Mummorpugs - Part II

Welcome back.

I'm not trying to set some kind of ridiculous precedent here by writing another article precisely two days later, so for those of you that are using The Ooglar to 'balance out' your doses of handsome... I'd advise you not to. I have the tendency to procrastinate like... something that procrastinates a lot. You get the point.

I'm being very truthful here when I say that 2010 looks like it will be one of the best years for the MMORPG industry as a whole, and this is for several key reasons:

1.) While Blizzard still boasts inconceivable subscription numbers for World of Warcraft, the massive company is beginning to show signs of age as Wrath of the Lich King continues to prove to be a bizarre mixed bag of downs syndrome and fried chicken. Speaking from a personal viewpoint, I honestly feel that if Blizzard has somehow figured out a method to extend the life of their TBC expansion, I may very well be another one of those try-hard kids rolling their way through Azeroth. Be that as it may, three development projects are also on the mind of this corporate juggernaut, and while I know that they have entirely different development teams working on all three, fact remains that this does tend to divert attention.

2.) With Diablo III and Blizzard's unannounced MMO still churning in the works, we will finally see if these guys truly are the kings of the MMO genre (I'm the queen). World of Warcraft is occasionally  cited (by retards) as having a clean launch, when we all know that this is not godamn true. Blizzard just managed to launch World of Warcraft into a player base that was entirely too forgiving. After all, their only other options were Everquest II and Final Fantasy XI (don't even get me started on the former, and I love / hate the latter so much). Diablo III and this unnanounced MMO will be Blizz's first foray BACK into the world of MMO launching and they may find that, this time around, they're foraying into a very different jungle. I expect to see many other development teams gluing their eyes to Blizzard's strategies, and then copying them. This leads me to my third point:

3.) Everyone's finally beginning to learn how to avoid one of the biggest development faux pas you can commit pre-launch, and that is the ****ty launch. Champions Online and Jumpgate Evolutions have already pushed back their release dates because they did not believe they had a 'full' product. This is good ****. I wrote an article on this for work, but I'd like to stress, once more, how ******* awesome (yes that profanity was needed) it is to know that our chances of getting Age of Lolnan, Lolhammer Online and Lolfall Online are getting slimmer by the day. Good launch equates to good product, and 2010 will be the year that sees this principle played out.

That being said, what are the MMO's I'm most looking forward to?

Final Fantasy XIV looks retardedly similar to Final Fantasy XI, but I've got to admit that when I saw that trailer, I experienced a startling amount of emotions that I had not experienced since I played my first MMO. You see, as a dude who has completely enmeshed himself within the MMO genre, I've become rather jaded with the whole thing. Where I used to get all tingly-in-the-jingly-bits whenever I 'chose' a new MMORPG, these days it's 'routine as usual' when I fire up the installer for yet another Mummorpug.

Now, don't get me wrong, I loves me my MMOs - but on the other hand, you know that cool feeling you get when you first set foot into a new MMO? Before I worked in the industry, I played a grand total of three MMOs - each of which I played for a number of years before moving to a different one. Well, that cool feeling of discovery does tend to get a wee bit dampened when it's your job to set foot in a new setting at least once a week.

That being said, Final Fantasy XIV still excites me, and I'll tell you why: Final Fantasy XI is one of the most unique MMOs in the market. FFXI also boasts an incredibly impressive 500,000 player count  to this day, and that's ridiculously wonky when you consider the fact that they launched before World of Warcraft, they've chained themselves to the god awful PS2 (lul PS2 limitations), and sometimes that game can really take a giant **** on your face with zero reward (poop could be a reward I guess). Compare this to lol of Conan (70k subs) or Lolhammer Lolnline (300k and dropping), and you can see how sturdy this IP has been for Square Enix.

What I'm impressed with the most, however, is just the fact that FFXI really does have a unique approach to MMOs in general. I can think of no other MMO currently in the market that has such a high work to reward ratio, but neither can I think of any other MMO I'd rather grind the **** out of to get my Haubergeon +1. Thus, when the team says that they've 'learned' from FFXI (too grindy, too much ****ting on my face and critical breaking my Haubys, too much PS2 limitations), you can imagine that I'm stoked to imagine that we will be seeing a massively upgraded version of one of my favourite MMORPGs.

