2010 MMORPG Progdictionations

MMORPG predictions, now in its third year here at TAGN.

Having done the same thing for both 2008 and 2009 predictions, I thought I would change it up a bit and go for a series of short, sharp, and easily scored predictions for 2010.

Yes, I still have that cold I mentioned the other day, so I’m not feeling very creative at the moment.

Of course, other people are putting out their predictions for next year, so I am putting this sentence in as a place to link to them as their posts show up.

See!  Creativity, out the window!  On with the floor show!

Not Nine, Just Six

Polar Bear in a Blizzard

My quick predictions for Blizzard in 2010! (5 points each)

• StarCraft II – Will ship second quarter 2010
• Cataclysm – Will ship fourth quarter 2010
• Cataclysm – Will beat WotLK’s 24 hour sales record (early 2012 prediction: whatever follows Cataclysm won’t do as well)
• Diablo III – Will not ship in 2010
• New MMO – An announcement at BlizzCon with the usual Blizzard mystery build-up

Every Station but PlayStation

Sony Online Entertainment predictions! (5 points each)

• Planetside – Dead by December
• Norrath – Official details about the next Norrath based MMORPG some time in 2010
• Norrath – The next Norrath based MMORPG won’t be called EverQuest III
• EverQuest II – All digital distribution after the February expansion
• EverQuest – The next round of server consolidation will happen, and it will be a good thing
• The Agency – Won’t ship in 2010
• PlayStation 3 – SOE still won’t have a PS3 MMO title by the end of 2010

Electronic Arts and Science

What will EA do? (5 Points each)

• SWTOR – Not in 2010, no no no.
• WAR – Won’t die in 2010, but won’t magically spring back to life either.  It will just trudge on with enough resources to keep it going and improve it slightly, but not enough to change anything dramatically.

Turning the Turbine

(5 points each)

• LOTRO – Next expansion, announced in 2010, will be the Riders of Rohan!
• LOTRO – Riders of Rohan will feature real mounted combat
• DDO – Continued success under the free to play banner with a push into some overland content
• New – We’ll hear about Turbine’s next project in 2010.

Glory to the CCCP!

(5 points each)

• Station ambulation – Still just a myth in 2010
• Dust 514 – Not for 2010
• EVE – Two Content Releases, don’t we always get two a year?
• EVE – Tech III ships will finally become common enough that you might actually see one now and again.

Leading by Torchlight

(5 points each)

• An inexpensive expansion will be released for Torchlight to keep funding going for Runic’s MMO
• Runic will give us some concrete details about said MMO
• That MMO won’t ship in 2010
• But said details will make some pundit say, “Wow, that’s what Dungeon Runners should have done.”

NCSofties

(5 points each)

• Aion – Going to seem like a replay of Lineage II, popular in Asia, less so in the west.  Still, it will have enough customers to keep going.  Given how readily NCSoft shuts things down, that will be saying something.
• GuildWars 2 – Not for 2010
• PlayStation 3 – NCSoft still won’t have a PS3 MMO title by the end of 2010

Other Titles

(5 points each)

• Darkfall – Will continue walking the tightrope between hardcore PvP focus and giving players something to do when they aren’t actively engaged in battle.  Slow growth with at most a single server added to the game for 2010.
• Star Trek Online – Won’t disappoint Trek fans, but we’re all co-dependent on the franchise after years of reckless treatment by the studio.  We’ll all still be there after the first 30 days playing with our pre-order bonus items.  The rest of you people though…
• Hero’s Journey – It was best of show at E3 in 2005, but it will still be a no-show in 2010.

MMO Industry

The following people will have new companies and new projects announced in 2010 (2 point each):

• Mark Jacobs
• Richard Garriott
• Bill Roper
• Brian Green
• Scott Hartsman

One of the following companies will announce their first/next project, and it won’t be an MMO (5 points):

• Aventurine
• Carbine Studios
• Red5 Studios
• Simutronics
• Turbine

One of the following people will move to Canada (5 points):

• Scott Jennings
• Mark Jacobs
• Brian Green
• Scott Hartsman
• Richard Bartle
• Alan Crosby
• David Reid

Spurious Logic

Random neurons firing for the following guesses.

Most subscription MMOs that sell vanity items like pets or appearance gear will sell custom mounts by the end of 2010.  WoW and EQ2 will be the benchmark. (5 points)

“Yahtzee” Croshaw will review exactly ONE muh-more-puh-gah on Zero Punctuation during 2010, and it will be Star Trek Online.  He won’t like it (duh) but the Trekkie humor will be too much for him to resist doing a review. (5 points)

We will find out that the following people will be appearing or doing voice work in the Warcraft movie (IMDB  shows no actors as of this date – 1 point each):

• Jack Black
• William Shatner
• Keanu Reeves
• Ben Stein
• James Earl Jones
• John Ratzenberger
• Bruce Campbell
• Sarah Silverman
• David Spade
• Lucy Lawless

Total Points

If I count correctly, that should be 200 points total at stake.  I’m a little woozy at the moment, so I wouldn’t put money on it, but we’ll call it 200 for now.

If history is an accurate predictor of success I will probably get 40-60 points total.

Check back in December 2010 to see how I did.

In the mean time, what do you think will happen in 2010?