Mark’s predictions for 2008

Mark’s predictions for 2008

I thought it would be fair of me, after criticizing other bloggers and podcasters in Episode 23, to carve my thoughts into the proverbial stone tablet of history for what 2008 holds in store for the MMOG genre.  I will follow in Michael and Darren’s gigantic footsteps and critique these predictions when 2009 rolls around.  This should be both embarrassing and fun and I look forward to scoring myself next year.

Before I get too serious here are my humorous predictions for 2008:

Driven by despair for his failed Vanguard effort, alleged addiction to opiates and envy for the leadership traits he so lacks, Brad McQuaid will attempt suicide in 2008.  Ironically, he will be unsuccessful.  Much like Vanguard, his suicide note will promise an innovative, colorful, fulfilling, and ultimately hardcore method of hari-kiri but the realization of his effort will be an disorganized, bland, boring failure that most will not judge as being very compelling.  Nonetheless a few staunch McQuaid and Vanguard supporters will prepare a tombstone simply labeled “R.I.P. Aradune Mithara.”  Troy from Voyages of Vanguard will state that all other attempted developer suicides for the year, “are absolute garbage.”

Brent from VirginWorlds will be offered an executive position at SOE and will dance with glee in the streets like a happy little boy who just ate too much chocolate.  Unfortunately, he will find that his first task is to turn around the Vanguard title which he will discover is significantly less popular and profitable than VirginWorlds.  He will feign death and re-emerge at the helm of VirginWorlds as the new host Tnerb.  The T will be silent and none will realize he is in fact the original voice of the best of the MMOG podcasts. 

Michael Zenke of MMOGNation, 1UP, Massively.com and, of course, Slashdot.org (/.) who makes some of the best points of any podcast guest co-host I’ve ever heard, will finally get a microphone that has some level of hardware compression and will now be understandable when he gets excited about something instead of sounding like a buzzer that’s about to explode.  The world will rejoice and at last there will be peace in the Middle East.

Scott Johnson from The Instance will edge ever closer to level 70 with his WOW Hunter before becoming enamored with yet another alt.  He will abandon his hunter and Henry, his ever faithful pet will eventually starve since he abhors any auto-feeding mods for pet management.  Meanwhile, his co-host Randy will level up at least three more characters to max level.

Massively.com will find more ways to improve the advertisements to content ratio.  Eventually this will result in a tiny left column text bar with actual factual information and the rest of the site will be all graphics and ads.  Jason from Channel Massive will find this much more appealing and will attempt a coup at Channel Massive to emulate this layout.  He and Noah, also of Channel Massive, will become locked in combat with those big Que Tips the American Gladiators use and will eventually hurt some innocent bystander causing a lawsuit that bankrupts the Channel Massive blog/podcast.  Doves will cry and angels will sing. 

Inspired by the successful moves from the blogosphere to actual employment with MMOG developers by both Cuppy and Brenden, new bloggers will emerge in hopes of following in their footstepsJim from Channel Massive will eventually take an executive position as “H3@d 0f H0t Cyb3rz” for Ultima Online.  He will revolutionize the cyber sex industry and soon UO will be accompanied by USB connected sex toys for both men and women.  Sadly, those that are neither gender will be left to their own devices.

Darren from The Common Sense Gamer and Shut Up We’re Talking will eventually become bored with Tabula Rasa.  What no one will predict, besides me, is that he will turn his attention to American Civil War Reenactments, despite being Canadian.  He will pioneer the Civil War Reenactment community building efforts by establishing ‘The Common Sense Reenactor’ and ‘Shucks, Shut Up Ma We’re Shooting’ podcast.  Most of his MMO friends will abandon  him as the madness takes hold and he begins following NASCAR instead of Hockey and adopts a southern accent, Mark Twain like mustache and love for the Mint Julep. 

And from Episode 23 of Channel Massive, here are my predictions for 2008.  I bet I’m totally wrong but it will be cool to rate myself in 2009.  Here they are:

Warhammer will do well initially (about like LOTRO did) before old habits return people to WOW or other games they were playing before.

Age of Conan will get mixed reviews but will not do nearly as well as Warhammer.  It will lose players to existing games through MMO recidivism and to Warhammer when it launches.

Huxley will do well and a lot of shooter fans not already sold on the concept from Call of Duty 4 will start to get into the MMO thing.

The Agency will do very well and will be the other MMO that Jim plays in 2008 besides WAR.

Pirates of the Burning Sea will be forgotten by the close of 2008.

World of Warcraft will sustain its numbers by integrating WAR, EQ2, and other AAA title “revolutionary” features in its Wrath of the Lich King expansion and ongoing content updates.

Tabula Rasa and Lord of the Rings Online will begin their long slip into decline because they are, in essence, one trick ponies with only viable PVE content to offer.

EverQuest 2 will stay about the same in popularity but will continue to add more and more great features that keep its core players very happy and will gradually move closer to assimilating the EQ and Vanguard user bases.

EVE will continue to grow slowly but steadily.  They will work hard to figure out how to also cripple Vista, OSX and Linux’s GRUB boot loaders.

COH/COV will get an expansion announcement in 2008.  My crazy prediction?  City of Vigilantes for those players who like morally ambiguous game play.  My character will be named Dexter.

Vanguard will be eclipsed by the vast array of fantasy MMORPGs to choose from and will finally be shut down.  Loyalists will flee to EQ2 which continues to become closer to the McQuaid dream than what Vanguard actually delivered.

WOW’s Wrath of the Lich King will actually release in 2008, probably around November.  It will not be delayed as many have foretold.  Blizztard’s COO, Paul Sams, will keep his promise for a yearly expansion release because Blizztard understands that in order to keep WOW relevant, they have to do what SOE did with Everquest and keep the expansions flowing with regularity.  WotLC will not contain any super secret content, it will be what they’ve described and if they don’t have everything ready for the expansion launch they’ll add it quickly through content updates. 

That’s it.  I can’t wait for 2009 to roll around so that I can go back and edit this post to make it 100% accurate. 

Mark

3 Comments to Mark’s predictions for 2008

  1. January 10, 2008 at 7:55 pm | Permalink

    LOL good predictions =) I especially like Brent and Darren’s =)

  2. January 11, 2008 at 10:11 am | Permalink

    mmmmm….Mint Julep.

    :)

  3. January 11, 2008 at 9:15 pm | Permalink

    No way, Darren is going to be totally about the War of 1812 because he wants to refight the Great Lakes naval engagements. But I shall thwart him when he tries!

  1. By on January 11, 2008 at 9:18 pm
  2. By on January 14, 2008 at 8:52 pm
  3. By on January 11, 2009 at 12:43 pm

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.


 
 
 
Be On the Show! Email Us
Itunes
Twitter
Facebook
Podcast RSS
Blog RSS
Current Poll

How often do you play MMOs?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
Blog Categories
Fave Blogs