Dear god Square Enix I hope you have learned.

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The second MMO I'm looking forward has already been launched, and that is SOE's Free Realms. Actually, I should change that above sentence to read "the second MMO that I'm happy to see launched is SOE's Free Realms." While I can honestly say that I wouldn't play this game unless my computer wouldn't run anything else, I've also got to hand it to SOE for finally getting a game right. Maybe I'm not white enough, or maybe I'm not masochistic enough to 'enjoy' the ****ty graphics of EQ2 (SURE IT WAS GREAT FOR ITS TIME, BUT FFXI AND RAGNAROK ONLINE WERE MUCH BETTER), but, in general, I'm very unimpressed with MMOs made and managed by Sony Online Entertainment (they did Vanguard, Planetside, Everquest I and Everquest II). When they said that they were going to do a free to play Childrens MMO, however, I decided to perk my ears up.

If you're at all a fan of playing tons of mini-games and basically enjoying a lot of kiddy-related activities, I can say right now that Free Realms is the best Free to Play MMO for children right now. There's something out there called "Fusion Fall" which I have yet to check out, but the only other competition on the scene would be the ****tastically slow Wizards 101, which is a free to play game with card-based combat that, literally, takes twenty godamn minutes to complete a single round. I've definitely got to say that Free Realms also had one of the smoothest launches I've seen to date, and they are currently running strong at Four Million+ subscribers. That's a lot of loli. (LUL)

Anywho, feel free to get angry that I'm saying that I'm looking forward to Free Realms, when it's already out, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm looking forward to seeing how Free Realms continues to develop itself. As of yet, the game has not sunk to ultra-low kiddy pandering (I SEE YOU WIZARDS 101), and in this particular case, I must give kudos to SOE for finally getting something right.

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The final MMOs I'm looking forward to, aside from Aion (I'll finally do a big Aion post in a few days), is whenever the hell they decide to releas BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic. I can't say that I'm a massive fan of anything sci-fi related, but BioWare is currently such a strong development company, I really can't see them failing this. Truthfully, I'm becoming more of a fan boy of this IP because of BioWare's ridiculously impressive game resume: THESE DUDES DID SONIC CHRONICLES: THE DARK BROTHERHOOD!!!

Insane.

Jokes aside, SW:TOR looks ridiculously awesome, and not because it's going to have voice acting throughout instead of the first 20 levels. I actually don't care about voice acting or not, but what really intrigues me is the fact that this game will feature legitimate choices (LET'S HOPE NOT THE CLASSIC KILL THE PUPPY DON'T KILL THE PUPPY) that really affect the development of your character. Not to mention the fact that they are taking some incredibly unique approaches to the creation of SW:TOR - it definitely makes me squeaky with anticipation, even though they might not release in 2010 (I have no idea what they've established as a release date).

What I do know, however, is that I will be rolling a Bounty Hunter just like that girl in the trailer, because she was ultra-badass and I will never understand why anyone would want to be a Jedi, when she blew up so many of them with her non-Jedi rockets and flamethrowers.

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At this point, of course, there are also MMOs that I'm really not looking forward to, but I'm feeling rather lazy and I don't want to go into too much detail. Last year we saw Darkfall Online come to fruition and die a horrible death - this year I can honestly say that I'm pissed off with the three godamn Superhero based MMOs in the works, and while I've heard nothing but good things about Jumpgate Evolutions and Star Trek Online, I probably won't be dipping into that stuff.

And now, once more, I've written too much. It is time to sleep - perhaps to dream.

P.S. For those of you who don't know, not only is Champions Online slated to come out in the Fall, but there is also DC Universe Online and Marvel Ultimate Alliance in the works to follow up. Yes, that's right, there will then be four superhero themed MMOs where there used to be one.

Genius!