The reasons have to do with the following:

1)  The market is flooded with a lot of games, and there's no indication that quality is improving.  It is similar to what happened to cartriges in the early 1980's: a lot of games and a lot of options for multiplayer gaming (sub models, F2P browserware, consoles, peer-to-peer multiplayer systems, etc.) with more of an incentive to copy existing games than to create wholly new ways of gaming.

2)  Scams, buggy releases, and an ever-increasing price point for the player to enjoy the game is going to affect the consumer confidence in this genre, much the same way as it did in 1983-1984.

3)  The industry is counting on the 12 million subscribers to WoW will get sick of WoW and move on to their games instead, yet there is no indication that these 12 million really want to pick up another online game after they tire of WoW.

4)  There's little evidence that the current levels of interest in MMORPGs are permanent.  The likelihood that MMORPGs are a fad cannot be discounted.  It could be that MMOs, like most other technological entertainment options, are subject to a five-year meteoric rise in appeal followed by a five-year steep decline.  Look at the history of analog (late70's to mid 80's), 2D (mid 80's to mid 90's), 3D (early 90's to early 2000's), and online (early 2000's to, I predict, early 2010's).

5)  There are other options today to enjoy playing online with people without committing to the MMO conventions.  Peer-to-peer matchmaking services have come a long way, they are far less expensive for the consumer and the producer than MMOs, and they offer a lot more options for gaming than MMOs allow.

So I predict the games might be ordered as stated in the article, but the landscape will be much different in 2012.

  “Is there any legitimate or realistic reason to believe that WoW won’t still be the number one MMO on the market in 2012?”

Yes.

Final Fantasy is the 6th best selling franchise in video game history. The only RPG to beat it is pokemon--and i don't see any future plans to make a pokemon MMO so that leaves FF.

And since they've said they are going to add many casual elements (which i realllly hope they dont add too many) that will make it big.

Originally posted by Jquik

  “Is there any legitimate or realistic reason to believe that WoW won’t still be the number one MMO on the market in 2012?”

Yes.

Final Fantasy is the 6th best selling franchise in video game history. The only RPG to beat it is pokemon--and i don't see any future plans to make a pokemon MMO so that leaves FF.

And since they've said they are going to add many casual elements (which i realllly hope they dont add too many) that will make it big.

ok,  but not everyone can stomach a Asian style MMO.

FF is not Korean. Not that the origin matters

Originally posted by Wieland

Originally posted by Nicoo

People saying Diablo 3 isnt an mmorpg... Are you retarded?

What makes D3 not a mmorpg? The graphics? lol, retarded.

MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game
 

A Chatroom(Battlenet) doesnt qualify as Massively.

I predict Diablo 3 will be more of an MMORPG than Star Wars: The Old Republic will.

i don't want WoW to be #1 in 2012... seriously... it's damn overrated (and it was already overrated years ago!!!) and it's not even that good.

Guild Wars 2 will pwn WoW's overhyped butt. also, Lineage 2 should be on the list... or... Lineage 3?

"Lineage III is a sequel to Lineage II by NCsoft. The Lineage III project began January 1, 2008 and will be announced to the public in 2011"

Without the luxury of a crystal ball, I would have the top spot in my list as one of these three, with the other two (including WoW BLEH) being in close 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

Final Fantasy 14 might possibly be number one due to the cross-platform that has been up for talks since the word "Rapture" was released from SE.

Guild Wars 2, with it possibly being F2P?, could easily take the number one spot as well.  Alot of hours of my life have been spent alone in the instanced world of Guild Wars (and Nightfall).  Perhaps with a more open world, where others can play in the same instance would be nice (out of party).

If anything in pop culture can teach us anything, it's that super heros equal money.  From "The 3", I think either Champions or DC will be further up on the list (sorry, Batman > X-Men).

Then, of course, the elephant in the room, WoW.  WoW has seen steady numbers, and nothing seems to show me otherwise that it won't stay on top.  Just wishful thinking that it won't be in 3 years :)

Can someone please save this somewhere so we can throw it in his face =P

I applaud the attempt but i just dont buy it. STO and SW:TOR in the top 5, yeah definitely. a Superhero game up there yeah. Aion - not so sure. APB - definitely not sold on that idea. Eve? uh, your own criteria should keep that one out of the top 10.

You know, i think there might even be a console mmo in the mix there, but probably not yet by 2012. Given the new things like Natal (though i doubt that will do it) and Sony's new motion control system, i cant wait for mmos that really let you "be who you were born to be" to quote a lotro (or other LOTR game) ad.

Picture that tech demo where the guy was using the two wands (kinda like dual wii motes) and it represented them like a bow and the other hand was knocking the arrows, and a button press (i assume) to release. Add that to a freaking mmo where you got a party of 5 people, and we're not that far from actually playing .hack sign in VR.

Next step between where we are now and there is the motion control/video capture software stuff in development. Then we go to triple bigscreens for more peripheral vision - i mean think about how much a human can actually see, and how much a screen represents. Most people see right around 180 degrees, some (like myself) a little bit more. A screen, even sitting 4-5 feet from a 50" bigscreen is only say 60-80 degrees, rough guess. My 19" flatscreen here at 2-3 feet is like 30-40 tops. So yeah, once you get past the lack of real visualization, and into either multiple screens, or matrix style crap....oofa. Cant wait =P On that same note, imagine FPS games, it's gonna be more like that new movie coming out "gamer" only not controlling a real person obviously, but gameplay will be like what's shown in the commercials. Potential for that kind of gaming is just staggering.

I know, i got off on a tangent, but it's late and im waiting for 8am to roll around so i can play champions lol.
 

I can't believe you placed World of Darkness at number 6. Honestly, that's bogus. It's should be at least number 2 and Champions Online closing in on a top 5 position. WoW won't be number one but it'll hold a top 5 spot just because of the numbers it attracts (or attracted as they're LOSING players). I think you just gave more bullshit hype to a game (WoW) that needs to die already...